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ON THE RECORD
DONALD DEWAR INTERVIEW
RECORDED FROM TRANSMISSION BBC-1 DATE: 8.3.98
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JOHN HUMPHRYS: First the Scottish Labour Party is just
finishing its annual conference. They haven't exactly had a bad year one way or
another, a massive victory in the General Election and the prospect soon of
their own parliament. But it seems the celebrations may be turning a little
sour. And that's because what the Blair Government is delivering isn't exactly
what many of the comrades - they do still use that word in Scotland - were
expecting and certainly not what they were hoping for.
Donald Dewar, Scottish Secretary, is the
man most likely to become the first Prime Minister of Scotland and he's been at
the conference throughout. I've been talking to him from Perth and I suggested
to him that the government is at odds with what many of its supporters in
Scotland want.
DONALD DEWAR: I don't think, understandably, you
haven't been at our conference today and indeed all weekend and you didn't see
the rapturous reception for Tony Blair, the spontaneous standing ovation for
Gordon Brown, who's dealing specifically with prudent financial control and
building sustainable growth so that we can progress in the future. I think
this is a party that's very proud of what has been achieved, certainly the most
exciting and radical twelve months in Scottish politics this century and it's a
party that is looking forward to the contest to come and playing a very leading
role in the Scottish Parliament which we have created. No, I don't agree with
you. I think there is always going to be lively debates in a Scottish
conference, I make no apology for that. I'm delighted when there is real
discussion. And so far as I am concerned this is a very good launch-pad for
another very busy year that lies ahead.
HUMPHRYS: Well, lively debate is one thing,
critical motions are another thing. But it does rather depend on the level of
that criticism doesn't it. I mean they wanted you to throw out Trident. Well,
okay, you may say Labour Party conferences have always said that kind of thing.
But look at that motion on Lone Parent Benefit, and look at the language that
was used and I quote: "Economically inept, morally repugnant and spiritually
bereft" and that motion, Mr Dewar, was passed.
DEWAR: Yes, I must confess that it is a
splendid example of conference rhetoric.
HUMPHRYS: It was passed.
DEWAR: I didn't like it but I take great
consolation from the fact that we carried the constituency section. If you had
been voting on that - if the vote had been on that basis we would have rejected
that motion. One or two trade unions, the big trade unions, voted the other
way. In my view they made a grave mistake, and it certainly doesn't-let me just
say to you, it doesn't represent the spirit of conference and it certainly
doesn't represent the spirit of Scotland.
I think there's a great tendency to look
at one or two items in isolation and if people like to think about the creation
of opportunity, the new deal which will give tremendous chances to move into
the job market for single parents, and the party is extremely proud of that and
endorsed that with very very genuine enthusiasm. The new nursery provision,
the new National Childcare Strategy, the way in which this regards some
childcare costs for single parents have been increased for example in the last
budget.
If you take the picture as a whole and
in the round, I think you will discover that there is a lot to be proud of and
that's very much the mood of conference.
HUMPHRYS: But you can't dismiss that kind of
language can you? - morally repugnant and spiritually bereft. You can't
dismiss that?
DEWAR: Well I don't dismiss it. I said it
irritates me, I'll go as far as to say that.
HUMPHRYS: That's it?
DEWAR: There's a concession for you - it
irritates me.
HUMPHRYS: That's not much of a concession.
DEWAR: What it does do I think, and this is an
important point. It stresses the fact that the old traditional way of making a
policy at Labour Party conferences by a paste and scissors job at the start of
the weekend, kind of cobbling together all sorts of resolutions, is just now
out of date.
HUMPHRYS: In future you think-
DEWAR: Well, one thing that is good and I'm
sure you'll appreciate that, is that we are in fact changing our whole rules.
It's the last time that we'll see this phenomenon and what we're putting in
place is a national policy forum, a continuous and constructive discussion, I
hope, about policy formulation, so that people are prepared, know about the
issues when they come to conference. And I think that's a very - very much
part of the Blair revolution in terms of equipping the part for the
Twenty-First Century. So I think we are looking back today, in terms of this
news coverage, what we are going to see is very very new performance, new
machinery, in the future.
HUMPHRYS: Well I wouldn't mind coming back to that
in a few minutes. But let's just stay with that motion for a moment. The trade
unions knew exactly what they were doing, the conference knew. You can't simply
dismiss the trade unions either and say: oh well, the old dinosaurs. They are
people, they represent in many ways the heart and soul of the Labour Party and
you say: well it was only the trade unions, come on.
DEWAR: I didn't use the word dinosaur John.
HUMPHRYS: No, you didn't but that was the
implication.
DEWAR: No, well you can take what implication
you like. What I did say was that we carried the constituency section. And what
I repeat, and we're in danger of kind of going round and round in circles here,
what I did say is that having been through the bars, through the receptions,
through the debates, I know a conference that has much to be proud of when I
see one. And I have been going to Labour Party conferences for a very, very
long time and I believe that we've got here a party which is rightly proud of
its achievements. It worked, it was a real force, on the ground, in Scottish
politics during the referendum, when no doubt many commentators were saying
that it was all madness. We stuck to our task and the people of Scotland
responded magnificently. We've got a lot, I suppose to be thankful for in a
sense, but I think also a lot to be proud of.
HUMPHRYS: And there are a lot of things that
people are worried about. Not just lone parent benefit, though that was
admittedly the one that occasioned the most extreme language, but there are all
sorts of other things that people are concerned about. Things like the
imposition of tuition fees, private sector money to build hospitals, clamp-down
on public spending. I see this morning that there's going to be clamp-downs on
public spending over the next three years. Less money for councils, reluctance
to give trade unions what they thought they'd been promised in terms of
recognition. There is a whole list of things that are worrying your members and
they're right to be worried aren't they?
DEWAR: They're also very proud of the extra
money that we've found for the Health Service. The tremendous White Paper which
has already been put into practice, the removal of the internal market. The
streamlining of the Trusts, the removal of the funding of GPs. There's a lot
happening at the moment. There's a great deal - fundholding GPs - there's a lot
happening for which people are very proud. I was in a primary school in my own
constituency recently, looking at early initiatives on learning and reading and
writing. These have been funded by the Labour Government, they're having a
very, very considerable impact. The priorities are there. We are the first
government to have actually tried to tackle the problem of long-term
unemployment, in Scotland, over three hundred million over the lifetime of this
Parliament, to really tailor the effort to get people who have not been able to
compete in the past, into the job market. And what we have got is a government
that is tackling social exclusion, including people not excluding them.
I can remember the arguments with Peter
Lilley, in which he wouldn't even admit there was a problem. And I think that
the social priorities of this party - of this government are the exactly the
ones the country voted for and that comes through again and again in debates.
HUMPHRYS: But some of those things that I included
in that little list are core issues that people thought they were tramping the
streets to put the Labour Party into power for. And now they see they are not
going to get some of those things that they thought the Labour Party really was
all about.
DEWAR: Well John, if I came forward just now
and said I don't worry about stop - go cycles, I don't care what happens in
eighteen months or two years' time, it doesn't matter if unemployment shoots
up, if interest rates shoots up, we plunge into recession, we're going to have
great fun in the first two years. I don't want that. And what we've got is
prudent management of the public finances. Our prime aim is to get a level of
sustainable growth that allows us to deliver as in fact we promised and what we
are already doing is within the practicalities of our current situation, we are
getting the priorities right and that's coming through and I could give you a
long list, as against your little list, of things that are happening which this
party is very glad to see happening.
HUMPHRYS: Well, certainly, you gave me a little
list a moment ago but you mention there spending: but we learned this morning -
obviously, a story that was leaked over the weekend to the Sunday papers (it's
in most of the Sunday papers) - that these spending cuts - this very tight
spending round - that you got yourself into at the moment, that's going to
carry on over the next three years we're going to learn.
I mean, that isn't the kind of thing
that people thought they were there for. I mean, Labour Government's are
supposed to spend taxpayers' money as well as raise it!
DEWAR: John, I-I read things in the Sunday
papers day in, day out but I don't have your childlike faith in their accuracy.
HUMPHRYS: But, they come from somewhere, as you
well know. They don't-
DEWAR: No, what I-No-
HUMPHRYS: They don't suck 'em out of their thumbs.
Not if they appear in all the papers at the same time.
DEWAR: Eh? Eh? Hey, I could give you a whole
list of things in today's Sunday papers. We were discussing it before the
programme started: which I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Well, let me
say to you: of course, we're going to continue to take a prudent line on public
finance but the point of that line. The end of that line, the aim, is, in
fact, to be able to build a base which allows us to move forward with
confidence. There is no point going back to the old Nigel Lawson trick of
being popular for six months and then Hell of an unpopular for the next two
years while we desperately try and undo the damage. But, what people want is a
Government that's going to crack the economic problem but, at the same time,
it's got to have the right social priorities that is going to redress the
balance of opportunity in favour of those who have been at the wrong end of the
Conservative arithmetic.
And, I think, that's exactly what this
Government is doing. The Health Service, the Education Services, Unemployment
- it's all there. And, if you look and stand back a little bit rather than
concentrating on one particular item which you may think progress is
unsatisfactory, then, you'll see that shape and you'll see the strategy
emerging.
HUMPHRYS: No, I didn't concentrate on what I gave
you - a list of things there - are you listening to them? Are you listening to
these people who are worried about these things?
DEWAR: I'm listening to them with great care.
HUMPHRYS: You wouldn't be sitting there this
morning, would you, telling me that everybody is wandering around Perth this
morning saying: My God, they'll do it - everything we want.
DEWAR: No. No, no.
HUMPHRYS: What a Government this is! People are
concerned - are you listening to them?
DEWAR: No. Of course, I'm not saying that but
that's a grotesque caricature of what is happening in Perth but so is the other
end of your comments.
HUMPHRYS: No, what I'm saying is there is unease -
that's all I'm saying.
DEWAR: People are-What I'm saying is that most
people at Perth recognise that this Government has got to get the economy
right, it's got to have the right priorities in place but it can't do
everything at once and, of course, there will be people, particularly with
individual interests who may be worried about the pace of progress. But, if
you look at the sweep of this conference and if you look at the spirit of the
debate, then, I think, that for very understandable reasons, you are
concentrating on one or two items which give a quite false impression.
HUMPHRYS: No. I think that's misreading what I'm
saying and it's-
DEWAR: Alright.
HUMPHRYS: -not so much pace of progress it's
whether this Goverment - this Labour Government's heart is in the right place -
that's really what it's about?
DEWAR: Yeah.
HUMPHRYS: That's really what it's about.
DEWAR: Well, that's exactly what I'm saying and
I-I don't know if you listened to Tony Blair's speech; I don't know if you
listened to Gordon Brown's speech.
HUMPHRYS: Of course, of course.
DEWAR: Of course, you did! Well, great! And,
then, you will know that they were very honest and very straightforward
statements of their vision. And, in Gordon Brown's case specifically the need,
in fact, and for the kind of economic policies we are following at the moment,
you will not I think dispute with me the warmth of the reception that they got.
And, I do say to you, you are kind of encouraging me to endorse some form of-of
irresponsibility and suggesting that if you don't deliver on everything at once
in some way you are a total failure about to be thrown out on your ear. I can
assure you that's not my impression in Scotland and I don't think it's the mood
of the country as a whole.
HUMPHRYS: Well, you talk about the mood of the
country: let's look at that. It isn't just your activists. There is concern
in Scotland. Let's look at what's happened in the polls and the by-elections.
You may say you don't like the polls very much.
Well, alright, you're not going to say
that. Let me tell you, then: forty-four per cent for you; thirty-three per
cent at the moment for the Scottish National Party. Now, that's got to be
worrying. You're losing by-elections-
DEWAR: No.
HUMPHRYS: -that you oughtn't to lose. That's
worrying. So, it isn't just me saying: you know, this is the mood and you can
dismiss it away.
DEWAR: Well, if you looked back at Scottish
polls and the record of Scottish polls, you would see nothing very unexpected
in what you're referring to. But, let me just make it clear the reason I
believe that we can look forward to confidence is because we have got a
responsible Government and because on the key Scottish issue - Scottish
Parliament - we have delivered. And, people have voted for it. They were the
heroes, really, of the Referendum campaign: the people who turned out and gave
us the handsome majority that ended the argument.
Mr Hague was making a rare appearance in
Scotland yesterday and saying: we've got to make the Parliament work. It's the
settled will of the Scottish people is now the Conservative line. The triumph
is almost total in that respect. Now, the one Party, the one Party, whom you
can't trust to make the Scottish Parliament a success, who won't want it to
serve the people of Scotland, effectively are the nationalists for very obvious
- and, you may say honourable reasons - that they don't believe in it. They
want, in fact, to take Scotland totally out of the United Kingdom and,
therefore, the last thing they want is for a devolved settlement, giving a
stronger voice to Scotland; with a Scotland contributing very positively to the
United Kingdom. The last thing they want to do is see that succeed. And, that
will be the issue at the next Election, that'll be one of the main themes of
the next Election in Scotland. And, I know, on which side of that argument the
Scottish people will be.
HUMPHRYS: I'm not surprised that you concentrate
your fire on them because they are threatening you now, aren't they? Seriously
threatening you.
DEWAR: Why?
HUMPHRYS: Because people are looking at them and
they may be seeing them as the Scottish National Party but they may also be
seeing them as the Party that's going to deliver a little bit of Socialism,
which they thought a Labour Government was going to deliver.
DEWAR: No. If you look at the speeches of the
Scottish Nationalist Party they don't talk about Education, they don't talk
about the Health Service except in terms, of course, of criticising the Labour
Party. They are not a positive Party. They are a single plank Party. Their
raison d'etre is to ensure that the rest of the United Kingdom is presumably a
friendly foreign country, like another European Union partner, say France or
Germany. I don't think that's what Scotland wants and I think ultimately
that's the rock on which they will perish.
You're right we do tend to concentrate
them on the moment but that is because poor William Hague is left with a-not
even a shadow army - a few fragments of his Party and he looks to the future
with the new and exciting faces like Cecil Parkinson and Norman Fowler and
Peter Lilley and Michael Howard - for goodness' sake! And, therefore, they do
not really, perhaps, are worth a great deal of powder and shot, at the moment.
HUMPHRYS: Well, they're going to have a lot of
ammunition to fire at you as well aren't they, because look at the way you talk
about the Scottish parliament and the elections. Let's look at the way that
candidates for that parliament are going to be selected. Now what seems to be
happening here is that you're making it very difficult indeed for anybody on
the left of the party, people you regard as the old trouble-makers to be
selected. There's a kind of quality control going on here isn't there?
DEWAR: Absolutely. There's a quality control
going on. There's not an idealogical ...
HUMPHRYS: Ah, well.
DEWAR: No, let me just say this. I'm unashamed
about this. I want candidates standing in the Labour colours for the Scottish
parliament who can do a job, who can contribute, and I think that that is what
every party should be doing. But if you say to me that I've got a little list,
to quote Mr Peter Lilley of yesteryear, and that there are people who are going
to be pricked off that list and have no chance, that's I may say, an extremely
offensive remark in the context of integrity of the selection panel. There is
no such plan, there is no such conspiracy.
HUMPHRYS: Right. So in that case every member of
the existing - of the Westminster parliament - every one of your members of the
Westminster parliament would automatically qualify as a candidate for the
Scottish parliament wouldn't they, whether they're troublesome left-wingers,
and one can think of one or two, or not.
DEWAR: Look, who gets through onto the panel is
not for me to decide.
HUMPHRYS: Ah, but you just told me it was a matter
of quality John.
DEWAR: I'm an aspirant, I'm not in the back
room kind of getting pushed through the door,and passing them the notes telling
them what to do. No, what I am saying is that it's very very important that
the people who are picked will do the job for Scotland and I mean I've read the
newspapers as well - I mean it's one of my occupational hazards. Occasionally
I've sympathy with the famous Nye Bevan quote, that he reads the newspapers,
it's his form of continuous fiction, and certainly on this issue I just do not
know where those stories came from.
HUMPHRYS: But you will clear this up...
DEWAR: I will make it very, very very clear to
you that I'm not in the business of picking and choosing.
HUMPHRYS: No, no, but ..
DEWAR: As long as the cadidates are in the main
range of Labour Party opinion and they reach the competence test.
HUMPHRYS: But I mean they're bound to pass the
competence test if they're already Westminster MPs aren't they?
DEWAR: Many of them no doubt will. I'm not...
HUMPHRYS: Just many of them, You mean there might
be Westminster MPs who might ....
DEWAR: Wait a sec, wait a sec, wait a sec. I
mean this is really an attempt to set up when did you last beat your wife sort
of question.
HUMPHRYS: On the contrary, it's very
straightforward question. All I'm saying to you is: look, we have a number of
Westminster MPs at the moment who've been doing the job, some of them for a
very long time. If they want to move over to the Scottish parliament, and of
course the electors choose to vote for them, you wouldn't stand in their way
surely? Competence - quality!
DEWAR: What I'm saying to you is that there is
an independent selection system into which all people - I have to go because I
hope to be in the Scottish parliament - if you were up here and voting Labour
and a member of the party and applied, you would have to go through it too
John. And it's not for me, it's not for me to tell that selection panel its
job. You may be right in your assumption, but obvioulsy we have to see at the
end of the day.
HUMPHRYS: But I ...
DEWAR: What I object - what I object to - what
I object to is the slightly frothy attempt to suggest that there is some
sinister conspiracy, and that I have in my hand metaphorically, a list of
people who may be as competent as Tony Blair, but who will not get through
because of their views. That is not the position.
HUMPHRYS: Frothy or not, I find it odd that you
can't say just right off the top of your head this morning if they are a
Westminster MP and they've passed all the tests that need to be passed to
become a Westminster MP, surely John they'd be capable and competent of
quality...
DEWAR: John, can I just say to you, and it may
come as you know - it may sound a surprising thing to say, but we are taking a
candidate's selection today very much more seriously in terms of the equipment
of the candidates to do the job than we've ever done in the past. I mean
Labour MPs get selected without going through any of that form of preparation.
They have no training to be an MP, perhaps there should be, but certainly for
potential members of the Scottish parliament there will be a very serious
attempt to make sure that if they are selected they're equipped, and that they
have the potential to do that job before they get onto the panel.
HUMPHRYS: So some slipped through the system and
got into Westminster then who shouldn't have got there because they weren't up
to the job.
DEWAR: It's not for me to make these value
judgements, I mean .....
HUMPHRYS: That's the clear implication of what
you've just said. They're going to be a lot better - the Scottish lot are going
to be a lot better than some of those we've got in Westminster at the moment.
DEWAR: What I am saying is that of course the
relevant experience of being in Westminster is going to be a factor in no
doubt the consideration of the panel, but if you're asking me to give a blank
endorsement now to - I don't know how many people are going to transfer across
- we're just coming up to the closure of nominations at the moment - but to a
group of people, and suggest in some sort of way putting them through the
selection procedure is a farce because we know now that they will be selected
irrespective of what the panel thinks, I'm not going to give you that
undertaking, but that's not sinister, it's merely a proper respect. And I
would have hoped and I say this to you very seriously, I would have hoped that
journalists of some reputation looking at the state of British politics would
have welcomed a very very genuine attempt by a major political party to take
the selection process seriously, and to make sure it works in the interests of
the parliament and the people the parliament represents.
HUMPHRYS: Donald Dewar, thank you very much.
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