The Challenge Ahead :: Wessex Scene Online

The Challenge Ahead

26th May 2007
Jack Haines

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Dec 07 - The Romsey Redhead
Jan 07 - Interview with Alan Johnson, MP
Nov 06 - The next Prime Minister?
Nov 06 - Red vs Blue: Two Parties Enter, One Party Leaves!
Nov 09 - The Party Conferences Pantomime

More by Jack Haines

Labour Party Deputy Leadership contender Harriet Harman recently paid a visit to Southampton.

Why are you running?
Because I want Labour to stay in government, to have a fourth term. because I believe we’ve done a great deal but we have a great deal more to do. I think that I’m the candidate best placed to work with Gordon Brown as part of the leadership team and to help Labour win that fourth term. I don’t think there is a huge ideological difference between the candidates - me Hilary Benn, Alan Johnson and Peter Hain have all worked closely together over the years, but I think that what we need is a team with experience, and I have a great deal of experience in Parliament over the last 25 years, experience but also breadth of reach - I think it would be good, if we have a Scottsh Prime Minister, to have a deputy from the South. The Prime Minister is going to be a man but I think the Deputy should be a woman to provide a proper balanced leadership team, and Gordon and I have worked well in the past when I was his deputy when he was Shadow Chancellor. So those are the main reasons, I’d say.

How do you see the role of Deputy Leader?
I think the role shouldn’t involve running a big department. When John Prescott chose to be Deputy Leader of the party, Deputy Prime Minister and Secretary of State for Local Government, the Environment, Transport and Energy, it was too much, and that it was the wrong focus. I think that if you are Deputy Prime Minister you should look across government rather than out over one department. So I think there should also be one Chair of the party and that it should be chosen by the party as well - so I think it would work out quite well if the Deputy Leader was Chair of the party as well, but it doesn’t have to be like that. But actually we’re not running to write our own job descriptions, we are running to be chosen by the party to be in the top leadership team.

If you were not to win which of the current contenders would you be most comfortable seeing in the role?
Well I think that’s quite a difficult question because I have worked with Peter Hain for over 20 years, from when he was Parliamentary candidate in Putney and completely built up the party there from nothing. He’s an absolutely doughty campaigner, if there’s a campaign to be had Peter will be there to campaign for it. So I have a lot of respect for him. Alan Johnson I’ve known from when he was in the Post Office in Brent in North West London. I was on the National Executive Committee with him for years when I was elected by the party to be on the NEC, and he was on the NEC as a trade union general secretary. I know Hilary and Hazel as well. We’re all colleagues in a team. But like I said, it’s not like there’s a huge ideological divide like there was with the Benn-Healy leadership/deputy leadership contest in which people were absolutely on one side or the other and there were deep divisions. It’s not like that, it’s more about whose got the best qualities to take forward into the leadership and I’m saying it’s me.

How do you believe that Labour can get its message across to students? Do you think they’re having any problems with that?
I think we just have to get across the basic arguments. What’s important for students is the argument about equality; students are very opposed to inequality and Labour is certainly the party that stands for equality. Equality for women, equality on grounds of sexual orientation and race. So I think that is a very important part of our programme. Students have shown their deep concern about development and poverty in the third world and I think it’s important that we remind students the Labour government has made a huge difference in terms of working to Make Poverty History. I think that on the environment engaging with students is something we need to do. I also feel that we should make students and young people in the party aware that they can have a big say in putting forward policies for the future. Labour needs to be prepared to listen to its members more, and this includes students.

Do you think that the fact Labour is in government presents problems with getting young people on board, given that it’s ‘the establishment?’
I think that when you’re a student is the time when you challenge the authorities and the establishment, but I feel that most people within the Labour party are anti-establishment and anti-authoritarian; I think that it does represent a challenge, if you in government but what the government wants to do is change things for the future, not just keep the status quo. The main thing to do is to show ourselves to be open to students in terms of listening to them and what they have to say as well as giving them an important role in deciding policy - not just stuffing envelopes for the campaign.

Jack will be back with more political madness next year!