05/05/2013 Sunday Politics Wales

good council election result for Plaid Cymru and the independents but

what about the UK Independence Party? Was the island of Anglesey a

Apology for the loss of subtitles for 2236 seconds

the UK Independence Party picked up seats but failed to do so here. What

can be done to strengthen Welsh journalism? I have been speaking to

Professor Ian Hargreaves. Joining me throughout the programme are the

UKIP MEP John Bufton and the Conservative MP Jonathan Evans. We

will begin with the news overnight about the Deputy Speaker of the

House of Commons, Nigel Evans, who has been arrested on suspicion of

rape. We have had a statement from him

this morning. What is your reaction to this news? I am shocked. Nigel is

a friend of mine. We have to make it clear that there are no charges and

Nigel is challenging these allegations. Everybody in

Westminster has expressed their shock. Nigel Evans is a hugely

popular figure, very gregarious and friends with everyone. He is warmly

regarded by all political parties. People on the Labour side will be

equally shocked and wanting to be equally supportive of him until the

full facts are known. He has said that he is not going to be stepping

down from the post of Deputy Speaker. Is that the rate decision?

I think so. You are innocent until proven guilty so he has every right

to stay on. We will be back with you shortly. The other big story is

UKIP's performance in England. There was bad performances from the

Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats and only a modest showing

from Labour. Plaid Cymru had the biggest return of any party in

Wales. UKIP failed to win a seat but had a higher proportion of the vote

than the Conservatives. The UK the Independence party basked

in the games. Anglesey, out of electoral sync with

the other counties, humiliated two years ago when commissioners were

sent in to run it. Now 30 councillors, ten fewer than before,

were elected to new multimember wards. A chance to break with the

past. The independents took 14 seats and Plaid Cymru 12. No one had

overall control. Do you see yourself as part of a new group coming in to

change things? Yes, there needs to be fair play for everyone and

honesty. Whilst UKIP did well, unlike in England they did not

capture seats there. This is a springboard for us and we will move

forward. We are not an English, -- and English -only party. It was a

disappointing election for the other main parties. No Conservatives at

all and they finished behind UKIP. There is a sort of scattergun

approach to voting going on in Britain. I remember when it used to

be a 2-party system. Now we see these elections in England with UKIP

doing remarkably well. We are really moving into an era of multi-party

politics. That is very difficult to do in first past the post. The whole

point about system is that it is to stop the Balkanisation of politics.

In England, all the main parties haemorrhaged support the UKIP. The

Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats suffered heavy losses and

labour's progress was at best modest. Even though UKIP didn't win

a seat in Anglesey, they feel they have made progress.

We will deal with the wider performance of your party in a

moment but let us deal with Anglesey. Anglesey is a difference

situation altogether really. Are you disappointed you didn't manage to

get a seat? We would have loved to have got a couple of seats but we

worked very hard and we got 4500 votes so we did very well. It is a

stepping stone. The difference between Anglesey and the rest of

Wales, if we had elections in the rest of Wales I believe we would

have done very well. UKIP polled more boats than your party. What do

you think about that? It is very difficult to extrapolate anything

from this result. Do but still expects to beat UKIP, would you not?

The big thing about the national performance of UKIP is that they got

over 20% so you would expect to see some impact in Anglesey. I

anticipate that very many voters in Anglesey would have voted for the

independents because there has been a long-standing tradition of that.

We still do not know who is going to be running the county. The main

lesson is that the election was held one year later because of

unsatisfactory circumstances concerning the old council. I was

pleased to see Nicola Roberts recognising the concerns of all the

parties. We have to ensure that the shortcomings of the past are matters

of the past. I very much hope that there is a better story to be told

about the Anglesey council in the future. Let us wait in and out then.

John Bufton, it has been widely held that last Thursday was a good day

for your party but are you a national force? It was tremendous.

Why are people voting for you? People are fed up with the main

parties and they do not trust them any more. I think that David Cameron

has missed in opportunity -- missed an opportunity. People have been

very concerned and there is a lack of trust. You are going to have 29

million Gideons and dominion allowed to come to the UK. -- Bulgarians and

Romanians. We have asked the Conservatives for a number but they

haven't given us a number. They probably don't know. They should

come up with an estimate. People are concerned about this and there is

nothing we can do about that until we leave the EU. That is the

campaigning slogan that we had during the election. These elections

were only held in areas that traditionally tends to be more

conservative and turnout was very low. We are talking about fractions

of votes for UKIP. It is all the difference in the world to replicate

that in the general election. The Conservative party got almost ten

times as many seats on the same day so we should not get things out of

proportion. The reality is that UKIP has appealed to a number of voters.

They are people who want the Conservative party to move more to

the right to respond to this sort of thing we have just heard from John.

We fought an election in 2005 West that immigration agenda. We fought a

Euro-sceptic election in 2001 and lost both heavily. Of course it is a

challenge for Conservatives to try to keep those people who would like

us to be more right wing on-board, particularly mid-term. He is coming

under pressure to make the shift to the right and bring forward any date

for the referendum. What would you advise? I make no secret that I have

always been pro-Europe. The worst thing we could do is luxury to the

right. We have to maintain what we are doing. -- lurch to the right.

The election is going to be one on the core economic question and I

believe we should stick to that course so I appreciate what William

Hague has said. Shifting to the right is a short-term and wrong

analysis. It is not just a case of shifting to the right. The

referendum David Cameron is offering is after the next general election

so it is jam for tomorrow. The people are saying, we don't believe

you. There is plenty of time to offer the referendum to the people

but David Cameron has fudged it and used the coalition as a poor excuse

for not doing it. What this highlights is that you are still a

one issue party. We cover lots of other issues as well. But you

haven't spoken about any of them. Get me a chance and I will. We have

also been talking about our opposition to wind farms and other

changes to do with climate change. We will examine those in debt at a

later date. As the Welsh media as strong as it should be? Ian

Hargreaves, the Professor of Digital Economy, discuss this in the Patrick

Hannan Lecture. I asked him whether the quality of

this new journalism would be of a standard and with it create more

problems than it solves. Community journalism takes many different

shapes and forms. There are good examples, in Port Talbot for example

but there are also a lot of people who are not trained at all. We are

in an experimental phase and we will discover what the value of this new

community journalism is. What we can be sure of is that there is a lot of

it and the technology makes it easy for people to get started. But the

values and skills of professional journalism are still very important.

They are very important but the statistic you mentioned was that

Wales has 5% of population but only 2% of the journalists. How that

grow? I don't know. I think Wales has a better chance in this new

media configurations than in the old one. More than half of all the

journalists are in London and the south-east. There is a concentration

of media there. The attractive idea behind the new online community

journalism is that it can be anywhere. So long as you have got

the communications infrastructure, good mobile networks, decent

broadband, people can do things that previously they haven't been able to

do. It smacked that was your other point, Wales might not have those

decent digital networks that are required. Wales has set out some

ambitious targets for getting itself competitive quality infrastructure

on broadband and other communication technologies by 2015 or 2016. What I

am saying is that it is hugely important, even more important than

the UK government minister saying that it is, because this is

technology that can really work in Wales. We are never going to get a

real that properly connects north and south, or fast roads, but we can

make this technology work, despite of mountains and sparsely spread

populations. Thank you. If you want to hear the Patrick Hannan Lecture,

it is on BBC Radio Wales as we speak but don't turn over yet, you will be

able to hear it on BBC iPlayer. Jonathan Evans, as someone who has

served 20 years or so, do you see a change in the media? You get

requests from more disparate outlets? First, let me say I am

elated that there is a lecture named after Patrick Hannan who was an

iconic figure throughout my political life. The reality is that

the main print newspapers are all under the ownership of one group

which supports one political group and gives only their viewpoint. The

reality is that what we have been seeing as a whole range of new

media. Cardiff City have just been promoted to the premiership.

Sometimes I feel there is more political debate on the message

boards than I see in the mainstream political media. I think it is

hugely refreshing and particularly so for those of us who do not come

from the dominant political party in Wales. We are on a BBC programme and

we should be nice about the BBC but the reality is you are under an

obligation to be balanced and we do not see that from other media

outlets. I tend to disagree cause I have always found the Welsh press to

be good and to be very fair to my party so I do not quite see that

view that you have just portrayed. As far as the rural papers are

concerned, they are very important because we got a local council

elected in Anglesey last week and they need to watch their back. If

these papers go out of business, people lose out. Not everybody is on

the Internet. While we need an open house, we also need to protect the

established media in Wales. I am very proud of what we have in Wales

and I do not recognise what's Jonathan has said and think we

should be road of what we have. -- proud of what we have. If we start

to lose these papers, Wales will be a poorer place for it. We don't want

the taxpayer being given the money. Time for a round-up of the weeks

stories. The rules surrounding contacts

between Assembly ministers and lobbyists needs to be looked at. The

first minute -- the First Minister wrote to the Chancellor over the

forthcoming Scottish referendum. Plaid Cymru MP Jonathan Edwards said

that the economy needs to be rebalanced away from wealth in

London and the south-east of England.

A Conservative MP joins you kept saying that her party had lost its

core issues. There were congratulations for the

15 rugby players from Wales selected for the Lions.

Not long now until the Lions tour. It has been a good year for Welsh

sport. We have got Wrexham and Newport playing this afternoon for a

place in the Football League. Is it good for the country's economy?

sure it is. It is certainly good for the feelgood factor. Yesterday, when

Hull were playing for qualification to the Premier League, it was

described as a �100 million game. I have waited a long time for this

moment. It is great but it will also be economically advantageous for the

city. John, when you are going about your work in Brussels and

Strasbourg, does it help raise the profile that there will now be two

teams in the Premier League? Absolutely. It puts Swansea on the

map and Wales on the map. And Cardiff have the parades today which

is fantastic. The money that comes in from all the spin-offs, you can't

beat it. It is huge for Wales and is going to be a huge income for the