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DERMOT MURNAGHAN: Now last week’s defeat has been described as one of the biggest crises the Labour party has ever faced.  Well now the party is of course leaderless and undecided about what direction to take, so where does it go from here?  Well Michael Dugher is the Shadow Transport Secretary and the man behind Andy Burnham’s campaign, a very good morning to you Mr Dugher.  So you’ve got the frontrunner there who says this morning he is the change candidate.  Really?  He was a Cabinet Minister under Gordon Brown.  

MICHAEL DUGHER:  Well he certainly is the change candidate because I think he understands as you alluded to, and I think quoting John Cruddas today, about the scale of the defeat and therefore the scale of the challenge that we face.  I think that demands big change.  I think we have to rebuild, reconnect, re-earn the trust of the British people but that means connecting into corners of the country where we did so dismally badly a couple of weeks ago.  I think Andy has that reach and we’ve certainly got a job of work to do.  

DM: What’s he going to do about this issue of the unions and in particular Unite and Len McClusky?  We saw the role he played and it was very, very clear what happened to Jim Murphy in Scotland when he announced his resignation as leader of the Scottish parliament.  Andy Burnham is open about talking to Len McClusky, why isn’t Len McClusky a candidate for the leadership?

MICHAEL DUGHER:  I spoke to the Chairman of one of the biggest firms in Britain who told me a week ago he was backing Andy Burnham.  He has spoken to Len McClusky but don’t forget that Len McClusky now, because it’s all change, Len McClusky has got one vote now, I’ve got one vote, that’s all changed.  

DM: He’s got a lot of members who’ve got one vote.   

MICHAEL DUGHER:  Just for a minute on Jim Murphy, I think it’s worth recording that Jim Murphy can go out holding his head up high because he has done an outstanding job.  If you look at the role he played in the referendum campaign, the energy he brought to that campaign, I think you can genuinely say that …

DM: But he made it very clear in his speech though that the straw that broke the camel’s back was yes, the result of course but Len McClusky.  

MICHAEL DUGHER:  I think a lot of things went wrong in Scotland over a long period of time and I think we need to get to the bottom of all of that.  We saw a virtual annihilation in Scotland, we paid a very heavy price for frankly strategic folly in relation to how we approached the referendum, big lessons for Labour to learn in Scotland and across the whole of the United Kingdom.  

DM: But just on Len McClusky, Jim Murphy saying he’s a man who couldn’t pick a winner out of a one horse race and Len McClusky saying today that the challenge for Labour is to demonstrate that they are the voice of working people and if they don’t, pressure will grow.  We know that’s pressure from Len McClusky and others.

MICHAEL DUGHER: Of course Labour should be the party of working people, I don't think that we should credit Len McClusky with coming up with that bright idea all by himself.  

DM: But  he says pressure will grow.  

MICHAEL DUGHER: Think about the people that we’ve got to reach out to, absolutely right, working people, what we would have called working class people, alienated working class people, people who didn’t vote, who have aspirations by the way, working class people, this is not something limited to middle class people but absolutely, middle class people, affluent voters, people in the south of England.  It’s no good stacking up bigger majorities as we did in South Yorkshire, we’re got to win on the south coast as well and Andy Burnham absolutely understands the scale of the challenge.  I think one of the interesting things about his leadership, he’s been prepared to start as he means to go on, by actually facing up to the toughest issues facing Labour, whether that’s immigration, our failure on the economy, he’s actually made the start of his leadership campaign about the most difficult issues.  That’s strong leadership too.  

DM: He’s doing a reverse ferret on an EU referendum as well, is this to do with the inroads that UKIP made into your vote?  

MICHAEL DUGHER:  No, it’s because we lost the election and the party …

DM: But you are now offering an EU referendum or he’s going to offer one.  

MICHAEL DUGHER: The party that promised a referendum won the election so I actually think the voters have spoken so therefore the issue is about when do we do that and I think he is right to say, because Labour by the way has got to rebuild our bridges with the business community and that’s a big priority for Andy Burnham.  Now I think a delayed referendum, that delayed period of uncertainty actually is bad for British business, is bad for British jobs, is bad for British growth so I think there is a very powerful case in getting on with it.  

DM: But I spent five years talking to Andy Burnham and others, and this is about core beliefs, it’s not about what will wash with the electorate isn’t it?   For five years Andy Burnham and others, all the senior figures in the Labour leadership, told me that there was no need for an EU referendum unless there was treaty change.  If there was no treaty change, there’d be no referendum.  Why has Andy Burnham changed his mind?

MICHAEL DUGHER:  Because the voters have spoken, the public has spoken, there is no future for any of us in the aftermath of a defeat for saying the electorate got it wrong.  The voters have made their decision, they have spoken and we’ve got to now decide what is in the best interests of the country and that’s what Andy has done.  

DM: We are hearing some of that though aren’t we, in the analysis, that it was more or less the interpretation was that our offering was right, perhaps there were questions about the leader but you the voters were scared into voting against us.

MICHAEL DUGHER: I think that anyone who thinks we were right and the voters were wrong is going to find it a very long road indeed back to power.  Look, we’ve got to reconnect with the public, we’ve got to face up to the big issues on immigration, the lack of economic trust.  I thought it was really positive today the fact that Rachel Reeves has joined the campaign, I think she is one of the biggest brains in the Labour party, a very accomplished economist, she is going to be working with Andy in terms of rebuilding that economic credibility and trust which is a really, really important component, working with business as we try and get that trust back and win again.  

DM: So she’s one of the street fighters is she?  Because you described the people around Ed Miliband as pointy heads not street fighters.  

MICHAEL DUGHER:  Rachel Reeves is probably a bit more eloquent than me and probably slightly better educated I would argue but she’s also got bags and bags of common sense.  She represents a Leeds constituency but she is a south London girl through and through and she is a very, very tough individual with a massive brain and I think she is going to play a very, very important part in the future of the Labour party.  
DM: But how massive is the problem?  As we’ve been discussing some of what John Cruddas said today, it is the biggest crisis ever in Labour’s history, do you go along with that?  

MICHAEL DUGHER: Well I think John Cruddas is one of the biggest thinkers in the party and I will certainly listen to what he has to say.  Look, we saw near annihilation in Scotland, we did very disappointingly in Wales, we lost seats in many areas of England.  You take a place like Plymouth, I went down to Plymouth, we were trying to win an extra seat in Plymouth, in the end we didn’t win that seat and we lost the other one and further along the coast we lost Southampton as well.  We have got a lot of work to do and it is about rebuilding trust, it is reaching out to every corner of the country and it is about being a strong leader from day one and that is exactly what Andy Burnham is determined to do.

DM: Mr Dugher, good to see you, thank you very much indeed.