Transcript of an interview with Sarah Montague on Clare Short’s intention to stand down as an MP at the next election
14 September 2006
Sarah Montague: The Labour MP and farmer Cabinet Minister Clare Short is to stand down at the next election so that she can campaign for a hung Parliament and for proportional representation. She’s in our radio car now. Good morning.
Clare Short: Good morning.
SM: Now presumably you could campaign for PR without standing down. Is this because you’ve had enough of being an MP?
CS: I’ve had enough of the present Government which I think is in error and deeply moved away from everything that the Labour Party stands for. But I have been saying at meetings and book signings that I think our political system’s in trouble, it doesn’t, nothing is properly scrutinised. The arrogance and concentration of power in Number Ten is also, creates incompetence in decision making and our foreign policy is exacerbating the problems of the world. And the only answer is to get a Parliament that’s more reflective of opinion in the country. The political elite are departing from the country.
So I say I think there’s a high chance of a hung Parliament next time, it’s highly desirable, we’ll get electoral reform, Parliament would come back, we’d get Cabinet Government again, and then I get messages from the Chief Whip saying I’m not allowed to say this.
SM: But now this is because you want proportional representation, you think the only way to get there is to have a hung Parliament and you’re not allowed to argue for that because that’s what, a betrayal of...
CS: Well it’s calling for less Labour MPs is what she says. But of course Labour fought the ’97 election on a commitment to a commission and then a referendum on electoral reform but that’s been quietly dropped.
SM: But you’re saying that you’re going to stand down at the next election but you’re effectively, I mean the very fact that you’re saying it now means you’re campaigning now. Are you not going to lose the Labour Whip as a result of campaigning now?
CS: But that doesn’t matter one way or the other. I think we’re in a lot of trouble as a country. I think our political system’s in a lot of trouble. I think the Labour Party and the Labour Government’s dishonoured, Cameron is just another imitation Blair positioning himself but not discussing the merits of policy. There’s big trouble out there for us and I think if we could get a hung Parliament and then electoral reform we could bring some decency and intelligence and rationality back in to our politics.
SM: Okay but I’m just, just to follow the logic of it, the argument that you’re prepared to pay the price by standing down then, you’re actually prepared to pay the price now?
CS: Well I’ll pay whatever price ’cause in the end you shouldn’t be in politics if you can’t speak your truth and I need to be able to advocate what I think is the best answer for the country.
SM: Of course we know that there will be a different Prime Minister by the next election, probably Gordon Brown, and a lot of the criticism in the article that you’ve written in The Independent this morning is very much directed at Tony Blair. Do you think Gordon Brown would do things differently?
CS: I used to think so. I think if we’d changed our Leader before the last election we could have renewed ourself and corrected what had gone wrong but now Gordon has had to say “I support Tony in everything he’s done, in every single way” and then he suddenly says “and we’re going to replace Trident without any debate about the nature of our foreign policy”, and he favours ninety days’ detention, so on the whole civil liberties thing Gordon positions himself to say “I’m going to be even tougher”. And so whoever they talk about for the Leadership there’s no policy, there’s no correction of error, it’s just let’s have another personality who can play around with this state of ours.
SM: You, you were Cabinet Secretary of course for six years and you, working alongside Gordon Brown. There’s been criticism of him that he doesn’t have a collegiate style, that he in effect, sort of concentrates power round him more than Tony Blair does. What was your experience of him then and working with him?
CS: I had a good working relationship with Gordon. He cared about development and he took the policy analysis that came from my department, so we collaborated well. The truth is there is no Cabinet Government in Britain any more. Tony Blair doesn’t have a collegiate style; it’s all sort of arrogant power in Number Ten and to a lesser degree in the Treasury, and people can run their departments as long as they do what Number Ten says, they can run the rest.
Our systems are breaking, we’ve got Secretaries of State who don’t stand up to the young lads in Number Ten who give the Prime Minister the sort of flashy headline to announce, and we get all sorts of unthought through and ill considered policy.
SM: But why not stay as an MP where you have relative power and fight for change?
CS: I’ve considered that obviously but one is that I really think we need to change our electoral system, it’s the key to renewing our political system, and I’m getting trouble from the Chief Whip for saying what I think is the right thing on that.
And the second thing is you have to stand as a Labour candidate and now almost right across the piece, the nature of public sector reform, the foreign policy, the rule of law and civil liberties, I profoundly disagree with what the Labour Leadership is doing, and all the possible candidates for new Leader are all saying they support all those policies. So I don’t agree with them, I can’t defend them, I need to be able to speak up for what’s going wrong, and we need to get the country to feel there’s some way of changing things.
People are very depressed out there, young people in particular. One of my nephews was saying recently there’s no one to vote for, I don’t know what to do.
SM: Well an awful lot of those people judging by the opinion polls are looking at the Tories again. From what you have heard from David Cameron would you rather that he was Prime Minister than Tony Blair?
CS: I think David Cameron is a pure imitation of Blair. He’s a PR man. He’s positioning himself. Nothing is detailed policy; it’s just mood and positioning and then he wants, he and his gang want to capture Number Ten and they’d govern it in a similar way and do almost the same things as Blair’s doing. That’s the problem. The country doesn’t really have a choice if we go on like this.
SM: You’re going to stand down. You could of course stand as an independent
CS: Yes I’ve thought of that. It’s improbable but who knows?
SM: But possible because I mean, you very specifically say you won’t contest the next election as a Labour candidate. You have considered...
CS: I’ve considered everything. I really, this isn’t a game you know, I’ve spent my adult life trying to work through politics for a more fair country and an honourable role for Britain in the world. I think we’re in profound trouble. I’ve decided not to stand as a Labour MP because I can’t advocate what I think is right. I don’t think I’ll stand at all but we need a new mood in the country and I’m open to anything that starts to sort this problem out
SM: But a lot of people would have a problem with your position because they say you’re criticising a system that you were part of for six years and whatever changes there have been since you were Cabinet Secretary for six years at a time when presumably the same charges of an incredible incompetence and arrogance applied
CS: I personally think and I’ve set this out in my book that there was a massive deterioration after the first term in the, the, Tony Blair became convinced that he was the great gift that he could control everything. Up to that we were implementing Labour’s manifesto commitments which we’d put in place in the Kinnock and John Smith years. It was a better Government and my department was a very fine, and is, a very fine organisation. But lots of what went wrong came thereafter.
SM: It’s not just sour grapes as a result of your own experience in
CS: Certainly not, I, gosh this is profoundly sad, it’s not sour grapes. It’s, we’re in trouble and we’ve got to do something about it
SM: Clare Short, thank you.
CS: Thank you.
