25/01/2013 Daily Politics

Afternoon, folks. Welcome to the Daily Politics. The programme for

those of you who could not find Yorke remote-controlled and could

not go to BBC One for the tennis. The UK economy shrank again towards

the end of last year, and stagnated overall in 2012. Chancellor George

Osborne has presided over yet another dip in economic growth. At

minus 0.3%, it's even worse than expected for the final quarter of

last year. But it's not my fault, guv! Deputy Prime Minister Nick

Clegg now says the Coalition cut public investment too hard and too

fast. Boris tells George to stop talking up austerity, and even the

IMF says it's time to ease up. But will the government really change

course? Would allowing 16 year-olds the right to vote help bring

Parliament into the 21st Century? Or is this, as one MP put it

yesterday, simply a 'pathetic attempt' by his colleagues to look

'trendy in their constituencies'? All that in the next hour or so. On

Tuesday the latest borrowing figures are were published with

December's borrowing coming in higher at �15.4 billion. If that is

a trend that continues it would see the government overshoot the Office

for Budget Responsibility's borrowing forecast for the year. On

Wednesday, the International Monetary Fund cut its growth

forecasts for the UK, predicting the country's economy will only

grow by 1% in 2012-13, and by 1.9% next year. That's about a third of

1% less than they'd been predicting before. But Wednesday did see good

news for the Government on the jobs front. The number of people out of

work fell by 37,000 to 2.49 million in the three months to November.

But this morning there was that really worrying news that the

economy contracted by 0.3% in the final quarter of 2012, according to

the Office of National Statistics. That's worse than most of the

forecasters had hoped. If it shrinks again in the next three

months we will officially be back in recession. Well, in Davos, the

Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne gave his reaction to

today's figures. We have a reminder today that Britain faces a very

difficult economic situation. A reminder that last year was

particularly difficult. We face problems at home with the debts

built up over many years, and problems abroad with the Eurozone

where we export our products which is deep in recession. We can either

run away from the problems or confront them. I am determined to

confront them so we can create jobs for the people of this country.

That was the Chancellor. With this in here is Craig Wood House and

Mary Riddell. Welcome to you both. First, Danny Alexander joins me now.

He did not go to Davos, and got to come on hearing stead. What is it

like to preside over the worst recovery in 100 years? The figures

are a reminder of the severity and difficulty of the challenges we

face as a country. They are disappointing figures, but not

surprising. It is what the OBR forecast in the last month. The two

is the overall picture I'm looking up. By some calculations, this is

the worst recovery since the 1830s. There is no recovery, is there?

recover at -- economy is recovering from the deepest recession and

worst financial crisis since the Second World War, or some would

argue before that. We are doing so in eight World Environment, whereas

you have said before, as the Chancellor said as well, that the

Eurozone is going through major difficulties. That is the major

export market and that is slowing the economy down. The impact of the

banking crisis is deeper than we thought. But where we are also

seeing, as you fairly observed, not just the deficit falling over the

first two and a half years. But also employment, over one million

jobs created. In 2012 it was the most number of jobs created in the

private sector in the British economy since 1989. There are

positives as well as the grave difficulties. You talk about

recovery, but the economy is not recovering. Effectively, the

economy is no bigger as we sit here today and it was when he formed the

coalition. It is stagnating. Correct? That is a consequence of

the severe problems we are dealing with as a country. When we came

into office, we inherited from the Labour Party a huge mess in public

finances, and unbalanced economy. All the emphasis had been on the

banking in the City of London to drive growth, and that is the part

of the economy that collapsed. We put in place policies, whether it

was guarantees for infrastructure, or capital spending on transport,

investing in apprenticeships, things designed to make the British

economy more competitive. The you knew you had inherited a mess. That

is why you formed a coalition. But having no new inherited the mess

you proceeded on the basis that the economy would have grown by 6%, and

it hasn't grown at all. I don't understand why you knew what was a

mess but she thought it would grow by 6%. Now you say it is a mess and

it hasn't grown tall. We set up the OBR. -- at all. They produced an

economic forecast and that is what we worked on at the time. They

produced an assessment of why the forecasts were wrong. The factors

they cited are the ones I have mentioned. The crisis in the

Eurozone, and the impact it had on the British economy. The impact of

the financial crisis on the economy as a whole. High inflation in the

earlier part of the parliament. All of those things meant that the

circumstances were even more difficult than we expected. That

does not mean that the path of repairing the public finances and

trying to make economy more competitive and investing in the

things we need, like infrastructure and skills, is the wrong mix. Yes,

the road is difficult. I think that is the right mix. More of the same

then? If you think about this coming year, you have the largest

income tax cut coming through the pipeline in a generation, something

they came from the Liberal Democrat election manifesto. The guarantees

put in place for infrastructure and housing coming through the system.

The it still you say the economy will only grow by 1%? -- but still.

The Green Investment Bank we have established, all of these things

are designed to support the economy through these difficult

circumstances. But it is not growing, Mr Alexander. It is not

working. You have no recovery. It is not working. As I say, we are

facing severe challenges in the country. If anything should remind

us of the severity of those challenges, it is today's figures.

That mix of policies I have described, we have to get the

finances under control. But the deficit is rising again, correct?

For this financial year, April to December, the deficit is �7 billion

higher than the same period last year. Correct? If you look at the

financial year we are in, the OBR produced a forecast last month

where they said the deficit would fall. But the OBR is famous for

getting everything wrong. That is why you were in a mess. Why don't

you fire the OBR? They keep giving you the wrong predictions. I think

it is important we have independent people doing this. Even when they

are wrong? I think other independent forecasters made

similar errors for similar reasons. It is a real blow to you if the

deficit keeps rising. You keep asking me questions and I can only

get a third of it out as an answer. I'm still trying to answer three

questions ago. Let me just finish the point. Do you accept that the

deficit will be higher this year than last year? I accept the

forecast that the OBR produced a month ago, setting out what they

expect the deficit to beat. You know as well as I do that the

monthly figures for all of these things very. I April to December is

a lot of mums. I want to bring in my guess -- a lot of mums. Do you

share the regret from at Nick Clegg that he cut the capital spending

too fast and too deep? We inherited the plans for deeper cuts. If you

look at the spending review in 2010, we added �2 billion the year to

capital spending. And in the Autumn Statement there was another 5

billion. And just last December another 5 billion. I agree that

extra capital investment is important for the economy. We have

made decisions that, in the context of the difficulties we face, put

more capital spending into the system. But did you cut it too fast

and too deep? We added to it. He's absolutely right to say that the

cuts Labour had planned were too deep, which is why we added to it

in the spending review and in the Autumn Statement. But he is saying

that we still cut too fast and too deep. I don't think he does say

that, actually. I've read the interview. Lead me just answer the

point. But - let me. When we came in, looking at the Capital plans we

inherited, looking at the financial pressures we face, we will try and

do more. We were able to Addy in in the spending review an extra �2

billion per year and were able to spend money on more that mattered

to the economy. For example, we are spending more on transport

investment, which is one of the best things for the economy than

our predecessors did in the last five years. Our guarantees on

housing is something that no governments have done before.

aren't building them. Which GCSE economics textbook had you not read

it that if you cut capital spending it would hit the economy? Why is it

taking so long to realise, when any student with telly, that is what is

happening? -- would tell you. From 2010 when we set out the parliament

that view, we had to be prudent and careful. In the end the biggest

economic problem we faced was the fact we were spending �150 billion

more than we were raising. In that context, we had to be careful about

where we put money. But also, subsequently, in the Autumn

Statement where we made tough decisions about welfare benefits,

and in the short term, have reinvested some of the money to

have further investment in transport and broadband and new

schools and housing. Mary is jumping to ask a question. It would

seem to me that this is a catastrophic figure. The fact we

have had a lack of growth for four out of five quarters with the

exception being the quarter with the Olympic Games. Clearly we are

not going to have one of those every year. Andrew is right, of

course, that this is the worst four year period since pre-Victorian

times. Give him a question. The question is, is not part of the

problem that you have sucked so much demand out of things with

welfare cuts, the lack of capital spending, to which Nick Clegg

alluded, with tax rises and so on. We need a question. A what are you

going to do to remedy that? interrupt your other guests less

than you do me. I agree with Mary that we inherited the most

catastrophic series of figures in terms of the deficit we had to deal

with, the lack of competitiveness and the economy. The competitive

deficit, if you like. The lack of capital over many years. The

welfare system that was spending out of control. All those things

had to be dealt with. In the end, one of the most important things we

have done as a government is re- establish confidence and

credibility in Britain's ability to deal with public finances. Getting

interest rates down benefits millions of people and businesses

in the country. You mention the international view of what we are

doing, but the sign is we could lose the triple A credit rating,

and everything you have bet the farm on has then gone out the

window. Is there anything you can do? Looking at the figures today,

are we looking at a depression rather than a recession? These

figures are a reminder of the difficult challenges we continue to

face, to deal with the catastrophic mess we inherited when we came into

office. I think it is important we are clear that we will continue to

take the difficult decisions that are necessary. I have always said

that the credit rating agencies are not the be-all and end-all. What

matters in the end is having the right policy mix to ensure that the

country continues to be able to command credibility and keep the

interest rates low. That is what we are determined to do. That is what

a further difficult decisions be made in the autumn statement

demonstrated, and we need to continue to demonstrate that to

maintain the benefits of that credibility to this country. Do you

wish you had gone to Davos? very glad I came here, Andrew!

are delighted you came. You would have had fun in Davos. Have you

ever been? I've never been. Sure we go together next year? We can go

next year and do the interview there. Thank you for coming in this

morning. Good to see you. Joining us now from Nottingham is Labour's

Shadow Treasury spokesman Chris Leslie. When you look at what the

OBR said in 2010, it said that under Alastair Darling you cut the

deficit by a quarter, and that is what the government has done, so is

there that much difference between what the government is doing and

what she planned to do if you stayed in power? -- what you

planned to do. I a big gap, and I think the question to Danny

Alexander hit the nail on their head. They have not cut the deficit

in the way they have spinning. When you look at the figures and

performance for this year, the deficit is widening. Borrowing is

going up and it is adding to the debt burden. Why's that? Because we

have not got the engine of economic growth to make sure we have revenue

coming into the Treasury and to get some of the public expenditure on

welfare lowered. That is the fundamental problem with the

figures today. If you have a flat economy, or worse, it shrinks back,

it will make solving the deficit issue far more difficult. All we

heard from Danny Alexander was, more of the same, we will continue.

They claim that is a strong thing to do. Actually, that is the

cowardly thing to do. If they don't have the strength to say that they

were wrong and they should not have raised VAT and snub doubt the

conference in the economy, and should not have been cutting tax

credits -- snubbed belt. That is what has been partly responsible

for the problems with the economy today. Do you agree with Nick Clegg

that the coalition was wrong to inherit and then implement the

Labour cuts to capital spending? They like to keep characterising

the previous Government's plans as somehow a course that they were

pursuing. In fact, the OBR has said that they have cut capital

expenditure much further. planned to cut it by 50%? We know

the figures, they are there, you planned to cut it by 50% and this

coalition Wendt and cut it by 50%. Was it wrong to do so? Should it

have ripped your plans up? I think it is clear we would have taken a

different course. I have been on your programme, how many times,

it's becoming far too repetitious, we are coming back, almost year

after year, to this flat lining economy with growth figures and the

borrowing figures getting worse and worse. How many more times we are

going to have to do this? What will it take for the government to wake

up and realise they have to change course? This is the most

frustrating thing. It is not just the Labour Party saying this, you

have commentators from Right and Left of centre, the IMF, even that

Nick Clegg showed us what he really knew to be the truth of how he

needed to mobilise public investment. I'm interested in you

saying that Labour was wrong in retrospect to cut capital spending

by 50%. The deficit is still currently running at an annual rate

of around �120 billion, maybe more than that. And it is certainly more

than last year. So if we have a deficit of 120 billion and the

economy is not growing at all, how much bigger does the deficit had to

become to get some growth? How much bigger would you make it? I think

it Danny Alexander it had come on the programme today and said they

would have a change in fiscal policy to stimulate the economy, if

that had meant borrowing in order to get growth going, people might

have given him the benefit of the doubt. But he has not said that. He

said he would just continue that. did not ask what Danny Alexander

was saying. I'm asking what you were doing. If the deficit of over

120 billion still results in that no growth, contrary to what most of

Keynesian economics tells us, how big does it have to be to get

growth? How big would you make it? My point is this. There are some

aspects of publics -- bending the contribute to growth, especially

with Investment in infrastructure - - public spending. That is not what

the Government is borrowing for. Their borrowing will pay the cost

of economic failure. It is going on those costs of welfare, keeping

people in low-paid jobs. The reason the growth figures matter today is

not because of a macro economic statistic. Fire understand that,

but you're not answering the question. Could I have an answer to

Of course, that is a difficult choice to make, but I think it is

better to do something, rather than nothing. Whereas Danny Alexander

has confirmed to you that it is business as usual, no change. We

are now joined by the writer and broadcaster Max Kaiser. Welcome

back to the programme. What do you make of it all? Well, the UK is

screwed. What does that mean? coalition made the wrong bet. They

supported the bond market, instead of the real economy. That strategic

mistake is now having its after- effects. They could have done

something to increase the competitiveness of the country, but

instead, they supported the bond market, they supported the bankers,

they supported bail-outs. They supported bankers being able to

support things like rent seeking. As a result, they have squeezed out

the real economy. Here is the joke - the bond market is now on the

verge of a major correction. mean British Government gilts?

gilt market. It was at a 300-year high. And the cost of insuring

British debt is rising. That's correct. And sterling parity is

slipping. So, there is a sense that these markets are now saying, hey,

this government's fiscal stance has no credibility. Absolutely. The

gilt market is starting to move down. Yields are moving up, but the

overall trend in this market, when you see a bond market like this,

trading at 300-year highs... your view, if the financial markets,

the people who lend us money to pay for this huge deficit, if they

start to lose... The one thing the Government has always said, is,

interest rates are low, people are lending us money, we have got

confidence, but if that confidence goes, and as you say, there are

straws in the wind. The rating agencies are saying they are going

to downgrade British debt. So, what is the consequence? The markets are

poised to attack the British pound double what are the consequences?

That the cost of funding will be sharply revised upwards by 200 base

points, which will mean the cost of funding, a big part of the debt is

the interest costs, and that will go up substantially. So, mortgages

will go up. Yes, and a lot of people are on tracker funds, which

will trigger another real-estate crisis. I wonder whether this is

all very theoretical and high and mighty. It seems to me that no-one

else in the world is doing much better, so where will the bond

market go? If everybody is being downgraded, are we not all in the

same place? Welcome what's happening is, every single currency

in the world is depreciating against gold and silver. Gold is

now becoming the de facto global currency. That's why Germany and

the Netherlands are repatriating their gold. And also of France.

Because they do not trust each other. That is why these bond

markets are problematic, they do not trust each other, they want

their gold back in the vault. That's where these funds are going.

I have been saying for five a six years to position in gold and

silver, because these policies are completely irresponsible. There is

too much kowtowing to the City, too much largesse to the banks. They

have squeezed out the real economy, and now, the day of reckoning is

upon us. It all sounds very apocalyptic. The bond apocalypse!

But to get back to your original proposition, where does this end,

as far as the ordinary voter is concerned? I was watching The

Politics Show last night, and Michael Portillo was talking about

the British pound devaluing. Bass already under way. Well, it is

going to get shopper. A lot of people think, that is good for

exports, but the pound was devalued by almost 20% after 2008, and

exports are up nominally. The That's right. That is a misnomer.

The cost of imports goes up, and there has been no net gain in

exports.. I had better let you go and count your gold. Excellent!

Come back and see us. Thank you very much. How old should you be to

have the vote? In next week's Scottish referendum, 16-year-olds

and 17-year-olds will be allowed to take part, we think. In most other

areas of Britain, you have to be 18. There has been a proposal by a Lib

Dem MP on lowering the voting age for all citizens. He says

citizenship buttons in schools have made young people better-informed.

This generation of young people have hard all of the educational

opportunities to understand the democratic system, yet we continue

to withhold from them the opportunity to put that knowledge

into practice. We should not continue to withhold the vote from

the best-educated generation of young people. I have been in

command of soldiers aged 16 and 17 who are desperate to go on

operations, but they are not allowed to do so because this

country considers them to be children still. Now, you are

suggesting... Forgive me, the Honourable Gentleman is suggesting

that a 16-year-old should be able to vote presumably to send soldiers

to war, but cannot go to war himself or herself until the age of

18. Extraordinary. Extending the franchise has historically always

been a good thing, and in a democracy, people should have the

right to shake the decisions which affect them, unless there is a

really good reason why not. So, my starting point is not why lower the

voting age, but actually, why not? Why prevent people from voting at

the age of 16? The Scottish referendum actually gives us an

opportunity to see how this can work. Why don't we use the Scottish

referendum as a pilot to make sure that 16, 17, 18-year-olds have

their say in that referendum, and then we will have a look back on

how that referendum goes. Because actually, I agree, the genie is out

of the bottle once you have 16- year-olds voting in a referendum.

Then, to say to them, as soon as the general election happens next

year, to deny them the vote, that would be very difficult. There is

nothing so nauseating and ridiculous as seeing MPs trying to

court the youth vote, trying to appear trendy, by wanting to pursue

these kind of youth issues. That is what this is all about, MPs trying

to look trendy and youthful. It is rather pathetic. It would at least

be better if they had some sound logic behind her views, that they

really did trust 16-year-old to make decisions. But what we have

heard today is, we believe 16-year- olds are capable of voting, but

they are not capable of making other decisions which affect their

lives. At the end of the debate, MPs voted in favour of reducing the

voting age to 16, and they did so by 119 votes to 46. But of course,

the decision is not binding on the Government. It is likely to be

taken up in the near future. Before we go on, I can tell you, Andy

Murray has won against Federer in Australia, and he goes on to the

final on Sunday morning. Having caused us problems with The Daily

Politics, he will now do so with The Sunday Politics on Sunday

lunchtime! We wish him well in the final. With us now, Professor of

parliamentary government from the University of Nottingham, Messi,

and Rhammel Afflick, from the British Youth Council, who has been

on before. I do not detect any great clamour from youths to vote

at 16, is there? You will not find young people demonstrating and

doing all those sorts of things, because actually, a lot of young

people, as has been shown with the younger voters, who can vote at the

moment, they may not be as interested in politics as they

should be, perhaps. And so this is the reason why some and you would

find that sort of thing happening with this issue. And also, there

are a lot of other issues at the moment for young people. What is

the reason for nut -- not cutting the voting age? There are lots of

reasons, but the number one reason from my point of view would be that

this is the only bit of the British constitution which people

understand and support. There was a survey a couple of years ago which

looked at 11 different aspects of the British constitution and found

only one which most people said they understood and supported, and

that was votes at 18. So, all of this debate yesterday was about

reinvigorating politics. That was the argument given by Stephen

Williams, who moved the debate. It seems to me to be bizarre to start

doing that by taking the one bit that people like and changing it.

This is opposed by a 70% to 80% of the public. What a strange way to

reinvigorate democracy O. If there is no great clamour for it in the

first place, why would giving people something that they are not

desperate for reinvigorate politics? My argument is not that

giving 16-year-old the vote would suddenly make them want to vote.

That is a separate issue, which needs to be tackled. I think that

actually, maybe a lot of the older generation might not want 16-year-

old to be voting, but at the end of the day, they are not in that

position. They are not, for example, living independently in a situation

where they have no real say in maybe the local council and what

they are doing. At the moment, you can leave school, you can start

earning a proper salary from 16. Nobody ever wants the British

constitution changed. That is why we are stuck back in the... But we

have changed the constitution or the time - Scottish devolution,

Welsh devolution, referendum on proportional representation...

Nobody in his ever crying out for it. But on the broader point, I am

all for votes at 16. The point made in the debate was quite patronising,

that people have better citizenship classes and so on, as if the older

voter has some peculiar monopoly on sagacity and wisdom. But also, I

think a lot of what goes down in politics is aimed specifically at

very young people. In Tony Blair's talent, we had ASBOs, we had all of

these statutes which were specifically aimed at children and

young people. Now, we have got university tuition fees, which of

course affect exactly your generation. Child benefit is aimed

at children, we do not give them the vote. Of course, you have to

draw a reasonable, pragmatic line. 16 seems to be about right. Many of

the arguments Mary has just used would apply to 14-year-olds. So you

draw the line somewhere. When you look at the other ages at which we

are now beginning to allow people to do things, actually, those ages

are moving up to 18, not down to 16. Many people in that debate

yesterday in recent years voted not to allow people to buy fireworks

until 18, not to be able to go into tanning booths. Ages are going up,

not down. That is a crucial thing. This is a solution looking for a

problem. You only have to look at the people sat on the green benches

to see that. If we are going to tackle this issue, we have to look

across the board, what can you do at 16, 17 and 18. We have just

spent 20 minutes talking about the state of the economy. That has got

to be the priority. So therefore why not let young people have a

vote on the state of the economy since their futures will be

affected by it? Are we seriously going to spend days, weeks, months,

are arguing about this in Parliament? I think it is

interesting. It is now more likely to happen, then it was, not because

of yesterday's non-binding motion, with only 25% of MPs taking part,

but because of the fact that the Labour Party has begun to shift on

this. I think that is the key bit about yesterday's debate..

Labour form the majority government after 2015, you think this could be

on the agenda? I think it is very likely to be in the manifesto..

you think they would put it in the manifesto? I would not be at all

surprised. It is absolutely right. Miliband was a supporter before.

And of course, not even just a majority Labour government, but a

deal with the Lib Dems, who have long supported votes for 17-year-

olds. Researchers have been digging deeply, and it seems that all the

Channel Islands, they have it, Austria might have it, and Cuba,

but very few of the world's democracies - Cuba does not really

count - have votes at 16. Surprising, in a way. To have no we

should lead the way, and actually, if you look for examples within

political parties, for example, if it was a member of the

Conservatives, I could vote David Cameron to be leader of the

Conservatives, but I could not fur his party to be in government. So,

there is that argument as well. For me at the moment, I run my own

business. I am 18, almost 19. Immaculately dressed, compared to

most of the MPs that come in here. Will you come back and see us?

Definitely. Nottingham still the best politics department in the

country? Of course. Thank you both. It has been quite a week, starting

with the most appalling tragedy in the Algerian desert, moving on to

the inauguration speech in Washington, culminating with David

Cameron announcing the policy which would define his premiership, the

in-out referendum in Europe. Here it all is in 60 seconds. This week,

that long awaited speech on Europe was made by David Cameron, giving

Conservative Euro-sceptics of the red meet they had been longing for.

To stay in the European Union on these new terms or to come out

altogether. It will be an in-out referendum.. However, they will

have to wait until after the next election forehead, and get the EU

to renegotiate first. Prince Harry headed back from Afghanistan, and

the MoD announced plans to cut more than 5,000. But there was good news

for UK jobs, with unemployment falling to its lowest level for 18

months. The Deputy Prime Minister has been revealing yet more

information than he probably wanted to in his weekly phone-in show.

This time he did not rule out sending his son to private school.

And it was all stars and Blair as President Obama celebrated his

So, plenty of political controversy in the week just gone. In the week

coming up, there will be a vote on Tory plans to change the

parliamentary boundaries, which they are likely to lose, I would

suspect. MPs will also be voting on gay marriage. Now, the week is

ending badly because of his economic figures. In the middle of

it, it was a good week for Mr Cameron, because suddenly, the Tory

press was actually on his side! And Labour is slightly, no more than

that, but slightly discombobulated by this referendum, are they not?

Yes, my guess is that Ed Miliband is not personally discombobulated,

but I think there is a very strong strand of opinion in the Labour

Party which would dearly have liked him to have announced his own

referendum, not on exit but on consent. That feeling that people

should be consulted is very strong in Labour, and I think it is very

difficult, the line of attack which is building up for them, which is

that Labour is the party which does not want to hear what the people

once. I think that will be difficult for Labour. I think it

slightly through them, and their message was a bit mixed. When you

look at the course of the economy, at this moment, you would have to

guess that come the election in 2015, the Tories in particular, and

a coalition, are not going to have a great story to tell. The economy

is hardly going to be in fine fettle, so you need something else

which you think will be popular, hence, we will give you a

referendum, they built not. Desk, and I think that message is very

simple to get across. As soon as Ed Miliband stood up in the Commons

and said, we do not believe in the referendum, the Tories immediately

said, this is a party which does not trust the people. You're right,

they will have to find things, the Tory party. But even for people who

may care deeply about Europe, or they may be strongly Euro-sceptic,

we have jobs, living standards, economic growth, having money to

put food on the table, these things matter more. Of course they do.

Europe comes 9th or 10th in the list of people's concerns. So did

the Scottish Parliament, but they still got devolution! True, but

while it might play well for Cameron in the short term, and buy

him some time, nonetheless, he has got boundary changes coming up,

discontented backbenchers who will be losing seats, and equally, gay

marriage, which will be a knotty issue for the Tories. So,

tactically he has played it very well in the short term, but I think

in the medium to long-term, all bets are off for him.

politically it works for him quite well, because it discombobulated

Labour a bit, and it kind of tackles UKIP, but also, he gets

nice headlines in the Tory press, including no, in the paper - when

did we last see that? That is Drincic, but he has ratcheted up

the potential consequences if he fails on it. -- that is true. If he

cannot get what he wants, if he comes back with what has been

described as a box of tiddly Binks from Europe, then everybody will be

unhappy. And he has to win the next election. That's it for today.

Thanks to both of you for being with us. Sorry we were a bit late

in starting but we got there in the end. And Andy Murray won, and he

will be in the final in Australia on Sunday morning. The One O'Clock