Ross Lydall: That Jim Murphy interview uncut

Due to constraints on space, my interview with Scottish Secretary Jim Murphy appeared in an abridged form in today's Scotsman. For the sake of completeness, I attach pretty much the full transcript. The interview was carried out at Dover House, London, on Wednesday 25 February, immediately before Mr Murphy and the Prime Minister met First Minister Alex Salmond, and other leaders of the devolved governments, to discuss the economy etc.

Question: Will the job of Scottish Secretary disappear? "Not any time soon," he said.... "If, at some point in the distant future, when the devolution settlement has settled down in Northern Ireland, at some point in the future you may have a Secretary of State for the Nations." But such matters had been entirely knocked off the political agenda by the economic crisis.

He said it was "wrong" to combine the jobs of Defence Secretary and Scottish Secretary. "It was a mistake to combine the two jobs. Des [Browne] had an impossible job. I thought he did the impossible really well. But it was imbalanced, particularly when Northern Ireland and Wales had a full-time Secretary of State. It reduced Scotland in the hierarchy of the Cabinet. I think we're back to where it should be."

Is the Scottish Secretary or the First Minister the most important politician in Scotland? "For me it's not a competition about who is the main politician in Scotland. Gordon Brown is the main politician in Scotland, not Alex Salmond or Jim Murphy. Alistair Darling is probably the second most [important] politician in Scotland.
"In terms of public perception, Scottish Secretary - it's not the best job title in the first place anyway, is it? I'm relaxed about it. Secretary of State for Scotland is a bit more understood. Des was spending so much time on defence that you can understood why people would say: What is the publicly understood function of that job?"

Asked about the Labour submission to the Calman Commission and reports that there was opposition among some Scots Labour MPs to borrowing powers for the Scottish Government: "I think there were a couple [of Scots Labour MPs] who were critical but it's the Labour party policy. We went through a process. This is what we settled on. We are a party of thousands of members. There will be people who don't agree. That is fine."

Who drew up the submission? "Iain [Gray] did the vast majority of it, I played a supporting role." He added: "I'm very happy with every word in the document. Iain has crafted it really sensibly and it's the right thing to do."

What is his personal view about borrowing powers, and what the Calman Commission should propose? "Wait and see what the report says, the recommendations say... We set up this Calman process and it has to be independent, I'm not going to seek to influence it. By me telling you a view, I would be misconstrued as trying to influence it. I think Ken Calman has gone about it in an really methodical, extraodrinarily professional way, and I'm not going to second guess his work."

Does the Labour submission mean that Westminster is no longer, by itself, able to fulful all the needs of the Scottish people? "No, that argument was had 12, 14 years ago about can Westminster fulful the needs. That is why we had devolution in the first place. The Labour party has argued since its inception that a Westminster parliament couldn't fulfil its needs. Kier Hardie argued that Westminster couldn't fulfil Scotland's needs. Since the day the Labour party was formed, our view was that a UK parliament by and of itself had to be complemented by a Scottish parliament. It's been the heartbeat of the Labour party since we were formed, this idea that Scotland should have two parliaments."

How has Holyrood performed in its first decade? "Great, genuinely. We are coming up to the 10th anniversary of the first elections and the commencement of the parliament. In the first 10 years, did the House of Commons make mistakes? I suspect it probably made one every day that it sat. I think it's been really refreshing for Scotland. I think it's led the way in some important ways. It has been a real success, and needs to continue to be."

Has Holyrood replaced the Commons as the real forum for political debate? "It fluctuates day to day. I don't see it as a competition between the two."

Is the status quo an option on the constitution/for Calman? "I think there is a general problem, which is that they're {the Scottish Government] not financially accountable for the decisions, the spending decisions that are taken. That is the main point that has got to be addressed. There are other points that have got to be addressed, like the working relationships between the two parliaments and the two governments, which are nowhere near good enough. Calman is looking at this, but the idea that there is not enough of sharing of ideas, sharing of experiences among select committees, for example. The intergovernmental, sub-committees don't cotribute enough to cross-border thinking. There is grandstanding, unnecessary grandstanding. The one that has really annoyed me is this thing about drugs. The welfare reform bill that has come before [the UK] parliament. In future, it will be a condition of people on incapacity benefits, because they are drug addicts, will have their benefit stopped unless they take up treatment. But the Scottish Government are refusing to play ball on that, entirely. I think it's unncessary grandstanding. I'm perplexed as to why.
"More generally, in the economic circumstances, the big story of the year, the only story of the year, in the economy is that I just think too often the Scottish Government in general, and the First Minister in particular, is putting party before country. He is arguing the SNP's agenda rather than Scotland's agenda, and Scotland's priorities... For them, it's a chance to reflate old grievances, I don't know whether in light of their economic model being exposed by the reality that we are going to have to accept this as part the vocabulary of Scottish politics, whereby it's 'blame London' in preparation for their referendum in November 2010."

How does he regard cross-border working? "It works both ways. The Scottish government doesn't come here [Westminster] to give evidence. What I'm saying is that I think we can improve the current system. Again I don't have a prescription for improvement, I just know it can be improved."

Would he be prepared to give evidence to a Holyrood select committee? "I think as part of a wider deal in the future, as part of a new arrangements in the future, not in a haphazard one-off way. There are issues about accountability, but as part of a wider process."
Who would come the other way and give evidence to Westminster? "Having identifed the problem, I don't have a pre-cooked solution. But I think it is the type of thing we could look at. Certainly at least for the time of the economic crisis, it's something we should be doing. I think the working relationship between central government, the UK government, and the three devolved administrations - the Welsh Assembly Government, the Northern Ireland executive and the Scottish Government could be improved. It's not a London-Edinburgh thing, it's a general devolution thing."

Has he any desire to become MSP/Scottish Government minister? "I have got a fantastic job here. I think it's arrogance for me to announce [that I would be going to Scotland]. Iain Gray is doing a great job. I'm confident he will be the next First minister. I got elected against my expectations in 1997, as you know. It was the most Conservative seat in Scotland. It's a fantastic job. I don't want to take people for granted by switching."

But would he not be attracted to a Scottish Parliament with greater powers? "I'm happy where I am. It's also a challenge to stay where I am, with the voters of East Renfrewshire."

What does he think of the standards of debate at Holyrood? "I have seen clips on the news and they seem to shout a lot. But that is up to them. You wouldn't get away with that in the Commons. I don't watch it very often, but occasionally I will see it and they will do a lot of shouting."

What are his expectations of the general election? "We have got a fight on our hands but I'm confident we can win. We have got a real fight on our hands. How did I get elected in 1997? I got elected as a 29-year-old in a constituency where the Labour party hadn't won for 70 years. Why? Because the Conservatives had run out of energy and ideas. There was no purpose in voting for John Major. The contrast between the agenda we had, and the one that John Major had run out of, was pretty stark. That was in retrospect probably the easiest election in history for the Labour party to win.
"The next one is the most difficult, and it's rightly the most difficult. We are trying to double what no Labour government has ever done before. No Labour government has ever served two full terms in its history. Now we're trying to get a crack at a fourth full term. Therefore its rightly going to be more difficult. It should be more difficult. Because you have got to continually prove yourself. You can get frustrated about this, but I don't get frustrated. There is never going to be a belated sense of gratitude for what you have done, there just isn't. In normal times - we will see what happens in the economic crisis - there has never been a belated sense of gratitude to fuel contemporary content for what you do next. Even that 1945 government didn't gete two full terms. It was back out of office a few months after its second victory, after doing all the remarkable reforms. The Labour party doesn't get elected off the back of what it has done. It gets re-elected on the basis of what it's going to do. This will be the toughest. But I am certain we can win this election, certain we can win it."

Will voters not believe it is time for a change? "In politics, nothing is inevitable. You create your own energy."

Would Labour's chances increase if Gordon Brown waits until the last possible minute? "It's not going to be easy regardless of when it is. People will rightly be feeling anxious, worried and hurt because of what the economy is going through. No amount of political argument or speeches or clever documents by any of the parties will be able to ignore that fact, that there will be a real sense of anxiety and hurt among the public. It was really about which party is able to say this is the best plan to get the country [back on its feet].
"We did all the easy terms in the first term in government. You introduce the national minimum wage. It's a legislative command - you pass a law and it has to happen. The harder thing is about trying to drive value for money in public service improvements. You can't pass a law - it's cultural change and it's delivery. All of these things are more difficult."

How will Scotland vote? Will there be the same willingness to vote Labour or a rise in the SNP vote? "We have always got to re-earn people's affections. There is a trend about people being more retail and less tribal about their politics. That is a good thing. It's a reflection of modern society that people be more retail and less tribal. But what does that mean? You have got to be better. You have got to be better than all of the others and not rely on what their father did or what their grandmother did in terms of voting intentions."

Are there lessons to be learned from the Glasgow East and Glenrothes by-elections? "Glenrothes showed that politics is local. The global and national thing sets the scene, but people are increasingly local in how they make their decisions. That I think was the lesson in both Glasgow East and Glenrothes. I think there's lessons for party organisation, but that's for the Labour party to work out, not me.
"I think the next election will be about local responses, community responses and families' feelings about their communities in the context of the global recession. The backdrop is going to be the global recession. I think that, when it comes, this will be the most personalised general election campaign in history."

Tony Blair and Gordon Brown: "I have not hidden the fact that I have friendship and affection for Tony Blair. That would be silly. But I speak more to Gordon Brown than I ever did to Tony Blair. Gordon has been remarkably open and really engaged and engaging. All of that stuff is in the past, that Blairite-Brownite stuff. I'm just New Labour. I'm comfortable with that."

Life in Cabinet: "Every meeting is open. I would describe it as open, pretty refreshing atmosphere where you can contribute to your own policy area or anyone else's policy area, and the conversation kind of runs and rolls.... Banks, Royal Bank, HBOS, Calman, these things come up pretty regularly. It's a phenomenal experience. It's all these things you would expect me to say, but I have to say them because they're true. You think yourself, how much would you like to do it? You sit round that table where so many of the big decisions in history were made. And this isn't a kind of mock Glasgwegian working class chip on my shoulder kind of thing, but you sometimes pinch yourself just how fortunate I am. I consider myself to be the luckiest man in Scotland, the most fortunate man in Scotland to have the position I have and the honour that I have. I know that sounds kind of schmaltzy... There is no sense that there are only three people allowed to speak. Everyone has their say when they want to have their say. It's a remarkably open meeting. He runs a very, very good cabinet, he runs it in a very open way."