............................................................................... ON THE RECORD MICHAEL HESELTINE INTERVIEW RECORDED FROM TRANSMISSION: BBC-1 DATE: 8.11.92 ............................................................................... JONATHAN DIMBLEBY: Mr Heseltine, the economy's in dire straits, many people fear a slump, there is precious little confidence around, there is the threat of an international trade war. Ministerial, indeed in your case, presidential, rhetoric about Government economic policy creating an environment in which industry can become world beating again sounds pretty hollow. MICHAEL HESELTINE: I think you've got to have objectives but you also have to understand the world in which everybody knows we live and trade. The world is going through the most difficult period that I can remember over a prolonged timescale and it would be naive and would seen as such if we didn't reflect the limits of what any one national economy can do within that context. The very audience that you have been showing on this programme would be the first to laugh hollowly if they felt that we'd lost reality as an important part of our judgement. That doesn't mean to say that we shouldn't be trying to see a way through it but not in a way that misrepresents the contained restraints that effect any national economy. DIMBLEBY: There are those who think that the Government at the moment is going through so many hoops on so many fronts that it's grasp of reality is rather tenuous. HESELTINE: No I think that that is..frankly reflects in all governments that I can see the state of the national and international economies. Wherever you look, broadly speeking, the govenments of the equivalent societies to ourselves are in difficulties and that reflects the state of the economy. DIMBLEBY: Let us take the first and most - momentarily at least - overwhelming question which is the threat of an international trade war. Now Britain is President of the Community, we claim to be at the heart of Europe, we claim also to have a special relationship with the United States - how did we allow ourselves to get into this mess? HESELTINE: Well it's a gross misreading to think that somehow or other Britain has been engineered into a position you describe as a mess, the fact is that John Major is deploying every effort in order to get these talks back on the road and I believe has now succeeded. Quite obviously a whole range of conversations go on over the international telephone wires, we do realise the severity of the situation, the fact is the clock is ticking and that is a very dangerous situation. DIMBLEBY: Does it mean that rather late in the day the Prime Minister has managed to get the horses back in harness? HESELTINE: No it doesn't, it means that he has been keeping up this pressure, probably as more intensively than..I can't think of any other world leader who's been so committed to this process as John Major and I've seen what's been going on behind closed doors. He's not in the negotiating seat as everybody knows, the European Commissioner is responsible for that. But in truth there is a whole range of dialogue going on behind the scenes and it has been consistently John Major who has put this thing back up at the forefront and tried to keep world leaders in charge of events. If I can just remind you this has been going on for six year, six years, long before John Major was anywhere near the seat of power but he's now trying to drive it to a satisfactory conclusion but it's extremely difficult. DIMBLEBY: You, as this row broke out pointed the finger at Jacques Delors saying that he has divided loyalties and he got pretty cross in return. Is Jacques Delors now behaving himself in ways that you aprove of? HESELTINE: Well the Commission are now instructed to carry through the views of the ministers, heads of Government, at Birmingham and as I understand it that is what is going to happen and that is extremely desirable. What I think.. DIMBLEBY: Wouldn't it have been desirable to have instructed them to do that rather earlier? HESLETINE: They have been instructed for six years by the world political leaders. DIMBLEBY: So he's just disobedient? HESELTINE: No, the fact is that he has a balance of restraints upon him as all people involved in these trade talks have and what I think is absolutely critical now is that we don't get involved in trying to open the personalities with disagreements. What we want is those conversations, negotiations to proceed and I think that is what is going to happen. DIMBLEBY: Does that mean that you won't be saying again that Jacques Delors has divided loyalties? HESELTINE: I think there's no purpose in repeating statements which, once made, perhaps ought to be allowed to stand. But the fact of the matter is what we now want, what we now want is to cool the temperature to get the dialogue going and there's no gain for anybody in trying to exacerbate the situation. DIMBLEBY: So if the statement should stand, we still regard it as the view of the President of the Board of Trade that he does have divided loyalties but there's no point in pushing that to its logical conclusion? HESELTINE: Shall we say it was a contribution to the debate yesterday, it is not a contribution of the debate today. Today we are trying to keep the temperature down and to get those negotiations underway. DIMBLEBY: Are the Americans right to insist that the new negotiator replacing MacSharry should in the words of the American negotiator "have a free hand" as he does now? HESELTINE: Well, he's obviously got to be empowered to negotiate and that is something that the Commission must resolve and I know that John Major again had a very long discussion with Jacques Delors yesterday about this matter, quite rightly, and I hope that that will be now carried through into a remit to Frans Andriessen to negotiate on behalf of the Community. DIMBLEBY: Now even if Jacques Delors is going to control from now on his divided loyalties, the fact of the matter is isn't it that the French and that's part of his divided loyalty - the French can pull the rug out on this, they're making it clear they ain't going to go down the journey. HESELTINE: Well that is of course the position and any nation state can be in that position but that's not my immediate concern. My concern is obviously that the Community which is charged with this responsibility and the Commission which has to discharge that responsibility should now get on with the job of concluding a deal and what I know, because obviously again one has a feel for why the negotiations stand there's a deal there, that this weary process has gone on for six years. They're now very close together, there's a deal that can be done and what we've got to do is do it and then it's up to nation states to look at the deal that's been done. But at this stage it's the Community and the United States that are negotiating. DIMBLEBY: So there is only obstinacy and intransigence that will stand in the way of a deal. HESELTINE: Jonathan, Jonathan, you are now trying to me back into the exacerbation of the process which I'm not prepared to do. I'm now talking simply, clinically, factually about how close the two sides are - there's a deal to be done. DIMBLEBY: Meanwhile there are sanctions due to come into force, now some twenty-eight days away. If the French continue to say "non" would Britain be with the French saying yes to sanctions in retaliation? HESELTINE: Well that again is the sort of question which provokes and exacerbates the situaion. Quite obviously I have talked about the dangers of a trade war, I have said on this programme the clock is ticking and we all know the dangers that come once I'd ...goes through with a lot of sanctions, other people take action - counter-action and it deteriorates very rapidly as confidence collapses and all those things, it would be a disastrous situation. But the purpose, as I've said many times, is to stop that happening and all our energies must now be focused on getting a deal, not on looking into the abyss at what happens if we don't get a deal. DIMBLEBY: On the assumption that we don't go into that abyss because if we do go into that abyss the rest of this interview is frankly, is a waste of time probably isn't it? HESELTINE: That is true, that is true. DIMBLEBY: On the assumption that we don't we have another abyss that we've fallen into, it may not be of quite the same severity, namely the abyss of devaluation. It was never part of the script up until Black Wednesday that devaluation should be the route towards what you now have to try and provide which is a competitive, industrial framework. Given that we're there and there's no point in going back through how we got there - do you welcome the opportunities provided for competition via devaluation, post Black Wednesday? HESELTINE: Well of course there's an opportunity and there's a danger and it's very important that one doesn't just concentrate on the opportunity and lose sight of the danger because there's nothing new in the concept that if you devalue the currency you have a competitive advantage. That idea has been around all my political life but the trouble is every time we've done it in this country we've thrown away the competitive advantage because we have allowed inflation to erode it. So from the moment that we left the Exchange Rate Mechanism I recognise, as everybody did, that here was a chance to get out and sell British goods at a more competitive price, that's a terrific opportunity and I'm personally deeply involved in the process now of recruiting up to a hundred people from the private sector to help my Department give that support to industry which the opportunity opens up - that's a hundred per cent opportunity. Now, we all know what happens if you have a devalued currency, the price of imports rises and there is a danger that that flows through into domestic inflation and so one has got to say to people and this a very unpalatable message in the middle of a recession, look you've got to contain those costs because otherwise the old phenomenon of the J curve (phon) is back with is and we don't keep the competitive advantage. DIMBLEBY: And the old phenomenon for those who are not familiar with economics of the J curve (phon) is basically saying yes you live now but you pay for it later because what you gain now you lose in bucketfulls later. HESLETINE: Well, that is the danger and we've seen it happen as I've said with devaluation after devaluation in the post war world. It can delude people into thinking that that is in itself is enough, it isn't because you have got to manage a domestic economy properly. DIMBLEBY: Now, given that we've had the devaluation that we've got I conclude from what you're saying that you wouldn't be one of those who's saying "Oh, and a little bit more devaluation would be rather nice because it would help us even more". HESELTINE: Well, I'm not going to get into a judgement which is essentially that for the Chancellor. He makes these judgements and, of course, it's all tied up with the management of the economy, interest rate policy and all those things. He must be responsible for that side of our political judgement, decision taking. DIMBLEBY: But you are sympathetic in principle - if I have understood you correctly - to the fear that, that, that some have expressed, most notably the Prime Minister, that devaluation is fool's gold and an easy option. HESELTINE: Well, I think we've explored that question. What would worry me is the feeling that as long as you devalue, the inflationary consequences that can flow are secondary. They are actually the ingredients of where the next difficulties may lay. DIMBLEBY: You would not be happy, however (or at least I can't imagine that you would be happy from what you're saying), if the pound, for whatever reason, continued to slide downwards. It would stand square against what you've just been asserting very clearly. HESELTINE: But everybody knows that there are
balances. There always have been, there always will be balances... DIMBLEBY: But you think the balance point has been reached and should go no further.. HESELTINE: I never said that, I never said that. I said that there were balances and they all have to be weighed, and the more that the pound goes down, the bigger the dangers of inflationary pressures become, and that is a rule which is not within the gift of Government to set at one side. DIMBLEBY: Um, under those circumstances you, when you hear those voices calling for rapid and deep interest rate cuts, are inclined to say what to those voices? HESELTINE: We all want interest rate cuts, but you don't want interest rate cuts if that has an effect upon the management of your economy, which is counter-productive. So, again, you are back to the Chancellor's judgement. DIMBLEBY: Now in that broad framework, am I right to say that the logic of your position is that there is no real scope for large interest rate cuts IF the consequence of that were to be the pound being driven down very much further, with the inflationary consequences? HESELTINE: But you see it isn't as neatly packaged as that. You have a whole range of other judgements about public expenditure, and the Macro economic management of the economy, that comes into the balance, and so it's..you are left with a judgement which only the Chancellor (in consultation with the Prime Minister) can take, because they alone have full access to all the information and all the levers that have to be adjusted. DIMBLEBY: But insofar as you're not a lion that never roars in the Cabinet, one may presume that you have been making loud and clear your views about the inflationary dangers, insofar as they need to be made. HESELTINE: Well, everyone else has been doing the same thing, so I don't think it needed any great roaring. The Chancellor's fully aware, and the Prime Minister's fully aware, of these conflicting pressures that affect economic policy. DIMBLEBY: You see there are others in the Cabinet - I think particularly of Michael Howard, who is entirely consistent with what you are saying in policy terms - speaking with rather greater enthusiasm than you do about interest rate cuts; about the fact that we are no longer inside the ERM and the opportunities that it gives. I see you when I ask you these question as a man who's not terribly happy about all of what has happened, and is very anxious indeed about what you describe as the J-curve. I don't hear others going on and on about the J-curve like you do. HESELTINE: Well, perhaps I've been in politics a bit longer than some of my colleagues and I've seen these things happen before. But there is no division between my colleagues and myself in the Cabinet on these issues, and it would be quite wrong to suggest that that is the case. The only reason I use the word "J-curve" is because I was in the House of Commons (which some of my younger colleagues were not) when this was the phenomenon, and everybody was saying - "Well, this is fine - we'll just devalue the currency and everything's going to be alright". It wasn't alright for the reasons that I've been stressing. DIMBLEBY: Now, now given that if you are right, the history of the economy since you've been in politics, and since the Second World War, has been one in which devaluation has been the case, followed by inflation, followed by devaluation, followed by inflation, what you're saying is "I need to be jolly certain that this does not become the case again before I'm going to be enthusiastic about what a lot of people are calling for". HESELTINE: Well, I'm going to be enthusiastic about the opportunity that the lower parity has now produced. I'm going to do everything I can to help British industry to export and take advantage of that opportunity. That I'm going to do. That's my responsibility as a Departmental Minister responsible for Trade. But as the President of the Board of Trade in the Cabinet discussing Macro-economic policy, I have to be very sure that I support the Chancellor of the Exchequer who is very aware of the dangers that we've been discussing. DIMBLEBY: Given you're a touch older than him - as you said, you've had rather more experience, you are able to make this very clear. HESELTINE: I just, just use language which was very well and very familiar some years ago, but has not been heard of for the last decade or so. DIMBLEBY: Let us, um - you touched on the need for keeping costs under control. When we were inside the ERM inflation at four per cent-ish, wages in the private sector going up at eight per cent, and you drew attention to that, but there was then - allegedly - a discipline that would bear down on that, namely, the ERM itself. What's the lever now? HESELTINE: Well, you mustn't ask me to anticipate the Chancellor's Autumn Statement - we're just a few days ahead of it and he will put forward his whole approach to these very varied matters. DIMBLEBY: There aren't many options are there? HESELTINE: Well, but Jonathan, you and I both know that it is for the Chancellor to cover these subjects and I don't want to have to repeat this time and again in this programme. I'm not going to trespass in any way on his responsibilities. DIMBLEBY: But you could, for instance, within your own framework, call upon the captains of industry themselves - and politicians sometimes find it jolly good politics to do that because it gives them a bit of kudos with people who aren't on the same kind of rates, but you could join your, add your voice - or repeat if you wanted to - to captains of industry, under these circumstances let's see no significant pay rises into your own pockets. HESELTINE: No, no. You could say all those things, but they would immediately say well what are the Government going to do about these things, and it's not for me to anticipate anything the Chancellor may say. DIMBLEBY: What the Government, of course, could say is that.... HESELTINE: They could say all sorts of things but you're not going to get me to say what I think they will say. DIMBLEBY: No, I know. But just in broad terms - and there's been this debate going on and we've heard Government Ministers,
even ones as cautious as you are in these matters, talk about the need for pay restraint in the public sector. It would clearly make an impact on the private sector if the Government, where it is the ultimate employer, was saying "In our public sector we are going to have a freeze, we are going to have very low wage increases AND we will bear the potential price of that, which could be industrial unrest". HESELTINE: Well, that's for the Chancellor's statement. DIMBLEBY: You have nothing to say about that at all? HESELTINE: Nothing, other than to recognise that it's a fair question and is one the Government have to answer, but not on this programme. DIMBLEBY: Fair question. It would also be a fair point to make that if there isn't something like that, then the anxieties that YOU were talking about, the levers that there are available, will be sharply diminished. HESELTINE: Well, whatever we announce, or the Chancellor will announce, I will do my best to argue and support it. DIMBLEBY: Industry are saying - you've heard some of the people in the film there saying - "In these circumstances, if not more generally, give us a break Guv". Specifically, give us a tax break for investment, capital investment, investment in research and development. That's a powerful plea is it not? HESELTINE: Yes, it is a powerful plea. They perhaps have not fully taken into account that we've given them a huge break in the language you use in bringing Corporation Tax down from over fifty per cent to just over thirty per cent. A huge reduction in the burden of taxation for the trading economy. But, of course, when you get into recession people look round and say what more can somebody else do to help me, and they look and quite obviously they say well, we want some more tax concessions. But again, I mean we're trespassing on the Chancellor's prerogative. DIMBLEBY: But you're not unsympathetic to their plea, as they are bound to say. HESELTINE: I have to take a judgement in the light of what the Chancellor puts to us about the various ways in which money can be used, and of course, I'm fully aware that you can forego revenue from taxes. But that means you've got less revenue and there are consequences then on other things that you might have to decide. DIMBLEBY: Okay, they will note that and they'll be waiting eagerly to see whether the Chancellor is..recognises that their plea - you said it was a plea that it was a valid plea, or words to that effect. HESELTINE: Oh, no, it is - I can understand why they do it. That doesn't mean to say it's the right judgement for Government to make. DIMBLEBY: On industrial policy itself, we come to - that's the broad economic framework, the potential for action that there is and there isn't. You have a role. Now you aroused great expectations when you came in - "Hezzle's coming" people said. Now they're feeling a bit let down. Can you reassure them that you are the new broom that they want you to be? HESELTINE; Well, if I can sort of plead in aid (sic) the experiences of urban policy, I think I can claim some credit for having moved significantly the urban policy of the Government in the Eighties. When I became responsible for it in 1979, it was one sort of policy. When I left in '83 it was a quite different sort of policy, on the ground virtually nothing had happened. That is a time-scale in which changed policies, investment decisions, actually take. By the end of the decade, there was no comparison between the programmes then and the programmes at the beginning, and it has been the subject of much interest on a world-wide basis - what we did about urban policy in the Eighties. Now, I say that, because I have never believed that there was a short-term fairy-godmother gimmicky policy which would enable the President of the Board of Trade, or any other Government frankly, to transform the atmosphere in which the trading economy operates. There are things that the Chancellor can do about tax rates and all of that, and there's been a major change in the 1980's in that direction. But in terms of the sort of, what I believe in as an industrial strategy, you're in the business of long-term changes, and it's a delusion to pretend that it is anything other than that that is on offer. DIMBLEBY: But do you still believe and articulate with the same ferocity as you used to that, given the restraints, the DTI has a key role to play in helping make British industry, British manufacturing industry, more important - and is that top of your agenda? HESELTINE: Yes. I believe it, I've always believed it. Every other Government practices it and the hope I have is that I stay there long enough to put it into place. DIMBLEBY: And this is a new partnership. When you talk about a new partnership, you know, not to beat about the bush..we know, everyone knows that your predecessors there wanted to empty the in-tray - they said so publicly. You don't want to empty in-trays. HESELTINE: Now, look, I mean, the thing is we discuss these things in headlines, you know - intervention, non-intervention, whatever it may be. DIMBLEBY: I know you hate headlines. HESELTINE: Well, I don't create headlines I have to say. You might say I do, but I don't make them, I don't write the things anyway, and they are often grossly misleading. The fact of the matter is, I mean, just your programme - it's said that there's been this dramatic slash in the budget of the DTI. Well, that's true. Do you know why? Because we no longer have loss-making nationalised industries, and I think it's something in the region of over three billion pounds a year which, when we became the Government, was showing as money in the DTI had gone, and so the budget has come down. But that's a positive benefit to the economy. DIMBLEBY: You say it's a positive benefit to the economy, but you are saying, making it clear, that you don't want more money. You've intimated that you're perfectly prepared to have less money in your Department - a very unusual um, position for a, for a spending Minister to take. Now, if industrialists were to be enthused, they would want to hear you saying - I'd like more to spend; I'd like to have, relatively speaking, the same kind of money that the Germans have. HESELTINE: No, not the sort of industrialists that I talk to. Of course, there are lots of people who say I have a problem, I would like some Government money, I want to invent this, I want to develop that, I want some Government money - there are those people, and you'll also find where we do help such people, they say you don't help us fast enough, and those who don't get the money say you didn't help us at all. So you'll get all that wherever you draw the frontiers of public/private expenditure. You'll get people on the fringe saying the Government got it wrong . But that is not the..that's not the issue that preoccupies me. The companies in this country that are world class - I speak to their Chairmen and their export managers and their directors all the time - but what do they say to me - "we don't want any money, what we want is your support where it matters." DIMBLEBY: But what about the companies that are not yet world class. One of the people in the film was talking about picking proven winners and .. HESELTINE: Yes. And what he then said, and what he then said we don't want to go back to the 1970's, when what he wasn't asked:how are you going to choose, in his language, winners unless the civil servants do it and if the civil servants do it how are they going to do it better now than they did it in the '70s. DIMBLEBY: Well, let me put another question back to you then. The Germans who proportionately as a .. as part of their public spending, spend six times as much in directly that fashion - do they know how to do it and we don't? HESELTINE: No, you see this is the, when you get into these figures you have to look to see where the money is being spent and in which programmes. What you'll find for example, is that we have a major defence industries capability, larger than the Germans, and we've put a huge amount of money into supporting that industry. So there is Government support,
there are Government schemes but it's wrong to see this as the panacea. So easily people.... DIMBLBY: Ok then, let's go back to your own point. How do you do it, you answer your own question, how do you do it. You are spending some money presumably on making those decisions, these are proven likely winners, you're not doing lame duck rescues. HESELTINE: No, no that is right. I mean that is a very important distinction. We are not in the business of picking up companies that are in trouble and giving them handouts and supporting them through their loss..... DIMBLEBY: If you can do it effectively, if you can do it effectively as you're saying you do do it with the money you've got. What on earth stops you saying I would like to have more because there must be more companies out there that could benefit from it? HESELTINE: Well if you have .. the obvious constraints of public expenditure, you have the obvious questions you have to ask about whether you want to put money on a bigger scale into a range of programmes. I think it fair... DIMBLEBY: But you've lain down first Michael. You've lain down on the matters that I don't want any more money thank you. HESELTINE: No, no that is not quite what I've said. What I'm interested in doing within my Department frankly is getting much more flexibility - it's the way I use the money. I'm not looking for increases in the money. I've got a large programme. What I want to be able to do is to use it more flexibly where I think it will actually help, as opposed to having a range of small schemes across a whole frontier of activity. But the question that seems to me important in these things, which again came up on your programme. It's wrong to see the interface with industry as just through the DTI. Much the largest interfaces that exist, as far as trade and industry are concerned, are outside my department as indeed your programme pointed out. The Chancellor is obviously critical for the creation of the background. The Department of Education and Science is absolutely, the educationalists, absolutely fundamental in providing the quality of young people that industry requires. The ..William Waldegrave's programmes in Research which we're now looking at comprehensively - very important indeed and Gillian Shepherd's training programme is very important. DIMBLEBY: Ok. Now just let me come back to this central point about intervention in the way in which we've just been discussing it. You're saying, if I've now got you correctly, yes I can intervene with money and I do. What I actually do is pick winners, so you are in the trade and you're just saying you're in that trade of picking winners and what you're saying is - I'm actually quite a good picker of winners because I'm not going to make the mistakes of the seventies. HESELTINE: Well, the fruit of the fact is that all through the Eighties schemes have existed in which specific decisions were taken as to where public money should go. They're taken in the research field, they're taken in the industrial support field, they're taken in the inward investment field, they're taken in regional policy and all these things are actually happening and so... DIMBLEBY: So there's no change there, in that process. HESELTINE: Well, the fact of the matter is there hasn't been a change except in scale, but the process of industry advising civil servants, advising Ministers determining whether or when grants should be give specific companies, in one degree or another has been consistently there. What I'm not persuaded of is that that is where we should expand the public sector interface with the private sector today. That doesn't mean to say I'm trying to cut what I'm doing or anything of that sort but I have never believed that what we should be doing is doubling or tripling that sort of activity. DIMBLEBY: It's a little different from the where there's a will Michael Heseltine in Opposition who was.. who was banging on endlessly about the Government market power, the effect it can have on the welfare of key British companies, let's not underestimate that. HESELTINE: No, no I mean you showed the H101, the helicopter well I.. my Department is hoping to finance that as and I was actually the Minister that negotiated the launch aid for it. So of course there is this range of activities (particularly in the aerospace field) where we do play a critical role in helping the finance and development. The airbus, for example, is a triumph for British industry, we have a role in supporting that. So you have not got a black and white doctrinal position of no and yes. you've got a whole range of different judgements being made and all I have argued, in my book I argued - Don't let's suggest that this is something that can be dealt with in a philosophical sense because no Government in the world is dealing with it in a philosophical sense. DIMBLEBY: In these very difficult circumstances, industry's asking (a) that you spend more money, (b) that you - particularly in the case of exports - that you encourage and help more with export credits. Are you sympathetic to that? HESELTINE: Yes. DIMBLEBY: Would you like to see more of that? HESELTINE: Yes. DIMBLEBY: Can you do more of that? HESELTINE: Yes. DIMBLEBY: Are you intending to do more of that? HESELTINE: Yes. DIMBLEBY: How much more? HESELTINE: I'll tell you when we tell you. DIMBLEBY: But you're going to provide export credits for.. for British industry to protect it from the dangers and risks that it faces out there. HESELTINE: To protect it I will induce - to enable it to seize some of the opportunities. That undoubtedly is a priority. It's very important to realise that we I think, I think if I remember correctly, we have to write off seven hundred million pounds a year now for export credits which went wrong in the past. It isn't a one-way street this thing. DIMBLEBY: But you're going to get it right and you're going to make them far more available than they are at the moment. HESELTINE: You're pushing me. I have gone as far as I intend to go. DIMBLEBY: Well, that is, that is interesting and some people - because people are never grateful - will say it's a bad time too and.. HESELTINE: And others will say it's not enough, that's absolutely right. DIMBLEBY: Let me come to you, to the rhetoric. That one thing aside (and you're not able to say and won't say how much it is) that phrase, now a memorable phrase around your neck, of intervening before breakfast, lunch, tea, dinner and all the rest of it. HESELTINE: It's rather good don't you think? DIMBLEBY: It's not a bad phrase, it's not a bad phrase but I don't .. I'm not sure that it adds up to very much. It seems to me that you rearrange the furniture inside the Department; you send out a few search parties around the world to find out how the rest are doing; and you have a lot of fireside chats with fellows who are like minded. That's hardly intervention the way in which the people out there are longing for it. HESELTINE: What a hundred more people from the private sector helping us to boost exports. DIMBLEBY: If you can get them. HESELTINE: We'll get them. DIMBLEBY: And what will they be doing? HESELTINE: They will help boost exports because they will come with the expertise that the private sector's got and they will dramatically increase the scale of effort that my Department puts behind the export drive. DIMBLEBY: But would you recognise.. HESELTINE: That's just one thing and we could go on to all sorts of other things .. DIMBLEBY: But would you recognise in general what people believed of you when you said "I am an interventionist" is not as persuasive in the public mind as what people now think of Michael Heseltine when we used the term intervention, namely..namely - just let me finish the thought - namely, that intervention is seeking to close down thirty-one pits and failing to do so. That the balance now is quite out of kilter. HESELTINE: No, the truth is the word intervention is the subject of a huge debate and enormous political reaction, knee jerk reactions in many cases. It means all things to all people, quite different things - there is no consistency interpretation. What I mean by intervention is doing whatever I can to so order the priorities of Government as to help British companies win, now that is not just about the DTI, that is about first of all knowing what our competitors are doing, knowing where we're ahead, knowing where we're behind and trying to work out how we change that. It is about talking to my colleagues generally across Government wherever they are interfacing with the wealth creating sector, and to try and influence them in a way that will help the wealth creating sector, and it is about talking to the wealth creating sector about their problems, working out where we can help and the people that I talk to (and there are a lot of them) and some say what you say but a very large number of others,and some of the leaders of our biggest and best companies, say what you're doing is absolutely right. DIMBLEBY: And if the once imagined great super M nistry of the DTI is in practice a bit of a shrimp, that doesn't matter? HESELTINE: Well you come and have a look at it, you'll find it isn't a shrimp. DIMBLEBY: And you're not a lion tamed, albeit not on the hearth rug yet? HESELTINE: I love all these phrases. You know I don't care about the phrases I have to tell you. I know that what we're doing has to be done and I know that it will in the end prove right. DIMBLEBY: President of the Board of Trade, thank you. HESELTINE: Thank you.