30/06/2014 Daily Politics

Politics. The Prime Minister's back in the Commons today to tell MPs how

his plan to block Jean-Claude Juncker went. It didn't go

brilliantly. Can David Cameron still win significant reform in Europe or

is the UK heading for the exit? It's no longer known as a prawn

cocktail offensive. Today, Ed Balls is trying to persuade companies

Labour will keep taxes low and run a pro-business Government. Golf is one

of the most popular sports in the world. But is it worth sacrificing

all that land? We'll hear from someone who wants to make golf

courses extinct. And Prince Charles is back in the headlines with new

claims he's tried to influence Government ministers on grammar

schools. Should the king in waiting keep his views to himself?

All that in the next half an hour. With us for the whole programme is

Jenny Jones. The Green Party's only member of the House of Lords and she

sits on the London Assembly. She spent the weekend at Glastonbury

Festival. We are grateful to her for changing out of her wellies before

coming to the studio. Let's start with Europe. David Cameron lost his

battle to stop Jean-Claude Juncker becoming president of the EU

Commission. Despite insisting he was the wrong man for the job, last

night the Prime Minister phoned Mr Juncker his congratulations. Awkward

conversation. Some Conservatives said if Mr David Cameron couldn't

block the appointment of Mr Juncker, a supporter of a more federal

Europe, his membership of the EU is doomed to failure and puts the

country on the road to leaving the EU. Mr Cameron says he's ready to

move on and keep fighting in Britain's interest. The

vice-president of the EU Commission insisted Mr Cameron and Mr Juncker

would be able to work together to achieve reform. I've known Mr

Juncker many years. He's a very committed pro-European. He's a

pragmatic politician. Been in Government for many years. Has been

the chairman of the Eurogroup. He knows the reality. He works within

the reality. Jenny Jones, he lost his battle. Have his hopes of

renegotiation in the EU been shot to pieces? I think Juncker could accept

that if they want to keep Britain in, the general feeling is they do,

they will probably negotiate. I don't think we've lost completely.

David Cameron had to stand out against him but, at the same time,

it is the European Parliament who should pick that post. It is not for

the European council. You agreed with Jean-Claude Juncker becoming

the President on that basis? I'm fairly eurosceptic. I don't take

much of a stand on who should be the President. Now he's in, I think he

will be somebody who will negotiate and start to, perhaps, change

things. Did David Cameron handle this well or badly? He had to do it.

But he was a bit obvious about it. He put a lot of backs up. Perhaps

some more delicate negotiations. The Green Movement does not seem to be

the party Green Movement does not seem to be

voters anymore. We saw the is rise of parties in Spain. UKIP here, not

the Greens. The Greens have a solid agenda. Sometimes it is difficult to

sell that. We don't have many dog whistle policies. That's what

happened in this election. People who are saying the shocking things

are getting votes. They are more in touch. He won another MEP. But maybe

it's because it is not just the policies that are perhaps extreme

and appealing, they are just not appealing at all, it seems? When

people get Greens in power, I think they do like it. As you say, we got

anothermen which I'm very pleased about. The south-east finally

delivered a green MEP. Do they like the Greens in power? What about

Brighton? Labour keeps voting with the Tories. So it is someone else's

fault? We are doing incredible things. It will be very interesting

to see what happens in the elections next year. Someone described

soldiers as hard killers? I don't know who it is. The fact is we have

no whip in the Green Party. I cannot be accountable for every Green Party

person who says strange things. Let's leave it there.

The Prime Minister had to deal with major political fall-out last week

after his former head of communications Andy Coulson was

found guilty of being involved in the conspiracy of hacking phones of

celebrities, royals, politicians and ordinary members of the public. He's

due to be sentenced this week but the jury couldn't agree with further

counts. This morning, the Crown Prosecution Service decided Andy

Coulson will face a retrial. We'll hopefully speak to Robin Brant at

the Old Bailey. At the moment, he's tied up. We'll come back to it in a

few moments. Is Labour anti-business? Not

according to Ed Balls. That's his message in a speech he's giving this

morning at a leading business school in Central London. The Shadow

Chancellor hopes to woo captains of industry with a pledge to maintain

the lowest rate of Corporation Tax in the G7 group of advanced

economies. Something the CBI welcomed as crucial for economic

growth. It is not just about letting big business keep more of their

profits. Balls stated giving tax breaks to encourage longer term vent

with lower rates of capital gains tax. But Labour's romance comes with

tough love message. With a commitment to tackle loop holidays

with tax avoidance with renewed vigour. The party promises further

pro-business announcements this week. Will this be enough to brush

off suggestions that a profound dead hand is blocking bold reforms? Ed

Balls spoke a few moments ago. He's what he said. Some would say the

Blair/Clinton attempt to forge a third way did not succeed. Steps

were taken to improve the prospects of lower paid workers and more

generous tax credits but not enough was done to improve the prospects of

a non-university educated workforce while the failure of financial

regulation led to a global financial crisis and a global recession which

followed and hit middle and lower income families particularly hard. I

have some sympathy with that argument. We didn't do enough on

skills. The failure of all parties in the UK and in all countries in

the developed world to see the crisis coming was a huge error.

That was Ed Balls. With me is the shadow Shadow Treasury Minister and

the Conservative Party grand Shapes. Welcome.

Let's pick up what Ed Balls was saiding, the third way under Tony

Blair was a failure in trying to get skills to the non-university

workforce? I think that's right. It was something we is very important.

We fakeed a lot on higher education when we were in Government. 50%

target? That was wrong? No it was the right policy to adopt. There is

the other 50% which didn't focus on until the end of our term in office.

That's something we've been talking about in the last few years. An

important part of our offer going forward. What's new in the speech

today? A lot is a restatement of policies Labour's put forward.

What's new? We've set out plans about tackling tax avoidance but the

wider system of taxation forbusinesses. We want to continue a

conversation with the business community around the possibility of

introducing an allowance for corporate equity in order to try and

rebalance the system we have at the moment which is geared towards debt

financing of businesses. We want to consider how to encourage the long

ermism from can witty financing of businesses. As I understand it,

since you brought up corporate equity, this is for people who would

invest in businesses. A takes break for rich people? It is an allowance

if introduced it will encourage greater long ermism. The

short-termism of the economy is a problem. If we can get grater

long-term thinking into investment that's good for jobs and growth. It

is good for everybody. There's nothing to disagree with. It is a

good point about short-termism. The lack of private investment has

improved recently but otherwise been extremely low. Most business people

will be watching Ed Balls in disbelief. They spent the last four

years attacking business. Give us examples. He set up the idea that

there are predator businesses, good businesses. Then one of the

ministers on the shadow ministers on the Labour side described Waitrose

and John Lewis as being the predators at one point. Most

business people feel Labour set out on a deliberate agenda to undermine

business, they are anti-business. Right now on his feet is Len

McCluskey, the union baron who's successfully in the process of

organising a general strike and will clues the policies. That's not goat

to do with Labour's business policy. Let's pick up your first point which

is more salient in terms of an anti-business agenda. Club would say

you're in the pocket of the a business which people are beginning

to not support either? Business is the only way to create jobs. If

you're watching this send you're one of the two million people who have a

pro-at sector job which didn't exist in 2010, you understand business is

the only with a to do that. The problem for Ed Balls and Ed Miliband

is they are owned, literally, by... Let me finish. Len McCluskey who's

insisting on anti-business policies. It is impossible to separate the two

things. You have embarked on an anti-business agenda. The only

example Grant gave was original thoughts... Let me give you another.

I want that answered first and this being in the pocket of the unions.

What Grant said in his long and irrelevant anti-is he's unable to

see the difference between a policy that is pro-business but against

business as usual. The way the committee's Rouen means we've after

three years of flat lining got growth in the economy. People are

not feeling that recovery in their pocket in their household budgets.

Why? Because the economy is not built in order to make sure that

prosperity's shared across all of our country. Grant's made this one

point of our Corporation Tax policy, we would not go ahead with the plant

cut, we would keep it at 21%. It is true because we'd use every penny of

that money to cut and freeze business rates for small and

medium-sized enterprises. Grant's argument only works if he believes

small and Meadup sized enterprises in our country are not worth it.

Let grant answer that. They will give help to small and medium-sized

businesses in terms of cutting business rates. One thing that's

very hard to argue against is this country rejuvenated employment

through business. The first thing we did was to scrap Labour's job tax

which would have made it more expensive to employ people. We've

made it easier to employ people in this country. The fact Labour still

doesn't understand it is business that creates all the jobs in this

country is the sole reason why every Labour Government in history has

left unemployment higher than when they were first elected. You're not

cutting the corporation takes to 20%. You could raise it. You could

be the lowest in the G7 if you win the election if you come to an ta's

level, it is 26.5%. Are you keeping it at 21% or would you raise it? We

think 21% is a competitive rate of Corporation Tax in the G7. We want

to retain that. Even if you won the election you wouldn't put it up? The

policy only envisages it goings up to 21%. With a freeze in business

rates for small and mediumised enter prices. I don't think Labour is

anti-business. Labour has it wrong on this Corporation Tax. Being

competitive is one thing. Allowing corporations to get away with

criminal activities is wrong. They have not been in power to be fair?

When they were. The Labour Party is not the party we want them to be.

You want higher Corporation Tax? Indeed. We need to make businesses

know they have to give back to society. You have not tackled tax

einvestigation. We've created an economy where jobs are being

produced. We are seeing record falls in unemployment. We want to see an

investment. Why no private investment? Firms have not had faith

in you, had the certainty to put their money, which they've been

sitting on, into the economy? We know the economy's facing difficult

periods of recovery. We have the fastest growing economy in the

advanced world. Labour is now fundamentally anti-business. That is

not true. This is the final point. He is too weak to stand up to the

union paymasters. Len McCluskey, that is why Labour has become

anti-business these days. Back to the hacking trial and Andy

Coulson is facing a retrial over allegations of a conspiracy to pay

police officers for royal telephone directories. We can speak to Robin

Brant. Poll -- fill us in. . It is not over for could cows, he learned

last week he was a guilty man when it came to phone hacking. They were

unable to... Allegations of misconduct, and that involves

corrupt payments to police officers for phone directories from the royal

household in 2003, 2005, so the CPS have spent the weekend desiding and

it believes it is in the public interest to retry, retry Andy

Coulson and Clive Goodman. We don't know when that will happen. There

are legal issues about add misbuilt of his conviction and the huge

publicity surrounding the case last week, but in principle the CPS wants

to go again. -- add misbuilt.

-- add misability. The earliest known written reference

to golf was in 1457, when King James II of Scotland banned the sport

because it was keeping his subjects from their archery practice.

Since then it's proved pretty popular.

But our guest of the day here isn't a fan - not because it stops her

practising with her bow and arrow, but because of the impact all those

lush green 18-hole courses have on the environment.

Here's her soapbox. Lots of sports grapple

with ethical issues. There's corruption, there's

the deaths of construction workers. The Olympics had a lot

of dodgy sponsors. We're always asking

if there's drug taking and why people are being paid minimum wages

for making some of the goods. So why on earth would I pick

on golf? This is a fun day out

for the family, but it's a very different sort of species from the

18-hole golf courses that currentsly That's about the same

as is covered with houses. We have to ask,

is having land for housing more In the south-east of Croydon,

there's more land given over to Donald Trump, a bit of a dinosaur

himself, is threatening to take his balls away if the Scottish

Government allows a windfarm to be And this is in an area with the most

stringent environmental regulations. Some golf courses might be good

for wildlife, but many are not. One study found that only four

in ten golf course managers had done anything to help with wildlife,

and only one in ten had undertaken You don't get this sort

of perfect green without a lot That's

a practise that should have gone out Very scary. Aim joined by Cheryl

Gillan. First of all. Can I establish are you wanting to close

to some done existing courses so land can be used for housing or are

you saying no more? I'm not saying I hate golf. We have to rethink

perhaps our priority, in London, on the golf courses we have, which are

in nice leafly areas with green space, we could build a year's

supply of housing or we could grow 48,000 tonnes of food, or we could

do a lot of other things like create more space for children to play. It,

it really worries me we are selling off school playing fields for

housing and children are getting more obese. That sort of thing

suggests we have our priority wrong. Have you? The Government going on

about house building, golf courses perhaps not exactly an essential,

that land could be used? She has almost started an argument against

what she is proposing. By growing more food we have, I believe it is

6% of men and 4% of women do the recommend mended amount of exercise.

We have an epidemic of obesity. One the great assets are golf courses.

Four million people play golf. We should be encouraging use of these

green space, we should be encouraging more use of golf courses

because say it form of exercise that is good for the young, and for the

old, and it is an extremely popular game. It went through a plateau in

2008 but it is starting to grow again. It is fantastic form of

exercise, and it is also very green. I think it is important to remember

that where golf courses are managed properly they really are absorbed

well into the environment, althoughly say there are some

environments which are not suitable for golf course, where there is

irreplaceable environmental situations is for example, ancient

woodland. I would Mac-Moyes on the assets not concrete them over. What

do you say to that, particularly on the green issue about it, and also

the fact that yes, people need to do more exercise. I a degree about the

exercise. The -- agree. We are fairly well-off for green says in

London. People can do things in the parks we have got. It is more about

golf courses are fairly sterile, grass is a fairly sterile sort of

green space, as far as wildlife is concerned is. You need bramble and

you need all sorts of undergrowth. Things that are untidy. Plus nay

don't see wildlife benefit. As part of, part of a regime, you know, so,

you are talking about changing all the golf courses and making them

rethink how they lose their land. I know you are not a Gough for, I have

been on many courses where they are not the sterile place, there is

plenty of brambles and wooded rough. One of the courses I play on is

teeming with wildlife. It is a question of how it is managed by the

club, I also think that that is an important part, but can I also say

we could have sympathetic round the edge of courses. You admit it would

be good to use some of it, particularly in Surrey, Middlesex,

where there are golf course, some would argue they could be elitist.

Surrey has more than 2% of its area with golf courses on. They are not

closing in large numbers with the exception of municipal golf course,

maintaining the golf course, and in encouragement for people to take

more exercise. We are all drowning in our own fat in this country, it

is about time we did a bit more. I admit I have never played golf, but

I am puzzled by the fact it is so much exercise because it looks

leisury to me. There is not much, a swing here and walk there. My

husband who is not in the first flush of youth. That I go round the

golf course this is the sort of exercise that keeps them mobile. It

is gentle exercise but it is exercise. That is the key thing. All

right. Thank you you. The Prince of Wales has strong opinions on a range

of issues. A fresh stir has been caused by a radio 4 documentary,

which takes a look at Charleses the. Cam painer. Her is David Blunkett,

recalling when the Prince lobbied him on grammar schools I would

explain that policy was not to expand grammar schools, and he, he

didn't like that, he was very keen that we should go back to a

different era, where youngsters had what he would have seen as the

opportunity to escape from their background, whereas I wanted to

change their background. Do you think it was right for him to talk

about an issue but the Government had a policy on? I can see

constitutionally there is an argument that the heir to the throne

should not get involved in controversy. The honest thing I

didn't mind. We have been joined by the Conservative MP Michael Ellis

and our guess of the day Jenny Jones is still here. Welcome to you. What

relationship should the monarchy have with the Government? Well, the

Prince of Wales has a not only a right to be be kept in informed of

matters but a duty to keep himself informed of what is going on in

Government and in politics. Keeping informed is different to

interfering. Well, of course interfering and being controversial,

getting involved in party politics is another matter, but there is no

indication of evidence that he the Prince of Wales does that. He he has

a responsibility to train himself for the position that he will

eventually inherit. We can't expect our heirs to the throne to live in

splendid isolation and at the moment of their accession to be experts in

the art of monarchy. It is a complicated art and it is one that

clearly the Prince of Wales takes very seriously. He has been

preparing himself for many year, he is a passionate advocate for those

who are disadd van tajs, he doesn't have to completely abstain from all

forms of controversy. Doesn't he have a right and role to play in

public debate? That is an interesting question. I would say

there are two problem, the first is the smallest one and that is we

don't know what he say, because, the monarchy won't answer any Freedom of

Information requests, that is the least they could do, along with

paying tax, but the second thing is a bigger issue. They do pay tax. I

know but they should answer Freedom of Information requests. Why are

they playing any role in politics at all? I understand, it is lovely they

come out and they wave to people, but really why, why is the Queen

opening Parliament and reading somebody else's speech? What is the

point? We have a constitutional monarchy. It is time we changed it.

If you have a Republican agenda which some do, you will be

displeased by the which some do, you will be

displeased Prince of Wales involving himself in matters that are of

public interest, if you accept we live in a constitutional monarchy

and most people support the Royal Family, it is only reasonable to

expect people, like the Prince of Wales, to take interest in matters

that the public. That is one thing, talking about reviving grammar

school, getting involved in dron shall arguments of climate change,

that moves beyond the symbolic role of being the head of a government,

and head of state, adds we have here. There is no obligation on the

heir to the throne to abstain from all forms of controversy. Should he?

He would be criticises a Edward VII and Edward VIII did. If he spent all

his time in Monte Carlo. I don't have any problem with his having

views and expressing them, we should know what they are. If he is writing

secret letters to the Government. Why should they be made public. Why

should he have fewer rights an anybody else? Those in the Guardian

and on the left... Are they really? Ministers should be able to

differentiate between alert, that, that is advising them that is

requesting of them things from the constituents and the Prince of

Wales, they are able to make the assessments. Time to cut back on the

whole royal thing, make them figureheads and let us get on with

the business of Government without them. Thank you very much for coming

on. That it is for today. Thanks to all of our guests on the programme,

particularly Jenny Jones for being our guest of the day. I will be here

tomorrow. We are on for an hour with all the big political stories of the

day. Join me then.