:00:35. > :00:41.Welfare reform is one of the government's most popular policies.
:00:42. > :00:45.So Labour says it would be even tougher than the Tories.
:00:46. > :00:48.We'll be asking the Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary if she's got
:00:49. > :00:55.Even Labour supporters worry that Ed Miliband hasn't got what it takes
:00:56. > :01:00.Labour grandees are increasingly vocal about their concerns.
:01:01. > :01:11.Over 50% of Labour voters think they'd do better with a new leader.
:01:12. > :01:15.And what of this leader? He's apparently "toxic" on the doorstep.
:01:16. > :01:37.The polls say Nick Clegg's more unpopular than Gordon Brown,
:01:38. > :01:39.promised an electric car revolution, why so little progress?
:01:40. > :01:46.Nick Watt, Helen Lewis and Janan Ganesh, the toxic tweeters
:01:47. > :01:54.First, the deepening crisis in Iraq, where Sunni Islamists are now
:01:55. > :01:56.largely in control of the Syrian-Iraq border, which means
:01:57. > :02:02.they can now re-supply their forces in Iraq from their Syrian bases
:02:03. > :02:05.Rather than moving on Baghdad, they are for the moment consolidating
:02:06. > :02:08.their grip on the towns and cities they've already taken.
:02:09. > :02:10.They also seem to be in effective control of Iraq's
:02:11. > :02:14.biggest oil refinery, which supplies the capital.
:02:15. > :02:16.And there are reports they might now have taken the power
:02:17. > :02:23.Iraqi politicians are now admitting that ISIS,
:02:24. > :02:26.the name of the Sunni insurgents, is better trained, better equipped and
:02:27. > :02:31.far more battle-hardened than the US-trained Iraqi army fighting it.
:02:32. > :02:34.Which leaves the fate of Baghdad increasingly in the hands
:02:35. > :02:51.No good news coming out of there, Janan. No good news and no good
:02:52. > :02:56.options either. The West's best strategy is to decide how much
:02:57. > :03:01.support to give to the Iraqi government. The US is sending over
:03:02. > :03:04.about 275 military personnel. Do they go further and contemplate
:03:05. > :03:10.their support? General Petraeus argued against it as it might be
:03:11. > :03:16.seen as the US serving as the force of Shia Iraqis -- continue their
:03:17. > :03:25.support. Do we contemplate breaking up Iraq? It won't be easy. The Sunni
:03:26. > :03:28.and Shia Muslim populations don t live in clearly bordered areas, but
:03:29. > :03:32.in the longer term, do we deal with it in the same way we dealt with the
:03:33. > :03:36.break-up of the Ottoman empire over 100 years ago? In the short-term and
:03:37. > :03:44.long-term, completely confounding. Quite humiliating. If ISIS take
:03:45. > :03:50.Baghdad I can't think of a bigger ignominy for foreign policy since
:03:51. > :03:54.Suez. If Iraq is partitioned, it won't be up to us. It will be what
:03:55. > :03:59.is happening because of what is happening on the ground. Everything
:04:00. > :04:06.does point to partition, and that border, which ISIS control, between
:04:07. > :04:11.Syria and Iraq, that has been there since it was drawn during the First
:04:12. > :04:14.World War. That is gone as well An astonishingly humbling situation the
:04:15. > :04:22.West, and you can see the Kurds in the North think this is a charge --
:04:23. > :04:25.chance for authority. They think this is the chance to get the
:04:26. > :04:31.autonomy they felt they deserved a long time. Janan is right. We can't
:04:32. > :04:36.do much in the long term, but we have to decide on the engagement.
:04:37. > :04:39.And the other people wish you'd be talking turkey, because if there is
:04:40. > :04:44.some blowback and the fighters come back, they are likely to come back
:04:45. > :04:48.from Turkey. Where is Iran in all of this? There were reports last week
:04:49. > :04:52.that the Revolutionary guard, the head of it, he was already in
:04:53. > :04:56.Baghdad with 67 advisers and there might have been some brigades that
:04:57. > :05:02.have gone there as well. Where are they? What has happened? I'm pretty
:05:03. > :05:13.sure the Prime Minister of Iraq is putting more faith in Iran than the
:05:14. > :05:17.White House and the British. I think they are running the show, in
:05:18. > :05:21.technical terms. John Kerry is flying into Cairo this morning, and
:05:22. > :05:25.what is his message? It is twofold. One is to Arab countries, do more to
:05:26. > :05:30.encourage an inclusive government in Iraq, mainly Sunni Muslims in the
:05:31. > :05:35.government, and the Arab Gulf states should stop funding insurgents in
:05:36. > :05:40.Iraq. You think, Iraq, it's potentially going to break up, so
:05:41. > :05:44.this sounds a bit late in the day and a bit weak. It gets
:05:45. > :05:48.fundamentally to the problem, what can we do? Niall Ferguson has a big
:05:49. > :05:52.piece in the Sunday Times asking if this is place where we cannot doing
:05:53. > :05:57.anything. He doesn't want to do anything. By the way, that is what
:05:58. > :06:01.most Americans think. That is what opinion polls are showing. You have
:06:02. > :06:06.George Osborne Michael Gold who would love to get involved but they
:06:07. > :06:09.cannot because of the vote in parliament on Syria lasted -- George
:06:10. > :06:14.Osborne and Michael Gove. This government does not have the stomach
:06:15. > :06:17.for military intervention. We will see how events unfold on the ground.
:06:18. > :06:19.All parties are agreed that Britain's 60-year old multi-billion
:06:20. > :06:25.The Tory side of the Coalition think their reforms are necessary
:06:26. > :06:28.and popular, though they haven't always gone to time or to plan.
:06:29. > :06:32.In the eight months she's had since she became Shadow Secretary of State
:06:33. > :06:38.for Work and Pensions, Rachel Reeves has talked the talk about getting
:06:39. > :06:41.people off benefits, into work and lowering the overall welfare bill.
:06:42. > :06:44.her first interview in the job she threatened "We would
:06:45. > :06:48.But Labour has opposed just about every change the Coalition
:06:49. > :06:52.has proposed to cut the cost and change the culture of welfare.
:06:53. > :06:54.Child benefit, housing benefit, the ?26,000 benefit cap -
:06:55. > :07:01.They've been lukewarm about the government's flagship Universal
:07:02. > :07:04.Credit scheme - which rolls six benefit payments into one - and
:07:05. > :07:11.And Labour has set out only two modest welfare cuts.
:07:12. > :07:15.This week, Labour said young people must have skills or be in training
:07:16. > :07:20.That will save ?65 million, says Labour, though the cost
:07:21. > :07:26.And cutting winter fuel payments for richer pensioners which will
:07:27. > :07:33.Not a lot in a total welfare bill of around ?200 billion.
:07:34. > :07:36.And with welfare cuts popular among even Labour voters, they will soon
:07:37. > :07:43.have to start spelling out exactly what Labour welfare reform means.
:07:44. > :07:55.Welcome. Good morning. Why do you want to be tougher than the Tories?
:07:56. > :07:59.We want to be tough in getting the welfare bill down. Under this
:08:00. > :08:03.government, the bill will be ?1 million more than the government set
:08:04. > :08:08.out in 2010 and I don't think that is acceptable. We should try to
:08:09. > :08:12.control the cost of Social Security. But the welfare bill under the next
:08:13. > :08:16.Labour government will fall? It will be smaller when you end the first
:08:17. > :08:20.parliament than when you started? We signed up to the capping welfare but
:08:21. > :08:25.that doesn't see social security costs ball, it sees them go up in
:08:26. > :08:31.line with with inflation or average earnings -- costs fall. So where
:08:32. > :08:36.flair will rise? We have signed up to the cap -- welfare will rise We
:08:37. > :08:40.have signed up to the cap. We will get the costs under control and they
:08:41. > :08:43.haven't managed to achieve it. The government is spending ?13 billion
:08:44. > :08:48.more on Social Security and the reason they are doing it is because
:08:49. > :08:51.the minimum wage has not kept pace with the cost of living so people
:08:52. > :08:55.are reliant on tax credits. They are not building houses and people are
:08:56. > :09:02.relying on housing benefit. We have a record number of people on zero
:09:03. > :09:05.hours contracts. I'm still not clear if you will cut welfare if you get
:09:06. > :09:12.in power. Nobody is saying that the cost of welfare is going to fall.
:09:13. > :09:17.The welfare cap sees that happening gradually. That is a Tory cap. And
:09:18. > :09:24.you've accepted it. You're being the same as the Tories, not to. If they
:09:25. > :09:28.had a welfare cap, they would have breached it in every year of the
:09:29. > :09:33.parliament. Social Security will be higher than the government set out
:09:34. > :09:36.because they failed to control it. You read the polls, and the party
:09:37. > :09:39.does lots of its own polling, and you're scared of being seen as the
:09:40. > :09:46.welfare party. You don't really believe all of this anti-welfare
:09:47. > :09:48.stuff? We are the party of work not welfare. The Labour Party was set up
:09:49. > :09:51.in the first place because we believe in the dignity of work and
:09:52. > :09:55.we believe that work should pay wages can afford to live on. I make
:09:56. > :10:00.no apologies for being the party of work. We are not the welfare party,
:10:01. > :10:05.we are the party of work. Even your confidential strategy document
:10:06. > :10:08.admits that voters don't trust you on immigration, the economy, this is
:10:09. > :10:13.your own people, and welfare. You are not trusted on it. The most
:10:14. > :10:16.recent poll showed Labour slightly ahead of the Conservative Party on
:10:17. > :10:21.Social Security, probably because they have seen the incompetence and
:10:22. > :10:25.chaos at the Department for Work and Pensions under Iain Duncan Smith.
:10:26. > :10:30.Your own internal document means that the voters don't trust you on
:10:31. > :10:34.welfare reform. That is why we have shown some of this tough things we
:10:35. > :10:39.will do like the announcement that Ed Miliband made earlier this week,
:10:40. > :10:43.that young people without basic qualifications won't be entitled to
:10:44. > :10:46.just sign on for benefits, they have to sign up for training in order to
:10:47. > :10:49.receive support. That is the right thing to do by that group of young
:10:50. > :10:59.people, because they need skills to progress. We will, once that. - we
:11:00. > :11:04.will, onto that. You say you criticise the government that it had
:11:05. > :11:07.a cap and wouldn't have met it, but every money-saving welfare reform,
:11:08. > :11:15.you voted against it. How is that being tougher? The most recent bout
:11:16. > :11:19.was the cap on overall welfare expenditure, and we went through the
:11:20. > :11:24.lobbies and voted for the Tories. You voted against the benefit cap,
:11:25. > :11:29.welfare rating, you voted against, child benefit schemes, you voted
:11:30. > :11:31.against. You can't say we voted against everything when we voted
:11:32. > :11:35.with the Conservatives in the most recent bill with a cap on Social
:11:36. > :11:42.Security. It's just not correct to say. The last time we voted, we
:11:43. > :11:49.walked through the lobby with them. You voted on the principle of the
:11:50. > :11:54.cap. You voted on every step that would allow the cap to be met. Every
:11:55. > :11:57.single one. The most recent vote was not on the principle of the cap it
:11:58. > :12:00.was on a cap of Social Security in the next Parliament and we signed up
:12:01. > :12:05.for that. It was Ed Miliband who called her that earlier on. Which
:12:06. > :12:12.welfare reform did you vote for We voted for the cap. Other than that?
:12:13. > :12:17.We have supported universal credit. You voted against it in the third
:12:18. > :12:22.reading. We voted against some of the specifics. If you look at
:12:23. > :12:27.universal credit, they have had to write off nearly ?900 million of
:12:28. > :12:31.spending. I'm not on the rights and wrongs, I'm trying to work out what
:12:32. > :12:34.you voted for. Some of the things we are going to go further than the
:12:35. > :12:40.government with. For example, cutting benefits for young people
:12:41. > :12:42.who don't sign of the training. The government had introduced that. For
:12:43. > :12:45.example, saying that the richest pensioners should not get the winter
:12:46. > :12:49.fuel allowance, that is something the government haven't signed up.
:12:50. > :12:53.You would get that under Labour and this government haven't signed up
:12:54. > :12:59.for it. ?100 million on the winter fuel allowance and ?65 million on
:13:00. > :13:04.youth training. ?165 million. How big is the welfare budget? The cap
:13:05. > :13:12.would apply to ?120 billion. And you've saved 125 -- 165 million
:13:13. > :13:17.Those are cuts that we said we would do in government. If you look at the
:13:18. > :13:19.real prize from the changes Ed Miliband announced in the youth
:13:20. > :13:23.allowance, it's not the short-term savings, it's the fact that each of
:13:24. > :13:26.these young people, who are currently on unemployment benefits
:13:27. > :13:33.without the skills we know they need to succeed in life, they will cost
:13:34. > :13:37.the taxpayer ?2000 per year. I will come onto that. You mentioned
:13:38. > :13:41.universal credit, which the government regards as the flagship
:13:42. > :13:47.reform. It's had lots of troubles with it and it merges six benefits
:13:48. > :13:50.into one. You voted against it in the third reading and given lukewarm
:13:51. > :13:56.support in the past. We have not said he would abandon it, but now
:13:57. > :14:00.you say you are for it. You are all over the place. We set up the rescue
:14:01. > :14:03.committee in autumn of last year because we have seen from the
:14:04. > :14:07.National Audit Office and the Public Accounts Committee, report after
:14:08. > :14:12.report showing that the project is massively overbudget and is not
:14:13. > :14:17.going to be delivered according to the government timetable. We set up
:14:18. > :14:19.the committee because we believe in the principle of universal credit
:14:20. > :14:24.and think it is the right thing to do. Can you tell us now if you will
:14:25. > :14:30.keep it or not? Because there is no transparency and we have no idea. We
:14:31. > :14:35.are awash with information. We are not. The government, in the most
:14:36. > :14:41.recent National audit Forest -- National Audit Office statement said
:14:42. > :14:46.it was a reset project. This is really important. This is a flagship
:14:47. > :14:50.government programme, and it's going to cost ?12.8 billion to deliver,
:14:51. > :14:55.and we don't know what sort of state it is in, so we have said that if we
:14:56. > :15:02.win at the next election, we will pause that for three months and
:15:03. > :15:07.calling... Will you stop the pilots? We don't know what status they will
:15:08. > :15:11.have. We would stop the build of the system for three months, calling the
:15:12. > :15:17.National Audit Office to do awards and all report. The government don't
:15:18. > :15:19.need to do this until the next general election, they could do it
:15:20. > :15:24.today. Stop throwing good money after bad and get a grip of this
:15:25. > :15:29.incredibly important programme. You said you don't know enough to a view
:15:30. > :15:33.now. So when you were invited to a job centre where universal credit is
:15:34. > :15:39.being rolled out to see how it was working, you refused to go. Why We
:15:40. > :15:42.asked were a meeting with Iain Duncan Smith and he cancelled the
:15:43. > :15:45.meeting is three times. I'm talking about the visit when you were
:15:46. > :15:50.offered to go to a job centre and you refused. We had an appointment
:15:51. > :15:52.to meet Iain Duncan Smith at the Department for Work and Pensions and
:15:53. > :15:57.said he cancelled and was not available, but he wanted us to go to
:15:58. > :16:02.the job centre. We wanted to talk to him and his officials, which she
:16:03. > :16:05.did. Would it be more useful to go to the job centre and find out how
:16:06. > :16:19.it was working. He's going to tell you it's working fine.
:16:20. > :16:25.Advice Bureau in Hammersmith, they are working to help the people
:16:26. > :16:32.trying to claim universal credit. Iain Duncan Smith cancelled three
:16:33. > :16:36.meetings. That is another issue I was asking about the job centre It
:16:37. > :16:43.is not another issue because Iain Duncan Smith fogged us off. This
:16:44. > :16:47.week you said that jobless youngsters who won't take training
:16:48. > :16:56.will lose their welfare payments. How many young people are not in
:16:57. > :17:01.work training or education? There are 140,000 young people claiming
:17:02. > :17:07.benefits at the moment, but 850 000 young people who are not in work at
:17:08. > :17:14.the moment. This applies to around 100,000 young people. There are
:17:15. > :17:22.actually 975,000, 16-24 -year-olds, not in work, training or education.
:17:23. > :17:29.Your proposal only applies to 100,000 of them, why? This is
:17:30. > :17:34.applying to young people who are signing on for benefits rather than
:17:35. > :17:42.signing up for training. We want to make sure that all young people ..
:17:43. > :17:45.Why only 100,000? They are the ones currently getting job-seeker's
:17:46. > :17:59.allowance. We are saying you can not just sign up to... Can I get you to
:18:00. > :18:05.respond to this, the number of people not in work, training or
:18:06. > :18:14.education fell last year by more than you are planning to help. Long
:18:15. > :18:23.turn -- long-term unemployment is an entrenched problem... This issue
:18:24. > :18:29.about an entrenched group of young people. Young people who haven't got
:18:30. > :18:33.skills and are not in training we know are much less likely to get a
:18:34. > :18:40.job so there are 140,018-24 -year-olds signing onto benefits at
:18:41. > :18:44.the moment. This is about trying to address that problem to make sure
:18:45. > :18:49.all young people have the skills they need to get a job. Your policy
:18:50. > :18:53.is to take away part of the dole unless young unemployed people agree
:18:54. > :19:00.to study for level three qualifications, the equivalent of an
:19:01. > :19:08.AS-level or an NVQ but 40% of these people have the literary skills of a
:19:09. > :19:13.nine-year-old. After all that failed education, how are you going to
:19:14. > :19:18.train them to a level standard? We are saying that anyone who doesn't
:19:19. > :19:23.have that a level or equivalent qualification will be required to go
:19:24. > :19:28.back to college. We are not saying that within a year they have to get
:19:29. > :19:32.up to that level but these are exactly the sorts of people... These
:19:33. > :19:37.people have been failed by your education system. These people are,
:19:38. > :19:42.for the last four years, have been educated under a Conservative
:19:43. > :19:47.government. 18 - 21-year-olds, most of them have their education under a
:19:48. > :19:52.Labour government during which 300,000 people left with no GCSEs
:19:53. > :19:59.whatsoever. I don't understand how training for one year can do what 11
:20:00. > :20:02.years in school did not. We are not saying that within one year
:20:03. > :20:06.everybody will get up to a level three qualifications, but if you are
:20:07. > :20:10.one of those people who enters the Labour market age 18 with the
:20:11. > :20:18.reading skills of a nine-year-old, they are the sorts of people that
:20:19. > :20:24.should not the left languishing I went to college in Hackney if you
:20:25. > :20:29.you are -- a few weeks ago and there was a dyslexic boy studying painting
:20:30. > :20:34.and decorating. In school they decided he was a troublemaker and
:20:35. > :20:39.that he didn't want to learn. He went back to college because he
:20:40. > :20:43.wanted to get the skills. He said that it wasn't until he went back to
:20:44. > :20:48.college that he could pick up a newspaper and read it, it made a
:20:49. > :20:54.huge difference but too many people are let down by the system. I am
:20:55. > :20:58.wondering how the training will make up for an education system that
:20:59. > :21:03.failed them but let's move on to your leader. Look at this graph of
:21:04. > :21:08.Ed Miliband's popularity. This is the net satisfaction with him, it is
:21:09. > :21:15.dreadful. The trend continues to climb since he became leader of the
:21:16. > :21:18.Labour Party, why? What you have seen is another 2300 Labour
:21:19. > :21:24.councillors since Ed Miliband became the leader of the Labour Party. You
:21:25. > :21:32.saw in the elections a month ago that... Why is the satisfaction rate
:21:33. > :21:37.falling? We can look at polls or actual election results and the fact
:21:38. > :21:41.that we have got another 2000 Labour councillors, more people voting
:21:42. > :21:46.Labour, the opinion polls today show that if there was a general election
:21:47. > :21:53.today we would have a majority of more than 40, he must be doing
:21:54. > :21:59.something right. Why do almost 0% of voters want to replace him as
:22:00. > :22:05.leader? Why do 50% and more think that he is not up to the job? The
:22:06. > :22:12.more people see Ed Miliband, the less impressed they are. The British
:22:13. > :22:17.people seem to like him less. The election strategy I suggest that
:22:18. > :22:21.follows from that is that you should keep Ed Miliband under wraps until
:22:22. > :22:26.the election. Let's look at actually what happens when people get a
:22:27. > :22:30.chance to vote, when they get that opportunity we have seen more Labour
:22:31. > :22:37.councillors, more Labour members of the European Parliament...
:22:38. > :22:44.Oppositions always get more. The opinion polls today, one of them
:22:45. > :22:48.shows Labour four points ahead. You have not done that well in local
:22:49. > :22:54.government elections or European elections. Why don't people like
:22:55. > :22:59.him? I think we have done incredibly well in elections. People must like
:23:00. > :23:04.a lot of the things Labour and Ed Miliband are doing because we are
:23:05. > :23:08.winning back support across the country. We won local councils in
:23:09. > :23:14.places like Hammersmith and Fulham, Crawley, Hastings, key places that
:23:15. > :23:18.Labour need to win back at the general election next year. Even you
:23:19. > :23:24.have said traditional Labour supporters are abandoning the party.
:23:25. > :23:30.That is what Ed Miliband has said as well. We have got this real concern
:23:31. > :23:35.about what has happened. If you look at the elections in May, 60% of
:23:36. > :23:40.people didn't even bother going to vote. That is a profound issue not
:23:41. > :23:45.just for Labour. You said traditional voters who perhaps at
:23:46. > :23:50.times we took for granted are now being offered an alternative. Why
:23:51. > :23:55.did you take them for granted? This is what Ed Miliband said. I am not
:23:56. > :24:02.saying anything Ed Miliband himself has not said. When he ran for the
:24:03. > :24:06.leadership he said that we took too many people for granted and we
:24:07. > :24:10.needed to give people positive reasons to vote Labour, he has been
:24:11. > :24:13.doing that. He has been there for four years and you are saying you
:24:14. > :24:19.still take them for granted. Why? I am saying that for too long we have
:24:20. > :24:23.taken them for granted. We are on track to win the general election
:24:24. > :24:33.next year and that will defy all the odds. You are going to win... Ed
:24:34. > :24:37.Miliband will win next year and make a great Prime Minister.
:24:38. > :24:43.Now to the Liberal Democrats, at the risk of intruding into private
:24:44. > :24:46.grief. The party is still smarting from dire results in the European
:24:47. > :24:50.and Local Elections. The only poll Nick Clegg has won in recent times
:24:51. > :24:54.is to be voted the most unpopular leader of a party in modern British
:24:55. > :24:58.history. No surprise there have been calls for him to go, though that
:24:59. > :24:58.still looks unlikely. Here's Eleanor.
:24:59. > :25:04.Liberal Democrats celebrating, something we haven't seen for a
:25:05. > :25:09.while. This victory back in 199 led to a decade of power for the Lib
:25:10. > :25:15.Dems in Liverpool. What a contrast to the city's political landscape
:25:16. > :25:20.today. At its height the party had 69 local councillors, now down to
:25:21. > :25:25.just three. The scale of the challenge facing Nick Clegg and the
:25:26. > :25:30.Lib Dems is growing. The party is rock bottom in the polls,
:25:31. > :25:35.consistently in single figures. It was wiped out in the European
:25:36. > :25:40.elections losing all but one of its 12 MEPs and in the local elections
:25:41. > :25:47.it lost 42% of the seats that it was defending. But on Merseyside, Nick
:25:48. > :25:51.Clegg was putting on a brave face. We did badly in Liverpool,
:25:52. > :25:58.Manchester and London in particular, we did well in other places. But you
:25:59. > :26:02.are right, we did badly in some of those big cities and I have
:26:03. > :26:08.initiated a review, quite naturally, to understand what went
:26:09. > :26:12.wrong, what went right. As Lib Dems across the country get on with some
:26:13. > :26:17.serious soul-searching, there is an admission that his is the leader of
:26:18. > :26:22.the party who is failing to hit the right notes. Knocking on doors in
:26:23. > :26:28.Liverpool, I have to tell you that Nick Clegg is not a popular person.
:26:29. > :26:33.Some might use the word toxic and I find this very difficult because I
:26:34. > :26:37.know Nick very well and I see a principal person who passionately
:26:38. > :26:44.believes in what he is doing and he is a nice guy. As a result of his
:26:45. > :26:53.popularity, what has happened to the core vote? In parts of the country,
:26:54. > :26:57.we are down to just three councillors like Liverpool for
:26:58. > :27:01.example. You also lose the deliverers and fundraisers and the
:27:02. > :27:07.organisers and the members of course so all of that will have to be
:27:08. > :27:10.rebuilt. As they start fermenting process, local parties across the
:27:11. > :27:17.country and here in Liverpool have been voting on whether there should
:27:18. > :27:22.be a leadership contest. We had two choices to flush out and have a go
:27:23. > :27:25.at Nick Clegg or to positively decide we would sharpen up the
:27:26. > :27:31.campaign and get back on the streets, and by four to one ratio we
:27:32. > :27:37.decided to get back on the streets. We are bruised and battered but we
:27:38. > :27:41.are still here, the orange flag is still flying and one day it will fly
:27:42. > :27:47.over this building again, Liverpool town hall. But do people want the
:27:48. > :27:51.Lib Dems back in charge in this city? I certainly wouldn't vote for
:27:52. > :27:56.them. Their performance in Government and the way they have
:27:57. > :28:02.left their promises down, I could not vote for them again. I voted Lib
:28:03. > :28:08.Dem in the last election because of the university tuition fees and I
:28:09. > :28:12.would never vote for them again because they broke their promise.
:28:13. > :28:17.The Lib Dems are awful, broken promises and what have you. I
:28:18. > :28:20.wouldn't vote for them. This is the declaration of the results for the
:28:21. > :28:25.Northwest... Last month, as other party celebrated in the north-west,
:28:26. > :28:31.the Lib Dems here lost their only MEP, Chris Davies. Now there is
:28:32. > :28:37.concern the party doesn't know how to turn its fortunes around. We
:28:38. > :28:44.don't have an answer to that, if we did we would be grasping it with
:28:45. > :28:49.both hands. We will do our best to hold onto the places where we still
:28:50. > :28:54.have seats but as for the rest of the country where we have been
:28:55. > :28:58.hollowed out, we don't know how to start again until the next general
:28:59. > :29:01.election is out of the way. After their disastrous performance in the
:29:02. > :29:12.European elections, pressure is growing for the party to shift its
:29:13. > :29:16.stance. I think there has to be a lancing of the wound, there should
:29:17. > :29:23.in a referendum and the Liberal Democrats should be calling it. The
:29:24. > :29:29.rest of Europe once this because they are fed up with Britain being
:29:30. > :29:33.unable to make up its mind. The Lib Dems are now suffering the effects
:29:34. > :29:39.of being in Government. The party's problem, choosing the right course
:29:40. > :29:45.to regain political credibility We can now speak to form a Lib Dems
:29:46. > :29:49.leader Ming Campbell. Welcome back to the Sunday Politics. Even your
:29:50. > :29:57.own activists say that Nick Clegg is toxic. How will that change between
:29:58. > :30:01.now and the election? When you have had disappointing results, but you
:30:02. > :30:06.have to do is to rebuild. You pick yourself up and start all over
:30:07. > :30:11.again, and the reason why the Liberal Democrats got 57, 56 seats
:30:12. > :30:15.in the House of Commons now is because we picked ourselves up, we
:30:16. > :30:25.took every opportunity and we have rebuilt from the bottom up.
:30:26. > :30:29.least popular leader in modern history and more unpopular than your
:30:30. > :30:34.mate Gordon Brown. You are running out of time. No one believes that
:30:35. > :30:37.being the leader of a modern political party in the UK is an easy
:30:38. > :30:41.job. Both Ed Miliband and David Cameron must have had cause to
:30:42. > :30:46.think, over breakfast this morning, when they saw the headlines in some
:30:47. > :30:50.of the Sunday papers. Of course it is a difficult job but it was
:30:51. > :30:53.pointed out a moment or two ago that Nick Clegg is a man of principle and
:30:54. > :30:57.enormous resilience if you consider what he had to put up with, and in
:30:58. > :31:01.my view, he is quite clearly the person best qualified to lead the
:31:02. > :31:04.party between now and the general election and through the election
:31:05. > :31:09.campaign, and beyond. So why don't people like him? We have had to take
:31:10. > :31:14.some pretty difficult decisions and, of course, people didn't expect
:31:15. > :31:20.that. If you look back to the rather heady days of the rose garden behind
:31:21. > :31:23.ten Downing St, people thought it was all going to be sweetness and
:31:24. > :31:28.light, but the fact is, we didn t know then what we know now, about
:31:29. > :31:32.the extent of the economic crisis we win, and a lot of difficult
:31:33. > :31:36.decisions have had to be taken in order to restore economic stability.
:31:37. > :31:42.Look around you. You will see we are not there yet but we are a long way
:31:43. > :31:48.better off than in 2010. You are not getting the credit for it, the
:31:49. > :31:53.Tories are. We will be a little more assertive about taking the credit.
:31:54. > :31:57.For example, the fact that 23 million people have had a tax cut of
:31:58. > :32:01.?800 per year and we have taken 2 million people out of paying tax
:32:02. > :32:06.altogether. Ming Campbell, your people say that on every programme
:32:07. > :32:11.like this. Because it is true. That might be the case, but you are at
:32:12. > :32:13.seven or 8% in the polls, and nobody is listening, or they don't believe
:32:14. > :32:21.it. Once is listening, or they don't believe
:32:22. > :32:24.doubt that what we have achieved will be much more easily
:32:25. > :32:28.recognised, and there is no doubt, for example, in some of the recent
:32:29. > :32:30.polls, like the Ashcroft Pole, something like 30% of those polled
:32:31. > :32:38.said that as a result at the next something like 30% of those polled
:32:39. > :32:41.general election, they would prepare their to be a coalition involving
:32:42. > :32:46.the Liberal Democrats. So there is no question that the whole notion of
:32:47. > :32:51.coalition is still very much a live one, and one which we have made work
:32:52. > :32:55.in the public interest. The problem is people don't think that. People
:32:56. > :32:59.see you trying to have your cake and eat it. On the one hand you want to
:33:00. > :33:02.get your share of the credit for the turnaround in the economy, on the
:33:03. > :33:06.other hand you can't stop yourself from distancing yourself from the
:33:07. > :33:13.Tories and things that you did not like happening. You are trying to
:33:14. > :33:14.face both ways at once. If you remember our fellow Scotsman
:33:15. > :33:27.famously said you cannot ride both remember our fellow Scotsman
:33:28. > :33:27.to the terms -- terms of the remember our fellow Scotsman
:33:28. > :33:31.coalition agreement, which is what we signed up to in 2010. In
:33:32. > :33:35.addition, in furtherance of that agreement, we have created things
:33:36. > :33:39.like the pupil premium and the others I mentioned and you were
:33:40. > :33:41.rather dismissive. I'm not dismissive, I'm just saying they
:33:42. > :33:45.don't make a difference to what people think of you. We will do
:33:46. > :33:51.everything in our power to change that between now and May 2015. The
:33:52. > :33:57.interesting thing is, going back to the Ashcroft result, it demonstrated
:33:58. > :34:02.clearly that in constituencies where we have MPs and we are well dug in,
:34:03. > :34:07.we are doing everything that the public expects of us, and we are
:34:08. > :34:12.doing very well indeed. You aren't sure fellow Lib Dems have been
:34:13. > :34:16.saying this for you -- you and your fellow Liberal Dems have been saying
:34:17. > :34:20.this for a year or 18 months, and since then you have lost all of your
:34:21. > :34:24.MEPs apart from one, you lost your deposit in a by-election, you lost
:34:25. > :34:29.310 councillor, including everyone in Manchester or Islington. Mr Clegg
:34:30. > :34:35.leading you into the next general election will be the equivalent of
:34:36. > :34:41.the charge of the light Brigade I doubt that very much. The
:34:42. > :34:44.implication behind that lit you rehearsed is that we should pack our
:34:45. > :34:50.tents in the night and steal away. -- that litany. And if you heard in
:34:51. > :34:53.that piece that preceded the discussion, people were saying, look
:34:54. > :35:07.we have to start from the bottom and have to rebuild. That is exactly
:35:08. > :35:12.what we will do. Nine months is a period of gestation. As you well
:35:13. > :35:16.know. I wouldn't dismiss it quite so easily as that. I'm not here to say
:35:17. > :35:21.we had a wonderful result or anything like it, but what I do say
:35:22. > :35:25.is that the party is determined to turn it round, and that Nick Clegg
:35:26. > :35:30.is the person best qualified to do it. Should your party adopt a
:35:31. > :35:35.referendum about in or out on Europe? No, we should stick to the
:35:36. > :35:39.coalition agreement. If there is any transfer of power from Westminster
:35:40. > :35:45.to Brussels, that will be subject to a referendum. No change. And
:35:46. > :35:50.finally, as a Lib Dem, you must be glad you are not fighting the next
:35:51. > :35:56.election yourself? I've fought every election since 1974, so I've had a
:35:57. > :36:00.few experiences, some good, some bad, but the one thing I have done
:36:01. > :36:04.and the one thing a lot of other people have done is that they have
:36:05. > :36:06.stuck to the task, and that is what will happen in May 2015. Ming
:36:07. > :36:10.Campbell, thank you for joining us. It's just gone 11.35am, you're
:36:11. > :36:12.watching the Sunday Politics. We say goodbye to viewers
:36:13. > :36:37.in Scotland who leave us now years since the Health and Safety
:36:38. > :36:39.Act was introduced, we look at claims that more workers cotld be
:36:40. > :36:44.put at risk by changes to the law. And we'll find out why
:36:45. > :36:46.the government is telling f`rmers in Yorkshire and Lincolnshire they
:36:47. > :36:49.should employ more British`born Our guests today are Conservative MP
:36:50. > :36:54.for Elmet and Rothwell, Alec Shelbrooke, and Labour MP
:36:55. > :37:13.for Hull East, Karl Turner. What has been your highlight this
:37:14. > :37:20.week, Alec? Talking about h`rmful drugs and pregnancy, I have brought
:37:21. > :37:23.together clinicians and victims and campaign groups and pharmacdutical
:37:24. > :37:29.companies and we have made progress in trying to bring about a campaign
:37:30. > :37:33.to track the rocks that pardnts take so that if problems develop further
:37:34. > :37:37.down the line we can track back and look at what could because hn them.
:37:38. > :37:43.The endgame is better public protection and understanding that
:37:44. > :37:46.some of these drugs can havd a nasty effect and pregnancy what
:37:47. > :37:53.information is perhaps not put across properly even though it is
:37:54. > :37:57.available. Karl Turner, you have been raising concerns about Ferry
:37:58. > :38:01.Road is in your area. That hs correct, new EU regulations come
:38:02. > :38:10.into place on the 1st of January and there could be a risk to jobs. It is
:38:11. > :38:16.about reducing sulphur emissions, but when jobs are at risk, H must
:38:17. > :38:23.speak out about that. It was a good debate, the minister promisdd to
:38:24. > :38:27.make some sort of offer to the ship owners in terms of helping them
:38:28. > :38:32.mitigate the cost, that was a good thing, but what I want to bd clear
:38:33. > :38:37.about on this issue is I do not want ferry operators to use this as an
:38:38. > :38:43.excuse to employ less UK ratings and employed cheaper people frol
:38:44. > :38:46.overseas who do not have to be paid the minimum wage.
:38:47. > :38:48.40 years after it was introduced, some Labour MPs have accused
:38:49. > :38:52.the government of watering down the Health and Safety at Work Act, with
:38:53. > :38:55.claims that workers could bd put at risk by proposed cuts to red tape.
:38:56. > :39:04.40 years ago the BBC made this special programme on what w`s then
:39:05. > :39:11.At the time, 1000 people were dying every year from accidents at work.
:39:12. > :39:14.The Health and Safety at Work Act, published in 1974, and coming into
:39:15. > :39:21.force the following year, ttrned existing legislation on its head.
:39:22. > :39:24.Instead of telling employers what they could
:39:25. > :39:29.not do, it demanded they take positive action to prevent hnjury.
:39:30. > :39:34.That is why today this warnhng sign at a building site is just one of
:39:35. > :39:40.a whole range of legal requhrements that employers have to meet.
:39:41. > :39:43.We are obliged to give them what we call PPE, which is protection,
:39:44. > :39:47.the footwear, the high visibility vests, helmets and so forth.
:39:48. > :39:51.We have to take risk and hazard assessments before we go onto site.
:39:52. > :39:54.So there is quite a bit involved in health and safety on the whole.
:39:55. > :39:57.40 years on, many of those workers that this act was designed to
:39:58. > :40:00.protect have changed the wax that they work and so have the companies
:40:01. > :40:04.that employ them, but as far as they are concerned, safety is sthll
:40:05. > :40:07.paramount and there are some difficulties with
:40:08. > :40:13.Trade union officials like former brickie, Rob Morris
:40:14. > :40:17.say the laws are being watered down by a government that sees them as
:40:18. > :40:24.The cuts that they have targeted are head protection,
:40:25. > :40:26.which saves thousands of lives each year, including
:40:27. > :40:32.They have done away with the personal injury claims, they
:40:33. > :40:35.have altered the law with that and it is now more difficult for people
:40:36. > :40:41.They have altered the fact that they are doing unannounced...
:40:42. > :40:44.They have done away with the unannounced visits of the Health
:40:45. > :40:48.and Safety Executive to sitds, making it much more dangerots
:40:49. > :40:51.and the Health and Safety Executive has had 35% of its budget ctt,
:40:52. > :40:58.But some go even further, this construction worker told us he
:40:59. > :41:05.The employers work together and blacklist you if you know your
:41:06. > :41:08.rights, and make that clear at work by telling them what the law says.
:41:09. > :41:11.All of a sudden, other comp`nies will start telling you what you said
:41:12. > :41:17.to an old boss a few weeks `go and they start warning you.
:41:18. > :41:20.Changes to health and safetx at work are now being debatdd by
:41:21. > :41:22.MPs, including proposals to remove self`employed tradesmen frol many
:41:23. > :41:31.Well, that is my fear, becatse we know that from surveys that have
:41:32. > :41:33.been done, there are somethhng like 400,000 people who are
:41:34. > :41:38.in what we could describe as false self employment in the construction
:41:39. > :41:43.industry, and if a signific`nt proportion of them have thehr
:41:44. > :41:45.protection removed, then we turn around the successes of the last
:41:46. > :41:54.decades, since the introduction of the Health and Safety at Work Act in
:41:55. > :42:03.reducing deaths and reducing injuries in the workplace. So, as
:42:04. > :42:05.But members of the trade association, the Federation
:42:06. > :42:11.of Master Builders, say in fact the regulations aren't the problem.
:42:12. > :42:14.It is making sure they applx to all in the trade equally, so th`t costs
:42:15. > :42:18.cannot be cut by cutting corners and risking the health of workers.
:42:19. > :42:20.90% of your small building companies, they don't have `ny
:42:21. > :42:23.health and safety policy in place, or any correct procedures in place,
:42:24. > :42:27.so as a result, it is easy for themselves to undercut oursdlves
:42:28. > :42:30.because we have all of these procedures in placd,
:42:31. > :42:34.which is a cost to ourselves with administration and so forth.
:42:35. > :42:36.As well as issuing notices, inspectors can prosecute anx person
:42:37. > :42:45.The guilty can face both unlimited fines and imprisonment.
:42:46. > :42:49.So the debate that started 40 years ago is still going on ` essdntial
:42:50. > :42:52.That was a hotly disputed parliamentary debate in 1974.
:42:53. > :43:05.It is likely to be just as fierce in 2014.
:43:06. > :43:10.Alec Shelbrooke, is it fair to say that health and safety regulations
:43:11. > :43:15.have been watered down by this government? I do not think that is a
:43:16. > :43:20.fair charge, especially when you look at the fact that in thd last
:43:21. > :43:23.year there has been more un`nnounced on the spot inspections by the
:43:24. > :43:27.Health and Safety Executive than ever before, this is the pohnt of a
:43:28. > :43:29.political argument forming here in terms of what looks good to spend
:43:30. > :43:34.something rather than the rdality on something rather than the rdality on
:43:35. > :43:39.the ground. When I was on btilding sites in the 1990s, looking at films
:43:40. > :43:44.like that, the health and s`fety has vastly improved. What did you do on
:43:45. > :43:49.a building site? I was a labourer in the past and I was also a khtchen
:43:50. > :43:56.and bathroom fitter, I have a background in construction `nd
:43:57. > :44:00.getting my hands dirty! Karl Turner, Alec Shelbrooke is accusing the
:44:01. > :44:06.Labour Party of spinning thhs story. He has to look at the Deregtlation
:44:07. > :44:15.Bill which comes onto the floor to moral, it is proof that construction
:44:16. > :44:18.workers will not be required to use safety and protect patents. That is
:44:19. > :44:22.dangerous. People should not be going out in the morning le`ving
:44:23. > :44:27.their children and waves and not coming home in the evening. That is
:44:28. > :44:32.what will happen as a result of the government cutting this red tape. It
:44:33. > :44:38.is cutting safety. What abott a self`employed builder 's, Alec
:44:39. > :44:41.Shelbrooke, become exempt from the health and safety regulations, where
:44:42. > :44:48.is the sense in that? We must be careful that if we do overbtrden the
:44:49. > :44:52.self`employed, I was a sole trader as a kitchen and bathroom fhtter,
:44:53. > :44:55.that you can put people out of work. You must look at that
:44:56. > :45:04.legislation and make sure that some unscrupulous companies do not take
:45:05. > :45:09.advantage. There is something that must be carefully looked at. Karl
:45:10. > :45:14.Turner, the Prime Minister David Cameron says there is a mountain of
:45:15. > :45:18.red tape for small businessds, he points to shops that sell forms of
:45:19. > :45:23.soap powder or oven cleaner which have to apply for a poison license,
:45:24. > :45:27.we cannot wrap everyone in cotton wool, they must be a balancd. Some
:45:28. > :45:32.of what the Prime Minister says might be correct, but this hs an
:45:33. > :45:35.issue about construction workers, there are more and more construction
:45:36. > :45:42.workers now who are forced to be self`employed, that is so btsinesses
:45:43. > :45:45.can get away with paying national insurance and other things,
:45:46. > :45:49.insurance policies to protect them at work and all sorts of other
:45:50. > :45:54.things, this is about safetx at the end of the day, people should not be
:45:55. > :45:58.going to work and not becomhng back in an evening. We must be vdry
:45:59. > :46:02.careful about this issue, it is back on the floor of the house tomorrow
:46:03. > :46:07.and the government ought to stop now, really, and ensure that people
:46:08. > :46:13.are safe within their emploxment. Alec, is the Health and Safdty
:46:14. > :46:16.Executive becoming toothless. The unions claim that unannouncdd visits
:46:17. > :46:21.to construction sites have `ll but disappeared, what is the good of the
:46:22. > :46:29.organisation? The stress thhs text do not back that up. Let me just say
:46:30. > :46:38.this, if you have ever gone to work on Memorial Day and you see things
:46:39. > :46:44.representing those who were lost at work, that is a great representation
:46:45. > :46:52.of the importance of health and safety, this is not about gdtting
:46:53. > :46:54.rid of the Health and Safetx at Work Act, it is assessing it and looking
:46:55. > :46:56.forward. We have one of the safest working environment in Europe and
:46:57. > :46:59.that has come about by the work done in this Parliament. We have to make
:47:00. > :47:05.sure that just because it h`s been reformed, that does not mean it
:47:06. > :47:10.cannot be open to scrutiny. Karl Turner, nobody is suggesting beagle
:47:11. > :47:17.back to the Victorian days of the mill owner, but surely we mtst look
:47:18. > :47:20.at this. The reality is that there are more construction workers who
:47:21. > :47:25.are being forced to become self`employed and actually, those
:47:26. > :47:31.protective safety measures keep them safe and keep them alive. It is not
:47:32. > :47:36.about watering it down, the government says it is cutting red
:47:37. > :47:40.tape, this is dealing with people's lives. We should not be messing
:47:41. > :47:45.about with that and the govdrnment are wrong on that issue and we must
:47:46. > :47:50.stop. We are going to move on. I did not know that you were a kitchen and
:47:51. > :47:57.bathroom fitter, you can do my drinking! `` grouting.
:47:58. > :47:59.The government says farmers in Yorkshire and Lincolnshire should
:48:00. > :48:01.employ more British`born workers. Employment Minister Esther LcVey
:48:02. > :48:04.says the food industry should rely seasonal work. But some farlers have
:48:05. > :48:07.hit back at the government `nd say they simply can't find enough local
:48:08. > :48:10.staff to do jobs that migrant and say they simply can't fhnd
:48:11. > :48:13.enough local staff to do jobs that These freshly picked carrots are
:48:14. > :48:18.being washed and packed ready The vast majority of people carrying
:48:19. > :48:24.out the work are from oversdas. Without overseas workers thhs
:48:25. > :48:27.business could not survive. We have a lot of local workdrs,
:48:28. > :48:29.good local workers, If I had a limitation
:48:30. > :48:35.on overseas workers, I would have to tell a lot of my customers H could
:48:36. > :48:37.not deliver their orders. Marika came to Goole
:48:38. > :48:39.from Estonia to find work. She is now an assistant technical
:48:40. > :48:42.manager at this factory and her She only comes here
:48:43. > :48:50.for winter because So she spent half of the ye`r
:48:51. > :48:56.in the factory, last year it was There is no sign of a slowdown
:48:57. > :49:01.when it comes to the number of workers coming here
:49:02. > :49:06.from other European countrids. Last year saw a 27% increasd
:49:07. > :49:08.in migration from EU nations. But the Employment Minister,
:49:09. > :49:11.Esther McVey, says farmers should be more willing
:49:12. > :49:15.to take on British`born workers She claims the number
:49:16. > :49:18.of new jobs going to British workers No longer is it only 4/10 British
:49:19. > :49:33.nationals our getting jobs, it is now nearly 8/10 British nathonals
:49:34. > :49:37.getting those jobs, so I wotld like to think those farmers do fdel that
:49:38. > :49:40.they can take on British people because we have got them to
:49:41. > :49:43.the standard that they are good The reality is we can't find
:49:44. > :49:51.those number of people. Those ministers who say that,
:49:52. > :49:54.they want to come here on a Sunday morning and try to find me 050 local
:49:55. > :49:57.workers, because I cannot fhnd them. On the streets of Goole I spoke to
:49:58. > :50:01.a group of unemployed young men Would you be willing to do
:50:02. > :50:03.farm work, manual work? So why are you not going
:50:04. > :50:09.for those sort of jobs? The foreigners are taking them on,
:50:10. > :50:15.the foreigners are coming over here on the boats
:50:16. > :50:17.and are taking all of When we sign on,
:50:18. > :50:31.they tell us to look for jobs. Are you willing to do those sort
:50:32. > :50:34.of manual jobs, How many jobs have you applhed
:50:35. > :50:38.for recently? I have applied for four jobs and I
:50:39. > :50:42.have not heard anything back. When we have to look for jobs,
:50:43. > :50:45.we cannot find them, becausd We are sick of them,
:50:46. > :50:48.all of the time. But some would say that you are
:50:49. > :50:52.on willing to do the jobs that We would do the jobs, but wd do not
:50:53. > :50:56.get to see them, because straight away the foreigners come ovdr here
:50:57. > :50:59.and they get the benefits Not for the first time,
:51:00. > :51:02.politicians and employers h`ve clashed over the reality
:51:03. > :51:16.of high hiring home`grown workers. Is it a good thing that we `re being
:51:17. > :51:21.encouraged to take on more British`born workers? One of the
:51:22. > :51:25.things the government could have done is to put some legislation
:51:26. > :51:30.through to stop recruitment agencies employing just from overseas. There
:51:31. > :51:36.should be strengthening of the minimum wage and enforcing that
:51:37. > :51:42.legislation, there has been two or three prosecutions since 2000 of
:51:43. > :51:49.people not paying the minimtm wage. There should be all sorts of things
:51:50. > :51:52.being done to improve things for workers and stopping businesses
:51:53. > :51:56.taking advantage of workers, but they have not taken that
:51:57. > :52:01.opportunity, I am afraid. It is all well Esther McVey seeing thhs, but
:52:02. > :52:06.you heard from the farmer tdlling us that he could not find double
:52:07. > :52:11.co`workers. One of the things that we are doing is addressing the
:52:12. > :52:15.benefits situation to make work pay and that is one of the things which
:52:16. > :52:19.has helped people. We have to go back to the last Labour Prile
:52:20. > :52:23.Minister, Gordon Brown, signing the Lisbon Treaty which in one stroke
:52:24. > :52:29.did away with the fact that we used to have seasonal migrant passes now
:52:30. > :52:33.people can come over and st`y. It is worth noting that some movelent has
:52:34. > :52:37.been made by the government which legislated giving us more rdsources
:52:38. > :52:42.to crack down on the minimul wage is not being paid and a ?25,000 fine
:52:43. > :52:48.per employee for a company that has not paid the minimum wage. Karl
:52:49. > :52:52.Turner, the number of new jobs were to British workers has doubled from
:52:53. > :52:56.four out of ten people to ehght out of ten people, would you recognise
:52:57. > :53:01.those figures of the governlent I am not sure I would. There has been
:53:02. > :53:06.little prosecution on those not paying the minimum wage and we
:53:07. > :53:11.believe that the fine should be increased to up to 50,000, so that
:53:12. > :53:19.businesses get a strict warning not to take advantage. One of the
:53:20. > :53:23.reasons I believe overseas staff are employed is because they can get
:53:24. > :53:31.away with not paying them as much money. The idea that British workers
:53:32. > :53:35.are not prepared to work as hard as those from overseas is frankly
:53:36. > :53:40.rubbish. The way that the Etropean Union has expanded and let hn
:53:41. > :53:45.countries from Eastern Europe, where for example in Romania, the minimum
:53:46. > :53:50.wage is 80p, that has seen ` driving down of wages in this country and
:53:51. > :53:54.that is why the Prime Minister says that there were renewed negotiations
:53:55. > :53:57.in Europe must start with border controls and taking things back
:53:58. > :54:02.because the fact of the matter as the concept of the European Union
:54:03. > :54:07.and the economic community `cross Europe, it simply does not work in
:54:08. > :54:13.this day and age when you h`ve the free movement of trade with 80p per
:54:14. > :54:18.hour minimum wage. That is why the Prem minister as saying we lust
:54:19. > :54:25.renegotiate our position from this awful Lisbon Treaty agreement. Like,
:54:26. > :54:30.the government could have done things to legislate, as I h`ve said,
:54:31. > :54:35.recruitment companies recruhting entirely from abroad, they have
:54:36. > :54:38.advertising campaigns in Eastern Europe, encouraging people to come
:54:39. > :54:45.to the UK and work. The reason for that is that they are getting away
:54:46. > :54:49.with not paying the minimum wage. The government are doing absolutely
:54:50. > :54:54.nothing, they are sitting on their hands and we have got a leghslative
:54:55. > :54:59.programme for the next ten or 1 months which has nothing in it. It
:55:00. > :55:04.is a zombie government. That is the truth. That is a nice attempt to put
:55:05. > :55:08.spin on that, but if you look at the might of those policies, yot will
:55:09. > :55:12.understand that pension reform and economy reform, things we are doing
:55:13. > :55:16.to get this country back on its feet are going to take up plenty of
:55:17. > :55:21.parliamentary time between now and the next general election. There is
:55:22. > :55:24.very little in the government legislative programme and if Esther
:55:25. > :55:29.McVey was really serious shd could have done things to legislate to
:55:30. > :55:34.make sure that this becomes much less of a problem. There is plenty
:55:35. > :55:39.of meat in the Queen's Speech and if people look at it rather th`n put
:55:40. > :55:40.spin on it, they will realise the work that this government is doing
:55:41. > :55:47.towards this is huge. Time to get some more
:55:48. > :55:50.of the week's political news now, which is dominated by
:55:51. > :56:05.the departure of one of Yorkshire's 27 years since first elected as a
:56:06. > :56:11.Sheffield MP, David Blunkett is calling it a day and will not stand
:56:12. > :56:15.at next year's general election He became a pivotal figure in finding
:56:16. > :56:21.new Labour with Tony Blair `nd later held powerful Cabinet posts at the
:56:22. > :56:25.Home Office, education and the work and education Department.
:56:26. > :56:30.Controversially he resigned from office twice when his tangldd love
:56:31. > :56:34.life was exposed in 2004 with questionable business links in 005.
:56:35. > :56:38.He has had more words of advice recently for Ed Miliband. Announcing
:56:39. > :56:45.his departure, he gave this prediction, an uncomfortabld one for
:56:46. > :56:49.his leader to digest. If we do not win the election next May, they
:56:50. > :56:53.could be out for another 15 years. I want to back the Labour Party and
:56:54. > :56:57.that means backing Ed Milib`nd because there is only one
:56:58. > :56:58.alternative to the Conservatives next year and that is a Labour led
:56:59. > :57:12.government with Ed Miliband. What are your thoughts, Karl Turner,
:57:13. > :57:17.on David Blunkett's announcdment? I met him last week to discuss this
:57:18. > :57:22.issue as his whip. I am verx sad, as his whip, I have become his personal
:57:23. > :57:27.friend and he is someone th`t is respected across this house. By all
:57:28. > :57:33.parties. He is an absolute gentleman and is held in very high regard He
:57:34. > :57:39.has had difficulties in his life, of course, he must have had, btt he has
:57:40. > :57:42.got through all of that and he has done jobs for the government
:57:43. > :57:46.fantastically well. He will be thoroughly missed by the Labour
:57:47. > :57:50.Party but I believe all sidds of the house will miss him. Some pdople
:57:51. > :57:55.thought at one point he was more right`wing the Tories! He h`s had a
:57:56. > :58:00.long and very distinguished career. The only main offices he did not
:58:01. > :58:07.hold I think where Prime Minister and foreign secretary. As K`rl
:58:08. > :58:11.Turner said, he has had a great career. What is very interesting is
:58:12. > :58:16.that when you look at the bhg beasts leaving the Labour Party, the front
:58:17. > :58:22.bench and the Labour Party behind that are starting to look young and
:58:23. > :58:28.inexperienced. Karl Turner, you are getting an experienced? I think we
:58:29. > :58:33.have a fantastic Shadow Secretary of State who joined in 2010 and is one
:58:34. > :58:39.of many effective members in our party. David will be sadly lissed
:58:40. > :58:45.across the house. I am not sure we will be missed by the Labour front
:58:46. > :58:49.bench as the clip showed! Another big beast, John Prescott, what
:58:50. > :58:53.advice would you give to anxone who takes over that constituencx in
:58:54. > :59:00.Sheffield? I have never tridd to fill John Prescott Paul `` John
:59:01. > :59:05.Prescott's big boots! Let md firstly say that! He has always told me to
:59:06. > :59:17.keep my head down and do as I am told! Thank you both for yotr time.
:59:18. > :59:23.and they will be obliged to tell you. Thanks for joining us. Andrew,
:59:24. > :59:42.back to you. think you'd want to. Labour grandees
:59:43. > :59:49.are not queueing up to sing his praises. Look at this. In my view,
:59:50. > :59:51.he is the leader we have and he is the leader I support and he is
:59:52. > :59:57.somebody capable of leading the party to victory. Ed Miliband will
:59:58. > :00:04.leave this to victory, and I believe he can. If he doesn't, what would
:00:05. > :00:08.happen to the Labour Party? We could be in the wilderness for 15 years.
:00:09. > :00:12.At the moment he has to convince people he has the capacity to lead
:00:13. > :00:17.the country. That's not my view but people don't believe that. We had a
:00:18. > :00:23.leader of the Labour Party was publicly embarrassed, because
:00:24. > :00:27.whoever was in charge of press letting go through a process where
:00:28. > :00:36.we have councillors in Merseyside resigning. It was a schoolboy error.
:00:37. > :00:45.Having policies without them being drawn together into a convincing and
:00:46. > :00:50.vivid narrative and with what you do the people in the country. You have
:00:51. > :00:56.to draw together, connect the policies, link them back to the
:00:57. > :01:06.leader and give people a real sense of where you are going. Somehow he
:01:07. > :01:11.has never quite managed to be himself and create that identity
:01:12. > :01:14.with the public. And we are joined by the president of you girls, Peter
:01:15. > :01:25.Kellner. Welcome to the Sunday politics. -- YouGov. The Labour
:01:26. > :01:29.Party is six points ahead in your poll this morning. So what is the
:01:30. > :01:34.problem? On this basis he will win the next election. If the election
:01:35. > :01:38.were today and the figures held up, you would have a Labour government
:01:39. > :01:43.with a narrow overall majority. One should not forget that. Let me make
:01:44. > :01:48.three points. The first is, in past parliaments, opposition normally
:01:49. > :01:54.lose ground and governments gain ground in the final few months. The
:01:55. > :02:00.opposition should be further ahead than this. I don't think six is
:02:01. > :02:03.enough. Secondly, Ed Miliband is behind David Cameron when people are
:02:04. > :02:06.asked who they want as Prime Minister and Labour is behind the
:02:07. > :02:10.Conservatives went people are asked who they trust on the economy. There
:02:11. > :02:13.have been elections when the party has won by being behind on
:02:14. > :02:17.leadership and other elections where they have won by being behind on the
:02:18. > :02:21.economy. No party has ever won an election when it has been clearly
:02:22. > :02:26.behind on both leadership and the economy. Let me have another go The
:02:27. > :02:31.Labour Party brand is a strong brand. The Tory Bramleys week. The
:02:32. > :02:41.Labour brand is stronger. That is a blast -- the Labour -- the Tory
:02:42. > :02:48.Bramleys week. A lot of the Tories -- the Tory brand is weak. Cant you
:02:49. > :02:55.win on policies and a strong party brand? If you have those too, you
:02:56. > :03:00.need the third factor which isn t there. People believing that you
:03:01. > :03:02.have what it takes, competent skills, determination,
:03:03. > :03:13.determination, whatever makes to carry through. -- whatever mix. A
:03:14. > :03:16.lot of Ed Miliband policies, on the banks, energy prices, Brent
:03:17. > :03:21.controls, people like them. But in government, would they carry them
:03:22. > :03:25.through? They think they are not up to it. -- rent controls. If people
:03:26. > :03:29.think you won't deliver what you say, even if they like it, they were
:03:30. > :03:34.necessarily vote for you. That is the missing third element. There is
:03:35. > :03:39.a strong Labour brand, but it's not strong enough to overcome the
:03:40. > :03:45.feeling that the Labour leadership is not up to it. Nick, you had some
:03:46. > :03:49.senior Labour figure telling you that if Mr Miliband losing the next
:03:50. > :03:52.election he will have to resign immediately and cannot fight another
:03:53. > :03:57.election the way Neil Kinnock did after 1987. What was remarkable to
:03:58. > :04:00.me was that people were even thinking along these lines, and even
:04:01. > :04:06.more remarkable that they would tell you they were thinking along these
:04:07. > :04:13.lines? What is the problem? The problem is, is that Ed Miliband says
:04:14. > :04:17.it would be unprecedented to win the general election after the second
:04:18. > :04:20.worst result since 1918. They are concerned about is the start of a
:04:21. > :04:23.script that he would say on the day after losing the general election.
:04:24. > :04:27.Essentially what the people are trying to do is get their argument
:04:28. > :04:32.in first and to say, you cannot do what Neil Kinnock did in 1987. Don't
:04:33. > :04:35.forget that Neil Kinnock in 198 was in the middle of a very brave
:04:36. > :04:40.process of modernisation and had one and fought a very campaign that was
:04:41. > :04:46.professional but he lost again in 1992, and they wanted to get their
:04:47. > :04:51.line in first. What some people are saying is that this is an election
:04:52. > :04:54.that the Labour Party should be winning because the coalition is so
:04:55. > :04:57.unpopular. If you don't win, I'm afraid to say, there is something
:04:58. > :05:01.wrong with you. Don't you find it remarkable that people are prepared
:05:02. > :05:03.to think along these lines at this stage, when Labour are ahead in the
:05:04. > :05:09.polls, still the bookies favourite to win, and you start to speak
:05:10. > :05:14.publicly, or in private to the public print, but we might have to
:05:15. > :05:17.get rid of him if he doesn't win. Everything you say about labour in
:05:18. > :05:20.this situation has been said about the Tories. We wondered whether
:05:21. > :05:24.Boris Johnson would tie himself to the mask and he is the next leader
:05:25. > :05:29.in waiting if Cameron goes. It's a mirror image of that. We talk about
:05:30. > :05:32.things being unprecedented. It's unprecedented for a government to
:05:33. > :05:35.gain seats. All the things you say about labour, you could say it the
:05:36. > :05:40.Conservatives. That's what makes the next election so interesting. But in
:05:41. > :05:43.the aftermath of the European elections and the local government
:05:44. > :05:47.elections, in which the Conservatives did not do that well,
:05:48. > :05:50.the issue was not Mr Cameron or the Tories doing well, the issue was the
:05:51. > :05:53.Labour Party and how they had not done as well as they should have
:05:54. > :05:56.done, and that conversation was fuelled by the kind of people who
:05:57. > :06:02.have been speaking to nick from the Labour Party. Rachel Reeves cited
:06:03. > :06:05.their real-life performance in elections as a reason for optimism.
:06:06. > :06:10.When in fact their performance in the Europeans and locals was
:06:11. > :06:14.disappointing for an opposition one year away from a general election.
:06:15. > :06:18.What alarms me about labour is the way they react to criticisms about
:06:19. > :06:22.Ed Miliband. Two years ago when he was attacked, they said they were 15
:06:23. > :06:25.points ahead, and then a year ago there were saying they were nine or
:06:26. > :06:30.ten ahead, and now they are saying we are still five or six ahead. The
:06:31. > :06:36.trend is alarming. It points to a smaller Labour lead. Am I right in
:06:37. > :06:41.detecting a bit of a class war going on in the Labour Party? There are a
:06:42. > :06:45.lot of northern Labour MPs who think that Ed Miliband is to north London,
:06:46. > :06:52.and there are too many metropolitan cronies around him must I think that
:06:53. > :06:56.is right, Andrew. What I think is, being a pessimist in terms of their
:06:57. > :07:01.prospects, I do think the Labour Party could win the next election. I
:07:02. > :07:04.just don't think they can as they are going at the moment. But the
:07:05. > :07:11.positioning for a possible defeat, what they should be talking about is
:07:12. > :07:14.what do we need to change in the party and the way Ed Miliband
:07:15. > :07:19.performs in order to secure victory. That is a debate they could have,
:07:20. > :07:25.and they could make the changes I find it odd that they are being so
:07:26. > :07:29.defeatist. Don't go away. Peter is a boffin when it comes to polls. That
:07:30. > :07:34.is why we have a mod for the election prediction swings and
:07:35. > :07:40.roundabouts. He is looking for what he calls the incumbency effect.
:07:41. > :07:44.Don't know what is a back-up -- what that's about question don't worry,
:07:45. > :07:53.here is an. Being in office is bad for your health. Political folk
:07:54. > :07:58.wisdom has it that incumbency favours one party in particular the
:07:59. > :08:01.Liberal Democrats. That is because their MPs have a reputation as
:08:02. > :08:06.ferociously good local campaigners who do really well at holding on to
:08:07. > :08:09.their seats. However, this time round, several big-name long serving
:08:10. > :08:16.Liberal Democrats like Ming Campbell, David Heath and Don Foster
:08:17. > :08:19.are standing down. Does that mean the incumbency effect disappears
:08:20. > :08:25.like a puff of smoke? Then there is another theory, called the sophomore
:08:26. > :08:30.surge. It might sound like a movie about US college kids, but it goes
:08:31. > :08:34.like this. New MPs tend to do better in their second election than they
:08:35. > :08:38.did in their first. That could favour the Tories because they have
:08:39. > :08:43.lots of first-time MPs. The big question is, what does this mean for
:08:44. > :08:50.the 7th of May 2015, the date of the next general election? The answer
:08:51. > :08:58.is, who knows? I know a man who knows. Peter. What does it all mean?
:08:59. > :09:01.You can go onto your PC now and draw down programmes which say that these
:09:02. > :09:06.are the voting figures from a national poll, so what will the
:09:07. > :09:09.seats look like? This is based on uniform swing. Every seat moving up
:09:10. > :09:15.and down across the country in the same way. Historically, that's been
:09:16. > :09:19.a pretty good guide. I think that's going to completely break down next
:09:20. > :09:22.year, because the Lib Dems will probably hold on to more seats than
:09:23. > :09:28.we predict from the national figures and I think fewer Tory seats will go
:09:29. > :09:32.to the Labour Party than you would predict from the national figures.
:09:33. > :09:37.The precise numbers, I'm not going to be too precise, but I would be
:09:38. > :09:42.surprised, sorry, I would not be surprised if Labour fell 20 or 5
:09:43. > :09:50.seats short on what we would expect on the uniform swing prediction
:09:51. > :09:52.Next year's election will be tight. Falling 20 seats short could well
:09:53. > :09:58.mean the difference between victory and defeat. What you make of that,
:09:59. > :10:02.Helen? I think you're right, especially taking into account the
:10:03. > :10:06.UKIP effect. We have no idea about that. The conventional wisdom is
:10:07. > :10:10.that will drain away back to the Conservatives, but nobody knows and
:10:11. > :10:15.it makes the next election almost impossible to call. It means it is a
:10:16. > :10:17.great target the people like Lord Ashcroft with marginal polling,
:10:18. > :10:23.because people have never been so interested. It is for party politics
:10:24. > :10:29.and we all assume that UKIP should be well next year, but their vote
:10:30. > :10:35.went up from 17 up to 27%. Then that 17% went down to 3%, so they might
:10:36. > :10:38.only be five or 6% in the general election, so they might not have the
:10:39. > :10:42.threat of depriving Conservatives of their seats. Where the incumbency
:10:43. > :10:48.thing has an effect is the Liberal Democrats. They have fortress seats
:10:49. > :10:52.where between 1992 and 1997 Liberal Democrats seats fell, but their
:10:53. > :10:57.percentage went up. They are losing the local government base though.
:10:58. > :11:01.True, but having people like Ming Campbell standing down means they
:11:02. > :11:04.will struggle. We are used to incumbency being an important factor
:11:05. > :11:09.in American politics. It's hard to get rid of an incumbent unless it is
:11:10. > :11:12.a primary election, like we saw in Virginia, but is it now becoming an
:11:13. > :11:16.important factor in British politics, that if you own the seat
:11:17. > :11:22.you're more likely to hold on to it than not? If it is, that's a
:11:23. > :11:25.remarkable thing. It's hard to be a carpetbagger in America, but it is
:11:26. > :11:28.normal in British Parliamentary constituencies to be represented by
:11:29. > :11:32.someone who did not grow up locally. It is a special kind of achievement
:11:33. > :11:36.to have an incumbency effect where you don't have deep roots in the
:11:37. > :11:40.constituency. I was going to ask about the Lib Dems. If we are wrong,
:11:41. > :11:43.and they collapse in Parliamentary representation as much as the share
:11:44. > :11:47.in vote collapses, is that not good news is that the Conservatives? They
:11:48. > :11:52.would be in second place in the majority of existing Lib Dems seats.
:11:53. > :11:55.For every seat where Labour are second to the Lib Dems, there are
:11:56. > :11:59.two where the Conservatives are second. If the Lib Dem
:12:00. > :12:07.representation collapses, that helps the Conservatives. I'm assuming the
:12:08. > :12:12.Tories will gain about ten seats. If they gain 20, if they'd had 20 more
:12:13. > :12:16.seats last time, they would have had a majority government, just about.
:12:17. > :12:20.So 20 seats off the Lib Dem, do the maths, as they say in America, and
:12:21. > :12:25.they could lose a handful to labour and still be able to run a one
:12:26. > :12:28.party, minority government. The fate of the Lib Dems could be crucial to
:12:29. > :12:35.the outcome to the politics of light. On the 8th of May, it will be
:12:36. > :12:39.VE Day and victory in election day as well as Europe. The Lib Dems will
:12:40. > :12:45.be apoplectic if they lose all of the seats to their coalition
:12:46. > :12:49.partners. The great quote by Angela Merkel, the little party always gets
:12:50. > :12:53.crushed. It's a well-established idea that coalition politics. They
:12:54. > :12:56.can't take credit for the things people like you may get lumbered
:12:57. > :12:59.with the ones they don't. They have contributed most of this terrible
:13:00. > :13:03.idea that seized politics where you say it, but you don't deliver it.
:13:04. > :13:09.Tuition fees is the classic example of this Parliament. Why should you
:13:10. > :13:13.believe any promise you make? And Ed Miliband is feeling that as well.
:13:14. > :13:17.But in 1974 the liberal Democrats barely had any MPs but there were
:13:18. > :13:20.reporters outside Jeremy Thorpe s home because they potentially held
:13:21. > :13:25.not the balance of power, but were significantly in fourth. Bringing
:13:26. > :13:29.back memories Jeremy Thorpe, and we will leave it there. Thanks to the
:13:30. > :13:33.panel. We are tomorrow on BBC Two. At the earlier time of 11am because
:13:34. > :13:37.of Wimbledon. Yes, it's that time of year again already. I will be back
:13:38. > :13:40.here at 11 o'clock next week. Remember, if it is Sunday, it is the
:13:41. > :14:16.Sunday Politics. to the beating heart
:14:17. > :14:42.of today's vibrant shops.