LOS ANGELES TIMES INTERVIEW : John Major : Even Under Fire, Britains’s Prime Minister Holds His Own

LONDON — A number of hurdles await the visitor to No. 10 Downing Street--as the official residence of Britain’s prime minister is known. But most noticeable is the elaborate succession of security checkpoints, tighter than ever in the wake of increased terrorism by the Irish Republican Army. Once approved by security, the visitor is ushered into a large entrance hall, up a snake’s trail of seemingly endless narrow stairs and through panel after panel of doors to a special room where the interview with Prime Minister John Major is to take place.

This is the White Drawing Room. It overlooks the Downing Street Garden, where, some two years ago, the IRA lobbed a home-made mortar bomb that narrowly missed the prime minister as he conducted a Cabinet meeting. Major was not injured in the attack--indeed, press reports of his extraordinary cool under fire greatly enhanced his public image. But now Major is under new attack--from right-wing members of his own Conservative Party who seem equally determined to get him.

The prime minister entered the room with his press secretary not far behind. Shaking hands warmly and smiling, Major settled into a stiff-backed chair with green brocade upholstery framed in gold gilt. Overhead, a chandelier glittered.

In person, Major appears more animated than TV viewers have become accustomed to. He speaks with precision and passion and, at one point, when he asked to go off the record to answer a delicate question as to whether the Tories weren’t embarked on a self-destructive course, gave a lie to his media image as a wimp. But his image obviously doesn’t come across well: In a recent opinion poll, only 16% said they were satisfied with his performance.

In fact, the earlier part of the prime minister’s week had been poisoned by a savage personal attack of a former Cabinet minister--and by widespread press reports of a possible dump-Major movement in his own party. This public bloodletting was all the more remarkable because, just 14 months ago, the Tories celebrated a come-from-behind victory over the Labor Party that kept them in power--in large part due to Major. But, on Monday, Lady Thatcher, his predecessor, threw cold water on the whole dump-Major idea and an impenetrable ambiguity settled over the situation with the density of London fog. For the time being, anyway.

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Question: Isn’t the special relationship between the United States and Britain a little tattered right now?

Answer: No, . . . I do not think there is any growing apart in the instinctive way that the British and Americans both look at world problems and the extent of their communal self-interest . . . .

I do not, myself, ever use the term “special relationship.” I do think there is a natural alliance of interests between the United Kingdom and the United States, and I think that remains, and I think that is going to remain in the future.

That does not mean that on each and every issue we will take precisely the same view. And that has not been the case in the past, it was not the case in the Reagan/Thatcher years, it was not the case in earlier years. There have often been shades of different opinion. But the broad perspective that we both have upon the world is remarkably similar, the way in which we approach problems is remarkably similar, the outcome that we want in international problems is almost invariably similar . . . .

Ask yourself the fundamental question: If the United States, in difficulty, wanted to look round for someone who would be likely to line up on their side of their fence, where would they look? And ask the question of the British: If they wanted to look around the world to find someone who would be likely to line up on their side, where would they look? Push aside the froth and bubble and answer that question and then we can get on with serious matters.

Q: And no logical tension between the wish to be more a part of Europe as against the U.S.-Britain alliance?

A: It is often felt that we cannot be at the heart of Europe and retain a special relationship with the United States. If I may say so, I think the argument is precisely the reverse of that: It actually enhances the relationship we have with the United States if we are in a position to influence all our European partners. I think the argument needs to be viewed though that end of the telescope.

It is not a question of choosing one against the other, it is not a competition where you have to line up on one team or on another team . . . . I do not think we have to choose--and I have no intention of choosing between the United States and our European partners.

Q: Do you have any feelings of sympathy for President Clinton and for the battering he is taking?

A: Yes, of course, I have a lot of sympathy for him, for (Japanese Prime Minister Kiichi) Miyazawa and for (German Chancellor Helmut) Kohl, and for (French President Francois) Mitterrand, and for (Italian Prime Minister Carlo) Ciampi, and for (Spanish Prime Minister Felipe) Gonzalez and for (Russian President Boris) Yeltsin.

You can go all the way round the world, it is absolutely the case that people feel pretty aggrieved with political systems. They are pretty aggrieved because of the recession and the people currently in charge must expect to be pretty unpopular and to have a pretty difficult period.

From the point of view of the President, (when) he came into office, I think there were unrealistic expectations about what anyone could have done in the short term economically. And he also had that devil’s brew of Bosnia sitting on his desk, There is no ready, easy solution to that question. It is not a question of “America giving leadership” and the problems going away. It is an almost insoluble torment for anyone to have to deal with and he has been very unfortunate that he has been pitched into that (Bosnia) before he has been established and dealt with other problems satisfactorily--as I am sure he will.

Q: On Tuesday, the President said about Bosnia that he felt the option of bombing and ending the arms embargo was still on the table. Are those basically still no-go options for the British government?

A: We do not think they are the best options, not remotely, and we set out earlier what we think the best options are, it is an evolving scene . . . . The American Administration had been seeking agreement on an intensely difficult issue with their European partners. We have all had to pitch our own particular argument into the common pool to find the right way forward, we have done that, the French have done that, the United States has done that--and thus far we have been able to find a way forward that we could all accept. Nobody thinks any of the ways forward are perfect . . . .

Q: Is there any solution if the Serbs do not accept the created safe havens?

A: There is no easy option. One might as well face the reality, you either put in several hundred thousand troops and hold the combatants apart, or you continue to try and find a diplomatic solution and ameliorate the humanitarian difficulties. There is no middle way . . . .

Q: Leaders today are disadvantaged by what might be called the “CNN syndrome.” Everything has to happen so quickly. Does it get on your nerves?

A: It doesn’t get on my nerves. It is a fact of life. I think it is bad for government. I think the idea that you automatically have to have a policy for everything before it happens and respond to things before you have had a chance to evaluate them properly isn’t sensible.

It also leads to instant unthinking opposition. I am getting used to the fact that I am about to deliver a speech and, on the media, either before or fractionally after I have made a speech, there are a series of opposition leaders denouncing a speech they have not heard and almost certainly haven’t read and what are they doing it on? They are doing it on the basis of someone who themselves probably has not read the speech, has been told down the line that the speech might just possibly say “x” and have put the question to the politician concerned, who then roundly denounces it. He hasn’t seen the context, doesn’t understand the background, hasn’t been briefed on it, hasn’t thought about it and thinks his job is to oppose it.

It is barmy! Absolutely barmy! It is a piece of madness that you find throughout the Western industrial democracies at the same moment. It may go away after a while. People may get fed up with the artificiality of politics at this trivial level.

. . . It is up to the politicians. They should say to the people who ask them questions: “Buzz off! I haven’t had time to consider it. When I have considered, I will give you an answer!”

Q: You were credited with almost winning the election on your own. And, yet, just a little more than a year later, you find yourself under fire. What happened?

A: Fiddle-de-dee! I said . . . the day after we won the election, with a number of people around me: “Within the next 12 months the government will be the most unpopular we have seen for a long time!”

Nothing in the interim has changed my judgment about that. It was staggeringly prescient. It perhaps hasn’t come about in quite the way I had imagined but it has.

We have been here for 14 years. There is no one else one can blame for anything that has gone wrong. We are in the midst of a recession that has been longer and nastier than we have known for a long time. Of course, people are fed up. It will look different in 12 months time when (economic improvement) begins to ripple though. But at the moment, if you have number of backbenchers in the Conservative Party forming a circular firing squad and opening fire, there is going to be a bit of blood on the floor--and that, broadly, is what we have seen.

Q: You have emphasized the issue of class in the society, the rich and the poor. But you are not a Labor Party prime minister, you are a Tory prime minister. Comment?

A: Sure! Let me give you an illustration: Go to Italy! What skill is the most admired in Italy? An engineer. That is the person who would find himself pretty much at the top of the class.

Go to this country over recent years and where do you expect your brightest and your best to go? They come out of university, they go into the civil service, they might go into Fleet Street, they might go into the City (the financial district). I don’t want them in Fleet Street, the City and the civil service. I want a fair slug of them out there in industry. We haven’t got that and why?

One of the reasons why is the indefinable social cachet, that difference between what are perceived as blue collar-related jobs and what are perceived as white-collar jobs. Who is more valuable, the person working in the office who doesn’t have a great deal of responsibility or the plumber who actually gets on his overalls and goes out and does the work?

There is deep in the British instinct over generations an indefinable distinction that has been drawn between the two and it is ludicrous. The person with the practical manual skills is as valuable to this country as the person with academic skills. We have got to build up the importance of manual skills and that means getting the best brains to do it and the means not having this artificial social cachet against it.

Q: The snobbery?

A: I am not over-concerned about class. I don’t give a tuppeny hoot about much of it, I really don’t. And nobody should misunderstand what I am talking about. I am not talking about changing our traditions, abolishing the House of Lords and all that. . . . I am very proud of our traditions and I wouldn’t want to change any of what I would call the vivid tapestry of the British way of life.

But I do want to change that ingrained, entrenched, damaging attitude because it is not only damaging socially but damaging in terms of our own economic self-interest. I want people with those particular skills to develop the products of the fine minds that come out of our universities.

I don’t want us having some magnificent invention and then having it developed by Japan, Europe or the United States. I want it developed here, so I need the people with the practical skills here, and I must create the climate in which people are prepared to go out and use their manual skills, building roads, building bridges, plumbing, building houses, whatever it may be with exactly the same attraction as they would go into the City.

When we reach a situation where I can find an average couple with a youngster having (passed his exams), who say to that youngster going to university “We are as happy if you go out and do something like building bridges as we are if you go into a job that will lead you to become governor of the Bank of England!” Then we will have achieved something of value for this country. I put it in those personal terms, but I feel passionately about that. We have sold ourselves short and it is time we changed.