ANY QUOTES USED MUST BE ATTRIBUTED TO MURNAGHAN, SKY NEWS

DERMOT MURNAGHAN: In a moment I’ll be speaking to Cabinet Secretary, Francis Maude, he’s helping to organise Lady Thatcher’s funeral on Wednesday. He’s also one of the few ministers to have served under both Margaret Thatcher and David Cameron. Let’s say good morning to Francis Maude, you must be incredibly busy of course. Give us a sense first of all of where the planning is, is there much more to be decided?

FRANCIS MAUDE: Well there are always loose ends to be tied up but the basic shape of this funeral has been in place for many years now, we didn’t start last Monday, there was a very well developed plan which had been formulated I think during the years of the Labour government and so there’s never really been any controversy about the shape of it and of course with any funeral of any former Prime Minister, the state inevitably plays a big role. Normally of course there would be a funeral followed by a memorial service, she was very adamant that she didn’t want that, she wanted a single service so there is just the one event so this needs to be a fitting event for a very great lady.

DM: And it is one of the biggest logistical headaches, the guest list itself, deciding who’s on it and how you get them here and, in some cases, protect them.

FM: Inevitably you have an event where a lot of very high profile people come together and it raises those issues, that’s just inevitable. However this was done, that would be the case and obviously very careful efforts are being made to make sure people are safe.

DM: She was quite open about it wasn’t she, during her lifetime, Baroness Thatcher was quite openly involved in some of the planning herself, she described a selection of hymns and things like that.

FM: I think that’s right. I mean she didn’t obsess about it but she took an interest and so she had some very clear views, for example she was adamant she didn’t want there to be any question of a lying in state. As Lord Bell, Tim Bell, said she had characteristically robust views about there being a fly past, a terrible waste of money she said. You could hear her saying that. So not obsessing about it but she took an interest in it and I hope that what the nation provides on Wednesday will be seen as a fitting send off for her.

DM: There are those who say that given the send off offered to Prime Ministers who have died in our recent memory, that this is a bit over the top, there is too much money being spent and it’s too militarised.

FM: Well look, each one is different, preferences are taken into account and as I say, most Prime Ministers would have, Ted Health for example there was a funeral in Salisbury Cathedral followed by a memorial service in Westminster Abbey. People who have been Prime Minister deserve to be treated respectfully when they pass from this life and this is what we’re seeking to do.

DM: A lot of it seems to stem from the Falklands campaign which when you look at the length of her being Prime Minister was a few weeks in 1982 over an 11 year premiership yet we end up with 700 service personnel, a military salute and on it goes. Do you think that that really is appropriate and comparisons are also being made with Winston Churchill, of course the Second World War dwarves the Falklands on scale by a long chalk?

FM: Of course it does and again I think you can overplay the military parts of this. This is not over the top in any way, you would normally expect to have some military involvement for the funeral of someone who has been Prime Minister, she was a Prime Minister who took her responsibilities for the armed services very seriously indeed and they know that and they respected that and I think the armed services are rightly very proud of what they achieved in the Falklands war and the decision that she took, that we would retake the Falkland Islands, we would not allow a bullying country to invade another sovereign territory and subject a free people to the sovereignty of an alien nation, that was the right thing to do but it sent a very powerful signal both of Britain’s status in the world but also actually about the principle, it sent such a strong signal around the world which is one of the reasons why there is such a huge amount of interest and respect being poured in from all around the world and there will be a huge international presence.

DM: But there are those who are going to want to express their views, opposing views to that about Baroness Thatcher, about Mrs Thatcher. What do you think about that and what role is the planning taking in security and those who want to voice publicly during the course of the funeral their disagreement with so much that Mrs Thatcher did?

FM: Well it’s a free country and people must obviously be free to express their views. I would simply ask that they respect the wishes of the mourners, of which there will be very many, for this event to take place in a dignified and seemly way and there is plenty of opportunity for people to express their opinions and they will do. This is a very free country and actually it is just worth making the point that around the world there are hundreds of millions of people who enjoy freedom who are able to say what they want to say without fear or favour because of her actually, because of what she stood up for and when she and Ronald Reagan simply said we are not going to allow the Soviet Union to continue to beat down and subjugate a lot of people who had been used to freedom, actually that was the turning point and so yes, free speech here, that’s great. Let it be respectful and let the people who use it remember that there are hundreds of millions of people around the world who enjoy the same freedom because of her.

DM: Well with that in mind presumably – and it seems like a minor issue here but the issue of Ding Dong The Witch Is Dead. With freedom of speech in mind and the conundrum that the BBC in particular is facing here with its chart show, whatever position it ends up in today, you think presumably they should play it in full? Is that the kind of thing that …?

FM: I have no opinion on it at all. The BBC is bound to be criticised whatever they do, I just find the whole thing quite distasteful.

DM: Okay and in terms of, just to move on, in terms of the legacy for the party, it’s interesting, no doubt you’ve been reading about Nigel Farage from UKIP saying everyone is talking about Thatcher and he said it is going to benefit UKIP because it is showing people what a true Conservative really stood for.

FM: Well she was really a first Conservative and had very strong views indeed. The Conservative party has always been a broad church, she redefined politics, she didn’t just redefine the Conservative party she redefined the shape of British politics and if I think about what I as a young Minister in her government, privileged to take part in the great reforming transformative government, what we stood for then, then I think there is still an incredibly strong vein running through what we stand for today. We were fiscally conservative, we believed in sound money, not spending money we didn’t have. We believed in economic liberalism, in people having the ability to put their money, to work their ideas, to work to generate jobs and wealth. We believed in a strong society, we didn’t talk as much about that, a strong society which was not to be reflected and represented by the state. We believed in a sensible euroscepticism, not an anti-Europeanism, it wasn’t an anti-European who signed the Single European Act and drove through the single market. We have become socially more liberal, the country has become socially more liberal but if you think about the Margaret Thatcher we all knew, this was not someone who was censorious, who was intolerant, she was broadminded and respectful of the way people wanted to live their lives.

DM: Finally, let me just ask you because you referred to your time as a Junior Minister in her final administration. Her political end when it came and your role, I mean it’s interesting reading her autobiography, your pivotal role, Francis Maude’s pivotal role in her decision not to go on, not to fight on. It is worth reading this from her autobiography, she says, “Also to a man they used the same formula” – as you remember, as you went in to see her one by one “that was that they would back me of course but regretfully they did not believe I could win” which is no doubt what you told her because she says, “My first ministerial visitor was Francis Maude who I regarded as a reliable ally. He told me he passionately supported the things I believe in, that he would back me as long as I went on but he did not believe I could win.” It must have been very difficult for you.

FM: I wasn’t expecting to see her. I went up to talk to Peter Morrison who was her PPS, who’s PPS I had been, I was quite close to him, because I was concerned that she wasn’t being told the truth and as I was talking to Peter she arrived, she walked through the outer office and Peter said helpfully “Peter has got something he wants to tell you”. So I sat down opposite her in her room and what do I do as a friend, as a loyal friend? Do I fudge it, do I tell her what I believe to be the truth which was I thought she would lose the second ballot and that Michael Heseltine would become leader of the party and Prime Minister and I thought that would be pretty catastrophic.

DM: What do you feel then all these years later as the Conservative party looks back on one of its greatest leaders, as the current Prime Minister has said, the greatest leader since Winston Churchill, that in actual fact you knifed her and you were the first one to plunge it?

FM: No, I didn’t. I simply told her what I believed to be the truth. What I feel, I feel great pride in what her government achieved and what she achieved, great sadness in the way it ended and a determination that we who carry the mantle now, have to pick up what was great and build on it and actually what she did was make us believe. She didn’t understand the word can’t, didn’t believe it when people said you can’t do that, it’s too difficult, the words too difficult never featured and we have to pick that up and make Britain again something that it … the best that it can be.

DM: Okay, Mr Maude, thank you very much indeed. Francis Maude there.