03/05/2012 Daily Politics

Good afternoon and welcome to the Daily Politics. Mervyn King admits

he should have shouted from the rooftops about the risks ahead of

the financial crisis. In a speech last night, the Governor of the

Bank of England admitted mistakes had been made in the past and

pledged that the Bank of England would regulate the banking system

better in the future. ARGUING IN FRENCH.

There were some angry exchanges between President Sarkozy and his

socialist challenger, Francois Hollande, last night in the only

television debate of the French election campaign.

Here, voters go to the polls today in a whole host of elections in

England, Scotland and Wales. And with all the bad weather we

have been having recently, will it affect voter turn-out? We will be

exploding some election myths. All that in the next hour between

now and 1pm. And with us for the duration Howard

Davies. He has done so many jobs, we are losing count, but he's now a

professor at the Institute of Political Studies in Paris. It's

called Sciences Po. Bienvenu, mon petit mange-tout. Now we are not

really allowed to talk about domestic politics today for fear of

influencing your vote. If only we could! So I'm going to sing for the

next 58 minutes. No! La la la! Will you join in? No! I can laugh in

French! OK, I'll put you out of misery and you can watch this. I

think our ratings just went up! I will do what I'm paid to do. Lets

talk about the governor of the Bank of England Mervyn King, who last

night had this to say. Our power was limited to that of publishing

reports and preaching sermons, and we did preach sermons about the

risks, but we didn't imagine the scale of the disaster of what would

occur when the risks crystallised. With the benefit of hindsight, we

should have shouted from the rooftops that a system had been

built, in which banks were too important to fail, banks had grown

too quickly and borrowed too much, and that so-called light touch

regulation had not presented -- prevented any of this all-star the

first radio address by a Bank of England governor for 17 years.

much did Mervyn King actually admit to? I think he is saying mistakes

began in the financial markets themselves and people who run the

banks and their shareholders are responsible, but they should not be

expecting to run for support from the government so the problems

started there, but the lock plot is there was a collective view,

including politicians from all sides, regulators and the central

bank, that things were fine. Inflation was low, the economy was

growing, the Orrell wing was going up, we were having fun -- borrowing.

Somebody should have been the person to shout that the emperor

has no clothes, and I think he thinks in hindsight, that should

have been him. He did hint that he was starting to preach sermons

about the risk of the banking sector and he used the term

"shouted from the rooftops". Was he saying this quietly? If you look

back, you can see some warnings from the Bank of England. The Bank

of International settlements in Switzerland was louder in its

complaints. The IMF was very silent indeed, they said the risks were

very low, so there was not a strong consensus among central bankers

that things were going wrong, but what is interesting about this

beach is that there is within central bank's major rethinking

about what a central bank should be -- about his speech. There was a

view that if you concentrated on inflation, if that was under

control, that was a sufficient condition for financial stability.

Now people have realised that is not enough. We will talk more about

this. So the government plans to scrap

the Financial Services Authority and hand most of its powers to

various committees of the Bank of England. But will the FSA's

replacement really be any more likely to protect us all than what

went before? We sent our own City slicker David Thompson to find out.

Kerry Reed Wharf, where money talks and everything else walks -- Canary

Wharf. At its heart, the Financial Services Authority, at least for

now. The FSA came into being during the Ali days of the new Labour

government and the idea was to create a single regulator for

pretty much everything -- the early days. You could argue it was doing

Panic ran amok in the city. So how long would all this misery last?

All of which sounded the death- knell for the FSA, so clearly it

had to go. Did it? Who was fit for purpose during this financial

crisis? Everybody was lacking? The politicians were lacking, the Bank

of England was lacking, the Financial Services Authority was

lacking, the industry was lacking, foreign banks, hugely. I don't

think it merits searching for who is going to be the scapegoat.

that is not what the government things and the FSA is on its way

out, with the Bank of England seizing the control. There will be

a policy committee to monitor the general state of the economy, an

authority to keep an eye on banks and big business, and a financial

conduct authority to supervise the markets. That is a lot of power for

one person, the new governor of the Bank of England, which worries the

Treasury Select Committee. We need to make sure that this new quango,

and in a sense that is what it is, a very powerful and enhanced Bank

of England, is made fully accountable to Parliament and

forced to explain to the public exactly why it is taking the

decisions it has the power to take. This is a body that will decide

whether you can have alone and a mortgage, and make recommendations

about a raft of other powers as well. But perhaps most importantly,

will these changes actually prevent another financial meltdown? I am

worried we have new committees now been created where we could have

quite a number of conflicts of interest and arguments, which

themselves could lead to bad decision making. In a time of

economic stress, is it right to turn the whole system upside down?

I would suggest it is not the right thing because what we have now is a

more complex system. The present Bill is not clear that in a crisis,

there is someone in charge. government insists the new system

will work but the last lot said that, too. If the FSA was the

watchdog that did not bark, the replacement will have to prove that

its teeth a sharp enough to do the job this time.

And we are joined now by now the editor of City AM, Allister Heath.

And Sir Howard Davies is still with us. Let me cut straight to the

chase. I was quite amazed that the Governor said there was no boom

before bust. We covered that he read it together. I remember a huge

boom in house prices, household debt, corporate debt and on the

stock market! What it did the Governor Miss? There was also a

massive increase in the amount of money in the economy, a massive

increase in credit and quite a few economists in America and London

warning that there was a bubble and that things were out of control,

that the cost of money had fallen, partly because of the behaviour of

central banks and Federal Reserves, and these big economic forces

caused by imbalances between East and West. Quite a few people were

warning that there was a ridiculously cheap and large amount

of liquidity in the system and that this would push it up at that price

is like house prices, and I think the Bank of England did not do

enough at the time and did not listen to people saying that

interest rates had to go up to stop this. Yes, it would have throttled

economic growth but it would have been better to have had a sharp

slowdown in 2005 rather than go to the catastrophe that we went to, so

I do not believe the Bank of England had insufficient tools to

abate the bubble. That is why people do not buy that, with

hindsight, we knew. The politicians and the regulators almost had a

common interest in not doing anything about it because things

seemed to be going too well, but people like Alistair and others

have warned the Governor of the Bank of England that simply

monitoring the CPI, simply monitoring inflation, price

inflation, ignore the fact that there were these huge imbalances

and Broomes going on. -- blues. think Mervyn King is not denying

that. He is not denying there were credit Bubbles. And asset Bubbles.

He is saying that overall, there was no great economic boom.

Therefore what he thing is that interest rates are not necessarily

the most appropriate weapon to deal with the bubble in credit that we

had -- what he is saying. The bank is now getting the ability to

manipulate other controls, potentially things like the amount

of deposit you have to put down to get a mortgage. Those are the sorts

of things you need to deal with the circumstances that we had in the

early years of this century, and on that I agree with him. But the bank

had two major tours as I see it. It controlled interest rates,

independently, and it had leave is to control the money supply.

Absolutely. -- it had a lever. Interest rate is the key thing.

They could have warned much more openly. To me, this crisis was

quite similar to a previous bubble. If you look back through history,

you see dozens of examples all round the world, central bank

making the mistake. I don't think he needed new tools to deal with

that. Ultimately he just needed to put up the price of money. Suddenly

people stop taking mortgages and loans and had he done that, HBOS

would not have lent as much to property, Northern Rock would not

have expanded as much. I don't think they are taking enough of the

responsibility for the bubble. the time it seemed there was almost

a Faustian pact between the politicians and the financial

system, that the banks and people in the City did not want to listen

to people like you because they were getting rich on cheap money.

The government from Gordon Brown down, he didn't want to listen

because all the money they were making was filling his coffers with

tax revenues, which he loved to spend. That is completely true and

Mervyn King may be good point that nobody was taking him into

Parliament and asking him about interest rates and that is a fair

point. Looking just at the Bank of England is not quite fair. You have

to look at the whole climate. But I think you do have to consider

whether, if you give the Bank a different kind of mandate, which it

is now getting, with a more explicit responsibility for

financial stability, that at least gives it a better excuse for

increasing interest rates... People will say, why are you increase in

interest rates when inflation is 2%? At the time they would have

found it difficult to explain that. If they have got an explicit

financial stability remit, they can say, that is our remit and that is

why. But at the moment inflation is much higher than the remit, and

they have found a justification for that, saying they have to do that

to gain stability, so I think they could have done the same under the

old remit. I think they could still have acted. From what we saw last

night and from the changes we know it are happening to the bank's

remit, as the Bank of England learned its lesson? Are we at risk

of a repeat? We know history does not repeat itself exactly, but

could something similar happened again? I think they have learned

some lessons. I think everybody has, but I fear they have not learned

all have the right lessons. We still have a bank that will target

the consumer price index and global central banks of still making a lot

of mistake, there is still a huge amount of manipulation of Monday to

constantly tried to boost economic growth, even when there is far too

much leverage in the system -- manipulation of money and credit.

There is also the incentive to throttle the system too much.

Because it is demanding too much, that they have to have a lot in the

bank? Yes, you can stop a bubble by killing the economy and having

permanent stagnation. That is also a mistake. I think the next mistake

will be quite a different one! is something to look forward to!

is right to point to the fact that the bank has itself published

recently a chart showing that the ratio of credit to GDP, which was

way above its long-term average, of total credit, way above the average,

is now below its long-term average. In the normal way, you would say

that requires some easing of pressures on the banks, maybe some

reductions in the amount of capital that they have to contain because

you could be throttling the economy too much. It is typical. We are

forcing these high credit ratios in the banks because we are fighting

A Cook question about Mr King's replacement. Should it be a banker

foreign economist? I think it should be a banker. I think a pure

commercial banker would not be good. The person needs to understand the

markets. Who are you backing? quite like Lord Greene who used to

run HSBC. A very prudent banker who is now in politics. Didn't he by

all that sub-prime get in America? He did make mistakes. Harry

Redknapp, I think. Who is he? free! Which has School of Economics

is he from? He doesn't believe in tax! And if not him? I am not going

to offer another name. Thank you very much.

Now, I like today's quiz. Which Minister is a fashion icon in

Islamabad of all places? Is it Jeremy Hunt, Danny Alexander, Ken

Clarke or Theresa May? At the end of the show, we will ask our

sartorial expert for the answer. The French go to the polls this

weekend to elect a president. It is the second round. They have

narrowed it down to two candidates from 10. Last night, the candidates,

Mr Sarkozy on the right of centre and Francois Holland, the Socialist,

conducted a heated debate on French television. But was watched in

France alone by over 20 million people. They take their politics

seriously. Here is a clip. TRANSLATION: You criticise me by

saying that you were late in solving the euro crisis. You think

it was easy to negotiate with 27 members? It wasn't easy. We also

saved the euro, and that demanded a considerable amount of work. We did

it mainly thanks to France and Germany. As for the European

Central Bank, they have done a good job. I am not sure, Francois

Holland, but she would have done any better.

TRANSLATION: Europe is not out of the crisis. Austerity may strike

again. This is where the presidential elections are so

important. We need a president who can make Europe change, a President

who can also make Germany move. But we need to borrow some money to

kick-start growth. You might have gone for that type of policy, but

Angela Merkel stopped you. He that was the debate last night,

several hours of free-flowing debate. I don't know why there were

two Ankers, because almost one wasn't needed. But I guess you can

have that kind of discussion when there are only two people vying for

the job. You couldn't do it with more than two. Let's see what it's

like the morning after the night before. Christian Frasier is in

means. Now that people have had time to absorb, is there a

consensus? I know the left and right will have their views, but is

there a consensus among independent minded people have who won last

night? The people I have spoken to today focused very much on Francois

Homs, he is six points ahead in the polls. He was clear right from the

start on his first answer which topics he wanted to focus on. The

Socialists have had some big disappointments, but they seemed to

have learned their lessons in 2007. Francois Holland's partner was

roughed up in those elections. He reacted quite differently last

night. It was Mr Sarkozy who was on the back foot a lot of the time. He

looked quite ruffled. So I think independent-minded analysts will

probably think that if it was an honourable draw, that was good news

for Mr Holland. If that was the view, then that was the last throw

of the dice for Mr Sarkozy. We would have to say that if that is

the consensus, then France Warhol This is the front page which shows

the two main debating here. This is really setting the mood. It is

never your fault is it, Mr President? And Mr Sarkozy saying, I

am not your pupil. I rather brisk riposte from the President. But if

this is a referendum on the style of Mr Sarkozy's politics, that

underlines it. You might say people won't react well. I have picked out

another paper, and we are here because Mariela Pen finished top of

the pile in the first round of the vote. I have looked in one of the

regional papers, and it has a map here of France and where the votes

are concentrated. This is where they did particularly well, and

down in the Deep South, where immigration is an issue, and also

appear in the top where they are closer to Brussels. You can make

what you will have that. But it is here in this region that they have

done particularly well, and I have been be speaking to people about

whether they might switch their vote to Nicolas Sarkozy in the

second round. But Mary in a pen has a long term objective here to build

a far-right party. It doesn't benefit her to throw a lifeline at

this stage in the process. She said at the rally I attended at the

other day that she would leave it to voters to vote with their

conscience, but she would be casting a blank ballot on Sunday.

Fascinating stuff. Thank you for joining us, Christian. Pitt look

like after the first round that the Le Pen that position would be that

she would be hoping she would replace Mr Sarkozy's party on the

right end be the main opposition to the Socialists. They are not and

National Party, they are concentrated on the North East and

the South. Let's see what the implications of this election will

be. I am joined by a Emma Reynolds and the Conservative MEP Daniel

Hannan. Emma, are you looking forward to a Francois Hollande

victory? Very much so. I think the crisis in Europe has been prolonged

and deepened by the right-wing government who are focusing on

austerity alone. Mr Holland was very robust last night and showed

he had a plan to reduce the deficit but also get the economy growing.

Daniel Hannan, I thought this would be a difficult choice the year,

because both Mr Sarkozy and Mr Holland, they are not supporters of

the market economy of the liberal Anglo-Saxon models, so who would

you support? I don't get their vote, Andrew. From a British point of

view, it doesn't make a lot of difference. We have to candidates

who want to defeat the markets and to see free enterprise has the

problem rather than the solution and want to give more power to

Brussels. From that perspective, it doesn't make much difference. The

idea that France is suffering from too much austerity, this is a

country where the state takes 56% of GDP. This is a state where there

hasn't been a balanced budget since 1974. For Francois Homs to come

along and say that he has a plan for growth, this is wonderful. The

truth is we are in danger of accelerated all of the policies

that brought Europe into this mess in the first place, spending more,

taxing more, borrowing more. Reynolds, I guess the. He is making

is that if the state was the solution, given the size of the

state in France, much bigger than Britain, France would be the most

successful country in Europe already. Unemployment is at 10% in

France, and the idea that if the Government gets out of the way in

much the same way as the Government here is arguing, somehow the market

will miraculously solved the problems. No one is arguing that.

The state spends 56% of the GDP in France. It is the highest in Europe,

and tax is the highest as a percentage of GDP in Europe. So

what is it about the state that has resulted in 10% unemployment?

state doesn't need to reduces expenditure, and Francois Honda is

saying that. He is saying that 19 billion needs to be taken in tax

rises or spending cuts. But the issue here is how you tackle

unemployment. The global financial crisis in 2008 shows what happens

if you let the market had its place. That is what Daniel Hannan would

like to see. Market failure has produced a crisis in the eurozone

and in our country. So I don't think that prescription will get us

anywhere. And confused by what you say. It is by letting the market

rip that has created the crisis in the eurozone? Almost every European

economy in the heart of the eurozone, the state accounts for

50% of its GDP. When did the market forces rip? I am saying that a

banking crisis of excessive risk sparked the crisis. They need to be

a reduction of the size of the state in France, I agree with that.

But look at what happened in Spain. The crisis in Spain has not been

caused by overspending of the state. It has been caused by private

sector debt. So I don't think you can just to reduce this to saying

that the eurozone crisis has been caused by public debt alone. I

don't think that is true. Daniel Hannan, if the Socialists win, who

get among them first? Angela Merkel the bond markets? There will be a

queue to mug him. Can I come back to the point that Emma was just

making that this is a market failure because the banks were

unregulated. I used to be in journalism before I got elected,

and I can recognise when a story has passed the point of correction,

but I want to put on the record for the idea that the financial markets

are completely unregulated is ludicrous. It is difficult to think

of a more regulated section in the entire economy apart from maybe

media. What we have is that governments and businesses are all

massively in debt. During the boom years, they spend money they didn't

have. There is now a correction, and the solution proposed to

Brussels is more of the medicine that second the patient in the

first place. They want to treat a debt crisis with more debt. Let me

bring Howard Davies in. Let's assume - we don't know for sure,

but stranger things have happened - let's assume the Socialists have

one. They are pledging 60,000 more teachers, cutting the retirement

age back to 60, taking Angela Merkel head on over the fiscal pact.

How does that play? I think I would distinguish between his domestic

ambitions and what he is saying about what needs to be done in the

eurozone. On the domestic side, he will have to change his mind. He

won't be able to do these things. I don't believe the markets will

prevent him from expanding the French budget deficit. But I do

think that he has a point about the way in which to the eurozone crisis

is currently being handled. And an exclusive focus on fiscal austerity

and the southern European countries, when in some cases like Spain's

they didn't actually have a major fiscal crisis before, this is a

fiscal crisis in the housing market, etc. The exclusive focus on that is

not likely to solve this problem. And so I think he will be pressing

for a bigger firewall for Europe, and a bigger collectively

guaranteed borrowing arrangement, which the Germans would like. But I

think they will be forced to do it. He may be pushing on an open door?

We have lost Daniel Hannan. The line had to be moved to someone

else. We still have and a Reynolds. Emma, I want to ask you a final

question. Isn't there a danger of the British Labour Party are lining

itself too closely with Mr Holland and the French Socialists? If

within six weeks or even six months he is in the middle of all has

caused a major economic crisis in France, you will be tainted by

We don't support every specific policy, especially some domestic

policies. We do not support a 75% tax rate. Why not? We advocate

retaining a 50% tax rate, you know that well enough. What is wrong

with tax and people who make over �1 million submitted a percent? --

taxing people. Who earn over �1 million, 75%? It might lead to a

reduction in tax revenue but let me go back to Europe. A victory in

France for Hollande would change the narrative in Europe, in a good

way, in that it would take away the exclusive focus on austerity and

yes, we do need to cut the deficit in some countries, but it is a

sequencing issue. You need to get growth going first before you can

meaningfully cut the deficit and the failure to do that in the UK...

We do not want to dwell on British politics too much. Fair enough.

it will be a fascinating election result with consequences for all of

Europe, including the UK, and we are grateful for you for joining us.

The engine macro. It is not the only election going on! -- thank

you. The mother of democracies is also

going to the polls this weekend and our correspondent is in Athens. Is

this election really going to be about punishing the main parties in

the current caretaker government and rejecting austerity?

certainly looks that way, if the opinion polls are anything to go by.

The two parties in coalition, the centre right and the Socialist

Party, are at an all-time low in the opinion polls. In the last

election in 2009, they got 80% of the vote together and this time

they are struggling to get 40%. There is immense anger against the

financial crisis, which has brought this country to its knees. So what

voters are saying, and what we are likely to see on Sunday, is a

punishing of those two parties. The smaller, left-wing, anti-austerity

parties are gaining ground. For the first time in four decades in

Greece, it looks like voters will move away from the traditional

dominance of these two towards smaller parties, which will mean a

fragmentation of the vote. It could make it hard to fault a strong and

stable government. Are you saying if there is support for some of the

left wing groups, that they would be able to form a government or is

that still unlikely without the support of one of the larger

parties? It is still unlikely because the leftist parties a very

divided in themselves. They range from the communist, old Trotskyist

parties that want to leave the European Union altogether, to a

centre-left New a party that wants to tweak austerity measures, and it

is very unlikely that they will club together to form a cohesive

opposition to the mainstream. What is more likely is that the two big

parties will try to form some kind of shaky coalition after Sunday's

election and possibly have to bring coalition could be so shaky that it

may not even survive to the end of the year, there may have to be

another election, which again would bring in debility to Greece.

Remember, Greece remains the epicentre of the financial crisis

set in debility here means it will go beyond Greece. -- so it

instability. You are going to Greece. We did not get a sense of

the feeling on the streets. We have seen the images of people

protesting against austerity. If Francois Hollande comes in in

France and the left-wing government comes in, do you think there will

be a challenge to the austerity measures of Germany and Brussels?

Yes, Hollande wants to change the remit of the European Central Bank

to make it more like the Federal Reserve, which is supposed to

control inflation but also promote employment, which is not the remit

of the ECB. I think overall there will be a challenge to the line

that the Germans have been on effectively. But whether that will

be soon enough to help! It is a moot point. We heard from Mark that

it looks incredibly shaky, so how optimistic are you that there will

be as they bought government in the next few months? I am not very

optimistic. -- be a stable government. I think that the

appetite in Brussels and Berlin for yet another bail-out package, or

revising the terms of the existing one, is very, very low. They have

repeatedly said that Greece is a one-off, it is not a precedent for

anywhere else, so I think it is very delicate. Elections are one

thing in Greece, controlling the street is another. We have seen

that the parliament is sometimes besieged by demonstrators. Looking

back, I have to say that Papandreou's idea of a referendum

and Cliff support for what he was doing was not stupid. -- clear

support. He was bounced off that by Angela Merkel and Sarkozy because

they feared it would be too disruptive, but when you have a

very broken political system, with lots of tiny parties and splinter

groups, and you also have a lot of people ready to go to the street, a

referendum, if he hadn't got 55%, would have given him a mandate. I

don't think it was a stupid idea. And also the idea that the far

Right might -- the far Right might do well. They are talking about

putting a land mine on the border! When you talk to people in France

and Greece, one of the things they are concerned about is the politics

of this. If it breaks up, who will benefit? It will not be just

another government of nice chaps from a slightly different spectrum.

The people who are benefiting, the far right, the far-left, Sinn Fein,

in Finland, Ireland... In France. A bunch of guys who marched around in

Hungary with their arms up in a salute. These are some nasty

renewals or forces that we hoped would disappear and it is a very

difficult situation -- off forces. Election results will be coming in

from Paris and Athens and if you are watching the Daily Politics, I

suspect you are into that, so enjoy Sunday night. We will still be

cogitating over the result of our own elections! Now, unless you've

accidentally turned over from the Tellytubbies, most of you guys

should be performing your democratic duty and voting in a

whole host of different elections up and down the country. And our Jo

Voting is taking place across England, Wales and Scotland today.

More than 4,700 seats are up for grabs on 128 English councils, most

of which were last contested in 2008. Every seat on Scotland's 32

unitary authorities is being contested. And the make-up of 21

unitary authorities in Wales will also be decided. Mayoral elections

take place in London, Liverpool and Salford. While, in ten other

English cities, referendums take place on whether they want mayors.

Adam will be staying up all night to watch the results. Here's his

It is Thursday, 10pm. The polls have closed across Scotland,

England and Wales and counting is under way in around half of the 181

local authorities have been contests this year. The election

programme will be starting soon! By 2am on Friday, we should be able to

calculate what the party's share of the vote would have been if this

was the national election. How do my colleagues cope with the all-

nighters? I do not stay up the local elections! I stay up the

general elections, but a local elections, you wake up in the

morning and listen to the gloating and excuses. Two-thirds of the

results will be in by 6 o'clock in the morning, and 11 cities are

holding referendums on whether to have an elected mayor. We make also

know who has been elected mayor of Liverpool -- we may also know. As I

tucked into my super food sandwich on Friday lunchtime, there will be

a flurry of excitement. Doncaster will be counting votes on whether

to abolish their elected mayor. Later Birmingham will be counting

its vote on having one, and we may know who will get the job in

Salford. 5:00pm Friday, I will be cracking open the Irn-Bru as we

find out which party is in control of Glasgow City Council. My

hometown and one of the most symbolic contests in the whole

country. Then it is time for a nap, because cutting for the Assembly

and mayor of London takes quite a while -- because counting. The

results will be counted by the returning officer. Why the long

wait? It is to be elections in one, it is the most complicated one in

the UK, arguably the most complex in Europe. 5.8 million people, each

of them entitled to three ballot paper of. If you go to the chip

shop, make it quick. Although there is certainly bound to be a result

by 11pm... We hope. After, why not relax with a weekend of post-

election punditry, the best of which will be on BBC One at midday

on Sunday Politics. Welcome to the Sunday Politics! Where did that

come from? We didn't even practice that! With us is our political

correspondent. Not the one and only! She is! Give us some facts

and figures. This is not a general election but it is still very

important to all of the parties two years into this Parliament. 30

million people are registered to vote in these elections, including

6 million in London, four million in Scotland, two point three in

Wales. 5,000 council seats are up for grabs and most of these were

last contested four years ago. Nearly 15,000 candidates have been

delivering leaflets. Not all of the seats in England are up for grabs

in a local priorities. Anglesey is the exception in Wales. There are

elections will be delayed for a year. All 32 councils in Scotland.

More than half-a-million postal votes in Scotland. A lot of people

have already cast them. The highest number of candidates in any ward is

in Glasgow in going, where there will be 14 candidates to choose

from, and it is the only statutory elections in the UK with the rules

have been changed so that if you are still in the queue at 10pm, in

Scotland, you will still get the chance to vote. That was terrible

when they were turned away before! What about the different voting

systems? England and Wales, first- past-the-post. The Scotland local

government elections are single transferable vote. In London, it

gets interesting. I have the voting papers here. You have first-past-

the-post for your local election, it is a supplementary vote system

for the London mayor, First Choice and second choice, and a

constituency member to choose for the London Assembly, which is

first-past-the-post, and finally, your London member is the

additional member system, which is the closed list of proportional

representation, so a lot to be thinking about. That is why the

vote takes so long to count. I am not surprised! Thank you very much.

Have you voted yet? No. Me neither. They do not make it easy. Even if

you haven't got around to doing it yet, you can still fill your postal

vote out and take it to any station. Great. Thank you.

If you are going out to vote, you will want to know what the

weather's doing. So don't say we don't make and effort on the Daily

Politics. We have bought in a man who knows. I've always wanted to

say this: Now the weather with John Shades of grey, weather Wise. A

different story for Scotland. If you are voting out there, there is

sunshine. It will almost feel like England and Wales are universally

glum. Nothing relentless in terms of rain, but it will be dampened

drizzly. And temperatures are woefully low for the time of year.

For the big clash in London, ten Celsius as the best I can offer you.

What about the big contenders? For David Cameron's consistency, just

nine. Similar for Clegg and Miliband. For Alex Salmond in

Who wouldn't have thought of Glasgow would be the warmest city

in Britain? That is my kind of forecast, because you didn't tell

us whether to wrap up would take an umbrella. Or any other statements

of the obvious! Any more information you need,

Andrew? How it is actually quite varied

weather, isn't it? Rain being more common than not. And it is cold and

damp, and it will stay that way. When will it get better?

No sign of it. This weekend will be even colder.

So, wrap up warm and get your coat out! You will be the first to know.

If thank you very much. Now, we all assume that when it rains, people

get put off going to the polls, and that may be true. Or is it? Now to

our myth Buster, Giles Dilnot. You think the question of whether

the weather affects our behaviour is something of a no-brainer, and

when it is raining, do you see people sitting outside in the Park

enjoying the outdoors? When the sun is out, everybody is. Ergo, bad

weather is bad for voter turnout? Know. -- no. If you look at the

post-war period, you don't see a correlation. In 1987 when New

Labour first came to power, it was a gloriously sunny day, but the

turnout that election was the lowest on record for the post war

period. Compare that with February 1974, which will obviously be a bad

day, being February, snow in places, turnout was much higher at 79%, one

of the highest turnouts on record. And increasing numbers of postal

votes also affect that particular myth. So how about this one? We

don't like a tidal wave of negative campaigning. That is only partly

true. Take a look at this. A one serial hypocrite exposed. Now

another has emerged. Rick Santorum, corporate lobbyist and a record of

betrayal. Mitt Romney will say anything to win, anything. And just

like John Kerry: He speaks French, too. Bonjour. Je m'appelle Mitt

Romney. There is a reason why our American

cousins spend millions on campaigning - we might not like it,

but we do absorb it. It works. And the final myth is that people in

this country we don't really understand the voting systems

available. There is a problem this busting that. It is not a myth. It

is true. And if you don't understand the voting systems

available, you are not alone, and explanations can be found on the

Electoral Commission website and the BBC's website, which saves me

from having to explain them. I could, I just don't want to.

Howdahs AV work again? Great stuff, Giles. Andrew Hawkins

is here with us. Are you surprised that the weather doesn't affect the

turn out? The evidence is conflicting. It certainly is a myth

that it expects -- affects things to the extent that no politicians

fear it does. Labour in particular fear it. The that is the perceived

wisdom. The academic evidence, such as it can be relied on, suggest

that for every 1% Celsius increase in temperature, we expect turnout

to increase by 1%. The academic literature doesn't tell you which

party that favours. Interesting. And what about the business of

negative campaigning, the great and the good are always down on

negative campaigning, but some people quite like it. I think it in

the States it is one of those things where because everybody does

it, everybody does it. Whether it affects the outcome, I don't know.

It seemed to affect John Kerry in 2004. Possibly, but you think he

was really going to beat George W them? It was narrow. He can speak

French. That seems to be the black market if you are from America.

That is why Sarkozy went win. is your polling tell you about

negative campaigning? The public will always say that they think

there is too much negative campaigning. But is it really news

to us that some politicians don't actually like each other very much?

We are a nation addicted to reading about conflict. That is what sells

newspapers. Is it perhaps something about the human psyche you that we

like to watch gladiatorial contests? And actually negative

campaigning can get people at least talking about the contestants. It

can raise interest in what is going on, even if not in a way that

people always like. Let's finish up on the voting systems. Have we got

ourselves into a bit of a mess in this country with the these

incredibly complicated voting system? I think we are. We are

experimenting in different areas, but that does leave people a bit

confused, because in London, it is partly first past the post with an

extrovert, and then some of it is a regional list. I think people are

pretty confused. If professional commentators are confused, it is

pretty fair to bet that the average voter who has more important things

to think about is confused? I agree entirely. It is the triumph of the

logical neatness of having perhaps a system that produces a fairer

result compared to the other end of the spectrum to something that is

easy to understand. Going back to the last London mayoral election,

the first choice, people understood. There were around 40,000 spoiled

papers. When it came to the second choice, that number have rejected

ballot papers went up tenfold, 400,000. It is extraordinary.

you for coming in and talking to us. If I am glad I am not coming in in

counting the votes tonight! From cricket tours of apartheid that

Africa to the Moscow Olympics, politics and sport often clash.

There are now new concerns over the euro 2012 football tournament, with

European leaders including our own sports Minister Hugh Robinson

threatening to boycott the tournament in Poland and Ukraine.

The problem is the human rights of the Leader of the Opposition in

Ukraine. Many politicians have described her imprisonment as a

politically motivated act. Her daughter is heading the campaign

for her release. We just want to see the Government of Ukraine and

deciding that they will change their ways, solve the political

crisis, release political prisoners, and it is all in their power to do

so. There is no need to boycott them. From their discrediting

something that could have become a democracy in Ukraine. With us now

is the football commentator Garth Crooks. You went to meet officials

in Ukraine some time ago. What did you say? We said that it was

important that the football authorities going to Ukraine looked

at their human rights abuses very seriously. The footballing world

and the rest of Europe will be looking at them closely during the

course of the European Championships. They didn't take us

very seriously then, and they are not now. Do you think that you

Robertson should boycott the tournament. I was very surprised

when he made the announcement, because nobody saw it coming.

was no preparation? No one in football seems to recognise that he

was going to take this stand, but take it he has, and it has drawn a

lot of attention. The issue is it won't make any difference

whatsoever to the football authorities. It went? They have

said they had distance themselves from it. So it will not achieve

anything? It might symbolise a bit of a snowball effect. I understand

German officials and the German government have said they are going

to pull out and not go to the VIP reception, because that is what

they are, basically. What you see here is a gentle development of

political disapproval. Let's just assume that it takes hold, and you

have got 12, 13, 14 governments are saying they are not going to go,

and someone like the Germans take it very seriously and says, do you

know what, we would like our team to pull out. Do you think it would

get that far? No, I don't. There is no precedent. But I think

politically, the Ukraine, because they are inexperienced in these

matters on such a scale, might be thinking to themselves, we do not

want any sort of embarrassment, because we are now under the

European view, and also they want to make sure that they don't upset

their hosts, who are Uefa. Rather like Britain in 2012, they will be

on their best behaviour. The whole point of taking the Games to

Ukraine is to hope that they will conform with the rest of us. Can I

just put into the view of the football authorities here, the FA.

Or will they just not get involved? In the 1980s when the BOA were

asked not to be involved in the Olympics, they said excuse me, we

will make our own decision, but the athletes have a choice. There is

another view that actually going to these countries, because there is a

big divide over Bahrain and the Formula One. And obviously it went

ahead. You can shine the light of publicity even more closely by

going to these countries and be attending these tournaments, in a

sense, were as if you don't go, people would think about the

Ukraine again. I think this is a political problem that should be

dealt with in political forum. I don't know quite why the European

Council of Ministers has been so silent about it. This is a Council

of Europe type interview. They are signed up to the Council of Europe

under a signature of that, and they should not be holding people in

prison and beating them up on trumped-up charges. Maybe the sport

will push that forward, but I don't think the next step should be

pulling out of football team, it should be putting real political

pressure on them. We have got to find that the answer to the quiz!

The fashion icon in Aslam about is, of course...? I think I will say

Gallia Alexander. You are right. That is the right answer, Danny

Alexander. There is no This Week tonight. There is no Daily Politics