'There won't be a challenge'

The Justice Secretary Jack Straw insists Gordon Brown's leadership is safe.

EMILY MAITLIS: And welcome. Jack Straw, I'm imagining you woke up and groaned yesterday when you read the Chancellor's words in this sort of apocalyptic language of doom?

JACK STRAW: No I didn't. Because what Alistair Darling said yesterday in the Guardian was things that he's been saying for some time, for example in an interview he gave in the Times in July and which the Prime Minister has been echoing and which all the serious economic commentarists.. for example from the OECD have also been saying.

And his words, Alistair's words were important. What he spoke about was the fact that economic times were arguably the most difficult for sixty years.

Now if I may just pick that up, on the financial side, the world financial situation, what has happened with the sub prime crisis and the potential insolvency of a large number of international institutions has been about the most serious thing which has affected the international monetary system probably for about sixty years or so. And then on top of that you've had the phenomenal increase in oil prices and commodity prices, in food prices. So you've got this ..

EMILY MAITLIS: You're talking about the global ..

JACK STRAW: .. unique combination of events ..

EMILY MAITLIS: .. picture ..

JACK STRAW: .. and that's what ... was about.

EMILY MAITLIS: .. and I understand that. But he is not known for his demotic turn of phrase. He says Labour is failing to articulate its purpose, the worst state for fifty years, from the man who should be reassuring us that everything's okay. It's not going to get any better is it? That's what he's really saying.

JACK STRAW: No I think it will get better. But let me just, let me just say this. I think it's absolutely right that the Prime Minister, Alistair, the rest of us have in Alistair's words been levelling with people.

Nothing irritates people more than if they think they're being led a dance, told a story. Now the truth is this. We have had ten years plus of extraordinarily good growth in this country.

And picking up a point that Al... that Ming Campbell was making earlier, he was saying well we claimed the good times when they were good, why can't we take responsibility for the bad times when they're bad. Of course. And no one ever denied this. Some of the external circumstances which enabled us to have this, provided the platform for the growth over the previous ten years were external not internal.

But the difference is, compared with previous periods of benign external circumstances is what we did with those conditions. And that's where Gordon Brown has been so successful ..

EMILY MAITLIS: Okay well let's, let's look at Gordon Brown.

JACK STRAW: We had a higher rate of growth. We had the fastest growth of GDP per head of any G7 country. We'd never had that before.

EMILY MAITLIS: Okay.

JACK STRAW: If I can just make this point Emily. What that does for us it provide a platform by which we can not only survive these external pressures but also break through them.

EMILY MAITLIS: And that's exactly what the Chancellor used to say. He used to say "We have strong fundamentals". Now he's saying it's the worst we've been in for sixty years.

When you talk about levelling is Gordon Brown reassuring us or is he levelling with the people? Does Alistair Darling speak for the government when he says it's as bad as it is now?

JACK STRAW: Well ..

EMILY MAITLIS: Does he speak for Gordon Brown?

JACK STRAW: Well of course. And we talk to each other all the time. Each of us talks for the other.

We may, I mean, and I'm sorry about this, but we're not clones of each other and we sometimes use different adverbs and adjectives.

But the message from the government, from Gordon, from ..

EMILY MAITLIS: Sort of four letter words?

JACK STRAW: Well leave that. It was six actually. But leave that aside. Past participle... The message from, from Gordon, from Alistair, from colleagues like myself has been the same.

We've had a very good period of economic management and economic success which has for sure provided us with a really serious platform to weather these storms. And let me just use this ..

EMILY MAITLIS: But can I just point out that you have spent a couple of minutes telling me about the good old days, the way that we are prepared.

JACK STRAW: Yeah.

EMILY MAITLIS: Now surely that doesn't make sense. If we're now saying you have to level with the British people, you have to tell them how things are ..

JACK STRAW: Yeah.

EMILY MAITLIS: .. don't talk to me about what's gone before. Tell me about what happens now.

JACK STRAW: Ah.

EMILY MAITLIS: Talk of an autumn ..

JACK STRAW: Okay.

EMILY MAITLIS: .. relaunch. What does that mean in specifics?

JACK STRAW: Well I'm not going to tell you what it means in specifics because announcements will be made when announcements are made. And certainly with great respect Emily not on this television programme.

The reason why I think I'm correct to talk about what has gone before because it comes down to who is best to see us and this country through difficult times that we now face. And let me just use this analogy. For sure take, as it were, we're in an aeroplane. We face turbulence. The question for the country is who is better to take us through this turbulent period.

Is it an experienced pilot and co-pilot in Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling who've had the experience, who've proved they've done better than the world situation over the last eleven years or is it two people in David Cameron and George Osborne who've had no experience of flying a large plane whatever. And that's the question for people. And ..

EMILY MAITLIS: And, and if you're levelling now with the British people and you're giving them these questions do you tell them the economy is going to get worse before it gets better?

And do you concede that there could be two million unemployed as the Deputy Governor of the Bank of England says ...?

JACK STRAW: I certainly don't concede that. And let me just say this. One other major difference between the situation in the past when for example in the early eighties or the early nineties the country went into absolute recessions and now is the underlying level of both employment and unemployment.

Take my constituency. Let me just tell you. In the early eighties we had a recession. May seem a long time ago but it blighted the lives of many, many hundreds of families. Unemployment shot up, not to fifteen, seventeen per cent. It's now around the national average.

We've had thousands of extra jobs created in the area. Unemployment may go up a little for sure and we understand that and the anxieties that are produced. But along with other measures too for example tax credits which make it much easier for people to get back into work, the ..

EMILY MAITLIS: Well let's ..

JACK STRAW: .. situation has been transformed from what it was.

EMILY MAITLIS: Let's look at some of those measures then. And I know you don't want to go on to specifics. But your back benchers and your cabinet colleagues to some extent are waiting for big headlines.

They want to see measures that show you're listening to people. What could we see? Will there be a stamp duty reduction?

JACK STRAW: Well ..

EMILY MAITLIS: Will there be ..

JACK STRAW: Well I'm, I'm - you have to forgive me, the ...

EMILY MAITLIS: Well just tell us. Will it be something to do with the housing market? Is that in ..

JACK STRAW: Well ..

EMILY MAITLIS: .. the pipeline right now?

JACK STRAW: The thing I'm not going to do is speculate for a second about potential tax changes. But let me just give you one example of something we have already announced.

Didn't get all that much in the way of headlines but is really important, which is to allow local authorities to buy unused housing and unsold housing that is otherwise available in the private sector.

Now this is actually really important because you've, because of, because of the credit crunch, the fact of difficulty of people find in getting mortgages.

There is a market in the private sector that is currently ... to say the least not as buoyant as it was. Local authorities have said to us - my local authority was saying this to me back in July - why can't we go out into the market to buy some of these houses. So we've listened and we've acted very quickly.

EMILY MAITLIS: Could you do equity release schemes as well for elderly people?

JACK STRAW: Well we've got already the shared equity schemes. I mean you'll forgive me for out ... for not going into the technicalities.

But the Prime Minster, the Chancellor, housing ministers like Caroline Flint are always open to looking at and then to acting on sensible affordable schemes to make life easier for the British people. For sure. Why shouldn't we be?

EMILY MAITLIS: All right. Well let's look forward to conference season now. Gordon Brown riding high a year ago and that caricature of David Cameron with a noose round his neck. He played a blinder then.

What does Gordon Brown need to do to silence the febrile back benchers and the activists?

JACK STRAW: Well first of all you'll forgive me for saying that I don't accept your assumption that the atmosphere is febrile.

It was certainly got a bit lively in July. But I think people have had a period for reflection over the summer.

EMILY MAITLIS: You're talking about David Miliband's article... presumably?

JACK STRAW: No I'm not talking about David particularly. But I just, you know a ... Look, one of the things I was saying to colleagues in the middle of July if people were getting a bit sort of lively I said look, sorry to sound like someone who's been around for a bit but this is the thirtieth summer, thirtieth July I've spent in the House of Commons.

There's not been a July which has not been a bit lively. But things will calm down. And indeed things have calmed down. What does Gordon Brown need to do? Well you'll, we'll see his speech at the conference. But essentially to do what we've all been doing and what he's been doing. First of all to yes, to remind people of our record, not in order to seek gratitude, but to say look we are the people who at your request have transformed this country. Look, look, you talk about ..

EMILY MAITLIS: Let me just bring you back to those ..

JACK STRAW: .. No. Let me just ..

EMILY MAITLIS: .. just very briefly let me bring you back to some of those Miliband comments which you've sort of tacitly referred to. David Miliband in that slightly torturous language has failed to rule himself out of a leadership challenge. Can you categorically now rule yourself out from that job?

JACK STRAW: Yes. And there's not going to be a leadership challenge. Let's be clear about that.

EMILY MAITLIS: From you?

JACK STRAW: Well I mean I'm talking about generally but also from me. So I think that's pretty clear. I think very clear. Do you want me to use any other kind of language? I've just said yes, there won't be a leadership challenge from me or from anybody else and I'm clear about that.

Gordon Brown was elected people say by acclamation just over fifteen months ago. But p... what people forget is that anybody else could have stood. And nobody else did. And he, Gordon got ninety per cent of the members of parliament signing their names in support of him because they thought and they're quite right to think that he was the best man for the job. And Gordon Brown is the same man today as he was fifteen months ago.

EMILY MAITLIS: Take us very briefly to Glenrothes and the by-election ..

JACK STRAW: Yes. Yeah.

EMILY MAITLIS: .. that's coming up. If that is lost do you go up to Gordon Brown and say time to go? What happens then?

JACK STRAW: I'm not doing the "if that is lost". I always go into by-elections of any kind and I know Gordon is with a determination to win that by-election. And I believe that we will.

EMILY MAITLIS: Jack Straw, thank you very much indeed.

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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