22/06/2014 Sunday Politics South

Welfare reform is one of the government's most popular policies.

So Labour says it would be even tougher than the Tories.

We'll be asking the Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary if she's got

Even Labour supporters worry that Ed Miliband hasn't got what it takes

Labour grandees are increasingly vocal about their concerns.

Over 50% of Labour voters think they'd do better with a new leader.

And what of this leader? He's apparently "toxic" on the doorstep.

In the south, the never`endhng unpopular than Gordon Brown,

In the south, the never`endhng conundrum of where to build the

houses that everyone agrees we need. Do we

promised an electric car revolution, why so little progress?

Nick Watt, Helen Lewis and Janan Ganesh, the toxic tweeters

First, the deepening crisis in Iraq, where Sunni Islamists are now

largely in control of the Syrian-Iraq border, which means

they can now re-supply their forces in Iraq from their Syrian bases

Rather than moving on Baghdad, they are for the moment consolidating

their grip on the towns and cities they've already taken.

They also seem to be in effective control of Iraq's

biggest oil refinery, which supplies the capital.

And there are reports they might now have taken the power

Iraqi politicians are now admitting that ISIS,

the name of the Sunni insurgents, is better trained, better equipped and

far more battle-hardened than the US-trained Iraqi army fighting it.

Which leaves the fate of Baghdad increasingly in the hands

No good news coming out of there, Janan. No good news and no good

options either. The West's best strategy is to decide how much

support to give to the Iraqi government. The US is sending over

about 275 military personnel. Do they go further and contemplate

their support? General Petraeus argued against it as it might be

seen as the US serving as the force of Shia Iraqis -- continue their

support. Do we contemplate breaking up Iraq? It won't be easy. The Sunni

and Shia Muslim populations don t live in clearly bordered areas, but

in the longer term, do we deal with it in the same way we dealt with the

break-up of the Ottoman empire over 100 years ago? In the short-term and

long-term, completely confounding. Quite humiliating. If ISIS take

Baghdad I can't think of a bigger ignominy for foreign policy since

Suez. If Iraq is partitioned, it won't be up to us. It will be what

is happening because of what is happening on the ground. Everything

does point to partition, and that border, which ISIS control, between

Syria and Iraq, that has been there since it was drawn during the First

World War. That is gone as well An astonishingly humbling situation the

West, and you can see the Kurds in the North think this is a charge --

chance for authority. They think this is the chance to get the

autonomy they felt they deserved a long time. Janan is right. We can't

do much in the long term, but we have to decide on the engagement.

And the other people wish you'd be talking turkey, because if there is

some blowback and the fighters come back, they are likely to come back

from Turkey. Where is Iran in all of this? There were reports last week

that the Revolutionary guard, the head of it, he was already in

Baghdad with 67 advisers and there might have been some brigades that

have gone there as well. Where are they? What has happened? I'm pretty

sure the Prime Minister of Iraq is putting more faith in Iran than the

White House and the British. I think they are running the show, in

technical terms. John Kerry is flying into Cairo this morning, and

what is his message? It is twofold. One is to Arab countries, do more to

encourage an inclusive government in Iraq, mainly Sunni Muslims in the

government, and the Arab Gulf states should stop funding insurgents in

Iraq. You think, Iraq, it's potentially going to break up, so

this sounds a bit late in the day and a bit weak. It gets

fundamentally to the problem, what can we do? Niall Ferguson has a big

piece in the Sunday Times asking if this is place where we cannot doing

anything. He doesn't want to do anything. By the way, that is what

most Americans think. That is what opinion polls are showing. You have

George Osborne Michael Gold who would love to get involved but they

cannot because of the vote in parliament on Syria lasted -- George

Osborne and Michael Gove. This government does not have the stomach

for military intervention. We will see how events unfold on the ground.

All parties are agreed that Britain's 60-year old multi-billion

The Tory side of the Coalition think their reforms are necessary

and popular, though they haven't always gone to time or to plan.

In the eight months she's had since she became Shadow Secretary of State

for Work and Pensions, Rachel Reeves has talked the talk about getting

people off benefits, into work and lowering the overall welfare bill.

her first interview in the job she threatened "We would

But Labour has opposed just about every change the Coalition

has proposed to cut the cost and change the culture of welfare.

Child benefit, housing benefit, the ?26,000 benefit cap -

They've been lukewarm about the government's flagship Universal

Credit scheme - which rolls six benefit payments into one - and

And Labour has set out only two modest welfare cuts.

This week, Labour said young people must have skills or be in training

That will save ?65 million, says Labour, though the cost

And cutting winter fuel payments for richer pensioners which will

Not a lot in a total welfare bill of around ?200 billion.

And with welfare cuts popular among even Labour voters, they will soon

have to start spelling out exactly what Labour welfare reform means.

Welcome. Good morning. Why do you want to be tougher than the Tories?

We want to be tough in getting the welfare bill down. Under this

government, the bill will be ?1 million more than the government set

out in 2010 and I don't think that is acceptable. We should try to

control the cost of Social Security. But the welfare bill under the next

Labour government will fall? It will be smaller when you end the first

parliament than when you started? We signed up to the capping welfare but

that doesn't see social security costs ball, it sees them go up in

line with with inflation or average earnings -- costs fall. So where

flair will rise? We have signed up to the cap -- welfare will rise We

have signed up to the cap. We will get the costs under control and they

haven't managed to achieve it. The government is spending ?13 billion

more on Social Security and the reason they are doing it is because

the minimum wage has not kept pace with the cost of living so people

are reliant on tax credits. They are not building houses and people are

relying on housing benefit. We have a record number of people on zero

hours contracts. I'm still a record number of people on zero

receive support. That is the right thing to do by that group of young

people, because they need skills to progress. We will, once that. - we

will, onto that. You say you criticise the government that it had

a cap and wouldn't have met it, but every money-saving welfare reform,

you voted against it. How is that being tougher? The most recent bout

was the cap on overall welfare expenditure, and we went through the

lobbies and voted for the Tories. You voted against the benefit cap,

welfare rating, you voted against, child benefit schemes, you voted

against. You can't say we voted against everything when we voted

with the Conservatives in the most recent bill with a cap on Social

Security. It's just not correct to say. The last time we voted, we

walked through the lobby with them. You voted on the principle of the

cap. You voted on every step that would allow the cap to be met. Every

single one. The most recent vote was not on the principle of the cap it

was on a cap of Social Security in the next Parliament and we signed up

for that. It was Ed Miliband who called her that earlier on. Which

welfare reform did you vote for We voted for the cap. Other than that?

We have supported universal credit. You voted against it in the third

reading. We voted against some of the specifics. If you look at

universal credit, they have had to write off nearly ?900 million of

spending. I'm not on the rights and wrongs, I'm trying to work out what

you voted for. Some of the things we are going to go further than the

government with. For example, cutting benefits for young people

who don't sign of the training. The government had introduced that. For

example, saying that the richest pensioners should not get the winter

fuel allowance, that is something the government haven't signed up.

You would get that under Labour and this government haven't signed up

for it. ?100 million on the winter fuel allowance and ?65 million on

youth training. ?165 million. How big is the welfare budget? The cap

would apply to ?120 billion. And you've saved 125 -- 165 million

Those are cuts that we said we would do in government. If you look at the

real prize from the changes Ed Miliband announced in the youth

allowance, it's not the short-term savings, it's the fact that each of

these young people, who are currently on unemployment benefits

without the skills we know they need to succeed in life, they will cost

the taxpayer ?2000 per year. I will come onto that. You mentioned

universal credit, which the government regards as the flagship

reform. It's had lots of troubles with it and it merges six benefits

into one. You voted against it in the third reading and given lukewarm

support in the past. We have not said he would abandon it, but now

you say you are for it. You are all over the place. We set up the rescue

committee in autumn of last year because we have seen from the

National Audit Office and the Public Accounts Committee, report after

report showing that the project is massively overbudget and is not

going to be delivered according to the government timetable. We set up

the committee because we believe in the principle of universal credit

and think it is the right thing to do. Can you tell us now if you will

keep it or not? Because there is no transparency and we have no idea. We

are awash with information. We are not. The government, in the most

recent National audit Forest -- National Audit Office statement said

it was a reset project. This is really important. This is a flagship

government programme, and it's going to cost ?12.8 billion to deliver,

and we don't know what sort of state it is in, so we have said that if we

win at the next election, we will pause that for three months and

calling... Will you stop the pilots? We don't know what status they will

have. We would stop the build of the system for three months, calling the

National Audit Office to do awards and all report. The government don't

need to do this until the next general election, they could do it

today. Stop throwing good money after bad and get a grip of this

incredibly important programme. You said you don't know enough to a view

now. So when you were invited to a job centre where universal credit is

being rolled out to see how it was working, you refused to go. Why We

asked were a meeting with Iain Duncan Smith and he cancelled the

meeting is three times. I'm talking about the visit when you were

offered to go to a job centre and you refused. We had an appointment

to meet Iain Duncan Smith at the Department for Work and Pensions and

said he cancelled and was not available, but he wanted us to go to

the job centre. We wanted to talk to him and his officials, which she

did. Would it be more useful to go to the job centre and find out how

it was working. He's going to tell you it's working fine.

Advice Bureau in Hammersmith, they are working to help the people

trying to claim universal credit. Iain Duncan Smith cancelled three

meetings. That is another issue I was asking about the job centre It

is not another issue because Iain Duncan Smith fogged us off. This

week you said that jobless youngsters who won't take training

will lose their welfare payments. How many young people are not in

work training or education? There are 140,000 young people claiming

benefits at the moment, but 850 000 young people who are not in work at

the moment. This applies to around 100,000 young people. There are

actually 975,000, 16-24 -year-olds, not in work, training or education.

Your proposal only applies to 100,000 of them, why? This is

applying to young people who are signing on for benefits rather than

signing up for training. We want to make sure that all young people ..

Why only 100,000? They are the ones currently getting job-seeker's

allowance. We are saying you can not just sign up to... Can I get you to

respond to this, the number of people not in work, training or

education fell last year by more than you are planning to help. Long

turn -- long-term unemployment is an entrenched problem... This issue

about an entrenched group of young people. Young people who haven't got

skills and are not in training we know are much less likely to get a

job so there are 140,018-24 -year-olds signing onto benefits at

the moment. This is about trying to address that problem to make sure

all young people have the skills they need to get a job. Your policy

is to take away part of the dole unless young unemployed people agree

to study for level three qualifications, the equivalent of an

AS-level or an NVQ but 40% of these people have the literary skills of a

nine-year-old. After all that failed education, how are you going to

train them to a level standard? We are saying that anyone who doesn't

have that a level or equivalent qualification will be required to go

back to college. We are not saying that within a year they have to get

up to that level but these are exactly the sorts of people... These

people have been failed by your education system. These people are,

for the last four years, have been educated under a Conservative

government. 18 - 21-year-olds, most of them have their education under a

Labour government during which 300,000 people left with no GCSEs

whatsoever. I don't understand how training for one year can do what 11

years in school did not. We are not saying that within one year

everybody will get up to a level three qualifications, but if you are

one of those people who enters the Labour market age 18 with the

reading skills of a nine-year-old, they are the sorts of people that

should not the left languishing I went to college in Hackney if you

you are -- a few weeks ago and there was a dyslexic boy studying painting

and decorating. In school they decided he was a troublemaker and

that he didn't want to learn. He went back to college because he

wanted to get the skills. He said that it wasn't until he went back to

college that he could pick up a newspaper and read it, it made a

huge difference but too many people are let down by the system. I am

wondering how the training will make up for an education system that

failed them but let's move on to your leader. Look at this graph of

Ed Miliband's popularity. This is the net satisfaction with him, it is

dreadful. The trend continues to climb since he became leader of the

Labour Party, why? What you have seen is another 2300 Labour

councillors since Ed Miliband became the leader of the Labour Party. You

saw in the elections a month ago that... Why is the satisfaction rate

falling? We can look at polls or actual election results and the fact

that we have got another 2000 Labour councillors, more people voting

Labour, the opinion polls today show that if there was a general election

today we would have a majority of more than 40, he must be doing

something right. Why do almost 0% of voters want to replace him as

leader? Why do 50% and more think that he is not up to the job? The

more people see Ed Miliband, the less impressed they are. The British

people seem to like him less. The election strategy I suggest that

follows from that is that you should keep Ed Miliband under wraps until

the election. Let's look at actually what happens when people get a

chance to vote, when they get that opportunity we have seen more Labour

councillors, more Labour members of the European Parliament...

Oppositions always get more. The opinion polls today, one of them

shows Labour four points ahead. You have not done that well in local

government elections or European elections. Why don't people like

him? I think we have done incredibly well in elections. People must like

a lot of the things Labour and Ed Miliband are doing because we are

winning back support across the country. We won local councils in

places like Hammersmith and Fulham, Crawley, Hastings, key places that

Labour need to win back at the general election next year. Even you

have said traditional Labour supporters are abandoning the party.

That is what Ed Miliband has said as well. We have got this real concern

about what has happened. If you look at the elections in May, 60% of

people didn't even bother going to vote. That is a profound issue not

just for Labour. You said traditional voters who perhaps at

times we took for granted are now being offered an alternative. Why

did you take them for granted? This is what Ed Miliband said. I am not

saying anything Ed Miliband himself has not said. When he ran for the

leadership he said that we took too many people for granted and we

needed to give people positive reasons to vote Labour, he has been

doing that. He has been there for four years and you are saying you

still take them for granted. Why? I am saying that for too long we have

taken them for granted. We are on track to win the general election

next year and that will defy all the odds. You are going to win... Ed

Miliband will win next year and make a great Prime Minister.

Now to the Liberal Democrats, at the risk of intruding into private

grief. The party is still smarting from dire results in the European

and Local Elections. The only poll Nick Clegg has won in recent times

is to be voted the most unpopular leader of a party in modern British

history. No surprise there have been calls for him to go, though that

still looks unlikely. Here's Eleanor.

Liberal Democrats celebrating, something we haven't seen for a

while. This victory back in 199 led to a decade of power for the Lib

Dems in Liverpool. What a contrast to the city's political landscape

today. At its height the party had 69 local councillors, now down to

just three. The scale of the challenge facing Nick Clegg and the

Lib Dems is growing. The party is rock bottom in the polls,

consistently in single figures. It was wiped out in the European

elections losing all but one of its 12 MEPs and in the local elections

it lost 42% of the seats that it was defending. But on Merseyside, Nick

Clegg was putting on a brave face. We did badly in Liverpool,

Manchester and London in particular, we did well in other places. But you

are right, we did badly in some of those big cities and I have

initiated a review, quite naturally, to understand what went

wrong, what went right. As Lib Dems across the country get on with some

serious soul-searching, there is an admission that his is the leader of

the party who is failing to hit the right notes. Knocking on doors in

Liverpool, I have to tell you that Nick Clegg is not a popular person.

Some might use the word toxic and I find this very difficult because I

know Nick very well and I see a principal person who passionately

believes in what he is doing and he is a nice guy. As a result of his

popularity, what has happened to the core vote? In parts of the country,

we are down to just three councillors like Liverpool for

example. You also lose the deliverers and fundraisers and the

organisers and the members of course so all of that will have to be

rebuilt. As they start fermenting process, local parties across the

country and here in Liverpool have been voting on whether there should

be a leadership contest. We had two choices to flush out and have a go

at Nick Clegg or to positively decide we would sharpen up the

campaign and get back on the streets, and by four to one ratio we

decided to get back on the streets. We are bruised and battered but we

are still here, the orange flag is still flying and one day it will fly

over this building again, Liverpool town hall. But do people want the

Lib Dems back in charge in this city? I certainly wouldn't vote for

them. Their performance in Government and the way they have

left their promises down, I could not vote for them again. I voted Lib

Dem in the last election because of the university tuition fees and I

would never vote for them again because they broke their promise.

The Lib Dems are awful, broken promises and what have you. I

wouldn't vote for them. This is the declaration of the results for the

Northwest... Last month, as other party celebrated in the north-west,

the Lib Dems here lost their only MEP, Chris Davies. Now there is

concern the party doesn't know how to turn its fortunes around. We

don't have an answer to that, if we did we would be grasping it with

both hands. We will do our best to hold onto the places where we still

have seats but as for the rest of the country where we have been

hollowed out, we don't know how to start again until the next general

election is out of the way. After their disastrous performance in the

European elections, pressure is growing for the party to shift its

stance. I think there has to be a lancing of the wound, there should

in a referendum and the Liberal Democrats should be calling it. The

rest of Europe once this because they are fed up with Britain being

unable to make up its mind. The Lib Dems are now suffering the effects

of being in Government. The party's problem, choosing the right course

to regain political credibility We can now speak to form a Lib Dems

leader Ming Campbell. Welcome back to the Sunday Politics. Even your

own activists say that Nick Clegg is toxic. How will that change between

now and the election? When you have had disappointing results, but you

have to do is to rebuild. You pick yourself up

least popular leader in modern history and more unpopular than your

mate Gordon Brown. You are running out of time. No one believes that

being the leader of a modern political party in the UK is an easy

job. Both Ed Miliband and David Cameron must have had cause to

think, over breakfast this morning, when they saw the headlines in some

of the Sunday papers. Of course it is a difficult job but it was

pointed out a moment or is a difficult job but it was

Nick Clegg is a man of principle and enormous

Nick Clegg is a man of principle and it. Once

Nick Clegg is a man of principle and doubt that what we have achieved

will be much more easily recognised, and there is no doubt,

for example, in some of the recent polls, like the Ashcroft Pole,

something like 30% of those polled said that as a result at the next

something like 30% of those polled general election, they would prepare

their to be a coalition involving the Liberal Democrats. So there is

no question that the whole notion of coalition is still very much a live

one, and one which we have made work in the public interest. The problem

is people don't think that. People see you trying to have your cake and

eat it. On the one hand you want to get your share of the credit for the

turnaround in the economy, on the other hand you can't stop yourself

from distancing yourself from the Tories and things that you did not

like happening. You are trying to face both ways at once. If you

remember our fellow Scotsman famously said you cannot ride both

remember our fellow Scotsman to the terms -- terms of the

remember our fellow Scotsman coalition agreement, which is what

we signed up to in 2010. In addition, in furtherance of that

agreement, we have created things like the pupil premium and the

others I mentioned and you were rather dismissive. I'm not

dismissive, I'm just saying they don't make a difference to what

people think of you. We will do everything in our power to change

that between now and May 2015. The interesting thing is, going back to

the Ashcroft result, it demonstrated clearly that in constituencies where

we have MPs and we are well dug in, we are doing everything that the

public expects of us, and we are doing very well indeed. You aren't

sure fellow Lib Dems have been saying this for you -- you and your

fellow Liberal Dems have been saying this for a year or 18 months, and

since then you have lost all of your MEPs apart from one, you lost your

deposit in a by-election, you lost 310 councillor, including everyone

in Manchester or Islington. Mr Clegg leading you into the next general

election will be the equivalent of the charge of the light Brigade I

doubt that very much. The implication behind that lit you

rehearsed is that we should pack our tents in the night and steal away.

-- that litany. And if you heard in that piece that preceded the

discussion, people were saying, look we have to start from the bottom and

have to rebuild. That is exactly what we will do. Nine months is a

period of gestation. As you well know. I wouldn't dismiss it quite so

easily as that. I'm not here to say we had a wonderful result or

anything like it, but what I do say is that the party is determined to

turn it round, and that Nick Clegg is the person best qualified to do

it. Should your party adopt a referendum about in or out on

Europe? No, we should stick to the coalition agreement. If there is any

transfer of power from Westminster to Brussels, that will be subject to

a referendum. No change. And finally, as a Lib Dem, you must be

glad you are not fighting the next election yourself? I've fought every

election since 1974, so I've had a few experiences, some good, some

bad, but the one thing I have done and the one thing a lot of other

people have done is that they have stuck to the task, and that is what

will happen in May 2015. Ming Campbell, thank you for joining us.

It's just gone 11.35am, you're watching the Sunday Politics.

We say goodbye to viewers in Scotland who leave us now

On today's show, new homes light be needed everywhere,

And the debates continue about whether we should go

for small infilling developlents, larger estates outside town,

First, let's meet the two politicians who'll be with

Caroline Dinenage is the conservative MP for Gosport

and Chris Oxlade is the Labour parliamentary candidate for Crawley.

On a lot of talk about benefits at the moment. Is it becoming ` bit of

a crisis Mr Mark in areas I have `` crisis? In areas I have vishted the

main issue is housing, but benefits, high on the list. Huge problems from

disability benefits two`bedroom tax, and people getting knocked out of

the system. The process of change in people finding their feet whth

something new. I hear peopld are moving off of assistance and own up

`` allowance and are becoming more dependent. Because people are

getting knocked out of the system with job seeker allowance, hf you

are late for an appointment, you can lose all of your benefit, and it is

a very tight system. Is that what actually is happening? I thhnk this

is a huge amount of mischiefmaking. There will always be an overhaul of

the welfare system and rightly so. The government has sentenced people

to a lifetime and benefits with no opportunity to get out therd and be

what they want to be and achieve and aspire, they just threw thel on the

garbage heap and are `` and occasionally there are times when it

doesn't work out and for th`t person it is tragic and we need to sort it

out quickly. What is happenhng here, with universal credits as wdll, is

that the process of change or discovering that people really need

this? Look at the bedroom t`x. There are countless of people, hundreds of

people across Sussex, being victimized by this tax. There are

people who need extra rooms for some kind of support and are being

penalised. So many people actually have come to my surgeries and have

identified, yes, we can unddrstand why you are doing this. So the

system is working? As an employer, I used to bang my head against the

wall when people used to be`t done to come for an interview and did not

turn out because you knew you were just part of a checkbox exercise.

In the last four years, the number of people commuthng into

London by rail has gone up by a third, many of them travellhng from

It is maybe easy to see why, with house prices in the capital reaching

crazy levels. Prices outsidd of London may not be cheap, but they

are still low enough that even when you add in the cost of a se`son

ticket, you could still be luch better off, if you do not mhnd what

could be up to a four hour trip to work in the back. This family were

Londoners, but then April, swapped the big city for a more rur`l area.

We found the school that we liked and then we found this housd. We

wanted a bit more space, a garden, we wanted to have fields to look out

over. A ten Minute Drive brhngs James to this station, and from

there, he well get to Paddington Station in an hour and a qu`rter. I

am not crammed in like a sardine on the Northern line. I get a seat and

I can't sit back and read the paper and I can begin getting on with some

work and start my day as soon as I get on the train.

Well, joining me now from our Westminster studio is

Belinda Aspinall, founder of a website called Life After London.

Why are so many people choosing to commutes? There have always been a

lot of people who have conshdered a move out of London at variots

points. There are those who consider it when they are looking to retire

or when their children reach school age and they want more spacd. I

think the London property m`rket is influencing first`time buyers or

those who might miss a step in purchasing, and a 1`out consider

going further afield. So thdy are putting up with those trainhng

journeys and having a rotten quality of life? Most people are dohng it to

actually improve their qualhty of life, and for lots of them, they

work on the train. There is some issue with the fact that so many

people have to stand on the train, but most people will try and work on

the train, and others will go three or four days a week, which can

really help your sense of well`being. Able to work from home a

bit more, maybe, but they are moving further down the line to colmute in.

Places like Dorset, even. I suppose you get a great quality of life from

that long journey. That is the whole point. People are willing to do that

commutes to get that qualitx of life, but the whole point is to

consider your, what you want out of your quality of life, it is not the

same for everybody, and for some people, that commute is not bearable

because they are not getting the benefits of the quality of life

Your website is about helping people make that leap. I have noticed you

are still there, next to thd London eye, the middle of London. Why are

you still there? It is interesting. So many people made out but London

will always fill up. With boring people who can afford the prices?

No. There is a free flow of people who come and go. I live in Southwest

London and I am surrounded by friends who are still here `nd we

are still here, which I lovd, the coze I am really able to know the

questions that people are asking. `` because. People love onto the

website and they can connect with locals from all over the cotntry and

ask questions, and I think that it's really critical, because it is not

for everybody, different ardas suit different people, and the kdy is

being able to find that out. Let's come back to the people in the

studio. This is moving the property bubble out of London, isn't it?

London has always been the dngine of the country, and it has alw`ys had

an influx of younger people who may not, when they marry and have

children, want to bring thel up in the city, and so moved out. This is

people who cannot even afford to get started you are going to st`rt

commuting. They help to buy scheme has been really helpful in

addressing things like that, but we have to recognise that people are

going to want to live outside of a big city like London, and who

wouldn't want to live in thd South of England? We all think it is the

best place to live, don't wd? I ll take that point, but there `re

people who cannot afford, that is the point. They are only dohng it

because they cannot afford the house prices in other places. You have

touched on it there. You have people coming out of London, house prices

have gone up in my region astronomically. A lot of people are

seeing it as a destination `nd it has the knock on effect. People are

having to live outside of the area and commute in. My constitudncy 70%

of the people work outside of it. It is a knock on effect. I people

making rational decisions b`sed just on the cost of a mortgage and house

price in the lust of the se`son ticket or is there more to ht than

that, when people are trying to decide which of our `` the cost of

the season ticket. The majority of people use finances as part of that

decision but that is not thd whole decision. They are not lookhng to

dip into a community, they `re really planning to settle there and

become part of the communitx, and an active part of the communitx, so

they are really keen to embrace that community, which is why doing their

research on a website like this is so important. Possibly important to

get a seat on the train, and the only way to do that is to bd at the

end of the line. That is a point. Being on the end of the lind does

get you a seat, not on the way home, but most of the time. As we

all know. What is going to happen about rail transport? Huge numbers

travelling by rail, but the investment still does not sdem to be

coming in. It is an area whdre we need massive investment in the South

of England. Not only in terls of capacity but in terms of spded and

the time it takes to get from Portsmouth to London by trahn. You

can get from a downcast or to London in that time. This government is

planning to invest as much `s it has since the Victoria area to try and

bring our rail... It is all coming down to the South but we usd it a

lot more, don't we? The cap`city issue, you touched on it. If you

have one train late the whole network in the southeast is not

particularly on the South coast We need huge investment in that area. I

think there is a chain you need to get unfairly soon, so thank you for

joining us. I'm talking housing developlents

of course! This week we heard house prhces are

up 10% on last year, highlighting Now that's the easy bit

because how we go about building these homes hs where

councils, developers and colmunities To guide us through it, herd's

our Hampshire and Isle of Whght Build more houses, that is what we

need to do. Build more housds. The biggest housing crisis in a

generation. Everyone seems to agree that we need more housing, but that

is about where the consensus ends and the arguments begin. Whdre will

these houses go? How many do we really need? Should we be btilding

big new estates like the ond plant here, or smaller pockets

developments? This man leads the Council in an area where just over

45,000 households. He wants to develop houses over the next few

years. We `` all of these communities has important green gaps

between them, which would t`ke 000 houses here, 1000 houses thdre, but

people in town do not want to see that. And that is not the only

reason why the counsellor thinks going bigger is better. The

important thing about buildhng a large development of 6000 homes is

that it qualifies as for thd infrastructure that is needdd for a

community, so a secondary school, if you don't have 6000 homes, xou don't

get a secondary school. The community centres, the doctor

surgeries. 25 miles west is an area with a population of 13,000. A

handful of developments dotted around the town are quite the Astra

Pro creating quite the `` around the town are creating quite the stir.

There are already too many houses. We need to invest and grow the town.

I am finding it overcrowded now with all of the housing that is going on.

This woman is part of a grotp trying to raise awareness about thd 25 0

homes that are planned or are already being built. I would be

concerned if I was a businessman here and relying on trade, because

trying to get into park and visit the town will become a nightmare

through the volume of traffhc already trying to get onto lajor

roads, it is horrendous, and I fear for the gridlock rather than the

impact, and people come herd because it is a historical market town, and

suddenly putting in over 2000 homes, you are going to change the

character. What is the silvdr bullets? There is an infill of

derelict land that sat therd for years and it is in keeping with

Rumsey on that let's have more small pockets of growth rather th`n large

housing estates dumped in surrounding areas. While sole are

advocating small pockets, others are thinking much, much bigger. James is

from a Reading `based consultancy recently short listed in a

competition to design a new Garden City. Clearly, large numbers of

garden cities across the UK would make a significant impact in

reducing the pressure on solid communities to take growth that I

don't necessarily want, but there is recognition that all places need to

grow to consume their own ndeds from their own communities. As the

planning system working as ht is? The current administration has

tried, but the agenda has not seen the delivery of housing numbers And

estimates suggest we are falling short by over 100,000 houses builds

a year in the UK, so catching up on those numbers won't be easy. For

this area, if all goes ahead as planned, et al. Have taken the best

part of a decade to bring about but Sean says that developers c`n use

the appeals process to push for new housing where they wanted, leaving

councils with an ugly choicd. It needs to be done. If we do not do it

it will be done to us and the result will be far worse. It is thd big

stick, to force housing through Government has always imposdd

housing and local areas, and at least now local areas can ddcide how

they want that housing to ltck, what sort

didn't happen `` his Gordon Brown had his eco`towns. Housing states

are being put on the edge of Crawley. You talk about 6000,

actually be reallocated for people. Hopefully the government as putting

forward the wheels in motion to be able to allow... It was supposed to

have been done by now. It h`s gone quite a long way to deliver this,

but the big chunks of land `re still in the hands of the governmdnt, you

have to be able to rise that away from them, and now that the

legislation is coming forth I will allow that to happen, more `nd more

housing is beginning to comd forward. Is it coming forward? Is

that the market conditions? It is the right kind of housing that needs

to come forward as well. It is all very well with the garden chties,

which we support, but not jtst two of them, we need proper invdstment

in proper strategy, look at the whole of the South east, and also

the country. House construction virtually ground to a halt. That is

what you were arguing earlidr. Yes, but even during the booming years of

Labour, more houses were buhlt in the final year of the Thatcher

government than in 13 years of the whole Labour government. Th`t is not

quite true. That point is slightly off. We could get into a debate

about who has done what. It is just not happening. Let's see wh`t

happens and whether the schools and all the rest of it comes with it.

Now our regular round`up of the political week in thd South

It is the biggest order for weaponry ever placed, the American ddsigned

at 35 will be used by the R@F and on the new aircraft characters ``

aircraft carriers, and 15% of the components could be made in

Britain. The America's cop could provide a boost for Portsmotth. Nick

Clegg said Portsmouth MP Mike Hancock should be expelled from the

Lib Dems after he admitted degrading behaviour with a voidable

constituent, the single mother as saying her previous complaints had

been ignored. It is like banging your head against a door and not

getting anywhere. 999 food was the theme of a meeting of foodb`nks The

prime minister has been told directly that demand for help is

outstripping the ability to supply it. And doggie bags to cut down on

food waste are being providdd in Oxford restaurants. A Europdan grant

is covering the cost. Mike Hancock is a neighboring and he

to you. `` neighboring MP to you. Do you think there should be a

by`election? Should he resign? I do, and not so much because of the

scandals that he has been involved in him a he is just nowhere to be

seen. I just feel that his constituents need someone there

There was a meeting of a thousand people about the bed Ainslid project

and he did not show up. With all that has gone on, the local

constituents need someone who is going to be an effective melber of

Parliament and their half. Do we need a power of recall? You would be

happy to be subject to that? If you have got nothing to be ashaled of,

then absolutely you should be subject to that. I would qudstion

whether or not people would want it. After housing, benefits, looking

at all of the various aspects of the cost of living crisis, I wotld have

thought that is not something they would want the torments to

spearhead. It is a priority according to David Cameron. Is it

really recall? And has to bd approved by the committee of the

house if it is not a crimin`l offence. It is a matter of personal

integrity. If you do not fedl you can represent your constitudnts

properly then you should not be doing the job or taking the pay

packet. Are they still honotrable members? A vast majority ard. Like

any workplace or somewhere where you do a job, you get someone who is

going to upset the apple cart. He apologised for being unprofdssional.

Do you think that is what it was? If that is the case, the stand`rds

committee should have looked at it as something which was the business

of a MP. Yes. It is just a horrible situation, and I feel sorry for the

people involved, but I actu`lly feel sorry for all of the other

constituents who are not getting well looked after by their lember of

Parliament. We need an official way of permitting MPs? `` removhng. It

would deliver the desired affect that you would want people to rely

on their own integrity and stand down if they have done the wrong

thing. Thank you very much for joining me, both of you.

That's the Sunday Politics in the South.

Thanks to my guests Caroline Dinenage and Chris Oxlade.

Don't forget to keep up`to`date with Southern politics

There's the address at the bottom of the screen.

information, you can apply to them and they will be obliged to tell

you. Thanks for joining us. Andrew, back to you.

think you'd want to. Labour grandees are not queueing up to sing his

praises. Look at this. In my view, he is the leader we have and he is

the leader I support and he is somebody capable of leading the

party to victory. Ed Miliband will leave this to victory, and I believe

he can. If he doesn't, what would happen to the Labour Party? We could

be in the wilderness for 15 years. At the moment he has to convince

people he has the capacity to lead the country. That's not my view but

people don't believe that. We had a leader of the Labour Party was

publicly embarrassed, because whoever was in charge of press

letting go through a process where we have councillors in Merseyside

resigning. It was a schoolboy error. Having policies without them being

drawn together into a convincing and vivid narrative and with what you do

the people in the country. You have to draw together, connect the

policies, link them back to the leader and give people a real sense

of where you are going. Somehow he has never quite managed to be

himself and create that identity with the public. And we are joined

by the president of you girls, Peter Kellner. Welcome to the Sunday

politics. -- YouGov. The Labour Party is six points ahead in your

poll this morning. So what is the problem? On this basis he will win

the next election. If the election were today and the figures held up,

you would have a Labour government with a narrow overall majority. One

should not forget that. Let me make three points. The first is, in past

parliaments, opposition normally lose ground and governments gain

ground in the final few months. The opposition should be further ahead

than this. I don't think six is enough. Secondly, Ed Miliband is

behind David Cameron when people are asked who they want as Prime

Minister and Labour is behind the Conservatives went people are asked

who they trust on the economy. There have been elections when the party

has won by being behind on leadership and other elections where

they have won by being behind on the economy. No party has ever won an

election when it has been clearly behind on both leadership and the

economy. Let me have another go The Labour Party brand is a strong

brand. The Tory Bramleys week. The Labour brand is stronger. That is a

blast -- the Labour -- the Tory Bramleys week. A lot of the Tories

-- the Tory brand is weak. Cant you win on policies and a strong party

brand? If you have those too, you need the third factor which isn t

there. People believing that you have what it takes, competent

skills, determination, determination, whatever makes to

carry through. -- whatever mix. A lot of Ed Miliband policies, on the

banks, energy prices, Brent controls, people like them. But in

government, would they carry them through? They think they are not up

to it. -- rent controls. If people think you won't deliver what you

say, even if they like it, they were necessarily vote for you. That is

the missing third element. There is a strong Labour brand, but it's not

strong enough to overcome the feeling that the Labour leadership

is not up to it. Nick, you had some senior Labour figure telling you

that if Mr Miliband losing the next election he will have to resign

immediately and cannot fight another election the way Neil Kinnock did

after 1987. What was remarkable to me was that people were even

thinking along these lines, and even more remarkable that they would tell

you they were thinking along these lines? What is the problem? The

problem is, is that Ed Miliband says it would be unprecedented to win the

general election after the second worst result since 1918. They are

concerned about is the start of a script that he would say on the day

after losing the general election. Essentially what the people are

trying to do is get their argument in first and to say, you cannot do

what Neil Kinnock did in 1987. Don't forget that Neil Kinnock in 198 was

in the middle of a very brave process of modernisation and had one

and fought a very campaign that was professional but he lost again in

1992, and they wanted to get their line in first. What some people are

saying is that this is an election that the Labour Party should be

winning because the coalition is so unpopular. If you don't win, I'm

afraid to say, there is something wrong with you. Don't you find it

remarkable that people are prepared to think along these lines at this

stage, when Labour are ahead in the polls, still the bookies favourite

to win, and you start to speak publicly, or in private to the

public print, but we might have to get rid of him if he doesn't win.

Everything you say about labour in this situation has been said about

the Tories. We wondered whether Boris Johnson would tie himself to

the mask and he is the next leader in waiting if Cameron goes. It's a

mirror image of that. We talk about things being unprecedented. It's

unprecedented for a government to gain seats. All the things you say

about labour, you could say it the Conservatives. That's what makes the

next election so interesting. But in the aftermath of the European

elections and the local government elections, in which the

Conservatives did not do that well, the issue was not Mr Cameron or the

Tories doing well, the issue was the Labour Party and how they had not

done as well as they should have done, and that conversation was

fuelled by the kind of people who have been speaking to nick from the

Labour Party. Rachel Reeves cited their real-life performance in

elections as a reason for optimism. When in fact their performance in

the Europeans and locals was disappointing for an opposition one

year away from a general election. What alarms me about labour is the

way they react to criticisms about Ed Miliband. Two years ago when he

was attacked, they said they were 15 points ahead, and then a year ago

there were saying they were nine or ten ahead, and now they are saying

we are still five or six ahead. The trend is alarming. It points to a

smaller Labour lead. Am I right in detecting a bit of a class war going

on in the Labour Party? There are a lot of northern Labour MPs who think

that Ed Miliband is to north London, and there are too many metropolitan

cronies around him must I think that is right, Andrew. What I think is,

being a pessimist in terms of their prospects, I do think the Labour

Party could win the next election. I just don't think they can as they

are going at the moment. But the positioning for a possible defeat,

what they should be talking about is what do we need to change in the

party and the way Ed Miliband performs in order to secure victory.

That is a debate they could have, and they could make the changes I

find it odd that they are being so defeatist. Don't go away. Peter is a

boffin when it comes to polls. That is why we have a mod for the

election prediction swings and roundabouts. He is looking for what

he calls the incumbency effect. Don't know what is a back-up -- what

that's about question don't worry, here is an. Being in office is bad

for your health. Political folk wisdom has it that incumbency

favours one party in particular the Liberal Democrats. That is because

their MPs have a reputation as ferociously good local campaigners

who do really well at holding on to their seats. However, this time

round, several big-name long serving Liberal Democrats like Ming

Campbell, David Heath and Don Foster are standing down. Does that mean

the incumbency effect disappears like a puff of smoke? Then there is

another theory, called the sophomore surge. It might sound like a movie

about US college kids, but it goes like this. New MPs tend to do better

in their second election than they did in their first. That could

favour the Tories because they have lots of first-time MPs. The big

question is, what does this mean for the 7th of May 2015, the date of the

next general election? The answer is, who knows? I know a man who

knows. Peter. What does it all mean? You can go onto your PC now and draw

down programmes which say that these are the voting figures from a

national poll, so what will the seats look like? This is based on

uniform swing. Every seat moving up and down across the country in the

same way. Historically, that's been a pretty good guide. I think that's

going to completely break down next year, because the Lib Dems will

probably hold on to more seats than we predict from the national figures

and I think fewer Tory seats will go to the Labour Party than you would

predict from the national figures. The precise numbers, I'm not going

to be too precise, but I would be surprised, sorry, I would not be

surprised if Labour fell 20 or 5 seats short on what we would expect

on the uniform swing prediction Next year's election will be tight.

Falling 20 seats short could well mean the difference between victory

and defeat. What you make of that, Helen? I think you're right,

especially taking into account the UKIP effect. We have no idea about

that. The conventional wisdom is that will drain away back to the

Conservatives, but nobody knows and it makes the next election almost

impossible to call. It means it is a great target the people like Lord

Ashcroft with marginal polling, because people have never been so

interested. It is for party politics and we all assume that UKIP should

be well next year, but their vote went up from 17 up to 27%. Then that

17% went down to 3%, so they might only be five or 6% in the general

election, so they might not have the threat of depriving Conservatives of

their seats. Where the incumbency thing has an effect is the Liberal

Democrats. They have fortress seats where between 1992 and 1997 Liberal

Democrats seats fell, but their percentage went up. They are losing

the local government base though. True, but having people like Ming

Campbell standing down means they will struggle. We are used to

incumbency being an important factor in American politics. It's hard to

get rid of an incumbent unless it is a primary election, like we saw in

Virginia, but is it now becoming an important factor in British

politics, that if you own the seat you're more likely to hold on to it

than not? If it is, that's a remarkable thing. It's hard to be a

carpetbagger in America, but it is normal in British Parliamentary

constituencies to be represented by someone who did not grow up locally.

It is a special kind of achievement to have an incumbency effect where

you don't have deep roots in the constituency. I was going to ask

about the Lib Dems. If we are wrong, and they collapse in Parliamentary

representation as much as the share in vote collapses, is that not good

news is that the Conservatives? They would be in second place in the

majority of existing Lib Dems seats. For every seat where Labour are

second to the Lib Dems, there are two where the Conservatives are

second. If the Lib Dem representation collapses, that helps

the Conservatives. I'm assuming the Tories will gain about ten seats. If

they gain 20, if they'd had 20 more seats last time, they would have had

a majority government, just about. So 20 seats off the Lib Dem, do the

maths, as they say in America, and they could lose a handful to labour

and still be able to run a one party, minority government. The fate

of the Lib Dems could be crucial to the outcome to the politics of

light. On the 8th of May, it will be VE Day and victory in election day

as well as Europe. The Lib Dems will be apoplectic if they lose all of

the seats to their coalition partners. The great quote by Angela

Merkel, the little party always gets crushed. It's a well-established

idea that coalition politics. They can't take credit for the things

people like you may get lumbered with the ones they don't. They have

contributed most of this terrible idea that seized politics where you

say it, but you don't deliver it. Tuition fees is the classic example

of this Parliament. Why should you believe any promise you make? And Ed

Miliband is feeling that as well. But in 1974 the liberal Democrats

barely had any MPs but there were reporters outside Jeremy Thorpe s

home because they potentially held not the balance of power, but were

significantly in fourth. Bringing back memories Jeremy Thorpe,