23/02/2017 Daily Politics

Afternoon, folks, and welcome to the Daily Politics.

Net migration to the UK fell very slightly in the 12

months to September - but the Government is still way

off its target of reducing it to below 100,000 -

did the EU referendum have any impact on the numbers?

They have more of the money, property, and now, apparently,

Are the older generation lauding it over the young?

Think a 5% increase in council tax is a lot?

We reveal the village and town councils that have hiked rates

MUSIC: Chained to the Rhythm by Katy Perry

A skeletal Theresa May and Donald Trump hold

hands at the Brits - why can't celebrities stop talking

about the US President they love to hate?

All that in the next hour and with us for the duration today

Why were they skeletons? Somebody else asked me that this morning and

I don't know why. That is why you watch The Daily Politics, because we

don't know what we are talking about!

The former universities and science minister who earned

the nickname "two brains" - though his colleagues may just have

Wheel was mention him when he comes on the programme.

Anyway, he's smarter than the average former minister -

David Willetts, welcome to the programme.

Now - there may be some developments on the Bill which will allow

Theresa May to trigger Article 50 and begin the process of the UK's

The Bill has been making its way through the House

Let's speak to our political Correspondent, Adam Fleming.

Adam, is there a concession in the offing from the Government here?

Good morning. The answer is maybe, we're not sure but Labour seem

confident. It's over the issue come to be known as the meaningful vote,

when at the Article 50 bill was in the Commons the government said

Parliament will have a vote on the final Brexit deal but it will be

take it or leave it, so either approving the deal that Theresa May

gets from Brussels, or the UK reading without a deal and falling

back, so-called, the World Trade Organisation rules, which some

people say would be much less generous. What has happened now the

Bill has reached the Lords, Labour Pires feel they are confident they

will get the Government to agree to an amendment that will write a vote

into the legislation and that will be better than the vote offered in

the Commons in that it will give Parliament the power to say to

Theresa may go back and negotiate a better deal. -- peers. Rather than

happening at the end of the process it would be just before the process.

Labour are confident they have got that but sources close to the Tory

party say they have not got a deal yet so we have to wait to the

Committee Stage. So at that point we will know what has happened to be

amendment if it is put down and put to the Lords next week? Yes, because

we have the Second Reading stage at the start of this week and that goes

through to the Committee Stage next week when peers can add and subtract

bits to the legislation. There is also talk of the compromise on UK

nationals living abroad and EU nationals in the UK and Liberal

Democrats and Labour peers are keen to push the government on that.

And we're joined now by the Shadow Leader

Welcome to The Daily Politics. Explain to us, what do you believe

the Government is promising you dumb or indicating to you? They haven't

indicated anything to us yet. I don't think it will be clear by next

week to be honest. There are press reports today saying the government

is concerned about this particular point of the Bill. On the meaningful

vote at the end we listen to what was said in the Commons, I don't

like take it or leave it, it is unacceptable, and we crafted a new

amendment in the Lords that I think will win because it has cross-party

support. What is interesting is in the debate, Lord Hope, a crossbench

independent peer, a former Supreme Court judge, says all this

legislation does is give a vote to start the process, there needs to be

a vote at the end of illegally to get parliamentary approval to

conclude the process. It's in statute, it is in law for the

European Parliament but not in law for the British Parliament which

seems to us to be wrong. The government conceded the point and

said they will, we think it should be in legislation but more than take

it or leave it. What is your amendment say? It basically says

there should be a vote at the end and should engage Parliament on the

outcomes there. And what happens next. Even if the government says we

have a bad deal and we want to look at it again, if it says we want to

negotiate, whatever it says, it must get parliamentary approval. The key

part is not just the vote, if the government knows it must get

parliamentary approval at the end it has got to engage with Parliament

throughout. I think it is an opportunity for the government. Has

the government not said that it will give a vote? If and when a deal is

done, has the government not said whatever the deal we will bring it

for Parliament either to vote for it or against it? It has indeed, it

said or leave it, we will bring it to Parliament but they also said to

Alf Dubs we would allow child refugees to come into this country

and on that basis and also on the basis of the European MPs have in

statutes, guarantee they will have a vote, we think it is right to be in

statute for MPs in this country as well. You want the government... The

government has made a promise and you want it to hold to that promise

by agreeing to an amendment that would put it into legislation? Yes.

I understand but what is your understanding of what that vote

would be. Two years down the track, deal has been done. It comes before

Parliament. What is Parliament's real choice? Is it to vote for the

deal or to vote against the deal but we leave anyway without a deal?

Leaving without a deal, this thing about the government saying deal or

no deal is unacceptable, then no deal scenario is a nightmare

scenario for this country, it really is. Wouldn't that be the vote in the

end? No because by having a vote at the end Parliament must be engaged

in the process better than the government indicated now. What sort

of engagement could you have? You cannot just have a vote and say take

it or leave it, it must say this is where we're heading, what do you

think is the right thing to do? Should we look for extra time and go

back? There is a range of things the government could even if they say we

want you to work with us to look at this again and work with the 27

other countries. The key on this... In the end you may still end up with

a deal and if it comes before Parliament and the choice for

Parliament is to either vote for this deal even if you are unhappy

with a lot of it, or vote against it in which case we come out anyway

with no deal and what is widely called WTO terms... Isn't that

right? It could be but I hope it isn't, there are other alternatives

as we proceed along the process. You could not do without the support of

the 27th. No. The government cannot do this on its own and Parliament

needs to be involved early on and what worries me is the attitude. If

the government accepts this amendment, or if they come forward

with something similar, you have some good faith from the government

and it shows not this attitude we will not amend it under any

circumstances, we are listening and want to work with Parliament. Let me

get David Willets's reaction and I will come back to you. Theresa May

has said there will be a vote so I'm not sure how much this is just

putting into law what she has already committed to all goes beyond

that. The Shadow Leader of the Lords said if the government means it why

wouldn't you put it into legislation? Exactly and I do not

know where we are heading on this but if it isn't too putting into the

text what is already an insurance from the government that is

different from trying to change the whole process. In terms of

scrutinising Brexit we are going to have a big, complicated Repeal Bill

with all of these European measures brought into British law. That is

not to do with the deal and free trade agreement that the government

wants. There is a lot of Brexit assessment and debate over the next

two years. We will not be short of opportunity. They are two separate

things, there is negotiations and UK law that comes from EU law. It is in

The Daily Politics constitution that we can't speak to you on these

matters without saying the word ping-pong. If you ping it back and

get your amendment through and you ping it back to the Commons, and the

Commons pongs it back to you haven't taken the amendment out of what do

you do? I don't see any extended ping-pong. The timetable to the end

of March is not in doubt but there is an opportunity for the

government, if they want to talk to us about it seriously we are open to

discussions and it would be in the Government's interest in having a

good relationship with us forward saying we can do this. Do want to be

conciliatory and you want them to be conciliatory? Absolutely. Let's see

that and how it goes. The question for today

is which dance move did Labour's Tom Watson appear to do

during Prime Minister's Questions I know the answer to that! I'm might

ask you to do the dance at the end. If I do it will give it away. At the

end you can do it. At the end of the show, David

will give us the correct answer. And Andrew will do the move.

CHUCKLES Better than the other way around.

That is not in The Daily Politics contract!

Now, seven years after it was introduced, the Government remains

committed to its target of getting net migration down to

With Brexit, ministers believe they stand more of a chance.

Today the Office For National Statistics has published its

latest migration figures, taking in the period

And up to the year ending at the end of last September.

Net migration to the UK - the difference between the number

of people coming to live in Britain and those leaving -

has fallen but is still well above the Government's target

In the 12 months to September, net migration

This is down 49,000 from the previous year,

which the ONS says is not statistically significant.

Immigration to the UK was estimated to be 596,000.

This is down very slightly, by 23,000 on last year's figures.

Again the ONS say such a small fall is not significant.

268,000 of these people were EU citizens.

Including 74,000 Romanians and Bulgarians, the highest

Earlier the Immigration Minister, Robert Goodwill said it

shows the government can control immigration.

Well these statistics are actually very encouraging and, indeed,

it's just one quarter, so we don't want to read too much

into them, but certainly, I think a combination of factors

have contributed to this, particularly measures we've taken

We're joined now by Alp Mehmet, Vice Chairman of Migration Watch.

David Willetts is with us too. Let me come to you first. Is there any

significance in these figures? I would hesitate before saying there

is significance, there may be, but it is very early to tell. If we have

the next two, three quarters showing the trend continuing, then perhaps

we are heading in the right direction. It is a step in the right

direction but we have a long way to go. It's quite a complicated picture

because the net migration figure from the EU eight has come down, the

eight who joined from Eastern Europe over a decade ago, but has gone up

from among Bulgarians and Romanians. So overall there are now more EU

people coming here on the net figures band non-EU people, was that

what was meant to happen? Only 100,000. Overall it is even Stevens.

Absolutely. But overall it is going up from Eastern Europe anywhere,

20,000 from the eight, those who joined in 2004 and significantly

higher from the Romanian and Bulgarian members who joined later.

So there is a lot still coming in. Most of those are coming into going

to lower skilled work and that's where we believe we can tackle

numbers and bring them down. How would you do that? Work permit

system. A work permit system that applies and is confined to those

with the highest skills would actually reduce numbers, we reckon,

by around 100,000 without any damage. Who would do those lower

paid jobs? Those who are already here are not suddenly going to

disappear. The evidence is that they come here, they remain. What if

there is a demand for more lower paid jobs? Our unemployment rate is

below 5%, the claimant count is historically low now. So, who would

do these lower paid jobs if lower paid jobs are on the rise? We still

have 1.6 million unemployed. We still have 1.1 million people who

are in fact in part-time work. There is a lot of scope. You have to

divide the part-time between those who are happy to be working

part-time, which is a fair number, but those who are working part time

that want to work more hours, that's the one that matters. There are

still significant numbers I would argue who would like to work full

time if they can. That is where I think paying a little bit more,

changing the conditions of work would actually be a huge help in

attracting people into the lower paid work.

control we have a problem in this country which is that wages for most

workers in real terms have barely moved. Not the living standards

because of tax and other changes that may have changed, but actually

the cache U-turn after tax, sorry, before tax, has barely moved -- the

cash that you earn. I think this will put pressure on pay because of

the go down this route, we have to find people born in Britain who want

to do these kinds of jobs, I think we are going to have to pay them

more and trained them more because otherwise how will we find care

assistance and will have to pay them more and offer them better

promotions becoming a nurse whatever? Not necessarily all of

Britain, those who are already here, are not suddenly going to take

flight. I suppose the wider overall picture for people watching this is

that net migration is down but the ONS, the official body that says

it's not statistically significant, partly because the way the figures

are calculated are very suspect, so it's not reliable, but take the net

273/5000 come into the country over 200,000 leaving, we get 273 net a

year, that is equivalent to adding a Newcastle to Britain every year. And

many people watching this think overall immigration is a good thing,

they don't want to stop it altogether, but how can we add

Newcastle every year? It is a big figure and that's why it has to be

managed. But our economy has been growing. We have had, one of the

reasons the government is committed to holding more houses is we need

to... You say the economy has been growing but the politicians have

allowed this to happen on both parties, but the politicians have

not built their homes, but required, so home ownership amongst young

people is now at record low levels in modern times, waiting lists for

hospitals and particularly in A, is rising, and a lot of people will

think you have allowed these huge numbers to come in and that may be

good for the economy, that you're not build the homes and provided the

hospital beds and the doctors that a Newcastle every year would demand. I

think there is a lot in that and that's why this process needs to be

managed. Some of these workers are coming in to fill gaps and work,

most of them do come into work. That was not my argument. A lot of them

are coming into work in the NHS so we have two be not so dependent on

recruitment from abroad. You have had years to do this. The huge

immigration started 17 years ago. You had all that time, your party

has been in power for six years, labour, 13. The housing shortage

gets worse every year. The NHS is now in the middle of a winter which

is really stretching it. I'm not arguing for a moment the NHS's

policies are all caused by immigration, but there is a huge

demand for hospital services. This is the kind of shake-up we will have

to have post Brexit. This is a time when reader far more radical

approach to train more people, recruit more people and ensure they

can move up in the British labour market. It has been a British policy

failure I agree with you. Do you expect now, with figures coming

down, the net figure is hugely misleading, including students as

well, I may ask you about that in a moment, do you expect, having come

down from over 300,000 down to 273, is this a trend? Will the net figure

come down further? It can do. And in two years' time, if we are serious

about reducing migration from the EU particularly for the low skill

unskilled workers, coming here, then, yes, we can certainly bring it

down. Various and impact on non-EU migrants coming here as well.

Particularly with students, where some of them have been bogus,

colleges are being closed down. That is a significant impact on numbers.

We are running out of time. The government has made a big deal from

its early years as a coalition government, it says it closed down a

lot of the bogus language colleges and so on, students were coming to

this country are now coming to do proper courses and proper

institutions of higher education. Why not take the students out of a

migration figures then? You can measure them as part of the

definition but I agree with your fundamental point. Trying to

restrict the number of people coming to study, helping to fund

universities, friends of Britain, when they are back in their home

country, this is a great fish exported industry. Our second

biggest export to China after motorcars is Chinese students coming

to study in Britain. If it is legitimate, and there are genuine

students and they leave afterwards, we should welcome them with open

arms. These applications have gone up by 17% since 2010. University

applications have gone up, they are not and there's never been any

restrictions or constraint on students coming in, only bogus

students. The third biggest exporter China, do you know what it is? Box

sets of the Daily Politics. Your television programme, Andrew. Thank

you for joining us. Now, since our guest of the day

David Willetts retired as an MP, he's been busy blaming Britain's

woes on the retired. According to his Resolution

Foundation, they've taken all the houses, the money and now,

in a report out today, they are suggesting the over 50s

are taking all the jobs. We sent Jenny out with her moodbox

to settle the matter of who's doing better in today's Britain -

the young or the old? Some pensioners' incomes are ?20

a week higher than those in work So I've come to this windy

south-west London market to ask shoppers who is better off

in today's Britain. I got a good pension

out of the post office. If you want to pop it

into the under 40s. There's less disposable income

if you're under 40 because you've got families and that sort of stuff

and house prices going up. I think it's a bit of

a struggle at the moment. We are part of the lucky ones

who have retired and have lived through better times

than they are now. I see a lot of older people

struggling, even struggling to maybe get enough to like even

feed themselves properly. A couple of people I know,

they can't eat properly and they're actually really hungry

because they can't like get themselves enough supplies,

get enough food on their pensions. It's getting wet and most people

seem to think that the pensioners are better off and it's raining

on the parade of the under 40s. Most people think that

pensioners are better off. I'm off to join

the queue for a kebab! We're joined now by Dr Jennie

Bristow from Canterbury Our mood box, unscientific as it is,

seems to back your broad theme but successive generations have always

end more than a generation before them in general but no longer so

those born in the 1980s are currently earning no more than those

born 15 years earlier were earning at the same age, so why'd you think

that is? This report today at the Resolution Foundation tried to look

at that. One thing is the frequency of moving jobs, young people used to

move on and move up and it looks as if country to the population, they

are stuck in a job for longer and there's less chance of your income

rising and it looks as though the expansion of education which

happened for generation after generation, the growth of skills

relating to what we talked about earlier, people going to university,

the expansion is not so rapid and they have to put a lot of their

earnings generated by companies into plugging pension deficits rather

than receiving it in pay. Pension schemes, they're not even members

of. And you blame the baby boomer generation, those born between 1945

and 1965. You say they took their children's future and should give it

back. Why is their fault? I should declare I am a baby boomer myself. I

don't think it was a deliberate plot that we hate young people. We did a

lot of things without realising the consequences for the children and

grandchildren, things like opposing new house-building, when we need

more houses. Regulating pension schemes so they are so generous for

us, the companies are closed for future generations, and in the jobs

market there is evidence Britons are not training their younger workers

as much as they used to. Do you accept things these days are skewed

to the older generation at the expense of the young? No, I don't,

it's problematic and divisive to look at the problems we have today.

I accept there numbers of problems and I think the resolution

foundation 's report does indicate those and there's a problem with

wages, with the overinflated cost of housing, with inequality and all of

these things and issues plague our society today. But these are not

generational, these are big issues to do with problems with social

policy, problems with the economy and I think to point the finger at

the older generation and say, give it back, that's granny muddying the.

It's not a positive approach to how we solve the problems of our

society. If you look at the devices of society, we are so familiar with

those arguments, there is a divide of ethnicity, social class, gender,

but no one was thinking about the differences between different

generations and the evidence is overwhelming that that is a very

powerful one. I don't want it, I want is to bridge the divide, but

we've got to recognise there is a problem. The baby boomers have got a

lot of wealth and it's hard to see how the kids are going to get a

decent pension and get started on the housing ladder. If you look at

housing, it is true that people like David Willetts, people like my

parents, did extremely well as a result of their homes. They had free

education, even at higher education levels, albeit fewer went to

university than the current generation and now they have the

trouble lock on their pensions. It's expensive. Are they not actually

doing better at the expense of the young? You have to break it down a

bit. First of all to use the category generation, it's very wide,

not all old people are well not all told people are healthy. I accept

that. There is a stereotype of a pension on a final salary scheme who

owns a house, a middle-class wealthy pensioner, whose public board about

1947. The 20 cohort David talks about when he talks about the baby

boomers spans a wide range of ages, and this issues to do with people's

lives. Is David saying the younger generation, none of them will have

those opportunities that even the wealthier pensioner had? He might be

saying that, by don't think that's true either. I think if you look at

issues stratified by social class, and if you look at the discussion

about housing for example, and this ongoing discussion about the bank of

mum and dad, children of middle-class parents will be helped

by their parents to get on the housing ladder and all of those

things. I don't think that's a problem, I just think we have to do

not conflate everybody within these broad categories of generation. Of

course there are poor pensioners and I should make that clear. But the

good news is there are many fewer poor pensioners than they used to

be. That a great success of British social policy. We should now be

focusing on poverty amongst working age families and the difficulties

younger people have in jobs, because that is where the pressure is now

and on average it's clear your programme just showed absolutely a

view of the people out there which reflects reality. On the data, are

you saying that today's millennial generation born in the 1980s, they

are earning less in real terms than the previous generation? We are

saying people who are now in their 30s can go back 15 years, are

earning less, if you go back ten years, it's about the same, and

that... That's not what the figures show and what the ISS has found

either, which looked at that. The ISS fan, looking at those born in

the 80s, found they have higher real household income than those who were

born 20 years before. If you are looking to compare different

generations, on incomes, the picture is very clear. Millennials have

higher real incomes as young adults than their parents did the same age.

If you go back ten or 15 years... I've gone back 20 years. The reason

you picked 20 years is that is slightly different from the picture

15 years but there is another 425 years but if you average that out it

is clear that compared with progress we used to see generation after

generation, going back 15 years we have a ?40 a week gap and going back

ten years we have we have virtually no... The IFS is wrong? Her gum at

the IFS is very similar, they are working with us and they are on our

technical panel and it shows that compared with the kind of growth we

were used to generation after generation it has basically come to

a halt and on some comparisons it is actually worse. That is on income,

not the whole package, looking in the round, you are saying just on

incomes alone they are. There is another issue about assets, about

pensions. Housing and pensions is clear. Our report today using the

figures is about pay and labour market and we have not just shown

again there is a problem, we have died down and showed what is going

on, it is things like jobs. On the things like the pensions issue do

you accept the triple lock is a generous guaranteed to pensioners

hit at a time when the government argues there isn't that much money

around? I think the discussion around the triple lock is a bit of a

red herring. Which explain what the triple lock is but that's the

increase of state pensions by 2% or the Consumer Prices Index whichever

is higher. I do not have the knee jerk reaction that any pension

reform is wrong because pensions and pension reforms should take into

account changes in the labour market, increases in longevity and

those things. I think how that is done is a question for policymakers.

What I'm comfortable with is with all the ordinance against the triple

lock is that again it seems to imply that if you scapegoat old people and

say they have got this very, very generous amount of money, which

doesn't seem that generous, they've got this generous amount of money,

let's claw it back. Guaranteed increases, though. That would not

solve the problems. Today's Resolution Foundation report points

to wages for young people. It is to do with the economy and society and

how far we are moving forward, not what people are getting towards the

end of their lives. It is not just saying wages or openings, pensions

go up by prices or owning scored two and a half percent whichever is

higher, so it is a guarantee they will do better than people's

earnings will do. If earnings are low it will be 2.5%. That tells me

when you have limited resources, and politics is about priorities, you

cannot do everything. Given there has been the success with

pensioners, it is time to turn our attention to the younger generation

and I think it is what a lot of pensioners worry about, they care

about their children and grandchildren. We will have to end

it there but thank you. Now, while the rest of the world

is transfixed like a rabbit in the headlines by global affairs -

Trump, Brexit, - the BBC has its eyes on what really matters -

town and parish councils. A BBC investigation has found a hike

in town and parish council precepts across England -

in one case by as much as 3,000%. Our political reporter

Fergus Hewison has more Fergus, welcome. Tell us what is

going on here. 3000%. Is that true, or is it fake news? It is absolutely

not fake news, Andrew, no. It is absolutely right. This was a parish,

a town council in Northamptonshire, desperate town council which

increased its precept by 3400% over four years. We have had other

examples of that, for instance a town council in Lancashire increased

its precept by 872%. Another town council in Cornwall increased its

precept by 763% so there are really big increases here across the board,

across the country of these kinds of figures by hundreds of percent, in

some cases by thousands. If you were living in one of these parish

councils, where the Bill is going up by 3000%, what does that mean in

terms of the money that you will now have to shell out? In some cases

these are percentage increases, so in some cases it may be going from

paying a few pounds to a few pounds more, but for instance in Peterlee

in County Durham in the north-east of England the band night average

council tax Bill is ?300 on top of your council tax Bill on top of the

other things you are paying for, so in some cases people are shelling

out a lot of money for their town or parish council and these increases

are adding to that. Why are they doing this? Town and parish councils

say they are doing more and taking on more services so have to charge

more money for it. In many cases they are taking over things like

libraries, parks, play parks, all of these sorts of things, community

centres, once paid for by a larger councils but as those larger

councils are experiencing budget cuts they are passing on the costs

and the responsibility to this layer of local government, to the town and

parish councils, therefore these town and parish councils are putting

a precept on and putting up precept very steeply in some cases to pay

for those services. Fascinating, Fergus Hewison, thank you for

joining us from Newcastle. Elections are always won

from the centre ground, right? Well, that was the conventional

political wisdom, but has it been shattered, like so much expert

opinion, by Donald Trump's victory, the rise of Marine Le Pen

in France and even Brexit? You don't have to be

Sherlock to work out a few things about the political

centre ground. There are a lot of people

occupying it, probably about Most people in it

prefer a drink with their mates rather than

watching political telly. And because of the rapidly

changing political and economic landscape

we find ourselves in its and economic landscape

we find ourselves in it's It's not really an ideological

position, the centre ground, nor is it splitting the difference

between the major parties' policy platforms, it's more of a sort of,

more of a kind of, I guess, outlook where you'll basically vote

for the person who's But as one senior political adviser

put it to me, hitting the Or sweet spot, as he called

it, is crucial for politicians looking

to win elections. By occupying the centre ground,

by modernising, by reaching out beyond our activists, we helped

to turn the Tories, well, into a Our mission is anchoring Britain

to the centre ground. The real centre ground

of British politics right now is, who has got the answers

to making sure Britain competes and But now the Labour Party

has been accused by some of ignoring the centre ground

alongside others shaking up the old political order like Ukip,

the Greens and the SNP. So which political party

is getting closest Elements of the centre ground

are certainly being occupied by the right of the Labour Party and by

some of the Liberal Democrats. But unfortunately

for various reasons those two parties at

the moment are not in that, whereas Theresa is occupying

it in a very fully-fledged fashion. I want to set our party and our

country on the path towards the new But at his last party conference

in Liverpool Jeremy Corbyn made no There is no doubt

that my election as Labour leader a year ago

and re-election this month grew out of a thirst for a new kind

of politics running the economy

and the country isn't delivering One academic doubts his

approach, along with the EU referendum result, will change

the politics of the centre. Where people thought

the centre ground was before the referendum was in a kind

of liberal consensus But the centre ground isn't

necessarily where the battle ground And I think that there

are sort of a set been well reflected in mainstream

debate. A lot of them are around

immigration, but it's also about attitudes to civil disobedience,

to the death penalty, and quite traditional values have

not been a feature If politics is being fought

rather off centre right now, what could help

MPs who want to regain You're already seeing it cross-party

in Parliament with pro-Europeans like me who want a

sensible European deal, not one that's going to destroy our economy,

working with our sensible Conservatives, Liberal Democrats,

Greens and others to try to hold Perhaps a General Election

will focus minds back on cultivating that

centre ground vote. Or, perhaps, it's not actually

where people think it is any more. Mark Lobel there. We are joined by

political commentator and Jeremy Corbyn supporter, welcome to the

programme. Is what we have traditionally thought of as the

centre ground now not the place to be? It depends what questions we are

asking about what this means of the Centre. If it means reflecting the

values of the population and solving problems that resonate the centre

has moved and I think we need to have a conversation about what that

looks like. Where has it moved? Right on Brexit and right on

immigration but left on economic issues, low pay, public services,

utilities, nationalisation of rail. That is where the centre ground is

and the big conversation about Jeremy Corbyn is, can he capture

that vote? Can he capture that, I would say actually, 35% of the

voting public would go for that although he's not doing that. Lots

of the discussion around centrist politics by mainstream media

generally looks as it is relational, between the far left and far right

and I don't think that makes sense any more. As Labour left the centre

ground? I think dramatically so but that's because where it was

previously wasn't reflecting the values of people, it wasn't trying

to address the major issues. So, if the centre ground is not the right

place to be and Labour has left the centre ground because that's the

sensible thing to do, why is it doing so badly in the polls? Well, I

could invert the question and say why are the Tories doing so well?

They have picked up Ukip votes. Let's stick with my question, why

are they doing so badly in the polls if leaving the centre ground is the

place to be? Three reasons, the first 3-6 months of the Corbyn

leadership were weak and first depressions count, the media has

been tough on him, particularly print media, and the Parliamentary

Labour Party, the infighting. All of that explains an 80 point

Conservative lead? A lot of that comes from Ukip voters, going back

to the Tories, which does not reflect centrist policies, it is

Theresa May going very right on Brexit and that is an electoral

winner for her right now which compounds my point. May be the point

is if you want to leave the centre ground, and that is a big if for any

political party, there are more votes leaving by going to the right

than to the left. Some of Jeremy Corbyn's critics from the left would

say he has done that on Trident and Brexit. He has made big difficult

calls and they are the correct call. What call has he made on Trident? It

looks like Labour would renew it. Really? But he doesn't want to. He

is talking about a different kind of leadership where he reflects the

majority of opinion in the membership and amongst the

Parliamentary Labour Party and he said he is quite open to renewal of

Trident, I think. Really? I think he is open to it. Has he told you that?

That would be a story. I just wonder. In my understanding he has

not moved on Trident at all because he has all the spin against it and

why would he change his mind? I would find this talk of the centre

ground and people defining the centre ground and then politicians

define themselves vis-a-vis it, I find it strange, because

transformational politics, and I would name two important ones,

Clement Attlee fought Labour and Thatcher for the Conservatives,

they've redefined the centre ground, Clement Attlee after the war

redefined and the Tories had to come to terms with the welfare state, the

NHS, you know the work that was done in the late 40s by the Conservative

research Department, as they redefined Tory acceptance of that,

moving the centre ground left, and Ben Thatcher redefined it with

privatisation, the sale of council houses, and Labour had to come to

terms with that. So rather than accommodating it, my rather

long-winded question, successful politicians should redefine it. You

are right that what Margaret Thatcher did and I worked for her

for a time. And you are right. It must be said that even Margaret

Thatcher when she was doing that she had in her mind that there were

voters out there that the previous Tory party had not appeal to, that

she could appeal to. And the brilliance of what she did in the

1980s was that she was getting Labour voters coming to her because

of policies like pride in your country and the way she handled the

Falklands, and also things like council house sales. Remember, it is

a good strategy to do things which win over voters from other parties

and she managed to do that whilst being radical. Your party was best

at that when it's travelled the centre ground, Iwan three elections

in a row. Putt moments you have talked about, Clement Attlee and

Thatcher, respond to the prices of the previous economic models, 1929

and 1971. We had a similar moment in 2008 and I don't think any political

party has responded to it appropriately. I'm not saying Corbyn

has all the answers to Clement Attlee or Thatcher Mark two in a

post-financial crisis world, but Labour's success before the global

crisis don't really stack up given that that has remade the Parramatta

is of what we need to do now. Isn't one of the most remarkable

phenomenon, since the financial crash of 2008 which was a clear

crisis of capitalism, it wasn't an industrial prices, it was a

capitalist financial crisis, it was an enormous opportunity for the

left, with a capital L NOI Haatheq succeeded in taking advantage of

that -- know where have they. It is a huge historic failure of the left.

Absolutely. I think that comes from, this is going back a long way. Not

too long for me! The failures of Stalinism meant clearly the modern

left was very frightened about talking about the state, talking

about solutions which meant being in power. There was a reversion to

social movements, bottom-up democracy, horizontal listen, and

that is all well and good but that is not a programme for a different

kind of globalisation, different kind of economy when the free-market

tanks and Lehman Brothers and AIG had a bailout by the US government.

Wave your hands and... Why haven't left-wing politics captured the

nation? There is an appeal out there but you haven't managed to get those

voters. It will take another five to ten years. The problem for Jeremy

Corbyn is he has come too early. That is the issue, the

infrastructure and think tanks and intellectuals are not there. Are you

being ageist? Just factual. Even friendly critics on the left would

say precisely that. We have run out of time but come back and we will

continue this because it is a great discussion. Meanwhile the Prime

Minister is taking these Labour voters, that is what she's doing. We

will find out about that, we're not sure yet, don't count your chickens

before they are hatched. 94 coming. Some businesses and even some

Conservative MPs are upset about the Government's current

revaluation of the business The country is a nation

of shopkeepers, Napoleon once said. And the Communities Secretary Sajid

Javid drew on his own retail experience to expess empathy,

while promising further help. Growing up above the family shop

I saw for myself the impact an increase in rates can have

on small businesses. A rise in costs lowered the mood

of the whole family. Even as a child

I knew that it wasn't good when I found a stack

of bright red final reminders hidden away

at the back of the draw

and my dad was never shy about sharing about

what he thought about out-of-town

retail parks and how from his shop in the high

street in Bedminster. If he were alive today I'm sure that

he'd be the first to phone me up and lobby me about

the business rates revaluation. In particular, I could

just imagine him telling me about the treatment of

large and online retailers and how that compares to more traditional

shops on our high street. I have always listened

to businesses and It's clear to me that

more needs to be done to level the playing field

and to make the system fairer. I'm working closely

with my Right Honourable determine how best to provide

further support to businesses facing We expect to be in

a position to make an announcement at the time of

the budget in just two weeks' time. That sounds like a desperate plea to

the Chancellor to help me out of a hole in this evaluation. It does.

Because of his increases for individual businesses are very

steep, even though overall it isn't an increase in the total amount as a

result of revaluation, but a dramatic redistribution between

different businesses. If you are having to compensate that much,

presumably there will be money found in the budget for those businesses,

hasn't been properly thought through? I don't know. The only

thing I'd do know is there's always a problem in government doing a

revaluation of property and there's always pressure to delay it because

it's going to be difficult. The longer you delay, when you finally

do it, the changes are far greater so we should do more frequent

smaller changes. You have some sympathy for Sajid Javid free? Yes,

and there's a danger people could never did do a revaluation every

game which would be the wrong lesson. Conservative MPs

interestingly seem to be more upset than Labour MPs and I've suppose

that because of business. It's a sad reflection on them because they

should care about businesses, particularly small businesses.

Now, speaking of the centre ground, Theresa May has apparently banned

civil servants using the word "JAMs" - the acronym used to describe

the "Just About Managing " voters she talked about as she entered

The PM wants them described as "Ordinary Working Families"

instead which Whitehall mandarins are no doubt already

Theresa May is not the first political leader to identify

a particular group of the electorate in that way.

Whilst deputy Prime Minister, Liberal Democrat Leader, Nick Clegg,

appealed to "alarm clock Britain" as opposed, no doubt,

to people who are woken up by their dog or their children.

"Hard working families" has to be one of the most

well-worn phrases, promoted by Gordon Brown, amongst others.

But when will a politician stand up for lazy single people?

Political strategists working for Labour are credited

with identifying "Mondeo Man" who apparently contributed to

If that phrase excluded half of the electorate,

then welcome "Worcester Woman", a working class woman in her 30s

apparently with two children who worries about quality of life

issues, as opposed to men and those living outside Worcester who don't

American Politics, of course, has its "Soccer Moms" and in Alaska

where they use sticks to hit balls, tough talking vice presidential

candidate Sarah Palin asked what the difference between a hockey

We can welcome our guest, who used to work for Harriet Harman. Let's

talk about those particular phrases. Was it right for Theresa May to drop

JAMs? I think it was weird, something to do with sugar,

diabetes, sugar tax coming in sort of things. Not a good look. As you

kind of said earlier, every political party tries to find

something to capture hard-working families. Who play by the rules.

That was our thing in labour. Every new political strategy team comes in

and says these other people to chase. The squeezed middle with Ed

Miliband. Was that successful? It was an ultimately successful because

we lost the election. As a slogan? It was an interesting diagnosis and

analysis about what was going on in the country. In a sense he was ahead

of his time because the squeezed middle then became squeezed. Yes,

bless, Ed. It seems to be on the squeezed middle, it worked better

than just about managing. Is that because it's more than eight double

two "Just About Managing"? It's a definition problem about how to the

finest. The squeezed middle was better from that point but we always

tried to chase these people. Recall people normal people, what is

normal? Ordinary people. It's a minefield politically. You do need

phrases if you want to target particular groups of people. Mondeo

man. It's risky I would have thought at the time when trying to pick a

phrase that would attract people. Yes, at the resolution foundation we

talk about 2-5, which is... That's very catchy! That actually does get

to the reality which means we're not talking about the poorest 10% of

people, but the next 40%, up to the middle point, you do find a lot of

people there who incomes have not gone up since the crash and that's

the crucial thing where politics comes in. It has to be based on a

real problem. The pay in the middle is not rising. And later bought. You

can't trust the Tories were the NHS and don't give the keys back to the

people who crash the car, talking about labour after the crash, do

those work? The Tory attack on the Labour Party I think was very

effective and something David Cameron, who was regularly at PMQ

's, it became a defining thing, so sometimes you have those phrases

which do stay in people's minds. Take back control was a highly

effective yet simple and also quite emotional things. Very general. You

can read into it what you wanted. One nation, having been used by all

sides probably. It seems to encapsulate whatever you would like

it to be. It can be what you wanted to be. It goes back to the 1920s,

and a very specific rhetoric falls it says it not two nations, but one

nation. It's a very important stage in Tory thinking. Who knows that

apart from you and a few others? It can also mean to most people one

nation, and one... All of these have the reach promotions. That's why

Brexit means Brexit didn't quite strike that cord. OK.

Don't go away, Ayesha, because with awards season in full

flow, it seems that there's barely a celebrity who's not having

Last night it was the turn of Katy Perry at the BRIT Awards.

# It goes on and on and on

# It goes on and on and on

That was the Brit awards. We've had the BAFTAs, we have got

the Oscars, the Tony's, have we had the BAFTAs yet? Yes, the Perrier

awards, I mean, people are going to get fed up if they'll turn into a

party but will broadcast for the anti-trump party. I think there will

be a bit of fatigue. Trump fatigue. I think it's a very trendy for

celebrities to be political. It is invoked to be political at the

moment. I was at the Brit awards last night and I've is confused and

we were all a bit confused because we had been drinking at that point

but we thought, we are making a particle statement. What was the

point of that houses? Maybe the housing crisis? We couldn't work it

out, but one of the houses fell off the stage. That is symbolic. I hope

the person is OK. The media and a lot of these stars, it's quite

hypocritical. They're making a fortune out of Donald Trump. The New

York Times added 274,000 subscriptions in the last quarter of

last year, and trump has totally reinvigorated a rather dead

formulaic late-night American television. Absolutely, for somebody

who does stand-up comedy, he does provide a great lot of material.

He's very good for business. There was always the criticism that if you

are a celebrity you shouldn't talk about politics but you can't silence

people. Of course, that's the last thing we want to do. Let's see what

the result was. There's just time before we go

to find out the answer to our quiz. The question was which dance move

did Labour's Tom Watson appear to do during Prime Minister's Questions

in the House of Commons. The Dab. Andrew, over to do. I think

it is like that. Invest in our NHS! Blink and you would miss it.

I'll be back tonight at 11.45pm with a This Week

by-election special, so we'll be on into the wee small

hours to give you the results of today's by-elections

I've searched the world to find these extraordinary people.