Question: What does it feel like at this election when for the first time for some years, you're not contesting a seat?

Tony Benn: Well yes, for 51 years. I'm going round doing 26 constituencies all over the country - I've been in Edinburgh, in West Lothian, in Glasgow, in Chesterfield, in Leeds, in Bristol, in London, in Luton, Hornchurch. I'm just going round the country. And yesterday I was out for 3 hours in the seat where I live in London on a stall. So I'm meeting a lot of people and getting a feel for the campaign which I found very interesting. I think there is a lot of real interest, but not necessarily what is appearing on the media.

Question: What are the interests that you detect on the street?

Tony Benn: Well I think there is a lot of concern about privatisation. I think people are really worried if they think that big business internationally is going to take over our services.

Question: But Tony Blair is planning to extend private sector involvement into public services.

Tony Benn: Yes and I think there is a source of great anxiety because multinational corporations in health and education realise that there are enormous and massive budgets in each country devoted to health and education and what they really want is to get their hands on it. More generally I think people are worried anyway about the extent to which globalisation means that the power has moved from the governments that we elect to the corporations and the organisations like the World Trade Organisation, the IMF in Brussels and the Frankfurt Bank which we do not elect.

Question: Tony Blair and Gordon Brown would say though that you need to have the efficiency of the private sector management for the public services.

Tony Benn: Well you don't privatise the army or the police. No I think this is quite different. I think this is a product of the Maastricht treaty where the Chancellor of the Exchequer is forbidden by law from exceeding a certain percentage from our national income on public expenditure. And therefore in effect, these services will be sold off. But more than that, the companies have more power than the Prime Minister - when Motorola decided to sack 3,000 people in Bathgate in Scotland, the Prime Minister rang them up and they said it's nothing to do with you. And similarly when Corus steel sacked 6,000 people. So I think people are realising that what is at stake here is democracy itself. Our democratic control of our own society is being eroded by the growth of global capital power.

Question: But none of the main parties are offering a decent alternative to that, are they?

Tony Benn: Well what's interesting to me is that if you take an issue like the railways, not a single political leader in Britain is calling for the nationalisation of the railways - not one. And yet 80 per cent of the population want it. And I think for the first time in my life - and I've been in politics for 60 odd years, the public are to the left of the Labour Party. And that I think is a very interesting thing. I think the pendulum is swinging very sharply now towards tighter environmental controls, towards public services publicly financed, publicly controlled and publicly accountable, against huge nuclear arms programmes like Star Wars, in favour of a proper deal for pensioners, opposition to tuition fees. So I think really the public is now trying to get these messages across, and obviously governments in the end have to respond to it.

Question: And do you think Tony Blair will, in the end, have to respond?

Tony Benn: Yes I do, any government must. After all, at the last Labour conference against very strong opposition of the Cabinet, the Labour conference called for much higher pensions and within a week or two the minimum income guarantee was raised. Fuel protesters protested about the price of fuel and within a few weeks the Chancellor of the Exchequer made concessions on that.

Question: The Lib Dems criticise Labour for being timid on tax, saying it would have been better to say we're spending more so we'll have to tax more.

Tony Benn: Well I said that in the last election, I made that absolutely clear. If rich people can afford to give large sums to the Labour Party then they can afford to pay a bob or two in income tax. And I think the 50 per cent tax on the highest income is absolutely correct.

Question: So do you believe the Lib Dems have got the best policy on tax and spend?

Tony Benn: Well the Liberals are in favour of lots of policies that I don't agree with, but undoubtedly on the question of taxation, I think most people in the Labour Party would agree with that.

Question: Where do you stand on the euro?

Tony Benn: Oh it's really clear. The Conservatives want money to run the world. They don't want the coalition in Brussels to have any control over money because they believe in market forces. I'm a democrat. I will not accept that law should be made by people I can't remove on polling day. It's a democratic issue, and I think a lot of people see that. And I think if an attempt was made to have a referendum on the euro, the proposal to enter would be defeated. There's not a single country in Europe that voted for the euro - the Germans weren't given a referendum, the French weren't, the Spaniards, the Italians, the Greeks. The only country in Europe that was given a referendum on the euro was Denmark, and they voted against it.

Question: There's reports that New Labour could sweep in with a huge majority. Do you think it's healthy to have a government with such a huge majority?

Tony Benn: We'll I joined the Labour Party sixty years ago and I want it to succeed. And I think after the election you'll find a very interesting situation developing. The Labour Party went along with New Labour to win in '97, so I understand, and obviously wanted to give the new government a honeymoon, but New Labour, according to the Prime Minister, is a new party. I'm not a member of it and I think the Labour Party will now become much stronger in pressing in its policy requests and arguments and I think the government will have to concede them.

Question: Would that be in the Parliamentary Labour Party?

Tony Benn: Oh yes. There are lots of MPs in the Parliamentary Labour Party whose views are very different to the way they are reported. There are some really brilliant MPs who are hardly ever mentioned - I'm thinking of Alan Simpson, Jeremy Corbyn and John MacDonald and Diane Abbott and so on. And they have very very large and growing influence in the Parliamentary Labour Party.

Question: Will there be more accommodation of the views of these people in the Labour government?

Tony Benn: Well I think that the pendulum is swinging back. Pendulums don't go on forever - I think the pendulum is swinging back to what is called the Left. I think people want public services and democratic control of their society and they want peace. And I think those arguments will become the conventional wisdom in the next few years of governments. Obviously we'll have to take notice of them. I've been in the Cabinet for 11 years and I know governments are very sensitive to public opinion.

Question: Many people say that low voter turnout will be a key feature of this election. Why is that?

Tony Benn: Well the argument about apathy is an interesting one because apathy is two-sided: you can have governments that are apathetic about the people they govern.

Question: And do you think the Labour government has been apathetic?

Tony Benn: Well I think there is a feeling among a lot of pensioners that to cut the link, or not to restore the link, I should say, between earnings and pensions have been neglecting their interests. I think a lot of students who have to pay tuition fees are feeling that and the response of that is well, I'm not going to vote. Of course if you don't vote then you open up a much more serious danger which is that if people get cynical and apathetic, they open the way to the hard right, which is what happened in Germany and Italy in the 20s and 30s. And I think the Opposition is trying to play the race card, if you like, to win support from people who are disaffected.

You are in the business of forecasting the future, I am in the business of trying to influence it, which is much more interesting. I can't tell you what will happen but it is possible that you'll have a big majority on the low turnout and potentially that has dangers. Look at Clinton - only one out of five of the Americans ever voted for him. And that does gravely weaken the legitimacy of an elected government.

Question: What should the political parties do to re-engage the public?

Tony Benn: Well I'm leaving Parliament to devote more time to politics, as you know, and that's a conscious and serious decision because this theory that young people aren't interested in the parties just isn't true. There are thousands and thousands of young people involved in the environmental movement, the peace movement and so on. But they do not connect to the democratic process, to the electoral process. The protesters who were out in London on May 1st were denounced by the media as a lot of thugs but they were actually trying to express a view about politics. That protest without organisation is not enough, so I am intending to work as hard as I can to link with the people with my voice supported and try and see how their influence can be stronger inside Parliament. That's what I'm doing.