Press Office

Aired: Thursday, 14 April, 2005 17:45
Sky News' The Boulton Factor

ADAM BOULTON: I notice a dozen colour pictures of you in this manifesto, now the other two leaders have got one black and white each, now what does that tell you?

CHARLES KENNEDY: I hope what it tells people is that the Liberal Democrats are comfortable with their leader and that they feel that when they’re dealing with the voters who will decide the outcome of this election, people are pretty comfortable with me, I hope that’s what it conveys.

ADAM BOULTON: Do you feel on the line a bit, that you’ve really got to deliver a good quota of seats, or you’ll have to resign? 

CHARLES KENNEDY: Well, I’m certainly not approaching this general election with any of those thoughts in mind. The party and myself are in very, very positive mode and the reason being that we’re going in to this election with at least half again the level of support we went into the last election. And at the last election we put on more votes and won more seats. Now I think the opportunity in front of us is very big indeed.

ADAM BOULTON: There are three spending proposals of local income tax, helped out by £2 billion, long-term care for elderly, and also getting rid of tuition fees, you’re getting the money for that from taxing the 1% of people you say who earn about a £100,000 a year. So how much money are you going to raise a year on that tax?

CHARLES KENNEDY: We’re going to raise £5.1 billion and that’s based on the official treasury figures and our spending commitments for those three policy areas that you outline is £4.9 billion, so we’ve built in a cushion, a contingency. It’s very responsible and I think it’s going to command support.

ADAM BOULTON: It is though progressive taxation, it’s redistribution, isn’t it? 

CHARLES KENNEDY: It’s progressive taxation, redistribution, call it what you will. It is fair taxation; it is transparent taxation with specific objectives in mind for both ends of the age spectrum and for all those who are at the moment saddled with council tax.

ADAM BOULTON: …Local income tax, a bit more difficult to understand, I mean who, on what sort of income level will the average person find themselves paying a bit more? 

CHARLES KENNEDY: The important thing to get over about local income tax, and by definition the name itself suggests this, it is going to be local taxation, but it’s going to be taxation based on your income, your individual income. So the typical household is going to find themselves under our proposals, and this is the Institute of Fiscal Studies that’s has looked at this, £450 a year better off, six million pensioners are going to find themselves taken out of local taxation, they are presently being hit very hard in many cases by the council tax.

ADAM BOULTON: But people in the middle and slightly better off than average, but in the middle, could get hit as low as say £30,000 a year, that kind of level.

CHARLES KENNEDY: Yes, but you’ve got to look at it in terms of individual incomes and the individual ability to pay based on that income. Now 25% of people will end up contributing more, but equally you’ve got to remember that of that 25%, they will benefit at one and the same time by not having to worry about top-up-fees for their potential children that might be becoming students, that they will have and can depend on the state providing free long-term personal care. So you’ve got to look at the package in the round and it’s a fair set package.

ADAM BOULTON: The Liberal Democrats are the most socialist party in this election in that case?

CHARLES KENNEDY: I certainly don’t aspire or ascribe to that description of us. No, I think that we are the most socially fair party in what we’re putting in front of people, how much it will cost but what benefits families and communities, the country will achieve as a result.  

ADAM BOULTON: Now we’ve all had a chance to wake up, we’ve gone through Vincent Cable’s costing...it’s fair to say that the other three of them didn’t actually appear at your news conference to know how Liberal Democrat economic policy was going to work.

CHARLES KENNEDY: I don’t understand what you mean.

ADAM BOULTON: What you just explained to me…not one, the deputy leader or the man who wrote the manifesto, Matthew Taylor, could explain that to the journalists this morning so there’s bit of confusion within the Lib Dems themselves.

CHARLES KENNEDY: I don’t think there’s confusion on our part, because if you look at the three national political parties on offer here. You’ve got two of them who are having one kind of argument about taxation and expenditure. And you’ve got a third, ourselves, which is very much in a distinct position, and we’re saying, look you know you can’t get something for nothing in life, however it’s got to be based on the principles of fairness, it’s got to be progressive and here are the policy priorities that we will achieve as a country as a result.  

ADAM BOULTON: Do you blame Tony Blair and the Labour government for the killing of Detective Constable Oake and the presence in the country of failed asylum seekers?

CHARLES KENNEDY: I don’t want to get into taking a dreadful individual circumstance like this and try to make some much more sweeping policy point. What people want is a sensible system of asylum which doesn’t as a country turn our back on what have been long standing principles of enabling people to come here, but at the same time you do not want that policy to be inefficient and ineffective so you improve the policy but don’t turn it into a party political slagging match.

ADAM BOULTON: People who are worried about not just the fear but a real danger in this case of terrorists operating in this country, is there anything in Liberal Democrat policy which will make them safer?

CHARLES KENNEDY: Without any shadow of a doubt, and if people want to feel more safe in their communities, in their homes, in society as a whole, it has to be more of a visible police presence, that’s why we would say, don’t spend billions of pounds of national identities cards which won’t actually…terrorism, put more bobbies on the beat, that’s what people want.

END