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JOHN HUMPHRYS: Well the whole campaign
to elect a Mayor of London has been a combination of farce and foul-up
for both parties. The Labour Party leadership has been trying to impose
its favoured son as we've been hearing, Frank Dobson, over the people's
choice, Ken Livingstone. Neither of those are saying anything until the
vote's been announced but the papers this morning are full of threats from
Mr Livingstone, some more veiled than others. The general message is that
if Mr Dobson wins by a whisker which is the prediction, then he will challenge
the result.
Well Diane Abbott is one
of few MPs who support Mr Livingstone and she is in our Westminster studio
with another MP who is supporting Mr Dobson, Stephen Pound. Mr Pound,
would you agree that whatever happens here it couldn't have been much of
a worse advertisement for the Labour Party this whole past few months?.
STEPHEN POUND: It's been a bit of a pantomime,
I can hardly pretend to deny that, but the point is that if you're going
to have a democratic process it's going to be messy anyway. It would have
been far simpler if the leader of the party had simply said, x or y is
going to be the candidate. But you could imagine what everybody would
have said then. No, I mean this is democracy in action. It's messy but
it's democracy.
HUMPHRYS: Is that what it is Diane
Abbott. Is it real democracy do you reckon. Has it been a free and genuinely
free and fair?
DIANE ABBOTT: Sadly it's not real democracy.
It would have been a lot simpler if we'd had a one person one vote ballot.
Instead we've had this electoral college and the facts which we know even
now is that every single Trade Union that's balloted Ken has won two to
one. Ken has got the majority of party members' votes and if Frank Dobson
however emerges from the electoral college as a victor, I do not believe
his position will be sustainable.
HUMPHRYS: Well, let me come back
to that in a minute, but pick up that point with you Stephen Pound. The
charge that's been made many, many times that it has been basically rigged
against Ken Livingstone. I mean you were the only MP at one stage supporting
Glenda Jackson and then they put the squeeze on you didn't they. The Party
bosses put the squeeze on you and you switched to supporting Mr Dobson.
POUND: Well there were actually
two MPs supporting Glenda Jackson, you're forgetting Glenda. Well, they're
quite....
HUMPHRYS: I assume that she had
her own support. And they tried to put the squeeze on her too, but she
said no and you said yes.
POUND: No, the whips didn't put
the squeeze on me. I mean I'm far too insignificant to be squeezed. What
I did was I balloted the membership of my party and Glenda came a very,
very poor third and I reflected, I had discussions with the party membership.
I mean it may suit the press and the media to have this marvellous image
of sort of Machiavellian whips skulking round in Guy Fawkes hats in the
lobbies breaking people's arms. But you know life isn't like that. If
anything had happened like that it would have been on the front page of
all the papers.
HUMPHRYS: I thought that Mr Livingstone
had actually won that ballot of your party members.
POUND: Ah, yes, any other questions?
HUMPHRYS: That rather makes my
point I think. Anyway, there we are. (good heavens! quite extraordinary).
If he does, let's move forward - there's no point in going back over
that too much. If - although I'm intrigued why having balloted them you
didn't...
POUND: I can tell you - sorry I
was allowing mirth and mischief to break through there.
HUMPHRYS: Mustn't do that..
POUND: .. Good Lord no, I'm afterall
a serious and sober person. No, what happened was that my party general
committee took a decision that I would not be mandated by the membership
vote. That was their decision and I didn't prompt that. Anybody who knows
anything about Ealing North constituency Labour Party would know that you
can't twist them.
HUMPHRYS: Or indeed knows about
democracy. But let me try and move this forward a bit. Now if, and this
is the prediction, if Mr Dobson squeezes in, if he wins it but only by
a little, less than the eight per cent that we'll come back to in a minute,
do you think that the party is really going to swing behind him, united
swing behind him.?
POUND: Those people who care about
the Labour Party, those people who are serious about the Labour Party and
what we intend to achieve will of course - one vote is enough, point one
per cent of a vote is. Those people who want to cast themselves as perpetual
victims will find this is yet another excuse for whinging victimism, and
they will say it's been a stitch-up. Well, you know all I can say is that
if Ken is the candidate, I didn't vote for him, but I will go out there
on the streets delivering leaflets and knocking on the doors for him and
I hope to God that Ken - well I think the only announcement he's made is
that he's off to the pictures this afternoon, but when he comes back from
seeing the "Blair Witch Project" or whatever it is that he is going to
see I hope that he will consider the fact that the party is more important
than individuals and the City of London is a damn sight more important
- the whole city - than any of this internal squabbling.
HUMPHRYS: But you do think there'll
be people that will not swing in behind Mr Dobson under these circumstances?
POUND: People have left the party
already. Some of my colleagues who were supporting one candidate or other
have lost members from their party. Of course that will happen. The Socialist
Workers Party must be rubbing their little hands with glee at the thought
of Ken not getting the nomination, because you know this is happy days
for the Trots. But for the rest of us who actually don't care about this
irrelevant sort of stuff on the sidelines, who actually want to do something
about the traffic in London, actually want to do something about policing,
want to do something about our city, we will move on. Sensible democrats
will move on.
HUMPHRYS: Alright, Diane Abbott,
what do you think about that. Do you think they'll swing behind Mr Dobson?.
DIANE ABBOTT: Stephen is right. The party
is much more important than any individual and the fact is that Ken has
got the majority of individual trade unionist votes by two to one. He has
the majority of party members' votes and in those circumstances if Frank
emerges as a candidate he'll be in the same position as Alun Michael...
HUMPHRYS: In Wales, yeah?
ABBOTT: Yes, he'll be in the same
position as Alun Michael in Wales who won his electoral college but was
not the popular choice and in the end his situation unravelled and as I
say Frank Dobson - if it is the case that Frank Dobson has won the electoral
college with its peculiarities, but Ken has won every single ballot I don't
believe that Frank's position is sustainable.
HUMPHRYS: So, do you think he will
stand, you think he should stand down clearly. Do you think he will stand
down?
ABBOTT: Frank must consider. He
must look at what happened to Alun Michael in Wales and he must consider
to go forward in London under the spotlight of the national media when
the world knows that you lost every single ballot of individual party members
is not a happy position.
HUMPHRYS: What if he doesn't.
What if he says: Look I've won, that's it, those are the rules.
ABBOTT: I don't believe that Ken
should run as an independent. I don't think Ken wants to run as an independent,
but there was no doubt given his massive support amongst party members
and given the fact that he's led in the opinion polls for two years despite
the fact that the party has thrown everything at him except the kitchen
sink, there's no doubt Ken will be under pressure to run as an independent.
And there's also no doubt in anybody's mind that if Ken runs as an independent,
Ken will win.
HUMPHRYS: You don't seem to be
saying under no circumstances should he do that. I mean you made the point
earlier that the party is bigger than any one member, but from everything
you've said it seems as if you're saying: I could perfectly well understand
if he stood as an independent?
ABBOTT: I'm just stating the facts.
I do not believe Ken should run as an independent, I think it would be
a tragedy if someone with Ken's talent and his ability to communicate with
the public, as his basis of support in London will last to the party, but
there is no doubt that he will come under tremendous pressure if, because
of the quirks of the College, Frank emerges as the candidate whilst he
does not have the mass support of party members.
HUMPHRYS: So under that.... those
circumstances, if he didn't and if Mr Dobson got a lead of less than eight
per cent, in case people are puzzled about that, the significance of that
is that those are the unions who did not ballot their members, those are
the block votes as it were against which New Labour is supposed to be opposed.
If that happens you're saying that he would be sort of justified in taking
that action?
ABBOTT: I'm not saying that at
all. I'm saying that he will undoubtedly come under a lot of pressure
to run as an independent.
HUMPHRYS: From whom?
ABBOTT: Well - from the public.
You know the public are big supporters of Frank and have supported him
all along and of course you don't have to look far to see what would happen
in these circumstances. Dennis Canavan was forced to run as an independent
for the Scottish parliament in Scotland. Sadly he didn't want to leave
the party but he was forced to run as an independent and he got the biggest
personal vote of any candidate in the elections of a Scottish parliament.
HUMPHRYS: What sort of support
do you think in those circumstances Mr Livingstone would get from the Labour
Party whether officially or.... Well clearly not officially but you know
what I mean. Officially or unofficially, I mean, from people like yourself
or from people who kind of keep their heads down but would vote for him
anyway.
ABBOTT: If Frank is the Labour
party's candidate I will be supporting Frank one hundred per cent. But
as far as Labour party supporters, on the council estates, in areas like
Hackney, even areas like Ealing, I'm afraid that very many of them will
come out and vote for Ken and you know you can rig a selection but you
can't rig the election in May.
HUMPHRYS: So we could see quite
a serious split in the party?
ABBOTT: I don't know about splits
and it need not come to that. I think Frank has to consider his position.
I hope that Ken will hold on and won't run as an independent but the facts
are plain - he has won every single ballot. If this had been a simple
one person - one vote election, Ken would have swept to victory.
HUMPHRYS: Let me ask you Stephen
Pound about the point Diane Abbott raised there; If he's returned as the
candidate without having won a single popular test at all - whether in
the trade unions or anything else, his position is very very difficult
isn't it?
POUND: No, I don't think it is,
He wins the majority of the vote. He wins the majority of the vote -
it's as simple as that.
HUMPHRYS: Except that the vote
has been rigged.
POUND: No it hasn't. If it had
been rigged there wouldn't have been a vote at all.
HUMPHRYS: Well you know what I
mean by rigged. I mean your party was supposed to be opposed to block
votes and yet here you resurrect the block because if you'd allowed the
popular vote to stand, if you'd allowed one member- one vote, as indeed
you were going to do right from the very beginning, there's no doubt that
Ken Livingstone would have swept it.
POUND: Well there is a fair bit
of doubt. I mean one of the extraordinary things has been the way that
votes and ordinary party members have in fact been moving from Ken to Frank
particularly since Christmas. But this is the same system we used to elect
the leader of the party and when we had the leadership campaign we had
John Prescott, Margaret Beckett and Tony Blair. None of them were complaining
about it. I mean nobody complained about the mechanism then and Margaret
Beckett and John Prescott rode in behind Tony Blair afterwards. I hope
that Frank does.... er that Ken does.
HUMPHRYS: Well as far as Tony Blair
was concerned it was rather different wasn't it. I mean the trade unions
did select according to the ballot of their own members. I mean there
was not a trade union block vote in the case of Tony Blair. He made the
point himself it was the same system - it wasn't the same system, it was
a different system.
POUND: Some unions balloted, some
unions didn't. But it's extraordinary, I mean the people on the left of
the party, including Ken for years and years and years have been talking
about the importance of the trade union vote. When it suits them, the
trade unions are very important. When it doesn't, suddenly it's the forces
of reaction, it's Arthur Deakin all over again. Well you can't have it
both ways.
HUMPHRYS: Diane Abbott - you can't
have it both ways?
ABBOTT: I've been a member of the
London Labour party for over twenty-five years. I'm looking to the election
in May. This selection process has been a fiasco and very damaging to
the London Labour party but it is not too late for the party to come behind
the popular choice and everybody knows, even Steven that the popular choice
is Ken Livingstone.
HUMPHRYS: So to what extent has
Tony Blair himself been damaged by all this in your view?
ABBOTT: I don't think people necessarily
blame Tony Blair for the way the thing has been run but although he's perfectly
within his rights to express support for his chosen candidate I don't think
it was necessarily appropriate for the Prime Minister of this country to
get so involved in what was, after all, an internal party election.
HUMPHRYS: Just a quick thought
from you Stephen Pound: Is Tony Blair damaged at all do you think?
POUND: I think to a certain extent
you're damned if you do and damned if you don't. When the Labour party
used to choose candidates in the seventies and eighties who were widely
reviled, you know, you think of Greenwich, Glasgow, Govan - the party was
accused of being weak because it didn't impose candidates. If the Prime
Minister, the leader of the party had refused to actually express an opinion
he would have been seen as vacillating and weak and Hague-like. The fact
that he has means he gets flack from the other side. I think that he's
made the honourable and decent and reasonable choice and said that for
London, of the candidates on offer, Frank Dobson is the best - not just
for the party but for London.
HUMPHRYS: Well we shall know very
soon whether it is Frank Dobson or not. Stephen Pound and Diane Abbott
thank you both very much indeed. And the result of that election, whether
it's going to be either of those two men or indeed we know that there is
a third candidate of course, Glenda Jackson, but the result will be carried
live on News 24 at about half past one.
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