Steve Richards:

OK, well let me ask you about arguably the biggest issue around at the moment.  It was interesting, I was speaking to one of your supporters a couple of weeks ago and I said well at least Jon Cruddas, unlike the others who were in the cabinet at the time, will have voted against the war, and that will help him.  And then I checked to find that you voted in favour of the war.  What do you think about that now?

Jon Cruddas:

Well I think I was wrong, actually.  I think you can not look at the situation in Iraq and say that it is anything other than a disaster, actually.  And I'm not questioning the motives of why we went in, I think the premise was wrong obviously in terms of the weapons of mass destruction.  I saw it from the back of the former Yugislavia issues and Sierra Leone as an attempt to deal with totalitarian regimes, however any look at what we've created is not a liberal democracy we sought to create, but is sort of approaching carnage.  I mean, this week Colin Powell has characterized it as civil war...I'm not sure about that myself in terms of the exact despcription of it, but that is not a sort of endorsement of the strategy that has been played out, so I think it has been disastrous.  

Steve Richards:

Yes, this was clearly a pivotal moment, that vote, I mean what's your feeling about it now, how would you describe your sense of the way you look at what you did then?

Jon Cruddas:

Well I do regret it, I think the key question is if we know now, if we knew then what we know now, would you still have voted for it, and I can say no, I wouldn't have done.  And I think that's the key question really.   So therefore I do regret the way I voted on it and the key thing now  is not to compound the problem but to try and resolve it, so we've got to look at the next decision rather than the last one.

Steve Richards:

Why did you vote in favour at the time?

Jon Cruddas:

Well, because, I took the premise, in terms of the weapons of mass destruction, I thought that was a legitimate one, not least because he used it on his own people.  I also took, I mean I thought - Tony Blair made a speech in support of forms of intervention against totalitarian regimes in North America in 1998, which I thought was a very effective statement of his position, and I supported it and endorsed it, especially in regards to former Yugoslavia, and indeed the history of what Saddam Hussein had done and was all about, and I saw it as a rational response.

Steve Richards:

You worked with Tony Blair during the first term in Downing Street, do you think, for whatever complex range of reasons, you were misled into voting in favour of the war?

Jon Cruddas:

Yes, I do.  Without challenging the motive I think there was a systemic misleading of public opinion regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction.

Steve Richards:

But by whom?

Jon Cruddas:

Well I don't know, precisely, obviously the Security Services were involved, and I don't question the motives of the political leadership - no I don't, actually, I think they went in with a, sort of, they went in in terms of their own analysis of it legitimately, now we can subsequently question that but I wouldn't - my departure point is not to question the motives of those who took us there, it's rather to analyse the situation as we see it now and with a benefit of hindsight say that it was the wrong decision.  And therefore I regret my own part in it.

Steve Richards:

When you go round meetings you asked a lot about that?

Jon Cruddas:

Yes, I mean it is a central issue in terms of issues of trust, issues of our party's culpability in the present situation, and a need, an express need across the party for us to reconcile ourselves to the situation today and acknowledge the failure in terms of the policy positions we took.

Steve Richards:

Do you think it would help if a leading figure, presumably it's too late now for Tony Blair, but perhaps Gordon Brown, to acknowledge big mistakes were made?

Jon Cruddas:

I think so, I think there has to be reconciliation on the part of the government in terms of its own responsibility for the situation now, and I think that has to occur.  Partly so there can be a reconciliation with the British people actually on the subject, so I think it has to happen, the sequence, the timing of it I'm not sure about, but I think that should be a part of the next 6 months, 12 months in terms of the rebuilding of the party, in terms of the future direction of the government and its policy framework.

Steve Richards:

And what if that doesn't happen, in your view?

Jon Cruddas:

Well I think it would be very difficult because it goes right back to issues of trust, it goes back to whether we can or will be able to forge a new relationship in terms of the British people and in terms of being able to represent and articulate their concerns and insecurities and critical within that will be the issue of terror internationally, and also the perceptions of the situation on the ground now amongst the people here.

I'm still convinced a lot of Labour Party members (particularly those of the armchair variety) will vote by name recognition and media profile.