Browse content similar to 23/04/2017. Check below for episodes and series from the same categories and more!
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It's Sunday afternoon - this is the Sunday Politics. | :00:36. | :00:39. | |
Jeremy Corbyn wants to give everyone in Britain four | :00:40. | :00:42. | |
extra bank holidays - but is the Labour leader up | :00:43. | :00:44. | |
to being Prime Minister if he wins the election in just | :00:45. | :00:47. | |
Theresa May says she wants a stronger hand to deliver Brexit - | :00:48. | :00:53. | |
how will the Conservatives go about getting the bigger | :00:54. | :00:55. | |
I'll be asking Party Chairman, Patrick McLoughlin. | :00:56. | :01:02. | |
And I've been in Paris where voters are going to the polls in first | :01:03. | :01:06. | |
round of the French Presidential election - what could be the impact | :01:07. | :01:09. | |
And in the Midlands: unpredictable of contests? | :01:10. | :01:13. | |
Will this be the most unwanted collection? | :01:14. | :01:14. | |
Not the general election, but next month's poll for metro mayor. | :01:15. | :01:18. | |
We'll also talk about the county elections too, in half an hour. | :01:19. | :01:21. | |
Will the Remain majority punish the Tories for the decision? | :01:22. | :01:23. | |
Or feel they may not like it but the Tories | :01:24. | :01:25. | |
And with me has always ready for the marathon task of covering a snap | :01:26. | :01:40. | |
general election, even working on bank holidays, the best and | :01:41. | :01:44. | |
brightest political panel in the business. David Wooding, Polly | :01:45. | :01:44. | |
Toynbee and Toby Young. So Labour's big announcement this | :01:45. | :01:48. | |
morning was a crowd pleaser. Four more rainy bank | :01:49. | :01:50. | |
holidays to enjoy - one for each of the patron saints | :01:51. | :01:52. | |
of England, Scotland, But Mr Corbyn probably won't be | :01:53. | :01:55. | |
getting the time off work if he wins And on The Andrew Marr Show this | :01:56. | :02:01. | |
morning he was asked what he would do as Prime Minister | :02:02. | :02:05. | |
if the security services asked him to authorise a drone strike | :02:06. | :02:08. | |
on the leader of Islamic State. What I'd tell them is, | :02:09. | :02:11. | |
give me the information you've got, tell me how accurate that is, | :02:12. | :02:15. | |
tell me what you I'm asking you about decisions you | :02:16. | :02:17. | |
would take as Prime Minister. Can I take you back | :02:18. | :02:27. | |
to the whole point? Is the objective | :02:28. | :02:29. | |
to start more strikes that may kill many innocent | :02:30. | :02:33. | |
people, as has happened? Do you think killing | :02:34. | :02:35. | |
the leader of Isis would be I think the leader of Isis not | :02:36. | :02:37. | |
being around would be helpful, and I'm no supporter or defender | :02:38. | :02:46. | |
in any way of Isis. But I would also argue that | :02:47. | :02:48. | |
the bombing campaign has killed a of whom were virtually prisoners of | :02:49. | :02:53. | |
Isis. So you've got to think | :02:54. | :02:56. | |
about these things. Mr Corbyn earlier. David, is his | :02:57. | :03:02. | |
reply refreshing damaging? It is damaging. He has clearly been | :03:03. | :03:07. | |
freaked to the fire already in the first week, there will be lots of | :03:08. | :03:11. | |
questions on his suitability as a leader and the damage it could cause | :03:12. | :03:14. | |
to our national security over the weeks ahead and Andrew Marr has cut | :03:15. | :03:19. | |
straight to the chase here. The other thing, of course, is the | :03:20. | :03:22. | |
letters of last resort, one of the first duties of a Prime Minister | :03:23. | :03:25. | |
when he walks into No 10 is to sign these letters on his own, on or -- | :03:26. | :03:31. | |
or on her own in a room, a very lonely moment, to decide whether he | :03:32. | :03:34. | |
should press the nuclear button and that goes in the Vanguard submarines | :03:35. | :03:38. | |
and is opened in the event of a strike and he has dodged a question | :03:39. | :03:42. | |
so many times. One must wonder what he would do that. He has to make | :03:43. | :03:46. | |
these decisions as Prime Minister. On the Isis point, refreshing or | :03:47. | :03:51. | |
damaging? It sure is his base, the people who support him, that's the | :03:52. | :03:56. | |
sort of thing they support info and maybe his tactic is that's all he's | :03:57. | :03:59. | |
going to get, that is what the polls seem to suggest, in which case they | :04:00. | :04:03. | |
will be pleased, and say yes, the man is a man for these who doesn't | :04:04. | :04:07. | |
press buttons and shoot people down. But if you want to win you have to | :04:08. | :04:13. | |
deal with your own weaknesses and reach out to other people. I think | :04:14. | :04:16. | |
most people would say that's not somebody who could defend the | :04:17. | :04:22. | |
country. I wonder if he was being totally honest in saying he would | :04:23. | :04:26. | |
consider it he would ask for more information. He has previously been | :04:27. | :04:31. | |
on the record as being against drone strikes in principle, he's | :04:32. | :04:33. | |
campaigned against them, he wants to abolish drones. I think Andrew Marr | :04:34. | :04:37. | |
let him off saying it was a drone strike rather than a Navy SEAL or | :04:38. | :04:41. | |
SAS operation and he had the fact that they could be collateral | :04:42. | :04:44. | |
damage. We that's not his position because he condemned the | :04:45. | :04:50. | |
assassination of Osama Bin Laden even though there was no collateral | :04:51. | :04:54. | |
damage. David is right on the Trident point, he fetched the | :04:55. | :04:57. | |
question. We heard Niall Griffiths on this very show saying Trident, | :04:58. | :05:03. | |
the renewal of Trident, would be in the next Labour Party manifesto. It | :05:04. | :05:06. | |
turns out now we don't know and when he was asked he said that remains to | :05:07. | :05:09. | |
be seen, his re-opened a can of worms. What he has said about | :05:10. | :05:13. | |
Trident which was extraordinary was, we will rebuild the submarines but | :05:14. | :05:18. | |
not have any nukes on them which is expensive and useless. And of course | :05:19. | :05:21. | |
the Labour Party were forced soon after that interview to put out a | :05:22. | :05:24. | |
statement saying it is Labour Party policy to renew Trident. So where | :05:25. | :05:30. | |
are we? Do we know what the party's policy is? It is to renew Trident | :05:31. | :05:34. | |
but he has started this review which involves looking at it all again. We | :05:35. | :05:40. | |
know he is a unilateralist to start with but whether he can force this | :05:41. | :05:45. | |
through is dubious. Does it matter, though, if the party policy is in | :05:46. | :05:49. | |
favour of Trident, if the leader is not? The potential Prime Minister is | :05:50. | :05:53. | |
not? They split three ways when they went to vote on it in the Commons. | :05:54. | :05:56. | |
The party agreed they were pro-Trident and when it came to the | :05:57. | :06:01. | |
vote they split three ways. I think it's difficult for them, it's always | :06:02. | :06:05. | |
been a really difficult issue for Labour. The question is whether you | :06:06. | :06:09. | |
want to seal off your negatives, whether you really want to try and | :06:10. | :06:13. | |
reach out to people. There are an awful lot of people who will like | :06:14. | :06:16. | |
what he said, there are an awful lot of people that think we have been | :06:17. | :06:22. | |
involved in terrible wars, we have wasted a lot of money and blood and | :06:23. | :06:25. | |
let's just get back from the whole thing, let's retreat from the world | :06:26. | :06:30. | |
and not try punching above our weight. There is something to be | :06:31. | :06:33. | |
said for that and it is a reasonable argument. He's been true to himself | :06:34. | :06:38. | |
on this. I think he is and Polly is right, lots of people will agree | :06:39. | :06:41. | |
with him, not enough to win a general election, the latest ComRes | :06:42. | :06:45. | |
poll shows Tories on 50% and Labour on 25 and as my colleague James | :06:46. | :06:49. | |
Forsyth in the Spectator said if this was a boxing match it would | :06:50. | :06:52. | |
have been stopped by now by the revelry. We are not stopping, we are | :06:53. | :06:53. | |
going on. So the political parties have had | :06:54. | :06:55. | |
to move into election mode Stand by for battle buses, | :06:56. | :06:57. | |
mail shots and your social media timeline being bombarded | :06:58. | :07:01. | |
by political propoganda. But none of this comes cheap - | :07:02. | :07:02. | |
Adam's been doing his sums. Democracy is priceless but those | :07:03. | :07:08. | |
planes, trains and automobiles used in the last election cost money | :07:09. | :07:13. | |
and we know exactly how much, thanks to the Electoral | :07:14. | :07:16. | |
Commission database. The Conservatives flew David Cameron | :07:17. | :07:21. | |
to every part of the UK in one day on a private plane costing ?29,000, | :07:22. | :07:25. | |
in-flight meals extra. They shelled out ?1.2 million | :07:26. | :07:31. | |
for adverts on Facebook. The most expensive item was their | :07:32. | :07:37. | |
election guru Lynton Crosby. They bought ?2.4 million worth | :07:38. | :07:41. | |
of advice and research from his firm Labour's biggest expenditure | :07:42. | :07:44. | |
was on good old-fashioned leaflets, costing ?7.4 million | :07:45. | :07:50. | |
to print and deliver. Hope they didn't go straight | :07:51. | :07:53. | |
into the recycling. Cheap for all the | :07:54. | :07:58. | |
enjoyment it gave us. To turn a normal minibus | :07:59. | :08:07. | |
into Harriet Harman's pink bus Nick Clegg toured the country doing | :08:08. | :08:10. | |
all manner of stunts transported although the party got a grand's | :08:11. | :08:16. | |
discount when it broke down. Ukip's then leader Nigel Farage | :08:17. | :08:29. | |
was accompanied by bodyguards Nicola Sturgeon's chopper | :08:30. | :08:31. | |
cost the SNP ?35,450. Plaid Cymru spent just over | :08:32. | :08:40. | |
?1,000 on media training And the Greens spent ?6,912 | :08:41. | :08:44. | |
promoting their tweets. It adds up to a grand total | :08:45. | :08:58. | |
for all the parties of ?37,560,039. Jabbing at my calculator that works | :08:59. | :09:02. | |
out at less than ?1 per voter. Adam Fleming there - | :09:03. | :09:08. | |
and joining me now is the man responsible for the Conservative | :09:09. | :09:13. | |
election campaigns - for the locals next month | :09:14. | :09:17. | |
and the general election in June - Welcome to the programme. The Crown | :09:18. | :09:25. | |
Prosecution Service is reviewing evidence from 14 police forces that | :09:26. | :09:28. | |
your party breached election spending rules on multiple occasions | :09:29. | :09:33. | |
in the last election. What are you going to do differently this time? | :09:34. | :09:39. | |
Well, the battle buses are part of the National campaign spend. You saw | :09:40. | :09:45. | |
them just on the shot that you did, all three parties had those battle | :09:46. | :09:48. | |
buses so that's why we believe they were part of the national spend and | :09:49. | :09:52. | |
it was declared that way. At least 30 people in your party, MPs and | :09:53. | :09:55. | |
agents, being investigated because they may not have been right to | :09:56. | :10:00. | |
include it in the national spend. Are you saying you are going to do | :10:01. | :10:02. | |
nothing differently this time? You asked me about last time and the way | :10:03. | :10:10. | |
the position is... Was. I asked you about this time. We will take a | :10:11. | :10:14. | |
careful count and make sure that everything that we do is within the | :10:15. | :10:20. | |
law. But as I say, the last election, all three parties had | :10:21. | :10:24. | |
battle buses. It is your party that above all has been investigated by | :10:25. | :10:28. | |
14 police forces. You must surely be taking stock of that and working out | :10:29. | :10:34. | |
how to do some things differently. You are being investigated because | :10:35. | :10:38. | |
you put stuff on the National Ledger which should have been on the local | :10:39. | :10:42. | |
constituency ledger. Are you looking at that again? All of the parties | :10:43. | :10:46. | |
had battle buses and they all put them on their national spend. I | :10:47. | :10:49. | |
don't think any of the parties put them on the local spend. The other | :10:50. | :10:54. | |
battle buses were not full of their party activists. Your party stuffed | :10:55. | :10:57. | |
these battle buses with activists and took them to constituencies. | :10:58. | :11:03. | |
That's the difference. And I ask again, what is different this time? | :11:04. | :11:07. | |
Are you going to run the risk of being investigated yet again? We | :11:08. | :11:11. | |
believe that we fully compliant with the electoral law as it was. What | :11:12. | :11:16. | |
will happen if one of these, or two or three or four or five of these 30 | :11:17. | :11:21. | |
people, Tory MPs, or agents running campaigns are charged during the | :11:22. | :11:27. | |
campaign? As I say I believe we properly declared our election | :11:28. | :11:31. | |
expenses. What happens if they are charged? You asking me a | :11:32. | :11:34. | |
hypothetical question, the importance of this election is about | :11:35. | :11:37. | |
who is in Downing Street in seven weeks' time. Let me clarify this, | :11:38. | :11:42. | |
you maintain that in 2015 you did nothing wrong with how you allocated | :11:43. | :11:46. | |
the cost and the activities of the battle buses and you would do | :11:47. | :11:48. | |
exactly the same this time round? What we did at the last election we | :11:49. | :11:53. | |
believe fully complied with the law. So the battle buses this time, | :11:54. | :11:58. | |
stocked full of activists, will still be charged to the national | :11:59. | :12:02. | |
campaign even when they go to local constituencies? Will they? We will | :12:03. | :12:10. | |
be looking at the way we do it, there is new guidance from the | :12:11. | :12:14. | |
Electoral Commission out and we will look at that guidance. It is not the | :12:15. | :12:18. | |
guidance, it is the lawful stop the Electoral Commission said that, if | :12:19. | :12:22. | |
you look at the report they did on us, they said there was one area | :12:23. | :12:25. | |
where we had over claimed, over declared, and another area we had | :12:26. | :12:29. | |
and declared. We haven't worked out what to do | :12:30. | :12:32. | |
yet, have you? We will get on with the campaign and | :12:33. | :12:36. | |
start the campaign and I'm looking forward to the campaign. | :12:37. | :12:38. | |
I'm trying to work out of the campaign is going to be legal or not | :12:39. | :12:41. | |
because last time it seems it could have been illegal. | :12:42. | :12:45. | |
I am sure the campaign will be legal. | :12:46. | :12:47. | |
You started the campaign warning about the prospect of, the coalition | :12:48. | :12:52. | |
of chaos. Mr Corbyn has ruled out a post-election coalition with the SNP | :12:53. | :13:00. | |
and so have the Lib Dems so who is going to be in this coalition? | :13:01. | :13:02. | |
Vince Cable said he was looking towards a possible coalition trying | :13:03. | :13:04. | |
to stop a Conservative government. Is not the leader of the Lib Dems. | :13:05. | :13:07. | |
He's an important voice in the Lib Dems. Who will be in it? Let's see | :13:08. | :13:14. | |
because of the Conservative Party is not re-elected with a strong | :13:15. | :13:17. | |
majority, what will happen? There will be a coalition stopping us | :13:18. | :13:20. | |
doing the things we need to do. Who will be in it? It will be a | :13:21. | :13:25. | |
coalition of the Labour Party, the SNP and the Liberal party. They have | :13:26. | :13:28. | |
ruled it out. I think they would not rule it out if that was the | :13:29. | :13:32. | |
situation. Like Theresa May not ruling out an election and then | :13:33. | :13:36. | |
changing her mind? The things the Prime Minister said were very clear, | :13:37. | :13:40. | |
once she had served Article 50 there was an opportunity, as we know | :13:41. | :13:44. | |
today, there is going to be the start of a new government formed in | :13:45. | :13:48. | |
France and in September we have the German elections. So it was quite | :13:49. | :13:51. | |
right that we didn't get ourselves boxed into a timetable. That is why | :13:52. | :13:57. | |
the Prime Minister took the view that they should be a general | :13:58. | :14:01. | |
election to give her full strength of an electoral mandate when it | :14:02. | :14:04. | |
comes to those negotiations. What about Mr Corbyn's plan for four new | :14:05. | :14:11. | |
bank holidays, good idea? I'm not... If we get Corbyn in No 10 Downing St | :14:12. | :14:14. | |
we will have a permanent bank holiday of the United Kingdom. We | :14:15. | :14:20. | |
will have fewer bank holidays of most other major nations, most about | :14:21. | :14:25. | |
major wealthy nations. What about at least one more? Well, look, he's | :14:26. | :14:29. | |
talked about four bank holidays. Today would be a bank holiday and | :14:30. | :14:34. | |
next Monday would be a bank holiday and the other week was a bank | :14:35. | :14:38. | |
holiday too. I don't think it's very well thought out. It sounded more to | :14:39. | :14:42. | |
me something like you get in school mock elections rather than proper | :14:43. | :14:46. | |
elections. Your party is the self-styled party of the workers and | :14:47. | :14:49. | |
you have no plans to give the workers even one extra bank holiday? | :14:50. | :14:53. | |
What we want to do is ensure Britain is a strong economy and building on | :14:54. | :14:58. | |
the jobs that we have created since 2010. We were told that by reducing | :14:59. | :15:02. | |
public expenditure unemployment in this country would go up, | :15:03. | :15:07. | |
unemployment has gone down and the number of jobs have gone up | :15:08. | :15:12. | |
substantially. But no more bank holidays? Well, we will make our | :15:13. | :15:15. | |
manifesto in due course but I don't think four bank holidays held in | :15:16. | :15:19. | |
April, March and November are very attractive to people. When Ed | :15:20. | :15:25. | |
Miliband as leader of the Labour Party suggested the government | :15:26. | :15:34. | |
should control energy prices by capping them, the Conservatives | :15:35. | :15:38. | |
described that as almost Communist and central planning. Do still take | :15:39. | :15:42. | |
that view? You'll see what we have to say on energy prices. I didn't | :15:43. | :15:46. | |
you about that, I asked you if you take the view... The Prime Minister | :15:47. | :15:50. | |
made a speech at the Conservative Spring conference in which she | :15:51. | :15:53. | |
outlined her dissatisfaction about people who are kept locked on a | :15:54. | :15:56. | |
standard tariff and those are the issues we will address in the next | :15:57. | :15:59. | |
few weeks when the manifesto was published. | :16:00. | :16:04. | |
Would that be an act of communism? You will need to see what we say | :16:05. | :16:10. | |
when we set out the policies. It could be. You could put a Communist | :16:11. | :16:17. | |
act into your manifesto? I don't think you'll find a Communist | :16:18. | :16:21. | |
manifesto in a Conservative manifesto which will be launched... | :16:22. | :16:25. | |
You are planning to control prices? We will address what we think is | :16:26. | :16:29. | |
unfairness in the energy market. Mr Jeremy Corbyn was reluctant this | :16:30. | :16:33. | |
morning to sanction a drone strike. You heard us talking about it | :16:34. | :16:39. | |
earlier against the leader of Islamic State if our intelligence | :16:40. | :16:43. | |
services identified him. What would it achieve? When the Prime Minister | :16:44. | :16:47. | |
gets certain advice in the national interests, she has to act been that. | :16:48. | :16:52. | |
We've seen with Theresa May in her time as Home Secretary and Prime | :16:53. | :16:55. | |
Minister, she's not afraid to take those very difficult decisions. What | :16:56. | :16:59. | |
we say this morning from Jeremy Corbyn was a his tans, a reluctance. | :17:00. | :17:03. | |
I don't think that serves the country well. What would it achieve | :17:04. | :17:10. | |
if we take out the head of Islamic State he's replaced by somebody | :17:11. | :17:15. | |
else. It brings their organisation into difficulties. It undermines | :17:16. | :17:20. | |
their organisation. It shows we'll take every measure to undo an | :17:21. | :17:24. | |
organisation which has organised terrorism in different parts of | :17:25. | :17:27. | |
Europe, the UK. I think it is absolutely right the Prime Minister | :17:28. | :17:30. | |
is prepared to take those kind of measures. Jeremy Corbyn said he | :17:31. | :17:35. | |
wasn't prepared to take that. Because he wasn't sure what it would | :17:36. | :17:40. | |
achieve. The Obama administration launched hundreds of drone strikes | :17:41. | :17:45. | |
in various war zones and we in the west are still under attack on a | :17:46. | :17:51. | |
regular basis. Mr Corbyn's basis was what would it achieve? It would | :17:52. | :17:57. | |
achieve a safer position for the UK overall. The war on terrorists. But | :17:58. | :18:01. | |
the Westminster attack, Paris has just been attacked again? There's | :18:02. | :18:06. | |
been attacks which have been stopped by the intelligence services. We | :18:07. | :18:10. | |
must do all we can to support them. The question was about drone | :18:11. | :18:14. | |
strikes. Whether it is drone strikes or other action, we have to be | :18:15. | :18:19. | |
prepared to act. Let's move on to Brexit. It is the major reason the | :18:20. | :18:23. | |
Prime Minister's called the election? Not the only within but | :18:24. | :18:27. | |
the main reason? It is one of the reasons. Now we start the two-year | :18:28. | :18:31. | |
negotiations and then a year afterwards. Also the way in which | :18:32. | :18:36. | |
certain people said they would try to use in the House of Lords or | :18:37. | :18:39. | |
House of Commons to prevent us making progress. I think you'll put | :18:40. | :18:47. | |
in your manifesto, it is the Government's policy, the Brexit | :18:48. | :18:52. | |
negotiating position will be no more freedom of movement. Leave the | :18:53. | :18:59. | |
single market and no longer under the jurisdiction Europe. You expect | :19:00. | :19:02. | |
every Tory MP to fight on that manifesto. What will you do with Ken | :19:03. | :19:08. | |
Clarke and Anna? They will have fought on their manifesto. They will | :19:09. | :19:13. | |
understand the Prime Minister has the authority of the ballot box | :19:14. | :19:16. | |
behind them. Will they fight the election on these positions? I'm | :19:17. | :19:21. | |
sure they'll fight the election supporting the election of a | :19:22. | :19:26. | |
Conservative Government and it's manifesto will quite clearly set | :19:27. | :19:29. | |
out... You know they're against these positions. Ken Clarke has a | :19:30. | :19:34. | |
prod tradition of expressing a certain view. Overall, the party's | :19:35. | :19:38. | |
manifesto, it is not just individuals like Ken Clarke, it is | :19:39. | :19:42. | |
what happens as far as the House of Lords are concerned, people said | :19:43. | :19:47. | |
they'd use the House of Lords to prevent certain measures. You're the | :19:48. | :19:51. | |
party chairman, will it be possible for people like Ken Clarke to fight | :19:52. | :19:56. | |
this election under the Conservative ticket without sub describing to all | :19:57. | :20:01. | |
-- subscribing to all of these Brexit conditions? Ken Clarke will | :20:02. | :20:07. | |
fight as Conservative candidates. That wasn't my question. I know | :20:08. | :20:11. | |
that. Will they be allowed to fight it on their own ticket and not | :20:12. | :20:15. | |
subscribe to what is in your manifesto? The manifesto will be | :20:16. | :20:19. | |
what the Conservative Party fights the General Election on. There will | :20:20. | :20:23. | |
always be cases where people have had different views on different | :20:24. | :20:29. | |
parts of the manifesto. That will be the guiding principles for the | :20:30. | :20:35. | |
party. Philip Hammond says your election promises in 2015, in your | :20:36. | :20:40. | |
manifesto not to raise taxes tied his hands when it came to managing | :20:41. | :20:44. | |
the economy. Do you agree with him? No. The simple fact is we have to do | :20:45. | :20:49. | |
the best things for the economy. We'll set out in our manifesto in a | :20:50. | :20:53. | |
few weeks' time, what the policies will be for the next Parliament. Can | :20:54. | :20:58. | |
I clarify, you don't agree with your Chancellor? What Philip was saying | :20:59. | :21:04. | |
was some of the areas we wants to address as Chancellor, what the | :21:05. | :21:09. | |
party will do, it will set out all the issues we're fighting on. It | :21:10. | :21:12. | |
will set out clearly the choice we have in this country. That's the | :21:13. | :21:16. | |
important thing. Let me put the question to you again. Philip | :21:17. | :21:21. | |
Hammond said this week your election promise in 2015 not to raise taxes | :21:22. | :21:25. | |
had tied his hands when it came to managing the economy. I ask you, do | :21:26. | :21:30. | |
you agree with him? You said no. Philip expressed his view as to what | :21:31. | :21:35. | |
he would like. What I'm saying is in a few weeks' time we'll set the | :21:36. | :21:40. | |
manifesto which will set the policies, agreed with the the | :21:41. | :21:44. | |
Cabinet. He's Chancellor. Doesn't he determine what the economic part of | :21:45. | :21:48. | |
the manifesto is? We'll talk about that in due course. Will you have a | :21:49. | :21:53. | |
lock on the taxes that you locked in 2015 on income tax, VAT, national | :21:54. | :21:59. | |
insurance? That will be decided. You'll see that when we publish the | :22:00. | :22:05. | |
manifesto in a few weeks' time. Will you rule out the possibility taxes | :22:06. | :22:09. | |
may have to rise under a future Conservative Party? Conservative | :22:10. | :22:14. | |
Government. We've taken four million people out of tax. Now, on average, | :22:15. | :22:20. | |
people are paying ?1200 less tax than they were on the same salaries | :22:21. | :22:26. | |
in 2010. I'm very provide of that. I can assure you, the Conservative | :22:27. | :22:29. | |
Party will want to see taxes reduced. It is the Labour Party | :22:30. | :22:32. | |
which will put up taxes. We have the evidence where this he did so. | :22:33. | :22:38. | |
Council tax went up by over 100%. You haven't reduced the tax burden | :22:39. | :22:44. | |
as a percentage of the GDP is now going to reach its highest level | :22:45. | :22:50. | |
since the mid-180s which was when Conservatives were in power. The tax | :22:51. | :22:55. | |
burden in this country under your Government is rising? We've more | :22:56. | :22:58. | |
people paying taxes which is something, because we've a growing | :22:59. | :23:01. | |
economy and more people... What about the tax band? You said you | :23:02. | :23:06. | |
reduced the tax burden on your own Government's figures is rising? We | :23:07. | :23:12. | |
have reduced the tax burden. The threshold at which people start | :23:13. | :23:16. | |
paying. These are tax rates not the tax burden. It is rising. The tax | :23:17. | :23:22. | |
rates have been reduced. You said tax burden. Perhaps I misspoke. Tax | :23:23. | :23:27. | |
rates have been reduced. We'll leave it there. No doubt we'll speak again | :23:28. | :23:35. | |
between now and June Is France now about to make it | :23:36. | :23:37. | |
a hat-trick of shocks The prospect terrifies | :23:38. | :23:41. | |
the governing elite in Paris. But they're no less scared | :23:42. | :23:44. | |
in Brussels and Berlin, given what it could mean | :23:45. | :23:47. | |
for the whole EU project, never mind the huge potential impact | :23:48. | :23:49. | |
on our own Brexit negotiations. 11 candidates are contesting | :23:50. | :24:09. | |
the first round of the presidential Only the top two will go forward | :24:10. | :24:11. | |
to the run-off on May 7th. For the first time since General De | :24:12. | :24:17. | |
Gaulle created the fifth Republic in 1958, it's perfectly possible that | :24:18. | :24:22. | |
no candidate from the ruling parties of the centre-left or the | :24:23. | :24:26. | |
centre-right will even make it The election has been dominated by | :24:27. | :24:29. | |
the hard right in the shape of the who's never been elected | :24:30. | :24:36. | |
to anything and only started his own party | :24:37. | :24:43. | |
a few months ago. And the far left in the form | :24:44. | :24:46. | |
of Jean-Luc Melenchon, a former Trotskyite who has surged | :24:47. | :24:48. | |
in the final weeks of the campaign. The only candidate left from the | :24:49. | :24:52. | |
traditional governing parties is the centre-right's | :24:53. | :24:55. | |
Francois Fillon and he's been struggling to stay in | :24:56. | :24:58. | |
the race ever since it was revealed that his Welsh wife was being paid | :24:59. | :25:01. | |
at generous public expense for a job I've just come across | :25:02. | :25:07. | |
this magazine cover and it kind of sums up the mood | :25:08. | :25:21. | |
of the French people. It's got the five main candidates | :25:22. | :25:24. | |
for President here but it calls them the biggest liar, the biggest cheat, | :25:25. | :25:28. | |
the biggest traitor, the most paranoid, the biggest demagogue, | :25:29. | :25:31. | |
and it says they are the winners The four leading candidates, | :25:32. | :25:34. | |
Le Pen, Melenchon, Macron and Fillon, or in with a chance | :25:35. | :25:44. | |
of making it to the second round. Only a couple of points separates | :25:45. | :25:47. | |
them in the polls, Frankly, no one has a clue what's | :25:48. | :25:49. | |
going to happen. Of the four, there is a feeling that | :25:50. | :25:56. | |
two of them may be President But the two of them may not find | :25:57. | :26:01. | |
themselves in the second round. Somebody said to me that the man or | :26:02. | :26:14. | |
woman on the Paris Metro has as much a chance of knowing | :26:15. | :26:28. | |
who will win as the greatest experts Because the more expert you are | :26:29. | :26:31. | |
the more you may be wrong. The country has largely | :26:32. | :26:38. | |
stagnated for over a decade. One in ten are unemployed, | :26:39. | :26:43. | |
one in four if you are unlucky Like Britain in the '70s there is | :26:44. | :26:46. | |
the pervasive stench There are three keywords that come | :26:47. | :26:50. | |
to mind. Anger, anger at the elite, and in | :26:51. | :26:58. | |
particular the political elite. And an element of | :26:59. | :27:04. | |
nostalgia for the past. These three words were decisive | :27:05. | :27:10. | |
in the Brexit referendum. They are decisive in | :27:11. | :27:14. | |
the French election. Identity and security has been | :27:15. | :27:26. | |
as important in this election France is a proud nation, it worries | :27:27. | :27:29. | |
about its future in Europe It seems bereft of ideas about how | :27:30. | :27:36. | |
to deal with its largely Muslim migrant population, huge chunks of | :27:37. | :27:41. | |
which are increasingly divorced It is quite simply exhausted by | :27:42. | :27:44. | |
the never-ending Islamist terrorist attacks, the latest only days before | :27:45. | :27:55. | |
voting in the iconic heart of this If Fillon or Macron emerge | :27:56. | :27:58. | |
victorious then there will be continuity of sorts, though Fillon | :27:59. | :28:09. | |
will struggle to implement his Thatcherite agenda and Macron will | :28:10. | :28:13. | |
not be able to count on the support of the French parliament, the | :28:14. | :28:17. | |
National Assembly, for his reforms. But if it's Le Pen or Jean-Luc | :28:18. | :28:20. | |
Melenchon then all bets are off. Both are hardline French | :28:21. | :28:26. | |
nationalists, anti the euro, anti the European Union, anti-fiscal | :28:27. | :28:29. | |
discipline, anti the market, Either in the Elysee Palace | :28:30. | :28:32. | |
would represent an existential Brexit would simply become | :28:33. | :28:41. | |
a sideshow, the negotiations could just peter out as Brussels | :28:42. | :28:50. | |
and Berlin had bigger fish to fry. We're joined now from | :28:51. | :28:55. | |
Paris by the journalist 8th Welcome to the programme. | :28:56. | :29:06. | |
Overshadowing the voting today was yet another appalling terrorist | :29:07. | :29:10. | |
attack in Paris on Thursday night. Do we have any indications of how | :29:11. | :29:17. | |
that's playing into the election? That initially people thought this | :29:18. | :29:21. | |
has been almost foiled in that the police were there as a ramp up. One | :29:22. | :29:26. | |
policeman was killed. But the terrorist did not spray the crowd | :29:27. | :29:30. | |
with bullets. It was seen as not having much of an effect on the | :29:31. | :29:36. | |
election. This has changed. We now know the policeman who was killed, a | :29:37. | :29:42. | |
young man about to the promoted, he was at the Bataclan the night of the | :29:43. | :29:47. | |
terror attack. He was a fighter for LGBT rights. The fact he was | :29:48. | :29:54. | |
promoted, happy within his job, he has this fresh face. Sudden, he's | :29:55. | :30:01. | |
one of us. It took perhaps 48 hours for the French to process this. But | :30:02. | :30:06. | |
now they're angry and this may actually change the game, at least | :30:07. | :30:12. | |
at the margins. To whose advantage? I would say the two who might | :30:13. | :30:19. | |
benefit from this are Marine Le Pen, she's been absolutely | :30:20. | :30:23. | |
anti-immigration, anti-anything. And made no bones about it as she | :30:24. | :30:28. | |
immediately made rather strange announcement in which she'd said if | :30:29. | :30:31. | |
she'd been president none of the terror attacks which happened in | :30:32. | :30:35. | |
France would have happened. Francois Fillon has written a book two years | :30:36. | :30:43. | |
ago called Combating Islamic Terrorism he's has an organised plan | :30:44. | :30:47. | |
in his manifesto. Unlike Emmanuel Macron who stumbled when he was | :30:48. | :30:51. | |
asked the evening this happened what he thought, he said, I can't dream | :30:52. | :30:56. | |
up an anti-terror programme overnight. The question, of course, | :30:57. | :31:00. | |
that arrows was this is not the sort of thing that's just happened | :31:01. | :31:03. | |
overnight. It's been unfortunately the fate of France for many years. | :31:04. | :31:09. | |
Let me ask you this finally, what ever the outcome on May 7th in the | :31:10. | :31:14. | |
second round, who ever wins, would it be fair to say French politics | :31:15. | :31:20. | |
will never be the same again? Yes. Absolutely it's a very strange | :31:21. | :31:23. | |
thing. People have no become really excited about this. You cannot go | :31:24. | :31:28. | |
anywhere without people discussing heatedly this election. The anger | :31:29. | :31:32. | |
that was described is very accurate. Very true. There was this feeling as | :31:33. | :31:39. | |
for the Brexit voters and the Trump voters, vast parts of the people | :31:40. | :31:43. | |
were being talked down to by people who despised them. This has to | :31:44. | :31:49. | |
change. If it doesn't change, we cannot predict what the future will | :31:50. | :31:55. | |
be. We'll know the results or at least the ex-the Poll London time | :31:56. | :32:00. | |
tonight at 8.00pm. Thank for joining us from the glorious heart of your | :32:01. | :32:01. | |
city. Now, the Green Party currently has | :32:02. | :32:05. | |
one MP and they'll be contesting many more seats in June | :32:06. | :32:08. | |
as well as hoping to increase their presence on councils in | :32:09. | :32:11. | |
the local elections on 4th May. Launching their campaign | :32:12. | :32:14. | |
on Thursday, co-leader Caroline Lucas made | :32:15. | :32:15. | |
a pitch to younger voters. When it comes to young | :32:16. | :32:17. | |
people they've been But one crucial way they've been | :32:18. | :32:19. | |
betrayed is by what this generation and this government and the previous | :32:20. | :32:24. | |
ones have been doing when it comes We know we had the hottest year | :32:25. | :32:27. | |
on record last year, you know, you almost think what else does | :32:28. | :32:32. | |
the environment need to be doing All the signs are there | :32:33. | :32:35. | |
and it is young people who are going to be bearing | :32:36. | :32:39. | |
the brunt of a wrecked environment and that's why it's so important | :32:40. | :32:41. | |
that when we come to making that pitch to, yes, the country at large | :32:42. | :32:45. | |
but to young people in particular, I think climate change, | :32:46. | :32:48. | |
the environment, looking after our precious resources, | :32:49. | :32:50. | |
has to be up there. And I'm joined now by the Green | :32:51. | :32:54. | |
MEP, Molly Scott Cato. Welcome back to the programme. | :32:55. | :33:09. | |
Promised to scrap university tuition fees, increase NHS funding, rollback | :33:10. | :33:12. | |
cuts to local councils spending, how much would that cost and how would | :33:13. | :33:16. | |
you pay for it? Like the other parties we haven't got a costed | :33:17. | :33:19. | |
manifesto yet, it's only a few days since the election was announced so | :33:20. | :33:22. | |
I will come back and explain the figures. You don't know? Like every | :33:23. | :33:26. | |
party we have not produced accosted manifesto yet, we produced one last | :33:27. | :33:32. | |
time but public spending figures have changed so we're not in a | :33:33. | :33:35. | |
position to do that but we will be in a week or so. What taxes would | :33:36. | :33:40. | |
you like to consider raising? We would consider having higher taxes | :33:41. | :33:44. | |
for the better off in society. I think we need to increase the amount | :33:45. | :33:49. | |
of tax wealthier people pay. How do you define better off? I'm not | :33:50. | :33:52. | |
entirely clear what the precise number would be but I think 100,000 | :33:53. | :33:59. | |
people would pay a bit more, 150,000 quite considerably more but the real | :34:00. | :34:02. | |
focus needs to be on companies avoiding paying taxes. I work on | :34:03. | :34:06. | |
that a lot in my role in the European Parliament, we see an | :34:07. | :34:08. | |
enormous amount of tax avoidance by companies moving profits from | :34:09. | :34:12. | |
country to country and we need European corporation to make that | :34:13. | :34:15. | |
successful. It has not made much difference yet. We have made lots of | :34:16. | :34:21. | |
changes. Google turned over $1 billion and only paid 25 million in | :34:22. | :34:25. | |
taxes last year. There was a significant fine introduced by the | :34:26. | :34:29. | |
competition commission on Apple and in the case of Google we must change | :34:30. | :34:33. | |
the laws so that people cannot move profits from country to country. | :34:34. | :34:39. | |
Everybody wants to do it. But you couldn't face a big spending | :34:40. | :34:42. | |
programme on the ability to do that. You'd have to increase other taxes. | :34:43. | :34:46. | |
If you look at the cost of free student tuition, tuition fees and | :34:47. | :34:49. | |
also maintenance grants to students, that would come in at about 10 | :34:50. | :34:53. | |
billion a year. One way of paying for that would be to remove the | :34:54. | :34:56. | |
upper threshold on National Insurance, bringing in 20 billion a | :34:57. | :35:00. | |
year, that's the order of magnitude we are talking about. It is not | :35:01. | :35:04. | |
vast, and some of the proposals we have... That would be an increase on | :35:05. | :35:08. | |
the better of tax? National Insurance on people earning... | :35:09. | :35:15. | |
People earning above 42,000. You would have another 10% tax above | :35:16. | :35:19. | |
42,000? I can't remember exactly how much the National Insurance rate | :35:20. | :35:25. | |
changes by. But in government figures it would be 28 billion | :35:26. | :35:29. | |
raised. I think it is up to 45, a bit more you pay a marginal rate of | :35:30. | :35:33. | |
40%, you would have them pay a marginal rate of over 50%? We would | :35:34. | :35:38. | |
put the National Insurance rate on higher incomes the same as it is on | :35:39. | :35:42. | |
lower incomes. If you are a school head of an English department on 50, | :35:43. | :35:45. | |
60,000 a year you would face a marginal rate under U of over 50%? | :35:46. | :35:51. | |
It is not useful to do this as a mental maths exercise but if you | :35:52. | :35:56. | |
look at other proposals would could have a landlord licensing system, | :35:57. | :36:00. | |
longer term leases on properties, so young people particularly, but also | :36:01. | :36:03. | |
older people who rent, could have more security which needn't cost | :36:04. | :36:06. | |
anything. We could insist on landlords paying for that. The | :36:07. | :36:11. | |
mental arithmetic seems clear but we will come back to that. How is the | :36:12. | :36:15. | |
Progressive Alliance coming? It is going well, I have heard of a lot of | :36:16. | :36:19. | |
interest at local level. Winterset this in contest, context, lots of | :36:20. | :36:24. | |
progressives are concerned about the crisis in public services, prisons, | :36:25. | :36:29. | |
social care system, and also about the Tories' hard extreme Brexit they | :36:30. | :36:32. | |
are threatening. You want the left to come together? Theresa May has | :36:33. | :36:37. | |
given us opportunity, she has taken a risk because she has problems with | :36:38. | :36:40. | |
backbenchers, she doesn't think she can get through Brexit with a small | :36:41. | :36:44. | |
majority so there is an opportunity and we are saying progressives must | :36:45. | :36:47. | |
come together to corporate, Conservatives are effective at using | :36:48. | :36:50. | |
the first-past-the-post system and we have to become effective as well. | :36:51. | :36:55. | |
Do you accept this Progressive Alliance cannot become the | :36:56. | :36:58. | |
government and Mr Corbyn is the Prime Minister? How could it happen | :36:59. | :37:02. | |
otherwise? I think that is a secondary question. For me the | :37:03. | :37:06. | |
primary question is who do people choose to vote for? Aluminium | :37:07. | :37:09. | |
government afterwards comes after the election. In most countries that | :37:10. | :37:13. | |
is the case. I understand that but we have the system we have and you | :37:14. | :37:16. | |
accept this Progressive Alliance cannot be in power and thus mystical | :37:17. | :37:20. | |
Burmese Prime Minister? Personally I think Mr Corbyn is less of a threat | :37:21. | :37:23. | |
to the country than Theresa May, she has shown herself to be an | :37:24. | :37:26. | |
authoritarian leader and she has said she doesn't want to have | :37:27. | :37:33. | |
dissidents, which I would say is reasonable opposition, and what we | :37:34. | :37:35. | |
are suggesting at the moment is there is a way of avoiding that very | :37:36. | :37:38. | |
hard Brexit and damage to public services. You'd be happy to pay the | :37:39. | :37:40. | |
price of having Mr Corbyn as Prime Minister? I do not see that as a | :37:41. | :37:45. | |
price. People have the choice of Jeremy Corbyn or Theresa May as | :37:46. | :37:48. | |
Prime Minister, that's the system that works. You would prefer Mr | :37:49. | :37:53. | |
Corbyn? I would but votes are translated into seats and the | :37:54. | :37:56. | |
Progressive Alliance is a step towards that. | :37:57. | :37:58. | |
It's just gone 3:50pm, you're watching the Sunday Politics. | :37:59. | :38:00. | |
We say goodbye to viewers in Scotland, Wales | :38:01. | :38:02. | |
and Northern Ireland who leave us now. | :38:03. | :38:04. | |
Coming up here in 20 minutes, the Week Ahead. | :38:05. | :38:14. | |
Hello again, welcome to the Sunday Politics in the Midlands. | :38:15. | :38:17. | |
And yet again, our part of the country is in the front line, | :38:18. | :38:20. | |
Our marginal seats, always seen as the killing fields | :38:21. | :38:27. | |
And before that, a hard-fought tournament for Midlands metro mayor, | :38:28. | :38:33. | |
plus the fight for control of our powerful county authorities. | :38:34. | :38:37. | |
That's our St George's Day pageant here today. | :38:38. | :38:40. | |
Steve McCabe, Labour MP for Birmingham Selly Oak, | :38:41. | :38:45. | |
and Mark Pawsey, Conservative MP for Rugby in Warwickshire. | :38:46. | :38:53. | |
How did we manage to be caught on the hop by Theresa May's call | :38:54. | :38:57. | |
Speculation had been rife for months, despite a succession | :38:58. | :39:02. | |
of emphatic denials by one minister after another. | :39:03. | :39:07. | |
But that all just seemed so last week when the Prime Minister made | :39:08. | :39:12. | |
one of her first stops on the campaign trail yesterday | :39:13. | :39:14. | |
in the weather-vane town of Dudley, with its two marginal seats - | :39:15. | :39:18. | |
Every vote that's cast here in the Black Country | :39:19. | :39:23. | |
is going to count and every vote that's cast here in the Black | :39:24. | :39:26. | |
Country is going to be important for the future of our country. | :39:27. | :39:29. | |
Because it is about delivering that strong and stable leadership, | :39:30. | :39:33. | |
that strong and stable Government, that can take this country | :39:34. | :39:35. | |
Theresa May in Dublin yesterday. Mark Pawsey, if all those arguments | :39:36. | :39:52. | |
expressed by Minister after Mr so recently against an early general | :39:53. | :39:56. | |
election held good as recently as that, what's changed? The idea that | :39:57. | :40:01. | |
it's about delivering Brexit and analogy would be a distraction, | :40:02. | :40:08. | |
what's changed? The most important decision facing our generation has | :40:09. | :40:12. | |
been made, to leave the EU, and winger had to proceed with that. I | :40:13. | :40:16. | |
was one of those and many others that was surprised about the | :40:17. | :40:20. | |
election being called, the bass majority of MPs agreed when we went | :40:21. | :40:22. | |
through the division lobbies last week. The more you think about it, | :40:23. | :40:29. | |
the more sensible action right now is. Because the Article 50 | :40:30. | :40:32. | |
negotiations will take two years, I don't think we want to be concluding | :40:33. | :40:37. | |
those negotiations as we start the five year election in 2020. If we | :40:38. | :40:42. | |
get an action now and a strong mandate to do the negotiations with | :40:43. | :40:49. | |
our European partners. It could just beat the extended Tory lead in more | :40:50. | :40:57. | |
recent opinion polls. Opinion polls haven't been very accurate in recent | :40:58. | :41:02. | |
years, as an jury you will know! The time is now right to make sure that | :41:03. | :41:07. | |
we have a good run-up to make sure we have a strong coalition of people | :41:08. | :41:11. | |
behind the negotiations we're having with Europe and get a great deal | :41:12. | :41:18. | |
with our European partners. Mrs May talked in deadly yesterday about | :41:19. | :41:21. | |
ordinary working people again and again. That's a clear threat to | :41:22. | :41:27. | |
Europe party, the Sunday Times says she is parking her tags on Labour's | :41:28. | :41:32. | |
lawn? I think ordinary working people will be asking why she's | :41:33. | :41:37. | |
tax credits, when she's cutting tax credits, when she's cutting | :41:38. | :41:43. | |
funding to their schools, 35 at 37 in my constituency are losing. Why | :41:44. | :41:49. | |
she is cutting the police. If she is interested in Audrey, working | :41:50. | :41:51. | |
people, why doesn't you do something to support those people? If you | :41:52. | :41:58. | |
asked that question it a week ago, you would hurt the total opposite. | :41:59. | :42:03. | |
This is nothing than opportunism. -- heard the total opposite. The | :42:04. | :42:07. | |
question is what is coming down the line, what is beta into cutting and | :42:08. | :42:12. | |
running now? We know, Mark, your local police force in Warwickshire | :42:13. | :42:17. | |
is a number who sent papers to the Crown Prosecution Service over the | :42:18. | :42:21. | |
Conservative Party's electoral spending at the last general | :42:22. | :42:25. | |
election, raising the possibility of prosecutions in a number of key | :42:26. | :42:31. | |
constituencies at a crucial, pivotal moment in this campaign? I don't | :42:32. | :42:33. | |
think that is anything to do with the decision to take a night you | :42:34. | :42:39. | |
now. The time is right. People have had the opportunity to see Theresa | :42:40. | :42:42. | |
May of the best part of a year as Prime Minister. I'd been out on the | :42:43. | :42:47. | |
colleagues, and overwhelmingly, colleagues, and overwhelmingly, | :42:48. | :42:50. | |
people like that strong and robust, secure, stable leadership that | :42:51. | :42:53. | |
Theresa May provides. Thank you both for now. | :42:54. | :42:54. | |
The general election will now be the final leg of a real marathon, | :42:55. | :42:57. | |
Nearly two million people have the opportunity | :42:58. | :43:00. | |
to choose the metro mayor, who'll head the new Combined | :43:01. | :43:03. | |
Authority covering Coventry, Birmingham and the Black Country. | :43:04. | :43:05. | |
On Thursday, I hosted the only televised debate, with all six | :43:06. | :43:08. | |
As Amy Cole explains, the top question from our studio audience | :43:09. | :43:14. | |
was whether or not there should be an elected mayor at all. | :43:15. | :43:18. | |
Six candidates for one job, and a big question for all of them... | :43:19. | :43:23. | |
Do we need a metro mayor, or is it just another expensive | :43:24. | :43:27. | |
It's been, perhaps, the defining issue of the campaign often | :43:28. | :43:33. | |
characterised by hostility to the new mayoral role. | :43:34. | :43:38. | |
In 2012, people in Britain and Coventry voted against having | :43:39. | :43:41. | |
a mayor, and now they have a mayor that they didn't want | :43:42. | :43:44. | |
One thing that's really clear, from all the hustings we have done, | :43:45. | :43:51. | |
One of the main objections has been the cost of devolution, | :43:52. | :43:55. | |
which one of the contenders says he would closely monitor. | :43:56. | :43:58. | |
It is expensive, so I'm looking to keep the control of the cost | :43:59. | :44:01. | |
of the combined authority, which have been running | :44:02. | :44:03. | |
Who knows how many millions per year it's already costing. | :44:04. | :44:08. | |
For the two front runners though, the role offers an opportunity | :44:09. | :44:10. | |
for a region that's too often been overlooked. | :44:11. | :44:13. | |
One of the reasons why this region has done relatively poorly over | :44:14. | :44:17. | |
the last 40 years is that we have not had somebody championing | :44:18. | :44:21. | |
the region around Britain and around the world. | :44:22. | :44:24. | |
What this needs to be is part of a process of taking back control, | :44:25. | :44:29. | |
real control, real power from the London Government that has | :44:30. | :44:33. | |
let us down for 40 years in the West Midlands and finally | :44:34. | :44:37. | |
starting to run the West Midlands ourselves. | :44:38. | :44:39. | |
For the Liberal Democrats, it offers a chance to end politics as usual. | :44:40. | :44:44. | |
I notice that Sion says this is about the London Government, | :44:45. | :44:48. | |
But actually, it's the Labour Party and the Conservative Party | :44:49. | :44:52. | |
The rank outsider summed up the mood of many questioning | :44:53. | :44:58. | |
We already have Government in the West Midlands. | :44:59. | :45:01. | |
We already have councils, council leaders. | :45:02. | :45:04. | |
This isn't an extra layer of Government, | :45:05. | :45:07. | |
And from the questioner, Mr Slater, a clear verdict. | :45:08. | :45:13. | |
And when it comes to casting my vote, I'm going to spoil my paper | :45:14. | :45:18. | |
and write across it, no mayor, please. | :45:19. | :45:22. | |
With the election less than two weeks away, | :45:23. | :45:24. | |
there's still plenty of work to do to convince the sceptics. | :45:25. | :45:36. | |
And if you missed our debates, you can catch up with it on the iPlayer. | :45:37. | :45:43. | |
We're also joined today by the Ukip MEP, Bill Etheridge. He said to me | :45:44. | :45:50. | |
not long ago that if this metro mayoral role really is about | :45:51. | :45:55. | |
devolution, then it is devolution from the people to the | :45:56. | :45:57. | |
establishment. But that hasn't stopped your party from fielding a | :45:58. | :46:02. | |
candidate. Bearing in mind that you obviously do take a dim role of this | :46:03. | :46:07. | |
mayoral role, do you support Graham Slater, the man in this cert we have | :46:08. | :46:12. | |
seen their in the audience, and his determination to spoil his ballot | :46:13. | :46:17. | |
paper? His determination made sense, and this role is something very few | :46:18. | :46:23. | |
people want. I stand by my comments. But Pete Durnell, our candidates, is | :46:24. | :46:26. | |
standing on the platform of making the best of a bad job making sure | :46:27. | :46:29. | |
the people of this area don't get ripped off any more than they are. | :46:30. | :46:34. | |
So he's and anti-mayoral Mayor? You don't need to spoil your ballot | :46:35. | :46:42. | |
paper, just put a cross by Pete Durnell, Ukip, and he will do his | :46:43. | :46:45. | |
best to make this as painless as it can be. I take my hat off to him for | :46:46. | :46:52. | |
standing. Bill is putting his finger on the point there, your Government | :46:53. | :46:59. | |
is forcing this mayoral role down the throats of an electorate that | :47:00. | :47:04. | |
has twice voted against it in a referendum in commentary, once in | :47:05. | :47:06. | |
Birmingham, no wonder there is years of a low turnout? I am a great | :47:07. | :47:13. | |
believer in the role. If we are going to have a combined authority, | :47:14. | :47:16. | |
and in modern economies they work well when major metropolitan areas | :47:17. | :47:21. | |
work together. We haven't had that in the West Midlands, we have lots | :47:22. | :47:25. | |
of different authorities here, the idea is to bring them all together. | :47:26. | :47:30. | |
I do think in Andy Street, the Conservative candidates, he is a | :47:31. | :47:35. | |
strong candidates, he has brought the public and private sector | :47:36. | :47:37. | |
together, he stood down as the boss of John Lewis, and he will bring | :47:38. | :47:41. | |
those business skills together to manage the combined authority and do | :47:42. | :47:46. | |
a great deal for the West Midlands. In an area like this, it is | :47:47. | :47:50. | |
generally seen as Labour's election to lose. But if you do happen to | :47:51. | :47:54. | |
lose it, and the poll suggested as a knife edge contest, that would be a | :47:55. | :48:03. | |
serious blow to your party? I'm not convince we're going to lose. It is | :48:04. | :48:08. | |
an unusual collection because it's a second-preference system, no one | :48:09. | :48:11. | |
knows how that will work in this kind of setting. It could be the | :48:12. | :48:18. | |
least worst alternative? The second-preference system distorts | :48:19. | :48:22. | |
boating, that is a fact. I think in Sion Simon we have someone who will | :48:23. | :48:25. | |
stand up for the area. After what the Government has done to | :48:26. | :48:28. | |
Birmingham and the West Midlands, that's what we need. We saw Sion in | :48:29. | :48:36. | |
action over the apprenticeship contracts. That is someone who will | :48:37. | :48:41. | |
speak up immediately. Andy's nice enough guy, but we hear everything | :48:42. | :48:46. | |
over John Lewis, if yeah so good, how come we end up in a situation | :48:47. | :48:50. | |
where they are posting their lowest profits in the year he leaves? This | :48:51. | :48:54. | |
is a conversation about the mayor not the business performance of... I | :48:55. | :49:01. | |
didn't raise it, he did! The fact is there are lots of things in | :49:02. | :49:06. | |
apprenticeships, also housing, transport, economic development, | :49:07. | :49:10. | |
whether it is a role, surely, beyond what anyone local authority can do | :49:11. | :49:14. | |
in its patch, but closer to the people than Westminster and | :49:15. | :49:18. | |
Whitehall are. So, frankly, you should welcome these devolved | :49:19. | :49:23. | |
powers? I welcome Paris coming away from Whitehall, absolutely. One of | :49:24. | :49:26. | |
the main things I believe in politics is bringing power closer to | :49:27. | :49:31. | |
the people, and it amusing to hear that Sion Simon is using this take | :49:32. | :49:36. | |
back control line. He says he had at first. He should have copyrighted | :49:37. | :49:42. | |
it. This scheme is absolutely not the right scheme. Nobody really | :49:43. | :49:46. | |
knows what's got into it, it costs a lot of money, and everyone | :49:47. | :49:53. | |
speculating, who knows. The mayor is responsible, the buck stops with the | :49:54. | :49:57. | |
guy who selected. People ask me why am supporting a mayor, when it's | :49:58. | :50:04. | |
bound to be a Labour mayor, given the electorate. We have a candidate | :50:05. | :50:09. | |
looking to work hard. The Liberal Democrat candidate promised an end, | :50:10. | :50:13. | |
if she's elected, to politics as usual. Is that every approach to the | :50:14. | :50:18. | |
record of both your parties in Government? In terms of the raw deal | :50:19. | :50:23. | |
that both Mr Simon and Mr Street say as had under the pair of you? They | :50:24. | :50:30. | |
are the party that went into coalition the minute they had an | :50:31. | :50:34. | |
opportunity, not an end to politics as usual there are! They said they | :50:35. | :50:39. | |
won't go into collagen at this time. They made a pledge the last time. | :50:40. | :50:41. | |
And we just can't get too much of a good thing. | :50:42. | :50:44. | |
Because on the same day as that mayoral contest, | :50:45. | :50:46. | |
polling will also be taking place in our Shire counties - | :50:47. | :50:49. | |
across Worcestershire, Gloucestershire, Shropshire, | :50:50. | :50:50. | |
In what's bound to be seen as a dress rehearsal | :50:51. | :50:53. | |
for the main event in June, Warwickshire has no party | :50:54. | :50:56. | |
Our political reporter Sian Grzeszczyk says | :50:57. | :51:01. | |
the Conservatives are vying for power with Labour. | :51:02. | :51:05. | |
The battle for Warwickshire is well and truly on. | :51:06. | :51:07. | |
And whilst the candidates won't be donning suits of armour, | :51:08. | :51:10. | |
they know it's all to play for in the fight | :51:11. | :51:12. | |
It's probably the last thing they're thinking about in a place | :51:13. | :51:17. | |
like Warwick Castle, but how aware are voters | :51:18. | :51:20. | |
that this local election is even taking place | :51:21. | :51:23. | |
after Theresa May's surprise announcement? | :51:24. | :51:26. | |
We're more aware that there's a local election. | :51:27. | :51:28. | |
I don't think anyone really knew about it until the | :51:29. | :51:31. | |
I think the bigger, national issues will play on our minds more. | :51:32. | :51:40. | |
And I think we'll just drift through the local | :51:41. | :51:42. | |
I do think that the local elections are just going to get | :51:43. | :51:46. | |
The Conservatives are the largest party at Warwickshire | :51:47. | :51:48. | |
But the council is under no overall control. | :51:49. | :51:53. | |
whilst the Liberal Democrats have nine. | :51:54. | :51:58. | |
The Green Party have two members, and there are also two independents. | :51:59. | :52:03. | |
The Conservative leader is confident they will take back | :52:04. | :52:08. | |
control of Shire Hall, and had this message for voters. | :52:09. | :52:11. | |
I absolutely believe that the local council should be that safety net | :52:12. | :52:16. | |
for people in hard times, who are vulnerable. | :52:17. | :52:19. | |
So we believe that we should be looking to the future, | :52:20. | :52:24. | |
investing in Warwickshire, building support for our workforce | :52:25. | :52:28. | |
within Warwickshire, but being that catchall | :52:29. | :52:31. | |
But heading north to Nuneaton, the county's Labour leader | :52:32. | :52:36. | |
also has her eyes on the prize, despite depressing | :52:37. | :52:39. | |
I can't deny it is a very tough time for Labour. | :52:40. | :52:45. | |
But it's down to people like me, Labour Party people, | :52:46. | :52:47. | |
You think you can take control of Shire Hall? | :52:48. | :52:52. | |
I think we can win this election, because think some of the services | :52:53. | :52:55. | |
that have being chopped over the years by the Conservative | :52:56. | :53:00. | |
administration really need to be reinvented or made better | :53:01. | :53:03. | |
Meanwhile, back at Warwick Castle, the Liberal Democrats are hoping | :53:04. | :53:08. | |
this will be a real opportunity to hold onto the seats they have and | :53:09. | :53:11. | |
People are being quite welcoming on the door, | :53:12. | :53:18. | |
and we're already seeing locally, on our membership lists, | :53:19. | :53:20. | |
We'll continue going forward around the position of children | :53:21. | :53:25. | |
and families as an area which I think we need | :53:26. | :53:29. | |
to because concentrating more, and that's children's | :53:30. | :53:31. | |
It certainly doesn't seem to be performing correctly, | :53:32. | :53:34. | |
The Green Party has had two councillors for the last four years, | :53:35. | :53:39. | |
so what's their game plan this time around? | :53:40. | :53:42. | |
Very much getting more seats in the county council. | :53:43. | :53:45. | |
It would make a massive difference in our particular patches. | :53:46. | :53:50. | |
And also, generally, at the county council, | :53:51. | :53:52. | |
The contest for the county council certainly won't involve | :53:53. | :54:12. | |
but the parties know what's at stake here, | :54:13. | :54:15. | |
and they're running out of time in the fight for victory. | :54:16. | :54:18. | |
She just about resisted the temptation to join in there. Also | :54:19. | :54:24. | |
fielding candidates in Warwickshire are Ukip, the Socialist Coalition | :54:25. | :54:31. | |
and associated Independent candidates. Your Government has been | :54:32. | :54:37. | |
forced to take ?92.4 million out of the budget, and the leader of the | :54:38. | :54:43. | |
council from your party has had a few things to say about that. So | :54:44. | :54:46. | |
both nationally and locally, doesn't give your party and easy record to | :54:47. | :54:54. | |
defend there? There is a lot of fun is to go into social care, and the | :54:55. | :54:59. | |
additional to present that has been added to council tax bills does go | :55:00. | :55:05. | |
to those bills. The budget at Warwickshire was agreed by the | :55:06. | :55:09. | |
Labour group, interestingly, it was a joint budget presented by the | :55:10. | :55:12. | |
Conservatives and accepted by Labour. So they recognise the good | :55:13. | :55:17. | |
work the Conservatives are doing in getting services delivered. It is | :55:18. | :55:20. | |
about making is your we get more for less, and councils have been adept | :55:21. | :55:24. | |
at doing that in recent years. So it's all your fault in Warwickshire, | :55:25. | :55:31. | |
Steve? So the anti-austerities of agenda that your party has been | :55:32. | :55:36. | |
pushing during seven years of Conservative-led Government simply | :55:37. | :55:38. | |
isn't cutting the mustard with the electorate, and the polls do back | :55:39. | :55:44. | |
that up? This is a set of elections taking place and mostly Tory-held | :55:45. | :55:47. | |
rural England. It will be interesting to see, and something | :55:48. | :55:53. | |
that your viewers picked up in the film, how confusing will it be | :55:54. | :55:55. | |
having a general election at the same time. How much impact that had? | :55:56. | :56:02. | |
I think the bottom line for these elections is just what level of cuts | :56:03. | :56:08. | |
can you sustain. And, actually, we saw that Tory councils have been | :56:09. | :56:12. | |
trying to do secret, back door deals, because they can't sustain | :56:13. | :56:17. | |
it. So from a to come here and kid on that a Tory budgets, who is the | :56:18. | :56:18. | |
kidding? We have seen examples of kidding? We have seen examples of | :56:19. | :56:25. | |
where Steve is coming from? Certainly councils of how to make | :56:26. | :56:28. | |
difficult decisions, but the Government recognises that an ageing | :56:29. | :56:31. | |
population needs more resources going into that sector. And that has | :56:32. | :56:38. | |
happened. I mention that Ukip are among the parties fielding | :56:39. | :56:41. | |
candidates. If you are to be taken serious eye as a national party, | :56:42. | :56:44. | |
worry all the fighting 17 seats, one in three? The point is these | :56:45. | :56:51. | |
elections are, in the shires, where in the past, when we ran before... | :56:52. | :56:56. | |
You're a national party, you told me you are a party for everybody? We | :56:57. | :57:02. | |
got it everywhere. Not much in Warwickshire. People going to go out | :57:03. | :57:07. | |
there and campaign on the issues rather than party politics, because | :57:08. | :57:11. | |
it should be about the local issues of the area. I'm cancel myself as | :57:12. | :57:15. | |
well as an MEP, and we see doesn't matter what colour rosette you have | :57:16. | :57:20. | |
on as long as you engage in the local issues, people support you. | :57:21. | :57:23. | |
I'm confidently people standing there that they will acquit | :57:24. | :57:27. | |
themselves very well for Ukip in the local people. Your colleague | :57:28. | :57:33. | |
standing to become an MP, will you think of doing so yourself? I have | :57:34. | :57:39. | |
submitted my name to be considered. I would like to fight the battle in | :57:40. | :57:46. | |
Dudley North. Final thoughts from you, Steve, in Nuneaton, | :57:47. | :57:52. | |
Warwickshire and Leamington, Rugby, even if you're going to have a hope, | :57:53. | :57:57. | |
given Scotland and Upton of labour there, these are the ambitious | :57:58. | :58:02. | |
targets you have two set -- meltdown of labour there. I haven't pretended | :58:03. | :58:08. | |
this is going to be really tough, and I think this election is about | :58:09. | :58:13. | |
saying to people, do not give her a massive majority and carte blanche | :58:14. | :58:15. | |
to do whatever she likes. Because you do, you will the day. There are | :58:16. | :58:25. | |
other areas where I think Steve... At ago thanks to you, Bill, for | :58:26. | :58:27. | |
being with us. Let's catch up now with the rest | :58:28. | :58:29. | |
of the political developments that have made the news here, | :58:30. | :58:32. | |
during yet another Our round-up in 60 seconds | :58:33. | :58:34. | |
is brought to us today Jeremy Corbyn was in Birmingham | :58:35. | :58:37. | |
on Tuesday to make a local election announcement | :58:38. | :58:43. | |
about carers' allowances. Just as the PM was poised to make | :58:44. | :58:45. | |
that snap general election call. Not everyone wants | :58:46. | :58:48. | |
an election though. Paul Farrelly was one of only 13 MPs | :58:49. | :58:51. | |
to vote against a snap poll. Could it be because his | :58:52. | :58:57. | |
Newcastle-under-Lyme seat is the region's | :58:58. | :59:01. | |
top conservative target? Labour's Rob Marris is to stand down | :59:02. | :59:04. | |
at the general election, just two years after making a return | :59:05. | :59:07. | |
to Parliament And, after 20 years as Labour MP | :59:08. | :59:09. | |
for Edgbaston, the former Health Minister and Vote Leave | :59:10. | :59:13. | |
co-chairman Gisela Stuart I shall be on the campaign | :59:14. | :59:17. | |
trail, but I shall not be So can I thank you and everyone here | :59:18. | :59:22. | |
for the 20 years of a privilege. He was re-elected as the leader | :59:23. | :59:28. | |
of Unite, defeating the union's West Midlands regional secretary, | :59:29. | :59:32. | |
Gerard Coyne, after a bitter battle. A bitter battle, which to remind | :59:33. | :59:51. | |
you, was also seen as a proxy battle over trying to stop Jeremy Corbyn | :59:52. | :59:54. | |
leading Labour into the next election. To that went to plan them, | :59:55. | :00:00. | |
didn't it, Steve? I would say that battle was a moral victory for | :00:01. | :00:04. | |
Gerald Coyne, and the behaviour of Len McCluskey and suspended him is | :00:05. | :00:08. | |
something you would associate with North Korea. It's total disgrace. | :00:09. | :00:14. | |
What they need to be concerned about is turnout, 12 present members took | :00:15. | :00:18. | |
part, that's not a massive mandate for anybody. We need that across a | :00:19. | :00:26. | |
democratic system. The Tories want to tighten up on union ballots, | :00:27. | :00:33. | |
briefly, if you would? The problem is the level of participation, but | :00:34. | :00:36. | |
had to make it easier for people to vote, not to try and a train wreck | :00:37. | :00:40. | |
the outcome. If the Tories are serious about reaching out to | :00:41. | :00:44. | |
ordinary people, you have to take an interest in union politics. Yes, | :00:45. | :00:48. | |
union people and now supporting Conservatives. | :00:49. | :00:49. | |
My thanks to Steve McCabe and Mark Pawsey. | :00:50. | :00:51. | |
Finally from me, a reminder that the last of our metro mayoral | :00:52. | :00:54. | |
debates is coming up on Thursday, by which time there'll be exactly | :00:55. | :00:57. | |
Hosted by Paul Franks, again with all six candidates, | :00:58. | :01:01. | |
it's live on BBC West Midlands 95.6 from 7pm in the evening. | :01:02. | :01:04. | |
This though is where we rejoin Andrew Neil. | :01:05. | :01:08. | |
on issues like the NHS. Run out of time. Andrew, back to you. | :01:09. | :01:17. | |
Now, Ukip have made their first significant policy announcement | :01:18. | :01:23. | |
of the election campaign today with a call for a ban on wearing | :01:24. | :01:29. | |
But is it a policy that will meet with the approval of the man | :01:30. | :01:35. | |
who bankrolled the party's last general election campaign? | :01:36. | :01:37. | |
Hello, Andrew. Let me see if I can clarify some things, are you a | :01:38. | :01:44. | |
member of Ukip? I a patron of Ukip so I don't stop being a member. So | :01:45. | :01:51. | |
you are still a member? I am, apparently for life. Are you still | :01:52. | :01:55. | |
hoping to bankroll Ukip? Not at the moment. Why is that? The internal | :01:56. | :02:01. | |
problems we have had in Ukip have been aired, and a lot needs to | :02:02. | :02:06. | |
happen in the party in terms of professionalising it and I think it | :02:07. | :02:10. | |
is ill-prepared for this general election. Are you going to run in | :02:11. | :02:15. | |
Clacton? I will be if selected. For Ukip? Yes. Have you been to Clacton? | :02:16. | :02:23. | |
I've been with Nigel Mansell on the campaign. You will run for a | :02:24. | :02:26. | |
constituency you've only been in once? Yes, why does that surprise | :02:27. | :02:33. | |
you? You know nothing about it. I've just recently decided to become the | :02:34. | :02:37. | |
candidate there. Did you know where it is? Of course I do, your piece | :02:38. | :02:41. | |
the other night was completely wrong. I said I knew where it was | :02:42. | :02:45. | |
but I didn't know much about it. Maybe the people of Clacton will | :02:46. | :02:52. | |
regard you as a carpetbagger? Why? Because you have never been there. | :02:53. | :02:58. | |
Most politicians are carpetbaggers and I will be there for the right | :02:59. | :03:02. | |
reasons. I thought it was because of your visceral hatred of Douglas | :03:03. | :03:08. | |
Carswell. He only lasted 24 hours after I announced my candidacy so we | :03:09. | :03:11. | |
will see what happens. The main thing I am going to Clacton on | :03:12. | :03:14. | |
Monday to meet the Ukip councillors, see what the issues are and see if | :03:15. | :03:18. | |
they want me as a candidate. They may not want me. Who do you think | :03:19. | :03:24. | |
you will be up against? The potential Conservative candidate. | :03:25. | :03:30. | |
Who in Ukip? I don't suppose anyone in Ukip will stand against me, I | :03:31. | :03:35. | |
wouldn't have thought. Really? I would have thought. Money talks! Why | :03:36. | :03:43. | |
do you say that? You talked about having a pirate radio station to | :03:44. | :03:46. | |
blast into Clacton so it is not covered by the election rules. | :03:47. | :03:49. | |
You've been talking about financing a sort of right-wing Momentum | :03:50. | :03:55. | |
movement. I just wonder, has politics now just become a | :03:56. | :03:59. | |
Richmond's hobby? From my perspective the reason I'm | :04:00. | :04:02. | |
interested in it is if you have looked at what has happened in the | :04:03. | :04:05. | |
country, it's clear the Conservatives will have a massive | :04:06. | :04:10. | |
majority. -- has politics become a rich man's hobby. Only putting up | :04:11. | :04:16. | |
candidates not against Brexit MPs. Is Ukip over? I don't think so. The | :04:17. | :04:23. | |
electoral maths is interesting because first-past-the-post | :04:24. | :04:25. | |
effectively could help Ukip in this example. Ukip got one MP with 4 | :04:26. | :04:35. | |
million votes. What we are seeing is the total collapse of Labour. In | :04:36. | :04:39. | |
that situation there are certain seats up north in Hartlepool and | :04:40. | :04:42. | |
other seats like that, the total collapse of the Labour Party could | :04:43. | :04:46. | |
help Ukip to win a few seats. Is Ukip over? It looks that way, yes. | :04:47. | :04:52. | |
They haven't made much of a dent in Labour's vote in the north, they | :04:53. | :04:55. | |
don't really have a defining issue anymore and all the polls we have | :04:56. | :04:59. | |
seen published since the election was called show Ukip vote is going | :05:00. | :05:04. | |
to the Conservatives. Is Ukip over? It always happens when the | :05:05. | :05:08. | |
Conservative Party goes far to the right, really hard Brexit, there is | :05:09. | :05:12. | |
no space for BMP, Ukip and all of that. Are you associating the BNP | :05:13. | :05:19. | |
with Ukip? Or that, movements to the right of the Conservatives get eaten | :05:20. | :05:22. | |
up one the Conservatives move as far right as Theresa May has done. I | :05:23. | :05:27. | |
think what your enterprise shows is how it's really time to reform | :05:28. | :05:32. | |
funding of political parties. It is disgraceful that very rich people | :05:33. | :05:37. | |
can move in and bankroll the Brexit campaigned to the extent that they | :05:38. | :05:41. | |
did. We need proper state funding of parties. The union is bankrolling | :05:42. | :05:47. | |
Labour. I assume the reform would include trade unions? Indeed. Ukip | :05:48. | :05:55. | |
has lost its talisman in Nigel Farage, it was a one-man party, I | :05:56. | :05:58. | |
have to say, people like Tim. Having voted for Brexit its reason to be | :05:59. | :06:04. | |
has gone. It will still take votes from Labour and the Conservatives | :06:05. | :06:07. | |
but probably only from the don't knows. There are seats in certain | :06:08. | :06:11. | |
places where if enough Tories back Ukip dated when. Hartlepool is an | :06:12. | :06:17. | |
example. Were the Tories will never win. The demise of Ukip has been | :06:18. | :06:20. | |
forecasted many times before but I don't see a Tory candidate winning | :06:21. | :06:24. | |
in a place like Hartlepool. So we could see, and I think we will see, | :06:25. | :06:29. | |
the total collapse of the Labour vote. We shall see. The leader of | :06:30. | :06:33. | |
the party of which you say you are still a patron, Paul Nuttall, said | :06:34. | :06:37. | |
he would ban the Burcea and the niqab in public, what is your view? | :06:38. | :06:46. | |
-- the niqab and the Burcea? I'm not in agreement with that. If it is a | :06:47. | :06:50. | |
security issue at airports or public transport it could be acceptable but | :06:51. | :06:54. | |
I'm not in favour of curtailing people's writes. You have gone | :06:55. | :06:57. | |
further than him, haven't you? You tweeted you wanted to ban Muslim | :06:58. | :07:02. | |
immigration. In my view the problem we have had with the lack of | :07:03. | :07:05. | |
integration in certain communities has come about through mass | :07:06. | :07:09. | |
open-door immigration. If you are a must win you wouldn't be allowed in? | :07:10. | :07:13. | |
What I said in the tweet was I think they should be a ban on | :07:14. | :07:18. | |
immigration... You said Muslim immigration. That's what I believe. | :07:19. | :07:24. | |
If you are a world famous doctor coming to help one of our big | :07:25. | :07:27. | |
teaching hospitals in this country because you are a Muslim you could | :07:28. | :07:31. | |
not get in? We have to start somewhere, there are huge problems | :07:32. | :07:34. | |
in areas where 20% of the population don't speak the language, they | :07:35. | :07:39. | |
haven't integrated. You should read the rest of the tweet, it is control | :07:40. | :07:45. | |
of immigration from a 10-year ban on unskilled immigration. The first | :07:46. | :07:49. | |
thing you said was to ban Muslim immigration, it is in black and | :07:50. | :07:52. | |
white. I have said that, I do not dispute that. I was questioning | :07:53. | :07:56. | |
that. There is my answer, you cannot tell somebody's will adjust freedoms | :07:57. | :08:01. | |
but what you can do is stop adding to the problem. Doesn't that sound a | :08:02. | :08:06. | |
bit like the BNP? It's as like BNP and like Trump. Its, we hate | :08:07. | :08:10. | |
Muslims, fine, if that is what you are standing for, that is clear. The | :08:11. | :08:15. | |
final word is we have had open-door mass immigration from the | :08:16. | :08:17. | |
Conservative Party, we've had it from the Labour Party and its fine | :08:18. | :08:20. | |
if you are in north London to say these things, if you live in Oldham | :08:21. | :08:25. | |
and your community has been radically changed and you have a | :08:26. | :08:28. | |
whole population not integrating in, not speaking the language, something | :08:29. | :08:32. | |
has got to be done. We had better leave it there. Thank you for coming | :08:33. | :08:37. | |
in. I am en route to Clacton. We will see how you get on there. | :08:38. | :08:39. | |
Now, Lib Dem leader Tim Farron was on TV earlier today | :08:40. | :08:41. | |
and he was asked again about an issue that he's been | :08:42. | :08:44. | |
asked about repeatedly - his attitude to homosexuality. | :08:45. | :08:46. | |
when they asked you whether gay sex was a sin. | :08:47. | :08:56. | |
Come on, Robert, I've been asked this question loads | :08:57. | :08:58. | |
few days and I have been clear, even in the House of Commons, | :08:59. | :09:02. | |
It's possible I'm not the only person getting tired | :09:03. | :09:12. | |
Probably, but then why don't you just close it down? | :09:13. | :09:16. | |
Toby Young, why does he get into such a mess over this? I mean, he is | :09:17. | :09:28. | |
leader of the Liberal Democrats. Its 2017. I guess the reason he keeps | :09:29. | :09:32. | |
refusing to answer that question is because what the implication is that | :09:33. | :09:36. | |
he does think that homosexual acts are sinful, and he cannot bring | :09:37. | :09:43. | |
himself not to say that, or to say what Robert Peston and others want | :09:44. | :09:47. | |
him to say because he is an evangelical Christian who converted | :09:48. | :09:51. | |
at the age of 20, 21, and clearly he really struggles with this issue and | :09:52. | :09:54. | |
I think it will be really difficult for the Lib Dems to promote, or even | :09:55. | :09:58. | |
Lib Dem candidates like Vince Cable, to promote the idea of the | :09:59. | :10:01. | |
Progressive Alliance even though Tim has ruled it out, if he is not | :10:02. | :10:05. | |
prepared to say I don't think homosexual acts are sinful. What is | :10:06. | :10:14. | |
your view? It is disastrous if that is what he really thinks but Preston | :10:15. | :10:17. | |
did not push the hard. I'm not sure he understood the difference about | :10:18. | :10:19. | |
the question between gay sex and being gay. I think he just thought | :10:20. | :10:22. | |
he was going on saying I'm not anti-gay. He needs to command | :10:23. | :10:26. | |
immediately and clarify it. If you are right and he does actually think | :10:27. | :10:31. | |
it is a sin he is in real trouble. There is a slight parallel with what | :10:32. | :10:34. | |
police said before about Jeremy Corbyn, how his unilateral nuclear | :10:35. | :10:38. | |
policy would appeal to the hard core of the left. The problem for Tim | :10:39. | :10:43. | |
Farron with what he is saying here, while he is an evangelical | :10:44. | :10:48. | |
Christian, this will not appeal to traditional Liberal Democrats. An | :10:49. | :10:55. | |
LGBT community member cannot possibly vote for an MP who believes | :10:56. | :11:00. | |
that a sexual act between homosexuals is sinful. He has not | :11:01. | :11:03. | |
made that clear. Of course, he wants to stop Brexit as well so he is | :11:04. | :11:07. | |
neither liberal nor democratic. He will have seven weeks to make it | :11:08. | :11:10. | |
clear because I am sure he will be asked again. We have the chairman of | :11:11. | :11:15. | |
the Conservative Party on earlier, Polly. An important figure for the | :11:16. | :11:20. | |
Tory campaign. What did you make of what he said? I don't think he will | :11:21. | :11:24. | |
have him on very often, he didn't do brilliantly. I think they will bring | :11:25. | :11:28. | |
back chemical Ali, Michael Fallon, he can say anything with a straight | :11:29. | :11:33. | |
face, he can say black is white. Michael Fallon, chemical Ali? Why do | :11:34. | :11:38. | |
you say that? He can absolutely say black is white. For instance if you | :11:39. | :11:44. | |
look back at what he said, you challenged him about the energy | :11:45. | :11:50. | |
policy, when Ed Miliband came out with it, he said any kind of freeze | :11:51. | :11:55. | |
would stop investment, the lights will go out. You have him on, he | :11:56. | :11:59. | |
will say the exact opposite. He is magic at that. But I don't think | :12:00. | :12:05. | |
your guy today was up to the job. If Michael Fallon was chemical Ali, or | :12:06. | :12:12. | |
we should say chemical Fally, Patrick was more like comical Ali. | :12:13. | :12:18. | |
The whole Iraq war is rushing back at me. He is the warm up comedian, | :12:19. | :12:23. | |
there is another six weeks to go, just getting things started. What | :12:24. | :12:27. | |
did you think? I don't think he was too bad, it was difficult for him to | :12:28. | :12:31. | |
say exactly what was in the 2050 manifesto is going to be replicated | :12:32. | :12:35. | |
in the Conservatives' manifesto during this general election, he | :12:36. | :12:38. | |
doesn't want to be seen rowing back on stuff but on the other hand I | :12:39. | :12:41. | |
don't think he can conceal the fact they will be far fewer commitments | :12:42. | :12:45. | |
in this Conservative manifesto than in the last one, as you and I know, | :12:46. | :12:49. | |
it was full of rash promises last time because they thought they would | :12:50. | :12:58. | |
have to trade a lot of them away in the negotiations with the Liberal | :12:59. | :13:00. | |
Democrats to form a second coalition so they are saddled with policies | :13:01. | :13:02. | |
they don't particularly want to be hemmed in by. The forthcoming | :13:03. | :13:04. | |
Conservative manifesto will be much lighter and shorter with fewer | :13:05. | :13:07. | |
commitments. Different? Some stuff jumped from the 2050 manifesto? I | :13:08. | :13:11. | |
think so but we will see a commitment to run schools to | :13:12. | :13:14. | |
overcome that hurdle in the next parliament and I don't think, in | :13:15. | :13:17. | |
spite of what you think, Polly, that it will be a hard tack to the right. | :13:18. | :13:22. | |
I think if anything the mood music of the Conservative manifesto will | :13:23. | :13:27. | |
be a centrist inclusive one. The mood music will be because the | :13:28. | :13:31. | |
specifics would be there. She is good at saying governing for | :13:32. | :13:34. | |
everybody and the many and not the few but when you look at the hard | :13:35. | :13:38. | |
facts of what her and Hammond's budget looks like, you look at her | :13:39. | :13:41. | |
hard Brexit, it's a very different story. Or that, the music has | :13:42. | :13:49. | |
stopped for this week! Thank you. I will be back next week at the normal | :13:50. | :13:56. | |
time of 11am on Sunday morning. On BBC One The Daily Politics is back | :13:57. | :14:00. | |
at midday tomorrow and we will be on every day next week on BBC Two. | :14:01. | :14:04. | |
Remember, if it's Sunday, it is The Sunday Politics. | :14:05. | :14:34. | |
There'll be a couple of hours of just fantastic music, really, | :14:35. | :14:37. | |
all the Ella classics, as well as some very special guests, | :14:38. | :14:40. | |
we have Mica Paris, Imelda May, Dame Cleo Laine | :14:41. | :14:43. | |
'There's a side to Rory that the public doesn't see. | :14:44. | :14:48. | |
'Rory has suspected for some time that he may have ADHD. | :14:49. | :14:52. | |
Here we have the first hydrogen bomb that went into service with | :14:53. | :15:01. |