Hello, I'm Kirsty Young and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. For tonight's reasons, we've had to shorten the music. The program was originally broadcast in 2001, and the program is now available. The presenter was Sue Lawley. My castaway this week is a politician. He had the air and enjoyed the achievements of someone destined for success at the age of six. 16, a young face under a basin of blonde hair, he made a famously stirring speech to his party conference.

The presidency of the Oxford Union, a first class degree, a job with an elite management consultancy and then a seat in Parliament. A cabinet post followed and then, when his party was humiliated at the general election of 1997, it chose him to lead it back to glory. Earlier this year, however, dreams of glory ended. His party suffered a second crushing defeat and the career... Had risen and glittered, evaporated overnight. He appears to be entirely stoical. 'A major discontinuity in life at the age of 40 is an opportunity to do things you've always wanted to do', he says. In fact, you could say, 'I've got younger as I've got older'. He's, of course, William Haines. So you're leading your life backwards really, William, is that what it is? Well, you could think of it that way. I've certainly, in the last few months...

Since I gave up the party leadership, I've had the nicest time I've had for a very long time. You're a young man with a brilliant future behind you, is what they say. Well, maybe that's right. Cruelly, cruelly, they say. Yes, people come up to you and say, We know who you used to be. But I'm having a very nice time and doing many things that I've always wanted to do. Like what? What are these childish pleasures that your adult career precludes? Well, one is learning to play the piano, which I've wanted to do since I was five years old. For some reason never had the opportunity to do. And so I'm doing that now, and I started the day after the election. The morning after the election, I went home to Yorkshire, went to bed for a few hours, got up and my neighbour who knew this was an ambition of mine walked in with a book about... The piano and I started that day. Now I have a proper teacher and I'm hugely enjoying it. You put a very brave face. On it all the way through the campaign but obviously you would have known, you knew what the polls were saying. The question is when did you know?

-I knew for a long time that the election might not go the way that we wanted it to. Obviously hoped that we would get -- Gain a larger number of seats. I thought we would narrow the gap for the Labour Party in votes, which we did. It wasn't reflected in gaining many seats in the banana. You gained one seat, didn't you? That's right, the net gain was one seat. And it had always been my clear view for a long time before the election that if we didn't do a lot better than that... Then we should have a new leader for the next parliament. You made that play, I know, and you said time and again, I think in interviews before the election, I will take personal responsibility. So you always knew what you were going to do. But that means there was a kind of time lapse. Between your personal acceptance of it and the public acceptance of it. You made your plan. What I'm interested in is when did you make that plan? Well, certainly some months before the election. However, acceptance would be not quite the right. Word because of course I was still fighting to succeed. That is the thing I would most have liked to do.

But what I'm asking about is when personally you approach that and you thought, it's not going to work. To be humiliation, how do I salvage something from it? At the turn of the year I had my alternative plan ready. I thought it might well work out the way that it did work out. But I didn't let that distract me. But did you spot, did the management consultant in you say, I know where you are? we can salvage from this I can go with dignity. - Yes, I thought it was important for the party and for me. To be defeated but not diminished and that if I was going to go I should go on my own terms and at my own time. Contingency plan. And does that help you? How much does that help you absorb the distress of public humiliation because that's what it was? It helps a lot to know What you would do if you were not doing the job that you're enjoying and you're doing that day, to know that there is something else that you would like to do.

A sense of personal humiliation. I thought I'd done my job, that it hadn't gone as well as it should have done. Do something else. It's very straightforward. Tell me about your first record. Well, my first record is a piece of music which is one of... First that I've learned to play on the piano. It will be played in this recording, I'm sure far better than I can play it. It's only Vladimir Ashkenazi. It's Chopin, it's his prelude in E minor, and I've enjoyed learning it over the last few months.

- My name is Rosie, playing Chopin's Prelude No. 4 in E minor. Let's get that speech out of the way, William, the one made to the party conference when you were 16. Be around in 30 years time, you now notoriously said. Apparently your Auntie Mary rang to tell your Auntie Marge that Art William was on the telly. They were aghast, huh? I think they were, they thought I was just having a day off school. Had you planned it a long time in advance? I had planned it because I had attended the previous year's party conference when I was 15. Or a 17 year old give a speech and the competitive instinct in me said well I can do that and I'll only be 16 next year, I'll have a go. So I did have a go and of course I never expected it would cause the fuss that it did. You were very good though, had you practised in front of the bedroom mirror? No I hadn't and I don't do that, I don't practise speeches aloud,

And this was a boy who could quote, now famously we know this, could quote the name of every MP in the land and his constituency and his majority and Red Hansard in bed. Is this all true? Well I was very interested in politics, I could do all those things. Sometimes where people have gone wrong in looking at my career is thinking, That was all. If I did that, then I must have been entirely obsessed with politics. I was absorbed in so many other things. I was in the school choir even though I couldn't sing very well. I was in all school plays. And because I loved acting. I went on all the German trips even though I didn't study German. I went on all the RE trips in the sixth form even though I didn't study RE. Why? I was busy. I was the house captain even though I didn't do much sport at that time. I was just extremely busy. I was probably as busy as a 16, 17 year old as I am now. So what did your friends at school think of you then? Because that's... The word but slightly freakish isn't it to do all of that? To them it wasn't though because they knew me so they did

Turn against me and say he's a freak. They were still very much my friends and we had a great time. You were just William. What about the sister? There's three big sisters, you were the baby of the family. Were you indulged or? I used to regard them as quite a nuisance, really. I'm very fond of my sisters. I love my sisters. Boy with three elder sisters, you know, they always wanted to play with a little boy, they never quite appreciated the importance of what boys were interested in and that the train set was far more important than whatever girls wanted to do in their teens. But when you started to do all this sort of stuff and make speeches at party conferences, they must have thought you were, you know, getting above your station. You can't get above your station in our family. My sister Veronica used to write to me, 'Dear Tory Pig', she used to start her letters just to Sure. I wasn't getting too grand. Record number two. Well, record number two makes me think of your... It makes me think of my constituency. It's Nimrod. Katric Garrison is in my constituency, a huge military presence.

And also it's a very English place and this is very English music Part of Elgar's Enigma Variation Number 9 Nimrod played by the London Philharmonic conducted by Sir Adrian Boat. William, the life...

And stated age 13, yes, you were going to go to Oxford, get involved in the union, become an MP, engaged at 35, married at 36, PM by 40. I mean, you were that specific. I think there's been a bit of post-rationalization here by members of the family or friends who describe what plan I had when I was 13. I certainly wanted to... I did want to become an MP when I was a teenager. And why? If you were thinking all of this at the beginning of the 70s, what was the drama was it of those two elections in 74, who governs the country, was that what it was? It was an extremely arrested Time in British politics. We'd have the three-day week, the trade unions were thought to be more powerful than the government. It was a dramatic time in politics and you can see it being played out in South Yorkshire where I lived. So that's where it all began and you followed the line we mentioned just now pretty precisely really that you designed in adolescence. You won a scholarship to Oxford, you went to Magdalen, read PPE, got a first.

The Union and the Conservative Association. And then into McKinsey's as a management consultant. Was that something you just did to... Mark time until you got a seat? - Originally, probably yes. I found it absolutely absorbing. And so I had in total about five years at McKinsey, including a year at business school in France. I think it was a far more marginal decision than you would think looking at my career from the outside to become an MP. It was a 55%, 45% decision when I... I was at McKinsey to leave there and become an MP in my late 20s. What made you then quit McKinsey and go... because the seat came up, Leon Britton went to Europe, yeah? Two things... First of all, it was a constituency I'd always wanted to represent, Richmond in Yorkshire. I'd always originally wanted to be an MP. That initial ambition resurfaced and I thought you can't let this go by.

So you're back on target, you were 28 and I must say then, as everybody's said... It seemed to be an effortless rise. You were into the cabinet six years later, youngest cabinet minister since Harold Wilson, I think. We're now in the mid-90s. Major government Decline, sleaze and all the rest of it. Did you spot then that your time was coming even though you were Secretary of State for Wales, which as we know is the bottom of the pecking order? becoming. I had mixed feelings about it. I didn't particularly want to stand for the party leadership in my mid-30s, but it depended on... Course what happened in the election. I thought there was the awful possibility that many of my senior colleagues would be wiped out and indeed that is what happened. If they hadn't been I wouldn't have been a candidate but actually we lost a third of the cabinet. And I was persuaded to stand. I want to ask you about that, but I'm going to pause for a little bit more music while we're talking about your being Secretary of State for Wales.

John Major astonished me when he asked me to be Secretary of State for Wales. And I thought of poor John Redwood not being able to sing the Welsh National Anthem. And the first thing I said to John Major was, I'd better learn the National Anthem. And so I did a few days later from Fion, then my private secretary, sitting on a churchyard wall.

National anthem sung by Bryn Terfel, My Henlad Van Hade. Bryn Terfel singing Land of My Fathers with the Black Mountain Chorus, the Risco Male Choir, and the Orchestra of Welsh National Opera conducted by Gareth Jones. So you met Fion that first.

Day in the Welsh office. Did you know straight away was that it? No, I knew she was a very nice person straight away. I walked into the Welsh office... Office and discovered my entire private office consisted of charming young ladies and I thought Really have landed on my feet here. And Fion became a great friend. I think we'd known each other about a year before we started going out together, as you would say. And then for a while we had to keep our very close friendship a secret, so that it couldn't be. Strangled by media attention. But that was fun anyway. And we astonished everybody by announcing her engagement. But it all came together at a very complicated time because as we were saying that the Tories then lost disastrously in 1997 to new Labour. The leadership was up for grabs. You were tucked in neatly under Michael Howard's wing. You were the sort of Gordon Brown to his Tony Blair if you like. You were going to be the Shadow Chancellor, weren't you?

Have to make this enormous decision to come out from under? - Yes, and it was difficult, partly because I was about to get married. And I said to Fionn, probably lose the election. We'll have more time and we'll be able to get married and have a long honeymoon. And so that made it Difficult to reverse that and stand for the party leadership. What changed your mind? Partly a lot of other MPs asked me to do it. I think that same instinct came out that I mentioned when I decided to stand for Parliament. But it was a fine calculation, wasn't it? And I wonder if looking, I mean you wouldn't be human perhaps if you didn't regret it. Do you think perhaps... Ambition triumphed over common sense? No, I don't regret it at all. Even knowing everything that has happened since, I don't regret it at all. Even though people thought you were inconsistent, you did the dirty on Michael Howard? I'm never troubled by what they thought. Michael Howard doesn't think that. My relations with Michael Howard are excellent.

Formed a view that he wasn't going to win, and that I should stand because I was. Going to win. But obviously we're trying to apply wisdom of hindsight here really and I know that's difficult but... It's summed up, if you like, by Lord Cranbourne, leader of the Lords. I'm sure you've heard this quotation before. You went on to sack him, of course, didn't you? the time I fear we're about to enter a four-year-old horse for the Grand National and we shall end up with a ruined horse. That's right, I mean Robert Cranbourne was very accurate about that. However, it was important for that horse to run. And the horse enjoyed running as well. Life is too short to look over your shoulder every once in a while. Oh, I don't think I should have done that. But are you a ruined horse? No, I think Robert Cranbourne was overstating. So I'll run a lot of races, albeit entirely different ones, in the future. Record number four. the next record I've... Chosen is from music that we played at our wedding. It's Mozart.

Abdate Dominum and it makes me think of that pretty wonderful day.

Rita Carnoa singing part of the Laudate Dominum from Mozart's Vesperaes Solenus de Confessore with the London Symphony Orchestra and Chorus conducted by Sir Colin Davies. It's a pig of... Job being Leader of the Opposition, isn't it William? It's quite difficult, but it has immense challenge and there were so many things about it that I loved doing. I hugely enjoyed debating in Parliament. Hugely enjoyed fighting the elections, the European elections of two years ago. But obviously your approach was, I would have thought... You can correct me if I'm wrong, that you were a young man with principles, with intellect. You thought that those virtues... You like, would shine through in the end against what you would perceive as spin and lack of substance. I did think that, or at least I hoped that perhaps I was too charitable about the world. - Politics is a rough business, and you know that when you go into it,

Are going to have a go at you. But it was worse than that. You became the least popular major party leader in history. There you were, doing it all to the best of your ability. You must have been perplexed. Well, certainly frustrated at times, certainly frustrated. But I don't again have any regrets about that. I think I did my best. And yes, sometimes it's difficult to get your message through. Explain it to yourself? I think a large part of the reason for that is that many people had tuned out of politics in recent years. They turned out the In 1997, the Conservative government. And actually in their minds in this country, they had elected a Labour government for longer than four years and they... Were going to give it more than one chance. And so they were going to give that government the benefit of the doubt on many things. Nothing you could do really. Well I'm not saying I did everything perfectly by any means, but I think that...

Many people were not ready to hear a conservative message and that we were able to do some things, pull the party together, revamp its organisation, but we weren't able to do everything in the time available. And whatever you did, Things seemed to happen, the polls didn't budge, it only seemed to get worse, and then you started getting trouble in your own camp. You got all sorts of trouble. Of accusations of backbiting and conspiracy. Was there a time when you just thought, 'I just don't need any more of this'? All politicians occasionally have a time line, but usually it's only one day in a hundred. At the time, for instance, when I sacked Robert Cranbourne, which you referred to earlier, there was quite a crisis. The party. It could have destroyed my leadership then. But I pretty much had the view that I'd taken on the job for the parliament. I wanted to see us through the general election at minimum. - Make call number five. - Well, this reminds me of living through those difficult times. I got a great fondness for jazz while I was.

...party leader over the last four years, uh, both Fion and my great friend Seb Coe are tremendous jazz fans. And this is Scott's house.

Playing black velvet. playing jazz music. playing jazz music. playing jazz music. playing jazz music. playing jazz music. playing jazz music. playing jazz music. playing jazz music. playing jazz music. playing jazz music. playing jazz music. playing jazz music. playing jazz music. playing jazz music. playing jazz music. playing jazz music. playing jazz music. playing jazz music. playing jazz music. playing jazz music. playing jazz music. in politics. Jazz is what turns you off, as it were.

You down while judo on the other hand your other recreation focuses you up to say well it's good to be Focused on something else. If you're not totally focused mind and body on it, then you're flat on your back a few seconds later. - All of those things, of course, played into your image as a frontline politician and much was made of the judo and the baseball caps on the water rights and all the rest of it. How much do you think that your image was the problem? I think it may have been a one factor. I think the much bigger factors are what we discussed earlier, the major political forces at work. But certainly I had a problem getting people to see... What I was really like. Because the modern media are image obsessed, I think Everything you do yourself is about your image. So it's quite hard to persuade them, these are things you do anyway.

So when I took up Judo, I said, He's trying to show he's a hard man. Well, it's nothing to do with that. I like doing it, and I'm still doing it now, and I have no need to show that I'm a hard man. Or when I got married, it was meant to be, to do with image. Well, no, actually, I'd met the person I wanted to get married to. So it's quite hard to persuade people of that. But I'm thinking when I ask you that question about Neil Kinnock who is now, for example, admitting that he was just... Perceived as being electable as a Prime Minister. People couldn't see him as it. something... To do with, I don't know, he danced in public once too often with his wife usually actually. He's now saying I could not be Prime Minister, they did not want me and I wonder if people felt the same about you. That may well be right and that is why I said in my speech of resignation. The morning after the election, the party had to have the opportunity to find a leader who might be able to get a wider popular appeal in the country. Actor in my resignation. You know, maybe Neil Kinnock should have done that after he lost his first election.

But you did, if you like, what Tony Blair did, you imported a tabloid person to be your communications director. Again do you look back and think I should have stayed being myself? Weren't you seduced into going for some pretty glib tabloid headlines? No, the main advice of the people who worked for me was to be myself. Trying to achieve. The awful thing though is that you have to actually consciously work out how you're going to present yourself as you really are. So it's us, it's us, it's we the electorate who are at fault, we are so... Image conscious, you'd have done better if you were standing in the 1970s when you were 16 than last year wouldn't you? Better in the 1870s or 1770s actually. However, you know, that opportunity was not available. So you're broadly right. However, we have to cope with that and I wish we'd been able to do it better.

But that was not the way it turned out. And if someone says, Your virtues don't shine in this ecology. Maybe that's right. Record number six. Record number six is another piece of jazz. Obviously, being interested now in playing the piano, jazz piano is something I particularly enjoy. Harris and the Sidewinder.

Jean Harris and the Sidewinder. If the second...

And shattering defeat wasn't your, entirely your personal fault, as we've just been talking. Has also to be partly the fault of your policies, doesn't it? Save the pound was the biggest idea. Do you think the policies were wrong and that you weren't listening enough? - No, I think the policies were right. You know, for instance, people say... You should have talked more about health and education in the election. Now actually, the vote... Which is we're going to give Labour the benefit of the doubt on health and education at the last election. Almost whatever we said. But if they have not delivered on their promises by the time of the next election, there is a much bigger opportunity for the Conservative Party to present. But how can you say that Save the Pound was the right policy when it obviously failed to have any resonance with the people at all? You know, you completely failed as we said.

To make any inroads and a net gain of one seat. Two points to make on that. First of all, we don't know what the results of the election would have been had I not campaigned on some of the things that I was criticized for campaigning on. It was possible for the Conservative Party to have a seat. Not only to fail to do better but to do worse. And the second point is that politicians should campaign, to some extent, on things they think are right. That's I'm being over idealistic in thinking that but I think this is a very important issue. But are you saying that that policy Is more important than winning power. I think it's important if you win power to be committed to policies that you can do. Really believe in and think are important. But if the policies you believe in don't win you power. Well then I don't think you should change your belief to the opposite in order to win power. That is not why I came into politics. I am motivated by convictions.

I'm not going to say the opposite of what I believe in order to win elections. No, but there's a compromise, isn't there? And it seems to me that that's why the euro is such a good example. It's a high risk strategy because it's a very black and white thing. You know, you're either for it or you're against it. And you said, you know, you would never and Ian Duncan Smith is saying he would never go into the euro. It's very, very high risk that, you know, not just for you for the whole party and that's what's now the issue. Well, I mustn't speak for him. But I think he's set about taking over my old job with very good judgment. I think he's a man of cool judgment, of immense integrity. But he's moved the party even further to the right, the newer, and therefore it's going to have even less resonance with the nation. Well, I think he's full of common sense policies. And I think he will have a much greater chance of success Than we ever really had at the last election. - I call number seven.

Record number seven makes me think of the place I go to with Fion on holiday more than anywhere else, the mountains of Montana in the northwestern United States. Song sung by walking Jim Stoltz who will not be known in this country, but who I listen to every winter when I'm out there skiing and it's a the scenery out there and it's called The Great Divide. and all along the great divide for a...

William Hague who I gather even spends Christmas up a mountain is that right? Yes we go walking in the Dales on Christmas Day and then we usually go off to Montana and we do some cross-country skiing which is great. Exercise and beautiful scenery and beautiful cold crisp air. You're obviously William, unfail. Is it seems to me from everything you say, and I don't think this is you trying to put an image forward, is that you are unfazed in many ways by all these changing events. Corroborate that? Yes, I think so. I enjoy life tremendously. I've got many other interests. The ups and downs of politics happen to any politician. I remember saying to Theon when... I became leader of the party. This is a roller coaster. And don't ever get on a roller coaster thinking it's only going to go up. My enjoyment of politics is rarely correlated with success in it. I often enjoy myself tremendously in adversity and sometimes the most tedious problem.

To sort out when you're meant to be doing well. What about the major discontinuity, to quote your phrase, that we're offering here, life on a desert island? How do you cope with that? Well, I certainly miss a lot of things. I certainly miss Fion. There's no doubt about that. Maybe she could come and rescue me after a while. Coping well I think with a major discontinuity in life now. I'm not exactly on a desert island. Some people might think I am politically, but I don't feel like that personally. I'm enjoying learning the piano, doing more judo, having more time at home in your... Having more time with Fion. I'm gathering some new business interests that I've started. I've got so many... Other interests in life and I am enjoying that. But you've got to have a big ambition. I mean for a man who, as we say, rose so quickly and so well and obviously a man of great talent. Would you have another shot at being Prime Minister? Oh, I'm certainly not planning to do that. You know, in a way... In a way I've got that out of the system now. Yes, I've always been...

An ambitious person, but the ambition has now passed through the system. Done that and been there. I've been leader of the party. I've got that t-shirt to the extent that's what it was. And so any decision I ever make in the future about what I do in politics can be detailed. Entirely dispassionately. And I'm certainly not going to hurry any of that. I certainly wouldn't serve on the front bench in this parliament, for instance. I am enjoying having a change. I enjoyed being legal parted but I'm enjoying not being legal parted. In the next one you might, sir. You can't see for every... The future. I would always take a lot of persuading to go back to any form of frontline politics. I'm not looking for some great new purpose in life. You really are living your life backwards, aren't you? Yes I am, I really am getting younger as I've got older and I enjoy sport more, I enjoy music more. In a way I have more pure fun.

And for many years, maybe for 20 years. - Last record. - The last record. Rather sums up that attitude it's what Fion says is the record that that that Thumbs me up and it's Frank Sinatra singing That's Life. ♪ That's life ♪ ♪ That's life ♪ ♪ That's what all the people say ♪ ♪ You're riding high in April ♪ ♪ Shot down in May ♪ ♪ But I know I'm gonna change that tune ♪ ♪ When I'm back on top ♪ ♪ Back on top in June ♪ ♪ I said that's life ♪ - Frank Sinatra and That's Life. So, William, if you could only take one of those eight records, which one would you take? - I think I'd take Nimrod. You've got the Bible and you've got the complete works of Shakespeare. Well, I'd take a book by a man called...

Robert Caro, who has written two brilliant volumes on the life of Lyndon Johnson. And wrote the most exciting account of an election I've ever read in my life. It's an account of the Texas Senate race in Texas. 1948 and it's beautifully written as well as being hugely exciting. And you're luxury. It would be quite difficult to arrange but you're very kind and I would have a dojo which is where a place where martial arts can be practiced. What is it? Is it a ring or a building or a mat? What is it? Well, I suppose it would have to be open air in this case. It normally is a place with a sprung floor with the mats on top of that. Quite a large area, but we could have it open air on a desert island. William Hague, thank you very much.

For letting us hear your desert island discs. Thank you very much indeed it's been a great pleasure. You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Island Discs Archive. For more podcasts please visit bbc.co.uk/radio4