30/06/2013 Sunday Politics London

Sunday Politics. Timewarp edition! It's back to the '70s, as Britain

faces the threat of power blackouts. We'll ask the Energy Minister how

he'll keep the lights on. And it's back to the '80s with Labour as

right clash with left amid claims that comrades at Unite are trying to

take the party over from the inside. We go to Falkirk where it's all been

kicking off. And if you got a P45 tomorrow, could you wait a week for

welfare? That's the government's plan, but is it fair? The two sides

go head to head. In London there have been closures on the M25 every

day since the Coalition came to power. Will the announcement of

investment make a difference? All of that and our political

panel. They look a little bleary eyed after rocking out at the

festival with Mick and Keith. We have Janan Ganesh, Helen Lewis and

Iain Martin who'll be tweeting throughout the programme. Trouble

brewing through the Labour Party this morning, as party members and

union activists digest the news from Falkirk, where the constituency

party has been placed in "special measures" after allegations that one

of the party's biggest backers, the Unite trade union, tired to rig

candidate selection for the seat. The party says there is "sufficient

evidence to raise concern". The union denies any wrongdoing. So

what's been going on? Giles Dilnot went to Falkirk to find out. A

beautiful view of Falkirk, which ironically is the focus of an ugly

battle between the Labour Party and one of its biggest backers, the

union Unite over the choosing of party candidates, which has

fermented accusations that Unite is stitching on selections and Labour

is smearing the union. The Unite General Secretary has been open that

his strategy is to recruit trade unionists to the Labour Party in the

interests of Unite so they can influence selection and policy and

campaigning. What happened in Falkirk? It started when sitting MP

Eric Joyce stand in 2015 after he was arrested for a fight in the bar

of the House of Commons. The chair of Falkirk Labour Party is also the

chair of Unite Scotland. After three people expressed an interest to sit,

Unite sent out a survey to a number of Labour Party members asking if

they thought Falkirk should be an all woman shortlist which would have

benefited their favoured candidate, a woman. Then there were questions

about an influx of new party members that has led to Labour nationally

stepping in after it ruled there was sufficient evidence for concern. One

of the allegations put two oils is that -- to us... It is significant

that the Labour Party central aid has since barred anyone who joined

after March 2012 from voting in this selection process. It seems that the

Labour Party now has a concern about these people recruited recently en

masse. If they are legitimately recruited, there is no problem.

do you think this damage is most? The Labour Party but equally Unite.

The last months inside the Labour Party have shocked this member of 40

years. The mood of the party changed. It is not the way the

Labour Party should operate and not the way the trade union should

operate. We need to be transparent but if the situation elsewhere is

the same suit is here, that would raise concerns for me as a Labour

Party member and a Unite member. Concerns were raised in London and

the Midlands after party selections for next year's European elections.

Carole tongue was a high-profile MEP until she left in 1999 to care for

her child. Last year she decided to put herself forward to a regional

selection board of six people containing one Unite and one GMB

official. Despite being experienced and well known, she was not

shortlisted or even interviewed. Perhaps she wasn't the best person?

I think what really happened was this was a way of trying to make

sure of the clearest run for the union by knocking out the people who

would get most votes against those candidates. What bothers people like

Michael is despite asking, he has yet to receive a reply to that

Apology for the loss of subtitles for 47 seconds

smear, but no rules have been broken anywhere. They will challenge Labour

's decision over Falkirk and have not been shown the allegations

against them. Critics suggest even their openings threaten Labour

electoral leave. We are hearing talk of direct

action. This is, if you like, a campaigning strategy we haven't seen

in the Labour movement since the 1980s. That is what is presenting

the serious political problem for Ed Miliband.

If the wheels are not to come off the tracks, both seed -- side need

to decide who decides the direction of travel.

What is happening in the Labour Party? Is there an attempt by the

unions and ( -- left-wing allies... This exposes a deep division. Unite

says they want people from different areas. The other big problem is that

Len McCluskey gave an interview in which he called for Shadow Cabinet

members to be sacked by name. There is a huge divide between what he

would call austerity light and what he wants and what his members say he

is there to say. Is this reminiscent of the 1980s? I cut my teeth as a

reporter in Scotland 20 years ago covering a scandal and the selection

battles in the early 1990s. For Peter Mandelson to complain about

elections being stitched up is a little rich. Does anybody listen to

Peter Mandelson in the Labour Party today? I think there is an argument

that they should. Parties that tend to win tend to have to be broad

churches and if the Labour Party is going to be dominated by Unite I

don't think there will be a future for the party in that sense. What

would concern me if I were in his position is that if the unions try

this thing ten years ago, you would have John Reid, Stephen Byers, Alan

Milburn and Tony Blair himself all constituting the very formidable

resistance to the right of the party. Who constitutes the right of

the party now? It seems to have at provide as a movement. I can think

of Jim Murphy but beyond that you are struggling. There is a clash in

the Labour Party, and the left wins through the sheer absence of the

right. They don't think they have done anything wrong, they think it

is their job to put like-minded people in as candidates. It is a

tricky one for them. I think whoever was Labour leader, they are all

going to have to take the same approach to it. I agree, Ed Miliband

knows it is good to be still in with the unions and he has stepped in.

Now, it's not just Labour who've been going back in time this week.

One Tory minister found himself on TV having to reassure the nation

that the lights aren't about to go out on Britain. Sound familiar?

want to speak to you about the grave emergency facing our country.

Blackouts are one feature of this decade nobody wants to revive. This

week the possibility the lights might go out again raised its ugly

head, for very different reasons. An energy assessment released by often

suggested spare capacity in the system would drop, comfortable 14%

to a terrifying 2%. Newspaper headlines followed warning of dark

days. The Government is acting, it confirmed �10 billion worth of

guarantees for energy company EDF to build a new nuclear power station

and it was confirmed the north-west of England potentially has enough

shale gas to keep Britain powered for 43 years, but that won't address

the threat of the lights going out in the next few years. It might even

be time to check under the stairs for those candidates. And Energy

Minister Michael Fallon joins me now for the Sunday Interview. Why has

the Coalition so mismanaged energy policy that there is talk of the

lights going out at times of high demand for electricity? For years

Labour had not done anything, not build any new nuclear stations and

simply not enough investment was going into energy. We saw a series

of announcement on Wednesday are accelerating shale gas, and people

can invest in renewables and we are now organising new reserve capacity

to come on stream in a few years. How many new power plants have

opened under this Government? Six power plants, two big offshore wind

farms, biomass conversion. Not all these are up and running? Yes, they

are. And more coming. How many more will open between now and 2015?

least another four or five. There are 11 others with planning

permission, we are catching up but nothing was done under Labour and we

have a long way to go to catch up. According to a report from off gem,

spare electricity generating capacity is likely to fall from 14%

to 2%, it doesn't leave much slack. Know, and I think everybody

underestimated that some of the coal-fired stations are coming off

the system earlier than originally anticipated because of our

commitments under international law. That was underestimated and we have

got to make sure there is enough energy and I want to reassure you we

are doing that. What is your estimate of the chance of blackouts?

We want to make sure they don't happen. We are not going to have

industrial blackouts, factories shot at lunchtime or anything like that.

We have off gem, the regulator, and the National Grid charged with

making sure that doesn't happen and they have plenty of tools at their

disposal. Let's look at what the There is a risk of course. There

will be less reserve capacity in three years but we have time to deal

with that. The situation is so serious that the National Grid are

looking at paying users to close down when demand is high. This is

how you responded. The story is running about how factories and

businesses will be asked to switch off in order that power isn't cut to

people's homes in 2015, are they true? No. That wasn't accurate, was

Let's speak clear what tools they have at their disposal. They have

always had an operating reserve. They have always had their own

generators who can contract to Ofgem, to turn down their power for

a certain period. There is nothing new about that. That has existed for

20 years. Secondly, they are looking at some recently mothballed plant to

make sure the operators of it are ready if the plant is needed, to

bring it to the system. That can be done relatively quickly. I have been

told it takes more than a year. are talking about a potential

tightness in the capacity in 2.5 years. One year is plenty of time.

National Grid is talking about a tariff, paying industrial users not

for using energy between four p.m. And eight p.m. If there's danger of

blackouts. They have plenty of time to get a mothballed plant onto the

system. They have plenty of time to better balance the system. I assure

you, we are not going to have people sent home at lunchtime. We are going

to have a to system. They are not going to use any techniques they are

not already using. There should be an operating reserve. When did the

National Grid or Ofgem paying industrial users not to use a

literacy? When did they last use it? They haven't.Exactly. They are

planning ahead, in case there is a shortage. If there is, they will be

ready with some mothballed plant that was off the system, to bring it

back on. There's plenty of time to do that. If it takes a year, why is

there plenty of time? You won't know until there's a winter snap and we

passed the limit. You don't know, a year before, if that happens.

would be the first to criticise me if we put in lots of capacity and

added two bills unnecessarily. What I want to assure you about is that

we are not going back to any kind of industrial blackouts. The reason

people are now talking about a blackout, and it's not just the

media, it's Ofgem, the National Grid, who run utilities, is because

the previous Labour government and this Coalition agreed to phasing out

of our existing nuclear stations without putting a replacement in

place. Labour accepted all of these obligations. They signed up to all

of these European treaties but they didn't do the other thing, which was

to invest in new stations to replace the coal fire stations and the oil

fire stations that were being taken of the system. That was the

appalling failure of underinvestment. Why don't you delay

the close of the cold fire stations until you have done something about

new capacity? The operators of these new stations are able to do that.

But there are legal limits about the amount of dirty power they can

generate. They have to respect European Union law. You say that,

but why are we doing what the EU tells us? We are closing our

stations when Germany is building 12 new cold fire stations using the

dirtiest coal available. Germany and some of these countries were ahead

on renewable energy. They had more renewable electricity, and we don't.

We accepted and sign up to these obligations. When you sign up to

obligations to have fewer cold fire stations, then you've got to

undertake to have the new investment to go alongside it. What is more

important, buy in Brussels or keeping the lights on? -- obeying.

Keeping the lights on. Keeping the lights on is the first priority.

We're not planning to break any particular law. We have got time to

deal with this situation. Are dealing with it. -- we are dealing

with it. This was in the Telegraph will pick up the tab in their bills

for this astonishingly expensive hand-out. First you say we are going

to be short of energy, and when there's investment, you criticise

that. You can't have it both ways. We have cut the cost of onshore

wind. We cut the subsidy this year. We reduced it in April. We reviewed

the cost each year in conjunction with the industry to make sure that

it's more cost effective, and we are doing the same with offshore wind.

The wind industry gets three times the market rate, and we pay for that

in our bills. Correct? You won't get people to build a wind farm or even

a gas plant unless they can be sure they can get their electricity

generated onto the system. If you want new investment, it has to be

paid for. It's interesting that you think wind is a way to avoid the

blackouts. This is a snapshot of what was generating our elegant city

of wind capacity, when the wind doesn't blow, you don't get power.

You don't in June, no. You do at other months. Sorry to interrupt

you, I can show you a figure from February when it was 0.2%. Sometimes

it is over ten. Last time I saw, it was 6.3. Wind is important, but the

lesson is you need more of all of these sources of energy if we are to

avoid the reserve getting tighter. We need people to invest in a mix of

energy so we are more secure. Households and business will have to

stump up for the new nuclear capacity that you are trying to

build but haven't yet. EDF like the wind suppliers, once a guarantee.

That is before they go ahead with Hinkley Point. We are still

negotiating with EDF. We can't tell you what the price is going to be.

This is a huge investment. It is a 40 year investment into nuclear

power. It doesn't come for free. they have you over a barrel because

nobody else can build these stations quickly. Either you agree to their

price, or it doesn't happen in the immediate future. If that was true,

we would have agreed back at Christmas. We have our -- other

operators coming in. That's a long way away. They are organising supply

chain conferences at the moment. We have other investment coming into

potential site at Sellafield and Sizewell and elsewhere. The nuclear

industry is picking up now, after years of neglect under Labour.

other thing we've known for years is that Britain is sitting on a sea of

natural gas, called shale gas. A survey has confirmed we have 43

years of his staff to keep the lights on. The Coalition has

dithered on this as well. There has been no delay. We are not on

Thursday that we are getting serious about shale gas. -- we announced. We

are ensuring that communities will benefit from drilling. You had a

two-year moratorium. That's because there was some seismic activity and

we needed to be sure that this stuff could be drilled safely and

protecting the environment. Let me show you what happened with the

so-called earthquakes. These are the It's important to reassure people.

Hydraulic fracking for gas is a new thing in this country. The

moratorium has finished now. We have finished -- fired the starting gun.

We have companies searching for shale gas. As a result of the

moratorium, the shale gas will not be on stream in any significant

quantities, if at all, in time to cope with any of the 2015-2016

blackouts. Correct? Not necessarily. They are drilling for shale gas at

the moment. Soon they will start hydraulic drilling. It is only

explorer tree at the moment. They are not drilling for shale gas. --

is only exploratory. They have to have various permissions. They have

to get those lined up. They have to reassure us they can do it safely,

without damaging the environment. Shale gas could make an important

contribution to the chart that you showed. So, a danger of blackouts in

2016, you will have no shale gas and no new gasp capacity by then. It's a

mess of a policy. I reject that. We have Ofgem taking prudent measures

now to make sure there's a mothballed plant ready to come back

on the system, to make sure companies manage their demand where

they are able to use private generators if necessary, and this

week we announced a series of measures to make sure there's a new

plant coming onto the system and that the search for shale gas is

being accelerated, not slowed down. The Chancellor 's Spending Review

has come and gone but there's also a row over the benefits system. If you

lose a job, you have to wait a week before you can claim welfare.

Half of all job seekers need more help looking for work. So we will

require them to come to the Job centre every week rather than once a

fortnight. We're going to give people more time with the job centre

and visors and proper progress reviews every three months. -- with

job centre and visors. We're going to introduce a new seven-day wait

before people can claim benefits. Those few days should be spent

looking for work, not looking to sign on.

We have it at three days at the moment. Seven days, is it going to

be a blank check for loan companies? If it works, fine.

Looks like a consensus. But is it fair? Nadhim Zahawi and Laurie Penny

go head-to-head. Nadhim Zahawi, why is it fair to

tell a low paid worker, laid off as short notice, that he or she will

have to wait a whole week before she gets help to feed her family?

Firstly, it is right that you spend the first week repairing to go back

to week -- work. Secondly, if you have no savings and no redundancy,

there's hope for you, both through councils and local government. And

job centres themselves can help you. Thirdly, it brings us in line with

Sweden, with Australia, and New Zealand have a two week wait. This

is about thinking about work first. Laurie Penny? There's no reason you

can't claim benefits and look for work at the same time. But you seem

to be confused. You seem to have mixed up the idea of welfare with

something that is a free hand-out. It is not. What Social Security is

in a system of issue writs whereby if you lose your job, you should not

be left destitute. -- a system of insurance. We have increasing use of

food banks. A third of people who use them using them because of

delays the benefit system. This will create a poverty trap, for small

children into poverty. On Friday, I was looking at the Russell trust

work. Most of the cases are to do with assessment of benefit, not the

people who are waiting three days. Waiting seven days is about a

mindset that you should spend the first seven days thinking about

getting back to work, getting a CV ready. How can you think about

getting back to work if you are worried about feeding your kids?

When I said on Twitter that I was coming on TV to talk about the wait

for benefits, I was contacted by a lot of people who have been in

trouble. One was a woman who said, when I had to wait for my benefits,

I had no help, no support, and I had... I couldn't even buy sanitary

towels. These are people being left in the most if stream cases of

indignity already. -- extreme cases. People without savings can go to the

council for help. The idea that people are destitute is not true.

don't know what world you live in, but we have a massive increase in

the use of food banks and there are six job-seekers for every vacancy. I

don't know what you think taking away money is going to make it

easier. That sort of scaremongering... It's not

scaremongering! People said crime would go up, none of it has

happened. You need to go back and look at this sensibly. We are also

saying that people should prepare to go back to work. That is being poor

than nothing. It happens in Sweden. Sweden 's benefits are three times

as generous as ours. We have some of the least generous benefits in the

EU. In Scandinavia and other countries, using the Social Security

system does not lead a person destitute in the way that benefits

in the UK do. Let me interrupt you. It is not just from the left that

you are being attacked. Let me show you what the taxpayers Alliance has

had to say about this. We think the government is doing

excellent work on welfare reform. However, there is one concern we

have, about this idea of giving people a whole week before they can

sign on. We wonder whether it might end up dissuading some people from

taking short-term work. If that is an an intended consequence of this

reform, it's something the government should look at at a game.

I don't believe it will be because it has been tried in other countries

and it works. Is it logical that you wouldn't look for temporary work

again very quickly? Wouldn't that be logical if you are in this

position, not getting benefits for a week? You would wait to sign on,

wouldn't you? I think it depends on how we make sure we get the detail

right on this. You have got no idea how the system really works. What do

you think of Labour's response. This policy will do exactly what Labour

and the Conservatives want to avoid, which is to make it less attractive

for people already living on the breadline, seeking work, to take on

those short-term contracts. If Ed Balls and company are willing to go

along with it, they cannot think it will do too much damage. It seems

that it is politicians right now who don't have any idea what is going on

in the real world. I have been in politics for three years, I have

built a business where we lived on the breadline for the first 12

months because we had to use our credit cards to keep the business

going. Not the same as a part-time security worker on the minimum wage.

I don't disagree with you but the idea that we think of work first is

a good one. People who don't have jobs think about work 24/7 and

making them poorer is no way to push them into jobs that aren't there.

Where are the jobs you are creating? It is a little after 11:30am. In 20

minutes I will be looking at the week ahead with our political panel.

Until then, the Sunday Politics across the UK.

Hello and welcome. Coming up, the Chancellor gives and takes away.

George Osborne announced plans this week the major investment in road

and rail, while simultaneously announcing he was cutting funding

for Transport for London. Welcome to my guests. Why don't we start with

one of the main political themes dominating the headlines this week,

the spending review. We can remind ourselves first of what the

Chancellor told the House of Commons this week. While recovery from such

a deep recession can never be straightforward, Britain is moving

out of intensive care and from rescue to recovery. Gregg, a good

day for London? I think a good day for London, a good day for the

economy as the Chancellor laid out that we are trying to get the

economy back on track after the biggest economic bust this country

has had since the 1930s, an amazing 7% contraction of GDP under Labour

so this is about getting the economy back on the road to recovery and

investing in the future by a big programme of infrastructure works.

We will get to infrastructure and the moment but what about the budget

slashed by a further 10%? That pinch will be felt. Yes, but you have to

bear in mind the amount of money we have given in support for council

tax to be capped in coming years. The Government will support those

councils that want to freeze council tax and well-run authorities like my

own and Hammersmith and Fulham have been able to reduce council tax in

recent years whilst maintaining an excellent level of services. The

message being sent out is to be able to do more with less. Nick is

shaking his head. When the Chancellor delivered his first

financial statement he forecast that by now the country would be on the

road to recovery. We would have growth of 6% and all would be well,

but the problem he has got is that it hasn't worked. His austerity

programme has failed. What did you want to hear? I wanted to hear about

direct investment now rather than promises of investment two years

ahead. There isn't anything in the statement that will kick-start

recovery in either construction or housing in the short term and we

needed desperately. I think Nick is calling for the Government to borrow

more if I interpret that correctly. We are trying to bring a cap to the

welfare bills for example so we can devote more money in future years to

infrastructure spending on roads, railways, schools, apprenticeships

in particular, which are vital for the future of the country. The

problem we have had is that Labour has opposed every single cut we have

made on the welfare side, opposed every single tax change we have

tried to introduce, and Labour haven't got a credible economic

policy. They have asked you what you would be doing and how you would be

doing it. What are the policies? Conservative Government and Liberal

Government is borrowing hand over fist because they have not met their

targets, the economy is not recovering. Because of this, we have

a really serious problem of very considerable extensive poverty,

people out of work and dependent on benefits and the benefit levels are

rising because of Government policies. We are going to look at

one party in particular -- one policy in particular. The Sunday

Politics has uncovered new information on the most notorious of

roads, the M25, showing it has not managed one day without closure for

four years. More money for roads was promised by George Osborne so how

will that affect the way we move around this city? London's M25,

destination for over 50 million journeys a year. But for the last

three years it hasn't had a single day without closures of some kind,

in fact the Highways Agency who operate the road don't know when the

last day that it operated without closures was and despite a week of

being asked by this programme, it has been unable to work out when it

was. This freight company based couple of miles away, for them it is

a serious issue. Our customers' freight has got to be there on tight

deadlines and using the M25 as an excuse doesn't get warm because it

is always there. It has an impact on overtime, deliveries, extra fuel, it

is a problem. The company wanted to show us what they have to deal with.

The stretch which causes them the most problems is here, where work to

widen the road means traffic is often slow. It is not long before we

grind to a halt. It is like it every morning, the M25 is the worst

compared to any road in the country. It has the worst record of days

without closures than any other road in London, although the M1 is not

expenditure in the spending review in 2010, more recently the

Government is putting money back into road maintenance so there have

been two things going on. The Highways Agency has had to catch up

with some historical maintenance, they have also been expanding and

improving the network which means disruption, there is also wish to

reduce the unit cost to make the work more efficient and that may

mean there is a temptation to do the work in a way that is less

convenient for traffic and more convenient for the people doing the

work. Less night-time working for instance. At the spending review

there was this announcement. We are already expanding investment on

major road schemes but we are doing more, so we are announcing the

biggest investment in our roads for half a century. Transport for

London's funding was cut by 12.5% for the year 2016, and the mayor

says this is tough but fair. We are confident with the settlement we

have is that we can deliver all the stuff we need to do and all the

stuff that Londoners want, the stuff that is essential for the vision we

have set out for the city. spending review only dealt with one

financial year, 2015/16, usually they deal with many more and with

borrowing and spending still rising, we may have to wait until the next

election to get a true sense of what the politicians have planned. Isn't

it a little bit embarrassing? We have been waiting for a week for

your Government to say when the last day was that the M25 was working

properly and you haven't been able to tell us. The film speaks for

itself. What is going on is major widening works going on. The M25 has

been widened between ten junctions, so a third of the motorway in its

entirety has been widened. Works have just started on a further areas

between seven junctions, a further quarter of the motorway. This is

about long-term investment in infrastructure. We also heard talk

about historical underfunding. you widen the road, it will cause

disruption. In 2010 the Government cutbacks of Ely on investment in

transport including roads and now we are suffering the consequences. The

Government cut too deeply in infrastructure in its first few

years, he is trying to play catch up now but not doing very well, and

pushing most of its promises into the period after 2015. After the

next election. Your lot have been saying let's hear about some capital

expenditure projects, let's get some movement, you have made massive

promises for investment, you must be delighted. Athank heavens we got the

Crossrail scheme going, that is changing London and it is proceeding

but where are the new projects? They are all promised but they are some

way down the line. High-speed one and high two are very

controversial in some parts of the world, and we have Ed Cox with us to

talk about it. Did it cause you great joy when you heard about these

expenditure promises? We are slightly disappointed that the

spending will come quite a long way ahead, but the other big concern we

have with the announcement is the extent to which they are so focused

on London and the south-east. I understand this is a London

programme I am speaking on and London definitely needs more

investment, but the analysis we have done shows that at present, and this

is before the new announcements kick in, we are spending �2595 per person

on transport infrastructure investment in London itself and only

nine -- �5 per person in a region like the north-east. I think our

concern is that whilst London is a very important city and we need to

of course make sure that we accommodate some of its growth, we

need a wide dude strategy that looks at how we spread the economic wealth

across the country and invest in transport in the North. HS two is a

huge investment. It is, but what the transport export say is that unless

we build the infrastructure around those northern hobs in Manchester

and Leeds and so on, there is a great danger it could be a drain

straight down to London. We need to build up the infrastructure around

those centres so that people can get in and out of them. Clearly we can't

afford everything all the time. project happening at the moment is

happening. We don't want to stop that. We have calculated that even

if you add �9 billion to the figures we are looking at ourselves, we are

going to be in a situation in 2016 when 90% of transport infrastructure

spending on regional projects is going into London. Does that mean

you are cutting the North Lewis? -- What about the inequality of

investment to the rest of the country? Labour added ten miles of

railway in their ten -- 13 years. We have a big process in Sheffield.

There's HS2. We have taken the tough decision to go ahead with HS2 and

make sure that important rail investment is going in.

We got the first pitch as -- the first high-speed line. Major

investments in London are the responsibility of the Labour

government. If they are picking up the button and running with it,

surely you are in a position to say, excellent? You only have to take it

from the CBI. It is all promise. Delivery is poor. It is not �9

billion on crossrail two. It is �2 million for planning. You both also

have to address the points made by Ed a moment ago, that all of this

investment is bubbling away in the capital. What about the rest of the

country? Danny Alexander was clear yesterday that the important

investment in London, like the act -- electrification of lines, these

are not at the expense of the rest of the country. It is a really

important infrastructure investment that was announced this week.

said that. Tell me, why don't you...

London is hugely important to the economy. We've also got to ensure

appropriate infrastructure investment in other regions. The two

should not be in competition. Do come back. 90% of our

infrastructure funding is going into London and the south-east. That

howls up government in the North East. -- that holds up. We have

become more dependent on London. If we can't generate jobs and growth in

the northern cities, then that actually means we have become more

dependent on benefits and so on, which tracks the whole country

back. We've got to get away from allowing the rest of the country to

be a fiscal drag on London. What we need to see is the infrastructure

investment going on inside London so we can grow our economies. Thank you

very much. The cable car running between the O2 Centre in Greenwich

and the Excel centre in Royal Victoria docks celebrated its first

anniversary this week. It opened in time for the Olympics last year. But

how have its fortunes fared since then?

Taking off for the first time a year ago, the cable car was the first to

hit the capital of Max Guise. But is it a happy first birthday? -- the

capital 's skies. It was not supposed to cost the public aid

penny, but it did. Not all of the costs were covered. Passenger

numbers have not been sky-high. At its peak, the car was carrying over

30,000 people per day. Now it only manages that a week. And that is

when they can get on. In the first nine months, the cable car was hit

by 69 on planned closures, mainly due to bad weather and tall ships

passing through the Thames. What is stopping the cable car from getting

off the ground? The mayor and transport for London

need to think is the cable car a tourist attraction or is it a mode

of transport? If a mode of transport, they need to make sure it

is poured into the travel card so people cross the river with it. That

is key to getting passenger numbers up, getting more income coming in.

With a shaky start, will be cable car takeoff in its second year?

-- V cable car. Is it a mode of transport? It's a tourist

attraction. I go across it a loss. At is not a serious contributor -- I

go across it a lot. But it is not a serious contributed to the city 's

transport. Just for the fun factor, the

pleasing of the tourists, is it... The numbers are shocking. The

falloff has been shocking. Numbers are up. Last weekend, a lot of

people were queueing to get on it. Was it a miss judged folly?

I used to live about 25 years ago in that part of London. I remember how

difficult it was to cross the Thames as a passenger. There's a real need

in that part of London to be able to cross the Thames. I can't comment on

how well it has functioned in the first year. A welcome addition. It

is private sector funded. I'm looking forward to being on it. It's

reminded me to go out with the family.

If it is a series consideration to get people south of the river, it

would have been nice to have a few more plans about how to do it.

We are looking for a footbridge between Battersea and Fulham. There

are other plans to cross the Thames for foot passengers. A tunnel is

planned direct the underneath the cable car, which has been a long

time coming. Hopefully it will get agreement from the Mayor.

It is now time for the rest of the news in 62 seconds.

-- in 60 seconds. The police commissioner said he is

shocked by allegations that the Metropolitan Police had had

attempted to smear the family of Stephen Lawrence. Undercover

officers said they were instructed in 1993 to find information that

could discredit the family and antiracism campaigners. London can

take your breath away, literally. The names of the most polluted

roads, with the North circular wheezing into first place.

The first fleet of the new Route Master buses hit the road this week.

At it was an inauspicious start. One of the buses broke down on its very

first day. Islington Council were in a tight spot when one of their

traffic calming measures proved to be anything but. After this incident

in Drayton Park, the council put their hands up, saying, sometimes,

as they counsel, you make mistakes. -- as a council.

Shall we just have a quick chat about the Stephen Lawrence case?

What does it tell us about policing in London today?

I don't think it tells us much about policing in London. It tells us

about the failure of policing in London 20 years ago. There was an

inept investigation. This further evidence is compounding the story.

What do you need to do to reinstate confidence in the public?

I think the Prime Minister did the right thing. As soon as the news or

allegations came out, he announced an immediate investigation into what

happened at the time. I think the Home Secretary has met with the

Lawrence family to talk about that investigation, and I think we're

going to make good progress there. Obviously, it happened some time

ago. It's important that this never be allowed to happen again.

Are we being complacent by saying it happened in the past when we have

stories of police going undercover, sleeping with people, making them

pregnant while operations? It's a different force. I have been

working closely with the police since the killing of Lee Rigby. The

police are sensitive to the needs of the ethnic minority communities in

our areas. They have been proactive in stopping the BNP and EDL from

stirring up trouble and dissent between communities. Police are, in

my view, taking a much more positive, proactive view towards

community relations. Do you accept there is a perception problem, and

if so, how do you address it? has to separate recent incidents

with something that happened a long time ago. You say these cases

happened a long time ago. But some are not so long ago. It is story

after story after story, and that does have an impact on people 's

confident in their police force. confidence.

We have to wait for the various studies that are going on. I think

you're trying to draw a lot of dots and a lot of lines between them.

showing you a flurry of headlines and the impact on the people who

read them. There's been a real improvement in police sensitivity on

many community and ethnic issues in London. But it's a big body, is

still make mistakes, and as he said, these have got to be investigated.

It's an excitable to have stories about police bugging people,

particularly victims of crime, in the way that Stephen Lawrence was.

-- it is an acceptable. In a moment, we look ahead to the

big stories of next week. First, the news with Maxine Mawhinney.

David Cameron has promised to stand together with Pakistan in the fight

against terrorism after talks with Pakistan 's new prime minister. Mr

Cameron is the first world leader to visit him since his election last

month. Our political correspondent is travelling with the Prime

Minister. The report contains some flash photography.

In a joint statement in this faltering gardens of the primers

that public residents, David Cameron said the relationship between

Pakistan and Afghanistan was of vital importance. He said Britain

and Pakistan had a shared interest in establishing a stable, peaceful

and democratic Afghanistan. The enemies of Pakistan are the

enemies of Britain. We will stand together and conduct this fight

against extremism and terrorism together.

I have assured the Prime Minister of our firm resolve to promote a shared

objective of a peaceful and stable Afghanistan.

Mr Cameron also hopes his visit here will provide more opportunities for

British businesses, building on the historic and cultural ties between

the countries. He is another new goal, a �3 billion level in

bilateral trade. There have been accusations about

the extent of spying by America 's NSA. This time, they involve the

European Union. The former CIA contractor Edward Snowden told a

German newspaper that the NSA bugged officers in Europe.

Today marks the first anniversary of Mohamed Morsi 's election in

Europe. There are expected to be rallies in support of an against the

president. Crowds are already gathering in Tahrir Square. That was

the scene of the uprising which toppled the former leader.

The Rolling Stones and their legions of fans are recovering this morning

after they completed their first ever appearance at the Glastonbury

Festival. The band played for over two hours,

with Michael Beavis describing the set is the highlight of his 43 years

organising the event. Prince Harry was recorded to be among those

watching. The festival ends this evening. That is all for now. More

news on BBC One at 6:35pm. So, how will the politics of the

Spending Review play out? It comes to the Commons next week. These are

all questions for The Week Ahead. So, the Chancellor tweeted a famous

picture of himself on the eve of the Spending Review. Let's have a look

at that. It shows him having a hamburger. That is Eric Pickles.

That is the next one we wanted. That is the Chancellor. It is hard to

mistake them, really. The argument is that it was a posh hamburger. He

then took a look of money -- a look at Eric Pickles and made a joke. He

then tweeted himself having a salad and some carrots and being far

healthier than the Chancellor. Janan Ganesh, the Spending Review has not

called the Coalition -- caused the Coalition much trouble. You get a

sense of a number of things happening. The atmospherics are

turning a bit against Labour. You don't need to follow politics

forensically to understand that the intellectual centre is moving right

on the economy and welfare. There are tentative signs of recovery in

the economy. This week has gone without too much incident for the

government. I would insert a word of caution. There's now a better than

one in three chance of some kind global economic chance -- crisis in

the next year. If you look at the first rumblings of a credit crunch

in China, the fact the eurozone crisis is nowhere near resolve, the

government would be wise to counsel caution rather than throwing about

what is a fairly thin recovery so far. -- crowing. The Labour lead is

down to five points, and on public spending are austerity, 49% are

still blaming the last Labour Government. It's funny because

Labour didn't really believe it when they were on eight or nine so that

might cause them too much bother. George Osborne, we get the revision

from -1 20 and that is seen as a massive triumph for him. It is

interesting you can create your own baseline as Chancellor and any

deviation from that be seen as exciting. If you were a Labour

strategist at the moment, you would not be entering the summer recess in

great shape. One note of caution, the maths here is that Labour starts

with a huge advantage and the moment Nick Clegg signed a coalition deal,

Labour started from 3539. I think the Spending Review will not matter

a great deal at all. In six months, I think only George Osborne will

remember it. What matters here is what happens to the global economy

and the borrowing costs in the year. I find that quite depressing because

the way this has been presented, I can see why people feel politics

doesn't speak to them because they are just seen as collateral damage

in a game between Ed Balls and George Osborne. Labour knows that it

has two tough on its rhetoric on welfare knows it has a serious

problem. The most remarkable thing to have happened over the last three

years is the normal politicisation of austerity. I got the sense that

when the cuts were read out on Wednesday, a lot of people were

bought by them and that would have been impossible to imagine in 2010

when the first spending round occurred. We thought it would

provoke a lot more hostility and hostile opinion than it has done.

One thing Labour might do to try to regain the initiative again is to

come onside on the need for a referendum over Europe. There is

some speculation in the press the upper echelons of the Labour Party

are split on this. Someone at Ed Miliband to commit. This is an

internal Tory obsession. I think the Tory backbenchers for who this is

the most important thing in the world right now, let them get on

with it. There are some rumblings that Ed Miliband will have to change

his position. You will open a can of worms for David Cameron. At one

point it looked like his entire party had a completely different

position than him on Europe. On the one hand you have Douglas Alexander

saying to Ed Miliband don't be drawn on this, don't get forced into a

referendum on Europe because those who want to stay in might lose, on

the other hand you have Ed balls being much more pragmatic saying

there is potentially a great short-term opportunity and a risk

for Labour if it goes into the next election looking like it is against

voters having a choice. Do they want Ed Miliband to promise a referendum

this side of the election, which he has no power to bring about I would

suggest, or to include it in his manifesto? It is hard to tell

because the Shadow Cabinet is not discussing this. What Ed Miliband

essentially wants is for this to go away. The politics are fraught for

the Conservatives because the bill is designed to put Labour in a

difficult position. The Lib Dems are not going to turn up, my

understanding is that Labour probably won't turn up either.

and it is impossible to propose a referendum without content... There

are plenty of backbenchers who would get the referendum tomorrow if they

could have won. The Tories have struggled over the past 20 years to

understand the public have agreed with them on Europe but it is not in

the top of their concerns. Why are all these names in the paper of

Labour people who want a referendum? Ivan Lewis, John

Trickett, Maria Eagle and Angela Eagle, a couple of Eagles, so if it

is such a problem for them, wouldn't it be better to let the

Conservatives bang on about it? forces David Cameron's hand, he

asked to campaign yes. There was a sense this is building and although

the political class wants to avoid a referendum, it is not top of the

list of people's priorities, and there is a sense that over the next

five years Britain has to settle this. Are we inside Europe and

determined to stay in ? Pushing for it now is highly risky for Labour,

on the one hand you would divide the Tories because it would be a

referendum of the status quo, not repatriation, status quo versus out,

and you could lose a referendum on that. Because no renegotiation can

take place before 2015 so that will probably be the thing that stops

them taking that step. Yes or no, we'll Labour have a referendum in

their manifesto for the next election? Yes, after the election.

Three yes it is, I had better quit while I am ahead. The Daily Politics

is back tomorrow at the earlier time of 11 o'clock and we'll be back here