ANY QUOTES USED MUST BE ATTRIBUTED TO MURNAGHAN, SKY NEWS

DERMOT MURNAGHAN: Now then, after last month’s election defeat, Labour has faced criticism from what seems like all sides.  The party has been accused of moving too far to the left and not far enough to the right, of failing to understand aspiration and at the same time only offering austerity lite.  Yesterday thousands of people took to the streets to protest against cuts whilst today the Chancellor has confirmed there will be billions of pounds more of them.  So as the dust settles, has Labour come any closer to deciding where it should go from here?  I’m joined now by the Shadow Health Secretary and leadership candidate of course, Andy Burnham, and a very good morning to you Mr Burnham.  Now you’ll know the accusation from some of your opponent’s supporters that you are shape shifting in the course of this campaign in terms of how you position yourself.  Let’s try and smoke you out then, direct question, why weren’t you on those anti-austerity marches yesterday?  You’re meant to be anti-austerity aren’t you?

ANDY BURNHAM: I was at the Labour party hustings in Stevenage and …

DM: But Jeremy Corbyn found time to go on it, he was there too.  

ANDY BURNHAM: Well I did events with members afterwards. Let’s be up front about this, I have not said there can be no cuts, we do have to bring the deficit down, Dermot, there has to be a credible plan, it’s just that I wouldn’t do it in the way this government is doing it.  They are doing it all from public spending cuts and that is going to have some devastating consequences for individuals who will be very much harmed by that but also for our public services.  The country isn’t going to feel good is it, if we get the deficit down but basically destroy our public services but that I feel is the Cameron and Osborne plan that is being laid out.  

DM: So there has to be some cuts, we’ve got the Cameron and Osborne plan reiterated, we believe those £12 billion worth of welfare cuts still coming down the line we’re told, how much of them would you do?  

ANDY BURNHAM: Well to be honest I think this is pretty disgraceful what’s going on today.  Here we have a Chancellor who is frightening people basically, he is just waving around this idea of huge cuts, drastic cuts, without spelling out where they’re going to come from.  He didn’t spell it out before the election and he’s still not spelling it out now and this is just not acceptable, this is not the way to do things.  He’s playing politics isn’t he, he’s trying to play politics by challenging us but actually in doing that he is frightening vulnerable people and that is wrong.  

DM: Well it’s a straight question, would you do them all, not do any of them, do part of them?  

ANDY BURNHAM: Let me tell you what I will do.  If this Chancellor thinks it’s acceptable to take benefits off disabled people who can’t replace that income or if he is coming after the tax credits of people on low incomes in work, then he is going to have a fight on his hands because I will stand up for those people.  As I say, it is questionable whether he has a mandate for cuts on this scale because he didn’t spell out before the election where these cuts were going to fall and that is wrong, Dermot.  People have a low judgement on politics these days, they hold us all in low esteem, isn’t this just going to make this worse?  He had a big plan to cut people’s benefits before the election, wouldn’t tell people and now weeks afterwards he is now frightening people with what he’s got in store that he still won’t tell us about.    

DM: Well you still haven’t told me about how much you would or wouldn’t do.  You are writing in the paper today, in an interview you are quoted as saying Labour in the past said one thing to one group and something else to another but that seems to be exactly what you are doing right now.  

ANDY BURNHAM: No, no, not at all, not at all.  I have said that I will not set my face against reductions in the benefits bill, of course not, who could in the circumstances in which we are in but that does not mean swallowing what the Tories are saying and going along with a brutal plan to be honest which is going to hurt many vulnerable people so there is a big difference.  To be honest Dermot, there is a Labour way of doing this, what about the idea of tax incentives for companies paying the living wage, that would help wouldn’t it?  What about tackling the dysfunctional housing market that we have that leads to so much housing benefit being given to private landlords?  These are the long term solutions to the problems that we have with the benefits bill and these are the Labour solutions that I would bring forward.

DM: Okay, saying one thing to one group and something else to another, I want to stay with that because you said at a previous hustings in Dublin that the last manifesto, the one in May, was the best manifesto you’ve stood on in four general elections, you are quoting your mother in the paper today about the mansion tax, a key part of that manifesto, saying this will never work, people don’t like it, it sounds like the 1970s.  Which is it Mr Burnham?

ANDY BURNHAM: I’ll tell you which one it is.  I said the manifesto I stood on here in Leigh was the best one I’ve stood on because it had a lot to say to people in Leigh where we have too many people on zero hours contracts, where we have people in part time low paid work where they can’t get enough hours to make ends meet, it was a good manifesto for people here because it said so much that was relevant to what they were facing but there is then a broader point isn’t there, that that manifesto was too narrow, it didn’t have enough to say to the rest of the country and that’s the challenge that we’ve got.  I’ve said also today that you’ve got to go to the heart of your problem haven’t you, in a contest like this and at the heart of our problem is for about a decade or more we’ve looked like a party that didn’t want to help people to get on in life.  It probably started with the 10p tax scrapping all those years ago and that perception of not wanting help people get on is pretty toxic for any political party so that is the change that I am going to make.  The Labour party I lead, Dermot, will all be about helping people get on in life and I am starting next week with home ownership.  That dream has been dying for millions of people around this country and Westminster, to be honest, has done absolutely nothing about it. It’s now out of reach of people who can’t fall back on mum and dad to get the deposit and that quite frankly is wrong so I am saying next week we will have a new policy, rent to own, where we will build more homes for rent so that in time people can own those homes by building up a deposit.  These are the kind of answers that people out there are looking for and politics quite simply hasn’t been providing them.  

DM: Part of your stand, part of your appeal to the Labour electorate of course is that you are not from the Westminster bubble.  You say that Labour looks like an elitist Westminster think tank, talking in language that people don’t understand.  What private sector experience do you have Mr Burnham?

ANDY BURNHAM: Well I worked in the private sector when I left university, albeit not for long but I did.  My wife has run her own business in the past so I have experience of working in the private sector …  

DM: But Cambridge educated and a special advisor before you became an MP for most of your career weren’t you?

ANDY BURNHAM: Well I think you know, you always interview me don’t you every weekend from my constituency and this is where I grew up and I am somebody who is very rooted in where I’m from.  I’m always somebody who is true to the people who put me where I am and that’s what I’ve always been and that is the change I think we have to see in the Labour party.  Labour’s been trapped in the Westminster bubble for far too long, we haven’t looked or sounded like a party that people can relate to, we haven’t looked like people who understood the challenge they faced such as getting on the housing ladder and this is the change that I will bring, this is the big change that the Labour party needs to make.  It needs to get its feet back on the ground, talking about the issues that matter to ordinary people rather than in the jargon, talking the jargon of Westminster think tanks.  This change can’t come a moment too soon Dermot and that is what I offer the Labour party.  

DM: Okay, great talking to you, Mr Burnham, thank you very much indeed.  Andy Burnham there.  

ANDY BURNHAM: And you, and you.