Oh God, yes.

I think the choice in the world is whether the people, those that create the wealth, run the world or it’s run by the people who own the wealth. I see Marx as the last of the Old Testament prophets, working in the British Library and writing a brilliant book on capitalism which anybody could have done, but adding to it a moral dimension — that exploitation is wrong.

But it is not my purpose to go around and pump my socialist ideology on people. I find that socialist analysis and understanding helps me to a) understand the world and b) to see what we might do. And you see, I think democracy is the most revolutionary thing — the one thing they hate is democracy. When we began to get democracy in the nineteenth century, what happened was that power was transferred from the market to the polling station, from the wallet to the ballot, and people who were poor could vote for hospitals and schools and museums and art galleries which previously were the prerogative of the rich. And I think democracy is what really frightens the guys at the top. That’s what Thatcher and Reagan were about — it was a counter-revolution when they suddenly realised that the threat to their privileges wasn’t a Red Army coming over, it was that democracy could erode their rights, and they wouldn’t have it. For me, socialism and democracy are indivisible.

If you read Mein Kampf, Hitler’s book, which I have — I bought it when I was eleven — Hitler said, ‘democracy inevitably leads to Marxism’ — now you work that one out. It’s so interesting that when the poor have the vote, they will use it to remove the privileges of the rich.

I think democracy is not a destination. I don’t think socialism is a railway station and if we catch the right train with the right driver, we’ll get there. I think it’s a way of thinking about things, and every generation has to do it again.

Well, I think if you do have democracy, it would transform the world because if the millions of people who die living on a dollar a day had the vote, they would redistribute the wealth of the world — and the people at the top are not prepared to see that happen.

I looked up on the internet for fun the other day how many socialist parties there are in Britain. There is the Socialist Party, the Socialist Labour Party, the Socialist Workers Party, the Socialist Party of Great Britain, the Scottish Socialist Party, the Communist Party, the Communist Party of Great Britain, the Communist Party of Marxist-Leninism. There are too many socialist parties and not enough socialists.

I mean really you have to work with other people. If you are serious, you have to find a way of turning the aspirations that you hear articulated in the streets, turn them into the statute book. In my life as an MP, I’m a buckle between what people want and how you get there. And if you are going to be a buckle you have got to work with other people, so I’ve got to work with other people.

When Blair was elected leader of the Labour Party, he said, ‘New Labour is a new political party’ — that was the phrase he used, and I’m so glad he said it because he set up his own party and I’m not a member of it. I think New Labour is probably the smallest party in Britain because they are all in cabinet and they are very powerful. But if I really went around canvassing on New Labour policy — we will stop council house building, we will privatise the health service, we will make students have to take out debts, we will have a means test for pensioners, we’ll go to war — nobody will vote for it.

For the first time in my life, the public are to the left of what’s called a ‘Labour government.’ People don’t want privatisation, they don’t want war. So it’s all moving, but these things take time, and I think if you’re going to make sense of politics, you have to have a historical perspective and also recognise that you have to work with people you don’t agree with. I mean, the Labour Party has never been a socialist party, but it’s always had socialists in it, just as there are some Christians in the churches, everybody knows that — it’s an exact parallel.

I’m a socialist in the Labour Party — it’s always been like that and always will be. And I’ve lived long enough to see Ramsay McDonald betray the party in 1931 and join with the Tories. There were only 51 Labour MPs in 1931. Fourteen years later, it was a landslide. So if you don’t have a historical perspective, you don’t really understand what’s going on.

Well, I don’t think it helps to go around saying, ‘Try Blair for war crimes,’ if you’re trying to persuade Labour MPs to vote against the war and they are told they’ve got to see Blair and Cherie locked up. It’s ridiculous. I said this to all the people. I mean, it’s mad. I can understand people’s anger, but it is crazy. After all, the purpose of campaigning is to persuade. I mean, people set fire to themselves to draw attention to it, but it isn’t terribly persuasive.

The thing is, you have to work at it, and we are trying to broaden the appeal now much more — try and get the lawyers in on the question of torture and get other people in. The cost of the war! For a fraction of the cost of the war, you could have given everyone in Africa AIDS drugs, and gradually build it up. But it’s persuasion. We’re about not pretending we’re having a revolution where you set fire to the BBC because actually, as attractive as that may be, we are not trying to do that.

Well, I knew him for 51 years. I got criticised for that — a bishop once in Croydon refused to sponsor a meeting because I went to the funeral. But the thing about Enoch was that he wasn’t really a racialist, he was a nationalist. I used to tease him — I knew him very well — I said, ‘Look Enoch, you love India, but you don’t want any Indians in Wolverhampton,’ and he looked sort of a bit funny, and then I’d say, ‘You believe in the free movement of capital, but you don’t believe in the free movement of people,’ and he knew he’d made a mistake.

The thing about Enoch was he said what he meant and meant what he said, and he was a very thoughtful guy. I met him in 1951, 55 years ago, and he said to me, ‘During the war, I couldn’t make up my mind whether I’d become part of the Labour Party or Conservative Party.’ And, of course, he helped us win the 1974 election by saying, ‘Vote Labour’. He said that because of Europe, you see. I think that may have been a factor in our winning the 1974 election. I tell you, do you know the name of Eric Heffer? Have you heard of him? He was a very left-wing MP, and I spoke at St. Margarets at his memorial service, and there was somebody behind me coughing, and I turned around, and it was Ms Thatcher — she had gone to Eric Heffer’s funeral!

I’m not sorry, but anyway, it annoyed a lot of people. You’re quite right, people do ask me that, yeah.

Oh gosh! I’ve met him briefly. He is a fascinating guy. I’ve got some recordings of him, but when he speaks, he’s so monotone — there’s no sort of movement — but his ideas are absolutely brilliant.

Well, no. You see the thing about your generation — this is an argument I use all the time — you are the first generation in history that has the power to destroy the human race, with chemical, nuclear, or biological weapons. I mean, in the old days, you could kill a few people with a pike or a machine gun or a bomb, now you could wipe out the human race. But also, you are the first generation in history that has the power to solve the problems that there are. There has never been in history the technology and the money to provide everybody with a house, everybody with a school, everybody with a hospital. That is the choice you have to make.

We are like survivors in a lifeboat after a shipwreck with one loaf of bread. If you have got one loaf of bread in a lifeboat, there are only three ways to distribute it: you sell it so the rich gobble it up, you fight for it so the strong get it all, or you chop it up into chunks and share it. That is the choice you have to make. And it’s a brilliant generation, yours, because you know everything, you can use the internet, you go around. I have huge confidence in your generation.

You asked me about the future — it will be what we make of it. If we go on fighting religious wars and wars for oil, then maybe we will destroy the human race, but as I’ve got 10 grandchildren, I don’t want it to happen.

Well. yes. When people wake up to the fact that the enemy aren’t the Muslims but we’re destroying the environment, they might realise that it’s the equivalent of an attack from Mars that might unite us.

Well, I think the establishment underestimates people’s intelligence.

If your son is in Iraq, you think about it. Look at Rose Gentle or Cindy Sheehan and the impact she’s had. I think, on the whole, the level of intelligence is greater. The supply of information is the key question. You see, the Americans are now recognising that the internet is their greatest enemy because, you know, the pen is mightier than the sword, and the ship is mightier than the bomb. They are not prepared to see this information. If you understand what’s happening, think about it and spread it, then you catch people’s imagination.

I think life is about encouraging people. I was encouraged by so many people in my life. All this naming and shaming, league tables, and failures — the language of management is lousy. But they do it deliberately to keep us down. And actually, if you realise that, with a bit of encouragement, everyone will do better.