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ON THE RECORD
HARRIET HARMAN INTERVIEW
RECORDED FROM TRANSMISSION BBC-1 DATE: 31.10.93
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JOHN HUMPHRYS: Yesterday, the Labour co-ordinating
committee met for its annual get-together. Now, this is the body that has set
itself the task of modernising the Labour Party. A difficult job at the best of
times made more difficult now because there's a growing shortage of
volunteers for the cause - they can't even raise enough members to fill their
own executive.
Earlier this morning I suggested to arch
moderniser Harriet Harman that she and her reforming colleages had run to
the buffers.
HARRIET HARMAN MP: Absolutely not. I think there's a
strong sense in the party that moving forward with our traditional values, that
what we have to do is to apply those traditional values to a very changed
world. Things are very different now from when the Labour Party was formed or
even from when the Labour Party was last in Government, so that we keep our
sense of values, they are what grounds us, but what makes us an effective
Government in the future is the fact that we are moving forward with the times
and the increase in representation of women is one of the things which is about
moving us forward and moving with the times.
HUMPHRYS: Talk about the increasing representation
of women. There were meant to be more women in the Shadow Cabinet, but the
elections for the Shadow Cabinet produced a disaster for women, didn't it? - A
disaster for you?
HARMAN: They were absolutely not a disaster for
women. Obviously I would have preferred to stay on the Shadow Cabinet but we
have three women in the Shadow Cabinet and we have a number of women in senior
positions outside the Shadow Cabinet.
HUMPHRYS: You were meant to have more.
HARMAN: Well the trend though overall is
absolutely clear - that the Labour Party is committed to increasing women's
representation and is absolutely on that path with more Labour women MPs and
increasing numbers of women in the Shadow Cabinet. It's only in the end of the
1980s, as recently as then, that we had no women in Labour's Shadow Cabinet.
Now, everybody agrees that it would look quite wrong not to have women in the
Shadow Cabinet. We've got a woman Deputy Leader, three women in the Shadow
Cabinet and therefore we're definitely moving forward.
HUMPHRYS: You say the Labour Party is agreed that
there should be more women in the Shadow Cabinet, but which is this Labour
Party then - the Parliamentary Labour Party certainly isn't - there was a
conspiracy to keep women out.
HARMAN: I don't think there was a conspiracy
to...
HUMPHRYS: Well Anne Clwyd does...lots of other
people do.
HARMAN: No, I think that we would have liked to
have seen more women. I would have liked to have stayed on the Shadow Cabinet
and I would have liked to have seen more women in the Shadow Cabinet but to say
it's a disaster and some how we've moved away from the path we've set
ourselves is simply not the case.
HUMPHRYS: Let me substitute set-back for disaster
then - how about that?
HARMAN: Well I think it's a hiccup, nothing
more, but I think the trend is clearly established and it's very much agreed,
it's recognised in the Labour Party, that the world outside has changed. Women
are now half the workforce, women are now half the college and university
graduates, women's work now represents forty per cent of our GDP, so we have to
increase women's representation to recognise the world has changed.
HUMPHRYS: Why isn't that message getting across to
the PLP then or to the gentlemen in the PLP?
HARMAN: Well I think that message is getting
across to the PLP. We've seen more women coming into the House of Commons,
sitting on the Labour benches at the last General Election but there also is a
sense that the progress, although it's being made needs to be speeded up
because when you have profound social changes outside the House of Commons,
with the change in women's role in society, a change in women's role in the
labour force and a change in women's role in the family as well, you can't
allow your Parliament to lag behind.
HUMPHRYS: So bearing all that in mind then, you
sent exactly the wrong signal didn't you with the elections to the Shadow
Cabinet?
HARMAN: Well I think that it is possible that as
a result of the reporting of the Shadow Cabinet elections that the sense was,
out in the public, that somehow this was a setback for women and that Labour..
HUMPHRYS: It was wasn't it?
HARMAN: No, because the point is that Labour has
not changed its course which is recognising that at the heart of its policies
we have to show that we know the world has changed and we've got a message to
women which is that we know you are essential in your role in the family, but
we know you're also essential in the economy and as breadwinners for your
family and the way we do that is making sure that we have a Parliamentary
Labour Party of men and women and that we're a party of men and women at all
levels. And all Labour MPs would agree with that.
HUMPHRYS: Would they? I mean it's one thing to
have a course but if the crew on that particular ship mutinies, as they did
during the last Shadow Cabinet elections, then you're in trouble aren't you?
Forgetting the women but just look at who else did well in those elections and
who did less well: you had the modernisers doing less well - the Tony Blairs
and the Gordon Browns - and you had the traditionalists or the perceived
traditionalists if you prefer - the John Prescotts for instance and the Frank
Dobsons - doing extremely well.
HARMAN: Well I think it's not helpful to look at
it with such stark vision divisions, I think everybody is clear...
HUMPHRYS: Those are the realities.
HARMAN: No they're not the realities because
what we're saying is that we have to modernise the policies of the Labour Party
but the policies are absolutely based in our traditional concerns. I mean let
me give you an example: when Beveridge was talking about unemployment and the
lifelong need for people to work, he was talking about a male workforce where
it was a man supported by a non-working wife. Now we still have at the
absolute heart of our concerns in the Labour Party people's need to work but
we're now talking about a situation where women are sharing with their husbands
the role of breadwinner and in many families the woman is the sole breadwinner
and, therefore, our policies about employment and the economy recognise that
the world has changed. Our principles are the same but the world to which we're
applying it is very different and again on that, you see, there would be no
distinction between the so-called traditionalists and the so-called
modernisers.
HUMPHRYS: Well then, what explains the rise and
rise of the so-called traditionalists and the falling back of the so-called
modernisers?
HARMAN: Well I just think it's not helpful to
look at it in those terms. You don't actually pick...
HUMPHRYS: It may not be helpful but it is the
reality isn't it? You can't close your eyes and say it isn't there, if I don't
look it'll go away?
HARMAN: No, it's not because it simply attaches
labels to people and doesn't understand what's going on.
HUMPHRYS: Oh but the real politics of it is that
those labels are attached and you know that as well as I do.
HARMAN: No, what we have to look at is not the
labels which are attached to each individual but say do we have a good team of
people in the Shadow Cabinet, do we have an excellent team of people in the
parliamentary Labour Party, do we know where we've come from, and do we know
where we're going, and we do.
HUMPHRYS: Right, now let me ask you where you're
going then as far the party's own constitution is concerned. We saw a
development, a significant development, and I've no doubt you'd say at the
Labour Party Conference down in Brighton, but not withstanding OMOV, the trade
unions still have one-third of the votes in the selection of the Leader of the
Party, seventy per cent say on policy matters at conference, there is still a
trade union block vote - that isn't a modern party is it?
HARMAN: Well it certainly is and we think that
we've had an examination of our constitution, we've made a number of changes,
but the task for Labour now is to press on with the issues of looking at our
policies and making sure that our economic policy and our social policy
actually meets the changes that are out there in the world.
HUMPHRYS: So that's it then for the modernisation
of the party's constitution - what happened at Brighton was the end of the
process was it? What we've got now is what we're going to have in another ten
years' time.
HARMAN: Well I think people think that a certain
amount of time and attention has to be devoted to the party's constitution,
and there are two things that arose out of the conference in Brighton. One
member, one vote for the selection of Labour Members of Parliament, but also
increasing the representation of women. Now people want to move on from that.
They want..
HUMPHRYS: In what direction?
HARMAN: Well they want us to move on to
developing the policies which address the changed world.
HUMPHRYS: Ah, so that's it for the policy though
is it? The change to the constitution - that's it, all done?
HARMAN: Well I think that people are settled on
the changes that are being made and want to move on, and I don't...
HUMPHRYS: If I may just clarify this. The answer
to my question is: yes, that is it now, we have finished with the modernising
of the party itself (let's forget about policies, just for one moment, we'll
come back to that) that we have finished with the modernising of the party?
HARMAN: I think that people don't want to see
any more constitutional changes, but there are many more changes in the culture
and the way the party operates at local, regional and national level which we
will be addressing, but what we're not going to have is more constitutional
changes, because people feel that we've made changes, we have moved the party
forward, we're clear the direction we're going in and now the party at all
levels wants to address itself not only to building our membership, but also
showing how the policies that we've got meet the changed world outside.
HUMPHRYS: So it's OK in a modern Labour Party for
the trade unions to have what is effectively still a block vote?
HARMAN: Well certainly people are satisfied with
where we've got to and want to draw a line underneath it and move on from there
and I think the prospect of going back to the constitutional issues, and they
once again being a key focus, I don't think anybody in the Party or outside the
Party sees the Labour Party wanting to devote itself to that at this time.
HUMPHRYS: Alright, policies then, the economy.
Gordon Brown is giving in, is he not, to pressure from the traditionalists when
it comes to soaking the rich, soaking the middle class, he's now saying "maybe
there will be a bit of soaking the rich, or soaking the middle class", whereas
he wanted to say, and you wanted him to say "no, we're not going to do that,
we've moved away from that".
HARMAN: No, what we're saying is two things -
firstly, that we're not in favour of taxation for taxation's sake...it's not a
reflex action that the Labour Party somehow engages in but there are things
that we need to raise revenue for - such as investment in the economy, like our
social policies - and that the way we will raise revenue is that we will have a
fair taxation system. That is very straightforward and agreed by the Party,
unlike the Conservatives who firstly, don't recognise there is any purpose in
investment in the economy, public investment or investment in social policies,
they don't agree with, and secondly, when they do have to raise money they
raise it in the unfairest possible way, penalising most those who can lest
afford it.
HUMPHRYS: Let me just suggest to you that you're
sending all the wrong signals on women, on party constitution, on economic
matters, on policy matters - the modernisers have lost the impetus, they're
sending the wrong signals, the party is sending the wrong signals.
HARMAN: I think it's absolutely not the case to
say we're sending the wrong signals, I think there's a recognition in the
country that the economy has been mismanaged and the price that's being exacted
by people is too high: high levels of unemployment, low levels of growth and
social services undermined and people recognise that Labour is setting out a
new way forward.
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