Leadership speculation 'gets in the way'

Cabinet minister John Denham appeals to colleagues: 'concentrate on making Labour's case'.

John Denham MP, Innovation and Skills Secretary

ZEINAB BADAWI: John Denham so you were one of three cabinet ministers rallying belatedly to the prime minister's defence.

Why did you feel that it was necessary to write this article in the Sunday Times?

JOHN DENHAM: I think it's very important to do two things.

The first is to say as I do in the Sunday Times, there's a very powerful case for Labour.

We need to make it more strongly. People like me need to be making it strongly.

And that a summer of leadership speculation simply gets away, in the way of that. And I think if we look at the newspapers today it's fairly clear that it doesn't help get Labour's message across. Now we've actually got a good record over the last ten years that we can defend.

We won the main arguments with the Tories ten years ago. And if you look at the wider problems that we've got it's a party like ours that believes that we all do best if we look after each other and believes in the power of good government that this country needs.

ZEINAB BADAWI: Okay.

JOHN DENHAM: And that's the case we need to make.

ZEINAB BADAWI: But why did you feel that you had to make that case today in the Sunday Times? I mean what, what triggered this...

JOHN DENHAM: Well...

ZEINAB BADAWI: .. you, Harriet Harman, Alistair Darling?

JOHN DENHAM: The Sunday Times rang me up, okay? They rang me up and they said "Would you write, like to write a piece for the Sunday?" And I said "Yes". And it's good to have the chance as a cabinet minister to make a case. I didn't go to the Sunday Times. Nobody from the party rang me up. Nobody said...

ZEINAB BADAWI: So no coordination between...

JOHN DENHAM: Abso.. abso..

ZEINAB BADAWI: .. Harriet Harman, Alistair Darling ..

JOHN DENHAM: Absolutely none.

ZEINAB BADAWI: .. and you?

JOHN DENHAM: Let me tell you ... we are all quoted in the News of the World today. The first I knew that Alistair and Harriet were in the News of the World was when I was rung by the BBC last night. The truth is we are doing what we need to be doing as cabinet ministers ..

ZEINAB BADAWI: But that makes it worse doesn't it �John Denham.

JOHN DENHAM: No, no, no it doesn't. No.

ZEINAB BADAWI: .. doesn't it make it worse?

JOHN DENHAM: Of course not.

ZEINAB BADAWI: It sounds like ... by accident ..

JOHN DENHAM: No, no. No, what, what ..

ZEINAB BADAWI: That you three cabinet ministers come out to support Gordon Brown.

JOHN DENHAM: .. no what it, what it means is, what it means is that cabinet ministers like me know that what we need to be doing, what every cabinet minister needs to be doing is making Labour's case. Why, why�

ZEINAB BADAWI: But they're no though, are they?

JOHN DENHAM: We are

ZEINAB BADAWI: More than twenty cabinet ministers ..

JOHN DENHAM: No why, why we are ..

ZEINAB BADAWI: .. only three of you ... that's not much.

JOHN DENHAM: .. no, no. That's a ridic... no sorry that's a ridiculous ...

ZEINAB BADAWI: Well it isn't really.

JOHN DENHAM: No that is ridiculous to say. I've just said to you there wasn't a coordinated effort on the News of the World and there wasn't. They rang up three people. They got three responses from it and you're now saying well that's only three out of twenty.

That's a silly argument. What we are doing and what we all need to do over this summer is make Labour's case. Now here we are with unprecedent...

ZEINAB BADAWI: Make Labour's case not Gordon Brown's case?

JOHN DENHAM: Of course Gordon Brown's case. That's what I do in the Sunday Times because I believe that ..

ZEINAB BADAWI: Well actually can I just say here, for those people may not have read it, it's quite a long article ..

JOHN DENHAM: ...let's be�

ZEINAB BADAWI: .. you only mention Gordon Brown at the very end in connection ..

JOHN DENHAM: What I said ..

ZEINAB BADAWI: .. with the difficult ..

JOHN DENHAM: Oh ..

ZEINAB BADAWI: .. economic times we're living in ..

JOHN DENHAM: No.

ZEINAB BADAWI: And he's the best person ..

JOHN DENHAM: What do I ..

ZEINAB BADAWI: .. to lead us through these difficult times.

JOHN DENHAM: Yes exactly.

ZEINAB BADAWI: It's not a ringing endorsement.

JOHN DENHAM: Of course it is.

ZEINAB BADAWI: No it isn't really. You mention him right at the end.

JOHN DENHAM: I, I say two, I say two things in the article. I say a summer of leadership speculation is the last thing Labour needs.

I then say that in the world we're in where this country needs the Labour Party because we're the only ones that are going to build the national purpose, bring fairness into the way in which we tackle these international issues, help us to be more energy, energy independent.

We need to make that Labour case and we have, as I say in my article, in Gordon Brown as prime minster the person in British politics who understands better than anybody else the nature of these international challenges. Now if ...

ZEINAB BADAWI: The economic challenges.

JOHN DENHAM: ...

ZEINAB BADAWI: What about all the rest of the things�.

JOHN DENHAM: ... these national and political challenges...

ZEINAB BADAWI: Yeah but that's going back to his chancellor ..

JOHN DENHAM: Look I'm really, I'm rea..

ZEINAB BADAWI: .. his years as chancellor.

JOHN DENHAM: .. look I am rea, I am really sorry.

ZEINAB BADAWI: Okay.

JOHN DENHAM: If you're trying to say that me saying that there's nobody else in British politics more capable than Gordon Brown of doing the job of prime minister is not a ringing endorsement I do begin to wonder what a ringing endorsement would look like. Now look at the Labour case.

We know that a party that believes you have to tackle these problems with a sense of national purpose, that we have to build energy independence, that we need to be investing in schools and universities and apprenticeships to give ourselves the skills we need to compete in this modern world stands head and shoulders above the Tories who are simply going around saying look there's some problems in Britain. Isn't it awful.

But want to replace government with charity, which want to cut training opportunities from adults so that people can't get skills at work. We need to make ..

ZEINAB BADAWI: All right.

JOHN DENHAM: .. that case strongly. Does leadership speculation help that? No it doesn't.

ZEINAB BADAWI: Well who's making that leadership speculation? 'Cause you could argue that the Foreign Secretary David Miliband with his article in the Guardian in a sense did unleash this debate about the prime minister's leadership.

JOHN DENHAM: I, I talked to David, I talked to David this week after his article. He was very clear to me that what he wanted to do was make what he did actually, very well, make a strong Labour case, why Britain needs a Labour government.

Now I do think that if you look at the way things pan out we've all got to recognise that if everything gets dominated by leadership speculation it gets in the way of Labour's message getting across.

But if you look at what David's message was about why Labour is right for this country and why the Tories don't have a serious message few people in the Labour Party would disagree with it. And I think we should spend more of our time making the case for Labour and avoiding anything that can cause distractions.

ZEINAB BADAWI: So does that mean we're going to expect an autumn relaunch for Labour in terms of new policies, cabinet reshuffle ...? The Whole thing?

JOHN DENHAM: I, well things like cabinet reshuffles are in the hands of the prime minister, not me. And I don't know whether there will be one or whether there won't be one.

What seems to me to be fairly clear though is that in the last six to nine months, really since the credit crunch started to bite coming from the USA and then the international factors driving oil and food prices began to bite, politics has been changing. In every country round the world the party in power is getting it in the neck at the moment.

ZEINAB BADAWI: Well that's ..

JOHN DENHAM: We have made a start what some immediate measures to address that. But people are going to look to government here as they do elsewhere to say what's government going to do to protect us against these international forces ..

ZEINAB BADAWI: Of course.

JOHN DENHAM: .. in the world we're now in. And in the autumn we are going to need to do that. No doubt about that at all. The immediate measures are in place ...but people are going to say where are we going to be in three, five, ten years time?

ZEINAB BADAWI: Nobody doubts ..

JOHN DENHAM: We've got to answer that.

ZEINAB BADAWI: Okay, nobody doubts John Denham that it is a difficult global economic climate ..

JOHN DENHAM: Yeah.

ZEINAB BADAWI: .. just about for everybody. But there have been some policies which Gordon Brown has executed. And if you look at the last, one of the things he did when he was chancellor was to abolish the ten per cent ..

JOHN DENHAM: Yeah.

ZEINAB BADAWI: .. tax band for the poorer people in society. That's got nothing to do with the global ..

JOHN DENHAM: No ..

ZEINAB BADAWI: .. economic crisis has it?

JOHN DENHAM: .. and where, where, where mistake ..

ZEINAB BADAWI: And that was politically not an astute move to make was it?

JOHN DENHAM: Where mistakes, where mistakes have been made that's been acknowledged by Gordon and by the rest of us.

ZEINAB BADAWI: So you can't lay everything at the door of the economy, the global economy?

JOHN DENHAM: No you can't lay ev... no absolutely you can't. And I'm not trying to pretend in my article today. Though I insist that we were a much better government than the Tories would have been that we got everything right or solved every problem. We, we didn't manage to do that. However the big change in the last year has basically been driven by people feeling much less certain about the world we live in. And that is largely about the international factors.

ZEINAB BADAWI: Okay. You said you spoke to David Miliband. I mean you know there are an awful lot of people who are quite angry about what he did. I mean Bob Marshall-Andrews one back bencher and Geraldine Smith also, I mean Bob Marshall-Andrews says "Disgraceful, duplicitous, disloyal" ..

JOHN DENHAM: Yeah.

ZEINAB BADAWI: .. and he's called for David Miliband to be, to be sacked. I mean you do ..

JOHN DENHAM: I don't share, no I don't share, I don't share that language. David's a good friend. He made a good case in the Guardian for Labour. I've said what I've said. We need to be careful in the way that we make our argument that we don't do things that inadvertently stop there being a, stop there being a good platform for Labour's case to come across.

David knows that I feel that. But David clearly has an enormous contribution to make. And I don't want to get into the language of name calling or whatever ..

ZEINAB BADAWI: But, but ..

JOHN DENHAM: .. because I don't think that's what we need.

ZEINAB BADAWI: Okay. But things are very difficult. And it's not just the silly season, you know the media going, looking around at this. I mean you look at the Tony Blair, according to the Daily Mail, the Tony Blair leaked memo which he wrote last year saying that Gordon Brown is bereft of ideas and he shouldn't abolish the Tony Blair agenda without putting out anything else in place. Stephen Byers has said inadequate polices coming from ..

JOHN DENHAM: Yeah.

ZEINAB BADAWI: .. Gordon Brown ... only something that amounts to taking a stroll on a Sunday afternoon, those kind of policies. I mean ..

JOHN DENHAM: You know I - yes.

ZEINAB BADAWI: .. true criticisms from your t...

JOHN DENHAM: Yes and I'm sad to read some of the things I did from Stephen Byers today because ..

ZEINAB BADAWI: And Tony Blair.

JOHN DENHAM: Well Tony Blair's memo, if it was one it was written, it's an old one. It's written in the third party about himself a year ago. But let's take what Stephen Byers has said much more recently.

I mean he was a Schools Minister. I don't actually think he could honestly say that what's been done in this year with the plans for children's welfare to tackle the problems of the worst performing schools of which there are far fewer than there used to be, to raise the age of participation to eighteen so that young people don't drop�

ZEINAB BADAWI: But it's not helpful ..

JOHN DENHAM: No can I just ..

ZEINAB BADAWI: .. is it? It's more criticism for Gordon Brown.

JOHN DENHAM: .. can I just, can - no ..

ZEINAB BADAWI: That's the point.

JOHN DENHAM: .. this is why I'm saddened by it. Because actually the record is if you look at an area of responsibility that Stephen Byers was in and then look at what has happened this year under Gordon Brown there is huge ambition, huge drive and huge determination to further transform the education system. Stephen was at one time in charge of energy policy.

ZEINAB BADAWI: Okay.

JOHN DENHAM: There was nothing ..

ZEINAB BADAWI: But ..

JOHN DENHAM: .. there was nothing that compared with the ambition that we have to make this country more ..

ZEINAB BADAWI: Okay.

JOHN DENHAM: .. energy independent. So what I would say is I, I regret that somebody who was in government claims when we have set out such ambition this year that there is no ambition there. I think it would be better for friends of the Labour Party to be talking positively about what we have done.

ZEINAB BADAWI: All right. But you accept that perhaps Gordon Brown and you say that everybody's got to try and make sure that there's better communication of what the government's doing ..

JOHN DENHAM: Yeah.

ZEINAB BADAWI: That Gordon Brown perhaps is not so good on the optics. I mean as Peter Mandelson said you could put, got to be good at the politics as well as the optics and perhaps he's not the best person at presenting the Labour case.

JOHN DENHAM: Well we knew what Gordon's strengths were when people like me nominated him and supported him. And it was his profound understanding of what this country needs. Gordon I believe will communicate that during the autumn. The rest of us in Cabinet need to communicate that effectively.

And the only thing that gets in the way of all of us as a team putting that message across effectively is a distraction from what needs to be done. And is in danger of letting David Cameron win by default. Now the Tories don't have a strong case. We do. We need to get it across.

ZEINAB BADAWI: Okay John Denham, thanks very much indeed for talking to us. Thanks.

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

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