Transcript of Nick Clegg Interview

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

Andrew Marr interviewed Nich Clegg, the Deputy Prime Minister.

ANDREW MARR:

Well it has been a foundation shaking time for the Murdoch empire, but the scandal has also sent shock waves through the rest of the establishment from the Coalition Government to the Metropolitan Police as we were saying just now. Well I'm joined by the Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg. Welcome.

NICK CLEGG:

Good morning.

ANDREW MARR:

Can I start with the business of cross media ownership because a lot of people, not just in the Labour Party, are saying actually this is the moment where we should ensure that nobody is ever again quite so dominant in the media world in this country as the Murdochs have been. What's your view of that?

NICK CLEGG:

I think it's undoubtedly true that when you give one individual or a small number of people a huge amount of power without proper accountability, things go wrong. And that's happened here, as it does of course in other walks of life, and that's why we do need to look again in the round at the plurality rules to make sure that there's proper plurality in the British press. A healthy press is a diverse one. It's where you've got lots of different people, lots of different organisations competing, and that's exactly what we need. But I would add that even if you get the plurality rules right - which I hope we will now do, it's something that my party's been calling for for years - none of that really will matter unless you also hold people to account in the media. At the moment you've got the ludicrous situation where you have editors of our national newspapers who make or break the reputation of often innocent individuals in the blink of an eye, judge people day by day, and yet themselves are not held independently to account. In fact it's even worse than that. If anything goes wrong, the people - guess who decides how the standards in the newspapers should be policed. It's the editors themselves. In no other industry, in no other area, walk of life do you have people acting as judge and jury in that way, and that needs to stop, that needs to change.

ANDREW MARR:

So let me be clear about the plurality issue because this would presumably require sort of percentages and stuff. It would have to be enshrined in legislation. Would you be prepared, will you be sitting down with Ed Miliband for instance who's called for the same sort of thing and working out legislation on this?

NICK CLEGG:

Well, as I say, I've been calling, my party has been calling for a long time for a change. Let me give you one specific …

ANDREW MARR:

(over) Sorry, but you know you need a majority of MPs.

NICK CLEGG:

(over) Oh very happy to sit with people. The inquiry which we've set up, the judge led inquiry, will of course during the course of a year produce some ideas about what we should do. And then I think if we can act on it on a cross-party basis, as we did last week in the House of Commons, all the better. But let me give you one specific idea and proposal that I would make.

ANDREW MARR:

Yeah.

NICK CLEGG:

At the moment you can only apply this test of plurality, whether there's enough diversity in our media, when you've got a business transaction which you've got to examine. I don't see why that test isn't applied all the time because there might be changes in the way in which the media operates which means that one media organisation just through natural growth gets bigger and bigger and bigger, and yet at the moment the plurality test can't be applied in those circumstances.

ANDREW MARR:

Can I just stop you there because that presumably would mean that if a newspaper became more and more successful because it was a good newspaper, it could suddenly be too successful? That doesn't sound …

NICK CLEGG:

(over) Well I think the main focus is, as you say, on cross media ownership; and with the new media that are growing up and developing, that is what you need to look at. That's exactly what the inquiry will do. But I think that the point I'm trying to make is whether it's the fitness and properness test, whether it's the plurality test, it's being applied at the moment in a very snapshot way and I think we need to look at the way in which concentrations of power might actually evolve over time.

ANDREW MARR:

(over) So this is really a new …

NICK CLEGG:

(over) Oh yes, I think …

ANDREW MARR:

… a new world?

NICK CLEGG:

… I think a lot of good can come out of this actually if we are brave enough to look at the rules on competition, on plurality, on who's fit and proper to run our media organisations. Look at it you know as a whole, allow the inquiry independently to make recommendations because you don't want politicians to be in charge entirely of these decisions.

ANDREW MARR:

What about the issue of foreign ownership because you know the Americans have got very strong rules about people that can control their media. We don't. We don't even have strong rules about whether people have to pay taxes or not.

NICK CLEGG:

No well of course it's true, as you say. I think Rupert Murdoch is actually a US citizen because he needed to become an American citizen in order to own Fox News. I think this is quite a complex area because of course you can't impose those nationality rules within the European Union. So it's a kind of complex area. Of course it's a legitimate area we should look at, but I think this key thing of plurality, you know diversity in the press and accountability, so that you have independent regulation - not regulation which is in the gift of politicians. I don't want to live in a country where politicians feel comfortable with the press - that would be I think an absolute disaster - but, nonetheless, one where you have independent regulation.

ANDREW MARR:

But that is very, very difficult because I mean here you're taking a different line than Ed Miliband, for instance, who says he wants a continuation of self-regulation in the press. You're saying no, it should be statutory regulation. And I think what a lot of people can't see is how you can have a statutory system that is properly outside the purview of politicians, that politicians can't get at and therefore get at the newspapers.

NICK CLEGG:

Hang on. Every time there's been a crisis in different pillars of the establishment, the response sensibly has been to give more power to people who are independent of those people who got into trouble. When the MPs got into trouble because of the expenses, what's been the response? To take all responsibility for their pay and pensions and expenses out of their hands and into an independent body. What's been the response after the banking crisis? To make sure the independent regulators are given more power. I don't see why the press should be unique in having, for instance, a so-called Ethics Committee overseeing how the code of conduct for editors works. Guess who's on it? Only editors of newspapers, chaired by the Editor of the Daily Mail. In no other walk of life would you have people acting as judge and jury for their own mistakes.

ANDREW MARR:

We've talked about politicians, we've talked about the press. We haven't talked about the police. There is a perception that the police have frankly been on the take from the bottom to the top. Are you worried about, for instance, the Sir Paul Stephenson story?

NICK CLEGG:

Well I'm very, of course I'm incredibly worried about that. I mean you know I have to say I think from the public's point of view, the fact that the public, their cynicism in politicians or the press might have deepened is perhaps not entirely surprising. I think when the public starts losing faith in the police, it's altogether much more serious and we really are in you know some trouble. And that's why I think it's very important that the commissioner should answer the questions which have been put to him by the Home Secretary and answer them very fully.

ANDREW MARR:

So when you say the commissioner, you mean Sir Paul Stephenson?

NICK CLEGG:

Sir Paul Stephenson. Correct.

ANDREW MARR:

And you think his position and that of Mr Yates and the rest of them are tenable still?

NICK CLEGG:

Well I'm not going to sort of judge them now until they've given the reassurances and answers to the questions which have been put to them. They are very serious questions and they need to be answered very fully and very seriously by them.

ANDREW MARR:

Let me just turn to a bit of general politics, if I may. The coalition has had a rough week or so, a rough few weeks on all of this. Yes the Liberal Democrats were protesting about Rupert Murdoch and so on in the old days - partly because you were too small a party for them to court, I suspect. How uncomfortable or comfortable are you with the way Mr Cameron has behaved over Andy Coulson? You sit next to them. Did you actually say to David Cameron yourself you should not employ this man?

NICK CLEGG:

Well, look, our anxieties as a party about the hacking allegations, about Mr Coulson and so on were … you know we made them very publicly …

ANDREW MARR:

Sure.

NICK CLEGG:

… before the election, so it shouldn't come as any surprise that we came at this from different, from totally different standpoints. The Prime Minister has explained why he gave Mr Coulson what he calls a "second chance". Of course we did discuss it. Of course we did.

ANDREW MARR:

So you said to him … Did you say to him, "Do you know what, you should not employ this man?"

NICK CLEGG:

Well I'm not … if you don't mind I'm not going to give you a verbatim account, not least because I can't remember word for word the conversation. But of course it was raised because this was something which was an issue which we raised very publicly before …

ANDREW MARR:

Raised by you though?

NICK CLEGG:

Of course, of course. Yes, of course. Yes David Cameron and I spoke about it, of course, given everything that we'd said before the election, but at the end of the day it was his decision, it was his appointment, and he's been very clear that it was his appointment alone and he's explained the reasons why he made that appointment.

ANDREW MARR:

And you got the impression that he was just not going to flinch on this one? It was a personal matter and he wasn't going to allow you to …

NICK CLEGG:

Well I can't add anything more to what he has said, which is that he's explained why he appointed Andy Coulson and the circumstances in which he did it.

ANDREW MARR:

And you've had … I mean Vince Cable, your colleague, got into terrible trouble, lost a large part of his job for saying that he was going to war on Murdoch. He must now feel vindicated and you must be asking yourself why he was you know booted out of that part of his role?

NICK CLEGG:

You know I don't think it's about the feelings of one politician or another. This is a major crisis of public confidence in yet another pillar of the establishment. We've had a banking crisis, MPs crisis, and now a complete crisis - a total collapse of basic decency and values in the way in which the press or parts of the press conduct themselves - and I think what we need to do is make sure that we get something good coming out of all of this, which creates greater distance between politicians and the press, gives less power to people who act unaccountably, and make sure we've got a healthy, free, plural, accountable press.

ANDREW MARR:

Do you think that you really had enough influence at that early stage in the coalition - I'm thinking of the Andy Coulson stuff, on the health service and many other issues - where you know you seemed to have a deal that looked relatively equitable, and yet, as things have turned out, the Conservatives have been able to brush your party slightly to one side?

NICK CLEGG:

I don't agree with that at all. If you actually look at the things that have happened you know for many people in this country, whether it's taking hundreds of thousands by next April, over a million people out of paying income tax altogether - a Liberal Democrat priority; whether it's giving more money to children from disadvantaged backgrounds; new entitlements to young toddlers for free childcare, sweeping away a whole barrage of authoritarian illiberal legislation which eroded our civil liberties; renewing and refreshing the way we do politics - all of these things are Liberal Democrat. I mean you know … (Marr tries to interject) … if you speak to some people in the political spectrum, they either say the Liberal Democrats have got too much influence in the government or the Conservatives have. I think that's the nature of coalition.

ANDREW MARR:

Do you think that the events of the last two weeks have changed the nature of the coalition, relationship of the coalition?

NICK CLEGG:

I think … I think it's changed fundamentally the way in which the political class and the media class interact with each other, and hopefully it'll create much greater transparency and accountability in the way in which that happens. It's really cast a spotlight on a very …

ANDREW MARR:

(over) You're charmingly not answering quite the question I asked you, which was what about relationships inside the coalition. Has that changed?

NICK CLEGG:

Look relationships inside this government, as in any government, evolve all the time. But what has happened over the last two weeks …

ANDREW MARR:

(over) And have the last two weeks changed it?

NICK CLEGG:

Over the last two weeks, I think a sharp spotlight has been cast on a very murky part of the British establishment - the interaction between politicians, the press and the police - and I'm a liberal who passionately believes in transparency, accountability, openness and I think that is now being improved, will have been improved because of the events over the last two weeks.

ANDREW MARR:

And you are prepared to … You know from where you're standing, those relationships - you know the summer lawns that we were hearing about, the Conservative Party, Rebekah Brooks, the Murdochs; the Labour Party, Rebekah Brooks, the Murdochs - that was unhealthy, that had to change?

NICK CLEGG:

Yes, I've always been a staunch critic of what I thought was the tendency of the two larger parties - the Labour and the Conservative Party, and by the way the Labour Party did this ceaselessly during their time in power - to constantly sort of fall to their knees obsequiously towards very powerful vested interests in the media. That I hope will now change. But can I just add one thing. If anyone had any doubt about the fundamental judgement of this coalition government, of Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives to deal with another big crisis - namely the crisis in our public finances - just look at what's happening across the channel in the Eur…

ANDREW MARR:

(over) I was about to ask you about this, yeah.

NICK CLEGG:

(over) It's very important, this. Look at what's happening in the United States about the wrangling on the debt ceiling there. I wish it were otherwise. I wish we didn't have to take a lot of these difficult decisions. But surely there can be no-one left now who agrees that the fundamental decision, which was the biggest decision of all, which this coalition government took - that we needed to yank the country back from the precipice and into an area of greater economic safety - was the right one to take last year.

ANDREW MARR:

If the Murdoch story hadn't happened, we would be talking about nothing …

NICK CLEGG:

(over) Absolutely, nothing else.

ANDREW MARR:

… except what was going on in the Eurozone …

NICK CLEGG:

Yuh.

ANDREW MARR:

… and in America.

NICK CLEGG:

Yuh.

ANDREW MARR:

How worried are you that we are on the edge of another really serious world financial crisis?

NICK CLEGG:

I'm incredibly worried. I think the gravity of the uncertainty in the United States, which is basically a product of political gridlock, and the growing fiscal crisis, sovereign debt crisis in the Eurozone is immensely, immensely serious. And if anyone thinks that somehow we can turn our back on it and sort of wash our hands of it and somehow say oh well, there by the grace of God go we, I think is mistaken. This has a direct impact on British jobs, on the livelihoods of millions of people in this country, and that's why I believe we should play an active role behind the scenes even though we're not a member of the Eurozone to help Eurozone members make the reforms necessary to create a strong, prosperous Eurozone in the future.

ANDREW MARR:

Without persuading every viewer to go off and top themselves, it's worse than that, however, is it not? The Office of Budget Responsibility Report talking about the ageing population and so on looks ahead to an era of twenty, thirty, forty years of either considerably higher taxes or a smaller state, considerably smaller state, or both if we're going to be able to pay our bills.

NICK CLEGG:

Well that's why you know much though I know many of the decisions we've taken over the last year are unpopular, I passionately believe they're being taken to address very long-term problems. It's quite unusual, this. Usually governments duck long-term problems whether it's pensions, whether it's how we fund public services, whether it's the balance between attacks and spend, how we deal with the deficit. These are very big decisions we're taking now because I think we've realised as a coalition government, if you don't sort it now - and here's the simple truth - it is our children and our grandchildren who will have to …

ANDREW MARR:

(over) Have to pay for it.

NICK CLEGG:

… who will be the victim of the mistakes and the failure of this generation to sort things out.

ANDREW MARR:

Two very quick final questions. What in essence does Rupert Murdoch have to say to the House of Commons on Tuesday?

NICK CLEGG:

Oh I think he needs to come absolutely clean about what he knew, about what his senior executives knew, and why this culture of industrial scale corruption - so it is alleged - appeared to have grown up without anyone higher up in the food chain taking any real responsibility for it.

ANDREW MARR:

Right. And final question. You've got a kicking again in the papers today for doing the school run.

NICK CLEGG:

Oh.

ANDREW MARR:

And …

NICK CLEGG:

Well let me let you into a little secret, which I suspect many fathers around the country feel. I actually like being with my children. I love having the opportunity as often as I can to take my children on the school run. And much more seriously, look this is 2011. It's not 1911. The idea that fathers or mothers can't do a very good job in whatever walk of life but also remain as dedicated fathers and mothers is frankly an attitude which belongs in the last century or the one before that.

ANDREW MARR:

Nick Clegg, thank you very much indeed for joining us this morning.

NICK CLEGG:

Thank you.

INTERVIEW ENDS

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