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ON THE RECORD
RECORDED FROM TRANSMISSION: BBC ONE DATE:
20.02.00
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JOHN HUMPHRYS: Good afternoon. A couple
of hours from now we shall know who's going to be Labour's candidate to
be Mayor of London. I'll be talking to the man who'll carry the Tories'
banner, Steve Norris, and two Labour MPs, one for Ken Livingstone and one
for Frank Dobson.
And whatever happened to
the national changeover plan that was supposed to pave the way for Britain
joining the Euro? That's after the news read by Fiona Bruce.
NEWS
HUMPHRYS: Can Tony Blair ever persuade
a sceptical British public to love the Euro? Or is his Government in danger
of losing its way over Europe.
PADDY ASHDOWN: "Just as Europe has been the
wreckage of previous premierships - Europe will be the wreckage of this
one too."
HUMPHRYS: And why the Lords are preparing
to give the government another bloody nose over the election for London's
Mayor.
And that's where we begin,
with the race to become Mayor of London. More on the Labour nomination
later. But the Tories already have their candidate, not that theirs was
exactly an easy ride. They first went for Jeffrey Archer and then suffered
the massive embarrassment of having him pull out after he'd been forced
to admit that he'd asked someone to lie in a libel case, so, Steve Norris,
former Transport Minister, got that job instead - and even that turned
out to be a bit of a farce, one minute the London Conservative Party said
they wouldn't have him at any price- the next minute they were forced to
change their minds.
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.
HUMPHRYS: A little later in the
programme we're going to be looking at why a vote in the Lords this week
could cause more problems for Mr Blair in the election and might even mean
the mayoral election being postponed. We'll also be talking to a couple
of Labour MPs about their candidate, the Labour candidate.
But first, a year ago the
government launched its national changeover plan. If it passed you by,
well, not to worry, it did most of us. The idea was to prepare the ground
for Britain joining the Euro early in the next Parliament, just a few years
from now perhaps. But what's happened to it? Well, not very much, and
the reason for that? As Jonathan Beale reports, many people think it's
because the government would prefer us simply to forget about the Euro,
at least for the time being.
JONATHAN BEALE: These bottles could one day be
priced in Euros. It's a currency that's been adopted by eleven countries.
Euro notes and coins are already in production. The Prime Minister has
said he too wants to join a successful single currency. And he's asking
British companies like Bass to prepare for the day, but Tony Blair hasn't
told them yet when it'll happen.
PADDY ASHDOWN MP: I think this would have been
well recognised by Marshall Haig as a First World War strategy. They've
sent businesses into the front line to conduct this bloody battle but the
generals are still back at home in the Chateau.
He has the capacity to
show extraordinary courage and yet on this issue which he tells us is central
to his premiership he has completely failed to show the courage that is
necessary to give the lead, to take the country to the position he's told
us he wants us to be in.
BEALE: If there is any serious
debate in Government about Britain's entry into the single currency,
then it's only going on here behind closed doors. A year after the Prime
Minister told business to prepare for membership of the Euro, they and
the wider public are still wondering when it will happen.
A year ago Tony Blair
suggested it could happen very quickly. The National Changeover plan gave
a timetable for companies to work to. It could take Britain just three
years to join the Euro after a referendum.
TONY BLAIR (23 FEBRUARY 1999): What we announce today therefore
is not a change of policy. It is a change of gear. If we wish to have the
option of joining, we must prepare.
KENNETH CLARKE MP: It was a change of gear but
I'm not sure what gear they're in at the moment. But it was a reaffirmation
of their policy which happened to be identical to the policy of the Conservative
Party before the last election.
BEALE: Some British companies have
already started to work in Euros. Bass runs hotels all over the world
as well as producing beer and soft drinks. In most of Europe it's had
to change computers and tills. Two hundred and ninety million people in
eleven EU countries will be using the new notes and coins within two years.
The Government also wants British industry to begin thinking in Euros.
Most of Europe after all is already counting in them.
ANTHONY STERN: In the United Kingdom we
will be incorporating Euro facilities in our new tills. And so the changeover
should be relatively straightforward. But we won't implement that changeover
until there is a clear demand in the United Kingdom for use of the Euro.
And that is most likely to be after the Government has decided that it
wants to put the question of the Euro in a referendum and the British people
have said yes they want the Euro.
BEALE: The British Chamber of Commerce
is carrying out its own referendum even if the government is not. It wants
to know what its one hundred and thirty thousand members think about the
single currency and what they're doing to prepare. But even before the
results have been counted it's clear that most business is holding back.
IAN PETERS: The urgency really
has gone out of preparation I think for most people in business. They prepared
for the introduction of the single currency in the Euro Zone, but as far
as UK entry is concerned nobody really is making the running at the moment;
there's nobody putting pressure on business and quite rightly business
isn't going to spend significant sums of money until it's more certain
about whether we will enter or not.
BEALE: Meanwhile the Tories are
on the march. This week they kicked off their campaign to save the pound.
The Tory Leader hopes the message will capture the public's imagination
and he's enlisting all the help he can get.
WILLIAM HAGUE: I'll hold it to the photographers
but I'm holding it up to the people in St. Albans to remind them it's a
rare thing to see a politician put his hand in his pocket and pull out
a pound. It will never happen if Tony Blair wins the next election because
he wants to abolish the pound
BEALE: Conservatives are warning
that the Government's National Changeover plan is costing the country
millions of pounds.
MICHAEL PORTILLO MP: I call it the hand over plan
he was handing over our currency to Europe, he thought that by spending
all that money he could create an impression that it was going to happen
whatever people thought and they'd better get used to the idea. But actually
the experience of the last year has been rather different.
BEALE: The pro Euro lobby has put
together a formidable team. Britain in Europe was launched four months
ago. But so far they've hardly dared mention the Euro.
TONY BLAIR: Once in each generation the
case for Britain in Europe needs to be remade from first principles.
BEALE: But Euro enthusiasts want
the Prime Minister to talk more about the Single currency.
ASHDOWN: They're a brave bunch
of people who are doing the very best they can to counteract the argument.
But I'm afraid they haven't made much success so far. If I can change
the analogy, Britain in Europe reminds me a bit of Hamlet without to Prince.
The act is going on but without the Prince it's meaningless.
BEALE: Tony Blair and his Government's
enthusiasm for the Euro seems to have changed with the seasons. In February
last year when the changeover plan was unveiled the Prime Minister was
said to be ready to take Britain in. But a month later not everyone was
convinced. By spring even Mr Blair was said to be dithering. Come summer
though he was apparently backing the Euro while the Chancellor was ruling
out an imminent referendum. In the autumn the cabinet was united in support.
But there were also reports of splits between the Chancellor and the
Foreign Secretary. By winter the Prime Minister himself was championing
the Euro. Later his Chancellor was apparently unsympathetic, while the
Foreign Secretary was warning of the dangers of delaying. And by the start
of this year the Trade and Industry Secretary was backing the Euro.
CLARKE: I think their tactics are
sometimes fairly peculiar. I don't believe a lot of the press reports about
members of the Government going cool. I think they just argue amongst themselves
about the tactics of getting to the desired end of a referendum to take
us into the single currency if and when the conditions come right
GILES RADICE MP: People say well the Foreign
Secretary's saying one thing and the Secretary of State for Industry is
saying another and the Chancellor is saying another and so on. There's
not an absolute certainty of where the Government stands. Now I think the
Government does know where it stands and it's just the way it says it needs
to be agreed upon and then put over with renewed emphasis.
BEALE: In Sweden the Government
has also still to decide whether to sign up to the Single Currency. But
unlike Britain, here the political debate is now out in the open. The Prime
Minister and Finance Minister have both stated their desire to join the
Euro and they've now embarked on the difficult task of persuading their
party and the public.
Sweden's taken the first
tentative steps towards joining the Euro. It was only five years ago that
people here narrowly voted to join the EU. The public is split over the
single currency too. But the leading political figures believe they must
now begin the task of turning around opinion
BOSSE RINGHOLM: I think it's a very important step
for Sweden and for my Social Democrat party of course. We have entered
the European Union five years ago, and now we are ready for entering the
European Monetary Union too.
BEALE: Most Swedish industry too
wants its economy to be in tune with the rest of Europe. Scania is one
of Europe's largest truck manufacturers with factories in France and Holland.
It believes a strong Euro will create an more stable economic environment
in which to compete:
URBAN ERDTMAN: The desire is naturally
to be able to compete in the same way as our fellow competitors on the
continent, which are basically working in the Euro today. And naturally
in the long run we would like to have the same competitive possibilities
as our major competitors on the European market.
BEALE: But the Tories believe Britain's
economy is doing fine with sterling: ....And they're still waiting to hear
the Government present the arguments for the Euro. Polls suggest public
opinion is hardening against the single currency. Even though it's yet
to translate into a turnaround in Tory fortunes.
PORTILLO: The government read opinion
polls pretty well and they know that the vast majority of the population,
moderate minded people who are not ideologically committed to a federal
Europe are against scrapping the pound. The moderate majority in this country
is in favour of keeping the pound and so the Government is wary of offending
the moderate majority in this country and that is why they very often
downplay the Euro in what they say.
BEALE: The Prime Minister may find
it increasingly difficult to keep his strategy on the single currency under
wraps. The Conservatives are determined to make this an issue in the run
up to the General election, and pro-Europeans believe if Tony Blair wants
Britain to join sooner rather than later then he'll have to break his silence
and start selling the single currency.
ASHDOWN: I think this is the complete
illogicality, indeed stupidity of the position which Labour will describe
to you they're in.. They actually believe that by having the referendum
beyond the election they will somehow immunise the issue of the Euro during
he election. This is complete nonsense. The Tories have only got one line
to play and that's the Euro and they'll play it through the election so
there will have been a debate. But because the Government isn't prepared
to come out and argue that case my fear is that although the Government
will be returned at the next election the case for the Euro will be weaker
as a consequence. All you hear today is Euro sceptics. They have the best
hymns and they sing them the most loudly.
CLARKE: I think the Government
is deceiving itself if it thinks people are not going to regard it as an
important issue. I think the Government should be more up front explaining
why it is in favour of joining the single currency so long as the economic
circumstances come right.
RADICE: I think that the problem
for the Government is that the issue will be raised during the general
election and we will have to explain why it is that it might be in Britain's
interests to join a single currency. We can't just assume that people will
understand that as by osmosis.
BEALE: Warnings that the British
economy is about to be eclipsed by Euro-land are hotly disputed. The city
of London is still Europe's financial capital and in the past year inward
investment in Britain has increased. But campaigners for the single currency
are worried about the consequences of the delaying a decision
CLARKE: The Government does
keep saying its preparing for a referendum early in the next parliament
and that we will be asking the public to join if the economic conditions
are right. And I think most businessmen I know say: well they'd better
believe it I mean that had better be true. Because if anybody thought the
Government had lost its nerve and was going to postpone indefinitely a
decision on joining regardless of the economic circumstances, then in my
opinion lots of Japanese, American , overseas and British companies would
say: well I'm not investing any more serious money in manufacturing or
delivering services in the United Kingdom, I'm off.
ASHDOWN: What I'm clear about is,
if Britain doesn't join the single currency then we will pay a very heavy
price indeed; In jobs, in prosperity, in commerce and in political influence.
And I greatly fear that if this argument is lost and I am much more pessimistic
now than I was a year ago, then the consequences for our country will be
very, very grave . If in the end Mr Blair can't grasp this nettle, then
I fear, and I remember saying to him a long time ago, and he's heard if
from other sources too that just as Europe has been the wreckage of previous
premierships Europe will be the wreckage of this one too
BEALE: For the time being though
people are enjoying the good times outside the Euro. They've still to be
persuaded that the single currency will be better for Britain. If Tony
Blair really wants to take Britain into the Euro after the next election
he'll have to start turning around public opinion soon. And he can not
afford to hold a referendum without having won the argument. Supporters
of the single currency are getting worried he may have left it too late.
HUMPHRYS: Jonathan Beale reporting
there and incidently, we did ask again for an interview on the government's
policy towards the Euro with either the Foreign Secretary Robin Cook or
the Europe Minister Keith Vaz, but, once again, they did not want to talk
to us about it.
So now back to the race
to be Mayor of London. In just over an hour we will know who the Labour
party has chosen as its candidate. Tony Blair's man, Frank Dobson or the
man he's determined to stop, Ken Livingstone. The election is supposed
to happen in May and I say supposed to because it can't take place
until Parliament has voted on the election rules. And as Anne Perkins
now reports, the House of Lords could be about to give the government a
big fright.
ANNE PERKINS: It's been a nightmare from
the start. For more than a year the political show has been haunted by
Labour's search for a candidate who wasn't Ken. They only thing they hadn't
reckoned on was trouble in the Lords. But that's what they've got now.
LORD RENNARD: The stakes are very high
indeed because if the government isn't willing to show some compromise
with the other parties then they run the risk of these elections not taking
place at all.
PERKINS: Ministers thought Tuesday's
vote was a formality, the light at the end of the long long tunnel of the
devolutionary process. Instead they face another crisis, on the issue of
whether the Treasury should pay for the candidates to send every voter
a mailshot.
PERKINS: In the political fairground,
communication is everything. Finding ways of attracting the voters' attention
takes a big slice of most parties' campaign budgets. In all national elections
every candidate is allowed to send a leaflet free to every voter.
KEN RITCHIE: While the media has got an
important role in telling people about the election, about what the issues
are, the candidates should have the opportunity of saying something directly
to those who are going to vote.
LORD MACKAY: If the government believe
mayors are the way forward, then I think they've got to face up to getting
the public involved. And one of the principal ways of getting the public
involved is to ensure that each elector gets a piece of paper from each
candidate.
PERKINS: The democratic whirl leaves
more and more people cold. The government's committed to finding ways
of reviving interest in elections. The personal mailshot is reckoned to
be a good way of getting a few more bodies into the polling booths. But
there's never been a freepost for local elections.
RITCHIE: I think it would be silly
to regard London as a local election, London has got more electors than
the whole of Scotland, there was never going to be any argument about Scotland
being a local election, Wales was not a local election, when we had the
European elections that again were London wide, there was a free post delivery
for the candidates. Why we shouldn't have it here simply doesn't make sense.
PERKINS: For smaller parties trying
to clamber on to the political roller-coaster no free leafleting will be
a body blow. The Greens are hoping for seats on the new greater London
authority.
LORD BEAUMONT: Trying to cover electorate
for five million is very, very difficult, particularly when you don't have
very large numbers of troops on the ground. Greens I think are going to
come out in from all over the country to help with this particular election
because they know we have a very good chance of getting very considerable
representation, but nevertheless there are bits of London, Barking for
instance is a green desert as far as we're concerned and unless we can
get out there, get the information there, we won't get the votes that I
think we deserve.
PERKINS: But there's the cost,
says the government. Depending on whether you deliver to households or
individuals, and the number of candidates, it could be an open-ended commitment
to anything up to twenty million pounds - enough to pay hundreds of extra
policemen, argued one minister last week.
RITCHIE: We believe you could reduce
that down to something between perhaps two and four million if instead
of saying that they all had their own delivery that we got the delivery
co-ordinated that we simply had a single envelope. The different candidates
if they wished to produce a leaflet it can be put into the envelope.
LORD MACKAY: To be honest, I think if they're
going to penny pinch on democracy, they shouldn't have started on this
path at all, they should have left London with the kind of local government
it had. They started this, they made a great big play of it, they've got
to face up to the consequences.
PERKINS: The government has another
argument. Commercial interests - hamburger chains or a clothing store -
might decide to pay the �10,000 deposit and stand, as a cheap way of buying
a London-wide mail-shot.
LORD RENNARD: This is absolute and complete
and total nonsense. In fact the post office has a statutory duty to vet
the material very carefully to make sure that no word appears on the election
material that is not related directly to the election, so it's actually
impossible for this to happen.
PERKINS: The government blames
political opportunism for this collision. Opposition peers, in another
demonstration of their new, post-reform confidence, insist they're standing
up for democracy. The crunch is at hand. The Lords vote is not on legislation
which they could be made to reconsider, but on technical rules. That means
that if the government is defeated, the May elections will crash. Would
the unelected House of Lords really risk that?
KEITH HILL: It would be an act
of the grossest irresponsibility for an unelected chamber to seek to dictate
electoral practice to the elected house and we will resist it.
LORD MACKAY: The house is now the house
the government wanted. they've got rid of most of the hereditaries, they've
put a lot of their own people in, it's a new house and rightly I think
the old rules, the old way we behaved is up for question. I think on this
issue as a Labour MP said last week, when this was debated in the Commons,
it's not so much the peers versus the people, it's the government versus
the people and the House of Lords is on the people's side.
PERKINS: The
last time the Lords got the government on the hook like this was thirty
years ago, over Rhodesian sanctions... This time, the opposition argues
it's because the government itself is turning its back on constitutional
convention.
LORD RENNARD: As far as I'm aware it's
unprecedented for one government to try and impose its view of the election
regulations on every other political party. Normally the election regulations
are agreed between the parties as far as possible or certainly between
the government and the main opposition party, but it's unprecedented now
that every single other opposition party disagrees fundamentally with the
way the government is trying to change the way in which these elections
have, are being conducted.
PERKINS: So who will blink first?
Both sides are gambling that with the elections so close, their opponents
won't take the political equivalent of the nuclear option and risk delaying
or even cancelling the whole show. The government could chance running
the vote under existing local election rules. But that would probably
be challenged in the courts, triggering more confusion and delay. The
opposition alleges gerrymandering, claiming the government is trying to
fix the rules in its own interests.
LORD RENNARD: I think what the government
was really worried about was that Ken Livingstone might have been standing
as an independent against Frank Dobson as the official Labour candidate
and what they wanted to do was to try and handicap his campaign by making
sure there was no free post. But they've been rumbled and all the other
opposition parties are united in saying that the government should not
be able to impose its will on every other party in this way. It's fundamentally
undemocratic.
MACKAY: I know a little bit about
how government works. I think they'll take us right up to the wire, but
I would be surprised if they don't back down. But perhaps they think we're
kidding and I just have a message, we're not kidding.
PERKINS: The twist and turns of
Labour's experiment in devolution is not over yet. However the party spins
today's choice of candidate the House of Lords is determined to continue
its trial of strength with ministers' nerves.
HUMPHRYS: Ann Perkins reporting
there, and we did ask the government whether they wanted to respond to
that film, but they didn't.
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.
That's it for this week.
A quick reminder about our web site where you can find all our latest
films and interviews - good afternoon.
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