ANY QUOTES USED MUST BE ATTRIBUTED TO MURNAGHAN, SKY NEWS

DERMOT MURNAGHAN: Now the Labour leadership race has seen personal attacks, accusations of sexism and now there are calls to suspend it altogether.  The Labour MP John Mann says the party membership is being infiltrated by the hard left and that the contest has become totally out of control.  I am joined now from Thirsk in North Yorkshire by the Shadow Health Secretary, Labour leadership candidate, Andy Burnham.  A very good morning to you Mr Burnham.  Straight away what do you think of John Mann’s suggestion that the whole process has become a farce, it’s been hijacked by the hard left and it should be suspended?  

ANDY BURNHAM: Oh I don't think it’s at all helpful, Dermot, to be honest.  We are in the middle of a good debate and we should keep it positive, I think.  Let’s have a debate about the party’s future, it is engaging a lot of people and beginning to attract a lot of interest and that’s a good thing for the Labour party.  Let’s now have the debate but the party needs to make a decision and get on with holding the government to account because this thing can’t go on forever. The longer we carry on debating internally, the more we are letting Cameron and Osborne get away with murder and that’s our job, to hold them to account and we need to get on with that job.

DM: So you are quite comfortable then are you with members of other parties perhaps joining the Labour party and having a vote, hard left parties as is the allegation?  

ANDY BURNHAM: I’m comfortable with people joining the Labour party, of course there are processes in place to check if somebody is joining for the wrong reasons and the party has got long established procedures to deal with that and I don’t have any evidence that that is happening on any wide scale.  If John has evidence then he needs to send it to the Labour party but we’re in the middle of a debate that is actually now finally capturing attention and I think that’s a good thing because I think the party needs to have this debate and then decide its future direction and what we need more than anything now is unity coming out of this contest.  People might hear this call as an attempt by the establishment to kind of skew the race one way or another, I think we need to keep it positive.  Let’s have the debate and then Labour needs to move forward together.  

DM: Okay let’s assume, let’s pretend for the moment that you become leader, in the pursuit of unity how do you defy the party then after the showing of Jeremy Corbyn?  We know now, the cat’s out of the bag, there is a substantial strand within the party that support him and his policies, how do you accommodate them under a Burnham leadership?

ANDY BURNHAM: Well I think it’s the right question because there has been rising factionalism to be honest on the left and the right through this debate and, if we are also honest, the recent welfare debate revealed some confusion in the Labour party about where it’s going and it is crying out now for leadership and I believe I am the best person to provide that and also to unite the party because I’ve never in my career, Dermot, subscribed to factional politics, never. I represent mainstream Labour values shared by the vast majority of members.  I will pull the party back together.  There was a big debate this week about the welfare vote and it was well known that I didn’t support the position that the Labour party had adopted, the official position but in the end I showed unity by backing the party because coming out of this contest I will be expecting the same loyalty from all of my colleagues so that is why I am well placed to unite this party coming out of this leadership election.

DM: So would that apply then to offering Jeremy Corbyn a Shadow Cabinet post if you win?  

ANDY BURNHAM: Well if you don’t mind I would rather not conduct my first Shadow Cabinet reshuffle live on air in the marketplace in Thirsk on a Sunday morning.  I will make those decisions after the leadership election but it will be important to recognise how the party has voted, the mood within the party and of course I will work hard to unite the Labour party coming out of this contest.  

DM: But your very answer to that question and others, a lot of people say and not just within the Labour party, the reason why Jeremy Corbyn is doing so well, agree with him or not, is that he is passionate and principled and lets you know where he stands on all the issues, he is not a puppet and they say Andy Burnham and others, well they prevaricate, they kick it into the long grass.  

ANDY BURNHAM: I understand that critique and I think it is a fair one to some extent.  Jeremy is a very principled man and he clearly has had a lot of things to say that have resonated with the Labour party and I think the reason why he is attracting support is because people are fed up with the way politics has been, modern politics has been, politicians speaking in sound bites, speaking to the script, really I think people are rejecting that style of politics and I hope I can break with that as well because I’ve never been one really to follow that approach.  I like to try and tell it as it is and I want in the remaining stages of this campaign, Dermot, to in the same way as Jeremy is putting forward his ideas, I want to inspire people with my ideas so later this week I will put out my plan for a National Health and Care Service, bringing social care into the NHS so that we can completely change the way we care for older people, it is just not good enough at the moment and Labour, the party that created the NHS in the last century now needs to reset it for the 21st.  Its ideas of that scale that people are crying out for, this country is crying out for a vision for the future and that’s why Jeremy has attracted interest but I am going to put my ideas forward and I believe they are credible and ideas that speak to people’s concerns.  

DM: Well in the spirit of, as you say, breaking with the script, just let me put some of the specific policies that Jeremy Corbyn has put out there to you.  Agree or disagree with renationalising the railways?

ANDY BURNHAM: I am on record, I believe we need more public control of the railways.  I don't think we could afford to do wide scale renationalisation, I don't think it would be the right use of public money but I do believe as franchises expire that we should look at public sector options.  We had the East Coast line which serves this part of the country where we weren’t allowed to look at a public sector option and I think that is just downright nonsense.  The public want to see more public control and ownership of the railways and we need a policy that progressively allows that.  

DM: Right, that’s clear.  What about this one, the 50p top rate of tax was in your manifesto at the last election, you thought it was a good manifesto, Jeremy Corbyn wants to see that front and centre and 75p in the pound for those that earn over a million pounds.  

ANDY BURNHAM: No, I wouldn’t go that far but I believe there is a case for retaining the 50p top rate given that ordinary families are now losing their tax credits.  People are having real, real hard times and I think if we are all in it together is going to mean anything then that’s what it should be.  Those who are able to contribute the most should do and I believe there is a case for retaining the 50p top rate.

DM: Okay and you’ve got questions to answer, haven’t you, within the Burnham camp about these accusations I suppose of sexism. Yvette Cooper blasted you, didn’t she, yesterday saying that you had taken the party back to the 1950s treating women as incapable of the top jobs.  

ANDY BURNHAM: Well I just … I think we should keep it positive.  I think throwing around complaints like that doesn’t help.  There are more women MPs backing my campaign than any other so, do you know, I just completely reject that analysis and I’ve said I would appoint a woman deputy to be in the Commons and have a balanced shadow cabinet and if it refers to the article on Charlie Falconer, well the Times has basically retracted and apologised so I really, really don’t think throwing around allegations like that at this stage of the Labour leadership campaign is going to help anybody, everybody should keep it positive, everybody should put forward the reasons why they believe they are the right person, their vision for the future and in that way the Labour party will speak to the country.

DM: There are those in your camp suggesting one of the two women, Liz Kendall in particular, should pull out and allow her votes to coalesce around you, to keep Jeremy Corbyn out.  

ANDY BURNHAM: No, nobody in my camp has suggested that so I don't know why people are saying that and I’m on record as saying I have got complete respect, Dermot, for the integrity of everybody in this race and indeed what they’ve been saying because I think the four people in this race represent four distinctive positions in the Labour party and it is giving the members of the party a real choice about the future and I think all four candidates have added something and we now need to keep it positive and let the party decide.

DM: But if you are truly a man of the 21st century and the 21st century Labour party, why don’t you pull out and leave it to Yvette Cooper especially?  She has got as much cabinet and shadow cabinet experience as you.    

ANDY BURNHAM: I’m not sure I follow the logic of that question.  We are obviously having a debate …

DM: Shouldn’t there be a woman leading the modern Labour party?  

ANDY BURNHAM: Well the party will decide but I believe I’m the person who can put Labour back in touch with the public.  You know, millions of people out there, Dermot, have lost their emotional bond with our party, not just in Scotland but in the north, in the Midlands, in the south as well and we have got to face up to that and get back in touch with the public and I said I believe I’m the person who can take Labour out of the Westminster bubble where it has been trapped for far too long.  People have looked at us in recent times, they have seen an elite that they just felt didn’t understand their lives and if we don’t face up to that and change that then Labour is facing irrelevance quite frankly going forward.  We need to make changes to our party and make them quickly.

DM: Mr Burnham, great to talk to you, thank you very much indeed.  Andy Burnham there in Thirsk.   

ANDY BURNHAM: And you, thank you.