Transcript of Tessa Jowell interview

PLEASE NOTE "THE ANDREW MARR SHOW" MUST BE CREDITED IF ANY PART OF THIS TRANSCRIPT IS USED

On Sunday 24th April Andrew Marr interviewed Labour Shadow Cabinet Minister Tessa Jowell MP

ANDREW MARR:

So let's turn to Labour and its sense of direction, if it has one. What will the voters' message for Ed Miliband be on May 5th? I'm joined now from Warwickshire by the Shadow Cabinet Minister Tessa Jowell. Good morning and thank you for joining us on this fine morning.

TESSA JOWELL:

It's a pleasure and a very Happy Easter, Andrew, to you and all your I think long-suffering viewers who've tuned in this morning.

ANDREW MARR:

Oh dear! Oh right, well thank you for that.

TESSA JOWELL:

Perhaps I should say devoted viewers.

ANDREW MARR:

Devoted. Devoted is better.

TESSA JOWELL:

Devoted viewers who've tuned in on Easter Sunday. (laughs)

ANDREW MARR:

Devoted is better than long-suffering.

TESSA JOWELL:

It is.

ANDREW MARR:

Let me ask you about the mood inside the Labour Party at the moment because you can expect to pick up, you ought to pick up a great many council seats in these elections, and yet there is still a real puzzle in many people's minds about what your party stands for. And there is now going to be another Purple Book, I gather it's going to be called, which seems as if it's going to reopen some of the New Labour versus Old Labour divide of the past.

TESSA JOWELL:

Well there are sort of three questions in that. First of all, you know how is the campaign? The campaign on the doorstep across the country is going really very well indeed. And you know Labour's message is very clear: the concern about speaking up for the millions of families who are concerned about their living standards; the parents who are concerned, desperately concerned that their children are not going to do as well as they did; the breaking of what Ed Miliband has called "the British promise"; and the extent to which by the savagery of chosen cuts by the Tory led coalition communities are being weakened. So that's what we're hearing on the doorsteps across the country.

ANDREW MARR:

And do you think that Ed Miliband is really cutting through because a lot of people seem to think that you know nice guy and all the rest of it; he's not actually making the authoritative stamp on the political scene that he ought to?

TESSA JOWELL:

Well I think that this election campaign has proved a very important opportunity for Ed to sort of introduce himself to the voters across the UK, remembering there are elections both in Wales and in Scotland where I was earlier this week.

ANDREW MARR:

(over) It's a little late to introduce himself.

TESSA JOWELL:

No, no, no, not at all. You know we suffered a terrible defeat just under a year ago. Ed Miliband has been our leader for about eight months. The process of climbing back from a defeat of the scale that we suffered is a slow one, and he is playing the pace, the tone and the content of that recovery absolutely right. And it starts with listening to what people have to say and demonstrating that as a result of what people tell us, we will become different kinds of politicians, building very much from local communities up, recognising that for most people they judge politicians by their effect on their private lives and the opportunities that are created or denied for their families.

ANDREW MARR:

Right, so …

TESSA JOWELL:

And that's where support and understanding of Labour, Labour's message is very much developing.

ANDREW MARR:

So when it comes to this new document setting out new thinking for Labour, which is going to be called, we read, The Purple Book because it blends together the red of the socialism and the blue of the centre ground and is therefore a sort of New Labour approach in many ways, how does that square with a leader who announced when he became leader that the era of New Labour was over?

TESSA JOWELL:

Well again, Andrew, you know with great respect, I think you're getting a bit ahead of yourself. I'm one of the authors that will be collaborating with progress. I will be contributing a chapter on the good society, how communities become more powerful, how we move beyond an over-reliance on the state to deliver strong … and create and support strong communities. And the other authors will contribute in the same way. We've also got another if you like sort of vein of ideas which has been described as Blue Labour. You know people like me, Douglas Alexander, Liam Byrne, together with John Cruddas, Maurice Glasman, Ed Miliband, David Miliband are all involved in that thinking as well.

ANDREW MARR:

Right.

TESSA JOWELL:

So what you've got across the Labour Party is a great richness of new thinking, but also you know learning to do things differently because I think that the result of the last election was to show that people want a different kind of politics, different kind of politicians, and Labour is rising to that challenge.

ANDREW MARR:

One of the big stories across the papers over the last few days has concerned the telephone bugging issue, and I know that you were one of the prime targets for this and you've been in discussions. What are your reflections on where you've got to on this?

TESSA JOWELL:

Well I think because I'm actively involved in litigation, I think I shouldn't talk about my own case obviously. There are I think enormous concerns about the extent of this illegal activity in a national newspaper, and the important thing now is full support for and cooperation with the police inquiry in order … That's how you get to the bottom of extensive who knew what and for how long. But I think that there are three strands to this. I mean one is the role of the police in the earlier two inquiries. The second is the role of News of the World and what went on in the News of the World newsroom. And the third is the relationship between or… There has to be some kind of examination of the relationship between News of the World at that time and the police. And that's why I think - as Ed Miliband has said earlier this week - there may well be a very good case for a judicial inquiry, which Norman Fowler has also called for, once the police inquiry is concluded.

ANDREW MARR:

Tessa Jowell, thank you very much for joining us on this fine morning. Thank you.

TESSA JOWELL:

It's a pleasure. Thank you.

ANDREW MARR:

Thank you.

INTERVIEW ENDS

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