BBC On The Record - Broadcast: 24.09.00



==================================================================================== NB. THIS TRANSCRIPT WAS TYPED FROM A TRANSCRIPTION UNIT RECORDING AND NOT COPIED FROM AN ORIGINAL SCRIPT; BECAUSE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF MIS-HEARING AND THE DIFFICULTY, IN SOME CASES, OF IDENTIFYING INDIVIDUAL SPEAKERS, THE BBC CANNOT VOUCH FOR ITS ACCURACY ==================================================================================== ON THE RECORD RECORDED FROM TRANSMISSION: BBC ONE DATE: 24.09.00 ==================================================================================== JOHN HUMPHRYS: Good afternoon. Labour is about to begin its conference here in Brighton - beset by problems. I'll be asking John Prescott what he'll be doing to put the party back on the rails in time for the General Election. And what can Tony Blair learn from Al Gore? That's after the news read by Peter Sissons. NEWS HUMPHRYS: Thanks very much Peter. Well what an extra-ordinary couple of weeks it's been for the government. A fortnight ago it looked invincible. Today it looks ... well a shade vulnerable. It's not so much that something's gone wrong, EVERYTHING seems to have gone wrong. So can it be put right in time for the General Election? That is the question everybody is asking themselves here in Brighton as the Labour Party conference gets under way. And it's the question I shall be putting to John Prescott, after this report from Paul Wilenius. PAUL WILENIUS: Failure turned to triumph when Tony Blair became Labour's leader. The party at last believed it was destined for power, Blair promised Britain a new type of politics. He had a mission, a project, to change the way the country was governed. TONY BLAIR IN 1997: We have been elected as new Labour and we will govern as new Labour. WILENIUS: Enthusiasm was matched by swift action. Gordon Brown granted the Bank of England its independence. The Cabinet and the country seemed united behind the new Labour programme, which promised economic competence and social radicalism. But the early hopes that this would usher in a new re-alignment of the Centre Left, soon started to fade. And for Blair when the fall came - it was spectacular. Stealth taxes alienated the middle classes, heartland voters and activists felt ignored and the Millennium Dome seemed to symbolise a void at the very heart of new Labour. The slow hand clap over Blair's Women's Institute speech presaged the fuel tax revolt. Patience with new Labour was running out fast. LORD TOM SAWYER: New Labour had a project for winning an election and Tony Blair said we won the election as New Labour and we govern as New Labour, but there wasn't really a plan for governing as New Labour. WILENIUS: The sureness of touch demonstrated by Blair and his Number Ten team for so long seems to have deserted them. Observers say control freakery has now been replaced by confusion and panic at the centre of the government machine. Opinion polls put Labour as much as eight points behind the Tories, the worst since Blair became leader. There are tensions between senior Ministers and allegations of lying over the Ecclestone affair. The government seems to have lost its way. For some in the party the circumstances demand that Blair must say what he really stands for. TONY LLOYD MP: Finally we've got, you know, the government experiencing some genuinely rough weather - no question about it - but I mean governments, you know governments do that. The test for them is how they come through it; is how they respond - whether people see and know what they're essentially about. WILENIUS: Tony Blair is planning his fight back from the government's deepest crisis and is plotting his tactics for the next election. It's brought into sharp focus the battle over the future direction of the Labour government. He needs to choose between old style confrontational politics which means taking on Labour's traditional enemies, or instead rebuilding the new Labour coalition of voters, which swept him to power in 1997. Those closest to Blair are urging him to stick to his guns. To keep the faith, to follow the new Labour path. The Prime Minister went to a recent meeting of the Progress group. It helped create new Labour, now it's trying to plot a new direction. They aim to maintain the electoral coalition which secured an overwhelming victory at the last election. Tom Sawyer was the General Secretary who masterminded it. LORD SAWYER: The New Labour project wasn't exclusive. The New Labour project was always about a big tent and it was always about including people and you know we tried to include in the New Labour project and we did include you know two million people who had previously voted Conservative, so I would say, that you know, you don't define your enemies except through the political parties, as in the wider society you've got to listen and you've got to govern for all sections, you can't just govern for one section. TONY LLOYD MP: The arguments about Labour, about New Labour, as I say I think are the arguments of a previous political generation almost, now Labour has got a track record in government, people know what Tony Blair stands for, people know what the Labour government's done and they will judge it both in terms of things they approve of and of course the things they disapprove of. WILENIUS: And they disapprove of high fuel taxes. The fuel revolt has knocked the government off course and it stands accused of returning to Labour's high tax ways. While there are calls to appease the protesters, one former Minister believes Labour should stand firm. GLENDA JACKSON MP: I'm not a big fan of conspiracy theories I must say, but it was undoubtedly the case that on some of those picket lines the issue was expanded very quickly beyond the issue of the price of petrol, to opposition to the right to roam for instance; opposition to the proposals to ban hunting. So there many have been an element of just having a go at the government, from a political standpoint - I mean, it may have even been a party political standpoint. LORD SAWYER: Well I think the fuel tax protesters were part of our society, I mean they don't share Labour Party's politics and they are probably all Conservative supporters and they're not exactly part of traditional Labour values and so forth, but they're not, they're not neo-fascists, they are ordinary people who live ordinary lives and what they did most importantly was they tapped into a ground swell of opinion that was held by the vast majority of the population. So what the government mustn't do is kind of make martyrs of these people I don't think. They've got to recognise that they were the kind of mainspring for a wide range of public opinion that the government has to listen to. WILENIUS: The re-emergence of the tax debate is dangerous. There was always a groundswell of support for the view that Gordon Brown should be more open about the impact of his tax plans. WRIGHT: This talk about having banished tax and spend is a nonsense; it's the heart of what any government has to do. I think what you can't do is to think that you can negotiate your way through this through, through smoke and mirrors exercise, as though people won't know what's going on, or won't notice what you're doing. And I think, in this case, the only good politics is honesty. WILENIUS: Policy on pensions has been even more damaging . Despite extra help for the poorest, the 75 pence a week rise in the basic pension was seen by the elderly as insulting. Traditional Labour activists want a clear policy now, to either restore the link with earnings, or be even more generous. They're opposed to any moves to favour means tested benefits. SIR KEN JACKSON: I think the 75 p on pensions, obviously people took their eye off the ball, they didn't look at the consequences of what might happen. I personally believe we could have been more generous in terms of pensioners. Pensions is the key issue at this moment in time - it is the issue and there is no doubt that people feel very strongly that pension, pensioners should have a fair deal. GLENDA JACKSON: I always tend to run issues that affect pensioners, even though I am one myself, through the sieve of what would have been my mother's response to that. And I know perfectly well that if she had still been alive and had been, received 75p, she would have returned it to the Chancellor, and told him precisely which orifice he should have placed it in. WILENIUS: Buoyed by Blair's speech to the Progress Group, modernisers still talk of their dreams of a new type of politics. They had hoped for a mass membership party and less union influence, co-operation with the Liberal Democrats to produce a century of power for the Centre Left and proportional representation for Westminster elections. But the modernisers have run into bitter opposition. SIR KEN JACKSON: PR's dead - let's be quite honest - we've got bigger issues than PR; we want to make sure that the Labour government is re-elected with a majority to carry out its manifesto; and at the end of the day you've got to go back to the people, you've got to say this was our manifesto, this is what we've delivered . WILENIUS: Blair has now publicly welcomed back the party's traditional paymasters - the unions. The failure to build a mass membership means he needs union money to fight the next election. The government has already promised more rights for workers and a higher National Minimum Wage. And now Blair has offered the unions formal consultations every three months at the top table. SIR KEN JACKSON: Well I don't think there's any doubts at all that he recognises that he needs the trade unions. At the end of the day we're always there; we were there through the 20 years of the Conservative government; we put our resources in, we put our finance in - and at the end of the day we're here again; we will be financing the party, we'll be supporting the party. They're looking for something like for the election in January about twenty million; they're looking for whatever the trade unions can contribute to that. We would certainly hope that the trade unions would consider, you know would contribute a great chunk of that. Certainly my union would be looking to support in whatever way we could. WILENIUS: Tony Blair is facing the greatest test of his Premiership. He needs to reverse the collapse in the polls, in time for the election expected next year. But influential figures say he can only do that if he shows the strong leadership and vision which first forged the new Labour project . WRIGHT: Tony Blair was the person who told the Labour Party, and told the centre left, that it had a future if it followed him. Tony Blair was the person who told the Labour Party that if it got itself together it could for the first time in its history have more than one full term in office - that it could be in office long enough to do good things over a long period. That was the Blair promise, to the Labour Party; and those of us who attached ourselves to the New Labour enterprise are signed up, signed up to that - so there's a lot at stake here. WILENIUS: Until recently Blair was heading straight for another journey through the corridors of power. But the prospect of a cherished second term seems to be receding. Now he needs the money and help of the Labour Party's activists and traditional supporters more than ever. Yet that appears to mean leaving the new Labour brand behind. HUMPHRYS: Paul Wilenius reporting there. JOHN HUMPHRYS: Well John Prescott, that's it isn't it, leaving the New Labour brand behind. You are in trouble, it was Tony Lloyd I think who said that that's past now, we've had that, New Labour has gone, it's time to return to Old Labour isn't it. JOHN PRESCOTT MP: No, he said, Tony Lloyd said (sic) the government track record that we've delivered, it's interesting watching that report, it opens up with our statements about economic prosperity and social radicalism, well in those three years we've largely achieved that, that's what's quite remarkable about this Labour Government and then it moves immediately to the funeral march and says that we're in a crisis. Now the only thing that's changed in a way is some reaction in regard to the fuel and the pensions, on-going issues that arise as Tony Wright was saying, out of tax and spend arguments but at the end of the day you know, this government has delivered. Now when I go to the election, as we will go in shortly, I don't know when it's going to come, but I'll be arguing one of delivery. You know, the old card will be out, you know the one I keep on using on your programme... HUMPHRYS: ..you don't usually bring it out in the first thirty seconds of the interview, no but still.. PRESCOTT: ..it came in your programme, the government has to delivery. When you consider eighteen years ago, we got a hundred....eighteen years of a Tory Government and three years ago we got a hundred and seventy majority. That was not because Tony Blair was a nice looking guy and was a new fresh face in politics. It was because we had mass unemployment, because we had high inflation, because we had a crisis in our public services. All that has been transformed in three years, a government of delivery and we've got to listen to what people say to us. Some things we haven't got quite right, you know, we are a human government, sometimes we make mistakes, sometimes we get it right but we've got the big picture in mind and we are delivering on that and it's the first time a Labour Government is going to go to the election, not arguing about cutbacks in public expenditure but showing where the social radicalism is coming in the investment in public services, alongside economic prosperity. Economic prosperity and social justice, both sides of the same coin, but I can't say any Labour Government has naturally ever achieved that fully, but this one has. HUMPHRYS: But you know what's interesting about the last few years, is that you have had a pretty good run, a wonderfully good run and then at the first whiff of grapeshot, which we've seen now in the last couple of weeks, cannon fire perhaps rather than grapeshot, but... PRESCOTT: The Rawnsley stuff you mean... HUMPHRYS: Oh lots of stuff, we're going to...serious stuff that we're going to get into in a few moments. But what happens is that you sort of return, the party sort of returns to the language and the messages of the old class war, I mean we had the petrol protestors, the blockades and we had Margaret Beckett saying, oh a bunch of crumbling farmers and we had David Blunkett saying a bunch of crumbling farmers.... We had Margaret Beckett talking about the industrial wing of the Countryside Alliance. I mean it all suggests that that New Labour thing is being gradually kind of pushed aside and I would have thought you'd had welcomed that rather. PRESCOTT: No I don't, I don't like negative aspects in politics... HUMPHRYS: No, no, but the positive bits of returning to Old Labour and saying New Labour did its job and now we're somewhere else. PRESCOTT: I coined that phrase of the traditional values in a modern setting and that's where I made the bridge if you like between the different approaches yet to see achieving the same objectives. I think this government has done that in the last three years. Now, the matter of the Countryside Alliance, they've got their own agenda, every interest group does, of course they are able now to combine it with the fuel protests that they did and many of them were on the lines with the hauliers protesting about petrol tax. HUMPHRYS: And lots of perfectly decent ordinary people as Tom Sawyer said then... PRESCOTT: ...I don't doubt that's the case, if you want to any pump... petrol pump and said to anybody there, do you think petrol prices are too high, they'd probably say yes, would you like the tax reduced, say yes. Everywhere you went, if you go to the shop - would you like the tax reduced. Governments have to make a judgement in the long term with these matters and it's not that we don't listen, I think we do react to that. When I hear farmers and others saying we don't listen, it's the same farmers who've got two hundred and...got seven hundred and fifty million to begin with since 1979 from us, since we came in three years ago, another two hundred and fifty million from making their case to the Prime Minister in April. Now that's a billion pounds, hauliers, we set up a group actually to look at the problems of hauliers, we got rid of the fuel duty escalator that the Tories brought in. We reduced the VAT on lorries as much as one thousand eight hundred pounds. Now, you can argue, John, if you like we weren't doing enough and people were not satisfied with what we were doing, but what you cannot argue is that we don't listen and we act on that, in the proper series of events. We don't take sixty day notices, there's only one group that can give us notice and that's the general election. HUMPHRYS: But I'm not arguing that, what I am arguing is that you change your approach. That you are in the process of abandoning this New Labour notion. Now, let me give you an example as far as the petrol tax is concerned. I mean what we were told at the beginning, when you continued with the fuel escalator, which you did when it was handed over to you by the Tories, you said that this was a way of encouraging people to use their cars less. You yourselves said I will have failed if we haven't cut the number of journeys and all the rest of it and hold me to that you said. Well now the message is rather different. Now you're not saying to people the New Labour thing of it's about the environment, you're saying actually it was about raising taxes, which is a different approach. PRESCOTT: Well let me just say, in regard to the fiscal policy playing a part in reducing CO2 gases, of which the Fuel Duty Escalator was originally justified under the previous administration and we said we... HUMPHRYS: ... and which you've continued.. PRESCOTT: Yes which we've continued and the Prime Minister made clear that was part of clearing up the public finances messes that we met... HUMPHRYS: ...and that environment, that's the point... PRESCOTT: ..John, I'm just coming exactly to that, it's the question on the environment you're asking me that and therefore on environment there is correlation that many people feel that the higher level of the price for fuel the less they will use it. That's a debatable proposition but it's certainly, if it's achieved, does reduce the CO2 gases which is the important thing. But you know the prices that are rising at the fuel are not due to a tax at the moment, they are due to a massive increase in... HUMPHRYS: ...a combination of things.. PRESCOTT: ..but John the real point is the price is still there, it hasn't gone less, using the fiscal framework, a regulator if you like to maintain a higher level of price for the fuel, to improve environmental consideration is there. Now not because of tax, because of what is happening in the world price of fuel. So we can still say it is making its contribution to the reduction of nearly two million tonnes of carbon in this case. HUMPHRYS: Well on that basis then, you'd be against cutting taxes, wouldn't you, cutting the petrol duty? PRESCOTT: You have to make a balanced judgement and indeed I think that's what Gordon Brown was doing because over the last few years he's been doing a number of things, for example, in fact giving greater tax incentives to using more environmentally friendly cars, reducing tax on a better environmental fuel. All those things are ways that he's being finding the fiscal framework to meet an environmental objective. Now, it's not just the Fuel Duty Escalator, he's changed that, I think he was right to do so but at the end of the day our achievements and our objectives for the environment to reduce the CO2 tax, which we've actually agreed at Kyoto will now hopefully become in the Autumn, some step towards getting an international agreement on that, we are achieving our objectives. HUMPHRYS: Okay, but I don't see how you can have it both ways... PRESCOTT: By the way I did make a speech during this crisis with the Nigerian President in which I emphasised these points again. The fact that it's not carried in the press doesn't mean to say I'm not saying it. HUMPHRYS: But let's pick it up now because this is important. I mean you can't have it both ways can you - you can't say that it is a good thing for the environment to increase petrol prices or keep petrol prices high and similarly it's a good thing to cut them. We're now being encouraged by Gordon Brown and Tony - he did it again this morning. He acknowledges that petrol prices are too high. You cannot have it both ways can you. PRESCOTT: It's a combination John... HUMPHRYS: I don't see how you can have... PRESCOTT: Well, let me just explain why I think it is. We're talking about a petrol tax - we talked also of the climate levy with industry, talking how we can use fuel much more efficiently, how we can get the environmental objectives we've set for ourselves. There's two particular taxes we're talking about, not just the one we've ... INTERRUPTION......and it's finding a balance of that fiscal framework to achieve them environmental..... HUMPHRYS: Let me remind you what Michael Meacher said, and this suggests very strongly that the balance has changed because what Michael Meacher said less than a year ago - your own minister, the fuel de-escalator is the most powerful instrument for getting people to understand that there is a big environmental cost in the use of the car. Something's changed hasn't it? PRESCOTT: Okay, because the price brings home to them what an important commodity this is, hopefully you'll begin the use the public transport alternatives that we're beginning to provide for it. Wait a minute - using cars less and using public transport more, but the price is made up of the cost of the fuel and the tax. The price is still high not because of the tax or the fuel duty escalator, it's because the price is increased because of the world price. (INTERRUPTION) Right, HUMPHRYS:: ........ and the duty as well. PRESCOTT: Yes, but the person going to the pump.... HUMPHRYS: The biggest chunk of it - the biggest chunk of all. PRESCOTT: Because we've reduced the tax share of it, right, and got rid of the duty escalator which would have brought the tax-payer something like another two hundred million pounds if you'd have kept it, he has got rid of it, and by that the price hasn't come down. That's the complaint, but that is the world price, and if the price is related to the environmental objection then they remain the same. HUMPHRYS: But the fact is that you believe as an environmentalist and as somebody along with Michael Meacher who believes that the high price of petrol is a very good thing in terms of the environment, and this of course was essentially the New Labour approach. I mean that was the justification for it, you cannot therefore believe that it must be kept high and be in line what Gordon Brown and Tony Blair now seem to be saying, which is where we are now going. We are going towards cutting prices. PRESCOTT: John, I know you're striving very hard to get at what at what you consider to be the New Labour message and whether we've departed from it, but the fact that we use the environment - the fiscal framework to actually make a contribution to the environment is true in every country that's come to an agreement on the Kyoto. That's not particularly New Labour, it's one of the measures by which you achieve the environmental objectives that will improve climate and prevent the kind of disasters we've got in this country. HUMPHRYS: Alright. Let's turn to somewhere else where you are I would suggest, abandoning the New Labour approach. Now this is something where you've won in effect, because I remember very clearly an interview I did with you a few months ago on this very subject, and it was about pensions. Now, the New Labour approach was targeting very clearly targeting the poorest pensioners, it was about mean testing in other words. And if that meant that the pensioners only got a seventy-five pence increase on the basic state pension then so be it. Now you're abandoning that approach aren't you? PRESCOTT: No, we're not, in fact you've got the approach wrong. First of all it wasn't just seventy-five p, but you're on a powerful point. HUMPHRYS: On the basic state pension? PRESCOTT: Well, wait a minute, we're on about actually, I thought you said helping the poorest pensioners. HUMPHRYS: No, but seventy-five pence was on the basic state pension. PRESCOTT: If you asked me about the poorest pensioners, is it limited to seventy-five p? You're on a powerful point because a lot of people out there thought it was. The cold weather payments of a hundred-and-fifty pounds, the whole other things, the minimum income guarantee which has taken over a million pensioners out of that poverty and increased their financial circumstances, that's what we chose to do on pensions, because when we came in we saw what had happened in regard to pensioners that the top twenty per cent had had a two-thirds increase in real values because they had other pensions to take into account, whereas the bottom twenty per cent had only improved by thirty per cent, so there was a growing disparity between these two groups, and in our first phase we said we're going to concentrate on the poorest pensioners who are doing worse out of this deal, This is a major change taking place in pensions, with second pensioners and those people who have got that are certainly better off than those relying on the state. Now we came in and we made that clear, that's precisely what Gordon Brown has done. Now politically, and this is a big challenge to Labour - if in fact those pensioners when they get their seventy-five p, and I think I've said it on your programme before here or the radio, they look at it and say I've only got seventy-five p. That's not true for the poorest, and I don't think it's true for many of the others, but nevertheless there were some that can say that's right. Their perception is they don't think they're being helped. Now politicians, even if they believe what they're doing is right have certainly got to convince the electorate that it's right, and all the logic and all the fairness that we will deploy and can deploy in regard to pensions still has to convince them and we haven't yet achieved that. HUMPHRYS: Alright, what you said .... PRESCOTT: There's no difference in new or old Labour, it's just the sense of getting across of helping those who are poorest in our community and saying that's a proper priority for Labour as indeed it is. HUMPHRYS: A lot of people say a fundamental difference between you and old Labour is that old Labour does not like means testing, I mean that is a very basic point, but let me remind you of what you said on this programme. PRESCOTT: In fact the pensioners don't like it either John. I agree with that. I didn't like going picking up my unemployment, when a seventeen year old girl told me: you'd be in at nine o'clock in the morning Mr Prescott, you won't be late will you. There's a whole kind of procedure..... HUMPHRYS: It's about dignity isn't it? PRESCOTT: It is dignity, and I understand that, HUMPHRYS: And they worry about it a great deal a lot of old people and they won't got for all this extra money that you've offered them, they won't go for it because they think, why should I have to go cap in hand and fill in all these forms and say you know, we haven't got this and we haven't got that. PRESCOTT: That's a very fair point and indeed that business of filling in I know forty pages to say whether you're on - if your income is still the same as it was last year, that's why we are talking about tax and credits of dealing with that, and we have to see how that develops in the next year. HUMPHRYS: But what you said on this programme is it's okay to be intellectually convinced about something, and you've just made the intellectual case for it, for the kind of approach that New Labour, and I emphasise New Labour too, but you said if the PRESCOTT:, Be careful. If you start saying I'm intellectual then God knows..... HUMPHRYS: ...well, alright, I'll withdraw that ... PRESCOTT: ...I've spent years developing this image... HUMPHRYS: ...I'll put it in inverted commas. But what you went on to say was that if the pensioners don't think that we've got it right, then it's a lesson for all of us and we've got to think again. PRESCOTT: Absolutely. HUMPHRYS; And now what seems to be happening, is that you are thinking again, that is to say the party is thinking again... PRESCOTT: ...sounds as if we're listening John. HUMPHRYS: Ah. PRESCOTT: Ah. HUMPHRYS: But listening to who? Listening to the Old Labour argument. PRESCOTT: Oh no. Listening to what pensioners are telling us. Our first claim and indeed our party know because many of them are pensioners and they understand that. Many groups that are led by Jack Jones and Barbara Castle making clear to us what they feel that the pensioners feel about our proposals. So in the first phase, we've gone for the poorest. Nobody doubts that's right, there are problems about the income determination which is something to consider. The second stage then is what we do with those people just above that level who are paying tax who find themselves discriminated. One of the interesting argument was, we give the Cold Weather Payment of one-hundred-and-fifty pounds, and we said, people won't be taxed, so given our tax and social payment situation, some people could get it with one hand and get it taken away with other. So we said, nobody pay tax on it. But I don't think we've got any benefit for that. But basically, if you wanted to give it them and pay tax, I am sure that people who are paying tax say, I'm now paying tax on it. We've reached a stage where the pensioners are thinking their perception, feel there might be a better way of dealing with it. Not that they disagree the poorest should come first, and that we've got some radical transformations to make, but that's what the debate is about here, making a correction to the whole situation of pensions that we inherited from the previous administration. HUMPHRYS: And where you're at now in the debate, as I understand it, is that you have accepted, the party, the government has accepted that there has to be a substantial increase in the basic state pension, which is what, as I understood you, you were arguing for a very long time. PRESCOTT: Yes, and I think what we've had to do is take it in stages and I'm back to my poorest argument, but if you take the point of what is the livable pension, we've had recommendations basically from our House of Commons Social Security Committee, who've said that the minimum income guarantee that no pensioner should go below.... HUMPHRYS: ...and which many people won't take for the reasons that we've just discussed... PRESCOTT: ...well, I mean, you may be able to achieve that minimum income guarantee in different ways. I mean, these are the sorts of things you can have discussions about. But you're talking about the amounts, in this case the ninety pounds. And of course we have to address ourselves to that particular problem, we can say, in regard to the old formula on inflation we've done better. And even if we'd have actually taken the resources of earnings related from the day we came in, over the life of this parliament, we would have spent six-and-a-half billion pounds, to the pensioners. That's more than if we had simply given them earnings related. The difference is, we have concentrated it more in the areas where it was desperately needed. And that's the nature of Labour, it is a party of social justice, that has to be practical about where the money comes from. Now if you like, that's might what have happened under New Labour, that in fact, our ambitions are conditioned by what is practical, if you like, that we have brought a head and a heart. And I think the electorate rather like that. But it is difficult, and it's not easy, but who the heck said it was going to be easy? HUMPHRYS: What the unions have said is look, let's have a bit more heart, and a bit less head, basically, certainly as far as the pensioners are concerned. You cannot ignore the unions can you, in the way that again, under New Labour, it seemed that you were doing. They are now influential again, sort of, in the Old Labour way. That's the case, isn't it? PRESCOTT: Yes, but I hear them saying, well, in Paul's report, that we might have a meeting every three months. Did you ever doubt that they weren't having meetings before? HUMPHRYS: Well yes, because you didn't. I mean they were lucky to get into the back door at Number Ten. PRESCOTT; That's not true. I know it not to be true, and if you go through the whole business of industrial relations, things like that, there were certainly lots of discussions going on, always discussions when part...when the government's actually dealing with it's policies - why? 'Cos trade unions now sit on new policy groups which all the parties come to - and in Exeter, we decided the programmes that we're bringing to the conference this year, so trade unions have always been at the heart of that discussion, they're the heart of the Labour Party. They're part of it, in a federal structure. HUMPHRYS: Oh, come on. You know as well as I do, that an awful lot of trade union leaders have felt cut out of it for the last several years. You've talked to them privately and I've no doubt, certainly I've talked to them privately and they've said, you know look at the way they've treated us. They felt abandoned. You've now got to bring them back in, you know that as well as I do. PRESCOTT; ...well, there are two things here, if you're not kissing them on the cheek and they were being kissed before... HUMPHRYS: ...ah come on, you, you know that there is that real... PRESCOTT: ...but wait a minute. Look at the record. Look at what has happened in the improvement at the place at work, right, look at what has happened at the economy, a million jobs back at work, a million jobs, they're the sort of things, the minimum wage, trade unions laid that out, and said, that was what we want from a Labour government. This Labour government has delivered. And I don't believe that they feel completely out in the cold for one moment. HUMPHRYS: But they are now back in the warm. I mean, let's be quite clear about this. Whatever the ... PRESCOTT: ...well I'm not against them being back in the warm. I hope they've always felt warm with me, I mean, I don't think that this business of being totally ostracised throughout is necessarily what has happened. People have developed this image a bit of it, but the unions and the trade unions because of their nature in our conference, because of where they are situated in the policy reviews of the party play an important and a proper part of the development of the Labour Party policy. HUMPHRYS: Alright. Let's look at another area, where again, something of a triumph for you, based on what you've said on this programme and on many others, and that is, Proportional Representation. Another part of this was New Labour, good heavens, this was New Labour, the quintessence of New Labour. Dead and buried now, isn't it? Are you going to read the last rites? PRESCOTT: Just let it slide away. I mean, what I've seen operate wasn't certainly to the advantage of the Labour Party, was it? No, I will agree with you. HUMPHRYS: You will? PRESCOTT: Yeah. Put it in a boat and send it away. HUMPHRYS: Put it in a boat and send it away, as opposed to put it... PRESCOTT; Yeah, along with the Lib/Labs. HUMPHRYS: Along with the Lib/Labs. So that's something else that's gone is it? I mean the .... PRESCOTT: ...Oh, I'll get myself into a Clare Short situation here in a minute, now I'll leave.... HUMPHRYS: ...not for the first time. Don't let me stop you, I mean, far be it ... PRESCOTT: ...no, but seriously, one-hundred-and-seventy majority, new kind of politics we've said where you could get the coalition and Lib/Lab and Proportional Representation, I was very strongly against it, I have seen nothing that has occurred since we brought it in to convince me it's in the interest of stable government and indeed in the interest of the Labour Party, although I put stable government and the country's interest first. HUMPHRYS: So, an end to cabinet committees that Liberal Democrats sit upon. PRESCOTT: Well, we did go to the election and say we would sit on constitutional matters and the devolution, and I fought on that manifesto as much as anyone. I've actually been in a Labour government where in fact there was a kind of semi-coalition if you like under Jim Callaghan, because we had a very small majority, we stayed... HUMPHRYS: ...you had no choice in those days did you?.. PRESCOTT: ...I'm not sure it was very helpful to us but nevertheless we were in it and I was part of not the government but certainly part of a governing party that had that coalition. I have seen nothing then, or nothing since that convinces me that Proportional Representation is in the nation's interest of stable government. HUMPHRYS: So that part of the New Labour project... PRESCOTT: Well, I don't know why you call..who it belongs to but I've never been a fan of it. HUMPHRYS: So that's gone. Alright. PRESCOTT: I don't know, you'd better ask those who They make the decisions about these matters. And Roy Jenkins has written a nice little book about it or something, and you can read it... HUMPHRYS: ...I trust you've read it ... PRESCOTT: No, I'm afraid I haven't. But I'll be certainly playing a part if it comes to a decision in the party, like everybody else. HUMPHRYS: And we can guess what your message will be. Well, we don't have to guess, you've just told us. Let's look at something else that was the symbol in a sense, to many people anyway of New Labour and that is, you might imagine, is the Dome. Now then, we had a sort of apology from the Prime Minister about that this morning, though not quite really, I mean, he said it wasn't quite as big a success... PRESCOTT: It wasn't an apology. HUMPHRYS: Well, that's it. You tell us what it was, I mean ... PRESCOTT: I watched Tony on the television and he said he was sorry that it didn't achieve the targets that he wanted and when we were making that decision, we were told there would be twelve million. HUMPHRYS: Twelve million visitors to the Dome. PRESCOTT: Visitors to the Dome and I said, you know, it took, Disney something like five years to get twelve and they were quite emphatic that you could reach that number, I was a little suspicious that perhaps this is the way in public finances you get twelve million multiple it by a price and show there is no public money involved. I mean all these kind of things led to be very suspicious about how these project are guaranteed but again we made a decision and I think Tony said on that, that he wanted you know something that could commemorate entering into the new Millennium, it was always quite well underway, we could have stopped it that's true but we looked at the expenditure to converting that piece of land into something that was a poisonous bit of land into something that was going to be a very beautiful part of London, I don't think that's any doubt about that, it's not only the Dome, I have the Millennium Village that's being built there, the whole development, the site, right next to the Jubilee Line. By the way the press used the time me the Jubilee Line would never be ready on the day, it was, but I've never seen any editor apologising to me for getting it wrong. HUMPHRYS: But you see, what you said was if we can't make the Dome work we're not much of a government. PRESCOTT: Well these are one of the chats that actually came out of somebody reporting a Cabinet discussion... HUMPHRYS: ..well you didn't say that? PRESCOTT: It's true I did sit in the Cabinet and I did discuss and I chaired.... HUMPHRYS: I thought you were the man Tony Blair called in and said: 'well John what are we going to do' and you said 'go for it'. PRESCOTT: Well look, if I had the same facts before me as we had then I would certainly endorse it. I thought it was right to do it and... HUMPHRYS: So you were sold a pup? PRESCOTT: Pardon? HUMPHRYS: You were sold a pup? PRESCOTT: Well I thought it was right to have an event like that and nobody thought it would end up as it did but let's be quite honest about it, six million have gone to it, right... HUMPHRYS: ...not all have paid... PRESCOTT: ..well okay, let's say four or five million have gone to it, that's still the highest kind of tourist attraction in this country... HUMPHRYS: ...but it wasn't meant to be a tourist attraction was it, it was meant to be much more than that. PRESCOTT: ..for people to go to, that's the...secondly your own BBC reports show eighty-five per cent of people enjoyed it, even Clare suggested her son enjoyed it and that she said those that don't go, don't like it. Well, I mean that is difficult to deal with, people who won't go to it, perhaps they're reflecting what the press did about it. We are going to do a major piece of regeneration on the work, it's involving thousands of jobs, now one doesn't want to be in the long-term apologising for what is going to be a very worthwhile investment. HUMPHRYS: If you listen to people, as you say you do and people say look this has cost us, the country, it doesn't matter how you slice it, whether it's Lottery money or whatever, it has cost us a fortune and it hasn't been what it was promised to be and to that extent.. PRESCOTT: Well it's clearly cost a lot more than it was actually promised to do, largely because the figures that were then thought to be possible were not achieved and therefore we end up with this kind of deficit if you like, and that is unfortunate but at the end of the day it's still out of one of the attractions around the world, basically that was launched at the Millennium, been one of the most successful for getting people to visit and also over a period of twelve months. HUMPHRYS: But you don't want it sitting there, do you, you know the Dome sitting there until Kingdom come as a sort of reminder now that it's become, I'm afraid, whether you like it or not, a bit of a national joke and certainly a national embarrassment, do you want it sitting there for.... PRESCOTT: Don't forget that originally it was proposed it will be twelve months and then it will be taken down, we hope we could find a further legacy for it, negotiations... HUMPHRYS: ...but as long as it's there, it's sort of a reminder of New Labour isn't it, you now to go back to the Old/New Labour theme. PRESCOTT: ...well I think it's a wonder architectural structure whatever you might think about it.. HUMPHRYS: ..would you like to keep it then? PRESCOTT: ..I would like to keep it but I mean we have to face the reality, we have to negotiate for its future to any company that wants to come involved in it and we have those that are negotiating at the moment and if they were to say they wanted to keep it fine, if they were to say they didn't, well originally it was envisaged that it would have to come down and the English partnerships would take on with regenerating the sites. What we are trying to do is to keep it as a legacy, it's a wonderful building and indeed I think that site is going to be a credit in the end to long-term thinking for the regeneration of that part of London. HUMPHRYS: But I mean bearing in mind, as you acknowledged that it costs an awful lot of money, much much more than was ever expected at the time and you were sold a pup in the sense that people said, you know this is going to happen, that's going to happen, it's going to cost this much and there's been no proper financial control over the thing or anything else as far as one an see. There's got to be some sort of enquiry, hasn't there, people have to ask some serious questions to find out what went wrong - public money afterall. PRESCOTT: The main thing at the moment is to make sure things were done properly and nobody has suggested there was anything improper and if they are... HUMPHRYS: Incompetent... PRESCOTT: Incompetent, that's an argument that people will have to justify. I think Mr James, who has come in to look at the accounts, has clearly shown it wasn't done in a very adequate way by the company but whatever, he is now sorting out, he's now assured that he has got the resources now to see it to its completion and our job now is to see it transferred to whatever further use it will have in the future. HUMPHRYS: But there must be questions asked mustn't there, there must be some sort of enquiry. PRESCOTT: I've got a feeling questions have been asked and are being asked constantly and daily. HUMPHRYS: What about a final thought then, we've left New Labour behind or not, as the case may be and we've got Old Labour back, so that's you... PRESCOTT: I might tell you when you keep on about this New Labour as such, Tony Blair without a doubt made a major contribution in that election and his identity... HUMPHRYS: ...nobody's arguing about that.. PRESCOTT: This is an important point John, when people voted for Labour, they thought... a number who came over to us, are people who had not been voting us for the last eighteen years and they voted because they thought Labour had changed, they saw this as a New Labour and it certainly played its part in convincing that here was a new leader and a party, committed to social justice, traditional values and modern... HUMPHRYS: A final quick thought about you John Prescott, we hear you are going to go into what has been described as the departure lounge of British politics, the new Cabinet over Lord, a job you would relish, is that... PRESCOTT: I'll leave that to the speculation in the press, they keep on moving and moving don't they. I get on with the job, I've very happy doing that job, combining both environmental objectives and improving the quality of life for people, no politician can have a better job than that. Despite the press, I'll get on with it. HUMPHRYS: John Prescott thank you very much indeed. HUMPHRYS: Al Gore seems to have come back from the dead in the American elections and may very well become the next President of the United States. And that is as much to do with the way he has sold his policies to the electorate as the policies themselves. The difficulty for him is how to hold on to the core Democratic vote and keep together the coalition that has put Bill Clinton into the White House not once, but twice. Sound familiar? Well if you think Tony Blair might learn a thing or two from all that, you'd be right. As Iain Watson reports the Labour Party is keeping a very close eye on what's happening over there. IAIN WATSON: The message is getting through to Labour MPs...the fuel crisis has caused unprecedented political volatility, and when they return to the Commons next month, even those in apparently safe seats will be a little jittery. To be sure of a working majority after the next election, Labour must reconnect with its voters Labour strategists at their Millbank headquarters here in London are devising a delicate balancing act - an election campaign which seeks to reawaken their catatonic core support without losing all those people who voted for them for the first time back in 1997. And they are looking west for inspiration. All eyes are on the US elections, where the democrats candidate, Al Gore, is pulling ahead in a tight presidential race. STAN GREENBERG: They believe the changes that took place on the right with Ronald Reagan and that took place on the left with Bill Clinton, you know, pre- stage changes that eventually took place in Britain and Europe, so I think they'll be watching closely in my experience ROBERT REICH: I would suspect watching from this side of the Atlantic that after Tony Blair modelled new labour after the new democrats of 1992, that were Al Gore successful with his sort of midpoint position between old and new democrat that Tony Blair may make similar kind of modifications MATTHEW TAYLOR: On the one hand they need a message which appeals to the grass roots, populist rhetoric which gets out their core vote, but on the other hand the policies have still got to be centre ground in order that they can attract a majority that gets them into power, WATSON: That's why labour are paying such close attention to the US elections. This is Detroit, Michigan's motor town -if Al Gore can produce a win here, he could be well on his way to the white house. Detroit is the home of Motown records, but, to outsiders at least, it can appear to be pretty soulless. As the centre of the US auto industry, it's home to a high concentration of blue collar workers. It's this 'base support' as the Americans call it which Al Gore must motivate if he wants to hold on to high office. As vice president, Al Gore used to live in Bill Clinton's shadow. But now he's the frontman, and with the help of new advisers, he's manufactured a more distinctive image - his old reassuring tone has been replaced by a more radical rhetoric. His passionate new persona was first paraded at last month's Democrat convention. AL GORE (ACTUALITY) My focus is on working families, people trying to make house payments and car payments, working overtime to save for college and do right by their kids WATSON: His more traditionally-tinged message is going down a treat. But verbally caressing the core support isn't enough - they also have to be persuaded to go out and campaign for victory. In a close race, pulling the vote out on election day, November 7th, will be essential. Gore's strategy appears to be working; the latest poll suggests that nine out of ten registered democrats will support him; and these trade union activists have been inspired enough to sell the political message on the suburban streets of Detroit. So far, the locals are hardly chasing them away. ACTUALITY WATSON: Turnout at presidential elections is low, so trade unionists insist that their contribution must be valued by the Gore campaign. UNNAMED MAN: As labour activists we like to think we're important, we like to think we are the key to the success of democratic candidates, and a few years ago there was a democratic candidate for governor of Michigan that didn't really have the backing of labour, and he got beat pretty badly. WATSON: But these grassroots campaigners also want their payback. UNNAMED WOMAN: He needs to address the minimum wage, get it so that its at a decent level for people who really need it, I mean not everybody can make a good living but we all should, so we can wipe out poverty that exists in America. UNNAMED MAN: When Al Gore talks about health care and issues like that, those are the things that stir democrats or people who think like democrats so its very important he continues down that path. CAMPAIGN ADVERT WATSON: This is the message Gore's hammering home in his campaign ads. They have stressed core voter concerns, such as a higher minimum wage and better health care, while implying that his republican opponent, George W Bush, is in the pocket of big business. The transatlantic traffic in political tactics and ideas is now well established. Bill Clinton's New Democrats won in 1992. That victory, after 12 years in the wilderness inspired Tony Blair's New Labour, which swept the board here in 1997. A team of Labour advisers travelled to the democrats' convention last month in Los Angeles. So Al Gore's tactics are being monitored closely. But a former Clinton adviser is warning Tony Blair that it may be too risky to follow some aspects of the Gore campaign; Gore hasn't won yet. DICK MORRIS: I think that the base of the Labour Party is probably the biggest threat Blair has to his re-election, because they can drive him away from the centre. Whenever a liberal politician, be he Labour or Democrat embraces a labour union, its a little bit like an alcoholic walking into a bar, he may not have a drink, but you're scared nonetheless. WATSON: And, in the US capital, the modernising vanguard of the democratic party is sending a cautionary note. They're warning that a traditional political message could limit the party's electoral appeal. ED KILGORE; Electoral history shows abundantly that shrill 'energise the base campaigns' tend to energise your opponent's base too; its also a simple matter of arithmetic. When you win over a swing vote, you essentially win two votes, you pick one up AND deny one to your opponent; if you energise your base you pick up one vote at most. WATSON: The key to victory is, of course, to pick up votes from everywhere possible. For the democrats to make the running in this campaign, it's not enough simply to inspire the core vote. The so-called 'swing', or floating voters have to be kept firmly on-side, too. Here in Clinton township, local families are watching their children compete on the football field. But they themselves are being just as closely observed from the political sidelines. Al Gore's pollster Stan Greenberg, first came here in 1992. This is the heart of Macomb county in Michigan, about 20 miles outside of Detroit. It had become home to the so-called 'Reagan democrats' America's equivalent if you like of Worcester woman and Mondeo man rolled into one. Stan Greenberg carried out an almost anthropological study of the local inhabitants to find out why so many middle income families had deserted the democrats for the opposition republicans. He advised Bill Clinton to ditch the party's old high tax, high spending image and it paid off. Even to this day the voters of Macomb hold in their hands the key to the presidential race. Their attitudes however have changed, and with it the Democrats' political message. GREENBERG: These voters are much more comfortable with the Democrats, the economy is much stronger than it was, this election's about the future, it's not about the past, Democrats do not have to go into Macomb County and try to apologise for the past or come to terms with the past. WATSON: That message is delighting Labour observers of the campaign. But they are also learning that to hold on to 'swing' voters, you need constantly to reassure them that your on their side. ROBERT REICH: The vice president is certainly trying out some new language - he's not talking solely about 'working families' - that's code for the working class; he's not talking only about middle-class families - he's talking about "hard working families", hard working middle-class families, he's sort of embracing everybody. WATSON: This language comes directly from the mouths of America's 'swing voters' - the sort of people who don't usually think about politics too deeply. But when the political temperature is turned up at election time, and they prepare to make a decision, they prefer to hear from politicians who say they'll look after hard working families like themselves. Debbie is the manageress of Eddie's drive-in diner, at the edge of Macomb county, She's voted republican in the past, but recently, she's become interested in what Al Gore has to offer. DEBBIE: I think what he's doing right is probably the family thing, family man, standing up for the people, lower class people like us, hard working people. WATSON: Al Gore's campaign team have found that delivery is all important. If swing voters can see the benefits of public spending, then they are less attracted to the republicans' proposals for tax cuts that they feel might not add up. UNNAMED WOMAN: If he's gonna stand up for families how's he gonna do that? Is it with taxes, you know tax the rich more than the, than the middle class? I don't know, can he do that? I don't know. WATSON: Do you think you should? UNNAMED WOMAN: Yeah. Yeah absolutely right. UNNAMED MAN: I personally don't mind paying more taxes if I can see something come out of what I'm paying taxes for, the thing that, that irritates me is when they raise the taxes and they raise the taxes and you don't see the services increase. WATSON: The newest film at Michigan's only drive-in movie theatre is The Art of War. The battle ahead for centre-left politicians is to convince enough voters that finding the funding for public services is every bit as important as coughing up cash for a night out. The democrats think the argument is moving their way, and their findings have been passed onto Labour. The distance from Macomb in Michigan to Millbank in London isn't as far as you might think. The voters of this Motown suburb could determine the fate of Al Gore's presidential campaign. But they have another use, too. They could also help determine Labour's future election strategy in the UK. Al Gore's pollster, Stan Greenberg is the business partner of Phillip Gould, Tony Blair's pollster. And his research from over here is making it's way into the hands of key Labour advisers over there. So don't be surprised if you hear some of the phrases and language used by Al Gore in his resurgent campaign in the week ahead - at LABOUR party conference. Stan Greenberg also has close links in his own right with Labour. So the party may borrow more than just the language of the Democrats' campaign - they may also import some of the strategy. Downing Street is keen to go beyond sloganeering, and is impressed by the ability of the Gore team to underpin each piece of populist rhetoric with specific policies. GREENBERG: Specificity was critical, the voters are hungry for, desperate for, specifics, that you respect them enough to tell them how you're going to do this. They are very cynical about rhetoric, you couldn't throw out words like working families and make gains simply on these words, what was powerful was the specificity, and in the speech Al Gore said, he says I know this is going to be boring, it's not what most politicians do, but I'm going to tell you exactly what I want to do, and people appreciate the respect of being told you know what you're going to do, how you're going to do it, how you're going to pay for it. KILGORE Work/family balance and family stress are huge issues, particularly to women who by and large still shoulder a majority of the childcare responsibilities, and it's a real advantage to the democrats, because republicans in this country are listening a bit too much to the business community on this, have consistently resisted family leave expansions or anything else that would annoy the business community. I think, the republicans have made the mistake of assuming that this is a symbolic issue without any bite. WATSON: The democrats very specific policies on the family are playing well with middle class voters in the states, but the former Labour director of Policy thinks that in the current climate his party could be too squeamish to follow suit. TAYLOR: I think the question of whether Labour can emphasise issues like quality of life, depends on how long a shadow is cast by the fuel crisis. If worries about the economy come to the fore, then quality of life issues which have always been around, people have always wanted to talk about them, they tend to be relegated, so I would think I would have said three to six months ago the quality of life would be at the centre of it. I think it's much less clear now. WATSON But the advice coming from Washington is more robust. Parties of the left have the space to stress a quality of life agenda, but as part of a political package which places fiscal prudence in a prominent position. GREENBERG: The sort of things that were done by Clinton and the New Democrats and I'm a big supporter of them. But that laid the foundation for doing different things, new things, now you have to maintain that fiscal balance and you have to constantly talk about it, you can't walk away from it, but within that there is room to do important things, invest in education, securing the retirement system, dealing with the various challenges that families face and the voters I think are willing to look at political leaders who have a social imagination about those issues. WATSON: Here in New York, a former Clinton adviser now makes his money on the information superhighway, running an interactive political web site. so he feels he knows the public mood pretty well - Time magazine called him America's most influential private citizen. He says the left can bang on about fiscal prudence, but voters only see the spending pledges. DICK MORRIS: Whenever a politician whose party is innately of the left gives a message that's a mix of the centre and the left, all the voters see is the left. The metaphor I used to use with Bill Clinton was I said if we had a glass of water here, I'd drink it. Now if we took one drop of ink, and put it in the whole glass of water, I wouldn't drink it, because all of a sudden it would become inky water. So that, that little bit of populism, that little bit of leftism, is so stereotypical coming from the Labour Party, that it jams the centrist message. TAYLOR; I think if Gore wins, it reinforces Blair, and he ought to be able to say to his party to a certain extent to the country, there is a long haul here, and we can win not just a second term, but a third term, we can build incrementally, as long as we stay steady, we stay in the centre ground, and we're patient. WATSON: So if the voters of a swing state such as Michigan rush out to the polls on November 7th to support Al Gore, expect Labour to import some of the democrats' techniques to re-establish Blair's electoral coalition, but if the republicans in the USA can make a comeback, then Labour may have to risk following a more cautious, perhaps even conservative route. Even at the risk of some of its traditional support staying at home. HUMPHRYS: And that was Iain Watson reporting from the United States there. And that's it for this week, just a reminder about our web-site, for those of you on the Internet, we'll be on BBC2 again, BBC2 again next week, because of the Olympics, until then, from a wet Brighton, good afternoon. 26 FoLdEd
NB. This transcript was typed from a transcription unit recording and not copied from an original script. Because of the possibility of mis-hearing and the difficulty, in some cases, of identifying individual speakers, the BBC cannot vouch for its accuracy.