Press briefing from the Prime Minister’s Official Spokesman on: PM Radio Interview, Lords Reform, Foreign Policy Speech, Iraq Memo and Loans
PM Radio Interview
Asked what exactly the Prime Minister had made a mistake over, the Prime Minister’s Official Spokesman (PMOS) said, as he had made very clear last night when in Melbourne and anyone who had listened to the interview could hear for themselves too, the Prime Minister had been interrupted mid comment. Therefore any report that did not make that clear was quite simply inaccurate and not reflecting the true events. We had equally made it clear, and the Prime Minister was himself very clear in his own mind, that what he would have gone on to say would have been that he had hoped that by pre-announcing his intentions it would kill the speculation. This had not turned out not to be the case. The Prime Minister had not said that the pre-announcement was a mistake. He had not said the pre-announcement had backfired. He had simply said that his hope had been that it would kill the speculation but this had proven not to be the case.
In response to the suggestion that the original statement had been to stop speculation and that since the Prime Minister was now saying it was a mistake to think it would stop speculation, then the original statement was a mistake, the PMOS said he disagreed. The purpose of the original statement had been to be honest about his intentions with the electorate before an election. If journalists actually went back and looked at what he had said on the night he announced it that was what they would find. The Prime Minister also knew that speculation was already there in the second term and that it would, in all likelihood have continued into the third term. We now had lots of assumptions and premises being made in reports, which weren’t actually borne out by the interview, if people listened to the interview it clearly showed that the Prime Minister had been interrupted.
The PMOS then suggested that if the Prime Minister’s intention had been to say what was being suggested in reports then you would have thought that the presenter who interviewed him would have picked it up. She had not. Put that it had been at the end of the interview, the PMOS said that was wrong they had gone on to talk about John Howard. This had actually been the presenter’s intention to ask about John Howard’s position, not the Prime Minister’s position. In response to the suggestion that the presenter had not picked it up because she had been more interested in John Howard than the Prime Minister, the PMOS said that any reporter who was suddenly told the Prime Minister thought that his pre-announced decision had been a mistake would have picked up on that, no matter where they were from. The Prime Minister had been interrupted and had not had the chance to complete his thought. Therefore the reports today were inaccurate.
Asked if the Prime Minister still intended to serve a full term, the PMOS said that the Prime Minister had made his position clear and he had nothing to add. Put to the PMOS that Sir Menzies Campbell had said today that the Prime Minister should make his exit strategy clear and that the Prime Minister now had to be honest with the electorate and say what his intentions were, the PMOS said that that was a party matter and he had nothing further to add.
Put that most of the media had reported this morning that the Prime Minister appeared to have established in his own mind a date for his departure, what was the date and why shouldn’t people ask that question, the PMOS said the Prime Minister was focused on getting on with the business that he had been elected to get on with. It was a domestic agenda that included reforms in the NHS, in education, in other public services and tackling antisocial behaviour. It also included delivering a foreign policy agenda, which had today seen him get a standing ovation in the Australian parliament. In the speech he had taken the argument for global values, globally implemented further forward. He would take this on again in the third speech where he would call for significant changes to global institutions. Asked whether a leaving date would undermine that agenda, the PMOS said the Prime Minister had made it clear he would, having been elected less than a year ago, deliver on a domestic and a foreign policy agenda, on which he had won the election. He was going to live up to the commitment he had given the electorate and deliver on that agenda.
Put that the Deputy Prime Minster had admitted quite clearly that there was now a problem over the certainty of Mr Blair’s term in office and that the repercussions could not be ignored, the PMOS that the Deputy Prime Minister had actually said that he agreed with the Prime Minister’s decision to pre-announce his departure, which was a clear indication of where the Deputy Prime Minister stood.
Asked why the Prime Minister had not finished his thought, the PMOS said it had been very clear that the interviewer had been trying to drag the Prime Minister into Australian politics and to comment on the position of the Australian Prime Minister. This was clearly not something he wanted to do. Earlier he had also refused the opportunity to comment on the position of the opposition leader in Australia. He was sure everyone knew it was virtually unknown in London for presenters to interrupt politicians, but unfortunately that had been the case on this occasion.
Asked whether the Prime Minister had a timetable in mind, the PMOS said that the Prime Minister was delivering on the agenda that he had been elected less than a year ago to deliver. Put that it had been widely reported that the Prime Minster had made up his mind but not told anybody, the PMOS said referred journalists to his previous comments. Asked whether the Prime Minister still thought that Gordon Brown was his natural successor, the PMOS referred journalists to what the Prime Minister said the last time that he had been asked that question.
Lords Reform
Asked whether the Prime Minister had been signalling a new desire to get on with Lord’s reform and if he had been forced to change his view about electing the House because of the loans for peerages scandal, the PMOS said that the answer to that was no. If journalists looked at when Lord Falconer had started discussions with people, it had been before recent events. The commitment to Lords reform and to finding a consensus on Lords reform was in the government’s manifesto. Lord Falconer was simply delivering on the government’s manifesto. Put that Lord Falconer had only been looking at powers whereas now he was also addressing composition, the PMOS said that first and foremost if you were looking at even just the powers of the Lords that was Lords reform. Secondly, powers and composition had always gone together. The speed of any reforms would depend on how quickly a consensus could be reached.
Asked whether the Prime Minister had a preferred option on Lords reform, the PMOS said no. The Prime Minister had made plain in the House last week that his thinking continued on this issue and that he would make his views known in due course. He, however, believed first and foremost that there should be a debate and that there should be an attempt to achieve a genuine consensus, and Lord Falconer was working on that.
Foreign Policy Speech
Asked to identify the new ideas that the Prime Minister had articulated, the PMOS said the new ideas centred on a global response and global ideas. In the past the Prime Minister had talked specifically about issues such as finding a peaceful solution in the Middle East being as important as a security response in the Middle East. He had talked about climate change and how you also had to have economic growth at the same time. He had talked about the need to have a successful WTO round. He had talked about the need to tackle poverty in Africa. Today’s speech had brought together those themes into a reasoned argument for an open approach, as he would call it, rather than a closed approach. It had also been an argument against partial solutions and a call for a coherent comprehensive approach to those issues.
He was making a sequence of three interdependent keynote speeches about the interdependence of the world. The first speech had set out the central challenge from Islamic fundamentalism and why we needed to recognise it for what it was. Today he had placed that challenge, which was still a challenge, in a broader context by saying and developing the thought that you had to have a globalisation of politics, as well as a globalisation of economics. The third speech would be about how we needed to reform global institutions to deliver on those global ideas and those global values.
Iraq Memo
Asked about a leaked memo of a meeting between President Bush and the Prime Minister reported in the New York Times that suggested among other things that they had agreed 10 March as the start date for war, the PMOS thought that this had not been the first time this story had surfaced and he simply referred the journalist to everything that had been said before. We did not comment on leaked memos as a general rule and we certainly did not comment on discussions involving the US President. In terms of all these matters he again referred journalists to the four inquiries, which had looked into these matters.
Loans
Asked whether the planning laws needed to be changed to save John Prescott from being dragged into rows about donor issues, the PMOS said that John Prescott had not been dragged into planning laws; even the Sunday Telegraph story, which had made claims about John Prescott, had not claimed that.
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