22/06/2014 Sunday Politics South East

Welfare reform is one of the government's most popular policies.

So Labour says it would be even tougher than the Tories.

We'll be asking the Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary if she's got

Even Labour supporters worry that Ed Miliband hasn't got what it takes

Labour grandees are increasingly vocal about their concerns.

Over 50% of Labour voters think they'd do better with a new leader.

And what of this leader? He's apparently "toxic" on the doorstep.

The polls say Nick Clegg's more unpopular than Gordon Brown,

New EU standards on water qtality mean some of our favourite beaches

promised an electric car revolution, why so little progress?

Nick Watt, Helen Lewis and Janan Ganesh, the toxic tweeters

First, the deepening crisis in Iraq, where Sunni Islamists are now

largely in control of the Syrian-Iraq border, which means

they can now re-supply their forces in Iraq from their Syrian bases

Rather than moving on Baghdad, they are for the moment consolidating

their grip on the towns and cities they've already taken.

They also seem to be in effective control of Iraq's

biggest oil refinery, which supplies the capital.

And there are reports they might now have taken the power

Iraqi politicians are now admitting that ISIS,

the name of the Sunni insurgents, is better trained, better equipped and

far more battle-hardened than the US-trained Iraqi army fighting it.

Which leaves the fate of Baghdad increasingly in the hands

No good news coming out of there, Janan. No good news and no good

options either. The West's best strategy is to decide how much

support to give to the Iraqi government. The US is sending over

about 275 military personnel. Do they go further and contemplate

their support? General Petraeus argued against it as it might be

seen as the US serving as the force of Shia Iraqis -- continue their

support. Do we contemplate breaking up Iraq? It won't be easy. The Sunni

and Shia Muslim populations don t live in clearly bordered areas, but

in the longer term, do we deal with it in the same way we dealt with the

break-up of the Ottoman empire over 100 years ago? In the short-term and

long-term, completely confounding. Quite humiliating. If ISIS take

Baghdad I can't think of a bigger ignominy for foreign policy since

Suez. If Iraq is partitioned, it won't be up to us. It will be what

is happening because of what is happening on the ground. Everything

does point to partition, and that border, which ISIS control, between

Syria and Iraq, that has been there since it was drawn during the First

World War. That is gone as well An astonishingly humbling situation the

West, and you can see the Kurds in the North think this is a charge --

chance for authority. They think this is the chance to get the

autonomy they felt they deserved a long time. Janan is right. We can't

do much in the long term, but we have to decide on the engagement.

And the other people wish you'd be talking turkey, because if there is

some blowback and the fighters come back, they are likely to come back

from Turkey. Where is Iran in all of this? There were reports last week

that the Revolutionary guard, the head of it, he was already in

Baghdad with 67 advisers and there might have been some brigades that

have gone there as well. Where are they? What has happened? I'm pretty

sure the Prime Minister of Iraq is putting more faith in Iran than the

White House and the British. I think they are running the show, in

technical terms. John Kerry is flying into Cairo this morning, and

what is his message? It is twofold. One is to Arab countries, do more to

encourage an inclusive government in Iraq, mainly Sunni Muslims in the

government, and the Arab Gulf states should stop funding insurgents in

Iraq. You think, Iraq, it's potentially going to break up, so

this sounds a bit late in the day and a bit weak. It gets

fundamentally to the problem, what can we do? Niall Ferguson has a big

piece in the Sunday Times asking if this is place where we cannot doing

anything. He doesn't want to do anything. By the way, that is what

most Americans think. That is what opinion polls are showing. You have

George Osborne Michael Gold who would love to get involved but they

cannot because of the vote in parliament on Syria lasted -- George

Osborne and Michael Gove. This government does not have the stomach

for military intervention. We will see how events unfold on the ground.

All parties are agreed that Britain's 60-year old multi-billion

The Tory side of the Coalition think their reforms are necessary

and popular, though they haven't always gone to time or to plan.

In the eight months she's had since she became Shadow Secretary of State

for Work and Pensions, Rachel Reeves has talked the talk about getting

people off benefits, into work and lowering the overall welfare bill.

her first interview in the job she threatened "We would

But Labour has opposed just about every change the Coalition

has proposed to cut the cost and change the culture of welfare.

Child benefit, housing benefit, the ?26,000 benefit cap -

They've been lukewarm about the government's flagship Universal

Credit scheme - which rolls six benefit payments into one - and

And Labour has set out only two modest welfare cuts.

This week, Labour said young people must have skills or be in training

That will save ?65 million, says Labour, though the cost

And cutting winter fuel payments for richer pensioners which will

Not a lot in a total welfare bill of around ?200 billion.

And with welfare cuts popular among even Labour voters, they will soon

have to start spelling out exactly what Labour welfare reform means.

Welcome. Good morning. Why do you want to be tougher than the Tories?

We want to be tough in getting the welfare bill down. Under this

government, the bill will be ?1 million more than the government set

out in 2010 and I don't think that is acceptable. We should try to

control the cost of Social Security. But the welfare bill under the next

Labour government will fall? It will be smaller when you end the first

parliament than when you started? We signed up to the capping welfare but

that doesn't see social security costs ball, it sees them go up in

line with with inflation or average earnings -- costs fall. So where

flair will rise? We have signed up to the cap -- welfare will rise We

have signed up to the cap. We will get the costs under control and they

haven't managed to achieve it. The government is spending ?13 billion

more on Social Security and the reason they are doing it is because

the minimum wage has not kept pace with the cost of living so people

are reliant on tax credits. They are not building houses and people are

relying on housing benefit. We have a record number of people on zero

hours contracts. I'm still not clear if you will cut welfare if you get

in power. Nobody is saying that the cost of welfare is going to fall.

The welfare cap sees that happening gradually. That is a Tory cap. And

you've accepted it. You're being the same as the Tories, not to. If they

had a welfare cap, they would have breached it in every year of the

parliament. Social Security will be higher than the government set out

because they failed to control it. You read the polls, and the party

does lots of its own polling, and you're scared of being seen as the

welfare party. You don't really believe all of this anti-welfare

stuff? We are the party of work not welfare. The Labour Party was set up

in the first place because we believe in the dignity of work and

we believe that work should pay wages can afford to live on. I make

no apologies for being the party of work. We are not the welfare party,

we are the party of work. Even your confidential strategy document

admits that voters don't trust you on immigration, the economy, this is

your own people, and welfare. You are not trusted on it. The most

recent poll showed Labour slightly ahead of the Conservative Party on

Social Security, probably because they have seen the incompetence and

chaos at the Department for Work and Pensions under Iain Duncan Smith.

Your own internal document means that the voters don't trust you on

welfare reform. That is why we have shown some of this tough things we

will do like the announcement that Ed Miliband made earlier this week,

that young people without basic qualifications won't be entitled to

just sign on for benefits, they have to sign up for training in order to

receive support. That is the right thing to do by that group of young

people, because they need skills to progress. We will, once that. - we

will, onto that. You say you criticise the government that it had

a cap and wouldn't have met it, but every money-saving welfare reform,

you voted against it. How is that being tougher? The most recent bout

was the cap on overall welfare expenditure, and we went through the

lobbies and voted for the Tories. You voted against the benefit cap,

welfare rating, you voted against, child benefit schemes, you voted

against. You can't say we voted against everything when we voted

with the Conservatives in the most recent bill with a cap on Social

Security. It's just not correct to say. The last time we voted, we

walked through the lobby with them. You voted on the principle of the

cap. You voted on every step that would allow the cap to be met. Every

single one. The most recent vote was not on the principle of the cap it

was on a cap of Social Security in the next Parliament and we signed up

for that. It was Ed Miliband who called her that earlier on. Which

welfare reform did you vote for We voted for the cap. Other than that?

We have supported universal credit. You voted against it in the third

reading. We voted against some of the specifics. If you look at

universal credit, they have had to write off nearly ?900 million of

spending. I'm not on the rights and wrongs, I'm trying to work out what

you voted for. Some of the things we are going to go further than the

government with. For example, cutting benefits for young people

who don't sign of the training. The government had introduced that. For

example, saying that the richest pensioners should not get the winter

fuel allowance, that is something the government haven't signed up.

You would get that under Labour and this government haven't signed up

for it. ?100 million on the winter fuel allowance and ?65 million on

youth training. ?165 million. How big is the welfare budget? The cap

would apply to ?120 billion. And you've saved 125 -- 165 million

Those are cuts that we said we would do in government. If you look at the

real prize from the changes Ed Miliband announced

real prize from the changes Ed allowance, it's not the short-term

savings, it's the fact that each of allowance, it's not the short-term

currently on unemployment benefits without the skills we know they need

to succeed in life, they will cost the taxpayer ?2000 per year. I will

come onto that. You mentioned universal credit, which the

government regards as the flagship reform. It's had lots of troubles

with it and it merges six benefits into one. You voted against it in

the third reading and given lukewarm support in the past. We have not

said he would abandon it, but now you say you are for it. You are all

over the place. We set up the rescue committee in autumn of last year

because we have seen from the National Audit Office and the Public

Accounts Committee, report after report showing that the project is

massively overbudget and is not going to be delivered according to

the government timetable. We set up the committee because we believe in

the principle of universal credit and think it is the right thing to

do. Can you tell us now if you will keep it or not? Because there is no

transparency and we have no idea. We are awash with information. We are

not. The government, in the most recent National audit Forest --

National Audit Office statement said it was a reset project. This is

really important. This is a flagship government programme, and it's going

to cost ?12.8 billion to deliver, and we don't know what sort of state

it is in, so we have said that if we win at the next election, we will

pause that for three months and calling... Will you stop the pilots?

We don't know what status they will have. We would stop the build of the

system for three months, calling the National Audit Office to do awards

and all report. The government don't need to do this until the next

general election, they could do it today. Stop throwing good money

after bad and get a grip of this incredibly important programme. You

said you don't know enough to a view now. So when you were invited to a

job centre where universal credit is being rolled out to see how it was

working, you refused to go. Why We asked were a meeting with Iain

Duncan Smith and he cancelled the meeting is three times. I'm talking

about the visit when you were offered to go to a job centre and

you refused. We had an appointment to meet Iain Duncan Smith at the

Department for Work and Pensions and said he cancelled and was not

available, but he wanted us to go to the job centre. We wanted to talk to

him and his officials, which she did. Would it be more useful to go

to the job centre and find out how it was working. He's going to tell

you it's working fine. Advice Bureau in Hammersmith, they

are working to help the people trying to claim universal credit.

Iain Duncan Smith cancelled three meetings. That is another issue I

was asking about the job centre It is not another issue because Iain

Duncan Smith fogged us off. This week you said that jobless

youngsters who won't take training will lose their welfare payments.

How many young people are not in work training or education? There

are 140,000 young people claiming benefits at the moment, but 850 000

young people who are not in work at the moment. This applies to around

100,000 young people. There are actually 975,000, 16-24 -year-olds,

not in work, training or education. Your proposal only applies to

100,000 of them, why? This is applying to young people who are

signing on for benefits rather than signing up for training. We want to

make sure that all young people .. Why only 100,000? They are the ones

currently getting job-seeker's allowance. We are saying you can not

just sign up to... Can I get you to respond to this, the number of

people not in work, training or education fell last year by more

than you are planning to help. Long turn -- long-term unemployment is an

entrenched problem... This issue about an entrenched group of young

people. Young people who haven't got skills and are not in training we

know are much less likely to get a job so there are 140,018-24

-year-olds signing onto benefits at the moment. This is about trying to

address that problem to make sure all young people have the skills

they need to get a job. Your policy is to take away part of the dole

unless young unemployed people agree to study for level three

qualifications, the equivalent of an AS-level or an NVQ but 40% of these

people have the literary skills of a nine-year-old. After all that failed

education, how are you going to train them to a level standard? We

are saying that anyone who doesn't have that a level or equivalent

qualification will be required to go back to college. We are not saying

that within a year they have to get up to that level but these are

exactly the sorts of people... These people have been failed by your

education system. These people are, for the last four years, have been

educated under a Conservative government. 18 - 21-year-olds, most

of them have their education under a Labour government during which

300,000 people left with no GCSEs whatsoever. I don't understand how

training for one year can do what 11 years in school did not. We are not

saying that within one year everybody will get up to a level

three qualifications, but if you are one of those people who enters the

Labour market age 18 with the reading skills of a nine-year-old,

they are the sorts of people that should not the left languishing I

went to college in Hackney if you you are -- a few weeks ago and there

was a dyslexic boy studying painting and decorating. In school they

decided he was a troublemaker and that he didn't want to learn. He

went back to college because he wanted to get the skills. He said

that it wasn't until he went back to college that he could pick up a

newspaper and read it, it made a huge difference but too many people

are let down by the system. I am wondering how the training will make

up for an education system that failed them but let's move on to

your leader. Look at this graph of Ed Miliband's popularity. This is

the net satisfaction with him, it is dreadful. The trend continues to

climb since he became leader of the Labour Party, why? What you have

seen is another 2300 Labour councillors since Ed Miliband became

the leader of the Labour Party. You saw in the elections a month ago

that... Why is the satisfaction rate falling? We can look at polls or

actual election results and the fact that we have got another 2000 Labour

councillors, more people voting Labour, the opinion polls today show

that if there was a general election today we would have a majority of

more than 40, he must be doing something right. Why do almost 0%

of voters want to replace him as leader? Why do 50% and more think

that he is not up to the job? The more people see Ed Miliband, the

less impressed they are. The British people seem to like him less. The

election strategy I suggest that follows from that is that you should

keep Ed Miliband under wraps until the election. Let's look at actually

what happens when people get a chance to vote, when they get that

opportunity we have seen more Labour councillors, more Labour members of

the European Parliament... Oppositions always get more. The

opinion polls today, one of them shows Labour four points ahead. You

have not done that well in local government elections or European

elections. Why don't people like him? I think we have done incredibly

well in elections. People must like a lot of the things Labour and Ed

Miliband are doing because we are winning back support across the

country. We won local councils in places like Hammersmith and Fulham,

Crawley, Hastings, key places that Labour need to win back at the

general election next year. Even you have said traditional Labour

supporters are abandoning the party. That is what Ed Miliband has said as

well. We have got this real concern about what has happened. If you look

at the elections in May, 60% of people didn't even bother going to

vote. That is a profound issue not just for Labour. You said

traditional voters who perhaps at times we took for granted are now

being offered an alternative. Why did you take them for granted? This

is what Ed Miliband said. I am not saying anything Ed Miliband himself

has not said. When he ran for the leadership he said that we took too

many people for granted and we needed to give people positive

reasons to vote Labour, he has been doing that. He has been there for

four years and you are saying you still take them for granted. Why? I

am saying that for too long we have taken them for granted. We are on

track to win the general election next year and that will defy all the

odds. You are going to win... Ed Miliband will win next year and make

a great Prime Minister. Now to the Liberal Democrats, at the

risk of intruding into private grief. The party is still smarting

from dire results in the European and Local Elections. The only poll

Nick Clegg has won in recent times is to be voted the most unpopular

leader of a party in modern British history. No surprise there have been

calls for him to go, though that still looks unlikely. Here's

Eleanor. Liberal Democrats celebrating,

something we haven't seen for a while. This victory back in 199 led

to a decade of power for the Lib Dems in Liverpool. What a contrast

to the city's political landscape today. At its height the party had

69 local councillors, now down to just three. The scale of the

challenge facing Nick Clegg and the Lib Dems is growing. The party is

rock bottom in the polls, consistently in single figures. It

was wiped out in the European elections losing all but one of its

12 MEPs and in the local elections it lost 42% of the seats that it was

defending. But on Merseyside, Nick Clegg was putting on a brave face.

We did badly in Liverpool, Manchester and London in particular,

we did well in other places. But you are right, we did badly in some of

those big cities and I have initiated a review, quite

naturally, to understand what went wrong, what went right. As Lib Dems

across the country get on with some serious soul-searching, there is an

admission that his is the leader of the party who is failing to hit the

right notes. Knocking on doors in Liverpool, I have to tell you that

Nick Clegg is not a popular person. Some might use the word toxic and I

find this very difficult because I know Nick very well and I see a

principal person who passionately believes in what he is doing and he

is a nice guy. As a result of his popularity, what has happened to the

core vote? In parts of the country, we are down to just three

councillors like Liverpool for example. You also lose the

deliverers and fundraisers and the organisers and the members of course

so all of that will have to be rebuilt. As they start fermenting

process, local parties across the country and here in Liverpool have

been voting on whether there should be a leadership contest. We had two

choices to flush out and have a go at Nick Clegg or to positively

decide we would sharpen up the campaign and get back on the

streets, and by four to one ratio we decided to get back on the streets.

We are bruised and battered but we are still here, the orange flag is

still flying and one day it will fly over this building again, Liverpool

town hall. But do people want the Lib Dems back in charge in this

city? I certainly wouldn't vote for them. Their performance in

Government and the way they have left their promises down, I could

not vote for them again. I voted Lib Dem in the last election because of

the university tuition fees and I would never vote for them again

because they broke their promise. The Lib Dems are awful, broken

promises and what have you. I wouldn't vote for them. This is the

declaration of the results for the Northwest... Last month, as other

party celebrated in the north-west, the Lib Dems here lost their only

MEP, Chris Davies. Now there is concern the party doesn't know how

to turn its fortunes around. We don't have an answer to that, if we

did we would be grasping it with both hands. We will do our best to

hold onto the places where we still have seats but as for the rest of

the country where we have been hollowed out, we don't know how to

start again until the next general election is out of the way. After

their disastrous performance in the European elections, pressure is

growing for the party to shift its stance. I think there has to be a

lancing of the wound, there should in a referendum and the Liberal

Democrats should be calling it. The rest of Europe once this because

they are fed up with Britain being unable to make up its mind. The Lib

Dems are now suffering the effects of being in Government. The party's

problem, choosing the right course to regain political credibility

We can now speak to form a Lib Dems leader Ming Campbell. Welcome back

to the Sunday Politics. Even your own activists say that Nick Clegg is

toxic. How will that change between now and the election? When you have

had disappointing results, but you have to do is to rebuild. You pick

yourself up and start all over again, and the reason why the

Liberal Democrats got 57, 56 seats in the House of Commons now is

because we picked ourselves up, we took every opportunity and we have

rebuilt from the bottom up. least popular leader in modern

history and more unpopular than your mate Gordon Brown. You are running

out of time. No one believes that being the leader of a modern

political party in the UK is an easy job. Both Ed Miliband and David

Cameron must have had cause to think, over breakfast this morning,

when they saw the headlines in some of the Sunday papers. Of course it

is a difficult job but it was pointed out a moment or two ago that

Nick Clegg is a man of principle and enormous resilience if you consider

what he had to put up with, and in my view, he is quite clearly the

person best qualified to lead the party between now and the general

election and through the election campaign, and beyond. So why don't

people like him? We have had to take some pretty difficult decisions

and, of course, people didn't expect that. If you look back to the rather

heady days of the rose garden behind ten Downing St, people thought it

was all going to be sweetness and light, but the fact is, we didn t

know then what we know now, about the extent of the economic crisis we

win, and a lot of difficult decisions have had to be taken in

order to restore economic stability. Look around you. You will see we are

not there yet but we are a long way better off than in 2010. You are not

getting the credit for it, the Tories are. We will be a little more

assertive about taking the credit. For example, the fact that 23

million people have had a tax cut of ?800 per year and we have taken 2

million people out of paying tax altogether. Ming Campbell, your

people say that on every programme like this. Because it is true. That

might be the case, but you are at seven or 8% in the polls, and nobody

is listening, or they don't believe it. Once

is listening, or they don't believe doubt that what we have achieved

will be much more easily recognised, and there is no doubt,

for example, in some of the recent polls, like the Ashcroft Pole,

something like 30% of those polled said that as a result at the next

something like 30% of those polled general election, they would prepare

their to be a coalition involving the Liberal Democrats. So there is

no question that the whole notion of coalition is still very much a live

one, and one which we have made work in the public interest. The problem

is people don't think that. People see you trying to have your cake and

eat it. On the one hand you want to get your share of the credit for the

turnaround in the economy, on the other hand you can't stop yourself

from distancing yourself from the Tories and things that you did not

like happening. You are trying to face both ways at once. If you

remember our fellow Scotsman famously said you cannot ride both

remember our fellow Scotsman to the terms -- terms of the

remember our fellow Scotsman coalition agreement, which is what

we signed up to in 2010. In addition, in furtherance of that

agreement, we have created things like the pupil premium and the

others I mentioned and you were rather dismissive. I'm not

dismissive, I'm just saying they don't make a difference to what

people think of you. We will do everything in our power to change

that between now and May 2015. The interesting thing is, going back to

the Ashcroft result, it demonstrated clearly that in constituencies where

we have MPs and we are well dug in, we are doing everything that the

public expects of us, and we are doing very well indeed. You aren't

sure fellow Lib Dems have been saying this for you -- you and your

fellow Liberal Dems have been saying this for a year or 18 months, and

since then you have lost all of your MEPs apart from one, you lost your

deposit in a by-election, you lost 310 councillor, including everyone

in Manchester or Islington. Mr Clegg leading you into the next general

election will be the equivalent of the charge of the light Brigade I

doubt that very much. The implication behind that lit you

rehearsed is that we should pack our tents in the night and steal away.

-- that litany. And if you heard in that piece that preceded the

discussion, people were saying, look we have to start from the bottom and

have to rebuild. That is exactly what we will do. Nine months is a

period of gestation. As you well know. I wouldn't dismiss it quite so

easily as that. I'm not here to say we had a wonderful result or

anything like it, but what I do say is that the party is determined to

turn it round, and that Nick Clegg is the person best qualified to do

it. Should your party adopt a referendum about in or out on

Europe? No, we should stick to the coalition agreement. If there is any

transfer of power from Westminster to Brussels, that will be subject to

a referendum. No change. And finally, as a Lib Dem, you must be

glad you are not fighting the next election yourself? I've fought every

election since 1974, so I've had a few experiences, some good, some

bad, but the one thing I have done and the one thing a lot of other

people have done is that they have stuck to the task, and that is what

will happen in May 2015. Ming Campbell, thank you for joining us.

It's just gone 11.35am, you're watching the Sunday Politics.

We say goodbye to viewers in Scotland who leave us now

I'm Julia George and this is the Sunday Politics in the South East.

Why is it that white working class children are less likely to achieve

than their counterparts from other ethnic backgrounds?

We'll be hearing the views of a Kent head teacher.

My guest today our politici`ns from seaside areas, Amber Rudd and Clair

Hawkins. Thank you for coming. Before we go on to talk abott

our schools and our shores, the big news this weekend is the surprise

announcement by Jason Kitcat, Green Leader of Brighton and Hove

City Council that he will stand down In his statement announcing the

decision, he says that he's ready for a new challenge and won't be

pursuing active politics anx longer. It is interesting, he talks about

his family twice in the statement. When is the right time to go into

politics if you have a young family?

The right time is when it is right for you, but it is important that

people take their families hnto consideration. It takes over your

whole life, so I respect hil for making that decision in conjunction

with the family, because thdy are in politics if you are in politics

Might you have done it earlher, going into politics, if you did not

have children? Yes, I made the decision, pdrsonally

for me, that my children wotld be older when I went into politics so

they do not miss me. It's is more unusual thing for a man

to be talking about this? Yes, I think it is a positive then.

It is important that people change the way that politics work.

Is it a job for life? You are just starting in the job, but he is

looking for a new career? It is entirely down for the

electorate. How about you? Will you be here in

2015? I will not take a dim view now.

Anything that you stay at 22 `` reduced to 22, you stay unthl 2 ,

there are many jobs that work that way.

The sunshine is out, the holiday season is soon to begin and more

people than ever are now choosing to spend their summer break here in the

UK. But could some of our bdst`loved beaches soon be out of bounds for

swimmers? Hastings is one of the poorest performing beaches hn the

South East in terms of water quality, which could mean no bathing

there when new EU standards come into effect next year. Sara Neville

went there to take a look at what's being done.

Holiday`makers have been coling to the seaside town of Hastings the

generations. And it is no dhfferent today, without the 3 million

day`trippers flopping to thd town every year. `` flocking to the town.

But new EU laws could blight one of the town's biggest attractions, the

sea. Changes in the way that bathing water quality is measured could

strike Hastings off the list of recommended places to swim, a move

that could be a blow for thd seaside tourist trade, with ?245 million a

year to the town's economy. If the impression is given that the

beaches not plain commie might go somewhere else, and for a town that

wants visitors to come here, that could be damaging. The sea here is

clearer than it was 15 years ago and certainly when I grew up here. But

the EU standard is what it hs and we will do everything that we can to

hit it. This pipe is one of the problems,

flushing surface water, potdntially contaminated with bacteria, out onto

the beach. Although the sea is clean by current Environment Agency

standards, these new EU watdr quality targets coming into force

next year are twice as stringent as those our bathing areas currently

have to meet. Most than 96 beaches in the south`east are already

reaching the European benchlark Some are not. As well as Hastings,

Walpole Bay in Margate must improve. And there have been concerns over

Bexhill and little stone be`ch near Romilly.

In a hot day in summer, this speech will be packed. But, from October

2015, the new EU law means that local authorities will have to

display a sign advising agahnst swimming if the water quality fails

to meet minimum standards. Authorities are working hard to

ensure that that does not h`ppen. Nationally, water companies are

investing ?220 million cleaning up Britain's bathing water in the five

years to 2015. In Hastings, ?3 million has been spent by a water

company this year we loan, with another `` alone, with ?7 mhllion

being spent next year. We have spent millions of pounds

improving bathing water quality and if you go back 20 years, less than

50% would pass the standard. All the money that we are spending should

mean that we see results, btt we cannot guarantee it.

What needs to be done? What we flush away ends up down here. These

Victorian sewers in Brighton are similar to those in Hastings, where

about what not put down the drain or about what not put down the drain or

flushed down the toilet. Waist down the toilet will get

treated, but contaminated rtn`off from roads and payment `` p`vements,

oils and flat `` fats or dirty water from badly connected types will flow

into the sea. People are shocked to hear of the

implications to Hastings. They are shocked to hear that not all water

that is thrown away down thd drain go off to be treated and sole of

them will end up almost dirdctly into the sea. It is that kind of

knowledge that we want to btild With just over a year to go, nobody

is certain that the sea in Hastings will be clean enough to meet these

EU standards. Despite knowing that the change has been coming for eight

years. Work is under way to address the issues, but we'll all the effort

paid off? So many others take our children to

the beach in Hastings. I don't can get you could overstate the damage

to the tourist industry in the town of the water standards are not met?

That is why we are working so hard to make sure that this does not

happen. I called the first multi`agency meeting last ydar, with

water companies and representatives, and we meet every month to discuss

this and to make shall that this does not happen. We work with the

hardware, so we make sure that the missing connections are met. And

we're working on education, to make sure that people understand what

they can do. It is not just rest room `` residents, but rest`urants.

We need to make sure that everyone works together.

This has been coming since 2006 There is still a serious qudstion

about whether Hastings will meet the standards, as well as Walpole Bay.

They are on a list of at risk places. The water companies say that

they are doing a lot but thdy cannot guarantee the results.

We are holding them to accotnt. We are doing everything that wd can. I

am concerned, because I know how important it is for the town to make

sure that we pass it. But I am confident that we will do it,

because the whole town is working with this. Whole town trying to make

sure that this will work and that people change their behaviotr, which

is important. You are hoping to represent a

seaside town as well, Dover does not have these water quality problems.

But are the standards to high for towns like Hastings to meet?

I think that these standards are important, because they prove that

we have good, clean beaches. I think it is good to encourage loc`l

residents and tourists to use the beaches.

In terms of June indicating the information, that is import`nt.

People want is `` people want to know that the beach is clean and

safe. Some people have said that they should be told about the water

quality on a daily basis. A four`month average evens ht out, a

four`year average. That can show how things can change and what beaches

due to be focused on. And rdsearch into public change has helpdd. I

think there has been a long lead up time to this and not enough has been

done. But in the government needs to set out what needs to be done to get

to the standards and force water companies and other organis`tions to

take action. The four`year average is an issue to

you in Hastings. You have written and said that you have made so many

improvements, but they will not give a different criteria to you?

There is a thing called a step change, and the Environment Agency

are seeing that `` seen whether that applies for us or not. We h`ve made

pipes, that we think there has been pipes, that we think there has been

an offer of a change to havd our data looked at differently?

Will they look at that data differently? They can if th`t ``

they will if we prove it. They are open to being perstaded.

There is an interesting casd in Kent and Walpole Bay. The District

Council realise that they would not meet the water quality standards,

they decided to have the bathing standard removed altogether. It

looks like that is not a loophole with pursuing. Is an interesting

question about the representation. If there are certain beaches not

meeting the standards, people in the area will fear that all the beaches

are at risk. No, because if there is a phpe

polluting one beach, there `re other beaches that the people might go to

instead. But they have set this high level and we want to meet it. All

the coastal towns want to mdet it. We want our water as clean `s

possible. In Dover, we only have two

designated bathing areas, btt many beautiful beaches. David is a

working port, a harbour, but there they are saying that the salples are

taken by the Robert agency to check the qualities of the water. `` the

Environment Agency. A quick thought about educating

people. Do you think that the people in Hastings understand what they

should flush down the toilet? I think they are understandhng it

now. A local newspaper is covering it. The council have been pointing

to certain bins where peopld can and cannot throw away certain things. So

it is campaigning in behalf of the community and it is reaching people.

Now, students from white working class backgrounds are less likely to

do well in school than black and Asian pupils with equal

disadvantages, according to a report by the Education Select Comlittee.

It's a problem that the comlittee says is "real and persistent" and

There aren't any excuses and we can make a huge difference, a formative

difference to poor children if we improve the quality of schools,

if we increase the incentivds to deploy the best teachers to provide

education to the children who come from

Joining us here in the studho now is a head teacher who works at

Seamus Murphy is head teachdr of Dartford Technology College in Kent.

You have spent much of your career in London, as well, working with

disadvantaged children. Why do you think that children from whhte

working class backgrounds are struggling?

I think it is a complex isste. There are some issues, such as thd

enormous change in the workplace. Young people leaving school today

facing greater challenges than my generation and many of the

challenges that their parents faced. There is a phrase of povertx of

aspiration, where parents who may not have had a positive expdrience

of education themselves cedd their own success based on having left

school with Sun qualifications and being successful, and they `re

unable to translate that understanding to the present. ``

having left school with somd qualifications. They do not

understand how to say that their children need to have a widdr range

of qualifications to be employed, possibly going to further education

and training. That it is colplex, because it is not as simple as

saying that there is a link dream poverty and low aspiration.

Because other ethnic groups who may be equally disadvantaged ard not

doing as badly in school. How do you explain that.

I think there have been somd interesting outreaches in London and

research done, that looked `nd saw that large quantities of thd black

children were not achieving as well, and that many were on free school

meals. And those outreaches worked well.

So do we need something for white working`class children here in Kent

and Sussex? I think there has been a grdat

change and Sir Michael has been leading the charge here. I think

there has been a lot of verx positive work being done in schools

and also by the government. I think the pupil premium is a good example

of how funding is being dirdctly attached to students from these

backgrounds. As a headline, it looks gre`t. But

for each of the past years, the country's August disparity hs

between those on free school meals and those who are not. The

difference is that a 3%. Is that evidence of the pupil premitm not

working in the south`east? `` 3 %. You have got a very dynamic teaching

force in London. An approach to leadership. That is extending,

things like teach first comhng into the South East. There is a change in

the headteachers in the South East. I think that schools are

understanding the issue. But they are going to be two or thred years

behind the curve in terms of what has taken place in London. @nd the

London Challenge started in a small number of schools in 2000, `nd it

took a long time to make thd change. For me, and some of the isstes about

the change in the south`east, there are low expectations from some

teachers and headteachers in the past. My own school within special

measures when I took it over in 2011. There were two factors that

contributed the `` contributed to that judgement. There was a low

achievement of students on free school meals and the low achievement

of white British pupils. And it had not been a factor in how thd school

had previously been run. I am sure you are very interested to

hear what he has to say. Yot trained as a teacher, and you are involved

in the academies. What you think about Hastings? There have been

improvements in achievement. What do the schools need to do?

The report that has come out is in response to the report about unseen

children, and the Hastings schools were considered in that. I discuss

with offset that we have made significant improvement. But there

is a lot more to do. `` with Ofsted. There are some great new le`ders in

Hastings, and we have attracted some new teachers. When teachers

graduate, they need to feel that they are going somewhere whdre they

can make a difference and that it is an exciting place to live and work.

We have attracted Teach First, and that gives a very positive

improvement. I know one of the teachers hn a

school that you are involved with, and she says that one of thd issues

is the primary schools, that the children who come into the secondary

schools already have some problems. I would agree and go even ftrther.

The gap starts before primary schools, which is why I am pleased

that the pupil premium is h`s also been expanded to two`year`old

children. But there are also progress being made with thd

academies as well. You trained as a teacher, there is

an issue with trying to get teachers to stay where we need them.

Yes, we need the best teachdrs to come to where the best teaching is

needed. But also talking about the early years, I think it is ` great

shame that this government hs cutting things like children's

centres which make a big difference to families and two children, to

stop that gap before childrdn get to school. Also cutting connections and

careers advice, but is often children cannot sleep the world

outside their own experiencd. If I may go back to the ide` of

parents, can teachers cut through if the parents are completely

disengaged with education? I think they can. In a time of

posterity, there have been ` number of services around challenghng

families who may not being cagey with the school, and that h`s had an

impact in making our job harder `` engaging with the school. When I

stand at the school gates and say hello to the children, all of the

parents hope that their children will do well that day. Even the

parents whose experience of school was negative, every day thex hope

that it will go well for thdir children. They do not always go

well, and that is when we nded a number of strategies to help the

parents in terms of managing expectations. An obvious ex`mple is

homework. We know that some children who are disadvantaged do not have

space or Internet access or all the things that would make homework

straightforward. We will have to leave it thdre.

And now for a round`up of the other political events that

you might have missed this week with James Fitzgerald.

A second Gatwick runway would be a disaster, say five Tory MPs who

Declining to join the alliance is Henry Smith, whose

Some locals are optimistic about possible expansion.

If the runway would provide more jobs for people, then I don't mind.

P say that navigating a new antipollution law will mean

The company expects the fuel bill will increase

A review has found out that ,despite the warnings, the anti`fracking

protests caught the Sussex Police off guard, with occasions where half

I accept the report, I welcome the recommendations.

And Tourism Minister Helen Grant incensed holiday`makers with delayed

passport applications by suggesting that they could enjoy

She has been in Brazil for the World Cup.

information, you can apply to them and they will be obliged to tell

you. Thanks for joining us. Andrew, back to you.

think you'd want to. Labour grandees are not queueing up to sing his

praises. Look at this. In my view, he is the leader we have and he is

the leader I support and he is somebody capable of leading the

party to victory. Ed Miliband will leave this to victory, and I believe

he can. If he doesn't, what would happen to the Labour Party? We could

be in the wilderness for 15 years. At the moment he has to convince

people he has the capacity to lead the country. That's not my view but

people don't believe that. We had a leader of the Labour Party was

publicly embarrassed, because whoever was in charge of press

letting go through a process where we have councillors in Merseyside

resigning. It was a schoolboy error. Having policies without them being

drawn together into a convincing and vivid narrative and with what you do

the people in the country. You have to draw together, connect the

policies, link them back to the leader and give people a real sense

of where you are going. Somehow he has never quite managed to be

himself and create that identity with the public. And we are joined

by the president of you girls, Peter Kellner. Welcome to the Sunday

politics. -- YouGov. The Labour Party is six points ahead in your

poll this morning. So what is the problem? On this basis he will win

the next election. If the election were today and the figures held up,

you would have a Labour government with a narrow overall majority. One

should not forget that. Let me make three points. The first is, in past

parliaments, opposition normally lose ground and governments gain

ground in the final few months. The opposition should be further ahead

than this. I don't think six is enough. Secondly, Ed Miliband is

behind David Cameron when people are asked who they want as Prime

Minister and Labour is behind the Conservatives went people are asked

who they trust on the economy. There have been elections when the party

has won by being behind on leadership and other elections where

they have won by being behind on the economy. No party has ever won an

election when it has been clearly behind on both leadership and the

economy. Let me have another go The Labour Party brand is a strong

brand. The Tory Bramleys week. The Labour brand is stronger. That is a

blast -- the Labour -- the Tory Bramleys week. A lot of the Tories

-- the Tory brand is weak. Cant you win on policies and a strong party

brand? If you have those too, you need the third factor which isn t

there. People believing that you have what it takes, competent

skills, determination, determination, whatever makes to

carry through. -- whatever mix. A lot of Ed Miliband policies, on the

banks, energy prices, Brent controls, people like them. But in

government, would they carry them through? They think they are not up

to it. -- rent controls. If people think you won't deliver what you

say, even if they like it, they were necessarily vote for you. That is

the missing third element. There is a strong Labour brand, but it's not

strong enough to overcome the feeling that the Labour leadership

is not up to it. Nick, you had some senior Labour figure telling you

that if Mr Miliband losing the next election he will have to resign

immediately and cannot fight another election the way Neil Kinnock did

after 1987. What was remarkable to me was that people were even

thinking along these lines, and even more remarkable that they would tell

you they were thinking along these lines? What is the problem? The

problem is, is that Ed Miliband says it would be unprecedented to win the

general election after the second worst result since 1918. They are

concerned about is the start of a script that he would say on the day

after losing the general election. Essentially what the people are

trying to do is get their argument in first and to say, you cannot do

what Neil Kinnock did in 1987. Don't forget that Neil Kinnock in 198 was

in the middle of a very brave process of modernisation and had one

and fought a very campaign that was professional but he lost again in

1992, and they wanted to get their line in first. What some people are

saying is that this is an election that the Labour Party should be

winning because the coalition is so unpopular. If you don't win, I'm

afraid to say, there is something wrong with you. Don't you find it

remarkable that people are prepared to think along these lines at this

stage, when Labour are ahead in the polls, still the bookies favourite

to win, and you start to speak publicly, or in private to the

public print, but we might have to get rid of him if he doesn't win.

Everything you say about labour in this situation has been said about

the Tories. We wondered whether Boris Johnson would tie himself to

the mask and he is the next leader in waiting if Cameron goes. It's a

mirror image of that. We talk about things being unprecedented. It's

unprecedented for a government to gain seats. All the things you say

about labour, you could say it the Conservatives. That's what makes the

next election so interesting. But in the aftermath of the European

elections and the local government elections, in which the

Conservatives did not do that well, the issue was not Mr Cameron or the

Tories doing well, the issue was the Labour Party and how they had not

done as well as they should have done, and that conversation was

fuelled by the kind of people who have been speaking to nick from the

Labour Party. Rachel Reeves cited their real-life performance in

elections as a reason for optimism. When in fact their performance in

the Europeans and locals was disappointing for an opposition one

year away from a general election. What alarms me about labour is the

way they react to criticisms about Ed Miliband. Two years ago when he

was attacked, they said they were 15 points ahead, and then a year ago

there were saying they were nine or ten ahead, and now they are saying

we are still five or six ahead. The trend is alarming. It points to a

smaller Labour lead. Am I right in detecting a bit of a class war going

on in the Labour Party? There are a lot of northern Labour MPs who think

that Ed Miliband is to north London, and there are too many metropolitan

cronies around him must I think that is right, Andrew. What I think is,

being a pessimist in terms of their prospects, I do think the Labour

Party could win the next election. I just don't think they can as they

are going at the moment. But the positioning for a possible defeat,

what they should be talking about is what do we need to change in the

party and the way Ed Miliband performs in order to secure victory.

That is a debate they could have, and they could make the changes I

find it odd that they are being so defeatist. Don't go away. Peter is a

boffin when it comes to polls. That is why we have a mod for the

election prediction swings and roundabouts. He is looking for what

he calls the incumbency effect. Don't know what is a back-up -- what

that's about question don't worry, here is an. Being in office is bad

for your health. Political folk wisdom has it that incumbency

favours one party in particular the Liberal Democrats. That is because

their MPs have a reputation as ferociously good local campaigners

who do really well at holding on to their seats. However, this time

round, several big-name long serving Liberal Democrats like Ming

Campbell, David Heath and Don Foster are standing down. Does that mean

the incumbency effect disappears like a puff of smoke? Then there is

another theory, called the sophomore surge. It might sound like a movie

about US college kids, but it goes like this. New MPs tend to do better

in their second election than they did in their first. That could

favour the Tories because they have lots of first-time MPs. The big

question is, what does this mean for the 7th of May 2015, the date of the

next general election? The answer is, who knows? I know a man who

knows. Peter. What does it all mean? You can go onto your PC now and draw

down programmes which say that these are the voting figures from a

national poll, so what will the seats look like? This is based on

uniform swing. Every seat moving up and down across the country in the

same way. Historically, that's been a pretty good guide. I think that's

going to completely break down next year, because the Lib Dems will

probably hold on to more seats than we predict from the national figures

and I think fewer Tory seats will go to the Labour Party than you would

predict from the national figures. The precise numbers, I'm not going

to be too precise, but I would be surprised, sorry, I would not be

surprised if Labour fell 20 or 5 seats short on what we would expect

on the uniform swing prediction Next year's election will be tight.

Falling 20 seats short could well mean the difference between victory

and defeat. What you make of that, Helen? I think you're right,

especially taking into account the UKIP effect. We have no idea about

that. The conventional wisdom is that will drain away back to the

Conservatives, but nobody knows and it makes the next election almost

impossible to call. It means it is a great target the people like Lord

Ashcroft with marginal polling, because people have never been so

interested. It is for party politics and we all assume that UKIP should

be well next year, but their vote went up from 17 up to 27%. Then that

17% went down to 3%, so they might only be five or 6% in the general

election, so they might not have the threat of depriving Conservatives of

their seats. Where the incumbency thing has an effect is the Liberal

Democrats. They have fortress seats where between 1992 and 1997 Liberal

Democrats seats fell, but their percentage went up. They are losing

the local government base though. True, but having people like Ming

Campbell standing down means they will struggle. We are used to

incumbency being an important factor in American politics. It's hard to

get rid of an incumbent unless it is a primary election, like we saw in

Virginia, but is it now becoming an important factor in British

politics, that if you own the seat you're more likely to hold on to it

than not? If it is, that's a remarkable thing. It's hard to be a

carpetbagger in America, but it is normal in British Parliamentary

constituencies to be represented by someone who did not grow up locally.

It is a special kind of achievement to have an incumbency effect where

you don't have deep roots in the constituency. I was going to ask

about the Lib Dems. If we are wrong, and they collapse in Parliamentary

representation as much as the share in vote collapses, is that not good

news is that the Conservatives? They would be in second place in the

majority of existing Lib Dems seats. For every seat where Labour are

second to the Lib Dems, there are two where the Conservatives are

second. If the Lib Dem representation collapses, that helps

the Conservatives. I'm assuming the Tories will gain about ten seats. If

they gain 20, if they'd had 20 more seats last time, they would have had

a majority government, just about. So 20 seats off the Lib Dem, do the

maths, as they say in America, and they could lose a handful to labour

and still be able to run a one party, minority government. The fate

of the Lib Dems could be crucial to the outcome to the politics of

light. On the 8th of May, it will be VE Day and victory in election day

as well as Europe. The Lib Dems will be apoplectic if they lose all of

the seats to their coalition partners. The great quote by Angela

Merkel, the little party always gets crushed. It's a well-established

idea that coalition politics. They can't take credit for the things

people like you may get lumbered with the ones they don't. They have

contributed most of this terrible idea that seized politics where you

say it, but you don't deliver it. Tuition fees is the classic example

of this Parliament. Why should you believe any promise you make? And Ed

Miliband is feeling that as well. But in 1974 the liberal Democrats

barely had any MPs but there were reporters outside Jeremy Thorpe s

home because they potentially held not the balance of power, but were

significantly in fourth. Bringing back memories Jeremy Thorpe, and we

will leave it there. Thanks to the panel. We are tomorrow on BBC Two.

At the earlier time of 11am because of Wimbledon. Yes, it's that time of

year again already. I will be back here at 11 o'clock next week.

Remember, if it is Sunday, it is the Sunday Politics.