26/09/2016: Labour Party Conference Daily Politics

Welcome to Liverpool, where John McDonnell

is about to make his Shadow Chancellor's speech

Can he restore Labour's reputation for economic competence,

and steady his party's nerves, now the leadership contest is over?

Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell says he won't let key industries

like steel collapse, and that Labour will protect

EU funds to deprived communities after Brexit.

But we're promised another big announcement in his speech.

We're on for the next two hours, and will bring you that

live and uninterrupted, just after midday.

Back in Downing Street, the PM's folk have hit back

at claims Theresa May soft-peddled on curbs to immigration in the

So who's right and who's wrong in the Tory Brexit blame game?

A minister for peace, and talk of scrapping

Are the nation's defences safe with Labour?

I'll ask the Shadow Defence Secretary.

And Adam takes a look inside the other Labour

This whole thing is organised by Momentum, the group that grew out

of Jeremy Corbyn's first leadership campaign, so they

So all that, and more, in the next two hours of this

Daily Politics Conference Special, live from Liverpool.

Let's get right up to date with the latest developments here.

I'm joined by Heather Stewart of the Guardian, and Sam

Welcome to you both. Sam, is the strategy today, particularly with

John McDonald's speech, to get policy announcement out so that

people start talking about policy, not divisions, not the leadership?

The great problem with this conference has been, up till now,

what's the point of it? You had Jeremy Corbyn re-elected with a

bigger mandate on Saturday, but still the sense that the party is

deeply divided, and many Labour MPs thinking that their chances are very

minimal of winning the next election. So basically what John

McDonald, Jeremy Corbyn and his team wanted was just try and turn the

page, change the conversation with a pig, eye-catching announcement. We

just happen in the last few minutes, we are told that the energy and

climate change spokesman Barry Gardner is going to announce that

Labour will form the next election ban fracking. The party had

previously been slightly more open to it, they had a position of a

moratorium that they were not close to it. Now Labour, Jeremy Corbyn

thinks, will play to his base, the hundreds of thousands of people that

came in the leadership contest, but of course not everyone even in the

labour movement dislike fracking. But what is interesting about the

first big policy announcement is that it is Jeremy reaching to his

core, not Jeremy Chardy to reach out beyond the limited number of people

that got him back into power. So if this is an electro- strategy... Sam

Coates says what is the point of this conference, what is the answer?

I think you are right that the narrative today is to try to switch

to big ideas and talk about policy. But it's true it has created a very

odd atmosphere, having the leadership announcement at the

start, and Labour MPs who were sceptical about Jeremy Corbyn's

leadership stayed quiet for a proximate leak of ours a mentor to

the various stages around the conference centre yesterday to

express their sort of surprise, alarm and disdain. And it is very

clear that there are lots of quiet murmurings that will continue. They

are going to hope to turn to these sort of policy issues, but you know,

particularly Brexit, where an opposition is very potent. But I

don't get is going to be very easy. The Brexit of course is the issue

that sort of haunts the government. And you would think therefore it

would be a rich pasture for the opposition. But I'm not quite clear

what the opposition position is. No, and it is a rich pasture, not least

because Theresa May has effectively shut down debate on this issue. We

should be talking about what kind of migration settlement, the type of

economic settlement, what the consequences are, but she has

effectively banned ministers from doing that so far. There should be

an opportunity for the Labour Party, but guess what? The Labour Party

split and there are some people who want to maintain single party

membership, which means it looks quite to what it is today, in terms

of migration in particular, and then there is a group that have started

to come out, we saw it with Rachel Reeves, to a certain degree with

Chuka Umunna, Emma Reynolds in the last few days suggesting no, we have

to be more in June with the public on migration, and that might cost us

about access. Fascinatingly this morning John McDonnell came out on

the radio and said I want single market access, not membership. Now

single market access is a bit of a curious piece, it doesn't mean

anything specific but it means they will not try to get the full

off-the-shelf package of single market membership that contains the

free movement requirements. But what it does politically is give the

government enormous cover, because it means Labour doesn't really need

to spell out in any more detail what it does and doesn't think should

happen, and they can get on with any hard or soft Brexit planning,

knowing that Labour isn't really going to challenge them to hard in

the short-term. On the Tory side, given that there are so many

divisions here, you would think that one Tory tactic would be just a step

back and allow the media to cover all the divisions. So was it rise of

Theresa May's people in Downing Street to slap down all these

stories... ? There has been a lot of slapping down in the last couple of

weeks, as in there? We had these two books published at the weekend, one

by David Cameron's former director of communications Craig Oliver, and

another by the Sunday Times political editor, Tim Shipman,

making claims about Theresa May's role in the Brexit referendum and it

was quite hard. In particular on immigration, that she was

unenthusiastic about this idea of an emergency brake, it was suggested.

That it has given the story legs, as we say? It has, and has allowed us

to write slap down stories. She was Alan of these yester, to be fair,

because she thought Angela McIlroy not allow it. And she was right. --

Angela Merkel. We will speak to Tim Shipman later in the programme, I

think you both will be joining us. So it's a big day for

Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell. We're told he may have a surprise

for us in his speech in a short while, but we've got an idea of some

of what he's going to say. He's going to commit to spending

more than ?10 billion to make up any shortfall in funding for deprived

regions resulting from Britain's He'll also say Britain needs

an interventionist government working with companies,

and he'll promise to borrow more Here he is speaking

earlier to the BBC. The proposal is to set up a national

investment bank, to allocate ?100 billion towards that,

and that will lever of another ?150 billion

and that will be invested in our infrastructure

and in skills and it will be distributed

around the country as well so that We want to be like an

entrepreneurial state. That is the new concept of how

government could act. Borrowing is so cheap

at the moment, that would enable us, we think,

very quickly to actually ensure that we could cover the cost of that

by ways of increased tax revenues as a result

of more people employed. And remember, the Bank of England

only recently put ?75 billion into the economy

through quantitative easing. So it is not anything on a massive

scale but it will trigger other investment coming

in from the private sector. He was Shadow Chancellor

when Harriet Harman was acting Welcome back to the Daily Politics.

What do you make of this particular idea of a national investment bank?

I assume using state backed borrowed money. There's quite a lot to said

about the package John McDonnell is coming forward with. I think there

is a sensible critique of the Conservatives, in the Brexit

two-year negotiation we could well say deficit reduction should be

posed. The worry I have is this suggestion of ?500 billion. I mean,

that's an awful lot of either borrowing for extra taxes to be

raised. About 70% of all current government spending. To raise it you

would have to double income tax, you would have to double national

insurance, you would have to double council tax and you would have to

double the VAT as well. And is he planning to borrow it? I think

Vinnie the detail, and the body I have is that the Labour Party has to

come up with credible policies that don't send the taxpayers running off

into the hills. I suppose the argument would be that interest

rates are at an historic low at the moment, 10-year British gilts,

government bonds, are playing a yield of only about 0.8%. It is a

cheap time to borrow for the long-term, so why not do it for a

long-term investment? And I think you could legitimately say let's

Paul's deficit reduction for a couple of years will stop that

should be pressure on Philip Hammond and the Conservatives think I've

really been playing for the Autumn Statement. But we should be pushing

for that. That should be attacked on the Conservatives. The problem is if

John McDonnell overreaches by making out he's got this magic money tree

in his back garden that can be shaken, and everything can be sorted

out, the public will sort of say, it doesn't add up. That is I think an

important principle, which is one of the reasons I have disagreements

with John McDonnell and Jeremy Corbyn. I think you've got to be

straight and honest with the public about where the money comes from. If

you ever promise and then get into government and can't deliver, that

really is a bad state of affairs. Do you know what he means, used this

phrase this morning on the BBC, the entrepreneurial state. I think there

are some people who have been speaking to Professor Marianne to

Carter, one of the academics has been consulting with him, trying to

find ways of either voluntary sector, third sector, nonprofit way

helping to get new activities and entrepreneurialism going. But I

think it is over now have a feeling that something concrete. I want to

see precisely what the Labour Party will do in terms of hard impact

counteracting the worries people have about Brexit, showing people on

public spinning and on taxes. Together, that credibility has to be

brought back to the centre of their talking about. I know it sounds

boring and pragmatic but it really matters to a lot of taxpayers. Isn't

the Tory attack line on this quite obvious, you lost the last election

because voters think you are profligate, that you are a tax and

spend party, that you borrow too much, and now here you are going to

borrow another 500 billion? It is why I have not been able to be part

of the Shadow Cabinet. I will try to do my best from the backbenches, and

I will try my best to say let's be realistic about what is achievable.

We can still do radical things with that but if you fall into this

almost populist mode of promising everybody everything all the time,

the public can say this doesn't quite stack up and that is one of

the principal reasons I find my beliefs that Mariappa really with

what John is offering right now. So you are not going back into the

Shadow Cabinet? No, I don't think it would be honest of me. I could go

back in and sort of pretend and lighter people about it, but in all

conscience, I have to be honest with my constituents in the country think

that is realistic and best of the country at large, and that, to me,

I'm afraid has to come first. You heard Sam Coates mentioning earlier

from the Times about Labour's position on the single market, and

what its policy should be, holding the government to account, as the

government struggles to define what our relationship with a single

market will be. Is it clear what Labour's position is on this? I

think Labour generally, of course at the last conference we supported to

remain in the EU. We obviously lost the referendum. I don't think we

should be trying to replay this referendum we have to make the best

of what we can. I would like to keep the benefits we currently have on EU

membership for our businesses. So for example I had a debate in the

Commons last week about financial services access. Prior percent of

the economy. We need to have good regulation, robust, so we can still

have access to their markets. If we end up chasing the John Redwood

Nigel Lawson view of low regulation, offshore tax havens style Britain,

we will not only go down the runway which is unsafe for the taxpayer but

we will use access to those important markets. So there is a

Labour case to be made to the government but again I think front

bench have not quite grappled with their own feelings about

international engagement and doing business with Europe. There is a bit

of a strawman argument here, is there not? We cannot remain a member

of the single market because of the things that go with it, that people

voted against? Particularly free movement. Membership means free

movement of people and people did not vote on 23rd. We have access to

the single market, whatever our position. The thing we don't know it

is on what terms will that access be? Yes, and I think there is a deal

to be done somewhere about free movement of skills, because the

Germans and the Italians and the French are now also thinking free

movement of people without any of these constraints, that is also

causing them issues, and I think probably we are in the game of a new

bilateral treaty with the EU, where we cannot just take the rules that

the other 20 to decide, I think that would be very difficult. So we have

to have a say we have to be around the table, we have to be consulted.

That, I think, probably mean some new bilateral treaty. I think that's

where we need to be but also we shouldn't be triggering Article 50

until we can be certain we are allowed to talk about the new

relationships at the same time as the divorce process. If you have to

wait two years for Brexit divorce proceedings to be finished, as the

commission is saying, and then only talk about the new relationship,

that is five years potential limbo. So we have got to make sure that we

insist we do both those things simultaneously.

So do we end up with some kind of free trade agreement with the EU? It

may be that we don't necessarily stay in the customs union... The

single market. Because that would mean us taking the rules, people are

worried about Ttip and some of those things and that is when we are in

the club and can talk about them but if we are not in it, we have to take

the rules but we need to find a new way of staying in being consulted

and that to me is a new bilateral treaty. If it is now inevitable that

Jeremy Corbyn leads your party into the next election? Well, the members

as is have chosen for him to be at the helm. He did very well amongst

the new joiners, not all of them, but by and large. He got 85% of the

newcomers. But actually, the majority of long-standing members,

as exit polls show, were for change. We ended up with 59% of the

membership voting for Jeremy and 41% dissatisfied, wanting a change. That

41% is a big, serious group of mostly long-standing members who

want to hold Jeremy to account. Now he has to meet a series of

challenges. He's got to develop credible policies. He's got to look

like a Prime Minister in waiting. He has to go ahead in the opinion

polls. Those are hurdles he's got to get over. Are you confident that

will happen? I've been waiting to see if there is this mythical olive

branch... Is the mythical olive branch next to the magic money tree?

Are they in the same room? I hope not, I hope the olive branch is real

because if we can't reach accommodation, as I say, I think we

can be productive from the backbenches, some of us, but if we

don't have a front bench Shadow Cabinet chosen by the Parliamentary

Labour Party, then it is going to be very difficult for MPs in their

codgers, representing their constituents, to go along with some

of the things that they have not been part of formulating. On the

backbenches, we can continue with our own policy agenda and develop

that, sensible, hard-headed, you know, we have got to keep trying and

that is what I will try to do. Let me ask you one more specific

question, the Labour Party has said that if it forms the next

government, it will ban fracking. What is your position on that? I

can't say I have ever been a big fan of fracking. Have to be careful what

you say, they're! It came out right but I'm not sure how it squares with

reopening the coal mines which is something Jeremy was also keen to

do. You do have to have an energy policy that yes, focuses on reducing

carbon emissions but also provides energy security and build that the

consumer can afford. Unless you get all of those things right, I think

we are very good at saying what we are against but we have to now say

what we are for. Chris Leslie, good to see you. Have not seen you for a

while. Great to be back. Talk of splits and infighting

continue here in Liverpool, but the Conservatives,

who meet for their conference next week in Birmingham,

obviously don't want to be left out. Prime Minister Theresa May has this

morning had a rather pointed dig at her predecessor,

David Cameron, after claims that he called

her "lily-livered". The claim was made in a book

by the political editor of the Sunday Times,

one of a couple of new books about the referendum causing

a stir over the weekend. It claims that, in a 2014 speech,

Mr Cameron wanted to demand stronger controls on EU migration,

including an "emergency brake" Mrs May, along with the then

Foreign Secretary, Philip Hammond, put a dampener on that, arguing that

German Chancellor Angela Merkel After the meeting, Mr Cameron

told an advisor that his In response to the claims,

David Cameron's replacement at No 10 Mrs May has taken the unprecedented

step of releasing details of two letters Mrs May,

then Home Secretary, sent to David Cameron calling

for an emergency brake, one in November 2014,

and one in May 2015. They also point to previous

articles from 2013 and 2014 where Mrs May argued

for "a cap" on EU migration. In the end, Mr Cameron's final deal

with the EU secured curbs on benefits for migration,

not on overall numbers. And the terms of that deal

were rejected by the voting public, who opted to leave the EU

on the 23rd June referendum. Well, the man responsible

for the book that's caused this kerfuffle is Tim Shipman

from the Sunday Times. He joins me now, and from our

Westminster studio I'm joined by Mark Wallace from

the website Conservative Home. So, Tim Shipman, it turns out Mrs

May wanted an emergency brake. She appears to have wanted it a week

before the meeting and she appears to have put her thoughts in writing

to the Prime Minister six months after the meeting. But my sources

are adamant and Downing Street, it is important to say, are not denying

that in this key meeting just before David Cameron made the speech laying

out what he wanted on immigration, she did not back him up on the

grounds that it would not win the support of the Germans. But you

could be in favour of a brake and say it won't run with Angela Merkel

and that is also right. I'm not sure why there is a conflict. She wanted

a brake, she would have loved it and was all for it but she knew it would

not wash with the German Chancellor. The point the people around David

Cameron are making is that this is a pivotal moment in the referendum.

From this point onwards, the speech he makes on immigration committee is

demanding things on benefits, not numbers and they think that is

critical. -- on immigration, he is demanding. It set the policy,

despite it just being a conversation, from that point until

the referenda. From that point onwards, the benefits are people on

the speech was only watered down further so writing memos and letters

six months later, the scene was already set by then. This was the

moment where, if you were going to take a stand, you could have done

it. But she was right. Arguably, she was but people are looking back now

saying why and how what the referendum lost, and they think the

failure to go big, to ask for more, to try to transcend the tramlines of

European law, was where the mistake was made. Cameron himself at that

point appears to have thought, let's go for it because that 3am in a

summit, they might give us something. Don't forget, the

benefits stuff he did put in the speech, officials in Downing Street

and all the people around also said that was illegal and would not work

but in the end he got some of it. So some of this may have been

obtainable if he had gone for it. Let's go to Mark Wallace. What do

you think? Is it credible that Mrs May was against tougher curbs on

immigration? As you just said, Andrew, the really notable thing is

when you look at the details, the two accounts are not completely

incompatible. It is perfectly possible Theresa May was asking the

Prime Minister for a proper, tough brake on immigration but when she

looked at what David Cameron was actually talking about, which was

not really a brake in Britain's control but one that they would ask

for and the European Commission and every single other EU member state

would have to give us permission to pull the brake, she might have

looked at it and thought it was frankly pointless. Tim Shipman, it

is kind of counterintuitive that Theresa May, given the speech she

made at the Tory conference last year, would want to water down any

British position on immigration. I think that is probably why it is

news, why it is interesting because the debate now is about what lessons

can be learned from how the referendum campaign and the

renegotiation was conducted in terms of how we now go forward to

negotiate Brexit. Downing Street, I need to stress, are not disputing

that in this meeting, that is precisely what Mrs May did. They are

rightly saying there is contact stillness and she remained a firm

advocate of tough measures. -- context do this. But when it came to

putting the policy in the speech, she thought it would not wash. But

it is dancing on the head of a pin, it was not that she was against an

emergency brake, in fact, she was in favour of it. It is just that she

did not think, all the evidence suggests she was right, that you

could sell that to the Germans in general and Angela Merkel in

particular. I don't understand what it tells us beyond that. It tells us

she wanted to work with the grain of the system and David Cameron, who

ended up working with the grain of the system as well, at the one

moment where he felt, actually, shall we try to do something more

radical, she did not seem to want to do that. But he could still have

forced it through if he wanted. Of course and when you read the rest of

the book, you will see the David Cameron is not exactly escaping scot

free himself. Mark Wallace, we have also had Craig Oliver's account of

the referendum campaign. He talks of a submarine strategy by Theresa May,

that she was pretty much invisible during the referendum campaign. That

is quite accurate, isn't it? It is pretty accurate and you have to stay

in retrospect, that was something that turned out to be quite wise. --

you have disabled these are two different books, Tim's is a

journalistic account and Craig Oliver's is much more partisan for

obvious reasons but what shines through in both of them is that

there is a huge blame game going on, people who were running the country

three and a half months ago are now engaged, quite extraordinary, in

trying to take chunks out of the next Prime Minister which is not a

great look. Isn't this just the settling of old scores, Tim? These

are the losers and they want to blame somebody else. They lost the

campaign, their campaign, they called it, they ran it, the campaign

was run from Downing Street by people like Craig Oliver, Mr

Cameron, himself, they decided the positions are now they are just

trying to smear the new Prime Minister? There is certainly a case

that there's a difference of opinion but I think it is an attempt to

learn some lessons. There were divisions within Downing Street

about how far Cameron should go and a lot of the people around Cameron

felt he should do something much bolder. They looked at this moment

as the one moment where he might have done that. They think that it

is unfortunate that he was not backed up at that point. Finally, if

he had gone to Berlin, to the German Chancellor and said, "I need a brake

to be able to sell this referendum to the British people, to win it, I

need an emergency brake on numbers", and she had said, would almost

certainly she would have, "I understand that but I'm afraid, as a

woman from Eastern Europe who lived behind the Berlin Wall, that it is a

red line for me, there is no way we can agree to that", what would he

have done? He would have had to capitulate or campaign to leave and

that was never going to happen. That is one argument. But I return to

what I said earlier. The benefits stuff was also not beloved in

Europe. People in the British government, lawyers and people in

Berlin all said it contravened the principles of non-discrimination and

yet, at the end of the day, he ended up getting a version of it. There

are people who think if he had pushed harder on free movement,

there were areas where he might have achieved more. We will never know!

Tim Shipman, Mark Wallace, thank you very much.

Now, events held on the fringes of party conference are usually

They're a chance to meet policy enthusiasts in a warm room,

with even warmer glasses of wine, if you're lucky.

But not far from where we are in Liverpool,

the Jeremy Corbyn-supporting campaign group Momentum has been

holding an event on a much bigger scale, with the rather ambitious aim

Right, this festival is happening near Chinatown,

in an arts venue, called the Black E.

It is called "The World Transformed".

Let's find out how our world is going to be transformed.

This whole thing is organised by Momentum, the group that grew out

of Jeremy Corbyn's first leadership campaign.

Next door is the nation's largest ethical streetwear brand,

selling all sorts of Jeremy Corbyn T-shirts.

Apparently, this is the best seller, here, being modelled by Ash.

This is the bookshop called News From Nowhere which is run

You can pick up such brilliant tomes as The Jeremy Corbyn Colouring-In

Book, and a collection of poems in honour of the Labour leader.

Then, magically, Jeremy Corbyn dropped in, completely unannounced.

This corner is where people come to have a rant on any

subject they feel strongly about, like Michelle

If all that activism leaves you starving,

why not join the queue here for one of the famous pies

This is a Shankly Pie, a local delicacy made with steak,

The whole hall is dominated by these massive banners for causes ranging

from the Liverpool dockers to climate change to people who have

There's more art up here where you will find Phil

the sculptor hard at work on a bust of Sylvia Pankhurst,

the daughter of Emmeline, the suffragette leader.

And this is Edward Rushton, a poet, blind, born in Liverpool and helped

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is The World Transformed.

We're joined now by one of Momentum's national organisers,

Adam Klug, and by John McTernan, who has worked for the Labour Party

in various guises including as an adviser to Tony Blair.

Welcome to you both. Adam at the world transformed meeting, is this

the people who could not get into the Labour Party conference? No, it

is to try to enable the conference to be even more accessible than it

is already, so intending to attract visitors and delegates to

conference, but also groups like disabled people against cuts, black

lives matter, Hillsborough Justice campaign, groups that might not have

been able to have afforded a story that to be part of it and have their

own workshops and sessions. What is the fundamental purpose? To bring

the new politics into action, in the way of having their participatory

workshops, talks and discussions and music, club nights in the evening,

to try and return the Labour Party into the social movement so many

wish it to be. Dirk Kuyt to bring all bring that into the Labour

conference itself? I think so, in time. But I see it in harmony with

the comfort and amplifying the Labour Party rather than as some

people suggest somehow Anelka alternative conference, which is not

how it is intended at all. Red Mr Corbyn said we need to went people

have been tempted to vote Tory have voted Tory. How is your momentum

gathering on that? It is time to bring in people who are new to

politics who previously felt that mentioning politics has not been for

them. People who are affected in their lives will vote a different

party for a number of reasons and a lot of those people will come to The

World Transformed and have their voices heard. I am not sure how you

attract Tory inclined people by selling mugs that said Tories are

vermin, and T-shirts that said still hate Thatcher. I haven't seen either

of those things. But you have been to Momentum, haven't you? It is a

diverse range of people over 200 hours of workshops. How are you

going to attract anybody outside political geeks to want to be there

for that? It went on until 2am, 2:30am on Saturday, and there will

be another big music night on Tuesday. On Saturday night I was

talking to a number of disabled people who are from Liverpool, who

had come along and it is a fully accessible space and they were on

the dance floor, and I was having a chat with an outside. People are

saying to the first time in a very long time they felt this was a place

that was truly inclusive. There was a lot more overweight to go.

Momentum has brought a lot more people into the party, a lot younger

people into the party, people who have not previously been involved in

party politics into the party. What's wrong with that? Probably the

most serious thing is that they would define their politics around a

set of issues and ideas which are completely unpalatable to the

British public. I saw the energy at Momentum, I was there yesterday, and

I saw lots of the meetings but these are not mainstream political ideas,

they are the ideas of the fringe, and the reason they are on the

fringe politics is because they are popular. Such as what? They are

anti-capitalist, which in the end is antigrowth, which is anti-wealth.

That is not a policy, it is a frame of mind or a strategy,

anti-capitalism. But policies are Momentum espousing that are

unpopular, reaching out to disabled people, why would that be unpopular?

Those on policies, they are ways of working, they are very friendly and

a welcoming environment are go into, but the Momentum mindset is that if

more people talk more about John McDonnell's economic policies to

people, they will convince them that printing money is the way to save

the economy, and it's not. It's not a strategy because it's not a

message to sell. What is the meaning of the Momentum mindset? It is a

very large Jeremy Corbyn Fanclub, and good on him. But a political

party needs activists, and one of the complaint I have heard from MPs

who are here is that Momentum members join the party and go to

Momentum that are never active on doorsteps, they never leaflet and

never campaign. Is that right? Not at all, let's think about it, Labour

have lost two general elections, and we now have so many more new

activists who are out campaigning. The momentum of for Labour hashtag

has proved really effective in the May elections. By-elections. I get

lots of tweets from Momentum. Sometimes they don't want to be

obviously branded as Momentum, so they are just out campaigning. We

love Twitter, but Twitter is not the world, it is an echo chamber, it is

just an exchange of views with people who normally agree with, not

political suasion. Isn't the problem though that many people will regard

Momentum and the people at this Momentum gathering as the future for

Labour, and the Parliamentary party will have to start being more

representative of the future, rather than dinosaurs such as yourself?

What we actually see is, as members join the party, there is an

enthusiasm. The members who joined last year lost their enthusiasm for

him after the Brexit vote, because they blamed him for Labour's per

performance in mobilising voters. I say good on Momentum for organising

their events, good on them for bringing people into politics, but

the thing is politics is about persuasion, and persuasion is based

on conversation, and that is an exchange of views, not the

transmission of a set of use to which there can be no variants that

is my problem. Firstly, it is great that you came yesterday and so what

The World Transformed is about but the talking about Momentum mindset

is a fundamental misunderstanding of a pluralist range of views, people

coming in to discuss. It is not a place with a fixed mindset of

indoctrination. I'm sure that's not how you experienced it yesterday,

and I would incur Vergeer, Andrew, to come along as well. Is that an

invite? Yes. Can I get one of these pies? Indeed! By New Road about some

of the merchandise, some letters join the British Army and get free

prosthetic limbs. I believe you are referring to Darren Cullen, an

artist, who in collaboration with veterans UK was putting on an art

exhibition about the horrors of war but it was absolutely not a way of

demonising soldiers or anything, it was just amplifying the issues which

were often creates both civilians and people in services. Right, but

there were some mugs that if you are in the army you would take offence

to, would you not? I don't think they were intended in any way to be

demonising soldiers, that wasn't the intention at all. If anyone did take

offence to that, that is a shame. I apologise. On the Jewish labour

movement, one of the leaflet says that you are using the charge of

anti-Semitism to attack the new movement. By New Road about being

thought of in parts as anti-Semitic. I can't hear you so well because it

is quite nosy, J say? There have been some complaints about charges

of anti-Semitism of the new movement. Are you worried about

that? There was a session about the Chakravarty enquiry yesterday as a

way of having a range of diverse voices, Jewish voices, and

discussing anti-Semitism both within the party and more broadly within

society, and a way of breaking down misconceptions, and hearing

different viewpoints from a range of perspectives, so as to learn from

one another and to stamp out anti-Semitism. Are you the Momentum

guy in the Channel 4 documentary that says Momentum has taken over

Bristol? We had somebody who came in who worked with us for five months

as a volunteer, who was really seen as a friend by many, who was with us

for a long period of time. He did secretly for me in the corridor and

said something taken out of context. What I was saying is that there were

loads of new activists who got involved in the party, both

campaigning in a range of issues but they had also got active in the

Labour Party and been elected to positions, but it is not in some

orchestra to plan to take over and infiltrate from a small group. That

is not what Momentum is, it is not infiltrating the Labour Party, it is

the Labour Party. We will leave it there, thanks to both of you.

Now, yesterday we reported that the Labour peer Parry Mitchell

had resigned from the party in protest at Jeremy

This morning, the Leader of the Labour Group

on Portsmouth City Council, John Ferrett, has resigned, and he

Why have you resigned? I have come to the conclusion I can no longer

stay in a Labour Party that is not only led by Jeremy Corbyn, but is

effectively being shipped in his image. I spent the last year

struggling with that, but Jeremy clearly has a clear mandate. Now he

has won a second election but it is not something I want to be part of.

And was because he was re-elected for a second time did you conclude

that that settles the matter, and that the kind of Labour Party you

want is now really not possible for the foreseeable future? Yes,

certainly, and I feel that the 172 Labour MPs crossed the Rubicon when

they decided to have a vote of no-confidence in Jeremy, because I

cannot see, and I ask this question over the weekend directly to some

members of the PLP, but didn't get an answer. The question is how can

you go out at election time cap advocated Jeremy Corbyn to be prime

ministers of a country and at the same time so you have absolutely no

confidence in him? Electors are not stupid and they will just throw that

straight back at those member is of the PLP. What has been the reaction

on your Labour colleagues in Portsmouth? I'm sorry, Andrew, can

you repeat that? Yes, what has been the reaction of your Labour

colleagues in the city? No, I think he's struggling to hear. I can hear

you now, Andrew. I just wondered what the reaction was of your Labour

colleagues in the city had been? I have had some expressions of support

from long-standing members, clearly the Labour Party in Portsmouth

reflects what is happening in the country. That the Labour Party in

Portsmouth has gone from 400 member is to over 1700 members in the last

year. Those people I campaigned with and worked with prior to 2015

appeared to be very supportive, but I suspect those that have come in

subsequently, particularly those organised by momentum will be glad

to see the back of May. And is Momentum now a force in your local

Labour Party? Yes, Portsmouth was one of the first CLPs I think to be

taken over by Momentum. Taken over? Yes, Momentum took over of the

office within the CLP. I would argue that Portsmouth is right in the

vanguard of Momentum, it is a Momentum stronghold. Over the last

year I have faced a lot of hostility from them because I have a

completely different political perspective. Mr ferret, we will

leave it there. Struggling through the sound problems and the wind, and

lots of noise all over, I am very grateful to you. Always windy here,

Andrew! That is the news from Portsmouth.

I'm joined now by the Labour mayor of Bristol, Marvin Rees.

What is your reaction to his resignation? To be honest, it is the

first I have heard of it right now so it is a bit of a surprise, but we

need to keep people on board. I think the critical thing to the

party's future is that we have a genuine diversity of thought and

argument to make sure the propositions we take to the country

are as rich as they should be. But he was saying that Momentum had

taken over the local party in Portsmouth. Has it taken over the

Labour Party in Bristol too? No, and we worked very hard to the election

campaign to make sure that we are protecting this space in the party

to have rich debate. Clearly, sometimes that went over the top,

and we are dealing with some of the consequences of that now. But as the

leader of my party investor I am really keen to make sure that our

local debate, not just within the Labour Party, but across the

political parties is as rich and dynamic as it should be. So when

Adam Klug from Momentum said in the Channel 4 document tree, the battle

for the Labour Party, referring to Momentum after a visit to the city

of Bristol, they are taking over, they are taking over of the

constituency Labour parties in the area, they are completely like

running the Labour Party. Look at what I am doing in my city, I have

delivered a cross-party cabinet, six women, Faye men, I have a Liberal

Democrat, a green party member and a conservative in my cabinet. We are

building a big support base across business, the voluntary sector and

the political parties. We have taken city government outside of the city

and it is a party not looking in on itself, we are determined. Have they

taken over the constituency Labour parties in the area?

No, they haven't, and the important message we want to bring to

conference is that the domination of local politics and city politics by

the Westminster conversation is one that needs... We need to move beyond

it. I am the leader of one of the ten core cities. Between us, we

oversee 90 million people. We need the Westminster debate to begin to

wrap itself around how it supports city leaders to deliver not asking

city leaders to keep commenting and wrapping itself around the

Westminster debate. How important is the devolution of powers to cities

like yours and high profile mayors like you, like London and Manchester

are about to have and so on, how does that help rebuild the Labour

Party? It is essential. Devolution is not just imported in rebuilding

the Labour Party. It is important to rebuilding cities. It is essential

and one of the challenges that we as their core cities will be bringing

to the party today is that they need to be much more proactive in

supporting devolution's agenda. We want to take responsibility but we

don't want a hospital pass. We want to take responsibility for

populations and to deliver for them but we need the power to make sure

we get the homes built and the transport systems in place. What is

the one big power you would like to have if you could have it tomorrow?

Transport. We are making good headway on building houses. We have

a fantastic political lead on that but we need to be able to get hold

of transport. You can't have great cities without great transport

network and Bristol faces major challenges. If you had the transport

power, what would you do with it? Begin to shape the bus routes in the

first instance, who gets served so we don't end up with isolated

communities. And that comes from local knowledge and demand?

Absolutely, not just in local government but with the brass

providers and the voluntary sectors and community and business. You have

said you oppose austerity. Everybody seems to these days. Is it not true

that he faced 1000 job losses at City Hall? We have offered voluntary

severance with the aim of balancing the budget, we set a legal budget

for this year which we must do. Unfortunately, we have had to go to

the workforce. What we have said is I think many aspects of austerity

are a full sick on. They may save money in the short-term but because

they cut back on our ability as local government to invest in

preventative around public health and the size of the workforce, it

will cost us in the years to come. Is there an appetite for more

power... Let me do this in two ways. The people of Bristol, do they want

more power devolved to their city? I think there was, and often, in the

Brexit result as well, there was a bit of a spoof but I think it was

indicative of our city, about people declaring an independent state. With

a distinctive political culture? Yet and I think we need to respect that,

looking towards the American model where city governments have genuine

power. And tax-raising powers? Would you like that, too? I would but

don't attach the tax-raising to me, tax management! This Conservative

government has kind of started this process of empowering local

government, cities, around cities, as it go nearly far enough for you

-- it hasn't gone nearly far enough for you but do you detect an

appetite in Whitehall to devolve more power to cities? It is

difficult to know right now with the change of government. We are seeing

where they stand but my understanding was the deals we

struck around the devolution deal one for the West of England what the

deal that was on the table so we can continue with that. We are entering

into conversations now with the government about looking for

devolution deals two, three and four. I will say from my sense, what

we are not talking about is not just deluge as with powers. There's an

element at which local government has to be able to grow into that

because there could be a bunch of responsibility without the skill set

and culture to be able to manage it. So walk before you can run? Exactly,

we have to grow into it. In Bristol on Thursday, for example, we are

pulling together 70-75 city leaders to say that shaping a place is not

just about local government, it is about the way businesses interact

the voluntary sector will -- voluntary sector, faith groups and

local universities so we have do have a bigger solution. If the

Labour leadership on site for city devolution? The core city leaders

are and we are a major part of the party. I work that bit out but what

about the party? We are getting a sympathetic ear. This is part of

being here today and one of the things I will talk about on the

floor tomorrow is that they need to support us to deliver. That is where

you will see evidence of what Labour leadership candy but when I say not,

I want to be clear that the fault lines of national politics don't

always easily translate to the local level where we have to be very

pragmatic and deliver. As I said, we are a cross-party cabinet. We work

with the challenges of that but we know it is good that the city and it

creates a difficult did -- different kind of political culture. What is

the composition? Beside me, I have nine cabinet members, six Labour and

a Liberal Democrat, a Green and a conservative. Does that broadly

reflect the political balance of the city? It reflects all the elected

parties apart from Ukip. You have to be more pragmatic, is what you are

saying? You have executive power so rather than posturing, you have to

deliver? Like I said, we have do deliver for the whole city. It is

saying that the local government challenge is not simply about having

political knock-about in the council chamber. We have to work with the

chamber of commerce, the voluntary sector and some of those people are

not interested in the knock-about. It is important we have meaningful

political debate, I'm not undermining its importance but we

are not just in the contest about who can get a headline in the local

paper. We're working out how to deliver. At some point, local

councillors have to deliver for people. That is the culture and the

structure we are trying to build. When are you before re-election?

2020. It is a four-year term like the London mayor? Are you up for

another term? I'm enjoying it. It is a challenge and one of the aspects

of politics that people don't always take on, I'm a human being, a father

with children and adjusting is a challenge. It will never catch on!

But it is an enjoyable, meaningful job and it means something for me to

give back and for the city. What happens? I understand devolution to

cities and you could see how that is working in a relatively coherent

political entity but what about devolution for those folks who don't

live in cities? We are, that is the devolution deal in the west of

England. We are worked up with North East Somerset and South

Gloucestershire, with heavy rural populations. But again, I meet the

leaders of my neighbours and that is where we have to be very pragmatic

and say, how do we work together? There is some baseline where we are

delivering for local populations and they need good quality transport,

education and public health and stable homes and employment

opportunities. If you want to bring transport together and organise on a

strategic level, do you need a Greater Bristol? Our devolution deal

was signed up around a Metro mayor so it is not a Greater Bristol, I

have to respect the sovereignty of my neighbours. Very diplomatic. It

is not colonial expansion by Bristol but we need to work across

boundaries which is the only way the economy is going to get the maximum

benefit from having that kind of joined up leadership. Transport will

only work cross boundary and to be honest, most people's lives

transcend those boundaries anyway. People move for work, retail,

education also. I know that you maintain there is a different

dynamic to local government or city government. Not totally. De Vrij to

Westminster and I understand that, and the concerns of Westminster are

not always the concerns of Bristol or Manchester and so on. --

different to Westminster. What is the take -- your take on the state

of the Westminster party at the moment? It is challenging, to be

perfectly frank. It was a very challenging leadership contest and

it was challenging for me as a city leader and how I navigated it. I was

clear with journalists that I would not comment and I don't think it

would have helped me as a mayor or more effectiveness in Bristol so I

put the city first. -- my effectiveness. We have to be serious

about healing and reconciliation. The city needs it and if we are to

be a party that is going to speak to a world which is full of fractures,

whether it is in the Middle East or increasing in our own country in

inequality, we have do show ability to hold ourselves together across

difference, if we want to lead a country that bases its own

fractures. Thank you for joining us. I must come down and see you. You

would be welcome. Jeremy Corbyn has talked

about offering an olive branch to Labour MPs opposed

to his leadership of the party. The MPs want that olive branch

to come in the form of elections that would allow MPs to choose

at least some of the Shadow Cabinet. But what do activists

here in Liverpool think? It is an issue here behind closed

doors but let's bring Who should have the power

to select the Shadow Cabinet? Jeremy Corbyn or MPs,

like under the old system? Who should select the Shadow

Cabinet, Jeremy Corbyn... Good leaders have to

select their own Cabinet. What is this all actually really

about? It is about having Chukka Umunna

or Liz Kendall in the Shadow Cabinet which would be a symbol

that the Labour Party is not simply John McDonnell and Jeremy Corbyn,

it is bigger and wider than that. You should have had a third section

which is being put forward in that you have the MPs,

Jeremy Corbyn and the members having an equal say,

then it is democratic and it is not him or him,

it is all of us. Does it matter if they are

elected or not? Just one per person,

one member, one vote, There's Hilary Benn, who got sacked

from the Shadow Cabinet by Jeremy Who should select the Shadow

Cabinet, Jeremy Corbyn or MPs? Is that Angela Rayner trying to

run away? Who is the biggest dud that has been

the Shadow Cabinet? Do you want to split it in half,

crack it like an egg? Would you rather be put

in the Shadow Cabinet by the leader You wouldn't expect Theresa May

to ring up Peter Bone and ask who should be

at International Development? What they have to do

is to stop sabotaging. Oh, well, let's start with Alan

Johnson. This is a stunt by

ill-informed people. There you go, the results

are in and the party is split evenly down the middle, 50-50, in fact,

just like the ruling That may be the first time that

Adam's unscientific balls have probably reflected what the opinion

is. We are joined by John Pienaar. Not long until the Shadow

Chancellor's speech. But on the Shadow Cabinet, why would Mr Corbyn,

having just won the leadership for a second time in a year, and over as

much power to the PRB deduces Shadow Cabinet? I think he is keen to hand

over as little power as he has do. The idea of a fully elected Shadow

Cabinet, elected by fellow MPs, has been a way back for some of those

who marched away from the Shadow Cabinet, giving a rude sign to

Jeremy Corbyn on the way and since then so much has been said about

Jeremy Corbyn's lack of basic competence, his inability to unite

the party N alone appeal to the country, that you can't say those

things. The idea from some of those quite senior show -- Shadow Cabinet

figures is you can get back in if you have a mandate, not from Jeremy

Corbyn but from other MPs would still leaves the question

unanswered, how do you unsay what has been said. And when the

questions will be asked by you and me every Sunday, do you now endorsed

Jeremy Corbyn at the best possible Prime Minister, what do you say?

I've had a lot of hesitation so far, and I'm sure you have as well. The

number of the centrist MPs here say that what they hope will happen is

Mr Corbyn and John McDonnell will strengthen their grip on the party.

-- is that what will happen. Now they have the membership, and the

membership in time could change the nature of the PLP, the Parliamentary

party, they want to get a grip on national executive committee and the

regional organisers and so on. Is this a long march through the

institutions? I think that has been part of the plan, not said out loud

but that has been part of the plans and stay one, pretty much, since

Jeremy Corbyn came in, knowing perfectly well he was surrounded by

mostly most members of Parliament so how do you consolidate your position

in the party? You do it through the mass membership who have come

swinging in, in enormous numbers, mobilising them, hard and in that

way, you can, not bypass your MPs, but sort of bypass them and get the

policies you want from the people who support you.

On policy, tramadol about make probably the second most important

speech of this week, the most important being by Jeremy Corbyn,

will the flesh out what he means quick and not previous Labour

governments have been interventionist, I remember Harold

Wilson's government was. Michael has a times and I will get up early in

the morning to intervene. Do we really know -- Michael Heseltine. To

know what it means in terms of trying to bailout the steel

industry? The short answer is no. Intervention is a good thing it is

also specifically a good thing when you look at what happened to tapas

deal, that is the example given. But I were talking about picking winners

up and down the country, getting involved in firms in the north of

England, the South West of England? We are not given that kind of detail

and we can't get into the nitty-gritty unless you have that

kind of detail to work with. Unless you know the strategy itself. What

about Labour's position on the terms of Brexit? There seems now to be an

acceptance by John McDonnell that we don't remain a member of the single

market, but we will have unspecified, as yet, access to the

single market. There is room for further clarification, put it that

way. With the government and the opposition. A lot of clarification.

In the case of the Labour leadership vision, John McDonnell, I was

talking to him yesterday morning and he was saying look, you have got to

respect the will of the referendum. Not going the Owen Smith root of

let's have a second referendum but he left open rejecting the terms of

Brexit, and then maybe putting opposition in the manifesto, which

begs the enormous question if you oppose the deal and you put it in

the manifesto and you win, then what do you do? Wouldn't that mean you

would have to apply for membership again, and if you have to reapply

for membership, would that not mean you accept the euro, the Schengen

free movement, and I don't think they will give us the rebate back.

We know about this process is once the deal is done, when the terms are

agreed, and remember the Article 50 process is not about coming to a

deal, you have two years to come to a position whether you like it or

not at the end of you take it and it. But there is only one crack at

this. It is either trying to get back in stay where you are without a

deal, with no deal at all. Is their concern among some in the party that

this emphasis on borrowing to invest, and quite eye watering sums

of money being talked about, ?500 billion, though it is split up in

various ways. There was meant to be a private sector involvement in

there as well, all a little bit vague. But if over polling shows

that the party isn't quite trusted to manage the books, is coming out

as a binge borrower, which is the phrase the Tories will probably use

colour something like that, is that sensible? Quite, Andrew. When Labour

likes of 30 points also behind the government, in terms of trust in

economic competence, there is an enormous mountain to climb. This

morning I was telling listening to John McDonnell, and it sounds like

rather a lot of money to me. However many notes you put on, it looks to

the man in the street like ?100 billion of their money being

borrowed up front in the expectation of the economy taking off and paying

it back later on. We will be joined later on by Paul Mason. He might be

in the flesh some of it out in advance of the speech. Let's take

you into the conference will now and have a look inside. There is Len

McCluskey, the head of the biggest union in the country, a big

supporter of Jeremy Corbyn. We have heard that the party's energy

policy, we have have the announcement that the party would

put a stop to fracking, and as we have been hearing there have been

speeches from the Shadow Defence Secretary, Clive Lewis. We wanted to

speak to him but we have lost and somehow, and if he is watching, come

and talk to us. Emily Thornberry has been speaking as well at that and

ethical foreign policy. Of course we are waiting for the big speech of

the day, John McDonnell's second autumn conference speech as Shadow

Chancellor. While we wait, better to tell is what might be in store than

journalist of Channel 4 provenance, now Labour activist, Paul Mason.

Welcome. Threw I'm not sure about Labour activist, it sounds like I am

going to leap over the desk at you. . Flesh out for us this investment

plan, where will the money come from? The idea is he's going to

borrow 250 billion, and that leveraging European investment bank

money, 100 billion plus, and they are going to use it... He is not

going to leveraged any European investment bank money, he's going to

try to get private money in the same way as the EAB. They will use a

variety of sources, but they are using the VIP as a model. They are

going to bellow. -- -- EIB. What businesses want is a stable,

predictable environment for long-term investment. Labour whether

it is in opposition or power has to start spelling out a framework for

that is. But as you alluded to earlier, once the answer to

everything is not the market, the answer is very difficult to come up

with any can come up with wrong answers. The challenge for John

McDonnell is to start spelling out what at the micro level they want to

concentrate on when the start spending the money. Does the

National investment bank, the government borrows 100 billion on

its balance sheet, and the national investment bank gets that hundred

billion? That is my understanding, that they will create regional

investment balance. I am not privy to the full details of the speech

but I think the move from simply saying we are against austerity, we

will end the austerity. Ending austerity is now mainstream, Vergini

20 wants to do it, the Chinese, the IMF is saying that. Saying this is

not insignificant, it moves a further piece of the global

decision-making architecture, albeit they are not in power, in favour of

that renewed physical activity. But Steve NIB, where I come from, that

is news in brief, but as it comes with that version at Labour's

understanding of what exit is starting to change. Before we were

thinking spent on things like HS2, HS three, bridges, tunnels, the rest

of it. I think Labour has come to understand that you don't

necessarily do all of that. And you have to start thinking about

community level investment. That is why there will be a big thing in

McDonnell's speech about developing responsible at it. It will be quite

easy to build a HS3 somewhere, and whether the communities that are

pretty dire at the memo just watched the trains go by. There will be a

renewed emphasis on fostering a more vibrant co-operative sector in

Britain. We have got quite a week cooperative sector, and the

countries like Spain have some giant corpse that only successful. We're

being told the reason Clive Lewis, the shadow defence spokesman, could

not join as is that in the words of somebody, he is in the leader 's

office currently arguing about the speech! Apparently the unit is over

Trident. He would have thought Labour would argue about Trident at

a conference. Of course Lewis is on record of being pro-maintenance of

it in a different firm, not Trident but cruise missiles. It was

something to do with what is in his speech. Earle the curb and

leadership is not a monolithic leadership, you could Clive Lewis,

Emily Thornberry, both have a threw more nuanced position on defence

than him. National investment bank will it be expected to make a

return? I have no idea. One would expect that the return is measured

by economic growth, increased tax receipts over ten or 20 years. I

think it is a policy decision. In the design of it you would see it in

the next phase. It is an idea that has been around the sometime in

Labour thinking, and he announced the basic idea over the summer when

they were fighting the leadership thing. I think he will emphasise now

we need to move to the implementation process. Of course in

a democracy we would say let's have the Treasury model, let's see the

Office for Budget Responsibility model it and hope Labour develop

policy. They haven't got any of those resources, because the

government won't give them, and of course Gordon Brown didn't give it

to the Tories when he was in power it. But there are big university

departments we can get on board, think tanks that I think Fleming and

ready do that. So I think the next phase is the detail, but the idea is

it is not a very difficult idea in modern thinking that states have a

national fund that they use to shape the national income. Where does it

work? Scandinavia, it works in places where countries just

basically take an activist approach to investment. Sometimes they don't

actually need the National Investment Bank because they have

such good banking sectors. Look at the German banking sector, at the

land level, the regional level and the local level, they are able to

mobilise capital and fund it. The German regional banks, they are down

to seven now, they don't do infrastructure investments. They did

at one point. They ended up almost going bust because they put so much

money into American sub-prime, and these were state-owned banks.

McIlroy absolutely, apropos of that we will see McDonnell emphasise

again today that in supporting the city, the pass putting arrangement

with the Unitt, they will not give them a free pass to go precisely the

route that the German banks ended up with in 2008. To come back to your

question, the idea of regional investment banks funded by the banks

is not Marxism. The private money would only come in as a return.

Private money is not getting any return on anything, as you know

Andrew, right now. Long-term bonds style investment is producing in

some senses negative returns. As we do the unorthodox monetary policy we

can expect more and more of the world's assets to be yielding less.

I think we are in a low interest rate environment, let's see what

environment it is a photo when Labour came into power. I think the

return for the long-term investor will not be the problem. The problem

is the execution, not ending up like Harold Wilson, backing a bunch of

bad projects and doing this in a smart way and learning from the

best. Would you pick winners? You have two. That is what the national

enterprise board tried to do as well as mail out losers. What Labour has

been learning from and being scored by, the work of people like Marianna

Mazzucato. I know her work. You create an environment where you try

to shape investment towards specific technologies and outcomes. One of

those would-be green technology. It is a big thing waiting to happen in

Britain, along the German lines. President Obama tried that. He put

in a substantial amount of federal funding into green energy projects.

Sa Lynda Bellingham the most famous one. It was $520 million, where is

that money today? It proves the point. It is all gone. It proves the

point that public investment strategies can go wrong. We are not

going round a primrose path here, it is a difficult thing to do that we

have to do it because we just don't want to leave the community after

community setting with close ties streets, no transport links, no

schools, under skilled. Firms within 20 miles of here missing thousands

of Ph.D. Is because they cannot turn people with education into the right

skills. The government has to do is to bridge the gaps. The example of

Scandinavia, where you have long-term infrastructure investment,

in those Scandinavian funds, they are backed by sovereign wealth. We

haven't got any in this country. We are talking about a sovereign great

hole in the ground. You are not talking about a sovereign fund. With

Scandinavia that is where the structure comes from. If you have

1.6 trillion debt, that has to be paid down first. The Norwegian is

the big sovereign fund. They invest for people's pensions for the

long-term payment of Norwegians pensions. It is a different concept.

What you're hearing is a very borrow to invest strategy. He knows, they

know, they need the expertise to turn it into reality, and that the

design stage is just one stage of it. What happens if you lose all the

money? How are you going to lose the money? Of course you could build dad

projects coming could back hover crafts, we didn't need hovercraft in

the end. Concorde? I quite liked Concord, I never went on it, I think

he probably did. Yes, courtesy of the taxpayer. Yes, when we educate

people from GCSE standard to Ph.D. Standard and they go into the

workforce, the taxpayers invest in their skills, and we, the people,

get tax back from their wages, and we get the fact that we have more

innovative businesses. That is an investment, isn't it? The old BBC

isn't against investing in skills and infrastructure? Of course not,

but you can see a stroke return from investing in skills. Particularly

the stems goes we are short of commerce science, technology,

engineering, maths, there is a straight return, long-term return at

a straight return to the country. That is different from investing in

a supersonic plane by the state, that allows rich people to travel at

high speeds, courtesy of working class taxpayers.

I don't think we will be building Concorde either. But when Labour

tried to outline this earlier, they put skills and human capital --

human capital into the category of long-term investment. That was

something at the time the old Cameron Osborne people trying to

defend austerity were quite worried about because they were saying, "You

are trying to get current spending, education spending, into an

infrastructure fund", and they are manifestly going to try to do that

if they are going to -- if they get power. We have just lead the

surprise announcement from John McDonnell is that Labour would

increase the National Living Wage to ?10. It is a kind of, why not ?11?

By 2020. It will be close to ?10 by 2020 so it is not radical. It is

closing the gap between the official government specified minimum wage

and the living wage that is left over from the previous

administration. My understanding is, what we now call... Let's just call

it the minimum wage because that it would it is, that the new minimum

wage will be about ?9.50 by 2019 anyway so the Tories could do that

if they got back in in 2020. If you add to that rigid enforcement

because the problem that working people who may be on their lunch

break, short and though it may be, watching this will know is that all

kinds of employers are chipping away at the base level with all kinds of

fines, you know, charges, uniform costs. A Labour Inspectorate plus an

active trade union movement that goes to employers and says they are

not going to get away with it, the baseline is a ?10 per hour minimum

wage by John McDonnell will signal that we want a high wage economy.

Conservatives and Labour before them have built a low and stagnant wage

economy to revive demand. This is pure Keynesianism, we need wage

share of the economy to rise. One way of that is to raise the minimum

wage and the other way to create more high skilled, high-paying jobs,

hard to do but having the government behind it, not saying the market

does it, is the essential difference now between radical social democracy

which is what we have seen reborn in this hall, and stagnant, stale, old

conservatism. It is the way you tell them! Of course, the more you put

the minimum wage up, the more enforcement becomes important,

doesn't it? Some employers, unscrupulous employers, will have an

incentive to get round the minimum wage. You need to be seen to be

enforcing it. That is so and the argument goes that it has been in

force to anything like the kind of degree it might have been so far,

there are still people working under the feeling all over the country. It

is a fairly incremental increase. The TUC have been calling for a ?10

minimum wage for a couple of years and Labour were nearly there at the

time of the last election. As a big announcement goes, it is not exactly

an earthquake. You might have been briefed by the wrong brief, who

knows? You think it might be more than that? I think in terms of the

biggest announcement he is going to make the man who knows? I don't see

this as a massive, game changing thing, it is splashing out

investment fund. I think there will be words about Co-op 's and some

intent to do it. You might see some personnel changes announced. Who

knows? Where? We are not getting a Shadow Cabinet reshuffle but I think

over conference, we have begun to see people say... Let's go to the

hall now. John McDonnell is going to the stage. A number of the delegates

already getting on their feet to welcome him. So we will now hear

from the Shadow Chancellor and we are expecting a number of policy

announcements. John McDonnell. Wait until you hear what I have got

to say! LAUGHTER Now the leadership election is over,

I tell you, we have to become a government in waiting. APPLAUSE

And election could come at any time. Theresa May has said that she will

not be calling an early election. But when could anyone trust the word

of a Tory leader? We have to prepare ourselves are not just to fight an

election, but also for moving into government. So to do that

successfully, we have to have the policies and the plans for

implementation on the shelf in place for when we enter government,

whenever that election comes. So everybody in the party, at every

level, and in every role, needs to appreciate the sense of urgency of

this task. In this speech, I want to address some of the key issues we

will face and how we will face them. First, though, we need to appreciate

the mess that the Tories are leaving behind when we go into government.

Six years ago, six years on from when they promised to eliminate the

government deficit in five years, they are nowhere near that goal. The

national debt burden was supposed to be falling by last year and it is

still rising. In monetary terms, it now stands at ?1.6 trillion. Our

productivity has fallen far behind each hour worked in the US or

Germany or France. It is one third more productive that each hour

worked here. Our economy is failing on productivity because the Tories

are failing to deliver the investment it needs. Government

investment is still plans to fall in every year remaining of this

Parliament. -- plans to fall. In the real world economy that our people

live in, wages are still lower than they were before the global

financial crisis in 2008. They are now at least -- there are now at

least 800,000 people on zero hours contracts, unable to plan from one

week to the next and the number continues to rise. There's Nellie

500,000 in bogus self-employment. 86% of austerity cuts have fallen on

women. Tragically, there are nearly 4 million children living in

poverty. This isn't right, is it? In the fifth richest economy in the

world, poverty on that scale. So let's talk about the immediate

issues facing us. On Brexit, we campaigned to Remain and we

campaigned hard. But we have to respect the decision of the

referendum. But that doesn't mean we have two acts that what the Tories

serve up for our future relationship with Europe. -- have two except

what. Since Brexit, the Tories have come up with no plan whatsoever.

They have no clue. Half of them want a hard Brexit, to walk away from 30

years of investment in our relationship with Europe. Some are

just paralysed by the scale of the mess they created. So what we will

do is we will be working with our socialist and social Democrat

colleagues across Europe and our aim is to create a new Europe which

builds upon the benefits of the EU but tackles the perceived this

benefits. I set out in Labour's red lines on the Brexit negotiations a

few days after the vote, so let's get it straight. We have to protect

jobs. We will seek to preserve access to the single market for

goods and services. APPLAUSE Today, access to the single market

requires free movement of labour. But we will address the concerns

that people have raised in the undercutting of wages and conditions

and the pressure on local public services. I tell you this, we will

not let the Tories bargain away our workers' writes, either. APPLAUSE

We will defend the rights of EU National that live and work here,

and UK citizens currently living and working in Europe. APPLAUSE

We'd were all appalled at the attacks that took place on the

Polish community in our country following the Brexit wrote. Let's be

clear, as a party, we will always stand up against racism and

xenophobia in any form. APPLAUSE In the negotiations, we also want

Britain to keep its stake in the European investment bank. At the

centre of the negotiations is Britain's financial services

industry. Our financial services have been placed under threat as a

result of the votes to leave. Labour has said clearly we will support

access to European markets for the financial sector. But our financial

services must understand that 2008 must never happen again. We must

never... APPLAUSE The message is clear to them, we

will not tolerate a return to the casino economy that contributed to

that crash, ever again. We will support financial services where

they deliver a clear benefit for the whole community, not just enriching

a lucky few. We will work with the finance sector to develop its new

deal with finance for the British people. We will fight for the best

possible Brexit deal for the British people. And there will be no more

support for TTip or any other trade deal that promotes deregulation or

privatisation here or across Europe. APPLAUSE

And we will make sure that any future Labour government has the

power to intervene in our economy in interests of the whole country. For

Britain to prosper in that new Europe and of the world stage, our

next major challenge is to call a halt to this government's austerity

programme. The Conservatives... APPLAUSE

The Conservative Party built upon the disaster of the 2008 financial

crisis by introducing an austerity programme that has made the impact

of the economic crisis more prolonged, protected the

corporations and the rich, and made the rest of society pay for the

mistakes and greed of the speculators that caused the crash.

Last year, this conference determined that this party would

oppose austerity and that is exactly what we have done. We have had some

successes. We forced the reversal of tax credit cuts. We also thought and

won to have the personal independence payments cut scrapped.

APPLAUSE -- fought and won. Sometimes in this

movement, we don't thank people enough so I want to thank Owen Smith

for the work he has done working with Jeremy to defeat the Tories on

this issue. APPLAUSE And I want to thank Angela Smith and

her team in the Lords for the terrific work the Lords team has

done to defeat the Tories. APPLAUSE I say that as someone who has

campaigned to abolish them for 30 years! I am having a rethink! These

are tangible victories that are making a real difference to people's

lives. I tell you, this is what we can achieve, when we are united.

APPLAUSE So when we go into government

United, be clear, be absolutely clear, we will end this government's

austerity programme that has damaged so many lives and so many

communities. But the first step, yes, is opposing austerity, the

second is creating the alternative. So exactly as our economic adviser,

Nobel Prize winner Joe Stiglitz said, we have to rewrite the rules

of the economy. We will rewrite the rules for the benefit of working

people on taxes, on investment and how our economic institutions work.

On tax, we know we can't run the best public services in the world on

a flagging economy with a tax system that does not tax fairly or

effectively. I want to congratulate a group of people as well, and

Jonathan Reynolds in particular, because the criticisms on the left

that he is a representative of came up with their slogan, the hashtag,

Patriots pay their taxes. It is a great slogan. Patriots to pay their

taxes. -- do pay. APPLAUSE Labour has already set the pace on

tackling tax avoidance and tax evasion. We launched our tax

transparency and enforcement programme to force the government

into action. Again, I would like to thank Rebecca Lauren Baillie for

leading the Labour charge in Parliament to hold the tax dodgers

to account. APPLAUSE She has been ably backed up by any

member of our team, petered out, who has again stepped into the breach

and fought in Parliament for every principle we have put forward. --

Peter Dowd. And I want to congratulate Caroline Flint, who

forced an amendment to the Finance Bill, to ensure country by country

reporting is now back on the agenda. APPLAUSE

The publication of the Panama Papers through sunlight on the scale of tax

evasion and avoidance. Some of the largest firms in the City of London

are up to it -- up to their necks in it. HSBC alone accounted for more

than 2300 shell companies established to help the super-rich

duck their taxes. In government, we will end the scourge of tax

avoidance. We will end it. APPLAUSE We will create a new tax enforcement

unit at HMRC, doubling the number of staff investigating wealthy tax

avoidance. We will... APPLAUSE We will ban tax dodging companies

from winning public sector contracts. APPLAUSE

And we will... APPLAUSE And we will ensure that all British

Crown dependencies and overseas territories introduce a full, public

register of company owners and beneficiaries. We will throw light

on where the tax dodgers are hiding their money. APPLAUSE

A review of HMRC has also revealed the corporate capture of the tax

system, and how staff cuts are undermining our ability to create

the taxes we need. I would like to thank the team for the expertise

they have provided us in drawing up this review. The next stage will be

to develop the legislation and international agreements needed to

close tax havens and end tax abuse. And I would believe this assurance,

when we go back into government will make sure HMRC has the staffing, the

resources and the legal powers to close down the tax avoidance

industry that has grown up so in this country. APPLAUSE

But we have to do more than stop tax avoidance. The burden of taxation as

a whole now fails to heavily on those least able to pay full stop so

let me make it clear, in this coming period we will be developing the

policies that will shift the tax burden fairly away from those who

earn wages and salaries and onto those who hold wealth. APPLAUSE

Turning to investment, as I have said before, labour as a party of

government needs to think not just about how we spend money, but how we

earn it. I have announced a ?250 billion investment programme that

will ensure no community is left behind. This is the scale of

investment that independent experts say will start to bring Britain's

infrastructure into the 21st century. It means putting the

investment in place that will transform our energy system,

providing cheap, low carbon electricity. It means ensuring that

every plant in the country has access to superfast broadband that

during the best in the world. It means delivering the transport

deliveries, including HS3 in the north-west of England, to unlock the

potential of the whole country. But for too long now, major decisions

about what and where to invest have been taken by Whitehall and the

city. The result? And investment and decline across the country, so it's

time for our regions and localities to take control, take back control.

So we will create new institutions not run by the old elite circles,

are National Investment Bank well sustain a new, more productive

economy. It will be backed up by a network of regional development

banks, with a clear-cut mandate to supply finance to regional and local

economies. It is also a disgrace that Arsenal businesses can't get

the finances they need to grow. Our financial system is letting them

down badly at the moment. The new regional develop and banks will have

a mandate to provide the long-term investment they need, but we will go

further than this. We will shake up our major corporations work and

change how our economy is owned and managed. We will clamp down on the

abuses of power at the very top. Under Labour, there will be Nemeth

Philip Greens at all. APPLAUSE We will legislate to write company

law to prevent it. We will introduce legislation to ban company is taking

on excessive debt to pay out dividends to shareholders. And we

will rewrite the tax takeover code to make sure every takeover proposal

has a clear plan in place to pay workers and pensioners. We will

protect their pensions. APPLAUSE But we can do more to transform our

economy for working people. Theresa May has spoken about worker

representation on boards. It is good to see her following our lead. But

we know that meant workers own and manage their companies, those

businesses last longer and are more productive. If we want patient,

long-term investment and high-quality firms, what better way

to do it than to give employees themselves a clear stake in both. So

Corporation and collaboration is how the emerging economy of the future

functions. So we will look to at least double our co-operative sector

in this country, so it matches those in Germany and the US. APPLAUSE

We will build on the good example of Labour councils like Preston here in

the north-west, using public procurement to support cooperative

is whether they can. Yes, we will help to create 200 local energy

companies and 1000 energy cooperatives, breaking the monopoly

of the big six producers. APPLAUSE We will introduce a right to own,

giving workers first refusal on a proposal for a worker ownership when

a company faces change of ownership foreclosure. A right to own for

workers. So the next Labour government will promote a menace

once in cooperative and worker ownership. The new leadership

develop and banks will be tasked with supplying the capital that a

new generation of business owners will need to succeed. We will

support business hubs around the country. I visited Make Liverpool

yesterday, the next Labour government will provide support to

established business hubs in every town and city, every town and city.

APPLAUSE We know the economy is changing,

with more people self employed than ever before. We need to think

creatively about how to respond, so we'll be taking a serious look about

how to make the welfare system better support the self-employed.

I'm also interested in the potential of a universal Basic income. I want

to learn from the experiments that are taking place across Europe. But

you know, until working people have proper protections at work, the

labour market will always work against them. So to achieve fair

wages, the next Labour government will look to implement the

recommendations of the report. We will reintroduce sectoral collective

bargaining across the economy, ending the race to the bottom.

APPLAUSE And I give you this commitment: in

the first 100 days of our Labour government, we will repeal of the

trade union act. CHEERING Because what happens when trade

unions are weakened? I'll tell you what happens, over 200,000 workers

in the UK are receiving less than the minimum wage set down in love.

This is totally unacceptable. Under Labour, we will properly resource

HMRC and the gang masters and labour abuse authority to make sure they

are no more national scandals like Mike Ashley Sports Direct. APPLAUSE

And our vision for a higher wage economy with everyone receiving

their Sergi 's doesn't end there. I have spoken before about building on

the great achievements of previous Labour governments will stop yes,

and one of the greatest achievement of the government elected in 1997

was the establishment of a national minimum wage, lifting millions out

of poverty. And I pay tribute to that government for doing it.

APPLAUSE But, remember, remember, the Tories

opposed it, claiming it would cost millions of jobs. But, united

purpose, we won the argument. Under the next Labour government, everyone

will earn enough to live on. When we win the next election, we will write

into law a real living wage. APPLAUSE

We'll charge a new living wage bloody, and independent forecasts

suggest this will be over ?10 an hour. This will be part of our new

bargain in the workplace. But we know that small businesses need to

be part of that bargain, and that's why we'll also be publishing

proposals to help businesses implement the living wage,

particularly small and medium-sized companies. We will be examining a

number of ideas, including the expansion and reform of employment

allowance, to make sure this historic step forward, improving the

living standards of the poorest paid, does not impact upon hours of

employment. Backed up by our commitment to investment, this means

we will end the scourge of poverty pay in this country, once and for.

APPLAUSE -- once and for all. Decent pay is

not just fundamentally a right, it is good for business, it is good for

employees and it is good for Britain. But we need a new deal

across the whole of our economy, because whatever we do in Britain,

the old rules of the global economy are being rewritten for us. The wins

of globalisation are blowing in a different direction now, they are

playing against the belief in the free market, and in favour of

intervention. Look at the steel crisis, with the world market

flooded by cheap steel, major governments moved to particular

their domestic steel injuries forced up ours did not until we pushed them

into it, as a result of a community and trade union and Labour campaign.

But they are so blinkered by the eulogy that they can't see how the

world is changing. Good business doesn't need no government. Good

business needs good government. APPLAUSE

And the best governments today, right the way across the world,

recognise that they need to support their economies, because the way the

world works is changing. For decades, manufacturing jobs

disappeared, as producers look for the cheapest labour they could find.

Today, one in six manufacturers in the UK are bringing jobs back to

Britain. That's because production today is about locating cluster

markets and drawing upon the highly skilled labour and high-quality

investment. Digital technology means production can be smaller scale, in

smaller, faster firms, dependent on cooperation and collaboration. Not

to eat dog competition. The economies that are making best use

of this shift are those with governments that understand it is

taking place, and support new industries and small businesses. So

we could be part of that change here. There is huge potential in

this country, and in every part of the country. We have an immense

heritage of scientific research, and engineering expertise with that

today, our science system is a world leader. We have natural resources

that could make us world leaders in renewables. We have talent and

ambition in every part of the country, yet at every stage, we have