The IoS interview: Gwyneth Dunwoody, parliamentarian

'They smeared before - they will smear again'

Gwyenth Dunwoody was affectionately known as "Gunboats" when she was the scourge of the Labour hard-left in the Commons, long before New Labour was a sparkle in Tony Blair's eye.

Sitting in her office at the Commons last week, the veteran Labour MP for Crewe and Nantwich looked unsinkable. However, she is convinced the Government is out to get her for the withering fire she has maintained against Tony Blair's ministers as chairman of the Transport Select Committee.

Her committee's devastating report on the Government's 10-year transport plan will go down in history as the cause of Stephen Byers's sudden decision to quit as Secretary of State for Transport, after months of resistance.

It provoked a bitter counter-blast from John Prescott, Mr Byers's predecessor, who accused Mrs Dunwoody and her committee of putting "the final knife in Stephen Byers' back".

There were some old scores being settled in that spat on the radio. He was the architect of the plan, and he did not take kindly to it being rubbished. Worse, it was Mrs Dunwoody, 71, doing the rubbishing. The two old warhorses go back a long way in the Labour movement.

Mrs Dunwoody's father, Morgan Phillips, was a former general secretary of the Labour Party. She first entered the Commons in 1966 as Labour MP for Exeter, before winning her present seat in 1974.

Mr Prescott and Mrs Dunwoody clashed over his plans for private investment in London Underground, air traffic control, and delays in the introduction of expensive safety devices on the railways that were being demanded by the Paddington rail crash survivors' campaign group, led by Pam Warren.

Mrs Dunwoody sees the attacks on herself and Ms Warren as part of the knee-jerk New Labour response to criticism. Mr Byers's special adviser sent his e-mails in an attempt to "demonise" Ms Warren's group for daring to ask difficult questions, rather than trying to find the answers.

"I think it is embarrassing and depressing that the Government have had to apologise," she said. "Unfortunately this is a government that a long time ago decided this is the way to deal with any problem. It's totally counter-productive – particularly in transport, because people are interested in facts."

Tired of her sniping, and in spite of winning a second successive landslide election victory last year, the whips mounted a petty and ultimately vain attempt to remove Mrs Dunwoody from the chairmanship of her committee. She survived because it provoked a full-blooded backbench rebellion.

Her name is still on their target list, she believes, and next time, she will go down. "They will try and get rid of me and this time, they will probably succeed. The House of Commons doesn't get its act together twice," she said.

She claims a smear campaign of whispers has already started against her – like the whispering campaign that brought down Mo Mowlam. They are suggesting she is not up to the job of running a senior select committee. "The criticism seems to be on the level of 'I am deliberately wielding the dagger, and I don't understand what's going on'," she said.

To make sure I am not misquoting her, I ask her whether she is saying there is a smear campaign against her. "It's the way they work. This is what they did before. This is what they will do again. It tells you more about their deep insecurity than it does about the workings of the transport committee."

But this is a government that has been in power for more than five years, it has got a second term, and a huge majority. What has it got to be insecure about? "I find it totally incomprehensible."

Does it start from the centre – No 10? "I don't know who is so unsure of their ability to maintain a good relationship with the Parliament and with the electorate but it's certain this thread of constant worry about presentation has become more important than what people actually do."

Oddly enough, Peter Mandelson came to roughly the same conclusion in the foreward of his re-issued book on New Labour. "No comment," she said. This weekend, he is hosting a "third way" think tank. "The third wayers – otherwise known as the parasites," she said.

At least she might find something there in common with Mr Prescott. "You could get rid of me without any trouble at all because this government is able to command a very large majority and will use it even against its own Leader of the House [Robin Cook], as they demonstrated only a few weeks ago, when they think they are not getting their way."

The opportunity to unseat her will come, she believes, as a result of Mr Blair's decision to carve up the Department for Transport, Local Government and the Regions, after the departure of Mr Byers, to create a single ministry for transport. That will trigger the reform of her committee, and she will be ousted.

She will not go without a fight, if she is challenged. "I would hope that any independent-minded group of MPs would judge particularly transport on the basis of the evidence and not of whether or not they like the people who are taking the evidence.

"And quite apart from anything else, transport is going to be a deciding factor in the next general election. What happens in London transport will have a direct impact on large numbers of seats in London. What happens in relation to the reorganisation [of the] west coast main line affects five or six major cities."

That fear may be just enough to save her.

Biography

1930 Born in Fulham, London. Father, Morgan Phillips, later general secretary of the Labour Party.

1954 Married Dr John Elliott Orr Dunwoody, former Labour MP for Falmouth and Camborne. Have two sons and a daughter.

1966 Elected MP for Exeter.

1967 Board of Trade minister.

1970 Loses seat and ministerial post. Becomes director of Film Production Association of Great Britain.

1974 Elected MP for Crewe (later Crewe and Nantwich).

1975 Divorced. Member of European Parliament.

1979 Opposition spokesman on foreign affairs, health and transport.

1997 Chairman, Transport Select Committee.