Elephant traps and expectations

On Sunday 11 April Andrew Marr interviewed former leaders of the Labour, Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties, Lord Kinnock, Michael Howard and Lord Ashdown.

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

Former leaders of the Labour, Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties, Lord Kinnock, Michael Howard and Lord Ashdown

ANDREW MARR:

Now also open nationwide, the General Election campaign, and three men who know all about that. Lord Ashdown, Paddy Ashdown, is in Yeovil - a big supporter of Nick Clegg's, leading the Lib-Dem fight in the West Country. Here in the studio, Michael Howard, former Tory Leader, cabinet minister whose protégé David Cameron has moved onto higher things. And Neil Kinnock, Lord Kinnock, former Labour Leader who singled out the young Gordon Brown for a top job some years ago. As we plunge into full-scale pell-mell campaigning, how are their boys getting on and what are the pitfalls ahead? Lord Ashdown, can I start with yourself? Perhaps the sort of dynamics of the three leaders up against each other in these TV campaigns have affected the rest of the newspapers and given Nick Clegg more of a media profile perhaps than you had in your day. But isn't the danger for you now that it becomes the absolute traditional either/or binary kind of campaign?

LORD ASHDOWN:

By the way, this slot seems like a continuation of 'The Ghosts' again, if you ask me.

(Marr laughs) The answer to your question is it could, it could, but I don't think that's the danger. I mean I think you're right, Andrew, in saying that the leaders' debate is the significant different thing about this election. It's already beginning to dominate the press and I think there'll be great national attention on it. And it's a sort of high noon moment because I think a great number of people will watch and a great number of people will make up their mind, and it will I think have an influence on the election which is greater than anything we've ever seen before. I mean I would have killed for this opportunity. And, by the way, I'm supposed to be the only member of the House of Commons who was actually trained to do exactly that. But I think Nick will do well. He has I think a capacity to be able to speak in the language of ordinary people. I think people think they know what Gordon Brown is and I think they've decided they don't want him to continue to be Prime Minister. I think they've seen Mr Cameron and regard the Tory Leader as somebody whose offerings frankly are pretty thin. They don't know what he stands for. And I think Nick as a basic principled politician who believes in a strong set of values will come across very well.

ANDREW MARR:

But he's also the leader who can't stand up and stay, "When I'm Prime Minister, …" and that is always going to be a problem. It was a problem for you and it's been a problem for Liberal Democrat and Liberal Leaders before that in the past.

LORD ASHDOWN:

Yes, Andrew. But if you'll forgive me, I don't think it's up to you or a television programme to decide what the British public are going to vote for. I mean I've heard many interviewers saying, "Well of course you're not going to be the Prime Minister." How do you know? I mean I think it's rather silly of us, if I may say, even perhaps a little bit arrogant of us to pretend that from a newsroom you can decide the sovereign judgement of the British people in a General Election in four weeks time. Leave the decision to them and they will decide who it is they want to have. I don't think it's up to …

ANDREW MARR:

Alright.

LORD ASHDOWN:

… you or anybody else to start predicting the outcome of an election. That's their choice; not yours.

ANDREW MARR:

I would say it's an arrogant, educated guess in that case. But let's …

LORD ASHDOWN:

Well forgive me, forgive me. The educated guess … I mean let me ask you this very direct question, Andrew. Should we be indulging in educated guesses, or should you and the BBC be telling people what we stand for and leaving the decision to the judgement of the ballot box? Surely that's the right thing to do?

ANDREW MARR:

Sure, we're …

LORD ASHDOWN:

Why do you spend so much time looking into the crystal ball when you could be telling people what we actually stand for and letting them make up their own mind?

ANDREW MARR:

Sure. Well we're looking at the polls rather than a crystal ball. But we will hold that thought and come back to you again in a moment. Turning to my guests in the studio: Michael Howard and Lord Kinnock. A general feeling, in fact I think Alistair Darling actually said it, that the Conservatives had had a good first week, Lord Kinnock?

LORD KINNOCK:

Not bad - mainly coming off the back of the quite extraordinary promise to reduce the level of rise in national insurance. And to have that and the reduction in the deficit funded out of efficiency savings (so-called) that have yet to be made and yet to be specified, and many of which - so far as we can understand - would actually generate cost in the short-term rather than save. Now there's been a spectacular degree of attention to that, and in the first week I think that that's given the Conservatives a certain comfort. I think that'll be dismantled over the three weeks to come as the questions get more pressing.

ANDREW MARR:

Because the other thing, I suppose Michael Howard, is that despite all … I've just been spanked by Paddy Ashdown for talking about the polls, but you know if you've had a better first week, it hasn't really been reflected in the change in the polls. Everything seems remarkably stable and unmoving at the moment.

MICHAEL HOWARD:

Well these things take time, don't they, to be reflected in the polls? I think it was a very good week for the Conservatives and I can't actually remember an election in which the opposition has so seized the initiative by putting forward a plan supported by the government's own advisers who are saying that these savings can be found; whereas the governments seems to be saying or the Labour Party seems to be saying we know we're wasting the money, but we're not going to do anything about it for another year.

ANDREW MARR:

Yes, I think you see sitting as it were in the lounge with the television turned on or reading the newspapers, for a lot of people it's just been very sterile. "We are going to make this percentage of cuts" and "No you're not", "Yes we are", and "You can't really do it" and so on, and I think people watching find it very, very hard to get a grip on this campaign.

LORD KINNOCK:

I think there's something in that. I think it's also the case - and I'm sure Michael will agree - that elections as processes are rather more sterile than they used to be because they involve less contact with the public (mainly for security reasons) and less direct confrontation, which is why the leaders' debate is going to provide some refreshment from that, though that is likely to be quite hygienic as well. Now there's difficulty coming from that in that elections then are not igniting the public's imagination and interest. However since the economy is absolutely the dominant issue of this election, and since people need to know what's going to happen to them, their families, their jobs, it is attention to those details - sterile or not - that's going to determine the outcome of the election, which is why I think Gordon's going to win.

ANDREW MARR:

Michael Howard?

MICHAEL HOWARD:

I agree with an awful lot of what Neil has said, though not his conclusion, and the debates are going to make this election different. And of course there's a danger about the debates, which is that (as we know from the American experience) people tend to judge the debates largely on what people like you tell them was the outcome; and that is determined as much by the difference between expectation and performance as performance itself, and people's expectations of Gordon Brown are very low and he will do better than they expect.

ANDREW MARR:

At least with the debates, whatever the rest of the media says and the spin doctors say, at least people will be able to watch them and make up their own minds. I mean that seems to be the difference.

LORD KINNOCK:

That's progress - of that I'm certain - where democracy and technology have come together; and eventually, I think because of Gordon Brown's openness, there's been an agreement which naturally Mr Cameron fully agreed with - and rightly so - to have this debate. So that will be a really acceptable and welcome innovation. But I think that Michael's right in the sense that the debates themselves, going by American and French experience, tend to be rather more pallid than the expectation.

ANDREW MARR:

Sure. But given that Gordon Brown is still well behind in the polls at this point, how important is next week's debate going to be to him?

LORD KINNOCK:

Well it'll be helpful. Of that there is no doubt because what he'll be able to manifest is mastery of the issues and also his resilience and character. And in the circumstance in which the country is now as a result of global financial disaster, it is character and resilience that I'm certain that the people, when they reflect on it, will be looking for.

ANDREW MARR:

Yuh. Let me bring in Paddy Ashdown again, if I may. You've said you'd have torn people's arms off to be able to be up there in the debate with the other leaders in your day. What does Nick Clegg need to do? What sort of … How is he going to stand out in this debate and really make people think again?

LORD ASHDOWN:

He is a very attractive, Andrew, an extremely attractive politician the more you see of him, and I think you see there a firm set of beliefs and I think a remarkable capacity to speak in a language of ordinary people. I'm not a great person for giving advice to my successors, but if I were speaking to Nick, I'd say be yourself. I think the country thinks it knows Gordon Brown and doesn't much like what it sees. I don't think it understands what Mr Cameron, doesn't know what Mr Cameron stands for. If he is himself, I think he'll do very well. By the way, can I come back to a discussion you had earlier on about the debate? I think the Tories have done well in their first week, but I think they've done well by abandoning their core message and I think they will pay a price for that. This is a kind of Sarah Palin moment where they (laughter) grab for a piece of populism and abandon the core message. I mean I've always thought that the real problem with the Conservative Party …

ANDREW MARR:

Okay.

LORD ASHDOWN:

… is that they have not bottomed out their propositions in the way that Tony Blair did in 1997. And we thought they were about reducing the deficit and now we discover they're about electoral handouts. I think that will do them damage.

ANDREW MARR:

Alright. Without picking up on all of that, Michael Howard, what's the elephant trap ahead for your party, do you think? What do you have to avoid doing, given that you're ahead and all the rest of it, in the next couple of weeks?

MICHAEL HOWARD:

I think we have to try and keep hold of the initiative. I've every confidence that we'll be able to do that, and it's a very remarkable thing to have been able to do in this first week. I don't see any reason why we can't continue to do it. I think the debates will be important. I hope that that will be another staging post on the road to a Conservative victory.

ANDREW MARR:

And you don't think you've offered too much in terms … you know on the one hand …?

MICHAEL HOWARD:

Not at all because it's been very carefully costed. For heaven's sake, these plans were produced by people who were advising the government just a few months ago - the government's own advisers; endorsed by over a hundred business leaders, some of whom were on Gordon Brown's own council of economic advisers. Now he says these people whom he appointed were deceived.

ANDREW MARR:

Alright. What does Gordon Brown have to do?

LORD KINNOCK:

(over) I think they've already fallen into the elephant trap. And the elephant trap, as you suggest, is to make their big giveaway right at the start of the campaign, leaving weeks for it to unravel in so far as it was ravelled in the first place. And the consequence is that anything further they do will be seen to be also, also uncosted and irresponsible, and that's not the kind of gamble that the British people want to take.

ANDREW MARR:

You've fought a couple of elections …

LORD ASHDOWN:

(over) I think they have undermined their core message here.

ANDREW MARR:

Alright.

LORD KINNOCK:

Paddy's right.

LORD ASHDOWN:

They've undermined their core message.

ANDREW MARR:

Okay, you both agree on that. Neil Kinnock, you've fought a few elections in your time; lost the last one. What's your advice to Gordon Brown? What does he have to avoid doing in the next few weeks?

LORD KINNOCK:

I think he's got to be himself and let his character come through. Now talking of attractive politicians, of course Gordon has got a radio face (laughter) and nothing can get away from that. But I actually think that in so far as these things matter, that evidence of dedication, of hard work, of total commitment to the national interest, cragginess if you like is going to work to his advantage.

ANDREW MARR:

(over) Craggy …

LORD KINNOCK:

(over) Just be himself.

ANDREW MARR:

Sorry, Lord Ashdown, just very, very briefly, one sentence - what does Nick Clegg have to avoid?

LORD ASHDOWN:

I think he has to avoid probably getting himself too engaged in the knockabout between those two who are largely I think discredited by many who would be wanting some different alternative …

ANDREW MARR:

Okay.

LORD ASHDOWN:

… and be himself.

ANDREW MARR:

Alright.

LORD ASHDOWN:

Yes, Gordon Brown, the Captain Ahab de nos jours (laughter) but the public knows him and I don't think they want anymore.

ANDREW MARR:

Craggy Captain Ahab and all the rest of it.

LORD KINNOCK:

That meets Cameron, the white whale.

ANDREW MARR:

There's a lot more of this to come.

INTERVIEW ENDS

E-mail this to a friend

Printable version