02/06/2013 Sunday Politics South West

Conservatives urge Cameron to understand their policy concerns.

Apology for the loss of subtitles for 2448 seconds

And the battle between countryside on the Sunday Politics in the South

West: The constituency chairman who says Conservative grassroots won't

tolerate being labelled "loons". There are a lot of committed people

here, so to refer to them in that way, that is completely

unacceptable. And for the next 20 minutes, I'm joined by UKIP MEP

William Dartmouth and Gary Streeter, the Conservative MP for South West

Devon. This week, the government's identified four road schemes in the

region which will benefit from �165 million of funding. Is David Cameron

finally being nudged to think about infrastructure? No, I think we have

been doing infrastructure all the way through. This is just more of

the same and it is very welcome. know that UKIP are keen to see

something done about potholes. are keen that they are mended, but

we are also very keen that there is an appropriate amount of of money

spent on infrastructure. The Southwest probably does not have its

fair share. The multiple billions being spent by the coalition

government does absolutely nothing for the Southwest. If anything, the

reverse. I do not agree with that. I have said so myself in the comments.

The government this week turned up the pressure on local authorities to

build more homes. The Planning Minister was reported in a national

newspaper as saying house building would create more human happiness

than empty green fields. Not an uncontroversial idea in the rural

South West. Janine Jansen caught up with the Minister in Devon this

week. The planning bigwig came to the Southwest this week. He gave the

team a pat on the back for its enthusiastic attitude to house

building. For him, the more it, the merrier. Depending Mister made

front-page news this week with his controversial comments. -- the

Planning Minister. I do not write the headlines but I stand by

everything I have said, which is that we need to build more houses.

We have a crisis for a younger generation. People, particularly

people who have been brought up your and are working locally and may not

have huge salaries, do they not have a right to have a home and a bit of

a garden for their kids to grow up in? But one place the Minister did

not visit is this 3-acre site. There are controversial plans for homes

here and arguments are still raging about the choice of this site. And

it is one of the reasons that this counsellor left Tories to become an

independent. My age or concern is that the plan is for too many

houses. The growth forecast has shown that there is a decrease in

the population and that has been ignored. The latest census Leicester

said that only 3000 people had lit -- move here in the last ten years.

But he stands by his can-do attitude to help young people and has the and

their families. I think there is a lot of hysteria about the fact that

people are moving down into the South West. My family dates back to

the 1700s here, and I am proud to be local. We are building houses for

local people and I am very proud that we are able to do so. One local

and he says that the biggest issue in her patch is housing, but she

knows that it is a double-edged sword. Clearly, we must maintain

what is so special about England, and that is our green land and our

farmland and our farmers. That is what we need to preserve. Clearly,

clearly, clearly she is not going to be able to please all of the people

all of the time. Let us pick up on that thought at the end. Your

colleague is saying that we must do everything we can to protect the

countryside. But you cannot have both, can you? It is about getting a

balance. I think the Minister was wrong and his choice of words about

houses being more important fields. I grew up on a farm in this area.

There is nothing greater than looking out over open landscape. We

need to preserve that, but we do need to build more houses as well.

In some cases that will be on a greenfield. If I look back over the

time I was at Westminster, the biggest thing that has faced my

constituency in the last two years is affordable housing for local

people. Our children and grandchildren. We have to build to

accommodate their wishes. When macro William, UKIP does believe that

housing demand is -- UKIP does believe that the housing demand is

caused by immigration. There has been an increase of 13% and that is

why there is the need for more housing. It is driven by mass

immigration. We have had, in one year, 2010, I think this is a very

important point because this is the background, in one year, 2010, more

people integrated into the UK then from 1066 up until 1950 altogether.

There is mass immigration. We have open borders and we will continue to

have open borders and that has an effect on housing on the education

and welfare. Gary has had plenty of constituents coming to him, local

families and people who have families and his constituencies. We

have had countless people on this programme and other programmes in

saying that they know local people are seeking affordable housing. You

are saying those people are wrong. am not saying that at all. I am just

saying that councils provide the housing on a basis of what is called

predict and provide. They see with the population projections are, and

on that basis they provide the housing. Where does the prediction

come from? The answer is that it comes from mass immigration, and the

fact of the matter is that according to the government does not own

statistics, the population for the South West as a whole will increase

by 70% by 2030. That results in more houses. Immigration has been too

high in this country. But is it driving the high in this country.

But is it driving me-crisis? -- the housing crisis? Why should someone

have to move somewhere else to find a property? It is about providing

homes for our children. Most of the immigration into Devon and Cornwall

is from people living in London or Manchester or Birmingham and so on.

Most people watching this programme right now we've got here perhaps in

their early retirement years come and that trend will continue. --

moved here perhaps in their early retirement years, and that's trend

will continue. The affordable conditions have gone down and down.

The market conditions have not been favorable to first-time buyers.

they have not. The more housing you build in an area like this, the more

affordable it becomes, because you have more supply and prices either

stabilize or reduce. We need that extra property. We need the housing

generally across the board. That is for our children to live in.

William, I know you have been critical of the government for

taking a top-down approach to housing. What do you say to the

leader of the council he said that he is local through and through and

this is actually a true reflection of local need? I think we have

established what the reasons are for the local need. Gary is absolutely

right, there are people coming to the South West from different parts

of the country. It is a nice place to be. But sometimes they are

misplaced into other parts of the country through mass immigration.

The three establishment parties, including and especially the

Conservative Party, wants Turkey to be a member of the European Union.

That would mean 18 million people could have the absolute right to

come and live here. In six weeks, Croatia will become a member of the

European Union. That is a nether 4.5 million people. We as a party are

never going to say, you cannot have a house. You are trying to suggest

we are saying that, I think. What have you got to say to all of these

local families who are genuinely struggling to get affordable

housing? We need to build more houses for them, don't we? You are

saying that they are only needed from immigrants. -- for immigrants.

There is an increase in population projected for Devon. That is what

Devon County Council is working on. Your film did not cover this at all.

Where is this coming from? You got to look at the overall thing.

Because we are where we are, the temp one -- the UKIP takes the view

that there should be more local influence in planning. I think the

planning Mister the chakra Planning Minister has spoken very -- I think

the Planning Minister has spoken very plainly about that.

The chairman of a Devon Conservative association has threatened to resign

if it emerges that a senior Tory really did describe activists like

him as "swivel-eyed loons". This follows an exodus of local party

members upset about Europe and gay marriage, as Jenny Kumah reports.

Here, many local Conservative Party members are not happy. These local

activists matter, because they help to raise funds for the party. It is

them who go out, pounded the streets campaigning and giving out leaflets,

hoping to get local conservative MPs elected. Membership numbers are in

decline, and this is worrying the local party chairman. And the last

six months, we have lost 55 members. -- in the last six months.

There is nothing we can do if people die or move away, but a number of

members have left as a consequence of government policy and how they

see themselves being a cult of tune with government policy -- being out

of tune with government policy. marriage is one of the issues that

is bitterly dividing the party. Here, ten people have said they want

to leave the party because of it. But others are passionately in

favor. We use to get gay couples coming in and asking for

accommodation and we would get a slip of paper out from under the

counter and pass it to them. Things have changed now. Marriage is one of

those things that forms a family unit, and the family unit is

changing. To include people in it to me that has always got to be a good

thing. Other issues, like the Coalition and grammar schools, have

also inspired bitter debate. There has also been the matter of someone

and David Cameron's inner circle allegedly dismissing local activists

and describing them as swivel eyed loons. Naturally I feel very angry

if that is true. It is an allegation. It has not been proven.

If it is proven, and there isn't an apology forthcoming, I would

certainly reconsider my position as a chairman, because of that has how

people feel, I would question why I am doing what I am doing. It is not

surprising that David Cameron has tried to smooth relations with the

grassroots. In an e-mail to all party activists, the Prime Minister

said he would never employ anyone who sneered at them, and he praised

their duty and decency. But not everybody Hugh has received it has

been impressed. -- not everyone who has received it has been impressed.

You have called the other backbenchers swivel eyed. I broke a

brilliant article all about this. -- I wrote a brilliant article about

this and I said that I saw the same glint in the eye during the 1992

election... People are saying this is the only issue that matters.

Never mind if we hand the next election to Labour on a plate, the

only thing that matters is this vote on it Europe, and I do not see it

that way. I haven't seen no siblings going on today. Your -- I have seen

no siblings going on today. Your perspective as an outsider, what do

you make of this? I were member the late, great Frankie Howard, he had a

great phrase which is, do not mock the afflicted. The fact of the

matter, when David Cameron became the leader of the Conservative

Party, the Conservative Party had 370,000 members. They have less than

that now. David Cameron is abusive to those who disagree with him. He

has been abusive of UKIP. He and his circle have now followed it up

rather amazingly by being abusive of their strongest supporters, who

obviously do not like it. The Conservative Party is run by a

rather small metropolitan elite, who all basically think the same, and

that creates big problems when you are running a political party, and

it creates the problems when you are a Prime Minister. You were pretty

critical of the government last year. Recently, you have defended

David Cameron. But William has a point, doesn't he? Yes, I think the

people who circle David Cameron are elitist. But what is the government

delivering? They are delivering an economy that is reducing the debt

and we are reducing immigration by a third. The government is delivering

very well. No-one up at Westminster is sneering. The issues that are

causing you problems C must be of some concern. Let's hear from the

chairman again. I have got a letter here, a very long-standing party

member who is a member of the Young Conservatives, and he writes that he

has not renewed his membership this time around because he finds himself

increasingly out of tune with the conservative policies and principles

and it covers a wide range of issues, but homosexual marriage

would be a perfect example. That is a perfect example of the kind of

reason that people are leaving or not renewing. If you throw in things

like your opposition to grammar schools or your enthusiasm for wind

farms, you are letting them steal your clothes, aren't you? I was not

aware that we are opposed to grammar schools. David Cameron has been as

rude to people who have been to grammar schools I've -- as he has

about UKIP. What the chairman described is happening in my area

also. I get areas -- letters like that as well. I think this has been

politically disastrous. Several of us were keen, and we said to the

Prime Minister that we need to change course. We have had our 12

month of madness. For the next two years, we will focus ruthlessly on

the things that really matter to his country, reforming public services,

immigration law and order issues, and I hope that people will judge us

more positively in two years. latter point is exactly what David

Cameron has said. But could there be a broader problem, where you have

David Cameron pretty determined to modernize, as he calls it, change

the Conservative Party, and people saying, we actually liked it the way

it is and we do not want it changed. That is part of it. I have lost

members. Nothing like the members we have been hearing of, but we have

lost members. The important thing to think about is, who do we want to

lead this country? It will be a straight choice. There are no other

options. For all of the things we have been irritated about, David

Cameron has done a fantastic job on the issues facing our country. But

without these people to stuff envelopes and go and canvas, that is

going to severely lessened his chances of running the country.

These things have not changed. Gay marriage, he is not going to back

down on it. This has been a political disaster. I have said this

openly. We are now going to focus once again on the things he should

have been focusing on all the way through. Some of them are going very

well indeed, including a reduction on immigration, and an offer of an

in or out referendum. William, your take. What people are alarmed by

about the Conservative Party is that air is a focus on increasing foreign

aid, where is we -- there is a focus on increasing foreign aid. We are

running out of time. We must move on. Now, our regular round-up of the

political week in 60 seconds. Firefighters protested planned cuts

to front-line services. There will got -- there will not be the service

that there currently is. It will take firefighters longer to arrive

at incidents. Meanwhile, a new fire control centre is costing taxpayers

�137,000 a month while it stands empty.

Police forces across the region have agreed to share counterterrorism

resources. There are national issues which need police intelligence, and

this will make the whole system much more effective. By the services must

be protected in the next government spending review says a group of Lib

Dem MPs. And a restaurant manager is refusing to pay a �220 council fined

for dropping a cigarette and down a drain. I think the whole way this

thing was treated, it was as if it was more severe than what it was.

Gary, I know that Labour have left that centre lying there, but you

have had three years to sort that out. It is sitting there empty while

people are paying for it. I have a lot of confidence in the top fire

episode -- fire officers in Devon and Cornwall. I am going to find out

what is going on. It is a bit of Gordon Brown's financial magic.

is ancient history. I am not surprised about that fine. The

council seems to have a little sense of proportion about what is or is

not important. They should get the gentleman not to do it again and let

matches live. It makes no sense at all. The man in the film described

it as ludicrous. It is deeply irritated when cigarette smokers

throw their cigarettes on the pavement and down the drain. That is

not right. I can see both sides of the argument. Better down the drain