DERMOT MURNAGHAN: Well Ebola could become the definitive humanitarian disaster of our generation, that’s according to the charity Oxfam and the charity has described the international response as inadequate and it is calling for countries that can to do more.  So, is the United Kingdom doing enough?  Well the Shadow International Development Secretary, Jim Murphy, joins me now from Manchester and a very good morning to you, Mr Murphy.  You can’t really disagree with Oxfam’s analysis about its potential, Ebola’s potential to become the definitive humanitarian disaster of this generation.  

JIM MURPHY:  This is an existential threat to some of the countries that are affected by it in West Africa and this recognises no national boundaries, it doesn’t have a passport, it will travel in that region unless it’s unchecked and it will also travel across the world.  Now of course our health systems here in the UK and in other parts of the west are much more resilient and more developed but the fact that this is a real catastrophe in the region and there is a potential to spread all across the world, of course we can treat it much more effectively in the richer nations but this is a threat to the entire globe and we have to respond in that way.  

DM: And how does the UK respond?  Second in terms of cash pledged to the United States, the UK and hundreds of military and medical staff heading into the region or already there, is that enough or should we go further?  

JIM MURPHY:  Well the first thing you’ve got to do is the speed of response and this has taken the entire world including the United Kingdom far too long to get to a position of dealing with this as effectively as it should.  The early warnings of this were in March and April of this year and it has taken the world until this moment to realise the scale of the disaster and I think once the immediacy of the tragedy is over we are going to have to deal as a world community, how do we deal with outbreaks of these sorts of viruses in the future so they don’t spread in this way?  So speed is crucial and the world has been too slow, it has been pedestrian as this has spread throughout those three countries of West Africa.  The second thing is the scale of the response and I think the United Kingdom is doing well in terms of the scale of the response.  Of course it could be quicker but we also now have to persuade other countries to do their bit and the fact is that the founder of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg is giving many more times in donations than countries like Italy.  Ikea, the furniture warehouse, is giving more out of the same as Italy, so there are countries that aren’t doing enough and we have to say that publicly and we have to try and persuade them but if countries like Italy won’t do their bit we’ve also got to embarrass them.  This is going to affect us all unless we check it in West Africa and we have to deal with it at source so that it doesn’t travel here.  

DM: But isn’t there another dimension to what can be done, people highlighting the difference between the response to Ebola and the response to HIV AIDS.  Of course HIV AIDS thought to have originated in Africa, once it threatened countries like our own the rush was on to develop vaccines, millions upon millions were poured in to that, we have some of the best biological and viral researchers in the world in the United Kingdom, we have some of the biggest pharmaceutical companies, should they not be being directed to tackle Ebola and develop a vaccine?

JIM MURPHY:  Of course this is the single biggest threat since the emergence of HIV and the world acted together once the scale of HIV became clear and that’s just not happening here.  We can’t have an attitude surely that these are three countries that we rarely visit, that some people couldn’t point to on a map and it’s happening a long way away, these are our fellow human beings who are dying unnecessarily because they don’t have the basic health systems in their country, because they have a virulent virus spreading amongst their communities and the world together hasn’t acted with some way to deal with some way of treating this virus.  So yes the private sector, the pharmaceutical companies, the governments, the scientists have to be put on this full time so that we can find some way of dealing with it in the future and those countries, which some of whom were on the road to very strong economic growth, for example Sierra Leone coming out of the period of violence and getting double digit numbers in projected economic growth and really starting to prosper, have been knocked back entirely – no economic growth, many hundreds of people dead and while the world has looked on.  I’m glad now that the world is now taking this seriously but it has to be about medicinal treatments and development of vaccines as well.  We are at a minute to midnight on the development of the vaccines, the fact is if we don’t get on top of this by the start of December the United Nations has no plan to deal with this Ebola outbreak in West Africa.

DM: But it raises also once again doesn’t it the whole question of monetary aid to whatever economies we’re talking about.  I was reading in the newspapers today Imran Khan talking about his very own Pakistan, the opposition leader, the former cricketer, saying the quarter of a billion pounds the UK gave to Pakistan in various forms of aid last year, his analysis coming from within Pakistan is that a large percentage of that is embezzled, is taken by corrupt politicians, corrupt business people and doesn’t reach the people who really need it.  Don’t we have to be very careful where the money goes, we’re not policing that enough?

JIM MURPHY:  Well we do have to be very careful where the money goes and public money, taxpayers money, public funding generally we have to be very careful with every single pound but when a few pence can save a life on international development budgets we have to police every penny very robustly.  Of course we look at the details of what has been said about Pakistan but Sierra Leone is a great example, a country where the United Kingdom and others have invested and we’ve done the right thing, we’ve stood by that country in difficult times and it began to grow, began to develop public services of its own but we have to go further. This isn’t always about money, the fact is the UK is now committed to giving 0.7% of income on development so rather than debating the amount of money, let’s debate about what we do with that money.  Here in the United Kingdom we’re proud of having the National Health Service, it’s one of the things that will help ensure Ebola couldn’t take root in our nation but in many of these nations they only have rudimentary healthcare systems. Now within a year the United Nations has to make a decision, how is it going to use all of the money that it has at its disposal to build healthcare systems in some of the most underdeveloped nations in the world?  The Labour party wants to see the United Nations being ambitious on universal healthcare and as yet at the moment – and I am not trying to be partisan about it – at the moment the Conservative party and the government don’t seem convinced by that argument of universal healthcare in some of the most poorest and developing nations.  I think this Ebola crisis, once its over, we’re going to have to work out how do we support those countries build their own healthcare systems, particularly those countries that have a history of recent violence when trust of government is so low and with a suspicion of all of the state organisations.  In one or two examples there have people killed, healthcare workers killed because of the lack of trust in government workers so there are big lessons not just about treatment of virus and disease but how do we build a healthcare system that helps ensure this never happens again.

DM: Can I just catch up, Mr Murphy, since the last time we spoke on this programme was in the heat of the Scottish independence referendum and you were coming on the programme to talk about some of the difficulties, to say the least, you were facing on the campaign trail.  Since that referendum we’ve seen and heard about the SNP continuing to make inroads into Labour party support, continuing to recruit members and its being said after your energetic performance in that campaign you might potentially be a future leader of Scottish Labour.

JIM MURPHY:  Well you’re right, the last time we spoke was in the heat of that referendum discussion  From my point of view I am delighted it settled the way it did and I’m in Manchester today for a different type of rally, it’s a rally against anti-Semitism which is a growing problem in some parts of the United Kingdom but the point about the Scottish Labour party, the Scottish Labour party has been knocked before, it’s had its detractors before.  It’s picked itself up, dusted itself down and got on with it.  It’s a party that has traditionally been in touch with communities the length and breadth of Scotland and I think we have a perfectly good leader in Johann Lamont, I think she’ll continue to lead the party but it is for all of us to come together and work hard.  I’m confident that we can do that and I’m determined that rather than being involved with that directly I’m determined to be a member of Ed Miliband’s Cabinet next year with our hard work when we can win that general election.

DM: So you are ruling that out, if asked to take the helm at Scottish Labour you’d say no, no, no, I’m focusing on the national picture?  

JIM MURPHY:  Yes, I’ve got a job already and I’m looking forward to not just doing it in opposition but having the privilege and opportunity to doing it in government and dealing with some of the things that we’re speaking about this morning.  That’s a task enough and I look forward to the opportunity of doing so.  

DM: Okay, talking about the threat to the Labour party in Scotland from the SNP I was talking this morning to one of your Labour colleagues, Diane Abbott about UKIP and its performance against Labour candidates in key Labour constituencies and she was saying that some of your colleagues are having a rather hysterical reaction to UKIP, you should not pander to them.

JIM MURPHY:  Well I haven’t seen Diane’s comments but the Labour party isn’t going to pander to UKIP, the Labour party believes that the United Kingdom’s best interests are served by remaining part of the European Union, of course a radically changed European Union but it is in Britain’s interests to remain part of the European Union and on balance an immigration system that we have control over, control over our own borders and influence over in an important way and an immigration system such as that is also in the national interest.  Most immigrants who come to our country are law abiding, most immigrants who come to our country want to work and make our country a better place and the Labour party isn’t and will not become the anti-immigration or anti-immigrant party but we do want to see real reform of our immigration system and we want to see reform of the free movement of people legislation across Europe, on benefits and employment rights and on transitional powers, all of those things are important but let the Conservative party chase after UKIP.  That sense of panic in the Prime Minister’s eyes is pretty unedifying, it’s all about a by-election in Rochester rather than what’s good for the United Kingdom.  It’s not good for the United Kingdom to pander to UKIP which is why the Labour party will listen to people’s anxieties about immigration and welfare but we’re not interested for a nanosecond in pandering to UKIP.

DM: Okay, interesting stuff, just underline it for us then, Mr Murphy.  You are saying to Labour supporters and Labour supporters who are thinking of voting for UKIP, this is our position on immigration from within the European Union – if they come here to work they are free to do so?  

JIM MURPHY:  My message to Labour supporters and not just Labour supporters because this is an issue that concerns many people, is that we understand and we hear very loudly people’s anxieties about the fact that some people can come to the country, can be exploited, it undercuts the wages and conditions of people who are already here and we would act upon that.  People are anxious about the fact that some people can come here and send for example child benefit back to countries they have come from, we would like to end that as well.  We would like to end the exploitation of some of those workers who come to our country and lead to those difficulties and anxieties.  We would also like to see if there are new member states of the European Union, longer transition periods for those people able to come here and work.  So there are a lot of things we can do but that’s a Labour response to people’s anxieties, it’s not chasing after UKIP out there to the political fringes.  I know that people are concerned about this, it doesn’t make them racist to be worried about this, it makes them anxious at a time when many people are struggling, the Labour party will continue to listen to those worries and respond in a sensible moderate way that’s in keeping with Labour traditions and the values that help make Britain the tolerant place that it is today.

DM: Shadow Secretary, thank you very much indeed.  Jim Murphy there in Manchester.