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JOHN HUMPHRYS: So here he is now - up
and running I take it but you are a Conservative and London is a Labour
city, increasingly a Labour city so you don't have much chance do you?
STEVEN NORRIS: I don't think that's the
impediment to be honest with you. I mean I think if ever there was a God
up there He's smiling on us now because I mean what we have seen and what
you were referring to in your introduction, the Ken and Frank Show, that
really is glorious for us. I mean either you're going to have a candidate
who's entirely lost the confidence not only of his own party leader but
everyone who has ever worked with him in the form of old Ken or you're
going to have Frank who frankly we know now, his own party members in London
will have said 'No' to - so, you know, either way one of them is going
to be carrying a very very big crutch into this election and I genuinely
think that's the opportunity for us.
HUMPHRYS: What do you think is
going to happen ?
NORRIS: You know.... we'll know
in a couple of hours but I have to tell you that I can guarantee that there
will be a continuing row. I guarantee that the problems for the Labour
Party have only just started and not finished. This is the end of the
beginning and the next phase is continued harassment of one candidate by
the other seems to be almost inevitable. I mean if Livingstone wins can
you honestly see Blair or any of the other people in government, in the
Labour Party with senior positions who have worked with him in local government
changing their mind? I mean Blair says he's a disaster. I may not agree
with Tony about a lot but I'll stand by that - I think he would be. On
the other hand if it's Frank well you know I'll be saying 'poor old Frank'
from day one and I think everybody knows that he will be. He doesn't want
the job. There was the old boy going around saying 'it's a non-job, I
don't want to do it, I want to stay in health' and I think the deal was
- 'Here Frank, would you like that or would you like the back bench?' and
I think that's where he's come from.
HUMPHRYS: You're not whistling
in the dark to keep your spirits up are you - because they're beating you
two to one in the polls and whoever wins ultimately, the party will swing
behind him won't they?
NORRIS: Ooooh be careful on that.
I mean look at the Euros. If you look at the Euro elections we were actually
neck and neck in London. I mean that's the sort of cephological background.
I think anybody who assumes that this can't be done in London really hasn't
read the Runes. But the other interesting thing, you know, is that whole
business of an elected Chief Executive for a city is new politics, that's
obvious, but I think it will make people think about what is actually at
issue. What is at issue is not so much your party affinity but what kind
of person you're going to be for the City. I'm always reminded of Guiliani
in New York. Guiliani is a Republican Mayor in a City that's overwhelmingly
Democrat. There are Democrats for Guiliani and what they all say is -
'We don't like his politics but he's a damn good Mayor', and my whole thrust
is to say I am there to actually make this City work better. That's the
one thing I'm in the race for and I think that will resonate with a lot
of people.
HUMPHRYS: Well if you're going
to make the City work better you have to improve public transport. That,
if there is a single big issue in this, then that is the single big issue.
Now everybody, including the Tories, say public transport in London is
a mess. Well guess who ran it for a very long time, four years, Steve
Norris.
NORRIS: Well I only wish I did.
You know this is one thing we ought to start by saying right now - when
you're a minister it's a terrific apprenticeship but it can also be enormously
frustrating...
HUMPHRYS: But you did run it didn't
you?
NORRIS: Well - I'll tell you.
What a minister does with, particularly with a nationalised industry like
London Transport is you sign the cheque but the Treasury fills out the
amount and beneficiary spends the money. What it lead me to do was to
certainly understand the system much better than anybody else around but
it meant that I had the frustration of watching things happening that I
personally would not have permitted to happen and I think one of the dynamics......
HUMPHRYS: I don't remember you
saying so at the time......
NORRIS: Oh at the time I was doing
the best that I could with the implements at my disposal and according
to most impartial observers didn't do a bad job but I think the important
thing is that the Mayor is going to be crucially different from a government
minister - and this is whether it's a Labour government minister or a Tory,
because the Mayor actually has some executive authority and if they get
it wrong they won't be mayor for long, they'll be out at the next election.
It's that kind of sudden death, that immediate authority to simply get
things done, to say 'I'm going to back the policy that I think works, I'm
going to cut through all the bureaucracy and just make it happen'. That's
what's appealing about the whole concept of mayors.
HUMPHRYS: The trouble is and you'll
be reminded of this many many times over the coming months, you don't like
public transport. You told us so in 1995 you said, 'People like their
cars. Cars are better. You don't have to put up with...' and I quote,
'"dreadful human beings sitting alongside you"'
NORRIS: Yeah. God somebody's been
working on the cuttings file there they really have.
HUMPHRYS: It's there. I'm afraid
it's there......
NORRIS: What is not there is ever
my suggesting that that was my opinion. What I was saying and it's actually
something that John Prescott has found out many massively to his cost,
is that if you're ever daft enough, and I mean stupid enough to construct
a transport policy on the basis that it's simply anti car then you're doomed
to failure. You're not only doomed to failure because it's electorally
suicidal, you're also doomed to failure because it's wrong. What you actually
want to do if you're working out in terms of congestion who it is ought
not to be making the journey because you know that congestion is always
the fault of the car in front of you, I mean that's one of the great truths
of transport politics, then actually what you've got to do is offer people
choices. You have to give people sustainable, decent choices. You have
to give them the bus that actually is regular, is frequent, is secure and
reasonably comfortable and arrives on time. If you can do that, if you
can deliver that kind of alternative then actually people will make sensible
choices for themselves.
HUMPHRYS: Yeah, but you can't improve
things if you're saying as you're saying, 'I don't want congestion charging'.
You can't therefore raise money from that, that's a potential source of
revenue, a potential source of a lot of revenue, you can't raise money
from that so haven't got the money to do the improvements that you say
need to be done.
NORRIS: No, unlike both of the
Labour candidates who want to tax Londoners more, I won't. I won't do
it and I'll tell you actually John, any fool can improve things with several
billion pounds to spend although from what I gather Ken Livingstone wants
to use the proceeds of a congestion charge for at least half a dozen things
including putting conductors on the buses and all sorts of ideas which
are no doubt jolly interesting but don't actually solve the problem. What
you've got to do if you want to make buses work is make bus priority work,
is to get a ticketing system that actually works, to get an information
system that actually tells people what they want. Most of this is actually
fundable. A lot of it really should have happened by now. I remember
launching one of the first......
HUMPHRYS: So we don't need any
more money to improve London transport then?
NORRIS: If you had a lot more money
that would no doubt marvellous and in the best of all possible worlds every
spending department got all the bids it ever made, but this is the real
world where people also want to care about their taxes and I don't want
to add to their burden.
HUMPHRYS: But in the real world
you'd do two things wouldn't you? You'd try and keep more cars out of
London, which is entirely sensible because look at the streets and the
way they're crowded, and you'd use the revenue you'd get from that to improve
public services, public transport, which is precisely what a lot of sensible
people are saying.
NORRIS: The logic of road pricing,
the idea that you use prices as a mechanism to reduce demand is unassailable......
HUMPHRYS: You can do two things
with it......
NORRIS: Yes that's the point, you
use price as a mechanism to reduce demand so you raise money and you reduce
the number of vehicles on the road. I think people understand that. But
you see that's not what's offer in London. What we're being offered in
London is the opportunity for some sap of a Mayor, it sounds ideally built
for Frank Dobson to be honest with you, to do the government's bidding
to impose this charge on Londoners and not solve the problem because the
money doesn't even go into the kind of schemes that would make things better
for London. It goes down a black hole in the Treasury marked - 'Shortfall
on Tube Funding'. And I'm not prepared to accept that. You know one thing
I know about London is that Londoners are already paying something like
twenty billion pounds a year more to the national exchequer than we ever
get back. I mean the idea that we should now pay again for the Underground
which we've funded God knows how many times to successive governments I
think is really just daft.
HUMPHRYS: Well now you've got a
problem with the Tube haven't you because your party - a policy of your
party is to privatise the Tube. You do not want to privatise the Tube so
you are out of sync with your party in quite a big way there aren't you.
NORRIS: No, let's be clear. What
John Redwood when he was Environment.. Shadow Environment Secretary said
was that he believed that if the Conservatives were in office they ought
to move to a privatisation based on free shares for all Londoners. Now
that's a recipe for government..
HUMPHRYS: Wasn't he speaking for
the party?
NORRIS: He was indeed and he was
speaking for me too, but that's a recipe for government and I have to have
a recipe for co-habitation with Labour for at least the next eighteen months.
Now this Labour Government has made it clear that they want privatisation
but that they want part-privatisation and they've budged it, they've made
a complete mess of it and what I've put forward is a coherent programme
of part-privatisation which gets the private sector in where it ought to
be, which is in the interface with the customer and reduces the overall
cost to the passenger..
HUMPHRYS: ..happens to be in
conflict with your own party.
NORRIS: No it's not John, it really
is not and neither I nor John Redwood when he was doing the job nor Archie
Norman now would say that. A recipe for government is quite properly what
the shadow spokesman at the DETR talks about. What I talk about is the
reality of co-habitation with a government that has made it clear that
privatisation is not on the agenda.
HUMPHRYS: Right, well something
else that is on the agenda, this I freely concede you cannot do a great
deal about and that is whether Britain goes into the Euro or not. But nonetheless,
it's a big factor in London because obviously the city of London is hugely
important and the way London businessmen feel about this is important.
Now you are supposed to be, the Tories are supposed to be the party of
Europe but you do not want the Euro at any price. Therefore, again you
have a bit of a problem, you have got to go to the City of London and say
'I don't want the Euro', most of them - the overwhelming majority of them
say well we do.
NORRIS: Interestingly enough, if
you actually look for example the London Chamber of Commerce, they've actually
produced statistics which make it absolutely clear that London hasn't suffered
from being out of the Euro. I've never thought that was particularly surprising
because...
HUMPHRYS: ..only eleven per cent
- this according to the latest polling figures - only eleven per cent are
actually opposed to the Euro.
NORRIS: I think a lot of business
people are in the 'wait and see' category and I think that's perfectly
reasonable. Very, very few of them, if any of them are actually suggesting
that we should be joining now.
HUMPHRYS: They want to keep the
option open..
NORRIS: I think businesses are
in the habit of keeping options open.
HUMPHRYS: But you are not, you
don't want to, your party doesn't want to.
NORRIS: Well I am very clear that,
you know, speaking for London and you are right to say this is not high
up on the Mayor's agenda per se, getting the Transport system is a hell
of a sight more important to Londoners than worrying about the Euro. There
are afterall a lot of people in Parliament who can do that. But you ask
me and it's a fair question, I have to answer, if I felt there was any
impact that the Euro or our absence from the Euro was making on the City
of London's health, then I would be obliged to express that proposition,
but I don't see it. I genuinely don't.
HUMPHRYS: So you won't be inviting
William Hague in his slightly strange truck, his lorry, down into Threadneedle
Street and standing on the platform with him, not that he actually stands
on it, does he, but you know what I mean, but if he did you wouldn't would
you.
NORRIS: I'm enormously keen on
trucks and..
HUMPHRYS: ..in your other job..
NORRIS: ..I've had other lives..
HUMPHRYS: ..in the day job.
NORRIS: In the day job, in my ex-day
job. But in all seriousness, yes he's very welcome because what he says..
HUMPHRYS: And you would stand on
the platform with him?
NORRIS: Oh certainly, being in
Europe and not run by it and not for one moment contemplating what I regard..
HUMPHRYS: ..arguing against the
Euro..
NORRIS: ...as an almost suicide
Euro proposition I'd be there. No question, I'm there and I'm quite convinced
and I think most independent opinion is that if you actually look at the
impact of our not being in the Euro on the City of London, not only is
there no evidence that we've suffered, there is actually some evidence,
and I'm not sufficiently well qualified as an economist to judge it, but
there is some evidence that we've actually prospered. Now you know it's
not surprising when you think we are also the leading trader in most foreign
exchanges all around the world without actually having to adopt everyone
of them as our currency. It's perfectly possible for the city to retain
its pre-eminence but you know what will really ensure that we go on having
more American banks in London than there are in New York and that several
of the leading European Banks actually have their headquarters in London,
it's having a city that works. So my contribution to Britain's ability
to make its choices when the time is right, is making sure that London
is still the pre-eminent city in Europe for business.
HUMPHRYS: You will not be saying
to those business people who want to keep their options open on the Euro
- me too - I'm with you, I'm going to keep mine as well. You are saying
it's suicidal, it's bonkers.
NORRIS: One of the things that
distinguishes my campaign is action, not politics, what I am concerned
about is getting things done in the bailiwick that I've been given. It's
not, you know it's not playing a potentiary power to burble on about every
issue, I'll leave that to people like Ken Livingstone who clearly believe
that that's what the office is. I believe the office is making Londoners'
lives work better and I'll leave others to pontificate about the Euro.
HUMPHRYS: Well let's look at the
people of London. A very large proportion of whom, about a third of the
voters in London, are ethnic minority or minorities of some sort. Now your
policies, particularly on something like policing, stop and search, of
which you approve, are not popular with those people, broadly, a sweeping
generalisation I know, but nonetheless true.
NORRIS: I don't believe it is true
John. If you look at for example where ethnic minority communities are
centred, the crime that is committed in those areas tends to be committed
by people who belong to the same ethnic minority groups. Most of the responsible
ethnic minority leaders that I talk to and your right that it's around
one in four in London who come from an ethnic minority background are actually
very keen to see the policy do their job properly and they're very keen
to see people stopped and search if there is evidence of burglaries
going on and people are in places where they might actually have been involved
in that.
HUMPHRYS: But they see black people
as being disproportionately stopped.
NORRIS: Yes and that is I think
the whole, if you want to draw thread for people who perhaps don't really
understand what Lawrence was all about, what the aftermath of what Stephen's
killing was all about, what the McPherson report was all about, it's about
the absence of respect and I think you know that crucial word respect,
respect for every citizen in London, regardless of their colour, their
race, their age, their creed, their sexual orientation, their gender. You
know that is something that perhaps the Metropolitan Police have recognised
now that it's lost sight of. But I think too many young men dashing around
in panda cars losing the ability actually to talk to the members of the
public whom the police have to search.
HUMPHRYS: But that is a slightly
different.. the Lawrence's family lawyer, Imran Kahn, says the lessons
of McPherson have not been learnt.
NORRIS: Well I heard him say that
but I also heard Bishop John Sentamu, who's the black Bishop of Stepney
say..
HUMPHRYS: ...who himself was stopped
and searched.
NORRIS: Who was himself stopped
and searched and nonetheless said in answer to Imran Kahn that actually
he believed the police were making very good progress in London on the
back of the McPherson Report. And I think he made the point that you could
hardly expect the entire culture of a force of you know well over twenty,
nearly thirty thousand men and women to be changed over night and I accept
that. I'm not..I wouldn't criticise the entire force because of one single
bad apple that was not yet ejected. But be clear that this business of
respect really is at the heart of policing in London. I think the idea
that we should be saying no, you know forget any of the sensitivities
of the ethnic minority community, stop and search is the answer, that
would simply not be acceptable in a city like this.
HUMPHRYS: You say you are a man
of action, judge me by my deeds, in other words, if people look at the
candidates that your party has chosen for the assembly in London, the new
assembly, they will discover that there is not a single black candidate,
there is an Asian candidate who has a reasonable chance of winning, not
in his own consistency, but because of the list system. That isn't very
impressive is it, out of all those candidates, only one has a chance of
winning.
NORRIS: Oh I wouldn't say that
funnily enough because I think we have at least one other black candidate
who is very very likely to win on our analysis and that will be two, you
want to compare that with the Liberal Democrats who don't have any ..
HUMPHRYS: ..but I'm talking to
you as a...
NORRIS: ..but I'll tell you what
unites both, I mean that is that we are a completely open and democratic
party, that means my party shun things like special, you know positive
discrimination in favour of people from ethnic minorities. It's shun the
idea of special black sections and lists and the price you do pay for that
is yes, you make progress less quickly..
HUMPHRYS: ..because you're run
the blue rinse brigade as you put it yourself.
NORRIS: Well I don't know that
we're run by any brigade but certainly..
HUMPHRYS: But that was the expression
you used wasn't it..
NORRIS: Certainly it's a price
that one pays and that's not something that I regard as acceptable in terms
of the way the mayor will run this city. I've made it plain for example
that I will want to see among the twelve senior executive posts that the
mayor is appointing and that laid down in the Act, I will want to see exactly
at least the proportion of ethnic minorities among those twelve people
that there are in London. I want to say to people in London that as far
as I am concerned, if you are not a mayor, for the whole city, for all
of the thirty-three ethnic groups in this city that have got more than
ten thousand people in, nearly a hundred groups of nearly five thousand
people here, if you are not a mayor for them all, then you are not going
to be doing the job competently.
HUMPHRYS: Steve Norris, thank
you very much indeed.
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