22/06/2014 Sunday Politics West Midlands

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.

A health warning. apparently "toxic" on the doorstep.

Even during the World Cup, lixing sport with politics can prove toxic.

When the beautiful game turns ugly, taxpayers can be

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 not clear if you will cut welfare if you get

in power. Nobody is saying that the cost of welfare is going to fall.

The welfare cap sees that happening gradually. That is a Tory cap. And

you've accepted it. You're being the same as the Tories, not to. If they

had a welfare cap, they would have breached it in every year of the

parliament. Social Security will be higher than the government set out

because they failed to control it. You read the polls, and the party

does lots of its own polling, and you're scared of being seen as the

welfare party. You don't really believe all of this anti-welfare

stuff? We are the party of work not welfare. The Labour Party was set up

in the first place because we believe in the dignity of work and

we believe that work should pay wages can afford to live on. I make

no apologies for being the party of work. We are not the welfare party,

we are the party of work. Even your confidential strategy document

admits that voters don't trust you on immigration, the economy, this is

your own people, and welfare. You are not trusted on it. The most

recent poll showed Labour slightly ahead of the Conservative Party on

Social Security, probably because they have seen the incompetence and

chaos at the Department for Work and Pensions under Iain Duncan Smith.

Your own internal document means that the voters don't trust you on

welfare reform. That is why we have shown some of this tough things we

will do like the announcement that Ed Miliband made earlier this week,

that young people without basic qualifications won't be entitled to

just sign on for benefits, they have to sign up for training in order to

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 and start all over

again, and the reason why the Liberal Democrats got 57, 56 seats

in the House of Commons now is because we picked ourselves up, we

took every opportunity and we have rebuilt from the bottom 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 two ago that Nick Clegg is a man of principle and

enormous resilience if you consider what he had to put up with, and in

my view, he is quite clearly the person best qualified to lead the

party between now and the general election and through the election

campaign, and beyond. So why don't people like him? We have had to take

some pretty difficult decisions and, of course, people didn't expect

that. If you look back to the rather heady days of the rose garden behind

ten Downing St, people thought it was all going to be sweetness and

light, but the fact is, we didn t know then what we know now, about

the extent of the economic crisis we win, and a lot of difficult

decisions have had to be taken in order to restore economic stability.

Look around you. You will see we are not there yet but we are a long way

better off than in 2010. You are not getting the credit for it, the

Tories are. We will be a little more assertive about taking the credit.

For example, the fact that 23 million people have had a tax cut of

?800 per year and we have taken 2 million people out of paying tax

altogether. Ming Campbell, your people say that on every programme

like this. Because it is true. That might be the case, but you are at

seven or 8% in the polls, and nobody is listening, or they don't believe

it. Once is listening, or they don't believe

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. Hello again from the Midlands.

in Scotland who leave us now I'm Patrick Burns and we're turning

the tables on two of the Colmons This, though, is where they face

the questions for a change. Karen Lumley, Conservative LP

for Redditch in Worcestershhre ` she's on the Transport

Select Committee. David Winnick,

Labour MP for Walsall North, is on the Home Affairs Select Comlittee,

which he first joined, would you And it's with

the home affairs committee that we begin because David was

in attendance for a session The chair of

Birmingham City Council's children's services was one of three whtnesses

who was sure the MPs there was no convincing evidence of an extremist

plot to indoctrinate childrdn I think there's been some confusion

between extremism and religious conservatism

and those are different things. There's also been confusion between

extremism and bad governancd, in my opinion, and I think there were some

actions taken because of people s religion but also some actions taken

by people who happened to share one religion

and within the long ongoing dialogue about this, much has been confused

between those different things. The message

from her is that there has been some confusion but there are surd and

so is there has not been evhdence There is continuing controvdrsy

but there isn't always agredment even between members of Parliament

of same party about what prdcisely But perhaps one could say that there

may have been various actions taken by governors which I would certainly

disapprove of The evidence that we heard

on Tuesday is that this school in particular,

the person who was giving... A teacher, not a Muslim,

as far as I understand, was saying that he was satisfied that dxtremism

certainly hadn't taken placd. On the governorship issue, the

concern we heard from Bridgdt Jones, we're hearing of leading Muslim

figures in the community saxing that Michael Gove's insistence

on Britishness is making it more or difficult for Muslims to serve

as trustees and governors and we're hearing that some have

resigned in protest. We need to make sure that governors

are held accountable I think whichever religion xou

come from, that's irrelevant. This is about making sure that

our children only get one chance If these leaders aren't holding

the heads to account, they shouldn't be governors

and should be stripped of that. The senior teacher to whom David

referred told the committee that it was ilpossible

for the Ofsted inspector to do an impartial job because

of the extreme atmosphere around I've been through several Ofsted

inspections and I think thex do When I first started,

Ofsted inspectors gave you six`months' noticed that thdy were

going to come. I think they should be able

to knock on the door. Do you think the teacher

in question, Mr Donaghy from Parkview, h`d a

point about Ofsted's imparthality? Well, I'm not altogether

certain about that. What I'm concerned about is creating

an atmosphere where Muslim schools are being seen in

a different light than other schools And as I've said before, I'l

against extremism of any kind in any They're perhaps has been

an element of exaggeration `nd I would very much be concerned

if it was an atmosphere which could A health warning `

mixing sport with politics can be Protests on the street

as the beautiful game turns ugly. It's the political football that

could leave our local taxpaxers More

on this coming up a little later. Well, one of the great sellhng

points of high`speed rail for the pro HS2 lobby has bden job

creation so it was surprising to say the least when a leading advocate

of the project had one of its major Washwood Heath looks more

like a wasteland these days than It was home to LDV which, in its

heyday, employed 800 peopld here. Now HS2's earmarked the sitd

for a depot cleaning The local MP's not happy and has

called for the plans to be scrapped. It's the size

of 105 football pitches, Sites like that don't come onto the

market very often and that's why what the planners at the cotncil

have said to me and the private sector have said to me is, "look,

you can get thousands of jobs on this site in the short`term," so

what I'm demanding is the bdst for Birmingham and the best

for HodgeHill. Responding to Liam Byrne's concerns,

the transport minister said Whilst the local MP has his doubts,

this business leader told md that It's too valuable and opportunity.

much`needed jobs is the wrong call. High`speed engineering is

Birmingham's Olympic opporttnity. I certainly hope there will be

further talks and negotiations. I've debated with myself if that's

the magic special about HS2 and I conclude this is the overall

interest of the West Midlands. I wouldn't be supporting it

otherwise, considering all the costs I remain of the view that it's in

the overall interests of thd West Midlands but as far as this place is

concerned, if it can providd jobs of the kind Liam Byrne is suggdsting `

and he is a supporter of HS2 ` I perhaps we should avoid too much

dogmatism. It may well be at the end of it all that HS2, the

organisation, turn out to bd right. But simply to clamp down on it now

and say, " under no circumstances can the yard be used for jobs,"

I have hesitation is about that What you think

about this suggestion of Chhnese investment after we've had

the visit of the Chinese prdmier? We're open to Chinese investment all

over, I've got nothing

against HS2 being invested hn by The most important thing is, we need

HS2 and we need it as soon `s. We need HS2 and we need plenty

of jobs. So Liam Byrne isn't just dohng

a coded message to suggest Labour There has been speculation that

Ed Balls as Chancellor would put We're not committed on the basis

of everlasting escalated costs, Thank you. I don't know

about World Cup fever but for some of our local authorities, football

can be a bit like catching ` cold. Sport and politics can be

a toxic mix which seriously damages Coventry,

Herefordshire and Stoke`on`Trent at one time or another have all

missed becoming the real losers in a game of political football ``

risked. BBC Midlands today's sports

presenter explains why. In the world of football, the

maxim that sport and politics don't Witness the protests on the

streets of Brazil over the billions Closer to home there have bden

questions about the role Hereford Council has to play in the future of

Herefordshire united football club. The whole thing as been a dhsaster

for the fans, the city, the county The local council owns the land on

which the Edgar Street stand stands. The local authority is owed ?65 000

in rent, rate and legal sees ` money they'll probably never see

again after the club were expelled from the Football Conferencd with

spiralling debts. If there were a more equitable

distribution of money betwedn the Premier League and the lower

leagues, this wouldn't happdn. The sums you are talking

about are few weeks wages Stoke`on`Trent City Council wrote

off ?1.5 million owed by portfolio football club two years ago. `` Port

Vale Football Club. At the same time,

the authority was axing hundreds of Over at Coventry City, the football

club fell behind with rental payments for the Ricoh Aren`,

repeatedly by more than ?1 lillion. The stadium is partly owned

by the council. The Sky Blues have now left

the city altogether The club's former owners accused the

council of illegally loaning ?1 The council say it was legal,

the dispute ended up in court and a judge is due to announce

a final ruling next Monday. Is it any wonder that taxpaxers from

Brazil to Birmingham are asking is So is it really for councils and,

ultimately, taxpayers to carry the can financially when football

clubs fall on hard times? We're

also joined today by a leadhng authority on the politics and

culture of sport, Professor Ellis Jesse Norman is calling for

something akin to a redistrhbution of wealth in football and wd know at

the top that is awash with loney. Hard`pressed council taxpaydrs may

think it is up to football to mature `` ensure there is a fair

distribution. I can see their point of vidw

but there is another case. When you think about it, football

clubs do create jobs and th`t generates revenue that is ttrned

into tax and there are intangible factors like civic pride and there

some parts of the country where the identity of the town or citx is

integrated with that of the club. You can't imagine Wolverhampton

without the Wolves, for exalple So in many parts of the world,

Europe, the United States, they think nothing

of helping out not just thehr football clubs but sports clubs

in general because they do feel On the other side

of the balance sheet, as you pointed out, a lot of people

will look askance at this and say, "these are not just million`ire

clubs but billionaire clubs, so why So what's the answer? We've heard

suggestions in commentary that some of the fans could club together to

cover the cost. Are there other ways

of trying to help which doesn't put much more burden on hard`prdssed

finances of local authoritids? There are other ways

but I'm not going to be I'm a Democrat to the last `nd I

say, let the people decide. But I'd want to know

from the citizens of Coventry whether they would be prepared to

cough up an extra fiver on their If they want the club

and they're prepared to havd some part of their taxes paid ring fenced

for that, that's their decision We heard your party colleagte

Jesse Norman say it was I've had serious experience ``

similar experience with Redditch Well,

Hereford and Redditch could both be Redditch United have been in debt

many times over the years and Now there are new owners in who

at the moment, are doing a fantastic job but I don't think it's

up to local taxpayers to bahl them out although I do what Reddhtch

United frequently and they're doing But I think it's up to

the townspeople to support that How important is the football to

deem `` football team in Walsall, bearing in mind what Ellis was

saying about the reputation`l and economic balance you get

from having a football club? It's very much part of it,

like Wolves in Wolverhampton. There's no question whether we

could ever be without the S`dlers. Fortunately, the sort of financial

problems which have been mentioned in Coventry and elsewhere h`ve

not arisen, at least recently. Are you comfortable with Labour

authorities, in effect, helping to bail out the likds

of Port Vale in Stoke`on`Trdnt and the problems with the Ricoh Arena

in Coventry. As far as Coventry is concerned

it seems to me that I have sympathy with the action the council has

taken the council has taken. I think you've got to

appreciate that... Some people don't see footb`ll clubs

as anything but businesses but many other people ` and I

include myself and I think xou would ` see football clubs

as part of the cultural landscape. The reluctance

of local authorities just to... I understand the reluctance, yes,

but I'm not necessarily sayhng that they shouldn't at least consider

helping out clubs. Because we do seem to have

a problem. A few years ago, Manchester City

Council built what was then the City of Manchester Stadium specifically

for the Commonwealth Games. After it was finished with,

they go to Manchester City `nd say, Call it the Etihad,

whatever, and we'll let you have rate". I don't hear Manchester

taxpayers complaining. There are very few thanks,

it seems to me, from local We've seen

in Coventry where one of thd fans' groups ran a candidate against

the Labour council leader there In a way, it's a rocky road for

any councillors getting involved. I think it is but I think also that

football, especially small clubs, It's not just going to watch

on Saturday that they provide youth I think people see their cltb

as part of a community, not just I do think that football cltbs

are more than businesses. They are businesses

but they're something else `s well. Now for our regular update on the

political developments making the news here over the past week, our

round`up in 60 seconds, brotght to us this time by BBC WM mid`lorning

presenter Adrian Goldberg. Lichfield Conservative MP Mhchael

Fabricant got into trouble on Twitter again, suggesting he

might punch newspaper columnist The PM said his comments were

completely unacceptable. The Highways Agency says it's doing

its best to speed up roadworks which are causing horrendous traffic jams

around Coventry's Toll Bar Hsland. A direct rail service

from Shropshire to London is back It is due to be reintroduced

by the end of the year. It will allow Shrewsbury businessmen

to be in central London, do a full Conservative Mike Bird remahns

leader of Walsall Council after They have more councillors than

the Tories And six of the region's NHS Trusts

are in deficit by a total The University Hospital of

North Staffordshire is in the red Worcestershire Acute Hospit`ls

by ?12 million. And just for good measure, the Save

The Alex campaign on behalf of a hospital in Karen's constittency

tell me they're infuriated by what they call the breaking news that

Worcestershire acute hospit`ls have levels. Karen,

you've been doing your best to stop this issue blowing up all over your

constituency as the general election Worcestershire Acute

Hospitals They went out to consultation three

years ago and we still haven't seen This should have been done,

dusted and we should have bden able to get on with getting bettdr

services and I'm really dis`ppointed People may be concerned

about the quality of the service if The debt that I know

about is a bit less than the figures you are talking

about but it isn't acceptable. We've got to come up with a plan

for the whole of the Worcestershire trust and that has got to bd to go

out to consultation and the people of Redditch have got

to be able to have their sax. You'll have heard David Camdron

in the Commons say that we have these warnings all the time

and yet year after year, thd trusts still find a way of absorbing

measures that are required `nd the Yes, but it certainly

needs more funding. Would a future Labour government

give it more funding? It certainly did so last tile

and whatever may happen in the future, nobody disputes ` as

far as I understand the Conservative Party doesn't dispute ` that very

substantial funding went into the NHS under the last Labour government

and I'm very pleased about that A very quick word about the latest

Twitter indiscretion, if I can put It seems to be another gaffd,

another week. Will you be having

a word with him when you sed him I think he's realised the error

of his ways but I think that's I'm

on my best behaviour this morning. I'll make no comment about Lr

Fabricant. We'll see what excitement hd

has lined up for us next wedk. My thanks to Karen Lumley

and to David Winnick. Finally, what is it

about library closures, I wonder? They absolutely infuriates

so many people and get councils Do you remember a couple of years

ago, Gloucestershire had thdir plans Well, despite assurances to the

contrary, another of our biggest local authorities wants budget cuts

to come in which critics sax would It's a big talking point

and that is going to be one of our issues for this programme

next Sunday. I hope you'll join us. This is where we will rejoin

Andrew Neil. 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, and we will leave it there. Thanks to the

panel. We are tomorrow on BBC Two. At the earlier time of 11am because

of Wimbledon. Yes, it's that time of year again already. I will be back

here at 11 o'clock next week. Remember, if it is Sunday, it is the

Sunday Politics. to the beating heart

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