Transcript of Lord Mandelson interview

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On Sunday 27th February Andrew Marr interviewed Lord Mandelson.

ANDREW MARR:

Many descriptions have been applied to Peter Mandelson over the course of his colourful career. The one he chose for himself was The Third Man, a reference to his central role in redefining the old Labour Party alongside Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. Now that Ed Miliband has declared New Labour dead, what does its chief architect and strategist think of the direction which the party he loves is going. Lord Mandelson, good morning.

LORD MANDELSON:

Good morning.

ANDREW MARR:

Now you have been observing from a distance what's been going on since Ed Miliband - I think slightly to your surprise, as to many other people's surprise - won the Labour Party leadership. You have been pretty close to him from time to time. What do you make of how he's doing?

LORD MANDELSON:

Well what I say in the new chapter of the book, the paperback edition of which is being published tomorrow, is that I like Ed Miliband, I support Ed Miliband, and I will be batting for him to win the next election with Labour whatever course he follows. Now the reason I like him is because I think he has real ability, he has a strong personality, and I like what he stands for. I like fair chances you know in our country, I like strong communities. But also because Ed is more a pluralist than a tribalist. But the point I make in the book is that I think he was too quick to pronounce New Labour dead. I don't think he did himself any favours by doing that. But if he is going to pronounce it dead, then he's got to provide …

ANDREW MARR:

Something else.

LORD MANDELSON:

… an alternative vision, an alternative strategy that is going to deliver as much success for our party as New Labour and Tony Blair did. But, secondly, I want him to keep alive the progressive project that we started. That was to build a progressive coalition of voters that reach beyond Labour, you know to voters in other parties or in none. But also - and this I think is very important - to keep open the possibility of working together with the Liberal Democrats because although I think that we have a very good chance of winning the next election, the voters may decide to give us a hung parliament …

ANDREW MARR:

(over) So do you think …

LORD MANDELSON:

… and the option of a coalition might arise. And I think it would be a great error for Ed and the Labour Party if they did anything to close down that possibility, that option of coming together and working with the Liberal Democrats in future.

ANDREW MARR:

There is a sort of sense that you pick up in the Labour Party - ho, ho, ho, Nick Clegg's done incredibly badly; he's toast, they're over, and all we need to do is sort of throw rotten tomatoes at them.

LORD MANDELSON:

Yuh and it's a very dangerous complacency. Look …

ANDREW MARR:

You think he might do a little better than people suspect, Clegg?

LORD MANDELSON:

Well I think that there are many in the Labour Party who think that you know the Liberal Democrats have simply finished themselves. I don't quite take that view. I know it's easy to form that judgement now, but it's three, four years before the next election and anything could happen. And I think it would be a mistake for the Labour Party too only to think that they have to reach out to the more sort of Left Wing voters or supporters for the Liberal Democrats. I think they have to talk to the leadership as well.

ANDREW MARR:

And what about tax?

LORD MANDELSON:

Tax, I think that we have to maintain a very strong position of fiscal responsibility. I mean when I say that I want Ed to retain the essence of New Labour, it's that combination of economic competence and fiscal responsibility, on the one hand, and fairness and social justice on the other. Now when it comes to fiscal responsibility, we have to demonstrate clearly how and over what period of time we're going to reduce the deficit because that's what the public wants. They don't like the fast and furious spending cuts that the government is making at the moment, I think in a rather foolhardy way.

ANDREW MARR:

Yes.

LORD MANDELSON:

But they will also want to see deficit reduction. And that will mean not only spending changes and cuts by a future Labour government, if we haven't reduced the deficit to the extent that we need to by then, and it will also mean a very difficult position on tax. We don't want to go into the election saying we're going to tax everyone to the hilt. Nor should we be making promises that we can't fulfil to cut people's taxes either.

ANDREW MARR:

Let me turn, if I may, to the front page story today as it were, which is Libya.

LORD MANDELSON:

Yuh.

ANDREW MARR:

Now you met Saif Gaddafi …

LORD MANDELSON:

(over) Last year.

ANDREW MARR:

… Colonel Gaddafi's second son, I think two or three times altogether?

LORD MANDELSON:

Yes. I don't want to exaggerate the conversations I've had with him or the number of times I've met him, but I did last year and the year before.

ANDREW MARR:

What impression did you form of him?

LORD MANDELSON:

I formed the impression that he was struggling. I mean, look, there are many people - not only members of Gaddafi's own family, but people in the ruling elite around him - who have cross cutting motives and interests. They also have divided loyalties. But I also drew the conclusion, not only talking to Gaddafi's son but to one or two others in the elite around Gaddafi, that there is a great deal of discontent about Gaddafi, there is a recognition that Libya has to go on to a different course such as a transition towards political pluralism, the emergence of new political leaders and parties, and a transition to democracy.

ANDREW MARR:

So what did you think when you saw him giving that extraordinary first speech saying you know, there's going, we're going to fight to the last bullet, we're not giving up?

LORD MANDELSON:

To be honest, I'd rather have had a couple of minutes with him beforehand to say that you know this sort of performance …

ANDREW MARR:

(over) But he made the wrong choice, didn't he?

LORD MANDELSON:

… this sort of performance in a very clumsy and ham-fisted way is not going to get you anywhere. But you see if you look at the speech and the subsequent interviews he's given, it's rather interesting. Superficially he gives the impression of saying you know we're going to fight to the very last bullet, but he's also talking about a different Libya emerging and why he doesn't want the country to be plunged into civil war - because it would make the emergence of a different Libya all the more difficult. Now you know I'm not saying that you know he is somebody who is sort of throwing himself into some great struggle for democracy. What I do believe, however, is that there are a lot of people both within the family and around Gaddafi who want Gaddafi to take a different course. Look, he could just continue as he is and plunge the country into all out civil war, but he could equally be given an offer to step back and allow a properly internationally supervised transition to democracy to take place. And of course all of us want him to take the latter course.

ANDREW MARR:

Sure. When New Labour, when Tony Blair reached out to Gaddafi and brought him in from the cold and there were great hosannas because he had given up his weapons of mass destruction, could it well not be that we were absolutely duped in this country; that actually …

LORD MANDELSON:

(over) Well obviously not. No because …

ANDREW MARR:

(over) Well what weapons of destruction did he actually have that we know that he got rid of?

LORD MANDELSON:

Andrew, I think people are in danger of forgetting that from the 1970s onwards Gaddafi was channeling funds to every single terrorist organisation not just in the Middle East, but in Northern Ireland as well.

ANDREW MARR:

The world had moved on by then.

LORD MANDELSON:

He stopped doing that. Secondly, he renounced his previous behaviour and his flirting with the creation of weapons of mass destruction.

ANDREW MARR:

Do you think he ever had any?

LORD MANDELSON:

Look, I don't … I don't know, Andrew. I wasn't sort of in Libya and I wasn't dealing with it at the time.

ANDREW MARR:

(over) Well I just … But it was crucial to the argument.

LORD MANDELSON:

(over) If there was any evidence or suggestion at all that he had weapons of mass destruction - for those to be in the hands of a man like Gaddafi, I tell you Tony Blair was absolutely right, with others, to do everything he could to bring Gaddafi into the cold. But …

ANDREW MARR:

(over) And he's been in touch, has he not, over the last couple of days?

LORD MANDELSON:

(over) But Andrew, let me just make … I'll come to that in a moment. When you bring somebody in from the cold like that, you don't then just sort of treat them like a pariah. You want to encourage the process of opening up, both in the economy and in politics. And I'll say this also. Tony Blair has been in touch with Gaddafi over the last two days, and I strongly support him in doing so.

ANDREW MARR:

Do you know what he said to Colonel Gaddafi?

LORD MANDELSON:

Well you have to ask him to comment on that. But what he will have been saying is very clear. You have an option now; you know you can follow one course or the other. And what I want you to do or what everyone wants you to do and what your own people want you to do is to step back. Stop this sort of constant sort of boxing in of yourself, this sort of last stand mentality, and allow - as I say - a proper internationally supervised transition to take place towards democracy to create the space for new political leaders and an alternative government in Libya to emerge.

ANDREW MARR:

At the time of the al-Megrahi release, I think you said it was "offensive" to suggest that there was any connection between that and oil interests. And I just put to you that knowing what we know now about the crucial involvement of people like Sir Mark Allen, who was an MI6 officer in Libya and is now working for BP, looking at the size of the BP deal that was signed at the time, and looking at the number of British oil workers involved, it's a very strange coincidence if the two things had nothing to do with each other.

LORD MANDELSON:

Well what I said at the time I was asked whether the then Labour government Prime Minister and myself included were somehow trying to deliver Mr al-Megrahi into the hands of the Libyans in return for a deal that BP had done.

ANDREW MARR:

But that's what was going on, wasn't it?

LORD MANDELSON:

It was precisely not what was going on and I'm glad that the examination that has taken place by the cabinet office and the papers reviewed has confirmed that that is the case.

ANDREW MARR:

Well Sir Gus O'Donnell said that the Labour government was doing everything it could to get Megrahi released.

LORD MANDELSON:

What the Labour government was trying to do was to normalise relations between Libya, its leadership and the rest of the world. And I see absolutely nothing wrong, incidentally, in companies like BP or Marks and Spencer or HSBC or all these other international brands playing their part in investing in and opening up the Libyan economy to the rest of the world because when you open up an economy, the opening up of politics tends to follow.

ANDREW MARR:

But surely there was a quid pro quo going on here? Surely the release of Megrahi and the signing of the big BP oil contracts were connected?

LORD MANDELSON:

No, they would not …

ANDREW MARR:

In no way, you think?

LORD MANDELSON:

I … Look …

ANDREW MARR:

You know?

LORD MANDELSON:

Look, I wasn't in the government in 2003 …

ANDREW MARR:

But you were close to all of this.

LORD MANDELSON:

… when Tony Blair, amongst others, first reached out to Gaddafi. Nor was I there in 2007. I was Europe's Trade Commissioner and going round the world and doing my job. So you'll have to ask others who had more direct responsibility, but …

ANDREW MARR:

(over) But you were close to Saif Gaddafi. Not close, but you knew him and you talked to him about al-Megrahi and you knew what was going on. And I just put to you that any normal person looking at what happened, looking at the deal, looking at what was said, would conclude the two had to be connected.

LORD MANDELSON:

Well you might think that most normal people would do that, but there are others with a more realistic and subtle turn of mind who know full well that you can and will inevitably separate these things, particularly when the British government had no responsibility for freeing Mr al-Megrahi. But let me just make this point to you also. Kate was saying in wonderful insights about Libya that anyone who sort of talks to anyone in Libya, any member of the Gaddafi family, they must be thinking about deals or investment. I for one have had no financial commercial involvement in any sort of deals or otherwise with Libya.

ANDREW MARR:

Alright.

LORD MANDELSON:

What I do want, like everyone else, is for this whole terrible affair to end peacefully.

ANDREW MARR:

Okay. For now, thank you very much indeed Lord Mandelson.

INTERVIEW ENDS

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