Browse content similar to 26/04/2016. Check below for episodes and series from the same categories and more!
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Hello and welcome to the Daily Politics. | :00:36. | :00:37. | |
Junior doctors in England have begun their first all-out strike | :00:38. | :00:40. | |
As doctors take to the picket lines, Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt says | :00:41. | :00:47. | |
he's not itching for a fight but won't be backing down. | :00:48. | :00:51. | |
We'll talk to former Health Secretary Ken Clarke. | :00:52. | :00:55. | |
Voters in Scotland head to the polls in just over a week's time - | :00:56. | :00:58. | |
we'll have the latest from the campaign trail and ask | :00:59. | :01:01. | |
if the SNP have delivered on their promises. | :01:02. | :01:06. | |
Jeremy Corbyn's support for the EU is backed by the vast | :01:07. | :01:09. | |
majority of his MPs - but one backbencher claims it | :01:10. | :01:12. | |
could cost the Labour Party swathes of votes. | :01:13. | :01:19. | |
And Big Ben is to fall silent while the famous clock | :01:20. | :01:22. | |
tower is repaired - the experts say it's suffering | :01:23. | :01:24. | |
from everything from subsidence to asbestos to rats. | :01:25. | :01:28. | |
Historian Dan Cruickshank will be here to tell us more. | :01:29. | :01:38. | |
Regular viewers will know that in recent months we've been joined | :01:39. | :01:42. | |
by the leaders of Scottish Labour, the Scottish Conservatives | :01:43. | :01:45. | |
Well today, last and by no means least, we're joined by a former | :01:46. | :01:51. | |
Scottish National Party leader - and now MP - Alex Salmond. | :01:52. | :01:55. | |
First today, jurors deciding what caused the deaths of 96 | :01:56. | :02:04. | |
Liverpool fans in the 1989 Hillsborough disaster have | :02:05. | :02:06. | |
delivered their conclusions after an inquest lasting two years. | :02:07. | :02:11. | |
A crush in an overcrowded standing-only section | :02:12. | :02:13. | |
at Hillsborough Stadium in Sheffield at an FA Cup semifinal | :02:14. | :02:16. | |
match between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest | :02:17. | :02:19. | |
Families celebrated after the inquest. It was the longest case | :02:20. | :02:34. | |
heard by a jury in British legal history. | :02:35. | :02:37. | |
It concluded that the Liverpool supporters were unlawfully killed. | :02:38. | :02:39. | |
The jurors also found that police error caused or contributed | :02:40. | :02:41. | |
to a dangerous situation at the match, while the behaviour | :02:42. | :02:44. | |
of fans did not contribute to the dangerous situation | :02:45. | :02:46. | |
We are looking at these pictures, the emotional scenes, as you would | :02:47. | :02:59. | |
expect, from the families. They have waited a long time for this day. | :03:00. | :03:05. | |
What are your thoughts? It is an extraordinarily emotional day. Just | :03:06. | :03:09. | |
imagine, these people have been campaigning for 27 years to get the | :03:10. | :03:14. | |
justice, the declaration that has been made today that their relatives | :03:15. | :03:17. | |
and loved ones were not responsible for their own deaths. What has made | :03:18. | :03:21. | |
that whole process quite disgraceful has been the systematic cover-up | :03:22. | :03:25. | |
that took place to try to disguise what really happened, the tendency | :03:26. | :03:30. | |
to lump the blame on the fans. Now, in that sense, those women and men | :03:31. | :03:39. | |
who have been studying this for two or three years have indicated the | :03:40. | :03:43. | |
campaign. That would mean a lot to the families over such a long | :03:44. | :03:46. | |
period, where there were indications that the fans might have contributed | :03:47. | :03:51. | |
in some way to the disaster. And also that jury has said that there | :03:52. | :03:56. | |
were various groups of people, bodies, that were responsible in | :03:57. | :04:00. | |
some way or may have contributed to that disaster. Will that be enough? | :04:01. | :04:09. | |
As I understand, English procedure, the verdict of unlawful death puts a | :04:10. | :04:14. | |
presumption on the Crown Prosecution Service to bring forward criminal | :04:15. | :04:18. | |
proceedings. It would be unlikely on that basis for this to be the end of | :04:19. | :04:23. | |
the process. However, I think it must mark a period, I would imagine | :04:24. | :04:30. | |
that these relatives are driving -- they're driving wish over this last | :04:31. | :04:34. | |
quarter of a century has been to clear the names and reputations of | :04:35. | :04:38. | |
loved ones who died. In that sense, this is a position of closure, but I | :04:39. | :04:44. | |
suspect that, given the vigour of the verdict, and we must accept it, | :04:45. | :04:48. | |
people had studied this for two years, they have gone into this in | :04:49. | :04:54. | |
very, very close detail, given the vigour of the verdict... I had to | :04:55. | :04:58. | |
say, I am really interested in an emphasis shifting to the cover-up. | :04:59. | :05:03. | |
We know that hundreds of police statements were falsified, we know | :05:04. | :05:05. | |
there are implications that this went right to the top of the | :05:06. | :05:09. | |
political process, there must now be a focal point on how that happened. | :05:10. | :05:18. | |
I cannot read the minds of the jury, that is inspect people studying bat | :05:19. | :05:21. | |
and knowing the extent of the misinformation that came out is one | :05:22. | :05:24. | |
of the reasons for the vigour of the verdict delivered. The Independent | :05:25. | :05:28. | |
Police Complaints Commission will investigate the claims that you have | :05:29. | :05:32. | |
spoken about, certainly, they cover-up, and there will be | :05:33. | :05:35. | |
political statements over the coming days? | :05:36. | :05:39. | |
Now, the first all-out doctors' strike in the history of the NHS | :05:40. | :05:42. | |
At 8am this morning thousands of junior doctors walked out of both | :05:43. | :05:46. | |
routine and emergency care in protest at the imposition | :05:47. | :05:48. | |
It's the first time services including A, maternity | :05:49. | :05:52. | |
and intensive care have been hit by the dispute, | :05:53. | :05:54. | |
although NHS bosses believe they have plans in place to ensure | :05:55. | :05:57. | |
patients needing emergency care are safe. | :05:58. | :06:03. | |
Nearly 13,000 routine operations and more than 100,000 appointments | :06:04. | :06:05. | |
have been postponed to free up other staff. | :06:06. | :06:12. | |
The stoppage ends at five o'clock this afternoon, | :06:13. | :06:15. | |
with further all-out strike action due tomorrow. | :06:16. | :06:18. | |
Well, to find out what's happening on one of the picket lines we can go | :06:19. | :06:21. | |
now to our correspondent Smitha Mundasad outside | :06:22. | :06:23. | |
We can see junior doctors and their supporters behind you, what has it | :06:24. | :06:37. | |
been like this morning? I was on this exact spot of three weeks ago, | :06:38. | :06:43. | |
and there are a lot more supporters today, a lot more junior doctors, it | :06:44. | :06:48. | |
is a lot more noisy. As you can hear, lots of cars beeping their | :06:49. | :06:50. | |
horns. The message from the junior doc as is the same, they do not | :06:51. | :06:55. | |
think this contract is fair, they have told me that they have walked | :06:56. | :06:58. | |
out in clear conscience because they know what they are doing, they say, | :06:59. | :07:03. | |
at least, is for the better good at the NHS, and there are senior staff | :07:04. | :07:07. | |
could bring their jobs today. Inside the hospital, the chief executive | :07:08. | :07:11. | |
told me that the accident and emergency is less busy than usual, | :07:12. | :07:15. | |
even though there are lots of senior staff who have been trained up to do | :07:16. | :07:19. | |
some of the junior jobs that they may have forgotten how to do. But he | :07:20. | :07:24. | |
also told me that he thinks that, perhaps, opinions are changing and | :07:25. | :07:28. | |
the mood is changing. 122 junior doctors could have gone on strike, | :07:29. | :07:33. | |
23 cross the picket line and went to work. That is a much higher | :07:34. | :07:37. | |
proportion than the previous strikes. He wonders whether perhaps | :07:38. | :07:41. | |
some junior doctors feel that this is a step too far. | :07:42. | :07:45. | |
Another thing he told me is that he wonders about the consultant | :07:46. | :07:49. | |
support. It has been very good so far, they have been willing to do | :07:50. | :07:53. | |
all the jobs that juniors have not done today, but he will how long the | :07:54. | :07:57. | |
goodwill will last. And ultimately, he says, the fact that juniors are | :07:58. | :08:02. | |
routed to date, they have walked out of emergency care, out of the most | :08:03. | :08:13. | |
pressurised areas of the hospital, like intensive care, maternity care | :08:14. | :08:15. | |
and crash teams, suggests that most sites have not done quite enough to | :08:16. | :08:18. | |
stop this dispute. He is urging them to go back around the table, because | :08:19. | :08:21. | |
patients are coming to him saying, I took the day off work to get my | :08:22. | :08:25. | |
planned operation that has now been postponed. Saying all this, he says | :08:26. | :08:29. | |
that at his hospital things are going as planned, very few | :08:30. | :08:34. | |
operations, around 40, have been postponed. Actor you in the studio. | :08:35. | :08:37. | |
Thank you, Smitha. Well, Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt | :08:38. | :08:39. | |
is showing no signs of backing down in the dispute with junior doctors | :08:40. | :08:41. | |
in England - here he is No union, however powerful, | :08:42. | :08:44. | |
however good they are at eliciting public sympathy, has the right | :08:45. | :08:48. | |
to stop an elected government implementing the promises | :08:49. | :08:50. | |
that we made in our manifesto. And we know, and the public know, | :08:51. | :08:55. | |
that you can't choose which day of the week you get ill, | :08:56. | :08:58. | |
and that is why it's incredibly important that we do | :08:59. | :09:01. | |
have a seven-day NHS, that we have even, high-quality | :09:02. | :09:04. | |
care across all days. That is what we want to do, | :09:05. | :09:09. | |
and frankly I think it's what most doctors want to do as well, | :09:10. | :09:12. | |
which is why the right thing for the BMA leadership | :09:13. | :09:15. | |
would be to sit down, to negotiate, talk sensibly, | :09:16. | :09:17. | |
and not to have these wholly unprecedented | :09:18. | :09:19. | |
and unnecessary strikes. And for more information | :09:20. | :09:29. | |
and analysis of the issues in this dispute, go to the BBC News | :09:30. | :09:33. | |
website at We did ask to speak to someone | :09:34. | :09:35. | |
from the Department of Health However, fear not - | :09:36. | :09:40. | |
because we're joined by the next best thing, | :09:41. | :09:44. | |
former Health Secretary Ken Clarke. Wellcome to the programme. Fear and | :09:45. | :09:57. | |
trembling in the heart of the viewers! I am sure. Last night, one | :09:58. | :10:02. | |
Government sores compared this to the miners' strike, saying it is a | :10:03. | :10:06. | |
political strike, like the miners' strike, it has to be defeated. Does | :10:07. | :10:10. | |
that help a situation like this? The God I don't know who said that. I | :10:11. | :10:17. | |
don't see it in that way. It is a disaster and a tragedy that the | :10:18. | :10:19. | |
health service is being faced by this. I don't understand why however | :10:20. | :10:25. | |
many junior doctors taking part are taking part, they are all nice, | :10:26. | :10:30. | |
intelligent young people... They can't all have been misled by the | :10:31. | :10:35. | |
BMA. The only thing on the table is a pay claim. The BMA has never | :10:36. | :10:39. | |
actually had a strike like this ever. Every previous Health | :10:40. | :10:44. | |
Secretary has had battles with them. I had great battles, they did not | :10:45. | :10:48. | |
threaten me with a strike. They are striking over a pay claim which they | :10:49. | :10:53. | |
want waited to make it more expensive at the weekends, so most | :10:54. | :10:57. | |
NHS trusts will not be able to afford to go toward seven-day | :10:58. | :11:02. | |
working. How do you withdraw urgent care in support of that? All those | :11:03. | :11:07. | |
other stuff about supporting the NHS and so one, you can talk about that | :11:08. | :11:11. | |
with them, but it is nothing to do with this strike. We will talk about | :11:12. | :11:15. | |
that in a moment, but we're in a position, as you say, it is | :11:16. | :11:19. | |
historical to have junior doctors on strike, it never happens in your | :11:20. | :11:22. | |
time, and certainly not an all-out strike. Is that the fault of the | :11:23. | :11:29. | |
Government? Doctors would not have withdrawn, only a handful would have | :11:30. | :11:33. | |
contemplated withdrawing urgent treatment in my day. They held names | :11:34. | :11:39. | |
that Nye Bevan, they held names at me, they said I would not take | :11:40. | :11:46. | |
medical advice, they never threatened ordinary strike action. | :11:47. | :11:49. | |
It has been escalated by the sort of language that the Government has | :11:50. | :11:54. | |
used. It is a source, we cannot say who it is, accusing the BMA and | :11:55. | :11:59. | |
junior doctors of blackmailing the Government and trying to bring it | :12:00. | :12:04. | |
down will only fuel the anger. It is a language that I don't think Jeremy | :12:05. | :12:08. | |
Hunt users, he never has, and I don't use it. What we cannot do is | :12:09. | :12:18. | |
put money into paying a pay claim back into militant action when the | :12:19. | :12:24. | |
patient services need money and the service needs to be developed to go | :12:25. | :12:29. | |
to a seven day basis. This strike is about more money and many paid in a | :12:30. | :12:34. | |
way that means not many of them will have to work at weekends. You | :12:35. | :12:39. | |
clearly disagree, but there is a strong argument saying that the | :12:40. | :12:42. | |
junior doctors have moved the central argument of this dispute | :12:43. | :12:46. | |
from their perspective. They said it was about compensating pay on a | :12:47. | :12:49. | |
Saturday if they were going to move to a seven-day week, now it seems to | :12:50. | :12:53. | |
be a much broader issue but, in their mind, saving the NHS. The | :12:54. | :13:01. | |
Government cannot back down about? Kennel Club, a hugely controversial | :13:02. | :13:08. | |
Health Secretary, never had a strike, but Jeremy Hunt said this is | :13:09. | :13:13. | |
about who governs. That macro Kenneth Clarke, a hugely | :13:14. | :13:17. | |
controversial Health Secretary. This is about whether a Health Secretary | :13:18. | :13:21. | |
can achieve consensus with health service staff. In Scotland we are | :13:22. | :13:26. | |
moving to a seven-day health service by consensus, without tearing up the | :13:27. | :13:30. | |
junior doctors' contract is. If it is possible for the Scottish Health | :13:31. | :13:34. | |
Secretary to do but, why is it not possible for Jeremy Hunt to do it | :13:35. | :13:39. | |
without talking like it is a huge constitutional crisis. The only | :13:40. | :13:43. | |
crisis is in his department and his management bid. Isn't that the key, | :13:44. | :13:48. | |
it is the imposition element that has forced these doctors onto the | :13:49. | :13:53. | |
street? In Scotland they have more money, they pay everyone more for | :13:54. | :13:57. | |
weekend working, the service delivered to patients is not as good | :13:58. | :14:02. | |
as in England. That is not true. They and the Welsh have resisted | :14:03. | :14:08. | |
reform over the years. Here, they have been negotiating for three | :14:09. | :14:15. | |
years. It is a filibuster. They have no intention of settling. They made | :14:16. | :14:18. | |
it quite clear, they are now at the last point. Unless we can to workers | :14:19. | :14:24. | |
made so expensive that the demands upon junior doctors to do it will be | :14:25. | :14:30. | |
fewer and further between -- unless weekend work is made so expensive. | :14:31. | :14:36. | |
The service needs a seven-day work, it needs money spent on services. | :14:37. | :14:41. | |
But it is trying to get people on site, trying to get consensus. Did | :14:42. | :14:47. | |
you think using the language of imposition, we will force this | :14:48. | :14:50. | |
contract on you, before there was willingness to negotiate, was wise? | :14:51. | :14:58. | |
Going back to the 1980s, I have had disputes with practically every | :14:59. | :15:03. | |
union known to man... Is that a badge of honour for you? The | :15:04. | :15:08. | |
politics of the 70s and 80s was about industrial relations. The | :15:09. | :15:14. | |
reality... I never had a situation like this. That is exactly the | :15:15. | :15:19. | |
point. If you had been Health Secretary you would have had the | :15:20. | :15:22. | |
sense to see the cross-party of their earlier this week as a | :15:23. | :15:30. | |
potential way to have a pilot study. You out of date about the Scottish | :15:31. | :15:34. | |
health service in every respect. Let's take the four a la target in | :15:35. | :15:38. | |
accident and emergency, the Scottish health service performs better than | :15:39. | :15:42. | |
England. You missed your own targets. Because they are more | :15:43. | :15:47. | |
exacting. On the former -- on the four our target, the Scottish health | :15:48. | :15:50. | |
service is performing substantially better than the English, which is | :15:51. | :15:55. | |
one of the key aspects at the heart of it. Perhaps this is because the | :15:56. | :15:59. | |
junior doctors and other stuff are more motivated in Scotland because | :16:00. | :16:03. | |
they do not have a Government trying to claim the arrow gauged in a | :16:04. | :16:06. | |
campaign to bring down the Government. | :16:07. | :16:11. | |
Is it appropriate that the Scottish Government has been trying to | :16:12. | :16:17. | |
recruit English doctors to work during the disagreement? I'm just | :16:18. | :16:23. | |
off the picket line at Saint Thomas Hospital, and there were a number of | :16:24. | :16:26. | |
junior doctors on that picket line talking about, well, if this Health | :16:27. | :16:31. | |
Secretary does not see sense, get around the table and come to an | :16:32. | :16:33. | |
agreement, they will be looking to go to Scotland or Australia or | :16:34. | :16:41. | |
elsewhere. That should be an example to the people of England, who are | :16:42. | :16:45. | |
firmly behind the junior doctors at the present moment, that you can do | :16:46. | :16:49. | |
things in a better, more consensual way, and if we can do it in | :16:50. | :16:53. | |
Scotland, they can do it in England as well. It is entirely reasonable, | :16:54. | :16:57. | |
if junior doctors are being treated in that way by Jeremy Hunt, that | :16:58. | :17:02. | |
they will look elsewhere. Or they are just resisting the reform that | :17:03. | :17:05. | |
Ken Clarke is talking about. Is there a feeling in government, I | :17:06. | :17:09. | |
know you are not in the government, but fingers being crossed that | :17:10. | :17:13. | |
public opinion will turn against the doctors? It is still in favour in | :17:14. | :17:16. | |
terms of the majority of people polled, but fewer than before the | :17:17. | :17:21. | |
all-out strike. Is that what you are banking on? I think it will happen, | :17:22. | :17:25. | |
and the majority of junior doctors will not take part in the strike, | :17:26. | :17:29. | |
not withdraw urgent and emergency care. I do not think that is | :17:30. | :17:34. | |
necessarily a helpful development, because Jeremy and the Government | :17:35. | :17:40. | |
are trying to take the militancy and bitterness out of this. Come on, | :17:41. | :17:47. | |
Ken! By making clear there are concessions, by making clear that | :17:48. | :17:50. | |
they will attack the wider things that are being talked about on the | :17:51. | :17:54. | |
picket lines, their working conditions, reducing hours, no-one | :17:55. | :17:58. | |
is getting a pay reduction, 75% getting a pay rise. But one is faced | :17:59. | :18:04. | |
with this rather baffling believe that they are saving the NHS. | :18:05. | :18:08. | |
Because both sides have hardened their lines, and everybody seems to | :18:09. | :18:12. | |
be entrenched. The junior doctors and the public will be low weight if | :18:13. | :18:20. | |
they make it so hard. I am putting the question, it would be difficult | :18:21. | :18:23. | |
to prove this, if somebody loses their life today, that it was down | :18:24. | :18:28. | |
to the strike, but public opinion could well slide away from junior | :18:29. | :18:33. | |
doctors. I and I come in today from the BBC health correspondent, who | :18:34. | :18:36. | |
must know something about it, there is an argument that things will be | :18:37. | :18:40. | |
safer because the emergency situation is being covered by more | :18:41. | :18:48. | |
senior doctors. As of today, a majority of junior doctors are on | :18:49. | :18:51. | |
strike and a majority of the public in England are supporting their | :18:52. | :18:55. | |
case. I will tell you why it is, because the public know the first | :18:56. | :18:59. | |
all-out strike in history, the first strike for 30 years in the National | :19:00. | :19:03. | |
Health Service, there must be some really important reason that has | :19:04. | :19:06. | |
driven these people, who have committed their lives to the welfare | :19:07. | :19:11. | |
of others, to engage in this sort of activity, as opposed to a fly by | :19:12. | :19:19. | |
night Health Secretary who was causing chaos. He says he is going | :19:20. | :19:22. | |
to stay. He says it is his last big job in government, let's hope so! | :19:23. | :19:27. | |
They are taking a firm stand on something that is pricking | :19:28. | :19:31. | |
consciences on the picket line, but where does it end? If there was the | :19:32. | :19:36. | |
idea of an in Devon and strike, and it has been touted, surely the | :19:37. | :19:40. | |
Government could not survive that? -- indefinite. The idea that | :19:41. | :19:45. | |
militancy keeps rising, talking about a permanent withdrawal, it is | :19:46. | :19:50. | |
not clear that it would be a permanent withdrawal, continuous | :19:51. | :19:53. | |
withdrawal of emergency and urgent care. The idea that this will not | :19:54. | :19:58. | |
damage patients, patients will not mind having operations cancelled, | :19:59. | :20:02. | |
those members of the public who say they support the junior doctors, as | :20:03. | :20:07. | |
in most strikes, and in the days we used to have strikes all the time, | :20:08. | :20:10. | |
they just want the Government and the health service to run normally. | :20:11. | :20:15. | |
Why can't the Government sort it out? The idea that you give away to | :20:16. | :20:20. | |
strike with a pay claim, then half the other staff. -- staff will | :20:21. | :20:28. | |
threaten militant action for the same generous terms that the junior | :20:29. | :20:32. | |
doctors are trying to demand. You cannot wait until the public finally | :20:33. | :20:35. | |
realised that this money is being, you know, taken away from patient | :20:36. | :20:41. | |
services to buy off militant industrial action. They are nice | :20:42. | :20:45. | |
people, junior doctors, they should be prepared to sit down and talk | :20:46. | :20:50. | |
about what they actually think is better for the National Health | :20:51. | :20:54. | |
Service and patients. Meanwhile, the strike is going head and will resume | :20:55. | :20:58. | |
tomorrow. Thank you very much, Ken Clarke. | :20:59. | :20:59. | |
And it's all about the SNP's latest election billboard. | :21:00. | :21:03. | |
"Don't just hope for a better Scotland, vote for one." | :21:04. | :21:06. | |
But several people have pointed out that the slogan is almost identical | :21:07. | :21:09. | |
to the one used by another famous political figure. | :21:10. | :21:12. | |
Was it Donald Trump, George Galloway, | :21:13. | :21:14. | |
Margaret Thatcher or Lyndon B Johnson? | :21:15. | :21:18. | |
Alex Salmond will give us the correct answer. | :21:19. | :21:24. | |
Now, in recent weeks in Scotland, we've seen one party leader | :21:25. | :21:27. | |
riding a buffalo, another on a children's slide, | :21:28. | :21:28. | |
It can only mean one thing - yes, the elections | :21:29. | :21:34. | |
to the Scottish Parliament are just around the corner, | :21:35. | :21:37. | |
and our Adam's been on the campaign trail to find out more. | :21:38. | :21:40. | |
The Scottish Parliament now has powers to vary the rate | :21:41. | :21:45. | |
and threshold for income tax, and so tax has become a massive | :21:46. | :21:48. | |
issue in the election campaign being fought | :21:49. | :21:51. | |
The SNP is running a presidential-style campaign | :21:52. | :21:58. | |
I've just been handed a Nicola Sturgeon stress ball. | :21:59. | :22:07. | |
It doesn't look much like her, though, does it? | :22:08. | :22:10. | |
She's stressing that she won't pass on the tax cut for people | :22:11. | :22:16. | |
on the 40p rate that George Osborne is doing down south. | :22:17. | :22:19. | |
I'm going to get my photo with you, though. | :22:20. | :22:21. | |
How come in the general election you said you wanted a 50p rate | :22:22. | :22:29. | |
of tax, but you're not going to introduce one now, | :22:30. | :22:32. | |
and I argued that across the UK in the general election. | :22:33. | :22:38. | |
We don't have powers in Scotland over tax avoidance on income tax, | :22:39. | :22:41. | |
so if we introduce it just in Scotland, there is a danger | :22:42. | :22:44. | |
that we end up losing money from it, because people will perhaps | :22:45. | :22:47. | |
take their income out of Scotland or transfer it into, | :22:48. | :22:49. | |
Labour's Kezia Dugdale has shaken things up with a radical range | :22:50. | :22:54. | |
of tax pledges designed to outflank the SNP from the left. | :22:55. | :22:58. | |
Firstly, we will reintroduce our top rate of tax, a 50p rate, | :22:59. | :23:02. | |
which will ask those people who earn over ?150,000 a year | :23:03. | :23:05. | |
But that alone is not enough to stop the cuts. | :23:06. | :23:10. | |
So that's why we're advocating using the basic rate of income tax, | :23:11. | :23:13. | |
putting that up by 1p, 1p higher than George Osborne and the Tories. | :23:14. | :23:20. | |
And when he's not manhandling people's pets, | :23:21. | :23:22. | |
the Lib Dems' Scottish leader is eyeing a tax rise, too. | :23:23. | :23:25. | |
What you get with the Liberal Democrats is a big investment | :23:26. | :23:27. | |
in education, with a penny on income tax. | :23:28. | :23:30. | |
But what is terribly disappointing in this campaign | :23:31. | :23:32. | |
is the timidity and caution of the SNP. | :23:33. | :23:35. | |
They've been banging on about more powers for decades, | :23:36. | :23:39. | |
and what do they do when they get those more powers? | :23:40. | :23:41. | |
To make things a little bit more confusing, | :23:42. | :23:48. | |
the Scottish Greens are suggesting a new 60p rate, | :23:49. | :23:51. | |
and they want to split the basic rate in two. | :23:52. | :23:55. | |
It's not enough just to say the basic rate | :23:56. | :23:58. | |
would go up or down a bit - we want to break it into two, | :23:59. | :24:02. | |
an upper and a lower band, so that people on a below full-time | :24:03. | :24:06. | |
average annual salary save money from their tax bill, | :24:07. | :24:08. | |
and those who can afford to pay more do so. | :24:09. | :24:12. | |
Keeping it simple, that lover of comedy photo ops - | :24:13. | :24:14. | |
the Scottish Tory leader Ruth Davidson, | :24:15. | :24:16. | |
who wants taxes to stay the same across the UK. | :24:17. | :24:19. | |
Except her opposite number in Cardiff | :24:20. | :24:21. | |
The Welsh Conservatives can take their own decisions | :24:22. | :24:28. | |
about what they do, in the same way that we do here. | :24:29. | :24:31. | |
We would love to, over the medium-term - | :24:32. | :24:33. | |
and I have made that plain - aspire to a tax cut for Scots | :24:34. | :24:36. | |
But what we're seeing at this election is that has | :24:37. | :24:39. | |
to be earned, those sorts of tax cuts have to be earned. | :24:40. | :24:42. | |
We saw just yesterday from the labour market statistics | :24:43. | :24:44. | |
that we have higher unemployment in Scotland, you've got lower growth | :24:45. | :24:47. | |
in Scotland, we need to be able to grow our economy, | :24:48. | :24:50. | |
the amount of money that's coming into the pot, | :24:51. | :24:53. | |
and then we can look at tax cuts for people. | :24:54. | :24:55. | |
They know all about comparing Scotland and England | :24:56. | :24:57. | |
at this shopping centre, because it's right on the border. | :24:58. | :25:00. | |
We're British, I know we're Scottish, | :25:01. | :25:05. | |
that we should pay British taxes, there shouldn't be a difference. | :25:06. | :25:08. | |
Because people will go from Scotland down to England, | :25:09. | :25:10. | |
I'm thinking of moving back to England if it happens. | :25:11. | :25:14. | |
Are you? Yeah. | :25:15. | :25:15. | |
I don't know, it's just like we're paying more tax | :25:16. | :25:19. | |
I don't mind the taxes being higher, the 1p or whatever it is, | :25:20. | :25:24. | |
because we need it for the schools. We need to invest in the NHS. | :25:25. | :25:27. | |
If you put the rates up, or taxes up, if the money | :25:28. | :25:30. | |
is going to good places like NHS, schools etc, I don't mind, | :25:31. | :25:34. | |
because they're desperately needing it, you know? | :25:35. | :25:36. | |
You're happy to pay more? I would. | :25:37. | :25:39. | |
where income tax could end up being really quite different. | :25:40. | :25:43. | |
Unless the SNP win, and then it'll only be a little bit different. | :25:44. | :25:49. | |
That was Adam, and we're joined now from Glasgow | :25:50. | :25:52. | |
by the BBC's Scotland editor, Sarah Smith. | :25:53. | :25:54. | |
Sarah Beck, income tax, is that the central battle ground? It certainly | :25:55. | :26:09. | |
is, because it is the first time the Scottish Parliament will have the | :26:10. | :26:12. | |
ability to vary interest rates and can make them different from the | :26:13. | :26:15. | |
rest of the United Kingdom, and there is a clear difference between | :26:16. | :26:18. | |
the political parties, as you heard, about the policies of what they | :26:19. | :26:23. | |
would do with income tax. The one thing that seems certain is that | :26:24. | :26:25. | |
there will be different rates being paid by people here than in the rest | :26:26. | :26:31. | |
of Britain. What about the battle for second place, if you like, if we | :26:32. | :26:35. | |
look at Labour and the Conservatives? How is it playing | :26:36. | :26:39. | |
out? Ruth Davidson, the Scottish Conservative leader, takes an | :26:40. | :26:43. | |
interesting line. She says vote for her for a stronger opposition, she | :26:44. | :26:47. | |
is not claiming she will be the First Minister, she wants to come | :26:48. | :26:50. | |
second and will be a stronger opposition if she is the Leader of | :26:51. | :26:54. | |
the Opposition to the SNP. She is taking it for granted that the SNP | :26:55. | :26:59. | |
will win. We would never do that, because although the polls can get | :27:00. | :27:03. | |
the margin of error on, the SNP are 30 points shared in the election. It | :27:04. | :27:07. | |
seems likely they might form the next government, which is a problem | :27:08. | :27:11. | |
for Kezia Dugdale of Scottish Labour. She has to say she is | :27:12. | :27:15. | |
fighting to become First Minister, that there will be a Labour | :27:16. | :27:19. | |
government, but it does not seem entirely credible. Ruth Davidson may | :27:20. | :27:23. | |
be onto something, saying vote for a strong opposition, rather than | :27:24. | :27:26. | |
saying you can and sit Nicola Sturgeon. There must be some cracks | :27:27. | :27:32. | |
in the SNP campaign. They are being put aside for being too timid on a | :27:33. | :27:37. | |
income tax policy. They have fought for decades for more powers in the | :27:38. | :27:40. | |
Scottish Parliament, and now they have the power to vary income tax | :27:41. | :27:44. | |
is, they are just talking about not passing on a tax cut for higher | :27:45. | :27:50. | |
earners. Labour are saying they would put 1p on basic rate, they say | :27:51. | :27:54. | |
they want to grasp the new powers of the Scottish Parliament and put them | :27:55. | :28:01. | |
into effect. Well done, Sarah Smith, for withstanding the wind! You're | :28:02. | :28:05. | |
being too timid, Alex Salmond, you have never used the powers you have | :28:06. | :28:11. | |
a nine years, why not? Well, it was progressive, because we did not have | :28:12. | :28:15. | |
the power to vary the income tax of the better off without changing the | :28:16. | :28:22. | |
income tax of the lower paid. The SNP divided the House of Commons | :28:23. | :28:26. | |
over the tax cut for the better off, one half of why Ian Duncan is it | :28:27. | :28:30. | |
resigned. The Labour Party abstained on that boat on the 22nd of March, | :28:31. | :28:34. | |
and it is quite right and very exciting that Nicola Sturgeon will | :28:35. | :28:37. | |
now have the power not to pass on that tax cut to the better off so | :28:38. | :28:42. | |
was that money can be invested in public services. It would be | :28:43. | :28:45. | |
ludicrous to take the position that we are going to tax the lowest paid | :28:46. | :28:48. | |
in the country with an extra penny on the income tax, that is not an | :28:49. | :28:53. | |
alternative to austerity - that is austerity. Let's just go through | :28:54. | :28:58. | |
some of the key policy areas, the SNP launched their manifesto in | :28:59. | :29:02. | |
Edinburgh last week with Nicola Sturgeon, calling at her job | :29:03. | :29:05. | |
application for the post of First Minister. | :29:06. | :29:07. | |
But the SNP have been in power in Holyrood for nine years now. | :29:08. | :29:10. | |
So what is their record in government? | :29:11. | :29:12. | |
On education, the SNP have protected free university tuition | :29:13. | :29:14. | |
But critics point to cuts to further-education colleges | :29:15. | :29:17. | |
as evidence that their record on education isn't all rosy. | :29:18. | :29:22. | |
On healthcare, the SNP have scrapped prescription charges and protected | :29:23. | :29:25. | |
free personal care for those aged 65 and over who need it. | :29:26. | :29:32. | |
But they have regularly failed to meet | :29:33. | :29:34. | |
their own A target on waiting times. | :29:35. | :29:36. | |
The SNP government have frozen council tax rates | :29:37. | :29:39. | |
But they originally planned to replace this with local income tax - | :29:40. | :29:45. | |
those hardest hit by unfair Tory welfare cuts. | :29:46. | :29:54. | |
But the Scottish Labour Party and Scottish Lib Dems say | :29:55. | :29:57. | |
they could give public services a boost | :29:58. | :29:58. | |
Writer, well, let's get back to that issue. Why don't you do what people, | :29:59. | :30:15. | |
even in that film, were demanding, which is to raise income tax. You | :30:16. | :30:23. | |
said we have protected free education, we introduced free | :30:24. | :30:26. | |
education in Scotland. We scrapped the backend Jewish and fees. I was | :30:27. | :30:30. | |
First Minister at the time, I remember. -- we scrapped the | :30:31. | :30:41. | |
backends tuition fees. But these are not the target set by the Scottish | :30:42. | :30:46. | |
Government. The original target was 95%, as we were improving things we | :30:47. | :30:52. | |
set the target of 98%, so the only reason we have not met the target is | :30:53. | :30:57. | |
we increased it. It was too ambitious and you have not held to | :30:58. | :31:02. | |
it. We have increased performance by 8%. The reason the Scottish | :31:03. | :31:05. | |
Government is popular, and that Nicola Sturgeon is outstandingly | :31:06. | :31:09. | |
popular, is that people know about. Just say we have not met its target | :31:10. | :31:14. | |
is to ignore the fact that A times are eight cent better than when we | :31:15. | :31:19. | |
came to target. If you state a target, that is what we will judge | :31:20. | :31:25. | |
you against. Bad is perhaps the BBC judgment, I am more interested in | :31:26. | :31:31. | |
the judgment of the Scottish people. The SNP has a positive approval | :31:32. | :31:35. | |
rating. Which other government do you know of, nine years into office? | :31:36. | :31:41. | |
About it is not factually wrong, I accept that you have improved the | :31:42. | :31:45. | |
target, but you improved it, you missed it, we have judged you on | :31:46. | :31:49. | |
that. I will come to education. The | :31:50. | :31:56. | |
statement about free education was slightly misleading, by normal BBC | :31:57. | :32:02. | |
standards. Which we uphold to the highest level! Except during the | :32:03. | :32:05. | |
referendum. You could not resist it. In terms of | :32:06. | :32:14. | |
tuition fees, has the focus on not charging for tuition fees damaged | :32:15. | :32:16. | |
other areas of education in Scotland? Lots of the statistics | :32:17. | :32:23. | |
show that people from poorest backgrounds have suffered because of | :32:24. | :32:27. | |
closure of further education colleges, reduction in teaching | :32:28. | :32:31. | |
grants. I will say why this is wrong. The focus is on the number of | :32:32. | :32:36. | |
places, but the way you measure students in colleges in Scotland is | :32:37. | :32:41. | |
not by places, it is by full-time equivalent teaching, like-for-like. | :32:42. | :32:47. | |
If you were to change four two our courses are weak into one full-time | :32:48. | :32:52. | |
course, that is not four courses going into one course, it is more | :32:53. | :32:57. | |
teaching. The SNP has upheld the full-time equivalent teaching time. | :32:58. | :33:01. | |
Let's look at the numbers of students. You are looking at the | :33:02. | :33:06. | |
number of students, we are looking at courses, this is a different | :33:07. | :33:13. | |
thing. These figures are from the Educational Institute Of Scotland,, | :33:14. | :33:16. | |
since you came to power in 2007 and wanted to increase the number of | :33:17. | :33:20. | |
students, the number of students in Scottish colleges has fallen by 152 | :33:21. | :33:38. | |
-- 150 2000. -- 150 2000. 92% of schoolchildren in Scotland go onto | :33:39. | :33:41. | |
higher educational work. We have a higher level of achieving that than | :33:42. | :33:45. | |
the rest of the UK. And a larger number of students in higher | :33:46. | :33:50. | |
education. And the high ever number of students in certified and degree | :33:51. | :33:54. | |
level courses. These are the statistics that matter. People in | :33:55. | :34:01. | |
Scotland no... It is not an interpretation. These are respected | :34:02. | :34:08. | |
institute 's judging you. Families in Scotland know the difference it | :34:09. | :34:12. | |
makes to have free education based on ability as opposed to paying | :34:13. | :34:18. | |
?9,000 a year and labelling future generations with this huge burden. | :34:19. | :34:24. | |
Do you accept that further education colleges have suffered? It has | :34:25. | :34:27. | |
benefited certain students, I will put this to you... Effie colleges, | :34:28. | :34:33. | |
we have colleges in Scotland with degree courses, which benefits | :34:34. | :34:38. | |
colleges as well as universities -- FE colleges. They say that the | :34:39. | :34:41. | |
priority of the Scottish Government to prioritise full-time FE causes | :34:42. | :34:50. | |
has had impact on the part-time courses. Children from disadvantaged | :34:51. | :34:54. | |
backgrounds have lost out, the figures are there. I don't accept | :34:55. | :34:59. | |
that, the point of full-time and degree level courses, higher | :35:00. | :35:03. | |
education courses, pursued in colleges as well as universities, it | :35:04. | :35:06. | |
gets people into full-time employment. That is why the record | :35:07. | :35:10. | |
of full-time employment for young people in Scotland is so good in | :35:11. | :35:15. | |
comparison with the rest of the UK. Do you access there are fewer | :35:16. | :35:19. | |
college places than they used to be? -- do you accept? Everybody watching | :35:20. | :35:29. | |
this will understand that two four or five hour courses is entirely | :35:30. | :35:32. | |
different from the degree level course. That is one course, but it | :35:33. | :35:36. | |
might be far more valuable for people to get recognised | :35:37. | :35:40. | |
qualifications to get into work as opposed to having limited two or | :35:41. | :35:46. | |
three hour courses. The Scottish Funding Council says that your | :35:47. | :35:49. | |
record on poorer students at University, despite having free | :35:50. | :35:56. | |
Jewish and the Scottish students, -- despite having free tuition for | :35:57. | :36:03. | |
Scottish students... We are committing to new legislation which | :36:04. | :36:08. | |
is going to make sure that universities respond to the need to | :36:09. | :36:12. | |
have people from deprived backgrounds. Which is something you | :36:13. | :36:18. | |
have not managed to do. The number of students from deprived | :36:19. | :36:21. | |
backgrounds is improving in Scotland, but not at the rate that | :36:22. | :36:26. | |
we would like it to happen. Let's return to taxes. You and many of | :36:27. | :36:30. | |
your colleagues have said you want to protect Scottish public services | :36:31. | :36:34. | |
from Tory cuts at Westminster, why not give public services like | :36:35. | :36:38. | |
schools and hospitals, as the lady said in that film, they need more | :36:39. | :36:43. | |
money, use your tax-raising powers? The proposals put forward will raise | :36:44. | :36:47. | |
an additional 2000 million pounds over the course of the next | :36:48. | :36:52. | |
parliament, which will go into public services. But you do not | :36:53. | :36:56. | |
tackle austerity I taxi the lowest paid in the country, as Labour | :36:57. | :37:00. | |
propose. If you are introducing taxation, you need to make sure it | :37:01. | :37:04. | |
is fire, you do not give tax cuts to the better off. Tax avoidance sounds | :37:05. | :37:11. | |
like an excuse, Alex Hammond. The report suggested that if we did that | :37:12. | :37:15. | |
in Scotland without the powers that Nicola identified and demonstrated, | :37:16. | :37:19. | |
we would end up with less money. Nobody imposes a higher tax to end | :37:20. | :37:24. | |
up with less revenue. You will not do it at the top, you say you do not | :37:25. | :37:28. | |
want to do it at the bottom... We are doing it at the top end by not | :37:29. | :37:33. | |
giving the tax cut that George Osborne introduced in the Budget, | :37:34. | :37:37. | |
which the SNP voted against and the Labour Party sat on my hands. Let's | :37:38. | :37:42. | |
look at other potential areas for raising money to boost public | :37:43. | :37:46. | |
services, which people seem to want. This idea of replacing the council | :37:47. | :37:50. | |
tax with a local income tax, it was in both your 2007 and 2011 | :37:51. | :37:57. | |
manifestos, why has it not happened? The 2011 manifesto committed us to a | :37:58. | :38:02. | |
study. You are right about the 2007 manifesto. In 2007 we found we could | :38:03. | :38:06. | |
not get it introduced with the powers that be had. Nicola has | :38:07. | :38:11. | |
followed through on the 2011 manifesto. She has proposed to | :38:12. | :38:14. | |
change the nature of council tax to increase the number of bands, so | :38:15. | :38:18. | |
that higher paid people in better off properties pay more than people | :38:19. | :38:30. | |
across the spectrum. The -- you have frozen the council tax. Every single | :38:31. | :38:35. | |
penny of that, perhaps to an over degree, has been dampened sated by | :38:36. | :38:40. | |
central government. Local authorities in Scotland, who are | :38:41. | :38:47. | |
hard-pressed, have done in comparably better than local | :38:48. | :38:50. | |
authorities in England and Wales. They also say they have been starved | :38:51. | :38:54. | |
of cash and have had to struggle. The garden let's accept that it is a | :38:55. | :39:00. | |
tight spending regime imposed by Tory and coalition governments, and | :39:01. | :39:03. | |
Labour before them, but local authorities in Scotland have been | :39:04. | :39:08. | |
much better funded than their counterparts in England and Wales. | :39:09. | :39:12. | |
You said that the referendum was a once in a generation boat, will you | :39:13. | :39:16. | |
rule out another referendum in the next five years? It is not up to me, | :39:17. | :39:20. | |
it isn't too Nicola and the Scottish people. Nicola has identified that | :39:21. | :39:25. | |
if we were dragged out of the EU against the will of the Scottish | :39:26. | :39:29. | |
people, that would be a change in the tube and circumstances | :39:30. | :39:35. | |
justifying another pole. -- a change in circumstances justifying another | :39:36. | :39:42. | |
poll. Our position in Europe is being jeopardised by London | :39:43. | :39:46. | |
decisions. In the general election last year, Nicola said explicitly, | :39:47. | :39:51. | |
again on the BBC, and the people of Scotland, hearing that commitment, | :39:52. | :39:56. | |
returned 56 out of 59 Scottish constituencies as SNP members. What | :39:57. | :40:02. | |
happened to the other three? More on that when we get there! | :40:03. | :40:03. | |
Now, as we've been discussing, next week on the 5th of May, | :40:04. | :40:06. | |
voters will be going to the polls all over the UK, including at 125 | :40:07. | :40:09. | |
Councils and councillors can come in all shapes and sizes, | :40:10. | :40:12. | |
and today we're going to have a look at some of the most remarkable. | :40:13. | :40:16. | |
West Somerset has the smallest local council by population, | :40:17. | :40:18. | |
Birmingham has the largest council population, | :40:19. | :40:27. | |
Of the 10,399 candidates standing for election, 66%, | :40:28. | :40:31. | |
The average age of a councillor is over 60 years old, | :40:32. | :40:42. | |
The youngest councillor in England is Liberal Democrat Isabelle Murray, | :40:43. | :40:47. | |
who was just 18 years old when elected to Seaford Town | :40:48. | :40:49. | |
So that was the youngest, but let's now speak | :40:50. | :40:57. | |
He is, we believe, the longest-serving borough | :40:58. | :41:01. | |
He's called Godfrey Olson, he's standing down | :41:02. | :41:05. | |
after 61 years of service on Eastleigh Borough Council, | :41:06. | :41:08. | |
and he joins us now from our Southampton studio. | :41:09. | :41:17. | |
Welcome to the programme. As we said, godly Olsen, you have sat on | :41:18. | :41:25. | |
Eastleigh Borough Council since 1955. How much has local and changed | :41:26. | :41:30. | |
since you were elected? Dramatically. When I first joined | :41:31. | :41:34. | |
Eastleigh Borough Council it was a relatively small area just | :41:35. | :41:37. | |
comprising of three towns, chance that, Eastleigh and Bishopstown in | :41:38. | :41:46. | |
the 1974 reorganisation it expanded to more than double its size and now | :41:47. | :41:51. | |
has a population of over 100,000. You are not standing for real action | :41:52. | :41:57. | |
next week, why are you stepping down now? I decided that I had as to the | :41:58. | :42:03. | |
electorate of the war but I represent -- I had asked the | :42:04. | :42:07. | |
electorate of the water that I represented throughout that time | :42:08. | :42:10. | |
enough to support me, now it was time for me to take a rest and give | :42:11. | :42:15. | |
Cindy at the opportunity. You have clearly enjoyed it, otherwise you | :42:16. | :42:18. | |
would not have done it for all this time. You have been a councillor, | :42:19. | :42:23. | |
mayor three times, you also worked as an estate agent. How did you | :42:24. | :42:28. | |
manage it all? With difficulty. I have always lived by a council | :42:29. | :42:33. | |
diary. It was imported to me to always be at the council meetings, | :42:34. | :42:39. | |
and I managed to fulfil that, fortunately, and I enjoyed | :42:40. | :42:44. | |
representing the people that had the confidence to elect me. You were | :42:45. | :42:50. | |
awarded an OBE in 1990 for your work within the community. What did you | :42:51. | :42:54. | |
think has been your greatest achievement, all the thing you | :42:55. | :42:59. | |
remember most? A number of things, but I suppose when taking my mayoral | :43:00. | :43:06. | |
years, my second mayoral year, I decided I would try to raise money | :43:07. | :43:13. | |
to help people with special needs. The next year was the Queen's Silver | :43:14. | :43:21. | |
Jubilee. So we decided to set up a committee to raise money to build an | :43:22. | :43:25. | |
activity centre for people with special needs. We managed to succeed | :43:26. | :43:32. | |
and have it open, Princess Margaret came to open it just before the end | :43:33. | :43:39. | |
of the Queen's Silver Jubilee year. That still exists and caters for | :43:40. | :43:45. | |
many hundreds of people with special needs who can go and enjoy | :43:46. | :43:49. | |
activities in the open air, sailing or canoeing, using the country park | :43:50. | :44:00. | |
in which the centre is situated. Let me ask Alan Salmond, do you think | :44:01. | :44:06. | |
you could serve the 61 years? -- Alex Hammond? It is 22 years since | :44:07. | :44:13. | |
Godfrey was recognised for his work and he has done another couple of | :44:14. | :44:20. | |
decades since. Whatever medals they have for local councillors, he | :44:21. | :44:23. | |
should get a platinum medal. An amazing record, well done. Enjoy | :44:24. | :44:28. | |
your retirement, you have owned it and deserved it. Did you want to say | :44:29. | :44:34. | |
something, it sounded like he wanted to say something? I was just going | :44:35. | :44:38. | |
to tell you about the restoration of an Eastleigh local building. We will | :44:39. | :44:42. | |
have to say that for another day, but thank you. | :44:43. | :44:43. | |
Now, the Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn is backing a vote to stay | :44:44. | :44:46. | |
in the EU at the referendum on the 23rd of June. | :44:47. | :44:48. | |
But one of his MPs, the former Welfare Minister Frank Field, | :44:49. | :44:51. | |
has used a speech this morning to accuse him of writing the second | :44:52. | :44:54. | |
longest suicide note in Labour's history. | :44:55. | :44:56. | |
He said traditional Labour voters | :44:57. | :44:57. | |
had suffered most from Britain's EU membership: | :44:58. | :45:04. | |
They have been on the receiving end of the numbers, 5.3 million people, | :45:05. | :45:12. | |
newcomers to this country since Tony Blair and Gordon Brown | :45:13. | :45:14. | |
They are the ones that have actually suffered with pressure on their | :45:15. | :45:19. | |
wages declining, they have been the ones who find the queues | :45:20. | :45:21. | |
for housing have become longer, and they are the ones | :45:22. | :45:24. | |
who feel most acutely that they cannot choose schools | :45:25. | :45:27. | |
And he's with us now to tell us more. | :45:28. | :45:41. | |
Frank Field, since Jake Cole won the leadership, there has been a lot of | :45:42. | :45:50. | |
disunity, or at least reported disunity in the Labour Party, but | :45:51. | :45:53. | |
Europe is an issue where you could say there is unity, really, bar a | :45:54. | :45:58. | |
few MPs. So why are you trying to create this unity when it is a | :45:59. | :46:05. | |
necessary? I think his position is secure, I think this talk from some | :46:06. | :46:09. | |
members of the Parliamentary Labour Party about overthrowing is absurd, | :46:10. | :46:13. | |
and he will remain secure until those who wish to have him replaced | :46:14. | :46:17. | |
find an alternative leader. The reason why I spoke today was that if | :46:18. | :46:24. | |
you look at, leaving out what has happened to our vote in Scotland! In | :46:25. | :46:29. | |
England, since the heyday of Tony Blair, we have lost well over four | :46:30. | :46:35. | |
million votes, well over 3 million people have moved to a distension, | :46:36. | :46:41. | |
and Ukip has had, equally, an increasing vote of 3 million. -- | :46:42. | :46:53. | |
moved to add -- abstention. They crossed over because they felt they | :46:54. | :46:57. | |
had a Labour Party that did not represent in public debate their | :46:58. | :47:02. | |
real interests. But the settled view in Labour that Remain is the one to | :47:03. | :47:06. | |
back, and the Conservative Party is a classic example of a party that is | :47:07. | :47:12. | |
split on this key issue, and voters do not like divided parties. So why | :47:13. | :47:15. | |
highlight something that, in Parliamentary terms you do not | :47:16. | :47:24. | |
represent any more? You can have unanimity in the graveyard. It is | :47:25. | :47:27. | |
crucially important, if we are going to be successful in winning power | :47:28. | :47:31. | |
next time, that we do not have another tranche of Labour voters | :47:32. | :47:38. | |
feeling that they are so unrepresented by the Parliamentary | :47:39. | :47:41. | |
leadership that they are voting to leave and voting for Ukip | :47:42. | :47:44. | |
candidates. I want them to go into the polling booth to express that | :47:45. | :47:53. | |
40% of our supporters support leaving, as proud Labour voters, not | :47:54. | :47:57. | |
potential renegade Ukip voters. Why would leaving the EU be good for | :47:58. | :48:04. | |
working people? We would be able to control our borders. I have heard | :48:05. | :48:07. | |
people argue that we already do, David Miliband, but we have no | :48:08. | :48:14. | |
control, since the accession countries joined, we have had 5.3 | :48:15. | :48:20. | |
million people coming into this country. That was Labour's fault. | :48:21. | :48:25. | |
And you had me on this programme saying we should not do that, | :48:26. | :48:29. | |
criticising the Labour government for doing so, and it was not then | :48:30. | :48:33. | |
about the Labour Party being united on that issue. What do you say to | :48:34. | :48:37. | |
that, in terms of working people being best represented by parties | :48:38. | :48:43. | |
wanting to leave? Because their fortunes would improve. Well, I | :48:44. | :48:48. | |
don't access that, and I rather like the tone, as it happens, and it is | :48:49. | :48:53. | |
perhaps ridiculous for me to beat defending Jeremy Corbyn and Frank | :48:54. | :48:56. | |
attacking him, but I think the tone that he said in his speech of not | :48:57. | :49:03. | |
being uncritical towards Europe, but a balance there is a good track | :49:04. | :49:15. | |
record in said in terms, but the SNP is a pro-European party, not | :49:16. | :49:21. | |
uncritical but still pro-European, and we have been massively | :49:22. | :49:25. | |
successful at the ballot box. The idea that being pro-European will | :49:26. | :49:28. | |
damage electoral fortunes is not upheld by the evidence in Scotland. | :49:29. | :49:32. | |
I know there are other factors, Frank, but nonetheless it is an | :49:33. | :49:36. | |
accurate you have to answer. Indeed, I think Scotland is another country. | :49:37. | :49:43. | |
I think you will move to a position of independence, and I hope we will | :49:44. | :49:49. | |
push for parliaments of all the countries, with England having a | :49:50. | :49:54. | |
parliament, like you have, Wales and Northern Ireland. People in Scotland | :49:55. | :49:57. | |
are voting for bigger issues than what they have to face, which is key | :49:58. | :50:05. | |
for our future, the referendum. You have rather disarmed me with that | :50:06. | :50:09. | |
proposal! Just briefly, to go back to the workers and working people in | :50:10. | :50:14. | |
terms of which way they might go in this election, Alan Johnson has said | :50:15. | :50:19. | |
that the reason why politicians like Boris Johnson and Michael Gove want | :50:20. | :50:22. | |
to leave the EU is because they want to get rid of workers' rights comedy | :50:23. | :50:34. | |
and think that is their main motivation? If you put your sticky | :50:35. | :50:39. | |
fingers into their souls, you should have them here to answer that. The | :50:40. | :50:44. | |
fallacy of that argument is that many of the social rights ones which | :50:45. | :50:49. | |
we actually took into Europe, not in fact that somehow workers in this | :50:50. | :50:55. | |
country were bereft of until the European, until we joined the | :50:56. | :50:59. | |
European Union. I'll so think Alan Johnson's other comments today, | :51:00. | :51:03. | |
believing that membership of the EU is more important to the country and | :51:04. | :51:10. | |
to Labour voters that the act of settlement in 1945, if he thinks | :51:11. | :51:14. | |
that... What we need to do is get a really good representation of Labour | :51:15. | :51:18. | |
votes who wish to leave, to do so with their heads high, and not | :51:19. | :51:21. | |
feeling this is a pro-lead to them crossing over to Ukip, because they | :51:22. | :51:26. | |
feel they are not represented by the Labour Party. -- a prelude. We have | :51:27. | :51:34. | |
heard perhaps that the economics from the Leave side is not the | :51:35. | :51:38. | |
overriding issue for people. They are making that I come and because | :51:39. | :51:42. | |
they are getting soundly beaten on the economics. But Stuart Rose said | :51:43. | :51:46. | |
the wages of low skilled workers would rise if we left the EU, and he | :51:47. | :51:52. | |
is on the Remain side. He could not member the name of the campaign! He | :51:53. | :51:58. | |
has been taken off the shelf of the supermarket. It is antennae be the | :51:59. | :52:03. | |
case that one of the reasons the progressive side of politics, by and | :52:04. | :52:07. | |
large, with the exception of Frank and a few others, moved in favour of | :52:08. | :52:12. | |
Europe in the 1990s, was the realisation that Europe was | :52:13. | :52:17. | |
protecting social rights and workers per' rights. That was one of the | :52:18. | :52:21. | |
reasons for the shift on the progressive side of politics. I | :52:22. | :52:25. | |
think most people in the Labour Party would reflect on that. The | :52:26. | :52:28. | |
problem with the European referendum to date is that voice is like Frank, | :52:29. | :52:34. | |
Jeremy Corbyn, myself and the SNP, for understandable reasons, because | :52:35. | :52:37. | |
by and large we are focusing on the local elections, have not had a real | :52:38. | :52:42. | |
luck in, and we have had this argument within a fractious | :52:43. | :52:43. | |
Conservative Party. No, don't worry, it's not | :52:44. | :52:46. | |
quite one o'clock yet. But that was, of course, | :52:47. | :52:50. | |
the sound of the famous It sounds every hour, | :52:51. | :52:53. | |
but for how much longer? The Commons authorities have | :52:54. | :52:57. | |
announced this morning plans to carry out a ?30m restoration | :52:58. | :52:59. | |
project on the clock tower, and it could involve the bells | :53:00. | :53:01. | |
being silenced for months. Adam, who's earning his pay today, | :53:02. | :53:04. | |
has been finding out more. This is behind one of | :53:05. | :53:10. | |
the Palace of Westminster's you realise the Elizabeth | :53:11. | :53:15. | |
Tower is falling apart. The big enemy is water | :53:16. | :53:23. | |
and condensation, which gets in everywhere, | :53:24. | :53:26. | |
making the ironwork rust. On the outside, every single bit | :53:27. | :53:32. | |
of stonework will be examined, which means the Elizabeth | :53:33. | :53:34. | |
Tower will be sheathed in scaffolding for up | :53:35. | :53:37. | |
to three years. The experts say the mechanism | :53:38. | :53:39. | |
on the inside is like a car that has run every day for more | :53:40. | :53:42. | |
than a century without a service. are also getting a loo, a lift, | :53:43. | :53:45. | |
and somewhere to make a cuppa. And as somebody | :53:46. | :53:51. | |
who looks after this clock, Well, it's massive, | :53:52. | :53:52. | |
the clock is 150 years old, It's an incredible privilege | :53:53. | :53:57. | |
to be involved, it's the most iconic clock | :53:58. | :54:02. | |
in the world, and I'm thrilled | :54:03. | :54:04. | |
to be part of the team responsible for securing its future | :54:05. | :54:06. | |
for others to enjoy. Do you think people | :54:07. | :54:08. | |
will get confused, not having the bongs | :54:09. | :54:10. | |
and not having the time? I think they'll be sympathetic, | :54:11. | :54:14. | |
we're going to keep the impact to an absolute minimum, | :54:15. | :54:17. | |
so at all times there will be at least one dial | :54:18. | :54:20. | |
displaying the time, to keep it chiming and striking | :54:21. | :54:22. | |
for as long as possible. And in case you've got a pub quiz | :54:23. | :54:28. | |
coming up, remember - And to discuss the restoration | :54:29. | :54:31. | |
of Big Ben, and in fact the whole | :54:32. | :54:38. | |
of the Houses of Parliament, I'm joined by the historian | :54:39. | :54:41. | |
Dan Cruickshank. Welcome to the show. Why start on | :54:42. | :54:51. | |
Big Ben? The whole place is falling down. It is falling down a bit more! | :54:52. | :54:56. | |
It is about nine inches out of plumb, but it always has been, of | :54:57. | :55:00. | |
course. The fascinating thing about the Palace of Westminster is that it | :55:01. | :55:04. | |
had troubles from the start. In 1849, the stone was falling off, so | :55:05. | :55:09. | |
it is part of the history, making do and amending. But this is where it | :55:10. | :55:14. | |
is more visible, so why not start there? So you think that is | :55:15. | :55:19. | |
worthwhile, but silencing the bells, can we imagine it? It happened | :55:20. | :55:24. | |
before, of course, they have stopped in the past, during the bombing of | :55:25. | :55:30. | |
1941. But it is worded to keep the whole machine up and running for the | :55:31. | :55:36. | |
future. -- worth it. How long were they have to be silenced for? I | :55:37. | :55:40. | |
understand it will stop and start, they will not be silent all the | :55:41. | :55:44. | |
time, maybe a month or so. Of course, it is a tremendous machine, | :55:45. | :55:48. | |
many people have not been up. Give as the image of it. It is escaping | :55:49. | :55:55. | |
into a vast and wonderful world, it is made of iron, cast-iron, the | :55:56. | :56:02. | |
material of the age, and the mechanism is sensational, huge, made | :56:03. | :56:06. | |
by a very strange character. He was an architectural fantasist, but the | :56:07. | :56:16. | |
bell, Big Ben, made in Whitechapel, and there is this gigantic mechanism | :56:17. | :56:20. | |
balanced, when I was there, by old penny coins. They moved them a | :56:21. | :56:25. | |
little bit to make the pendulum swing. It is magical. In terms of | :56:26. | :56:31. | |
the broader repair of the Houses of Parliament, should it be done at any | :56:32. | :56:37. | |
cost? Of course, it is the mother of Parliaments, the symbol of | :56:38. | :56:40. | |
democratic government and so on. But in the end, it is a listed building, | :56:41. | :56:46. | |
a great heritage site, what a fantastically bad example it would | :56:47. | :56:49. | |
be for the government to give up its own listed building. It was on the | :56:50. | :56:54. | |
cards for a year or two. It is inescapable. So you would be Joe Ham | :56:55. | :56:59. | |
in your pocket, metaphorically speaking. -- you would put your | :57:00. | :57:05. | |
hand. It would be deeply humiliating of Big Ben were not functioning. The | :57:06. | :57:09. | |
leaning tower of Pisa managed to survive leaning for a while, but I | :57:10. | :57:14. | |
am in favour of Big Ben. But I am suspicious, they are announcing the | :57:15. | :57:17. | |
restoration of Big Ben, the closing of the tower, and that is being | :57:18. | :57:21. | |
taken away from the overall restoration budget of the | :57:22. | :57:23. | |
parliament, to make it look less. You see, I think the best thing to | :57:24. | :57:27. | |
do with the Palace of Westminster, which after all is a Victorian fake | :57:28. | :57:34. | |
of a restoration Palace, that is what it is. Is trying to provoke our | :57:35. | :57:39. | |
guest?! Turn it into a tourist attraction. It cannot be a | :57:40. | :57:47. | |
functioning parliament. So the substantial, provoking the market | :57:48. | :57:51. | |
question... It is not a fake anything, it is a Victorian | :57:52. | :58:00. | |
evocation... Of the Restoration, it is Restoration artwork. The | :58:01. | :58:06. | |
alternative would be to abandon this vast and wonderful parliament. It | :58:07. | :58:09. | |
should be a tourist attraction, the last thing you want is a burgeoning | :58:10. | :58:13. | |
parliament in a building which is clearly unsuited to the 21st | :58:14. | :58:17. | |
century. -- a bunch and ink parliament. Last word! We have got | :58:18. | :58:25. | |
enough museums in this country some wonderful museums, it does a vital | :58:26. | :58:29. | |
job. We are going to do the quiz, do you remember the question? Where did | :58:30. | :58:35. | |
you steal the slogan from? I am hoping that it is LBJ, but I am | :58:36. | :58:40. | |
suspecting it is not. It is Margaret Thatcher. That is why I said LBJ! It | :58:41. | :58:48. | |
is the wrong answer! Thank you very much, Dan Cruickshank, I am sorry | :58:49. | :58:51. | |
for rushing into that, that is it for today, thank you to our guests. | :58:52. | :58:56. | |
The one o'clock news is starting on BBC One. Bye-bye. | :58:57. | :58:59. |