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DERMOT MURNAGHAN: The election for London Mayor has been widely criticised as a personality contest bogged down by squabbles and negative campaigning but on Thursday, as Londoners go to the polls, eleven other English cities will decide whether they want directly elected mayors as well. Well one man who has been a driving force behind this is the former Deputy Prime Minister, Lord Heseltine, who joins me now from Oxfordshire, a very good morning to you Lord Heseltine. If I can start before we focus down on mayors for cities, the overall picture for the local elections, it is not a particular rosy one – and I’m putting that very kindly – for the Conservative party. Do you think it is an inevitable decline after the high watermark of 2008 or something more fundamentally wrong at the moment?

LORD HESELTINE: Oh well look, let me say something pulverisingly boring. I’ve never known a government in the mid-term that didn’t have this sort of poll result and this sort of conversation and the events are of course important at the moment but they play virtually no part in the subsequent general election. We’re going through the mid-term blues, it was ever thus.

DM: But you saw, I mean as part of the Major administration back in the mid-90s there, the economy started to recover in about ‘94/95 but because of other matters, because of the reputation that administration got for messing up, it was hammered in 1997. Is there a danger of something like that happening to the current administration?

LH: No, I don't think so. The ’97 period was at the end of a very long period of Tory government and I think a more relevant example was 1981 when Mrs Thatcher had been in power for 18 months and the poll ratings were quite terrible but the 1983 election saw a very considerable Conservative victory but this is not a party political point, if you look at the results under Tony Blair you’ll find that the mid-term led to these very difficult circumstances as well. It is always the same, people are being asked questions about a very short-term judgement about how they feel today and they take all the circumstances of today into account but those will not be the circumstances when we come to a general election.

DM: But it is a danger, isn’t it, that the high command of the Conservative party, particularly the Prime Minister and the Chancellor, that they get the albatross of being posh boys who are out of touch with the electorate. If they get that hung round their neck then that is a danger for a general election is it not?

LH: Well I think one particularly silly remark shouldn’t be allowed to characterise the task that this government is doing. Look, let’s get the thing in perspective, there are three huge challenges facing this country and facing this government. The first is to get the economy right, they are clearly pursuing a plan designed to do that, I think rightly and I think it will work. Secondly, for the first time perhaps in a hundred years, the government is seriously tackling the under achievement of the British education system and thirdly, we have this massive welfare provision which means that millions of our citizens stay at home and are paid to do so and this government is tackling that problem. Now those are three historic challenges for this country and this government, this government has put in place the proposals and policies to cope with those issues. I believe that they will be successful and they will be the issues on which the next election is determined.

DM: Let’s talk about these local elections, particularly the referenda for elected mayor in major English cities, why are you so passionate about it, why do you believe that it would improve, I presume, the democratic process and accountability?

LH: Well there are many reasons but let’s try and take a few of the big ones. First of all, London is too overbearing in the way in which we run this country, it is too economically vital, it is too politically centralising and I want to recreate the sort of spirit and competitiveness of the English cities which actually were part of the huge strength of our economy a hundred, two hundred years ago. London was not then dominant. Secondly, people don’t know who their local council leaders are and the local council leaders are not accountable to the people, they are accountable to their party caucuses so I want direct elections for identifiable people with an identifiable programme. What does that mean? It means that this country is going to do exactly what every other advanced economy does, they have competition at local level, they have power at local level, they have accountability at local level and that’s what I want to see as part of rejuvenating this country’s economy and making it more competitive.

DM: The danger, I’m not sure I’ve we’ve lost the line there but I’ll put the question to you, Lord Heseltine, anyway. The danger is there has been this critique of the London election, that it is so predominated by the personalities, two huge personalities leading the polls and that that would be replicated elsewhere, that you’d get re-treaded national politicians having a go.

LH: I don’t accept that analysis at all except in this sense, it is a very good thing that personalities matter because then people know who they are and those personalities have to have a programme to get re-elected. It’s a much better system than relying on a caucus of party politicians who win a majority of council seats, choosing the leader of their community behind closed doors which is what we do at the moment.

DM: Talk to me more about elections, I mean this issue of Lords Reform of course, where you sit and I believe of course you have a major effect. Do you feel that this really is the burning issue of the times and that it should be a major part of the next Queen’s Speech?

LH: Well it is certainly not a major issue of any time but it is passionately important to the Lib Dems and if you are in a coalition you have to give a little, take a little. The Lib Dems are deeply preoccupied with achieving this change, whether they will or not of course is another matter.

DM: Are you opposed to it?

LH: I believe that if you are going to reform something you have to know what you are putting in the place of what you’ve replaced and I am deeply apprehensive of anything that says that the power of the House of Commons is going to be challenged and undermined. The moment you start electing a group of people to the second chamber it inevitably raises questions about the challenge to the Commons and I’m also deeply worried about the idea of proportional representation because what that means is that the party politicians decide who goes in to the House of Lords and I think that cuts the links that I think should be there between in the present system usually a really distinguished outside career which is broadly the characteristic that puts you into the House of Lords.

DM: So with that in mind, how does Mr Cameron handle those coalition tensions on Lords reform? Does he have to look for a politer, quieter way, a subtle way to kick it as ever into the long grass?

LH: Yes, well David Cameron has got those three vital agenda items I mentioned of the economy, education and getting people off welfare but he is in coalition, he has to listen to what the coalition partners say, there has to be give and take and managing that frankly is not the best way forward but it is the way that people voted for so he has to do it and I think in fairness to both the leaders, David Cameron and Nick Clegg, they are behaving in a very commendable way personally in trying to make this thing work.

DM: Lord Heseltine, thank you very much indeed for your time.