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DERMOT MURNAGHAN: Now when we think of international development we tend to think of disaster zones and famines, things like that, but the Shadow International Development Secretary, Jim Murphy, this morning is calling for football chiefs to take action on what he calls the beautiful game’s ugly secret. What’s he talking about?  I’ll ask him in just a moment and I’ll also be asking him about MPs expenses.  Jim Murphy joins me now from Glasgow, good to talk to you Mr Murphy, let me talk first of all about Maria Miller.  Do you think or does Labour think, do you think she should resign?

JIM MURPHY: Well I think in politics it’s often the cover up that gets you and in this case this must be about the first ever example in modern times of a celebration about to get you because once Maria Miller went through that process, the way in which she offered a thirty second apology and the Prime Minister seemed to celebrate the findings of the committee, has led to people asking many more questions about what did Downing Street know, what did the whips know?  I think one of the things that we learn from this is that the current rules and the way in which these sorts of things are overseen by Members of Parliament and the committee, now have to change or least have a radical overhaul of the Standards Committee and the way in which these sorts of cases are dealt with in the future.

DM: Because it reflects not just on Maria Miller, not just on the Prime Minister but on people like you as well.  It’s all MPs in the public’s eyes then who are back in the eye again as still not having sorted out their expenses.

JIM MURPHY: I think this reflects badly on everyone, of course it does, but I think one of the things we should perhaps reflect on is this is about the old system, this is Maria Miller and her expenses around the old system.  So much has changed since then but the piece of the jigsaw that hasn’t yet been completed is the modernisation of the committee that oversees it.  There is a wider point here I suspect as well which is there is a bit of a pattern of the Prime Minister not asking the hard questions.  He didn’t ask the hard questions when it came to Andy Coulson, he’s not asking the hard questions on other ministerial issues and it’s been left to the media and some backbench MPs to ask the tough questions that Downing Street and the Prime Minister really should be on top of.  It’s a sense of complacency when it comes to his relationship with these ministers.

DM: Doesn’t it also play, when you talk about the way it reflects on all MPs, it then plays into those anti-politics parties, and of course we know the standard bearer for that trend in British society at the moment, Nigel Farage. 

JIM MURPHY: Well I’m not sure Mr Farage’s party are squeaky clean when it comes to the issue of expenses.  There is a wider point which isn’t about party politics in which politics more generally is demeaned every time that there are these sorts of scandals which is why the Prime Minister has got to get a grip, which is why Parliament across parties has got to modernise the committee which oversees these things but ultimately there has to be remarkable openness in this regard.  I remember David Cameron talking about sunshine is the best detergent, so now we need some really straight answers so we can get to the bottom of this and we can all make our judgement.  I know this another knock or blow for the standing of politics and politicians but I hope the public can see this is about one individual under the old system and a Prime Minister and a government that don’t seem to, didn’t seem to take it seriously until this weekend.

DM: Okay, let’s move on to what I introduced you as coming here to talk about, the beautiful game’s dirty or ugly secret.  You’ve just come back from somewhere that’s an awful lot warmer than where you are now Mr Murphy, tell us about it.

JIM MURPHY: I don't know, it’s quite warm here in the Glasgow rain.  I’ve just come back from Qatar as a guest of the International TUC and the Sunday Mail and of course Qatar is hosting the 2022 World Cup and what I saw there will stick with me for a very long time and unless FIFA and football authorities act on worker’s rights in Qatar, the game that I love, I think I’ll be embarrassed and ashamed by forever because the migrant workers that are working there, who are already building much of the infrastructure, the hotels, the railways, the roads that will help make the World Cup possible and now they are beginning to start to build the stadiums, the workers are living and toiling in conditions that are sub-human.  They sign up to contracts in countries such as Kenya and Bangladesh, they are promised wages that they couldn’t earn at home but when they get there their contracts are torn up, many of them have had their passports seized from them by their employer, they can’t leave the country and this is a dreadful ugly secret of the most beautiful and democratic game in the world and FIFA, the English FA and the Scottish FA have got to act.

DM: Do you think that’s grounds, I mean take that, what you’ve discovered and has been discussed about the conditions and the wages that those workers are getting and the manner in which it’s thought that they won that World Cup in the first place, do you think our government should urge FIFA to look again at staging the World Cup there?

JIM MURPHY: I think you have always got to be careful about governments interfering in FIFA issues, I think it is primarily for football authorities and as Labour’s Clive Efford says, if there is proof of corruption in the process then the whole thing would have to be run again but my point is a different one which is that on the assumption this tournament continues in Qatar, those of who love football, those of us who will be watching the World Cup this year in Brazil, those of who are excited by the end of the domestic league season, we’ve all got to look at what is happening in Qatar here and now.  I met someone who had travelled from Nepal, whose company had gone bust and whose employer had taken his passport out of the country.  He’d been trapped there for five years, stateless, unable to move and unable to go home to the family that he loved, that’s just one example of many thousands and I met with the organisers of 2022, they promised massive changes to the controversial kafala system which ties workers to their employers and I think we all have to, through the football authorities in this country and beyond, make sure that those promises that were given to me are now delivered up.

DM: Can I just ask you more broadly on international development, Mr Murphy, of course we are reaching as a national this 0.7% of GDP figure that we are going to spend, that we will spend and continue to spend on overseas aid.  If Labour get into power and the economy continues to grow, that 0.7% will be a bigger and bigger sum, you’ll be strapped for cash but that is sacrosanct, you will not veer from that?

JIM MURPHY: We’re committed to 0.7 spending and I hope the other parties remain committed to it, not just because it’s a generous thing to do but because it’s also in our self-interest.  It’s important that we deal with climate change, the development budget can help to do that, it’s important that we deal with migration, immigration and asylum and building economies overseas can help prevent people wanting to come to our country.  Helping to have stable countries abroad can prevent us having to get involved in military action again in the future in the ways that sometimes we’ve been forced to do so in recent years so I think it is in our national self-interest as well as being a generous and open hearted and warm spirited thing to do.

DM: Lastly a quick question about the leadership, almost inevitable.  Ed Miliband, I’m reading today in one of the papers that a dream team is being assembled should he stumble at the next general election, Yvette Cooper and Andy Burnham, what do you think of that?

JIM MURPHY: Well I haven’t read that report and I don’t put any basis upon it.  Ed Miliband has delivered a united Labour party which is, unlike all the historic experience of the Labour party, where we usually form a circular firing squad against one and other when we lose an election, we’ve come together and we’re determined to work together to get rid of what is often a pretty chaotic government and I’m determined that we can do that and I’m sure with the right amount of effort and the right balance of policies that we’re now working on, that’s what we will do.

DM: So he’s got your full support then, Ed Miliband, even though the state of polling isn’t great for your party at the moment?  He demoted you effectively didn’t he?

JIM MURPHY: No, this is a big job at an important time as are the questions we’ve been talking about just now.  This isn’t about me or any other character, the country does need change, there’s a sense of frustration, there’s a sense that a lot of people who are working really hard, who abide by the rules, who get up every morning to go to work and care for their families, the big question in their mind is, are they better off at the next election when it comes than at the last election.  I just wish David Cameron would put as much effort into fighting for the living standards and the jobs of everyday people as he does for his cabinet ministers, I suspect he would be a good deal happier if that’s what happened in our country.

DM: Great to talk to you Mr Murphy, thank you very much indeed.  Jim Murphy there in sunny Glasgow.