05/05/2013 Sunday Politics West

They gave councils the biggest shock in years gaining thousands of votes

across the west country. Can the party once called "fruitcakes" make

Apology for the loss of subtitles for 2232 seconds

the programme just for us in the West. Today we are digesting what

the local election results mean after the UKIP bombshell fail on

West Country -- West Country politics. They did not get that many

seats, but in some areas over a quarter of voters gave them support.

They were called fruitcakes, but they have had the last laugh. We

will be talking to them later. First, let us introduce our guests.

They are at the Conservative Jacob Rees-Mogg, the Liberal Democrat

Jeremy Browne and for Labour, Sophy Gardner. First of all, how do you

deal with the problem of UKIP. would like to see the Conservatives

offer an electoral pact to them. If you look at the results, 48% of the

electorate voted for a right-wing parties, that is more than Margaret

Thatcher ever achieved. UKIP is clearly appealing beyond the base of

the Conservative party, into patriotically to and is across the

country and if we could pull all that together in an electoral pact,

it would be very exciting. You would be prepared to adapt UKIP policies?

So many of them are close to our policies anyway. What about

immigration? Conservatives have been tightening that up. On leaving

Europe, it is a question of does a renegotiation have the same affect?

Doesn't mean really repatriates the powers we need? Are you proposing

that in some seats, they should not be a Conservative candidate as a

deal that in other seats to should not be a UKIP candidate? There

should be an election were we support each other. I would like to

see Nigel Farage replaces Nick Clegg is the Deputy Prime Minister. I

think that would be a better bet for Conservatives. He wants a divorce.

That is a big announcement. We are committed to this coalition for the

lifetime of this Parliament. That is David Cameron's commitment as well.

David Cameron one of the Conservative leadership on a pledge

to modernise the Conservative party, he said we must stop banging on

about Europe, we must connect with people who had previously been

moderate. This is a dramatic departure from the basis on which

David Cameron one of the Conservative leadership. It is a

confession of weakness. The idea that the next General Election, the

Conservatives should not be a genuinely national party, that

people in some constituencies in the West should go and vote and there

would not be a Conservative on the ballot paper and they would be

invited to vote for UKIP instead, that would be a very dramatic

departure. You would go that far? is what we have done before. After

1885. We did it with the Liberal Unionists. British history is a very

long time periods. This if you have a party that you broadly agree

with... You called them fruitcakes! We called net Clegg the biggest joke

in electoral politics two weeks before he was deputy prime

ministers. -- neck Clegg. World would that leave you? I think they

would have an interesting time trying to rein in Nigel Farage. I do

not find that particularly worrying. I find it a scary one for Tories.

is correct about the proportion of people voting for right-wing parties

at a time when Ed Miliband is moving to the left. He is not. I do not

really see that UKIP is as big a deal, it was a protest vote. We got

that feeling on the doorstep. A lot of people said they would do it this

time. Other people said that they were voting UKIP to make a point.

When we spoke to the man pointed out how many times we had been to talk

to them compared to UKIP, they changed their minds and voted

Labour. After that to the big story of the week, the local elections.

UKIP are cock-a-hoop after scooping up a quarter of the votes in some

places. Before they get too carried away, it is worth remembering that

most people did not bother voting at all so it may be too early to burn

those EU style passports just yet. The faces said it all. For them

British politics has entered a purple patch. A party derided as

clowns and fruitcakes had upset at the electoral applecart, gaining a

formidable foothold in our council chambers. The number of seats that

they actually won across the West Country is fairly modest, eight, but

the level of support they received is remarkable. In Dorset it reached

as high as 27% and the impact that they have had is enormous, nowhere

more so than here. In the early hours of Friday, firm and an the

Forest. This corner of Gloucestershire normally swings

between the Conservatives and Labour. Now they have seats on the

county, district and town councils. There is a protest vote involved.

They also feel that they wanted to support what we have been saying.

They are angry with government and that has fed down to local level.

sends out a message. It sends out an important message to the government,

people are not happy with issues surrounding the European Union.

is a worry for the local Conservative MP viewers a member of

the government. It is disappointing when we lose a good counsellors. We

are in government, we have to take difficult decisions to clear up the

mess we inherited and voters have taken the opportunity to protest.

Labour were celebrating him made five games, but not as many as they

wanted. The basic numbers do not tell the full UKIP story. In world

should they got just one of the seats which stayed under clear

Conservative control. What worries us is many of them did not put any

literature out at all. That seems like a protest vote and I do not

like that. Local government services are too important to use a protest

vote. On the results, all these people voting for UKIP, they are the

ones who will create the difference in this country. That is why we are

here. Everybody says before you ask me, there is no protest vote, of

course it is. Protest was the word being bandied about in Bristol,

although here others benefited. Independents made a strong showing

and begin -- the Greens gained two seats. Those who did not prosper

were the coalition parties. The Liberal Democrats lost nine. Simon

Cook survived but several senior colleagues did not. It looks like a

protest vote against the coalition. People on doorsteps said that they

were not going to do that and we seem to be getting the blame and I

do not understand that. In the big coalition clash in Somerset, the

Liberal Democrat challenge faltered and the Tories held on, just. The

majority was slashed to one. We have been through the ringer. I am

pleased out where we are. I will be really pleased to take a day off

before I get back to the job on Monday. Back in Gloucester, there

was calm after the tumultuous events of the count. Mine is turned to the

daily business of running council services. Can you work with any of

the other parties? There is room for a group of political groups to come

together to form a coalition. Whether that is formal or some ad

hoc arrangements, that remains to be seen. Yes he did say another

coalition, that word may not please their supporters, but in

Gloucestershire, it could give UKIP their first taste of power. Joining

the debate here is UKIP's Jim Carver who is their South West regional

coordinator. You were listening in the wings when Jacob made his offer

for an electoral pact with UKIP. What do you think? I do not think we

would. What we saw on Thursday night was right across the south-west and

right across the country. It clarified that UKIP is taking votes

from all the parties. Thank you Jeremy, there are now four main

political parties and I think that has been borne out by the results.

Any talk of electoral pacts, it is early days, it is way above my pay

grade. I do not think the membership would go with that and we have

people from the Labour background who would not go along with the

Conservative party and I am sure people from Conservative backgrounds

would not go along with a pact with the Labour Party. That has blown

your plans? No. Rome was not built in a day. It would take time to

build a packed. The exact terms would have to be negotiated. What

would UKIP want to come into an arrangement with us? What would we

have to do in relation to the referendum? Would they require the

Prime Minister to use Article 50 of the Treaty on the European Union?

Would be easier if you'd joined UKIP? No. I am a dyed in the wool

Conservative. I have a sympathy with their platform and their mode of

campaigning. Do you think the people who voted on Thursday voted for you

because they want out of Europe, which is your main campaigning idea?

It is clear, that is a key platform. You think that about everybody?

lot of people who did, but I know from speaking to some people, they

liked what we were saying about local issues and it is fair to say

some people wanted to have a go at the main parties. Where does that

leave Labour? There is certain to be a referendum. Where would Labour

stand? In terms of Europe? We have always said that we believe our

places in Europe. We do believe that we should be renegotiating some of

our positions. The UK is better of in Europe, the economy is better

off. Would you support people having a choice? It is difficult to call

now. We need to be concentrating on the economy. That is what people

want us to talk about. It is overwhelming, it is what people were

talking on the doorstep. It was the state of the economy, the effects

that people are feeling from the changes to their allowances and

benefits. It was also about immigration? Nigel Farage raised a

point when he said about Romanians and Bulgarians coming. Is it too

late to look at those policies and say, perhaps we should not have an

open door policy? We can look at how we apply them. There is an agreement

across the European Union. Hundreds of thousands of British people

retire to Spain. More British people live in Spain than there are

Spaniards living here. It is not a precise give and take. I wanted to

pick up on Jacob's point. The crucial thing is, as far as I can

see, there is one political party which is committed to getting to

grips with the economic problems, taking responsible decisions in

government about the economy, whilst still having an enlightened appeal

and that is the Liberal Democrats. The Conservatives are pulling off to

the right and talking about deals with UKIP. Labour are unwilling to

face up to any of the economic responsibility at all. Far from the

Liberal Democrats being marginalised, I think what is quite

interesting is the result of the traumas suffered by the

Conservatives, that we are the one force that is murdering British

politics on the responsible centre ground. You were annihilated in

Bristol. -- moraine British politics. We were patchy in parts of

the country. We had our best performances I became a candidate.

We got twice as many seats in my constituency as all the political

parties added together. For all your talk, you have got eight

councillors. We got 833 second places. If I can go back and the

point needs to be made, what we have brought to the selection is on the

issue of Europe, clarity, and what we have heard from Jacob. What we

have, they have the view, let us go for Europe wholeheartedly and what

we say is let us step back, have an amicable withdrawal. What is on

offer from the Conservatives and Labour... We have heard what William

Hague had to say, there is no shift to the right. I agree with Roy

Jenkins, he was right in what is said about Europe and that is

something for UKIP. He said there are now only too clear positions

with regards to our membership of the European community. All in or

all out. We have looked at it on balance and what the Conservatives

and Labour are talking about is really go see is, let's have the

good bits are not the bad bits, but that does not work. We have to make

a decision, as my party says, we believe we are better off out or

take the view, that we are all in. want to return to immigration. Does

Labour accept some of the -- responsibility for the

disenchantment? We have. We were talking about it this week. We

should have done things differently with controls. We need to make sure

that the national minimum wage is enforced so that people are not

employed on very low wages which draws on immigration illegally.

Those are the sort of things which are not being tackled by the current

government. Why do Scotland want to go into Europe, do you think?

are a different situation. The argument has been raised already. I

am not going to stand here to defend Scottish Independents. Nigel Farage

is like the Alex Salmond of England. I think he would take that as a huge

compliment. If we look at where the SNP came from, they started off by

winning a by-election many years ago and maybe it will not be so long. We

had a lot of second places. We could win a parliamentary by-election and

who knows what will come from that. Them is one thing about these

elections which will worry all politicians that was how few people

actually voted. In some areas as many as 82% did not bother. The

West, in the grip of electoral fever. After weeks of campaigning,

and thousands of postal vote applications, the ballot boxes

arrived and the polling stations were armed and ready for eager

voters. Look, there are some. Four years ago turnout was around 40%,

could it be matched this time? The cancer is... Nope. One of the most

notable things in these elections was the sheer number of people who

did not bother to use their polling cards are both at all. Here in the

centre of Bristol we had the lowest turnout with just over 17% of people

bothering to vote. That was reflected across the West. Bristol

had the lowest overall turnout at just under 25%. Somerset had the

highest turnout, reaching the dizzy heights of 36%. Here over one third

of people actually bothered to vote. In one seat in Bristol it was clear

how close things can get. I1-macro by one vote. It is fair to say that

every vote does matter. In the Eastville ward there was concern is

about younger people. It is a shame. People lost their lives for the

vote. You are entitled to vote, you should use it. In elections doesn't

really matter how low things go? The fact is the candidate with the most

votes will still be elected, even if only 17% of people turned out. With

the turnout solo, is there any real democracy in these local elections?

As long as people have the right to vote, if one person votes, then the

person who gets that vote wins. What are we doing wrong as politicians

that mean people are not interested in voting? When you see the

disconnect between the political elite and the electorate, not just

in this country but across Europe, there is a feeling that it is them

and us and UKIP has broken into that. I think some politicians on

both the left and right overcome that problem, Boris Johnson in

London is a good example from the right, and we need politics that

excites people. What is interesting is the number of second places you

got. If you had had your way and persuaded the British public to have

proportional representation, they would be a powerful force. I think

people should vote, they should feel a sense of civic obligation. I

recognise lots of people do not politicians have some responsibility

to ask why that is. To build on that point, you hear at Labour

politicians say we can win the General Election with 31% of the

vote. If you got a General Election UKIP got over that and did not win

any seats and Labour had an outright majority, you would have a crisis of

confidence. There is a sense that a lot of our political system... If it

is not broken, it needs attention. This was a problem in the old days.

We are building up through local councils. It is time now for our

weekly round-up in just 60 seconds. The government have been accused of

condoning the death penalty for refusing to pay the legal fees for a

Lindsay Sandiford who is facing a firing squad in Bali. She was

sentenced to death in January for smuggling more than �1.5 million

worth of cocaine into the country. The author Jilly Cooper at lent her

support to the pro-badger movement this week. Campaigners have been

asking politicians to declare if they will help stop the planned cull

of 2500 badgers from going ahead in the county in June. Remember these

yellow lines? They were painted on a tiny alley in Swindon that was too

narrow for any car. Charlotte Leslie wants the government to back a new

Royal College of Teaching, a professional body to improve

training and standards. Teaching unions say they are unconvinced by

the idea. That was the week. Just before we go, they are barely meet

asked Jacob what saves the Conservatives would not stand in any

pact with UKIP. I hope not mine! You have to work out which seats it