19/05/2013 Sunday Politics South East


19/05/2013

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to turn our backs on the EU? One politician claims leaving the

:01:26.:01:36.
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Apology for the loss of subtitles for 2156 seconds

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European Union could end up costing Politics in the South East. Coming

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up later, similar towns with the same problems but why did Labour win

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seven out of eight county council seats in Hastings but only one out

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of eight in Thanet? Joining me in the studio today is Conservative MP

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for Rochester and Strood Mark Reckless and Labour Peer Lord Bassam

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of Brighton. Welcome to you both. A year ago this month, the government

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backed Portis town scheme -- Portas Towns Scheme was launched. This

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week, the television programme Mary Queen of the High Street highlighted

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the efforts made so far in Margate. The programme, starring Mary Portas,

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did not go down well with former members of the Town Team, who

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complained about the way they were portrayed. Roger Gale called it a

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vanity project for the presenter. Do you think this was a vanity project

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or an actually deserving way of spending government money? It was

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trying out a new idea to revitalise some of our town centres and there

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are 12 of them and I guess it will have worked in some and Mary Portas

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will have, without good ideas and the local authority will have been

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able to implement them. In sorry that has not worked in all of them

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but I hope people visit Margate. danger is that you have a high

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profile celebrity who gets involved with a relatively small amount of

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money and it becomes hijacked by her. She has a reputation in if

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people are complaining it has not been followed up, I suggest Mary

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Portas listens to what they are complaining about and sorted out.

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is funny that Brighton should need it? What can you do with �100,000?

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It is a bit of a gimmick. I don't begrudge her involvement. It is a

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good thing because it focused on retailers and that is a good slice

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of Brighton and Hove business. I don't get it has had the impact it

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needs to and if we are serious about city centre regeneration we need to

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have a long-term plan and invest properly.

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Euroscepticism appears to be alive and well in Kent and Sussex. Nine of

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our MPs, including Mark, voted in favour to an amendment on the

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Queen's Speech on the EU referendum earlier this week was that we'd

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leaving the European Union cost us more than we would gain? Joining us

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from Oxford is the Lib Dem MEP Catherine Bearder. You obviously

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have a vested interest with the EU. You claim you would lose half a

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million jobs in the region if we lost the EU for the boy did you get

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that figure? It is not my figure. It is the Department of business that

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came up with this figure. It is very difficult to come up with a figure.

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We have a lot of inward investment from outside Europe who come to the

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UK, knowing that they understand English air and the rest. But it is

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into the European market, which is a free market. If we were to read draw

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from that, we would lose that inward investment. We would then not have

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trade deals with all of the countries in the European Union,

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that is not just trade deals, such as tropical timber or anti-dumping

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deals that we have with other countries. Just getting back to that

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statistics because that is the headline that was bandied around

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this week. You said yourself it was difficult to pin it down. That is

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one of the problems you have. Departments of skills, business and

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innovation except later from a 2006 report. It is hard to say. The BBC

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have also tried to get the figure. It is more than just jobs. It is the

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cultural funding, the cultural mixing, the right fork Brits to go

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and live on the mainland in Europe, as it is for Europeans to comment

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working. In Kent, or that any grass in the South East region, there are

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people from all over Europe who like to live in Kent and commute to work

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in Paris or Brussels or wherever. So it is's leaving would cut us off. We

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get a lot of funding, committee funding and cohesion funding.

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your constituency, Mark, in Rochester, one and a half million

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pounds of European funding has come in in the last four years. Do you

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want to throw that away? We have paid far more into Europe than we

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get back. �19 billion more last... Kent does not pay �19 billion was up

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I think they pay more than of a disproportionate amount. Vince Cable

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cited the study. When people have looked into this study and gone and

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spoken to the author of it, he said that is quite wrong, we won't lose 3

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million jobs or half a million. It might be quite positive and I have

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been misquoted! You cannot use it for those purposes. The risk is, are

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you going to risk it, even if it is half that number? Is that what you

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really want for this country or are you actually going to see we are

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part of a bigger unit and jobs for this country are as vital for this

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country as they are for the rest of Europe. Are we going to see... What

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are you going to say on day two when you're outside the European Union?

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Can I finish? Can I make that point? I will let you answer. I would like

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to trade freely with the whole world. Rather than being tied to one

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dying economy, I would like to trade with the emerging countries of China

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and India. I would like to negotiate our own free-trade agreements with

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them, which put British interests first. We would like access to their

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trade and service industries. are also big fan of staying in,

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aren't you? I think it is important that we have a trading nation ship

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with Europe. It is on our doorstep. This assertion that the Tories have

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with Europe is bizarre in the extreme. We should because of

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treading on jobs and growth. The notion that we are somehow going to

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create a referendum in four years time, we don't know when the issues

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with you by going to be. It is a bizarre thing to raise as an issue

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now. I've read in the Guardian this week, the CBI director-general, he

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is incredibly critical of this government's approach to Europe. He

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says they are obsessed, they should concentrate on the real things that

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real economy. Those are the right things for us to concentrate on.

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What about voters? What about your voters? You guv put it on number 11

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as the list of priorities. Is it something you genuinely concerned

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about? Number two is immigration and it is because of the relationship

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with the European Union that these people from Poland and other Eastern

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European countries are able to come here and next year we have

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barbarians and Romanians coming here. We should control our borders,

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we should decide. You are sounding like Nigel Farage at this point!

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People should be allowed to vote on that. Who would staff our hospitals,

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pick our fruit. It is a huge part of the economy in Kent. If we don't

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have that... We should train people locally. The people who are

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unemployed, we should be training them. We should not be going

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straight to the easy option of thing in people from abroad. We should

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invest in our own people. Of course we should train local British

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workers but we benefit enormously from our mothership of the EU. The

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change, culturally, of our country over the last 30 years has been

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beneficial. If we throw away those trading links with Europe, and we

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cannot overnight build trade legs with China and India, , it will be

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seriously damaged. Opinion is beginning to shift. It might be the

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11th of 10th concern at the minute. People are beginning to worry that

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we are sleepwalking out of the union. There are a few things I need

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to put across was up the migrants that come from the rest of Europe

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are net taxpayers. They are a benefit to this community. They pay

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in, they do not take out and there is a surplus. There is a report out

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this week that demonstrates that. The other point I want to come back

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on once we can negotiate trade deals with China and the rest of the

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world. We are a country of six T 5 million people. What sort of clout

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do you have when you're with China? Do you want to be a trading partner

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with half a billion people and have that sort of clout? That is what the

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European Union does put up it is the world's biggest market. We'll be

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crazy to cut ourselves off from that and to invite something from the

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rest of the word question my crew spent 20 years negotiating with the

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rest of the world. We have to leave it there but thank you for joining

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The Labour Party celebrated in Hastings two weeks ago when they won

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seven out of eight seats on the East Sussex County Council. Across the

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county border, in than it, where the district council is Labour run, the

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party was inspected to take seats from the Conservatives. It ended up

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with only one. UKIP took the other seven. Hastings and Thanet are

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similar areas, relatively impoverished seaside towns with a

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strong working class presence. Why did the Labour Party do well in one

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and badly in the other? Lucinda Adam went to find out.

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Hastings and Thanet. To seaside resorts and two of the most deprived

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parts of the South East of the Southeast will stop both had label

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led councils and both were key targets for Labour to win back

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county council seats at this month's elections will stop in

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Hastings, Labour has elevated a landmark victory, taking 42% of the

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vote and seven out of eight county council seats. But in Thanet they

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failed to make any gains. Holding just one seat while the other seven

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gave UKIP its strongest victory. In local by-elections, held last week,

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UKIP gained a second seat on Thanet are strict council and one on

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Bradgate town council in a war -- in a ward that had been a Labour

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majority. That left Labour in deepwater. Why are the party's

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fortunes so mixed? Like Thanet, unemployment in Hastings is three

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times the national average. Both areas suffer from a seasonal jobs

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market, older people and other cancers will stop success in

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Hastings is put down to a strong majority on the council, achieving

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goals to regenerate the town. have a council that is proactive in

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tackling the jobs and we have here. They started out an apprenticeship

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programme. They were looking to do 101 hundred days. They exceeded

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that. They got 160 apprenticeships in 100 days. We are looking to do up

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the town 2 billion best in the town. They have ordered over 600

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properties to do up the front edge. In Thanet, UKIP said that progress

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on regeneration project has been sluggish. Labour councillors have

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not supported expansion at the airport. The airport is a major

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regeneration opportunity. You don't need the brains of Lloyd George to

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know that. They are against it. They are doing everything they can to

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restrict the operation there. Since KLM went in, 42 new jobs have been

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created. We have a world-class airline operating there. The

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majority of the people in Thanet really want the airport to be a

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success. When the former Conservative leader of Thanet

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council was jailed before polling day, Labour should have capitalised

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was stop a series of defections and infighting has caused trouble and

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destruction fall leaders. infighting in Thanet has been a

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problem. It has been a consequence of having a minority administration

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which has been virtually controlled by the interests of only a handful

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of councillors in key positions. That has caused a great deal of

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squabbling. We had a lot of time in council meetings arguing about

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issues that have nothing to do with the business of local council.

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win confidence and their votes, campaigning was widespread in

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Hastings. In Thanet, Labour focused its efforts on Margate and it was

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UKIP who knocked on doors elsewhere. There will not be a

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street in Thanet that has not been visited by one of our now elected

:51:14.:51:22.

members. I certainly did not see any Labour. Labour did not even put out

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a leaflet in my ward. There was no targeting at all. Nobody knew who

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the Labour candidate was. The only Labour councillor who won in Thanet

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admits the party was complacent in targeting traditional Labour areas.

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You are not putting the same effort into some of your strongholds. When

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a party like UKIP has come along with a message that chimes with a

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certain set of voters, it causes problems with all sort of parties,

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which is what happened here. It is a wake-up call that we need to be

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talking to the voters in all seats, not just certain seats will stop to

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similar areas but to print stories for Labour. What does the party have

:52:04.:52:12.

to do to win back voters in Thanet? Its popularity here might be washed

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away for good. Joining us now is the Labour group

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leader Gordon Cowan. You have had a few weeks to think about this. What

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has happened there? Was it a missed opportunity or did you just take

:52:26.:52:33.

Labour supporters for granted? Thanet, if you look at the results,

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:52:43.:52:45.

the UKIP was 8% in 2009 and 39% in 2013. In actual fact, the Labour

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vote held up. In fact, it increased by 2%. Well we had with that? Don't

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of course not. We wanted to win. We wanted to get 20 plus on Kent County

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Council. We did marvellously well. We got 13. I don't beg anyone would

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say that was doing marvellously well. Those votes in Thanet have

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cost you the opposition on Kent County Council. If Labour are going

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to get back into power in two years time, Thanet is the kind of place

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for the need to win seats. It is, absolutely. This particular time, if

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you go back to 2009, it was the Conservatives that had control of

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Thanet. They had control of the Thanet District Council. Labour was

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one of the heartlands that they want to win. Labour only got one seat out

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of the aid on offer. If you look at the results and you look at the

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percentages, Labour's vote held up. But we did not quite get as many

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votes as we would like to to get more councillors on Kent County

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Council. Where do you go from here? All eyes are on the general election

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in two years. What do you do locally as a party? It sounds like you are

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not doing well enough to get the seats, to get that springboard to a

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general election victory. We have to listen to the electorate and the

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electorate have a clear message out this time. They have given a clear

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message out. That message is more of a message to the central government

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that, quite frankly, whether it is immigration, whether it is the

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Europe in and out situation, people want answers. They want real

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answers. We have got to try and get that message out. We will be

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relaying that message to Ed Miliband. We have to get a clear

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understanding about Europe and the direction we are going. You seem to

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be blaming the Conservatives for you not winning enough seats in Thanet!

:54:43.:54:53.
:54:53.:54:53.

Is it that you would not talking to people and showing that they would

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do well by voting for you? We sent out at least two leaflets to every

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single door within the Thanet area. It was not about not knocking on

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doors. The overall picture, throughout the country, was one of a

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protest vote from UKIP, not just in Thanet but everywhere. You work

:55:14.:55:24.
:55:24.:55:31.

campaigning in Hastings, will you take the credit? Politics in Thanet

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seems a bit scrabbled up. The Tories don't do enquiry well. There are two

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Tory groups on the district council. Clearly there

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organisational issues to be addressed. Results for Labour were

:55:40.:55:43.

patchy in some parts of the country. We made tremendous progress in

:55:43.:55:53.
:55:53.:55:55.

Hastings. Gordon makes a good point that we did hold the vote in Thanet.

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It is a minority led thing on Kent County Council. Labour has that

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patchy results. We have two years to go, what does Ed Miliband learned

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from the Thanet, Hastings comparison? What does he do? If

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those votes go the same way, you will not get into Number Ten.

:56:14.:56:19.

have to get our message is absolutely right for politics

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nationally and, not dilute them, but make sure they work locally. We have

:56:24.:56:26.

district than our local organisation. We need to make sure

:56:26.:56:33.

that people get onto the doorsteps and we need to make sure that

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Thanet, I know they have a good track record, we need to make sure

:56:36.:56:40.

that they are not far behind them. This is not covered tool for you as

:56:40.:56:44.

a party either. There is a wide expectation that Nigel Farage mate

:56:44.:56:49.

juice to stand for election in Thanet because he did so well. Who

:56:49.:56:53.

are you more scared of? UKIP or Labour? If Labour are pleased that

:56:53.:56:59.

their vote held up in Thanet, that is all right. That is good news for

:56:59.:57:03.

the two Conservative MPs there. The message I take is that you have to

:57:03.:57:07.

be out there on the doorstep and I am campaigning this weekend and the

:57:07.:57:10.

message in picking up such on the doorstep is that people are

:57:10.:57:13.

concerned about immigration, particularly the remaining and

:57:13.:57:17.

barbarian immigration next. On Monday, I'm going to Romania, I have

:57:17.:57:21.

a meeting with the Romanian Prime Minister and I will see what I can

:57:21.:57:24.

do to limit that. Coming back to Thanet, it sounds as though the

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calibre of local councillors, most of whom were conservative, have got

:57:30.:57:39.

into quite a lot of trouble, they are going to UKIP. Labour have

:57:39.:57:42.

pretty much given up as a campaigning force there. At a

:57:42.:57:47.

parliamentary level, I think the strong Conservative representation

:57:47.:57:50.

with Roger and Laura and I think they will be brooding on our results

:57:50.:57:55.

and we will have a strong position. Two people disagree with you there

:57:55.:57:58.

but I will have to move on. It is now time for a round-up of the

:57:58.:58:08.
:58:08.:58:10.

week's other political events with Brighton's binmen are back at work

:58:10.:58:12.

but their unofficial strike action over pay has two wars disputes

:58:12.:58:16.

between the city's Green councillors, with calls for some for

:58:16.:58:22.

people to resign. The Deputy Prime Minister told Stephen Lloyd that the

:58:22.:58:25.

governor to look into decision to downgrade local maternity services.

:58:25.:58:29.

I will ask the secondary estate for help to discuss this matter

:58:29.:58:34.

further. Parliament has been called to clamp down on live animal exports

:58:34.:58:39.

that we started at the Cannes's port. It is bad for an all welfare

:58:39.:58:43.

and bad for the local economy. Sussex Police have it started a

:58:43.:58:48.

drive to recruit more Eastern European line which bidders to

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become committee support officers. It builds a very good link with us

:58:54.:59:00.

as a law enforcement institution. And it is the most littered

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shoreline in the county, but Shakespeare Beach does not have many

:59:02.:59:07.

visitors will stop environmentalists say it is rubbish from abroad that

:59:07.:59:14.

is being washed up on the tide. What do you think about the idea of

:59:14.:59:18.

these funded police community liaison officers to deal with

:59:18.:59:24.

migrants question Mark there are particular issues, we have to insure

:59:24.:59:26.

that all committees are policed properly. I would like to see is

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investing more in our young people here and particular ensuring that

:59:30.:59:33.

next to me that see the sort of numbers of people coming from bog

:59:33.:59:38.

area and Romania that we have seen from Poland and others. We heard

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about chicks babies but Brighton out as six four letter in the country.

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-- Shakespeare Beach. One of the MPs would like the government to do more

:59:49.:59:54.

to promote antilitter campaigning. What we think? That is a gimmick.

:59:54.:59:57.

I'll prefer to see the local council do its job and clear up the plastic

:59:57.:00:03.

and glass on the beach and increase its recycling rate, which is

:00:03.:00:07.

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