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DERMOT MURNAGHAN: It’s been reported that around a third of Labour voters in Scotland are considering voting for independence so should the Labour party take some of the blame for a flagging campaign?  I’m joined now by the Labour front bencher and Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Chris Leslie, a very good morning to you Mr Leslie.  So Labour are dropping the ball here and your own appeal, your own supporters are considering delivering a yes campaign victory.

CHRIS LESLIE: Well I hope not …

DM: The polls tells us they are.

CHRIS LESLIE: Well as we get closer I think people are going to realise that this is really serious.  I mean we are now in a set of circumstances where people have to make up their mind, it’s not just something that will come and go for one year or two years, this is permanent, this is a big decision and we’re going to be spending every effort we can over the coming days that independence has its risks.  Interdependence, staying in the UK family, is by far the better way for people’s pensions, for the economy, for their standard of living, for the NHS, for the defence of the countries together  so I think this is an important moment but I think it’s really important now that people realise they have got to come out to vote.   

DM: But how has it got to this?  You know, Labour’s responsibility, Alistair Darling is leading the campaign, the former Chancellor, do you think he has messed it up? 

CHRIS LESLIE: No, absolutely not at all.  In fact what we are facing, as we’ve just heard from John Swinney and the SNP, is they are promising all sorts of goodies, motherhood and apple pie and all will be right with the world but what they are not doing, I think, is giving the full picture.  I think if anybody is in any doubt, has any sense of uncertainty about this, they have got to vote no.  The idea that the SNP are offering social justice and fairness is, as you heard in the Gordon Brown clip, complete false prospectus because their priority is tax cuts for the big corporations but also, if you want the best evidence, look what happened on Friday in Westminster, we had a vote on the Bedroom Tax and whether to get rid of the Bedroom Tax.  Because we had such a great turnout from all the Labour MPs, we managed to beat the government but where were the SNP Members of Parliament?  They were absent.  They do not have an agenda for social justice. 

DM: But isn’t Labour hamstrung by this core argument, you both agree, you agree with Alex Salmond that you never want to see a Conservative government ever again, you don’t  know whether you can stop that altogether but Alex Salmond can, Alex Salmond and the SNP can because if they get independence, unless things change radically over the next couple of generations there ain’t going to be a Conservative government in an independent Scotland. 

CHRIS LESLIE: But what sort of government would they end up with in Scotland where you wouldn’t have the pooling of resources that we have, the interdependence that is such a benefit to the people of Scotland with social policy, economic policy, there are big, big risks and it is important that people now focus on that and the idea that we can’t somehow get rid of the Tories, we can get rid of the Tories and we will get rid of the Tories in only eight months’ time. 

DM: But that’s the crucial weakness, isn’t it, in the no campaign and I mentioned it to Gordon Brown.  Nigel Farage is reportedly going to be going up to Glasgow on Friday to lead a campaign against independence, you don’t really want to be on the same platform as him, not even physically but you don’t want to be making the same arguments as him do you in the Labour party?

CHRIS LESLIE: Well you can’t decide who you’re sharing your platforms with in these things.  Of course we have disagreements with David Cameron and Nick Clegg and Nigel Farage but I think that …

DM: So you would join with Nigel Farage on this one?

CHRIS LESLIE: Because Britain and the United Kingdom is the best way forward not just for us with English constituencies but for the Scottish people as well because we all rely on each other on a number of different fronts, whether it’s defence, yes the currency as well – people have got to start focusing on what are the consequences if on that fateful day people decide to leave. 

DM: I just want to turn to the economy, I know you have come in to talk about that as well.  You have got this issue of the Chancellor we believe is going to announce on rail fares that those big increases are going to be capped, shooting your fox yet again.  They did it on energy, they are now doing it on rail fares.

CHRIS LESLIE: Well you’d be forgiven for thinking there might be a general election on the horizon.  We’ve seen a 21% increase in rail fares since George Osborne came in so him offering a few things for the next few months, I think people will take it with a bit of a pinch of salt.  They know the game that he is trying to play.  We’ve been calling for a lot of these changes in terms of the caps and getting rid of the arrangements where some of the companies hit people in particular commuter areas.  Only a couple of weeks ago the Chancellor said, oh it’s impossible to do, we can’t do it, Labour wouldn’t do it and now of course, when he is looking to the general election, we’re glad for the small mercies we have got for the next few months but it’s not enough. 

DM: But aren’t you doing a UK version of what you are accusing Alex Salmond of, overall what you are promising the UK electorate as we approach that general election, that you can both balance the budget, eliminate the structural deficit and be fairer and have more growth.  You have found the economic equivalent of fairy dust have you?

CHRIS LESLIE: No, we know that there are hard times to come and that is for Scotland as well as for England, we have got a big job to sort out the cost of living crisis that still sees our wages falling behind.  The new data today in the Sunday Mirror shows in the league table of European countries, British wages have been falling and only Greece, Cyprus and Portugal have done worse so there is a big job to do. 

DM: But look at their unemployment rates.  You can’t look at wages without looking at jobs and Labour has often said you would rather have people in work than out of work.  Okay, there are more people in work but the money has been spread around. 

CHRIS LESLIE: But the economic insecurity continues, we’ve got to get rid of these exploitative zero hours contracts, we need a meaningful minimum wage that is properly enforced, we should have incentives for companies to pay the living wage, there are lots of things that Ministers could do and will do under a Labour government in eight months’ time. 

DM: Let me just ask you, because you sent this statement out before you arrived in the studio, ‘We will balance, Labour will balance the books in the next parliament but do so in a fairer way by reversing David Cameron’s tax cuts for millionaires.’   Now you and I know that the deficit stands at round about £100 billion at the moment, £107 billion for this year dropping according to the OBR to under £100 billion next year.  Even Ed Balls himself says, and this is doubted, that increasing that top rate of tax will raise £10 billion over three years.  It doesn’t really go a long way to eliminating that debt.

CHRIS LESLIE: Nobody is claiming that …

DM: Well you are claiming it. 

CHRIS LESLIE: Let me get a word out – nobody is claiming that dealing with the long-term deficit problems, that by the way George Osborne has failed and said he is going to leave a £75 billion deficit, you can’t say that is purely going to be dealt with by going back to that 50p rate but it’ll make a bit of a difference and significant difference and it is important that we recognise the choices that the different parties offer.  For David Cameron and George Osborne, they believed that if you were earning £150,000 and above you should get that tax rate, we don’t believe that’s the case and if we are going to tackle …

DM: But it won’t balance the books.  

CHRIS LESLIE: The deficit will be reduced if we take steps like going to that 50p rate …

DM:  And more tax rises?

CHRIS LESLIE: If we have that 50p rate it will make a big difference.

DM: Okay, thank you very much Mr Leslie, good to see you.  Chris Leslie there.