Harman: "nobody knows who's going to win"

On Sunday 13 June Andrew Marr interviewed Acting Labour Leader Harriet Harman MP.

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

ANDREW MARR:

The Labour Party is going to have five candidates to choose from when it comes to electing a new Leader, and voters have until late September to select a figure who's going to face David Cameron every week of the year across the House of Commons and lead the party through to the next General Election. Now in the meantime, the former Deputy Leader, Harriet Harman - now Leader of the Labour Party - is in charge, steering Labour through these first rather bewildering months in opposition, and she joins me now. Good morning, Harriet Harman.

HARRIET HARMAN:

Good morning.

ANDREW MARR:

You are Leader of the Labour Party. A lot of people say why didn't you stand?

HARRIET HARMAN:

Well I think I had a choice to make - either to lead the Labour Party through what is a very difficult time after an election defeat; or to throw my hat into the ring for the leadership. And I think that my duty and my responsibility as Deputy Leader was to step forward as Acting Leader because although we've been defeated in the General Election, we're not demoralised. We're very determined, and I think that this is a very crucial period. And we've got five fantastic candidates - all of whom would make excellent leaders of the party - and we don't know which one's going to win.

ANDREW MARR:

Well you have got five candidates, but four of them are men and one, Dianne Abbot, is a woman. You've spent all your political career, certainly in the House of Commons, arguing that women should be more prominent in politics; and your candidate as well, or the candidate you nominated - Diane Abbott - is still seen as the outsider in this race. Which is why I come back to the point, wouldn't it have been healthier from your perspective to have a senior, more mainstream - if I can put it that way - female candidate?

HARRIET HARMAN:

Well I think whatever happens after the leadership election - and we're unveiling our new leader on September 25th, on the Saturday of our conference - whatever happens, I'll be in the leadership team as Deputy, so we won't have an all-male team at the top. And I would discount all the talk about who's the outsider and who's the frontrunner because I think that political party elections are very, very difficult for people to predict and actually nobody knows who's going to win. And, as Diane said herself, she's going to give the boys a good run for their money.

ANDREW MARR:

Do you think there should be wider changes in the way Labour presents itself to the country in terms of gender?

HARRIET HARMAN:

Well I think it is very good that - and one of the reasons why I did nominate Diane is, I don't think we want to see an all-male leadership race and I think that it's going to be a much broader, better debate for that. But I also think …

ANDREW MARR:

The shadow cabinet point I was going to ask about.

HARRIET HARMAN:

Yes, I think … Yes, I think that and I have put forward a proposal because we're going to establish some new rules about how we elect the shadow cabinet, how the PLP elect the shadow cabinet, and I've put forward the proposal that there should be half men and half women. I mean that's the situation in the country as a whole - is 50% men and 50% women. And actually I think a balanced team of equal numbers of men and women is better decision making than actually a majority of men.

ANDREW MARR:

But given there are far more male MPs than female MPs on the Labour benches, do you think it's a runner as an idea? Do you think the party might go for that?

HARRIET HARMAN:

Well I hope so, and it's for the PLP to vote before the House rises for the summer. We've got 81 Labour women MPs. We've got a higher percentage of women MPs than we've ever had before. We've got some excellent experienced hands and we've got some very good, bright, new women. So there's no excuse not to have 50-50, so I'm hoping I'll be able to persuade my colleagues that actually equality is what Britain in the 21st century expects. They don't expect men to have the lion's share of the say and they want men and women to work together. Because women and men still lead quite different lives, although we believe in equality and there are things like childcare, family friendly employment, which are much higher up the agenda for women than they are for men.

ANDREW MARR:

There's a sense that a lot of people in the Labour Party around you feel that the new government is dumping even more on your economic failures - which were considerable - perhaps than you deserve. I can see sort of smoke coming out of Alistair Darling's ears as I read the papers. He's clearly squaring up for a big fight over this. So you know we're going to be facing cuts. The country seems to accept that and indeed be in favour of these cuts. What's the Labour Party's position going to be over the next few months?

HARRIET HARMAN:

Well I think that we always recognise that after public money had had to be spent supporting the economy through a global economic crisis, that we would need to bring the deficit down. But I think the country accepts bringing the deficit down, but I don't think it's true to say that the country accepts wholescale cuts in public services. I don't think that they accept the idea that you withdraw important investment, public investment in industry, and I'm glad we've been able to press David Cameron to continue with the tens of millions of pounds that we were putting into Nissan for their new green car. And I think you know the irony is they talk about the deficit, cutting the deficit - the Tories - but they're still planning to go ahead with the married man's tax allowance. So I think that what they're doing is they're trying to make out that the deficit is worse than it is as a pretext to go ahead with cuts in public services, but at the same time they're still offering to cut taxes. And we're going to hold them to account on this.

ANDREW MARR:

It sounds a bit business as usual, all of this. I just wonder to what extent you think the Labour Party has to rethink the kind of organisation it is, its connection with all those voters who didn't come out for you this time and the way it's organised and the way it does politics?

HARRIET HARMAN:

Well of course it's right that we should take … now is the time to do that, but we're not going to rethink our commitment to ensuring that top of the agenda is ensuring that we don't have higher unemployment, that people have got jobs and opportunities, that people have got good children centres and hospitals. We're not going to rethink that. We passionately believe in that. It's what matters for people in their lives. Yes of course we've got a new leadership election - we're going to be thinking about reengaging, there's going to be a big debate - but those fundamental principles, we're not going to sit back and be looking at our … you know, 'naval gazing', whilst the Tories use exaggerated predictions of the deficit in order to go ahead with a political agenda which will really hurt people in their lives.

ANDREW MARR:

A lot of people are asking where Gordon Brown is.

HARRIET HARMAN:

Well he's shortly going to be coming back over the next weeks to the House of Commons. He's obviously been you know reorganising the situation for his family and his working arrangements, and then he'll be back as a member of the Parliamentary Labour Party.

ANDREW MARR:

He'll be back taking a sort of active role, do you think, in political life?

HARRIET HARMAN:

I'm sure he will. He's elected as a Labour MP and has got a strong sense of duty about that.

ANDREW MARR:

Of the main candidates, you've nominated Diane Abbott. Are you going to express any kind of preference yourself? Or as Acting Leader, do you just stand back from all of that?

HARRIET HARMAN:

No, I mean I nominated Diane because I knew that the party wanted her to be on the ballot form. So that was about putting her on the ballot form, but I am absolutely neutral as between all the candidates. And you know I think a lot of people in the Labour Party are still making up their mind and they're looking very eagerly at the campaign to see who emerges, who can be a good Leader of the Opposition and a great Prime Minister for Labour.

ANDREW MARR:

Harriet Harman, we'll watch with great interest. Thank you very much for joining us this morning.

INTERVIEW ENDS

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