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ON THE RECORD
RECORDED FROM TRANSMISSION: BBC ONE DATE:
27.02.00
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JOHN HUMPHRYS: Good afternoon. The
Labour Party is one hundred years old today... and there are celebrations
all over the country. We'll be looking at how the party - and its policies
- have changed over the century with a man who's been a member for nearly
half that time... the Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott.
And what does "new" Labour
stand for today? That's after the news read by Nicholas Witchell.
NEWS
HUMPHRYS: A hundred years old today...
but it now calls itself "new" Labour. Tony Blair tells us that without
that transformation the party would not have been elected to power. And
it's true that Labour has been enjoying a period of popularity with the
voters the like of which it has never seen before. But has it found that
new popularity and lost its soul... forgetting what it was created for?
Made a Faustian pact with its old enemies?
The Deputy Prime Minister
John Prescott is going to be with us throughout the programme to consider
that and other questions on where the party and the government is going.
But first this report from Terry Dignan.
TERRY DIGNAN: A hundred years ago a party
for working class trade unionists was formed. Today it seeks to represent
all classes. It's leader has built a coalition of support the like of which
the party's founders could only have dreamed of. But at what cost to its
original purpose?
Labour came into existence
in towns like Swindon to create a more equal society. New Labour makes
a fairer society, not equality, its aim. It rejects the old Labour idea
of making the poor richer by making the rich poorer. It wants to be the
party of the affluent as well as the poor, a one-nation party, or as some
would put it, a party without enemies.
Julia Drown won Swindon
South for Labour at the last election. Although it's a Southern boom town,
Swindon contains deep-rooted poverty. Failure to win elections has meant
Labour has only rarely in its history been able to help society's less
well-off.
JULIE DROWN: Well the Labour Party's always
existed to help the most disadvantaged people, many of whom live on estates
like this but also to increase the prosperity of the country as a whole.
But we haven't in many elections convinced people that that is what we're
about and so we needed to change to prove that. I think people did think
oh yes they might help the unemployed, they might help lone parents, but
they'll ignore the rest of us. I think we just never really convinced
them. We never got the message across that we were for the many, for everybody.
DIGNAN: Indeed it took the party
nearly half a century to win an election. The 1945 Labour Government nationalised
industries like coal, created a National Health Service and sought to eradicate
poverty. This was a party which believed in fighting inequality by redistributing
wealth and intervening in the economy.
BRIAN BRIVATI: It believed there were answers
to economic questions which involved State intervention to promote greater
equality. It's a bit of a mouthful but using the State, using government
to promote equality of outcome, that's what made it different from other
political parties.
DIGNAN: 1976 was a watershed for
the Labour movement. Cutting spending at a time of high unemployment, Labour
was accused of betrayal by public sector unions. Strikes in the Winter
of Discontent led to defeat for Jim Callaghan in 1979. The party split.
In 1983, committed to high taxation and public ownership, Labour under
Michael Foot lost disastrously.
Swindon went Tory. We
asked one of the town's ad agencies, Emery Mclaven Orr, to show how they
would have illustrated Labour's unpopularity in the '80s.
ACTUALITY: Left-wing, Communism, the Red
Flag, Red Ken..........."
DIGNAN: But back in the eighties,
Labour's new young leadership had already got the message. If it was ever
to win power again Labour would have to accept that many voters no longer
felt attached to nationalised industries and the welfare state. That was
the advice from those closest to Neil Kinnock.
CHARLES CLARKE: It was necessary to look, in a
managerial way, I suppose, much more ruthlessly at the way in which some
of the great collective institutions had actually built up and whether
they were really serving the interests of the individual citizen rather
than those who simply were working for them. Over the thirty-five or forty
years since 1945 there was a need to look again at the way that the great
organisations which had been established - the nationalised railways, the
nationalised health service and so on, were they really working in the
most effective way or had they become sclerotic in some respects.
DIGNAN: Kinnock abandoned the red
flag for a red rose, and started the long haul to making Labour electable.
It meant rejecting state intervention in the economy and allowing the public
sector to contract out services to private companies.
CLARKE: What did arise I think,
was a sense that the market could play a more effective role in some areas
of public activity where traditionally many, many had thought the market
had no role whatsoever to play. So there was a reassessment of the role
of the market, an acknowledgement of the positive contribution the market
could make.
DIGNAN: But Kinnock still lost.
The union block vote was ditched by his successor John Smith. To the irritation
of Labour modernisers, Smith rejected further radical change. Following
his death came Blair and New Labour. Eager to attract affluent voters,
Blair reformed the party's Clause Four commitment to public ownership and
promised not to raise income tax. But what did this mean for the poor?
This self-help shop is
in one of Julia Drown's poorest estates. It's a place to get advice on
how to get out of welfare dependency and into work. That's also New Labour's
approach to tackling poverty. Gone is the idea of raising the living standards
of the least well-off by redistributing wealth from the better-off.
DROWN: Well what the Government
is wanting to do is to make it very clear that the route out of poverty
is to get into work - for everybody who can work. And it has actually been
a successful policy already. I mean here are things like the New Deal for
Lone Parents, enabling them to get into work and the New Deal for the Young
Unemployed, for the long-term unemployed, really is equipping people with
the skills they need to be able to get into work.
BENJAMIN WEGG-PROSSER: What we have is a party which has
changed and which has modernised. It's brought in new policies but it's
values have remained, the values of social justice, of fairness, of equal
opportunity exist. What has changed is the way in which you get those
things.
DIGNAN: But those who know the
party's history disagree. They argue that New Labour's attitude to the
poor has changed quite fundamentally. Even the red rose now seems to belong
to another age.
BRIVATI: Blair doesn't believe,
and Brown doesn't believe in equality of outcome. They believe in equality
of opportunity. Now that can make huge differences to millions of people's
lives, but it's different. It's fundamentally different.
DAVID MARQUAND: I think they see it like this.
Here we are in this ferocious, savage, highly-competitive global economy.
That's a fact of life, we didn't create this but we live in it, it's a
jungle. It is not about, sort of, taking money away from the very successful
to, to, to pour it back into the disadvantaged. It's is about giving the
disadvantaged the tools with which they can themselves struggle and compete,
if you like, in, in this new global marketplace."
DIGNAN: For most of its hundred
years Labour has struggled to win over the aspiring voters of the suburbs
and ever-expanding private housing estates. In towns like Swindon, New
Labour has made keeping the trust of these voters its main objective. What
that appears to mean is constantly re-assuring them about sensitive issues
such as taxation..
DROWN: Well, they didn't completely
trust the Labour Party - I think there was a particular issue on tax. The
Tories' double whammy posters and so on did have a big effect and it was
reinforcing some of their fears over the Labour Party. People here work,
work hard and they want to be rewarded for, for being in work; and, and
in previous elections they have been worried that, that Labour would just
keep taxing them."
DIGNAN: So how would our Swindon
advertising agency market today's Labour Party? By branding it as a party
that appeals to rich and poor alike. Those who were pushing for change
in the Nineteen Eighties believe Labour had to create this new coalition
if it was ever to win power again.
CLARKE: The great mass enterprises
of production which were characteristic of our economy and which were the
basis, the core of Labour support, have gone - as the economy has changed,
technology's moved forward, and so on. So Labour has had to think, how
can we build a coalition across a wide range of different types of people
in different types of occupation which is different from our traditional
coalition - but focused on the same goal, to achieve a just society which
means those who are worst off get a better crack
DIGNAN: New Labour's greatest strength
- it's ability to appeal to a wide coalition of voters - could, potentially,
be its biggest weakness. Trying to please everyone, it's argued, may mean
avoiding tough decisions.
ACTUALITY: For you, for everybody. Both
individual and inclusive of everyone else.
BRIVATI: The New Labour Party in
my view, is a very, very, broad church. It's so broad, it's almost meaningless
the kinds of constituencies it's trying to represent. Much broader than
it's ever tried to be in it's history before. What the Labour brand is
trying to represent are really some very, very, diluted values. Compassion,
maybe hope, maybe but, they're so diluted I mean no politician is gonna
stand up and say, "I'm against compassion. I'm against hope."
TONY WRIGHT: You can't just live in a world
I think where you think you can, you can as it were please everybody. There
comes a point where you have to be absolutely up front about what you are
doing. It does occasionally say things, mean saying things to people that,
that may seem difficult; that may on the face of it seem unpopular; that
some focus group may have told you might cause a bit of trouble - but,
but I'm afraid political leadership involves that."
DIGNAN: The old Labour Party made
the people living in council estates like this one their main priority.
New Labour also wants to help the least well off but not it seems by asking
the affluent to make sacrifices. Increasingly, this is seen as the biggest
source of tension within the party.
DROWN: We got our fingers so burnt
in, in '92 that you know you can't help thinking people - in one survey
will say oh yes I'll pay a penny more on, on tax", and they - it's as
if somehow in their mind they think that it's just one pence, and then
when it really gets to the ballot box and that paper they, they, they haven't
voted for it - the British people haven't voted for those taxes and it
is because they want to be rewarded for working hard.
WRIGHT: What that doesn't mean
though is I think that you become immobilised because you're, you're, you're
frightened of elements of that coalition fracturing if you move in a certain
direction rather than another. I mean I just don't think it's the case
that middle class people, for example, are prepared to see basic public
services run down, come under severe funding pressure, because we dare
not confront an argument about taxation . I mean that's what political
leadership is all about; we have this huge majority, we're doing awfully
well, but I think a little bit more courage on that front is probably the
key to our longer term success."
ACTUALITY: (MUSICIANS) "One, two, three."
DIGNAN:: The economy of Wiltshire
is growing fast and tonight Julia Drown celebrates with the county's businessmen
and women in a Swindon hotel. Regarded by Tony Blair as an essential component
of the New Labour coalition there's no sign they're going to be asked to
pay more for a fairer society.
WRIGHT: I'd like to see Tony Blair
make some big speeches actually saying yes we're trying to tax people sensibly,
we're trying to tax in new ways to, to raise the money that we need. But
actually taxation is a kind of civic responsibility - because if you don't
do that, you've got every party in the land simply following a tax cutting
agenda. I think that's the end for a party of the, party of the Left."
DIGNAN: A hundred years ago Labour
set out to create a more just society. Tony Blair says it failed largely
because of its inability to succeed at the polls. Blair's created a coalition
of society's winners and losers. But has it been at the expense of enfeebling
the party's values and discarding its original purpose.
HUMPHRYS: Terry Dignan reporting
there.
JOHN HUMPHRYS: So John Prescott, the Labour
Party has changed, clearly. You - I think it was you - that coined the
phrase 'Traditional values in a modern setting' that was yours wasn't it?
JOHN PRESCOTT: Yes.
HUMPHRYS: But the worry has got
to be that by trying to be all things to all people, you can't really assert,
you can't shout from the roof tops those traditional values that have got
you to where you are today and that's got to be a bit of a worry hasn't
it.
PRESCOTT: I don't accept that.
If our traditional values, the ways that have provided people, dealt with
the problems at the beginning of the century - mass unemployment, squalor
and no housing, slums kind of situation, access to education and health.
They are still the traditional values that I talked about which Keir Hardie
had in his manifesto, was largely implemented by that Labour Government
in 1945 and that's why we saw public provision so important, for education,
for the Health Service and even the housing estates, we just didn't convert
to them, we did that to get people out of slums into decent housing. Now
in all those senses health, education, housing are still in our manifestos,
they are in our little card that I run around the country with. So those
traditional values are there but sometimes in the providing of them you
do it within the modern setting, though with education and health we are
clearly putting bigger resources through public facilities, through the
taxpayers' payment to provide those things that are needed for the equality
of opportunity and for the securing of social justice, of which the Labour
Party is about at the beginning of the last century and indeed the beginning
of this century.
HUMPHRYS: But perhaps the big difference
is this. As you say those problems existed then, they exist today, many
of them to a much lesser extent, clearly, they have to be paid for. The
old Labour Party was quite clear about it, redistribution was the way to
tackle it, Richard Crossman..Tony Crossman used to talk about it and that
was what you were proud of standing for. Now, is that something the Labour
Party still believes in - redistribution from the rich to the poor.
PRESCOTT: Well it wants to see
that equality and the equality of opportunity and reducing the disparities
between the haves and the have-nots but we also emphasise that we are the
party of the many. Let me deal directly with the point, if you take housing
for example, a very important consideration, we have taken five billion
pounds of money that was held in local authority accounts, now to begin
to rebuild and redo housing that had been allowed to go into decline. That
didn't require any more money from the government, it did a different form
of priorities. The forty billion pounds now, that Gordon Brown has got
into health and education, shows again our priorities for those two areas
which are about the quality of life - health, education and jobs - because
of prosperous economies. And prosperous economies are an important point
of that. We have got something like eight hundred thousand more people
back in work, so if we want to talk about equality of opportunity we want
to talk about the quality of life, having a job is crucial, living in a
house, access to education and health are crucial parts of Labour's manifesto
and we still do it. Now, as for the redistribution and dealing with the
poverty industry, which I think is a very important matter, we have of
course minimum wage which Keir Hardie called for and it's Tony Blair's
government's that's actually implemented it so fair pay, out of poverty
pay is an important part.
The way that we have dealt
with the pensions, the Family Income Allowance, the Family Allowances,
the Workers' Family Credit, now which will guarantee at least ten thousand
in work. That is the way we are making sure that people are not driven
into poverty pay and meets the kind of equality of approach to be fair
in a society.
HUMPHRYS: But the old way of doing
it was to make it necessary, to make the rich a bit poorer so that the
poor could get to be a bit richer and old Labour accepted that if that
had to be done with direct taxation then so be it. But when you came into
power, you not only accepted your predecessor, the Conservative Party's
direct taxation levels, you actually set about reducing then. So that proves
doesn't it, that you are nervous. You are desperately nervous of this concept
of direct redistribution.
PRESCOTT: Well no, I think what
Gordon Brown did do of course, as you suggest, he reduced the lower level
ten p. We reduced the basic tax, it was a commitment that we gave in the
election, it takes into account the new circumstances we find ourselves
as a political party and indeed the global economy we operate in.
HUMPHRYS: And the rich are benefiting
as well as the poorer..
PRESCOTT: Well that's true, you
could argue that case of course and in fact what we have seen is we are
providing the money for public services on a scale that we haven't done
before quite frankly, both in health and the education. More needs to be
done, but we are doing that. We have also found new ways of raising resources
for the public private partnerships in our public facilities like the Underground
or the areas of public service industries which were largely dependent
on the taxpayer for the investment and it failed to get the best of the
provision of that investment. So all these things are a different way of
doing things but our traditional values are still there, heavily at the
heart of our manifesto programme which is about equal opportunity, it is
about social justice and distinguishes very much from the other political
parties.
HUMPHRYS: Right, but the approach
is different. Let me quote you what Tony Blair - Tony Wright (Freudian
slip) Tony Wright said in that film and it rather suggests that he's whistling
in the dark, bearing in mind what you've just been saying: 'I'd like to
see Tony Blair saying we are trying to tax in new ways to raise the money
we need. That taxation is a civic responsibility' - that's the important
one - 'taxation is a civic responsibility because if you don't do that
you've got every party in the land simply following a tax cutting agenda
and that's the end of the party of the left'. He has a point there doesn't
he.
PRESCOTT: Well he has a point
if you traditionally define it in that way. The tax burden we are talking
about is the direct one and there's direct and indirect taxation systems,
there are new ways of raising money which I have been referred to on the
public private partnership. The Underground for example wants seven billion
pounds, it doesn't come from that. So it's the balance of expenditure,
government's expenditure and it's government take from tax, or indeed an
increase in wealth in society, it's balancing those and provided the outcome
is improving it for the many in this country, I think that's justified
and if it gives the priorities to provision of health and education and
homes, I think that shows the social justice agenda.
HUMPHRYS: But it's goodbye to redistribution
in the sense that the Labour Party has always understood it.
PRESCOTT: Well you redistribute
in different ways, whether it's through greater accountability on power,
or whether it's in different forms of..
HUMPHRYS: I did qualify the question
by saying..
PRESCOTT: ...narrow interpretation..
HUMPHRYS: ..well in the way that
the Labour Party always accepted it.
PRESCOTT: Well taxation has its
part to play, it's still a progressive taxation, it could be more progressive
you could argue but..
HUMPHRYS: ..indeed I could..
PRESCOTT: ..it is a progressive
tax system but I think what we try to do is to find different ways and
forms of financing..
HUMPHRYS: Stealth taxes comes to
me of course...
PRESCOTT: Well that is the rhetoric
that is used on these occasions. All governments have been involved in
different forms of taxation and they will still continue... We still believe
in a progressive taxation, they will argue about the levels and indeed
we do, between the political parties and within parties, but it's a lot
better and the Labour Party now finds itself in a stable economic situation
where the creation of wealth is far better. The growth in our economy is
good and we'll reduce the amount of debt so we don't pay as much in interest
and we transfer that money to pay for things like health and education.
That is redistribution in the true term of the word.
HUMPHRYS: All of which of course
needs, you'd be the first to acknowledge, much more money in the years
to come, a greater health and education and all those other .......
PRESCOTT: Better than keeping people
in mass unemployment. It will all bring them opportunities of jobs so
you're not putting the money into maintaining...
HUMPHRYS: You don't actually have
a commitment to full employment do you, not a commitment, it's an aspiration
not a commitment.
PRESCOTT: Well, I don't know what
you call it. It's the highest level of employment that we've secured here.
HUMPHRYS: But it is not a commitment...
PRESCOTT: It's also eight hundred
thousand more than when we came in, and we're moving to more and more full
employment.
HUMPHRYS: But the old part y had
a commitment to full employment didn't it?
PRESCOTT: Well, the old party produced
full employment, but they were very much in a controlled national economy.
We're in a global economy which is much more considerable, considerably
different for those circumstances, but there's no reason why we can't believe
that people should have a right to work and help to provide the full employment
as they did in forty-seven, as we do now.
HUMPHRYS: Yes, the right to work
of course is very different from an absolute entitlement to work, as a
result of the commitment which you are not prepared to make and have never
made..
PRESCOTT: Well, at these levels
of employment we've got at the moment it's highly difficult to define....
HUMPHRYS: ........the principle
- we're talking about principles here.
PRESCOTT: I know, I can remember
when it was full employment John. They used to argue whether two-and-a
half per cent unemployed was the amount of money that you had when you
balanced inflation and the rest of the economy, but what is true - eight
hundred thousand more people in work - it's the highest level of employment,
less spent on unemployment, more people into work. That's equality of
opportunity.
HUMPHRYS: And that is one of the
ways...
PRESCOTT: That's where we make
the difference.
HUMPHRYS: And that's one of the
ways in which you spend less money, so therefore you will have more money
to spend on things like the public services, like bringing the NHS up to
the standard that one of your values demands that it should be at. But
that isn't happening, not happening yet because you are afraid to raise
the money, the sort of money that Tony Blair admitted himself a few weeks
ago was needed. He talked about - I know you told us you're putting more
money in - everybody puts more money into the National Health Service.
He said we need to put much more money in still to bring it up to the
European level. Now, you're not going to that because you're afraid to
raise taxes, as would have happened under the old Labour system.
PRESCOTT: You must wait and see
because the amounts of money that go into the public sector or the private
sector are a matter of distribution from a government's point of view.
If it wants to put more in health as Gordon Brown has done - over twenty
billion pounds, however he raises that...
HUMPHRYS: ... It's not.....quite.
PRESCOTT: Over a three year period.
I mean we're negotiating the next three years. There is the highest
investment going into the Health Service, there are thirty more hospitals
being built, so we've started, and we've only been in two and a half years.
Now as to whether more resources are needed for the health, that's a very
important point. People live longer, twice as long now as they did when
Keir Hardie was talking about it. It means the demands on the Health Service
has not, as Labour first thought if people are healthier there'd be less
demand to put money into hospitals. No, no, medical science advances,
people live longer, so it does demand more money. That's exactly what
Tony Blair is saying.
HUMPHRYS: And when he was challenged
on that, and when he said yes, all those things that you've just said,
of course it demands more money and will continue to demand more money
he backed away from a commitment. The impression he gave in that interview
that you'll remember as well as I was that it was a commitment, a real
promise, a real pledge, a real commitment, it turned out not to be any
of those things, it turned out to be a hope, an aspiration.
PRESCOTT: No. We've made it absolutely
clear we would continue to try and find more resources for health.
HUMPHRYS: ... will you find..
It's a commitment.
PRESCOTT: Well, it's a commitment
for a Health Service which was our creation. Let me make this clear to
you John. We created a Health Service, not as Beveridge recommended when
he talked of how we deal with the evils like disease. He had an insurance
system. The Liberals wanted an insurance system, the Tories wanted an
insurance system.
HUMPHRYS: I'm not, not talking
of any of that.
PRESCOTT: I know, but there's an
important point here. We created it on a Socialist principle, that is
treatment based upon need and not your ability to pay. That means that
we have to find the resources to meet that ever-increasing demand. Now
one of the controversies I'm involved in is whether you can find money
from the private sector for investment in public services rather than going
to the Chancellor and asking for his money. If in fact we can do that
whether it's the Underground, whether it's Nats, what I'm choosing to do,
I'm trying to persuade others of, that that kind of priority in public
expenditure relieves the Exchequer of resources, not to invest in trains,
underground, but to put it into hospitals and education. It is a re-prioritising
if you like, of government expenditure within the total amount of expenditure.
HUMPHRYS: It is of course a lot
more than that. I mean some people would argue of course in one sense
it's mortgaging the future, but you see, one of your core...
PRESCOTT: Everything mortgages
the future. If you buy a house you mortgage the future.
HUMPHRYS: Not if you pay for something
immediately then you haven't. But...
PRESCOTT: Don't just move off that.
Thirty hospitals now are being used on private financing, right. That
means you get the hospital now instead of waiting with an old decrepit
hospital for twenty years. You just asked me first of all what the public
want, and there's no doubt they want that, and secondly if you want good
quality public services that is the way we find new ways of financing,
it's traditional values in a modern setting.
HUMPHRYS: In a modern setting -
as we kicked off with. I knew you were going to say that. But let's look
at this hugely important question of ownership. Now, you were proud of
public ownership many years ago. You are now so embarrassed by the very
notion of public ownership that you run a mile from it. I mean that is
not just a hundred-and-eighty degrees, that's if it's possible more than
a hundred-and eighty - you've gone away - even, even if, even if - let
me finish the point - even if the public appears to want it, as is the
case with the London Underground. You've run away from it.
PRESCOTT: Well, I haven't run away.....
HUMPHRYS: Because you're embarrassed
by public ownership.
PRESCOTT: No, I'm not embarrassed,
in fact - but wait a minute. The London Underground is actually remaining
in public ownership. Can I say that? It's not got shares, it's not set
up to be privatised. It is owned by Londoners. All I've done is to say
that when it was publicly owned Treasuries never ever found enough money
to put the investment, that's why it's creaking and groaning. They never
give more than two years. On this proposal we will be able to get the
investment guaranteed well over twenty years, we will modernise the system
and the assets once modernised, like a mortgaging facility come back to
London. It's not privatised.
HUMPHRYS: Well, you'd better tell
all this to Frank Dobson because he's now running away from this notion.
He seemed to be on board with it, but now he seems to be running away
from it.
PRESCOTT: No, what he said is that
he wants to ...
HUMPHRYS: He wants to have another
look at it.
PRESCOTT: No, all he's said is
he wants to make sure it's the best value for money. No, wait a minute...
HUMPHRYS: Well, he was convinced......
PRESCOTT: I know, ... no, no.
When Frank was doing hospitals he was doing precisely that. I am required
by parliament to be able to produce a price for a product in this case
which is best value for the taxpayer and the community. If I can't prove
that then it would fall. Some hospitals fell because they couldn't prove
it was best value, but don't run away, it's still publicly owned, publicly
accountable, run by Londoners, and they'll get a modern system back, and
that's why I'm critical of the public ownership. Public ownership never
ever gave investments, so actually were water, electricity or Underground
more than two years. I want to break out of that, to make sure we get
the best of the public sector and the best of the private sector working
in a partnership.
HUMPHRYS: And you've explained
all that to Frank Dobson. Presumably that's what you're going to tell
Ken Livingstone when you meet him this week.
PRESCOTT: ...no, no, no, no, no,
no
HUMPHRYS: What are you going to
say to Ken Livingstone, look, I'll do some of the things that you want.
PRESCOTT: No, no, look, look, the
public/private partnership was in our manifesto. Ken says he supports
manifesto. It's not....
HUMPHRYS: ......no concessions
to him than at all
PRESCOTT: ......wait a minute,
wait a minute, it's passed in legislation, Ken voted for it, I voted for
it, Frank Dobson voted for it.....
HUMPHRYS: What's the point of meeting
him them.
PRESCOTT: Well, I'm not meeting
him to discuss that. I wear my Deputy Leader hat, and I'm talking to him
about the party considerations, and I hope Ken, who signed up for the manifesto,
who signed up to agree the election result, will now reflect on this position
and not join those who walk into the wilderness. It was Ken who said,
I was born Labour, I'll die Labour, and I hope that's what Ken will do,
come back, join, make sure he sticks with us and get behind Frank Dobson.
I'm not discussing any manifesto commitment, I can't change the manifesto
any more than he can. Party members decide our manifesto.
HUMPHRYS: So it's back off to Ken
Livingstone, back off, or else.
PRESCOTT: Well it's nothing to
do with the tube, it's to do with....
HUMPHRYS: ...no, no, I'm saying,
what you're saying to Ken Livingstone is knuckle down....
PRESCOTT: .....I'm saying, Ken,
you've always said you are a Labour man, you wrote up and said you would
sign the election of this, you'd accept this election result, you signed
up for that, you signed up to say you accept manifesto commitments, all
those now have been decided, why are you not now joining with us to fight
the Tory candidate and ....
HUMPHRYS: .......doesn't seem a
lot of point
PRESCOTT: .......and make sure
we have a Labour man.
HUMPHRYS: Doesn't seem a lot of
point in meeting him does there because he knows that's your view, you've
made it clear in very strong language over the last weeks.
PRESCOTT: I know, but I didn't
arrange this meeting, the General Secretary of the party arranged it...
HUMPHRYS: ......so you don't want
it....
PRESCOTT: .....and asked would
me.... I would always meet with people I hoped would stay in the Labour
Party. There are many people who have left. You know, you've got, you've
got Molesley on the extreme right went out and they got lost, you've got
Hatton on the extreme left, if you like, one way, and somebody like David
Owen in the middle, they've all left, but eventually the Labour Party's
marched on, delivering social justice, and I say to Ken, stick with us
Ken, you're a Labour Party guy, let's make sure Labour wins this election.
HUMPHRYS: Alright, well let me
move on at that point to another area, because you are going to stay with
us for the rest of the programme I am happy to say.
HUMPHRYS: The most common charge
levelled against the leaders of New Labour is that they are control freaks...
that the people who've made the party what it is over the years who joined
in the arguments, contributed to the decision-making are now pushed to
one side... regarded, if they're regarded at all, as something of a nuisance.
Is the party beginning to pay the price for that, well that's something
else I'll be putting to Mr Prescott after this report from Paul Wilenius.
PAUL WILENIUS: Labour Party activists in
Sheffield - they're out leafleting in the City Centre. But they've a
funny feeling someone's watching. They're carrying out party orders.
They're not easily put off, and they're still pushing the government's
message across to the voters. But sometimes they're uneasy, worried someone's
trying to control them. Is it Millbank? Party activists are getting tired
of being seen, but not heard.
SIR KEN JACKSON: The activists out there
do feel that their view is not being heard, that they're not being listened
to and when you try to change the role that they've got in terms of the
communication within the party, then obviously they feel sensitive that
that is not the way they want to go at this moment in time.
LORD SAWYER: You've got to allow people
to have their say which might not always agree with yours. I think this
thing about being a control freak, which runs and runs, and runs, and never
kind of goes away, needs to be addressed.
WILENIUS: The Labour Party was
formed 100 years ago, so its members and the unions could put their own
people into Parliament. But Labour's history has been characterised by
debate, division, and even open revolt against its own leadership. Tony
Blair has acted to prevent such clashes, but some fear he will pay a political
price for imposing such strict centralised controls on the party.
It's this control from the centre which is upsetting so many activists
like these. After a hard day trying to persuade the voters of South Yorkshire
to keep the faith with Labour, they voice their own fears over the changes
to the party.
UNNAMED WOMAN: Unless you have that grass roots
link in to the party, I mean, cheque book membership and armchair membership
is fine, but we still those grass roots that sort of connect the party
with other local organisations.
UNNAMED WOMAN: If you're getting a resolution
that comes forward for voting either at the constituency or then even ultimately
at the conference, at least that's come through where everybody has played
a role, everybody has played a part. I mean they could if they wanted just
ignore us, they do, they do frequently just ignore us.
UNNAMED MAN: Somehow one's given the idea
from London that we don't want the party run by activists.
UNNAMED MAN: I don't know about your wards,
but in my wards, every year I'm finding less people willing to go out and
spend their weekends and evenings working for the Labour Party.
UNNAMED WOMAN: I think that we are more in touch
and I think you ignore activists at your peril.
BILL MICHIE, MP: There is a feeling that
they are being taken for granted, they're being ignored, they're no longer
people who have a message themselves that they can believe in and also
to be part of the creation of that message, but are basically foot soldiers
who are carrying out the orders from above. That's a real serious problem
which I think will get worse unless the Labour Party wakes up to it.
WILENIUS: But in the seventies,
the problem for Labour was that the voices from the unions and local parties
were far too loud. Party conferences were often tarnished by rows over
policy with the serving Labour government over policy on pay , tax and
spending, and debates could turn ugly, and result in open calls on Ministers
to quit.
LORD HEALEY: The civil war in the Labour
Party for 10 years in the fifties led by Nye Bevan and then for 10 years
in the eighties led by Tony Benn did enormous damage because people don't
like a divided party.
WILENIUS: Lord Healey knows that
party reform was vital and believes Tony Blair has learned the lessons
of those years.
HEALEY: Obviously if you don't
remember history, you're bound to repeat it , as someone once said. And
they're very, very conscious of the problems Labour's faced in the past
and they don't want them to happen again.
WILENIUS: Here in Mitcham and Morden
party activists are considering the latest revolution in party organisation.
UNNAMED WOMAN: And I am here to talk about
the 21st Century party consultation, a very exciting project that's taking
place in the Labour Party at the moment, which is trying to encourage all
of us as members to think and examine the structures that make up the Labour
Party.
WILENIUS: The aim is to water down
the powers of constituency parties, and follows six years of radical party
change under Tony Blair. It's seen the leadership remove policy making
from the party conference, dilute the union block vote, and weaken the
power of the National Executive Committee.
One of the key architects of the reforms was former Labour General Secretary
Tom, now Lord Sawyer. But he now feels the party reforms are not having
the desired effect
LORD SAWYER: It isn't working, and instead
of party members being antagonistic and difficult, they're apathetic and
not interested, so, this is my point, that what you've got to do, you've
got to give them something to care about and something to engage them in
the party and the government project, and there is a gap between what the
government is doing and what the party thinks. We've got to close that
gap.
UNNAMED WOMAN: And Tony Blair is so clear
about his aspirations for this next century, for the twenty-first century.
WILENIUS: But anxiety over this
reform is growing . There are fears it will change the whole nature of
the party, and could put off even more party workers. Lord Sawyer is worried
that party activists may find it difficult to digest much more reform.
LORD SAWYER: I think this should be the
last change because it completes the changes and it allows local parties
to open their doors and get more people involved, but I think it should
be the last change. The real issue now isn't about any more changes to
the structure. The main issue is getting people involved and linking up
the party members with the government and stopping that alienation between
the two .
WILENIUS: And one of Tony Blair's
most loyal union friends, engineering union leader, Sir Ken Jackson, goes
further. He's worried enough about the impact of the latest proposals
to feel they should be abandoned .
KEN JACKSON: Well I don't think at this
moment in time the new proposals should, should, they should go ahead with.
I think what we've got to do is consolidate on what we've done, show people
the changes and the opportunities that have opened up by changing the party,
but the new proposals at this moment in time, I believe, are a step too
far.
WILENIUS: Labour leaders claim
the reforms will modernise the party and put it in a good shape for the
next 100 years. But some are worried this is an excuse to tighten control
over the party even further and to end free and open debate. They fear
this will further alienate members and many will become less active or
even desert the party.
One place Millbank always
has its eye on is the offices of the Left Wing paper Tribune. Tony Blair
wrote in the paper last week that Labour's core supporters will not get
any preferential treatment from the government. Editor Mark Seddon says
that this attitude, combined with anger over excessive central control,
is undermining party activism.
MARK SEDDON: There is a great danger that
those who seek to control and those who seek to tell people what they can,
who they can vote for and what they can think and all the rest of it will
end up with a very morose and quiescent party, that is simply not prepared
to do very much at all and that is a very big danger. People have got to
be enthused and they have got to be, they have to feel that they have ownership.
WILENIUS: Mark Seddon is also a
member of Labour's National Executive. Last week he addressed activists
in Brent East, Ken Livingstone's constituency. He warned them of the dangers
posed by the reforms, which will lead to greater centralisation.
SEDDON SPEECH: Frankly, this party, a 100
years old, has a democratic tradition which is the envy and should be
the envy of every other political party. The Labour Party has such a proud
record in so many different ways that we simply cannot allow a small group
of people, who really have little time for it, to take it over.
SEDDON: The Labour Party has moved
away from the idea of a representative democracy whereby ideas and resolutions
can flow from the bottom upwards, percolate up through this movement, hopefully
influence the leadership, to a top down approach which is largely based
on something they call managed consensus, which means for the most part
avoiding votes and resolutions whether it be in the Parliamentary Labour
Party or the constituency parties or whatever.
WILENIUS: Labour's leaders should
be watching this place very carefully. It's the Politics Department of
Sheffield University. Paul Whiteley and Patrick Seyd have been tracking
the Labour Party for ten years and they've uncovered startling new evidence
that many party members feel neglected. They say the leadership must stop
meddling in the party, as in elections in London and Wales, or it could
damage them in the future.
PAUL WHITELEY: The party leadership needs
to lighten up and allow dissent, allow initiatives, stop interfering in
the democratic processes. There's no question in my mind that what's been
happening in London is a disaster from the point of view of demotivating
the activist and if that's not done and those lessons are not learned,
Labour will take..will rue the day in the long run, that these approaches
have been taken.
PATRICK SEYD: Party members are not fools,
you know, I don't think they expect a leadership to agree with them all
the time. But I think what party members want, they want to trust their
leaders, they want to trust their leaders that their leaders take their
opinions seriously, even if they disagree with them.
WILENIUS: Their evidence shows
those active in the party have dropped from a half to a third and that
party members are leaving.
SEYD: Between our last
two surveys in 1997 and 1999, fifteen per cent of the membership have actually
left. So not only are you having a declining activist base, but actually,
even though the members, the membership did increase up until the election,
since then for the Labour Party it's declining. Something like sixty five
thousand individuals have left the Labour Party over a two year period.
Now that is worrying for the Labour Party, very worrying indeed.
WILENIUS: Those high up in the
Labour Party may finally be waking up to this worrying message, as it's
now coming from loyalists who helped deliver the reforms.
Sir Ken Jackson heads
the influential engineering union. He chats openly at a union reception
last week to former Defence Minister Peter Kilfoyle, who warned that the
party must pay more attention to its activists and heartlands. Both agree
that the government needs to do more to keep the party and government together,
and they hope Millbank is listening.
SIR KEN JACKSON: Ministers have got to
get closer to the grass roots. They've got to go out and they've got to
communicate. They've got to listen. And they've got to be seen to be listening
and that I think is what's lacking at the moment. That the activists are
people out there on the sharp end don't believe that they're being listened
to.
WILENIUS: But there are senior
figures who also feel Tony Blair's interference in selections and elections
is damaging him.
LORD SAWYER: Well, I think the big jobs
in the Labour Party, like who should be the Mayor of London or the Mayor
of Liverpool or who should be the Labour Party leader in Wales or whatever,
I think the Labour Party Leader, i.e. Tony Blair should express a view.
But there is a perception and it's fairly widely held as well that he
went beyond that, and he was involved in the mechanisms for selecting those
people and that's the kind of thing that damages the party leader and he
should stand away from that.
WILENIUS: The first signs have
appeared of fractures in the relationship between the Labour Government
and the Labour Party. There are real dangers for Tony Blair if he can't
motivate all of his party activists to work flat out in future election
battles. Some warn that without their commitment, the electoral turnout
will fall and the party could lose seats in the forthcoming local and general
elections.
JACKSON: It's important, especially
in the local elections where the enthusiasm of the population out there
isn't always great, that you actually have to get out on the doorstep.
You've got to impress on people the importance of getting out voting,
supporting local councillors et cetera. And if we don't do that, if we
don't get our message across, yes we'll suffer.
WHITELEY: If the activists fail
to campaign and elements of the core labour vote decide to abstain, to
stay home instead of voting, then Labour could lose an awful lot of seats
as a result of that and could be surprised by this.
DIGNAN: So centralised control
may have solved one problem but created another. Activists are no longer
in open rebellion but some are just walking away. This is now slowly dawning
on some in Labour's control centre. And tonight Blair will praise his
old activists as "heroes". But it may not be enough to keep the whole
party faithful.
HUMPHRYS: Paul Wilenius reporting
there.
JOHN HUMPHRYS: John Prescott, you've always
been passionate about open debate and democracy in the party. I remember
a great speech you made for OMOV - one member, one vote, it swung it at
the Labour Party conference in Brighton in '93/94. Do you understand the
concerns of people like Tom Sawyer and Ken Jackson, who are great loyalists
themselves obviously, been in the party a very long time. Do you share
a bit of their worry?
JOHN PRESCOTT: Yes, I do. I think I warned
Tom Sawyer about some of these things, if you don't keep a close contact.
I coined the phrase that the politics of organisation is equally as important
as the politics of ideas and it's important those two things are brought
together, especially when you are in government, because it's more difficult
then than when we are in Opposition, because we can all say all sorts of
things. And when I was listening to the programme there and I had to think
to myself, look at the bitter rows that went on in previous Labour Governments,
nothing like today but we still must make sure that if you don't keep contact
with your activists and your Labour Party members, you will reap the kind
of problems the Tories had, that they begin to walk away from you, and
then government doesn't have any support in the country and you begin
to lose government as well. So I think we are all conscious and aware of
that, but just a couple of qualifications.
I notice you picked out
Sheffield and I notice you picked out Liverpool, now whatever has happened
about activists in Liverpool, they have been pretty well pretty well prevalent
there for an awful long time, well before Tony Blair came and the vote
of Labour's vote went down and down and down. So, it's something continued
and not associated directly with Tony Blair. Sheffield, now gone to Liberal,
it should never have happened, I went there a number of times during the
elections and there to that extent, again the problems of organisation
go back further than actually this period of government and Tony Blair.
But it is right, we need to make sure we get closer contact and I would
say that we have in the partnership in power we have more people involved
now in developing ideas in the party and the party 21st Century that was
mentioned there is how we develop the reorganisation of the party structure
with the agreement of the activists but the final point is, as was noticed
there, we have doubled our membership, but a different kind of membership
has come as well, who are demanding different things, who reflect a kind
of different demand on the party structure and we need to bring them together.
HUMPHRYS: You've lost a lot of
members in the past couple of years, I want to come to that in a minute
if I can...
PRESCOTT: Twelve thousand a year
- something like a thousand a month that go on natural wastage. Every
party faces that, but we've had some decline..
HUMPHRYS: Fifteen per cent over
two years, that's a lot..
PRESCOTT: No, no, it's twelve thousand
a year but what we have to do is make that up in order to just keep it
level. But I am not arguing that we don't need to be doing more. I was
involved in campaigning that led to the doubling of our party membership..
HUMPHRYS: What's your membership
today..
PRESCOTT: About three hundred and
ninety odd thousand. The peak was something like four hundred and five.
Now that's still the largest political party membership...
HUMPHRYS: It's on a downward curve
that's the point.
PRESCOTT: I want it always to be
up but don't forget under Tony Blair and myself the membership doubled
in two years, that was quite considerable.
HUMPHRYS: Wasn't that the '97 figure
that you've just given me.
PRESCOTT: Which one, the membership?
..No it's the latest figures that we have on membership and as you know
under our rules..
HUMPHRYS: You don't update it..
PRESCOTT: No, we do. You allow
a certain period of time before they come up, we remind them, paying membership
and that's another thing that changed. Years ago they used to go collecting
the membership, now you have to remind them about the payment, the standing
orders, it's a different structure altogether.
HUMPHRYS: Okay. Tom Sawyer's worry,
Lord Sawyer's worry is - he said it's not working - he used a very blunt
phrase there. He said it's not working because people feel they don't have
a say, that's their concern.
PRESCOTT: Well let's just take
that one John. I mean, and Tom Sawyer was the General Secretary when he
brought some of this.
HUMPHRYS: Indeed, he was responsible
for New Labour in all sorts of ways.
PRESCOTT: Absolutely. He went through
the process of listening. This Saturday I was in Hull, also on Friday night
I was in Whitely Bay. There, there were policy reform groups where we discussed
the policy in local groups and recruit membership, that then goes to the
regional policies, it goes to our national policy forum. There are more
members involved in developing our policy now, than was ever the history
through the resolutions.
HUMPHRYS: He's still worried about
it.
PRESCOTT: Fine, we've got to develop
on it and build on it, but you know when I hear Mark Seddon talking about
the wonderful system we had before, where you used to meet at the conference
and you sent resolutions and they consolidate, what was the committee called,'The
Compositing Committee' used to produce resolutions for us that meant everything
to everyone, they could all vote for it and then we had difficulties when
governments came to implementing it.
HUMPHRYS: But it is odd isn't it
that if things are working the way you describe then, that the membership
seems not to be aware of it. I mean we heard some activists there, you
know 'they frequently just ignore us' was one of the comments. And it is
important isn't it?.
PRESCOTT: No, it certainly is.
But it's not only not knowing what's going on in the party, most of them
don't know what's gone on in government, largely because we are not getting
our message out to many of our own people. Now that raises the question
what is our constituencies for. Before they used to be forums to argue
the ideas and pass the resolutions and prepare for council and national
elections. We do think campaigning now, particularly in government is a
critical part. So what we have embarked upon with the constituencies, through
this 21st Century is to say how can we deliver better, can we raise more
money, more money now comes from individual membership in the Labour Party,
it's not simply a trade union financial handout and they are bringing changes.
We do canvassing by telephone now instead of just knocking on the door.
People are changing in the way that they approach politics and we have
to adjust a party structure which was devised for us by Keir Hardie and
I think in a hundred years we can sit down and say is it still the best.
HUMPHRYS: But Seyd says, Professor
Seyd says it's not just a question of the global membership, it's a question
of how active they are and it used to be that half the members were active,
now it's only a third of the members are active.
PRESCOTT: I think that's a very
important point again and I've read most of their reports and they're very
valuable contributions to understanding the activists and membership in
our party. But at the end of the day, some activists are active in the
GMC and it finishes there, some work seven days a week and I know when
we brought the new membership in there was a lot of people saying, they
don't do seven days a week, they are not committed like us Labour people,
well it's changed a bit. Some people will give a day at the election, some
people will give money, some will attend the social functions, some will
come to the GMCs. You know the time when you really get a full GMC in
the Labour when you know there's a damn big row, in the way a lot of people
like that among the activists and sometimes it's very necessary. But let's
marry those two different parts of our party that are coming together.
The new membership that is coming along with the old activists who got
used to a way. We need both of them and that's what we're trying to do.
HUMPHRYS: The difficulty is that
if they think there is this kind of control freakery that is the current
mantra everybody talks about. You see, interestingly, Tom Sawyer talked
about it there as well didn't he: 'there is a widely held perception' he
said 'that Blair went beyond what he should have done, he got involved
in the mechanism for selecting party leaders, leaders in Wales and in London.
That's the sort of thing that damages the party leader.' It also sends
completely the wrong signal to the activist, doesn't it.
PRESCOTT: It is a difficulty and
I think I agree with Tom, there is certainly that perception there and
a great deal of publicity about it, though I can't help but think
about the Ken Livingstone affair at the moment. There's Tony intervened
and said, well, I think as leader of the party I must say I don't think
Ken is the best candidate because he won't do what he says. Now I am bound
to say the events at the moment perhaps suggest he might be right, I don't
know, but he claimed....
HUMPHRYS: ....perhaps this wouldn't
have happened if he hadn't got involved in the way he did....
PRESCOTT: ...well, perhaps it might
not, but he is the leader and he said I have a responsibility at least
to argue by case and that he chose to do....
HUMPHRYS: .....but don't get involved
in the mechanics was what Tom Sawyer said.
PRESCOTT: ....I think that's what
Tom was saying there, yes, and I think that does create great problems,
though as a leader, he is the leader of the party as well as he is the
Prime Minister. And I think a lot of people have learnt a lot of lessons
hopefully and will begin to make the kind of changes that are necessary.
HUMPHRYS: What's the biggest lesson
then?
PRESCOTT: That you can't win, that
you can't hold this party together without keeping your activists and full
membership participation. Most of the things under the Blair administration,
particularly as the leader of the party, has brought radical changes and
I think he can look back and say I have made those changes, now let's get
on with delivering.
HUMPHRYS: Because if you don't
do that then you do have difficulty getting the vote out and it damages
at the election, doesn't it?
PRESCOTT: Absolutely, I think if
your party loses heart, I have always been very strong about that, at the
end of the day the party must have heart to want to go out and fight, but
I would say this, isn't it curious, this is the first Labour government
that has produced over eighty per cent of its manifesto in less than three
years. Now normally that used to be the cry, what about the manifesto,
you are not carrying it out. Dennis Healey's reminded the difficult economic
circumstances he faced. We have economic stability, we have produced eighty
per cent of our manifesto. Any party and any government should be able
to say to its party, go out and tell them, there's more people in work,
more going into hospitals and health, Keir Hardie had that manifesto.
Our card said exactly the same. I bring out my card. The same principles,
the same commitments, we are delivering. So we can ask our activists to
support that.
HUMPHRYS: You weren't around when
Keir Hardie was, I'll give you that. But you've been around, you've been
around when Tony Benn obviously - he
sat on my knee, or something, or he sat on his knee probably. But you've
been around a very long time. A lot of people see you as the conscience
of the old Labour Party, whether you use capital O or capital L or whatever
you like. And there have been huge numbers of changes in the past few
years. Is it your view that now perhaps is the time to put the revolution
on hold. A period of consolidation if you like.
PRESCOTT: I think it is a period
of consolidation but change always keeps going. Tony Blair constantly
tell us, don't let's be complacent, you can't just do one and finish and
hope it lasts there, but when Tom says we've gone through such radical
changes over this period of time. Let us consolidate but don't let us
ignore the fact that you have to change and keep up with the circumstances
and it's a balance and at the end of the day, our party members decide
it at conference. That is what democracy is about. We have to make these
proposals. And I think all of us are looking forward now to the coming
election when we've had a good record, a good delivery and we can get on
with the job.
The other thing, to be
honest I think that's undermined us a bit, this is somewhat controversial
I suppose, is that when we had this whole
PR in elections, where the party have seen the strength of the parties
go down, whether it's in Scotland or Wales and its representation or the
European elections and I think to that extent, they think, well, we've
seen PR, perhaps we have had enough of it and let's learn the lessons of
it.
HUMPHRYS: And how much longer are
you going to be around?
PRESCOTT: A few more years yet!
- it's better than working.
HUMPHRYS: You don't think...you've
had quite a rough time over the last couple of years..a bit of briefing
against you and all that. You don't sometimes think you know, people think,
well the old Prescott, he's part of the past and not the future.
PRESCOTT: Well, they can make that
decision, that's up to them. I have always believed in change. I have
always played a major part in it. But I am very strong about traditional
values in the modern setting. I think that's what the Labour Party's about.
Keir Hardie could still be proud to be in this member today producing
for the less fortunate in the society, a fair society, one on social justice.
I've always believed in that and that's what we're doing.
HUMPHRYS: John Prescott, thank
you very much indeed.
And that's it for this
week. Let's leave you with our usual reminder of the On The Record website,
and from there, if you log on to it you get onto BBC's News Online Politics
site and much more about Labour's one hundred years. And until the same
time next week, good afternoon.
...oooOooo...
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