The following is taken from ‘Political Thinking with Nick
Robinson’ on BBC Radio 4.
The podcast is live and available to download:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p06flmqk
NG: Look Margaret quite clearly has had some appalling times
herself in terms of prejudice against her and a massive challenge
with the BNP to deal with, so if she wants to have a very clear
word with Jeremy that’s entirely up to her.
Nick: Should she be disciplined?
NG: The idea that Jeremy would want to set up an atmosphere in
the party where people couldn’t go and say things to him is
completely absurd. It’s just not his way of dealing things. I
think we’d all prefer to have somebody speak to your face rather
than behind your back. It’s important that we have those
discussions and if it means we need to do a lot more work to get
things right let’s do it.
Nick: But do you mean that there won’t be disciplinary
proceedings against or you think wouldn’t want there to be,
which is a bit different?
NG: Well at the moment I’m not aware of any processes by which
because somebody speaks to somebody else ‘in a particular way’
we’ve had disciplinary procedures. Normally if we’re speaking
about policy, if we’re talking about issues we can have those
discussions.
Nick: Journalists have been told that she crossed a line, that
should be disciplinary proceedings. If there were, how would you
feel belonging to a party that disciplined , whose worried about
anti-Semetism, but never quite got round to disciplining Ken
Livingstone?
NG: Well I just can’t see a situation where we discipline people
for speaking their minds to each other, whether its members of
the shadow cabinet or the leader of the opposition himself.
