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ON THE RECORD
RECORDED FROM TRANSMISSION BBC-1 DATE: 24.9.95
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JOHN HUMPHRYS: Well Paddy Ashdown, leader of the Liberal Democrats is at
his home there in Yeovil. Not deliberate I assure you Mr Ashdown, not
suggesting your party is 'out of sync'. But you must at this stage be
regretting that you dumped equidistance?
PADDY ASHDOWN MP: John, I don't think I've ever seen a
clearer example of a total waste of money by the - On The Record's budget than
the so-called focus group you've called together. The people who you called
together represent the central belt of Scotland, where the Party hardly
exists. If you'd have done a genuine survey - and, I always think that when
the Press aren't prepared to report the story they report opinion polls. But,
if you'd taken a genuine focus group, taken from, for instance, the South or
the Southwest, or even the Scottish seats that we hold, at present, I think,
you'd have got a very, very different picture.
HUMPHRYS: What? You've written off the rest of
Scotland, have you!
ASHDOWN: No, by no means.
HUMPHRYS: Well, if you think it's entirely
reasonable to go to a part of the country where you're hoping to make gains but haven't
yet. That's entirely reasonable.
ASHDOWN: But, the Party is at four or five per
cent in the central belt of Scotland. It's at about thirty per cent in the
Southwest and probably more. And, in those seats in Scotland where we have
representation you'd have found it much greater.
HUMPHRYS: But, what we need is a reputable
organisation - a commercial organisation that specialises in these things and
ask them to get together a focus group. It's standard practice.
ASHDOWN: What you did was bring together a focus
group from the one place in Scotland, where the Party is considerably
underrepresented, as indeed Labour is underrepresented in the West and
Southwest. It would be like going along to Cornwall, where Labour hardly
exists and has five or six per cent of the poll and drawing a national
conclusion from that. But, let me, perhaps, advance the case a bit further for
you. I really do caution you, at this stage, not to rely on opinion polls.
I'll give you a reason why, as an example. At this time, in the last
Parliament, an opinion poll was done, in the second half of the Parliament,
which showed that Labour was going to win my seat in Yeovil. Labour got eight
per cent in the General Election.
Opinion polls at the mid term of a
Parliament are not an accurate reflection of how a people will vote. What is
quite clear is that we have just finished a conference, our Glasgow conference,
which was, by any standard, the most successful we've ever had. We went into
that the most powerful third force this country has seen for sixty years. We
came out of it, I believe, a Party more united and more clear about what we
stand for and the messages we have to put across than either of the other two
Parties will cover at the Party conferences. And, if I may just finish: we're
the only ones who've been absolutely clear, say exactly where we stand - no
fudging - absolutely clear that every single vote that we get and every single
seat that we win will be dedicated to three purposes.
Those purposes are: investing in people,
Education the central place of that, cleaning up the mess in our politics,
Constitutional reform - modernising Britain's Constitution - electoral reform -
the centre place in that - and, building, at last, for the long term future.
I'm much more interested in what happens in Britain in the next century than in
the next Government. I think, that's very clear and, I think, people will vote
for it.
HUMPHRYS: But, you also came out of that
conference
having reinforced the impression in many people's minds that the Liberal
Democrats broadly support the idea of a Labour government.
ASHDOWN: No. Justify that.
HUMPHRYS: Well, your speech at the end of the
conference. I've been through it - yet again - this morning. Read it word for
word. The whole message of that speech was let's do a deal. You didn't use
the words. Of course, you never use those words but the impression very, very
strongly - and, this is in the minds of many people - not just myself - is that
you broadly support the Labour Government.
ASHDOWN: Well, then, I suggest that you go back
and read that speech again because it said nothing of the sort.
HUMPHRYS: Well, let me ask you a direct question,
then to clear this up.
ASHDOWN: No, come on. Let me give you a clear
answer. Throughout that speech, there was a single refrain and the refrain was
very simple. This is our guarantee to invest two million pounds in Education,
to tell you where the money comes from, to put a penny on Income Tax, if that's
the only way to do it, to regain public control over Railtrack, as a
cornerstone as an integrated public transport system for this country. To face
up to the issues of Europe, to tackle the issues of the environment, specific
and clear and the refrain that ran through that speech was this: if that's what
you like, then, that's what you get; with every vote and every seat that you
win for the Liberal Democrats at the next Election.
Now, that's about us. Now, what we
were doing at this conference - and, if you were to accurately report it I
think rather than indulging in opinion polls - you might have recognised that.
We were speaking directly to the people of this country, saying specifically
what the other Parties haven't - what we stand for and what people get if they
vote for us.
HUMPHRYS: But, you've told us-
ASHDOWN: It's a challenge to the other Parties,
the language to the British people. But a challenge to the other Parties. See
if you can match it at your conference - being that clear about what you stand
for.
HUMPHRYS: You've told us where you stand as far
as the Tory Government is concerned. You cannot see the circumstances. You
would not prop up a Tory Government and you've given us a thousand reasons why
you wouldn't do that. Now, unless my arithmetic-
ASHDOWN: And, who can be surprised? After
seventeen years, if this Government loses it majority who's going to prop it
up? We're not certain of it (phon).
HUMPHRYS: Unless my arithmetic is horrendously
wrong, I can only think of one other Party that is likely to form the next
Government and that is the Labour Party. Now, logic would suggest, would it
not - that if you don't support the Tories as the potential next Government,
there's only one other way you can go: Labour!
ASHDOWN: On the contrary, it's perfectly
possible for us. I can think of ten - incidentally - different combinations
at the next election. And, incidentally, John, I think, you're making a
considerable mistake in trying to predict the outcome of the next Election.
HUMPHRYS: No. I'm not trying to do that. I'm
just pointing out the obvious arithmetic to you.
ASHDOWN: No. Absolute nonsense. If you want
the arithmetic, if you want to play this mug's game - OK - let's play it.
Let's play it, not on the basis of opinion polls but let's play it on the basis
of real votes in real ballot boxes. The largest single text/test that we have
had, since the last Election, was in May this year. The biggest electoral
test.
HUMPHRYS: That was local election.
ASHDOWN: But what happened in it? You see,
you're relying on opinion polls. I'm relying on real votes and real ballot
boxes and what happened there was that the Liberal Democrats came second. Now,
if you want to play this mug's game - I've told you it was one - if you want to
predict, then, predict from fact. And, the fact says that we would be - on
that basis - Her Majesty's Opposition.
HUMPHRYS: No. It doesn't say anything of the
sort.
ASHDOWN: Well, John, why do you- I mean, instead
of pretending that you can predict the outcome of the next Election-
HUMPHRYS: Well, I'm not doing that - and you
know I'm not doing that.
ASHDOWN: Of course, you are. You're saying: I
know what the outcome of the next Election will be.
HUMPHRYS: No. No. No,I don't know anything of the
sort and I-
ASHDOWN: What people want to know is what we
stand for.
HUMPHRYS: Look, you know and I know that neither
of us can predict the outcome of the next Election.
ASHDOWN: Correct.
HUMPHRYS: Precisely. But-
ASHDOWN: What do your viewers want to see?
HUMPHRYS: What you're always saying - if I may
say so - is let's be straight with the Electorate.
ASHDOWN: Sure.
HUMPHRYS: Now, you don't believe that the Liberal
Democrats are going to form the next Government do you?
ASHDOWN: I don't know and you don't know.
HUMPHRYS: No, you don't know it.
ASHDOWN: Here you go again. You said you're not
predicting the outcome of the next Election and the first thing you do is
predict the outcome of the next Election. I don't know and, John, if I may put
it to you, I think, what your viewers want to know is not that you can look
into a crystal ball - not this Sunday morning excursion into clairvoyancy.
HUMPHRYS: No, I'm not trying to do that.
ASHDOWN: What they're trying to do-what they
want to know is what do you stand for? Now, we have made it very, very clear
what we stand for and we challenge the other Parties, we've challenged Labour,
we've challenged the Conservatives to be as clear. Where do you stand on
Europe? Where do you stand on Education investment? Where do you stand on
running a tight controlled economy on the market based economy? Where do you
stand on the environment? Now, those are the issues that people in this
country want to hear.
HUMPHRYS: But, they also-
ASHDOWN: Not the fact that John Humphrys or
Paddy Ashdown can predict the outcome of the unpredictable wrapped in mystery
eighteen months away.
HUMPHRYS: You're not trying to do that and I am
absolutely not trying to do that.
ASHDOWN: But, you've just made a prediction.
HUMPHRYS: No, no, no. What I said was: what I
said was: you don't believe that the next Government is going to be - let me
just make a point just to prove that, if I may - from your own speech: It is
our duty to make sure the next Government doesn't duck the decisions it must
take if Britain's to be a success and so on and so on. Note that phrase: the
next Government. You wouldn't hear John Major say the next Government. You
wouldn't hear Mr Blair say 'the next Government'. You would hear John Major
say: the Tory Government, which is going to be in power next time around.
ASHDOWN: It's a good try but it won't wash,
John because you wouldln't hear them saying any of the other things they're
saying as well: we're prepared to be clear and honest about taxation, about
where we get the money to invest in Education from. Look: let me just give you
an example, to try and show you what I mean. George Bush lost a lead larger
than Tony Blair now enjoys in the last year of his Presidency. And, we live in
deeply volatile times. No one can predict what the outcome of the next
Election will be. And, although, it makes fun in metropolitan newsrooms to
play round with opinion polls and to try and pretend that you can predict the
unpredictable, you can't do it! And, it's a mug's game to try. There is no
point, at this stage. Certainly, eighteen months out, in us indulging
ourselves in these wonderfully interesting hypotheses, interesting to the
political commentators, interesting to the politicians but what interests the
people of this country is what we stand for. Now, for the Labour Party, there
is fudge and duck and a blank sheet of paper. For the Liberal Democrats, we
have staked out brutally clearly in language which is simple and more direct,
than I think any Party has achieved before, including the tough issue about
taxation - exactly where we stand.
HUMPHRYS: Alright.
ASHDOWN: And, our message is deadly simple.
Forget the hypotheses. Forget the unpredictable. The more you vote for these
things the more you get them if you vote Liberal Democrat - dead simple.
HUMPHRYS: But, what I'm suggesting to you is that
having dropped your old policy of equidistance, you have made those things more
difficult to achieve and let me give you a couple of reasons, well let me give
you a couple of reasons why that might be the case. You've thrown away - I
would suggest to you - the support of many potential Liberal Democrat voters
because..
ASHDOWN: Nonsense!
HUMPHRYS: - well - you say: nonsense but a lot of
your support, historically, has been tactical. Many people have voted Liberal
Democrat to keep out the Tories, or more specifically, in this case, to keep
out a Labour Government.
Well, now, they are prepared to go all
the way. Many of those to Labour, rather than stop off at the Liberal Democrat
corner shop.
ASHDOWN: It's a great attempt, John, but it
doesn't stack up! I mean, here you are, again, predicting when you can-
HUMPHRYS: I'm not predicting anything of the
sort!
ASHDOWN: If I could finish, right? You're
proposing a hypothesis, why don't you look at the facts? Did it happen at
Littleborough and Saddlewoth. A seat-
HUMPHRYS: Yes, it did, as a matter of fact, if
you're asking me a direct question? You should have expected to sweep the
Labour Party away at Littleborough and Saddleworth and you didn't! They did
terribly well. They ran you a close second.
ASHDOWN: John, you've been listening to too much
of Labour's propaganda.
HUMPHRYS: Oh, no. I've been looking at the
figures.
ASHDOWN: Well, then, look at these figures.
Labour got, at the end of that campaign at Littleborough and Saddleworth
exactly the same vote as they got in the May Elections of this year. They
advanced not one iota. I'm afraid you've been overswept by Mr Mandleson's
(phon) spindoctoring. Labour, at the end of one of the worst campaigns, one of
the most tawdry and unpleasant campaigns, fought in this country for a very
long time, got exactly the same vote as they started with. Now, there's your
point. Why predict the future when you can read the ballot box?
HUMPHRYS: Well let's look at something we can read
as opposed to predicting then and other bits of the evidence, that I was
suggesting to you why dropping equidistance is going to cause you problems.
You've given the Tories quite a big stick with which they can now beat you.
They can say, can they not, indeed they are saying, we heard it in that film
they're saying: "Vote Liberal Democrat you will let Labour in by the back door.
You're actually voting effectively for the Labour Party if you're voting
Liberal Democrat and that's what they are now able to say.
ASHDOWN: Well let them say it. I mean of course
the Labour...the Conservative Party is going to grab onto what sticks they can
in a pretty miserable position to try and ensure they survive. But what our
conference showed, so very clearly, was precisely what you get if you vote
Liberal Democrat. There's no other party in Britain: not Labour, certainly not
the Conservatives, who are prepared to face up to the tough decisions of what
we need to cut road congestion, to make sure that we have a properly
intergrated public transport system in this country, that's prepared to take
the tough decisions in order to be able to retain public control of Railtrack,
which is the mechanism for that. There's no other Party that's prepared to say
not only that they'd like to invest in Education but how much and where it's
going to go and where the money will come from. This is what people vote for,
if they vote for us.
I don't know what the outcome of the
next Election is. You could have any one of ten possible outcomes. The Liberal
Democrats are not going to try and put-we're not going to use the power people
give us to put back a government that has been in power seventeen years if it
loses its majority in the House of Commons. But the Liberal Democrats could be
the government - who knows, I don't predict it - because I think that kind of
prediction is nonsense but it's technically a possibility. We could be Her
Majesty's opposition. That would be what could happen if the May elections of
this year carried forward. We can be a minority Party in a Hung Parliament, in
which case we would have the options of sitting on the opposition benches or
working with another party, the Labour Party perhaps, if we agreed about the
things where we stand but Labour doesn't tell us where they stand. What I'm
saying to you John is at this moment, let's do this programme again, in a
year's time, close to the election, and I'll try and be as honest with you as
we've been so far about happens. But at this moment it's a mug's game. It's a
waste of time.
HUMPHRYS: That is a deal. We'll do it again in a
year's time.
ASHDOWN: Done.
HUMPHRYS: But let's pick up what you just said
there about the possibility of you having to work with the Labour Party in
government. That's-
ASHDOWN: -or having to oppose them.
HUMPHRYS: Or having to oppose them alright. But
let's pick up the possibility...for the moment, for the moment. Now, what I
suggested to you, a couple of the ways-
ASHDOWN: You're playing hypotheses again, but if
you want to play the game go on.
HUMPHRYS: No, no, no this is more because I'm
about-
ASHDOWN: It's meaningless, utterly meaningless.
HUMPHRYS: I'm about to give you, if you'll allow
me, I'm about to give you a couple of hard facts, things that Jack Straw said
this morning. Now what I'm suggesting to you, I've given you some reasons I
think why dropping your policy of equidistance has caused you problems here's
another one.
ASHDOWN: I don't see the ballot box John.
HUMPHRYS: Alright, but let's deal with this
particular problem then as I see it, or rather as perhaps as Jack Straw sees it
at the moment because he spoke about it this morning. You have weakened your
bargaining position with the Labour Party, in the event that you are going to
have to bargain with them, or do some sort of deal. I know you hate the phrase
"do a deal with them" but he said this morning, quite clearly on the
constitutional reform issue "there are no promises on the part of a Labour
Government in the first year, on a Labour Government to introduce measures
leading to constitutional reform - no promises. Or indeed in the first term.
HUMPHRYS: John, I'm not bargaining with the Labour
party, I'm staking out our position for the public of this country. I think
what you know about that, what you know about constitutional reform is exactly
where the the Liberal Democrats stand and a clear commitment to reforming the
voting system which many, many in the Labour Party are in favour of. Indeed
the vast majority of the new, so-called moderniser Labour members of parliament
are in favour of proportional representation as we are. I am not talking to
the Labour Party. I know you find it difficult to believe because I think all
of you in Westminster are tied to this picture of the whole of Britain as
though it were shaped in the same shape as the Chamber of the House of Commons.
I'm speaking to the people of this country and I'm saying if you're serious
about reform, constitutional, modernising Britain's political system, clearing
up the mess in our politics, an essential, a fulcrum, a key part of which is a
fair voting system. There's only one party that will deliver that and if that's
what you want, the more you get the more you vote.
HUMPHRYS: But I was following up your suggestion
that amongst others admittedly, that you may have to deal with a Labour
Government at some stage on this particular issue and this issue
ASHDOWN: So what?
HUMPHRYS: So what? Well, so what.
ASHDOWN: Let me see if I can give you an example,
John. Education, absolutely crucial. Mr Blair says it's his fashion, Mr Major
says it's his passion, Mrs Shephard said today in the newspapers that Britain's
schoolchildren now have got a very low levels of literacy - fine. But where
did they- where's their commitment, where's their commitment to investing in
education? None of them do that either, so what we want to do is to put
forward a very clear programme for what needs to be done in this country,
including some of the tough messages, having an honest debate about taxation,
not ducking and running with the kind of proposals Mr Blair made today
HUMPHRYS: Yeah, but you've made it-
ASHDOWN: And about windfall taxes, which are
absolute nonsense and will not make sense over the long term. But facing up to
those realities, now there are a raft of things, a raft of things which are
going to be important to that: PR's one, it's very very important.
HUMPHRYS: Right.
ASHDOWN: It's vital. But it's not the only one
and that's why the important thing for us at this moment is to speak not to the
Labour Party, not to Jack Straw whose opinions on PR have been known for a very
long time but to the people and that's what we have been doing and with respect
to you, that's what we are going to continue.
HUMPHRYS: What you made clear also and you've
repeated it in this programme, is that you may find yourself in a position, not
of having to do deals, let's lose that phrase altogether from the category if
you prefer. But there is only one party with whom you can deal now because
you've said you won't deal with the Conservative Party, you won't prop them up
and what Jack Straw said this morning, on the question of proportional
prepresentation which you have just raised, is not only may it not happen in
the first year or indeed possibly the first term of a Labour Government, but
that he will endorse first past the post. Now that's going to make it very
difficult for you isn't it.
ASHDOWN: That's not new from Jack Straw. I mean
really, I thought this was a news programme, not as I said a sort of Sunday
excursion into clairvoyancy of what's going to happen eighteen months-.
HUMPHRYS: And you don't think it's interesting
that Jack Straw should repeat that view, if you're saying he's repeating it
at this time.
ASHDOWN: It is of precisely no interest or news
value at all. That's a view that Jack Straw has held so far as I know for ten
years and to have a programme like this in which we might be discussing what
of our taxation system, how are we going to pay for them and what does this
mean, are we really going to be a high tax party - which we're not - we're
going to be a promises with the bills attached party a tax switch party. Now
that's the interesting thing. To reiterate a Jack Straw statement which is ten
years' old does seem to me to be rather less than you'd expect from a programme
dedicated to news.
HUMPHRYS: Yes, but you see we can do those sorts
of things only very seriously.
ASHDOWN: But that's what people want to know
John, that's what they want to know. They say what does it mean when you say
you're going to be honest about taxation, what does it mean when you say you're
going to pay for these things, how are you going to pay for them? Now that's
what people want to know. It's much much more interesting than a very erudite
conversation between you and me on a Sunday morning about what might happen
eighteen months from here in circumstances none of us can predict.
HUMPHRYS: But the extent (I don't know whether
that's your telephone ringing or ours - or your front door perhaps) but the
extent to which you can push forward those policies rests on the position that
you find yourself in...
ASHDOWN: And we will see that as we get up to the
election and we'll have to face up to that when we get up to the elections and
we'll have to be clear about that when we get up to the election and that is
eighteen months away so what on earth are you spending so much time talking
about it now for?
HUMPHRYS: Well, I will tell you why because if you
are going to be in a strong position in eighteen months from now, or whenever
it happens to be, you have to be leading a united party, a party that is
solidly behind you and knows where it's going and one of the other things that
I'm suggesting about having dropped the policy of equidistance is that you risk
dividing your party over this hugely important matter.
ASHDOWN: Oh really. I mean again John you must
deal with the facts. I mean this is a bizarre construction on a debate which
was held in public in front of the television cameras, presumably your people
were there in which the policy in which we said that we would be clear about
making sure that our vote was not used to prop up this government, no quarter
for the Tories but no let up for Labour, but we'd talk to others, was - I think
there was seven or eight hundred people in the hall, five people voted against
it. The party split - what on earth do you get that from?
HUMPHRYS: Paddy Ashdown, I'd like to pursue it but
we've run out of time.
ASHDOWN: We will in due course.
HUMPHRYS: We will I'm sure. Thank you very much
for joining us this morning.
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