02/02/2014 Sunday Politics Yorkshire and Lincolnshire

Morning, folks. Welcome to the Sunday Politics. The unions helped

him beat his brother to the top. Now Ed Miliband wants to change Labour's

relationship with them. Who will come out on top? We will be asking

one union baron what he thinks. Cracks in the coalition after

Education Secretary Michael Gove sacks the chairwoman of Ofsted. His

Lib Dem deputy is said to be hopping mad. We will be talking to the new

deputy leader of the Lib Dems, Malcolm Bruce.

Caught a bout of the EU blues? David Cameron has been drowning his

sorrows with the President of France. Who better? We will be

asking if the EU referendum bill is dead in the water.

And bad weather getting you down? Getting from A to B a bit of a

nightmare? Fear not! The leader of the Greens will be here with her

traffic and travel report. Dutch We find out why North Yorkshire

Tories rejected and Macintosh, Yorkshire's only female Tory MP.

reassurance people want? Yes, all that and more in today s

action-packed Sunday Politics. And blowing more hot air than I have had

hot dinners, Helen Lewis, Nick Watt and Iain Martin.

After the row about candidate selection in Falkirk, Ed Miliband

said he wanted to reshape the relationship between Labour and the

unions. The biggest changes involve union membership of the party, which

in turn will affect future Labour leadership elections. Some claim

this is Ed's Clause 4 moment. But the unions will continue to be

powerful at conference and on the party's ruling committees, and they

will still be able to bankroll the election campaign. Here is Labour's

deputy leader, Harriet Harman, speaking earlier. What he is

proposing for the March the 1st conference is a huge change in

financing, in the election of the leader, in what goes on at local

level. In due course, it might have implications for the NEC elections

and conference. But this is already a big issue to take forward.

Joining me now is Paul Kenny, general secretary of the GMB union

and chair of the Trade Union and Labour Party Liaison Organisation.

Is this Ed Miliband's Clause 4 moment? I don't know about that It

is certainly a bold move, particularly to have an electoral

college, which as you said was the system which elected him in the

first place. Everybody admits that has needed reforming for some time.

Moving to a one member, one vote situation seems to me to be

sensible. I know some people are upset, mostly MPs, who will lose

their golden share. But it is nonsense that one MP should have the

same vote as 1000 party members So the MPs have lost out. Have the

unions lost out? Well, the system is currently that union members get a

ballot paper, but they have to declare that they are a Labour

supporter and they have to sign to that effect in order to participate.

Then their vote is counted. At the last election, about 200,000 trade

union members gave that indication, and they participated in that way.

That will not change. The way it is organised will be different. The big

change in the electoral college is that the logical weight given to MPs

will disappear. I wonder if you have really lost anything. At the moment,

there are about 3 million people automatically affiliated from the

unions to the Labour Party. If only 10% of them opt in, that will still

mean twice as many union individual members, 300,000, versus about

180,000 Labour Party members. So union members and maybe even the

unions will have as big an influence on the leadership elections as you

do now, maybe bigger? Well, they are individual votes. Different unions

support different candidates. It is lost in the media myth of barons and

block votes, but there is an individual vote. Different unions

recommend different candidates, and union members vote accordingly. Ed

Miliband won more individual votes by a country mile than David, but it

got messed up in the process of this electoral college. As I have

understood the proposals so far they are not a done deal. There is a

lot of discussion. But it seems there are three hurdles. Firstly,

union members themselves will have to agree whether they want to

affiliate to the Labour Party. If they don't, the rest of it falls. If

they decide they do my they will ask union members to support that an

individual basis the next five years, which will have financial

implications. Then there will be a third position, which is that people

who may want to agree with the union's position and affiliate with

the Labour Party may want to go further and become active supporters

of the Labour Party, participating in leadership elections. They will

have to give their sanction to that at a third stage. So the

implications in terms of constituency parties and so on are a

lot less than the idea that the 3 million who are currently affiliated

will change. At the moment, the unions, because of the automatic

affiliation, hand over a affiliation fees of about ?8 million a year to

Labour. You will now get to keep that money, because the individuals

will have to put up the money themselves. You can keep that money

and determine if you give it to Labour to fight the election

campaign, correct? Incorrect. Firstly, the affiliation fees are

paid from what is called the political fund, which most unions

have to set up in order to participate. The union will continue

to pay the ?3 a affiliation fee for those members who want the union to

be affiliated. But you get to keep a lot more money. In reality, we will

see a transitional period of a few years. Less people will probably say

yes, depending on how popular Labour are, about whether they want the

union to give money to the Labour Party. The GMB has already done

this. By the way, don't call me kneel. It is Andrew or Mr Neil. The

unions will have a bigger chunk of money because the unions will not be

handing over all of the money at one time. But you could still play a

major part in funding the Labour election campaign. We'll how much

you give the dependent on what the Labour Party puts in its manifesto?

Of course it will. It will have to justify our support to Labour for

the members who provide money to the political fund. If we did not argue

for the cert is social justice campaigns and laws we want to see,

we would be failing in our job. I don't intend to hide that from

anybody. The unions are there to fight for their members. That is our

job. So you will still be a major part of the bankroll of the Labour

campaign. You will still have 5 % of the votes at a Labour conference,

and you will still have a major part in the Labour National executive

committee and the policy committee. It is right to say the unions are

still at the heart of Labour, are they not? Well, if you sick to break

the affiliated link between trade unions and the Labour Party, the

whole thing collapses. That is what anchors the Labour Party as far as

we are concerned. Many of our members think that when they want to

look for ferrochrome and rights social justice, housing and the

health service, Labour are better it quipped to deliver that for working

people than the current parties That is why we have traditionally

supported them. But not at all of our members support Labour, which is

why we don't affiliate all of them to Labour. There are over 30 million

people in the British labour force now. Union membership is only 6 5

million out of that 30. A 6.5% of that do not vote Labour, they vote

Tory or liberal or nationalist in Scotland. So you are a relatively

small pressure group. Why should Labour be in thrall to you? We are

the biggest voluntary organisation in this country. Sorry about that,

but that is the fact. People make conscious choices. My own union the

GMB, has been growing for eight years. So this dying picture you are

trying to paint... In terms of accounting for the fact that some do

not support Labour, that is why unions do not affiliate all of their

members to the Labour Party. We have adjusted to that. If you don't like

being called Neil, I don't like being called a barren either. What

about Mr Baron? I don't like that either. We are representatives of

working organisations. It may be inconvenient for politicians to have

to listen to working people, but we will continue to press. Lord Baron,

thank you very much. So, is this a Clause 4 moment for Ed

Miliband? Not really, but to his credit, he is going ahead with this.

There was a point at which it looked as though Ed Miliband would back

away from reform. To his credit he is trying to create a mass

membership party again. But when it comes to the crucial business of

funding a general election campaign, these reforms will make Labour more

reliant on large donations from trade unions. They could have more

power now, because they get to hold back this money, whereas beforehand,

they had to hand it over automatically. As Mr Kenny just

said, how much they handover will be dependent on good behaviour. Yes,

but these are pragmatic reforms The fact that Ed Miliband has a lot of

capital in not being seen as a Blairite has helped him get these

through . The response has been muted, which suggests good party

management on his behalf. That may be because they will still have 50%

of the votes at a party conference. Mr Kenny was clear that that could

be deal-breaker if they tried to take that away. They have more

places at the NEC than anyone else, and party members, if only 10% of

them signed up, they will outweigh individual members in the

constituencies. It was interesting, how relaxed Paul Kenny was. He was

taking thousands of pounds from the Labour Party a few months ago

because he was annoyed about these reforms, and now he is relaxed

because they still have 50% of the vote at Labour Party conference and

Labour Party Parliamentary candidates are still selected in the

same way. But there is a simple point here. Yes, you can pick apart

what Ed Miliband said and said the unions have too much influence, but

the only way he could have gone all the way was to break the link with

the trade unions, and he was not going to do that. It was not the

Labour Party that founded the unions, it was the unions that

founded the Labour Party. Even Tony Blair did not break the link. In

that context, Ed Miliband has gone incredibly far. For the last 50

years, this opting into the union, you have to turn to page 50 of your

union terms and conditions to say, do you want to opt out of the

political levy 's that is going to go, which will mean that when the

next Labour leader is elected from the union votes, they will get their

ballot from the Labour Party and you will append the fast where ballots

went out from Unison macro and GMB with a picture of Ed Miliband on the

front of the ballot paper saying, vote for aid. They were Stasi and

Saddam Hussein ways of trade union members electing the Labour leader,

which will go. I am sorry his Lordship is not still here to answer

that question. HMS Coalition is not a happy ship.

The lovey-dovey days in the rose garden are long gone. It is not a

loveless marriage, perhaps even an open one. The latest split is over

the decision by Education Secretary Michael Gove to replace Labour peer

Sally Morgan as head of the schools inspectorate, Ofsted. Mr Gove's

deputy, Lib Dem David Laws, is said to be spitting blood about her

removal, although only through surrogates. He has not said a word

on the record. Here was the Education Secretary a little

earlier. If there is another opportunity for Sally to serve in a

different role at a different time, then I would be delighted to support

her in the role which she thinks it is appropriate to do. There is

nothing wrong with Sally but there is a principle across government

that there should be no automatic reappointment, and that after three

or four years, it is appropriate to bring in a fresh pair of eyes. That

is good corporate practice in order to ensure that you refresh boards,

bring a new perspective, and have tough questions asked. We're joined

now by the newly elected deputy leader of the Liberal Democrats

Malcolm Bruce. He's in Aberdeen Welcome to the Sunday Politics.

David Laws is said to be furious with Michael Gove, is he? I think he

is because Sally Morgan has been doing a good job and that has been

generally agreed across the whole spectrum. I think Ofsted is an

impartial body that inspects all schools and it shouldn't be subject

to some kind of political direction. That is the concern, that she is

being removed when she was doing a good job and most people thought she

should be reappointed. It is strongly rumoured her successor will

be a high-ranking Tory backer. Why hasn't David Laws said this himself,

have you spoken to him? I have, and I know he is not very pleased about

it but he will want to speak to Michael Gove himself when he gets to

see him on Monday. The question you have to take on board is that David

Laws is the schools minister, effectively the one who has

engagement with Ofsted, and he is seeing it being undermined by the

Secretary of State. There is a question that if Michael Gove is so

pleased with Sally Morgan why is he replacing her, and who will he be

replacing her with, and on what basis? Maybe parliament should have

a confirmation hearing so that we can be assured that whoever is put

in charge is there because they are good at it. Why has he licensed his

surrogates to save this rather than saying it himself? He didn't, he

knew I was on the programme this morning so I am giving you the

answers as best I can. David is perfectly capable of speaking for

himself. He hasn't so far. You asked me to come on this programme and

David was anxious for me to know he wasn't happy about it, and I can

certainly tell you that. I can also give you my own opinion which is

that Ofsted is not the Department for Education, it is an independent

body. The question you have to ask is will Michael Gove but someone in

charge of Ofsted who will have a political agenda? If so, that is not

what Ofsted should be used for. Let's move on to your own position.

You are 69, white male, middle-class, what is your answer to

the party with diversity problems? I don't think that is what they voted

on. They felt I had a wealth of experience that would be vulnerable

to the party from the period now until the election, not least

because the central issues that will concern voters are the economy, and

I have a track record of promoting the party's economic policy over

many years. But you are not even standing at the next election. No,

but we need to get to the next election and my colleagues have

confidence that I can do a useful job for the party in that situation.

We have developed and delivered policies that I have helped to shape

and I want to persuade people to understand the Liberal Democrats

have made a fundamental difference to the economic recovery. But you

know what has been happening with the Liberal Democrats and their

problems with women. Wasn't this a chance to select a woman in a major

part? You only have seven female MPs out of 57, not a single Lib Dem

woman in the Parliament. Again, why you rather than making a break and

bringing someone in onto major positions? My colleagues have

concluded that the role I am best qualified to do it, that is why they

voted for me. We do only have seven women and that is an issue we need

to address. Two of those women are ministers, one is a government whip.

We seem to have lost our line to Aberdeen, just as Malcolm Bruce was

in full flight defending his position. I'm not sure if we can get

the line back, just bear with me for a few seconds to see if we can get

it. It looks as if we have lost Malcolm Bruce, I do apologise to

Malcolm Bruce and the viewers that we were not able to continue that

interview. Fierce winds, torrential rain and a

tidal surge have brought more misery to thousands. Official records show

that southern England has seen the wettest January since records began

in 1767. I remember it well. The Somerset Levels have been hit by

weeks of flooding, with little respite from relentless rain. And,

the residents of one village on the Levels, Muchelney, has been cut off

for almost a month. We sent our Adam out with his wellies and a properly

filled out risk assessment form The very wet road to Muchelney. This

village of about 100 residents has been cut off for about four weeks,

and like the weather vane, it feels a little bit spooky. It came up to

here and your front door was there. Anita is just relieved the water

stopped here, practically on her doorstep. Now it is the

practicalities that are the problem. Driving around for food is quite a

hassle. You are foraging. It's not as bad as that but we do have a few

bits in the vegetable garden still, and we had some nice apples until

the rats ate them but we are not doing too badly on that score. It

sounds like the medieval! That's what it feels like. Talking of

retro, who knew Somerset still had a Coleman, this is Brian's first

delivery since Christmas. Everything has gone old-fashioned. We are now

talking to neighbours we might never have seen before or spoken to so we

are getting to know more people in the village. She's right, there has

been an outbreak of Dunkirk spirit, quite literally. The council and the

Fire Brigade have put on this boat service to get people to work and

school. The church has become an unofficial flood HQ. This is where

people pick up their mail, and this is where the people who run the boat

stopped for their tea breaks. It all seems quite jolly, if a bit boring,

but it is no fun for the homes and businesses that have been inundated,

or for the farmers whose land is underwater, an area the size of

Bristol, or for the villages which are less isolated but where the

flooding is worse. People like the parish chairman are starting to get

angry with how the Government has responded. It was all a bit late. We

knew what was going to happen with the amount of rain on the fields and

the Government was so slow to react. The county council got the

boat going quickly but it was another four weeks nearly before the

button was pressed for the major incident. Right on cue, the cavalry

arrived in the shape of emergency crews from other parts of the UK.

The rumour is that they will bring in a hovercraft but the bad news is

that the weather is becoming more grim this weekend. There has been a

surge in bookings at the campsite where people have seen the Somerset

Levels on holiday and would like to come on holiday, if it ever stops

raining. I'm delighted to say we have got the line back to Aberdeen,

somebody has put a shilling in the meter. We can go back to Malcolm

Bruce. We were talking about the Lib Dem women and your election, I

suppose the point some people are making is that your party has as

many knights in Parliament as it has women and you are one of them. The

good news is that for the five MPs who are standing down, who have had

candidates elected in their constituencies so far, all five

candidates that have been selected are women. We need to fight hard to

get behind those women and get them elected so that we have a much

better balanced parliament in the future, but given that we have few

women, you really have to pick people appropriate for the job and

we have appointed the women as I have said but we need our image to

be balanced. How many women candidates will there be come the

next election? At the moment, 1 , five more than we have now, and we

haven't finished selection. Where there are men sitting and standing

again, that is not likely to change, but where they are standing down we

are overwhelmingly choosing women, and in my view good and very able

women. What I would want to say to people is that if you want to see

the Lib Dems have more women, go to those seats and help us hold them.

We are told that only 20% of the 57 seats have female candidates and in

the unlikely event that you were able to hold onto them all, it still

wouldn't be a sea change to have 20%. The point is you have to build

them up. We are supporting female candidates. These are really good

candidates who will make first-class MPs and I certainly believe you will

gradually see the Liberal Democrats taking them on. We don't have 3 0

seats that we currently hold like other parties, but what I can tell

you is that increasing -- increasingly we will have female

candidates. One newspaper has said that you will deal with the Chris

Rennard fallout quickly and privately, what does that mean? It

means I will not be telling you because these things are not helped

by comments on the airwaves. I hope it will be possible to have a

resolution without people going to court but I don't think it helps

anybody for me to comment on any aspect of how this will be done and

I'm not prepared to do so. If you are not in full possession of the

facts, why did you say you will deal with this privately? I have come

into this halfway through, I don't have full possession of the facts, I

doubt you do, and we have a process that needs to be followed through.

Any comments in public do not help. Isn't it hypocrisy of a high order

to hear from a party that is constantly calling for transparency

in other institutions but when it comes to your own, you say, I am not

going to talk about it. There are all sorts of disputes that happen in

the world and often people don't talk about them because talking

about them aggravates the situation. I believe you have to

deal with them privately and I don't think trial by media in this context

is helpful and I don't believe that those who choose to make those

comments are making it easier to solve them. There are problems in

other walks of life and the Liberal Democrats are not the only ones with

these problems. We are trying to change that culture and I think we

will do it effectively in our own way. We have a pastoral care officer

now and I think that is the right way to do it. Thank you for that.

Let's now go back to the story of the flooding in Somerset. We are

joined by the leader of the Green party, Natalie Bennett in Millbank.

Natalie Bennett, don't the Green party bears some responsibility for

these floods? You have sided with the Environment Agency in the

decision not to dredge rivers and that is one of the reason why these

places have been flooded. Firstly I want to give my sympathy to everyone

dealing with these floods. The homeowners, the farmers seeing

sodden fields for weeks and weeks. We get that, we all have huge

sympathy, particularly because so little seems to be done to help

them. What is the answer to my question? I think there is strong

evidence that dredging is not the answer. If you think about the flow

of the river, where the pinch points are is things like bridges, weirs

and towns. If you dredge the river in between those barriers, you just

make the water faster to those points. The experts are saying that

dredging is not the answer, it may be in particular cases, but you have

to look at each river system on its own merits and very often the best

way of dealing with this is working out ways to slow the watered down

and make sure that people don't suffer unduly while you are doing

that. The west of England agricultural Society, which I would

venture knows more about the Somerset Levels than either of us,

has said that without dredging, this was a disaster waiting to happen.

The local drainage boards have been calling for years for dredging to be

resumed. The National Farmers' Union has called for it, and the chairman

of the West Sussex flood defences has called for more drainage, and he

is a drainage engineer by profession. So I don't know where

your experts are, but the experts on the ground am not the urban ones in

London, seem to think this has not been caused, but made worse by the

failure of the Environment Agency to continue to dredge. If you look at

the example of the planning and climate change coalition, which is

led by the town and country planning Association, who you would not

describe as a group of radical greens, these people have said we

have to look at how we deal with flooding in the future. But not in

Somerset. These are the people currently being flooded, not

somebody sitting in a quango office in London. They have asked for this

to happen and it hasn't, and they are now flooded in definitely. We

have to look at what is happening on a case-by-case basis. If you look at

Germany, there are many cases there were, to deal with flooding, many

farmers are paid to hold water on their land. Maybe we need to

introduce those systems, because we have to protect farmland, but we

also have to protect urban areas for safety. We saw a horrible flood in

Wales were lines were endangered -- where lives were endangered. That is

the priority, to protect lives, property and farmland. Lives are

endangered at the moment, particularly as this stagnant water

turns toxic. And yet we are in a situation, again encouraged by the

Greens and the lobbying Environment Agency, it says it does not want to

dredge because dredging is expensive, yet it spends millions on

a bird sanctuary. That is getting everything totally wrong. The

government is getting everything one by cutting on flood defences. It has

not cut on a bird sanctuaries. I don't know the details of that. But

looking at the broader issue, we have to prepare for climate change.

The government has slashed funding to the Environment Agency and has

cut back on the number of staff available to deal with it and has

removed the requirement on local councils to plan for climate change.

These are all gambling the future of our lives and property and the

future of our environment. Hasn t the high watermark of greenery now

gone well past? You don't come out of the Somerset Levels with any

great reputation. The UK government is now going to start fracking as

quickly as it can. Brussels is loosening the CO2 obligations for

2030. The President of America is about to give the go-ahead to the

keystone pipeline, a totemic issue for American greens, and your party

is in a state of civil war in Brighton. It is over, isn't it?

Absolutely not. We are seeing large amounts of extreme weather around

the world. Any one event is whether, but we are seeing a lot of it and

people are recognising that climate change is happening. If we are going

to quote international experts, I can quote to you Ban Ki-Moon, the UN

Secretary-General, not known as a radical green, and he said after the

IPCC report came out that the heat is on and we must act. If you go to

Christine Lagarde, head of the International Monetary Fund, again

not a radical green, she was asked what kept her awake at night, and

she said, we are not doing enough about climate change. So actually,

people around the world are looking at what is happening around them are

both people on the ground and people in high positions are saying we have

to act on climate change. And in the case of Britain, that should

absolutely not mean fracking. Sorry to interrupt, but I have evidence

that you are planning a little career change. Don't go away. This

is what happens when you let Nigel Farage present the weather. One

thing leads to another and low and behold, the Sunday Politics now has

a new traffic and travel reporter. Let's go back to Green Party leader,

Natalie Bennett. Thanks, Andrew It is easy out that, so let's start

with our airports. I am pleased to say that Heathrow's third runway,

Boris Island and all short-haul flights are, just like our

arguments, well grounded. We suggest making or alternative arrangements,

like a re-nationalised rail network, although it would be a

glaring omission if we did not admit that that plan is currently being

delayed by Labour Party foot dragging. Speaking of trains, we are

hearing that high-speed two may well be derailing, or at least getting

bogged down in political fog. One viewer, Ed Balls, has texted in to

say he is completely lost. Thanks for the update, Ed. You are not

alone among political commuters Meanwhile, dumped UKIP manifestoes

are causing major tailbacks across the South, apparently stretching all

the way to Brussels. This does make driving road tricky, but UKIP's MEPs

can, of course, just hop on their gravy train. The tree had a

roundabout is blocked after reports of a political earthquake. It seems

that a green unwound his beard to block a dodgy gas extractor. A

motorist who turned out to be the environment minister object into the

delay and was told to frack off as furious badgers demanded that he

stopped moving the goalposts. Unregulated traffic in the city of

London continues unchecked. Pedestrians should try to block

bankers with sacks of loot rushing for the payments. But do beware the

Lib Dem Exodus that is clogging up the motorways. Although they are in

a jam, or is it a fudge, we are happy to make way for them, as, like

all refugees, we say they are welcome here in muesli green. That

is the travel. Back to you, Andrew. Natalie, I think you make my point.

You are now preparing a new career in traffic and travel. Well, I do

believe in lifelong education and that was an example of it. We know

you have had a tough time today to get to our studio. Thank you for the

effort. You are watching the Sunday

Politics. Coming up in just over 20 minutes, we will have

You're watching Sunday Politics for Yorkshire and Lincolnshire. Coming

up. Deselected, we find out why Yorkshire's only female Conservative

MP was rejected by the local party. And we look at calls to cap parish

councils which propose inflation`busting tax increases.

Let's say hello to our guests today. Philip Davies is the Conservative MP

for Shipley and John Mann is Labour MP for Bassetlaw. Where you shocked

when Anne McIntosh was deselected? I was. She must be absolutely

distraught as she worked incredibly hard in the House of Commons and I

feel sorry for her. But we are Democratic party and our local

associations have the right to decide who they want as candidate.

My local association can deselect me if they so choose and we have to

accept that. The Tory party clearly has a real problem with women. Two

in the North have stood down and now the third one has been booted out.

That leaves none in the North of England. No Tory MPs in Yorkshire

after the next election and perhaps two in the North of England. Is that

healthy? It is not an issue that Anne McIntosh was a woman otherwise

she wouldn't have been selected in the first place. That clearly isn't

a factor. We want the best people in every constituency irrespective of

their gender. I want to see the best people for the job. If it is women

or men it doesn't matter. We have been following the deselection

cycle. History was made here at Westminster

on Friday and it was nail`biting stuff. Only 560 maximum number of

ballot papers were sent down here from Thirsk and Malton. We were told

it might take a while to verify that every single ballot paper came from

a bone five member of the Conservative Party. That meant we

should get the result by half past two. By three o'clock we were still

waiting, by 330 PM we were still waiting. By that stage we were

pretty sure that there would be an standing result. It came at four

o'clock ` the news that the only female Conservative MP in Yorkshire

had been deselected and would not stand at the next election. As she

came out, Anne McIntosh told the assembled reporters she was going to

take it lying down. I have faithfully served my constituents. I

was initially in the European Parliament and more recently

Westminster. I do not intend to be thrown aside by a small group. It is

for my constituents as a whole to dismiss the FA wish to do so. I will

stand and represent my constituency at the next general election and

continue to fulfil my constituency and parliamentary duties including

helping those candidates standing this year and next year with my

customary fashion. This has been a passionate battle and an unexpected

result for Anne McIntosh. When you go back to Thirsk and Malton, and I

was there the day before this happened, frankly, it was almost

impossible to find anybody who knew what was happening.

This part of North Yorkshire is politically one of those places that

time forgot. Since the 19th century it has nearly always voted

Conservative . Even now, in this quiet market town, there is barely a

hint that this political battle has been taking place. An increasingly

vicious fight as we got closer to that all`important ballot.

Allegations of dirty tricks and character assassinations,

suggestions that maybe this was just a bunch of local Tory grandees,

ex`military men who could not work with a woman. The most telling

headline was the suggestion that the 59`year`old veteran MP had been

called a silly little girl. That according to Peter Steveney shows

how personal the fight began. It hit the headlines because of that

allegation that somebody had called Anne McIntosh a silly little girl.

Did that happen? Certainly not. It sounds like a typical thing to be

put out. I am pretty appalled by that sort of comment. Whatever the

cause, there is no doubt the row has ripped apart the unity of Tory

activists in Thirsk and Malton. Is it a local spat or could it have

more serious implications for the Conservative Party? This is the time

when people get nervous before the election. Now they're thinking how

are we going to win the seat? But unsettling people may be the most

helpful thing to do. The key indicator will be what happens in

the European elections and that will tell us how much of a threat UKIP

could be in a general election. What is difficult to understand is how

any politician with such are relatively successful track record

could come under fire at all. And in peace and 1997 and now chair of a

high`profile Select Committee. She is a fine chair of the environment

food and rural affairs Select Committee and we appreciate the work

she does. I hope that will be noted in the North of England. The verdict

is now being looked at carefully by Conservative Central office. Another

heavyweight MP also faces a deselection vote next week. Even on

Friday night here it was clear straightaway that the interesting

part now begins. Anne McIntosh says she will stand in 2015. It looks as

though that will have to be as an independent. Meanwhile, the local

association says it will now begin the process of choosing a new

candidate for what is one of the plum seat with one of the biggest

majorities in the country. You were both involved in a

rebellion of sorts earlier in the week on the immigration bill. John

Mann, you decided to join the Tory rebels. I voted for what my

constituents would want. Serious criminals should be thrown out and

we shouldn't have the European courts interfering. But Labour

brought us the European human rights act. It was Winston Churchill

originally. It is the interpretation of the law which is wrong. It would

have been good if Parliament had put a shot across their bows. Philip

Davies and think your views on the subject are well documented but does

that rebellion gave power to your enemies? Is it damaging for

electoral prospects? I'm not sure we are divided. I think every backbench

MP voted for the amendment. It would make sure that serious criminals

could not use the human rights act as a way of staying in the country

when they are foreign nationals and they should be booted alt. That is

what my constituents want and I applaud John for supporting that.

The Government abstained and unfortunately it was the Labour

Party who voted it down. Most of my constituents will be disappointed.

The House of Lords have put a spanner in the works of the EU

Referendum Bill. Where does that leave David Cameron's promise of a

referendum by 2017? The Lords have come together to stop a referendum.

Most of my constituents would like to have a say. The EU has changed

remarkably since the beginning and we need a bill. It will be in the

Conservative manifesto that if we win we will have a referendum on

whether we stay in the EU. Town halls will set their budgets for the

current year. The gunmen says local authorities can't raise their bills

by more than 2% without holding a referendum. The same can't be said

of parish councils, many of which are whooshing ahead with inflation

busting increases. `` pushing ahead.

Saxilby is a prosperous village near Lincoln. The resident 's enjoy

facilities provided by the parish council in coding a library, youth

club and community centre. But they come at a price. Saxilby parish

council charges its residents more than any other parish in

Lincolnshire. An average of ?100 per year. It is about to raise its bills

further. We are putting our bills up by 7.5% this year. If you work it

out to the local parishioners, it is only 15p per week. These are

facilities for local people and they tell us that is what they want us to

do. Are the people of Saxilby happy? I am quite happy. The parish council

is doing a good job. There is a lot of evidence will you put money back

into the community. I would like to see the village kept cleaner with

letter mostly on there. And probably a few more things for young people.

I am quite happy with these services. We have the library, which

is a bonus. Parish councils in Lincolnshire put as little as ?10 on

the annual council tax bill of well over ?1000. But unlike other

authorities they are not capped. Last year, residents in this

Lincolnshire village saw their parish precepts more than doubled.

More than ?46 per year. It is helping to pay for a new village

hall. A few people didn't agree with it and they didn't use the village

amenities but a vast majority were for it. The local District Council

leader says parish halls should look to do and charge more. Her own

authority is being squeezed. My feeling is the local parishes can

step up to the gap and provide services which the county and

district authorities have had to reduce. I think a lot of the

residents would say, yes, let's do it. Not everyone agrees. All

councillors in parishes do their jobs for free. If the local

authority want to ask parish and town is to provide services in their

needs to be some finance otherwise it doesn't tally up. We do an awful

lot of stuff but there is a limit to what you can do voluntarily. There

are fears that the Government is looking to cap high spending

parishes. But for now it looks like the sky is the limit for parish

halls. Do you think it's right that parish

council can put up their precepts by three times the rate of inflation? I

don't think anyone should be capped. I think people should

decide. Ever parish wants to have facilities in public services and

that's what it votes for it then it should be entitled without the

Government saying no. Should the parish councils be capped? I don't

think we want excessive bills because people are struggling as it

is. We don't want local councils putting money on to council tax

bills are parish precepts. But if it is a small amount of money then it

is unnecessary for a referendum. Parish councils can be treated

slightly differently. I am a supporter of people volunteering for

parish councils to do good in the local community. I think it should

be applauded. I agree with John. When you look at capping 2% for

local councils. Do you think many authorities, setting a budget for

the coming year, will do as Brighton has done and put that to a

referendum? If public services are well delivered and popular then

people will pay for them. Councils need to show what they are doing and

convince the electorate it is a good thing. That is why government

capping and egg brother stepping in is a bad thing. We have a word for

it and it is democracy. There are a lot of people who are voting for

high spending councils and are actually not paying council tax. So

people on the dole shouldn't get the vote? No, that's not what I said.

But some people are not paying anything in expecting other people

to pick up the tab. That's where I think there is a role for the

Government to step in and have a referendum to gauge public support.

Let's get some more of the week's political news.

Newly released Thatcher Cabinet papers from 1984 have triggered

fresh allegations of a plot to crash the miners. An apology was called

for two `` does he believe it is through full transparency and

reconciled? No. Obama has been welcomed on smoking in cars were

children are more likely to be affected. But any law would be

difficult to enforce. There is a view this is an extension of the

nanny state. The reason for Leeds Bradford Airport's comparative

failure to grow is alleged to the its distance from motorways. I think

we have to be ambitious over the next 20 or 30 years.

Why should the present government apologise for something that

happened 30 years ago under a previous government during the

miners strike? I'm not interested in whether they apologise or not. I

want all the papers from the miners' strike and then the public

can make its own view. Let's not have the Government hiding away and

if they get them out there we can make our judgement. Should the

Government apologise for what happened? No. The only person who

should apologise was after Scargill. I was brought up in a mining area in

Doncaster. My parents have a small business in a mining village. The

miners' strike crippled that business. People were asking the

business to contribute to the strike and if you didn't you got your

windows through the next day. After Scargill should apologise for a

leading miners up the garden path with a strike nobody voted for. I

think nobody should be apologising. I am not a fan of after Scargill.

But he was right, there was a secret hit list. It was lied about in

Parliament. Let's have the papers out there. Why should the Government

hold onto these papers secretly? Let the public see them. Does it bother

you that there were 75 Mins on a hit list? It bothers me that after

Scargill was using poor miners to try to bring down the Government.

Let's have all the union papers released to show what after

Scargill's agenda was. It wasn't after Scargill who got the miners on

strike, it was the Tory government taking jobs away. He seems to think

that people go on strike for a year on a whim. They don't. People

starved during that strike. They were on strike to fight for their

jobs. Communities have paid a huge price for what happened afterwards.

Do you think we should still be talking about this 30 years on? I

don't know why the Labour Party are bringing this up. Probably Len

McCluskey has told them. Let's look to the future. You should never be

scared of transparency. This is desperate stuff to get off the

economy. Banning smoking in cars were children are passengers. Are

you in favour? Yes. Why should a small child people listed in that

way? They don't have a say and neither does their health. Children

are 17 more times likely to breed in second`hand smoke in a car than

other environments. Surely it should be banned. I'm not sure I accept

that evidence. What is the difference between a car and

caravan? It is an equally small space. There is no proposal to ban

it in caravans. Why not? You could apply that to small flats. How are

the police going to enforce this? It is not just young children, it is

all children. It is a dog 's breakfast and unenforceable. It is

gesture politics. That is what people said about the smoking ban in

pubs in public places. It has been totally enforceable and people are

living healthier and workers are not having their lungs polluted.

Especially for children. Children have no choice over the smoke that

is there. We must protect the health of children and it is a good thing.

I don't think parents should be smoking in front of children in

their homes. Anything we can do that protects the health of children, it

is good governance. I think many ministers were against it. I would

have preferred that the Government would have defended the interest of

private property. It is your own car, your own home, you should be

able to do what you want. I trust parents to build a look after

children more than I trust the state. I will be voting against

this. I think it is nonsensical. Do you think you will get enough

support to get this through? I think so. The public mood is there. The

smoking ban in pubs and clubs has been a good thing for improving

health. It has close lots of pubs and clubs down. Give over! That the

economy that has done that. You are cutting wages and standards of

living. Unless you are a wealthy millionaire in London. That is who

you are giving the money to. In the North of England, people are

suffering because of your government and their economic policies. He is

back to the old`style socialist Labour Party. Nothing has changed.

Ed Miliband has taken us back to the 1980s. There is nothing wrong with

standing up for people in the North of England, the vast majority of

whose standards of living and have gone down. If the viewers are vastly

better off, they can go with Philip Davies. That is not what I am

hearing. This is a government for the rich and wealthy. I was worried

that you both might agree that too much today but clearly not. Thank

you to you both. We go back now to you to you both. We go back now to

Not a complete denial! Hopefully a Conservative mayor again.

Not a good week for David Cameron on the tricky European front last week.

President Hollande said he was not interested in major treaty reform

for 2017. That is when Mr Cameron hopes to hold his in-out referendum.

And the private member's bill to put that referendum on the statute bill

was killed by Labour and Lib Dem peers in the Lords. James Wharton

was the Tory MP behind the bill and he joins me now. What happens now?

It is out of my hands what happens now, because Labour and the Liberal

Democrats conspired in the Lords to kill off my bill. One of the options

is for another private member to bring a bill forward when they have

the next private member's bill at, and we can try again. The prime

minister has indicated that he will support that. But whatever happens,

it will be in the Conservative manifesto at the next election. Do

you accept that cost this is Tory policy and not government policy

that the government policy elite macro cannot bring forward a bill?

That is the problem. The Liberal Democrats, despite having promised a

referendum in their manifesto at the last election, now will not allow

government time for a bill to enshrine that in law. That was why I

brought it forward as a private member's bill. David Cameron and the

Conservative Party through everything behind that. To many

people's surprise, we got it through all the House of Commons stages

Sadly, to their discredit, Labour and Liberal Democrat peers, doing

the bidding of their masters in the Commons, is conspired to kill it. Do

you accept that it is Conservative policy, but not government policy,

that you could not use the Parliament act to get this through

the Lords? That is not the case The Parliament act is clear that if a

public bill passes through the House of Commons twice in one

Parliamentary period, there is a certain amount of time that has to

be between both bills being presented. There are some procedural

steps to be overcome, but there is no legal reason why the Parliament

act could not come into effect. I was talking about you not having a

majority in this case. That remains to be seen. We saw previously that

Labour and the Liberal Democrats sent enough people to frustrate its

progress to make it as difficult as possible, but not huge numbers to

vote against it. On a Friday, huge numbers of MPs do not attend

normally. Getting that number might prove difficult. The Parliament act,

which is a bit of an atomic bomb in constitutional terms, if that was

used, they would turn up to vote against you. Is it not the case that

after the countryside Alliance tried to involve the courts in the hunting

ban that it was made clear that the Parliament act was not to be used

for constitutional issues? I don't think we know how many would turn up

and we don't know how they would vote. One of the things that has

been revealed as I have gone through the process of getting this bill to

get a referendum through the Commons is that there are big splits in the

Labour Party. One of the reasons we did not see them turning up in large

numbers to stop this bill from happening was that Ed Miliband knew

that if he tried to lead his own MPs through the lobbies to block a

bill, the only purpose of which is to let Britain decides to give

people a say on membership of the union, a lot of his MPs may not have

followed him. It is all fantasy politics anyway. The French

president has made clear that he has no interest in treaty change this

side of 2017. He would need a referendum as well . And he needs

that like a hole and had. Merkel is not keen, as she is in coalition

with the social Democrats. Without the French or the Germans, it will

not happen, end of story. The policy is that we will try to negotiate on

getting a better deal. I hear what you are saying, but I don't

recognise it as reality. We have a strong bargaining position. But

whatever the result of that negotiation, it will be put in an

in-out vote to the Britain people. It is time people were allowed to

decide. It has been over a generation since we last had a say.

David Cameron has committed to delivering that referendum. The

Conservative Party will have it in our next manifesto for the election.

Whatever happens to my bill or any other of the bill that comes

forward. If people want a referendum, the only party that can

deliver that in British politics is the Conservatives. Let me bring the

panel in. Nick, where is this going? It is clear to me and anyone who

follows European politics that there is no appetite for major treaty

change in the short run, particularly for the kind of major

changes that Vista Cameron says he is going to get, and yet the Tories

are talking about Europe again when they should be talking about the

economy. And Francois Hollande is looking at 2017, the year we are

meant to have this referendum. There will be a French presidential

election going on, and Nicolas Sarkozy will be back in play by

then. But James has an interesting point, which is that it is down to

Angela Merkel. She would be more receptive to David Cameron's ideas

of reform than people assume. She has looked over the edge at a Europe

without the UK and said, that is not acceptable, and I am willing to pay

a price, not any price, but a price to keep the UK in the European

Union. And the French, because the UK and France are the only serious

military powers in Europe, will eventually come to that position. So

there is more support for David Cameron than people assume. The

French are also not a strong position in terms of the euro and

French economy. The Foreign Office seem a bit more optimistic about

it. Of course they are. Douglas Hurd once told me, we are winning the

arguments on the single currency. Of course anything from the Foreign

Office comes with a health warning, but if David Cameron had won a

majority and was determined to renegotiate, he is in a strong

position with Merkel. There is a possibility that the French could

eventually be talked around. So it is not entirely bleak on that front

for Cameron. When do the Tory party managers say, look, stop banging on

about Europe again? The economy is going away. We still have an

electoral mountain to climb. Let's just talk about that and not be

divided. They should have done that some time ago. It is already too

late. The Tories need a seven point lead in the polls to get image are

tea. The way things are, that would require a huge change from where we

are now . It is very unlikely to happen. So all this is happening in

some bizarre imaginary space with wonderful rainbows and sunshine But

we can detect the beginnings of a shift in the last couple of weeks.

If you talk to Tory backbenchers, Douglas Carswell is now saying in

public that it is time to stop the fighting. If they are to get even

close to winning the election, they can't do it if they are all against

each other. I don't think it is an imaginary space. It is likely that

David Cameron will have the largest party in the election. If it is a

hung parliament and it is the Liberal Democrats and the

Conservative Party, David Cameron will save to Nick Clegg we gave you

an AV referendum, I am having this referendum. And it will be difficult

for Nick to say no. Let me go back to Mr Wharton. You are going to get

a referendum in the manifesto. Other than Ken Clarke, everybody wants it.

So why don't you just banked that and get behind the leadership

Institute causing endless problems and coming across as a Europe

accessed, divided party? I am absolutely behind the leadership.

David Cameron announced the policy I am trying to bring forward in this

bill. It is in line with the speech he gave this time last year. But

getting that commitment into law will help to kick-start the

negotiation process and mean everyone will know where we stand.

But whatever happens, the Conservatives are committed to

delivering a referendum. And to address the point that we talk about

Europe too much, that is not the case. We have a good message on the

economy, on tackling immigration and reforming welfare. There is more to

do, but this is also an important part of policy. But at a time when

the economic news seems to be turning in your direction, you are

talking about the European referendum. Your backbench

colleagues are trying to change the Immigration Bill every which way.

Dominic Rather is putting in an amendment is and Mr Nigel Mills has

been on this programme, putting in amendments that are clearly illegal.

How is that helpful? The fact is that we are in a coalition, so there

are areas of policy where Conservatives might want to go

further and we are not able to do that. In other areas, we are

delivering good reforms. But this is not a matter of going further. The

mill 's amendment was clearly a contravention of the Treaty of Rome.

That is where you get the headlines from. Some of your colleagues have a

death wish? Would they rather have a Miliband government if the choice is

an impure Cameron one instead? I don't think anyone in their right

mind would rather have a Miliband government. Then why are they

behaving that way? We have had some disagreements into the leak and

debate within the party, but it was talked about on the panel just now.

The Conservative Party is behind David Cameron and focused on winning

the next election. Europe is one part of that. We have policies in a

range of areas, but we are getting back on the right track. Thank you

for being patient with us. Is this ghost story going to go

somewhere? Mr Laws is talking through surrogates at the moment,

but there is a strategy by the Lib Dems make these differential points

now. I think it is fantastic coalition sports and entertaining,

but in terms of out there, it has almost no traction whatsoever. I

don't think any voters know who Baroness Morgan is and it sounds

like one but politicians shouting at another bunch of politicians about

their ability to give each other jobs. There is a larger point about

the way Michael Gove runs his government. He is notoriously a very

polite man surrounded by Rottweiler is, his advisers. He has made

enemies of a lot of people in the media, and some of that will come

back on him in the next 18 months. We shall see if Mr Laws himself

sticks his head above the parapet. That is it for this week. The Daily

Politics is on throughout the week at midday on BBC Two, except on

Wednesdays, when we are on at 11:30am. I will be back next week at

the same time. Remember, if it is Sunday, it's the Sunday Politics.