38. Theresa May: Windrush, police, and the cult of personality (Part 1)

25:27So 140 witness statements or something altered. Yes, absolutely incredible. The South Yorkshire Police Force. But everybody blamed the fans. The police said it was the fault of the fans. They said they were drunk. They said they didn't have tickets. They did things like testing the alcohol limit in the blood of a 10 year old who had died at the event. And for decades now, the families of those who lost their lives have been campaigning for justice. We have a degree of justice for them. Nobody's been prosecuted apart from one minor health and safety prosecution. We have a degree of justice for them because we were able to get second inquests that said that these fans were unlawfully killed and the fans were exonerated.

26:12Now, the last person who sat in that chair was Andy Burnham, who was singing your praises about the work that you and he did together in taking it to the place that it's now got to. Your book quotes the dramatised documentary of Anne Williams' life, which I absolutely loved as well. And just to remind you, Andy Burnham said in our interview that this was the moment that he lost faith in politics. Absolutely. He said this was the moment when he was booed at the ground and he realised that actually politics was not working for the people. and it completely changed his mindset. But again, I was a journalist at the time of Hillsborough and that operation to blame the fans, yes, the police were involved, but it was run out of Downing Street and it was run with the help of Tory MPs like Irvin Patnick.

26:56Now that was an abuse of power. I do put that in the book. I put Irvin Patnick in the book. You do put Irvin Patnick. And I also cite the fact that the government seemed to be unwilling to consider that the police could have been at any fault, partly because as conservatives, there's a sort of respect the police, et cetera, and this sense almost that the police could do no wrong. And I put the story in the book about one of the leading campaigners meeting Margaret Thatcher a few days afterwards, refusing to shake her hand. And when asked by, Thatcher was then prime minister, why not? She said, well, I'll shake her hand when I know what the police were doing.

27:32And Margaret Thatcher's response was their job, my dear. So there was no questioning of what had happened. And can I just come up with this? It's a very interesting theme because you became the longest serving, I think, Home Secretary in 60 years. I mean, you were Home Secretary for seven years. And of course, you had enormous respect for the police. You came from a party with, as you say, a very strong attachment to law and order. But you partly made your reputation by being quite clear about these things. I think one of the reasons you first came to my notice was what seemed like a very, very brave speech to the police federation.

28:06Can you talk us through how you navigate as a politician, showing respect for an organisation and also saying there are things wrong? Well, I think you've got to have, if you like, a fundamental sense yourself of what is right. And then you're able to make those, it seems to make those judgments. And I was always very clear with the police, as long as they acted lawfully, I would give them absolutely full support. But if they didn't act lawfully, then it would be a different story. And that's what I pick come on Stop and Search, for example, where I did try to change some of the approach to Stop and Search for a number of reasons.

28:41First of all, it became pretty clear to me that there were young black men just being stopped and searched on our streets because they were black. And secondly, because the inspectorate found that over 25 % of the stops and searches were being conducted unlawfully. So I think if you know, if you have a fundamental sense of what you believe to be right, then that helps you to make that judgment. And can I just come in, Alison, because I'm always very interested in you on this. You tend to be, I think, instinctively very pro-police, don't you? Could you tell us a little bit about that and your experience with it and how you feel about these things and criticisms around Hillsborough and criticisms around Stop and Search?

29:18That's a very good question. Maybe I have a more natural trust of authority than I should. Recently, there's been some terrible stuff going on and they rightly get condemned for it. But I think we're in danger of moving to a place where actually we don't have any respect or trust for the police and that's really dangerous. I think that's where I'm coming from. Yes. I mean, I think it is dangerous because it's a fundamental pillar of our democracy and our way of life that we have a police force that is obviously enforcing the law, but that people can have that trust in. And so there's another example in the book of the Daniel Morgan case, which you said, Alistair, I hadn't realised you'd covered it on the mirror.

29:57And Alistair, can you just tell us a bit about the Daniel Morgan case? Well, treason is a detail better because you've written the book about it. But essentially it was a murder that there was collusion and cover-ups and it went on for years and years. So a man got beheaded in the car park. The police... He got axed. He got, yes, an ax in the head. And the police did not bother to do a proper search of the crime scene. And despite years of investigation, nobody was ever actually convicted. Yeah, and there'd been collusion. There'd been. I mean, I commissioned a report of this, a panel report. Baroness alone chaired it.

30:31And they took, I think it was seven or eight years to come to it. But it's a really fascinating in one sense, but deeply worrying in another sense report about what happened. The collusion suggestion is that police informants may have been involved in the murder, and therefore the police were not moving as that's the implication is it well one has to be careful here as to who you're sort of putting the the uh the potential blame on but there was there were issues around he was a private investigator there were issues around the links he had with certain police but also questions about the links some of the police might have had with organized crime and there was this sort of melting pot of issues around there but the bottom line is it never got properly investigated that's that's the absolutely critical thing i mean and simple things you've just mentioned it, Rory, not properly searching the scene of the crime.

31:19I mean, we're used on television these days to, you know, those programmes like CSI and so forth, where they sort of, they pick up the slightest little speck of dust and have this wonderful IT systems and so forth, that science, that technology that can identify it. They didn't have that in those days, but, you know, you still search the scene of the crime to see what evidence you could find. There's a clear design, not properly to investigate. Of all of the ones that you talk about, What would you, which is the one that you felt got closest to you and your responsibilities? Were there any way you're looking at them and thinking, actually, I could and should have done things differently as Home Secretary?

31:55I guess I'm thinking of Windrush. You're thinking of Windrush, yes. Yes. I mean, I suppose that on Windrush, had it been raised that there was a group of people who were going to be affected. So this is obviously people who'd come to the UK, been invited to come to the UK, mainly from the Caribbean. Just to explain to an international audience. After the Second World War, the British government invited people predominantly from the Caribbean to come to the United Kingdom to fill gaps in our labor market and to do incredibly vital jobs. And at the time, it was a period of the British Empire still running where it was assumed that these people coming were absolutely welcome in Britain going to be British citizens, but their paperwork was not formalized.

32:39and later laws put them in a position in which themselves, their children, even their grandchildren, who'd been living in the United Kingdom, some of them since the late 1940s, were in danger of being deported on the grounds that they weren't proper British citizens. And it's called the Windrush scandal because the famous boat that brought the first people was Windrush. It's a bit like the Mayflower going to the United States. Sorry, back to you to explain more about it. Well, I think you've explained the problem very well, Rory, which was at that time, Nobody thought it was important to give them documents that proved that they were in the UK legally.

33:14And then government after government started tightening up the immigration rules, changing the immigration rules to the point where there was a much greater sense of needing to identify people who were in the UK illegally and take action to remove them from the UK. and unfortunately here was a group of not all of them because some of them had applied for passports and had documents but a group of people for some of whom had no nothing to prove that they were here properly and legally yet who had contributed to our society who had worked largely in areas of the public sector often helped to build up the health service our transport systems and had brought up their children and grandchildren here and suddenly found themselves being questioned as to whether they were really British.

34:01I mean I guess earlier when I said that you know we think about the right sort of people I wonder whether part of the problem in a lot of the injustices that you're talking about is actually this sense of you talk in relation to social housing for example they're say often seen as second-class citizens perhaps the wind rush generation seen as second-class citizens and so therefore the establishment authorities didn't have a kind of automatic inbuilt sense that these people are valued? Is that not the problem that led to a lot of the problems that you're highlighting in the book? Certainly for some of the problems I highlight in the book, that issue of being treated as second-class citizens.

34:36So, attitude to social housing in the Grenfell tragedy, attitude to girls who were being sexually abused in Rotherham, for example, or actually boys as well, but predominantly girls. I think in the Windrush issue, it was less that a group had been identified but were considered to be second-class sisters and therefore weren't considered. I don't think the group was identified properly. I think this was one of the problems. Is that because of the cultural change? So when Attlee was prime minister and they arrive, I guess the government's sitting there thinking, well, they're going to be welcome because of the change they're going to be part of.

35:15And then a few decades later, the debate around immigration has changed completely. And it is a bit toxic. And that's what maybe led to the scandal. Certainly the debate around immigration had changed significantly over the years. And I think it was that these people found the Windrush generation found themselves caught up in that change, if you like, that had taken place to the way that the authorities approached it. I mean, Wendy Williams, in her review, which she did of Windrush and the Home Office, I think makes the point that there was a lack of understanding from officials and, you know, maybe others that there might be people out there for whom, who were here legally, who would be potentially caught up in this.

36:01One of the things that is striking, I did an interview which Alistair still keeps teasing me about, was Novara Media. And they wanted very left-wing interviews. He basically said that had his time again, he would have voted for Jeremy Corbyn over you. I did not say that. This is Alastair's view on the thing. However, in it, one of the things that they really were most angry about, you felt the moral outrage and condemnation was around windrush, the hostile environment, and of course austerity separately. But how do you navigate this sense that on the one hand, you are trying to stand up for an idea of proper conduct in politics, And on the other hand, there is a group of people, a vociferous group of people out there who think that Conservative Party and you are completely on the wrong side of this, that you're violently evil, that this is racism, this is the hostile environment.

36:55How do you resolve this? What would you be saying to Novara Media? What would you be saying to constituents who saw you in that light? Well, I think one of the first things I would say in relation to the immigration issue is about fairness. Yes. There are many people who have come to the United Kingdom. They've migrated to the United Kingdom. They've followed the rules. They've come here perfectly legally. Sometimes it's taken them some time to do that. They've had to jump through all sorts of hoops in order to get their visas and their right to remain here and so forth. It's not fair to them that there are people who can come here illegally and live the same sort of life and carry on living the same sort of life for many years.

37:36And it's that that lies at the heart of the issue of trying to take action in relation to those who are here illegally. It's just, you know, I say I'm deeply sorry for the fact that there was this group of people, the Windrush generation, who got caught up in that and who we didn't at any stage realise or understand could get caught up in it. But would you be sorry, for example, if when those vans were going around with big posters saying, go home or face arrest, that a young child with brown skin might look at that and think, they're talking about me? And I think the vans were wrong. Very clear about that.

38:18We should not have done those vans. And was that because the debate had become toxic? I don't think it was because the debate had become toxic. Well, I think it was because there was a real sense that, if you like, something had to be done in relation to illegal migration. And one of the elements was trying to encourage those who had come here illegally to leave. To fess up. To fess up. But that was a step too far. I suppose one of the things that interests me is I really, really strongly agree with what I think the central message of your book, I disagree if it isn't central message, but I thought the central message of your book was that we do actually need a sense of moral compass in politics.

39:00It's not enough just to design constitutional structures that unless people have a sense of public service, we're in trouble. But it is a problem for politicians, given that we all make compromises all the time. We all do many things that we're ashamed of. it's quite difficult standing up for moral principles without being accused of hypocrisy. I feel this. And it must be something that you feel too, that it's tough as a politician trying to stand up for moral principles. Well, I think it is tough. And I think one of the aspects that makes it tough is a sort of sense of people decrying you if you try to stand up for anything that appears to be a moral principle.

39:39So it is difficult. But I think the central point that you've picked out of my book, Rory is Right, which is that this is about public service. Being a politician is about public service. Being a police officer, civil servant, many other areas is about public service. And it's that sense of when you're in that position, you are in a position of power. You're making decisions, you're doing things which affect other people's lives. And it's making sure that at every stage you recognise that is It's not about exercising your power over them, but about serving them and making the right decisions in order to serve them.

40:18One of the things that made me sad as a Conservative MP is that some of our colleagues, at least, didn't really emphasize the civil servants in terms of public service. They almost treated it as though it was a business. So, you know, with that sort of, I don't want to name names, but you'll be able to think the kind of people that I've worked for in government who very much were dismissive of the traditions. I worked for Boris Johnson, actually thanks to you, you put me in the Foreign Office under Boris Johnson. But it was very difficult to appeal to some of our colleagues about the traditions of those services, their sense of public duty, the unwritten rules, their sense of pride.

41:00Instead, they were looked at purely in terms of how can we save money, how can we make more efficient, how can we take away their pensions, how can we rank them against the private sector. We lost a sense of what's special about these things and what would attract people to do jobs which were less well paid because of a sense of belief. I think you're right, but I would add something to that, Rory. I think there's also an attitude among some of my current colleagues, and we've seen this in recent years, that the civil service is out there to stop them, that it's party political rather than neutral, which the civil service is.

41:35But did you have any experience of that? I was just about to say, I had no experience of that whatsoever. My view was that I think the civil service is the jewel in the crown of the United Kingdom. I think having, you know, unlike America, where half the people who are working for you change when the president changes, if the party changes. In the civil service, you have a group of people who are utterly committed to public service. When I talk to them, often I'd ask people in interviews, why do you join the civil service? It's always about public service. They will serve whoever is in government.

42:11But their job, as I always said to them right from the very beginning, is to provide the best possible advice, the best information. The politicians decide what the politician does with that. They may think the politicians made completely the wrong decision, but actually the elected politician makes the decision. But they have that sense of giving of their best. And I do worry about an attitude that we've seen creep in towards the civil service, which is constantly, not constantly, but from time to time, we hear these statements about how the civil service is getting in the way of government doing what it wants to do.

42:45Well, Liz Truss essentially built her entire leadership around that theme, and she's still doing it. I mean, and, you know, Dominic Cummings and the blob and it's all this stuff is sort of blaming everybody else for problems that you're not addressing through the political process. Yes, that's the problem. If you're a politician and you want to do X, then actually, now the civil service may say, well, there are these negatives about doing X. But that doesn't mean they're trying to stop you. That doesn't mean they're trying to stop you. No, they're trying to draw your attention to what might be consequences that are going to be difficult.

43:15Now, Rory said he was going to raise this, but he hasn't. So I'm going to raise it. What was it like spending all those years in opposition from 1997 when you were first elected? Did you enjoy that time? 13 years in opposition. 13 years in opposition. Which resonates, I guess, with a lot of the Labour Party at the moment who've been 13 years in opposition. Was there a time when you thought, God, this could go on forever? No. Did you always think you'd get back in? I always thought that we would get back in. But it's interesting, our politics has changed really since Margaret Thatcher came in. Because previously, you know, when I was a child, when we were growing up, there were constant changes of government.

43:53Then we had Margaret Thatcher in for a period of time. Then John Major, Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. And then we won't go through the number we've had since 2010.

44:03But it is deeply frustrating being in opposition because you will raise issues, but you know you're never going to actually, or very rarely, unless you can get some cross-party agreement on an issue, which is probably not one where there's going to be a leading political issue by definition, then you're not actually getting things done. And politicians want to improve people's lives. Now, having said that, you do get things done for people because you're a constituency member of parliament. And I think that's absolutely fundamental. And one of, again, one of the great benefits of our system that everybody, if you're on the shadow front bench or the front bench in government, you're still a member of parliament.

44:41Can I, on the constituency member of parliament, so you are very, very unusual as a modern prime minister. In the 19th century, it was true, you'd be prime minister and then you cease to be prime minister, you return to the back benches and then goodness knows what happens again in the future. But more recently, we've had a tradition of John Major leaving politics pretty quickly, Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, David Cameron, now Boris Johnson. There's a sense that people don't say that. You've chosen to go back to the back benches. Tell us about the vocation of being a constituency MP. What is it that you enjoy about it?

45:12What is it you can do for your constituents? Because I often felt as a constituency MP, I loved my constituency, but I did get frustrated. I didn't have a budget. I wasn't a local councillor. I didn't have direct power over things. Tell us about that relationship and what appeals to you about it. Well, to me, it is absolutely the fundamental of our political system is the fact that we're all members of parliament. And if I'll come on perhaps in more detail to your question, Roy, but if I just tell a story, which I think exemplifies this. And it's when I was Home Secretary, I was sitting, I was at a meeting, an international meeting, and somebody asked me, sitting over coffee, I think it was the American Homeland Security Secretary at the time, said to me, what's it like both being Home Secretary and a member of parliament.

45:54And I say, well, today I'm sitting here in Madrid, we're discussing counter-terrorism. Tomorrow morning, I will open a community vegetable garden. And they all, you know, everybody laughs and so forth. But that's absolutely fundamental because you're there with the grassroots. You are able to talk to people to hear what the decisions that are being made in Westminster actually mean to people. And so, to me, it is absolutely fundamental. Can you make a difference? Yes, you can make a difference. I mean, obviously, in individual cases. You know, somebody comes to you, perhaps their benefit's been stopped.

46:26You're able to unblock a system for them, housing issues, things like that. You can also make a difference in sort of wider issues in your constituency too. So you can contribute to changing the lives of people in your constituency in a way that's beneficial. So we've all published books this year, which of all fundamentally about what's gone wrong with politics. Mine tries to be hopeful and encourage people to get stuck in. You're showing that you still believe in politics as the way to make change, whereas Rory's pretty negative about the whole thing. Do you still think that our system of politics is the best way to make change in this country?

47:05Or do you think actually, as we quite often argue, Rory probably more volubly than I, the whole system needs to be fundamentally transformed? I don't think the system needs to be transformed, but I think there are, I mean, you could tinker at the edges, but I don't think it needs to be fundamentally transformed. I mean, what I hope comes out of my book is that actually, it's not just about the system, it's about the people within the system. And it's about attitudes of people within the system. You know, there was a time when a lot of people being elected to be a member of parliament would be content to be a backbench member of parliament, to serve their constituency well, to play their role in parliament, to perhaps to be prominent in a select committee, to get really interested in the subject and really help sort of move the arguments on on that particular issue.

47:54Today, so many people come into politics, want to be a minister, want to be a cabinet minister, want to be, you know, and the constituency is just a stepping stone. So many people don't go into politics because they see what happens to a lot of politicians or they just don't like politics at the moment. I mean, do you not worry that we've got a very narrow gene pool of people who want to go into politics? I think there is an issue there. I mean, I've been involved in the Conservative Party in the past when David Cameron was leader and we produced the A-list. But it was one of the things we had a little group who were looking at candidates coming through.

48:26I think you were on that one, you were. I wasn't on the A-list. No, but I was the beneficiary of the open primary system, which was... Oh, that was it. Yes, that was another thing I introduced. But we used to say to each other, will this candidate, do they extend the gene pool? Do they bring something different into politics? And I think that's very important because if you have a group of people in parliament who've got the same sort of background, same sort of experiences, then I don't think you'll get decisions that are as good as if that group of people has a diversity of experience, a diversity of background.

48:59So probably not great that when David Cameron was writing his manifesto, every single person on the team went to Eton apartment and was born who went to St Paul's. Well, you know, I wouldn't know about going to Eton because I wouldn't have been allowed to go to Eton because I'm a girl. But it's, you know, that's one of the things I've obviously been heavily involved in is women in parliament and co-founded Women to Win, helping get more conservative women elected. I think it's having women in parliament, but having people from different communities and also from different work backgrounds. But one of the sad things actually is that whereas in 1983, when Patrick McLaughlin came into the House of Commons, there were, as an ex-minor going into the Conservative Party, there were over 100 MPs with manual worker, blue collar backgrounds.

49:49We now exist in a politics in which the largest single professional group are former special advisors and former local councillors who've been party members from university onwards. And it's a much more middle class, much more professional, much more party dominated parliament than was the case in the 70s and 80s. It certainly, well, I would not agree with you on the local councillor point, having been a local councillor. I think often actually being a local councillor can be hugely beneficial in terms of experience. Except, of course, what it does do, says he pushing back a little bit, I mean, it is a training in tribal politics.

50:30I mean, local councils are the absolute training ground for people to not really, I think. Yeah, I think it develops. We're going to get a lot of complaints from councillors this week already. I'll let you roll. Well, to me, it's a training ground in a different way, because you have the responsibility of dealing with issues within your ward that people raise with you, such as an MP would be the constituency. You also have the challenge of having to balance the issue of the whole council and policies that the whole council wants to adopt, which may have a negative impact on your ward. similar if you're a member of parliament sometimes governments want to adopt policies that will have an impact negative impact on your constituency you have to balance that so i think you get that sort of experience as a local councillor but i do agree with you about i'm afraid the number of special advisors that come into into parliament and have no other experience so nick sympathy shouldn't be replacing matt hancock well he's got some other experience but but it's one of the things i do you know i say this publicly i say to people when i'm going into you know schools and colleges and so forth.

51:38And people say to me, I'm interested in being an MP, what should I be doing? I always say, do something else first. Because if you've done something else, you've got a wider experience. And if you then do become a minister, you've probably also actually got experience that is beneficial. We interviewed Julia Gillard a while back, wonderful woman. And I did an event with her after that. And I said to her, if an 18 year old woman came to you, young woman came to you today and said, I want to go in politics. Can you seriously say to that young woman, this will be a good experience for you? And Julie gave a very passionate answer as to why she'd say yes.

52:15Julie, former Prime Minister Australia. Former Prime Minister Australia. Would you give the same answer? Would you say to an 18-year-old woman who saw the way that Diane Abbott gets treated, who saw the way, you know, often you got treated, lots of Merkel got treated, lots of women politicians who get treated worse than men. Would you still say to an 18-year-old young woman, go and do something, but then yes, go into politics? Yes, I would, because I just think being in politics is just, you can make such a positive difference to people's lives as a member of parliament. So I would still say that to that young woman.

52:46But interestingly, you mentioned Julia Gillard, because I've had dealings with her since we both stepped down. And she, Australian, Labour, British, Conservative, when we sat down and talked about the treatment of women in politics, we found our experiences were incredibly similar. So what were those experiences from your perspective as a woman? There were simple things like, you know, if you're a woman and you exhibit any strength, you're, oh, you know, you're some sort of harridan. If you exhibit any emotion, oh, it's typical woman, you're a weak thing. If a man exhibits emotion, then isn't that good?

53:25He's showing his other side. The man exhibits strength. That's, you know, yes, we expect that. That's very good. So there are different attitudes to how you approach things. Have you individually experienced what you would define as misogyny through your career? I don't feel I did. I mean, I think, I hate to mention this word in front of you, Alastair, but I think during the Brexit debates and the negotiations, there were a lot of my male colleagues on a particular side, the Brexiteer side, who just wanted me to waltz out of the room, slam the door, beat the table, be aggressive, be macho about it, when actually my experience was painful negotiations was the way to get your answer.

54:02But I deliberately, during my time, took the view. Now, when I was trying to get selected as a candidate, I deliberately said to myself, if I wasn't selected, don't think it's because I'm a woman. Ask myself, what was the subject I didn't really know much about? What was the question I didn't answer very well? Analyse your performance and then improve it for the next time. Don't just say, oh, well, obviously I was a woman, they didn't want me. I think we should take a break and have a glass water and everything then we can do you want a coffee i might have another coffee keep me going right so we've covered a lot of ground there but we've only really basically got up to teresa may's time as home secretary so there's a lot more to go and what we're going to do is come back for a second episode with teresa may to discuss the first time she met david cameron unusual circumstances lots of stuff that happened to her to become prime minister then being prime minister difficulties over brexit her interactions with the likes of trump putin over salisbury and the prime ministers who preceded and followed her.

55:00That episode will be out next Monday. However, if you want to hear it right now, it's already available to members of The Rest Is Politics Plus. You can sign up at therestispolitics.com or directly through Apple Podcasts and you can listen straight away. See you next time.