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| Tony Blair |
Tony Blair: No, I don't agree at all. I mean, we have been through a big process of change and modernisation of the Labour Party. That is absolutely true. But it has been a process of change that I think has been well worth undertaking, and, as you probably know, throughout my time in the Labour Party, I've wanted to move the Labour Party on from positions it's held in the past in order to get the proper, modernised Labour Party that we have today. New Labour is very much what I believe in. It's very much my own creation.
Dimbleby: But did you believe in Old Labour?
Blair: I believed in the values of the Labour Party, yes.
Dimbleby: No, did you believe in what they stood for? Did you believe in CND? Did you believe in union power not being curtailed? Did you believe in nationalisation/no privatisation?
Blair: There are a whole series of policy positions that I adopted along with the rest of the Labour Party. But the very process of modernisation has been the very process that I have undertaken in the Labour Party.
Dimbleby: I know that - but have you abandoned ...did you believe what you said you believed in the 80s?
Blair: Look, of course we always believed in the idea of a more just and more fair society. And the Labour Party believed for a long period of time that the way to do that was, for example, greater nationalisation, was, for example, simply more increased state spending. The whole process of modernisation, David, has been to take the Labour Party away from that, to keep true to its principles, but put those principles properly in a modern setting.
Dimbleby: So all that was wrong.
Blair: No, I don't say all that was wrong, I simply say what is important is to apply those principles to the modern world. Look, for example, John Major stood in the 1970s on a platform of Scottish devolution; Margaret Thatcher was the person that closed more grammar schools than anyone else. She was a member of Ted Heath's government. You know, times move on...
Dimbleby: It pales into insignificance compared with what you stood for in '83 and '87.
Blair: No, I don't think it does, actually, but in any event, let me say to you, that my whole time within the Labour Party - let us just be realistic about this - from the moment that I came into the Labour Party, I've argued that it had to change and modernise and update itself. I was the person who, when I was the Treasury spokesman for the Labour Party, was arguing that we had to stand up for the rights of small investors. I was the person who, when I got into the Shadow Cabinet, that withdrew our support for the closed shop. I was the Shadow Home Secretary that was the person that said Labour had to toughen its stance on law and order, that we had to stand up for the rights of the citizen against the criminal. I was the person that argued the case for the changes in the union relationship...
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| Tony Blair faces his inquisitor |
Blair: David, those were in the days when people thought that the best way to look at collective bargaining arrangements between employer and employee was not to have a legal framework. We changed that. And let me say something to you. I'm proud of the changes that the Labour Party has made.
Dimbleby: No, but hang on, I'm asking you about what happened before. You may be proud of what you've done now. That implies you're ashamed of what happened before.
Blair: I'm not ashamed of it at all.
Dimbleby: But was your instinct right, when, for instance, you talked about the Tories as people with hobnail boots, ready to trample over the rights of trade unionists? I mean, is that something you'd defend saying now? Did you mean to say it?
Blair: Look - at that time, people thought, for perfectly understandable reasons, that the best way to have an industrial relations framework was to get the law out of it. That changed. Indeed, I was one of those people that changed that position of the Labour Party...
Dimbleby: The Conservative party were in the van on this. They decided it was right to have a framework...
Blair: If I could just finish this. The Labour Party itself had the chance to do this, back in the 1960s, with In Place of Strife. That attempt failed. As I've said myself often, it would have been better if that attempt had succeeded. But I'm afraid that this sort of Conservative propaganda, that I was some sort of extreme left winger that suddenly trimmed after I became Labour leader - I was the person who was at the forefront of all the moves to modernise the Labour Party. And, yes we've changed. And I make no apology for saying that we've changed, because we had to get the Labour Party up to date to apply those values of fairness and justice and opportunity for all, but in a different world. That's why I say, for example, .....
Dimbleby: I want to move on.....
Blair: I want to complete the changes the Labour Party have made. That is why, when I became leader of the Labour Party, we re-wrote the Labour Party's constitution to put a commitment to private enterprise alongside that of social justice. We've changed our relations with the trade unions. We've changed the way that we make policy. We've reformed the way that members of parliament are selected...
Dimbleby: You're not an old man. You haven't been in politics very long, and only a decade ago, you were talking about hobnail boots trampling on the rights of trade unionists - pernicious bills to control trade unionists. Now you say, oh we were wrong in the 70s - and, by the way, I'm not quite sure where we were in the 80s - but anyway, we've changed it all now...That was what you believed in. You defended it with the same passion that you defend the changes you're making now.
Blair: What I said to you a moment or two ago was that the Labour Party believed, as a whole, that it was best to get the law out of industrial relations - but times have moved on. I mean, David, we can sit here arguing about what happened in the 1970s and early 80s...
Dimbleby: Well it's quite important, because you were there.
Blair: Yes, exactly, and I was the person, probably above anybody else, who argued the case for modernising the Labour Party, and, as I say to you, this notion that somehow, Tony Blair was a sort of extreme left winger, and now he's suddenly popped up as a sort of moderate left...
Dimbleby: I never said you were an extreme left winger. You were central to what the Labour Party stood for, which you may define as extreme left wing at that period.
Blair: Exactly - and central to changing it so that our values lived again for the modern world. Look, New Labour - the whole concept of New Labour - is about recognising change...
Dimbleby: Was the...
Blair: Hang on a minute. You put this question to me - it's a question of integrity, and it's a question of trust and I want to answer it. We created New Labour. We call it New Labour precisely in order to be honest with people about the changes that have been made. We recognise - I recognise throughout this election - there are certain things the Conservatives got right in the 1980s, and we should have been quicker to face up to that. But there are certain things that they got wrong. And what New Labour has been about providing is an alternative the people of this country have been crying out for, not winding the clock back to the past, and not staying with a tired and discredited Conservative Party.
Dimbleby: So was Britain right not to vote in a Labour government in 1983 and 1987 and in 1992, in your opinion?
Blair: No, of course not. I supported the Labour Party; I stood as the Labour candidate....
Dimbleby: Should it have elected a Labour government under Michael Foot in 1983?
Blair: Of course I wanted them to win...
Dimbleby: Unilateral disarmament?
Blair: David, please. Of course I wanted the Labour Party to be elected, and I stood as a Labour Party candidate. But if you're trying to suggest to me that somehow the changes that we have made are superficial or not something we believe in, that is absurd. We have produced probably the greatest transformation that any political party has been done in recent decades.
And let me just tell you this. The Conservatives have changed too, you know. The Conservatives changed their position throughout the 1970s. They got away from what they saw was the muddleheadedness of Ted Heath and all the rest of it, and the new Thatcherites came in and took over. The idea that the Labour Party is the only party that has ever undergone a process of change. But the principles remain the same. That's why if you look at our programme today, you will see extending educational opportunity, tackling youth unemployment...
Dimbleby: All right, we'll come to that. I don't want a shopping list.
Blair: Never mind about a shopping list, David. The fact of the matter is, we have made these changes in a way that is entirely consistent with principle..
Dimbleby: We'll explore them. Just before we do, one other question. Your new ally, Rupert Murdoch. Was he right to take on at Wapping the print unions, and was Labour wrong to support the unions against him?
Blair: These days are past...
Dimbleby: I know they are past.... You supported all that - were you right in doing so?
Blair: We believe that these changes could have been done in a different way, but there is no point going back over the past. There is a different world today. Let us address this world today, and let us see how we can make improvements to it. Let us see how we can make Britain a better place. And I repeat to you, I think it is very important that people understand. We are not going to turn the clock back; roll back the tide. We are not going back to the past. But we are offering a better Britain for the future.