Browse content similar to 23/04/2017. Check below for episodes and series from the same categories and more!
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And I've been in Paris where voters are going to the polls in first | :00:00. | :00:00. | |
round of the French Presidential election - what could be the impact | :00:00. | :00:08. | |
on the EU and Brexit of this most unpredictable of contests? | :00:09. | :00:12. | |
Here in the east, the end of his career in politics | :00:13. | :00:14. | |
for Douglas Carswell following the announcement | :00:15. | :00:16. | |
And are county council is struggling to stay afloat? | :00:17. | :00:19. | |
Will the Remain majority punish the Tories for the decision? | :00:20. | :00:22. | |
Or feel they may not like it but the Tories | :00:23. | :00:24. | |
And with me has always ready for the marathon task of covering a snap | :00:25. | :00:39. | |
general election, even working on bank holidays, the best and | :00:40. | :00:42. | |
brightest political panel in the business. David Wooding, Polly | :00:43. | :00:43. | |
Toynbee and Toby Young. So Labour's big announcement this | :00:44. | :00:46. | |
morning was a crowd pleaser. Four more rainy bank | :00:47. | :00:49. | |
holidays to enjoy - one for each of the patron saints | :00:50. | :00:51. | |
of England, Scotland, But Mr Corbyn probably won't be | :00:52. | :00:53. | |
getting the time off work if he wins And on The Andrew Marr Show this | :00:54. | :00:59. | |
morning he was asked what he would do as Prime Minister | :01:00. | :01:04. | |
if the security services asked him to authorise a drone strike | :01:05. | :01:07. | |
on the leader of Islamic State. What I'd tell them is, | :01:08. | :01:10. | |
give me the information you've got, tell me how accurate that is, | :01:11. | :01:13. | |
tell me what you I'm asking you about decisions you | :01:14. | :01:16. | |
would take as Prime Minister. Can I take you back | :01:17. | :01:25. | |
to the whole point? Is the objective | :01:26. | :01:27. | |
to start more strikes that may kill many innocent | :01:28. | :01:31. | |
people, as has happened? Do you think killing | :01:32. | :01:33. | |
the leader of Isis would be I think the leader of Isis not | :01:34. | :01:36. | |
being around would be helpful, and I'm no supporter or defender | :01:37. | :01:44. | |
in any way of Isis. But I would also argue that | :01:45. | :01:47. | |
the bombing campaign has killed a of whom were virtually prisoners of | :01:48. | :01:51. | |
Isis. So you've got to think | :01:52. | :01:54. | |
about these things. Mr Corbyn earlier. David, is his | :01:55. | :02:01. | |
reply refreshing damaging? It is damaging. He has clearly been | :02:02. | :02:06. | |
freaked to the fire already in the first week, there will be lots of | :02:07. | :02:10. | |
questions on his suitability as a leader and the damage it could cause | :02:11. | :02:13. | |
to our national security over the weeks ahead and Andrew Marr has cut | :02:14. | :02:17. | |
straight to the chase here. The other thing, of course, is the | :02:18. | :02:20. | |
letters of last resort, one of the first duties of a Prime Minister | :02:21. | :02:24. | |
when he walks into No 10 is to sign these letters on his own, on or -- | :02:25. | :02:29. | |
or on her own in a room, a very lonely moment, to decide whether he | :02:30. | :02:33. | |
should press the nuclear button and that goes in the Vanguard submarines | :02:34. | :02:37. | |
and is opened in the event of a strike and he has dodged a question | :02:38. | :02:41. | |
so many times. One must wonder what he would do that. He has to make | :02:42. | :02:45. | |
these decisions as Prime Minister. On the Isis point, refreshing or | :02:46. | :02:50. | |
damaging? It sure is his base, the people who support him, that's the | :02:51. | :02:54. | |
sort of thing they support info and maybe his tactic is that's all he's | :02:55. | :02:57. | |
going to get, that is what the polls seem to suggest, in which case they | :02:58. | :03:01. | |
will be pleased, and say yes, the man is a man for these who doesn't | :03:02. | :03:05. | |
press buttons and shoot people down. But if you want to win you have to | :03:06. | :03:11. | |
deal with your own weaknesses and reach out to other people. I think | :03:12. | :03:15. | |
most people would say that's not somebody who could defend the | :03:16. | :03:20. | |
country. I wonder if he was being totally honest in saying he would | :03:21. | :03:24. | |
consider it he would ask for more information. He has previously been | :03:25. | :03:29. | |
on the record as being against drone strikes in principle, he's | :03:30. | :03:32. | |
campaigned against them, he wants to abolish drones. I think Andrew Marr | :03:33. | :03:36. | |
let him off saying it was a drone strike rather than a Navy SEAL or | :03:37. | :03:39. | |
SAS operation and he had the fact that they could be collateral | :03:40. | :03:42. | |
damage. We that's not his position because he condemned the | :03:43. | :03:48. | |
assassination of Osama Bin Laden even though there was no collateral | :03:49. | :03:52. | |
damage. David is right on the Trident point, he fetched the | :03:53. | :03:55. | |
question. We heard Niall Griffiths on this very show saying Trident, | :03:56. | :04:01. | |
the renewal of Trident, would be in the next Labour Party manifesto. It | :04:02. | :04:04. | |
turns out now we don't know and when he was asked he said that remains to | :04:05. | :04:08. | |
be seen, his re-opened a can of worms. What he has said about | :04:09. | :04:11. | |
Trident which was extraordinary was, we will rebuild the submarines but | :04:12. | :04:16. | |
not have any nukes on them which is expensive and useless. And of course | :04:17. | :04:19. | |
the Labour Party were forced soon after that interview to put out a | :04:20. | :04:23. | |
statement saying it is Labour Party policy to renew Trident. So where | :04:24. | :04:29. | |
are we? Do we know what the party's policy is? It is to renew Trident | :04:30. | :04:33. | |
but he has started this review which involves looking at it all again. We | :04:34. | :04:38. | |
know he is a unilateralist to start with but whether he can force this | :04:39. | :04:43. | |
through is dubious. Does it matter, though, if the party policy is in | :04:44. | :04:47. | |
favour of Trident, if the leader is not? The potential Prime Minister is | :04:48. | :04:52. | |
not? They split three ways when they went to vote on it in the Commons. | :04:53. | :04:55. | |
The party agreed they were pro-Trident and when it came to the | :04:56. | :04:59. | |
vote they split three ways. I think it's difficult for them, it's always | :05:00. | :05:03. | |
been a really difficult issue for Labour. The question is whether you | :05:04. | :05:08. | |
want to seal off your negatives, whether you really want to try and | :05:09. | :05:12. | |
reach out to people. There are an awful lot of people who will like | :05:13. | :05:15. | |
what he said, there are an awful lot of people that think we have been | :05:16. | :05:20. | |
involved in terrible wars, we have wasted a lot of money and blood and | :05:21. | :05:23. | |
let's just get back from the whole thing, let's retreat from the world | :05:24. | :05:28. | |
and not try punching above our weight. There is something to be | :05:29. | :05:31. | |
said for that and it is a reasonable argument. He's been true to himself | :05:32. | :05:36. | |
on this. I think he is and Polly is right, lots of people will agree | :05:37. | :05:39. | |
with him, not enough to win a general election, the latest ComRes | :05:40. | :05:44. | |
poll shows Tories on 50% and Labour on 25 and as my colleague James | :05:45. | :05:47. | |
Forsyth in the Spectator said if this was a boxing match it would | :05:48. | :05:50. | |
have been stopped by now by the revelry. We are not stopping, we are | :05:51. | :05:52. | |
going on. So the political parties have had | :05:53. | :05:53. | |
to move into election mode Stand by for battle buses, | :05:54. | :05:56. | |
mail shots and your social media timeline being bombarded | :05:57. | :05:59. | |
by political propoganda. But none of this comes cheap - | :06:00. | :06:01. | |
Adam's been doing his sums. Democracy is priceless but those | :06:02. | :06:06. | |
planes, trains and automobiles used in the last election cost money | :06:07. | :06:11. | |
and we know exactly how much, thanks to the Electoral | :06:12. | :06:14. | |
Commission database. The Conservatives flew David Cameron | :06:15. | :06:19. | |
to every part of the UK in one day on a private plane costing ?29,000, | :06:20. | :06:24. | |
in-flight meals extra. They shelled out ?1.2 million | :06:25. | :06:30. | |
for adverts on Facebook. The most expensive item was their | :06:31. | :06:35. | |
election guru Lynton Crosby. They bought ?2.4 million worth | :06:36. | :06:39. | |
of advice and research from his firm Labour's biggest expenditure | :06:40. | :06:42. | |
was on good old-fashioned leaflets, costing ?7.4 million | :06:43. | :06:49. | |
to print and deliver. Hope they didn't go straight | :06:50. | :06:52. | |
into the recycling. Cheap for all the | :06:53. | :06:57. | |
enjoyment it gave us. To turn a normal minibus | :06:58. | :07:06. | |
into Harriet Harman's pink bus Nick Clegg toured the country doing | :07:07. | :07:08. | |
all manner of stunts transported although the party got a grand's | :07:09. | :07:15. | |
discount when it broke down. Ukip's then leader Nigel Farage | :07:16. | :07:27. | |
was accompanied by bodyguards Nicola Sturgeon's chopper | :07:28. | :07:30. | |
cost the SNP ?35,450. Plaid Cymru spent just over | :07:31. | :07:39. | |
?1,000 on media training And the Greens spent ?6,912 | :07:40. | :07:42. | |
promoting their tweets. It adds up to a grand total | :07:43. | :07:56. | |
for all the parties of ?37,560,039. Jabbing at my calculator that works | :07:57. | :08:00. | |
out at less than ?1 per voter. Adam Fleming there - | :08:01. | :08:07. | |
and joining me now is the man responsible for the Conservative | :08:08. | :08:11. | |
election campaigns - for the locals next month | :08:12. | :08:15. | |
and the general election in June - Welcome to the programme. The Crown | :08:16. | :08:23. | |
Prosecution Service is reviewing evidence from 14 police forces that | :08:24. | :08:27. | |
your party breached election spending rules on multiple occasions | :08:28. | :08:31. | |
in the last election. What are you going to do differently this time? | :08:32. | :08:37. | |
Well, the battle buses are part of the National campaign spend. You saw | :08:38. | :08:43. | |
them just on the shot that you did, all three parties had those battle | :08:44. | :08:46. | |
buses so that's why we believe they were part of the national spend and | :08:47. | :08:50. | |
it was declared that way. At least 30 people in your party, MPs and | :08:51. | :08:54. | |
agents, being investigated because they may not have been right to | :08:55. | :08:58. | |
include it in the national spend. Are you saying you are going to do | :08:59. | :09:01. | |
nothing differently this time? You asked me about last time and the way | :09:02. | :09:08. | |
the position is... Was. I asked you about this time. We will take a | :09:09. | :09:12. | |
careful count and make sure that everything that we do is within the | :09:13. | :09:19. | |
law. But as I say, the last election, all three parties had | :09:20. | :09:22. | |
battle buses. It is your party that above all has been investigated by | :09:23. | :09:27. | |
14 police forces. You must surely be taking stock of that and working out | :09:28. | :09:32. | |
how to do some things differently. You are being investigated because | :09:33. | :09:36. | |
you put stuff on the National Ledger which should have been on the local | :09:37. | :09:40. | |
constituency ledger. Are you looking at that again? All of the parties | :09:41. | :09:44. | |
had battle buses and they all put them on their national spend. I | :09:45. | :09:47. | |
don't think any of the parties put them on the local spend. The other | :09:48. | :09:52. | |
battle buses were not full of their party activists. Your party stuffed | :09:53. | :09:55. | |
these battle buses with activists and took them to constituencies. | :09:56. | :10:01. | |
That's the difference. And I ask again, what is different this time? | :10:02. | :10:06. | |
Are you going to run the risk of being investigated yet again? We | :10:07. | :10:09. | |
believe that we fully compliant with the electoral law as it was. What | :10:10. | :10:14. | |
will happen if one of these, or two or three or four or five of these 30 | :10:15. | :10:19. | |
people, Tory MPs, or agents running campaigns are charged during the | :10:20. | :10:25. | |
campaign? As I say I believe we properly declared our election | :10:26. | :10:29. | |
expenses. What happens if they are charged? You asking me a | :10:30. | :10:32. | |
hypothetical question, the importance of this election is about | :10:33. | :10:36. | |
who is in Downing Street in seven weeks' time. Let me clarify this, | :10:37. | :10:40. | |
you maintain that in 2015 you did nothing wrong with how you allocated | :10:41. | :10:44. | |
the cost and the activities of the battle buses and you would do | :10:45. | :10:47. | |
exactly the same this time round? What we did at the last election we | :10:48. | :10:52. | |
believe fully complied with the law. So the battle buses this time, | :10:53. | :10:57. | |
stocked full of activists, will still be charged to the national | :10:58. | :11:00. | |
campaign even when they go to local constituencies? Will they? We will | :11:01. | :11:08. | |
be looking at the way we do it, there is new guidance from the | :11:09. | :11:12. | |
Electoral Commission out and we will look at that guidance. It is not the | :11:13. | :11:16. | |
guidance, it is the lawful stop the Electoral Commission said that, if | :11:17. | :11:21. | |
you look at the report they did on us, they said there was one area | :11:22. | :11:24. | |
where we had over claimed, over declared, and another area we had | :11:25. | :11:27. | |
and declared. We haven't worked out what to do | :11:28. | :11:30. | |
yet, have you? We will get on with the campaign and | :11:31. | :11:34. | |
start the campaign and I'm looking forward to the campaign. | :11:35. | :11:37. | |
I'm trying to work out of the campaign is going to be legal or not | :11:38. | :11:40. | |
because last time it seems it could have been illegal. | :11:41. | :11:44. | |
I am sure the campaign will be legal. | :11:45. | :11:45. | |
You started the campaign warning about the prospect of, the coalition | :11:46. | :11:50. | |
of chaos. Mr Corbyn has ruled out a post-election coalition with the SNP | :11:51. | :11:58. | |
and so have the Lib Dems so who is going to be in this coalition? | :11:59. | :12:01. | |
Vince Cable said he was looking towards a possible coalition trying | :12:02. | :12:03. | |
to stop a Conservative government. Is not the leader of the Lib Dems. | :12:04. | :12:06. | |
He's an important voice in the Lib Dems. Who will be in it? Let's see | :12:07. | :12:12. | |
because of the Conservative Party is not re-elected with a strong | :12:13. | :12:15. | |
majority, what will happen? There will be a coalition stopping us | :12:16. | :12:18. | |
doing the things we need to do. Who will be in it? It will be a | :12:19. | :12:23. | |
coalition of the Labour Party, the SNP and the Liberal party. They have | :12:24. | :12:27. | |
ruled it out. I think they would not rule it out if that was the | :12:28. | :12:30. | |
situation. Like Theresa May not ruling out an election and then | :12:31. | :12:35. | |
changing her mind? The things the Prime Minister said were very clear, | :12:36. | :12:38. | |
once she had served Article 50 there was an opportunity, as we know | :12:39. | :12:42. | |
today, there is going to be the start of a new government formed in | :12:43. | :12:46. | |
France and in September we have the German elections. So it was quite | :12:47. | :12:49. | |
right that we didn't get ourselves boxed into a timetable. That is why | :12:50. | :12:55. | |
the Prime Minister took the view that they should be a general | :12:56. | :12:59. | |
election to give her full strength of an electoral mandate when it | :13:00. | :13:03. | |
comes to those negotiations. What about Mr Corbyn's plan for four new | :13:04. | :13:09. | |
bank holidays, good idea? I'm not... If we get Corbyn in No 10 Downing St | :13:10. | :13:13. | |
we will have a permanent bank holiday of the United Kingdom. We | :13:14. | :13:18. | |
will have fewer bank holidays of most other major nations, most about | :13:19. | :13:24. | |
major wealthy nations. What about at least one more? Well, look, he's | :13:25. | :13:28. | |
talked about four bank holidays. Today would be a bank holiday and | :13:29. | :13:32. | |
next Monday would be a bank holiday and the other week was a bank | :13:33. | :13:37. | |
holiday too. I don't think it's very well thought out. It sounded more to | :13:38. | :13:41. | |
me something like you get in school mock elections rather than proper | :13:42. | :13:44. | |
elections. Your party is the self-styled party of the workers and | :13:45. | :13:48. | |
you have no plans to give the workers even one extra bank holiday? | :13:49. | :13:51. | |
What we want to do is ensure Britain is a strong economy and building on | :13:52. | :13:57. | |
the jobs that we have created since 2010. We were told that by reducing | :13:58. | :14:01. | |
public expenditure unemployment in this country would go up, | :14:02. | :14:06. | |
unemployment has gone down and the number of jobs have gone up | :14:07. | :14:10. | |
substantially. But no more bank holidays? Well, we will make our | :14:11. | :14:14. | |
manifesto in due course but I don't think four bank holidays held in | :14:15. | :14:18. | |
April, March and November are very attractive to people. When Ed | :14:19. | :14:23. | |
Miliband as leader of the Labour Party suggested the government | :14:24. | :14:33. | |
should control energy prices by capping them, the Conservatives | :14:34. | :14:36. | |
described that as almost Communist and central planning. Do still take | :14:37. | :14:40. | |
that view? You'll see what we have to say on energy prices. I didn't | :14:41. | :14:44. | |
you about that, I asked you if you take the view... The Prime Minister | :14:45. | :14:49. | |
made a speech at the Conservative Spring conference in which she | :14:50. | :14:52. | |
outlined her dissatisfaction about people who are kept locked on a | :14:53. | :14:54. | |
standard tariff and those are the issues we will address in the next | :14:55. | :14:57. | |
few weeks when the manifesto was published. | :14:58. | :15:02. | |
Would that be an act of communism? You will need to see what we say | :15:03. | :15:09. | |
when we set out the policies. It could be. You could put a Communist | :15:10. | :15:15. | |
act into your manifesto? I don't think you'll find a Communist | :15:16. | :15:19. | |
manifesto in a Conservative manifesto which will be launched... | :15:20. | :15:23. | |
You are planning to control prices? We will address what we think is | :15:24. | :15:28. | |
unfairness in the energy market. Mr Jeremy Corbyn was reluctant this | :15:29. | :15:31. | |
morning to sanction a drone strike. You heard us talking about it | :15:32. | :15:38. | |
earlier against the leader of Islamic State if our intelligence | :15:39. | :15:41. | |
services identified him. What would it achieve? When the Prime Minister | :15:42. | :15:46. | |
gets certain advice in the national interests, she has to act been that. | :15:47. | :15:51. | |
We've seen with Theresa May in her time as Home Secretary and Prime | :15:52. | :15:54. | |
Minister, she's not afraid to take those very difficult decisions. What | :15:55. | :15:58. | |
we say this morning from Jeremy Corbyn was a his tans, a reluctance. | :15:59. | :16:02. | |
I don't think that serves the country well. What would it achieve | :16:03. | :16:09. | |
if we take out the head of Islamic State he's replaced by somebody | :16:10. | :16:13. | |
else. It brings their organisation into difficulties. It undermines | :16:14. | :16:18. | |
their organisation. It shows we'll take every measure to undo an | :16:19. | :16:23. | |
organisation which has organised terrorism in different parts of | :16:24. | :16:26. | |
Europe, the UK. I think it is absolutely right the Prime Minister | :16:27. | :16:29. | |
is prepared to take those kind of measures. Jeremy Corbyn said he | :16:30. | :16:34. | |
wasn't prepared to take that. Because he wasn't sure what it would | :16:35. | :16:39. | |
achieve. The Obama administration launched hundreds of drone strikes | :16:40. | :16:43. | |
in various war zones and we in the west are still under attack on a | :16:44. | :16:50. | |
regular basis. Mr Corbyn's basis was what would it achieve? It would | :16:51. | :16:55. | |
achieve a safer position for the UK overall. The war on terrorists. But | :16:56. | :16:59. | |
the Westminster attack, Paris has just been attacked again? There's | :17:00. | :17:05. | |
been attacks which have been stopped by the intelligence services. We | :17:06. | :17:09. | |
must do all we can to support them. The question was about drone | :17:10. | :17:13. | |
strikes. Whether it is drone strikes or other action, we have to be | :17:14. | :17:17. | |
prepared to act. Let's move on to Brexit. It is the major reason the | :17:18. | :17:21. | |
Prime Minister's called the election? Not the only within but | :17:22. | :17:26. | |
the main reason? It is one of the reasons. Now we start the two-year | :17:27. | :17:30. | |
negotiations and then a year afterwards. Also the way in which | :17:31. | :17:35. | |
certain people said they would try to use in the House of Lords or | :17:36. | :17:38. | |
House of Commons to prevent us making progress. I think you'll put | :17:39. | :17:45. | |
in your manifesto, it is the Government's policy, the Brexit | :17:46. | :17:51. | |
negotiating position will be no more freedom of movement. Leave the | :17:52. | :17:57. | |
single market and no longer under the jurisdiction Europe. You expect | :17:58. | :18:01. | |
every Tory MP to fight on that manifesto. What will you do with Ken | :18:02. | :18:07. | |
Clarke and Anna? They will have fought on their manifesto. They will | :18:08. | :18:11. | |
understand the Prime Minister has the authority of the ballot box | :18:12. | :18:14. | |
behind them. Will they fight the election on these positions? I'm | :18:15. | :18:19. | |
sure they'll fight the election supporting the election of a | :18:20. | :18:24. | |
Conservative Government and it's manifesto will quite clearly set | :18:25. | :18:28. | |
out... You know they're against these positions. Ken Clarke has a | :18:29. | :18:32. | |
prod tradition of expressing a certain view. Overall, the party's | :18:33. | :18:37. | |
manifesto, it is not just individuals like Ken Clarke, it is | :18:38. | :18:40. | |
what happens as far as the House of Lords are concerned, people said | :18:41. | :18:45. | |
they'd use the House of Lords to prevent certain measures. You're the | :18:46. | :18:49. | |
party chairman, will it be possible for people like Ken Clarke to fight | :18:50. | :18:54. | |
this election under the Conservative ticket without sub describing to all | :18:55. | :18:59. | |
-- subscribing to all of these Brexit conditions? Ken Clarke will | :19:00. | :19:05. | |
fight as Conservative candidates. That wasn't my question. I know | :19:06. | :19:09. | |
that. Will they be allowed to fight it on their own ticket and not | :19:10. | :19:13. | |
subscribe to what is in your manifesto? The manifesto will be | :19:14. | :19:18. | |
what the Conservative Party fights the General Election on. There will | :19:19. | :19:22. | |
always be cases where people have had different views on different | :19:23. | :19:27. | |
parts of the manifesto. That will be the guiding principles for the | :19:28. | :19:33. | |
party. Philip Hammond says your election promises in 2015, in your | :19:34. | :19:39. | |
manifesto not to raise taxes tied his hands when it came to managing | :19:40. | :19:43. | |
the economy. Do you agree with him? No. The simple fact is we have to do | :19:44. | :19:47. | |
the best things for the economy. We'll set out in our manifesto in a | :19:48. | :19:52. | |
few weeks' time, what the policies will be for the next Parliament. Can | :19:53. | :19:57. | |
I clarify, you don't agree with your Chancellor? What Philip was saying | :19:58. | :20:02. | |
was some of the areas we wants to address as Chancellor, what the | :20:03. | :20:07. | |
party will do, it will set out all the issues we're fighting on. It | :20:08. | :20:10. | |
will set out clearly the choice we have in this country. That's the | :20:11. | :20:14. | |
important thing. Let me put the question to you again. Philip | :20:15. | :20:19. | |
Hammond said this week your election promise in 2015 not to raise taxes | :20:20. | :20:23. | |
had tied his hands when it came to managing the economy. I ask you, do | :20:24. | :20:28. | |
you agree with him? You said no. Philip expressed his view as to what | :20:29. | :20:33. | |
he would like. What I'm saying is in a few weeks' time we'll set the | :20:34. | :20:38. | |
manifesto which will set the policies, agreed with the the | :20:39. | :20:42. | |
Cabinet. He's Chancellor. Doesn't he determine what the economic part of | :20:43. | :20:46. | |
the manifesto is? We'll talk about that in due course. Will you have a | :20:47. | :20:52. | |
lock on the taxes that you locked in 2015 on income tax, VAT, national | :20:53. | :20:57. | |
insurance? That will be decided. You'll see that when we publish the | :20:58. | :21:04. | |
manifesto in a few weeks' time. Will you rule out the possibility taxes | :21:05. | :21:08. | |
may have to rise under a future Conservative Party? Conservative | :21:09. | :21:12. | |
Government. We've taken four million people out of tax. Now, on average, | :21:13. | :21:19. | |
people are paying ?1200 less tax than they were on the same salaries | :21:20. | :21:24. | |
in 2010. I'm very provide of that. I can assure you, the Conservative | :21:25. | :21:27. | |
Party will want to see taxes reduced. It is the Labour Party | :21:28. | :21:31. | |
which will put up taxes. We have the evidence where this he did so. | :21:32. | :21:36. | |
Council tax went up by over 100%. You haven't reduced the tax burden | :21:37. | :21:43. | |
as a percentage of the GDP is now going to reach its highest level | :21:44. | :21:48. | |
since the mid-180s which was when Conservatives were in power. The tax | :21:49. | :21:53. | |
burden in this country under your Government is rising? We've more | :21:54. | :21:56. | |
people paying taxes which is something, because we've a growing | :21:57. | :22:00. | |
economy and more people... What about the tax band? You said you | :22:01. | :22:05. | |
reduced the tax burden on your own Government's figures is rising? We | :22:06. | :22:10. | |
have reduced the tax burden. The threshold at which people start | :22:11. | :22:15. | |
paying. These are tax rates not the tax burden. It is rising. The tax | :22:16. | :22:21. | |
rates have been reduced. You said tax burden. Perhaps I misspoke. Tax | :22:22. | :22:25. | |
rates have been reduced. We'll leave it there. No doubt we'll speak again | :22:26. | :22:34. | |
between now and June Is France now about to make it | :22:35. | :22:35. | |
a hat-trick of shocks The prospect terrifies | :22:36. | :22:40. | |
the governing elite in Paris. But they're no less scared | :22:41. | :22:43. | |
in Brussels and Berlin, given what it could mean | :22:44. | :22:45. | |
for the whole EU project, never mind the huge potential impact | :22:46. | :22:47. | |
on our own Brexit negotiations. 11 candidates are contesting | :22:48. | :23:07. | |
the first round of the presidential Only the top two will go forward | :23:08. | :23:09. | |
to the run-off on May 7th. For the first time since General De | :23:10. | :23:16. | |
Gaulle created the fifth Republic in 1958, it's perfectly possible that | :23:17. | :23:20. | |
no candidate from the ruling parties of the centre-left or the | :23:21. | :23:24. | |
centre-right will even make it The election has been dominated by | :23:25. | :23:28. | |
the hard right in the shape of the who's never been elected | :23:29. | :23:35. | |
to anything and only started his own party | :23:36. | :23:41. | |
a few months ago. And the far left in the form | :23:42. | :23:44. | |
of Jean-Luc Melenchon, a former Trotskyite who has surged | :23:45. | :23:47. | |
in the final weeks of the campaign. The only candidate left from the | :23:48. | :23:51. | |
traditional governing parties is the centre-right's | :23:52. | :23:54. | |
Francois Fillon and he's been struggling to stay in | :23:55. | :23:57. | |
the race ever since it was revealed that his Welsh wife was being paid | :23:58. | :24:00. | |
at generous public expense for a job I've just come across | :24:01. | :24:05. | |
this magazine cover and it kind of sums up the mood | :24:06. | :24:20. | |
of the French people. It's got the five main candidates | :24:21. | :24:23. | |
for President here but it calls them the biggest liar, the biggest cheat, | :24:24. | :24:26. | |
the biggest traitor, the most paranoid, the biggest demagogue, | :24:27. | :24:29. | |
and it says they are the winners The four leading candidates, | :24:30. | :24:32. | |
Le Pen, Melenchon, Macron and Fillon, or in with a chance | :24:33. | :24:42. | |
of making it to the second round. Only a couple of points separates | :24:43. | :24:46. | |
them in the polls, Frankly, no one has a clue what's | :24:47. | :24:48. | |
going to happen. Of the four, there is a feeling that | :24:49. | :24:54. | |
two of them may be President But the two of them may not find | :24:55. | :24:59. | |
themselves in the second round. Somebody said to me that the man or | :25:00. | :25:12. | |
woman on the Paris Metro has as much a chance of knowing | :25:13. | :25:26. | |
who will win as the greatest experts Because the more expert you are | :25:27. | :25:30. | |
the more you may be wrong. The country has largely | :25:31. | :25:37. | |
stagnated for over a decade. One in ten are unemployed, | :25:38. | :25:42. | |
one in four if you are unlucky Like Britain in the '70s there is | :25:43. | :25:45. | |
the pervasive stench There are three keywords that come | :25:46. | :25:49. | |
to mind. Anger, anger at the elite, and in | :25:50. | :25:56. | |
particular the political elite. And an element of | :25:57. | :26:02. | |
nostalgia for the past. These three words were decisive | :26:03. | :26:08. | |
in the Brexit referendum. They are decisive in | :26:09. | :26:12. | |
the French election. Identity and security has been | :26:13. | :26:24. | |
as important in this election France is a proud nation, it worries | :26:25. | :26:27. | |
about its future in Europe It seems bereft of ideas about how | :26:28. | :26:34. | |
to deal with its largely Muslim migrant population, huge chunks of | :26:35. | :26:39. | |
which are increasingly divorced It is quite simply exhausted by | :26:40. | :26:43. | |
the never-ending Islamist terrorist attacks, the latest only days before | :26:44. | :26:53. | |
voting in the iconic heart of this If Fillon or Macron emerge | :26:54. | :26:57. | |
victorious then there will be continuity of sorts, though Fillon | :26:58. | :27:08. | |
will struggle to implement his Thatcherite agenda and Macron will | :27:09. | :27:11. | |
not be able to count on the support of the French parliament, the | :27:12. | :27:15. | |
National Assembly, for his reforms. But if it's Le Pen or Jean-Luc | :27:16. | :27:19. | |
Melenchon then all bets are off. Both are hardline French | :27:20. | :27:25. | |
nationalists, anti the euro, anti the European Union, anti-fiscal | :27:26. | :27:27. | |
discipline, anti the market, Either in the Elysee Palace | :27:28. | :27:31. | |
would represent an existential Brexit would simply become | :27:32. | :27:40. | |
a sideshow, the negotiations could just peter out as Brussels | :27:41. | :27:49. | |
and Berlin had bigger fish to fry. We're joined now from | :27:50. | :27:53. | |
Paris by the journalist 8th Welcome to the programme. | :27:54. | :28:04. | |
Overshadowing the voting today was yet another appalling terrorist | :28:05. | :28:09. | |
attack in Paris on Thursday night. Do we have any indications of how | :28:10. | :28:15. | |
that's playing into the election? That initially people thought this | :28:16. | :28:19. | |
has been almost foiled in that the police were there as a ramp up. One | :28:20. | :28:25. | |
policeman was killed. But the terrorist did not spray the crowd | :28:26. | :28:29. | |
with bullets. It was seen as not having much of an effect on the | :28:30. | :28:34. | |
election. This has changed. We now know the policeman who was killed, a | :28:35. | :28:40. | |
young man about to the promoted, he was at the Bataclan the night of the | :28:41. | :28:46. | |
terror attack. He was a fighter for LGBT rights. The fact he was | :28:47. | :28:52. | |
promoted, happy within his job, he has this fresh face. Sudden, he's | :28:53. | :28:59. | |
one of us. It took perhaps 48 hours for the French to process this. But | :29:00. | :29:05. | |
now they're angry and this may actually change the game, at least | :29:06. | :29:10. | |
at the margins. To whose advantage? I would say the two who might | :29:11. | :29:17. | |
benefit from this are Marine Le Pen, she's been absolutely | :29:18. | :29:21. | |
anti-immigration, anti-anything. And made no bones about it as she | :29:22. | :29:26. | |
immediately made rather strange announcement in which she'd said if | :29:27. | :29:30. | |
she'd been president none of the terror attacks which happened in | :29:31. | :29:34. | |
France would have happened. Francois Fillon has written a book two years | :29:35. | :29:42. | |
ago called Combating Islamic Terrorism he's has an organised plan | :29:43. | :29:46. | |
in his manifesto. Unlike Emmanuel Macron who stumbled when he was | :29:47. | :29:50. | |
asked the evening this happened what he thought, he said, I can't dream | :29:51. | :29:54. | |
up an anti-terror programme overnight. The question, of course, | :29:55. | :29:58. | |
that arrows was this is not the sort of thing that's just happened | :29:59. | :30:02. | |
overnight. It's been unfortunately the fate of France for many years. | :30:03. | :30:07. | |
Let me ask you this finally, what ever the outcome on May 7th in the | :30:08. | :30:12. | |
second round, who ever wins, would it be fair to say French politics | :30:13. | :30:18. | |
will never be the same again? Yes. Absolutely it's a very strange | :30:19. | :30:22. | |
thing. People have no become really excited about this. You cannot go | :30:23. | :30:26. | |
anywhere without people discussing heatedly this election. The anger | :30:27. | :30:31. | |
that was described is very accurate. Very true. There was this feeling as | :30:32. | :30:37. | |
for the Brexit voters and the Trump voters, vast parts of the people | :30:38. | :30:41. | |
were being talked down to by people who despised them. This has to | :30:42. | :30:48. | |
change. If it doesn't change, we cannot predict what the future will | :30:49. | :30:53. | |
be. We'll know the results or at least the ex-the Poll London time | :30:54. | :30:58. | |
tonight at 8.00pm. Thank for joining us from the glorious heart of your | :30:59. | :31:00. | |
city. Now, the Green Party currently has | :31:01. | :31:03. | |
one MP and they'll be contesting many more seats in June | :31:04. | :31:07. | |
as well as hoping to increase their presence on councils in | :31:08. | :31:09. | |
the local elections on 4th May. Launching their campaign | :31:10. | :31:12. | |
on Thursday, co-leader Caroline Lucas made | :31:13. | :31:13. | |
a pitch to younger voters. When it comes to young | :31:14. | :31:16. | |
people they've been But one crucial way they've been | :31:17. | :31:17. | |
betrayed is by what this generation and this government and the previous | :31:18. | :31:23. | |
ones have been doing when it comes We know we had the hottest year | :31:24. | :31:26. | |
on record last year, you know, you almost think what else does | :31:27. | :31:30. | |
the environment need to be doing All the signs are there | :31:31. | :31:33. | |
and it is young people who are going to be bearing | :31:34. | :31:37. | |
the brunt of a wrecked environment and that's why it's so important | :31:38. | :31:40. | |
that when we come to making that pitch to, yes, the country at large | :31:41. | :31:43. | |
but to young people in particular, I think climate change, | :31:44. | :31:46. | |
the environment, looking after our precious resources, | :31:47. | :31:48. | |
has to be up there. And I'm joined now by the Green | :31:49. | :31:53. | |
MEP, Molly Scott Cato. Welcome back to the programme. | :31:54. | :32:07. | |
Promised to scrap university tuition fees, increase NHS funding, rollback | :32:08. | :32:11. | |
cuts to local councils spending, how much would that cost and how would | :32:12. | :32:14. | |
you pay for it? Like the other parties we haven't got a costed | :32:15. | :32:18. | |
manifesto yet, it's only a few days since the election was announced so | :32:19. | :32:21. | |
I will come back and explain the figures. You don't know? Like every | :32:22. | :32:25. | |
party we have not produced accosted manifesto yet, we produced one last | :32:26. | :32:31. | |
time but public spending figures have changed so we're not in a | :32:32. | :32:34. | |
position to do that but we will be in a week or so. What taxes would | :32:35. | :32:39. | |
you like to consider raising? We would consider having higher taxes | :32:40. | :32:42. | |
for the better off in society. I think we need to increase the amount | :32:43. | :32:48. | |
of tax wealthier people pay. How do you define better off? I'm not | :32:49. | :32:51. | |
entirely clear what the precise number would be but I think 100,000 | :32:52. | :32:57. | |
people would pay a bit more, 150,000 quite considerably more but the real | :32:58. | :33:01. | |
focus needs to be on companies avoiding paying taxes. I work on | :33:02. | :33:04. | |
that a lot in my role in the European Parliament, we see an | :33:05. | :33:07. | |
enormous amount of tax avoidance by companies moving profits from | :33:08. | :33:10. | |
country to country and we need European corporation to make that | :33:11. | :33:14. | |
successful. It has not made much difference yet. We have made lots of | :33:15. | :33:20. | |
changes. Google turned over $1 billion and only paid 25 million in | :33:21. | :33:23. | |
taxes last year. There was a significant fine introduced by the | :33:24. | :33:28. | |
competition commission on Apple and in the case of Google we must change | :33:29. | :33:32. | |
the laws so that people cannot move profits from country to country. | :33:33. | :33:37. | |
Everybody wants to do it. But you couldn't face a big spending | :33:38. | :33:41. | |
programme on the ability to do that. You'd have to increase other taxes. | :33:42. | :33:45. | |
If you look at the cost of free student tuition, tuition fees and | :33:46. | :33:48. | |
also maintenance grants to students, that would come in at about 10 | :33:49. | :33:51. | |
billion a year. One way of paying for that would be to remove the | :33:52. | :33:55. | |
upper threshold on National Insurance, bringing in 20 billion a | :33:56. | :33:58. | |
year, that's the order of magnitude we are talking about. It is not | :33:59. | :34:03. | |
vast, and some of the proposals we have... That would be an increase on | :34:04. | :34:07. | |
the better of tax? National Insurance on people earning... | :34:08. | :34:13. | |
People earning above 42,000. You would have another 10% tax above | :34:14. | :34:18. | |
42,000? I can't remember exactly how much the National Insurance rate | :34:19. | :34:23. | |
changes by. But in government figures it would be 28 billion | :34:24. | :34:28. | |
raised. I think it is up to 45, a bit more you pay a marginal rate of | :34:29. | :34:31. | |
40%, you would have them pay a marginal rate of over 50%? We would | :34:32. | :34:36. | |
put the National Insurance rate on higher incomes the same as it is on | :34:37. | :34:40. | |
lower incomes. If you are a school head of an English department on 50, | :34:41. | :34:44. | |
60,000 a year you would face a marginal rate under U of over 50%? | :34:45. | :34:50. | |
It is not useful to do this as a mental maths exercise but if you | :34:51. | :34:54. | |
look at other proposals would could have a landlord licensing system, | :34:55. | :34:59. | |
longer term leases on properties, so young people particularly, but also | :35:00. | :35:01. | |
older people who rent, could have more security which needn't cost | :35:02. | :35:05. | |
anything. We could insist on landlords paying for that. The | :35:06. | :35:09. | |
mental arithmetic seems clear but we will come back to that. How is the | :35:10. | :35:13. | |
Progressive Alliance coming? It is going well, I have heard of a lot of | :35:14. | :35:18. | |
interest at local level. Winterset this in contest, context, lots of | :35:19. | :35:23. | |
progressives are concerned about the crisis in public services, prisons, | :35:24. | :35:27. | |
social care system, and also about the Tories' hard extreme Brexit they | :35:28. | :35:31. | |
are threatening. You want the left to come together? Theresa May has | :35:32. | :35:36. | |
given us opportunity, she has taken a risk because she has problems with | :35:37. | :35:38. | |
backbenchers, she doesn't think she can get through Brexit with a small | :35:39. | :35:42. | |
majority so there is an opportunity and we are saying progressives must | :35:43. | :35:46. | |
come together to corporate, Conservatives are effective at using | :35:47. | :35:48. | |
the first-past-the-post system and we have to become effective as well. | :35:49. | :35:54. | |
Do you accept this Progressive Alliance cannot become the | :35:55. | :35:56. | |
government and Mr Corbyn is the Prime Minister? How could it happen | :35:57. | :36:01. | |
otherwise? I think that is a secondary question. For me the | :36:02. | :36:04. | |
primary question is who do people choose to vote for? Aluminium | :36:05. | :36:08. | |
government afterwards comes after the election. In most countries that | :36:09. | :36:12. | |
is the case. I understand that but we have the system we have and you | :36:13. | :36:15. | |
accept this Progressive Alliance cannot be in power and thus mystical | :36:16. | :36:19. | |
Burmese Prime Minister? Personally I think Mr Corbyn is less of a threat | :36:20. | :36:22. | |
to the country than Theresa May, she has shown herself to be an | :36:23. | :36:25. | |
authoritarian leader and she has said she doesn't want to have | :36:26. | :36:31. | |
dissidents, which I would say is reasonable opposition, and what we | :36:32. | :36:33. | |
are suggesting at the moment is there is a way of avoiding that very | :36:34. | :36:36. | |
hard Brexit and damage to public services. You'd be happy to pay the | :36:37. | :36:39. | |
price of having Mr Corbyn as Prime Minister? I do not see that as a | :36:40. | :36:44. | |
price. People have the choice of Jeremy Corbyn or Theresa May as | :36:45. | :36:47. | |
Prime Minister, that's the system that works. You would prefer Mr | :36:48. | :36:52. | |
Corbyn? I would but votes are translated into seats and the | :36:53. | :36:54. | |
Progressive Alliance is a step towards that. | :36:55. | :36:56. | |
It's just gone 3:50pm, you're watching the Sunday Politics. | :36:57. | :36:58. | |
We say goodbye to viewers in Scotland, Wales | :36:59. | :37:00. | |
and Northern Ireland who leave us now. | :37:01. | :37:02. | |
Coming up here in 20 minutes, the Week Ahead. | :37:03. | :37:11. | |
Hello and welcome to Sunday Politics East. | :37:12. | :37:16. | |
Later in the programme, a controversial MP | :37:17. | :37:19. | |
decides to call it a day, declaring - job done over Brexit. | :37:20. | :37:21. | |
And with the local elections two weeks away, choppy waters ahead for | :37:22. | :37:24. | |
But first this week, the shock announcement of a | :37:25. | :37:32. | |
We will go to the polls on June the 8th, | :37:33. | :37:39. | |
with the Prime Minister saying she wants unity at Westminster. | :37:40. | :37:41. | |
And already we are seeing repercussions | :37:42. | :37:42. | |
The Northampton South MP David McIntosh is facing deselection | :37:43. | :37:46. | |
Meanwhile, in Essex Douglas Carswell, the MP for Clacton, | :37:47. | :37:51. | |
announced he will not be standing this time around. | :37:52. | :37:54. | |
One of the leaders in the campaign for a referendum, he | :37:55. | :37:58. | |
was first elected as a Conservative in 2005, beating Labour to become | :37:59. | :38:01. | |
Four years later he led the campaign to | :38:02. | :38:08. | |
oust the Speaker Michael Martin in the wake of the MPs' expenses | :38:09. | :38:11. | |
And then, in 2014, his shock defection to Ukip and | :38:12. | :38:16. | |
He defended the seat with a reduced majority | :38:17. | :38:21. | |
His relationship with the former leader of Ukip Nigel Farage | :38:22. | :38:25. | |
was difficult, and last month he resigned from the party, pledging | :38:26. | :38:27. | |
Now, he says, it's job done and he is | :38:28. | :38:32. | |
Well, a few minutes ago I spoke to Mr Carswell | :38:33. | :38:39. | |
in London, and asked if he was sure he had made the right | :38:40. | :38:42. | |
It's clearly the right decision for me, I think | :38:43. | :38:47. | |
I think it's the right decision for Brexit. | :38:48. | :38:55. | |
I went into politics to do a job and I feel I've done it. | :38:56. | :38:59. | |
We are hearing now Aaron Banks may be | :39:00. | :39:01. | |
going to stand, either as a Ukip candidate | :39:02. | :39:03. | |
You know, Aaron is of very little concern to me and I think | :39:04. | :39:12. | |
probably of less concern to the folk in Clacton. | :39:13. | :39:14. | |
It is good that in a democracy people can put their name | :39:15. | :39:18. | |
on the ballot, but I suspect there may even be a couple of Monster | :39:19. | :39:21. | |
I think we need to focus on the key issue. | :39:22. | :39:24. | |
do you want to have Jeremy Corbyn or Theresa May in Number Ten? | :39:25. | :39:29. | |
And I think that's really what's going | :39:30. | :39:31. | |
As far as you're concerned, you had a | :39:32. | :39:40. | |
difficult relationship with Mr Cameron, you had a difficult | :39:41. | :39:42. | |
Which one of those that you get on better with, do you think? | :39:43. | :39:46. | |
I actually like David Cameron as a person, | :39:47. | :39:48. | |
I think he is a thoroughly decent, reasonable person. | :39:49. | :39:53. | |
But the thing about party leaders is actually they quite often need | :39:54. | :39:56. | |
Conservative Party a little bit of a nudge to promise us that | :39:57. | :40:07. | |
referendum, and I think I had to give Nigel a | :40:08. | :40:09. | |
bit of a nudge to stop him dominating the referendum | :40:10. | :40:12. | |
But, you know, I've occasionally fallen out with one or | :40:13. | :40:16. | |
two colleagues in my time in Parliament but I don't think I've | :40:17. | :40:19. | |
really fallen out with the folk in Clacton. | :40:20. | :40:21. | |
I've done everything I've done in Westminster with one eye on | :40:22. | :40:33. | |
what is going on in my part of Essex and asking would | :40:34. | :40:36. | |
When he became an MP for the area, Jaywick Was in the bottom ten | :40:37. | :40:41. | |
of the most deprived places in the country. | :40:42. | :40:43. | |
As you leave being the MP it is the bottom. | :40:44. | :40:46. | |
So some places you haven't managed to achieve what you | :40:47. | :40:48. | |
If I may say, I think there has been progress | :40:49. | :40:52. | |
in Jaywick, and that the reason I say that is because we got to the | :40:53. | :40:55. | |
bottom of what is the problem of Jaywick's, if you call it, | :40:56. | :41:01. | |
dilapidation, and that is there have been blanket | :41:02. | :41:03. | |
bans on any new developments in Jaywick for the past 40 years and | :41:04. | :41:06. | |
working with the council and a meeting I organised in the House | :41:07. | :41:09. | |
of Commons with the Environment Agency, we've removed many of those | :41:10. | :41:12. | |
restrictions and we are now starting to see private investment and | :41:13. | :41:15. | |
And I say that, you know, whatever party | :41:16. | :41:18. | |
you belong to, if you look at what the District Council has done as a | :41:19. | :41:21. | |
whole, working together, they have actually made sure | :41:22. | :41:23. | |
we are going to start seeing new development and | :41:24. | :41:25. | |
improvement in Jaywick and West Clacton, and I think | :41:26. | :41:28. | |
Far from being a lack of action, I think we | :41:29. | :41:31. | |
It is going to take time to filter through but we are making progress. | :41:32. | :41:41. | |
There has been a lot said since he decided | :41:42. | :41:43. | |
to stand down about the | :41:44. | :41:48. | |
meeting you had with Mr Reckless at Tate Britain about infiltrating | :41:49. | :41:51. | |
Ukip and maybe changing the policies of | :41:52. | :41:53. | |
Can you tell us a bit more about that meeting? | :41:54. | :42:00. | |
Actually, when I joined Ukip I called a press | :42:01. | :42:04. | |
conference on August the 28th 2014 in the centre of London and I very | :42:05. | :42:07. | |
clearly said in order for Euroscepticism to be able to gain | :42:08. | :42:10. | |
popular support, whether as Ukip or as Provoked Leave, Euroscepticism | :42:11. | :42:12. | |
needed to be optimistic, it needed to be different from that Britain | :42:13. | :42:17. | |
gone to the dogs, angry nativism that is so often defined parts of my | :42:18. | :42:21. | |
And I was quite clear and open about that agenda to | :42:22. | :42:35. | |
try to make Euroscepticism more broadly based and I would say | :42:36. | :42:37. | |
almost exactly a year ago by creating a broad coalition, so | :42:38. | :42:42. | |
Euroscepticism was seen as a progressive, positive, | :42:43. | :42:43. | |
internationalist thing to do, I think that decision has actually | :42:44. | :42:46. | |
So there was nothing cloak and dagger about that | :42:47. | :42:49. | |
I always meet colleagues and talk to colleagues. | :42:50. | :43:06. | |
I happen to meet them in the House of Commons | :43:07. | :43:08. | |
and if I want a bit of | :43:09. | :43:10. | |
privacy in Tate Britain down the river. | :43:11. | :43:11. | |
The reality is I was quite frank and open. | :43:12. | :43:14. | |
If you look at many of the blogs I've wrote before and | :43:15. | :43:16. | |
after I joined Ukip I again and again made this point, angry | :43:17. | :43:19. | |
nativism doesn't win elections and it certainly doesn't win | :43:20. | :43:22. | |
And I think by being the only successful Ukip candidate | :43:23. | :43:25. | |
at the last general election I emphatically demonstrated angry | :43:26. | :43:27. | |
nativism cannot win you a parliamentary constituency. | :43:28. | :43:29. | |
When you decided to resign from Ukip did you | :43:30. | :43:39. | |
think you had three years to maybe make your peace | :43:40. | :43:41. | |
with the Conservative Party and | :43:42. | :43:42. | |
hopefully be the candidate at the next general election? | :43:43. | :43:45. | |
The day after the referendum on June the | :43:46. | :43:48. | |
24th last year I was very close to announcing I was going to be | :43:49. | :43:51. | |
standing down from politics completely, several people persuaded | :43:52. | :43:53. | |
me to hang in there because there was a possibility MPs in the Commons | :43:54. | :43:56. | |
would still try and unpack the deal, and we saw the Gina Miller attempt | :43:57. | :44:00. | |
I then made it clear to myself and the various | :44:01. | :44:09. | |
people around me I was going to leave Ukip once Article 50 was | :44:10. | :44:12. | |
triggered, I was then going to announce I | :44:13. | :44:14. | |
was leaving politics and | :44:15. | :44:15. | |
April 2019, the month when we finally leave the EU. | :44:16. | :44:17. | |
All that Theresa May's snap general election | :44:18. | :44:19. | |
announcement has done is bring forward a 24 | :44:20. | :44:21. | |
months the decision I | :44:22. | :44:22. | |
How will you look back on your career, | :44:23. | :44:25. | |
personally, in Parliament and how do you think history will judge you? | :44:26. | :44:28. | |
I leave it to others to speculate about history. | :44:29. | :44:31. | |
Ultimately, I'm just a footnote, but I can't think any | :44:32. | :44:34. | |
higher privilege I could have ever had than to have been able to call | :44:35. | :44:38. | |
myself a member of Parliament for Clacton. | :44:39. | :44:39. | |
It has been a tremendous honour and it has been wonderful and | :44:40. | :44:45. | |
to those who voted for me thank you, to those who didn't vote for me then | :44:46. | :44:49. | |
I hope you will choose wisely in a few weeks' time. | :44:50. | :44:55. | |
Life has got too many rich opportunities in it to | :44:56. | :45:00. | |
I went into politics because I passionately believe that we | :45:01. | :45:04. | |
I feel I have done that job, I've stood for election five times, I've | :45:05. | :45:09. | |
won four times, the only person, incidentally, I ever lost an | :45:10. | :45:11. | |
But it has been a tremendous exhilarating | :45:12. | :45:16. | |
I've loved it and I can walk out saying I did what I | :45:17. | :45:22. | |
Joining me today, from Norwich from the Green Party | :45:23. | :45:28. | |
Here in the studio we have Dave Hodgson, the elected Liberal | :45:29. | :45:35. | |
from Cambridgeshire who has recently been awarded an MBE. | :45:36. | :45:44. | |
He described your party as going to the dogs | :45:45. | :45:47. | |
Well, do you know, before I answer that question, and I will, | :45:48. | :45:52. | |
I think he has been one of the best MPs | :45:53. | :45:56. | |
in the House of Commons all the | :45:57. | :45:57. | |
way through, no matter what party he has been | :45:58. | :46:00. | |
involved in, Ukip, the | :46:01. | :46:01. | |
Conservatives, or sat as an independent, | :46:02. | :46:04. | |
he is an MP who truly believes in because he was in | :46:05. | :46:06. | |
Conservatives, or sat as an independent, he is an MP | :46:07. | :46:22. | |
who truly believes the cauysecause he was in | :46:23. | :46:24. | |
You're party spent a lot of money getting him into | :46:25. | :46:27. | |
Parliament, now he has walked away from it. | :46:28. | :46:29. | |
He was in Parliament, there are very few MPs who crossed the | :46:30. | :46:32. | |
floor and actually hold a by-election and put their career | :46:33. | :46:34. | |
at stake and we in Ukip have that as a policy base. | :46:35. | :46:37. | |
Douglas honoured that and not many MPs would have. | :46:38. | :46:42. | |
So there is a man whose maiden speech | :46:43. | :46:43. | |
12 years ago was all about coming out of the EU and I think he | :46:44. | :46:47. | |
genuinely believe with Ukip's help he has achieved that. | :46:48. | :46:49. | |
The problem is I think he is premature, and I hope | :46:50. | :46:52. | |
I am wrong, but I think it is premature, in that what we have | :46:53. | :46:55. | |
actually been left with is a pro-remain Parliament, pro-remain | :46:56. | :46:57. | |
Conservative Party and a pro-remain Prime Minister trying to negotiate | :46:58. | :47:00. | |
against some very sophisticated people | :47:01. | :47:01. | |
in the EU who are not on the | :47:02. | :47:03. | |
And so here is a great opportunity with the general | :47:04. | :47:06. | |
election to get some people who really believe in Brexit | :47:07. | :47:09. | |
Rupert, we will bring you in this here. | :47:10. | :47:12. | |
It made me smile when he said that, Stuart, because I think | :47:13. | :47:19. | |
with May, we will be heading for anything but that. | :47:20. | :47:22. | |
I just want to go back to Ukip for a second and | :47:23. | :47:25. | |
one thing that is very important to get clear, | :47:26. | :47:27. | |
when Brexit is all done and dusted people will turn back to | :47:28. | :47:30. | |
the great issue of our time, dangerous climate change, and we | :47:31. | :47:32. | |
must never forget Ukip are the party of climate change denial. | :47:33. | :47:35. | |
Climate change denial is vile and despicable and it | :47:36. | :47:38. | |
amounts to kicking our children in the teeth | :47:39. | :47:40. | |
and that is the kind of | :47:41. | :47:41. | |
thing I hope people will be thinking about this election. | :47:42. | :47:44. | |
What we need to do is think truly long-term. | :47:45. | :47:46. | |
When Brexit is done and dusted we will | :47:47. | :47:48. | |
have to go back to the issues that will be determinative. | :47:49. | :47:51. | |
What kind of planet are we bequeathing to our | :47:52. | :47:53. | |
That is the long-term thinking we really | :47:54. | :47:56. | |
Vile, I think was the word, Peter Reeve. | :47:57. | :48:00. | |
Well, I love Rupert to bits but he would shut down every | :48:01. | :48:05. | |
business, take every car off the road, to be | :48:06. | :48:07. | |
shut down transport and | :48:08. | :48:08. | |
he would stop people living their lives. | :48:09. | :48:15. | |
I'm going to have to let him answer that one. | :48:16. | :48:17. | |
Would you shut down business and take every car off | :48:18. | :48:20. | |
Well, it is very funny that Peter should hone in there on | :48:21. | :48:24. | |
transport policy which is one of our great areas of strength, and both | :48:25. | :48:27. | |
in the local and general election one of the reasons | :48:28. | :48:30. | |
So we can have a massive investment in | :48:31. | :48:36. | |
public transport which is one of our signature | :48:37. | :48:38. | |
policies and actually an | :48:39. | :48:39. | |
Absolutely, but it seems like interfering in a family feud with | :48:40. | :48:45. | |
Ukip, you are never quite sure whether they are a member, a past | :48:46. | :48:50. | |
member or a future member, as people come and go under | :48:51. | :48:56. | |
arguments with whoever the current leader is or with | :48:57. | :48:58. | |
I think Rupert is a right that climate change is a real issue | :48:59. | :49:02. | |
and you can't have climate change deniers because it is our children | :49:03. | :49:05. | |
and our grandchildrens' future and it is real. | :49:06. | :49:07. | |
But we must say you were part of the coalition, your party, | :49:08. | :49:10. | |
No, we were a small part of the coalition and coalitions are | :49:11. | :49:18. | |
organisations where if you are a small part | :49:19. | :49:19. | |
you have to do things you | :49:20. | :49:21. | |
don't want to do and you have seen a post 2015 the difference we did | :49:22. | :49:24. | |
make them the coalition by stopping some | :49:25. | :49:26. | |
of the excesses of cuts that are happening with the Conservative | :49:27. | :49:29. | |
So are you ready for a general election? | :49:30. | :49:32. | |
I think I screamed when I heard it at 11am on Tuesday | :49:33. | :49:35. | |
We have got most of our candidates selected, I | :49:36. | :49:40. | |
think we are well on the way to getting that but it will be hard. | :49:41. | :49:47. | |
Just before we move on let me ask you about Aaron Banks. | :49:48. | :49:50. | |
Would you welcome him and being your Ukip candidate in | :49:51. | :49:52. | |
One of the things about Ukip is it is entirely grassroots led and | :49:53. | :50:01. | |
community led so and the people who decide | :50:02. | :50:03. | |
local members in local constituencies. | :50:04. | :50:06. | |
Unlike the Conservatives and Labour, who seem | :50:07. | :50:07. | |
to be forcing candidates than people's throats, Ukip believes in | :50:08. | :50:10. | |
So you can expect a lot of election leaflets through your door | :50:11. | :50:16. | |
Before that, though, the county council | :50:17. | :50:19. | |
With elections everywhere except Bedfordshire where there are no | :50:20. | :50:22. | |
elections in the three unitary authorities. | :50:23. | :50:24. | |
Our county councils face a number of challenges and | :50:25. | :50:26. | |
They have already cut spending dramatically. | :50:27. | :50:30. | |
In the four years after 2010 spending by our county | :50:31. | :50:36. | |
how they will navigate the problems ahead. | :50:37. | :50:47. | |
We know what the buildings look like, we know the people inside | :50:48. | :50:53. | |
hold lots of meetings and they quite often seem to argue with each other. | :50:54. | :50:56. | |
But it's all matters because whether you like it or not | :50:57. | :51:03. | |
county councils play an important part in our lives. | :51:04. | :51:06. | |
Whether it is looking after vulnerable older people, | :51:07. | :51:08. | |
safeguarding children, libraries, 70% of roads | :51:09. | :51:10. | |
across the country are | :51:11. | :51:15. | |
maintained by county councils, so the web and weft of everyday | :51:16. | :51:17. | |
life, the stuff we all use every day, that | :51:18. | :51:19. | |
is not decided by MPs in Westminster that is delivered by county | :51:20. | :51:22. | |
councils, and decisions about that are made by county councils. | :51:23. | :51:25. | |
Jim ran Northamptonshire County Council for | :51:26. | :51:29. | |
Lots of challenges, and the really important | :51:30. | :51:37. | |
thing is making sure you | :51:38. | :51:38. | |
get good quality services at good value for money. | :51:39. | :51:41. | |
But nowadays the general consensus is running a | :51:42. | :51:44. | |
county council is more like a visit to the Lee Valley Whitewater Centre | :51:45. | :51:47. | |
in Hertfordshire - rough, unpredictable and always the chance | :51:48. | :51:49. | |
It wasn't so pressurised as it is today, it was | :51:50. | :51:58. | |
possible to make decisions more confidently. | :51:59. | :52:02. | |
Nowadays you really have to go back to the budget book | :52:03. | :52:04. | |
and make sure the funds are there and there | :52:05. | :52:07. | |
isn't a different way of | :52:08. | :52:08. | |
That sometimes does restrict initiative. | :52:09. | :52:13. | |
There is an uncertain funding situation, we are | :52:14. | :52:15. | |
seeing demand go through the roof at the very same time we see | :52:16. | :52:19. | |
Since George Osborne's first austerity budget the Government's | :52:20. | :52:27. | |
grants to county councils has been cut by more than 40%. | :52:28. | :52:31. | |
Authorities have had to become more efficient | :52:32. | :52:36. | |
and that meant hitting the so-called back-office. | :52:37. | :52:37. | |
Many, like Suffolk County Council, now share their | :52:38. | :52:39. | |
premises with district councils, and thousands of staff have been | :52:40. | :52:41. | |
made redundant or outsourced to other | :52:42. | :52:43. | |
fewer posts at the county council, 1600 fewer in Essex, 1000 in | :52:44. | :52:57. | |
Northamptonshire, almost 600 fewer in Cambridgeshire. | :52:58. | :52:58. | |
That puts pressure on the staff that remain. | :52:59. | :53:02. | |
For example, most notably in children's services. | :53:03. | :53:07. | |
Social workers now deliver even more admin support | :53:08. | :53:09. | |
than they did because their business support and admin has been | :53:10. | :53:12. | |
cut, which has a significant implication on service delivery and | :53:13. | :53:14. | |
is something that is often overlooked. | :53:15. | :53:18. | |
There has also been big changes to the services | :53:19. | :53:20. | |
Youth services were an early casualty, elderly care has been | :53:21. | :53:27. | |
outsourced in most places, but funding hasn't always followed. | :53:28. | :53:29. | |
In Suffolk, the libraries are now run | :53:30. | :53:31. | |
While in Norfolk subsidies for public transport and | :53:32. | :53:34. | |
crossing patrols regularly come under the spotlight. | :53:35. | :53:38. | |
Funding pressures are likely to get even | :53:39. | :53:42. | |
worse if the Government grants stops and councils have to rely on local | :53:43. | :53:45. | |
We've seen savings on all those key services and the | :53:46. | :53:49. | |
big question now is whether there is anything left to take out of the | :53:50. | :53:53. | |
system or whether we are going to have to start looking at stopping | :53:54. | :53:56. | |
In every county in this region the same issue | :53:57. | :54:03. | |
confronts the voters in these elections - | :54:04. | :54:07. | |
which party is best placed to manage an ever declining | :54:08. | :54:09. | |
budget and still provide the important services people rely on. | :54:10. | :54:19. | |
In this region the Conservatives have nearly always | :54:20. | :54:21. | |
county council but in the last four years the Givings Ukip and Lib Dems | :54:22. | :54:25. | |
Blocking budget proposals, raising uncomfortable | :54:26. | :54:28. | |
issues, changing the | :54:29. | :54:29. | |
way council business is conducted in Cambridgeshire and Norfolk. | :54:30. | :54:37. | |
as it gets even harder to navigate the choppy waters of council | :54:38. | :54:41. | |
Rupert Reid in Norwich, how would you balance | :54:42. | :54:44. | |
Well, our approach as Greens is firstly | :54:45. | :54:52. | |
lot more funding from central Government for local Government. | :54:53. | :54:56. | |
Hang on, you are not going to get that so how are you | :54:57. | :55:02. | |
Well, it depends what happens at the | :55:03. | :55:05. | |
You cannot treat these two elections separately. | :55:06. | :55:09. | |
I hope what people do at the general election is | :55:10. | :55:12. | |
a vote for parties that will actually increase funding to local | :55:13. | :55:14. | |
Government which means above all, the Greens, because we believe | :55:15. | :55:17. | |
passionately in decentralisation, a real | :55:18. | :55:18. | |
decentralisation, to local Government. | :55:19. | :55:19. | |
But, actually, it looks as though the Conservatives have a | :55:20. | :55:24. | |
big lead and would not change the funding | :55:25. | :55:26. | |
formula, so how would you | :55:27. | :55:28. | |
The first thing we would do if we were placed in that very | :55:29. | :55:35. | |
difficult situation is stop funding things which are a complete | :55:36. | :55:38. | |
Such as the Northern distributor roads | :55:39. | :55:44. | |
and other road-building programme here in Norfolk which all parties | :55:45. | :55:46. | |
except for the Greens have supported. | :55:47. | :55:48. | |
Hundreds of millions of pounds being wasted there. | :55:49. | :55:50. | |
Let's take that money and put it into real | :55:51. | :55:52. | |
proper council services that people need. | :55:53. | :55:53. | |
Actually, the Lib Dems have done quite well in by-elections | :55:54. | :55:56. | |
Have you been forgiven, do you think, for the coalition? | :55:57. | :55:59. | |
You are quite right, we have done very | :56:00. | :56:01. | |
I think 33 net gains in the past year. | :56:02. | :56:05. | |
Taking seats from all parties in areas that were | :56:06. | :56:07. | |
And we hope to do well in the county council elections | :56:08. | :56:11. | |
So why is it do you think people are coming back to you? | :56:12. | :56:16. | |
I think it is hard work on the ground. | :56:17. | :56:18. | |
I think we are showing we want to deliver services. | :56:19. | :56:23. | |
I run a council where we have had to balance the | :56:24. | :56:26. | |
books for the past eight years, it is getting more and more | :56:27. | :56:29. | |
difficult but we show we can deliver services. | :56:30. | :56:31. | |
In Bedford we are doing that despite the cuts. | :56:32. | :56:33. | |
But as Rupert said, and as you have said, it is getting more | :56:34. | :56:37. | |
and more difficult as we get more and more cuts and there will have to | :56:38. | :56:41. | |
Ukip have had some interesting developments at council level. | :56:42. | :56:45. | |
You have had people resign, people say | :56:46. | :56:46. | |
Where do you stand going into the local elections? | :56:47. | :56:50. | |
It is interesting the media tend to focus on that. | :56:51. | :56:54. | |
That happens to all parties and local Government and it is just | :56:55. | :56:58. | |
when it happens to Ukip it is of the | :56:59. | :57:05. | |
national press, when it happens to Labour, the Lib Dems, | :57:06. | :57:08. | |
We stand by our councillors, 147 of them are facing | :57:09. | :57:14. | |
You can't blame the media for doing all that. | :57:15. | :57:21. | |
A parish councillor puts a letter in the newspaper as a | :57:22. | :57:25. | |
Conservative parish council and no one bats an eyelid. | :57:26. | :57:28. | |
He changes to Ukip puts in the same letter and it is on | :57:29. | :57:32. | |
the Sunday Politics show with ministers talking about it. | :57:33. | :57:35. | |
That is how hard Ukip have been battered. | :57:36. | :57:37. | |
To answer your question, the reality is | :57:38. | :57:38. | |
we stand by the record of our councillors. | :57:39. | :57:40. | |
These are people who have worked very hard in the local | :57:41. | :57:43. | |
community and I think we will see in the election results | :57:44. | :57:47. | |
all the national picture and the media stories aside, | :57:48. | :57:49. | |
in the election results people will judge is based on the hard | :57:50. | :57:52. | |
Our guys are in running those libraries voluntarily. | :57:53. | :57:56. | |
People like me clean the toilets in our local town. | :57:57. | :57:58. | |
The point about what Green councillors have done is they | :57:59. | :58:02. | |
have done very good stuff, whether in power or out of power. | :58:03. | :58:05. | |
Including massive action on tackling air | :58:06. | :58:06. | |
pollution, one of the great scourges of our time, | :58:07. | :58:11. | |
and if people vote Green at these elections they will | :58:12. | :58:13. | |
know that is the best way of tackling, for example, air | :58:14. | :58:16. | |
Thank you very much for being with us today. | :58:17. | :58:19. | |
We are going to finish today with our round-up of a | :58:20. | :58:23. | |
very busy week in politics in 60 Seconds. | :58:24. | :58:32. | |
It is all change at cereal giant Weetabix in Northamptonshire, | :58:33. | :58:34. | |
where the breakfast manufacturer has been sold | :58:35. | :58:37. | |
Local farmers supply wheat for 3 million biscuits a year. | :58:38. | :58:45. | |
We will continue to make, market and sell our brands here and | :58:46. | :58:48. | |
Northamptonshire and we will also continue to source our wheat from | :58:49. | :58:51. | |
Children here face a fight for school places after | :58:52. | :58:58. | |
being turned down at the local primary despite living just 500 | :58:59. | :59:02. | |
Four-year-old Oscar faces a three mile round trip in September. | :59:03. | :59:06. | |
A bit more planning and a bit more foresight | :59:07. | :59:12. | |
could have prevented this | :59:13. | :59:13. | |
Instead it is having a huge impact on the families | :59:14. | :59:16. | |
Over in Holland, qualified nurses visit elderly patients at | :59:17. | :59:20. | |
home, cutting emergency hospital admissions by one third. | :59:21. | :59:23. | |
Now nurses in West Suffolk are trying the same | :59:24. | :59:27. | |
Back home in the House of Commons one MP and didn't exactly pick up | :59:28. | :59:35. | |
his hometown with this invitation to the PM. | :59:36. | :59:39. | |
Will the Prime Minister come to Kettering, | :59:40. | :59:40. | |
I'd be happy to visit the Kettering constituency in the | :59:41. | :59:46. | |
In fact I expect in the next few weeks I | :59:47. | :59:50. | |
will be visiting quite a few constituencies. | :59:51. | :59:55. | |
We are back next week at the usual time | :59:56. | :00:02. | |
on issues like the NHS. Run out of time. Andrew, back to you. | :00:03. | :00:15. | |
Now, Ukip have made their first significant policy announcement | :00:16. | :00:22. | |
of the election campaign today with a call for a ban on wearing | :00:23. | :00:27. | |
But is it a policy that will meet with the approval of the man | :00:28. | :00:33. | |
who bankrolled the party's last general election campaign? | :00:34. | :00:35. | |
Hello, Andrew. Let me see if I can clarify some things, are you a | :00:36. | :00:43. | |
member of Ukip? I a patron of Ukip so I don't stop being a member. So | :00:44. | :00:49. | |
you are still a member? I am, apparently for life. Are you still | :00:50. | :00:53. | |
hoping to bankroll Ukip? Not at the moment. Why is that? The internal | :00:54. | :00:59. | |
problems we have had in Ukip have been aired, and a lot needs to | :01:00. | :01:04. | |
happen in the party in terms of professionalising it and I think it | :01:05. | :01:08. | |
is ill-prepared for this general election. Are you going to run in | :01:09. | :01:14. | |
Clacton? I will be if selected. For Ukip? Yes. Have you been to Clacton? | :01:15. | :01:21. | |
I've been with Nigel Mansell on the campaign. You will run for a | :01:22. | :01:25. | |
constituency you've only been in once? Yes, why does that surprise | :01:26. | :01:31. | |
you? You know nothing about it. I've just recently decided to become the | :01:32. | :01:35. | |
candidate there. Did you know where it is? Of course I do, your piece | :01:36. | :01:39. | |
the other night was completely wrong. I said I knew where it was | :01:40. | :01:43. | |
but I didn't know much about it. Maybe the people of Clacton will | :01:44. | :01:50. | |
regard you as a carpetbagger? Why? Because you have never been there. | :01:51. | :01:56. | |
Most politicians are carpetbaggers and I will be there for the right | :01:57. | :02:00. | |
reasons. I thought it was because of your visceral hatred of Douglas | :02:01. | :02:06. | |
Carswell. He only lasted 24 hours after I announced my candidacy so we | :02:07. | :02:10. | |
will see what happens. The main thing I am going to Clacton on | :02:11. | :02:13. | |
Monday to meet the Ukip councillors, see what the issues are and see if | :02:14. | :02:16. | |
they want me as a candidate. They may not want me. Who do you think | :02:17. | :02:23. | |
you will be up against? The potential Conservative candidate. | :02:24. | :02:29. | |
Who in Ukip? I don't suppose anyone in Ukip will stand against me, I | :02:30. | :02:33. | |
wouldn't have thought. Really? I would have thought. Money talks! Why | :02:34. | :02:41. | |
do you say that? You talked about having a pirate radio station to | :02:42. | :02:44. | |
blast into Clacton so it is not covered by the election rules. | :02:45. | :02:47. | |
You've been talking about financing a sort of right-wing Momentum | :02:48. | :02:53. | |
movement. I just wonder, has politics now just become a | :02:54. | :02:58. | |
Richmond's hobby? From my perspective the reason I'm | :02:59. | :03:01. | |
interested in it is if you have looked at what has happened in the | :03:02. | :03:03. | |
country, it's clear the Conservatives will have a massive | :03:04. | :03:08. | |
majority. -- has politics become a rich man's hobby. Only putting up | :03:09. | :03:14. | |
candidates not against Brexit MPs. Is Ukip over? I don't think so. The | :03:15. | :03:21. | |
electoral maths is interesting because first-past-the-post | :03:22. | :03:23. | |
effectively could help Ukip in this example. Ukip got one MP with 4 | :03:24. | :03:34. | |
million votes. What we are seeing is the total collapse of Labour. In | :03:35. | :03:38. | |
that situation there are certain seats up north in Hartlepool and | :03:39. | :03:41. | |
other seats like that, the total collapse of the Labour Party could | :03:42. | :03:44. | |
help Ukip to win a few seats. Is Ukip over? It looks that way, yes. | :03:45. | :03:50. | |
They haven't made much of a dent in Labour's vote in the north, they | :03:51. | :03:54. | |
don't really have a defining issue anymore and all the polls we have | :03:55. | :03:58. | |
seen published since the election was called show Ukip vote is going | :03:59. | :04:03. | |
to the Conservatives. Is Ukip over? It always happens when the | :04:04. | :04:06. | |
Conservative Party goes far to the right, really hard Brexit, there is | :04:07. | :04:11. | |
no space for BMP, Ukip and all of that. Are you associating the BNP | :04:12. | :04:17. | |
with Ukip? Or that, movements to the right of the Conservatives get eaten | :04:18. | :04:20. | |
up one the Conservatives move as far right as Theresa May has done. I | :04:21. | :04:26. | |
think what your enterprise shows is how it's really time to reform | :04:27. | :04:30. | |
funding of political parties. It is disgraceful that very rich people | :04:31. | :04:35. | |
can move in and bankroll the Brexit campaigned to the extent that they | :04:36. | :04:39. | |
did. We need proper state funding of parties. The union is bankrolling | :04:40. | :04:45. | |
Labour. I assume the reform would include trade unions? Indeed. Ukip | :04:46. | :04:53. | |
has lost its talisman in Nigel Farage, it was a one-man party, I | :04:54. | :04:57. | |
have to say, people like Tim. Having voted for Brexit its reason to be | :04:58. | :05:02. | |
has gone. It will still take votes from Labour and the Conservatives | :05:03. | :05:05. | |
but probably only from the don't knows. There are seats in certain | :05:06. | :05:09. | |
places where if enough Tories back Ukip dated when. Hartlepool is an | :05:10. | :05:15. | |
example. Were the Tories will never win. The demise of Ukip has been | :05:16. | :05:19. | |
forecasted many times before but I don't see a Tory candidate winning | :05:20. | :05:23. | |
in a place like Hartlepool. So we could see, and I think we will see, | :05:24. | :05:27. | |
the total collapse of the Labour vote. We shall see. The leader of | :05:28. | :05:32. | |
the party of which you say you are still a patron, Paul Nuttall, said | :05:33. | :05:36. | |
he would ban the Burcea and the niqab in public, what is your view? | :05:37. | :05:44. | |
-- the niqab and the Burcea? I'm not in agreement with that. If it is a | :05:45. | :05:48. | |
security issue at airports or public transport it could be acceptable but | :05:49. | :05:52. | |
I'm not in favour of curtailing people's writes. You have gone | :05:53. | :05:56. | |
further than him, haven't you? You tweeted you wanted to ban Muslim | :05:57. | :06:00. | |
immigration. In my view the problem we have had with the lack of | :06:01. | :06:04. | |
integration in certain communities has come about through mass | :06:05. | :06:08. | |
open-door immigration. If you are a must win you wouldn't be allowed in? | :06:09. | :06:12. | |
What I said in the tweet was I think they should be a ban on | :06:13. | :06:17. | |
immigration... You said Muslim immigration. That's what I believe. | :06:18. | :06:23. | |
If you are a world famous doctor coming to help one of our big | :06:24. | :06:26. | |
teaching hospitals in this country because you are a Muslim you could | :06:27. | :06:29. | |
not get in? We have to start somewhere, there are huge problems | :06:30. | :06:33. | |
in areas where 20% of the population don't speak the language, they | :06:34. | :06:38. | |
haven't integrated. You should read the rest of the tweet, it is control | :06:39. | :06:44. | |
of immigration from a 10-year ban on unskilled immigration. The first | :06:45. | :06:47. | |
thing you said was to ban Muslim immigration, it is in black and | :06:48. | :06:51. | |
white. I have said that, I do not dispute that. I was questioning | :06:52. | :06:55. | |
that. There is my answer, you cannot tell somebody's will adjust freedoms | :06:56. | :06:59. | |
but what you can do is stop adding to the problem. Doesn't that sound a | :07:00. | :07:04. | |
bit like the BNP? It's as like BNP and like Trump. Its, we hate | :07:05. | :07:08. | |
Muslims, fine, if that is what you are standing for, that is clear. The | :07:09. | :07:14. | |
final word is we have had open-door mass immigration from the | :07:15. | :07:16. | |
Conservative Party, we've had it from the Labour Party and its fine | :07:17. | :07:19. | |
if you are in north London to say these things, if you live in Oldham | :07:20. | :07:23. | |
and your community has been radically changed and you have a | :07:24. | :07:27. | |
whole population not integrating in, not speaking the language, something | :07:28. | :07:30. | |
has got to be done. We had better leave it there. Thank you for coming | :07:31. | :07:35. | |
in. I am en route to Clacton. We will see how you get on there. | :07:36. | :07:37. | |
Now, Lib Dem leader Tim Farron was on TV earlier today | :07:38. | :07:40. | |
and he was asked again about an issue that he's been | :07:41. | :07:43. | |
asked about repeatedly - his attitude to homosexuality. | :07:44. | :07:45. | |
when they asked you whether gay sex was a sin. | :07:46. | :07:54. | |
Come on, Robert, I've been asked this question loads | :07:55. | :07:57. | |
few days and I have been clear, even in the House of Commons, | :07:58. | :08:01. | |
It's possible I'm not the only person getting tired | :08:02. | :08:11. | |
Probably, but then why don't you just close it down? | :08:12. | :08:15. | |
Toby Young, why does he get into such a mess over this? I mean, he is | :08:16. | :08:27. | |
leader of the Liberal Democrats. Its 2017. I guess the reason he keeps | :08:28. | :08:31. | |
refusing to answer that question is because what the implication is that | :08:32. | :08:35. | |
he does think that homosexual acts are sinful, and he cannot bring | :08:36. | :08:41. | |
himself not to say that, or to say what Robert Peston and others want | :08:42. | :08:45. | |
him to say because he is an evangelical Christian who converted | :08:46. | :08:50. | |
at the age of 20, 21, and clearly he really struggles with this issue and | :08:51. | :08:52. | |
I think it will be really difficult for the Lib Dems to promote, or even | :08:53. | :08:57. | |
Lib Dem candidates like Vince Cable, to promote the idea of the | :08:58. | :09:00. | |
Progressive Alliance even though Tim has ruled it out, if he is not | :09:01. | :09:04. | |
prepared to say I don't think homosexual acts are sinful. What is | :09:05. | :09:12. | |
your view? It is disastrous if that is what he really thinks but Preston | :09:13. | :09:15. | |
did not push the hard. I'm not sure he understood the difference about | :09:16. | :09:17. | |
the question between gay sex and being gay. I think he just thought | :09:18. | :09:21. | |
he was going on saying I'm not anti-gay. He needs to command | :09:22. | :09:25. | |
immediately and clarify it. If you are right and he does actually think | :09:26. | :09:29. | |
it is a sin he is in real trouble. There is a slight parallel with what | :09:30. | :09:33. | |
police said before about Jeremy Corbyn, how his unilateral nuclear | :09:34. | :09:37. | |
policy would appeal to the hard core of the left. The problem for Tim | :09:38. | :09:42. | |
Farron with what he is saying here, while he is an evangelical | :09:43. | :09:46. | |
Christian, this will not appeal to traditional Liberal Democrats. An | :09:47. | :09:54. | |
LGBT community member cannot possibly vote for an MP who believes | :09:55. | :09:58. | |
that a sexual act between homosexuals is sinful. He has not | :09:59. | :10:02. | |
made that clear. Of course, he wants to stop Brexit as well so he is | :10:03. | :10:06. | |
neither liberal nor democratic. He will have seven weeks to make it | :10:07. | :10:09. | |
clear because I am sure he will be asked again. We have the chairman of | :10:10. | :10:14. | |
the Conservative Party on earlier, Polly. An important figure for the | :10:15. | :10:18. | |
Tory campaign. What did you make of what he said? I don't think he will | :10:19. | :10:22. | |
have him on very often, he didn't do brilliantly. I think they will bring | :10:23. | :10:26. | |
back chemical Ali, Michael Fallon, he can say anything with a straight | :10:27. | :10:31. | |
face, he can say black is white. Michael Fallon, chemical Ali? Why do | :10:32. | :10:36. | |
you say that? He can absolutely say black is white. For instance if you | :10:37. | :10:42. | |
look back at what he said, you challenged him about the energy | :10:43. | :10:49. | |
policy, when Ed Miliband came out with it, he said any kind of freeze | :10:50. | :10:53. | |
would stop investment, the lights will go out. You have him on, he | :10:54. | :10:58. | |
will say the exact opposite. He is magic at that. But I don't think | :10:59. | :11:04. | |
your guy today was up to the job. If Michael Fallon was chemical Ali, or | :11:05. | :11:10. | |
we should say chemical Fally, Patrick was more like comical Ali. | :11:11. | :11:16. | |
The whole Iraq war is rushing back at me. He is the warm up comedian, | :11:17. | :11:21. | |
there is another six weeks to go, just getting things started. What | :11:22. | :11:26. | |
did you think? I don't think he was too bad, it was difficult for him to | :11:27. | :11:29. | |
say exactly what was in the 2050 manifesto is going to be replicated | :11:30. | :11:33. | |
in the Conservatives' manifesto during this general election, he | :11:34. | :11:36. | |
doesn't want to be seen rowing back on stuff but on the other hand I | :11:37. | :11:40. | |
don't think he can conceal the fact they will be far fewer commitments | :11:41. | :11:43. | |
in this Conservative manifesto than in the last one, as you and I know, | :11:44. | :11:47. | |
it was full of rash promises last time because they thought they would | :11:48. | :11:56. | |
have to trade a lot of them away in the negotiations with the Liberal | :11:57. | :11:58. | |
Democrats to form a second coalition so they are saddled with policies | :11:59. | :12:01. | |
they don't particularly want to be hemmed in by. The forthcoming | :12:02. | :12:03. | |
Conservative manifesto will be much lighter and shorter with fewer | :12:04. | :12:06. | |
commitments. Different? Some stuff jumped from the 2050 manifesto? I | :12:07. | :12:10. | |
think so but we will see a commitment to run schools to | :12:11. | :12:13. | |
overcome that hurdle in the next parliament and I don't think, in | :12:14. | :12:15. | |
spite of what you think, Polly, that it will be a hard tack to the right. | :12:16. | :12:20. | |
I think if anything the mood music of the Conservative manifesto will | :12:21. | :12:25. | |
be a centrist inclusive one. The mood music will be because the | :12:26. | :12:29. | |
specifics would be there. She is good at saying governing for | :12:30. | :12:32. | |
everybody and the many and not the few but when you look at the hard | :12:33. | :12:36. | |
facts of what her and Hammond's budget looks like, you look at her | :12:37. | :12:40. | |
hard Brexit, it's a very different story. Or that, the music has | :12:41. | :12:47. | |
stopped for this week! Thank you. I will be back next week at the normal | :12:48. | :12:54. | |
time of 11am on Sunday morning. On BBC One The Daily Politics is back | :12:55. | :12:58. | |
at midday tomorrow and we will be on every day next week on BBC Two. | :12:59. | :13:03. | |
Remember, if it's Sunday, it is The Sunday Politics. | :13:04. | :13:32. | |
There'll be a couple of hours of just fantastic music, really, | :13:33. | :13:35. | |
all the Ella classics, as well as some very special guests, | :13:36. | :13:38. | |
we have Mica Paris, Imelda May, Dame Cleo Laine | :13:39. | :13:41. | |
'There's a side to Rory that the public doesn't see. | :13:42. | :13:46. | |
'Rory has suspected for some time that he may have ADHD. | :13:47. | :13:50. | |
Here we have the first hydrogen bomb that went into service with | :13:51. | :13:59. |