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DERMOT MURNAGHAN: Now the election in Greece of the radical left wing party Syriza has inspired other anti-austerity parties across Europe, specifically in Spain where tens of thousands of people have been marching for the left wing Podemos party so how might that mood affect Britain and will it alter our relationship with the rest of the European Union?  Well I am joined now from Banbury in Oxfordshire by the Conservative peer and former Deputy Prime Minister, Lord Heseltine, a very good morning to you Lord Heseltine.  What do you think, given what is happening in continental Europe, that the future of the euro and indeed the European Union in its current form, is in some doubt?   

LORD HESELTINE:  No, I don’t.  I think that if you look back, the introduction of the euro was bound to be complex and short.  The crisis of about three or four years ago was much more intense.  What you’re seeing now is that the countries with the biggest problems – Spain, Portugal, Ireland – are beginning to recover, indeed Greece itself was beginning to look as though it might have seen the worst but the second thing of course that has coincided with this is, is the depth of the recession and right across certainly Europe but maybe across wider areas as well, people are sick to death of the pressures to which the economic recession has subjected them.  They want optimism, they want change, they want to get the hell out of here and so the protest movements that we’ve seen, some to the left, some to the right, they’re very typical of what happens in those sorts of economic circumstances.  The position in Greece is of course very difficult and it’s difficult because there’s a sort of timescale, Greece runs out of money at the end of this month and so it’s going to require considerable flexibility and political skill.  Forecasting the outcome – I mean knows but my guess is that the new Greek government wants change but it also knows that the population in Greece wants to stay within the euro as recent polls show and so this is a matter now for the politicians to try and make sense of what is apparently a conflicting situation.  

DM: And of course the Germans are a key part, if not the key part in those discussions with Greece.  Is there an opportunity, perhaps that’s not the right word but for want of a better one, is there an opportunity for the UK in all this in that Angela Merkel, Chancellor Merkel, is going to need at her side a country that says you do have to deal with your debts, you do have to have a way of addressing those debts and the deficit in a responsible way?

LORD HESELTINE:  Well obviously the Greek Prime Minister is I think coming to see the government here in the next few days as indeed he is travelling extensively and very sensibly across the other European countries but the real problem which I think the Greek government has got is Spain and Ireland and Portugal who know full well that they have got this sort of protest element in their own countries and that if the Greeks are seen to somehow drive a coach and horses through their commitment to pay their debts, what does that do for the elected governments of those countries which are not giving in to those pressures?  So self-evidently the British government is not involved in the eurozone but it is very much committed to the policies of paying our way, getting out of the mess, undoing the appalling economic situation of a few years ago so I haven’t any doubt that the voice of the British government will weigh very heavily on what you might broadly call the economic regimes being maintained unless changed by negotiation, in other words you don’t spit in your bankers faces because actually they’re the ones that you’ve got to get more money from in any deal that you make.  

DM: But there is another side to it isn’t there?  Do you think that post a general election, and I know you want to see a Conservative victory of course, but post a general election and those negotiations with the European Union, the renegotiations really get underway, the rest of the European Union go look, this is a distraction, you talking about your relatively parochial problems there in the United Kingdom, we’re trying to hold the whole thing together.

LORD HESELTINE:  Well I don't think they’ll see that because Britain is not a member of the eurozone but it is a member of the European Union and a much valued one.  I cannot contemplate a situation where for example the Germans thought it was a good thing for Britain to opt out and certainly on an international basis, quite obviously led by the United States, there’s a massive support for Britain being a leading member of the European Union and always has been from the day we joined so although we’re not right at the centre of the eurozone situation, we are very much one of those countries arguing for a reformed Europe.  There are a huge range of things that should happen in Europe to improve its economic performance and Britain is at the front end of that argument.  The Greeks at the moment are perhaps at the other end of it, they have now said they are going to stop the privatisation process which couldn’t help to deal with their debts and so there is a big intellectual debate but frankly there has been a big intellectual debate in politics ever since I’ve been in it and the fact that it is now European-wide as opposed to just narrowed to the domestic economy doesn’t change the basic arguments or indeed the rectitude of the policies, the right wing policies, that the governments of that sort believe in.

DM: Well you mentioned the length of time that debate has been going on, Lord Heseltine, could you envisage then the European Union being put back on the track that you foresaw 25 years ago and more, for instance it coming up with a single currency project that Britain could join?

LORD HESELTINE:  Well I’ve always that in the end, and we’re talking not in the immediate future, Britain would join because that’s been the pattern.  All the big decisions Britain has resisted and we didn’t want to join so we didn’t sign the Treaty of Rome, then we tried to compete with them, with the European Free Trade Area and now virtually all the European Free Trade Area, of which there were seven members, are members of the European Union.  We were very cynical about the single market but actually Mrs Thatcher signed the greatest sharing of sovereignty in British history with the Single European Act, so Britain has always had doubts.  I understand the reasons for that but in the end what the Europeans know is that we join in because overarchingly our self-interest is a European self-interest and you cannot think of a time frankly for a thousand years in which Britain has not been absolutely at the centre of what was going on in European policy.

DM: And lastly Lord Heseltine, I know you’re keeping a close eye on the general election campaign, already started of course, would you predict, do you foresee an outright Conservative majority?

LORD HESELTINE:  It’s possible but quite obviously we are dealing with circumstances which are different to earlier elections given the multiplicity of parties and their effect on eating away at the core votes of the two major parties but I would believe that David Cameron will be Prime Minister for two reasons frankly.  First, most elections are determined on economic matters and the British economy is recovering.  The Labour party seem to me to be drifting way to the left and making the usual sort of left wing arguments about unfunded expenditure, so putting us back where we were and secondly, beyond the economic strengths that George Osborne has created, I just don’t believe that Ed Miliband is seen as a credible Prime Minister and David Cameron is, quite obviously, a very credible Prime Minister.  So those are the two issues which I think will determine the outcome of the election and whether there’s one seat or the other in the majority, that I think frankly we’ll only know when the polls have been counted but I do believe that David Cameron is set to remain Prime Minister and quite rightly so.

DM: And hopefully we’ll be speaking to you again when those polls are being counter afterwards, Lord Heseltine thank you very much indeed.