Entangled Alliances

One of the key marginal seats in the upcoming general election is my own constituency of Withington, in South Manchester, which is making national headlines for its too-close-to call battle between Labour and the Liberal Democrats. Comprising a clutch of suburbs not far from Manchester city centre and Manchester University, Withington is home to a large student population. Traditionally safe Labour territory, in 2005 there was a stunning 17% swing to the Liberal Democrats who pulled off a surprise victory over Labour, winning by a mere 600 votes. This time around, Lib Dem MP John Leech is involved in an epic struggle with Labour, who have listed Withington as number 3 on their list of target seats. I met him two days after the first leaders’ debate and talked to him about the Nick Clegg effect, the coming hung parliament and the prospect of a Lib Dem-Tory coalition, tuition fees, dirty campaign tactics… and Eddie Izzard. 

The first question can only be about one thing: that TV debate. The unanimous verdict is that your party Leader Nick Clegg was the winner, and yeaterday there were some shocking polls putting the Lib Dems ahead of Labour and just behind the tories. Assuming he continues to do as well in the debates, What kind of impact do you think this is going to have on marginal seats like yours?

 Well I think the impact is twofold. One is on the national picture, because the daily poll that came out yesterday put us on 30% in the polls, ahead of Labour. So clearly on a national scale it brings a whole new dimension into the election .We would argue the reason why we don’t do as a well as we should is because we don’t get a fair crack of the whip within the media, so we always felt that with the leader’s debates it would be an excellent opportunity for Nick to get his message across. So it gives us that national profile, which obviously gives us a local boost in an area where we’re normally already strong.  Everybody knows that around here it’s a straight fight between the Liberal Democrats and Labour because they see us on the ground – they see that it’s a fight between the two parties and the Tories are nowhere – but obviously having that national profile on top of the local campaign that we’re doing is obviously a great boost to the campaign.

Surely, given your tiny margin of victory at the last election, Nick Clegg’s performance in the debates is the difference between you and losing and winning?

 I don’t think the leader’s debates are going to dictate the outcome of the election here locally. Obviously any boost we get from that nationally will help, but I think where the leader’s debates will really be important is in those seats where we’ve got to bridge the credibility gap. We’ve already bridged the credibility gap here, but in those other seats where we’re fighting to break through that’s where the leader’s debates are really important.

Now, opinion polls are showing that there’s probably going to be a hung parliament and Nick Clegg has refused to rule out a coalition with either the Conservatives or Labour. But the Tories aren’t that popular in Withington…

Neither are Labour…

Well, you only beat Labour last time by 600 votes, while the Tories got hardly any.  Aren’t you worried that a lot of Lib Dem voters, who tend to dislike Conservatives, will think that if there’s a chance you’ll enter into a coalition with the Tories then a vote for you is a vote for David Cameron?

No, I don’t except that at all. I fundamentally disagree with that. Where we’re fighting Labour, Labour say we’ll get in bed with the Tories.  Where we’re fighting the conservatives, the Tories say we’re going to get in bed with Labour.

But there is a possibility that you’ll get in bed with the Tories, just as there is a possibility that you’ll get in bed with Labour. That’s the point – you’ve not ruled either option out.

Well, let me just finish… We’ve got Labour saying we’ll get in bed with the Tories, the Tories saying we’ll get in bed with Labour: the reality is we’re fighting on a Liberal Democrat ticket.  If people vote Liberal Democrat, for more Liberal Democrat MPs, then Liberal Democrats will have more influence in the next Parliament. Where I think there is a fundamental shift this time, compared to last time the outcome of the election was uncertain – which was 1992 – is that this time people actually see there are going to be some positive benefits about there being a balanced Parliament.

 In 1992 Labour and the Tories were both saying a hung Parliament will be bad for Britain. Well of course they’ll say that because it allows them to continue with their cosy two party state where we say it’s our turn this time and it’s our turn next time. Because let’s be honest, the two other parties like this cosy consensus that first Labour are in power, then the Tories then Labour, because that suits them fine. But when the Liberal Democrats are breaking through and breaking that stranglehold the two parties have on the political system, they get very upset about it so they try and scare people into thinking a balanced parliament will be bad for Britain. Well let’s look at Europe. Most of the better democracies around Western Europe usually have a balanced parliament – Germany, Holland, Belgium, those sorts of places; they’re used to having balanced Parliaments. The political system doesn’t cave in there when they have a balanced parliament. Every time politicians who don’t want to see a proportional system of government and don’t want to see parties working together for the good of a nation, they always talk about the example of Italy. Italy used to have PR, and it was a basketcase. Italy doesn’t have PR anymore, but it’s still a basketcase. So there are going to be some countries that are going to have a poor political system regardless, but all the evidence has suggested that having a parliament that is balanced where no one party has an overall majority creates better government.

I accept that there’s a lot of evidence that a hung parliament leads to effective government, but it’s still the case that for a lot of left-leaning Lib Dem voters there’s a massive difference between a hung Parliament with a Lib-Dem Labour coalition and a hung Parliament with a Lib Dem-Tory one.

Well it’s impossible to say at this stage what the British public will decide on May 6^th. Before they had this debate, the Tories and Labour were saying don’t vote Lib Dem because it will either be a vote for the Tories or a vote for Labour depending on what side you’re on. After the debate, all bets are off. In the poll yesterday, the Labour have gone into third place. We wait to see what happens over the next few days and what impact the future debates will have, but the reality is that people who choose to vote Liberal Democrat will get more Liberal Democrat Mps. Nick Clegg was seen as a breath of fresh air by a lot of people – 44% of young people who watched the debate said they’re going to vote Liberal Democrat, which is a phenomenal amount of younger voters.  A vote for Lib Dems is not a vote for Labour or a vote for the Tories, it’s a vote for Liberal Democrats.

Ok, fair enough. Yes or no, then: if it came to a vote of Lib Dem MPs, would you vote for a coalition with the Tories? If it came down to that, would you vote yes or no?

Well, as we’ve already made very clear, there is no discussion, no debates, no decision before the general election. All we’re doing is fighting on a Liberal Democrat agenda and intending to get as many Liberal Democrats elected as possible. In the Yougov poll yesterday it said that Labour were going to come third in the national vote, now whether or not that will transpire into other polls is a another matter, who knows, but it said that Labour were going to get 28% and still get the largest number of seats. It said that we were going to get 30% of the vote and only get 104 seats. So at this stage we can’t say what the electorate are going to decide on May 6^th.  If we keep at 30% in the polls or increase we could reach the tipping point where win an enormous amount of seats both from Labour and the Conservatives. Interestingly, of course, that poll showed that we were taking more votes off the Conservatives than Labour: Labour were down 3, Tories were down 4, others were down 1, so we are attracting voters from all other parties because people see that a Lib Dem agenda will actually be good for Britain.

Moving on ,the issue of tuition fees is a massive topic in Withington  due to the large amount of students living in the area. On your campaign leaflets, you’ve got quotes from students complimenting the Lib Dem commitment to abolishing tuition fees…

Not all students agree with us. Some students actually support tuition fees. I come across Labour students fairly regularly who tell me time and time again that they support tuition fees. I was very fortunate to go to university in the early 90s and I was one of the last people to benefit from a grant – I benefited from being only two thousand pounds in debt when I left university. Having benefited from a free education and not being saddled with enormous debts, I’m not going to turn round and say “what was OK for me isn’t okay for students today”…

However, although your party wants to abolish tuition fees, Nick Clegg has said you can’t afford it at the moment.

That’s not what he’s said. What he said was, it will take six years to abolish top-up fees…

But that’s a massive shift from what your policy  used to be, which was to abolish them straight away…

Well, we will begin the process to abolish fees from day one, but it will actually be phased in over a six year period, frankly because Gordon Brown has left the economy in such a poor state that we’re almost bankrupt. And just as we want to introduce free child care for children from 18 months -that’s on hold as well until the economy is in a better state. But that’s not a manifesto pledge whereas abolishing tuition fees is one of our manifesto pledges and it’s frustrating that Labour (well and the Tories, but mainly Labour in this constituency) have tried to twist and discredit our policy by saying that there isn’t a manifesto commitment.  There is a manifesto commitment and we worked very hard to ensure money was set aside to ensure that it could be in the manifesto to abolish tuition fees.

Now the Withington Labour candidate Lucy Powell has said that if she is elected she would vote against the Labour whips on raising the cap on tuition fees.  This could eat into your student vote, couldn’t it?

There is absolutely no doubt that both Labour and the Tories will raise tuition fees if they ger back in government. We will not, we will abolish them. So there’s a very clear dividing line between our policy and the Tories’ policy. Now which one of the parties will suggest that the fees will rise the most? I don’t know. But there is absolutely no doubt that both parties will raise tuition fees. I can’t sit here and say to you that Lucy Powell if she gets elected will rebel against her party or not, but what I can tell you is that if we’re in power it won’t happen. Tuition fees won’t rise, they’ll be abolished over a six-year period. The electorate has got a very clear choice between fees being raised whether or not their local Labour MP votes for a rise, or for fees being not raised but abolished. And I’ve signed a pledge months ago, because why wouldn’t I sign a pledge when we’re going to abolish them rather than raise them?

In the last election you promised to protect Christie’s Hospital (renowned Cancer Hospital) against alleged Labour cuts and received a lot of support by doing so. But in this election, whereas both Labour and the Tories have promised to ringfence the NHS from public spending cuts, your party has in fact outlined plans to cut health spending…

Well I’ll give you an example. We’ll scrap the strategic health authority, which is a band of bureaucracy that’s a waste of time. I was talking to a doctor on the doorstep on Burton Road yesterday; she’s just finished her medical degree and I said one of our plans is to abolish the strategic health authority. I said “What’s it for?” and as a medic she had no idea – it’s not something that’s necessary. Her idea was: sack half the managers in the NHS. Now they’re the budget cuts you can make without impacting on frontline services. It’s frankly dishonest of Labour and the Tories to suggest that there’s no way any health budget could be impacted because given the size of the NHS budgets and the amount of bureaucracy and management that could be easily taken away without impacting services, to suggest that you don’t touch anything in the health budget just means that your cuts elsewhere are deeper. So compare the budget for transport, which is my area of responsibility in the party, in comparison with Health:  if you’re not going to impact the health budget it means that any impact on the transport budget is going to be so, so much worse because as a proportion it gets so much less money.

Okay, so you’ve talked about cutting bureaucracy, but it’s not at all clear that there’s an easy distinction between cutting wasteful bureaucracy and cutting the important stuff. Can you give a stone-cold guarantee that frontline services in Withington won’t be affected?

Absolutely. As far as health services are concerned we’ve made a firm commitment that we need additional investment in mental health services, for instance, and it’s invest to save as far as mental health care services are concerned, because what’s happened over successive decades is that far too many people have not got the support they need when they’re out of hospital meaning that they end up in hospitalised care, which is far more expensive.

On a more general note, what’s the main difference been for you between fighting your last campaign, where you were the challenger riding to an unexpected victory, and fighting this one, where you’re the sitting MP in a key marginal?

Well I suppose in some ways there’s no difference to last time, because last time we were fighting a campaign to win – not saying we were expecting to win – but we were fighting to win; this time we’re still fighting to win. Now I suppose there’s an additional pressure because as the incumbent I’ve got a lot more to lose this time, but I think the main difference is that in 2005 we had a lazy complacent Labour party but this time they’re running a pretty vile, nasty vicious campaign against me.

That’s quite strong language. Can you give a specific example of something they’ve done that’s been vile?

Well I’ll give you an example. Letters being sent to our supporters purporting to be from a concerned resident whose name is the wife of a former Labour councillor, who’s written to residents saying that I lied about Labour cuts to Christie Hospital and she was a cancer patient and she’s appalled…

I got one of those…

First of all it’s not written by her, it looks very suspiciously like Lucy Powell’s handwriting. The letter is simply a lie, and the number of people who’ve come to me and said I’m disgusted that I received this letter, because they know what’s in that letter is simply not true. They say that I was roundly condemned by the Manchester Evening News when it was the MEN that ran the story in the first place and we picked up the campaign to support the Christie after the MEN ran the story about Labour cuts. It’s just simply not true, it’s lies and we’ve had to put up with more and more of that: Labour’s dodgy bar chart claiming that we’re in third place. It’s just simple lies. It’s just desperate campaigning…

So you’d say it’s been a very negative campaign?

It’s been a  very negative campaign, but my campaign is about standing up for local services. Everyone knows that there will be cuts after this election, whether it’s the health service or transport or whatever, everyone knows that there will be cuts. The question that people need to ask themselves is who will stand up for local services. I’ll just give you a few examples. When the Labour council decided to close Ewing School, it was the Liberal Democrats who were campaigning with local residents: teachers, governors, parents of the school to avoid closure. If we take control of the council this May, it will overturn that decision and it will stay open. When Burnage walk-in centre was under threat of closure, who was it who was campaigning outside the walk-in centre to keep it open? Who’s campaigning now to get it re-opened? Labour have said nothing. They talk about helping protect local services, but they said nothing about it, absolutely nothing. When Labour tried to sell off part of Marie-Louise gardens for development, who was it who stopped that from happening? It was the Liberal Democrats. We’ve got a record of standing up for local services, Labour have got a record of just letting the Labour council close things and saying nothing. I think I’ve got a decent record of standing up for local services over the last five years and before that as a councillor. At a time when there are going to be cuts we’re the only party that are being honest about the level of the cuts. And at a time when there are going to be cuts we need to ensure that we have an MP who is going to stand up for local people.

Finally, Labour has Eddie Izzard out on the streets of Withington… who have you got?

I’ve got local people campaigning on local issues. They can bring all the celebrities they like, but people actually want to know what the issues are and who’s going to deliver for them in their area, so… Bring it on!