BBC On The Record - Broadcast: 13.02.00



=================================================================================== NB. THIS TRANSCRIPT WAS TYPED FROM A TRANSCRIPTION UNIT RECORDING AND NOT COPIED FROM AN ORIGINAL SCRIPT; BECAUSE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF MIS-HEARING AND THE DIFFICULTY, IN SOME CASES, OF IDENTIFYING INDIVIDUAL SPEAKERS, THE BBC CANNOT VOUCH FOR ITS ACCURACY .................................................................................... ON THE RECORD RECORDED FROM TRANSMISSION: BBC ONE DATE: 13.02.00 .................................................................................... JOHN HUMPHRYS: Good afternoon. The Home Secretary Jack Straw is facing a terrible dilemma over the asylum seekers from the hijacked jet. I'll be talking to him about that - and his other big problem: how to deal with rising crime and falling police numbers. And we've been to Liverpool with the minister who resigned to fight for Labour's heartlands. He tells us why so many Labour supporters are disillusioned. That's after the news read by George Alagiah. NEWS HUMPHRYS: Peter Kilfoyle resigned from the government because he wants to speak out for Labour's core supporters. He's taken us to Liverpool to deliver a warning to Number Ten. PETER KILFOYLE: The image that is portrayed of how the country is going doesn't actually resemble the reality of their lives, and they feel in many regards as though somehow there's some sort of vast conspiracy to deplore them. HUMPHRYS: And Tony Blair takes to the Internet... is THIS the shape of politics to come? JOHN HUMPHRYS: And we have the Home Secretary Jack Straw with us... to talk about Labour's heartlands and also the fight against crime. First, though, the big problem he faces this week because last week a group of hijackers forced a plane from Afghanistan to land in Britain. Now, as we've been hearing this morning, nearly all the people who were on that plane are asking for political asylum here. Mr Straw made a statement in the House of Commons on Thursday in which he said he wanted to see them all "removed from this country." He also said he personally would decide on any applications for asylum. Mr Straw, what's to be decided if you've already made up your mind, as you said you had in the House of Commons? JACK STRAW MP: Well no I didn't say I had made up my mind and for the avoidance of doubt I have my statement before me and I said "subject to compliance with all legal requirements I would wish to see removed from this country all those on the plane as soon as reasonably practicable". What we face here is a clash of two sets of international obligations. On the one hand our obligations which are humanitarian as well under the 1951 Convention on Refugees to provide asylum to those in well-founded fear of persecution. On the other hand, the clearest international obligations under what's called the Chicago Convention: to prevent and to deter the very serious international terrorist crime of hijacking. And I think everybody accepts and it was remarkable the degree of unanimity in the House of Commons when I made my statement, that we cannot have a situation where hijackers are rewarded for their hijacking with asylum and that's the dilemma I face but as I said in the House of Commons, it's a matter of public policy I think the need to ensure that there is safe air travel and that this international terrorist crime is not encouraged is very important. HUMPHRYS: Hijackers are one thing, innocent passengers are quite another and you have a quasi judicial role in these proceedings, as you hardly need me to remind you, and you have already prejudiced it. Yes, you did say I'll act in accordance with the law, of course you did but you then went on to say I would wish to see removed from this country all those, all those on this plane. STRAW: Subject to compliance with all legal requirements is what.. HUMPHRYS: Sure.. STRAW: You say sure.. HUMPHRYS: But you prejudiced it by saying I would wish to see - you don't get a judge saying I'd like to see him hanged subject to the jury, you know... STRAW: John, that's a silly point if you don't mind my saying so.. HUMPHRYS: ..well, no, no, because you are in a quasi judicial role. STRAW: Of course I understand that but it was extremely important in the course of that statement for me to explain to Parliament and to the British public and to a wider world what the dilemma is here and this is not a straightforward situation where we are faced with a few people seeking asylum from a particular country where there has been political disruption and one has to make a judgement if you like on a unilateral set of considerations which is: are they in a well-founded fear of persecution. Here we face a serious dilemma between that consideration and what I think is a wider consideration on the grounds of public policy which is do you or don't you end up in a situation where the terrorist crime of hijacking is rewarded and... HUMPHRYS: We're not talking about the criminals who hijacked the plane. Clearly there is a different situation applying to those because if they are convicted they will then be criminals and the law will take its course. But what you can't do, you cannot send.. not only have your prejudiced I would submit and I have submitted your own position here but you have promised to do something that you cannot do. You cannot send back - the European Commission on Human Rights says you cannot force someone to leave if they will suffer degrading or inhuman treatment. The Home Office itself has agreed that that is precisely what they would face in Afghanistan because they have already had a look into this and they have talked about precisely that happening, ninety-nine per cent of our Afghan asylum seekers are actually given refuge in this country. So, you can't do it, even if you want to? STRAW: With great respect your figures are completely wrong. I'll just tell you what the figures are.. HUMPHRYS: Go on.. STRAW: Of sixteen hundred or so asylum applications which were considered last year from people in Afghanistan I think thirty-five - 35 - were granted asylum. A very substantial proportion of the rest were granted... HUMPHRYS: They were given leave to stay. STRAW: Hang on.. HUMPHRYS: ..it comes down to the same thing.. STRAW: ..it does not come down to the same thing with great respect. A very substantial proportion of the remainder were given what is called exceptional leave to remain. The issue of removability is separate immediately from the question to which country are they removed and I did not say, at any stage in the course of the Parliamentary statement that I made, that these people if there were not granted asylum or exceptional leave to remain, were bound to be removed to Afghanistan. Indeed I never mentioned that at all. HUMPHRYS: So you want them to go somewhere else... STRAW: There's always a question those familiar with this area know this, of whether there are what are called third countries, to which it is safe to return those individuals and so far as decisions are concerned no decisions have been made in these cases yet. There was nothing I said in the House of Commons which could prejudice the exercise at my discretion and as well as that everybody knows that what I do is to make the initial decision in asylum cases, but there is a right of appeal thereafter to independent adjudicators so that's the position.. HUMPHRYS: Some people said that you said what you did because you actually want that right..you want that judicial review in essence and it removes it from your hands. STRAW: I can tell you, as someone who is subject, as any Home Secretary is to judicial review constantly, although happily touch wood normally the courts find in my favour, sometimes they don't, I don't want judicial review. I think judicial review is very important as a matter of law, but of course I don't encourage judicial review, that's... HUMPHRYS: Do you want them to go to Pakistan? Is that the situation, because you can't force them to go can you? STRAW: Well we can if once the processes are concluded we have every right to remove people from this country who do not have a.right to remain and it happens every day. HUMPHRYS: But you can't force them to go to a third country is the point I'm making. STRAW: With great respect, arrangements can be made in certain circumstances to do just that...... HUMPHRYS: If they want to go...... STRAW: No... no...no. Hang on.... No. Every week we are removing from this country a very large number of people for example to safe third European Union countries who should have applied for asylum in those countries...... HUMPHRYS: That's different..... STRAW: Well no it's not different. You say to me we can't remove them but we do remove people to third countries and that is what can follow at the conclusion of this process. HUMPHREYS: Are you prepared to have them removed from this country even if they face something terrible wherever they end up, whether it's in their own country, in Afghanistan, or whether perhaps it's in Pakistan where people have met terrible fates because of what's happening between Afghanistan and Pakistan. I mean they may well be killed. Are you prepared...... STRAW: Well of course..... I mean that's an absurd proposition if you don't mind me saying so..... HUMPHRYS: It's a very real proposition........... STRAW: Nothing I said in the House of Commons implied such a proposition. What I said in the House of Commons was that I would comply with all legal requirements. The legal requirements include our obligations under the European Convention of Human Rights and our obligations under the United Nations Convention on Refugees but I come back to the point that this is not as it were a unilateral issue. Here we've, and I think even you John must accept the dilemma that faces not just me but the whole of British society here, that on the one hand, yes of course we have great sympathy with those who have a genuine and well founded fear of persecution arising from political instability in the state from which they come. On the other hand we cannot possibly be in a circumstance where it appears that we are encouraging the international terrorist crime of hijacking. HUMPHRYS: Well we've already excluded terrorists from this because we're talking about.....(both speaking at once) We've got about a hundred odd people who are nothing to do with terrorism at least that is the assumption we must make. They're clearly not all terrorists. STRAW: Well that is what you say. As I say, during the course of one of the Commons proceedings one of the striking features of this case was that this was an internal flight going away from the International Airport from Kabul going to a relatively small town with a population of one hundred and thirty thousand, Mazar-e-Sharif, and so then the question is, well if these people were fleeing persecution, which is a question which has to be answered during the course of their applications if they make them. If these people were fleeing persecution either.... It's a slightly odd situation to be in. If they thought they were just on an internal flight to wherever they were going to go after they'd gone to Mazar-e-Sherif or alternatively, if they were complicit in knowing that the plane was going to be hijacked then that obviously raises questions about their genuineness and also whether the exemptions under what's called Article One F of the Convention ought to come into play. HUMPHRYS: Isn't the reality that most of them will end up staying here? STRAW: It remains to be seen what number are granted asylum and what number are granted exceptional leave to remain. Palpably, as I made clear in the House of Commons, this is not an easy situation but I come back to the point and in a sense put it back to others, it's a very difficult set of decisions which I have to make and which they'll be invigilated I'm quite sure by the adjudicators but if we want to see some kind of international order we have to make ensure that the clearest messages are sent out against those who not only commit hijacking but also are complicit in hijacking. HUMPHRYS: Just a very quick thought - it's reported this morning that you want to see a change in the law, international law so it would make it more difficult to seek asylum. Is that true? STRAW: I was asked that actually by the Labour Chairman of the Home Affairs Select Committee, Robin Corbett in the House saying 'didn't this raise the question of whether the 1951 Convention ought to be reviewed and my view is that it should. We ought to be able to continue to provide haven for people but what has happened, and it's a dilemma faced by all Western countries, all European Union countries and indeed by the United States is that the 1951 Convention is now used in circumstances never anticipated by its drafters, that's compounded by the use of air travel and in the United Kingdom it's also compounded by what I should describe as a very generous interpretation of the terms of that Convention by our courts. HUMPHRYS: Right, crime. The latest crime figures show a rising trend for some crimes, not all crimes but for some crimes, some important crimes and you have announced, you are announcing this week new targets for police forces. Is that because you believe that many police forces, some police forces aren't doing a good enough job compared with the others? STRAW: Well, let's first of all put the situation into perspective: Since the election, crime has fallen by seven percentage points, it went up in the last period but overall it's fallen by seven points. Some crimes that worry people a huge amount like domestic burglary have fallen twenty percentage points in that period, others, as you say have gone up. What we are seeking to do is to get on top of the long term trend in crime. Crime has risen with some changes but on average by about five percentage points per year every year this century - we want to try and get on top of this with the most substantial co-ordinated attack on crime and disorder we believe this country has ever seen. Now this doesn't mean that in any one year the figures are always going to go down but it means that we're trying to get right on top of it. So what are we doing? We're trying to reform the process end to end. I'll come back to the police in a second but we've got this major reform of the Crown Prosecution Service so you've now got a named, known, Chief Crown Prosecutor in each area, more resources going into streamline what the Crown Prosecution Service are doing. We're trying, it's been controversial but we are in the process of streamlining the way the courts operate. We're providing a much greater emphasis on the needs and the rights of victims, increasing the aid to victim support by fifty per cent, providing a victims and witness services in the courts, providing special protection for the women victims of serious sexual crimes like rape. We're changing the way in which the courts can sentence people, for example, by bringing into force the minimum mandatory sentences for domestic burglary and drug dealing and we've got the whole of the Crime and Disorder arrangements with these new partnerships and we've got the major reforms of youth justice which are coming into play and are beginning to be very successful indeed. Now let's come back to the issue with the police: HUMPHRYS: Yeah. You're not happy with the way some of them are doing their job. STRAW: I want to see the performance of the police service raised to the best and the parallel I draw is of my experience, personal experience, in dealing with the education service, because I've been involved, usually at a local level but as Deputy Leader of the old Inner London Education Authority at the beginning of the seventies and then as Education spokesman before David Blunkett at a national level. Twenty years ago people were saying, and it's a received wisdom not least in the Labour Party by the way that what happened in schools couldn't really effect the education of the children, that it was as much to do with where they came from, the kind of areas they lived in and basically schools are there to kind of warehouse kids. It was a very condescending approach. What we then learned from good research and peoples' sort of sense was that similar schools in similar areas with similar kinds of either easy kids or difficult kids, with similar teachers with similar amounts of money could do vastly different things. So what I want to do, and this is part of the process we're announcing tomorrow, is translate that same kind of rigorous performance culture into the police service. And we're doing that - and the police service are on board for this by the way because most of them are very keen indeed on all this..... HUMPHRYS: And be consistent? STRAW: Yes,. Well, we're doing this by saying to the service: yes, we want to put more resources into what you're doing. Yes, we want to turn the police numbers graph round so you do get back on a rising curve of police numbers, but we're publishing the data for what are called the basic command units for each police service, which are basic divisions, I mean - classic one Blackburn in Lancashire if I may name that, (INTERRUPTION) but it could be Cardiff, or to name another one or Sedgefield to name a third or Maidstone to name a fourth so that's what you do. You then can start to compare not only the performance of the police services as a whole, but also of similar towns and see how those services in each town are doing. But crucially what we've also done is said to the police service: You're not on your own in fighting crime. You are also working in partnership with all the other authorities in the area to get crime down, and that's where these targets come into play.. HUMPHRYS: But the danger with targets obviously is you can't have targets for absolutely everything. You'll have targets for certain things. and the danger is that they will concentrate on those things and other crimes may rise because they're concentrating on those that you are telling them. STRAW: Yes, that's what used to be said. Now when the debate was going on about whether schools should be set clear targets say on.... HUMPHRYS: Slightly different though. STRAW: Well, it's slightly different, but also exactly the same. Of course it's different in one sense, but it's .. HUMPHRYS: ... to struggle with that concept, .do you? STRAW: No, no, but of course it meets. We're talking about the education - police service, not the education service, but what is interesting is that teachers in classroom are unsupervised while they're teaching just as police officers on patrol are unsupervised directly while they're on patrol. There's a high degree of discretion given to each of these key professionals in our society. HUMPHRYS: And the Chief Constable would say quite right too. STRAW: Well, of course, and ditto for teachers, but there are similarities, and in the old days it was - just remind me of that point again. HUMPHRYS: What I'm saying that some crimes will rise because they can't .. STRAW: Sure, just coming up. In the old days it was said that if you concentrate on reading or maths and things like that the rest of the children's education will go by the board, or you won't have time to concentrate on behaviour. What we found was that schools which are good in concentrating on reading and maths are also good in everything else, and my judgement is that of course we should name some specific crimes is what we are doing which is burglary and car crime and robbery in the areas which account for seventy per cent of robberies, but those forces which are raising their game in this area will also find that they will be able to raise their game in other areas. HUMPHRYS: You say that they're going to have more resources. Obviously they'll need more resources to do this. The problem is that they won't be getting more of what they most need and that is extra police officers. You promised more recruits. You promised another five thousand recruits in addition to all the others that would normally come in over the next three years. The difficulty with that is that every year six thousand or so police officers leave the force, so that by the time you've done the sums, you've added your extra five thousand to the thirteen thousand or so that would normally come in over the next few years, you're actually going to end up at the end of those three years with probably slightly fewer police officers than you began with. Now, that isn't what you were promising originally, certainly not you were promising in your manifesto. STRAW: Well, as far as the manifesto is concerned we didn't promise any change in the number of police officers either up or down. HUMPHRYS: There was a very clear implication there would be more bobbies on the beat..... STRAW: No, no. we said we would release officers for operational duties, and we're doing that, and some of...... HUMPHRYS: I mean. you made great play at the Party Conference, you made great play about there being more police officers., STRAW: May I say John, I went into the election against the background of a reduction in police numbers under the Conservatives from ninety-three onwards of about fifteen hundred, and I was very anxious not to make promises which I couldn't deliver, and so ..... HUMPHRYS: And they've fallen since you came in. STRAW: I'm aware of that, but I say I didn't promise at the election that police numbers would rise. I would like them to rise let me say, but I didn't promise that. We've not broken any promise. We did say we would release more officers for operational duties, and that's exactly what we're doing, for example by the...and the court processes and that is happening, and the mode of trial changes will also.... HUMPHRYS: Yes, but how are they going to meet these targets, these tougher targets without more police officers. STRAW: Let me just say that what you need is to back what the police service has at the moment with for example new technology, with the new orders we're providing with the four hundred million pounds we're putting into close circuit television, and all sorts of other crime prevention. HUMPHRYS It's not the same as having extra police officers. STRAW: And the other point I'd make is again to draw the parallel with education. If you look at the good educational services, the good schools and the not-so-good schools, there is no direct relationship between the inputs and outputs. HUMPHRYS: Well..... STRAW: Well, you may say well, and that's ... HUMPHRYS: Well, I say well because I don't know anybody who doesn't say that the more police officers you have the better able Chief Constables are to fight crime. I mean it's been an article of faith..... STRAW: : It may have been an article of faith, but if you.... HUMPHRYS But you're telling us that's wrong. STRAW: If you've got the police service running at optimum efficiency then of course additional officers will make a difference, but if you look at your history of the last twenty years you see that the number of police officers were rising quite rapidly during the nineteen-eighties during the period when crime doubled. The number of police officers fell from nineteen-ninety-three to - and it's still falling at the moment, during a period when crime has fallen, There's no necessary relationship here, and... HUMPHRYS: Well, you accepted the applause at the Party conference when you said we're going to have more police officers, and now you seem to be saying that doesn't actually matter now that the sun's gone down. STRAW: No, with great respect it's a more subtle point than the one you're putting to me. HUMPHRYS: No, I do understand. What you're saying is that if you can increase the efficiency - but people have been trying to do that for donkey's years, increase the efficiency of the police. STRAW: And we're doing it some more you see. And - look, you look at the latest crime statistics. They went up in the Metropolitan Police Service, and that accounted for the bulk of the increase,. They also went up for reasons to do with the statistics, not to do with the real level of crime in the West Midlands. In many other areas they went down. HUMPHRYS: A lot of people say - the Police Federation says it's because of fewer police officers. STRAW: Well, hang on. In that case how does the Police Federation answer what's happened in Lancashire. Now Lancashire had a very poor financial settlement last year. It's got a better one this year, I'm sorry about that, at least it proved I wasn't biased. Under the average alright, police numbers have been broadly stable there. The Chief Constable and her colleagues in that force have been able to get crime in Lancashire down by ten percentage points, and my challenge in Lancashire, it's a quite difficult area - leave aside the .... Blackburn, quite a difficult area, and despite all that, limited resources, they've done it, so why can't other forces? HUMPHRYS; So anybody who's expecting that there will be many more police officers or even more police officers by the end of this term of government of the Labour Party is going to be disappointed. STRAW: Well, I..... HUMPHRYS: You cannot guarantee it, and you're saying actually it probably doesn't matter very much. STRAW: No, I didn't say that. What I said was indeed, with great respect,...... HUMPHRYS: Perilously close to it. STRAW: No, what I said was, if you've got the police service working at optimum efficiency then additional officers make a difference, and that's what we need to do. So what we're doing ... HUMPHRYS: But you're not guaranteeing it, that there will be more of them. STRAW: Well, I'm guaranteeing that there will be more than would otherwise have been the case. And if you want me to make a political point more than certainly would have happened under the Conservatives. (INTERRUPTION) We saw that the police numbers had been going down since nineteen-ninety-three. They were going down more quickly than we'd anticipated, indeed I got a settlement for them two years ago which was due to keep police numbers level, we've now got this additional new money, new money to ensure that there are five thousand extra recruits over and above, over and above those the police service are planning to recruit. Now it's a matter for speculation as to where the numbers end in three years time, but it's my hope and belief if you are asking me this that the numbers should be above the level certainly that they are now. HUMPHRYS: Okay, right well we are using you to maximum efficiency today because if you stay with us, I'd like to talk to you about something else. STRAW: And my fee is a lot less than yours. HUMPHRYS: We could argue about that but probably yes, probably not, it wouldn't be too wise. STRAW: Zero. HUMPHRYS: Zero, absolutely, Government Ministry, don't pay Government Ministers. HUMPHRYS: A fortnight ago, the Junior Defence Minister, Peter Kilfoyle resigned from the government to spend his time fighting for Labour's heartlands. He was worried that "new" Labour is becoming detached from its traditional supporters. I'll be asking Mr Straw about that after this report from Paul Wilenius, who's spent the past few days in Mr Kilfoyle's own constituency in Liverpool. PAUL WILENIUS: Peter Kilfoyle. The former Defence Minister. He's packing up his Ministerial office in the Commons for the last time. He's going home, to fight new battles. They're far different from the one's he fought against Militant, when he was first elected to parliament. PETER KILFOYLE: They were very testing times. The Labour Party itself was seen as in the grip of extremists. We needed to dispose of Militant at the same time as we tried to change the policies, to modernise the Labour Party, before it could become electable again. WILENIUS: But now he feels the time is right to move on and after two and half years loyal service at the centre of new Labour, he's going back to the North, where his heart is. Peter Kilfoyle stunned the Labour Party when quit as a Defence Minister to spend more time with his constituents. But his fight for Labour's traditional supporters is backed by many activists, Labour MPs and even Ministers here at Westminster. They are worried that Labour is being damaged by the emerging gap between the government and the party and voters in Labour's heartlands. Things have moved on since the election almost three years ago. Many Labour voters and activists hoped the government would deliver real improvements in their lives, but those high expectations have not been fulfilled in some areas. As a Minister, Kilfoyle couldn't speak up for these people. KILFOYLE: The real frustration would come when there would be things in my surgeries which I couldn't really answer properly - in my heart of hearts I couldn't say to individuals look this is the right direction that I am taking. I found that incredibly frustrating. The image that is portrayed of how the country is going doesn't actually resemble the reality of their lives and they feel in many regards as though somehow there's some sort of vast conspiracy to defraud them. WILENIUS: Eighteen months ago On The Record came here to Liverpool to highlight the dangers if new Labour neglected its heartlands. With the local elections only a few months away, some in Downing Street may try to shrug off eter's criticisms but they'll not find that easy. FRASER KEMP MP: He certainly can't be dismissed. Peter Kilfoyle played a very important part in the regeneration of the Labour Party, not least in Merseyside during the 1980s and he is a serious player and he clearly does have concerns. CLAIRE WARD MP: There's heartlands in every seat. There's people who worked for the Labour Party through those bad times and who stayed with us because they believed that when Labour got into power, we would make a difference. There is people who stayed with us in the voting. We've all got heartlands. I'm absolutely confident about that and I want to make sure that the heartlands in my constituency are happy too. WILENIUS: The clear message from Peter's activists here at Walton in Liverpool is that they're not happy. UNNAMED WOMAN: You could say that people are actually satisfied so therefore they don't have to bother going out to vote. But I don't think that is the case. I think the feeling is that even if they go out to vote they're not going to have an impact on anything that will affect their lives. WILENIUS: Many feel new Labour is too obsessed with Middle England voters in the South and media headlines. UNNAMED MAN: I'm still active as, more active than 90 per cent of the people who go around calling themselves new Labour. I don't see them going down the streets canvassing with me, I don't see them doing leaflets. I don't seen them telephone canvassing. I see their name on a list. I see the name saying they joined during the great Blair revolution, but I don't see them doing anything about it. UNNAMED WOMAN: Labour is Labour and it should have the old values, that is what people expected when the Labour government came in that they would have better prospects. KILFOYLE: My activists often feel as though what they say and what they think doesn't really matter a great deal in the wider scheme of things. We can have quite rational debates about this and point out all of the changes which have been improvements over the years, but there is some kind of an emotional barrier there which is yet to be transcended between what many of the activists see as their legitimate role within the party and what appears to be a new orthodoxy at the centre of the party. They have to be treated with tender loving care like the members of any organisation and sometimes they feel as though they're not. DOUG HENDERSON MP: The danger is that the government doesn't carry the whole of the party membership with it carrying areas like mine who have very strong priorities. If they fail to get that over then there is a chance that people feel remote, they feel far away from London, they feel far away from the decision making process, they feel far away from the decisions. WILENIUS: Indeed, activists feel shut out of key decisions on issues like education spending. Here in Liverpool, Peter was once a teacher and he knows some schools are crumbling through lack of cash. NICHOLAS FLEMING: It presents a problem and we have to come to some sort of Heath Robinson way of fixing the roof. WILENIUS: Nicholas Fleming is the head of Fazakerley High School. The school buildings are old and decaying and teachers battle with this daily to deliver a good education for their eight hundred students. But Peter knows this is part of a much wider debate raging inside the Labour Party. Some would prefer more money spent on ailing public services like health and education than pre-election tax cuts. KILFOYLE: I think that we'll have to refocus on public services even more than we have done to date. I think it's been quite laudable the allocation of more monies to some of the public services, many of them remember delivered by local authorities that have felt under the squeeze for quite some years now, but at the end of it all people in areas like this are heavily dependent upon public services. If there is a straight choice between tax cuts and investment in public services, I'm duty bound to say that I would go for public services. WILENIUS: The sky high property prices in some parts of the booming South are in stark contrast to the dereliction in parts of the North. Peter meets one property developer Tom Bloxham who's trying to regenerate parts of Liverpool. Some fear billions of pounds of much needed European funding for areas like this are being blocked by the Treasury. KILFOYLE: There are issues, regional issues which I feel are very, very important to the people of a city like Liverpool which I want to be able to speak out on in an honest way and hopefully making suggestions which will be taken on board by the government. WILENIUS: Picking up this suggestion would mean matching the European Objective One funding on offer. DEVELOPER: What's actually happened as the regeneration issue has risen on the government's agenda it's become harder and harder to access the resource necessary. KILFOYLE: t's a funding issue, is that what it's down to. DEVELOPER: A big part of it is, it's a funding issue. Actually, through European legislation things are changing, it's actually harder now to find the necessary resources than when we did this one. KILFOYLE: European funding is critical to an area like this. It's recognised in Europe as one of the poorest in the whole of Europe and there are other areas around the United Kingdom which get Objective One funding. HENDERSON: There is a sense that the regional issue hasn't been dealt with, the things that matter on jobs and social conditions in my constituency in Newcastle haven't been addressed in the same way as some of those other issues and in that sense there is a feeling that they have been left out a little. And I think they blame a lot of the people who are advising the government and these so called spin doctors because they know that the ministers themselves in many cases represent similar constituencies to mine and they can see when they return to the constituencies on a Friday the same things that I can see and they are told the same things that I am told. WILENIUS: Downing Street in Liverpool is a far cry from the elegant rooms of Number Ten and the heart of government., but Peter feels better able to monitor the pulse of Labour support here in the local Jobs Centre. People want more and higher paid jobs, and he feels it would help if the National Minimum Wage was increased . KILFOYLE: The rate at which the minimum wage is set has to reflect the real needs of people on the ground. We have to make it also as attractive as possible for people to work legitimately - that increases the tax base rather than money going out for example through benefit fraud. WILENIUS: Peter Kilfoyle and many others in the party are warning that there are big dangers for Tony Blair if he ignores the message from the heartlands. In some areas Labour voters may well switch to other parties. But just as dangerous is the threat that many once loyal supporters will simply stay at home . Labour's high command is now waking up to the grave political threat posed by its crumbling core vote. Here in Liverpool the Liberal Democrats have prospered from the alienation of Labour supporters. In Scotland and Wales the nationalists have also done well. The fear is that new Labour's glossy image is turning off traditional voters. KILFOYLE: In these seats I think that there was a feeling after the election that the presentation had overtaken the, the substance. My concern is that there was also a discernible trend of people staying at home in those areas - solid Labour voters who didn't bother to turn out. WARD MP: The risk of people just staying at home at the next election is one that the Labour Party has got to see as a real issue. So I don't believe they will desert us , to go elsewhere. The risk is that they may stay at home. Now what we have to do is to make sure we are addressing those issues. That people believe there is an even greater reason next time to come out and vote than there was in 1997. KEMP: I think there is a recognition within all levels of the government that you know we've got to get out there and sell the message, and make sure that we communicate it effectively to our core supporters. Turnout is always a big issue when it comes to election campaigns and you know we, we need to ensure that we get the highest possible levels of turnout we need to motivate our core supporters and I think that's a big challenge, it's a big task. WILENIUS: MPs and activists insist that Labour's heartland voters will not be motivated , until the government does more to improve their lives. HENDERSON: I think the big danger is that people, people think that the government doesn't stand for anything except being re-elected. What is important is that the government makes it clear that it does stand for values, it stands for important issues in our society and the government has to make it clear that that is the case. Less reliance on spin doctors and more reliance on tackling the real issues that matter to people throughout the whole country. KILFOYLE: I think a party without activists is in danger of becoming an irrelevance. I, I have this nightmare in my own mind where you have something similar to what happens in America, where you have effectively two parties with not a great deal to choose between them, where everything is determined on a personality basis, where people are elected depending on how much money they can amass from relatively few donors and huge numbers of people are effectively disenfranchised or disenfranchise themselves. WILENIUS: So Peter's starting a new journey. It may end up with him running for the job of Mayor of Liverpool or Merseyside. But until then he'll leave the government in no doubt that taking its heartlands for granted , is no longer an option. HUMPHRYS: Paul Wilenius reporting there. 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. HUMPHRYS: Tony Blair popped up on the internet this week with his version of Bill Clinton's chats to the nation over the radio. There's been plenty of mickey-taking and a few complaints from the Opposition about taxpayers' money being spent on party propaganda, but perhaps this is the way of the future. Are we going to see more and more of our politics conducted in cyber space? Terry Dignan reports. TERRY DIGNAN: Visitors to The Millennium Dome are going on-line, using a technology which has revolutionised communications. Thanks to the Internet, we can call up information on our computer screens from millions of web sites. Tony Blair says it will transform the economy. But he's also realised its importance for spreading New Labour's message. The internet is already making a global impact on business, commerce and industries like leisure and tourism. Our political parties - and Government - believe it could have a similar effect on politics. But what's in it for the voters? How will they be able to use the Net to influence those who hold power? MARGARET MORAN: The power of the new technology is that Prime Ministers, senior ministers, can get their message across to a mass audience quickly and relatively cheaply using the net. ALAN DUNCAN: You know we have gone from posters to television. Now we are going to the internet and it is rapid and inexpensive communication at a personal level and I think it is going to be crucial to politics in the future, absolutely crucial. DIGNAN: In the United States, it's said the Internet has radically affected election campaigning. According to a former Clinton adviser, candidates in the Presidential primaries are using web sites to contact voters, display policies and raise donations. ACTUALITY DICK MORRIS: Ultimately I believe the Internet will completely take over politics and the locus of political campaigning will shift from television to the Internet. In this year's presidential race it's beginning to have an impact. For example right after John McCain scored an upset and won the primary in New Hampshire he was able to raise two and a half million dollars in forty-eight hours on the Internet. MORAN: I think some of us are looking rather enviously at the US and seeing that this is the way of the future. I think across the board the parties have still a long way to go to catch up and I'm saying to, certainly my own party, the technology is going faster than the speed of light - we have got to be up there making use of it. DIGNAN: Up on the London Eye, surveying the city he hopes to run, Ken Livingstone. He says the contest to decide Labour's candidate for London mayor has proved to be Britain's first real internet election. KEN LIVINGSTONE: Our activists are disproportionately likely to have a computer and be linked up to the Internet. And everything we do went straight on the Web site so all our activists knew the line we were taking. DIGNAN: At Conservative Central Office Alan Duncan arrives with the latest Tory line. It goes straight on to the party website. The parties can now contact more than ten million people using the internet compared to just a quarter of a million at the last election. DUNCAN: The thing about the internet is that you can really build up a personal relationship with the voter. You can do some fantastic profiling of who you are talking to and effectively get their permission to communicate with them and communicate with them about what they want to be communicated with in advance. And this means that you can build up a very special relationship with the person you are talking to and therefore the response profile from them really rockets. MORAN: There are opportunities for e-campaigning to get our message out directly to our target voters, to the people that we need to contact during an election campaign and get that message out unmediated, not having the message filtered through the press, through TV and radio. DIGNAN: But will many floating voters - as opposed to activists - be tapping into party websites? Some of those studying the internet's impact on politics are sceptical. STEPHEN COLEMAN: I think that party web sites are going to be for the party faithful and they might attract some others, but they probably won't to a very great extent. You can mobilise the faithful, because all you need is somebody's e-mail address and at any time of the day and night you can send them a message - they can wake up in the morning, they get a message - we need money from you, we need you to be at a rally, we need you to write to somebody - that's important. DIGNAN: In the Dome, present and future generations of voters are being encouraged to click on to the worldwide web. If they search for the Downing Street site, they'll hear praise of the Government's record. On Friday, Tony Blair became a serious internet user with the first of his planned radio-style broadcasts over the worldwide web. On The Record understands we may eventually see Mr Blair speaking on our PC screens. But is this really the most effective way for politicians to use the Net to get their message across? Number Ten's revamped web site sends out information uncontaminated by comment and analysis from journalists. TONY BLAIR: Hello and welcome to what will be the first of many direct broadcasts from the Downing Street web site. MORRIS: It's not an imaginative use of the internet. The internet is not an alternative vehicle for the Prime Minister or people in power to speak to us. It's a vehicle for us to have a conversation with them, you know, a two-way dialogue like real people have and I think that what Mr Blair should do is to go into a chat room and say, look, for two hours every week I let Parliament ask me questions and for two hours every week I'm going to let you ask me questions. DIGNAN: If he becomes London Mayor, Ken Livingstone has big plans for exploiting the internet. He's going much further than Mr Blair. He'll be inviting Londoners into the heart of the capital's Government. LIVINGSTONE: If I'm elected Mayor my cabinet meetings will be broadcast live on the Internet as they take place; every document going before the Mayor, except for personnel files and contract details, will be immediately available on the Internet. We're trying to create the first political office which is accessible electronically at all levels. DIGNAN: It's not just politicians who plan to exploit the Net's potential. It's hoped the new technology will enhance democracy by giving voters more influence over Government and Parliament. They'll have more access to information about important issues. And campaigners, such as environmentalists, will find it easier to mobilise public opinion. Margaret Moran, like many MPs, can be contacted by constituents via e-mail. She's also holding cyber surgeries with the aid of a video link up. Today it's the turn of children at Henlow Middle School to air their grievances about Government policies. SCHOOLBOY: Hello Miss Moran. My question is why does the government keep setting more homework for the children even though they don't ask about how we feel about it. MARGARET MORAN: What we're keen to see is that.......... DIGNAN: She also wants Parliament to use this technology to reach out to marginalised groups. So she and the Hansard Society are planning to hold an inquiry into domestic violence, taking evidence from survivors over the internet. MORAN: We have got two hundred and seventy groups and we hope hundreds of women will feel able to join in to talk to parliamentarians like myself. To give us the power of their direct experiences which we will then use to inform government policy. DIGNAN: These visitors to the Dome would have no difficulty using the Net to contact policymakers and MPs. The problem is providing regular access to the less well-off. STEPHEN COLEMAN: Well I think if you've got a democracy the requirement is everyone has to have access and if everyone hasn't got access then that's a failure in terms of the provision of this for democratic uses. DIGNAN: Many campaigning groups can afford the technology and they're using it to mobilise public opinion. Here at Friends of the Earth, the internet is a weapon for bringing pressure to bear on Government and MPs. LIANA STUBBLES: There's huge untapped potential for the power of the Web and electronic communication in campaigning in the future. Already we have e-mail networks of activists, people who are prepared to literally at the snap of a finger write to their MP on their e-mail that moment. I can see in the future where we'll be able to have twenty thousand people sending an e-mail message back to their MP telling them what they think about things - and that is going to cause a minor revolution I think in politics. COLEMAN: I think that we're going to see much more of an issue-led online politics. The result of that is that political discussion will become more fragmented because clearly if people only have policy answers to question that they themselves are raising, one will have a discussion that isn't all-embracing, that isn't part of a national dialogue but is part of one's personal agenda. DIGNAN: Groups like Friends of the Earth have got competition. From today vote.co.uk is polling Net users on the headline issues and sending MPs the results. MORRIS: We will e-mail your vote to the Labour and the Tory parties and tell them what your point of view is. It will stimulate a level of interactivity, a level of dialogue. The internet is not a place for another monologue. It's the place for a dialogue. DIGNAN: In the new millennium information and propaganda will be pouring out of the internet non-stop. Which may be good news for the traditional media. DUNCAN: What I foresee as these things mushroom further is that you get sort of information saturation and that therefore everything becomes rather dilute and that whereas in its early stages this is a real go ahead way of persuading people because it will just become the norm it perhaps won't be really that much more persuasive than traditional forms of political communication. DIGNAN: At the start of the Twentieth Century newspapers were the main means of carrying information about politics. Then came radio and television which completely changed political campaigning. No one can be sure what effect the internet will have. But there's little doubt politicians are taking it seriously. HUMPHRYS: Oh, dear, will it ever catch on. Terry Dignan reporting there and that's it for this week. A quick reminder about our website, where you can find all our latest films, reports and interviews and all the rest of it. Good afternoon. ......ooooooOOOoooooo...... 24 FoLdEd
NB. This transcript was typed from a transcription unit recording and not copied from an original script. Because of the possibility of mis-hearing and the difficulty, in some cases, of identifying individual speakers, the BBC cannot vouch for its accuracy.