In an exclusive interview with The Independent, Lord Hague discusses with Geordie Greig his campaign to win election as Chancellor to the University of Oxford. The former foreign secretary explains his opinions on what the statue of Cecil Rhodes, his love of history and how his experience as a student shapes his view on opening Oxford to more state-educated students.In the wide-ranging interview, Hague maintains his stance on Donald Trump being a threat to democracy as US President and the Right have strayed from the ideals of Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan.
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00:00Welcome to Independent Television, my name is Geordie Greig, I'm the Editor-in-Chief of The
00:03Independent, and my guest today is William Hague, one of the most prominent Conservative politicians,
00:11former Foreign Secretary, a figure of great authority as a columnist on The Times,
00:19and now running to be Chancellor of the University of Oxford.
00:25William, welcome. Hello, thank you. 800 years ago there was the first Chancellor,
00:31what are you going to bring to the pitch after that long legacy in history?
00:35It has changed quite a bit in 800 years, yes, I mean originally the Chancellor was sorting out
00:40how the city and the university worked, and was a figure of great authority,
00:45and then it's gone through many changes over all that time. These days the Vice-Chancellor
00:49runs the university, so the Chancellor does not do that, but the Chancellor is the head of the
00:56university and expresses the values of the university, and is responsible for leading
01:02the choice of the Vice-Chancellor. What are you personally going to have which is going to give
01:06you the edge over other candidates, and we'll talk about the other candidates, and there's one
01:10obviously particular candidate who is running against you from a very different point of view.
01:14Well for me Oxford transformed my life. I turned up from a comprehensive school
01:19in South Yorkshire when I was 18 years old, 17 for the interview, I didn't know anybody in the
01:24city of Oxford, no one in my family had ever been to university before, and I feel that all the
01:29things I've gone on to do in life, a lot of that I attribute to Oxford, and I have retained the
01:36involvement in Oxford ever since then. So when Oxford was running out of money, some years after
01:42I and you left Oxford in the late 80s, Oxford really was running out of money, and they came
01:49to the firm I was working for at the time saying how do we do an appeal for funds, and I volunteered
01:53to do the work, and we set up the campaign for Oxford, which has gone on to raise billions of
01:59pounds for Oxford, and completely transform its financial situation, and I helped design that,
02:05and I've gone back to teach as a fellow of my college regularly on history and politics,
02:11so I've always retained the Oxfordism as my heart and soul is in Oxford, but the other thing is that
02:17the crucial thing is that in the next decade, which is what this is for, this is an election
02:21for someone to serve for the next 10 years, what happens in Oxford is critical to the future of the
02:25whole country, and I think it needs a Chancellor who will explain that, and will articulate that,
02:32so you know that people noticed it in Covid, oh the vaccine came from Oxford, because they had all
02:38that expertise, well there are things going on there across science and technology critical to
02:43the future. So we'll come on to the broad advantages of Oxford being strong, but let's go
02:50back to when you arrived, not knowing a soul, was it quite intimidating, I mean was it quite a posh
02:57place with most of the students? Yes. And were they, did you feel patronised? No Laurie, it was a
03:05posh place with its own traditions, and in most of the colleges, including mine, women were only
03:11just being admitted for the first time, so it had a very male public school atmosphere, so that was a
03:19bit strange to me, however I've never felt intimidated by that, in fact I've always thought
03:25it was an advantage in life to have, you know, to have gone to a school where there were 1800 pupils
03:30in my case, and 900 of those were girls, so actually I was much more used to a more social variety,
03:37more diversity if you like, although we wouldn't have called it that then. But it was quite
03:42Bridesheadian at that time, Hugh Grant was there, Nigella Lawson were contemporaries of yours,
03:48did you know them? No, no I didn't know them, so there will have been social circles I
03:54didn't mix in, but I never actually found that holding me back, I still became President of the
04:01Union and did all sorts of other things in Oxford, so I always thought it was quite an advantage to
04:06have come from a, to have been well grounded, if you like, to have come from the Yorkshire Coalfield
04:12and turned up there from a school where nobody'd been to Oxford for a very long time, okay I didn't
04:19have all those pre-existing friendships and I wasn't in all the posh dining clubs that have
04:25become so notorious since, you know, everybody knows. You've probably saved your career. Yes, yeah exactly,
04:30the Bullingdon Club and all that, that was not my scene at all. Were you aware of that going on?
04:36Yes, a little bit, yes, yes, but I wouldn't say that dominated Oxford life even then, and I made lifelong
04:43friendships there, so I'm a huge believer in Oxford, and the other thing, the other reason I'm standing is I
04:50think it, just as I was instrumental in the original development campaign for Oxford to raise money,
04:57it needs bigger endowment now. We have to ensure that students can get to Oxford, irrespective of
05:03background, at a time when tuition fees are going to be going up again, as the new government
05:08have announced. So that means raising more endowment to be able to support people to go to
05:15Oxford, and for that you need to know America, because that is where the wealth is in the world
05:20today, and the culture of giving the wealth, so they need a Chancellor who knows America
05:27very well, and I know America very well. When you say you know America, and of course you do, but your
05:33biggest challenger is a man who may be the ambassador for Britain in America. Is it a job
05:41which someone can do from 3,000 miles away, or do you think it's, that is a job, that is a
05:46distance too far? Well let me put it this way, that's not how I would approach it, I don't want
05:51to criticise any other candidates, people must make their own judgment, but to my approach...
05:57No, but people do want your view on this, because you've fought elections, you know your opponents.
06:02I'm going to give my view of what I would, how I regard it, and how I regard it is that it's
06:07necessary if you're the Chancellor to be able to go there frequently, you know, the current, the
06:13recent Chancellor Chris Patten has been several dozen times a year to events in Oxford, not only
06:18to the big ceremonies, but to do college fundraising events, and to celebrate success
06:24in Oxford. So it is important to be accessible and to be there, so personally I don't regard
06:31it as compatible. I think you're very diplomatically saying... Well I am diplomatically saying yes, that it's
06:36not, it's not compatible with a full-time employment in another country, as gentle
06:44as I can, as gently as I can put it. But you're used to quite un-gentle elections, this is a
06:51characteristic of... But this is a different election, you know, this is not meant to be like a general
06:56election, it's not a political choice, it's really important that whoever is the
07:02Chancellor can work across parties, and which I have done, and all the papers I've written with
07:08Tony Blair in recent times, you know, and in the Prevention, Sexual Violence and Conflict Initiative
07:14that I launched, I'm used to working across parties. So it's not a political election, and it's not an
07:18election where we should do each other down, the election has to enhance the reputation of the
07:24University of Oxford, just like that. That's also a key part of the job of the next Chancellor,
07:29to enhance the reputation. So that's why I'm being more diplomatic than I might have been in
07:34elections in the past. I can sense that. Peter Banderson has described the job quite flippantly as a
07:43you are merely going to be, or he is merely going to be, a ceremonial figurehead. Is that a little
07:49bit dismissive of a role which goes back to such people as the Duke of Wellington having that
07:54role, Archbishop Lord? Some of them have only been ceremonial figureheads, but the job has changed
08:01since then. It's changed in the last 20 years, and of course it does include going to ceremonies and
08:06being the figurehead. That's an essential part, which also requires physical presence,
08:11of course, in the country and in the University. But these days it involves much more, actually.
08:17It involves, as I said, many fundraising events, many celebrations of Oxford. And in my view,
08:25I go back to what I was saying about articulating to the country what Oxford is, because I would
08:31like to be doing things like this with you and podcasts and so on, if I was the Chancellor,
08:37explaining Oxford, the brilliance of people in Oxford across different fields, because they're
08:43doing the work on nuclear fusion and quantum encryption and biologically sourced materials
08:49that might replace plastic, and then it's how you merge all of these things in AI with ethics and
08:54philosophy and language and history, and this is Oxford. And so it's going to be really important
09:01to be active and energetic in explaining that. Those are the high notes. I absolutely get it. It can be a transformative
09:08laboratory for our country. It can be a challenger sense of people being given empowerment to do
09:17great things. It's complicated universities today. So what are your views on students demanding
09:26safe places? I'm not a fan of what they mean by that, of course, students must be... Can you explain
09:33what it means to you and why you're not a fan of that? It's really important that students are safe,
09:38physically, but we should not cater too much to the idea of safe psychological spaces or spaces
09:46that are safe from debate or controversial opinion. In fact, my own experience of Oxford was the very
09:51opposite of that, of constantly debating in the Oxford Union, differing points of view, of even
09:57being ready at a moment's notice to take the opposite point of view, to show that you could
10:02actually understand the opposite point of view. So I think an important part of learning is hearing
10:08things that make you uncomfortable, hearing things that actually make you question many of the
10:14assumptions with which you arrive at university. And this notion of trigger warnings before Shakespeare
10:19and other controversial areas within a play or within an art show? I don't go in for that. No,
10:28I don't think that's necessary. I think people have, for 500 years, people have been coping with
10:34those things, with seeing these things. So no, I think it's very important to, in Oxford and in
10:43all universities, to get ready for the debating chambers of the world, not echo chambers of
10:48like-minded people, where people stop hearing contrary opinions. And if you'd been Chancellor
10:57in the last year or so, the determination of whether Cecil Rhodes should have had his statue
11:05pulled down because of his links to slavery, where do you stand on this great debate of reparation
11:11and apologising and facing up to some terrible things which did happen? Well, there are terrible
11:18things. And in fact, one of the books that I've written was the life of William Wilberforce,
11:23great Yorkshire Member of Parliament, who was in Parliament, led the campaign to abolish the
11:30slave trade. And so that's been a big thing in my own life and study of the world, the horrors
11:39of the slave trade, the efforts in Britain to abolish it. But that does not mean that we
11:46reject the learning from the history of people who took a different view in previous ages,
11:53because they were creatures of their time. And Wilberforce was one of those who led that change
11:58and was a fantastic leader as a result. I get that, but I want to come back to what's today,
12:03there are going to be some difficult decisions made by those who... There are difficult decisions.
12:07You are going to be on the side of people having to face sensitive subjects and not be
12:16what some people have termed a snowflake generation. Yeah, it will be important not
12:21to be a snowflake generation because the world we're heading into now is a pretty dangerous world.
12:28You know, look at recent political events where the world is getting more dangerous,
12:35with more polarisation. People have to be ready for that. They have to be equipped
12:41for that. So no, we mustn't have a snowflake generation. Of course, the standards and times
12:47change as well. So no one, I don't think anyone would say every statue that's ever been put up
12:52has got to stay there. You know, if there were statues of Hitler still up in Germany, we would
12:57say, no, no, no, really, you ought to take those down. So of course, our times change, we adjust
13:04our street furniture for that. But on the whole, we should remember that we have to learn from
13:09history. That does not mean that we extinguish the memory of everything that we disagree with,
13:15however much we disagree. And history, even as a syllabus, is a controversial subject.
13:22What filter it should go through? Does it go through race, chronology, kings, queens? What's
13:28your view on the traditional or turning history upside down so it comes through a different filter?
13:33You do have to look at it both ways. I have a huge sympathy with the fact that to really
13:40understand history, you have to understand social and economic conditions. But you also have to know
13:47about those kings or those dictators, because even in our own age, individual leaders wield
13:56enormous power and change the course of history. You know, I do belong to the school of thought
14:01that sometimes the individual changes the course of history. But would you have a narrative history?
14:05That's been the great debate, whether you go from king to king and it's all... Do you come in and
14:11say you see it through a gender perspective, a race perspective? I don't think there is a...
14:18The real trick is to combine all of these things. But my own history, you know, the history I've
14:23written and the way I... And by the way, the Chancellor will not be setting the history
14:28syllabus. But my own approach is more narrative, because I think you need the... I do think you need
14:35the knowledge of history and of events in order to interpret it. It's not really true, I think,
14:43that the skills of interpretation can be acquired in the absence of knowledge, in the abstract.
14:48You really do have to know what happened in what year and what century, as far as best as we can
14:53determine now. You may be able to influence, because you will have a voice, a different voice
14:58from the previous jobs you had. Cambridge was quite controversial in loading the entrance
15:07to give more favour to working-class teenagers to gain access. Do you think Oxford is still too
15:15privileged? Would you like to see the balance changed to allow more working-class
15:21entrants? It's been very important that it has changed, you know, compared to what you were asking me about
15:27when I arrived. And it's now far more. There are far more state school pupils at Oxford.
15:34It goes up and down from year to year. Covid hasn't helped. You learned it. But people should
15:42get in on their interview and their quote, irrespective of where they come from. Now, that requires a lot
15:47of judgment by admissions tutors and so on, but I don't think there is any magic number, you know.
15:53It will be very good if we continue to see the advance of state schools and university
15:58places. I've had some good meetings with the 93% Club, which is the student organisation that
16:04celebrates the 93% like me who came from state school in the population as a whole. Oxford and
16:11Cambridge aren't anywhere near 93%. But it's also important not to discriminate against somebody
16:17just because they didn't go to a state school. Did you work hard when you were there?
16:23I did in the end. I played hard. Let's pause there. In the end. So what happened in the beginning?
16:31I had quite a good time and I stood for election to everything that anyone could
16:38stand for election to virtually. So I was very busy with all that. Learned about the practice of
16:42politics a lot. But then I put on a spurt at the end, you know. I immersed myself in the academic
16:49side at the very end. And what was your degree at the end? I did get a first, but I don't want to
16:54make people feel sick about that because I only worked at the end. However, I've always thought
17:01that the practical experience and academic study are a really good combination. That is true and
17:07that's true in physics, but it's also true in politics as it turns out.
17:12Now, your political experience is obviously going to be a big advantage. You've got an address book
17:17which goes from probably Moscow to Madagascar with leaders. Yeah, the Moscow bit isn't very
17:24useful at the moment since I'm sanctioned by Russia. We've just had Donald Trump elected.
17:32You have been very firm on this. You said we all need Trump to lose. He represents a dark cult
17:39that threatens freedom everywhere. His foul diatribe against those who cross him and refusal
17:46to accept legitimate election results makes him a threat to democracy. Do you stand by that?
17:51Yes, absolutely. Of course, the UK has to work with whoever is the President of the United States.
17:56Thankfully, I'm not the government of the UK, but we can all have our opinion about it. I think the
18:04appointments that have been announced in the last few days do suggest that I might be right.
18:13Explain to the viewers what those appointments are and why they are abhorrent to you.
18:20Well, some of the appointments, such as to the Director of National Intelligence,
18:26are people who have said very favourable things about Russia before. The Defence Secretary
18:31is going to be a Fox News host, nothing against news hosts, of course,
18:35but somebody who hasn't run a major organisation or the military.
18:40But again, explain your giving me facts rather than views. What does it matter to you
18:50that there's a bias towards Russia and there's a populist right-wing TV presenter? Is this
18:59unserious government? Is this going to undo serious governance?
19:04Well, it's several things. Partly, it is about serious governance because government does require
19:10some experience and understanding, particularly of how to make large organisations work. But
19:17there's something much bigger, of course, which affects all of us, which is what will happen in
19:23Europe, Europe including Britain, because although we've left the EU, we haven't actually gone
19:28anywhere. We are still part of Europe, the continent of Europe, and there is a desperate
19:34crisis going on in Ukraine. And we don't know exactly what the Trump administration will do,
19:41but there are a lot of noises that have come out of the Trump side as they come in,
19:46very sceptical about supporting Ukraine, much more favourable to Russia. And if Ukraine
19:51collapses and is not able to function as a sovereign country in the future, there are
19:57serious consequences to that in Europe and in Britain. And then there is the whole trade policy
20:04side of it, because if there is a trade war between the United States and the EU, the UK
20:09is caught in the middle of that, and that will affect jobs here in the UK. So it is not just
20:16how it matters to me, it matters to everybody in Britain. But he's been elected fair and square,
20:22and the UK government has to find the best way to work with that.
20:27How will this affect the Conservative Party? Will they potentially lurch to the right to
20:32replicate Trump's success and move closer to Farage? Well, I hope not. I think that would be
20:39a mistake. I mean, it's not something I would agree with anyway. And I think, to me, it's not
20:48really being conservative to advocate huge budget deficits, to move against free trade,
20:55to refuse to defend a democratic nation under attack. Ronald Reagan wouldn't recognise that
21:04as being conservative. Margaret Thatcher wouldn't recognise that as being conservative. So I really
21:09wouldn't want the Conservative Party to go in that direction. I think it's a ditch Farage,
21:13in the end. They've got to have a strong enough identity to win the centre-right vote,
21:21having discarded him. Yes, basically, yes. I don't think the Conservatives will win future
21:28elections by just trying to be a version of the Reform Party. People voted against the
21:35Conservatives for many, many reasons after 14 years in office. But one of them was they didn't
21:39think the Conservatives were competent anymore, irrespective of right-wing or left-wing. And when
21:46you actually look at the surveys of the people who didn't vote Conservative in the election,
21:52those who voted Labour or Liberal Democrat, of whom there were many, not just people who voted
21:56Reform, are actually more likely, potentially more likely, to be won back again than the people
22:01who voted for Reform. So the Conservative Party really has to make sure it's in a position to win
22:08back those people who voted Labour and Liberal. And then it might, in the future, also win back
22:14the people who voted Reform. So you became Tory leader after Tony Blair's 1997 landslide,
22:23but lost the 2001 election by another landslide, and then you left the role as leader. The Tories
22:31had two more leaders then, Ian Duncan Smith and Michael Howard, and lost a total of three elections
22:39before Cameron became Prime Minister in 2010. By that reckoning, the Tories won't be back in power
22:46until 2037. Can Kemi Badenoch do any better? Yes, she can. She can. I mean, hopefully she'll do
22:57better than me in many respects. But there's a big factor, of course, here that is not within
23:05her control and wasn't within mine, which is that I was up against the most popular government that
23:10we've had in Britain for a long time. I mean, I've mentioned how I've teamed up with Tony Blair.
23:16I've decided the least successful part of my life was opposing him. So now we work together on a lot
23:25of issues, on science and AI and biotech, trying to urge people in all political parties to
23:31understand that's where the growth is in the future. Come back to Kemi. Yes, at that time,
23:39of course, the Conservative Party couldn't get any traction because Blair in office was extremely
23:43popular. This is a different situation, and actually the main determinant of the opportunities
23:49you have as an opposition leader is how is the government doing? And the Labour government now
23:55have become unpopular very, very quickly. In fact, Conservatives are even slightly in the lead in some
24:00opinion polls already, just having lost the election only four months ago. Well, that is not
24:06a luxury that I was ever able to enjoy. So they have a bigger opportunity. That does not mean it's
24:12easy, though. And here I have to be a bit more discouraging, if you like, or challenging to the
24:19Conservatives, which is you still have to change. People will remember why they voted out a
24:26government. They don't just forget in four years. So the Conservatives do have to do the hard work
24:32of rethinking conservatism for a new decade. Is Kemi the person to do that? Well, I hope so.
24:40I voted for her when we came down to the last choice, and she is certainly a person people
24:50find very interesting, quite rightly. Is she the new Maggie, as some people claim?
24:54Well, we'll see. I think it would be... I don't think we should claim anything. It's too early to
25:01claim anything like that. You got claimed by Maggie very early on as the potential for great
25:07political... Yes, well, that never did me any good. So I won't claim that from Kemi Badanok.
25:14But she's had the very good sense, which is one of the key reasons I voted for her in the contest
25:20with Robert Jenrick, to say, well, we start from values and principles. Don't rush into policies.
25:26This is very smart because, again, we are in the fastest age of change ever in our lives,
25:32actually probably ever in the lives of any humans in the next decade. And all kinds of
25:38policies will be obsolete. The laws are being passed by the new government about working,
25:44rather rights of people at work. But they're dealing with issues of the last decade or two
25:50there were many new issues about how AI is affecting work in the next few years and
25:56political parties are going to have to respond to that kind of... Oxford's going to be lucky to get you
26:02if they can see the qualities which you can exude with a love of scholarship, a love of fighting
26:09for what you believe, a moral sensibility and with the mantle of an elder statesman
26:17on the political landscape. One of the things which always struck me is how you got the better
26:24of Tony Blair in PMQs. He may have won the elections, but you did often
26:32beat him in that chamber. How did that come about?
26:38Well, I have always enjoyed debating. I started at 13. I went to a comprehensive school,
26:44but they had a standing up debating and English classes when I was 13 years old.
26:49So I did arrive in Oxford with a debating and speaking mentality and then did all that at
26:55Oxford. So by the time I get to the House of Commons, that's what I do. I debate in a formal
27:02setting. So I've always enjoyed that. Also, I realised I had really nothing else going for me
27:10at all. The Conservatives were down and out. The reputation of the party was terrible.
27:17Nobody was interested in the opposition at all. So how was I going to lay a glove on the other
27:25side, on Tony Blair and the Labour Party? Well, at least I could show every Wednesday that I
27:30could out-argue them and I could get the better of them in a debate or even make them laugh at
27:35themselves about some of the ridiculous situations they were in. So I was very motivated by that
27:41to show that although he was a dominant political leader, I could still tackle him on the floor of
27:47the House. Is there a particular part of the Oxford curriculum, I'm imagining it's history,
27:56which you're going to be particularly interested in?
27:59Well, it's really important for a Chancellor, as I mentioned, to cherish all disciplines, really.
28:05Now, you can tell talking to me, you know what I'm interested in. Yes, I love history and I've
28:12written two history books. These days, though, I have really, in the last few years, I think,
28:18hopefully understood that in order to appreciate what's going to happen in the future and to
28:24understand geopolitics and economics and business trends now, you really have to be on top of
28:29science and technology. So I'm not a scientist and I regret, really, that in my time you really had
28:37to choose at 14. I think there's a strong case for the International Baccalaureate in Secondary
28:43Education, the broader education, because I had to drop my physics and my biology when I was 14
28:48years old. And that now, I find all that area absolutely fascinating. It's going to be quite
28:58gladiatorial if it comes down to, as the feeling is, it'll be you versus Peter Mantleson. It might
29:07not be, but there are five candidates. There are five candidates, but the bookies and the common
29:13wisdom is that you are the two most prominent likely to garner votes. What gives you the edge
29:22over him? Well, I'm honestly not running against other candidates. Well, you are. No, but that's not
29:31how I'm thinking of it. I respect all the other candidates and if people judge that they're better,
29:36they should be elected. You know, it's not that sort of election. So the world will come to an
29:40end if you don't vote for me. This is a different sort of thing. So what gives me the, why do I
29:48think I ought to be elected? Why am I standing despite the fact there are other good candidates
29:52for the position? Well, it's that long experience of fundraising and commitment to Oxford and that
30:02I think I could have a good shot at articulating to the world what Oxford is about and why it needs
30:10Oxford. Listen, you're a very strong voice. You're an extraordinary advocate for things you
30:15believe in. It can be read every week in your column and you're a dignified fighter. You don't
30:23like getting too done and dirty. There was a slight dig at you by Mandelson, if I can come
30:29back to this. You know, he said it's time the Oxford Chancellor was not a white male conservative.
30:36Clearly, he was pointing the finger at Lord Haig of Richmond. Well, there are two things to say to
30:42that, you know, without criticising anybody. Not that we want to do that. But just responding,
30:49of course, there are things to say. One is that it's very important it's the best candidate,
30:54irrespective of their politics or their gender. It's not a political position. It's a position
31:02where you have to work across parties. You have to think of somebody as a Labour Chancellor or a
31:06Tory Chancellor. It's a fundamental misunderstanding of the position. And the other thing, of course,
31:12is that there have been good chancellors who were not Tory. They were white males,
31:17but they were not Tory. Roy Jenkins was one of the greatest figures in the Labour Party
31:22of the last hundred years. And he quashed Edward Heath and Robert Lake, the historian.
31:27Exactly. Sent packing. And so, you know, the idea it's always been a Tory who's been the
31:32Chancellor is not historically correct. Let's end with, if you could talk to the 28,000 or
31:45so voters who are going to decide who becomes the next Chancellor in the 800th year of this
31:55historic role. What's your simple message, what William Hague will do and why it matters to you?
32:03Well, my heart and soul are in Oxford and there's a really important job to be done of explaining
32:09Oxford to the world and of making sure it's well funded for the future. And the experiences I've
32:15had over the last 40 years since leaving Oxford have equipped me to do that. But I stress that
32:22if people think there are a better candidate, they should elect them. They should come to that
32:29view. They should read the statements. Each candidate has prepared a statement. All I would
32:35ask people to do is to read those statements and come to a view as to who should be the next
32:40Chancellor. Well, it is famously the city of dreaming spars and you must hope that your dream
32:46to lead the University does become a reality. William Hague, we wish you the very best of luck.
32:54Thank you very much indeed.