JOHN HUMPHRYS:                Jack Straw, that is a problem 
for you isn't it. I mean Peter Kilfoyle and everybody else in that film 
accepts the government has done a lot of things. A lot of good things, 
Working Family's Tax Credit and so on. But, there is this problem that 
they don't believe you are doing enough for the heartlands. So that is 
something you have got to put right isn't it. 

JACK STRAW MP:                Well I think we are doing 
a great deal for the heartlands..

HUMPHRYS:                    ..enough..

STRAW:                    ..I think we're doing enough, 
I mean you never in one sense do enough but I'll go through what we are 
doing for the heartlands..

HUMPHRYS:                    Not a very long list 
if you wouldn't mind.

STRAW:                    Well it is a very long list 
actually, I'm sorry about that but..

HUMPHRYS:                    ..that you are doing 
many things like..

STRAW:                    One of the slightly depressing 
things about that film is that what wasn't ever said is what we are doing. 
Now, as it happens and nothing to do with the fact that I was on your programme, 
I had a meeting in my Blackburn constituency which is just as much a heartland 
for Labour as Peter's constituency, on Friday, with my activists, good 
activists. And I went through, in fact I've got it here, a list of the 
things we are doing...

HUMPHRYS:                    ..you're not going to 
read it all out..

STRAW:                    ..no I won't read it all 
out. But not only in terms of the abstract, but what we are doing, how 
these things translate in Blackburn. Now, the crucial thing, we had to 
do a huge amount more than we'd never...well we hadn't been able to do 
it for twenty years, but had been done before, was in terms of unemployment. 
And if you look at what the New Deal has done. The cancer in my constituency 
was it had young people out of work for month after month, no prospect. 
 You had over twenty-fives out of work two years or more, often put onto 
disability benefit when they weren't disabled, thrown on. chucked on the 
scrap heap. Now, we've got those figures down by, not by two-thirds, I'll 
just give you the figures, there were three hundred and sixty-four people 
in eighteen-to twenty-four year olds who've been unemployed for more than 
six months before the election, it's come down by two hundred and fifty, 
similar falls for the over twenty-fives. Let me just finish and I'll just 
summarise this, but it's really important - over twenty-fives who've been 
out of work for more than two years. The Working Family's Tax Credit is 
transforming the lives of people in Peter's constituency. Pensioners are 
getting all the extra help. There were references made to the Education 
Service, you can always find leaking roofs in schools because there are 
huge backlogs. But, I tell you, I see in my constituency before my eyes 
the transformation of the Education System by a combination of a very good 
unitary council and the money and the investment and the setting of standards 
that David Blunkett is putting in and then you come, for example - last 
point - but I mean this is what we are doing for our heartlands. Health 
Service, I've been campaigning for twenty years for a new hospital for 
Blackburn, I've got files this size, promises after promises from Conservative 
ministers saying you'll get it, okay, we never got it, we're now getting 
a sixty million pound hospital in Blackburn. 

HUMPHRYS:                    Now Peter Kilfoyle is 
obviously a constituents' MP just as you are, he talks to his activists, 
we saw him in that film and what he is seeing is what is portrayed by the 
government, he knows all those things that you are telling me..

STRAW:                    He's not saying very much 
of it though is he?

HUMPHRYS:                    No, no, but he knows 
all that. He is well aware, he was in the government for heaven's sake 
for a long time, he knows exactly, he's a great Blairite supporters. One 
of the men who wanted Tony Blair to take over the Labour Party and what 
he's saying is what is portrayed by the government doesn't resemble the 
reality of their lives and what they are concerned about is that you are 
not doing enough for public services and that you need to refocus on the 
public. You say health, you say education and they acknowledge somethings 
are being done but what they saying 'not enough' isn't that a fair point?

STRAW:                    You can always say not enough 
and of course it's the case at the moment that all spending ministers, 
including myself, but Alan Milburn and David Blunkett particularly because 
of the importance of education and health, are putting in their bids to 
the Treasury for more resources under the spending review which will be 
announced by Gordon Brown in July. You can always do more but the question 
I pose to Peter is this: what is he seriously asking for?

HUMPHRYS:                    I'll tell you one of 
the things he's asking for. I'll tell you one of the things that he and 
his activists are asking for and that is, take the Health Service, Tony 
Blair acknowledges you need another fifteen billion pounds to bring it 
up to the European average. You're giving away, giving away two billion 
pounds in tax cuts. Now he and his activists are saying: why do that? we 
could use that money for the Health Service, for Education or whatever. 


STRAW:                    Okay, of course. We used 
to say we'll just spend money on the public services and we'll stick tax 
up. What happened...

HUMPHRYS:                    ..not saying stick tax 
up, not give it away, don't cut it more. 

STRAW:                    I spent eighteen years in 
Opposition impotent, not able to do virtually anything for my constituents 
except complaint, alright. Also, we saw in the period, and I worked in 
that Government between 1974 and 1979, the consequences of a Labour Party 
coming into power saying yes, we'll spend, spend, spend and by God I saw 
it happening. For the first two years we did spend, spend, spend and we 
repented at our leisure and we were out of power for twenty years. Now, 
what we have done is to say we are going to run a sensible but tight fiscal 
and monetary policy and the equation we have to balance all the time is 
this: if we are going to do things, really important things for our heartlands, 
we have to have on board everybody else in our society, otherwise apart 
from anything else..

HUMPHRYS:                    You've got to keep the 
middle class happy is what you are saying in nutshell..

STRAW:                    Well we are a one nation 
party but it stands to reason we've discovered this. We had a research 
programme on this called Our Disaster in 1992, that if you send out a message 
to middle income people you are going to tax them too much, then they will 
not vote for you. 

HUMPHRYS:                    So it's only political 
really, you chop a couple of pence off, a penny off the income tax, cost 
you two billion quid and you are doing it to keep the middle classes happy. 
I mean that's perfectly understandable political reaction but it doesn't 
satisfy people like Peter Kilfoyle. 

STRAW:                    Well it ought to satisfy 
people because it's only as a result of gaining support of middle income 
people we are able to do a huge amount for lower income people. And you 
take before the election, I mean we said if we get elected, by the way 
we are going to raise one set of taxes which is taxes on utilities, the 
Conservatives said if we did that gas bills would rise, electricity bills 
would rise, they almost said the water would pack up. Well we put this 
tax on the utilities, we've got the new deal, it's been dramatically successful, 
particularly in constituencies like Peter's. 

HUMPHRYS:                    If it's working why aren't 
people turning out to support you in the elections? Why do we hear people 
like that lady in that film saying what's the point in voting, it makes 
no difference, they are not listening to us, they are not doing what we 
want them to do. Why aren't they turning out, and maybe they're not going 
to turn out next time and you could be in trouble. 

STRAW:                    There is a problem about 
turn out and I think first of all there seems to be a seminal decline in 
turnouts in a lot of western countries, but there's a particular problem, 
I believe, in our society and in the Labour Party and that does mean therefore, 
that we have to get across what we have done in a better and more effective 
way. But...

HUMPHRYS:                    Just the message, just 
the spin.

STRAW:                    Well it's not about the 
spin, it's about the reality of what we have done and the reality of what 
we have done is that we have done more for Labour's heartlands as Peter 
describes them than for any other area, why because typically they are 
the areas of greatest need. But we are also driving up standards and ensuring 
that public services provide for everybody because we are a one nation 
party. 

HUMPHRYS:                    Jack Straw, thank you 
very much indeed for spending so much time with us today. Three interviews 
for the price of one, as you say no price at all.