Browse content similar to 07/02/2016. Check below for episodes and series from the same categories and more!
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Morning, folks, and welcome to the Sunday Politics. | :00:37. | :00:40. | |
We finally know what David Cameron wants | :00:41. | :00:42. | |
as he attempts to reform our relationship with the EU. | :00:43. | :00:45. | |
Does it deliver on his promises - and will it be enough to convince | :00:46. | :00:49. | |
and most of us can't name our MEP. | :00:50. | :00:54. | |
Is there a democratic crisis in the EU? | :00:55. | :00:58. | |
Former Respect MP George Galloway and Labour's Stephen Kinnock go | :00:59. | :01:02. | |
Jeremy Corbyn has plenty of new grassroots support. | :01:03. | :01:08. | |
But is Labour facing a cash crisis thanks to a loss of money from big | :01:09. | :01:12. | |
donors, taxpayers and Government plans to restrict union funding | :01:13. | :01:14. | |
It is an affront on British democracy. | :01:15. | :01:17. | |
If you look at any previous agreement which changed the funding | :01:18. | :01:24. | |
of a political party, it was done on a consensual, cross-party basis. | :01:25. | :01:27. | |
On the final leg of his mayoralty, | :01:28. | :01:33. | |
but what does Boris Johnson's official diary tell us | :01:34. | :01:36. | |
about his priorities these last two years? | :01:37. | :01:44. | |
And joining me as always, three journalists who've got more | :01:45. | :01:47. | |
opinions than the campaign to leave the EU has splinter groups. | :01:48. | :01:50. | |
Yes, it's Nick Watt, Helen Lewis and Janan Ganesh. | :01:51. | :01:54. | |
We'll see if they're still on speaking terms by the end | :01:55. | :01:57. | |
Let's start today by talking about what the Government in England | :01:58. | :02:04. | |
is or isn't going to do about a sugar tax. | :02:05. | :02:06. | |
Health experts have been calling for one, to tackle | :02:07. | :02:09. | |
is a crisis in child obesity - but so far ministers | :02:10. | :02:13. | |
Well, this morning the celebrity chef Jamie Oliver said | :02:14. | :02:17. | |
to "get ninja" to force the Government to act. | :02:18. | :02:20. | |
Here's the Health Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, responding | :02:21. | :02:22. | |
on The Andrew Marr Show this morning. | :02:23. | :02:24. | |
It has to be a game changing moment, a robust strategy. | :02:25. | :02:35. | |
The issue here is, do what it takes to make sure | :02:36. | :02:40. | |
that children consume less sugar, because we have got | :02:41. | :02:43. | |
We are the most obese nation in the EU | :02:44. | :02:48. | |
Well, we are going to be announcing in due course - | :02:49. | :02:53. | |
David Cameron has said, if it isn't a sugar tax, | :02:54. | :02:57. | |
it needs to be something that is equally robust. | :02:58. | :03:00. | |
But he hasn't taken a sugar tax off the table. | :03:01. | :03:02. | |
Will there be a sugar tax? His instinct is to say no, I do not want | :03:03. | :03:08. | |
to run the nanny state that Jeremy Hunt says his one-year-old daughter, | :03:09. | :03:15. | |
by the time she is an adult, one third of the population will be | :03:16. | :03:20. | |
clinically obese and Public Health England shows if you introduce a | :03:21. | :03:23. | |
sugar tax, you will reduce that some Jeremy Hunt is in favour but the | :03:24. | :03:28. | |
Prime Minister is inching towards some decision, whether that is a | :03:29. | :03:34. | |
sugar tax or not... Regional and devolved governments, Wales has been | :03:35. | :03:45. | |
very keen on that. I feel I am at liberty to say this but Scotland | :03:46. | :03:50. | |
also has greater tax-raising powers so he could get outflanked. Or wait | :03:51. | :03:57. | |
and see how it does in Scotland and Wales and then decide to follow | :03:58. | :04:04. | |
Yes. I want to make the liberal case against this but that ship has | :04:05. | :04:09. | |
sailed decades ago, we tax alcohol and tobacco and this is more like a | :04:10. | :04:19. | |
revenue raiser because that isn t -- a justifiable cause, we have a | :04:20. | :04:24. | |
population with a sweet tooth that you can hit the revenue. That is the | :04:25. | :04:30. | |
reasoning to deal with rather than the more censorious reason of | :04:31. | :04:37. | |
monitoring behaviour. And junior doctors, scheduled to be back on | :04:38. | :04:39. | |
strike on Wednesday in England, which means that some of the talks | :04:40. | :04:47. | |
so far have failed? There is bad feeling but as Andrew Marr was | :04:48. | :04:51. | |
saying, the turnout on the vote was very high, and the 8%. The | :04:52. | :04:58. | |
government is really struggling to shake this debate and it is | :04:59. | :05:03. | |
interesting with that interview Jeremy Hunt has said until now that | :05:04. | :05:06. | |
the cost of the new contract would be revenue neutral, he now admits | :05:07. | :05:11. | |
there would not only be a transitional cost but longer term | :05:12. | :05:14. | |
and the government is really struggling on this. It is not affect | :05:15. | :05:19. | |
emergency services this time. It was a big week for | :05:20. | :05:23. | |
David Cameron's renegotiation He once promised a fundamental | :05:24. | :05:26. | |
change in that relationship as a condition for backing | :05:27. | :05:29. | |
the campaign to stay in. Well, there are changes - | :05:30. | :05:32. | |
but perhaps not quite as fundamental And what he has achieved still needs | :05:33. | :05:37. | |
to be agreed by EU leaders at a summit in a fortnight's | :05:38. | :05:41. | |
time, where it could be But Mr Cameron says what he's | :05:42. | :05:44. | |
achieved is so significant that if Britain was not an EU member | :05:45. | :05:50. | |
this would make him want to join. Here he is speaking | :05:51. | :05:54. | |
earlier in the week. I can say, hand on heart, | :05:55. | :05:59. | |
I've delivered the commitments that I made in my manifesto, | :06:00. | :06:01. | |
and I think the whole country knows that if you, for instance, | :06:02. | :06:04. | |
pay people ?5,000, ?10,000 additional to their wages, | :06:05. | :06:06. | |
then that is a draw to Britain, and that's one of | :06:07. | :06:09. | |
the reasons why we've seen such high levels | :06:10. | :06:11. | |
of migration and movement. So David Cameron says it lives up | :06:12. | :06:15. | |
to everything that was promised in the Conservative | :06:16. | :06:18. | |
election manifesto. I'm joined by former Cabinet | :06:19. | :06:19. | |
minister Eric Pickles. Welcome back. You said this week the | :06:20. | :06:30. | |
Prime Minister has kept to the letter and spirit of his manifesto | :06:31. | :06:34. | |
promise. Let us look at what this promise. The manifesto said we will | :06:35. | :06:40. | |
insist that EU migrants who want to claim tax credits and child benefit | :06:41. | :06:46. | |
must live here and contribute to the economy for a minimum of four years. | :06:47. | :06:51. | |
The emergency rig on tax credits does not achieve that? -- brake You | :06:52. | :07:00. | |
must bear in mind the things we can do through domestic law, a | :07:01. | :07:04. | |
job-seeker from Europe who cannot find a job within six months, you | :07:05. | :07:09. | |
are obliged to leave and that has been achieved through domestic law. | :07:10. | :07:19. | |
The manifesto promised no in work benefits until you have been here | :07:20. | :07:26. | |
for four years. The reality is graduated, they rise, and after four | :07:27. | :07:30. | |
years you get the full benefit? That is not unreasonable. After four | :07:31. | :07:38. | |
years to get full benefit but we know that the criteria for putting | :07:39. | :07:42. | |
on the brake for four years has already been passed and the largest | :07:43. | :07:47. | |
political party in the EU agrees that has happened and we should have | :07:48. | :07:51. | |
this in place after the next referendum. It will have to be | :07:52. | :07:56. | |
approved by the European Parliament and the other 27 members and what | :07:57. | :08:04. | |
constitution, emergency, the cost to migrants is five billion pounds | :08:05. | :08:11. | |
every year, we are 1.6 5 trillion economy, public spending is 750 | :08:12. | :08:17. | |
billion pounds. Why is ?500 million and emergency, only 1.6% of the | :08:18. | :08:27. | |
bill? My earlier answer was, we already know the political leader of | :08:28. | :08:31. | |
the largest political party in the Parliament of Europe has said it is | :08:32. | :08:38. | |
the fact that we have arrived at those conditions and an emergency | :08:39. | :08:44. | |
brake will be placed. What emergency? It is an emergency in the | :08:45. | :08:51. | |
views of the European partners, they have accrued -- agreed to this | :08:52. | :08:59. | |
emergency brake but in terms have the mechanism of Britain future for | :09:00. | :09:02. | |
other countries, that will be decided over the next two weeks but | :09:03. | :09:07. | |
what we do know as far as the UK is concerned, we will get that | :09:08. | :09:15. | |
emergency brake. If a migrant Eilidh Child lives abroad, they should | :09:16. | :09:21. | |
receive no child tax credit or benefit, no matter how long they | :09:22. | :09:25. | |
have worked in the UK or how much tax they have paid. There it is The | :09:26. | :09:31. | |
sentiment does not deliver on that either? What it does deliver is | :09:32. | :09:36. | |
harmonisation of benefits so the level of benefits will be exactly | :09:37. | :09:42. | |
the same as it would be in their own country. You are going to have 8 | :09:43. | :09:50. | |
different levels of child benefit! In many cases it can be as much as | :09:51. | :09:56. | |
the quarter. And in some cases, more? Not many people to pay the | :09:57. | :10:01. | |
same level that we don't but the point I was making is that in Poland | :10:02. | :10:09. | |
it is a quarter of the level as it is here. You promised no child | :10:10. | :10:15. | |
benefit for migrants and you're delivering index linked child | :10:16. | :10:21. | |
benefit for migrants? It is a big improvement on the current | :10:22. | :10:26. | |
situation. When you go into negotiation, but do precisely that | :10:27. | :10:31. | |
and I think it is within the spirit of what we said. The manifesto said | :10:32. | :10:36. | |
that you will control migration from the European Union by reforming | :10:37. | :10:42. | |
welfare rolls and Mr Cameron at one stage said that reducing immigration | :10:43. | :10:48. | |
from the European Union would be at the heart of this. Can you give us | :10:49. | :10:53. | |
an idea of how much these changes will reduce European Union | :10:54. | :11:00. | |
migration? I am not part of the negotiating team so all I can go | :11:01. | :11:03. | |
wrong is what I have seen in newspapers and given that we know | :11:04. | :11:11. | |
that in work benefits, 40% of new arrivals are supported by that and | :11:12. | :11:16. | |
given that the average is ?6,00 in addition and can be as much as | :11:17. | :11:23. | |
?10,000, it will have an effect You said 40% but that is not the figure, | :11:24. | :11:26. | |
we know from the Freedom of Information release that if there | :11:27. | :11:31. | |
had been any emergency brake in the last four years it would have | :11:32. | :11:36. | |
affected 84,000 families. That is it, not 40%. I said that 40% of the | :11:37. | :11:43. | |
new immigrants that, in, new migrants, claiming in work benefit, | :11:44. | :11:50. | |
you are comparing apples and pears? I am not. 80,000 families is nowhere | :11:51. | :12:00. | |
near 40%. Last year, 180,000 net migration from the EU. Do you have | :12:01. | :12:06. | |
any idea by how much the figure will be reduced as a result of the | :12:07. | :12:11. | |
settlement? Were not trying to prevent people living inside the | :12:12. | :12:16. | |
European Union, we are trying to stop people coming for something for | :12:17. | :12:22. | |
nothing, to claim from our innovative system and secondly, to | :12:23. | :12:27. | |
ensure there is an equalisation inside the market of people coming | :12:28. | :12:32. | |
here just because of our in work benefits. Since this will apply only | :12:33. | :12:37. | |
to new migrants and not those that are already here, is unlikely to be | :12:38. | :12:42. | |
a rush to come in before these restrictions in? And the figure | :12:43. | :12:48. | |
could rise? As part of the negotiations we have to ensure that | :12:49. | :12:55. | |
doesn't happen. We would have two ask as part of the negotiation. . To | :12:56. | :13:00. | |
ensure that there isn't this new influx. In the manifesto you also | :13:01. | :13:07. | |
said that we want national partners to be able to work together to block | :13:08. | :13:13. | |
unwanted European legislation. In the Lisbon Treaty there is an orange | :13:14. | :13:18. | |
card system that does that and we have the red card with Mr Cameron, | :13:19. | :13:25. | |
is this an improvement? The Orange card has been used twice. That was | :13:26. | :13:30. | |
yellow, orange has never been used. I beg your pardon. It is confusing! | :13:31. | :13:37. | |
How many different cards? Three yellow and orange and this red card. | :13:38. | :13:47. | |
In what way would the red card be any improvement on the existing | :13:48. | :13:52. | |
Orange card, which means 51% of national parliaments can make the | :13:53. | :13:57. | |
commission rethink? We can move much quicker in terms of trying to knock | :13:58. | :14:03. | |
out any deal between European Parliaments and secondly, national | :14:04. | :14:08. | |
parliaments are becoming much more assertive in terms of their session | :14:09. | :14:15. | |
and that is a massively important step in the re-establishment in the | :14:16. | :14:20. | |
importance of national parliaments. It is not just our Parliament, we | :14:21. | :14:25. | |
would need to get 56% of national parliaments, at least 15 others and | :14:26. | :14:30. | |
in many cases we would only have 12 weeks to ask them to vote against | :14:31. | :14:36. | |
the policy of their own national government. That is not credible? Of | :14:37. | :14:42. | |
course it is. I think this is a very important step on the way of | :14:43. | :14:46. | |
ensuring national parliaments are much more assertive and don't | :14:47. | :14:53. | |
forget, read this in line of stopping them moving towards ever | :14:54. | :14:55. | |
closer union and protecting sterling. Let us look at that. It | :14:56. | :15:02. | |
was meant to be one of the big wins for the Prime Minister, Donald Tusk, | :15:03. | :15:07. | |
the President of the Council, says we have always had that, it need not | :15:08. | :15:13. | |
mean integration for Britain, the settlement confirms only the status | :15:14. | :15:14. | |
quo. It is very interesting for him to | :15:15. | :15:22. | |
say that but on every programme that I've ever been on, it has been this | :15:23. | :15:26. | |
drift towards ever closer union political union, that has been | :15:27. | :15:30. | |
important. If it means we have now re-established that it is about give | :15:31. | :15:34. | |
and take and cooperation, that is a great thing. Given how little the | :15:35. | :15:43. | |
prime and this has achieved -- the Prime Minister has achieved, would | :15:44. | :15:47. | |
his position not be undermined, or become untenable, if this draft | :15:48. | :15:50. | |
settlement was further undermined before being finally agreed? I'm | :15:51. | :15:57. | |
very confident, given that this Prime Minister is the only Prime | :15:58. | :16:00. | |
Minister ever to take powers back from Europe, that it will be | :16:01. | :16:04. | |
successful. But could you stomach of further watering down? It would | :16:05. | :16:08. | |
depend what the overall position is but my position comes not from any | :16:09. | :16:13. | |
enthusiasm for Europe. It's just a lack of any decent ideas that we | :16:14. | :16:18. | |
would be better off outside. To come back to this business of the | :16:19. | :16:22. | |
European Parliament, there are number of areas in which the | :16:23. | :16:25. | |
European Parliament has to approve this settlement, including the work | :16:26. | :16:29. | |
benefits, child benefit element perhaps even the red card. What | :16:30. | :16:34. | |
guarantees can you give, because the European Parliament won't to do | :16:35. | :16:38. | |
this, if it does it at all, until after the referendum... So how can | :16:39. | :16:43. | |
you guarantee that we will vote to stay in and the European Parliament | :16:44. | :16:47. | |
will not pass the legislation? We've had indications from the European | :16:48. | :16:50. | |
Parliament that they will do precisely that. What I would hope... | :16:51. | :16:56. | |
Where? Just a second. The leader of the largest party has said that I | :16:57. | :17:03. | |
think what we would want to see over the next couple of weeks are more | :17:04. | :17:09. | |
codification in terms of how this would come to operate, not just for | :17:10. | :17:15. | |
us but for other parties. But if the European Parliament doesn't pass | :17:16. | :17:18. | |
this, it is not legally binding The Prime Minister has told us that It | :17:19. | :17:22. | |
can only be eagerly binding under the existing treaties with | :17:23. | :17:24. | |
legislation through the European Parliament. You are asking the | :17:25. | :17:30. | |
British people to vote blind, to vote yes, without really knowing | :17:31. | :17:33. | |
what the European Parliament might do down the road in the autumn at | :17:34. | :17:38. | |
the end of the year. I'm very confident that will be the case -- | :17:39. | :17:45. | |
won't be the case. It will be an appalling abuse of trust and would | :17:46. | :17:49. | |
undermine the European Union, were it not to do so. But sooner or | :17:50. | :17:54. | |
later, we are going to have to go on to discuss, what would the | :17:55. | :17:57. | |
consequences be thus leaving? Because that would not be a | :17:58. | :18:01. | |
pain-free experience. I really want the guarantees for those that want | :18:02. | :18:05. | |
us to leave to say that my constituents and my constituents' | :18:06. | :18:08. | |
children will be materially better off by leaving. Not just the same | :18:09. | :18:13. | |
but better off by leaving. Eric Pickles, thanks for being with us | :18:14. | :18:15. | |
this morning. Thank you. In recent weeks we've been debating | :18:16. | :18:18. | |
some of the big issues at the heart We've covered immigration | :18:19. | :18:21. | |
and the economy. Today we're going to look | :18:22. | :18:24. | |
at Britain's sovereignty within the European Union and ask, | :18:25. | :18:26. | |
is the EU a democratic club There are about 500 million people | :18:27. | :18:28. | |
across the 28 member states Voters from these countries go | :18:29. | :18:32. | |
to the polls every five years to elect 751 members | :18:33. | :18:36. | |
of the European Parliament. The UK currently has | :18:37. | :18:38. | |
73 MEPs, who have some say over the EU budget | :18:39. | :18:42. | |
and new legislation. But it's the unelected Commission, | :18:43. | :18:46. | |
led by President Jean-Claude Juncker, that is responsible | :18:47. | :18:49. | |
for day-to-day management, plus proposing and | :18:50. | :18:53. | |
implementing new laws. Later this month, David Cameron | :18:54. | :18:57. | |
will attend a crucial meeting of the European Council | :18:58. | :18:59. | |
to press for his draft settlement, the outcome of his | :19:00. | :19:02. | |
efforts to renegotiate our terms The Council is made up of the 2 | :19:03. | :19:06. | |
heads of state or government of EU members and decides | :19:07. | :19:13. | |
the Union's overall political But it's not to be confused with | :19:14. | :19:16. | |
the Council of the European Union, where ministers from each | :19:17. | :19:21. | |
country meet to discuss, There's always been | :19:22. | :19:25. | |
concern about a so-called democratic deficit and at the last | :19:26. | :19:29. | |
elections in 2014, turnout In the UK, where few people can | :19:30. | :19:34. | |
even name a local MEP, I'm joined now by former Respect | :19:35. | :19:41. | |
MP George Galloway - he's said this week he'll campaign | :19:42. | :19:50. | |
for Britain to leave the EU - and by the Labour MP | :19:51. | :19:53. | |
Stephen Kinnock, who wants Stephen Kinnock, let me come to you | :19:54. | :20:02. | |
first. Turnout at the last election was under 36%. Only 11% can name | :20:03. | :20:09. | |
their MEP. Richie Gray the EU has a massive democratic deficit and the | :20:10. | :20:12. | |
Cameron settlement does nothing to address it, does it? On the | :20:13. | :20:16. | |
democratic deficit, of course it would be good if more people voted | :20:17. | :20:22. | |
in democratic elections but let s not forget there is another | :20:23. | :20:24. | |
democratically elected institution in Brussels and that's the council | :20:25. | :20:26. | |
of the vistas and the European council. They are ministers. Our | :20:27. | :20:31. | |
Prime Minister, directly elected by the British people, going to | :20:32. | :20:35. | |
Brussels to exert influence for Britain. The democratic deficit | :20:36. | :20:39. | |
sometimes gets tied up with the European Parliament. That's an | :20:40. | :20:42. | |
element of it but the council is a major part. On the renegotiation, I | :20:43. | :20:46. | |
think the really important point is that this referendum is not about | :20:47. | :20:51. | |
David Cameron's renegotiation. This referendum is about the future of | :20:52. | :20:55. | |
the United Kingdom as a trading nation, as a proud nation in terms | :20:56. | :21:00. | |
of a diplomatic big player and where we are actually going in terms of | :21:01. | :21:04. | |
the long-term future of the country. It's not about the precise details | :21:05. | :21:09. | |
of David Cameron's renegotiation. Mr Cameron think that is important | :21:10. | :21:14. | |
George Galloway, you said you believe in a union of the peoples of | :21:15. | :21:17. | |
Europe but surely the only realistic way to achieve that is to work for a | :21:18. | :21:21. | |
reformed EU. Anything else is just rhetoric. No, because I think it is | :21:22. | :21:33. | |
in the Brits of the EU. You pointed to the visibility of the European | :21:34. | :21:36. | |
Parliament, its credibility and standing but you didn't add that the | :21:37. | :21:39. | |
European Parliament itself, even if AT the centre people were turning | :21:40. | :21:42. | |
out to vote for it, has almost no power. The power lies in this | :21:43. | :21:48. | |
council of ministers and in a bureaucracy well entrenched, very | :21:49. | :21:53. | |
lavishly funded, which has meant of its own. I could answer your | :21:54. | :21:57. | |
question in two words - Catherine Ashton. Never heard of her? No. Ever | :21:58. | :22:05. | |
elected to? No. She was the European Foreign Minister, dictating to other | :22:06. | :22:08. | |
countries outside the world with no democratic mandate of any kind. I | :22:09. | :22:14. | |
think we have to be more sensible about the way we talk about these | :22:15. | :22:18. | |
things. There is a process of co-decision which is enshrined in | :22:19. | :22:21. | |
the treaties of the European Union. The vast majority of the legislation | :22:22. | :22:26. | |
which goes through has to be agreed by both the European Parliament and | :22:27. | :22:29. | |
by the European council on the basis of proposals from the European | :22:30. | :22:32. | |
Commission. Not necessarily all the council. Politics is the art of the | :22:33. | :22:39. | |
possible and when you are part of a system of pooled sovereignty is | :22:40. | :22:43. | |
when we come together as nation states because we believe our | :22:44. | :22:46. | |
sovereignty is actually strengthened through cooperation, of course you | :22:47. | :22:50. | |
have to make compromises. You don't win absolutely 100% of everything | :22:51. | :22:54. | |
that you go for but actually, I believe that through corporation and | :22:55. | :22:56. | |
pulling our sovereignty our sovereignty is strengthened. There | :22:57. | :23:01. | |
has been a lot of talk by the Prime Minister about asserting the | :23:02. | :23:04. | |
sovereignty of Parliament. It seems to be one of the carrots to attract | :23:05. | :23:09. | |
Mr Boris Johnson to come onside But surely you have to accept that in | :23:10. | :23:13. | |
many areas, the EU and the European Court of Justice, they are sovereign | :23:14. | :23:16. | |
and Parliament has to recognise that sovereignty or we have to leave I | :23:17. | :23:21. | |
think that we have to also look at the likes of Google or the big | :23:22. | :23:26. | |
multinational companies. They don't recognise the concept of | :23:27. | :23:30. | |
sovereignty. For people on the left, such as George and myself, the key | :23:31. | :23:35. | |
point of the European Union is, it's a transnational body that regulating | :23:36. | :23:39. | |
transnational business. Not very well. It is not regulating them very | :23:40. | :23:43. | |
well. Much better than we could do them alone. I don't think so. The | :23:44. | :23:49. | |
bottom line is... And this is to be, on the left. Mr Kinnock senior and I | :23:50. | :23:55. | |
shared many platforms on this, as well as the late Mr Benn, the late | :23:56. | :24:01. | |
Mr foot. This was commonplace on the left. We don't want to be dictated | :24:02. | :24:07. | |
to by other countries. We want our people to choose our government and | :24:08. | :24:12. | |
thus our direction. And I'd rather take my chance with changing things | :24:13. | :24:17. | |
in Britain than waiting for a change in Bulgaria or in Poland. But you | :24:18. | :24:23. | |
are nationalists and doesn't but inevitably involve some kind of | :24:24. | :24:29. | |
pooling sovereignty? The whole basis of the European Union... As we | :24:30. | :24:33. | |
always said from 1975 onwards, on the left, the European Community, | :24:34. | :24:37. | |
now the EU, is actually built on neoliberal economic principles, | :24:38. | :24:43. | |
which are ironclad and unchangeable. However people want to vote. Are you | :24:44. | :24:49. | |
comfortable with the manner in which Greece's sovereignty was overturned | :24:50. | :24:52. | |
by the European institutions and above all by companies -- countries | :24:53. | :24:58. | |
like Germany? We live in a highly globalised, interdependent world and | :24:59. | :25:02. | |
the idea that the UK alone can exert influence and regulate the big | :25:03. | :25:06. | |
multinationals on its own is absurd. The other key point on Greece is, | :25:07. | :25:10. | |
how would we help the people of Greece by leaving the EU? Our | :25:11. | :25:14. | |
principles are about solidarity a key value on which European Union is | :25:15. | :25:18. | |
founded, which is a value of the left. What was the solidarity that | :25:19. | :25:23. | |
the EU showed Greece? I think what we need is a Labour Prime Minister | :25:24. | :25:26. | |
in Brussels arguing against the politics of austerity. We are not | :25:27. | :25:33. | |
part of the eurozone. This was a eurozone argument. We can still | :25:34. | :25:40. | |
exert our influence. What many would think is your natural allies on the | :25:41. | :25:44. | |
European left, so reads the increase, and a party in Spain, want | :25:45. | :25:49. | |
to stay in the EU. Why are you right and your comrades wrong? The people | :25:50. | :25:54. | |
of Greece were crushed underfoot by this neoliberal consensus on which | :25:55. | :25:58. | |
the EU and administrations are built. Portugal actually had an | :25:59. | :26:04. | |
election and elected a majority of left-wing MPs and we're told by the | :26:05. | :26:10. | |
European Union, the president of Portugal was told, you mustn't | :26:11. | :26:12. | |
summon these people to your palace to allow them to form a government. | :26:13. | :26:16. | |
This is unconscionable. It's not because I love the people of Greece, | :26:17. | :26:20. | |
though I do, or the people of Spain. I don't want us to face the same | :26:21. | :26:25. | |
fate as them. Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonell's economic policies, which | :26:26. | :26:30. | |
I believe in and which are badly needed, are illegal under the EU. If | :26:31. | :26:35. | |
we were to save our steel industry, for example, we would be acting out | :26:36. | :26:38. | |
with the European Union's legal framework. You've been closely | :26:39. | :26:43. | |
involved in the steel industry. What do you say to that? I fail to see | :26:44. | :26:48. | |
how our principles of solidarity and reaching out to our brothers and | :26:49. | :26:51. | |
sisters in other parts of the year are helped by the idea that we | :26:52. | :26:55. | |
suddenly leave. But to me seems to be going against the founding value | :26:56. | :26:57. | |
of the Labour Party, which is solidarity. On steel, this is a | :26:58. | :27:03. | |
classic example but it is up to your member state government to play the | :27:04. | :27:06. | |
game properly. Unfortunately, we have a government that has been | :27:07. | :27:10. | |
asleep at the wheel on steel for four or five years. An energy | :27:11. | :27:12. | |
compensation package should have been put in place years ago. The | :27:13. | :27:15. | |
government has done nothing about it. The massive flooding of Chinese | :27:16. | :27:20. | |
steel into the British market has only been happening over the last | :27:21. | :27:24. | |
four years. That could only be done by Europe, not Britain. It took them | :27:25. | :27:28. | |
for years to get the stated clearance because nobody was | :27:29. | :27:31. | |
knocking on the door properly in Brussels and because we are cosying | :27:32. | :27:34. | |
up to Beijing. Cameron and Osborne seem to be putting the interests of | :27:35. | :27:40. | |
our relationship with China ahead of British industry. We are allowing | :27:41. | :27:42. | |
them to damp massive amounts of Chinese steel in the market. The | :27:43. | :27:48. | |
European Court of Justice is preventing us from deporting | :27:49. | :27:49. | |
Moroccan citizen, the daughter-in-law of Abu Hamza, Abu | :27:50. | :27:54. | |
Hamza himself convicted of 11 terrorist offences. She has done | :27:55. | :27:59. | |
time, too, for a terrorist elated offence. We still can't deport her. | :28:00. | :28:02. | |
That is a pretty serious intrusion of our sovereignty. I don't know the | :28:03. | :28:07. | |
details of that case but I do know we live in a very interdependent | :28:08. | :28:11. | |
world... You said that. What people want to know is if we can deport | :28:12. | :28:14. | |
foreign citizens who have terrorist criminal convictions. We did manage | :28:15. | :28:18. | |
to do it with Abu Hamza, so there are ways. The EU is a rules -based | :28:19. | :28:23. | |
organisation. It sets the rules of the game. It's up to the member | :28:24. | :28:28. | |
states to play that game properly. Unfortunately, we have a government | :28:29. | :28:31. | |
that has failed to build alliances and coalitions in Brussels. That's | :28:32. | :28:35. | |
one of the reasons we have a difficult relationship with the EU | :28:36. | :28:40. | |
now. When you look at this leave site and the various factions of the | :28:41. | :28:44. | |
time they seem to be spending more time knocking lumps out of each | :28:45. | :28:51. | |
other, does that make you happy you joined? I campaigned against | :28:52. | :28:54. | |
breaking up Britain and for a no vote in the Scottish referendum | :28:55. | :28:56. | |
That didn't mean I was with the Tories, didn't mean I was with the | :28:57. | :29:02. | |
Orange order. So are you solo again? There used to be a commonplace view | :29:03. | :29:10. | |
from the 1970s, and still standing now, for a democratic future for | :29:11. | :29:13. | |
Britain. We decide how many immigrants we have, who we deport, | :29:14. | :29:17. | |
what our levels of taxation are and what our foreign policy should be. | :29:18. | :29:21. | |
We will leave it there. Thank you both. | :29:22. | :29:23. | |
Labour says it faces losing more than a quarter of its funding, | :29:24. | :29:26. | |
thanks to Government plans to change the way the party gets money | :29:27. | :29:29. | |
from trade union members, along with moves to cut state | :29:30. | :29:31. | |
In a rare TV outing, the party's general secretary | :29:32. | :29:35. | |
Iain McNicol has told us just how damaging the changes could be. | :29:36. | :29:37. | |
An audience of around 800 people turning out on a Thursday night | :29:38. | :29:45. | |
in North London to watch well-known comedians, | :29:46. | :29:47. | |
artistic and political types talk about, well, | :29:48. | :29:50. | |
why Jeremy Corbyn ought to be Prime Minister. | :29:51. | :29:53. | |
He wasn't here and this wasn't a fundraiser but similar nights | :29:54. | :30:02. | |
to this have raised cash for the party. | :30:03. | :30:06. | |
Welcome, one and all, you bunch of loony lefties. | :30:07. | :30:08. | |
I started in my constituency in Brentford. | :30:09. | :30:13. | |
And then other constituencies asked me to do the same thing | :30:14. | :30:18. | |
and we've done 165 and raised ?100,000. | :30:19. | :30:55. | |
And it's just as well, because the Labour Party | :30:56. | :30:57. | |
says it could be about to lose about ?8 million of funding | :30:58. | :31:00. | |
if Government plans to change the way it collects | :31:01. | :31:02. | |
money from trade union members go through. | :31:03. | :31:04. | |
And they say it's no laughing matter. | :31:05. | :31:05. | |
It is an affront on British democracy. | :31:06. | :31:07. | |
If you look at any previous agreement which changed | :31:08. | :31:09. | |
the funding of a political party, it was done on a consensual, | :31:10. | :31:12. | |
cross-party basis, an agreement because of the effect it had. | :31:13. | :31:14. | |
So is this an existential threat to the Labour Party? | :31:15. | :31:17. | |
It would be very difficult for the party. | :31:18. | :31:20. | |
funding would mean that we would not be able to operate in the current | :31:21. | :31:25. | |
way that we do, holding the Government to account | :31:26. | :31:27. | |
The cash goes towards staffing, reportedly around | :31:28. | :31:31. | |
half its costs, and, of course, campaigning. | :31:32. | :31:33. | |
Things like party election broadcasts, battle buses, | :31:34. | :31:37. | |
At the moment, trade union members have to actively opt | :31:38. | :31:41. | |
out of paying towards the Labour Party. | :31:42. | :31:43. | |
In the future, they would have to opt in, in writing, | :31:44. | :31:46. | |
within three months - something Labour fear | :31:47. | :31:48. | |
people just won't get round to doing. | :31:49. | :31:50. | |
It also coincides with a 19% cut to so-called short money, | :31:51. | :31:56. | |
cash given to all opposition parties to | :31:57. | :32:02. | |
help with the costs of Parliamentary business - | :32:03. | :32:04. | |
a sort of concession for not having the civil service | :32:05. | :32:06. | |
But the man who used to be in charge of said civil | :32:07. | :32:10. | |
service says the Government's plans are at best partisan. | :32:11. | :32:12. | |
It goes to this wider question of what I would see | :32:13. | :32:18. | |
as a worryingly authoritarian streak in government that finds it | :32:19. | :32:20. | |
difficult to live with and accept challenge. | :32:21. | :32:22. | |
I think that's something that people of all parties... | :32:23. | :32:25. | |
I'm actually a crossbencher, not in any | :32:26. | :32:26. | |
party, and I think, whichever party are in, | :32:27. | :32:28. | |
There's nothing authoritarian about having something | :32:29. | :32:33. | |
clearly flagged in our manifesto, voted for in a majority government | :32:34. | :32:39. | |
and delivered on, and there's nothing authoritarian about having | :32:40. | :32:41. | |
That's to say, if you're a Labour Party supporter and you're | :32:42. | :32:47. | |
a member of a trade union, you actively choose to do it, | :32:48. | :32:50. | |
rather than having it forced upon you | :32:51. | :32:52. | |
Frankly, I think the Labour Party needs to get | :32:53. | :32:55. | |
out and convince union members it's a good use of their money to give | :32:56. | :32:59. | |
that money to the Labour Party, just as the Conservatives | :33:00. | :33:01. | |
and Liberal Democrats have to convince people to give | :33:02. | :33:03. | |
We don't rely on people accidentally giving | :33:04. | :33:14. | |
Back in Kentish Town, the organisers here say a night | :33:15. | :33:24. | |
like this is as much about raising awareness and morale as it is cash. | :33:25. | :33:27. | |
Jeremy Corbyn's leadership campaign relied on grassroots support. | :33:28. | :33:29. | |
As the party's funding streams start to dry | :33:30. | :33:31. | |
up, it it could well need to rely on people like this - | :33:32. | :33:34. | |
people willing to come to a night about Jeremy Corbyn | :33:35. | :33:37. | |
In fact, Mr Corbyn may prefer the thought of appealing | :33:38. | :33:54. | |
to the wallets of people like this, rather than the traditional big | :33:55. | :33:56. | |
donors, and number of whom have already publicly | :33:57. | :33:58. | |
But fundraising made up just 3% of the | :33:59. | :34:01. | |
The spotlight will now fall on how Labour pays its way in the future. | :34:02. | :34:06. | |
And we now say goodbye to viewers in Scotland, | :34:07. | :34:09. | |
who leave us for Sunday Politics Scotland. | :34:10. | :34:11. | |
Now, this week in the House of Lords, Labour's peers | :34:12. | :34:13. | |
will try to fight off the Government's plans to change | :34:14. | :34:15. | |
the way union members give money to the party. | :34:16. | :34:18. | |
The shadow leader in the Lords, Angela Smith, joins me now - | :34:19. | :34:21. | |
and I should add we asked to speak to a Government minister | :34:22. | :34:23. | |
For a change! Or not! If you join a trade union, why should part of the | :34:24. | :34:28. | |
membership fee be given to the Labour Party without your explicit | :34:29. | :34:31. | |
approval? It is a choice you can make and one of the things said | :34:32. | :34:35. | |
during the House of Lords debate is a Conservative peer said, when was | :34:36. | :34:40. | |
the evidence that people are forced to opt in? One of the key things is | :34:41. | :34:45. | |
the government says you must opt in rather than quite but when they gave | :34:46. | :34:50. | |
businesses two years to bring in the plastic bag levy, they gave trade | :34:51. | :34:54. | |
unions three months to change them into our system. In three years | :34:55. | :34:59. | |
would you change your mind? Well, no. It's not really a matter of | :35:00. | :35:09. | |
time, then? Within three months in writing, the government is making | :35:10. | :35:14. | |
this as difficult as possible. When this was looked at, it was amenable | :35:15. | :35:18. | |
of a number of -- context of a number of aspects and they are not | :35:19. | :35:24. | |
giving any other changes on those affecting themselves, only the | :35:25. | :35:28. | |
Labour Party. Many members do not vote Labour, why should they have to | :35:29. | :35:34. | |
opt out? Surely those who want to join Labour should have to opt in? | :35:35. | :35:39. | |
There does not seem to be any problem with people being asked to | :35:40. | :35:45. | |
opt out. Look at this in the context of funding for all parties, the | :35:46. | :35:50. | |
government have picked one recommendation from the committee of | :35:51. | :35:53. | |
standards in public life, the one that reflects the Labour Party adds | :35:54. | :35:56. | |
nothing to look at Conservative Party funding, blatantly partisan | :35:57. | :36:02. | |
and unfair. But is it wrong within its own right? Labour depends on | :36:03. | :36:10. | |
inertia, people pay the levy but they don't want to and they do not | :36:11. | :36:17. | |
know about opting out? Isn't it time we stopped tracking nonlabour | :36:18. | :36:20. | |
voters? Nobody is tracking anybody, that is grossly misrepresenting In | :36:21. | :36:28. | |
the context of all of these public life issues, you can do it but they | :36:29. | :36:36. | |
say themselves, tracking, the Conservatives talk about the burden | :36:37. | :36:42. | |
on trade unions, this is unfair It will ensure that in that short space | :36:43. | :36:45. | |
of time they will not be able to reach everybody. You said that even | :36:46. | :36:50. | |
in two years you would still be against it. That is not exactly what | :36:51. | :36:57. | |
I said, over a longer period of time, in the context of all the | :36:58. | :37:00. | |
other measures that have been addressed on party funding, what is | :37:01. | :37:05. | |
unfair is this is one measure affecting one party. You understand | :37:06. | :37:09. | |
the government is picking on you. Not just me! In the United States, | :37:10. | :37:19. | |
Bernie Sanders, on the left of the party, he has no union backing or | :37:20. | :37:26. | |
big donors or business backing. He managed to get, not even running | :37:27. | :37:29. | |
nationwide, over 3 million individual donations. He raised $20 | :37:30. | :37:38. | |
million in January. Jeremy Corbyn is striking a chord with people who | :37:39. | :37:41. | |
have never been involved before Why not raise more money from ordinary | :37:42. | :37:48. | |
sympathisers. Do not think for one moment that trade unionists who | :37:49. | :37:52. | |
could opt in are not ordinary Labour Party, many of them are and over | :37:53. | :37:58. | |
longer period you would not see the drop off the Conservative Party is | :37:59. | :38:02. | |
hoping for. $20 million in one month. That is amazing and I would | :38:03. | :38:08. | |
like to change how we can fund political parties and that is what | :38:09. | :38:13. | |
the committee looked at, reducing the cap on donations, reducing the | :38:14. | :38:17. | |
spending limits and it did look at -- look at trade unionists funding. | :38:18. | :38:24. | |
How much do you raise from individual members? About two thirds | :38:25. | :38:31. | |
of funding. Excluding a good donors? I could not give you that figure. | :38:32. | :38:40. | |
Isn't that the way the Labour should reduce its dependence on the unions, | :38:41. | :38:46. | |
?8 million from the unions at the moment, and many people in the party | :38:47. | :38:50. | |
used to think that kind of funding was a disadvantage for the party | :38:51. | :38:56. | |
because you are more than unions. Would that not be one way of getting | :38:57. | :39:02. | |
small, individual donations to bring in a lot of money and show that you | :39:03. | :39:06. | |
are not in the pocket of anybody? Over the course of Parliament it is | :39:07. | :39:11. | |
about ?8 million every year that is just one third of the money that we | :39:12. | :39:14. | |
get from all areas, donations from members also. What I am looking at | :39:15. | :39:21. | |
is the Conservative Party that so dislikes the unions, it wants to cut | :39:22. | :39:26. | |
their funding to not just us but in the work they do. If they want to do | :39:27. | :39:31. | |
that, look at parting funding overall but it is ill-conceived to | :39:32. | :39:35. | |
just look at modelling the opposition. I take your point that | :39:36. | :39:40. | |
they are not stopping big donors from giving themselves money but | :39:41. | :39:48. | |
have you not become more dependent on the unions? At one stage we | :39:49. | :39:51. | |
thought you were becoming less so but more than ever, and the leader | :39:52. | :39:57. | |
seems to make that dependency even greater? According to a recent | :39:58. | :40:02. | |
report, Jeremy Corbyn treats big Labour donors with disdain and has | :40:03. | :40:09. | |
abandoned fundraising. We look at all members and supporters for | :40:10. | :40:14. | |
donations but I will not apologise for our relationship with trade | :40:15. | :40:17. | |
unions, we grew out of them and we work together on issues. What I am | :40:18. | :40:24. | |
asking is, are you not becoming overly dependent on them? And | :40:25. | :40:28. | |
becoming vulnerable to this time of action from a Conservative | :40:29. | :40:31. | |
government? Our donations continue to increase, I cannot give you | :40:32. | :40:39. | |
figures, I do not do those sums I cannot remember them. I haven't got | :40:40. | :40:45. | |
a photographic memory! I know the problem! Are you going to block this | :40:46. | :40:52. | |
in the House of Lords? You may not like this but it was in the Tory | :40:53. | :40:57. | |
manifesto? This came from cross-party, let us investigate this | :40:58. | :41:02. | |
properly, let us take not just my word or the word of the Labour | :41:03. | :41:06. | |
Party, let's have a cross-party look at what the Tory party is trying to | :41:07. | :41:11. | |
do and I would put store by that. Let's look at the report on the 29th | :41:12. | :41:15. | |
of the brewery. Thank you very much. -- February. | :41:16. | :41:19. | |
Coming up here in 20 minutes, we'll be talking to an MP | :41:20. | :41:21. | |
from the latest Eurosceptic group hoping to be chosen as the official | :41:22. | :41:24. | |
First, though, the Sunday Politics where you are. | :41:25. | :41:32. | |
This week we ask whether it's the end of social housing | :41:33. | :41:38. | |
On the final leg of his mayoralty, we take a look | :41:39. | :41:49. | |
at the Mayor's official diary and consider what he's been doing | :41:50. | :41:55. | |
Here this week, Karen Buck, Labour MP for Westminster | :41:56. | :41:58. | |
North and her constituency neighbour, Mark Field, | :41:59. | :42:01. | |
Conservative MP for the Cities of London and Westminster. | :42:02. | :42:07. | |
Our own cosy little Westminster bubble this week. | :42:08. | :42:10. | |
First up, David Cameron is happy to be judged, | :42:11. | :42:12. | |
I think it is certainly good enough for London. | :42:13. | :42:19. | |
I personally want to stay in the EU, I don't think we're going to get | :42:20. | :42:24. | |
a massive reform and renegotiation programme. | :42:25. | :42:25. | |
Actually, to be honest, David Cameron has got | :42:26. | :42:27. | |
rather more than I thought was likely nine months ago. | :42:28. | :42:29. | |
But I think as far as Londoners are concerned, | :42:30. | :42:31. | |
We recognise the importance of trading. | :42:32. | :42:34. | |
Not just within the EU but also beyond that | :42:35. | :42:36. | |
But I think that realistically, it is in the national | :42:37. | :42:40. | |
interest that we stay members of the EU. | :42:41. | :42:42. | |
It is still seen as very complicated but those in the know | :42:43. | :42:45. | |
seem to suggest that there are pointers there as to what the city | :42:46. | :42:48. | |
Short selling, how much capital ranks | :42:49. | :42:50. | |
There are good signs there that the city has preserved? | :42:51. | :42:54. | |
That is right, there are some positive signs. | :42:55. | :42:56. | |
Also, the key issue of saying that our status as a long-term, | :42:57. | :42:59. | |
probably permanent, member of a group that would be | :43:00. | :43:01. | |
outside the single currency will not impinge upon the city, | :43:02. | :43:04. | |
particularly if there is to be more institutional | :43:05. | :43:08. | |
change within the Eurozone, having had the central Eurozone bank | :43:09. | :43:10. | |
and everything else that follows from | :43:11. | :43:14. | |
On balance, there are a range of issues. | :43:15. | :43:20. | |
I think it is very important for those of us who want to stay | :43:21. | :43:23. | |
in the EU to have an hysterical argument on this. | :43:24. | :43:25. | |
London will be a great capital if we are outside the EU. | :43:26. | :43:29. | |
I just happen to think that it is more | :43:30. | :43:36. | |
risky getting out and broadly, it is in our national interests | :43:37. | :43:39. | |
Would you have thought an emergency brake was necessary to prevent | :43:40. | :43:43. | |
levels of migration reaching the stage in London where people | :43:44. | :43:45. | |
start to say, this is putting pressure on public services? | :43:46. | :43:47. | |
Well, I think we know that the benefits issue, | :43:48. | :43:50. | |
and all the evidence suggest it's a major factor, | :43:51. | :43:52. | |
it is not real, it is something that people have a strong | :43:53. | :43:55. | |
perception about and there has been great media interest in. | :43:56. | :43:57. | |
But it is a bit of a sideshow and I think all of the negotiations | :43:58. | :44:00. | |
were seen so far have been relatively small and I am | :44:01. | :44:03. | |
not overly worried about them and in our manifesto we said | :44:04. | :44:06. | |
we wanted to do something about some of the benefit entitlements as well, | :44:07. | :44:10. | |
to deal with this issue of perception. | :44:11. | :44:11. | |
People wanting to kmow the system is fair. | :44:12. | :44:17. | |
But what we found is we're playing a dangerous game and the whole | :44:18. | :44:21. | |
negotiations on the referendum have very much been about the internal | :44:22. | :44:23. | |
politics of the Conservative Party rather than the | :44:24. | :44:25. | |
interests of either business or the country as a whole. | :44:26. | :44:28. | |
And we have seen from the media reaction this week | :44:29. | :44:31. | |
just how far short it has fallen of what they were hoping to get | :44:32. | :44:38. | |
His views were eagerly sought on the EU | :44:39. | :44:43. | |
Penning a weekly newspaper column, currently writing a book | :44:44. | :44:48. | |
on Shakespeare, a Member of Parliament | :44:49. | :44:49. | |
and, for a little longer, the Mayor of London, too. | :44:50. | :44:52. | |
So what conclusions can one draw from looking at his official diary | :44:53. | :44:55. | |
September 2014, the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, has a weak | :44:56. | :45:17. | |
Thank you very much for awaiting such a long time. | :45:18. | :45:22. | |
I am very pleased to say that the association | :45:23. | :45:24. | |
have done with the honour of picking me to fight the election | :45:25. | :45:27. | |
With all this attention on his return to | :45:28. | :45:33. | |
Parliament, maybe save the inevitable result is that Doris | :45:34. | :45:36. | |
Johnson will become a part-time Mayor. | :45:37. | :45:37. | |
So, to see what difference it really made to his scheduling, | :45:38. | :45:40. | |
Sunday Politics London acquired a copy of the Mayor's diary | :45:41. | :45:42. | |
through a Freedom of Information request. | :45:43. | :45:44. | |
We compared the 12 months starting September 2014, | :45:45. | :45:46. | |
when he was selected to fight Uxbridge and compared | :45:47. | :45:48. | |
However, rather than a drop-off in activity, we counted a slight | :45:49. | :45:51. | |
increase in the number of appointments. | :45:52. | :45:53. | |
But there are questions about how Boris | :45:54. | :45:55. | |
Johnston has chosen to prioritise his time. | :45:56. | :45:59. | |
Obviously, analysing the Mayor s diary doesn't tell you everything | :46:00. | :46:01. | |
about what the Mayor does with his time. | :46:02. | :46:03. | |
On the other hand, it is a piece of minor science and understanding | :46:04. | :46:06. | |
the broad distribution of the Mayor's time in terms | :46:07. | :46:09. | |
of particular issues and so I think in an area of media transparency, | :46:10. | :46:14. | |
all Mayors must expect this kind of analysis. | :46:15. | :46:18. | |
The single biggest thing you could do for London | :46:19. | :46:22. | |
at the moment is to build tens if not | :46:23. | :46:24. | |
The Mayor is fond of saying that his priority is housing. | :46:25. | :46:29. | |
However, our analysis of his diary shows more | :46:30. | :46:31. | |
issues devoted to Conservative Party political liberty than any other | :46:32. | :46:34. | |
This compares to 223 for transport, 197 for meeting the media | :46:35. | :46:45. | |
and housing a distant fourth, with just | :46:46. | :46:46. | |
Labour say he has got his priorities wrong. | :46:47. | :46:58. | |
He is spending more time on Conservative Party | :46:59. | :47:02. | |
activities or meeting with the Preston dealing with issues | :47:03. | :47:04. | |
And what we can see is that he has been | :47:05. | :47:07. | |
demob happy but that is not just over the election, | :47:08. | :47:10. | |
City Hall told us that just looking at entries marked in the diary | :47:11. | :47:15. | |
You're drawing conclusions from the title | :47:16. | :47:19. | |
of a meeting or who that meeting is with. | :47:20. | :47:21. | |
What is quite clear is that a part of the Mayor's work is through those | :47:22. | :47:25. | |
meetings, and there are thousands | :47:26. | :47:29. | |
And in addition to that he will be meeting | :47:30. | :47:35. | |
with senior advisers, talking to people, driving | :47:36. | :47:38. | |
But perhaps more than the number of diary entries | :47:39. | :47:44. | |
dedicated to issues like housing is Boris Johnson's record that | :47:45. | :47:47. | |
Indeed, but let us look at this minor piece of science. | :47:48. | :47:55. | |
I think the delivery is were the problem is rather | :47:56. | :48:03. | |
than the diary and I think it sort of reflects the fact | :48:04. | :48:06. | |
that he is a man, he is a showman and a | :48:07. | :48:10. | |
character who simply has not spent time and effort getting to grips | :48:11. | :48:13. | |
with the very serious problems that London faces. | :48:14. | :48:16. | |
That has certainly been true in his last year, | :48:17. | :48:18. | |
he has diffused his energies coming into | :48:19. | :48:20. | |
Parliament and he has let things slip. | :48:21. | :48:22. | |
Look at what is happening in London, there are 10,000 people | :48:23. | :48:24. | |
dying every year from pollution violent crime is going up. | :48:25. | :48:27. | |
We're just not seeing any real focus from | :48:28. | :48:29. | |
Boris on those issues and I think that diary pretty well tells us | :48:30. | :48:32. | |
where his energy and priorities have been. | :48:33. | :48:35. | |
To coin a phrase, this is an inverted pyramid | :48:36. | :48:39. | |
Boris, of course, has party activity, everyone has party | :48:40. | :48:47. | |
activity in the run-up to an election and if he was going | :48:48. | :48:52. | |
to be the MP for the Outer Hebrides, I could say, yes, you are splitting | :48:53. | :48:55. | |
But let's be honest, the priorities that | :48:56. | :48:58. | |
he has as the Mayor of London are not dissimilar to the ones | :48:59. | :49:01. | |
One of the great things about Boris Johnson, | :49:02. | :49:08. | |
as everyone who has known him, and I have known over half | :49:09. | :49:11. | |
my life because we were at university together and beyond, | :49:12. | :49:13. | |
He has a great team around him from the days | :49:14. | :49:17. | |
of being president of the Oxford union to being editor | :49:18. | :49:19. | |
of The Spectator to being Mayor of London. | :49:20. | :49:21. | |
He has got very good people around him. | :49:22. | :49:23. | |
He gives the strategic overview and they get on and do quite a lot | :49:24. | :49:26. | |
So this really is an absolute nonstory. | :49:27. | :49:29. | |
I think Boris has been utterly focused right through and obviously, | :49:30. | :49:33. | |
we're now in a position in the last few months of the Mayorlty, | :49:34. | :49:36. | |
he has a whole range of issues from Crossrail to issues | :49:37. | :49:40. | |
to do with housing, which I think the record is strong, | :49:41. | :49:44. | |
particularly in the last two or three years. | :49:45. | :49:46. | |
So very briefly, what is wrong with delegating if you get | :49:47. | :49:48. | |
There is nothing wrong with delegating. | :49:49. | :49:51. | |
We have this incredible city which faces a lot of challenges | :49:52. | :49:54. | |
and I just think that Londoners deserve someone who is fully focused | :49:55. | :49:57. | |
Of course that does not mean that every minute | :49:58. | :50:00. | |
is going to be spent without doing any party meetings or media, | :50:01. | :50:02. | |
But it is also to do with the issues, the concern that | :50:03. | :50:08. | |
Things like crime and pollution that Boris does not | :50:09. | :50:11. | |
The Government's Housing Bill, which starts being considered | :50:12. | :50:17. | |
in the House of Lords this week, risks bringing | :50:18. | :50:19. | |
about the end of social housing as we know it. | :50:20. | :50:22. | |
That, according to Lord Kerslake, formerly the country's | :50:23. | :50:24. | |
He now chairs the Peabody Housing Association and is leading | :50:25. | :50:27. | |
a research project for the IPPR think-tank on what the answers are. | :50:28. | :50:30. | |
After the Second World War, there was a major | :50:31. | :50:39. | |
programme of public sector house-building to improve | :50:40. | :50:41. | |
the quality of housing for ordinary people. | :50:42. | :50:46. | |
There was also a major private sector house-building programme | :50:47. | :50:49. | |
and these two went together to see the highest levels of new housing | :50:50. | :50:53. | |
supply that we'd seen for a long period. | :50:54. | :50:56. | |
But today, London is in the midst of a full-scale housing crisis, | :50:57. | :51:02. | |
with the prices to buy and to rent moving | :51:03. | :51:05. | |
The Housing Bill, whilst it has some good things in it, | :51:06. | :51:11. | |
is essentially focused on favouring one type of housing - | :51:12. | :51:15. | |
home ownership - at the expense of another, social rented. | :51:16. | :51:20. | |
Thus ending the post-war consensus that we needed to build houses | :51:21. | :51:25. | |
of all types in order to meet the different needs of Londoners. | :51:26. | :51:31. | |
The Housing Bill opens up housing association properties | :51:32. | :51:33. | |
The funding of the discounts for those right to buy properties | :51:34. | :51:40. | |
will be paid for by forcing local authorities to sell their council | :51:41. | :51:44. | |
stock when it becomes vacant. Because house prices in London | :51:45. | :51:51. | |
are so high, it's likely that London will be funding over half | :51:52. | :51:56. | |
of the cost of this new initiative and, in some boroughs, | :51:57. | :52:01. | |
such as Westminster and Camden, it's possible that up to two thirds | :52:02. | :52:05. | |
of council houses will be forced to be sold. | :52:06. | :52:12. | |
The Government say they want to replace every | :52:13. | :52:14. | |
council house sold with two new houses. | :52:15. | :52:17. | |
However, the new houses are very unlikely to be in the same | :52:18. | :52:22. | |
neighbourhoods as the houses that are sold, nor are they likely to be | :52:23. | :52:26. | |
If they're one of the new starter homes, then the housing | :52:27. | :52:35. | |
charity Shelter have said that you would need a salary of 77,0 0 | :52:36. | :52:38. | |
That's not affordable for the majority of | :52:39. | :52:49. | |
When you combine these new policies, the extension of right to buy | :52:50. | :52:53. | |
to housing associations, the forced sale of council | :52:54. | :52:55. | |
properties to pay for the right to buy discounts and changes | :52:56. | :53:00. | |
to the way tenancies work for new tenants and put that | :53:01. | :53:03. | |
alongside the existing housing crisis, then I think | :53:04. | :53:07. | |
ordinary Londoners are going to ask where the housing of the future | :53:08. | :53:11. | |
I'm joined by Bill Davies from the think tank the Institute | :53:12. | :53:20. | |
for Public Policy Research, working with Lord Kerslake | :53:21. | :53:22. | |
Let's just bury down into this detail about how this might impact | :53:23. | :53:27. | |
Because of the value of the homes, more might be sold. | :53:28. | :53:31. | |
The money from that will then be used to fund the policy up | :53:32. | :53:34. | |
There's a connection between Right to Buy voluntary deal | :53:35. | :53:40. | |
for housing associations that needs to be funded, | :53:41. | :53:42. | |
effectively by selling off high-value council homes, | :53:43. | :53:46. | |
so in order to fund that policy, which is | :53:47. | :53:49. | |
just at pilot stage at the moment, they will need to sell quite a lot | :53:50. | :53:52. | |
And we know where a lot of the high-value homes are, | :53:53. | :53:57. | |
We heard a figure there of about two thirds, | :53:58. | :54:06. | |
or a suggestion two thirds in Westminster and Camden - | :54:07. | :54:08. | |
we will come onto our Westminster MPs | :54:09. | :54:10. | |
in a moment - but presumably that number isn't going to become vacant | :54:11. | :54:13. | |
Two thirds is an awful lot, isn't it? | :54:14. | :54:16. | |
Two thirds are technically in scope to be those kind of high-value | :54:17. | :54:20. | |
properties that will be needed but they can see rates are actually | :54:21. | :54:23. | |
really quite low, especially in high-value homes, | :54:24. | :54:25. | |
and I think we need a lot of those high-value homes | :54:26. | :54:27. | |
to keep down the housing benefit bill, too. | :54:28. | :54:29. | |
They will often be quite large and house families that would be | :54:30. | :54:32. | |
extremely expensive to move into the private rented sector, | :54:33. | :54:34. | |
so a lot of those properties are actually | :54:35. | :54:36. | |
And what are the early signals if, as Lord Kerslake suggests, | :54:37. | :54:41. | |
it's going to be very difficult to replace the one that you get rid | :54:42. | :54:44. | |
of with two, and if you do, certainly | :54:45. | :54:47. | |
What's the outcome of the consequences of that, | :54:48. | :54:54. | |
I think we've seen from past programmes where homes | :54:55. | :55:01. | |
have been sold - for instance, right to buy in the 1980s, | :55:02. | :55:04. | |
1990s and 2000s - that it's really difficult to replace | :55:05. | :55:06. | |
Even if you get the kind of receipts that you need to be able to deliver | :55:07. | :55:11. | |
time you got round to delivering it, land prices in London are so high | :55:12. | :55:15. | |
and rising so quickly that replacing that is going to be | :55:16. | :55:18. | |
So it's not just a kind of issue of technically, | :55:19. | :55:23. | |
It's also about the rising values of homes that does | :55:24. | :55:26. | |
make it a lot more difficult to deliver. | :55:27. | :55:28. | |
Your thoughts on what the potential impact of this could be? | :55:29. | :55:31. | |
Well, it's a further downward spiral in the story of social housing. | :55:32. | :55:35. | |
We've lost almost a half of the social housing stock in large | :55:36. | :55:38. | |
parts of London over a long period of | :55:39. | :55:40. | |
As Bill has said, one of the immediate impact of that is, | :55:41. | :55:44. | |
we're spending money on supporting low-income households in private | :55:45. | :55:48. | |
sector housing, which is vastly more expensive. | :55:49. | :55:51. | |
So you've got a housing benefit bill that soared up to ?24 | :55:52. | :55:54. | |
If we see a further loss - and it won't happen overnight - | :55:55. | :55:59. | |
either the right to buy and housing association properties | :56:00. | :56:02. | |
or the high-value homes being sold, we will | :56:03. | :56:06. | |
see a further backing up of families who simply can't afford to buy | :56:07. | :56:11. | |
into a very high cost private rented sector, | :56:12. | :56:14. | |
and the taxpayer ends up funding that. | :56:15. | :56:17. | |
So it's a very, very foolish thing to do and it does mean | :56:18. | :56:20. | |
a huge number of people simply can't afford to buy these kind of values | :56:21. | :56:24. | |
I think you are being overly negative. | :56:25. | :56:28. | |
I think there's a lot of good in this | :56:29. | :56:33. | |
Housing and Planning Bill but I do accept there are some exceptions | :56:34. | :56:36. | |
We have a very skewed housing market, becoming even more polarised | :56:37. | :56:40. | |
in the time that Karen and I in the last decade and a half | :56:41. | :56:43. | |
or more have been local MPs, between the very rich - | :56:44. | :56:46. | |
is a global capital now - and those who are qualifying | :56:47. | :56:50. | |
And actually, the biggest losers in our constituency are the private | :56:51. | :56:53. | |
renters, people who have to rent and are often paying three | :56:54. | :56:56. | |
times as much as people in social housing for almost the selfsame | :56:57. | :56:59. | |
So I think we need to look at this whole aspect of intermediate | :57:00. | :57:03. | |
housing, and the truth is quite a lot of housing associations have | :57:04. | :57:06. | |
got no idea who is living in their stock | :57:07. | :57:08. | |
There is a lot of illegal subletting that goes on, | :57:09. | :57:11. | |
which isn't an ideal situation, either. | :57:12. | :57:13. | |
I'm not saying it doesn't happen but there's no evidence that it s | :57:14. | :57:17. | |
Well, dare I say it, most of the providers, | :57:18. | :57:20. | |
providing they get the money coming through | :57:21. | :57:21. | |
the door, they don't ask any questions, and some of that money | :57:22. | :57:24. | |
often comes from the housing benefit bill, to which you've referred | :57:25. | :57:27. | |
as well, which is, again, part of the | :57:28. | :57:29. | |
It really is an absolute mess that is in place. | :57:30. | :57:32. | |
Listen, we're both parents of children and we look | :57:33. | :57:34. | |
at the opportunities we had to buy property that, | :57:35. | :57:37. | |
you know, like many central Londoners think, "How | :57:38. | :57:38. | |
are my children ever going to get on the | :57:39. | :57:41. | |
I think it is right that the Government are trying | :57:42. | :57:45. | |
to address this but I do accept that there are some specific | :57:46. | :57:48. | |
exceptions for bits of central London and I'd | :57:49. | :57:50. | |
like to see local authorities, perhaps throughout central London, | :57:51. | :57:52. | |
not necessarily on one by one basis, but across the party political | :57:53. | :57:56. | |
divide, being able to give some thought to how they make this work | :57:57. | :58:00. | |
and I think we'll see some of that in the House of Lords. | :58:01. | :58:03. | |
I think it's absolutely right that we address the issue | :58:04. | :58:06. | |
of affordable homeownership as well as homes to rent. | :58:07. | :58:08. | |
We are in a critical situation on both of those. | :58:09. | :58:12. | |
I think there was some research done by Shelter last week that showed | :58:13. | :58:15. | |
nine out of ten London parents fear that their children are not | :58:16. | :58:18. | |
going to be able to find a home in London. | :58:19. | :58:20. | |
But this housing bill, as Bob Kerslake showed in his film, | :58:21. | :58:23. | |
is saying that affordable so-called homes to buy can be | :58:24. | :58:27. | |
Yeah, but in central London that's going to be what it comes in us | :58:28. | :58:35. | |
You need to earn more than Mark and I do as members of Parliament | :58:36. | :58:41. | |
to be able to afford to buy a home that is deemed | :58:42. | :58:43. | |
What is the point of the starter homes thing, then? | :58:44. | :58:49. | |
Listen, I think we have to do something. | :58:50. | :58:51. | |
We cannot simply say, the starter home | :58:52. | :58:53. | |
initiative just won't apply to certain parts of the country | :58:54. | :58:56. | |
And I accept it is a very expensive part | :58:57. | :58:58. | |
And it has become a lot more expensive in the days gone by. | :58:59. | :59:04. | |
But we have to make a move somewhere along the line. | :59:05. | :59:07. | |
But I think there needs to be some recognition within this legislation | :59:08. | :59:10. | |
that the issues that face London, particularly central | :59:11. | :59:12. | |
London, are fundamentally different in nature. | :59:13. | :59:14. | |
Do you think, if you were honest, that in ten years there | :59:15. | :59:17. | |
would be quite a considerably different composition | :59:18. | :59:19. | |
in your wards, in terms of housing and housing stock? | :59:20. | :59:28. | |
I think it will be a little bit different. | :59:29. | :59:30. | |
It would be naive to suggest that there won't | :59:31. | :59:32. | |
be some diminishing in the social housing stock but I think that's | :59:33. | :59:35. | |
because a lot of that will be driven by availability coming up | :59:36. | :59:38. | |
at a particular time and I think that | :59:39. | :59:41. | |
across the party political divide, I don't think there is a sense | :59:42. | :59:44. | |
that we don't want to have a borough that is | :59:45. | :59:46. | |
just made up of the rich and perhaps even people who are letting property | :59:47. | :59:50. | |
who are living overseas, that would be a very bad state | :59:51. | :59:53. | |
of affairs and I think we have to try to clamp down | :59:54. | :59:56. | |
But you touched on one thing already, of course. | :59:57. | :59:59. | |
This process of selling council stock. | :00:00. | :00:01. | |
It happened quite slowly and people will not necessarily notice it? | :00:02. | :00:03. | |
I am not saying it will happen overnight | :00:04. | :00:09. | |
because what is happening, the London housing market is very | :00:10. | :00:11. | |
different to what it was when Right to Buy was happening | :00:12. | :00:14. | |
There is a lot of investor money out there and one of the things | :00:15. | :00:19. | |
we absolutely know is that ex-Right to Buy properties, | :00:20. | :00:22. | |
around one third of those in some areas are not back | :00:23. | :00:25. | |
This doesn't actually help home ownership. | :00:26. | :00:31. | |
What it does is it further fuels the minority who can | :00:32. | :00:35. | |
afford either as companies or individuals, who can afford | :00:36. | :00:37. | |
to buy these properties and then they let | :00:38. | :00:41. | |
The challenge of how you're going to sell this... | :00:42. | :00:53. | |
There are a range of challenges across such a wide range | :00:54. | :00:55. | |
of factors that there is no one silver bullet that's going to fix | :00:56. | :00:58. | |
The Housing Commission at the moment are | :00:59. | :01:04. | |
But what is clear is that we need the London housing market | :01:05. | :01:10. | |
We need more social housing, we need more intermediate homes that | :01:11. | :01:14. | |
people can buy and rent but we also need more | :01:15. | :01:16. | |
But it has to come from a range of policy measures across land | :01:17. | :01:20. | |
planning, construction capacity and new developers. | :01:21. | :01:21. | |
We will be looking at that in more detail in future. | :01:22. | :01:24. | |
Transport for London announced new policies | :01:25. | :01:42. | |
Including developing a world leading safety | :01:43. | :01:47. | |
standard for London, updating bus contracts to include | :01:48. | :01:49. | |
new safety incentives and providing a UK first | :01:50. | :01:51. | |
Some residents in Hampstead want a degree | :01:52. | :01:58. | |
of independence from the rest of Camden. | :01:59. | :02:02. | |
They want Hampstead to become a parish council, in part, | :02:03. | :02:04. | |
to have more say over local development on | :02:05. | :02:06. | |
7.5% of residents need to sign up for the proposal | :02:07. | :02:12. | |
before it can go in front of Camden Council. | :02:13. | :02:16. | |
Labour's mayoral candidate, the MP for Tooting, Sadiq Khan, | :02:17. | :02:19. | |
said he has set out his vision for London. | :02:20. | :02:23. | |
He plans to revive former Mayor Ken Livingstone's affordable | :02:24. | :02:25. | |
He said that half of all new homes in the capital | :02:26. | :02:30. | |
He also pledged to make it easier and | :02:31. | :02:36. | |
cheaper to part buy, part rent a new home. | :02:37. | :02:43. | |
Go on, let's talk about the mayoral contest. | :02:44. | :02:46. | |
Who has got the answers to London's housing | :02:47. | :02:48. | |
I think Zac's got some very good answers. | :02:49. | :02:52. | |
Not least because I think he's going to work with central government | :02:53. | :02:55. | |
It is all very well spouting off, saying, "this is what I want to do," | :02:56. | :02:58. | |
but you have to work with whoever is in | :02:59. | :03:01. | |
government and clearly there is a Conservative government | :03:02. | :03:03. | |
there and the fact that Zac has been able to | :03:04. | :03:05. | |
ensure that there are changes to the Housing and Planning Bill | :03:06. | :03:08. | |
that are very much focused on what he wants | :03:09. | :03:10. | |
to do in London suggests that he has a plan. | :03:11. | :03:12. | |
I don't think you want the Conservative | :03:13. | :03:15. | |
government's representative in London. | :03:16. | :03:18. | |
You want a mayor who will champion London to government and Sadiq Khan | :03:19. | :03:21. | |
has got the experience and an incredible story. | :03:22. | :03:25. | |
He is the story of London, from a council | :03:26. | :03:27. | |
house to a homeowner - he understands both sides of it | :03:28. | :03:30. | |
He's got a plan, which is about working sure that developers | :03:31. | :03:33. | |
targets for 50% of affordable housing and giving Londoners first | :03:34. | :03:39. | |
Getting a new rental model in, which is tied to a third | :03:40. | :03:45. | |
of average rents to meet some of those intermediate | :03:46. | :03:47. | |
For the first time in this campaign, you think people will try | :03:48. | :03:51. | |
Because it is a complex issue with housing, | :03:52. | :03:54. | |
the things that people will want to know? | :03:55. | :03:57. | |
One of the problems is, he may have a plan but can | :03:58. | :04:00. | |
And also, to be honest, one of the perennial problems | :04:01. | :04:03. | |
of the mayoralty is the actually you have very | :04:04. | :04:05. | |
little power and in housing, you're in the hands of the government | :04:06. | :04:08. | |
policing side and transportation and on strategic planning issues, | :04:09. | :04:13. | |
but a lot of this is not about strategic | :04:14. | :04:15. | |
overview, it is about the real nitty-gritty of how to get more | :04:16. | :04:19. | |
and more houses in each and every one of the London boroughs. | :04:20. | :04:21. | |
It has been a pleasure, thanks very much indeed. | :04:22. | :04:24. | |
And with that, Andrew, it's back to you. | :04:25. | :04:33. | |
If you believe some of the polls - and we're not much inclined to these | :04:34. | :04:37. | |
days - those arguing for Britain to leave the EU could be ahead | :04:38. | :04:40. | |
of those who want us to remain a member. | :04:41. | :04:42. | |
If true, it can't have much to do with the unity shown by those | :04:43. | :04:46. | |
jostling to be picked as the official, designated leave | :04:47. | :04:50. | |
campaign, as they've spent all week fighting like ferrets in a sack | :04:51. | :04:56. | |
UKIP MP Douglas Carswell was speaking to Andrew Marr earlier | :04:57. | :04:59. | |
about one of the newer leave groups, called Grassroots Out or GO | :05:00. | :05:03. | |
for short, which is hoping to be chosen. | :05:04. | :05:07. | |
I was out at the weekend and the weekend before | :05:08. | :05:12. | |
We've got a great ground game in Vote Leave. | :05:13. | :05:15. | |
We've delivered millions of leaflets. | :05:16. | :05:16. | |
I'm not going to be disrespectful of any | :05:17. | :05:19. | |
They're led by people who've done this before. | :05:20. | :05:24. | |
And I think what's important is that we make sure that people | :05:25. | :05:27. | |
realise that David Cameron's deal is pretty duff. | :05:28. | :05:37. | |
Well, Peter Bone is one of the MPs behind GO. | :05:38. | :05:39. | |
Why should you get the official designation? Were not united and | :05:40. | :05:59. | |
still 37, 43%, but it looks good, there are 42 grassroot campaigns | :06:00. | :06:11. | |
made up of different people, and I think who should get designation, it | :06:12. | :06:16. | |
is an establishment view that you have to have a top-down organisation | :06:17. | :06:23. | |
like BSE, imposed from the top, there was nobody going out on the | :06:24. | :06:29. | |
February morning is knocking on doors, there are 42 campaigns so | :06:30. | :06:37. | |
this is from the grassroots up. It is not another campaigning | :06:38. | :06:41. | |
organisation bringing everyone together and they still have | :06:42. | :06:45. | |
independence. With this umbrella stop you from knocking each other? | :06:46. | :06:52. | |
Aaron Banks, he has put money into Grassroots Out? It is funded by a | :06:53. | :06:57. | |
number of individuals. Conservative donors... Here's one of them and he | :06:58. | :07:08. | |
said that people in vote leave where two of the nastiest individuals I | :07:09. | :07:14. | |
ever had the misfortune to leave. Kate Hoey, voting to quit. She is | :07:15. | :07:27. | |
also voting for Vote Leave. Let us bring everyone together, this has to | :07:28. | :07:33. | |
stop, last week whenever we had 100 people from all of the different | :07:34. | :07:37. | |
groups and parties working together, why cannot we get that at the top? | :07:38. | :07:42. | |
One happy family working under the grassroots movement. You have that | :07:43. | :07:49. | |
bright Grassroots Out tie on. This picture has more than just a tie on | :07:50. | :07:56. | |
it. One of your colleagues, launching the campaign with the | :07:57. | :08:01. | |
Union Jack jacket. People might remember the John Redwood leadership | :08:02. | :08:07. | |
campaign would wonder if politicians want to be seen on the same platform | :08:08. | :08:15. | |
as that? People are going out across the country, campaigning to come out | :08:16. | :08:20. | |
of the EU. Not looking like that, looking like me! No, they don't want | :08:21. | :08:27. | |
to look like me! Is this just journalist from? The poll has them | :08:28. | :08:38. | |
ahead? The Electoral Commission in the next few weeks will have to | :08:39. | :08:41. | |
designate one of these groups as the main out and in group and both sides | :08:42. | :08:48. | |
are fighting like bad. The danger for the leaving camp is the group to | :08:49. | :08:54. | |
win this referendum will be the group that wins the argument that it | :08:55. | :08:59. | |
represents the safest option and the losing group will be portrayed as | :09:00. | :09:03. | |
the riskiest. People like Douglas Carswell or deeply fearful of Nigel | :09:04. | :09:07. | |
Farage as one of the main figures on the outside because in a good day he | :09:08. | :09:13. | |
can get 30% of the electorate and that is why Grassroots Out is | :09:14. | :09:21. | |
established, because the Aaron Banks group, he is funding the other group | :09:22. | :09:27. | |
which has cross-party support and that will be important. Vote Leave, | :09:28. | :09:34. | |
the more stable, steady safer option is now struggling on the cross-party | :09:35. | :09:43. | |
option, particularly in that box. How do you know all that) it is also | :09:44. | :09:52. | |
quite true. Why are you talking about the personalities and the | :09:53. | :09:54. | |
policies and that is a reflection of, when we talk about policies | :09:55. | :10:01. | |
people would enter a coma. Neither side has key messages, I don't think | :10:02. | :10:07. | |
you could stop 100 people in the street and one could tell you | :10:08. | :10:09. | |
anything that was in this and that is why we talk about personalities. | :10:10. | :10:15. | |
We are doing our best! We have always exaggerated the importance of | :10:16. | :10:21. | |
campaigns on election results and referendums and last I was told that | :10:22. | :10:25. | |
because of Labour's assiduous work at ground level they would end up | :10:26. | :10:32. | |
counteracting disadvantages like leadership and economic credibility | :10:33. | :10:35. | |
so I have never believed that the internal rivalry would really hold | :10:36. | :10:40. | |
them back and recent opinion polls have stood up to that. What really | :10:41. | :10:43. | |
goes on their favour is the nature of the deal that David Cameron | :10:44. | :10:51. | |
extracted last week because it is less impressive than was instigated | :10:52. | :10:55. | |
in the Bloomberg speech and it will have to fight the referendum on the | :10:56. | :11:00. | |
existing terms of membership and I think he can win that but he would | :11:01. | :11:04. | |
have gone into the last four months of this campaign with something | :11:05. | :11:08. | |
drastically different and not cosmetically different. That is | :11:09. | :11:12. | |
right, the fundamental issues will be debated and we are all innovative | :11:13. | :11:18. | |
this Westminster bubble thinking that Joe Bloggs says this and it | :11:19. | :11:23. | |
matters but on the street, nobody can name any of these campaigns and | :11:24. | :11:28. | |
the simple question is, in or out were undecided? That is what we re | :11:29. | :11:33. | |
finding and a lot of people are undecided who say we have not heard | :11:34. | :11:36. | |
the arguments and we clearly have to get our message out on leaving and | :11:37. | :11:42. | |
that does concern emigration and controlling borders but also the | :11:43. | :11:47. | |
fact that we pay 55th -- ?55 million every week to Europe and get | :11:48. | :11:52. | |
nothing. You get half of that act. We don't. You do! We get a bit of | :11:53. | :12:00. | |
that back. They decide how we spend it. You get it back as a rebate and | :12:01. | :12:07. | |
you also get it back in funding from the EU? The facts will matter. How | :12:08. | :12:16. | |
many billions of pounds each week goes to the EU that we have no | :12:17. | :12:20. | |
control over? You said the gross figures... The net figure is about | :12:21. | :12:28. | |
half of that. It is not. If you go into the detail I can assure you it | :12:29. | :12:33. | |
is. Can you win this without any front person? Behead Minister of is | :12:34. | :12:40. | |
heading up the game campaign. If he does not get what he wants he will | :12:41. | :12:44. | |
be heading up the Grassroots Out campaign. -- I will be. You are not | :12:45. | :12:53. | |
holding your breath. Who should be heading up your side? I don't want | :12:54. | :12:58. | |
any figurehead. Who would debate with the Prime Minister? It depends | :12:59. | :13:03. | |
on the issues. In or out, how about that? If you are talking about | :13:04. | :13:10. | |
dozens, a businessman, trade unions, somebody from Labour Leave. Belgian | :13:11. | :13:16. | |
rambler that a government... I will have to stop you expect thanks to | :13:17. | :13:20. | |
all of the guests. Join us next Sunday at 11, | :13:21. | :13:23. | |
when we'll be taking stock made by the Conservatives at last | :13:24. | :13:26. | |
year's election and asking Remember - if it's Sunday, | :13:27. | :13:30. | |
it's the Sunday Politics. | :13:31. | :13:34. |