Cameron and Miliband: the Battle for Number 10 - interview with Ed Miliband

ANY QUOTES USED MUST BE ATTRIBUTED TO THE BATTLE FOR NUMBER 10, SKY NEWS & C4

JEREMY PAXMAN: This is Cameron and Miliband Live: The Battle for Number Ten.  With me now is the Labour leader, Ed Miliband.  Ed Miliband, do you think Britain is full?  

ED MILIBAND: Because of immigration?  

JP: Yes.

ED MILIBAND: I wouldn’t describe it that way, no.  I think we’ve got very high levels of migration, I think we do need to try and get those levels of migration down particularly low skill migration …

JP: Because they are too high now?  

ED MILIBAND: Yes but I’ll tell you one thing that’s very important, I’m not going to make a false promise on this because David Cameron did make that promise in terms of tens of thousands …

JP: You’ve got form on false promises on immigration haven’t you?

ED MILIBAND: Me personally?  

JP: Your government, your party.

ED MILIBAND: Yes but we got it wrong.  

JP: You got it completely wrong.

ED MILIBAND: We got it wrong, yes.  

JP: Your figures were farcical.  

ED MILIBAND: Yes, they were wrong.  Let me say two things which are important, you asked me a question, let me answer it.  I think that we benefit from our diversity, immigrants over the years have made a big contribution to our country but we do need proper controls.  Let me just say this, Jeremy, a Labour government would say if people come here, they can’t get benefits for the first two years and we will do something else, we will …

JP: I’m not talking about benefits, I’m talking about numbers.  

ED MILIBAND: Right and let me tell you, the way we will …

JP: Supposing we got to a figure of 70 million in ten or fifteen years, the population of this country, is that acceptable?  

ED MILIBAND: I’m not going to get into your hypotheticals.  I think we can get low skill migration down but …

JP: So no numbers?  


ED MILIBAND: I’m not saying that …

JP: 75 million, 80 million, 95 million, 100 million?

ED MILIBAND: Come on.  Let me say what I’m going to do, let me say what I’m going to do because that’s what matters rather than speculating about figures. I want to get low skill migration down and I think the controls we’re talking about, not just on benefits but on stopping the undercutting of wages because people are being brought into the country to undermine the minimum wage and various other things, I think they will help to get low skill migration down but if what you’re saying to me is would it be better for our country for example to withdraw from the European Union …

JP: I haven’t mentioned the European Union.  

ED MILIBAND: Well no, I’ll tell you why I’m saying that …

JP: You are making up the questions yourself.   

ED MILIBAND: I’m not.  

JP: You are.  

ED MILIBAND: There’s a big choice at this election, Jeremy, there is a choice at this election. I think we can bring in controls on migration, sensible controls but I’m not going to make false promises or put forward false solutions either.  

JP: I’m just asking you if you think there is any natural limit to the population of this country.  

ED MILIBAND: And I’m not going to get drawn into speculation about a number.  

JP: You don’t think there is a natural limit?

ED MILIBAND: Of course there are limits but the limits are expressed …

JP: So you are keeping them to yourself?

ED MILIBAND: The limits are expressed in the decisions you take year by year and I’ve explained some of the decisions that I will make.  

JP: So as it seems to you now, there is no figure that you are willing to share with the public?  

ED MILIBAND: I am not going to pluck a figure out of the air about the correct level ….

JP: I assume you have thought about it.  

ED MILIBAND: Yes, I’ve thought about the right thing to do on migration.  We are going to have controls on migration and I’ve explained some of those controls but I am not going to pluck a figure out the air.  

JP: So there is no finite limit.  Now you have already conceded that when your party was last in government it got immigration completely wrong.  You were predicting figures of between 5-13,000 immigrants a year from the expansion of the EU in 2004 and actually something like 400,000 people came in.  That’s the entire population of Malta equivalent.  What else did that government do wrong when you were last in power?

ED MILIBAND: I think there are two things that I would mention in addition to that.  By the way I am proud of many of the things that we did but there are two things I would mention.  First of all I think we were too relaxed about inequality, I think the gap got bigger and I think lots of people fell behind.  

JP: Did you borrow too much?

ED MILIBAND: I think that the global financial crisis, the global financial crisis is what drove borrowing up.  

JP: Did you borrow too much?

ED MILIBAND: The figure was too high at the end of our time as a result of the global financial crisis.  

JP: You did borrow too much.

ED MILIBAND: I am saying the figure was too high as a result of the global financial crisis.

JP: Did you spend too much?

ED MILIBAND: I think there were spending programmes that maybe weren’t as good as they could have been but I don’t believe, no …

JP: Come on, they sometimes weren’t quite as good as they should have been?  

ED MILIBNAD: No, it’s an important point, no government gets it completely right.  

JP: It’s a very important point, that’s why it’s important to have some details.  

ED MILIBAND: Let me just say, do I think the overall point was the financial crisis caused by overspending by Labour?  No, the answer is no.  I think investment in health and education …

JP: You’re doing it again, you’re asking yourself a question I haven’t asked you.  My question was did you borrow too much, you think no, you didn’t borrow too much.  Did you spend too much?  Some programmes perhaps.  

ED MILIBAND: Now you are asking yourself questions.  

JP: I am trying to summarise your position according to the questions you’ve been asked rather than the questions you’ve asked yourself.  

ED MILIBAND: What I would say is the Dome was not a good example of the way that money is spent, governments make mistakes.  

JP: Any others?

ED MILIBAND: Governments make mistakes, there are always inefficiencies in government.  Of course there are inefficiencies, probably to many reorganisations of public services which waste money, of course that’s right but I am talking about the overall picture, Jeremy.  The other thing I’d say to you is let’s talk about the future because there’s …

JP: Do let’s.  Do let’s, let’s talk about the future because virtually every single one of your forecasts on the future of the economy during this present government has been wrong, hasn’t it?  You forecast that unemployment would rise, you forecast that wages would fall, at one point I think you even forecast that inflation would rise and inflation is now at zero.

ED MILIBAND: Wages have fallen.  People are £1600 a year worse off than they were when this government came to power.  It’s the worst record in living standards since the 1920s and that is the argument at this election.  Look, what David Cameron wants to say …

JP: You also said unemployment …

ED MILIBAND: Hang on, you asked about wages, you said I was wrong that wages had fallen.  

JP: I said your forecasts were wrong.  

ED MILIBAND: You said I forecast that wages would fall, Jeremy and they did and I was right.  They did fall.  

JP: Are you claiming to be right on unemployment?

ED MILIBAND: You asked me about wages.  

JP: I asked you about three things, I mentioned three things, unemployment, I mentioned wage levels and I mentioned inflation.  

ED MILIBAND: On unemployment I was quoting the Office of Budget Responsibility forecast. Now as it turned out that forecast turned out to be wrong but look, let’s go to the big picture here.  The big picture is of this election is do we think the economy is fixed.  David Cameron was on earlier, he says things are good, right and things are fine.  I don't think things are fine for the reasons that I set out in the town meeting earlier on because I think we are too much based on low wages, I think work is too insecure, I think our young people are burdened down by lack of opportunity and that is what has got to change about the country.  

JP: What would you cut?  

ED MILIBAND: Well let me explain.  We said outside areas like education and health, key protected areas, there are going to be reductions in spending and we set out some of those cuts like the winter fuel allowance for pensioners with incomes over £42,000 a year.  We have talked about the ways in which we will cut money through efficiencies in the police, in local government.  We said for example that child benefit will be restricted to 1%, we said we’ll reverse the …

JP: What does that come to?

ED MILIBAND: The figures is at least hundreds of millions more than … more than a billion pounds but that’s not the point.  Let me explain, we are going to have to make these decisions when we’re in government but I’ve got to set out an overall approach and I have set out an overall approach.  I’ve set an overall approach which as I said earlier is about fair taxes, it’s about … I’m a Labour leader going into the election saying we’re going to reduce spending outside a small minority of areas.  Tony Blair never went into an election saying that.  

JP: What Tony Blair did is Tony Blair’s affair isn’t it?  

ED MILIBAND: No, it’s a point about my approach, Jeremy.  I am not denying the need to …

JP: Will overall spending be greater?

ED MILIBAND: No, it would fall.  

JP: So would you borrow more than the Tories?

ED MILIBAND: Outside the protected departments we are going to be reducing spending.  

JP: Yes, I am talking about overall spending.  Overall spending would not increase, it would decrease …

ED MILIBAND: It is likely to fall, yes.

JP: Likely?  

ED MILIBAND: Yes.  

JP: It’s a bit of a weasel word likely, isn’t it?  

ED MILIBAND: No, I’m setting out the direction of travel.  

JP: Okay, I’m confused about of your policies as is obvious.  Let’s take energy policy. Now you used to believe that raising energy bills was a great way of helping the environment, now you believe in cutting energy bills, now you believe that somehow getting people to have a better deal on the consumption of oil and gas is better for the environment.  

ED MILIBAND: I never said that raising energy bills was a way to solve climate change, let me explain …

JP: It was a levy.  

ED MILIBAND: Let me explain.  I always said when I was Energy Secretary that there would be upward pressures on bills as a result of the need to transition to a green economy but I also said that we need to make sure the energy market was fair and you can’t use climate change as an excuse for ripping off the consumer and that’s what’s been happening with the energy company.  Look, it goes to another big choice at this election, who is actually going to stand up to the energy companies and say we are going to freeze bills until 2017 so that prices can only fall, we are going to give the regulator powers to cut prices so that actually wholesale price reductions get passed on.  Sure there are upward pressures on bills in the long run but that makes it all the more important that you reform the market to make it fair.  

JP: Can you help us with another of your policies, the mansion tax?  According to your leader in Scotland this is a way of taking money out of the south east of England and giving it to Scotland.   That is what he said.

ED MILIBAND: No, it isn’t, it isn’t what he said.  

JP: He said specifically there weren’t enough properties in Scotland to raise the mansion tax that would fund the Scottish NHS, it was a way of taking money from the south east of England and spending it in Scotland.  

ED MILIBAND: Shall I explain?   

JP: Do, please.  

ED MILIBAND: So we are going to levy a mansion tax on homes above £2 million.  Now it is true that most of those homes are in the south east and it is also true that there are consequentials of that spending for Scotland, that’s the way the United Kingdom works.

JP: Consequentials?  

ED MILIBAND: The way that money gets distributed and some of that money will be spent in Scotland but let me make this point because it is really important, this is part of being a United Kingdom.  If there are young people who are unemployed in Newcastle and the money from a bankers bonus tax, more of it is raised in London, we help those young people in Newcastle.  If another tax falls somewhere else, then we help people across the United Kingdom.  If there are poor kids in London, we help them so that is part of being a United Kingdom, you have redistribution across the United Kingdom so this is absolutely a principle of a country that stays together and looks after each other.  

JP: What about Alex Salmond’s other types of blood money that he would like to exempt or exert from England?  What about for example a promise not to recommission Trident, perhaps move it out of Scotland, would you go along with that?

ED MILIBAND: No.   

JP: No, you wouldn’t.  What about starting the high speed rail line back to front as it were, in Scotland?  

ED MILIBAND: Look I’m not going to get into a bargaining game with Alex Salmond.  

JP: You are.  

ED MILIBAND: No I’m not.   

JP: You are, if you have any chance of forming a government you will won’t you?  

ED MILIBAND: No, don’t be so presumptuous.  We’ve got six weeks to go, six weeks to go, you don’t get to decide the election results six weeks before the general election.  You’re important Jeremy but not that important.  It’s the British people who decide.  

JP: I don’t want to decide it.  

ED MILIBAND: Let me finish the point, it’s the British people who …

JP: Are you honestly suggesting that you can get an overall majority?  

ED MILIBAND: Absolutely right, absolutely right.  

JP: Right.  In that event you would be leader of our country, you know what people say about you because it’s hurtful but you can’t be immune to it.  A bloke on the Tube said to me last week that Ed Miliband goes into a room with Vladimir Putin, the door is closed, two minutes later the door opens again and Vladimir Putin is standing there smiling and Ed Miliband is all over the floor in pieces.  

ED MILIBAND: Was it David Cameron that you met on the Tube?  

JP: No, it wasn’t, I don’t think he uses the Tube very much.   

ED MILIBAND: That’s rather unfair to him.  

JP: It is unfair but you understand what the point is here, people think you are just not tough enough.

ED MILIBAND: Let me tell you, right, let me tell you, in the summer of 2013 this government proposed action in Syria, the bombing of Syria, right?  I was called into a room by David Cameron and Nick Clegg because President Obama had been on the phone, the leader of the free world.  I listened to what they said and over those days I made up my mind and we said no. I think standing up to the leader of the free world shows a certain toughness, I would say.

JP: And are you proud of what’s happened in Syria since?

ED MILIBAND: I’m not proud of it, no, it’s a failure of the international community but what I’m not going to do is repeat the mistakes of the 2003 Iraq war which happened when Labour was power which is a rush to war without knowing what your strategy is and without being clear about what the consequences would be.  I am not a pacifist so I did support action in Libya and David Cameron talked about how I supported action again ISIS.  But am I tough enough?  Hell yes, I’m tough enough.  

JP: So how has this impression got out there?  How is it that you are less popular than your party, that even your own MPs consider you a liability?  How has that happened?

ED MILIBAND: Look, I don’t commentate on these thing.  

JP: You must read them, it must be hurtful.

ED MILIBAND: No, I definitely don’t read them.  Do you read about yourself?

JP: Not if I can avoid it, no.

ED MILIBAND: Exactly, you make my point for me.  Look there is six weeks to go to the general election, the people here and the people at home will make up their mind about me and about the country and what kind of country they want but do you know, frankly it is water off a duck’s back, honestly.

JP: So when Simon Danczuk says I find when I go and stand on the doorstep Ed Miliband is a liability you are unaware of that?

ED MILIBAND: Look, Simon Danczuk is entitled to his views, the only thing I can do, the thing I’ve learnt most in this job, let me tell you, is to be yourself.  That’s what I am and people have to decide, do they want my ideas, do they want my principles when I have stood up not just to President Obama but to Rupert Murdoch, the energy companies, the banks, fighting for ordinary people which is what I believe in and what I came into politics for?  Do they want somebody who will think every day about how they put working people first in our country?  Do you know, I don’t care what the newspapers write about me because what I care about is what is happening to the British people.  I know this country can be so much better and that’s what I came into politics for.  Newspapers can write what they like, the bloke on the Tube can say what he likes, I don’t care because I care about the British people and what happens to them.  

JP: The thing is they see you as a North London geek.

ED MILIBAND: Who cares?  Who cares, who does?

JP: Well it was mentioned earlier by a member of the audience, a lot of people when they look at your candidacy for the most powerful job in the land, they look at you and think what a shame it’s not his brother.

ED MILIBAND: Look, that’s obviously not the way I see it, is it?

JP: No, of course it isn’t.  

ED MILIBAND: Exactly.  You need a toughness in this job, you need a toughness.  People have thrown a lot at me over four and a half years but I am a pretty resilient guy and I’ve been underestimated at every turn.  People said I wouldn’t become leader and I did.  People said four years ago he can’t become Prime Minister, I think I can.  You are saying I can’t win a majority, I think I can.  So let people underestimate me but what I care about is what is happening to the British people in their lives and I think I can change it and I know I’m the right man for the job, that’s why I am sitting here and that’s why I believe I am the best choice to be Prime Minister.  

JP: Ed Miliband, thank you.

ED MILIBAND: Thank you.

JP: Are you okay Ed, are you all right?

ED MILIBAND:  Yes, are you?