................................................................................ ON THE RECORD RECORDED FROM TRANSMISSION BBC-1 DATE: 24.9.95
................................................................................ JOHN HUMPHRYS: Well Paddy Ashdown, leader of the Liberal Democrats is at his home there in Yeovil. Not deliberate I assure you Mr Ashdown, not suggesting your party is 'out of sync'. But you must at this stage be regretting that you dumped equidistance? PADDY ASHDOWN MP: John, I don't think I've ever seen a clearer example of a total waste of money by the - On The Record's budget than the so-called focus group you've called together. The people who you called together represent the central belt of Scotland, where the Party hardly exists. If you'd have done a genuine survey - and, I always think that when the Press aren't prepared to report the story they report opinion polls. But, if you'd taken a genuine focus group, taken from, for instance, the South or the Southwest, or even the Scottish seats that we hold, at present, I think, you'd have got a very, very different picture. HUMPHRYS: What? You've written off the rest of Scotland, have you! ASHDOWN: No, by no means. HUMPHRYS: Well, if you think it's entirely reasonable to go to a part of the country where you're hoping to make gains but haven't yet. That's entirely reasonable. ASHDOWN: But, the Party is at four or five per cent in the central belt of Scotland. It's at about thirty per cent in the Southwest and probably more. And, in those seats in Scotland where we have representation you'd have found it much greater. HUMPHRYS: But, what we need is a reputable organisation - a commercial organisation that specialises in these things and ask them to get together a focus group. It's standard practice. ASHDOWN: What you did was bring together a focus group from the one place in Scotland, where the Party is considerably underrepresented, as indeed Labour is underrepresented in the West and Southwest. It would be like going along to Cornwall, where Labour hardly exists and has five or six per cent of the poll and drawing a national conclusion from that. But, let me, perhaps, advance the case a bit further for you. I really do caution you, at this stage, not to rely on opinion polls. I'll give you a reason why, as an example. At this time, in the last Parliament, an opinion poll was done, in the second half of the Parliament, which showed that Labour was going to win my seat in Yeovil. Labour got eight per cent in the General Election. Opinion polls at the mid term of a Parliament are not an accurate reflection of how a people will vote. What is quite clear is that we have just finished a conference, our Glasgow conference, which was, by any standard, the most successful we've ever had. We went into that the most powerful third force this country has seen for sixty years. We came out of it, I believe, a Party more united and more clear about what we stand for and the messages we have to put across than either of the other two Parties will cover at the Party conferences. And, if I may just finish: we're the only ones who've been absolutely clear, say exactly where we stand - no fudging - absolutely clear that every single vote that we get and every single seat that we win will be dedicated to three purposes. Those purposes are: investing in people, Education the central place of that, cleaning up the mess in our politics, Constitutional reform - modernising Britain's Constitution - electoral reform - the centre place in that - and, building, at last, for the long term future. I'm much more interested in what happens in Britain in the next century than in the next Government. I think, that's very clear and, I think, people will vote for it. HUMPHRYS: But, you also came out of that conference having reinforced the impression in many people's minds that the Liberal Democrats broadly support the idea of a Labour government. ASHDOWN: No. Justify that. HUMPHRYS: Well, your speech at the end of the conference. I've been through it - yet again - this morning. Read it word for word. The whole message of that speech was let's do a deal. You didn't use the words. Of course, you never use those words but the impression very, very strongly - and, this is in the minds of many people - not just myself - is that you broadly support the Labour Government. ASHDOWN: Well, then, I suggest that you go back and read that speech again because it said nothing of the sort. HUMPHRYS: Well, let me ask you a direct question, then to clear this up. ASHDOWN: No, come on. Let me give you a clear answer. Throughout that speech, there was a single refrain and the refrain was very simple. This is our guarantee to invest two million pounds in Education, to tell you where the money comes from, to put a penny on Income Tax, if that's the only way to do it, to regain public control over Railtrack, as a cornerstone as an integrated public transport system for this country. To face up to the issues of Europe, to tackle the issues of the environment, specific and clear and the refrain that ran through that speech was this: if that's what you like, then, that's what you get; with every vote and every seat that you win for the Liberal Democrats at the next Election. Now, that's about us. Now, what we were doing at this conference - and, if you were to accurately report it I think rather than indulging in opinion polls - you might have recognised that. We were speaking directly to the people of this country, saying specifically what the other Parties haven't - what we stand for and what people get if they vote for us. HUMPHRYS: But, you've told us- ASHDOWN: It's a challenge to the other Parties, the language to the British people. But a challenge to the other Parties. See if you can match it at your conference - being that clear about what you stand for. HUMPHRYS: You've told us where you stand as far as the Tory Government is concerned. You cannot see the circumstances. You would not prop up a Tory Government and you've given us a thousand reasons why you wouldn't do that. Now, unless my arithmetic- ASHDOWN: And, who can be surprised? After seventeen years, if this Government loses it majority who's going to prop it up? We're not certain of it (phon). HUMPHRYS: Unless my arithmetic is horrendously wrong, I can only think of one other Party that is likely to form the next Government and that is the Labour Party. Now, logic would suggest, would it not - that if you don't support the Tories as the potential next Government, there's only one other way you can go: Labour! ASHDOWN: On the contrary, it's perfectly possible for us. I can think of ten - incidentally - different combinations at the next election. And, incidentally, John, I think, you're making a considerable mistake in trying to predict the outcome of the next Election. HUMPHRYS: No. I'm not trying to do that. I'm just pointing out the obvious arithmetic to you. ASHDOWN: No. Absolute nonsense. If you want the arithmetic, if you want to play this mug's game - OK - let's play it. Let's play it, not on the basis of opinion polls but let's play it on the basis of real votes in real ballot boxes. The largest single text/test that we have had, since the last Election, was in May this year. The biggest electoral test. HUMPHRYS: That was local election. ASHDOWN: But what happened in it? You see, you're relying on opinion polls. I'm relying on real votes and real ballot boxes and what happened there was that the Liberal Democrats came second. Now, if you want to play this mug's game - I've told you it was one - if you want to predict, then, predict from fact. And, the fact says that we would be - on that basis - Her Majesty's Opposition. HUMPHRYS: No. It doesn't say anything of the sort. ASHDOWN: Well, John, why do you- I mean, instead of pretending that you can predict the outcome of the next Election- HUMPHRYS: Well, I'm not doing that - and you know I'm not doing that. ASHDOWN: Of course, you are. You're saying: I know what the outcome of the next Election will be. HUMPHRYS: No. No. No,I don't know anything of the sort and I- ASHDOWN: What people want to know is what we stand for. HUMPHRYS: Look, you know and I know that neither of us can predict the outcome of the next Election. ASHDOWN: Correct. HUMPHRYS: Precisely. But- ASHDOWN: What do your viewers want to see? HUMPHRYS: What you're always saying - if I may say so - is let's be straight with the Electorate. ASHDOWN: Sure. HUMPHRYS: Now, you don't believe that the Liberal Democrats are going to form the next Government do you? ASHDOWN: I don't know and you don't know. HUMPHRYS: No, you don't know it. ASHDOWN: Here you go again. You said you're not predicting the outcome of the next Election and the first thing you do is predict the outcome of the next Election. I don't know and, John, if I may put it to you, I think, what your viewers want to know is not that you can look into a crystal ball - not this Sunday morning excursion into clairvoyancy. HUMPHRYS: No, I'm not trying to do that. ASHDOWN: What they're trying to do-what they want to know is what do you stand for? Now, we have made it very, very clear what we stand for and we challenge the other Parties, we've challenged Labour, we've challenged the Conservatives to be as clear. Where do you stand on Europe? Where do you stand on Education investment? Where do you stand on running a tight controlled economy on the market based economy? Where do you stand on the environment? Now, those are the issues that people in this country want to hear. HUMPHRYS: But, they also- ASHDOWN: Not the fact that John Humphrys or Paddy Ashdown can predict the outcome of the unpredictable wrapped in mystery eighteen months away. HUMPHRYS: You're not trying to do that and I am absolutely not trying to do that. ASHDOWN: But, you've just made a prediction. HUMPHRYS: No, no, no. What I said was: what I said was: you don't believe that the next Government is going to be - let me just make a point just to prove that, if I may - from your own speech: It is our duty to make sure the next Government doesn't duck the decisions it must take if Britain's to be a success and so on and so on. Note that phrase: the next Government. You wouldn't hear John Major say the next Government. You wouldn't hear Mr Blair say 'the next Government'. You would hear John Major say: the Tory Government, which is going to be in power next time around. ASHDOWN: It's a good try but it won't wash, John because you wouldln't hear them saying any of the other things they're saying as well: we're prepared to be clear and honest about taxation, about where we get the money to invest in Education from. Look: let me just give you an example, to try and show you what I mean. George Bush lost a lead larger than Tony Blair now enjoys in the last year of his Presidency. And, we live in deeply volatile times. No one can predict what the outcome of the next Election will be. And, although, it makes fun in metropolitan newsrooms to play round with opinion polls and to try and pretend that you can predict the unpredictable, you can't do it! And, it's a mug's game to try. There is no point, at this stage. Certainly, eighteen months out, in us indulging ourselves in these wonderfully interesting hypotheses, interesting to the political commentators, interesting to the politicians but what interests the people of this country is what we stand for. Now, for the Labour Party, there is fudge and duck and a blank sheet of paper. For the Liberal Democrats, we have staked out brutally clearly in language which is simple and more direct, than I think any Party has achieved before, including the tough issue about taxation - exactly where we stand. HUMPHRYS: Alright. ASHDOWN: And, our message is deadly simple. Forget the hypotheses. Forget the unpredictable. The more you vote for these things the more you get them if you vote Liberal Democrat - dead simple. HUMPHRYS: But, what I'm suggesting to you is that having dropped your old policy of equidistance, you have made those things more difficult to achieve and let me give you a couple of reasons, well let me give you a couple of reasons why that might be the case. You've thrown away - I would suggest to you - the support of many potential Liberal Democrat voters because.. ASHDOWN: Nonsense! HUMPHRYS: - well - you say: nonsense but a lot of your support, historically, has been tactical. Many people have voted Liberal Democrat to keep out the Tories, or more specifically, in this case, to keep out a Labour Government. Well, now, they are prepared to go all the way. Many of those to Labour, rather than stop off at the Liberal Democrat corner shop. ASHDOWN: It's a great attempt, John, but it doesn't stack up! I mean, here you are, again, predicting when you can- HUMPHRYS: I'm not predicting anything of the sort! ASHDOWN: If I could finish, right? You're proposing a hypothesis, why don't you look at the facts? Did it happen at Littleborough and Saddlewoth. A seat- HUMPHRYS: Yes, it did, as a matter of fact, if you're asking me a direct question? You should have expected to sweep the Labour Party away at Littleborough and Saddleworth and you didn't! They did terribly well. They ran you a close second. ASHDOWN: John, you've been listening to too much of Labour's propaganda. HUMPHRYS: Oh, no. I've been looking at the figures. ASHDOWN: Well, then, look at these figures. Labour got, at the end of that campaign at Littleborough and Saddleworth exactly the same vote as they got in the May Elections of this year. They advanced not one iota. I'm afraid you've been overswept by Mr Mandleson's (phon) spindoctoring. Labour, at the end of one of the worst campaigns, one of the most tawdry and unpleasant campaigns, fought in this country for a very long time, got exactly the same vote as they started with. Now, there's your point. Why predict the future when you can read the ballot box? HUMPHRYS: Well let's look at something we can read as opposed to predicting then and other bits of the evidence, that I was suggesting to you why dropping equidistance is going to cause you problems. You've given the Tories quite a big stick with which they can now beat you. They can say, can they not, indeed they are saying, we heard it in that film they're saying: "Vote Liberal Democrat you will let Labour in by the back door. You're actually voting effectively for the Labour Party if you're voting Liberal Democrat and that's what they are now able to say. ASHDOWN: Well let them say it. I mean of course the Labour...the Conservative Party is going to grab onto what sticks they can in a pretty miserable position to try and ensure they survive. But what our conference showed, so very clearly, was precisely what you get if you vote Liberal Democrat. There's no other party in Britain: not Labour, certainly not the Conservatives, who are prepared to face up to the tough decisions of what we need to cut road congestion, to make sure that we have a properly intergrated public transport system in this country, that's prepared to take the tough decisions in order to be able to retain public control of Railtrack, which is the mechanism for that. There's no other Party that's prepared to say not only that they'd like to invest in Education but how much and where it's going to go and where the money will come from. This is what people vote for, if they vote for us. I don't know what the outcome of the next Election is. You could have any one of ten possible outcomes. The Liberal Democrats are not going to try and put-we're not going to use the power people give us to put back a government that has been in power seventeen years if it loses its majority in the House of Commons. But the Liberal Democrats could be the government - who knows, I don't predict it - because I think that kind of prediction is nonsense but it's technically a possibility. We could be Her Majesty's opposition. That would be what could happen if the May elections of this year carried forward. We can be a minority Party in a Hung Parliament, in which case we would have the options of sitting on the opposition benches or working with another party, the Labour Party perhaps, if we agreed about the things where we stand but Labour doesn't tell us where they stand. What I'm saying to you John is at this moment, let's do this programme again, in a year's time, close to the election, and I'll try and be as honest with you as we've been so far about happens. But at this moment it's a mug's game. It's a waste of time. HUMPHRYS: That is a deal. We'll do it again in a year's time. ASHDOWN: Done. HUMPHRYS: But let's pick up what you just said there about the possibility of you having to work with the Labour Party in government. That's- ASHDOWN: -or having to oppose them. HUMPHRYS: Or having to oppose them alright. But let's pick up the possibility...for the moment, for the moment. Now, what I suggested to you, a couple of the ways- ASHDOWN: You're playing hypotheses again, but if you want to play the game go on. HUMPHRYS: No, no, no this is more because I'm about- ASHDOWN: It's meaningless, utterly meaningless. HUMPHRYS: I'm about to give you, if you'll allow me, I'm about to give you a couple of hard facts, things that Jack Straw said this morning. Now what I'm suggesting to you, I've given you some reasons I think why dropping your policy of equidistance has caused you problems here's another one. ASHDOWN: I don't see the ballot box John. HUMPHRYS: Alright, but let's deal with this particular problem then as I see it, or rather as perhaps as Jack Straw sees it at the moment because he spoke about it this morning. You have weakened your bargaining position with the Labour Party, in the event that you are going to have to bargain with them, or do some sort of deal. I know you hate the phrase "do a deal with them" but he said this morning, quite clearly on the constitutional reform issue "there are no promises on the part of a Labour Government in the first year, on a Labour Government to introduce measures leading to constitutional reform - no promises. Or indeed in the first term. HUMPHRYS: John, I'm not bargaining with the Labour party, I'm staking out our position for the public of this country. I think what you know about that, what you know about constitutional reform is exactly where the the Liberal Democrats stand and a clear commitment to reforming the voting system which many, many in the Labour Party are in favour of. Indeed the vast majority of the new, so-called moderniser Labour members of parliament are in favour of proportional representation as we are. I am not talking to the Labour Party. I know you find it difficult to believe because I think all of you in Westminster are tied to this picture of the whole of Britain as though it were shaped in the same shape as the Chamber of the House of Commons. I'm speaking to the people of this country and I'm saying if you're serious about reform, constitutional, modernising Britain's political system, clearing up the mess in our politics, an essential, a fulcrum, a key part of which is a fair voting system. There's only one party that will deliver that and if that's what you want, the more you get the more you vote. HUMPHRYS: But I was following up your suggestion that amongst others admittedly, that you may have to deal with a Labour Government at some stage on this particular issue and this issue ASHDOWN: So what? HUMPHRYS: So what? Well, so what. ASHDOWN: Let me see if I can give you an example, John. Education, absolutely crucial. Mr Blair says it's his fashion, Mr Major says it's his passion, Mrs Shephard said today in the newspapers that Britain's schoolchildren now have got a very low levels of literacy - fine. But where did they- where's their commitment, where's their commitment to investing in education? None of them do that either, so what we want to do is to put forward a very clear programme for what needs to be done in this country, including some of the tough messages, having an honest debate about taxation, not ducking and running with the kind of proposals Mr Blair made today HUMPHRYS: Yeah, but you've made it- ASHDOWN: And about windfall taxes, which are absolute nonsense and will not make sense over the long term. But facing up to those realities, now there are a raft of things, a raft of things which are going to be important to that: PR's one, it's very very important. HUMPHRYS: Right. ASHDOWN: It's vital. But it's not the only one and that's why the important thing for us at this moment is to speak not to the Labour Party, not to Jack Straw whose opinions on PR have been known for a very long time but to the people and that's what we have been doing and with respect to you, that's what we are going to continue. HUMPHRYS: What you made clear also and you've repeated it in this programme, is that you may find yourself in a position, not of having to do deals, let's lose that phrase altogether from the category if you prefer. But there is only one party with whom you can deal now because you've said you won't deal with the Conservative Party, you won't prop them up and what Jack Straw said this morning, on the question of proportional prepresentation which you have just raised, is not only may it not happen in the first year or indeed possibly the first term of a Labour Government, but that he will endorse first past the post. Now that's going to make it very difficult for you isn't it. ASHDOWN: That's not new from Jack Straw. I mean really, I thought this was a news programme, not as I said a sort of Sunday excursion into clairvoyancy of what's going to happen eighteen months-. HUMPHRYS: And you don't think it's interesting that Jack Straw should repeat that view, if you're saying he's repeating it at this time. ASHDOWN: It is of precisely no interest or news value at all. That's a view that Jack Straw has held so far as I know for ten years and to have a programme like this in which we might be discussing what of our taxation system, how are we going to pay for them and what does this mean, are we really going to be a high tax party - which we're not - we're going to be a promises with the bills attached party a tax switch party. Now that's the interesting thing. To reiterate a Jack Straw statement which is ten years' old does seem to me to be rather less than you'd expect from a programme dedicated to news. HUMPHRYS: Yes, but you see we can do those sorts of things only very seriously. ASHDOWN: But that's what people want to know John, that's what they want to know. They say what does it mean when you say you're going to be honest about taxation, what does it mean when you say you're going to pay for these things, how are you going to pay for them? Now that's what people want to know. It's much much more interesting than a very erudite conversation between you and me on a Sunday morning about what might happen eighteen months from here in circumstances none of us can predict. HUMPHRYS: But the extent (I don't know whether that's your telephone ringing or ours - or your front door perhaps) but the extent to which you can push forward those policies rests on the position that you find yourself in... ASHDOWN: And we will see that as we get up to the election and we'll have to face up to that when we get up to the elections and we'll have to be clear about that when we get up to the election and that is eighteen months away so what on earth are you spending so much time talking about it now for? HUMPHRYS: Well, I will tell you why because if you are going to be in a strong position in eighteen months from now, or whenever it happens to be, you have to be leading a united party, a party that is solidly behind you and knows where it's going and one of the other things that I'm suggesting about having dropped the policy of equidistance is that you risk dividing your party over this hugely important matter. ASHDOWN: Oh really. I mean again John you must deal with the facts. I mean this is a bizarre construction on a debate which was held in public in front of the television cameras, presumably your people were there in which the policy in which we said that we would be clear about making sure that our vote was not used to prop up this government, no quarter for the Tories but no let up for Labour, but we'd talk to others, was - I think there was seven or eight hundred people in the hall, five people voted against it. The party split - what on earth do you get that from? HUMPHRYS: Paddy Ashdown, I'd like to pursue it but we've run out of time. ASHDOWN: We will in due course. HUMPHRYS: We will I'm sure. Thank you very much for joining us this morning. ...oooOOOooo...