Foreign Office Minister says Iraq has been "a terrible episode for everybody".

Lord Malloch-Brown, Minister for Africa, Asia and the UN

ANDREW MARR: One of Gordon Brown's innovations last summer was the appointment of GOATS, that's people without a background in party politics to his government of all the talents - GOATS, you see.

Now one of the most interesting of those appointments was that of Mark Malloch-Brown, a former senior UN official who'd helped redevelopment efforts in Afghanistan after the war and regularly locked horns with neo Conservatives in America.

Life hasn't got much easier because of the Foreign Office his special responsibilities include Kenya, Zimbabwe and Pakistan.

Lord Malloch-Brown, thank you indeed for coming in and good morning.

LORD MALLOCH-BROWN: Thank you.

ANDREW MARR: Let's start with Kenya. Things there still very, very difficult, still very confused. What a lot of people don't understand is if the elections are regarded from the outside as having been dodgy or fraudulent, why don't we simply call for them to happen again?

LORD MALLOCH-BROWN: Well it may ultimately don't think that's off the cards that in some point in the relatively near future, a year or so, there would be a re-run of the elections. But the country is so polarised at the moment that to re-run them immediately without making some constitutional changes, without trying to lower the political temperature, could be very dangerous indeed and contribute to the instability rather than solve it.

ANDREW MARR: I was talking to somebody out there who said actually the situation inside Kenya is not nearly as violent and bad as the outside media are portraying, and we're doing Kenya a bit of a disservice?

LORD MALLOCH-BROWN: Well I'm sure there are people so say that, and there are parts of the country which are perfectly safe. But you know 500 people have died, and upwards of 100,000, perhaps up to 200,000 have been displaced so it's...

ANDREW MARR: It's pretty grim.

LORD MALLOCH-BROWN: A real problem, pretty grim.

ANDREW MARR: Looking at South Africa, another series of problems there. The great hopes after Mandela was freed that this was going to be the sort of beacon of democracy, seem to be a bit tarnished at least at the moment, the next generation of the leadership in all sorts of trouble. Are you disappointed by what's happening there?

LORD MALLOCH-BROWN: Well I suppose disappointed, but not surprised. I think we've all sort of looked at the really quite remarkable post-apartheid leadership, Mandela particularly, but his successor President Mbeki as well, and thought gosh these guys are real statesman, who are building multi-racial societies, not harbouring grievances from before. And we've not noticed that under the surface a lot of black Africans who understandably were impatient for their lives to improve after apartheid have had a growing frustration because it hasn't always done so.

By some measures of poverty there's almost as much poverty as when apartheid ended, and Aids has meant that life expectancy has declined, jobs have not been created in the numbers people expected. So all of this has fired and fuelled a kind of populist backlash - people want more than they've got. And I think it's going to be a real challenge for South Africa to manage that without losing its sort of pro-business, pro-global engagement current politics.

ANDREW MARR: And staying with Africa, is it the case that we've done a sort of, or tried to do a deal with Zimbabwe? They don't bring their cricketers over and in return they're allowed to come to the Olympics in due course?

LORD MALLOCH-BROWN: Well, I mean, I think there isn't yet a deal. The issue of the cricketers is for the English Cricketing Board although we've been cleared, David Miliband the Foreign secretary has made clear we'd hope they don't come.

The Olympics is down the road but, you know, I think one has to be very careful of not getting into boycotts of the Olympics, that's a very two-edged sword.

ANDREW MARR: OK, so if, even if Mugabe was still there which seems unlikely, but we wouldn't block them coming in?

LORD MALLOCH-BROWN: Well it's hypothetical and it's a long time off. One or other of us probably won't be in our jobs by then.

ANDREW MARR: OK, well let's turn to Pakistan which, again in terrible trouble. There have been suggestions that if the Pakistani Army is not able, partly because of the political turmoil, to deal with that northern border and to crack down hard on pro-Taliban people up in the north, that the Americans or ourselves should actually intervene directly up in northern Pakistan?

LORD MALLOCH-BROWN: Well we've certainly got no plans to intervene. You know, I think what we've got to do is support the Pakistan Army to not just do a better job on the military side, and they are from the United States getting a lot of military support to do that, but to help them find ways to do what their instinct is anyway, to also find the political accommodation with these groups.

The tribal areas are traditionally semi self-governed as an element of autonomy and this military activity there has disrupted that sense of independence that the tribal leaders enjoy. And we've somehow got to get the tribal leaders to take responsibility again for delivering law and order for their own people, and kind of to break any links they have with the Taliban and Al Qaeda, and that's political process as well as a military one.

ANDREW MARR: So there's two areas of difficulty around the world. Much more generally, do we need a sort of new or reformed world order?

LORD MALLOCH-BROWN: I think we do. I mean for a country like Britain which has got kind of historic links that take us from Kenya to Pakistan, to Afghanistan and many other places, one also runs into the limits of what we can do alone.

But even if you're the United States, with much more current global responsibilities, you run into those kinds of limits. So a multilateral system which has the means and the capacity, and the means of building political consensus and will is, I think, something that the world badly needs.

ANDREW MARR: You were at the UN for a long time. What needs to be done at the UN level, to get us a safer world?

LORD MALLOCH-BROWN: Well, I think pretty much most of the UN institutions need to be strengthened and better resourced.

But to do that it's not just bigger cheques from western countries, it's getting the new powers like India, China, Brazil, South Africa that we've mentioned, much more engaged in the organisations, taking a really greater sense of share of responsibility, for solving world problems.

And so it's kind of improving that kind of sense of shared ownership as well as the capacity of these organisations.

ANDREW MARR: Something we never talk about because it's off the agenda, is whether we should stay forever on the permanent part of the Security Council, and the French and so on. When you talk about the other huge powers, India and Brazil coming up, isn't it a bit absurd that we're there and they're not?

LORD MALLOCH-BROWN: Well I think we've got to make room for them on the Security Council, but I think give the veto to more people would actually make the place more dysfunctional, five is quite enough. And I have to say...

ANDREW MARR: Isn't it a bit bonkers that we're one of those five?

LORD MALLOCH-BROWN: Well...

ANDREW MARR: In the modern world the way it's configured?

LORD MALLOCH-BROWN: You know, I think you're going to see evolution and change, and change and limitations in how the veto is used. The UK virtually never uses the veto.

But, you know, the UK is along with France probably the two countries which precisely because the UN is a forum that allows us to punch above our weight, we take it very seriously, we're very committed, we try to make the organisation work. And I think as the sort of best club members it would be utterly premature for us at this stage to give up that veto.

ANDREW MARR: Because one day we will?

LORD MALLOCH-BROWN: Well I think, you know, there's no such thing as never in politics. But I think it's well down the road. The key thing now is to get the big new powers, these emerging economies, into the Security Council, and for that matter into institutions like the G8 as well.

ANDREW MARR: What did you think when you read, or saw, President Bush saying that this was going to be a magnificent victory eventually in Iraq?

LORD MALLOCH-BROWN: Well, you know, I mean at the beginning I devoutly hoped it would. I mean I think while there was a great caution in the UN about this, you know, nobody wished it to fail, and obviously everything that's happened since the UN has been deeply involved, we've lost a lot of people there. And, you know, I mean this is not something that there's triumphalism on any side, this is a terrible episode for everybody.

ANDREW MARR: There was an element of triumphalism. Is there a danger that parts of America remain in denial about this?

LORD MALLOCH-BROWN: I don't think so, I think America is, you know, having a very strong debate about it. I think it's actually a much more current political issue understandably in America, than it is here.

The relative success now of the surge and this excellent General Petraeus has a little bit taken it off the front page, but it will still be a huge issue in this presidential debate, and I think that's the redeeming nature of American democracy, people actually don't brush things under the carpet.

ANDREW MARR: Mmm. Peter Hain, fellow minister, any message for him?

LORD MALLOCH-BROWN: Well you know, I knew him when he actually was Minister for Africa and I was at the UN and he was a fantastic Minister for Africa. I probably, like you, walked in the streets behind him when he led the anti-apartheid movement so, you know, I think he's had a great contribution and I hope what...

ANDREW MARR: Seems to me...

LORD MALLOCH-BROWN: Well no because I think these so far are shown to be just administrative shortcomings, and as you've reported in this programme today, I mean the Shadow Chancellor has similar problems.

It seems to me we've set up a party funding system which is set up to fail in a way. I mean, coming from America where politics is very expensive, I hope we can keep our politics cheap, transparent and perhaps even one day publicly funded.

ANDREW MARR: Right, all right, well on that note, I didn't call you a "goat" at any point of the interview! Lord Malloch-Brown thank you very much indeed for joining us.

LORD MALLOCH-BROWN: Thank you Andrew.

INTERVIEW ENDS

Please note "The Andrew Marr Show" must be credited if any part of this transcript is used.

NB: This transcript was typed from a recording and not copied from an original script.

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