Transcript of Nick Clegg interview

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

On Sunday 1st May Andrew Marr interviewed Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg MP

ANDREW MARR:

The referendum campaign may have got off to a slight who cares kind of start, but the volume has certainly been turned up to ear splitting level. Nick Clegg's been out on the AV campaign trail. He's faced some pretty tough personal attacks himself, but he's given as good as he's got - talking about his friends in office as "the death rattle of a Right Wing clique" - and his colleague, Chris Huhne, has accused them of "Nazi tactics" and says changing our voting system is needed to keep out the very same Tories as he happens to be in power with just now. So it's hardly cosy and it makes you wonder how they're going to get on when they all settle down together again next week. Nick Clegg, it does seem that the Yes to AV campaign is in pretty dire straits.

NICK CLEGG:

Well let's remember what Thursday's about. If you think that everything's fine, that the way we do politics is absolutely perfect, then obviously vote no. But if you want to make it a little bit fairer, if you want to make MPs work a little bit harder for your vote, you want to make it a little bit better, then vote for change and vote for yes. And that at the end of the day is the kind of choice before us on Thursday. And I think a lot of people probably haven't really focused on it yet, so I think there is all to play for between now and Thursday.

ANDREW MARR:

So why is it, do you think, that at the beginning of the campaign Yes to AV was way up there topping the polls and it has plunged since then? What has gone wrong?

NICK CLEGG:

Well, look, I'm not going to start delivering a post-mortem on a process which hasn't even been completed yet. What I think is obvious…

ANDREW MARR:

The patient is ill, so you can discuss what's gone wrong with the treatment.

NICK CLEGG:

Well what I acknowledge is that at a time of some anxiety - and there's a lot of anxiety about in the country because of the economic situation - it's sometimes quite a challenge to persuade people that you know we need to change things, move with the times. But I think that when people decide how they're going to vote on Thursday, they'll decide that the system we had which worked for the 1950s isn't necessarily right for 2011. I personally think that many people will share my view that it cannot be right that most people in this country are represented by hundreds of MPs who've got in effect jobs for life, for whom most people didn't even vote for in the first … I mean call me old-fashioned, but I think it's not a bad thing in a democracy to get politicians to try and get the majority of people in their constituencies on their side, and that's of course what AV will do.

ANDREW MARR:

I come back to the question why have you been falling behind in the argument? As the battle has joined people have swung over to no change. Now why? What's gone wrong?

NICK CLEGG:

Well, as I say, I think there's still some way to go. We've got a significant few days to go. And I think partly because of the Royal wedding and all sorts of other great events - which quite rightly have kind of been much more in the forefront of people's minds - for many, many people, they won't make their up until the last minute.

ANDREW MARR:

Do you think this is remotely winnable?

NICK CLEGG:

Of course I do. Absolutely, of course I do. Look, I think the people who argue against a change have got to explain how they can defend the indefensible. I think it is very difficult to defend a system where you have one government after the next who are in power and have a considerable amount of power and yet only a minority of people have voted for them. It cannot be right to have hundreds of MPs in parliament basically with jobs for life, and yet a majority of their own constituents don't support them.

ANDREW MARR:

So why has it got so dirty?

NICK CLEGG:

Well, look, I certainly hoped at the beginning of the process - perhaps naively with hindsight - that this would be a debate which wouldn't actually be conducted by politicians sitting in television studios and wouldn't be seen through the prism of party politics. But hey, look, it's changed …

ANDREW MARR:

"Lies, misinformation and deceit" was what you said of, for instance, of the Prime Minister and the people around him.

NICK CLEGG:

Well, look, I mean I haven't sought to personalise it, but clearly in terms of the Yes and the No campaigns, I think the Yes campaign has been trying to make an argument, which is the current system doesn't work, it needs to be updated. It might have worked fifty years ago, it doesn't work now, and it needs to move. I think the other side have tried, if you like, to sow a lot of confusion by presenting a lot of …

ANDREW MARR:

By lying. That's what you said.

NICK CLEGG:

Yes, I think there's been a lot of misinformation put about to try and scare people. And this is at the end of the day a bit of a contest, isn't it? It always is when …

ANDREW MARR:

Well …

NICK CLEGG:

Can I just …

ANDREW MARR:

Yeah, sure.

NICK CLEGG:

… when you're talking about sort of fear and hope. And of course those who want to argue against change will try and amplify the fears and I'm trying to amplify the hope of a slightly better, slightly fairer, slightly more democratic system.

ANDREW MARR:

Yeah. In terms of what's fair and not fair, here is a poster that's been put out by your side, by the Yes side, which says 'Whose side are you on?' and it's got lots of parties: the Liberal Democrats, Labour, etcetera, over here. No, the Conservatives and the BNP, the British National Party. Is that fair? Is that reasonable?

NICK CLEGG:

Well what is true is that if you actually line up the political parties that support change against not change, the parties who support change - obviously the Liberal Democrats; Ed Miliband, the leadership of the Labour Party. I think it's excellent they've been campaigning for a change; the Greens; the UK Independence Party; the Nationalist Party; SNP; Plaid Cymru and so on; even Sinn Fein and so on. On the other side, the only parties objecting to any change are the Conservative Party, the Communist Party and the BNP. So factually that is true. But I think in …

ANDREW MARR:

(over) It implies that if you're a No voter, you might well be a BNP type.

NICK CLEGG:

(over) No, what it … Well what it implies - more than implies, what it states correctly - is that there is a very, very extensive cross-party consensus amongst a large array of mainstream political parties up and down the country who think that first past the post has had its day. Why has it had its day? Because it made a lot of sense when people only voted for either the blue team or the red team. That has changed. That's why I think by the way …

ANDREW MARR:

You make your argument eloquently. Is the reason that you're not being able to cut through simply that you yourself have been too unpopular; that you have become as it were the sort of British punch bag or hate figure? Fair or unfair, I'm not talking about that, but you know that's true.

NICK CLEGG:

I personally think that most people will view this decision on Thursday exactly for what it is - a once in a generation opportunity to change the way we do our politics - which far outlives this generation of politicians: me, David Cameron, Ed Miliband. It's far more important than any of us. It's far more important than this coalition government. So, for instance, for Labour supporters who are angry with the coalition government, who don't like the fact the Liberal Democrats are in the coalition government, I understand that that's what they feel. But actually it's much bigger this issue than the coalition government because it will allow us to upgrade. I mean by the way, talking about old institutions which need to be upgraded, we've just had the Royal wedding - a classic example of a much loved, well loved institution which is moving with the times - and I think in similar fashion, that's what we need to do with our electoral system as well.

ANDREW MARR:

Chris Huhne has accused the Conservatives of using "Nazi tactics", the Conservative Chairman. He said again today that the reason for AV is so that you don't have to go back to kind of Right Wing Conservative views ever again. You have talked about "the death rattle of a Right Wing clique". How can you sit down together next week after this is all over and it be business as usual? Surely this has fractured things at a personal level between you? It must have done?

NICK CLEGG:

Well I certainly think clearly if anyone needed any reminding that this coalition government is composed of different parties with different values and different identities, maybe in the long-run that's not a bad thing. I mean David Cameron and I every day of every week, you know we thrash out our differences within government in Whitehall …

ANDREW MARR:

(over) Next time you're together and you look at him in the eye, it's going to be different, isn't it?

NICK CLEGG:

Well, look, we are different leaders of different parties. We have different values. We always will do. I think in many respects people have forgotten that sometimes because we have to work together in harness for the national good, as we will continue to do so for five years. On this issue clearly a lot of that has spilt out into the open. But if I can make a point of substance. When Chris Huhne and others remind the country that you had Conservative governments in the 1980s who were ruling in a pretty ferocious manner with only a minority of support, that applies not just to Conservative governments. It applies to a succession of British governments who were given a huge amount of power to in effect do what they wanted even though maybe only 30% of people voted for them. (Marr tries to interject) That cannot be right. I mean again I don't see what is contentious about having an upgrade in our democracy which means that most people will support most people who represent them in parliament.

ANDREW MARR:

If you don't win this and you have a pretty bloody night at local election level as well, how are you going to hold your party together?

NICK CLEGG:

I'm really not going to start speculating on a result which hasn't …

ANDREW MARR:

Oh go on!

NICK CLEGG:

(laughing) No, I'm really not. I'll come onto your programme again later if I may, but for now I think it's really important to have the argument do you think the current system is okay or shall we make this relatively modest change? It's a relatively modest change. It protects a lot of the things that people like about the current system - the constituencies, one MP per constituency - but it just changes it slightly and I think it provides significant benefits.

ANDREW MARR:

Eighty-eight of your own local leaders have written protesting about the speed of the cuts being imposed on them at local level. How damaging has that been for local government and do you have some sympathy with that?

NICK CLEGG:

Oh I have a huge amount of sympathy for any leader of any of our local authorities - of any party, as it happens - who has to deal with these straitened circumstances. It's a really, really tough … It's one of the toughest things to do and I am so full of admiration of our excellent local authority leaders, certainly from the Liberal Democrats. I think the question now - and this is actually coming out as I go round the country in the local council campaign - is not do you have to cut; how do you cut?

ANDREW MARR:

Sure.

NICK CLEGG:

And the fact that Liberal Democrats have not cut any Sure Start Centres, no majority led Liberal Democrat council has closed a single library, I think shows that we're cutting with care.

ANDREW MARR:

Nick Clegg, thank you very much indeed.

NICK CLEGG:

Thank you.

INTERVIEW ENDS

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