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NB. THIS TRANSCRIPT WAS TYPED FROM A TRANSCRIPTION UNIT RECORDING AND
NOT COPIED FROM AN ORIGINAL SCRIPT; BECAUSE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF MIS-HEARING
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ON THE RECORD
RECORDED FROM TRANSMISSION: BBC ONE DATE:
13.02.00
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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.
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