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Wednesday 8 October 2008

WEB EXCLUSIVE:  Meet the minister for selling the unsellable - uncut

An extended version of Fraser Nelson's interview with Jim Murphy

'I honestly believe we are gradually changing that round.  If you look at the numbers of incapacity benefits it is falling.' A third civil servant comes in, and shoots him a steely glance. ‘One minute,’ he says, unconvincingly. But it’s my fault. I’m trying my luck, asking who the last band he went to see in concern (Snow Patrol) and what he thinks about the rise of Englishness which would (as the late Robin Cook argued) ban Scottish MPs like him from running a devolved department like health or education.

'I’m pretty comfortable with the resurgence of Englishness.  I think it’s a great thing,' he says. 'The fact that the Scots celebrate St Andrew’s Day, the Irish have St Patrick’s day and - St George’s Day, well, you almost miss it. I think a positive celebration of Englishness strengthens the UK’s culture and our democracy actually.' This sounds horribly off-message, especially when you remember a certain Prime Minister’s Britishness agenda. But he alights on a Unionist point. 'My family came here from Ireland 50 or 60 years ago but they never left the United Kingdom. In political terms, that’s where I am - a Unionist.'

When I finally walk through the door out of his office, a wall of officials are looking murderously at me. There was indeed a real visitor we had kept waiting: Fiona Gordon, political secretary to the Prime Minister. Mr Murphy blanches. ‘Oh, I didn’t realise it was you,’ he said. She pretends not to mind. I make for the exit. ‘OK, Fraser, hope that you got all I said about Gordon,’ he says, with a wink. In fact, he didn’t mention the Prime Minister once. Given that his job is to take all of the flak over Europe, that’s probably just as well.

An abridged version of this interview is published in The Spectator.

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