07/05/2016 Dateline London

London elects the first Muslim mayor in a western European capital.

What do this week's elections across the United Kingdom tell us

And what does Donald Trump tell us about the state

This week's top team are Maria Margaronis of The Nation,

Iain Martin, editor of CapX and former editor of The Scotsman,

Henry Chu, Europe Bureau Chief of Variety Magazine,

Rashmee Roshan Lall, a columnist for The National

The Scottish National Party wins power again in Scotland.

Labour is crushed in Scotland, but does not do badly elsewhere

winning the big prize of London mayor - the first Muslim to be

elected to lead a major European capital city.

And the Conservatives manage to find some cheer

Can anyone explain the state of our peculiar politics?

Ian? Thank you for that introduction. If you look in terms

of England and Jeremy Corbyn, he has done a rather spectacularly good job

of expectation management in that he has done really pretty badly, but

because he hasn't lost many seats he's presenting it as a kind of

victory. Compared to previous labour leaders and we are at a point in the

electoral cycle, with the government unpopular and trouble in certain

respects, that's a point at which you would expect to see a Leader of

the Opposition, if he is genuinely popular, you would expect to see him

make enormous gains and to lead in terms of the popular vote by a long

way. He basically came only one point ahead of the popular vote

ahead of David Cameron's conservatives. 30% - 31%. Yes, and

winning the London mayoral team allows them to cover it up in

effect. Alec -- a calamitous result for them in Scotland where they were

pushed into third place by the Conservatives.

But Sadiq Khan's victory cheers up Labour supporters and suggests

London was a different place, as it was in the general election?

Absolutely. Ian has got it when you said you have to break it all down.

The story, as far as I can see, is that it's been at least 20 years of

devolution in Wales and you're seeing a different narrative and

three different political terrorist -- terrorist -- Territories almost.

London is a citystate and everyone keeps saying it's a Labour city but

actually said Dick Khan was a personality, not a big personality,

but the man. The bus conductor 's son from a council estate and salon.

Yes. "If I can win it, anyone can". It's a big moment. He happens to be

a Muslim mayor. I feel tremendously proud today and I'm very moved by

it, but there is a risk of getting very leader oriented about it.

Doesn't intend @ struggle in the Conservative Party but I don't think

it's all about Jeremy Corbyn. A lot of his opponents want us to think

that Labour's failure to do better is about him but the Labour Party

has been in disarray for a long time and it's not just Corbyn. One of the

reasons why Siddique Khan was successful, may I suggest, is that

he was seen to be his own man and there was a good -- degree of

distance. And perhaps the party apparatus is less important than

being able to say I'm slightly independent from it? Absolutely.

London is its own creature. You saw Siddique Khan almost is associating

himself with the National party in many ways. -- Sadiq Khan. It was not

about Jeremy Corbyn's Leader of the Opposition that he drew on. I agree

with Ian that the map narrative the media has shaped by not doing as

badly as everyone expected he would do and that somehow it is a victory.

No way, except in London. Six months ago, think back to London, and I

think politicians should be tested by what they set themselves. The

claim was made that it was an extraordinary mass movement in the

Labour Party that would sweep Britain and transform the political

landscape and it was energising millions of nonvoters. The Blairites

didn't know what they were talking about and it was a new style of

politics. When you make claims like that, there is a point at which you

had to take it to the voters and that is what happened on Thursday.

The voters said they are not interested. I wonder how much you

think Sadiq Khan has helped -- was helped by a pretty woeful campaign

by Zac Goldsmith? Personally, I think it has been overblown. I don't

think the campaign was as bad as is being said. I really struggle to see

how he was ever really going to win because London is a Labour city and

Boris is an exceptional candidate. The Tories took London twice, mainly

because of the charisma of Boris and his personality. What do you make of

the Conservative campaign? I think you had to see it in the rise of

Islamic phobia and anti-Semitism across Europe and trans-Atlantic Lee

as well. It didn't betray London in a good light. I agree with Maria, I

wasn't happy to be a Londoner then but now you see there is a unity and

diversity message that has won through, one is very proud of it.

You were the editor of That Scotsmen for a long time and when the Tories

were toxic. You couldn't admit publicly you were a conservative

approximately. There were toxic for approximately 25 years. But Ruth

Davidson, personally, established herself as being quite independent

of the Conservative Party in London. She is a fascinating figure. She has

so much energy and is openly gay and the Tory leader. She is popular in

Scotland and she's done something really rather maraca ball and even

as someone who is opposed to devolution, I say it is a very good

day, actually, because there are indications that politics in

Scotland is starting to normalise. The difficulty was you happy left

SNP up against the left-wing Labour Party and there was never really a

proper left/ right debate about taxation or the economy. Now there

is an opposition party led by someone who has bags of potential,

Ruth Davidson, which is going to be a proper opposition against the SNP.

For all people say that it is historic that they got a third term,

they fell short of an overall majority. Despite what they say,

they anticipated that. Politics very often isn't about small margins. Of

course it is a good result for the SNP and the vote was huge, but they

just slipped and that suggests the momentum that has carried them

through, the incredible momentum of the last two years, has gone into

reverse. They got more than a million votes and they can perfectly

run the country as a big minority government. It was her chance to

shine. She is incredibly popular and it's had chance to consolidate her

power base and be a leader in her own right of a majority government.

We see her rowing back on the idea of another independence referendum,

although the EU referendum if it goes towards Brexit could revive

that. Unfortunately the way the system is set up, she doesn't have a

majority and she will have two content with that in the same way

David Cameron in his first term didn't have a majority. What do you

make of that? Scotland is another country, but I have a question. How

much is the Scottish result about independence or about other things?

Is Labour's collapse there about the way they've handed independence or

other things? As Scots, we would say there's more than half an hour

programme in the collapse of the Scottish Labour Party. It's a 25 or

30 year event. The collapse of traditional politics. The Labour

Party machine taking Scotland for granted, thinking it could send its

best talent to London running the UK and leave enough people behind to

run Scotland. They were always going to be vulnerable to this

extraordinary Nationalist charge. It's also interesting that the

demographics of parts of Wales are similar to parts of Scotland and

Ukip did well in Wales but nowhere in Scotland. Party-macro doing well

in Wales is a puzzle to me. They got two seats. What's interesting there

is that we've got the June 23 referendum on whether Britain should

leave the EU or not. If there is a wafer thin majority to stay in,

we'll Ukip become dig up off the back of that because they will keep

picking away at the edges. When will they collapse? We began by talking a

bit about Labour. There are those who think that there are those

within the Labour Party who dislike Jeremy Corbyn's leadership and it's

a terrible result. But Jeremy Corbyn can say they didn't do too badly and

he has. I don't think this is a trigger point they can use to depose

him. They were able to get the mayoralty of London, which is a big

prize when you think of the electoral mandate involved. And they

didn't lose some councils they seemed to be in danger of losing. I

don't think we've reached the critical mass for the anti-Corbyn

can to get rid of him, but he has been put on notice. He's been leader

for eight months so it's time to coalesce the movement that is

supposedly behind him and show strength, but it's not happened. He

has been eight months in the job and the way Corbyn and Bernie Sanders

across the Atlantic... The rise of these two non-auto idea focus

grouped, kind of 90s people, lefties, tells a different story. In

America, I don't want to save feel-good charm, but... There is

something about flexible work on robots come to take our jobs and

they are talking about a different way to govern society. That's right,

but one of the most interesting stories of one of the last few years

and it's possibly acutely leap British because we seem to be

apathetic about politics, you can have a surge of populist anger with

Ukip acceptor, but when you come down to it as it did in the 2015

election and it becomes a binary choice as to who will run the

country, and the kind of seats people need to win, it emerges that

people are pretty centrist and David Cameron got an overall majority.

Peculiarities. Donald Trump won, as he put it,

"bigly" and perhaps, to quote George Dubya Bush,

he was "misunderestimated". But, barely tolerated or even

loathed by the Republican hierarchy, can he really become President

of the United States? We will go to our show business

correspondent on this. I am once bitten twice shy because I thought

there would be no way he could get the nomination so I don't want to

say never say never. He starts with incredible negatives that have not

had a president since polling began in the US in terms of those who

regard him unfavourably. It should be a golden moment for the

Republicans because Hillary Clinton has credible negative rating. But

the Republican presumptive candidate is even worse. Is it impossible for

him to come back? No, because the last time that happened was with

Ronald Reagan so maybe there is a showbiz flavour to that. You're

talking about to death -- different people. Ronald Reagan was the

governor of a big state, as you know. Any time you have got a major

party giving the nomination to somebody you can't any longer say

has a 0% chance of winning, exogenous things can happen. Like in

1968. But he has only 14.6% of the American electorate. His

negatives... 70% down for women, 80% for blacks and 90% for Hispanics. He

has to get all these people to like him, build a coalition that works.

Can he do that? I would have to say, I remember a book called Ronald

Reagan's Reign Of Error and that he was an idiot cowboy. And George W

Bush can't speak the English language and he was

mis-underestimated and he was elected twice. People have got to

hope that Donald Trump is in a different category. The extent of

his comments about women, Muslims, the insults and the way he behaves,

the narcissism and egotism and I could go on... What troubles me most

of all is that Hillary Clinton is a really weak candidate in an age

where people aren't rebelling or the world is changing and people are

rebelling against elites, she is the worst candidate you can imagine.

She's been around for ever and been on people's TV screens nightly, or

pretty much weekly fall 25 years. There has to be a danger, if he

finds a way, of talking to a particular kind of voter in the

right states of at least him running her closer. In a way she's the

perfect candidate as a foil for him because if he's the ultimate

outsider she is the ultimate insider? That's partly right. A lot

of polls show Bernie Sanders will do better than her because, as we said

before, there is a push from right and left against the centrist elite.

It may be that when it comes to the polling booth, peoples plumped for

the Saints parent hands but I don't think that will go on for ever. We

talked about America's working-class -- safe pair of hands. With a slight

shift it might apply to Bernie Sanders. That is where we're looking

at big movements which we haven't understood yet. When you say white

voters, the share of the white electorate or the white share of the

electorate has fallen two point four. Demographically. So you can no

longer have a lot of white people voting for you. People identified

that as their own problem in 2012 and they said, how do we need to

remake ourselves in order to succeed in the new landscape yet you see

Donald Trump getting the nomination right. So he can class into a set of

voters who are highly motivated and who he can probably count on. There

are big forces on the move here, aren't there? It's as much about

resentment of the downsides of globalisation as anything else and

about PPV feeling that there are benefits of globalisation -- about

people feeling. It is highly unlikely that the TT IP will happen

and people are moving to a more protectionist direction and there is

concern at the British referendum has illustrated that although I am

not a conspiracy theorist about it, the more you start to learn about

how the deals are done and how regulation works, regulation of huge

trading blocs under the badge of free trade, which it isn't really,

there is combination there from the right and left about supranational

non-democratic institutions and the extent of power they wield. It makes

seem politics again for insiders and the rest are excluding -- excluded.

Everyone says these are voters who once a politician who tells it how

it is, but actually it is telling it how it isn't. What would Donald

Trump do? Bring back low waged jobs? He will tell the Chinese and the

Pakistanis... And he will ban people from coming to his country? Indeed.

It is not the real world. It taps into deep-seated fantasies. Because

the American economy is effectively energy self-sufficient, one of the

lessons of the last hundred years or so of economics is that if America

wants to go protectionist for a while, it's large enough. It is the

rest of us who will then feel the pain if it shuts itself. That's an

interesting point. In terms of party politics, we are seeing people

running against the party or not completely associating themselves

with the party in both Scotland and, to an extent, in London. I've had

two views. One is decent Republicans with their head in their hands and

another is that the Republican party have been doing it for years and

that Trump is the logical extension. Where are you on that? You can be

both. Holding your head in your hands and thinking that what you

have sown you are now reaping. It is the outcome of a Republican party

that he's been purely obstructionist and has made government seem like

the villain and a force that does not actually work in their

interests. You get an outsider like Trump who promises all these things

that the government has not been able to give before. It is also

openly saying the dog whistle politics that had been papered over

by pictures of George Bush with Latinos supporters. Trump doesn't

even go for these images any more, but straight for the jugular is what

seems like a nationalist agenda. The second analysis is definitely

happening. The Republican establishment, although they may be

reaping what they are sewing, are very concerned that they may -- now

have a candidate who would probably destroy the party so there are moves

to try and make it nice between the two camps. But Trump is congenitally

unable to take criticism. Thames do have a rapprochement have failed the

Republican establishment. -- attempts. Maria, you have come back

from refugee camps in Greece, literally in the last few hours.

Tell us a bit about what you have found because it has dropped off a

bit of the agenda. It is not on the way to being solved. It is very

complicated. I was in one of the Eastern Aegean islands where people

are still landing, many fewer than before the EU/ Turkey deal, but they

still are. There are more than 2000 refugees and migrants who've arrived

since the deal living in the most appalling conditions in a centre

that was boast to be a registration centre and then it became a hot spot

and then a locked detention centre in which there was a revolt. Now,

miserable conditions with terrible food, not enough hot water, women

and children living with men, some of whom are young and become

violent. Local villagers have blockaded the roads because there

are worried about their chickens being stolen. Is that a change of

tone? Yes, the Greek people have shown incredible solidarity with

people coming to their shores, but now it is no longer a child let

company but a place where it seems people will stay for a long time --

no longer a transit country. I saw things on the border with the

Macedonian republic where there is a huge informal tam -- camp, which is

becoming almost a town and I saw the flag of the Greek tater ship flying

over somebody's house. I asked what it was and he said he put it up last

week and had it specially printed. Don't think I'm right wing gun. That

is far right? -- right-winger. Yes. I visited another camp run by a

sympathetic and organised army men -- army major which was OK. I've

visited organise places like a hotel. It was empty for a long time

and it is being run with refugees and seem humane, but the system is

not working. Asylum experts promised by the EU have not arrived or very

few. The system is overwhelmed and all the 50,000 people want to move

on to Europe and they don't want to stay in Greece. It will get worse.

The deal is a disaster. But it stop people coming. What there isn't is

money. There may be solidarity but not money. There isn't the

organisation or capacity to deal with this. In Britain, this will be

the backdrop to the... You've gone early to report this and the amount

of reporting will increase in the next few months. This will be the

backdrop to the EU referendum. The EU has a serious problem in that it

cannot, in voters minds, protect its external border and its poor at

internal security. In terms of how it looks, come June 23 in the UK

when people vote, it could look very difficult to remain. But it's very

different. It's really not... But it may not be seen that way. A head and

heart issue. Not just that. It's the case where central and northern

European countries refuse to do their part with the refugee crisis.

The relocation programme is not working.

That's it for Dateline London for this week.

You can comment on the programme on Twitter @gavinesler.

We are back next week at the same time.