BBC BREAKFAST WITH FROST INTERVIEW: FORMER CONSERVATIVE PARTY CHAIRMAN CHRIS PATTEN,10th JUNE, 2001

Please note "BBC Breakfast with Frost" must be credited if any part of this transcript is used.

DAVID FROST: But first more on the election, nine years ago the political landscape told a very different story to the one we've seen unfolding in recent times, the Conservative Party had swept to another victory and the future was true grit, true blue, how times change. Well one of the key lynchpins of the party in those days was its chairman, Chris Patten, indeed he was the last Tory chairman to run a successful election campaign, he joins us now. Here he is, Chris good morning.

CHRIS PATTEN: Nine years on.

DAVID FROST: Nine years on and looking younger than ever, was it worse than you feared or roughly as you feared?

CHRIS PATTEN: Well it was as bad as the opinion polls were saying it would be but it was worse, I still believed until the last moment that somehow we'd do better than that and it's deeply disappointing for all those Conservatives who worked so hard, the candidates, the leaders of the party and deeply disappointing for all those Conservatives, there's one written rather a good letter in the Sunday Times today who wanted to vote Conservative but felt excluded.

DAVID FROST: And, and what were the key mistakes that the Tories, William Hague, made?

CHRIS PATTEN: Well I, I think one wants to avoid spending weeks or months in a sort of "I told you so" debate.

DAVID FROST: Yes.

CHRIS PATTEN: But it seems to me you don't have to be very profound to recognise three things that went wrong. First of all we did look to be, to be extreme, we looked as though we'd abandoned the centre-ground, we were talking to ourselves. Secondly we didn't, after the defeat in '97 carry out the sort of radical overhaul of policy which followed '45 and '66 and '74 when we reinvented what Conservatism meant in the new age. And thirdly once again Europe has totally distorted our campaign, we were focusing on an issue which was only, I think, number six in most voters lists and an issue on which, by-and-large, they agreed with the Labour Party more than Conservatives. The anti-Europeans helped destroy John Major's government and made it very difficult for us then to argue about the very good Major inheritance which was one of the reasons for Tony Blair's success and continuing to pander to the anti-Europeans has, I think, made it very difficult for the most popular Conservatives like Ken Clarke, like Michael Heseltine, to be part of the mainstream in the party and the mainstream debate. So I think we've got to sort that out.

DAVID FROST: At the same time given that you've got such a preponderance among MPs of Eurosceptics now, some, some would say that the number of pro-Euro MPs is probably almost in single figures or ten or 12 or something like that. Does that mean surely then that the next, unfortunately from your, what you're saying, the next leader of the Tory Party, in order to have any chance of holding them together at all, will have to be another Eurosceptic?

CHRIS PATTEN: Well it's first of all of course interesting, it's not many years ago that the Conservative Party was the pro-European Party in British politics and you can't say looking at the change round that it's been spectacularly successful. Secondly whatever happens I think whoever is the next Tory Leader will have to allow a free vote when it comes to the European Euro referendum if there is one, otherwise I think the party will have much more difficulty. Secondly we've got to move away from the sort of caricature view of Europe which is at present, I think, what the one we're associated with, otherwise we're going to fetch up no different from the UK Independence Party, we've got to recognise that, that Europe is not heading for a superstate, that there is a real argument and debate that we can win in Europe, that if we're taken more seriously we can help to shape a more competitive, enterprising Europe and a Europe where even though some things are pooled, some things are done together as the European Union, some things come back to the nation state.

DAVID FROST: And could, as some are suggesting, there could be a dream ticket of Portillo and Clarke in one order or the other, Clarke and Portillo is one, would that work with Ken Clarke allowed to say what he believes on this one issue of Europe and so on, or would that be a fudge?

CHRIS PATTEN: Well whether or not that's the dream ticket what's absolutely clear is the, a successful Conservative Party has to be able to accommodate the views of Michael Portillo and the views of Ken Clarke, it's got to be a broad church, as everybody says, not a narrow sect because if it's narrow, if it's just focusing on its core voters it finds the core getting smaller and smaller and it's not talking to anybody outside in the rest of the electorate.

DAVID FROST: How does a party though, that is a party of the centre-right like the Tories, the Tory Party as you see it would be, how does that make a distinctive impression and a distinctive mark against a party of Blair's which is now controlling, commanding the centre, centre-right and centre-left, how does, how do you make a distinctive mark?

CHRIS PATTEN: I think two points, first of all because Tony Blair moved on to our ground because it was right, because it was popular, shouldn't have been an argument for us moving on to other ground which wasn't right and wasn't popular, not a very wise strategy. Secondly there were interesting editorials during the election campaign in the Financial Times, in the Economist, in the Times saying that there is a case for a smaller government, there is a case for more market solutions to improving the quality of public services but that case wasn't being put by the Conservative Party. We got the, we were regarded as being radical and right-wing without actually having anything really coherent and radical to say. So that's why I say that we've got to have a complete review of policy, as we have after the previous thumping election defeats and we have to redefine what Conservatives think today about the role of the State, about the role of the individual, about government - I think we've got to be much more radical in decentralising to local government and we've got to have something to say to people in Scotland and Wales who at the moment, as you know, are not voting Conservative.

DAVID FROST: And you could never be tempted back?

CHRIS PATTEN: No, I've, I've got a job in, in Brussels which keeps me in an aircraft most of the time, I haven't been in the House of Commons since, since '92 when I lost my seat when we won that general election. I want to contribute to the debate and I want to help in¿

DAVID FROST: Would you, would you compile a Patten Report if you were asked to?

CHRIS PATTEN: If, if I was able to do so at the same time as I was acting as a European Commissioner because I've got that job until the 22nd of January 2005 and that's when the gardening begins.

DAVID FROST: That's when the gardening begins and that's, that's too late in terms of the Tories going to have to sorting themselves out a good while before that. You said once, you don't want to see the Tory Party obviously marginalised indefinitely but we would have to say now, wouldn't we, that it's unlikely to be one Parliament and they get back, it's probably from here, it's at least two?

CHRIS PATTEN: It's possible to do it in, in one jump but obviously difficult and we've made it more difficult for ourselves but I think it is possible, I think what was demonstrated on Thursday is there's no great enthusiasm for another Blair government and turnout suggested that, there's been no dancing in the streets since Thursday night so I think that the support for the Labour government, while it's broad is pretty shallow and I think that the Conservative Party, if it wins the battle of ideas, if it gets back and reconnects with people, if it stops being obsessed with its own arguments and becomes more concerned about who runs the country not who runs the Conservative Party, then I think there is a chance that we can get back in, in one go but it's very, very difficult.

DAVID FROST: And I asked you specifically about Portillo-Clarke, would that be a fudge?

CHRIS PATTEN: It, no, as I've said, any, any Conservative Leader has to be able to accommodate the views of both the left and the right, that goes without question and unless the Conservative Party accepts that, unless it's prepared to be led frankly it doesn't matter whether it's led by the Archangel Gabriel or Muffin the Mule.

DAVID FROST: Right, Muffin the Mule would be a change of pace, thank you very much indeed for being with us, a joy to welcome you back to the yellow sofa.

CHRIS PATTEN: Thank you.

DAVID FROST: Chris Patten.

END