18/12/2016 Sunday Politics South

Morning, folks, and welcome to the Sunday Politics.

Hard line remainers strike back at Brexit.

Are they trying to overturn the result of June's referendum

by forcing a second vote before we leave?

Australia's man in London tells us that life outside the EU "can be

pretty good" and that Brexit will "not be as hard as people say".

Could leaving the EU free Britain to do more business

It's been called "disgusting, dangerous and deadly"

but how polluted is our air, how bad for our health,

In the South, who doesn't love the Christmas lights in the town centre?

The question is, who And with me in the Sunday Politics

grotto, the Dasher, Dancer and Prancer of political

punditry Iain Martin, They'll be delivering tweets

throughout the programme. First this morning,

some say they will fight for what they call a "soft Brexit",

but now there's an attempt by those who campaigned for Britain to remain

in the EU to allow the British people to change their minds -

possibly with a second referendum - The Labour MEP Richard Corbett

is revealed this morning to have tried to amend European

Parliament resolutions. The original resolution called

on the European Parliament to "respect the will

of the majority of the citizens of the United Kingdom

to leave the EU". He also proposed removing

the wording "stress that this wish must be respected" and adding

"while taking account of the 48.1% The amendments were

proposed in October, but were rejected by a vote

in the Brussels Constitutional Affairs Committee

earlier this month. The report will be voted

on by all MEPs in February. Well, joining me now from Leeds

is the Labour MEP who proposed Good morning. Thanks for joining us

at short notice. Is your aim to try and reverse what happened on June

23? My aim with those amendments was simply factual. It is rather odd

that these amendments of two months ago are suddenly used paper

headlines in three very different newspapers on the same day. It

smacks of a sort of concerted effort to try and slapped down any notion

that Britain might perhaps want to rethink its position on Brexit as

the cost of Brexit emerges. You would like us to rethink the

position even before the cost urges? I get lots of letters from people

saying how one, this was an advisory referendum won by a narrow majority

on the basis of a pack of lies and a questionable mandate. But if there

is a mandate from this referendum, it is surely to secure a Brexit that

works for Britain without sinking the economy. And if it transpires as

we move forward, that this will be a very costly exercise, then there

will be people who voted leave who said Hang on, this is not what I was

told. I was told this would save money, we could put it in the NHS,

but if it is going to cost us and our Monday leg, I

would the right to reconsider. But your aim is not get a Brexit that

would work for Britain, your aim is to stop it? If we got a Brexit that

would work for Britain, that would respect the mandate. But if we

cannot get that, if it is going to be a disaster, if it is going to

cost people jobs and cost Britain money, it is something we might want

to pause and rethink. The government said it is going to come forward

with a plan. That is good. We need to know what options to go for as a

country. Do we want to stay in the single market, the customs union,

the various agencies? And options should be costed so we can all see

how much they cost of Brexit will be. If you were simply going to try

and make the resolution is more illegal, why did the constitutional

committee vote them down? This is a report about future treaty

amendments down the road for years to come. This was not the main focus

of the report, it was a side reference, in which was put the idea

for Association partnerships. Will you push for the idea before the

full parliament? I must see what the text is. You said there is a

widespread view in labour that if the Brexit view is bad we should not

exclude everything, I take it you mean another referendum. When you

were named down these amendments, was this just acting on your own

initiative, or acting on behalf of the Labour Party? I am just be

humble lame-duck MEP in the European Parliament. It makes sense from any

point of view that if the course of action you have embarked on turns

out to be much more costly and disastrous than you had anticipated,

that you might want the chance to think again. You might come to the

same conclusion, of course, but you might think, wait a minute, let's

have a look at this. But let's be clear, even though you are deputy

leader of Labour in the European Parliament, you're acting alone and

not as Labour Party policy? I am acting in the constitutional affairs

committee. All I am doing is stating things which are common sense. If as

we move forward then this turns out to be a disaster, we need to look

very carefully at where we are going. But if a deal is done under

Article 50, and we get to see the shape of that deal by the end of

2019 under the two-year timetable, in your words, we won't know if it

is a disaster or not until it is implemented. We won't be able to

tell until we see the results about whether it is good or bad, surely?

We might well be able to, because that has to take account of the

future framework of relationships with the European Union, to quote

the article of the treaty. That means we should have some idea about

what that will be like. Will we be outside the customs union, for

instance, which will be very damaging for our economy? Or will we

have to stay inside and follow the rules without having a say on them.

We won't know until we leave the customs union. You think it will be

damaging, others think it will give us the opportunity to do massive

trade deals. My case this morning is not what is right or wrong, we will

not know until we have seen the results. We will know a heck of a

lot more than we do now when we see that Article 50 divorce agreement.

We will know the terms of the divorce, we will know how much we

still have to pay into the EU budget for legacy costs. We will know

whether we will be in the single market customs union or not. We will

know about the agencies. We will know a lot of things. If the deal on

the table looks as if it will be damaging to Britain, then Parliament

will be in its rights to say, wait a minute, not this deal. And then you

either renegotiate or you reconsider the whole issue of Brexit or you

find another solution. We need to leave it there but thank you for

joining us. Iain Martin, how serious is the

attempt to in effect an wind what happened on June 23? I think it is

pretty serious and that interview illustrates very well the most

damaging impact of the approach taken by a lot of Remainers, which

is essentially to say with one breath, we of course accept the

result, but with every action subsequent to that to try and

undermine the result or try and are sure that the deal is as bad as

possible. I think what needed to happen and hasn't happened after

June 23 is you have the extremists on both sides and you have in the

middle probably 70% of public opinion, moderate leaders, moderate

Remainers should be working together to try and get British bespoke deal.

But moderate Leavers will not take moderate Remainers seriously if this

is the approach taken at every single turn to try and rerun the

referendum. He did not say whether it was Labour policy? That was a

question which was ducked. I do not think it is Labour Party policy. I

think most people are in a morass in the middle. I think the screaming

that happens when anybody dares to question or suggest that you might

ever want to think again about these things, I disagree with him about

having another referendum but if he wants to campaign for that it is his

democratic right to do so. If you can convince enough people it is a

good idea then he has succeeded. But the idea that we would do a deal and

then realise this is a really bad deal, let's not proceed, we will not

really know that until the deal is implemented. What our access is to

the single market, whether or not we are in or out of the customs union

which we will talk about in a minute, what immigration policy we

will have, whether these are going to be good things bad things, surely

you have got to wait for four, five, six years to see if it has worked or

not? Yes, and by which stage Parliament will have voted on it and

there will be no going back from it, or maybe there will. We are talking

now about the first three months of 2019. That is absolutely the moment

when Parliament agrees with Theresa May or not. One arch remain I spoke

to, and arch Remainiac, he said that Theresa May will bring this to

Parliament in 2019 and could say I recommend that we reject it. What is

he on or she? Some strong chemical drugs! The point is that all manner

of things could happen. I don't think any of us take it seriously

for now but the future is a very long way away. Earlier, the trade

Secretary Liam Fox was asked if we would stay in the customs union

after Brexit. There would be limitations on what

we would do in terms of tariff setting which could limit the deals

we would do, but we want to look at all the different deals. There is

hard Brexit and soft Brexit as if it is a boiled egg we are talking

about. Turkey is in part of the customs union but not other parts.

What we need to do is look at the cost. This is what I picked up. The

government knows it cannot remain a member of the single market in these

negotiations, because that would make us subject to free movement and

the European Court. The customs union and the Prime Minister 's

office doesn't seem to be quite as binary, that you can be a little bit

in and a little bit out, but I would suggest that overall Liam Fox knows

to do all the trade deals we want to do we basically have to be out. But

what he also seems to know is that is a minority view in Cabinet. He

said he was not going to give his opinion publicly. There is still an

argument going on about it in Cabinet. When David Liddington

struggled against Emily Thornbury PMQs, he did not know about the

customs union. What is apparent is Theresa May has not told him what to

think about that. If we stay in the customs union we cannot do our own

free trade deals. We are behind the customs union, the tariff barriers

set by Europe? Not quite. Turkey is proof of the pudding. There are

limited exemptions but they can do free trade with their neighbours.

Not on goods. They are doing a trade deal with Pakistan at the moment, it

relies on foreign trade investment but Europe negotiates on turkey's

behalf on the major free-trade deals. This is absolutely why the

customs union will be the fault line for the deal we are trying to

achieve. Interestingly, I thought Liam Fox suggested during that

interview that he was prepared to suck up whatever it was. I think he

was saying there is still an argument and he intends to win it.

He wants to leave it because he wants to do these free-trade deals.

There is an argument in the cabinet about precisely that. The other

thing to consider is in this country we have tended to focus too much on

the British angle in negotiations, but I think the negotiations are

going to be very difficult. You look at the state of the EU at the

moment, you look at what is happening in Italy, France, Germany,

look at the 27. It is possible I think that Britain could design a

bespoke sensible deal but then it becomes very difficult to agree

which is why I ultimately think we are heading for a harder Brexit. It

will be about developing in this country.

So, we've had a warning this week that it could take ten years

to do a trade deal with the EU after Brexit.

But could opportunities to expand trade lie elsewhere?

Australia was one of the first countries to indicate

its willingness to do a deal with the UK and now its

High Commissioner in London has told us that life outside the EU

He made this exclusive film for the Sunday Politics.

My father was the Australian High Commissioner in the early

70s when the UK joined the European Union,

Now I'm in the job, the UK is leaving.

Australia supported Britain remaining a member

of the European Union, but we respect the decision that

Now that the decision has been made, we hope that Britain

will get on with the process of negotiating their exit

from the European Union and make the most of the opportunities that

Following the referendum decision, Australia approached

the British Government with a proposal.

We offered, when the time was right, to negotiate a free trade agreement.

The British and Australian governments have already established

a working group to explore a future, ambitious trade agreement once

A free trade agreement will provide great opportunities for consumers

Australian consumers could purchase British-made cars for less

We would give British households access to cheaper,

Our summer is during your winter, so Australia could provide British

households with fresh produce when the equivalent British or

Australian households would have access to British products

Free-trade agreements are also about investment.

The UK is the second-largest source of foreign investment in Australia.

By the way, Australia also invests over ?200 billion in the UK,

so a free trade agreement would stimulate investment,

But, by the way, free-trade agreements are not just

about trade and investment, they are also about geopolitics.

Countries with good trade relations often work more closely together

in other fields including security, the spread of democracy

We may have preferred the UKto remain in the EU,

We may have preferred the UK to remain in the EU,

but life outside as we know can be pretty good.

We have negotiated eight free-trade agreements over the last 12 years,

including a free-trade agreement with the United States

This is one of the reasons why the Australian economy has continued

to grow over the last 25 years and we, of course, are not

Australia welcomes Theresa May's vision for the UK to become a global

We are willing to help in any way we can.

Welcome to the programme. The Australian government says it wants

to negotiate an important trade deal with the UK as efficiently and

promptly as possible when Brexit is complete. How prompt is prompt?

There are legal issues obviously. The UK, for as long as it remains in

the EU, cannot negotiate individual trade deals. Once it leaves it can.

We will negotiate a agreement with the UK when the time is right, by

which we mean we can do preliminary examination. Are you talking now

about the parameters? We are talking already, we have set up a joint

working group with the British Government and we are scoping the

issue to try to understand what questions will arise in any

negotiation. But we cannot have formally a negotiation. Until the

country is out. Why is there no free-trade deal between Australia

and the European Union? It is a long and tortuous story. Give me the

headline. Basically Australian agriculture is either banned or

hugely restricted in terms of its access to the European Union. So we

see the European Union, Australia's, is a pretty protectionist sort of

organisation. Now we are doing a scoping study on a free-trade

agreement with the European Union and we hope that next year we can

enter into negotiations with them. But we have no illusions this would

be a very difficult negotiation, but one we are giving priority to. Is

there not a danger that when Britain leaves the EU the EU will become

more protectionist? This country has always been the most powerful voice

for free trade. I hope that does not happen, but the reason why we wanted

Britain to remain in the European Union is because it brought to the

table the whole free-trade mentality which has been an historic part of

Britain's approach to international relations. Without the UK in the

European Union you will lose that. It is a very loud voice in the

European Union and you will lose that voice and that will be a

disadvantage. The figure that jumped out of me in the film is it to you

only 15 months to negotiate a free-trade deal with the United

States. Yes, the thing is it is about political will. A free-trade

agreement will be no problem unless you want to protect particular

sectors of your economy. In that case there was one sector the

Americans insisted on protecting and that was their sugar industry. In

the end after 15 months of negotiation two relatively free

trading countries have fixed up nearly everything. But we had to ask

would be go ahead with this free-trade agreement without sugar

west we decided to do that. Other than that it was relatively easy to

negotiate because we are both free-trade countries. With the UK

you cannot be sure, but I do not think a free-trade agreement would

take very long to negotiate with the UK because the UK would not want to

put a lot of obstacles in the way to Australia. Not to give away our

hand, we would not want to put a lot of obstacles in the way of British

exports. The trend in recent years is to do big, regional trade deals,

but President-elect Donald Trump has made clear the Pacific trade deal is

dead. The transatlantic trade deal is almost dead as well. The American

election put a nail in the coffin and the French elections could put

another nail in the coffin. Are we returning to a world of lateral

trade deals, country with country rather than regional blocs? Not

necessarily. In the Asia Pacific we will look at multilateral trade

arrangements and even if the transpacific partnership is not

ratified by the Americans, we have other options are there. However,

our approach has been the ultimate would be free-trade throughout the

world which is proving hard to achieve. Secondly, if we can get a

lot of countries engaged in a free-trade negotiation, that is

pretty good if possible. But it is more difficult. But we do bilateral

trade agreements. We have one with China, Japan, the United States,

Singapore, and the list goes on, and they have been hugely beneficial to

Australia. You have been dealing with the EU free deal, what lessons

are there? How quickly do you think Britain could do a free-trade deal

with the EU if we leave? Well, there is a completely different concept

involved in the case of Britain and the EU and that is at the moment

there are no restrictions on trade. So you and the EU would be talking

about whether you will direct barriers to trade. We are outsiders

and we do not get too much involved in this debate except to say we do

not want to see the global trade system disrupted by the direction of

tariff barriers between the United Kingdom, the fifth biggest economy

in the world, and the European Union. Our expectation is not just

the British but the Europeans will try to make the transition to Brexit

as smooth as possible particularly commercially. Say yes or no if you

can. If Britain and Australia make a free-trade agreement, would that

include free movement of the Australian and the British people?

We will probably stick with our present non-discriminatory system.

Australia does not discriminate against any country. The European

Union's free movement means you discriminate against non-Europeans.

Probably not. It could lead to a ban on diesel

cars, prevent the building of a third runway at Heathrow,

and will certainly make it more expensive to drive

in our towns and cities. Air pollution has been

called the "public health crisis of a generation" -

but just how serious is the problem? 40,000 early deaths result from air

pollution every year in the UK. Almost 10,000 Londoners each

year die prematurely. It seems at times we can get caught

up in alarming assertions about air pollution,

that this is a public health emergency, that it is a silent

killer, coming from politicians, But how bad is air quality

in Britain really? Tony Frew is a professor

in respiratory medicine and works at Brighton's Royal Sussex County

Hospital. He has been looking

into the recent claims It's a problem and it

affects people's health. But when people start

talking about the numbers of deaths here, I think

they are misusing the statistics. There have been tremendous

improvements in air quality There is a lot less pollution

than there used to be and none of that is coming

through in the public So what does Professor Frew make

of the claim that alarming levels of toxicity in the air in the UK

causes 40,000 deaths each year? It is not 40,000 people

who should have air pollution on their death certificate,

or 40,000 people who It's a lot of people who had

a little bit of life shortening To examine these figures further

we travelled to Cambridge to visit I asked him about the data

on which these claims They come from a study on how

mortality rates in US cities First of all, it is important

to realise that that 40,000 figure 29,000, which are due to fine

particles, and another 11,000 I will just talk about

this group for a start. These are what are known

as attributable deaths. Known as virtual deaths, they come

from a complex statistical model. Quite remarkably it all comes

from just one number and this was based on a study of US cities

and they found out that by monitoring these cities over

decades that the cities which had a higher level of pollution had

a higher mortality rate. They estimated that there was a 6%

increased risk of dying each year for each small

increase in pollution. So this is quite a big figure,

but it is important to realise it is only a best estimate

and the committee that advises the government says that this figure

could be between 1% and 12%. So this 6% figure is used

to work out the 29,000 Yes, through a rather

complex statistical model. And a similar analysis gives rise

to the 11,000 attributable deaths How much should

we invest in cycling? Should we build a third

runway at Heathrow? We need reliable statistics

to answer those questions, but can we trust the way data

is being used by campaigners? I think there are people who have

such a passion for the environment and for air pollution

that they don't really see it as a problem

if they are deceiving the public. Greenpeace have been running

a campaign claiming that breathing London's air is the equivalent

of smoking 15 cigarettes a day. If you smoke 15 cigarettes a day

through your adult life, that will definitely take ten years

off your life expectancy. If you are poor and you are

in social class five, compared to social class one,

that would take seven If you are poor and you smoke, that

will take 17 years off your life. Now, we are talking about possibly,

if we could get rid of all of the cars in London

and all of the road transport, we could make a difference of two

micrograms per metre squared in air pollution which might

save you 30 days of your life. There is no doubt that air

pollution is bad for you, but if we exaggerate the scale

of the problem and the impact on our health, are we at risk

of undermining the case for making And we are joined now

by the Executive Director You have called pollution and

national crisis and a health emergency. Around the UK are levels

increasing or falling? They are remaining fairly static in London.

Nationally? If you look at the studies on where air pollution is

measured, in 42 cities around the UK, 38 cities were found to be

breaking the legal limit on air pollution so basically all of the

cities were breaking the limit so if you think eight out of ten people

live in cities, obviously, this is impacting a lot of people around the

UK. We have looked at in missions of solvent dioxide, they have fallen

and since 1970, nitrogen dioxide is down 69%. Let me show you a chart.

There are the nitrogen oxides which we have all been worried about. That

chart shows a substantial fall from the 1970s, and then a really steep

fall from the 1980s. That is something which is getting better.

You have to look at it in the round. If you look at particulates, and if

you look at today's understanding of the health impact. Let's look at

particulates. We have been really worried about what they have been

doing to our abilities to breathe good air, again, you see substantial

improvement. Indeed, we are not far from the Gothenberg level which is a

very high standard. What you see is it is pretty flat. I see it coming

down quite substantially. Over the last decade it is pretty flat. If

you look at the World Health Organisation guidelines, actually,

these are at serious levels and they need to come down. We know the

impact, particularly on children, if you look at what is happening to

children and children's lungs, if you look at the impact of asthma and

other impacts on children in cities and in schools next to main roads

where pollution levels are very high, the impact of very serious.

You have many doctors, professors and many studies by London

University showing this to be true. The thing is, we do not want

pollution. If we can get rid of pollution, let's do it. And also we

also have to get rid of CO2 which is causing climate change. We are

talking air pollution at the moment. The point is there is not still more

to do, it is clear there is and there is no question about that, my

question is you seem to deny that we have made any kind of progress and

that you also say that air pollution causes 40,000 deaths a year in the

UK, that is not true. The figure is 40,000 premature deaths is what has

been talked about by medical staff. Your website said courses. It causes

premature deaths. What we are talking about here is can we solve

the problem of air pollution? If air pollution is mainly being caused by

diesel vehicles then we need to phase out diesel vehicles. If there

are alternatives and clean Turner tips which will give better quality

of air, better quality of life and clean up our cities, then why don't

we take the chance to do it? You had the Australian High Commissioner on

this programme earlier. He said to me earlier, why is your government

supporting diesel? That is the most polluting form of transport. That

may well be right but I am looking at Greenpeace's claims. You claim it

causes 40,000 deaths, it is a figure which regularly appears. Let me

quote the committee on the medical effects of air pollutants, it says

this calculation, 40,000 which is everywhere in Greenpeace literature,

is not an estimate of the number of people whose untimely death is

caused entirely by air pollution, but a way of representing the effect

across the whole population of air pollution when considered as a

contributory factor to many more individual deaths. It is 40,000

premature deaths. It could be premature by a couple of days. It

could me by a year. -- it could be by a year. It could also be giving

children asthma and breathing difficulties. We are talking about

deaths. It could also cause stroke and heart diseases. Medical experts

say we need to deal with this. Do you believe air pollution causes

40,000 deaths a year. I have defined that. You accept it does not? It

leads to 40,000 premature deaths. But 40,000 people are not killed.

You say air pollution causes 40,000 deaths each year on your website. I

have just explained what I mean by that in terms of premature deaths.

The question is, are we going to do something about that? Air pollution

is a serious problem. It is mainly caused by diesel. If we phased

diesel out it will solve the problem of air pollution and deal with the

wider problem of climate change. I am not talking about climate change

this morning. Let's link to another claim... Do you want to live in a

clean city? Do you want to breathe clean air? Yes, don't generalise.

Let's stick to your claims. You have also said living in London on your

life is equivalent to smoking 50 cigarettes a day. That is not true

either. What I would say is if you look at passive smoking, it is the

equivalent of I don't know what the actual figure is, I can't remember

offhand, but it is the equivalent effect of about ten cigarettes being

smoked passively. The question is in terms of, you are just throwing me

out all of these things... I am throwing things that Greenpeace have

claimed. Greenpeace have claimed that living in London is equivalent

of smoking 15 cigarettes a day and that takes ten years off your life.

Professor Froome made it clear to us that living in London your whole

life with levels of pollution does take time off your life but it takes

nine months of your life. Nine months is still too much, I

understand that, but it is not ten years and that is what you claim. I

would suggest you realise that is a piece of propaganda because you

claim on the website, you have taken it down. I agree it has been

corrected and I agree with what the professor said that maybe it takes

up to a year off your life, but the thing is, there are much more wider

issues as well, in terms of the impact on air pollution, and in

terms of the impact on young children. We can argue about the

facts... But these are your claims, this is why I am hitting it to you.

It does not get away from the underlying issue that air pollution

is a serious problem. We are not arguing for a moment that it is not.

Do you think the way you exaggerate things, put false claims, in the

end, for of course we all agree with, getting the best air we can,

you undermine your credibility? I absolutely do not support false

claims and if mistakes have been made then mistakes have been made

and they will be corrected. I think the key issue is how we are going to

deal with air pollution. Clearly, diesel is the biggest problem and we

need to work out a way how we can get away from diesel as quickly and

fast as possible. Comeback and see us in the New Year and we will

discuss diesel. Thank you. It's just gone 11.35,

you're watching the Sunday Politics. We say goodbye to viewers

in Scotland who leave us now On today's show, do

they know it's Christmas? We all like to see the twinkling

lights in the town centre at this time of year but who should

pay for them? Or the businesses who benefit

from the feel-good and the spend But first let's meet the two

politicians who will be Duncan Enright is the leader

of West Oxford District And Royston Smith is

the Conservative MP for Southampton. And adult social care was back

in the news this week. Not that it's ever very far out

of it with this announcement in the House of Commons

from the communities and Local Government Secretary Sajid Javid

about the extra money that councils now will be allowed to raise

through the council tax precept. Councils will be granted

the flexibility to raise the precept by up to 3% next year

and the year after. This will provide a further

?208 million to spend on adult social care in 2017-18

and ?444 million in 2018-19. I think everyone acknowledges

that there is a crisis but it's not It's a crisis of people working,

particularly elderly people at home on their own,

volunteers, carers, it's everything. There is a shortage of money

but it isn't just money . We all need to look at what's

going on and then refocus So the Prime Minister answered

criticism of the amount of money She said it's about how

you spend the money. No, I think it's about how you spend

the money and health and social care I've got some personal experience

of that in my own family. I've seen six carers come

into my house, three for my mother and three for my father

at the same time. Now that is money that is available

but not being used terribly well. I'm not blaming anyone for that

because they were both assessed by different people,

but there is a good example about We need more money, and spend

what we could better and mobilise a task force of volunteers

and others to help people at home where they are

much safer and better. Do you think putting more money

in at the moment would help deal with a crisis that Royston

admits there is? The crisis of the moment is largely

to do with lack of resources. NHS is short of money

and social care. Both are affecting each other

which is a real problem, so we do But we also need to work incredibly

closely together and concentrate on the people who provide the care,

so the NHS staff, social care staff, We need to reward them

appropriately for that There's bringing forward money

and saying councils can raise more. There is an inherent problem that

councils who are most need have We have to look at the fairness

of this right across the country so the richer areas will have more

ability to raise money We are short of staff also we find

it hard to recruit staff because of the cost of living

being high and it's hard for people to afford to live in our area,

so all these interlocking problems. Does that concern you,

the problem with how much money can 1% or 3% now is getting

on for ?3 million extra You can look at leafy suburbs

and say they are much more wealthy, but if you have one house

which is Band G, as opposed to 15 houses anything between A-C, you are

raising the same I don't think it stands up

to scrutiny about more money Some of the calculations suggest it

could vary between ?5 It depends, it does,

but most people that live in Band G houses, there are a few of

them by definition. You have many more A, B, C and D

houses and they generate more money. Local authorities are

desperately short of houses. All of their services, roads,

schools, so we have to do ... National government is the one

which is hiked money out If it's a crisis we think

it is, it's just going 2016 certainly seemed like one damn

thing after another as a social historian Arnold Toynbee put it,

whether it's been Brexit, celebrities have left

for the green room in the sky The damn thing feels like it's

come thick and fast. Will 2016 be remembered

as especially tumultuous, Joining us now is Doctor Jennings

from the University of Southampton. There's been a lot of

events which have taken My expert opinion on why

the experts were wrong. I think there has been a sense

in which Brexit wouldn't happen. The government, the Prime Minister

and the Chancellor put their weight behind the remain campaign,

the polls were mixed, much more mixed than people were thinking,

but there was a status quo bias that when push came to shove,

people wouldn't want to face The same in America,

a sense that people thought, although Hillary Clinton wasn't

popular, she had a favourable rating, but when push came to shove,

Donald Trump was seen as too risky It is a different world now,

so you just change all the equations and come up with a slightly

different result or do you say, let's just go down to people

thinking differently I think we have to accept there's

been some big shifts in what public and countries are thinking

about the problems Policy challenges,

an ageing population, stagnant economic growth,

they're more acute than I think And voters are actually highly

distrusting of politics. There's been a huge shift in public

opinion, don't trust politics and government to solve the problems

they face and they're Everyone on all sides of politics

needs to see that voters have got A lot of the talk has been

about national politics. Is there a feeling people

care about more what's What is important of local politics

is we are seeing a fragmented, in England, Wales and Scotland,

and Northern Ireland, If you go to a city,

London, the Shire towns, there's different politics

going on in terms of the attitudes of local people, about issues

like migration and economic growth. That really is a challenge

for national policymakers because local public has different

views about how to deal That's certainly something which

happened in the American election. Royston, we've seen Theresa May come

through and David Cameron go. Did you see any of

these things coming? Last week's lottery numbers,

that's about it really. When I left the Guildhall that night

and walked home with a spring in my step we had come out the way

I wanted, an hour later he was resigning and I did

not see that coming. Why people like yourself would never

ask him anything other than do you think you could stay on having

lost a referendum but I We all wrote a letter

to the Prime Minister on the day of the referendum saying whatever

happens, we don't want you to go. It is tinged with a great

deal of disappointment No, media types talk about it

endlessly but you do know that we have got

a fixed term parliament. I will ask the expert

but there are ways around it. I don't think they will

change the legislation. Many people would have to fight

an election and they feel don't want to just yet I don't see Labour

going for that. You know you get the end of a Tory

government that's fair enough. The reality is, we have to change

legislation and pass a vote of no-confidence

in the Prime Minister and I'm not about to be one person who does that

because I have every confidence With your predictive technologies,

you said Jeremy Corbyn should go at the beginning

of the year and then he joined You are reasonably pleased

with the result you got them? He's picking up honours

anti-politics move that is sweeping across not just the country

but the whole world. This is a strange time but it's not

surprising I think that people feel uneasy when they talk about taking

back control because so many things Out-of-control politicians as well,

so globalisation has had an impact which means national governments,

local government, they feel they can't influence

the way their communities develop and the well-being and the income

of people in towns and cities, doesn't depend on just what happens

locally or nationally Do you think it's a good

time for politics? It is a great time to be

researching politics, but I think actually it is a good

time for politics in the sense that much is up for grabs and actually

we are having to reconsider fundamental questions

about what politics is for. People who've been disengaged

from politics have been re-engaging. People have taken

politics for granted. They need to say, actually,

I need to participate because the people who run

from economic model we've had for the last 30 years

and the need to stand up On one level you could say it's

mistrusting of politics that We've have the referendum

and people are very engaged. The referendum from that point

of view has energised people. Do you find that

in the constituency? of new members joining at once,

and I wondered why that was. But actually, we didn't see this

new wave of people coming. It's people that are just

energised with a referendum and other things have happened

recently and now want to get involved, which is really refreshing

actually because if we needed anything, we do need some new blood

in all this and it's all right for Duncan and I to talk

about politics needs These new people,

they will change things. Recycled anyway, after

such a tumultuous year, we need a bit of something

to provide some festive spirit. And what better than twinkly lights

in the town centres? Has it all been a bit bah

humbug in the last year or is there some light shining

in the darkness? We sent Frankie out

in search of illumination. It's the most wonderful

time of the year. In all its sparkling

twinkling glory. Behind each bulb, a string of tinsel

and the all-important And it's not Santa and his elves

that gets the bill but usually In Southampton, the council spent

?52,000 and say it's worth it. Last year we got over 1 million

visitors falls on average, 60% spend between ?5-?20 each which

is phenomenal. As a council and a city,

working with partners, we are trying to take advantage

of that and why shouldn't we? But is it time for hard up councils

to pull the plug on Christmas decorations in an attempt

to save cash? If it's in the town

centre I think the local I don't think the local

authority should pay for it. In some places, where they don't,

business improvement districts Business improvement district

is when local businesses come together to vote to invest

in the local area and, in Reading, part of that means

the Christmas lights. Between them, over 500 businesses

will be spending ?400,000 over five They want to attract as many people

as possible because 40% of their annual turnover is made

over the Christmas period. Christmas is a key part

of the business plan. And so we had a resounding

vote in favour. I think there's an expectation

amongst the public as well that there are Christmas lights

and good Christmas lights Here in Bournemouth,

the council put ?44,000 Beyond that, the town centre assign

a portion of their budget In Winchester, the City Council

spent nearly ?7,000 on decorations. The local bid contributed around

?45,000 for the city centre lights In Oxford, the City Council

pays for everything. Over the years, Southampton

City Council's feeling about Christmas has been a little

bah humbug for them some years they've had lights

and others none at all. But despite having to save ?40

million over four years, it hss reintroduced the lights

and decorations last year Budget time is always

extremely difficult. We are still being savagely cut

by central government. As a council, we can

continue to work with local businesses,

work with our partners so that we can still have a growing,

thriving local economy. And does the taxpayer think

it's value for money? If you didn't have the lights

you wouldn't have it. I think there should

be more, actually. I went to London yesterday

and it was brilliant up there. Look at the people,

the shoppers, the children. Five or six years ago

there was hardly anything. It's lovely, but the public

should be spared. Christmas now is

commercial, isn't it? Commercial or not, whoever pays,

it looks like the lights won't be So who should be paying,

the businesses or the councils? Is it different solutions

for different places? It all comes down to

the community anyway one way All the areas I know,

we've looked at council spending in that clip,

but everywhere I have been, the shops pay a lot towards making

the towns look beautiful and it's It is a special time and it's

keeping the high streets alive and there's a lot of pressure

from online retailers so it's really good I think to make a bit

of a splash and make the place look beautiful and Oxfordshire looks

beautiful at the moment. Winchester seems to be the Christmas

capital or tries to think it is, and they have a lot of money

spent on it. It's a thing of pulling people

from one town centre to another. The idea of the retailers is to put

on the best display they can and hopefully people will go

to their shops and not For Southampton, you know,

who should pay or shouldn't, Although the German

market takes away some The German market pays to be

there in the first place. That comes along to run a market

over the Christmas period, so there is a revenue contribution

to the Council from that. I don't think the businesses lose

much business because they don't sell the same product so it brings

people in the cars there something they come in for and that should

help the businesses. I think the businesses should pay

unless it's a business It's going to have a business

improvement centre for the future. When you are running the council,

you were the Grinch. It was an experiment, Peter,

if I may put it that way. What I thought was an expected

was and what I hoped was that if the council didn't continue

to fund the Christmas lights, and they were tired and shabby

by then anyway, and we were told we had to invest a lot

more to bring them back, actually I believed na vely it

would turn out that the businesses would do that themselves

because they were the ones that If we were keeping the business

rates, you could from the business rates or whatever say we will invest

in the town get more in and more business rates and then we can spend

it on social care and the rest. But if we're just paying

so the town looks nice, businesses can do particularly well

when they are competing against other towns,

I don't think that's a function You have free parking

in West Oxfordshire. Yes, free parking, yes,

and that's another thing which hopefully goes

to keeping our high streets It you got away you thought

you would lose shoppers to Oxford? No, small businesses,

retail businesses in the area. They benefit, we think,

and pay business rates, and contribute to a healthier

community because we A regular round-up of the political

week in the South in 60 seconds. No trains and no end in sight

for the Southern rail dispute. Commuters stranded working

from home, vented their Travelling with you is

like a form of torture. Outside the Department

for Transport, protesters to the Transport Secretary for him

to play with with no Oxford, he had something to smile

about, the new Chilton service. We are carrying more passengers

today than Victorian times With Syria dominating the news,

at PMQs, Victoria Prentice raised the shortage of prosthetic limbs

in Aleppo 's Hospital. And the Guildford fringe is one

of the first to offer their company a salary upfront rather

than a share of takings. So you're backing Jeremy

Corbyn anti-austerity, Are you backing the union strikes,

causing trouble for commuters? I'm backing investment

in the railways and the unions are onto something a little quiet

safety and investment We have a steam powered government

trying to wreck our 21st-century railway and I'm really pleased

to see incidentally Oxford and London that Labour should be

going, investigating new services. You don't think the use of strikes

and industrial muscle is going to leave Jeremy Corbyn

tarred with a bad brush? You know industrial relations

are not going the right ACAS is the way to go and I'm sorry

they haven't made more movement this week to solve it

because all the people who rely on those services,

it's a desperate time for them. The unions' fault or

the government's fault? I think this is gone on for far too

long and the government should have stepped in earlier to mediate

if ACAS wasn't going to find a way forward but I think it's gone

on for far too long. We can argue matters all day

long but passengers, when you were just half an hour late

on a train, some of these people are taking four hours

or the train does not turn up at all and it on and on and

on and it doesn't matter now whose fault it is ,

they have to sort it out. Politics needs to sort it

out one way or another. So that's the Sunday

Politics in the South. We're off now until

the 15th of January. And for the last time,

in 2016, from us here on the Sunday Politics in the south,

it is back to Andrew. Will Article 50 be triggered

by the end of March, will President Trump start work

on his wall and will Front National's Marine Le Pen

provide the next electoral shock? 2016, the Brexit for Britain and

Trump for the rest of the world. Let's look back and see what one of

you said about Brexit. If Mr Cameron loses the referendum

and it is this year, will he be Prime Minister at the end

of the year? I don't think he will lose

the referendum, so I'm feeling It was clear if he did lose the

referendum he would be out. I would like to say in retrospect I saw that

coming on a long and I was just saying it to make good television!

It is Christmas so I will be benign towards my panel! It is possible,

Iain, that not much happens to Brexit in 2017, because we have a

host of elections coming up in Europe, the French won in the spring

and the German one in the autumn will be the most important. And

until we know who the next French president is and what condition Mrs

Merkel will be in, not much will happen? I think that is the

likeliest outcome. Short of some constitutional crisis involving the

Lords relating to Brexit, it is pretty clear it is difficult to

properly begin the negotiations until it becomes clear who Britain

is negotiating with. It will come down to the result of the German

election. Germany is the biggest contributor and if they keep power

in what is left of the European Union, will drive the negotiation

and we will have to see if it will be Merkel. So this vacuum that has

been seen and has been filled by people less than friendly to the

government, even when we know Article 50 has been triggered and

even if there is some sort of white paper to give us a better idea of

the broad strategic outlines of what they mean by Brexit, the phoney war

could continue? Iain is right. 2017 is going to be a remarkably dull

year for Brexit as opposed to 2016. We will have the article and a plan.

The plan will say I would like the moon on a stick please. The EU will

say you can have a tiny bit of moon and a tiny bit of stick and there

will be an impasse. That will go on until one minute to midnight 2018

which is when the EU will act. There is one thing in the Foreign Office

which is more important, as David Davis Department told me, they know

there is nothing they can do until the French and Germans have their

elections and they know the lie of the land, but the people who will be

more helpful to us are in Eastern Europe and in Scandinavia, the

Nordic countries. We can do quite a lot of schmoozing to try and get

them broadly on side this year? It is very difficult because one of the

things they care most about in Eastern Europe is the ability for

Eastern European stew come and work in the UK. That is key to the

economic prospects. But what they care most about is that those

already here should not be under any pressure to leave. There is no

guarantee of that. That is what Mrs May wants. There are a lot of things

Mrs May wants and the story of 2017 will be about what she gets. How

much have we got to give people? It is not what we want, but what we are

willing to give. The interesting thing is you can divide this out

into two. There is a question of the European Union and our relationship

with it but there is also the trick the polls did to London -- there is

also the polls. There is question beyond the Western European

security, that is about Nato and intelligence and security, and the

rising Russian threat. That does not mean the Polish people will persuade

everyone else to give us a lovely deal on the EU, but the dynamic is

bigger than just a chat about Brexit. You cannot threaten a

punishment beating for us if we are putting our soldiers on the line on

the eastern borders of Europe. I think that's where Donald Trump

changes the calculation because his attitude towards Russia is very

different to Barack Obama's. It is indeed. Mentioning Russia, Brexit

was a global story but nothing can match and American election and even

one which gives Donald Trump as well. Let's have a look at what this

panel was saying about Donald Trump. Will Donald Trump win the Republican

nomination next year. So, not only did you think he would

not be president, you did not think he would win the Republican

nomination. We were not alone in that. And they're right put forward

a motion to abolish punditry here now because clearly we are

pointless! There is enough unemployment in the world already!

We are moving into huge and charted territory with Donald Trump as

president. It is incredibly unpredictable. But what has not been

noticed enough is the Keynesian won. Trump is a Keynesian. He wants

massive infrastructure spending and massive tax cuts. The big story next

year will be the massive reflation of the American economy and indeed

the US Federal reserve has already reacted to that by putting up

interest rates. That is why he has a big fight with the rest of the

Republican Party. He is nominally a Republican but they are not

Keynesian. They are when it comes to tax cuts. They are when it hits the

rich to benefit the poor. The big thing is whether the infrastructure

projects land him in crony trouble. The transparency around who gets

those will be extremely difficult. Most of the infrastructure spending

he thinks can be done by the private sector and not the federal

government. His tax cuts overlap the Republican house tax cuts speaker

Ryan to give not all, but a fair chunk of what he wants. If the

American economy is going to reflate next year, interest rates will rise

in America, that will strengthen the dollar and it will mean that Europe

will be, it will find it more difficult to finance its sovereign

debt because you will get more money by investing in American sovereign

debt. That is a good point because the dynamics will shift. If that

happens, Trump will be pretty popular in the US. To begin with. To

begin with. It is energy self-sufficient and if you can pull

off the biggest trick in American politics which is somehow to via

corporation tax cuts to allow the reassuring of wealth, because it is

too expensive for American business to take back into the US and

reinvest, if you combine all of those things together, you will end

up with a boom on a scale you have not seen. It will be Reagan on

steroids? What could possibly go wrong? In the short term for

Britain, it is probably not bad news. Our biggest market for exports

as a country is the United States. Our biggest market for foreign

direct investment is the United States and the same is true vice

versa for America in Britain. Given the pound is now competitive and

likely the dollar will get stronger, it could well give a boost to the

British economy? Could do bit you have to be slightly cautious about

the warm language we are getting which is great news out of President

Trump's future cabinet on doing a trade deal early, we are net

exporters to the US. We benefit far more from trading with US than they

do with us. I think we have to come up with something to offer the US

for them to jump into bed with us. I think it is called two new aircraft

carriers and modernising the fleet. Bring it on. I will raise caution,

people in declining industries in some places in America, the rust

belt who have faced big profound structural challenges and those are

much harder to reverse. They face real problems now because the dollar

is so strong. Their ability to export has taken a huge hit out of

Ohio, Michigan and Illinois. And the Mexican imports into America is now

dirt cheap so that is a major problem. Next year we have elections

in Austria, France, the Netherlands, Germany, probably Italy. Which

outcome will be the most dramatic for Brexit? If Merkel lost it would

be a huge surprise. That is unlikely. And if it was not Filon in

France that would be unlikely. The consensus it it will be Francois

Filon against Marine Le Pen and it will be uniting around the far right

candidate. In 2002, that is what happened. Filon is a Thatcherite.

Marine Le Pen's politics -- economics are hard left. Francois

Filon is as much a cert to win as Hillary Clinton was this time last

year. If he is competing against concerns about rising globalisation

and his pitch is Thatcherite, it is a bold, brave strategy in the

context so we will see. It will keep us busy next year, Tom? Almost as

busy as this year but not quite. This year was a record year. I am up

in my hours! That's all for today,

thanks to all my guests. The Daily Politics will be back

on BBC Two at noon tomorrow. I'll be back here

on the 15th January. Remember, if it's Sunday,

it's the Sunday Politics. The most a writer

can hope from a reader West Side Story took choreography

in a radical new direction. The dance was woven

into the storyline,