1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:01,000 Open Forum 2 1975 FOU2662D 2 00:00:01,000 --> 00:00:03,000 (Jennie Lee) We always start, it's a kind of hallowed beginning… 3 00:00:04,000 --> 00:00:10,000 ..about a speech made by the Leader of the Opposition then, Mr Harold Wilson… 4 00:00:11,000 --> 00:00:19,000 ..on September 8th 1963 in Glasgow. He wasn't so ingenuous… 5 00:00:20,000 --> 00:00:25,000 ..as to think when he made that speech that he was inventing the mass media. 6 00:00:26,000 --> 00:00:28,000 A great deal of educational work had been done at all levels… 7 00:00:29,000 --> 00:00:33,000 ..at all the lower levels for infancy, for the younger years, adult education 8 00:00:34,000 --> 00:00:38,000 ..and the rest of it and done in very many parts of the world. 9 00:00:39,000 --> 00:00:44,000 But in 1963 we were leading up to the 1964 General Election and… 10 00:00:45,000 --> 00:00:50,000 ..he was very much at that time in love with the concept of the… 11 00:00:51,000 --> 00:00:55,000 ..technical revolution, that we were all going to become richer and happier… 12 00:00:56,000 --> 00:01:03,000 ..and life made easier for us by a more intelligent use of modern techniques. 13 00:01:04,000 --> 00:01:11,000 And in that mood he visited Moscow and Chicago, and there… 14 00:01:12,000 --> 00:01:17,000 ..he was inspired by the concept of using the mass media... 15 00:01:18,000 --> 00:01:21,000 ..radio, television, films, the cassettes coming on and all the rest of it... 16 00:01:22,000 --> 00:01:30,000 ..in order to make available to an immensely wide public the higher levels… 17 00:01:31,000 --> 00:01:38,000 ..of education. No compromise, no academic compromise on the university stage. 18 00:01:39,000 --> 00:01:45,000 Now you may wonder why, as he cared so much for this project… 19 00:01:46,000 --> 00:01:50,000 ..that a Junior Minister - because Minister of State sounds very grand... 20 00:01:51,000 --> 00:01:54,000 ..but a Minister of State in a Ministry of Education and Science is... 21 00:01:55,000 --> 00:02:00,000 ..a Junior Minister - why I was asked to carry through this project... 22 00:02:01,000 --> 00:02:06,000 ..particularly as I was already a cuckoo in the nest in the DES not welcomed at all… 23 00:02:07,000 --> 00:02:11,000 ..because they felt they had enough children before I arrived (laughter)... 24 00:02:12,000 --> 00:02:16,000 ..and I was not doing any straight-forward work of an under-secretary… 25 00:02:17,000 --> 00:02:21,000 ..I was totally, as you know, engaged in beginning to promote the arts. 26 00:02:22,000 --> 00:02:27,000 And I was able to survive only because I negotiated my money directly… 27 00:02:28,000 --> 00:02:32,000 ..with the Treasury and I dealt only with the Prime Minister. 28 00:02:33,000 --> 00:02:39,000 Now, I mention that because it was a lead-in to what followed. 29 00:02:40,000 --> 00:02:48,000 Now when Harold Wilson made his speech in '63 then formed his government in '64… 30 00:02:49,000 --> 00:02:54,000 ..he was very keen to promote this concept of an Open University. 31 00:02:55,000 --> 00:03:01,000 But he found that he could get n o response at all from either the senior officials… 32 00:03:02,000 --> 00:03:06,000 ..or ministers in the Department of Education and Science. 33 00:03:07,000 --> 00:03:11,000 He found he couldn't get a kind look from either the senior officials or... 34 00:03:12,000 --> 00:03:17,000 ..the ministers in the Treasury. He found that among his Cabinet colleagues... 35 00:03:18,000 --> 00:03:24,000 ..that he himself had appointed, that there was either total indifference… 36 00:03:25,000 --> 00:03:32,000 ..or a rather supercilious hostility. And the curious thing about this hostility… 37 00:03:33,000 --> 00:03:37,000 ..was that it did not follow the normal left right divisions inside the... 38 00:03:38,000 --> 00:03:43,000 ..Labour Party. Dick Crossman on the left, was just as unimpressed… 39 00:03:44,000 --> 00:03:49,000 ..to put it gently, as Roy Jenkins and Tony Crosland on the right. 40 00:03:50,000 --> 00:03:54,000 So here was your poor Prime Minister anxious to go ahead 41 00:03:55,000 --> 00:04:02,000 ..with a scheme which he deeply believed in but how could he set about it? 42 00:04:03,000 --> 00:04:08,000 So I was a kind of last resort. So he comes to me and he says... 43 00:04:09,000 --> 00:04:14,000 .."For God's sake get this thing going!" and I said "Right, Harold… 44 00:04:15,000 --> 00:04:20,000 ..but on the same terms as we worked together in promoting the arts. 45 00:04:21,000 --> 00:04:25,000 That I deal only with you and I negotiate directly... 46 00:04:26,000 --> 00:04:28,000 ..for the money with the Treasury and you help!" (laughter) 47 00:04:31,000 --> 00:04:35,000 And, fair's fair, both in The Open University and before that… 48 00:04:36,000 --> 00:04:38,000 ..on the arts side, he never let me down. 49 00:04:39,000 --> 00:04:41,000 But I'm only showing you the difficulties, there's no such thing you know, 50 00:04:42,000 --> 00:04:44,000 ..as a Prime Minister being able simply to press a button... 51 00:04:45,000 --> 00:04:50,000 ..and get his own way because whenever public expenditure is involved 52 00:04:51,000 --> 00:04:55,000 ..then it has got to have the sanction of the Treasury ministers… 53 00:04:56,000 --> 00:04:59,000 ..then it has got to come and it's got to have the sanction of Cabinet… 54 00:05:00,000 --> 00:05:03,000 ..and if there's a consensus of opinion on his side in Cabinet… 55 00:05:04,000 --> 00:05:07,000 ..well, you can go ahead. But if there's not a consensus of opinion… 56 00:05:08,000 --> 00:05:11,000 ..Prime Ministers are not dictators in this country.