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ON THE RECORD
GORDON BROWN INTV
RECORDED FROM TRANSMISSION BBC-1 DATE: 26.9.93
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JOHN HUMPHRYS: Gordon Brown, why haven't you managed to
inspire the country?
GORDON BROWN: I can understand that some people are
anxious but the process of change is always a difficult one. What we've got to
do is really three things: We've got to reassert our lasting values -
fairness, greater equality, an economy run in the interests of the community,
individuals in a position to realise their potential through the power of
collective action. We've got to apply these values to the 1990s and we've got
to create a new agenda in economic and social policy. Now that's all very
difficult, it takes a long time to explain. I'm in the business of doing that.
If you take for example, our ambitions, they're far wider, far more expansive
than Harold Wilson's in the 60s. He talked then about full employment, I
talked not only about full employment, I talk about fulfilling employment, high
quality work that is suited to the needs of people. He talked about the relief
of poverty, I talk also about the relief of poverty but I also talk about
permanent pathways out of poverty by new opportunities for people. He talked
about more people going to university, I talk about everybody, sixteen onwards,
having the chance of permanent lifelong recurrent education. In other words,
it's fulfilling individual potential by using the power of community. That is
the basic socialist message and that has got to be applied to the problems of
the 1990s.
Now I could tell you how we would apply
to the issues of fairness, to the issues of employment opportunity and full
employment. To the problems of the British economy but you must start from
this basic principle that we are reasserting Labour's lasting values, we're
applying them to huge challenges particularly as Denis Healey said, of the
global economy, and we've now got a new agenda which means a new economic
approach for Labour.
HUMPHRYS: And we'll look at all those as the
interview goes on but the..
BROWN: I hope we'll have a chance to look at
all of them.
HUMPHRYS: Absolutely, we've got plenty of time to
do that. But you've been in opposition for fourteen years, you're facing at
the moment the government, that you say, is totally discredited, is run down,
has got nowhere to go and yet you are not getting your message across. You're
not inspiring people that you have a vision, why?
BROWN: Well I think the process of change
within the Party is a difficult one as I've said, I think it takes time for
people to understand what we're doing, there are traditional policies that have
not been related in the modern age to the real values of the Labour Party and
people have got to understand that we're in that process of change. If you
take fairness, I've been attacked by some people in that film who've completely
misunderstood what I've said. The new fairness of agenda for the Labour Party
is built on four things: it's built on tackling entrenched interests that hold
people back whether it's banks or financial institutions or utilities or food
lobbys that overcharge people. It's built on integrating social and economic
policy so that we can ensure pathways out of poverty for millions of people,
it's built on fair taxation, as I say and it's built on an economic
egalitarianism which means that individuals in the workplace have got the
chance of employment, educational training opportunities and we change the
whole balance between capital and labour. Now that is a fairness agenda for
the nineties that tackles entrenched interests, that deals with the issues of
progressive taxation and nobody should be in any doubt about my commitment to
progressive taxation and integrate social and economic policies so that you
give people opportunities, economic opportunities for all and unfair privileges
for no one.
Now that is an agenda that makes sense
of Britain in the nineties where there are huge entrenched interests that have
got be tackled, where people are denied opportunities to realise their
potential but it's not the agenda of the eighties or the seventies or the
sixties. It is a new agenda but based on our lasting values.
HUMPHRYS: But you don't seem to be getting that
new agenda across. The Labour Party seems to be in decline, membership is
falling, consistenly has been falling.
BROWN: Well that's not true of my constituency.
HUMPHRYS: There's been a small increase recently.
BROWN: But in my consitituency the membership's
trebled. If you go out and talk to people, if you got out and visit people, if
you knock on doors and explain your message, people will join. I think in the
last two months more than six hundred people have joined in my own
constituency.
HUMPHRYS: Can I tell you why some of....
BROWN: And it's possible for that to happen, if
you put your message across, you've got to be clear about your values, you've
got to then apply them to the 1990s and you've got to have a proper agenda of
policy making that is not the policies of the 50s or the 60s not even the
policies of Harold Wilson's white heat of the technological revolution because
actually what we're dealing with is the liberating potential of the skills, the
training, the people revolution and that's where people will begin to realise
what we're talking about.
HUMPHRYS: Can I tell you why some people are
joining the Party. You say your membership has trebled and I don't how you've
achieved that but...
BROWN: Well I'll tell you how we've achieved it
by asking people to join, by telling people what we're about, by explaining our
values, by our policies being understood by people.
HUMPHRYS: Well let me tell you what I've seen
happening on the doorstep in some areas, that's to say they knock on the door,
they say here's a petition against VAT on domestic fuel, would you like to sign
it? and the householder says you bet, I don't want VAT on domestic fuel. So
they sign it and then they say, by the way, do you want to join the Labour
Party for a quid? So they say yeah, I'll do that.
BROWN: Well the first thing is that people...
HUMPHRYS: That's a negative, that's what
Barbara Castle is talking about.
BROWN: It's not a negative because the campaign
about VAT is all about fair taxation. If you have a government that raises
money by penalising particularly the pensioner community of our country by
imposing a tax on basic essentials when at the same time they refuse to close,
as you were reporting yesterday on BBC, tax loopholes worth billions of pounds
where rich, powerful and privileged people are getting off with paying
aboslutely nothing, then that is an issue of fairness in taxation and the
reason that that is so symbolic of Tory failure is that people understand that
when the Tories tax they tax unfairly, when Labour makes decisions about
taxation we make them fairly.
HUMPHRYS: But it does suggest what Barbara Castle
was talking about there in that.... she said we're trying to win on negatives.
That's winning on the negative isn't it, to say to people are you against VAT
on domestic fuel, if so sign this petition and then join the Labour Party.
That's not inspiring them with vision is it?
BROWN: Well I think people up and down the
country would welcome the fact that the Labour Party, in fact indeed, people of
all political persuasions are now protesting against the government's policy on
VAT. The issue is one of fairness. But, of course, side by side with that,
I'm putting forward the new agenda for the Labour Party. Now if you take the
issue of employment in economic capacity. What I'm saying is that past
analysis of what's been wrong with the economony have got it wrong because what
they're saying is that the problem is only one of demand. I say the British
economic problem is one of supply, one of capacity. It's a long term failure
to invest in people, in industry and in our social and economic fabric and, of
course, it is addressed by using the power of government and applying it to the
problems of the British economy.
Now that gives you a completely new
agenda in economic policy. Now I understand that if people think that the only
policy of the Labour Party is nationalisation, if people think the only policy
is co-operatism, they will find it difficult to come along with me until, over
a period of time, they understand what I'm doing but the important point is
this; that we are talking about first of all the skills revolution and how
government can enable people to increase their earning power. We're talking
about an investment revolution in Britain where the failure to invest in
industry over many years is tackled by using the power of government working
with industry and we're talking about a partnership between public and private
sector instead of the old battle between public doing this and private doing
that. Public and private sectors working together. Now that is a new economic
agenda for high growth, for full and fulfilling employment as our goal and it
is a new agenda that is the only one, as I understand it, that is capable of
bringing a recovery, a long term, lasting recovery for what are fundamental
weaknesses in the British economy. But the important principle is this: it is
using the power of the community, collective action, in the interests of
individual economic opportunity because only by getting people to work and
using their energies in the modern world, based on skills, can you have
prosperity.
HUMPHRYS: A lot of people will say, I don't
understand phrases like using the power of the community, it sounds to me like
rhetoric and I want to come back to that in a second but let me just ask you a
very simple question.
BROWN: I think John I should deal with that
point, using the power of the community. What I'm saying is that there are
cases where government acts at a national level, there are cases where
government acts at a local level, there are cases where the only role of
government is to bring together say the universities, industry, the business
entrepreneurial community. For example, for technology transfer. There are a
number of ways in which the community acts as a community and we must get away
from the idea of this one dimensional view of government that it's only the
state directing people. It is people at a local, national and international
level making decisions on economic policy.
HUMPHRYS: Party's have to stand for something,
does the Labour Party stand for re-distributing the nation's wealth?
BROWN: Of course, and the fairness agenda that
I've just outlined to you is absolutely central to our approach. Indeed, I
would say this: It is not only necessary on grounds of social justice to have
fairness in our society, it is absolutely crucial for the pursuit of economic
efficiency and prosperity.
HUMPHRYS: So that means taxing the rich more?
BROWN: Well what I've said over a long period
of time and I've been saying this right throughout the last year is that the
gains that were made by a very small number of people over the last fourteen
years, budget gains, about fifty per cent have gone to the top five per cent
from 1988. These are quite indefensible, that you must have a policy for
taxation that.....
HUMPHRYS: So you reverse that?
BROWN: We will reverse the gap between rich and
poor that has effected our society.
HUMPHRYS: How are you going to do that, are you
going to tax the rich more then in that case.
BROWN: Well what I've said is that the
progressive principles will apply to our taxation system and let's be clear
what these are. That if you're too poor to pay income tax, you shouldn't have
to do so but if you have the money, the progressive principle will apply to
people...
HUMPHRYS: So the more you've got, the more you'll
pay?
BROWN: Well that is the progressive principle
and that's why I say this that there are a number of ways in which we will look
at changing the basis of the taxation system. We set up a social justice
commission to look at some of these very issues and of course, I'm not on your
programme today to tell you what the Labour Party manifesto is for the next
election...
HUMPHRYS: Of course you're not but..indeed.
BROWN: ...and I'm not going to give you tax
rates or suggest what these tax rates might be.
HUMPHRYS: I'd be very surprise if you did.
BROWN: But I don't think anybody should be
under any illusion, the gap between rich and poor in our country is
unnacceptable. The shift that has taken place will have to be reversed,
progressive principles of taxation will have to apply but the fairness agenda,
the one that I outlined to you at the very beginning, the fairness agenda is
based on a number of things. Tackling vested interests that hold people back,
pathways out of poverty for millions of people and economic egalitarianism in
the workplace itself, chaning the balance between capital and labour as well as
progressive taxation.
HUMPHRYS: So you agree with the basic principles
spelt out by Roy Hattersley in the Mail on Sunday this morning, which was
marginal tax rates will have to rise.
BROWN: What I've said is I'm not going to
announce tax rates.
HUMPHRYS: No, I didn't ask you to do that, I asked
you to agree or disagree with the principle.
BROWN: But John, you're not going to get me to
say that individual taxes in any particular way are going to rise at this
stage.
HUMPHRYS: I'm asking you do you accept a
principle?
BROWN: We will write the manifesto at a later
date. The principle is that people should pay their fair share of taxes, that
the progressive principle is the one we apply to the tax system and we're going
to reverse the gap that has grown between rich and poor over these last
fourteen years.
HUMPHRYS: I don't expect you give me your budget,
clearly I don't and we've already agreed that you're not going to do that but
we're not talking about detail here, we're talking about broad principle and
Roy Hattersley's broad...
BROWN: And I've just given you the broad
principles.
HUMPHRYS: Well you see, with great respect, I
don't think you have because Roy Hattersley has said marginal tax rates have
got to rise, in other words, Roy Hattersley is saying we have to redistribute
the nation's wealth because of social justice, because of fairness, for all
sorts of reasons. You're not accepting, it seems to me, that principle.
BROWN: Quite the opposite, I'm saying that
people have got to pay their fair share of taxes...
HUMPHRYS: But you won't even attempt to define
what fair share is.
BROWN: And the progressive principle will apply
but what I'm not going to do and this is what Roy is actually asking me to do,
is to say an individual tax rate will go up by a certain amount. What I am
saying is...
HUMPHRYS: No, he's not asking you to do that, he's
saying the rich have got to pay more.
BROWN: But I've said that the balance between
rich and poor has got to change and let me just explain what I mean. There are
a number of ways that you can address the problems in relation to taxation and
redistribution. For example, some people have put forward - and I think this
is a very important argument - that there should be a minimum tax rate for
people who are very rich. In other words, you end a situation where
millionaires pay absolutely nil income tax whatsoever. Other people have said
you approach this question to achieve fairness by changing the tax allowances.
Now that is another way you can look at it. There are enormous tax allowances,
sometimes up to two hundred, three hundred thousand pounds that people can
claim against tax. Now that is another way you look at it and, of course,
there are all sorts of other boardroom allowances, executive share options and
so on, which have added to the unfairness in our society. Now what I want to
do is to look at all these things so to just focus on the marginal rate of tax
as the only issue is wrong, you've got to look at all these issues before you
draw your conclusion. And when I do draw our conclusion, I'll be able to tell
you, perhaps you can have me back on the programme a year from now and we'll
give you the figures.
HUMPHRYS: It would be a pleasure, it would be a
pleasure. In the meantime, a very simple question, what's rich?
BROWN: What's rich, of course, you're trying to
suggest that somehow I'm against wealth, I'm not against wealth.
HUMPHRYS: No, not at all.
BROWN: What I am saying is I want to see
people, everybody to become more wealthy. I want everybody to become richer.
HUMPHRYS: If I'm suggesting anything, I'm
suggesting quite the opposite, at least I'm not suggesting, other people are
suggesting, that's to say you're afraid because your going to upset a very
important constituency, .....say yes, the Labour Party believes in what it has
always believed in and that is the rich have got to pay a bigger share than
they are paying at the moment because A. that's social justice and B. we're
going to need the money to do the things that we have to do.
BROWN: But John, I've just said these things
and if I've upset people then let that be the case, I've said...
HUMPHRYS: But no, you've not said I agree with Roy
Hattersley, have you?
BROWN: I've said, I've said, we've got to
reverse the gap between rich and poor that has grown over the last fourteen
years. I've said that the budget decisions that the Conservatives made in the
eighties were completely unnacceptable. I've said that people will have to pay
their fair share of taxes and I've said we will apply the progressive principle
but I'm not going to be drawn either by Roy, who I will talk to you about all
these issue during the course of the week, or by you, into announcing that an
individual tax rate will go up by a certain amount. I'm not going to do that.
HUMPRHYS: What about borrowing. You're prepared
to borrow more?
BROWN: If there were investment projects and I
believe there are, that would meet a specific criterian, that they would create
jobs, that they would lessen the number of imports, that they would be good
investments for our future, then I would be prepared to borrow for them.
HUMPHRYS: But you wouldn't borrow to improve the
state of the nation's health, to provide free nursery education for every
three-year-old child, to enable single mothers to go out to work?
BROWN: Where these are investments for our
future I'd be prepared to take the action that was necessary.
HUMPHRYS: What's an investment for the future?
BROWN: Well, you put the question of spending
only in terms of borrowing. What I have shown ..
HUMPHRYS: Well it's an important factor.
BROWN: What I have shown is how you can raise
substantial sums of money through the taxation system without having massive
additional borrowing to enable you to do some of these things that are very
important and I agree, the next Labour government will see it as it's priority
to look at the issues of health care and improve them, will see it as it's
priority to deal with these questions of childcare. We will have a fairness
agenda that deals with the problems of poverty as I've described, so ...
HUMPHRYS: And you won't flinch from adding
to the PSBR, putting another ten billion as John Edmunds wants you to do for
instance on the PSBR if that's what's needed?
BROWN; You see the problem of the position of
Mr Edmunds is to pluck a figure out of the air when you've got a fifty billion
borrowing requirement which many people agree is too high.
HUMPHRYS: Do you think he's not thought it
through, he's just plucking - that's a bit unkind on John Edmunds.
BROWN: Well, I think it was fifteen billion a
few days before, sixty billion, sixty-five billion, borrowing from the nation.
To pluck a figure out of there is not the way to deal with our problems. What
you've got to do is look at the investment projects that we need to have as a
nation. If these investment projects meet these criteria then you go ahead
with them, but let me say it is possible to achieve our employment and indeed
our investment objectives by some of the measures that I have already
outlined. You may have seen on Friday I suggested there was eight billion
pounds that the government could raise by changes in the taxation system, very
simple changes that they will not take because of vested interest that dominate
the Conservative Party.
HUMPHRYS: Some might say that you got that figure
out of the air. Very difficult to raise money isn't it when ..
BROWN: Well, John, I don't think you can say I
plucked it out of the air. I showed in graphic detail how you could raise
money from retaining stamp duty, to stop speculation in shares, how you could
deal with the excess profits of the utilities, how you could deal with the
problem of sovereign immunity where the Kuwaitis are getting tax reliefs that
are worth more than pensioners will have to pay in VAT, deal with loopholes in
corporation tax which have lasted a long time. Now if we really are radical
and we are attacking entrenched and vested interests in our society,
accumulations of power that the Conservatives will never begin to look at, then
you take these measures that will both raise money and fund the programmes
for social justice and economic ....
HUMPHRYS: You can't go to the nation with a
programme that says, "Labour is going to plug the tax loopholes" can you? You
could go to the nation maybe on something that says full employment in the
lifetime of a parliament.
BROWN: I don't call by the way a tax loophole,
an excess profit tax on the utilities. I call that a means of raising money
because all of us as consumers have had to pay far too much over the last three
years for the gas, water and electricity received, that's not a tax loophole.
That is tax fairness, it is attacking vested interests, it's a new radical
agenda for Labour and we are prepared to take on these accumulations of power
in our society, many of them actually created by the Conservative Party.
HUMPHRYS: You were a bit unkind to John Edmunds a
moment ago. Let's talk about links with the Labour, let's ....
BROWN: I'll be having a friendly conversation
with John during the course of the week as well.
HUMPHRYS: No, no, no. But let's talk about links
with Labour, Let's talk about OMOV. Mr Smith has invested a great deal in this
hasn't he, in getting it through this week?
BROWN: Well, one member one vote is an
important principle to apply to the selection of candidates, is very important.
I think it first of all puts us on a par with the election of councillors, the
election of European MPs. It's similar to what our sister socialist parties
do, it's a straightforward system and I think it is one that will commend
itself not just to the party but to the general public.
HUMPHRYS: If he loses ..
BROWN: He's not going to lose.
HUMPHRYS: You can't be certain about that.
BROWN: I believe that John is winning not only
the argument but the votes, and I think we'll see today as we'll see during the
course of the days till Wednesday more and more people coming to support us.
HUMPHRYS: Do you think Bill Morris might change
his mind. Do you think John Edmunds might change his mind. Likely isn't it?
BROWN: Well, I think over time they will change
their minds, but I think that John ....
HUMPHRYS: Do you really. What they'll say to
their members, "Forget about what we decided at our party conference, we're
going to chuck all that out and I'm going to vote with ..."
BROWN: I think over time they will decide that
this is the best way of moving forward because it is the right democratic ...
HUMPHRYS: Over time - during the next forty-eight
hours there's going to be some smoke filled room deal d'you mean?
BROWN: Well, the T and G and GMB are not the
only trades unions voting and not the only people voting in this conference.
HUMPHRYS: They happen to be the most powerful.
BROWN: Even if they vote against John's
proposals, John's proposals can and I believe will win.
HUMPHRYS: What if they don't?
BROWN: Well, I think John's going to win
anyway. If the T and G and GMB vote against the proposals, it's still
possible for John to win and he will win.
HUMPHRYS: No. what if he doesn't win? What
happen then. Let - just bear with me just for one second, because it's
possible, come on out, as you have spoken to a great many people in the last
twenty-four hours here in Brighton, and you kinow that it is at the moment on a
knife edge, it could go either way. If it goes the wrong way what's he going
to do. Is he going to say to the NEC, "Right we'll push something else through
or not" or what?
BROWN: Well, first of all you are dealing with
a hypothetical situation which I do not believe will arise and I don't think
you'd expect me to speculate upon it. I believe that support is growing for
his proposals, I think you'll see today further announcements in favour of
them, and I think as we move towards Wednesday you'll see that there's a
groundswell of support within the constituencies as well within many of the
unions.
HUMPHRYS: You said it was vitally important, I
think that was your phrase, that this goes through. Why is it so important
that this should go through when you've already sold the pass on trade unions
voting for a leader of the party?
BROWN: We haven't sold the pass at all, we've
created a new system that enshrines the principles that were at the very heart
of John's proposals.
HUMPHRYS: But you haven't got the one member one
vote for the leadership of the party.
BROWN: We do so, we have one member one vote.
HUMPHRYS: ... sort of. You've got a block vote.
BROWN: Every person voting for the leadership
of the party will vote as individuals.
HUMPHRYS: Well, in that case why didn't you accept
that for membership, for candidates?
BROWN: Well, you see, what John has said is
that at a national level it was a very good idea that large numbers of people
were able to vote for the election of the national leader. At the local level
there's a proximity between the candidate and the members. I think the
important thing to recognise John is that we're talking about very big changes,
the most radical constitutional changes the Labour Party has had which
enshrines the principle that the individual should have more control over the
decisions for the selection of leader as well as for the selection of
candidates. Now let's just look at what that means, it means as far as
candidates are concerned the voting is by individual members. As far as the
leadership is concerned it means that everybody who votes, votes as an
individual - there are no block votes left in the election of the leader, no
block votes at all, everybody votes as an individual. Trades unionists vote as
trades unionists in their own right in a national ballot and at the same time
individual members vote in the national ballot.
HUMPHRYS: But you don't send....?...., I mean
that's a bit misleading isn't it. You don't actually send out a little ballot
form to every member of the trade unions.
BROWN: Yes, they are all going to vote, yes.
HUMPHRYS: For the leader of the Labour Party in
precisely the same way that you want it to happen for Parliamentary candidates.
But that isn't the case is it, it's a different system?
BROWN: No, it's not a different system,
individual members of trades unions will be able to vote as individuals...
HUMPHRYS: But not individual members of the
Labour Party.
BROWN: They have got to be attached to the
Labour Party and they will have to sign a form or indicate that they are
supporters of the Labour Party.
HUMPHRYS: Ah, but they don't have to be.., sorry
to pick you up on this but they don't have to be a member of the Labour Party
and that is the...., precisely but that's the whole issue here...
BROWN: That's why I say John, I think you have
misunderstood me completely the principle underlying the approach is this,
that individuals should vote as individuals, that the block vote should come to
an end and I think you've got to understand that we have very big changes
taking place after a very long discussion, incidentally, within the Labour
Party, a consultation of the members, which has reached its conclusions and you
have got to a situation where there has been a huge transfer of power to
individuals - no block votes in the election of leader or no block votes for
the election of candidates.
HUMPHRYS: But the reality is that the block vote
continues doesn't it? I mean you may not...
BROWN: Not for the election of candidates, not
for the election of leader. Of course at the Party conference, but not for the
election of candidates and leaders.
HUMPHRYS: But you will still have it at the Party
conference, you won't have one member, one vote for the leadership.
BROWN: What people will vote is individual
delegates but I think the important thing to recognise about the Party
conference, and why you should understand this is a very big process of change
is at the moment the trades unions have about ninety per cent of the
conference. As the Party membership grows it is coming down to seventy per
cent, and as the Party membership grows again it comes down even further, so
you are talking about the power shifting, in a way, to the individual member in
the constituencies and as membership grows, and remember underlying all these
proposals is the priority for increasing the membership of the Labour Party,
increasing the individual membership of the Labour Party, then you will see
more and more people voting as individuals, and incidentally in my constituency
and in others with a big membership, it is trade unionists, as much as people
who are non-trades unionists who are voting as individuals.
HUMPHRYS: Let me quote something else that Roy
Hattersley said this morning, we don't have very long left. He said "What does
Labour stand for"? Well if that question is asked it is the death knell of a
political party. A lot of people are asking that question today aren't they?
BROWN: I answered that question at the
beginning by saying that Labour stands for the lasting values of fairness,
greater equality, opportunity for people and an economy run in the public
interest, and if you ask me to sum it up philosophically it's about how
individuals can realise their potential, bridge the gap between what they are
and what they have it in themselves to become by the use of the power of their
community, by the use of the power of active government.
HUMPHRYS: Because what a lot of people are
suggesting, is that the party's a bit like Cecil B de Mille, who used to say,
"Gentlemen those are my principles and if you don't like 'em I've got others"
BROWN: We have principles that are lasting
principles that nobody will abandon. The important thing is that they're not
outworn, they will never wear out because these are the basis of people who
believe that we are a community, that individuals are part of a bigger
collective that must work together, and I think it's important to recognise
that it's the application of these principles, individual potential realised in
the community to the problems of the nineteen-nineties that is the business
before us as we construct a new policy agenda.
HUMPHRYS: Gordon Brown, Shadow Chancellor, thank
you very much.
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