28/03/2014 Daily Politics

Is the spare room tax working? Ever heard of Left Unity? They want to

unite the left and do what UKIP has done for British politics. And these

days you are more likely to find journalists and politicians sipping

mineral water than Muscadet. We ask whatever happened to the boozy

Westminster lunch? All that in the next hour and with us are two of

Westminster's most thirsty journalists. Tom Shipman is about to

move to the Sunday Times. His diary will be even more chock-a-block with

expensive lunches. Helen Lewis has to keep coming on because the New

Statesman's expenses are so stingy so she comes into the BBC to heat up

her seat in the microwave. First, the Conservative part of the

Government treaty must protect the interests of non-Eurozone member

states. That is one of Mr Cameron's key demands as he tries to

renegotiate our relationship with the EU head office planned

referendum in 2017. In Europe Germany is the powerful friend

everybody wants on their side. He has got the Germans on his site a

little bit? It is a good point for them. It is one of the most boring

pieces or prose I have ever read. But it is in the Financial Times?

But it does not get anywhere near far enough what the Tory

backbenchers want. It is a nice concession, but it is nowhere near

to appeasing the centre ground. Wolfgang Schauble has been speaking

elsewhere saying that treaty change will come back onto the agenda and

that is a way for the Tories to get through to say, we are not on our

own, if there is to be treaty change, we want it to suit us.

Loo-mac and when Angela Merkel came over here a few weeks ago, the

Tories hoped she would talk about treaty change because that gives

David Cameron his opening. It is interesting Wolfgang Schauble has

gone a bit further and you have linked the need to protect

non-Eurozone countries with a treaty. They have now been brought

together. There is a huge flaw in this.

Francois Hollande once treaty change. He has lost badly to the

National Front and that the mainstream parties of the right in

the local elections. Second round on Sunday. Last time it split the

Socialist party down the middle, the election on the Lisbon Treaty. He

will not want treaty change. The Financial Times made it clear. It is

in everyone's interests to keep kicking treaty change down the road.

I think that is a very fair point. Otherwise, our relations with

Germany would not be very good. We dissed Francois Hollande pretty

badly when he came over here and he got a rubbish pub lunch. He has been

pretty rude to us. What is wrong with a pub lunch? Nothing wrong with

it. We are going to need the Eastern Europeans to agree to treaty change

as well. David Davies said earlier this week in a public meeting I was

chairing that he thought David Cameron would get almost nothing by

way of repatriation of powers. But he would still go for a referendum

and he would still argue to stay in and that he would lose the

referendum and we would come out. I think it is a possibility. A lot of

people did not think David Cameron would use the veto and he did. It is

possible to see him going and are not getting what he wants. I think

most people at the top of the Conservative Party do not expect

that to happen. It is happening too early. The back pensions will say,

thank you -- the back benches. Some are insatiable. 70 of the 100 who

signed the letter the other day, Michael Gove surprise the nation

earlier this week by outing himself as a rather unlikely fan of rap

music. Yesterday a group of schoolchildren at a BBC event

helpfully asked him about his favourite rapper. Who did he pick us

up was it LL Cool J? Biggie? Chuck D? Wham? At the end of the show, Tim

and Helen will give us a correct answer. Have you got any idea? Very

confident. Who do you trust most to run the economy. It is a crucial

issue at any election and probably in this one even more so when the

country is beginning to recover from what was a very long and very deep

recession. The daily politics has been working with a polling firm on

a new kind of survey that looks at motors in terms of their values as

well as things like what they earn and where they live under the usual

social class indicators. We will give you the results in a moment.

First, Adam will explain how it works.

The polling firm has divided the country into six types of political

personality. Voters in Worcester found out what category they are in

bike using an online quiz. There is optimistic contentment. People doing

OK. Then there is comfortable style Joe, those who are unhappy with

Britain. -- comfortable nostalgia. Another group feel less secure, hard

pressed anxiety. I am hard pressed. Long-term despair, those who are

really struggling. What about the cosmopolitan critics? Idealists.

Quite often working in the media. One group of voters we have not come

across, the people who show calm persistence, they hope things get

better but do not expect them to. They are coping rather than

comfortable. Presumably they are all out of work. How the party's

messages go down with these groups is really important because the

pollsters recognises, nations of these political tribes that decide

elections app the pollsters reckon it is combinations.

Let us look at some of the main findings of the survey. It has come

in hot off the press in the last hour. The respondents were asked who

they trust most to run the economy. 58 cents said they trusted the

Conservatives the most -- 58%. Next respondents were asked to pick the

three words or phrases that best describe each party leader. David

Cameron, out of touch, arrogant and does not listen. Labour leader Ed

Miliband, the top picks were out of his depth, weak and out of touch.

Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg does not fare any better. The words that best

describe him, week, out of his depth and out of touch. The words or

phrases that described UKIP leader Nigel Farage was stand up for

Britain, weird, arrogant. We are joined by Laurence Stellings

from the firm. First, let us put aside the polling on the economy. It

is a kind of sign of a political class on the left and right that is

not connecting with the people. It is exactly what you would expect to

see. David Cameron, posh and out of touch. My favourite finding has got

to be Nigel Farage. You have to be weird to stand up for Britain. The

out of touch one is a huge problem. There is such a feeling on the left

and right that politicians do not live like normal people. It is

indicative that none of the leaders has any great appeal for what we

used to call me aspiring working classes and the ambitious

lower-middle-class is. The people who determine election results in

this country. Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair got them by the shed

load. From this poll, you can see none of the main three party leaders

have much appeal. Staggering. The top performer is Ed Miliband on

shares my values. It is a triumph that Ed Miliband is considered less

weird than Nigel Farage. The best performer of principled is Cameron.

Nigel Farage's selling point I thought was one of the lads. Have a

pint of beer, like ordinary people. What the political class will not

do. Iowa's thought it was a very clever trick he played. His

background is very privileged -- I always thought. He is not living in

the way most people live. He managed to project an authentic character.

What happened was the veered slightly into the slightly sweaty

sector in the debate. He pulled it back well. Equally well, Nick Clegg

also veered into slightly patronising at the start and pulled

himself back. There will be a real test of the Nigel Farage persona

over the next couple of months. Is this evidence of the political class

on the left and right that is increasingly out of touch with

voters? There is a general sense that it is a difficult time for the

country and none of the parties have offered solutions that people would

hope for. Having a coalition takes one of the parties out. One less

choice if you want to oppose the government. Although Nigel Farage is

described as weird, standing up for Britain is not a bad plus to have if

you are a politician. Not at all. But it goes hand-in-hand with weird.

20 years of his life IT again something that for many voters is a

very minor issue -- fighting against something. It makes him slightly

weird. Are these public impressions, do you think they are

now embedded, there is nothing they can do this side of the election to

change them? Could they change perception? There is still time.

Some are embedded. David Cameron has long been seen as slightly smug, out

of touch. He is also seen as competent and a good leader. There

is a year until the election. In the last few weeks since the budget, the

headline voting has closed a little. You saw Adam talk about the system

you use of the segmentation of society of voters into various

categories. What does it tell us? We macro it gives more detail -- it

gives more detail. On the economy, among the calm persistence group,

they are slightly more positive towards the Conservatives than

Labour. On one of the major issues, among swing voters, the

Conservatives have a slight lead. It is a pretty long-term trend. The

Conservatives over the last several years have had a lead over Labour

when it comes to macroeconomic issues. If 58 trust Cameron and

Osborne against 42, you have taken out the don't knows as to not we

macro you force people to make a decision -- you force people to make

a decision. 58% trust Mr Cameron and Osborne on the economy versus 42%

for the Labour Party. That is the finding they will take most comfort

from. They want to frame the election about the economy. Two

thirds of Lib Dem voters also think the Conservatives are better. In the

swing areas where if let Clegg will suffer, where will the votes go? It

looks like it will benefit... If you are a loyal live them, you are going

to say that with the coalition. A lot of them will still be calling

themselves Lib Dem voters and they will feel that the Lib Dems made a

sacrifice for the benefit of the economy. The leftish voters will

have already gone and they will be on the Labour side. I guess it is

going to be quite hard. If the recovery is gathering pace as it

seems to between now and the election campaign, changing

perceptions on the economy will be tough for Labour. Yes. Labour have a

lead when it comes to the cost of living crisis. They need to

translate that to the macro economy. For the Conservatives and

Lib Dems, they have brought recovery to the country and people feeling

that, but will you reward them with your vote? Are enough people feeling

the recovery? Outside of London, there is still a sense that the

recovery is in the south-east. That is the thing to watch this year.

Now, call it what you want, the spare room subsidy, the bedroom tax,

it is one of the coalition's highest profile welfare reforms even if it

is relatively small beer financially. It is designed to make

sure the state is not subsidising people to have homes bigger than

they need and it has been up and running for nearly a year. The BBC

has carried out research among councils and housing associations

across Great Britain to see how it is working and our social affairs

correspondent Michael Buchanan can tell us more. One of the main aims

of the policy was to free up social housing, to get single occupancy and

get these houses into the market so bigger families could take them.

What does the survey say? It is proving a lot more difficult than

the Government hoped. We got data from 80% of councils in Scotland,

England and Wales that have housing stock. That showed us that 6% of

tenants who have been affected by this benefit cut have moved in the

past year. What that means is there are still a lot of people who would

like to downsize. We spoke to a lot of them who cannot find the

properties. In other cases it means people who are living in overcrowded

accommodation have been unable to find those bigger properties they

thought they would be able to move into. It is interesting how it has

changed around the country. We spoke to a woman in Hull who downsized

from a three-bedroom flat to a one-bedroom flat. That would open up

a three bedroomed house for a family to move into and the housing

association could not let it out. There was no demand for larger

properties. Controversy down in Wiltshire, a rural part of the

country, they have got lots of people who are under occupying their

properties, but the council say they are not going to build one-bedroom

properties. They want to build communities. The other purpose of

the reform was to cut the welfare bill. What is the evidence of that?

Because most people are staying and paying towards their own rent and

because the number of people who are moving into different sized

accommodation is quite small, it looks as though the Government is

probably, according to the experts, probably on track to get close to

the savings they predicted they would make, ?490 million over the

course of a year. But what is happening in some cases is what was

an essential cost is becoming a local Government housing association

cost. We found 28% of people affected by this benefit cut have

fallen into arrears for the first time. People who were debt free when

the policy came in. The Government will say they have given ?180

million in emergency funding to councils to help the most vulnerable

tenants. But we also discovered millions of pounds of that money is

going to be handed back to the Treasury because the councils have

not spent it. Thank you for marking our card on that BBC survey.

Listening to that was the Shadow Employment Minister Stephen Timms

and from our studio in Tunbridge Wells is the Conservative MP Charlie

Elphicke. Charlie Elphicke, let me come to you first. One of the

reasons for implementing the policy was to free up the housing stock.

From our survey only 6% have relocated. It is not a huge number.

50,000 people have moved, so it shows things are moving in the right

direction. But the other issue is people can get into work and there

are no swap websites which are coming into force. But if it is

putting people into rent arrears, and if most people are staying put,

if it is hard to see what the saving is, one wonders what all the fuss

was about and why you bothered. There are substantial help funds

available to help people who have difficulties, especially people with

disability challenges. There are 300,000 people in overcrowding who

need a large home and it is important we look after them and we

look after taxpayers who spend a lot of money paying taxes, working

hard, and they cannot afford a spare room. Why should they effectively

subsidised bedrooms for people who are not in work. What do you say to

Norman Tebbit, not known for being a soft touch when it comes to welfare,

when he says I worry about what Labour calls the bedroom tax. So

often a spare room is a vital part of the looking after of an elderly

person, it enables relatives to come and carers to be there. What do you

say to that? We have made provision for that. For people with disability

issues there is a fund available. You could argue that since this

policy has only been on the go for one year, already 6% of people have

downsized, it is beginning to work. Loo-mac I do not think it is

working. It is an unfair policy. 94% have not moved. But it is year one.

We do not know where those 6% have gone too. Some of them will have

gone into rented accommodation where the rent is higher and that will be

paid by housing benefit. It is possible this policy will end up

costing more overall than it has saved. What do you say to that? He

makes a good point, Labour made a plea to change this accommodation.

But it is hard to understand how they draw a distinction. 31,000

people moving is quite a lot and quite a disruption for those who

moved. And we do not know what has happened to the 30,000 properties

and how many of them are empty? In South Liverpool they have had a 63%

increase in the number of vacant three-bedroom properties. Do we have

any evidence that these homes being vacated, because of downsizing, have

we got any evidence larger families are moving into occupied these

homes? I do not know the detail of that, but it is important in a

matter of fairness that we make the welfare savings that need to be made

because the Labour Party spent so much money and this will save ?1

billion by the time of the next election, ?1 billion more for

doctors and nurses. It is unfair to penalised people if there is nowhere

smaller for them to move to. That is the problem with many places. That

is why the number that has moved its so small. The Government has

suddenly decided where they live is inappropriate for them. And Tory

controlled Welch says they are not going to build one-bedroom houses

because they think people do not want them. There is an issue about

getting the right homes in the right places and there is an issue with

overcrowding and they need larger accommodation and there are over 1

million spare bedrooms up and down the land. Labour says if it wins

this it is going to reverse this, but it also voted for the welfare

cap. We are talking about half ?1 billion. Have you worked out how you

would kill this but still stay within the welfare cap? Yes, we

have. It may well be this policy will cost more than it saves. I

understand that. But how would you pay for the half billion saving? We

would abolish the tax break for hedge funds is, the funding for the

shares for rights scheme and we would plug a loophole that allows

employers to classify construction workers as self employed. That would

pay for abolishing the bedroom tax. It should be abolished now and if it

is not, the next Labour Government would abolish it. And that would

keep you in the cap? Yes, it would. Are you sure? I think we could make

the changes we have described. But some of these managers have already

moved to Switzerland. We would need to follow what happens and make

changes as things develop. You would just abolish it out right? Yes, we

would. There is a case in applying attacks like this where there is

somewhere smaller for an individual to move to. If there is not anywhere

smaller, it is unfair to clobber them with a tax. Has this been worth

the candle? Labour are making it up as they go along, naming this and

that as public saving. They had a bank bonus tax they spent about ten

times. Every time the Labour Party challenges us, it is more spending,

more debt. How have the policy played out? It has been a disaster.

Iain Duncan Smith had a great pitch. Universal welfare credit has been in

trouble. All the other parties say they will try and fix it and make it

work. With this they did not explain the problem. And unless you explain

the problem to voters, it is not popular. They have got a problem

with councils who would prefer to have this as a festering sore rather

than cough up the money to help the people who need it. I cannot

disagree with that or Norman Tebbit! I could not believe families with

disabled people were not exempt from this. People who could not sleep in

the same bed because somebody needed to be turned and needed a special

mattress. Somebody with a child who needed oxygen canisters, all of

those people felt under it. It has galvanised labour activists and SNP

activists in Scotland. Let's leave it there. Who do you support if you

disagree with the free market economy? How do you cast your vote

if you think the main parties are all a bit too mainstream? It was an

issue that the veteran left-wing film director Ken Loach addressed on

Question Time in February last year. There are a lot of people in this

country who share a lot of thoughts. They hate the break-up of the

National Health Service, they hate the privatisations and the

outsourcing and the labour agencies and the low wages. They hate the

mass unemployment and there is not a broad movement, a broad party they

can vote for. People spend a lot of time saying, who are we going to

hold our nose and vote for? We need a broad movement on the left. UKIP

has done it for the right. I disagree with almost everything UKIP

stands for. But we need a broad movement of the left. And that

appearance on the BBC by Ken Loach inspired left-wing activists to come

together to try to form a new outfit, Left Unity. Here in the

studio is the writer Salman Shaheen who is a member of Left Unity's

national coordinating group. Welcome. Who is backing Left Unity

apart from Ken Loach? Quite a number of the existing fire left groups are

involved, but also a lot of disaffected Labour members are

coming over to Left Unity. We have had one member every ten minutes

joining up today. What is a lot? We have 1600 members. We founded our

party on November the 30th last year. It is a couple of months in.

To the left of the Labour Party you have already got the socialist

platform, the Communist platform, the Socialist resistance. The

Communist Party of Great Britain which is not to be confused with the

other ones that run the morning Star, or not to be confused with the

Communist Party of Britain. You have got the workers Power, the Alliance

for liberty, which is also known as the Socialist organiser. Have I

missed anyone out? They have all signed up to support Left Unity.

Will they be at your conference? We will find out. But you must know.

Left Unity is an individual member -based organisation. Some will have

signed up, some will have not. It depends on whether policy wrangling

details appeal to people like that. I appreciate the point of trying to

get unity to the left of the Labour Party, but isn't the likelihood that

you will add Left Unity to that list of other left-wing groups I have

just read out? It is like life of Brian! That is a commonly used

phrase. I have hung my head in the past over the inability of the left

to get on. That we have a serious problem with austerity which is

damaging the lives of the most vulnerable people in this country

and Labour is not providing an effective opposition to that. Having

followed some of these groups, your chances of unity based on recent

history is close to zero. You have got to try, even if it is like

banging your head against the wall. It is too important not to. It is

important for democracy as well. If Labour is in the middle ground with

the Tories and Lib Dems, there is no left-wing voice. The conference is

in Manchester tomorrow. It was the last event you had was described as

a bit of a shambles, quote. That was by one of your leading members on

your own website. There were a lot of people there, 500 people, a lot

of views coming together. Or not coming together. They did come

together because we agreed a founding statement. We are trying to

do something which has not been done on the left before. A bottom-up

grassroots democratic organisation. If democracy is messy, it has got to

be done. You have not decided on a policy over whether Britain should

be in the EU. It will be decided. You have 66 pages of motions in six

hours. That is right. I have not even read them all myself. It will

be a tough day. We have another conference coming up in June to

handle the rest of our policy. It is a very long process. The Labour

Party took a very long time to form and learn and get to where it is

today. We need to be very careful that all people's views are

represented and that it is not a top-down bureaucratic state up. --

stitch up. One of the motions but is to disband in the British Army and

arm the people -- bottom-up. I will be voting against that and I do not

suspect it will pass. April have the right to bear arms and defend

themselves. -- people have the right. I disagree with the motion.

Do you think it will get through? No. The majority of Left Unity

members are disaffected ex-Labour Party members who are in favour of a

broad church left-wing party. Does it mean you do not regard yourself

as quite as left as the Communist Party of Great Britain? I do not

consider myself quite as left. Their members are members -- of left

unity. All political parties have... Would you like them to leave

these groups and come and join you? They are members of their groups.

They are also members of Left Unity. It does not mean you have to leave

your existing party. You are all welcome and the church. I get the

feeling you are on the moderate wing. I am. The UKIP manifesto has

restoring the Circle line to be a circle. It is not by any means...

This is simply a motion, not their policy. It is funny when we make the

comparison with UKIP because what they have done is that they might

deliver the next election for the Labour Party. Is your aspiration to

run candidates against Labour Party candidates or do you want to see

yourself more as a pressure group? It is both. We have not decided when

we will stand in elections but we are intending to stand. We will

inevitably be running against an Labour Cabinet. -- candidates. The

13 Labour MPs who voted against the welfare cap, I think they did a

fantastic job and they should be applauded for doing what they were

elected to do. You are not putting up candidates in the European

elections question mark we have only just started. The Green Party had

their candidates in place two years before the elections. Have you

invited Diane Abbott? No, we have not. She was one of the 13. She is

in labour and we are a party outside of labour. Why don't you join the

Labour Party and try to get it to move to what you would like it to

be? Wouldn't that be more effective? Some people take that view. The late

great Tony Benn took that view. I have a lot of time for such

opinions. But it seems to me that they are shouting into the wind. The

Labour Party have been dominated by a very centre-right almost agenda

for a very long time. It has signed up to Conservative spending plans

and if people support Labour, if they vote Labour, what they will get

is a government that is not so radically different from the Tories.

Voters need a choice. Some of the other groups might be wanting to

make what you do a thankless task. They can be tribal. I hope we can

get along together in a spirit of unity. Sounds like we will end up

with disunity tomorrow. Two things are interesting. If we get a couple

of more hung parliaments, we will see more of this thing, frat drink

from the main political parties. -- fracturing. We have a full party

system in England now. Not just in Scotland, Wales and Northern

Ireland. There is now someone making a case against austerity. The

difference between Labour and the Tories, there has been a conspiracy

between George Osborne and Ed Balls. They are arguing about a very

small amount of money. Green Party supporters say, why don't we get the

exposure UKIP got? They have got an MP. They are not seen as being

someone who is taking votes from Labour like UKIP. If there is a kind

of left of Labour Party that is deemed to be taking away from

Labour, that will make it more interesting to the media. What is

the biggest thing you hope to achieve tomorrow? I want us to begin

our road to the manifesto and agree very strong clear anti-austerity

policies and defending the NHS and repealing the bedroom tax and

renationalising the railways and the energy companies to make a better

society for consumers and workers. Not that different from what the

left of the Labour Party would like. But the left of the Labour Party do

not run the Labour Party. Thank you. Now, Nigel Farage is rarely off your

screens at the moment. And here he is again, talking to me on the

Sunday Politics a few weeks ago. I asked him about allegations, denied

by him, that he used public money to employ both his wife and his former

mistress. Let us get a sense... I am very

upset with the BBC coverage of this. The Ten O'Clock News ran this as a

story without explaining the allegation was made using

parliamentary privilege by someone on bail facing serious fraud

charges. Nikki Sinclaire. The BBC did not explain that.

The MEP who made those claims, Nikki Sinclaire, is here now. Welcome to

the Daily Politics. We have just seen the interview with Nigel

Farage. What are you objecting to in the interview? He is supposed to be

standing up for British values, innocent until proven guilty. I

totally refute these allegations against me. It has been two years

since these allegations were made. I have not been interviewed by the

police for more than 18 months. I think he was trying to attack in

order to defend himself. You are still on bail for fraud?

Unfortunately so. It had they brought charges early on, the trial

would have been over and done with. Have you approached the police?

Absolutely. They say, this is what we are doing. It is an anomaly in

our system. Until you are in the situation, you do not realise. It is

about expenses claims. It can't be that complicated. This refers to a

time as a UKIP MEP. There was an important in my office. We cannot

discuss the ins and outs of it. It only to them. They have had all of

the paperwork. They should have charged me. I would have been to

court, found not guilty. I do not believe they have enough to charge

me. That is why they have not come forward yet? They have had two

years. We could have had the trial. Have you got a bit of a vendetta

against Mr Farage? No. I fell out with his linking to Holocaust

deniers which was not what UKIP was supposed to be about. I was in UKIP

from the start. Let us be clear. The BBC does not make this point to

Nigel Farage. He has been an MEP for 15 years and there have been 19

other UKIP MEPs and he has fallen out with 11. The 12 MEPs he took to

Brussels, he has fallen out with six. Surely it cannot be all of us?

I made the point he had the habit of falling out with some. More than

half of his parliamentary party. These are your figures. They are on

public record. What do you say to the charge that you abused voluntary

privilege -- parliamentary privilege quest at he has used the same

privilege so it is hypocritical. He has twice used the defence to make

accusations against people. You have started a new party. We Demand A New

Party. Centres Baize We, The Public. It Is A Regional Thing. Let Us Be

Clear. You Have Asked Me What The Difference Is Between Us And Ukip.

What Has Ukip Done? The Biggest Thing That Forced The Debate In This

Country Was The Referendum That Brought Cameron. Centres Case Macro

We Forced The Debate And Was Nigel Farage One Of Those 100,000

Signatures? He refused to do so. He has five years ago claimed so much

in expenses. What have they done with all of this money, ?45 million

since 1999? What you are illustrating is something on the

right that we were talking about. I am not right wing. You end up

dividing and dividing. You want the same thing as UKIP when it comes to

a referendum and you want to vote no to get out of Europe. That is the

fundamental thing. I want the people to have a choice. It is the same as

UKIP and you are dividing by standing yourself and you say you

will put up other candidates but you will not tell me the number, by

doing that, you are dividing the vote in the same way as all of the

left-wing splinter groups. We left our regional political parties. I

was a member of one of the main three political parties. We left on

principle. UKIP have blown its principles. It has linked itself

with extremists, people with criminal convictions, Holocaust

deniers, violence against immigrants, that is the people it is

linked with in the European Parliament. It has abused its

principles. No one can tell me what UKIP has tangibly done. I can point

in five years to something I have done to move the debate along. If

you lose in the European elections, is that your political career over?

There is more to life than politics, but I do not think so. I have been

in politics since the age of ten. What will you do if you lose? I will

keep campaigning because I believe in what I am campaigning for. Just

as an individual, standing up for what I believe in. My constituents

know me. I am likely to go back on the charges. I am the only MEP who

has audited accounts which shows I have put in ?100,000 of my post-tax

salary back into my work. No other MEP in this country can show that.

What do you make of this? UKIP is a party where I very rarely see a

female face. The candidate in Eastleigh was female. That is true.

But there is a week of looking as -- but there are a lot of blokes. What

female friendly policies does UKIP have? You will not find a senior

woman in UKIP that has been there more than five years. I have only

had two female MEPs and they have lost both of us. I have been a

victim of violence from Nigel Farage. Assault in the European

Parliament. This is the type of attitude. When I was on the national

executive, we had meetings in gentleman's clubs. It is certainly

the case Nigel Farage runs a tight fiefdom. It is only recently he has

brought innate human could -- he has brought innate immune occasions

director. We had Kilroy silk, other high-profile people. All of them

have fallen out with him. Four of the previous six leaders, he has

fallen out with. You seem more exercised about this than any other

issue. You claimed you were a victim of violence. Of assault. His violent

temper. His violent temper. Not physical assault? Verbal assault?

No, physical assault. It is witness. He did not hit you quest at that is

battery. Assault is one someone threatens you. To get revenge,

having listened to you, I think most viewers would conclude that your

main purpose in life is to get revenge. Absolutely not. My main

achievement is forcing David Cameron to the dispatch box to talk about a

referendum. UKIP did not fight that campaign. My main purpose in life is

to get a referendum on our man ship of the era of -- the European Union.

Who were you rooting for in the Nigel Farage and Nick Clegg debate?

For us. I think that will come as a surprise to him. There was a time

when Westminster and the long boozy lunch went together like steak and a

bottle of Margaux, or a cheese roll and a glass of warm Liebfraumilch if

you come round here on the Friday lunchtime. But these days

journalists are a much more abstemious bunch. Have a look at

this. In the age of the Internet where

everybody is on a deadline or on Twitter, you cannot disappear for

three hours in the afternoon. Old MPs would moan about the lack of

dining clubs, but now there are more women here and we are getting more

sober and more sensible. There was a legendary journalist who was famous

for returning to the office after a lunch for a different suit. On the

way home he stopped to relieve himself and he fell in the Thames.

So Winston Churchill was a notorious drinker and John Smith, the leader

of Labour, and even Roy Jenkins, were known to like a glass or two

while they were working. The boozer is the way of loosening their

tongues and you get more out of them. They are more likely to let

their guard slip. That does not happen quite as often. When one is

on the top of their game they do not allow their tongue to soften up with

drink. The first drink I had was with Nigel Farage a few years ago

with a couple of bloody Mary 's, some white wine and a bottle of

red. By that point I was ready for a sleep. Nigel was fine and I

staggered of home and he went and did a pre-record for Newsnight. That

was the blogger Harry Cole ending that clip and he wrote about the

death of the booze fuelled lunch for this week's Spectator Life. And he

drew extensively for the piece on the knowledge of none other than Tim

Shipman. You are quoted saying, when I arrived in Westminster in 2001, it

was not unusual to sink half a bottle over lunch every day. Three

bottles was far from unusual. What is the consumption rate these days?

It is lot less than that. It is boring in Westminster. I had a lunch

yesterday and not a drop past our lips. I blame the new intake. Most

of them are more interested in penning policy papers. The new

intake of politicians? Yes. I feel I got in 30 years too late. They would

do a 32 page paper and you would sub two pages in the afternoon and that

would be a good day's work. You only smoked two cigarettes when

considering the headline. All that has now gone. It is blog something

immediately, tweet something immediately. You have to be ready to

go to the TV studios. The pace has increased so much. It is true. The

days when you wrote one article a week or do two stories a week, those

days have gone. You are expected to appear on 24 hour news, to tweet, to

do other things. It is a round-the-clock job. There are great

exceptions. There was a penal member of the Labour Party who sank an

entire bottle of lunch on her own and probably went of to Sky

Television and did a good interview. I sat down with a member of the

Shadow Cabinet and they had got to lunch before me and a double gin was

already on the globe. There are people still upholding some of these

traditions. It sounds a bit less fun. If you ask now people who work

in journalism if they would give up coffee or booze, they find that

tough because we rely so much on caffeine to get us through the day.

And John Bercow has not been that interested in drinking. He is

discouraging it. But on his watch we have had punch-ups in the bars and

we found one MP had his collar felt. Some of the MPs are doing their

best. But the people you want to take to lunch have a more serious

view of these things. Some journalists say they write better. I

do not. I have one drink and I go to sleep. If you move to a Sunday

paper, you could indulge a bit more, off the relentless treadmill of the

day. Some people find the class concentrates the mind.

Labour and the Liberal Democrats say they are happy for a televised

debates to go ahead in the same format as agreed before the last

election, we have just found out. The Liberal Democrats have rejected

any debate that only include David Cameron and Ed Miliband. I assume

there would be a legal challenge from the Lib Dems if that happened.

The Conservatives say the Prime Minister wants to debate, but they

are not clear how they should proceed. It is breaking news. Tim

and Helen have enjoyed so many long lunches they can barely recall the

news of the week. Here is a round-up of the week in 60 seconds.

Nick versus Nigel was the top of Westminster. No hokey Cokie, but a

lot of in and out. Nigel Farage celebrated by, yes? I am not off to

church. SSE reignited the energy price row. Why it was a price freeze

wrong six months ago, but it is right today? We have reduced the

cost of energy charges. As things got heated, John Bercow restored

order with a lightning aurora. Order! It will take more than that

to calm angry teachers who went out on strike over pay and pensions. One

day later, a different feel on the streets as friends and folk gathered

to say farewell to Tony Benn. I hope that has refreshed your memories.

What is the Conservative position on televised debates? Internally they

would only like to have a debate with Ed Miliband. They thought it

was not a good thing last time because Nick Clegg muddied the

waters and he got exposure. They repeatedly say they want debates.

That is official, but behind the scenes it is not clear. In the last

few weeks Labour spokesmen are saying, we signed up as the same as

last time, but they are also prepared to say the important thing

is we get David Cameron signed up and we have a debate between the two

potential prime ministers. They are not ruling out Nick Clegg, but the

fact they have inched towards the conservative position is

interesting. The Conservatives think before the election campaign has

started, it would be possible to do David Cameron and Ed Miliband. If

they did it in February and March it would be possible to do that and

maybe have one debate and not have any debate during the campaign.

There was talk among the Conservatives about having the

debates, but we think the debates hijacked the campaign, so let's have

the debates before the official campaign begins. That may be a hard

one to run. It might be. But they want to have the idea that David

Cameron is the first alternative, but it turned out that Nick Clegg

was the fresher alternative. You can see from the point of view of Ed

Miliband why he wants that. You get a good pull-back when you are

standing toe to toe with the Prime Minister and they want that image in

people's minds. If it is held outside the official election

period, by that I mean David Cameron versus Ed Miliband, the chances of a

legal challenge may be more difficult to win. That is the

conservative position, they think they will get away with it. They

think that maybe better than exposing him to the danger of an

insurgent Ed Miliband. What is in it for David Cameron? Who is he going

to convince? It is a whole lot of stuff for him to lose as incumbent.

He took control of the campaign in the last time. There was a two-day

build-up and then there was the day and there was two days of post-match

analysis. This week will not have helped that. They will have watched

the debate with interest and the political media obsession, and the

frenzy on Twitter. It has consumed the entire week and that reinforces

what they thought last time. They would have liked the post-budget

headlines to run for longer and that has got changed. The debate between

Nigel Farage and Nick Clegg overtook the headlines. Yes, when instead

they could have had headlines about labour being in trouble after the

budget. Yesterday Michael Gove was taking part in the BBC School news

report. He was asked about his favourite rap. Which one did you

pick? He said he liked Chuck D. Then he picked the Wham Rap. That his

previous interview said he followed another one. You recently said you

quite like rap music, so I was wondering, could you give us a taste

of your favourite rap. I have got so many, the original was the Wham Rap.

Hey everybody take a look at me, I've got street credibility. I may

not have a job, but I have a good time. With the boys that I meet down

on the line. It is interesting he liked rap based on welfare benefits!

The Wham Rap came out in 1982, talking about the virtues of

unemployment. Here is what it should sound like.

Hey, everybody, take a look at me, I've got street credibility. I may

not have a job, but I have a good time. With the boys that I meet down

on the line. Not quite as good as the real thing,

but he tried. He could sell himself up with a leather jacket and a

quiff. That is what you call hinterland! We will be back on BBC

One on Sunday with the Daily Politics and I will be interviewing

Ed Davey. Goodbye.