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JOHN HUMPHRYS: But first the Liberal Democrats.
In a couple of hours they'll vote at their Welsh conference to share power
- we assume anyway - with the Labour Party to run the Welsh Assembly.
They're already in coalition in Scotland. So, so far... so good for them.
But the big prize is to share in the running of the whole country. And
that is beginning to seem even further away than it was at the start of
this Labour government. The promise of proportional representation at
Westminster has faded, if not disappeared altogether, and some of their
policies seem designed almost to alienate those very voters whom they most
need to win more seats. Their leader is Charles Kennedy.
Good afternoon Mr Kennedy.
I don't suppose you'd agree with that basic introduction but we will test
it as we go through the next few minutes.
CHARLES KENNEDY: My lips are sealed..
HUMPHRYS: Well I hope they're not
entirely otherwise..
KENNEDY: ..we'll have a very boring
twenty minutes, yes..
HUMPHRYS: It's not very democratic
this is it. I mean the people of Wales didn't vote you into power, they
gave you very very few seats indeed and now here is your party getting
the opportunity to put through, as your leader in Wales said on the radio
this morning, a very large part of its manifesto. Where's the democracy
in this?
KENNEDY: Well the democracy is
in the voting system. It's a proportionate voting system, the same as Scotland
and that means that you get the number of people that you elect based on
the spread of support that you command. Now I think that it looks a good
deal to me, it looks like a very good deal in terms of the stability of
the Welsh Assembly, but what's very democratic and this is somewhat different
to the way in which the Labour Party in Wales goes about its business as
far as I can see, but from our point of view, it's a very democratic approach
in that our members will decide. I can't sit in this studio in London
today and tell you that they should do this and they should do that. They
will decide what they want to do, that's a very healthy development.
HUMPHRYS: I'm sure it looks very
good to you and very decent and fair and all the rest of it because half
a dozen seats in Wales, that's all you've got out of a potential sixty
in the Assembly and here you are with a great chunk of power. That's what's
not very democratic about it is it.
KENNEDY: Well there's an issue
of principle. Do you think that proportional representation and the fact
that no party tends to command an outright majority given the mix of the
population, the geography, the politics that we have in our country across
the UK as a whole, should any one party just command total power without
having majority support. Now I think on principle that's not a healthy
thing so parties have to co-operate with each other. Heaven's above, the
sun will stop.. you now cease to rise in the east and set in the west because
different politicians can agree with each other. You are running a tribute
in this programme today to Donald Dewar, great friend, great mentor, somebody...
like everybody else..I think it's a tragedy what's happened in the last
few days. I've been in Edinburgh witnessing the tributes that have been
paid to him and paid some myself. There's a man who could have said well
to hell with it all, the winner takes all, I'll just govern under my own
account. He didn't, he said okay, the balance of opinion in our country
is such that there is a gradation, a sliding scale of opinion, I've got
to work with the grain here and he did and he did so successfully.
HUMPHRYS: But in your case you
came bottom of the poll in Wales. Now what we were promised as a result
of this new dispensation in Wales and in Scotland of course, was that there
would be a new kind of politics. And this isn't actually a new kind of
politics, under the old system, before you did this..agreement you reached..your
party in Wales reached this agreement with Labour, what we were getting
was Labour having, if it wanted to do something, to say to all the other
parties, now look this is what we are proposing, let's talk about this
and try and do it... it didn't work, for all sorts of reasons. But that
was a new way of politics and perhaps if other things had been equal and
a bit of a greater effort had been made, perhaps it would have, but now
we've got an old fashioned carve up haven't we..
KENNEDY: ...no, we haven't....we
have not..
HUMPHRYS: We have Labour saying
to your lot, look we've got most seats but not enough, you've got half
a dozen, very few indeed, let's get together and then we can push through
whatever we want to do. The fact that the people of Wales didn't vote for
your party to have that kind of power seems to have been conveniently forgotten.
KENNEDY: Well the people of Wales
will have looked at the way the Welsh Assembly has developed or in some
senses failed to develop since its inception and they and all the commentators
in Wales, you know Welsh politics better than I do, I'm not going to make
any secret about that...
HUMPHRYS: ...I doubt that but anyway...
KENNEDY: Well I think you probably
do, but they people of Wales have seen and the commentators observe that
the Assembly needs stability. That means that you need an adult governing
majority. We would argue and we will continue to argue for more power for
the Welsh Assembly, more authority, more legislative clout, along the lines
of the Scottish Parliament for example. I think that that can be bolted
into position as a result of reaching a principled, public, written agreement,
that's what we are doing.
HUMPHRYS: Okay, you have that in
Wales, now you have it in Scotland already. You are a very very long way
from getting it here at Westminster in London aren't you? Much further
away than you were when you came into power.
KENNEDY: Yes a long way away, you're
quite right.
HUMPHRYS: And that's got to bother
you a great deal hasn't it?
KENNEDY: Well we'll continue to
make the case. I've always taken the view about the party that we want
proportional representation and I think that if you look at what's being
proposed in Wales, it will involve, as it does in Scotland, looking at
local government in Wales, with a view to PR there. Now if you look at
a situation where you've got an Assembly in Wales, a Parliament in Scotland,
potential proportional representation for local government in both countries,
a form of PR for the European Parliament, it becomes very hard to deny,
does it not, PR for Westminster as well.
HUMPHRYS: But Mr Blair's denying
it. The Labour Party is denying it, you heard what John Prescott said
on this very programme a few weeks ago.
KENNEDY: Indeed, they are and if
we can't achieve that under these mechanisms we have to win under the present
system, simple as that.
HUMPHRYS: But you're not going
to get it are you. Just remind people who perhaps didn't heard what John
Prescott said "Just let it slide away. Put it in a boat and send it away
along with the Lib Labs". I mean you hardly needn't me to remind you about
that but things have changed haven't they now...
KENNEDY: That's John's view and
you know he's the Deputy Prime Minister of the country, he's perfectly
entitled to his views. I don't object to him having his views, it's a matter
for the Labour Party. Everybody knows where we are coming from, we want
fair votes for Westminster. Now if we can't get it under present arrangements
we have to go out and win that argument ourselves and that's what we will
do.
HUMPHRYS: Simon Hughes, your own
man, said that if there is no commitment to a referendum in this Parliament
by the end - if there was no commitment by the end of the Labour Party
Conference...
KENNEDY: ...for the manifesto...
HUMPHRYS: ..that's right... then
it would be a fundamental...well - well no, he said no commitment to PR
by the end of the Labour Party Conference, then that would be a fundamental
breach of a commitment and we would have to say and I quote from him: "Sorry,
we can't do business for the rest of this Parliament". So is that what
you are now saying? - because you didn't get that commitment of course.
KENNEDY: Well first of all Simon
is doing business for the rest of this Parliament because there is a huge
amount of home affairs legislation that he deals with that he has to deal
directly with Jack Straw on a week by week basis and does so I think very
successfully. So there is no question that a degree of involvement maintains
between Liberal Democrats and the Labour Party because we are forever trying
to beef up freedom of information legislation to make sure that the denial
of trial by jury is not something that we are going to compromise on. So
there will be a degree of dialogue, there is always going to be that and
there should be sensibly in adult politics.
HUMPHRYS: But he said there was
a fundamental breach here, a fundamental breach of the commitment, do you
agree with that?
KENNEDY: Well, what I have to judge
as the party leader is the extent to which is Tony Blair in particular,
because at the end of the day he's in the job with his party that I am
in with mine - is he wanting to resile on the commitment that was previously
entered into. Now my honest judgement to you, looking you in the eye is
that he's not.
HUMPHRYS: But, but he offered,
he promised that there would be something in the referendum..., in, in
the manifesto, he promised that there would be something done in this parliament
on PR...
KENNEDY: ...oh, that hasn't happened.
HUMPHRYS/KENNEDY: (Both speaking together)
HUMPHRYS: That's a fundamental
breach, isn't it?
KENNEDY: Over a year ago, I said
well, that, you know, that, that's, that's a gone, and Roy Jenkins would,
would take the same view too...
HUMPHRYS: ...A fundamental breach
then, isn't it?...
KENNEDY: ...and, er, that's a great
disappointment, but there we are, we live where we are, and we are where
we are, and I have to deal with the world as it is, and what I am therefore
determined about, is whatever the outcome of the next election, I don't
want the Labour Party to resile on giving the public, not me, not the politicians,
but you, the public, the right to have a say in what the voting system
for our country should be.
HUMPHRYS: ...Yes but, but I was
trying to talk about the rest of this government, the rest of this parliament,
he has...
KENNEDY: ...umm, it might not be
very long...
HUMPHRYS: ...ok..
KENNEDY: ...it might not be long...
HUMPHRYS: ...but, but during it
you are working on Cabinet Committee with them and all the rest of that
sort of thing. Are you not now saying, as a result of what Simon Hughes
says, and what you've agreed here on, in the last couple of minutes, are
you not now saying - that is an end of it, no more co-operation..., because
you did say there'd be no more co-operation if you didn't get that commitment,
so are you now saying...
KENNEDY: ...well, I've always been
quite clear about this, that there couldn't be any future for the kind
of co-operation that has existed if the Labour Party resiles on its commitment
to giving the public a right to choose the voting system.
HUMPHRYS: So you won't be going
off to any more Cabinet Committees, joint Cabinet Committees, nothing like
that.
KENNEDY: No, no, no, no, not, not
saying that at all. We've only had two....
HUMPHRYS: ...so you are co-operating...
KENNEDY: ...well of course we're
co-operating...
HUMPHRYS: ...but I thought, sorry,
I'm puzzled now, I thought you said you weren't going to co-operate if
you didn't get this commitment because we have this fundamental...
KENNEDY: ...the commitment, I've,
John, I've always said, the commitment is the manifesto commitment, because
I acknowledged almost on day one of becoming leader of the party just over
a year ago that it wasn't going to happen in this parliament and that's
the way things were, and it's a disappointment, but there we are. But
a lot of other things could happen, and should happen, and have happened
in fact. There has been legitimate good valuable co-operation of the type
that may be taking place in Wales as we speak. Now, that I think is a
worthwhile objective to pursue in terms of public policy, but the manifesto
commitment for the Labour Party is for me the key thing.
HUMPHRYS: So, Simon Hughes, just
to sort out this once and for all, Simon Hughes was wrong when he said
there has been a fundamental breach of commitment, although you accept
that, but the second bit of it, we would have to say therefore, sorry,
we cannot do business for the rest of this parliament...
KENNEDY: ...I think...
HUMPHRYS: ...Effectively, you're
going to roll over them and tickle your tummy.
KENNEDY: ...No, not at all...I,
I think er, Simon is in a position where he is himself dealing, as I say,
with the Home Secretary of the day on home affairs matters on a regular
basis, doing so very successfully and in a constructive way...
HUMPHRYS: ...what did he mean when
he said we can't do business with ...
KENNEDY: ...I don't know, you'll
have to interview him...
HUMPHRYS: ...well, he's your man.
He's a very senior figure in your party...
KENNEDY: ...well he's, he's your
interviewee, you should have pinned him down much than you obviously do...
HUMPHRYS: ...well I didn't talk
to him. He made that comment afterwards. We tried to get him on this
programme but he didn't show up, but there we are.
KENNEDY: ...ah, you're trying,
you're trying to recoil from it now, you're trying to recoil...
HUMPHRYS: ...on the contrary, we'd
have been very happy to...
KENNEDY: ...it's all your fault
Humphrys.
HUMPHRYS: It's all my fault. Alright,
it usually is, it usually is. But, but you are, let's be quite clear about
it, you are going to carry on co-operating as though, effectively as though
nothing has happened.
KENNEDY: No, look, we are going
to carry on. I am the kind of person that believes that where adult politicians
can co-operate with each other, they should do so.
HUMPHRYS: Notwithstanding breaches
of commitment.
KENNEDY: Notwithstanding occasional
breaches of commitment, but there are breaches, and there are breaches,
and I don't think for a moment that if Labour were suddenly to say, right,
to hell with the public having a choice where it comes to proportional
representation or an alternative voting system or whatever...
HUMPHRYS: ...or an alternative
voting system, now you're not telling me are you...
KENNEDY: ...no, I'm not telling
you, I am using the word...
HUMPHRYS: ...that using an alternative
voting system is acceptable to you, the way the proportional representation...
KENNEDY: ...no, I am not telling
you that. I am talking about an alternative to the voting system.
HUMPHRYS: Right, so you rule out
alternative vote as an alternative to proportional representation.
KENNEDY: Well, it's not even on
the table, so it's not something that we going to rule out.
HUMPHRYS: Well, it's the best that's
on offer, isn't it. It appears to be the best, though nothing's formally
on offer of course.
KENNEDY: Well, hang on. I mean,
your thesis is that nothing's on offer, so it doesn't arise.
HUMPHRYS: Alright. Let's assume
that the best on offer is an alternative vote system. What do you say
to that?
KENNEDY: Well, we're not there
yet, so I don't say anything.
HUMPHRYS: But surely you have to
say to me this morning, non-starter, non-starter, we want a fair voting
system, proportional representation, if the offer is alternative vote,
they'll win it.
KENNEDY: If I go into negotiation
with you, I'd begin by saying, right, that's absolutely out of order, this
is the only thing we'll agree on. That's not much of a negotiation, is
it?
HUMPHRYS: But, the implication
in that is that if they held firm, as clearly they are going to, and said,
I am sorry at the end of all these negotiations Charles, you know, this
is, that's it, I mean, it's alternative vote. You seem to be saying you
would have to consider that. Well, what's happened to the basic fundamental
principle that it was proportional representation, or nothing.
KENNEDY: We stick, we stick to
principle. People know where we stand, Labour knows where we stand on
this. We want the single transferable vote and multi-member constituencies,
you're losing viewers by the way, as we speak, about these details.
HUMPHRYS: Well, I don't think it
is, you see, this...
KENNEDY: ...we have compromised,
we have compromised already, by saying that we will support the commission
recommendations that Roy Jenkins came up with...
HUMPHRYS: ...which they chucked
out...
KENNEDY: ...which is not the milk
and honey of where the Liberal Democrats would start from, so a compromise
has already, already been reached. Another compromise, I think not, but
we will have to see.
HUMPHRYS: So you might - you might
accept AV, you're sitting here this morning and saying that is ruled out
full stop!
KENNEDY: How can you rule out something
that is not even on the table? It's not rational politics.
HUMPHRYS: Lots of things aren't
on the table in politics, but politicians come along and say, you know,
we want this and we want that. There we are. Anyway okay.
KENNEDY: I want the public to have
a choice, that's the key point, the public to have a choice. And if they're
not going to be given that choice, denied that choice, that's the fundamental
stumbling block.
HUMPHRYS: Let's look at some of
your policies that I suggested in the introduction might be potentially
driving away some of your support. They seem almost to be designed to
alienate those voters who helped you get all the seats you got last time,
because you took those seats by and large from the Tories. Now what you're
saying is, we're going to push up taxes, we're going to penalise people
earning more than twenty-one thousand pounds a year, which isn't exactly
a fortune in this day and age.
KENNEDY: Penalise people - penalise
people?
HUMPHYRS: By making them pay more
tax.
KENNEDY: Yep. So whether you're
earning over a hundred thousand pounds a year or just over twenty-one thousand
pounds a year you don't care about a decent Health Service, you don't care
about the fact that your local school hasn't got the investment that it
needs, you're not worried about your elderly parents, you're not concerned
about the fact that your students, your children becoming students are
going to be up to their eyes in debt. That's what we're talking about
raising money for, to spend money on. Now, I think those are good social
objectives and I don't think that alienates people at all.
HUMPHRYS: Nobody would argue that
they're good social objectives, but the other parties are intent on keeping
taxes down or even cutting them.
KENNEDY: Let them get on with it
- let them get on with it. If they want to get into some kind of dismal
Dutch auction about - and I wish - they must be so clever these other two
parties, I wish I knew what the magic elixir was - vote for us and we'll
cut your tax and we'll spend more - that's a marvellous thing isn't it?
HUMPHRYS: You did that with fuel
tax didn't you - exactly that. Touch of opportunism there on your part.
I mean in your last ,.....
KENNEDY: No. We've not been opportunistic
at all.
HUMPHRYS: Well, you said you were
going to put fuel - an extra - in your last alternative budget you put
on extra five pence on fuel duty.
KENNEDY: Yes.
HUMPHRYS: That's gone now. There
was a bit of a punch up over fuel, and it's gone. You've replaced that
with a freeze on fuel duty.
KENNEDY: Two items. First of all
we've seen obviously a national - not short of a national catastrophe in
terms of this issue, and politicians have got to respond to that, but secondly
if you look at what we've done on the record in terms of our voting behaviour
in the House of Commons every budget under Conservative Chancellor Ken
Clarke, Labour Chancellor Gordon Brown, we have opposed the fuel escalator.
Why did we do so? Because we were the people who argued time and time
and time again when it was unfashionable to do so that if you were going
to have more tax on carbon emissions for environmental purposes....
HUMPHRYS: Sure.
KENNEDY: .... Everybody in favour,
HUMPHRYS: Indeed.
KENNEDY: You have to compensate
the people for whom a motor vehicle is not a luxury it's a necessity,
and that's a lot of rural Britain as you well know.
HUMPHRYS: Of course it is, but
that's the point isn't it. Once you see people saying I don't want this,
you run away from it. This is what you've done.
KENNEDY: I don't think we can be
accused of running away from things. Look at our track record over the
course of this last twelve months alone.
HUMPHRYS: Well, here's an example.
We're going to put five pence on back in March - we're going to take the
five pence off again when the people start shouting about tax. The same
tax.
KENNNEDY: What we're saying is
cap it - cap it at the moment.
HUMPHRYS: Same thing, not put tax
on.
KENNEDY: But I say put the investment
into public transport and make sure also that if you raise any more taxes
from the motorist, from the haulage industry, whatever it might be, make
sure that that's compensated by having an equivalent tax for reductions...
HUMPHRYS: You're going to cap it
for five years whatever happens, even if the price of fuel comes down again,
you're going to cap it for five years.
KENNEDY; Well, the price of fuel
as we all know given developments in the Middle East just in the last few
days it.....
HUMPHRYS: It may well change next
year
KENNEDY: It's a very, very unpredictable
thing.
HUMPHRYS: That may change.
KENNEDY: And so, what you have
to do is I think is, set out your shop stall and just be straight with
people.
HUMPHRYS: Yes, but you were straight
back in March, and now you're got another position to be straight on in
November, in October after a spot of trouble.
KENNEDY: And what's the big criticism
of the government? They're not listening, they're not paying attention,
they're not working with the grain of public opinion. You've got to do
that if you want to achieve things in politics. I have no hesitation or
embarrassment about that whatsoever, none whatsoever.
HUMPHRYS: Well, it just doesn't
look very principled does it. You have a principled position because you
know, you're concerned about the environment and therefore you have a position
on that and then there's a spot of bother and you change your principal.
KENNEDY: No. no, the lack of principle
is shifting the goal-posts half way through the game. Every party, Labour,
Conservative, the Nationalists and ourselves all signed up to the idea
that environmental taxation was a good policy to pursue. Then the government
shifted the goal-posts and said: Oh it's not about saving the environment,
it's about more doctors and nurses and teachers. Well, actually no, it
wasn't about that, it was never supposed to be about that. That comes
out of a different pot. People are not daft you know. They can see through
folk like me. If I start saying: Well, we'll tax you from this to spend
on that, or actually we're not going to do that. That's the shiftiness,
that's the lack of principle, and we're not doing that.
HUMPHRYS: Aren't you getting back
to your old problem as Liberal Democrats. People say, no point in voting
for you.
KENNEDY: What's that old problem.
HUMPHRYS: You want to be level.
I'll tell you what it is. No point in voting because they're not going
to have real power. The likelihood of that is shifting further away as
we've just been discussing, and they'll do things we don't like anyway
if they do.....
KENNEDY: How has it shifted further
away?
HUMPHRYS: Well, you just told me.
You just told me the government's reneged on its commitment to you, so
therefore....
KENNEDY: So we can't win under
the existing system?
HUMPHRYS: Oh, well then, if you
do, absolutely fine. However, part of your appeal has always been.....
HUMPHRYS: I'm not prepared to have
that complacent journalistic assumption thrown at me. We can win under
the existing system. We just won a magnificent by-election in Romsey again
historic century-long trends. We had the biggest share of the national
vote we'd every enjoyed as a party. I've been in politics for seventeen
years now in the House of Commons. Twenty-eight per cent. We can win
under the existing system. We want a fairer system. If we have to win
under this one to make it fairer and give people a choice that's what we're
going to do.
HUMPHRYS: Charles Kennedy, thank
you very much indeed.
KENNEDY: Thank you John.
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