09/06/2017 Question Time

On our panel, the man who ran Theresa May's campaign

for the Tory leadership, Transport Secretary Chris Grayling.

Labour's Shadow Attorney General, Shami Chakrabarti.

The author and former political editor of the Sunday Times

The comedy writer who created the TV series The Thick

And the man often thought to have inspired the belligerent spin

doctor, Malcolm Tucker, Tony Blair's former spokesman,

Thank you very much, good to see you all here.

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Our first question comes from Toni-Marie Jarvis.

Last night showed Theresa May has no mandate, should she resign?

Alastair Campbell. She has a mandate in she has been to see the Queen and

the Queen has agreed she should form a government and she has decided to

form a government propped up by the DUP in Northern Ireland. I would

ask, does she has any authority? I would say she has lost authority by

taking an enormous gamble, for entirely party and selfish

interests, and putting the country into possibly a period of mere

chaos. Also I am really worried about the deal that she has done to

stay in power, because the DUP are a party in Northern Ireland that did

very well in the election, but one of the most important things that is

at some risk at the moment because of the chaos and confusion in our

politics is the Northern Ireland peace process and the Good Friday

Agreement. She has gone into bed with a party from which previous

governments, including the government led by John Major, have

always stayed neutral. I am not going to stop you, we will be coming

to that. Should she resign? She does not have to resign, she can govern,

but I do not think she will be able to govern for a long and because she

has fundamentally weakened herself in the eyes of the public and the

party, and also at a time we are going into the most important

negotiations of any Prime Minister since the Second World War she is

losing authority in the eyes of those she will have to negotiate

with. I think she is bust and flash. Chris Grayling. No, she should not

resign. You have to remember first of all we want the most seats. She

won the largest vote share that a Conservative Prime Minister has won

in a generation. She won more votes than Tony Blair did in 1997. What

has happened is the votes have fallen in a different way and we

have ended with a narrow result. I am disappointed we did not do

better, but she commands more members of Parliament today than all

of the other parties except the DUP and Sinn Fein together. Not only

must she not resign, we need to move forward and we need to go into the

Brexit negotiations and we have to deliver the right outcome for

Britain and as the person who commands the largest bloc in

parliament it is right she should stay. She should stay for the entire

duration of the Parliament? Will she fight the next election? That is a

question for her, but my view is she says Prime Minister for the

foreseeable future. You supported her as leader of the party, so you

must have a view as to having lost a majority, having gambled on the

election, she should now fight the next election for the Tories, or is

it just an interim Prime Minister? I am talking about somebody who

commands the biggest bloc in parliament as we start the most

important negotiations in a generation. The last thing anybody

should be doing is should she be here and discussing should she be

here for the next few months or whatever. Why should it not be

discussed? We need to get on with it and deliver a stable outcome for

Great Britain. Shami Chakrabarti. It was extraordinary arrogance and

having promised people there would be no snap election to call the

election, presumably because she had made a calculation, no doubt on

advice that she would get a landslide. She took it for granted.

I found the way that she conducted her campaign to people for granted

as well, including not doing debates, including the very negative

campaigning which we have come to associate with Mr Crosby who ran a

really nasty smear campaign. Should she go? You are describing a

campaign that has been very much described. Should she go? Other

senior Conservatives like Anna Soubry have been saying she should

consider her position. She should say that because she lost her seat.

This is an absolute disaster. It is a disaster, but it is not a question

of whether she should resign, she actually cannot resign. You have to

think through the mechanics of what would happen now if there was a Tory

contest. There is not a coronation, there is nobody waiting in the wings

to be an amazing leader, we are stuck with her. We cannot afford

weeks of the Tories having a conversation about who they want

while the clock ticks on the Brexit negotiations. It is not very

inspiring leadership. I hear what you say. We are where we are. Anna

Soubry did not lose her seat. She has many colleagues who lost her

seat. You, sir. She is clearly incompetent and there are U-turns at

every opportunity and I would much rather have a leader who knew what

they were doing and was consistent with the public. The man at the

back. The election campaign was about Brexit. When will we move on

to Brexit instead of talking about the new leadership campaign? Let's

get on and move on and get Brexit out of the way. You think this

election was about Brexit? Yes. What was the evidence for that? It was a

strong and stable government and she wanted a majority. But she did not

get it. She said was that she needed more votes and more seeds as if 27

other countries would be more frightened of her because she had

more seats. That not happen. I agree she should not resign today. That

will happen in such good time now. But it is what she did today given

the position she is in. In a crisis you find that the metal of someone.

Today she was tone deaf to what happened last night. The votes were

split across the country, the parties were split across the

country and the mood in the country, especially with all of those

participating for the first time, we want some consensus and reaching out

to the other parties. What she has done is retreat to my default

position and only huddle in with those she thinks will agree with

her. She has gone for hard Brexit and the company said no. That has

confused us and frighten us and we did not talk about hard Brexit. We

want a further discussion. She has gone into number ten with those who

will support hard Brexit. It is completely tone deaf to what is

going on in the country. Chris Grayling? Tone deaf? I do not think

so. But we have to learn lessons, we did not do as well as we hoped. Also

a lot of members on Parliament on both sides lost their seats last

night, a huge shame for them, a huge disappointment because we lost many

valuable colleagues. We must learn lessons. What lessons must you

learn? We need to look back at the campaign and the messages and think

about how we make sure in the future we do better than last night. Can

you pick out any particular element in the campaign that needs to be

investigated? Where do you start? We have to get on with the Brexit

negotiations and deliver the right result. Why did you not learned the

lesson of what the DUP did in the last few years, which is go into

partnership with the Sinn Fein. There are other parties she could

have spoken to. If Brexit is the biggest issue, why did you not read

out to other parties and say, I have got the message, we are divided, why

can't we have an all-party agreement? The women in pink. She

was never passionate about Brexit. She is never going to be able to

negotiate with any conviction. What should she do? She needs to stay for

the continuity of the government and the country, but she will push out

if she does not go voluntarily. And Toni-Marie Jarvis, what is your

view? I think she should resign. I expect to two. She only called an

election to validate herself as Prime Minister and she has ended up

with a hung parliament, she does not have a Tory majority any more. I

feel like that her failure. There are a number of hands up. Let's

stick with the topic but have a different angle on it.

How can the Conservatives align themselves with a party whose values

She is a minority government and she has said she will do a deal with the

DUP. Let's have a look at that. Alastair Campbell, do you want to

emphasise the point you made before? I have a worry about this. When John

Major was weak and he could have done a deal with the DUP he

absolutely steadfastly for very good, principled reasons said, I am

not doing that. He did not want to be in hock to that party. We have a

situation in Northern Ireland at the moment where there has been a

political crisis, where they are trying to get the administration

back-up and where our government is the mediator with the Irish

government between the DUP and Sinn Fein. How can our government be the

mediator when the DUP are going to be part of our government? She is

playing fast and loose on Brexit, with Margaret Thatcher's biggest

achievement, the single market, and now with John Major and Tony Blair's

greatest achievement, the peace process in Northern Ireland. She is

putting that at risk with a sordid, disgraceful and dangerous deal.

Chris Grayling. The first thing is I think that is completely wrong. We

have had initial discussions with the DUP. We will see where we end

up, but we have got today more seats in the House of commons than Labour,

the Liberal Democrats, the SNP, the Green Party and the Welsh nationals

put together. Only Sinn Fein and the DUP take you over the halfway line.

We will have sensible conversations with the DUP. They are in power in

Northern Ireland and are used to working with other parties and they

work alongside all the other parties in the assembly. They have long

experience of working with other parties and there is nothing unusual

in today's Britain about that. We do not have to agree with everything

they say. But what do you say to Alastair's point which is how can

you broker the peace between two sides when one side is propping you

up? You are in hock to one side. And they are the only pro-Brexit party

in Northern Ireland. Can I read you Theresa May said in 2015 about the

possibility of a Labour and SNP deal. I think people are genuinely

concerned about the prospect of the SNP calling the shots in

constitutional terms. They would be called by somebody who would not

even be in Parliament, meaning Nicola Sturgeon. The leader of the

DUP is not in Parliament. Game, set and match.

APPLAUSE We are in early stages of

discussions. What have you said so far? I am not going to comment on

that on live television. It is not about democracy. We will not have

that discussion here tonight. We will leave it to the Prime Minister

and the DUP to decide how best they might work together. It would be

incredibly unfortunate if one of the terrible prices for this absolute

cock up by Theresa May was any kind of risk to the peaceful situation in

Northern Ireland and all the hard work that has gone into that. But,

and it is a big but, we are aware we are. When you go into some kind of

agreement with another party compromises have to be made. I would

like to see the focus on where we are today and where we are going in

the future rather than raking over the past of the various characters

involved. The woman there and somebody over there. Surely one of

the issues is that it is a problem with our political system today.

Rather than people working together on what is one of the most serious

issues facing us, Brexit, and all the parties working together, people

are forced into these alliances which are truly unsuitable, but they

have no other choice. This is the whole point about

Theresa May's approach to the referendum, to Brexit. She came out

of the referendum, I don't agree with the lady, I think she's a

Brexiteer who pretended to be a Remainer. She's decided to align

herself with the 48% and the 52% can get lost and that's how she's

pursuing the hard Brexit policy. You sir, in the blue shirt, and you come

up there. I'm old enough to remember when it was the Conservative and

Unionist party, so I don't understand why the DUP are being

painted as such aliens. Aren't they just Irish Conservatives and always

have been? That the Unionist party, who won no seats, but the DUP is

more X-Trail. Two arguments we've heard that I want is to be aware of.

One is to say the Conservatives have the largest number of seats and

votes and therefore they are entitled to govern is exactly the

argument that Nicola Sturgeon news last night in Scotland and all the

rhetoric coming from London is that doesn't work. She lost. So you can't

apply that argument of the Conservative Party at the same time.

There has to be a reaching out the aren't just the Conservatives and

the DUP to a wider consensus. I want to question the premises behind the

question. There hasn't been a deal. That's the problem. She formed a

government without arranging anything with the DUP, which means

they can ask for anything and she's the one who thinks best placed to

Brexit. It's a minority government, not even a coalition with the DUP

where they can set out a joint store. The leader of the DUP said

she wanted to operate and work in a way that gave us stability for the

future and that surely is what we want. We go into the Brexit

negotiations, we want to be able to govern properly and deliver the

right outcome for Britain. The young man in blue there. Appoint Chris

Grayling, surely this is supply and demand. This is not a coalition in

any way. How can you be confident that the DUP will stay? You think

it's a perilous deal to make in the first place. I think it will all be

over in six months. They hold the revolver, let's be clear about that.

They hold the revolver. Chris Grayling. We are in the earliest

stages of the discussion so I don't think it's possible to say what the

agreement is, we've had initial discussions. The DUP have said they

want to help secure the stability of government and I'm grateful to them

for saying that but we have to work through discussions about how that

might work. Might not happen. I had a lot of dealings with the DUP

working on the peace process. They are tough. They will drive a hard

bargain and like the 20s and leaders in Europe they have seen they are

not dealing with someone who is strong and stable, they are dealing

with someone who caves and they will have her around their little finger

and frankly they've already got her bare by the speed with which she's

done that today. I wonder what the alternative is. I thought it was

extraordinary to see Jeremy Corbyn saying this morning he was ready to

lead the country. APPLAUSE

Finish your point. He had almost 60 less seats than the Conservatives,

so how can he possibly have the moral or numerical right to do that.

Shami. APPLAUSE

Quite clear on the constitutional position, which is that Theresa May

has the most seats and she is the incumbent Prime Minister. It's for

her to have the first attempt at forming this government, but he was

also right as the Leader of the Opposition on the ascendance, who

effectively won, if anybody won that election it was him. She got 200 and

60 seats... given what he's achieved. Fine. Let Shami have her

say. APPLAUSE

Explain his victory. He's just right constitutionally to say if she is

unable to form a government, it's his duty as Leader of the Opposition

to attempt to form an alternative government and he's right in that.

I'm sure were all very grateful but it doesn't mean anything, does it?

you can be as sarcastic as you like... When the coalition started

Gordon Brown was the incumbent Prime Minister, didn't have the numbers to

form a majority and yes, there was a process of five days. They didn't

have to wrap it up in ten minutes. What should she do? She shouldn't

have rushed into this. What's the alternative? The alternative was to

signal a different approach to Brexit. To have indicated that she

could have talked to the other parties. I hope now that Shami's

leader, that Jeremy Corbyn, will step into that space and say, we can

start to try to put together with the other parties and understanding

of what we're doing with Brexit. On the step of Number Ten today, she

said what she said at the start, only I can deliver this, I've got a

mandate, even though I've lost the majority, back to work. The woman in

the third row. APPLAUSE

Taking this back to the DUP, Chris just said there's nothing unusual

about parties working together. What is unusual is that we have a party

like the DUP, which is anti-same-sex marriage, which denies climate

change at the forefront of British politics, and I am absolutely

petrified at the prospect of such a coalition of chaos, I'm worried

about the direction they'll take our country. I'm terrified about that.

APPLAUSE Chris Grayling. Accurate description

of the DUP? Parties work together often disagreeing significantly

about issues that are important one or the other. Sinn Fein and the DUP

worked side-by-side in Northern Ireland and the administration. We

were with the Liberal Democrats for five years, we didn't always agree.

I fundamentally disagree with the DUP about same-sex marriage but it's

part of the way of life in England, Wales and Scotland. Not in Northern

Ireland yet. I suspect it will be in due course. See sheds -- she said

she wanted to govern in the national interest, which sounds slightly

conciliatory, it it sounds like a consensus, she has a dysfunction

between what she says and what she does. She's not going to call an

election, she's going to call an election. She's going to speak with

everyone, no, she will huddle with the DUP. You, with the beard, behind

their and another question. The DUP is nonsense is usually confined to

Ben France -- Belfast and the Northern Ireland at the thought of

it having a global platform in a coalition is terrifying. What price

do you think the DUP will be asking Mr Grayling and his colleagues to

pay? They are pretty pro-Brexit, the thought of a hard border in Ireland

gain is also pretty upsetting. They are pro-Brexit and the sake of

frictionless border. Non-others want a hard border in Ireland. Between

Northern Ireland and the Republican. Nor does the European Union, and I'm

very confident we will end up with an arrangement that makes sure that

doesn't happen. A man in pale blue, in the third row from the back. What

does the panel think of the argument that the reason Theresa May called

for the election to get a great majority was stopped the hard

Brexiteers in the ranks of the Tory party from forcing... ? To give

herself a big enough majority. We'll take a question. Jonathan Dowkes.

Will 9th June 2017 be remembered as the day Brexit died?

Wow. Armando Iannucci she -- Armando Iannucci. There's a last-minute gasp

of Nexit resuscitation today. We didn't vote for hard Brexit. We

voted for Brexit. I agree with that. I disagree on the campaign to have

another referendum. It insults the 52% who voted for Brexit. But we

didn't vote for the specifics. We didn't decide what kind of Brexit we

wanted, what we wanted to do with our borders, all those have to be

discussed. My beef with Theresa May is that having gone to the country

to discuss Brexit, but then refused to do so, but talk about the beans

with her husband on the one show instead, and therefore to keep quiet

on the one thing she wanted to have a conversation with is about, I

think now it's incumbent on her to open up and to say it didn't work.

This country is not a hard Brexit supporting country and one

alternative I do suggest, I'm just throwing it out there, is if we do

have a negotiating table laid out with members of the main parties, we

put our differences aside for two years, do the deal and have another

election instead. APPLAUSE

I think there's a really cynical operation under way here on the part

of Remainers to try to pretend that last night's result was some kind of

verdict on Brexit. Now, although Theresa May called the election

ostensibly to get a greater mandate on Brexit, one of the weird things

about the campaign is that Brexit was hardly talked about at all and

in fact if you look at the results from last night... They wanted a

blank cheque. If you look at the results from last night, some of the

largest voices remain, like Nick Clegg, lost their seats. Alistair,

you spent much of the campaign moaning about how no one was talking

about Brexit so how can you now say that some reason this is now a

verdict on Brexit? I'm not saying it was a verdict on Brexit but it was

an issue. One of the most extraordinary, I don't know if it's

been announced with Kensington and Chelsea, but if Labour win that

don't tell me that's... Leiva have wing-macro it. A big pro-remain

protest vote. -- Labour have won it. Let's come back to the point the

prime ministers said she wanted stable, secure government, in order

to negotiate Brexit, so Chris Grayling, she failed to get that.

She's in a minority. The question Jonathan Dowkes asked, does that

mean there's going to be a change in attitude towards our negotiations

with the EU? There are many ways in which you and negotiate with the EU.

It doesn't have to be we pull entirely out. Is it going to modify

her approach? The question was during the ninth the day Brexit died

and it's not at all. -- the 9th of June. You haven't got the numbers. I

do not accept... APPLAUSE

I don't accept the concept... Anna Soubry is back. Some of the Tories

are going to help to stop a hard Brexit because they believe there is

no mandate for it. Let Chris Grayling said his stall out. I do

not believe in this concept of hard Brexit and soft Brexit.

APPLAUSE We voted to leave the European

Union. We voted in my view to have the ability to control the flow of

people into the United Kingdom. We voted I believe to have good,

constructive relations with our European neighbours, to have the

competence of free trade agreement. All of that requires us to take the

approach the Prime Minister set out. There's no magic alternative way.

There's no magic way of staying in the single market and limiting the

flow of people into the country. If there's one message that came loud

and clear out of the referendum, people want is to have the ability

to control the flow of people. What Theresa May has set out as the only

realistic way to pursue a deal with the European Union that works for

them and us. It's what we want to have. We want a collaborative

relationship. We want to work together on Security and defence and

a comprehensive free-trade agreement. That's what the

overwhelming majority -- majority of people want in this country. What do

you think... APPLAUSE

What do you think the Labour or the Scottish Conservatives, Ruth

Davidson meant, who did so well in Scotland and is so admired by the

Conservative Party, when she said in the press conference yesterday, we

must seek to deliver an open Brexit, not a closed Brexit. Which puts our

country's economic growth first. An open Brexit, not a closed Brexit.

Does that mean anything at all? I agree with that. I did not campaign

to leave the European Union for this country to become a closed door,

erected barricades at Dover, cut ourselves off from the world. What I

want is to be as an outward facing, globally focused nation, trading

with the world, but I want is outside the political structures and

process of integration that is being driven in Brussels. A couple more

points. The vote yesterday was a vote telling Brexit because the vote

was, the hard Brexit parties got 44%. They got 52 in the last Brexit

election. Yet, but, now this time they got 44%. Just so obvious that

the campaign was not about Brexit. It was about the UK. Axes vote was

about the UK. The whole thing and you squabbling about who wins who

loses. The vote yesterday was about the UK and how we govern ourselves

and it's not about, Brexit is going to ruin that. It's going to ruin all

of the people. It's going to ruin this country. You, sir? I'm losing

my way among the hands. The Conservative Party, even for those

Remainers who are now committed to the idea, why don't you come clean

with some details instead of giving cliches like Brexit means Brexit?

APPLAUSE The 12 point plan that Theresa May

published, nine out of them are tautological statement. All others

have been waiting for months now to come up with some clarity. I was a

Remainer, but now I'm committed the idea, gives some details. Do you

want to close it, keep it open? Shami Chakrabarti. I think you are

onto something. I think Theresa May called that snap election because

she thought she would get a landslide. Why did she won a

landslide? Not because she wanted to unite people and bring everyone

together, but she thought it would give her a blank cheque and cushion

her to ram through any kind of deal whether it was popular with the

British people or not, and not share the details with us. If it went

sour, she thought she would still have a bit of a cushion.

That has all gone completely wrong and so yesterday and today she

should have been doing as we have been saying this evening. She should

have said, I called this election to get greater numbers and greatest

strength. That has not happened, I have to bring more people with me. I

thought Kensington and Chelsea had declared, it has not yet declared.

You have gone to Lala land. I think all parties have a responsibility to

reduce the risk that this country is constantly being exposed to. A

referendum that we did not need, an election that we did not really

need, constant risk and the risk and uncertainty the country is being

exposed to. Every party now has a responsibility to get rid of that

risk and getting the country back on the road. By doing what? That is my

question, what are they going to do? Last night the vast majority of

people who voted voted for parties that said we want to leave the

European Union. Both the Tory and the Labour manifesto pledge to leave

the EU, so let's not rewrite that. The Labour manifesto said it wanted

an end to pre-movement. But she said this election was about Brexit and

she did not discuss it. She said every single vote was in my hand

these negotiations. She has now lost the authority to negotiate. Brexit

was discussed with the leader of the campaign and the reason she called

the election was she found herself in the position of being accused of

not having a personal mandate as Prime Minister. Can we follow the

logic of this? If she went to the country looking for an endorsement

on her views on Brexit and she lost her majority, surely she has lost

the endorsement of the country for her views on Brexit? She is the

Prime Minister with the largest block of members in the House of

Commons with 43% of the vote in a Parliament that voted overwhelmingly

for Brexit. She said, if I lose six seats, Jeremy Corbyn will be Prime

Minister. Well he isn't, so get over it. We have got other things to talk

about it. The details of how to

apply are on the screen. Let's take another question and put

the boot on another foot, James Why are Labour happy

about losing another election? Good question. We are clearly not

happy about losing another election, but people in this country have

shown an appetite for change. I personally think there is something

quite extraordinary that has happened over the past seven weeks

when you had all the commentary and Theresa May and her colleagues

completely dismissing Jeremy Corbyn's leadership, the whole

party, it was all a joke, it was going to be a complete disaster, we

would be annihilated. Look what happened. We got some fair coverage

in the broadcast media. There was even a certain David Dimbleby who

said in the campaign there had not been fair treatment of the Labour

leadership in the media. You get a British electorate campaign which is

something to be proud of. But you lost. Of course we did. Isabel

thinks I am running away from the reality. Of course we lost, but we

made some games and we ran a positive campaign and we did as well

as we did because we were not attacking people and calling their

character into question and calling them names. We ran a positive

campaign with an incredibly popular manifesto. Yes, it was about the NHS

and getting rid of tuition fees and treating the elderly well. Our

manifesto was popular and theirs was not. You, sir. Not only did you lose

this election, but what has happened is Labour has made the situation

into uncertainty and confusion. Because we did too well? What

happened is nobody believed you were going to win, but you stole the

votes and it is a complete mess now. Alastair Campbell. A proper English

centres, it is like a dog in a manger. Do not win and do not let

anybody else when and that is what Jeremy Corbyn is doing. That is a

very strange view of democracy. Kensington and Chelsea has now been

declared and Labour has taken that seat.

CHEERING Alastair Campbell.

We have a balanced audience. Let's hear from those who think that is an

error. That is the spirit, thank you. I work with the government in

the Socialist party in Albania which has a general election on. Somebody

in the party set me a message today, they were watching our election on

television, and they said why are the winners looking like losers and

the losers looking like winners? It echoes what you are saying. The

answer is about expectations. Theresa May called this election,

utterly convinced she was going to get a landslide and she has not.

Jeremy Corbyn went into this election with a lot of critics,

myself included, and your former paper, the Daily Mail pouring more

dirt on him than we had. I was literally counting the minutes until

you were going to have to go at that paper. It is so boring. It is a

really poisonous paper, that is why. CHEERING

And what is more, Alastair, they buy it.

They may buy it, but if that is all you care about, that is fine. I have

had a lot of criticism in my time and I still have doubts about the

way the Labour Party is going, we still have to build a coalition to

get back into power and I am never happy when Labour lose and I want

Labour back in power. What is it you want to do to change? It seems that

people like you in the Labour Party I thinking huge spending, get rid of

the deficit, give the students free tuition. You cannot afford it, it is

Labour giving presents to the voters. What do you want them to do?

Do you want Jeremy Corbyn to stay? He ran a very good campaign and he

showed whereas Theresa May cannot campaign, he can campaign and he has

strengthened his position. So you will just keep on campaigning? The

whole Blair and Brown era, people still focus on it, but I want the

Labour Party to get back where we are an opposition that understands

the challenges facing the country and understands that nobody ever

wins from a section of the electorate, you have to go abroad

and white. The other thing I would like to see Jeremy Corbyn do is now,

and this idea that he was not remotely prime ministerial, I think

he can step up on the question of Brexit by doing what Theresa May is

refusing to do, and that is to start to reach out and talk to other

parties. I wish we could get over this old Tony Blair and the factions

and the rest of it and start cementing the Labour Party. You wish

that, but you have been stirring it up all these years. Since the second

leadership election most of the critics have shut up and got on with

it. What has been shown is Jeremy Corbyn has been able to energise

people. But it was quite a small swing and there is a lot more to do

to get the Labour Party back as a party of government with a credible

government that these people would vote for. Chris Grayling. Would you

and Tony Blair have been comfortable proposing to the country this

manifesto with all the economics behind it and all the issues about

borrowing and the extra cost on taxation? Would you be comfortable

with a huge increase in corporate taxes just at the moment we are

leaving the European Union and we want to attract more business? I

voted for it. I voted for it and I know Tony Blair voted for it. Would

we have done that in 2001-2005? I suspect we would not have done it.

But I suspect the Labour Party is onto something at the moment. And

this is the big thing, people are sick of austerity and being told

there is no other way. The man in the fifth row. Fire away. I think

the only reason that Labour did so well was because Jeremy Corbyn was

offering the Earth, the world, which he could not cost. Every time they

were asked they did not have an answer. Jeremy Corbyn and Diane

Abbott could not answer when they were asked questions about costing.

That is why he did well? The voters are gullible, they do not respect

those who vote for them. He could not afford it. But we can afford it.

Armando Iannucci. What politicians do in the next 24 hours is crucial.

I hope Jeremy Corbyn does not fall back into his default that what he

has is a protest movement and he had a fantastic rally and it would be

great if we did another one next Saturday and let's keep going. I

would like to see him acting as Leader of the Opposition and

opposing. That means taking his talent in parliament and his MPs and

reaching out to those and others like Chuka Umunna and Yvette Cooper.

It also means reaching out to other parties. If you look at it, Labour

put their heart and soul into this election and they got a tremendous

amount of new voters and we still did not do it. That is because the

system is broken. We have had a tiny minority governments for the last

three elections and we have never had a sizeable majority for the last

15 years and the Tories have not had one for the last 30 years. It means

parties will have to speak to each other. Where Jeremy Corbyn did

resonate with voters is in authenticity. One of the problems

with Theresa May's campaign issue came across as very robotic. If you

behave like a robot when the voters are going to vote for a clown

instead, and let's be honest... BOOING

Jeremy Corbyn failed last night and we should not get carried away and a

lot of Tories will be happy if he stays on for the next five years

because he will fail again because he is not electable.

The gentleman there. Just a minute ago members of the panel were very

disrespectful to the people of Northern Ireland when you are

slagging off the DUP. The DUP represent those people, so now I am

going to slag off all the people who voted for Jeremy Corbyn. There have

not been any cuts. Every year public expenditure is going up ten or 20

billion. There has not been any austerity. The government spends an

enormous amount. It goes up every year. Jeremy Corbyn is a very angry,

misguided person who does not believe it. David Cameron was

reassuringly dishonest. Chris Grayling, I really reassuringly

dishonest character, David Cameron. 20 billion a year, the government

expenditure goes up. It is the case if you take the example of the NHS,

we increase the budget every year and we always have in government and

we always will. The Conservative Party has been in power the majority

of time the NHS has been in existence and we have looked after

it and funded it. We put more money into it every year.

I think there's a considerable amount of difference between someone

that's good at campaigning and someone that can actually form a

government and lead the country. At softer Jeremy Corbyn. He's a nice

guy. He's a good campaign. -- hats off to Jeremy Corbyn. He's more

sincere than Theresa May. But when it comes to who is going to leave

the country and managed the Brexit negotiations, I think it puts a lot

more into context. I don't think, I can't see Labour going into

government with him as leader. Is it better to put in charge of Brexit

negotiations someone like Theresa May, who does a deal with the DUP

without actually knowing what it is? You have to remember she's still got

the largest party in government. Her majority is reduced but she's

increased temperature against Jeremy Corbyn. She reduced the number of

seats but she still got the majority and with the DUP. Am not arguing

with the maths. I was arguing with her competence.

APPLAUSE The woman in the front. Do you think

if there had been left anti-Semitism in the Labour Party from people like

Corbyn and perhaps you, Baroness Chakravarty, then Corbyn would be in

power? In government? Do you want to answer that? I said everything I

have to say about that. There have been problems of racism and

anti-Semitism in the Labour Party and in Britain, in the parties as

well, but I don't really, I don't think I can attribute the election

result to those issues. I really don't. You might, but I really

don't. Just to answer. There were a lot of conflicted people who judged

people who were unsure because of this. I'm sad to hear that but I

think were able to move forward together now. I made some

recommendations about how people ought to treat each other and I feel

that an appetite for taking this forward. The gentleman who said

Jeremy Corbyn is a great guy and he's decent and authentic, he's a

campaigner, but he's not a leader. I'd ask you to question what you

think leadership is, if it isn't about values and it isn't about

authenticity. APPLAUSE

It's certainly not attending a vigil for IRA terrorists and bombers that

attack innocent people for their own political gain. You have to be able

to lead your own Parliamentary party. Has your party provided

high-quality opposition in last year, Shami? That's a no.

APPLAUSE I've got to respond to that. You

make a point about divided political parties and how they are not going

to be effective, either in government or opposition, that's

clear, but during this campaign is another thing that has gone really

well for us has been the unity of the party. I look forward to seeing

how that plays out,. So do I, obviously. I agree with Isabel

Oakeshott, Jeremy Corbyn had the best chance yesterday to take

advantage of Theresa May's weaknesses, a poor campaign, and he

blew it, he failed. APPLAUSE

. You, sir? You talk about credibility of leadership. How can

he have any credibility with reference to Theresa May to really

think that she can debate, negotiate and extemporised with EU ministers

and leaders, when she completely avoided the debating platform in the

campaign? What kind of leadership does not show?

APPLAUSE Let's, turn, we'll turn to one of

the issues in the campaign that did cause a lot of debate. Angela

Piercy. Does the election result spell

the end of the "dementia tax"? You remember the dementia tax, she

said she hadn't changed her views and that's a matter of debate, I

suppose. Do you want to start on that, Isabel? This is such an

important issue. It was really disappointing that the Conservative

manifesto came out with such a botched approach to it. I think it's

far too important for party politics. I know it's been tried

before, but I think that we owe it to ourselves to have some kind of

cross-party talks, some kind of commission, where we really get to

grips with this problem. It's going to be expensive but it's too

important for things to be labelled dementia tax or death tax. OK. Chris

Grayling. The irony is there was no such thing as dementia tax and in

fact the package compares quite favourably with the situation. Most

people didn't understand, don't understand, the situation today is

if you go into residential care and you have no other financial means,

your house has to be sold there and then and the money is spent down to

the last ?23,000. That's the situation today. It's been the case

for ten, 20, 30 years in this country. What was brought forward in

the Conservative manifesto actually took less from people than the

current system. But we've got to learn lessons around how that came

across, about how it was launched, the communication of it. We need to

do what we promised to do in the campaign, which is to issue a Green

paper, have a proper public consultation about the best way

forward on this. This is one of the great defining issues of our time.

We have to find the best way of solving it. It means difficult

decisions. I'm pretty sure Theresa May in the campaign and going

forward wanted to be honest with the public and say look, this is a huge

challenge, it's going to cost is collectively and individually and we

have to address it. Why didn't she explain it then? Why didn't she go

on television and debate the pros and cons? I agree, I was on the

daily politics with Andrew Neil and someone from the Institute for

Fiscal Studies the day the Tory manifesto came out on these two

great big brains between them couldn't work out whether this was a

good thing, a bad thing, or an easy thing to explain are difficult thing

to explain, and if they couldn't do it I'm sure most of us couldn't do

it. That was a problem. She had three or four weeks in which to

explain it and take it on and to engage with you about it, find out

what the issues and problems were, and she ignored that. You, sir. I'm

more worried about the risk of basically how many more weeks will

it take for the wheels to come off whatever agreement they are going to

make and we're going to be sitting here again, discussing the same

issues and going to the polls again? I'd to know what the panel thinks

about how many weeks do you think that will take to happen? What do

you call the wheels coming off? I don't know what agreement they've

done together but obviously when you've got two parties, they'll

disagree, the wheels will come off, something will happen. It was the

social care policy that actually made the wheels come off the

campaign, because I think it was one thing for Theresa May to say I want

a blank check for Brexit, which is why I'm having this election, but

what that did was make people think Hang on a minute she wants a blank

check for everything. One of the things, you know this, the one thing

you've got to do in a campaign, we're back to the question of

confidence. It was so badly handled. The first you guys knew about it was

when you read it in the manifesto. It was done by her mate, two mates

behind the stage who you are trying to get rid of, Timothy and Fiona

Hill, they put it in there, than it was launched on an unsuspecting

world and within a couple of days she had junked it and don't think

Angela Merkel and Emmanuel Macron didn't see how quickly she jumped it

and it was utterly incompetent. When as Isabel says, this is a really

important issue where we do actually have to have a proper debate about

it. With respect, that's quite right coming from somebody in a party who

brought as the extraordinary experience of Diane Abbott and

police costs, of Jeremy Corbyn costing his policies, so looking at

how badly they handled their ability to explain that. The leader of a

party launching a manifesto. You can't spin your way out of that one.

Even you can't! Shami Chakrabarti. This isn't just about spin all about

confidence, it's about a policy that has terrified a lot of older people

on the doorstep that I've personally spoken to and it's a strange policy

from the Conservatives, who are supposed up a support home owning

and supposed to support that you leave your home to your children.

People have been genuinely terrified and said, I don't want to go into

social care. Everyone is right that we've got a big problem with an

ageing population and we need to take care of them with dignity but

it's got to be a fair tax for everybody, not just taking the tax

from the people who are suffering and have to go into social care.

We've got time for one last question, just. And Edo, please. --

Daniel be done. Now that Jeremy Corbyn did much

better than expected, is it fair to say the media's power

over politics is over? The media being... Newspapers, like

the Sun and the Daily Mail. The BBC? The sun and Daily Mail in particular

are mean if you like towards Jeremy Corbyn and I think it's been shown

in the election yesterday. Armando Iannucci. We've felt for some time

that the way the newspapers have treated anyone on the left has been

sort of fiction. It's their own story that they sell. I think most

people know that it's their story. It's a fiction. Was accounted by

social media in this election? It was. It will take awhile to find out

how much but I think it was. The other parties will catch up on that

as well. The Conservatives and the Leave campaign in the referendum

last year had a massive social media, a sinister one in terms of

collecting data, and what it does is raise the whole issue of the

influence, Facebook and Google and those outlets have, that they are no

longer just distributors of information, they are publishers,

and they need to be regarded as publishers. They publish stories for

profit. That's how they work. That raises that question. I want --

Isabel Oakeshott. I want to get in here before the usual rant about the

Daily Mail. It's a legitimate question and it's difficult to gauge

because when I saw the Sun the Meyler combined front pages

yesterday I thought it might make a significant difference and clearly

it did not -- that Mail front pages. What did they say? They were pretty

robust in their hostility. We found that Jeremy Corbyn was portrayed as

a dustbin and we were advised to bin Corbyn and don't let him put Britain

in the bin. You can't have it both ways, it's difficult to judge. Chris

Grayling? The lesson for politicians is we can't decide how we

communicate to people, we have to look at how they receive their

information and a lot of work to do in the future on improving what we

do with social media. I think Armando makes an important point,

that actually, we also have to be sure what's being put on social

media is accurate. We want a democracy that tells the truth and a

lot of the time... The Daily Mail. Where you accurate, Alistair? You've

got a minute. Let's not spend it all Daily Mail. Briefly, Shami. It's

about being accurate, it's about being fair and giving people a fair

shout and a fair hearing and it's also about nastiness and I think

there was a moment perhaps in this campaign where some of these attacks

went a bit too far. On social media. APPLAUSE

It's possible that Mail in particular was so over the top that

in the last few days it actually helped the Labour Party because the

public are seen through it and I do urge you all, thank you for the

encouragement to do this, Isabel, I urge you all, if you want to help

democracy, stop buying the Daily Mail.

APPLAUSE OK. I don't know why we have to go

on about the Daily Mail the time. Next Thursday, Question

Time is in Coventry. If you'd like to come

along, go to our website Thank you to the panel and to all of

you who came here. Until Question Time on Thursday, good night.

I've had enough... ..alternative facts.