By Andrew Gimson
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Owen Paterson exudes enormous relish for the political fight. His manner is that of an abrasive colonel who has taken command of a regiment which he is working round the clock to bring to the highest pitch of efficiency, so it can achieve the victories of which he knows it to be capable.
The Environment Secretary is energetic, optimistic, keen to deploy the latest technology and scornful of rival, less professional outfits: in this interview he speaks of the “utter cretinous incompetence” of the Labour leadership.
To Paterson, speaking one’s mind is more than a duty: it is a pleasure. This lends him a directness, and hence an authenticity, which are seldom found in the mealy-mouthed world of modern politics. He enjoys confronting ignorant townies with the facts of rural life, including the need to kill vermin.
Such provocations conceal a streak of caution. Paterson does not like to do battle until he is ready. Before his bold speech this week in favour of GM food, which we analysed yesterday, he ensured that he had a complete grasp of the subject.
Paterson is less inhibited than I am. He began the interview with an admiring reference to David Birt, a teacher who inspired in both of us a love of history. The Environment Secretary was interviewed in his office on the ministerial corridor at the House of Commons, seated beneath a portrait of Charles I, so I asked him whether the pictures on the walls were a random selection or deliberately chosen.
Paterson: “Well they’re slightly random. Charles I is such a reminder of what happens when the centre gets out of touch with the provinces.”
ConHome: “One of the worst things about Charles I was that he didn’t really look after the people who worked for him.”
Paterson: “Shocking. Put not thy trust in princes. Poor old Strafford, Strafford was treated very badly, as Mr Birt would have told us. I saw Mr Birt the other day. I went to speak for Harriet Baldwin [MP for West Worcestershire] at Worcester Racecourse and he looks marvellous. A wonderful man who taught us history. [This explanation was for the benefit of two members of Paterson’s staff who were present.]
ConHome: “I thought I might start off by asking you about the Conservative Party and whether you’re worried about the declining membership, and what you think can be done about this.”
Paterson: “Well I think in my own patch, when I came in Labour was quite strong in two of my main towns, the Liberal Party had some councillors, we’ve pretty well run both parties out of town, and that is by being robust and Conservative locally, and by doing simple things like keeping the roads clear when it snows, and mending the potholes, and keeping the bins empty, and resolutely keeping the council tax down. [For an account of this campaign, see Cllr Keith Barrow’s recent piece for ConHome.] I just think the whole thing’s moved on, the days of big membership, when you only had one hand-driven telephone, joining the party was a bit of a social activity, that’s all gone. People are politically active on the internet, on Twitter, that’s all replaced it. I think the key thing is that you get good people coming forward as councillors and then as candidates, and everyone chunters on about what a fantastic new intake we’ve got here at the Commons, I think they’re a pretty fantastic cross-section, so we are attracting good people.”
ConHome: “But are you worried that the activists feel unloved unloved by the powers that be?”
Paterson: “I speak to a lot of associations, and I think I give them a robust Conservative message, you know, which is popular.”
ConHome: “So UKIP aren’t doing anything in your area?”
Paterson: “They went backwards.”
ConHome: “More generally are you worried by their success?”
Paterson: “Well I don’t think you should underestimate any opponent, any rival party. But everyone got very excited about the local elections . The resounding lesson of the local elections was a plague on all your houses. The Labour Opposition at this stage given the very difficult economic circumstances should have been flying. There’s no huge, vast surge of public opinion in favour of UKIP. It’s seven and a half, eight per cent of the electorate. What there is, there’s disillusion with all political parties, and obviously a coalition like ours is bound to be unpopular at this stage, particularly with the very difficult decisions we’ve had to take, and before people see the benefits coming through. I have a gut feeling that people are naturally small-c conservatives.”
ConHome: “Why then since 1992 have the Tories found it so difficult to get a majority?”
Paterson: “Well partly the wretched constituency arrangements, where there is a massive in-built bias.”
ConHome: “But there seems to be a problem in getting above about 36 per cent of the vote.”
Paterson: “Yes, but I think it is doable. I think there’s a pool out there for a robust Conservative message. When you tell people what we have achieved, we’ve got corporation tax down, increased capital allowances, and the private sector has responded in a pretty dramatic way, creating 1.25 million jobs, and you haven’t begun to see what happens when Michael Gove’s stuff comes through, and I can cite locally the dramatic improvement in some of our schools that have got academy status, and then Iain Duncan Smith’s stuff, and Iain’s stuff has not yet begun to bite, it is incredibly popular, it’s quite interesting that despite the best efforts of the BBC and the Labour Party, the attacks on the welfare reforms have completely failed. People see what Iain’s doing is fair, and I just think it’s fantastic that he’s been given the opportunity to put into practice all those lessons he learned after he set up the Centre for Social Justice. The concept that you work one hour longer, despite having been educated at Blair and Brown’s schools, so possibly less well-educated than one of your rivals in Taiwan or elsewhere, or you are, you know, mother of three children trying to get back into work, if you work for one hour longer you will be better off, that message is really popular.”
ConHome: “You’ve used the word ‘robust’ several times - robust conservatism, is that the Paterson thing?”
Paterson: “We should get out there and not be ashamed of it, sell our message. When you explain to people what we have achieved, the mood of the meeting will change somewhat, and think how much more we could achieve if we had a majority. That really resonates.”
ConHome: “Is a majority in 2015 attainable?”
Paterson: “Absolutely. Given where we are and the utter incompetence of the Labour opposition, I mean to put the two people in charge who were thick as thieves with Blair and Brown in bringing us to the appalling position we’re in, I mean the utter cretinous incompetence of Blair and Brown, helped every stage of the way by the two bright young things, they were right there, in the back rooms of Downing Street, and then were catapulted into safe seats and then into ministerial positions. I mean, Miliband and Balls are as much to blame as the other two and the gang of four should be out in the paddy fields going for re-education for a very long time. We came in, this country was borrowing £300,000 a minute, that’s an absolutely shattering figure, and we’ve done incredibly well as a coalition, keeping the confidence of the world markets, you know, one per cent on interest rates is ten billion on mortgages, that’s really critical to many families, many small businesses, and we have begun to turn it round, but it’s going to take time, but to have those two, I just find it insulting, the mere prospect that they should get near power again. A couple of months ago they had two Opposition Day debates. They could have chosen the economy, the NHS, Syria. What did they choose? The abolition of the Agricultural Wages Board. Why? Quite clearly the Unite union had a big deal in this. I’m just criticising the Labour Party for electing these two muppets. The second debate was a one-line debate on the badger cull, singular, which is factually incorrect. They’re the ones that saw this disease take off like a helium balloon after 1997, they passively allowed it [bovine tuberculosis] to creep up on cattle while not addressing wild life. I’ve been to America, Australia, New Zealand, the Republic of Ireland, every other country addresses the disease in wildlife as well.”
Paterson expressed his scorn for Labour’s ignorance about agriculture: “Their whole view of employment in the farming industry was just so completely out of touch. People now are highly skilled, they’re driving machines worth hundreds of thousands of pounds, they need real IT skills, real mechanical skills, real analytical skills, and the idea that they’re on the minimum wage is just laughable. On the Agricultural Wages Board, I asked during the debate why the last Labour Government didn’t re-establish the Ostrich and Fancy Feather and Artificial Flower Wages Council, or the Pin, Hook and Eye and Snap Fastener Wages Council [abolished by an earlier Tory Government]?”
ConHome: “If we get the In-Out referendum on Europe and if you’re still in the Cabinet, are you happy that it looks as if you will then be obliged to campaign for a yes vote?”
Paterson: “Everyone asks about the vote. The question is the renegotiation. I am actually the only person who has written a paper which we fought the 2005 election on, on fishing. The line on which every Tory candidate fought the election was “The common fisheries policy is a biological, environmental, economic and social disaster” and that took two years’ work, a huge amount of travelling, I went to the most wonderful parts of the British Isles, all round the south-west, down to Kent, the north coast of Scotland, up to Shetland, I’d already been to the Falklands, I went to Norway, Faroes, Iceland, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia and down the east coast of the States. This wasn’t some glib pamphlet. I put a lot of work into that, and I think that shows an awful lot of work will need to go into the renegotiation, a lot of serious work into a lot of policy areas, which is where UKIP is completely trite.”
Paterson explained why he thinks the renegotiation has a good chance of success: “My view is that in order to solve the problems of the euro they effectively have to create a new country, in order to transfer significant funds from the wealth-creating areas, Bavaria, Baden-Württemberg, which in fairness I used to travel to, down to the sadly less successful parts of Europe bound in by the euro. Not even the most enthusiastic person can see the UK ever joining the euro. So they are effectively leaving us. So there is an opportunity to rejig all the arrangements.”
ConHome: “But those Swabians, the German public, they’re not going to give money to the Greeks, they’d just hate it.”
Paterson: “Well that’s for them to decide.”
ConHome: “Ideally, well not ideally, but it would be less bad for us if this new country didn’t come into existence, because then the continent would not be dominated by one power - to avoid which has been the aim of British foreign policy for three centuries.”
Paterson: “Well no, this is one of the conundrums, I mean having gone to numerous euro councils, we are only one of 27, very shortly one of 28, so I think you just have to accept the current status, we’re in absolutely no position to stop it, and we do want them to get back and start creating growth. When French car sales went back at the end of last year 20 per cent in one month, it’s tough to sell components to the French car industry when it’s going backwards, so it is massively in our interest that they do get their act together. So there is an opportunity. My view is very clear. I’d like to make laws in our own Parliament. It’s a good idea if you can remove your rulers by voting.”
ConHome: “That implies a very sweeping renegotiation.”
Paterson: “I can see all sorts of areas. We had a vote on neonicotinoids [insecticides suspected of killing bees], which was very controversial. I had 85,000 emails in this office. The European Union was very split, there was no qualified majority either way and the Commission made the decision. Now that’s quite a graphic illustration. I think it’s better if people make decisions by voting.”
ConHome: “This is almost an argument for leaving. As Enoch Powell said, to be a self-governing nation is what matters. You’re saying exactly what he said.”
Paterson declined to confirm or deny this, but instead said: “Well the other thing we haven’t touched on is the review of the competences that is coming through… Everybody gets very excited about in or out. There are just certain activities which are not appropriately conducted at continental level.”
ConHome: “Would you care to name any others apart from fisheries?”
Paterson: “Well obviously the CFP is the one I went into very deeply, but there are obviously whole aspects of agricultural policy, or the common environment policy, which are almost impossible to apply, when in northern Sweden you can only grow one plant, which is the Sitka spruce which survives at minus 30 degrees, or in southern Andalusia you have the olive tree which survives at plus 40 degrees, and it’s quite tough to come up with a common policy which also applies to rain-swept Somerset.”
Paterson said he did not expect Britain just to walk out of the EU: “ There’s everything to play for in the renegotiation.”
ConHome: “How do we maximise our negotiating power?”
Paterson: “Well if they want to sort the euro out they’ve got to form a new country.”
ConHome: “And we say no to that?”
Paterson: “Well I’m being positive. I see it as a really positive opportunity.”
ConHome: “This is something you feel really strongly about. Quite rightly: this is about the nation.”
Paterson: “I just think it’s a good idea if the people who make your laws can be removed by voting. It’s a simple principle.”
ConHome: “It’s called democracy.”
Paterson: “And then we can have the very best possible co-operation on a whole range of matters.”
ConHome: “This speech on GM crops. You’re reduced to the position of a lobbyist. You have to lobby the rest of the Europeans.”
Paterson: “Yes, this has been a European competence. Pretty well everything I do at Defra is, so I have to work closely the whole time with various allies, get alliances, but it is a typical issue where there are terribly strong feelings in some member states. The last poll I saw in Germany 98 per cent of people are opposed to GM, so you have to really respect that.”
ConHome: “Is the weather getting more extreme?”
Paterson: “I think the weather has always varied. One of the Victorian Derbys was run in a snowstorm. But one of my responsibilities is flooding and we have seen an increase in bursts of rain, but I think climate’s always changing, and we’ve got to adapt to it.”
ConHome: “So you’re not worried in the apocalyptic way that some people are worried?”
Paterson: “Well man’s always adapted. We’ll adapt.”
ConHome: “You have a certain relish for confronting ignorant townies with the facts of rural life. Paul Goodman says the urban foxes are getting very bad in Wandsworth.”
Paterson: “I think that’s rather for Wandsworth Council.”
ConHome: “You don’t intend to go down and strangle them with your bare hands or devise some clever trap?”
Paterson: “No, I’m afraid not. One of the things I have changed at Defra is this concept of managing wildlife. The whole Rousseau idea is absolutely disastrous, because you end up with hills covered in bracken and a few magpies and carrion crows. The countryside looks as it does because it’s been managed by very skilful landowners and farmers for centuries. We’ve taken out the predators. The last wolf in England was killed in my constituency in the 17th century, at Wolf’s Head. So you have to manage wildlife. What you want to see is a healthy, managed wildlife population. The mantra is coming up, team. I want to see healthy badgers living alongside healthy cattle. I do bring practical experience of the countryside. My father farmed. I was a tanner for 25 years.”
ConHome: “When are we going to get fox-hunting back?”
Paterson: “Well, when we have the votes in the House of Commons. There’s no point having a vote and losing.”
ConHome: “So a Tory majority would probably deliver it?”
Paterson: “Oh absolutely. But there is a very clear difference between my view of the countryside and that of the last Labour government, a deep philosophical difference, they thought there was unlimited safe food available that could be imported, they didn’t value farming and loathed domestic food production, and they thought the way was to not interfere, to let it go hang, and not to manage, and that was a huge mistake, and we’re seeing a big problem with our rural waterways, the policy was just leaving them to clog up.”
ConHome: “Your opposition to same-sex marriage is shared by a great many Conservative activists. Was that instinctive or was it a religious objection?”
Paterson [after a moment’s silence]: “Well, it was a free-vote issue, and my constituents wrote to me and asked me for my opinion, and I said I intended to vote for marriage, which I considered to be between a man and a woman.”
ConHome: “Why did you consider that?”
Paterson: “It’s my personal opinion.”
ConHome: “But is it a matter of custom? Or a specifically Anglican opinion?”
Paterson: “Well that’s a very good question. It’s just my belief about what marriage means. There’s obviously some religious background to that. This is the building block on which we’ve built society for a very long time.”
ConHome: “Are you yourself an Anglican?”
Paterson: “A probably rather inadequate attender.”
ConHome: “I read your interview with Country Life and saw that A Dance to the Music of Time by Anthony Powell is your favourite book.”
Paterson: “Well it is extraordinary. This interview is straight out of it. I have a clear image of you hitting that tree stump at the bottom of the Inkpot [a steep bank at our school with a pond at its foot]. You went down the Inkpot out of control, your toboggan hit a rut, the back of it flipped up and you went absolutely head first, like somebody fired out of a cannon, head first into the tree, and then you yowled. So this is an Anthony Powell moment.”
ConHome: “So who’s Widmerpool?” [described in The Oxford Companion to English Literature as “one of the most memorable characters of 20th-century fiction, whose ruthless pursuit of power…carries him from innately ludicrous beginnings to a position of increasingly formidable, eventually sinister authority”]
Paterson: “That’s a very dangerous game.”
ConHome: “It’s a very dangerous game, yes.”
Amanda Craig [Paterson’s special adviser]: “Do we have to play it?”
Paterson: “I think on the record we’ll say that’s a very dangerous question. But we’ve definitely got some Widmerpools. Why doesn’t ConservativeHome run a competition? Name your Widmerpool. But he’s gloriously true. I can name several people who’ve got real Widmerpoolian attributes. That would be a very jolly exercise, wouldn’t it?”