:00:45. > :00:49.Afternoon, Berks, welcome to the Daily Politics on Friday. Michael
:00:49. > :00:56.Gove is giving school heads the power to sack bad teachers within a
:00:56. > :00:59.term, so will this help improve children's education. David Cameron
:00:59. > :01:07.concedes the plans to remove child benefit from higher earners could
:01:07. > :01:16.be unfair. Is the Government about to rethink its policy? Back then it
:01:16. > :01:24.was about 80p a how the fuel protests make petrol prices a very
:01:24. > :01:29.political issue. All that coming up and with me
:01:29. > :01:34.today for the first Friday of the parliamentary year in 2012, Trevor
:01:34. > :01:38.Kavanagh of the Sun, and former political editor of the Observer,
:01:38. > :01:41.Gaby Hinsliff. The Education Secretary Michael
:01:42. > :01:46.Gove has announced plans to make it easier to sack poorly-performing
:01:46. > :01:49.teachers. The process currently takes at least one year, but under
:01:49. > :01:54.new procedures to be introduced from September, head teachers will
:01:54. > :01:59.be able to remove a bad teachers from the payroll in just one term.
:01:59. > :02:03.It is absolutely vital that we move on with underperforming teachers
:02:03. > :02:08.who are making life difficult for other staff. In the past it has
:02:08. > :02:14.taken up to a year to get rid of them. Now we have shortened the
:02:14. > :02:17.process so we should just take the term. Some of the old, lame excuses
:02:17. > :02:21.that were used where teachers pretended to go on the sick, to
:02:21. > :02:25.delay the process, they cannot do that anymore. We have got a
:02:25. > :02:29.determined focus on making sure that every moment children spend in
:02:29. > :02:35.the classroom is with a great teacher. Sacking bad teachers, that
:02:35. > :02:41.is not going to be popular with everybody, except the union
:02:41. > :02:44.leaders? It will be popular with parents. Nobody wants to see
:02:44. > :02:49.teachers fired up willy-nilly. They should have the same rights as
:02:49. > :02:54.everyone else. There must be a process. They also must be helped
:02:54. > :02:59.to improve. You do not want to see good teachers who need a good bit
:02:59. > :03:06.of help turn on the junk heap. end of state education was one of
:03:06. > :03:10.the things that was said. It is about time the unions for public
:03:10. > :03:14.services and for all people and the public sector were Cup to the fact
:03:14. > :03:18.that the public sector, the state education and health service, was
:03:18. > :03:21.set up for members of the public and not for union members and they
:03:21. > :03:28.should start thinking about the customers rather than their members.
:03:28. > :03:32.This is decades overdue. Clearly something is wrong with only 17 out
:03:32. > :03:36.of 400,000 teachers who were barred from applying for a teaching post
:03:36. > :03:41.in the last decade. There are many good teachers in this country, but
:03:41. > :03:47.it you have 400,000, they have got to be some bad ones by the lot of
:03:47. > :03:52.average. I was not sure about this idea of giving parents a greater
:03:52. > :03:56.role. That seemed a bit strange. was talking about parents coming
:03:56. > :04:01.into the classroom to look at lessons and a lot of parents go in
:04:01. > :04:05.to help children with reading. You get a chance to have a snoop around.
:04:05. > :04:10.I am not sure as a parent of a child in school I am not sure I
:04:10. > :04:14.would know exactly the difference. If a class is out of control, you
:04:14. > :04:19.can see it, but I do not know that difference between a great teacher
:04:19. > :04:24.and an ordinary teacher. The wonder how much substance there is to this.
:04:24. > :04:28.He says, they have to make a positive contribution to the wider
:04:28. > :04:32.life and ethos of the school. How do you measure that? It is down to
:04:32. > :04:36.the headmaster. If you have got good headmasters, there is no
:04:36. > :04:41.problem about identifying those teachers who are an adverse element
:04:41. > :04:48.in the classroom. Out of 400,000 teachers, the vast majority are
:04:48. > :04:53.good, industrious and creative. But it is in any work was a significant
:04:53. > :04:57.sector. The idea of only 17 losing their jobs when others have been
:04:57. > :05:02.shunted around from one school to the other... 17 were barred from
:05:02. > :05:08.applying for other jobs, but 211 have been struck off for misconduct
:05:08. > :05:12.in a decade. It is a small number for 400,000. It is astonishing it
:05:12. > :05:17.is misconduct. This will work if it is seen to raise teaching
:05:17. > :05:21.standards? Yes, without creating far too much upheaval and if you
:05:21. > :05:27.pick the right teachers. The hard ones are going to be the mediocre
:05:27. > :05:32.ones. I will be speaking to the Education Secretary Michael Gove on
:05:32. > :05:37.the first edition of a brand-new political programme on the BBC. We
:05:37. > :05:42.are on at lunchtime on Sunday politics on BBC One this Sunday at
:05:42. > :05:45.midday. It took us a long time to think up that name. The Prime
:05:45. > :05:51.Minister has been speaking to the Parliamentary House Magazine and
:05:51. > :05:56.revealed he is looking again at cuts to child benefit. He says,
:05:56. > :06:00.they are causing huge anxiety in these straitened times and many of
:06:00. > :06:07.David Cameron's own backbenchers have spoken out against the policy.
:06:07. > :06:13.What is going to change? From April 2013, Brummies where one parent
:06:13. > :06:17.earns more than �42,000 are set to lose their child benefit. That is
:06:17. > :06:27.�20.30 for the first child and �13.40 for every other child per
:06:27. > :06:46.
:06:46. > :06:56.week, tax-free. When asked about the unfairness of this, David
:06:56. > :07:05.
:07:05. > :07:09.Cameron said: But he said he did not want to, quote, impinge on the
:07:09. > :07:14.Chancellor's budget which is coming in March. The Chancellor has
:07:14. > :07:20.defended the cuts saying they would save up to �1 billion a year and it
:07:20. > :07:25.was tough but necessary. We spoke to some of the Prime Minister's own
:07:25. > :07:29.MPs in November and many urged him to look at it again. A couple came
:07:29. > :07:32.to see me who are very cross because they are a single income
:07:32. > :07:37.household and they will not get child benefit any more, but their
:07:37. > :07:40.income is literally just over the threshold, whereas their next-door
:07:40. > :07:45.neighbours have two incomes, they are under the higher tax rate
:07:45. > :07:52.threshold and they will still get it. My constituents are saying it
:07:52. > :07:56.has not been fairly applied. I need to see the detail on this, I have
:07:56. > :08:00.great concerns we do not dissuade people from taking that pay rise
:08:00. > :08:05.and puts them into the higher-rate tax band, but it means they use all
:08:05. > :08:11.their child benefit. That is from the Government's own backbenchers.
:08:11. > :08:15.This morning the Chancellor set to clarify matters and said higher
:08:15. > :08:21.rate taxpayers would still lose their benefit. We are very clear
:08:21. > :08:24.that it is fair that those who are better off in our society make a
:08:24. > :08:29.contribution to the saving of money we need to make to pay down the
:08:29. > :08:33.debt, so we will be removing child benefit from higher rate taxpayers.
:08:33. > :08:39.We have not set out how we are going to implement that, but the
:08:39. > :08:47.principle is it is not fair to ask someone who is earning �25,000 to
:08:47. > :08:50.pay for someone who is on �80,000 to get child benefit. That was the
:08:50. > :08:56.Chancellor after the Prime Minister had spoken. We are still not
:08:56. > :09:02.exactly clear what the policy is. Let's see if James Brown can
:09:02. > :09:07.enlighten us. Let's establish first, this cut in child benefit for
:09:07. > :09:11.higher earners, how much it will it save year by year if it goes ahead?
:09:11. > :09:18.The Government estimates that this measure will save about �2.4
:09:18. > :09:22.billion a year. It is going to take child benefit away from about 1.5
:09:22. > :09:32.million families, each of whom I losing between upwards of �1,000 a
:09:32. > :09:32.
:09:32. > :09:37.year. 2.4 billion, as Ronald Reagan said, it soon adds up to real money.
:09:37. > :09:40.Does the Chancellor need this to keep his death as a target online?
:09:40. > :09:45.There are a lot of different things the Government could do if it
:09:45. > :09:48.wanted to save money and this is just one option. However, looking
:09:49. > :09:53.at the Public Finance numbers that came out in the Autumn Statement,
:09:53. > :09:57.there does not seem to be very much wriggle room at all in terms of
:09:57. > :10:01.meeting the Government's targets for a deficit reduction. Any
:10:01. > :10:05.relaxation of policy in this area would almost certainly have to be
:10:05. > :10:09.made up for by a tightening somewhere else. The principle of
:10:09. > :10:14.the policy is simple to understand. If you are in the higher rate tax
:10:14. > :10:18.bracket, you do not get child benefit. It is an easy thing to
:10:18. > :10:21.understand. When the Chancellor is talking about we have yet to look
:10:21. > :10:26.at the way we are going to implement it, what scope does he
:10:26. > :10:30.have? Well, the way the Chancellor is talking about it at the moment
:10:30. > :10:38.is that as soon as your income goes above the higher rate threshold,
:10:38. > :10:44.which is about �42,000 a year on an individual level, your family will
:10:44. > :10:48.complete you use your child benefit. They could try and introduce a more
:10:48. > :10:52.gradual way of taking away child benefit from these higher earners
:10:53. > :10:56.to raise the same amount of money. That means you would have to start
:10:56. > :11:01.taking it away from someone somewhat below the higher rate
:11:01. > :11:07.threshold. Alternatively, if you think this way of means testing
:11:07. > :11:11.based on individual income of parents is unfair, if you think a
:11:11. > :11:14.couple where they are both just below the higher rate threshold and
:11:14. > :11:19.would not be affected by this policy, you think they are better
:11:19. > :11:24.off than somebody in a single earner couple who is just above, if
:11:24. > :11:29.you want to means test it based on the joint income, you might want to
:11:29. > :11:33.consider perhaps getting rid of child benefit altogether and
:11:33. > :11:38.bringing that into the means tested benefits system we already have
:11:38. > :11:42.through something like the child tax credits. James Brown, thank you
:11:42. > :11:45.for explaining some of the background. We are joined in the
:11:45. > :11:49.studio by Charlotte Vere, a former Conservative parliamentary
:11:49. > :11:53.candidate and now runs a think-tank on women's issues. It was at a
:11:53. > :11:57.party conference I remember interviewing various Conservatives
:11:57. > :12:02.and when Mr Osborne announced this, we all pointed out to him the
:12:02. > :12:10.unfairness of the single earner family just being over the �42,000
:12:10. > :12:14.threshold, but having a total income of only 42, but two working
:12:14. > :12:19.parents earning a combined �80,000 and still getting the child benefit.
:12:19. > :12:22.We still seem to be where we were when we did all these interviews.
:12:22. > :12:27.completely agree and this is 15 months later and people are still
:12:27. > :12:30.pointing out the same issues. But what is very important is we look
:12:30. > :12:36.at the situation for the families where they have just one burner,
:12:36. > :12:41.the single families, or where you have one parent going out to work.
:12:41. > :12:46.There cliff edge is ridiculous, something has to be done. It is a
:12:46. > :12:51.pseud sum of money. You would have to earn a lot more, taxed at 40%,
:12:51. > :12:54.to be compensated in any way for the fall in child benefit. They
:12:54. > :12:58.will have to do something about this. But the other thing to
:12:58. > :13:05.remember is that many families where you have two incomes, they
:13:05. > :13:08.are not both on �40,000 a year. They might be on 30 and 16. I do
:13:08. > :13:14.not think the Government does enough to support those sorts of
:13:14. > :13:17.families. In that situation, adding together their income and taking
:13:17. > :13:23.away their benefit is not beneficial at all. We have to
:13:23. > :13:28.support women and men in the workplace. Staying at home is hard,
:13:28. > :13:31.being a working mum or dad is much tougher. I understand that, but
:13:31. > :13:37.what James Brown is talking about is that is typical of the mess that
:13:37. > :13:42.the Government ends up getting into. You come out with a policy that may
:13:42. > :13:46.be seen as fair or unfair, and is relatively simple to understand.
:13:46. > :13:51.Now they are talking about all sorts of tapering, relief, do it
:13:51. > :13:55.this way, do it that and it adds another 50 pages to the tax code
:13:55. > :14:00.and becomes a complete complicated mess and you end up with something
:14:00. > :14:05.Mrs Thatcher used to hate, a huge bureaucracy giving you money with
:14:05. > :14:09.one hand and a huge bureaucracy taking it away with another. That
:14:09. > :14:15.is where we could Ted if we make it too complicated. Could they not
:14:15. > :14:19.just junket? I think it is a good way to start looking at the child
:14:19. > :14:23.benefit. It was a breeding bonus after the war and was a very
:14:23. > :14:31.outdated benefit, we need to structure it. I understand that but
:14:31. > :14:37.I do not see any Government who has got the balls to do that. Do you?
:14:37. > :14:42.hope that some stage it is coming into the broader benefits system.
:14:42. > :14:47.did all these arguments two years ago. The Government did not quite
:14:47. > :14:53.anticipate how heard -- hire people were going to find the squeeze on
:14:53. > :14:56.their living standards. When people are already feeling food and energy
:14:56. > :15:01.and petrol is more expensive and their wages are not going up, they
:15:01. > :15:06.would look at this and think one might think. This his Ed Miliband's
:15:06. > :15:11.squeeze it middle. Maybe if you are on 42, you are not what some people
:15:11. > :15:17.would call the middle. These are families who feel they are being
:15:17. > :15:24.attacked on all sides by Government. 42 is not a lot of money.
:15:24. > :15:28.Absolutely not. It is not a huge sum in the metropolitan area. But
:15:28. > :15:33.any form of subsidy, whether it is welfare or anything else, is very
:15:33. > :15:37.easy to introduce at the beginning, it is a walk in the park. Any
:15:37. > :15:41.attempt to remodel it or reduce it after it is always going to produce
:15:41. > :15:45.an anomaly and howls of protest from those who are the victims of
:15:45. > :15:51.the anomaly. Women in particular who get the child benefit will not
:15:51. > :15:56.be happy with this. A recent study found that of the �2.3 billion to
:15:56. > :16:02.be raised from tax credit cards and caps on public sector pay, 73% of
:16:02. > :16:11.that, almost 1.7 billion, comes from women. Is this one of the
:16:11. > :16:14.reasons why the Prime Minister is Women get more from the Government
:16:14. > :16:19.in the first place. So the cuts will necessarily for heavier upon
:16:19. > :16:24.women. But the interesting thing about much of the research is that
:16:24. > :16:28.it assumes that all child benefits go to the mother. That is not
:16:28. > :16:33.necessarily true, and it is not up to the state to decide who should
:16:33. > :16:36.get those benefits. We have to look at them amongst the whole of the
:16:36. > :16:43.family's income. There are several things the government can do to
:16:43. > :16:47.mitigate this. This is not an attack on women. What do you think
:16:47. > :16:57.the Government should do about child benefit for higher earners?
:16:57. > :17:01.In has to be implemented. There should be a grace period. But then
:17:01. > :17:06.he does not get the savings. That will have to be found from
:17:06. > :17:14.elsewhere. At the moment, you cannot have a single earner family
:17:14. > :17:18.approaching �42,000 a year and then falling off a cliff. If I heard
:17:19. > :17:22.that and I realised I would not get the savings, but I would still be
:17:22. > :17:28.unpopular for doing this among the potential core Tory vote, I would
:17:28. > :17:34.wonder if I was the Prime Minister, if it is worth it? The more
:17:34. > :17:41.complicated it gets, the less money raised. Once it becomes complicated
:17:42. > :17:46.to raise, it becomes expensive. But it was important to the whole "we
:17:46. > :17:56.are all in this together" message that some things fell on higher
:17:56. > :18:01.rate taxpayers. Why do people only care about stay at her mother's?
:18:01. > :18:07.But the threshold is coming down. The 40% now covers several million
:18:07. > :18:11.people, for whom it was not intended. If you run an English
:18:11. > :18:16.department in a moderate sized comprehensive school, you are now
:18:16. > :18:20.in the 40% bracket. They are in it together. I think people who are
:18:20. > :18:26.earning �20,000 a year and struggling to get by might have
:18:26. > :18:29.limited sympathy for people earning �40,000. I wonder if the Chancellor
:18:29. > :18:35.has been caught by the failure of his economic policy to deliver in
:18:35. > :18:41.time. He kicked this into touch when he announced it for 2013. The
:18:41. > :18:45.announcement was that by 2013, the worst of the austerity would be
:18:45. > :18:50.over and he would be able to say I was going to do this, but I don't
:18:50. > :18:56.need to now. Now that is not going to happen. I am not sure that it
:18:57. > :19:03.ever was. Most people felt at the time that there was a missed
:19:03. > :19:07.opportunity to do really serious cuts, far deeper than they were,
:19:07. > :19:12.from the outset. That momentum was lost, and we are struggling to
:19:12. > :19:17.catch up. The markets will dictate this in the end. We must find
:19:17. > :19:22.savings. There is no point in saying we can pay for these
:19:22. > :19:26.anomalies by filtering them in and having a table. You will have to
:19:26. > :19:30.pay for that from somewhere else. We have to borrow every penny we
:19:30. > :19:35.spend, we have no money. I have a feeling this is going to
:19:35. > :19:38.rumble. I detect nuances of difference between the Prime
:19:39. > :19:42.Minister and the Chancellor on this. And now, can you imagine what would
:19:42. > :19:46.happen if our petrol pumps run out of fuel? Cast your mind back to
:19:46. > :19:50.2000, when a blockade by farmers and hauliers threatened to bring
:19:50. > :19:55.the UK to a standstill. They were protesting against the increasing
:19:55. > :20:00.price of fuel, which was then just over 80p a litre. Those were the
:20:00. > :20:09.days. So what impact did the protests have? Matt has put on a
:20:09. > :20:15.pair of wellies to find out. Here is after the storm.
:20:15. > :20:20.A dairy farmer. His name is David Handley. Had it not been for the
:20:20. > :20:25.few protests in the year 2000, he might have remained in obscurity
:20:25. > :20:31.with his pedigree Jersey cows. But David, along with other farmers and
:20:31. > :20:39.lorry drivers, wiped the smile off Tony Blair's face and came close to
:20:39. > :20:49.shutting Britain down. Adrenalin rush all the time. After the first
:20:49. > :20:54.24 hours, you really started to understand what was going on. The
:20:54. > :21:00.enthusiasm from people all over the country inspired you to keep going.
:21:00. > :21:07.We had to do what we set out to do, which was to make politicians
:21:07. > :21:14.realise that people are speaking to you. By the turn of the millennium,
:21:14. > :21:19.82% of petrol was tax. By September 2000, the haulage industry and many
:21:19. > :21:24.farmers have had enough. Slow- moving lorries jammed the roads.
:21:25. > :21:31.Tractors blockaded oil refineries, and COBRA met under the pavements
:21:31. > :21:33.of Whitehall as forecourts closed and the petrol started to run out.
:21:33. > :21:38.Three-quarters of the public supported the action, while the
:21:38. > :21:43.government insisted that they would not back down, but then did it in
:21:43. > :21:48.November 2000. David Hanley says the effects of the protests are
:21:48. > :21:52.still felt today. The fuel issue has raised its head in the media,
:21:52. > :21:56.and all of a sudden you get a very fast response from politicians. Ten
:21:57. > :22:02.years ago, that did not happen. They were standing back and waving
:22:02. > :22:07.two fingers at us. Not any more. What has changed since David was
:22:07. > :22:14.involved in the fuel protests 12 years ago? The tax take on petrol
:22:15. > :22:20.has fallen from 80% to about 60%. But the price of petrol has doubled.
:22:20. > :22:24.The issue of fuel prices is a ticking timebomb. It is much more
:22:24. > :22:28.important to most people in Britain than high-speed rail. The
:22:28. > :22:32.Government have not really address bad. Yes, they have frozen duty on
:22:32. > :22:39.some occasions and reduced it occasionally. They have done
:22:39. > :22:44.nothing about the transparency of fuel prices or a fair few duty
:22:44. > :22:49.stabiliser that brings fuel duty down when global prices go up.
:22:49. > :22:52.to clearly now, with global economic uncertainty, the Treasury
:22:53. > :22:57.has less room to manoeuvre on fuel duty because of public opinion. But
:22:57. > :23:03.the pure protests also changed the way government deals with a crisis.
:23:03. > :23:11.In 2000, they realised that nuclear weapons are no match for a bunch of
:23:11. > :23:18.blokes in tractors on mobile phones. A special appearance there by the
:23:18. > :23:22.cow. If I remember this fuel protesting 2000. It happened around
:23:22. > :23:29.the party conference season, and it was tough to get to them. It has
:23:29. > :23:33.had quite an impact. Over the years, governments of both persuasions
:23:33. > :23:38.have had to reduce the tax share. It has really seeped into public
:23:38. > :23:42.consciousness, firstly the idea that petrol is a massive bellwether.
:23:42. > :23:45.How much people have to pay for petrol makes a huge difference to
:23:45. > :23:49.how they feel about their quality of life. The other thing is the
:23:49. > :23:53.realisation that we were close to the edge. We did not realise how
:23:53. > :23:57.much we depended on fuel as part of the national infrastructure. How
:23:57. > :24:01.easy it was for three blokes in tractors to bring the nation to a
:24:01. > :24:11.halt. We were a day from not having enough fuel to run an ambulance
:24:11. > :24:15.service. Arthur Scargill must have been jealous. It seems that the
:24:15. > :24:20.protesters do know the difference between higher oil prices, which
:24:20. > :24:26.are set by world demand and supply, and higher prices that are high
:24:26. > :24:31.because the Government is taking a 2% of the tax. It has had an impact
:24:31. > :24:38.on reducing the level of tax -- they are taking 80%.
:24:38. > :24:41.groundswell of revolt has taken so long to reach the point of threat
:24:41. > :24:46.to the Government because when you pay for a tankful of petrol these
:24:46. > :24:51.days out of hard currency, you are forking out �80 to �90 to fill your
:24:52. > :24:56.tank. Even with a small car. It really hits home. The Sun has been
:24:56. > :25:01.campaigning for months now about fuel prices. We come back to the
:25:01. > :25:05.point where the Government cannot afford to reduce its impact --
:25:05. > :25:11.intake from fuel tax, because it has to cut spending. But they have
:25:11. > :25:15.all been cowed since 2000. It has had an impact on British politics.
:25:15. > :25:19.Fuel is so sensitive, because you do it every week. You fill the tank,
:25:19. > :25:26.and every time it is the same amount of fuel, so you can see how
:25:26. > :25:30.much it has gone up. You don't notice other costs rising so much.
:25:30. > :25:38.Anyway, it is the first week back for MPs from the Christmas holidays.
:25:38. > :25:42.How has it gone? Here is Adam with the week in 60 seconds.
:25:43. > :25:46.On Tuesday, the Transport Secretary Justine Greening ignored concerns
:25:46. > :25:54.from the Tory heartlands and gave the green light to high-speed rail.
:25:54. > :25:58.David Cameron's father-in-law, Lord Astor, called the project a trap
:25:58. > :26:02.for ministers. After last week's blockbusters row, Ed Miliband
:26:02. > :26:05.decided it was time for a relaunch, although he refused to call it that.
:26:05. > :26:08.There was a change in tactics when he told the country that in future,
:26:08. > :26:11.Labour would not just be about big spending.
:26:11. > :26:16.The three major parties joined forces to take on the nationalists
:26:16. > :26:20.north of the border over Scottish independence. This week, the battle
:26:20. > :26:24.commenced over the timing and wording of a referendum. We need a
:26:24. > :26:28.referendum which is built in Scotland. It is not a referendum
:26:28. > :26:33.they want. Meanwhile, the High Commission of India complained to
:26:33. > :26:43.the BBC over an episode of Top Gear filmed in India, featuring the
:26:43. > :26:43.
:26:43. > :26:48.Prime Minister. Number 10 said the complaint was a matter for the BBC.
:26:48. > :26:52.A couple of minutes ago. Let's talk about Ed Miliband. How bad is it
:26:52. > :26:58.for the Labour leader? It is bad enough that every question about
:26:58. > :27:02.him starts with "how bad is it?" he is in a position where everything
:27:02. > :27:07.is seen through the prism of, it is a mess, what do we do about it? It
:27:07. > :27:11.is hard to get out of that defensive position. To break out of
:27:11. > :27:15.that, you need something more dramatic than what we have seen.
:27:15. > :27:19.Perfectly good speech, but it just did not fire. One Labour MP said to
:27:20. > :27:24.me that a lot of what he says is the right thing he should be saying.
:27:24. > :27:30.The problem is, he is saying it. Yes, it is Ed Miliband, not the
:27:30. > :27:37.Labour Party. He is dead in the water. It is that serious? Yes. I
:27:37. > :27:42.am not alone in that. He is a dead duck. There is no way Ed Miliband
:27:42. > :27:47.will be able to resuscitate his reputation to the point of leading
:27:47. > :27:51.his party to power. It may even be so bad that the Tories will win
:27:52. > :27:57.outright. Thanks to Ed Miliband. But Labour does not get rid of its
:27:57. > :28:02.leaders. We used to say that about the Lib Dems, and to have they got
:28:02. > :28:05.rid of three in quick succession! But Ed Miliband will have learnt
:28:05. > :28:10.that there is no outstanding sure- fire winner in the wings waiting to
:28:10. > :28:14.be brought on. People get excited about Yvette Cooper or even his
:28:14. > :28:18.brother, but neither is a guaranteed winner. He is not in the
:28:18. > :28:23.position that Iain Duncan Smith was in with Michael Portillo. Alistair
:28:23. > :28:29.Darling has emerged, perhaps against his better judgment, as a
:28:29. > :28:33.possible runner. But he has spoken for. It is an indication of how
:28:33. > :28:39.highly he is regarded. He is an elder statesman without being that
:28:39. > :28:47.old. Watch this space. That's it for this week. Thanks to my guests.