Afghanistan: No co-ordination and no plan

On Sunday 19 April Andrew Marr interviewed Lord Ashdown, former Lib Dem Leader.

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

No co-ordination and no plan: Lord Ashdown's verdict on the international effort in Afghanistan .

Lord Ashdown, former Lib Dem Leader

ANDREW MARR:

Paddy Ashdown is in some ways an old school politician.

He's someone who arrived in parliament already having established himself with a very vigorous life outside politics - he'd been a solider who'd seen active service, a linguist, and latterly a spy ...who abandoned his Labour affiliations, got elected as a Liberal and went on to lead his party for more than a decade.

There are some dramatic tales about Lord Ashdown in today's Sunday papers. It starts off its extract saying that he 'spent an idyllic childhood smuggling butter and stealing fish, and then later came the horrors of war'.

It's all in your autobiography.

Welcome, Lord Ashdown.

PADDY ASHDOWN:

Nice to be with you, Andrew.

ANDREW MARR:

There are so many things we could talk about in this. It's a racy book in all sorts of ways. One of the ways it's not racy, however, is there's one chapter, isn't there, where suddenly everything goes a little bit opaque, which is when you're talking about your life as a spy, which I must say I hadn't known much about at all. What I can ask you, I think, is whether you learned things when you trained as a spy, worked as a spy, MI6, that then equipped you for politics?

PADDY ASHDOWN:

First of all, the chapter is a bit opaque because I made an undertaking when I joined this organisation that I would never either name it or discuss in detail what it said. And when I approached the organisation concerned, they asked me to stick to that promise and I have done so. The answer's yes, but then Andrew I have learnt…

ANDREW MARR:

To what?

PADDY ASHDOWN:

Well it's helped when I was being High Representative of Bosnia and Herzegovina to understand the importance of the intelligence services and these organisations. I used many of the techniques I learnt at that time in trying to wheedle out of the Tory Party one of the principal defectors, Emma Nicholson, and I used many of the techniques that we used in spotting and handling defectors in the organisation concerned.

And sometimes you learnt that you know not everything that's on the surface tells you the truth; that you need to look deeper. But - and here's the point, Andrew, and forgive me for making a wider point on this - look, I was a soldier, I was a spy, I was a businessman, I was unemployed, I was a youth worker, and when I arrived in parliament at the age of 42 all of those previous careers turned out to be - by accident, nevertheless necessarily importantly so - an apprenticeship for what I then did.

And maybe one of the problems with politics today is that too many of our politicians go in in short pants and never see the other side of life; and I think one of the angers that exists out there - one of the reasons why there's a gap growing up between government and governed in our country - is that people feel that these politicians tell them how to live their lives, but never have experienced it themselves. And I think that's a big issue actually.

ANDREW MARR:

Perhaps the core political thriller in all of this is how close you and Tony Blair came to actually forming an alliance and possibly then a merger of the Labour Party and the Liberal Democrats shortly after Labour won power in 1997. You really went to bed one evening thinking it was there, and then got a call the next morning from Tony Blair and his tone told you it wasn't.

PADDY ASHDOWN:

Yes, I mean we had a conversation the day before, we had a conversation on the last day of the election campaign before we voted on 1st May 1997, and he said very clearly, "A large majority will not alter what we're going to do". Now whether or not it was a good idea we should do that's a different issue, but, yes, I think there was a very clear idea amongst myself and my advisers and I think in his head too, judging by the conversation which I quote verbatim, that this was a likely thing to happen. Something happened that night.

I relayed a conversation between Cherie Blair and Robin Cook, which indicated quite clearly that she thought it was going to happen too and advised that it should. Something happened that night and my guess is what happened that night was Brown and Prescott who said to Blair, "Under no circumstances", "Over my dead body".

And I suppose the Prime Minister Blair had to take the decision as to whether he'd launch his new government in not crisis but certainly contention with his own key lieutenants, or whether he'd choose the easier path.

ANDREW MARR:

So you think the current Prime Minister stopped it really?

PADDY ASHDOWN:

Yeah.

ANDREW MARR:

Yuh.

PADDY ASHDOWN:

Then and later.

ANDREW MARR:

Then and later. Is it going to be something that comes back again, do you think?

PADDY ASHDOWN:

Andrew, I think the big event that's yet to happen in British politics is the realignment of the forces of the Left around a broadly Liberal Centre Left agenda. I think that is the only thing that will make sense of British politics in the longer term, so it's an event waiting to happen.

ANDREW MARR:

But first, presumably, New Labour has to be smashed in an election?

PADDY ASHDOWN:

I think that if Labour loses the next election - and as a betting person, you'd have to be betting on that - then I think Labour has got really serious problems. It's a hollow husk. It's a hollowed out husk of what it used to be. It doesn't have a belief that holds it together; Tony Blair took all that away. It's become an instrument for power and careers.

Once it loses that, it has nothing. And I think there is a real knockdown, drag out fight after the next election for the heart and soul of the Labour Party, and my prediction is that they will make the same mistake as the Tories did. As the Tories moved to the Right after the defeat of 1997, Labour will move to the old corporatist Socialist Left, and I think that gives us a real opportunity to make sure that this event…

ANDREW MARR:

Fascinating.

PADDY ASHDOWN:

… that's been waiting to happen for so long actually does begin to happen.

ANDREW MARR:

If there was… I mean if there was a hung parliament, it would be quite hard I would have thought, for the Liberal Democrats, as things stand now, to prop up Labour. I mean very interesting you say about it being very, very difficult candidly when the Conservatives were on the downward slope for the Liberal Democrats. You talked about equidistance, but actually you couldn't really have gone with the Conservatives because they were on the downward slope being rejected. Presumably the same now true of Labour?

PADDY ASHDOWN:

Andrew, brave attempt but I'm not going there. (Andrew laughs) I mean look, let me tell you. It is, I think… If you're a successful Liberal or Liberal Democrat leader, then every one of our leaders who's been successful has been presented this hand to play: Jeremy Thorpe was, Joe Grimmond was, David Steele was and I was. And I very much hope that Nick Clegg, who I'm very confident is going to be a highly successful leader, is going to be presented this hand. And he'll have to decide how to play it…

ANDREW MARR:

Yes.

PADDY ASHDOWN:

… but all the circumstances are different…

ANDREW MARR:

Yes.

PADDY ASHDOWN:

… and the way in which you play that hand has to be left to the people who make the judgement of the time. And my advice to my leader, the only piece of advice I'll give him, is don't listen to old war horses from the back seat.

ANDREW MARR:

An old war horse speaks. Another nearly moment. I mean I remember it very vividly because I remember talking to you when you were down by the South Coast. We all thought - and I think you thought too - that you were going to go to Afghanistan as a kind of NATO, United Nations and EU High Representative alongside Hamid Karzai, and then again at the last minute it fell apart. Why do you think it fell apart?

PADDY ASHDOWN:

Well I think those who read the book will see that we came very, very close to it…

ANDREW MARR:

Yes.

PADDY ASHDOWN:

… and there was a presumption…

ANDREW MARR:

Condoleezza Rice was signed up for it.

PADDY ASHDOWN:

Well Condoleezza Rice, the Prime Minister signed off on it, Ban Ki-Moon signed off on it. Karzai himself signed off on it. And I would never have gone there against the opposition of Karzai because I think the domestic government has a right to choose and a right to reject, and I accepted completely that he had a right to reject that. You must speculate to decide why that happened, but it did happen at the last moment.

My guess is something like this. Karzai now depends on the Pashtun vote and the Pashtun belt more than he ever did. He therefore depends if he's going to be re-elected - he's a politician after all - on those who deliver the Pashtun vote, who are the Pashtun warlords and, above all, Pashtun crime barons to deliver that in a rather corrupted structure. And, therefore, they saw what I did in Bosnia when I made a very, very determined attack on the corrupt structures in Bosnia, including creating circumstances in which presidents were put before the court, and I guess his friends said, "Hamid, we're not sure we want this guy around because it's not going to be helpful to us…

ANDREW MARR:

Yes.

PADDY ASHDOWN:

… and therefore not going to be helpful to your vote that he should be here doing this kind of job", which is a pity.

ANDREW MARR:

And pursuing his vote, I mean he'd signed through this law which would effectively legalise rape in marriage and ensure that women couldn't leave the house without their husband's permission and all the rest of it. He's rode back on that, but do you think he's now a busted flush?

PADDY ASHDOWN:

Andrew, look, every politician has to respond to the political agenda in which he finds himself and I understand, probably more than most who might do that job, precisely why Karzai has to do the things he has to do. But let me just say this. You can criticise Hamid Karzai, but the real problem isn't him, it's us.

The real problem is that the international leaders have not got their act together. And here's the really tough thing about it. You can't expect Karzai to get his act together if we won't get our act together.

ANDREW MARR:

But what does that mean? I mean we're pouring troops in…

PADDY ASHDOWN:

Yeah, but there's no coordination. There's no plan, there's no speaking with a single voice. The British think Afghanistan's Helmand, the Dutch thinks it's Oruzgan, the Canadians think it's Kandahar, the Germans think it's the Panshir Valley, and the Americans think it's bombing from B-52s. Now if you don't have a single plan and a capacity to speak with a single voice, you're not going to get anything done.

And here's the real scandal of Afghanistan. It's not that our soldiers don't have the right boots or the right number of helicopters. The real scandal is that the failure of our politicians to get their act together in Afghanistan is wasting young soldiers' lives. That's the scandal! And until we get our act together, we can't expect Karzai to get his act together and we'll go on wasting.

ANDREW MARR:

(over) If I was watching, I would say that sounds as if you think it's pretty much hopeless as things are…

PADDY ASHDOWN:

(over) Look, the dynamic is now moving substantially against us in Afghanistan, there's no doubt about that; and unless we change that dynamic very soon, the most likely outcome is not success.

ANDREW MARR:

Alright.

PADDY ASHDOWN:

Now I think some of the things Obama's now doing, Petraeus is now doing, and my old friend Richard Holbrooke is now doing give us a real opportunity to turn that dynamic round. But if it's not done quickly, the outcome… This is the last chance saloon. If it's not done quickly, the outcome is not success, it's failure.

ANDREW MARR:

Paddy Ashdown, Lord Ashdown - extraordinary life, great book - thank you very much indeed for joining me this morning.

PADDY ASHDOWN:

Thanks 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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