PLEASE NOTE "THE ANDREW MARR SHOW" MUST BE CREDITED IF ANY PART OF THIS TRANSCRIPT IS USED On Sunday 26th September 2010, Andrew Marr interviewed Labour Party leader Ed Miliband. ANDREW MARR: Now then a marathon brotherly contest, which ended in a cliffhanger. But there is no time for Ed Miliband to relax and savour his victory in the Labour Leadership race because on Tuesday he's going to have to make the speech of a lifetime, telling the faithful gathered here in Manchester exactly where he wants to lead the party and explaining to the millions watching beyond how one day he would like to lead the country as Prime Minister. So no pressure at all. Good morning … ED MILIBAND: Good morning. ANDREW MARR: … and welcome and indeed congratulations on your victory. ED MILIBAND: Thank you very much. ANDREW MARR: Have you had a sort of proper settled chat with your brother, David, about it all, and put to him his future and his future in a shadow cabinet? ED MILIBAND: We haven't got to that point yet. We've had a brief chat yesterday. I mean he has shown extraordinary generosity and graciousness to me both in public and in private, and he now wants me to get on with the job of leading the party in the interests of the party and indeed the country. And you know I love him so much, and you know with characteristic generosity he's handled this whole process absolutely brilliantly. ANDREW MARR: And yet last night no coming together of the two camps, no social interaction at all? ED MILIBAND: I mean social interaction, absolutely. I spent time with him, and people from each side so to speak were spending time with each other. ANDREW MARR: But you haven't started to talk about what role he might play? ED MILIBAND: No, I think it's too early for that. I think it's too early for that. You know yesterday was a very close result, as you said. He needs time to think about the contribution he can make. I think he can make a very big contribution to British politics, but he needs the space to do that. And you know we've got shadow cabinet elections next week actually after this conference is over, so there's a bit of time for all that. ANDREW MARR: He looked pretty shattered, I have to say, after it all. He must be pretty despondent about all of this? ED MILIBAND: Well he wasn't despondent with me. Obviously he will be disappointed, but he, as I say, showed amazing, amazing generosity to me; and right from the get go when the result was announced in private in the room. ANDREW MARR: And what about your mother? Is she cross with you for doing this, or is she just pleased? ED MILIBAND: I think she's relieved that the contest is over, put it that way. She's certainly not cross. ANDREW MARR: And you've spoken to her? ED MILIBAND: I have spoken to her, yeah, and she's obviously you know pleased for me and disappointed for him. But I think, as I say, she's pleased it's over. ANDREW MARR: If it's too early to discuss with your brother what role he might play in the shadow cabinet, do you have in your head the top jobs that you want to give out already? I mean you've had a long time to think about this, so … ED MILIBAND: Well I mean you say I've had a long time to think about it. I haven't been assuming victory. I've been you know fighting right to the end of this contest, and indeed I was right to do so given what a close contest it is. No, I haven't decided that yet. I'll take my time about that. As I say, we've got the election for the shadow cabinet next week, and then I'll make my decisions depending on who's elected. But I think we've got a huge team of talent - not least among the leadership contenders, all of the leadership contenders - but also among many other people. And I'm very clear, Andrew, that I'm going to bring together all the talents from across our party. There's absolutely no business here of any kind of sense of you know who supported whom. ANDREW MARR: But not Lord Mandelson, presumably? ED MILIBAND: Well I don't think he's vying to get back into the shadow cabinet at the moment. But what I would say to you is that you know the past is another country, as far as I'm concerned. Some people have said some things during this leadership campaign on all sides. I think it's actually been, as Polly Toynbee said, a very well-mannered, civilised contest. But, as far as I'm concerned, it doesn't matter what people said before. I want to use their talents for the good of the Labour Party and the country. ANDREW MARR: Since you were obviously listening to Polly Toynbee and David Aaronovitch there, what about what they said about the nature of the electoral system that you've won? You won a majority of the union votes, which puts you over the edge, but isn't it absurd in this day and age to have a system where one individual can have up to twelve votes? ED MILIBAND: Well just a second on that. I mean if you look at the number of people who cast their votes, I got more votes than any other candidate. If you looked at this as a one member/one vote system, if you like, I got I think 170,000 votes, which was more than anybody else. So … ANDREW MARR: If you count every union vote the same as every MP's vote? ED MILIBAND: Sure. But the union members, just to be very clear about this, voted as individuals. It wasn't some block vote system. And you know why did union members vote for me in large numbers? Because I think I was talking about things that matter to working people in this country. Not just issues of low pay, which is an important issue and one I talked about in my campaign, or inequality; but issues around tuition fees and how people can get on and how their kids can get on in life, housing. So you know I think we should have great respect for the nurses, the … ANDREW MARR: Sure, but … ED MILIBAND: … you know the people up and down this country, the local government workers, all of the people who voted for me in this election. ANDREW MARR: If there is some anger and bitterness still around - and there certainly was last night about aspects of this - much of it is about the way that the union part of the voting was conducted; that you know it was meant to be absolutely neutral and yet they were handing out ballot forms with magazines with your picture all over them and nobody else's picture. And people say that's dodgy, that's not fair. ED MILIBAND: Well unions have always made recommendations, and in the 1994 elections they made recommendations and they were largely ignored and people voted for Tony Blair. In the 2007 deputy leadership contest, I think the union recommendations were followed. So I think people make up their own … ANDREW MARR: Do you think it was a fair playing field? ED MILIBAND: Well I think people make up their own minds. I think we've got to give people respect. And just to say this. Why did some of the trade unions endorse me? Not because there was some kind of cabal that made that decision, but because union members came to the hustings that we had - and you know we had an interminable number of hustings … ANDREW MARR: Indeed. ED MILIBAND: … including for the trade unions - and they then fed back to their leadership, their representatives about who they wanted to support. So you know I think there's no perfect system. Lots of people voted in this election. More people voted for me than for David Cameron in his election, and I'm very … obviously pleased I've won but also pleased with the number of people who did vote. ANDREW MARR: And yet in front of the television cameras last night, the union bosses were basically saying we've got our man. ED MILIBAND: I'm nobody's man. I'm my own man, and I'm very, very clear about that. And you know do I think that we need to understand that trade unions have an important role in our society? Yes, they do because trade unions can provide very important representation for people and, frankly, strikes always have to be a last resort for trade unions. But I'm very … ANDREW MARR: (over) Well let me test you on that actually because I mean the British Airways strike is still hovering over that organisation. What's your message to those people? ED MILIBAND: Well my message to both sides in any dispute is get round the table and sort it out and avoid … ANDREW MARR: Avoid a strike? ED MILIBAND: .. and make striking a last resort. It should always be a last resort. And, look, we do face an issue in relation to the cuts and what I heard at the TUC from the vast majority of trade union leaders was a sense of responsibility - a sense of responsibility that they are very worried about the cuts and the impact they're going to have, but they've got to build alliances with those who use public services as well as those who work in them … ANDREW MARR: And you've got Bob Crow saying we must have a winter of discontent. We must get out there, we must … ED MILIBAND: Well you know Bob … I'm certainly not Bob Crow's man. You know what we're not going to have, what I'm not going to have - and I think what most sensible trade union leaders know - is that we're not going to have a whole long list of heroic failures of the trade union movement as we've seen in the past. We've got to have maturity from the trade union movement, we've got to have responsibility. And we will have responsibility and I will be doing everything I can to make sure that that happens. ANDREW MARR: Well giving another example. At the conference, the Conservative conference next week, BBC people are planning to strike to put that off the air. What would be your message to them? That's partly over pensions, which is going to be something which affects huge numbers of public sector people. ED MILIBAND: Look, again I'm not going to adjudicate on every strike. But what I am going to say to you is that they should always be a last resort. It should always be the last thing that people turn to. Now the right to strike is an im… is an important thing … ANDREW MARR: (over) It's putting the Conservative Party conference off the air? ED MILIBAND: Oh look, I mean you know I'm not going to sort of try and obliterate the Conservative Party conference. The BBC people have to make their own decision about what they're going to do, but you get my general attitude. ANDREW MARR: When I was talking to Gordon Brown about the BA strike, for instance, he wouldn't say don't strike. I mean he was very careful to keep … to stay on the fence. ED MILIBAND: See I don't think it's about staying on the fence. I think it's about how can you help to sort out a problem, and I'm not sure often that megaphone diplomacy from politicians helps very much. But you get my message, Andrew. My message is very clear, which is strikes are a last resort; responsibility is very important. I think there's a huge responsibility on the government, by the way, when it comes to the cuts and the way they go about these cuts … ANDREW MARR: (over) The reason … ED MILIBAND: … to properly talk to the employees who will be affected by them. And you know I think they're going about the cuts in an irresponsible way and we'll perhaps go into that later on. ANDREW MARR: We certainly will. The reason I'm pressing this is that it may very well happen that over this winter and into the spring, there will be massive demonstrations and cuts, anti-cut strikes, and you will be under enormous pressure to be there shoulder to shoulder with the trade union leaders who helped put you into this job. ED MILIBAND: Well you know don't sort of … you shouldn't play it up and we shouldn't play it up. I think, as I've said, going on strike … I mean strikes are often a sign of failure because they mean that all other routes haven't been sorted out, and you get my very clear drift, which is about responsibility, about … I want to build support for an agenda that says that the way this coalition is going about the cuts is irresponsible. We won't do that if we have overblown language, overblown rhetoric, and if we actually look like there's irresponsibility. And I think all … most trade union leaders I think have a pretty clear sense of that. ANDREW MARR: One of the many commentators commenting on you today - James Forsyth in fact in the Mail on Sunday - says that you have a very "audacious and bold agenda." You want to take Britain to the Left in the way that Margaret Thatcher took Britain to the Right. Is that true? ED MILIBAND: I think that those labels don't help. My … ANDREW MARR: They don't help you now, but I'm asking … ED MILIBAND: (over) Well that's not the way I would see my leadership. It's not about some lurch to the Left, absolutely not. Look, I'm for the centre ground of politics, but it's about defining where the centre ground is. You see my issue about what happened to New Labour is that at the beginning, we were a radical and reforming government. We were people who were hungry for change in Britain. We said there are injustices, there are problems in our society, we need to sort them out. I'm afraid we became the establishment; and when you become the establishment, you get kicked out of power. Now I think there are big injustices that we need to deal with in Britain - many of them affecting so-called Middle England in this country. People who are working hard, working long hours. They don't have enough time to see their kids. They're worried about their kids getting into debt. They're worried about housing. They're the people I want to speak for in this country. And you know all these characterisations about Red Ed, I mean they are both tiresome and also rubbish, frankly. ANDREW MARR: Well let me test you a little bit on that then because … ED MILIBAND: I mean my dad, if he were … you know if he was alive, would be saying the idea that my son is Red Ed is not something he would recognise. ANDREW MARR: (over) Acknowledge. You're no Marxist. ED MILIBAND: Exactly. ANDREW MARR: What about the role of the state? In his memoirs, Tony Blair painted a pretty clear picture that you know Labour had put money into the health service, put money into education and all the rest of it; hadn't got the changes on the ground that you wanted, so you did more and more and more from the centre. Lots of directives, lots of targets, lots of centrally controlled Whitehall finger-pointing at different parts of the state. And he concluded that that wasn't working. It had gone as far as it could and you did need to break down the central bureaucracy and spread power out much more radically around the country. ED MILIBAND: Yuh, I agree with … ANDREW MARR: Well that's what the coalition is doing too. ED MILIBAND: Well I don't think so. They've got a different view. But, as far as I'm concerned … ANDREW MARR: You'd agree with that? ED MILIBAND: … I think we did go too far on targets. You see I think that there was a good idea, and I actually think what the coalition is doing in removing some of the basic targets about 18 weeks waiting in the health service or two week cancer guarantee, I think that's completely wrong. But I'm afraid there was an audit and target culture which grew up and it did make public … ANDREW MARR: (over) Is that what you mean about being establishment? ED MILIBAND: Well I think it's part of it. But, look, you know you raise Tony's book and the last chapter of his book. You know there are some things I disagree with in that book and they perhaps illustrate … ANDREW MARR: Such as? ED MILIBAND: Yeah, well let me just make this point. You see he says on the banking crisis look this was just a sort of strange episode, and essentially I think his characterisation is you know we shouldn't … we should be worried about government regulating too much. Now of course we've always got to be cautious about those things, but I think in a way he highlights the problem. New Labour got stuck in an old orthodoxy, which said deregulation is going to be the answer; and actually in the banking system, it was absolutely not the answer. Now we've got to be reformers of the banking system, big reformers, and that is going to require a role for government in my view. ANDREW MARR: And so when he says deviate a millimetre away from New Labour and you can't win an election, you disagree with that? ED MILIBAND: I do disagree with that. You see I think New Labour was right to say we've got to appeal to all sections of society, but I think the idea that we take a sort of 1990s formula for the future is wrong, in my view. Take the issue of the banks. I think you don't have to be Left Wing to think that some of the excesses we saw at the top of society were wrong and unjustified. Of course the people creating wealth, there need to be incentives; but for people destroying wealth, people were rightly appalled by that. Now you know I don't think it's Left Wing to say that actually something needs to be done about that. And I've talked about the High Pay Commission, for example. I think we also got stuck on if you like immigration and … ANDREW MARR: Let me ask about immigration because it's very interesting. ED MILIBAND: Sure. ANDREW MARR: You've said that you weren't hearing as a party what a lot of your traditional supporters were saying about immigration. ED MILIBAND: Yuh. ANDREW MARR: What you haven't said is what you'd now do about it. ED MILIBAND: Okay, well let me say that. I defend free movement of labour in Europe because I think the chance for British people to work abroad is important and I don't think we can sort of close down our borders within Europe. But the question is what goes alongside that? And what I was hearing up and down the country was people saying, "I don't … I'm not prejudiced against Polish people. But what I am worried about is that my wages and conditions seem to be being driven downwards." Now that was about New Labour's old orthodoxy, which says the answer is always going to be more and more flexible labour markets, as we put it. Now what did that mean for a lot of people? That meant driving down wages and conditions. Housing is another example. We … ANDREW MARR: Sorry, so what can you do about is my question? ED MILIBAND: Well, for example, across Europe there are ways in which you can provide protection, so that agency workers aren't used to undercut workers who are working alongside those agency workers. Or you can ensure that when people are posted abroad, you ensure that wages and conditions in the host country aren't undermined. And I think somehow people felt - and I'm afraid they were right in certain respects - we didn't get it. We were still saying free movement of labour in Europe is just an unalloyed good thing. There's nothing else we need to change. ANDREW MARR: Right, okay. ED MILIBAND: And it's about that ability to change and actually the capacity of a new generation to understand the need for change that my leadership is about. ANDREW MARR: Right. It's also going to have to be about cutting the deficit … ED MILIBAND: Yuh. ANDREW MARR: … because the deficit does need to be cut, and so far you haven't explained how and where you would cut the deficit. Can I start by asking whether you basically share Alistair Darling's analysis and numbers about the timing and scale of the cut? ED MILIBAND: Well broadly I think it's the right starting point. Let me explain. I'm not going to oppose every cut that the coalition comes up with. They're going to come up with their Comprehensive Spending Review on October 20th. It wouldn't be responsible and it wouldn't be credible to say we oppose every cut that they come forward with. I will look at each of their proposals on their merits. As far as Alistair Darling's plan is concerned, I think we should keep looking at that plan, see how we can improve it. So, for example, I think we can do more on taxation from the banks just as one example. The coalition government … ANDREW MARR: You can't get much money from the banks … ED MILIBAND: Well … ANDREW MARR: … compared to what you need to plug this huge, huge gap. ED MILIBAND: No and there will have to be reductions in public spending. But what … ANDREW MARR: Where? ED MILIBAND: Well we're not in government and it's for the coalition to come forward with their proposals and I will judge them on their merits, and I'm very clear about that. ANDREW MARR: (over) But you said when you were campaigning that the next Labour Leader is going to have to come up with some hard answers on this, and I'm asking you what are the hard answers? ED MILIBAND: Well I'm giving you a very clear … I'm giving you a very clear position, which is what I said in the campaign. Alistair Darling's plan is our starting point in terms of the timing of the deficit reduction. I've said I think we can do some more on tax. Why is that important to take more from the banks? Partly they cau… Let me just make this point. They caused the crisis, but also the government should be doing everything it can to protect people up and down this country who are reliant on public services and who are going to be paying the cost of these cuts. ANDREW MARR: Sure. But as I come back to it, the actual quantity of money there isn't really enough to start. Now you've opposed the rise in VAT to 20%, for instance. That means that you have to plug a very big tax gap. ED MILIBAND: Well no, no. ANDREW MARR: Well you do. ED MILIBAND: No, you're misunderstanding something, Andrew. The coalition government hasn't just said we're accepting Alistair Darling's plan. They've come along and added tens of billions of pounds of tax rises and spending cuts on top of Alistair Darling's plan. Now I think that is … Let me just make this point. I think that is economically dangerous and there are warning signals in our economy. I don't agree with Mr Cameron that we're out of the danger zone, as he said yesterday. I think that's complacent. And I also think that they want to say the only thing that matters in our society is to reduce the structural deficit or eliminate the structural deficit over the next four years. I don't agree with that because what I say to you is that that will inflict huge damage on our communities. So deficit reduction … ANDREW MARR: (over) But even for your plan, the test. … ED MILIBAND: … deficit reduction, yes … ANDREW MARR: Yuh. ED MILIBAND: … but at a cautious pace and in a way that is going to help our economy, not hinder it. ANDREW MARR: But the test of credibility is actual hard proposals about closing that gap. If you're not going to be in favour of the rise in VAT, you have to have other tax increases to cover that. What are they? ED MILIBAND: Well no, let me just make this point to you. We put some proposals forward at the election around tax. I've said also on the bank levy, I think we can do more. And then on the spending side, the cuts in spending, we will look at the proposals that the government comes forward with and we will say which ones we agree with and which ones we disagree with. And I think that's the right and responsible thing to do. We're not in government at the moment, Andrew … ANDREW MARR: Sure. ED MILIBAND: … doing a whole comprehensive spending review. It's not for us … ANDREW MARR: (over) No, but some sense of what you would do if you were in their position is the only way people can judge really what kind of politician you are. What I'm proposing to you is, for instance, you would have to do much more on income tax. You've have to take the 50p rate much further down the scale. You'd certainly have to tax more in order to protect some of the public services you want to protect. ED MILIBAND: No, I honestly think you're misunderstanding the reality here. The reality is that we had a plan at the election. I'm saying to you I think we could do somewhat more on tax for example through the banks. But we will also not oppose every cut this coalition government comes forward with. But they're coming along with thirty or forty billion pounds of extra cuts in public spending over and above what we were proposing. That is a big and profound difference. It's profound for our economy and it is profound for communities up and down the country. ANDREW MARR: Do you accept that there are very large numbers of public sector workers who are going to have to lose their jobs? ED MILIBAND: I think some public sector workers would have lost their jobs under us, yes. And I'm not and I'm not … ANDREW MARR: (over) And what about pensions? What about public sector pensions? ED MILIBAND: Well I actually think that we did reform public sector pensions. And we'll look at the proposals that John Hutton comes forward with because he's been sent off to do a commission on this, but we had a set of proposals to reform public sector pensions. Let's see what the government comes up with. ANDREW MARR: Okay. ED MILIBAND: Look, there is a difference here between being in opposition and being in government … ANDREW MARR: Sure, I accept that. ED MILIBAND: … and I am going to be a responsible opposition. I'm not coming on this programme and saying to you I'm against every single cut this government comes up with. I'm saying let's look rationally at what they come up with. That's the responsible thing to do. ANDREW MARR: Well let's look at the biggest area of public spending of all, which is welfare. ED MILIBAND: Yuh. ANDREW MARR: Looking at what the coalition propose, they seem to think that something like half a million people on invalidity benefit or whatever it's called these days are going to have to move out of that and either back into jobs or onto unemployment benefit. There is a huge problem with people on sickness benefits. Would you agree with that? ED MILIBAND: There is a problem on incapacity benefit, yes. And we did some reforms. James Purnell in particular came forward with reforms, which I think were good and I think this government is building on. Again I will look at the proposals that they come up with. I'm not going to say on this programme I'm against all of their reforms to welfare. I think we've got to make sure that we protect the most vulnerable people in our society who are genuinely long-term sick, and I think it's a minority who are malingering, frankly. But I think of course we've got to look at proposals to reform welfare. ANDREW MARR: Some people have said before you were elected, and again now, that you shirk really hard decisions; that you know you're comforting, you're friendly, but when it comes to really nasty decisions which are going to put peo… ED MILIBAND: (over) You mean like standing in this leadership election? ANDREW MARR: Standing … I thought you were going to say that. But, nonetheless, what about decisions which actually put the hackles up among your own natural supporters? Are you hard enough to take those kind of decisions? ED MILIBAND: Look of course I am, Andrew. And you know I wouldn't have embarked on this process, difficult as it was for my family, without a very clear sense of why I was doing it - because I think I am the change that Labour needs - and without a clear sense that I can take the toughest of decisions that you're required to do as Leader of the Opposition and hopefully as Prime Minister. ANDREW MARR: Well let's look at one of the other tough decisions being talked about at the moment, which is what happens to universal benefits because there are a lot of people who are relatively well off, sometimes very well off, who get free bus buses, who get free winter fuel allowance, who get all sorts of help with child credits and so on. Do you think it's time to look again because it's been a sort of almost ideological shibboleth that everybody must have the same benefits from the welfare state otherwise it's not the welfare state? In these tough times, does that need to be looked at again? ED MILIBAND: I personally don't think we should reopen the issue of universal benefits. ANDREW MARR: You don't? ED MILIBAND: Well I don't because I think that actually why do we give child benefit to families up and down this country? Because it's a recognition of the importance of family and the cost of children. And actually we know that means testing has real problems - real problems of people coming forward, real problems of stigma, real problems of missing out, the people in the middle that I've been talking about in the papers today that we really need to be addressing. So you know I'm all for speaking hard truths. I don't personally think that … ANDREW MARR: (over) That that's going to be … Okay. ED MILIBAND: … that undermining the universal welfare state is the right thing to do. I think actually there's a real attachment in this country. And that's why … ANDREW MARR: (over) And does that apply to sickness benefit as well?? ED MILIBAND: It does. That's why their deficit plan, the government's deficit plan is so dangerous. Because you see they've come along and said well, look, we don't care what Labour plan to do. We're just going to double it essentially. We're going to double the cuts. Now doubling the cuts has real hard implications because the reason why you're seeing such blood on the carpet in the papers around what's happening in Whitehall is precisely because I don't think they know how they're going to make these reductions. ANDREW MARR: One of the great issues around at the moment - we were talking about it during the paper review - is tuition fees and the future of university funding. ED MILIBAND: Yuh. ANDREW MARR: Now you're in favour of a graduate tax … ED MILIBAND: I am, yes. ANDREW MARR: … which means that people who go to university and get a good job or a well paid job have to pay back for the rest of their lives a lot more money. Have you any idea how much in effect extra income tax you're going to have to pay under your plan because you've been to university? ED MILIBAND: Well there's different models of this and we will obviously come forward with proposals at the appropriate time. But the modelling that's been done says you could pay between 0.3% and a maximum of 1.5 or 2% of your income for a fixed period of time - say 15 or 20 years. Now why is that a fairer system? It's a fairer system because it's based on a fundamental principle which says that the more you earn, the more you pay back through university education. The alternative is two things. Higher and higher tuition fees, which lead to higher and higher debts for people - and I'm afraid that does put people off going to university and is a burden on middle class families. And also let me just make this other point because it's important - a market in higher education. Now what does that mean? That means you pay more if you want to go to a good university; you pay less if you want to go to a less well funded university. That's not what I want. I want a kid from my constituency or any part of the country to be able to go to university or the top university on the basis of ability, not ability to pay. That is a big divide in British politics. I think Vince Cable's probably with me and David Cameron's somewhere else. But let's see … ANDREW MARR: (over) That may well be. ED MILIBAND: … let's see what the Browne Review proposes. ANDREW MARR: That may well be, but it does mean that people who get a high income, who've done well and haven't gone to university pay less tax than those who have. ED MILIBAND: Yeah and there's no perfect system. And again if I was telling you the easy thing, I'd say we can just fund it out of general taxation. We can't. I don't think general taxation will cope. By the way, for the universities as well, I think they should think very hard about the kind of system that parts of this government want because we're always going to have a battle between students who fear debt and universities that want to be properly funded. Let's have a fair system for funding higher education, which can give proper funding to our universities and also have fairness for students. ANDREW MARR: And since we're talking about people who are well off, what about this High Pay Commission? How exactly would that work? You can't presumably in the modern world where people can move from country to country stop people being paid a certain amount of money? ED MILIBAND: No, you can't. ANDREW MARR: (over) Or can you? ED MILIBAND: I'm not proposing a maximum wage, but what I am saying is that we need to look at all the issues around corporate governance, around transparency of companies, around some of the tax issues as well because unless we address this issue of rising inequality in our country, Andrew, we're just going to find that we get more and more unequal and the gap between rich and poor grows wider. Look, you don't need to be Left Wing to think that actually at some point you've got to address this issue and you've got to think about the responsibilities yes of people on welfare but yes also the responsibilities of the richest people in our society too. ANDREW MARR: It was a bigger day yesterday and a bit of a shocker for an awful lot of people. There's still quite a lot of bruised characters hanging around downstairs, former Blairite ministers and all the rest of it. What are you going to say to them to ensure that they stay in the tent and that they don't walk away - and I include your brother in that? ED MILIBAND: Unity is my watchword. Unity is so important for our party. I recognise the talent we have across our party and I think there is huge talent from people who supported me and people who didn't support me, and that is my most important message. And the other thing for our party, Andrew, is humility because we lost the General Election and what we're not going to do under my leadership is somehow blame the electorate for voting us out. We should blame ourselves. And if I've got one message for my colleagues, it's let's show humility this week. Let's show to the electorate that we're a Labour Party that understands the journey we have to travel to win back trust. ANDREW MARR: And are you confident that your brother is going to be in your shadow cabinet? ED MILIBAND: I think he'll make his own decisions. I think he's got a big future in British politics, but he'll announce his own intentions at the appropriate moment,. ANDREW MARR: What would you say to him now? ED MILIBAND: Well that I love him very, very much, and I think that you know he is such a fantastic person. And you only need to see the way he's reacted to this whole contest to see what an amazing person he is and I count myself very lucky to have him as a brother. ANDREW MARR: And to the people like Tony Blair and Mandelson and Alistair Campbell and David Blunkett who said some pretty hard things about you? ED MILIBAND: Look, my door is always open. My door is always open for advice. The people you mention have been towering figures in our party. They've got wisdom. They didn't back me, but that doesn't matter to me. What matters to me is the future of the Labour Party and the future of this country. ANDREW MARR: And is New Labour still alive or is that era over now? ED MILIBAND: No, I think the era of New Labour has passed. A new generation has taken over and it's not about the old labels anymore. ANDREW MARR: Well there we are. New generation, not New Labour. For now, Ed Miliband, thank you very much. ED MILIBAND: Thank you. INTERVIEW ENDS
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