Disunity would be 'fatal'

The Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, urges Labour MPs to defend their leader, and remember their core convictions.

David Miliband MP

DAVID MILIBAND: Good morning Andrew.

ANDREW MARR: Good morning.

You are in a bit of a hole as a government.

What is the David Miliband recipe for getting out of it again?

DAVID MILIBAND: Well I think we always knew this was going to be a very tough year. It's a tough year because it's the mid term of a third term. And we've got a world economic situation that is very, very difficult indeed.

And I think this is a test of character really as well as a test of policy for the Labour Party. We know what's fatal. If we fail to defend the leader, if we lose sight of our core convictions, if we don't follow through on what we started.

But the route map to strengthen the country and strengthen the Labour Party I think is clear. One, is to keep very close to the concerns of voters. And that's why the decision this week about the 10p rate was right. Secondly is to make sure that people can see in what we do the convictions that hold us together as a party. Thirdly - and I think this is important - we've got to tell a story and understand where this country stands in the world. Because actually British decline is over. We're respected around the world. I don't know if we're going to talk about London.

But London is a city now that people seek to emulate rather than deride. And as a final thing that I think is important, and we should admit it's very difficult when you've been in power for ten or eleven years, is to be the agents of change in politics, to recognise that there are people outside the conventions of party politics who are actually challenging us to think in new and creative ways. And as a government it's doubly important that we are actually understanding that yearning for political reform and backing it up.

ANDREW MARR: Because looking from the outside it seems in some sense that there's been a sort of collapse of morale or self belief in this government. That the notion that you could really still effect useful change from the outside world has sort of shrivelled.

DAVID MILIBAND: I just don't, I just don't recognise that. First of all in terms of my colleagues that I see around the cabinet table who've been brought on by Gordon Brown, the Jacqui Smiths, the Hazel Blears, the Yvette Coopers, the Ed Balls, the Andy Burnhams, the James Purnells.

We are people who have got ideas and idealism. And we're putting them into practice. Just think - I know that politics over the last two or three weeks has all been about the tantrums at Westminster. What's actually happened? We've had figures on crime which have shown you're less likely to be a victim of crime than at any time since nineteen eighty one.

We've had employment figures over which Alistair Darling has presided and John Hutton which show we've got the highest employment ever. Unemployment is down to seven hundred and forty thousand. Remember you and I can remember days when it was two or three million. And in respect of the Health Service we're breaking new ground in GP access ...

ANDREW MARR: So why, if it's so good - the old question - why is it so bad?

DAVID MILIBAND: Well because this is a mid term, with uniquely difficult economic circumstance. Let's be hon.. honest about this. The economic integration around the world is making us much more vulnerable to changes in other parts of the world.

The American credit crunch is hitting us. And the question is, is Britain well placed to respond? Interest rates are coming down in this country. Employment is going up in this country. Yes there are issues about the price of petrol and the price of food and that's why the decisions we've taken are right.

ANDREW MARR: The 10p decision, whatever outcome eventually you got to was a self inflicted disaster. You're facing forty two days, the vote over the detention issue. That promises to be another very, very difficult one.

Different briefing in the paper at the moment by the way, and different directions, as to whether there is going to be further concessions on that. Can you help us out on that one?

DAVID MILIBAND: Well I can tell you my perspective on it. I've been to Pakistan as you said. I went to the North West Frontier province. Seventy per cent of the terrorism that affects the UK has links back to Pakistan.

And I spoke to the Home Secretary Jacqui Smith yesterday. She told me that in six cases they've been up to the twenty seventh or the twenty eighth day of investigation before deciding whether or not to charge.

And what she's proposing after really extensive discussion in parliament and outside is to say let's have a safeguard because there may be one or two or more cases where we need more than twenty eight days. We need twenty nine, thirty or up to thirty two. And she's proposing in exceptional circumstances a safeguard. I think that is responsible government.

And in respect of the 10p decision, let's be absolutely clear about this. If the Conservative Party want the next election to be a fight about who's going to do more for the low paid I say: "Bring it on." Bring it on because the then chancellor, our prime minister has done more for the low paid than any other chancellor since Lloyd George. This is a record.

Even those, even those who lost out from the 10p decision, the figures I've seen suggest as a result of the tax and benefit changes over the last ten years they've actually been benefited by about five hundred pounds a year each. So I think this is a government with an agenda, with a clear set of convictions and actually with a sense of purpose that will carry it through.

ANDREW MARR: If you get an absolute hammering in the local and London elections will Gordon Brown have to step aside?

DAVID MILIBAND: No. Definitely, definitely not. Look, in two thousand and four a year before the two thousand and five general election which we won Labour got twenty six per cent of the vote in the local elections. That, that's bad. We lost good councillors. I wish it hadn't happened. I think probably it wasn't because of the performance of the local councils.

I think we in national government have got to take responsibility for that. But mid term blues is a, is not about - blue not in the sense of Conservatives but blue in difficulties. And I keep coming back to this point. The politics and the economics are difficult. But the test ..

ANDREW MARR: Well just, just ...

DAVID MILIBAND: .. the test in politics is not if you take a punch. The test is when you take a punch do you roll over and say oh we've had enough or do you actually fight back and say the things we believe in are important enough for the future of the country, that actually we're going to fight our way forward.

ANDREW MARR: So when you read somebody like Tony Blair's biographer and admirer John Rentoul saying it's time for David Miliband to stand up for the sake of the country and take over this government otherwise you're going to be in opposition for a very long time to come, how do you react to that?

DAVID MILIBAND: I say it's time for David Miliband to do a good job as Foreign Secretary supporting a prime minister who's the right man to lead the country forward. And I keep coming back to the point that in the end politics is about substance.

I watched David Cameron's, I've watched David Cameron's interview. Look he's a good salesman. But what's he selling? The minute you push and prod in any area, be it the economy or Grangemouth actually he's got nothing to say about the future of the country. It was very, very revealing on the economy that he wasn't able to do that.

ANDREW MARR: Well let's, that's, in a way that's for him. Let, let me turn back to your side of the political spectrum.

On a whole series of issues people feel that there has been a lack of clear explanation about what this government is any longer for. People are genuinely confused as to what you stand for. Do you accept at least that you need to sharpen that message up radically?

DAVID MILIBAND: Well it's always the thing isn't it that you, you blame the communications and you get into this thing. Is it the spin, is it ..

ANDREW MARR: Well what is it? What is it?

DAVID MILIBAND: I'll tell you what, I'll tell you what I said to the Foreign Office on, in my first day in the Foreign Office last year. I said that a Brown government would be defined as the government that put more power and more control in the hands of people.

How does it do that? First it says the opportunity in education and housing is at the centre of our agenda. Secondly, importantly it says that we've got to build up a sense of community values. And thirdly, we've got to recognise that in the modern world if you want to do good in Britain you've got to do good outside Britain as well because we live in a smaller world.

ANDREW MARR: But something has to change. I mean you said yourself that the government has to see the world through voters' eyes. And that seemed to people a recognition that after ten, eleven years, inevitably you are part of the, the bubble. And it is quite hard to understand how people feel across the country. People at the moment feel quite let down and quite angry.

DAVID MILIBAND: Well I think that we showed this week and the government showed this week that it was ready to say "look, compared to last year the situation has changed".

The economic system has changed compared to last year. We know that while the consumer price index is about two point five per cent and the price of TVs and computers continues to go down. You only buy a computer occasionally. Whereas actually when you go to fill up and when you go to the supermarket we, prices are going up and we've got to recognise that.

ANDREW MARR: So you accept a bit of David Cameron's argument about the real inflation faced by families looking at their food bills, petrol bills.

DAVID MILIBAND: Well no it's not - to be fair the inflation rate is very statistically calculated in a very, very comprehensive and effective way. And it does matter that TVs and computers and kids' toys are coming down in price.

ANDREW MARR: It matters less, it matters less than the price of food?

DAVID MILIBAND: Well what matters is the total prices that you're paying. And remember we've gone from a position where real disposable income of households in this country has risen faster than any other industrialised country in the last ten years. Under Labour.

We've been the party not just of a warm heart, we've actually been the party that says the money in your wallet matters and it matters - yes taxes, but interest rates matter as well. And we've got to make sure that we get the balance right so that disposable income continues to rise. And there's one other point on this. This year the tax burden is actually falling in this country. It's not rising the tax burden. It's falling.

ANDREW MARR: Except for those people of course who were, who were hit by the 10p, some of whom will still be hit as we both know. What about, just one matter at the top of the headlines at the moment which is the Grangemouth thing. As a government should you intervene at this point of ..?

DAVID MILIBAND: Well you asked this to David Cameron. He said the government should encourage both sides to negotiate. We're doing that. We're also making sure that there are proper supplies.

And I think it's an important message that's been put out by John Hutton that there are supplies, that people should continue their normal buying patterns. And if they do so there are plenty of supplies around the country.

ANDREW MARR: You may have to intervene more than that though mightn't you?

DAVID MILIBAND: Well there are emergency powers. But I think that it's right that we make a common sense position ...

ANDREW MARR: Don't panic.

DAVID MILIBAND: ... sitting - I don't want to say that, that, that I can see a headline out of that. But the, I think that the basic point which is that there are sufficient supplies and people are behaving in a responsible way I think is the right thing.

ANDREW MARR: All right. You've been, as I was saying earlier on, travelling a lot recently. You mentioned Pakistan yourself. And you welcomed the new government. And you have a policy of talking to people including people pretty close to Taliban I suspect in the North of the country. They do and you support that. The Americans have a very different view. They want to bomb, bomb them to pieces.

DAVID MILIBAND: Well I've sat with Condoleezza Rice and with the President of Afghanistan. I was in Pakistan last week. We've actually got the same approach which is that you need a military aspect, you need a political aspect and need an economic aspect to a successful policy. And it is remarkable - I do want to say this.

I sat at a dinner last Sunday with Mr Zardari the widow, widower of Benazir Bhutto on one side, Nawaz Sharif the head of the Pakistan Muslim League on the other side saying to me first Britain has made a big difference to the restoration of democracy in Pakistan. Secondly that democracy is the ally of stability in Pakistan because it marginalises the extremists. And thirdly they want to work together to make this coalition go. To make it work. That matters to us a lot in this country.

ANDREW MARR: You came back feeling a little, a little more up about Pakistan did you?

DAVID MILIBAND: Yes, in short. I mean remember there are eight hundred thousand or a million Britons of Pakistani origin who follow these things very carefully and they were very, very worried last year. I was more optimistic.

ANDREW MARR: Hard to be so up or cheerful about Zimbabwe at the moment. You've spoken very forthrightly about what Mugabe is up to. Is there anything we can practically do about this then?

DAVID MILIBAND: Well there are some things. I mean I spoke to the, our ambassador there this morning and he and his team are doing a fantastic job. He used a chilling phrase. He says that Zimbabwe's defined at the moment by, by revenge, by rage and by sometimes sadism. And the reports in the newspapers of attacks on Opposition figures are genuinely shocking.

ANDREW MARR: Some horrible photographs of what happened to people.

DAVID MILIBAND: Horrible photographs. But we, let's be clear what's happening. And a government is trying to steal an election and it hasn't yet been able to. In fact the re-count of the parliamentary election, the brave people from the Movement For Democratic Change who stood over the ballots counters to make sure that it was properly done, they made sure that Mugabe was not able to claim a parliamentary majority. And you can be sure of this. If he thought he could get away with claiming a presidential election win he'd have done it. But he hasn't been able to do so. So we've got to work ..

ANDREW MARR: So he has clearly lost. I mean it's, it's a question of how he deals with that.

DAVID MILIBAND: Well it's clear one, we've got to remain on the side of the people campaigning and arguing for democracy in Zimbabwe. Secondly we've got to keep encouraging African partners to lead on this.

But third there is a global responsibility. And that's why it's right that it's raised at the UN Security Council on the initiative of the prime minister and others on Tuesday.

ANDREW MARR: Quite a lot of people were surprised by what happened in Basra recently where the Americans came in to work with the Iraqi army to clear the militias.

And it appeared to be the fact that there had been a sort of tacit deal between Iran, Baghdad and the Americans with the British soldiers left sitting in their airbase.

DAVID MILIBAND: Well that really may appear to be the fact but it's not. I mean General David Petraeus who's the Commanding Office, who I met on Thursday, the first thing he said to me was that the British people should know how much difference British troops are making in Basra.

And I, I was in Basra in December and there's no question there's been a big change. The militias are right on the back foot. And in Baghdad the government has a new found confidence. You've got the Sunni rejoining the government.

That's important to have unity there. And in Basra I think there really is hope. There have been some remarkable reports in the Times by a very brave journalist Deborah ..

ANDREW MARR: Yeah.

DAVID MILIBAND: �Haynes there who's shown the changes that are going on.

ANDREW MARR: Now I know that you're fascinated by American politics. Just give us your reading of what's going on there at the moment because it's becoming real nail biting stuff isn't it?

DAVID MILIBAND: I don't know about nail biting but it's certainly fascinating. There's one thing I want to bring out about the American situation.

John McCain, Barack Obama, Hilary Clinton, at one stage or another in the last six to nine months have been written off. John McCain had five per cent in the Republican Primaries at one point in the opinion polls.

Did he say oh well I'll give up then or - no he didn't. He said: "I passionately believe in the issues that I'm presenting. I believe I've got a vision for America. I'll take it forward." Ditto Barack Obama. Last October he was being written off. Hilary Clinton - a month ago.

ANDREW MARR: I don't think, I don't think you need to draw, draw the parallel.

DAVID MILIBAND: Let me use a phrase that will, that will bring a smile to you. Let - they're fighters not quitters. And that is an important message for all of us.

ANDREW MARR: Yes well we all remember where that one came from. Peter Mandelson for those who don't. Thank you very much indeed for now.

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.

Because of the possibility of mis-hearing and the difficulty, in some cases, of identifying individual speakers, the BBC cannot vouch for its accuracy

Your comments

Disclaimer: The BBC may edit your comments and cannot guarantee that all emails will be published.

E-mail this to a friend

Printable version