Browse content similar to 22/06/2014. Check below for episodes and series from the same categories and more!
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Welfare reform is one of the government's most popular policies. | :00:35. | :00:41. | |
So Labour says it would be even tougher than the Tories. | :00:42. | :00:45. | |
We'll be asking the Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary if she's got | :00:46. | :00:48. | |
Even Labour supporters worry that Ed Miliband hasn't got what it takes | :00:49. | :00:55. | |
Labour grandees are increasingly vocal about their concerns. | :00:56. | :01:00. | |
Over 50% of Labour voters think they'd do better with a new leader. | :01:01. | :01:11. | |
And what of this leader? He's apparently "toxic" on the doorstep. | :01:12. | :01:15. | |
The polls say Nick Clegg's more unpopular than Gordon Brown, | :01:16. | :01:37. | |
promised an electric car revolution, why so little progress? | :01:38. | :01:39. | |
Nick Watt, Helen Lewis and Janan Ganesh, the toxic tweeters | :01:40. | :01:46. | |
First, the deepening crisis in Iraq, where Sunni Islamists are now | :01:47. | :01:54. | |
largely in control of the Syrian-Iraq border, which means | :01:55. | :01:56. | |
they can now re-supply their forces in Iraq from their Syrian bases | :01:57. | :02:02. | |
Rather than moving on Baghdad, they are for the moment consolidating | :02:03. | :02:05. | |
their grip on the towns and cities they've already taken. | :02:06. | :02:08. | |
They also seem to be in effective control of Iraq's | :02:09. | :02:10. | |
biggest oil refinery, which supplies the capital. | :02:11. | :02:14. | |
And there are reports they might now have taken the power | :02:15. | :02:16. | |
Iraqi politicians are now admitting that ISIS, | :02:17. | :02:23. | |
the name of the Sunni insurgents, is better trained, better equipped and | :02:24. | :02:26. | |
far more battle-hardened than the US-trained Iraqi army fighting it. | :02:27. | :02:31. | |
Which leaves the fate of Baghdad increasingly in the hands | :02:32. | :02:34. | |
No good news coming out of there, Janan. No good news and no good | :02:35. | :02:51. | |
options either. The West's best strategy is to decide how much | :02:52. | :02:56. | |
support to give to the Iraqi government. The US is sending over | :02:57. | :03:01. | |
about 275 military personnel. Do they go further and contemplate | :03:02. | :03:04. | |
their support? General Petraeus argued against it as it might be | :03:05. | :03:10. | |
seen as the US serving as the force of Shia Iraqis -- continue their | :03:11. | :03:16. | |
support. Do we contemplate breaking up Iraq? It won't be easy. The Sunni | :03:17. | :03:25. | |
and Shia Muslim populations don t live in clearly bordered areas, but | :03:26. | :03:28. | |
in the longer term, do we deal with it in the same way we dealt with the | :03:29. | :03:32. | |
break-up of the Ottoman empire over 100 years ago? In the short-term and | :03:33. | :03:36. | |
long-term, completely confounding. Quite humiliating. If ISIS take | :03:37. | :03:44. | |
Baghdad I can't think of a bigger ignominy for foreign policy since | :03:45. | :03:50. | |
Suez. If Iraq is partitioned, it won't be up to us. It will be what | :03:51. | :03:54. | |
is happening because of what is happening on the ground. Everything | :03:55. | :03:59. | |
does point to partition, and that border, which ISIS control, between | :04:00. | :04:06. | |
Syria and Iraq, that has been there since it was drawn during the First | :04:07. | :04:11. | |
World War. That is gone as well An astonishingly humbling situation the | :04:12. | :04:14. | |
West, and you can see the Kurds in the North think this is a charge -- | :04:15. | :04:22. | |
chance for authority. They think this is the chance to get the | :04:23. | :04:25. | |
autonomy they felt they deserved a long time. Janan is right. We can't | :04:26. | :04:31. | |
do much in the long term, but we have to decide on the engagement. | :04:32. | :04:36. | |
And the other people wish you'd be talking turkey, because if there is | :04:37. | :04:39. | |
some blowback and the fighters come back, they are likely to come back | :04:40. | :04:44. | |
from Turkey. Where is Iran in all of this? There were reports last week | :04:45. | :04:48. | |
that the Revolutionary guard, the head of it, he was already in | :04:49. | :04:52. | |
Baghdad with 67 advisers and there might have been some brigades that | :04:53. | :04:56. | |
have gone there as well. Where are they? What has happened? I'm pretty | :04:57. | :05:02. | |
sure the Prime Minister of Iraq is putting more faith in Iran than the | :05:03. | :05:13. | |
White House and the British. I think they are running the show, in | :05:14. | :05:17. | |
technical terms. John Kerry is flying into Cairo this morning, and | :05:18. | :05:21. | |
what is his message? It is twofold. One is to Arab countries, do more to | :05:22. | :05:25. | |
encourage an inclusive government in Iraq, mainly Sunni Muslims in the | :05:26. | :05:30. | |
government, and the Arab Gulf states should stop funding insurgents in | :05:31. | :05:35. | |
Iraq. You think, Iraq, it's potentially going to break up, so | :05:36. | :05:40. | |
this sounds a bit late in the day and a bit weak. It gets | :05:41. | :05:44. | |
fundamentally to the problem, what can we do? Niall Ferguson has a big | :05:45. | :05:48. | |
piece in the Sunday Times asking if this is place where we cannot doing | :05:49. | :05:52. | |
anything. He doesn't want to do anything. By the way, that is what | :05:53. | :05:57. | |
most Americans think. That is what opinion polls are showing. You have | :05:58. | :06:01. | |
George Osborne Michael Gold who would love to get involved but they | :06:02. | :06:06. | |
cannot because of the vote in parliament on Syria lasted -- George | :06:07. | :06:09. | |
Osborne and Michael Gove. This government does not have the stomach | :06:10. | :06:14. | |
for military intervention. We will see how events unfold on the ground. | :06:15. | :06:17. | |
All parties are agreed that Britain's 60-year old multi-billion | :06:18. | :06:19. | |
The Tory side of the Coalition think their reforms are necessary | :06:20. | :06:25. | |
and popular, though they haven't always gone to time or to plan. | :06:26. | :06:28. | |
In the eight months she's had since she became Shadow Secretary of State | :06:29. | :06:32. | |
for Work and Pensions, Rachel Reeves has talked the talk about getting | :06:33. | :06:38. | |
people off benefits, into work and lowering the overall welfare bill. | :06:39. | :06:41. | |
her first interview in the job she threatened "We would | :06:42. | :06:44. | |
But Labour has opposed just about every change the Coalition | :06:45. | :06:48. | |
has proposed to cut the cost and change the culture of welfare. | :06:49. | :06:52. | |
Child benefit, housing benefit, the ?26,000 benefit cap - | :06:53. | :06:54. | |
They've been lukewarm about the government's flagship Universal | :06:55. | :07:01. | |
Credit scheme - which rolls six benefit payments into one - and | :07:02. | :07:04. | |
And Labour has set out only two modest welfare cuts. | :07:05. | :07:11. | |
This week, Labour said young people must have skills or be in training | :07:12. | :07:15. | |
That will save ?65 million, says Labour, though the cost | :07:16. | :07:20. | |
And cutting winter fuel payments for richer pensioners which will | :07:21. | :07:26. | |
Not a lot in a total welfare bill of around ?200 billion. | :07:27. | :07:33. | |
And with welfare cuts popular among even Labour voters, they will soon | :07:34. | :07:36. | |
have to start spelling out exactly what Labour welfare reform means. | :07:37. | :07:43. | |
Welcome. Good morning. Why do you want to be tougher than the Tories? | :07:44. | :07:55. | |
We want to be tough in getting the welfare bill down. Under this | :07:56. | :07:59. | |
government, the bill will be ?1 million more than the government set | :08:00. | :08:03. | |
out in 2010 and I don't think that is acceptable. We should try to | :08:04. | :08:08. | |
control the cost of Social Security. But the welfare bill under the next | :08:09. | :08:12. | |
Labour government will fall? It will be smaller when you end the first | :08:13. | :08:16. | |
parliament than when you started? We signed up to the capping welfare but | :08:17. | :08:20. | |
that doesn't see social security costs ball, it sees them go up in | :08:21. | :08:25. | |
line with with inflation or average earnings -- costs fall. So where | :08:26. | :08:31. | |
flair will rise? We have signed up to the cap -- welfare will rise We | :08:32. | :08:36. | |
have signed up to the cap. We will get the costs under control and they | :08:37. | :08:40. | |
haven't managed to achieve it. The government is spending ?13 billion | :08:41. | :08:43. | |
more on Social Security and the reason they are doing it is because | :08:44. | :08:48. | |
the minimum wage has not kept pace with the cost of living so people | :08:49. | :08:51. | |
are reliant on tax credits. They are not building houses and people are | :08:52. | :08:55. | |
relying on housing benefit. We have a record number of people on zero | :08:56. | :09:02. | |
hours contracts. I'm still not clear if you will cut welfare if you get | :09:03. | :09:05. | |
in power. Nobody is saying that the cost of welfare is going to fall. | :09:06. | :09:12. | |
The welfare cap sees that happening gradually. That is a Tory cap. And | :09:13. | :09:17. | |
you've accepted it. You're being the same as the Tories, not to. If they | :09:18. | :09:24. | |
had a welfare cap, they would have breached it in every year of the | :09:25. | :09:28. | |
parliament. Social Security will be higher than the government set out | :09:29. | :09:33. | |
because they failed to control it. You read the polls, and the party | :09:34. | :09:36. | |
does lots of its own polling, and you're scared of being seen as the | :09:37. | :09:39. | |
welfare party. You don't really believe all of this anti-welfare | :09:40. | :09:46. | |
stuff? We are the party of work not welfare. The Labour Party was set up | :09:47. | :09:48. | |
in the first place because we believe in the dignity of work and | :09:49. | :09:51. | |
we believe that work should pay wages can afford to live on. I make | :09:52. | :09:55. | |
no apologies for being the party of work. We are not the welfare party, | :09:56. | :10:00. | |
we are the party of work. Even your confidential strategy document | :10:01. | :10:05. | |
admits that voters don't trust you on immigration, the economy, this is | :10:06. | :10:08. | |
your own people, and welfare. You are not trusted on it. The most | :10:09. | :10:13. | |
recent poll showed Labour slightly ahead of the Conservative Party on | :10:14. | :10:16. | |
Social Security, probably because they have seen the incompetence and | :10:17. | :10:21. | |
chaos at the Department for Work and Pensions under Iain Duncan Smith. | :10:22. | :10:25. | |
Your own internal document means that the voters don't trust you on | :10:26. | :10:30. | |
welfare reform. That is why we have shown some of this tough things we | :10:31. | :10:34. | |
will do like the announcement that Ed Miliband made earlier this week, | :10:35. | :10:39. | |
that young people without basic qualifications won't be entitled to | :10:40. | :10:43. | |
just sign on for benefits, they have to sign up for training in order to | :10:44. | :10:46. | |
receive support. That is the right thing to do by that group of young | :10:47. | :10:49. | |
people, because they need skills to progress. We will, once that. - we | :10:50. | :10:59. | |
will, onto that. You say you criticise the government that it had | :11:00. | :11:04. | |
a cap and wouldn't have met it, but every money-saving welfare reform, | :11:05. | :11:07. | |
you voted against it. How is that being tougher? The most recent bout | :11:08. | :11:15. | |
was the cap on overall welfare expenditure, and we went through the | :11:16. | :11:19. | |
lobbies and voted for the Tories. You voted against the benefit cap, | :11:20. | :11:24. | |
welfare rating, you voted against, child benefit schemes, you voted | :11:25. | :11:29. | |
against. You can't say we voted against everything when we voted | :11:30. | :11:31. | |
with the Conservatives in the most recent bill with a cap on Social | :11:32. | :11:35. | |
Security. It's just not correct to say. The last time we voted, we | :11:36. | :11:42. | |
walked through the lobby with them. You voted on the principle of the | :11:43. | :11:49. | |
cap. You voted on every step that would allow the cap to be met. Every | :11:50. | :11:54. | |
single one. The most recent vote was not on the principle of the cap it | :11:55. | :11:57. | |
was on a cap of Social Security in the next Parliament and we signed up | :11:58. | :12:00. | |
for that. It was Ed Miliband who called her that earlier on. Which | :12:01. | :12:05. | |
welfare reform did you vote for We voted for the cap. Other than that? | :12:06. | :12:12. | |
We have supported universal credit. You voted against it in the third | :12:13. | :12:17. | |
reading. We voted against some of the specifics. If you look at | :12:18. | :12:22. | |
universal credit, they have had to write off nearly ?900 million of | :12:23. | :12:27. | |
spending. I'm not on the rights and wrongs, I'm trying to work out what | :12:28. | :12:31. | |
you voted for. Some of the things we are going to go further than the | :12:32. | :12:34. | |
government with. For example, cutting benefits for young people | :12:35. | :12:40. | |
who don't sign of the training. The government had introduced that. For | :12:41. | :12:42. | |
example, saying that the richest pensioners should not get the winter | :12:43. | :12:45. | |
fuel allowance, that is something the government haven't signed up. | :12:46. | :12:49. | |
You would get that under Labour and this government haven't signed up | :12:50. | :12:53. | |
for it. ?100 million on the winter fuel allowance and ?65 million on | :12:54. | :12:59. | |
youth training. ?165 million. How big is the welfare budget? The cap | :13:00. | :13:04. | |
would apply to ?120 billion. And you've saved 125 -- 165 million | :13:05. | :13:12. | |
Those are cuts that we said we would do in government. If you look at the | :13:13. | :13:17. | |
real prize from the changes Ed Miliband announced in the youth | :13:18. | :13:19. | |
allowance, it's not the short-term savings, it's the fact that each of | :13:20. | :13:23. | |
these young people, who are currently on unemployment benefits | :13:24. | :13:26. | |
without the skills we know they need to succeed in life, they will cost | :13:27. | :13:33. | |
the taxpayer ?2000 per year. I will come onto that. You mentioned | :13:34. | :13:37. | |
universal credit, which the government regards as the flagship | :13:38. | :13:41. | |
reform. It's had lots of troubles with it and it merges six benefits | :13:42. | :13:47. | |
into one. You voted against it in the third reading and given lukewarm | :13:48. | :13:50. | |
support in the past. We have not said he would abandon it, but now | :13:51. | :13:56. | |
you say you are for it. You are all over the place. We set up the rescue | :13:57. | :14:00. | |
committee in autumn of last year because we have seen from the | :14:01. | :14:03. | |
National Audit Office and the Public Accounts Committee, report after | :14:04. | :14:07. | |
report showing that the project is massively overbudget and is not | :14:08. | :14:12. | |
going to be delivered according to the government timetable. We set up | :14:13. | :14:17. | |
the committee because we believe in the principle of universal credit | :14:18. | :14:19. | |
and think it is the right thing to do. Can you tell us now if you will | :14:20. | :14:24. | |
keep it or not? Because there is no transparency and we have no idea. We | :14:25. | :14:30. | |
are awash with information. We are not. The government, in the most | :14:31. | :14:35. | |
recent National audit Forest -- National Audit Office statement said | :14:36. | :14:41. | |
it was a reset project. This is really important. This is a flagship | :14:42. | :14:46. | |
government programme, and it's going to cost ?12.8 billion to deliver, | :14:47. | :14:50. | |
and we don't know what sort of state it is in, so we have said that if we | :14:51. | :14:55. | |
win at the next election, we will pause that for three months and | :14:56. | :15:02. | |
calling... Will you stop the pilots? We don't know what status they will | :15:03. | :15:07. | |
have. We would stop the build of the system for three months, calling the | :15:08. | :15:11. | |
National Audit Office to do awards and all report. The government don't | :15:12. | :15:17. | |
need to do this until the next general election, they could do it | :15:18. | :15:19. | |
today. Stop throwing good money after bad and get a grip of this | :15:20. | :15:24. | |
incredibly important programme. You said you don't know enough to a view | :15:25. | :15:29. | |
now. So when you were invited to a job centre where universal credit is | :15:30. | :15:33. | |
being rolled out to see how it was working, you refused to go. Why We | :15:34. | :15:39. | |
asked were a meeting with Iain Duncan Smith and he cancelled the | :15:40. | :15:42. | |
meeting is three times. I'm talking about the visit when you were | :15:43. | :15:45. | |
offered to go to a job centre and you refused. We had an appointment | :15:46. | :15:50. | |
to meet Iain Duncan Smith at the Department for Work and Pensions and | :15:51. | :15:52. | |
said he cancelled and was not available, but he wanted us to go to | :15:53. | :15:57. | |
the job centre. We wanted to talk to him and his officials, which she | :15:58. | :16:02. | |
did. Would it be more useful to go to the job centre and find out how | :16:03. | :16:05. | |
it was working. He's going to tell you it's working fine. | :16:06. | :16:19. | |
Advice Bureau in Hammersmith, they are working to help the people | :16:20. | :16:25. | |
trying to claim universal credit. Iain Duncan Smith cancelled three | :16:26. | :16:32. | |
meetings. That is another issue I was asking about the job centre It | :16:33. | :16:36. | |
is not another issue because Iain Duncan Smith fogged us off. This | :16:37. | :16:43. | |
week you said that jobless youngsters who won't take training | :16:44. | :16:47. | |
will lose their welfare payments. How many young people are not in | :16:48. | :16:56. | |
work training or education? There are 140,000 young people claiming | :16:57. | :17:01. | |
benefits at the moment, but 850 000 young people who are not in work at | :17:02. | :17:07. | |
the moment. This applies to around 100,000 young people. There are | :17:08. | :17:14. | |
actually 975,000, 16-24 -year-olds, not in work, training or education. | :17:15. | :17:22. | |
Your proposal only applies to 100,000 of them, why? This is | :17:23. | :17:29. | |
applying to young people who are signing on for benefits rather than | :17:30. | :17:34. | |
signing up for training. We want to make sure that all young people .. | :17:35. | :17:42. | |
Why only 100,000? They are the ones currently getting job-seeker's | :17:43. | :17:45. | |
allowance. We are saying you can not just sign up to... Can I get you to | :17:46. | :17:59. | |
respond to this, the number of people not in work, training or | :18:00. | :18:05. | |
education fell last year by more than you are planning to help. Long | :18:06. | :18:14. | |
turn -- long-term unemployment is an entrenched problem... This issue | :18:15. | :18:23. | |
about an entrenched group of young people. Young people who haven't got | :18:24. | :18:29. | |
skills and are not in training we know are much less likely to get a | :18:30. | :18:33. | |
job so there are 140,018-24 -year-olds signing onto benefits at | :18:34. | :18:40. | |
the moment. This is about trying to address that problem to make sure | :18:41. | :18:44. | |
all young people have the skills they need to get a job. Your policy | :18:45. | :18:49. | |
is to take away part of the dole unless young unemployed people agree | :18:50. | :18:53. | |
to study for level three qualifications, the equivalent of an | :18:54. | :19:00. | |
AS-level or an NVQ but 40% of these people have the literary skills of a | :19:01. | :19:08. | |
nine-year-old. After all that failed education, how are you going to | :19:09. | :19:13. | |
train them to a level standard? We are saying that anyone who doesn't | :19:14. | :19:18. | |
have that a level or equivalent qualification will be required to go | :19:19. | :19:23. | |
back to college. We are not saying that within a year they have to get | :19:24. | :19:28. | |
up to that level but these are exactly the sorts of people... These | :19:29. | :19:32. | |
people have been failed by your education system. These people are, | :19:33. | :19:37. | |
for the last four years, have been educated under a Conservative | :19:38. | :19:42. | |
government. 18 - 21-year-olds, most of them have their education under a | :19:43. | :19:47. | |
Labour government during which 300,000 people left with no GCSEs | :19:48. | :19:52. | |
whatsoever. I don't understand how training for one year can do what 11 | :19:53. | :19:59. | |
years in school did not. We are not saying that within one year | :20:00. | :20:02. | |
everybody will get up to a level three qualifications, but if you are | :20:03. | :20:06. | |
one of those people who enters the Labour market age 18 with the | :20:07. | :20:10. | |
reading skills of a nine-year-old, they are the sorts of people that | :20:11. | :20:18. | |
should not the left languishing I went to college in Hackney if you | :20:19. | :20:24. | |
you are -- a few weeks ago and there was a dyslexic boy studying painting | :20:25. | :20:29. | |
and decorating. In school they decided he was a troublemaker and | :20:30. | :20:34. | |
that he didn't want to learn. He went back to college because he | :20:35. | :20:39. | |
wanted to get the skills. He said that it wasn't until he went back to | :20:40. | :20:43. | |
college that he could pick up a newspaper and read it, it made a | :20:44. | :20:48. | |
huge difference but too many people are let down by the system. I am | :20:49. | :20:54. | |
wondering how the training will make up for an education system that | :20:55. | :20:58. | |
failed them but let's move on to your leader. Look at this graph of | :20:59. | :21:03. | |
Ed Miliband's popularity. This is the net satisfaction with him, it is | :21:04. | :21:08. | |
dreadful. The trend continues to climb since he became leader of the | :21:09. | :21:15. | |
Labour Party, why? What you have seen is another 2300 Labour | :21:16. | :21:18. | |
councillors since Ed Miliband became the leader of the Labour Party. You | :21:19. | :21:24. | |
saw in the elections a month ago that... Why is the satisfaction rate | :21:25. | :21:32. | |
falling? We can look at polls or actual election results and the fact | :21:33. | :21:37. | |
that we have got another 2000 Labour councillors, more people voting | :21:38. | :21:41. | |
Labour, the opinion polls today show that if there was a general election | :21:42. | :21:46. | |
today we would have a majority of more than 40, he must be doing | :21:47. | :21:53. | |
something right. Why do almost 0% of voters want to replace him as | :21:54. | :21:59. | |
leader? Why do 50% and more think that he is not up to the job? The | :22:00. | :22:05. | |
more people see Ed Miliband, the less impressed they are. The British | :22:06. | :22:12. | |
people seem to like him less. The election strategy I suggest that | :22:13. | :22:17. | |
follows from that is that you should keep Ed Miliband under wraps until | :22:18. | :22:21. | |
the election. Let's look at actually what happens when people get a | :22:22. | :22:26. | |
chance to vote, when they get that opportunity we have seen more Labour | :22:27. | :22:30. | |
councillors, more Labour members of the European Parliament... | :22:31. | :22:37. | |
Oppositions always get more. The opinion polls today, one of them | :22:38. | :22:44. | |
shows Labour four points ahead. You have not done that well in local | :22:45. | :22:48. | |
government elections or European elections. Why don't people like | :22:49. | :22:54. | |
him? I think we have done incredibly well in elections. People must like | :22:55. | :22:59. | |
a lot of the things Labour and Ed Miliband are doing because we are | :23:00. | :23:04. | |
winning back support across the country. We won local councils in | :23:05. | :23:08. | |
places like Hammersmith and Fulham, Crawley, Hastings, key places that | :23:09. | :23:14. | |
Labour need to win back at the general election next year. Even you | :23:15. | :23:18. | |
have said traditional Labour supporters are abandoning the party. | :23:19. | :23:24. | |
That is what Ed Miliband has said as well. We have got this real concern | :23:25. | :23:30. | |
about what has happened. If you look at the elections in May, 60% of | :23:31. | :23:35. | |
people didn't even bother going to vote. That is a profound issue not | :23:36. | :23:40. | |
just for Labour. You said traditional voters who perhaps at | :23:41. | :23:45. | |
times we took for granted are now being offered an alternative. Why | :23:46. | :23:50. | |
did you take them for granted? This is what Ed Miliband said. I am not | :23:51. | :23:55. | |
saying anything Ed Miliband himself has not said. When he ran for the | :23:56. | :24:02. | |
leadership he said that we took too many people for granted and we | :24:03. | :24:06. | |
needed to give people positive reasons to vote Labour, he has been | :24:07. | :24:10. | |
doing that. He has been there for four years and you are saying you | :24:11. | :24:13. | |
still take them for granted. Why? I am saying that for too long we have | :24:14. | :24:19. | |
taken them for granted. We are on track to win the general election | :24:20. | :24:23. | |
next year and that will defy all the odds. You are going to win... Ed | :24:24. | :24:33. | |
Miliband will win next year and make a great Prime Minister. | :24:34. | :24:37. | |
Now to the Liberal Democrats, at the risk of intruding into private | :24:38. | :24:43. | |
grief. The party is still smarting from dire results in the European | :24:44. | :24:46. | |
and Local Elections. The only poll Nick Clegg has won in recent times | :24:47. | :24:50. | |
is to be voted the most unpopular leader of a party in modern British | :24:51. | :24:54. | |
history. No surprise there have been calls for him to go, though that | :24:55. | :24:58. | |
still looks unlikely. Here's Eleanor. | :24:59. | :24:58. | |
Liberal Democrats celebrating, something we haven't seen for a | :24:59. | :25:04. | |
while. This victory back in 199 led to a decade of power for the Lib | :25:05. | :25:09. | |
Dems in Liverpool. What a contrast to the city's political landscape | :25:10. | :25:15. | |
today. At its height the party had 69 local councillors, now down to | :25:16. | :25:20. | |
just three. The scale of the challenge facing Nick Clegg and the | :25:21. | :25:25. | |
Lib Dems is growing. The party is rock bottom in the polls, | :25:26. | :25:30. | |
consistently in single figures. It was wiped out in the European | :25:31. | :25:35. | |
elections losing all but one of its 12 MEPs and in the local elections | :25:36. | :25:40. | |
it lost 42% of the seats that it was defending. But on Merseyside, Nick | :25:41. | :25:47. | |
Clegg was putting on a brave face. We did badly in Liverpool, | :25:48. | :25:51. | |
Manchester and London in particular, we did well in other places. But you | :25:52. | :25:58. | |
are right, we did badly in some of those big cities and I have | :25:59. | :26:02. | |
initiated a review, quite naturally, to understand what went | :26:03. | :26:08. | |
wrong, what went right. As Lib Dems across the country get on with some | :26:09. | :26:12. | |
serious soul-searching, there is an admission that his is the leader of | :26:13. | :26:17. | |
the party who is failing to hit the right notes. Knocking on doors in | :26:18. | :26:22. | |
Liverpool, I have to tell you that Nick Clegg is not a popular person. | :26:23. | :26:28. | |
Some might use the word toxic and I find this very difficult because I | :26:29. | :26:33. | |
know Nick very well and I see a principal person who passionately | :26:34. | :26:37. | |
believes in what he is doing and he is a nice guy. As a result of his | :26:38. | :26:44. | |
popularity, what has happened to the core vote? In parts of the country, | :26:45. | :26:53. | |
we are down to just three councillors like Liverpool for | :26:54. | :26:57. | |
example. You also lose the deliverers and fundraisers and the | :26:58. | :27:01. | |
organisers and the members of course so all of that will have to be | :27:02. | :27:07. | |
rebuilt. As they start fermenting process, local parties across the | :27:08. | :27:10. | |
country and here in Liverpool have been voting on whether there should | :27:11. | :27:17. | |
be a leadership contest. We had two choices to flush out and have a go | :27:18. | :27:22. | |
at Nick Clegg or to positively decide we would sharpen up the | :27:23. | :27:25. | |
campaign and get back on the streets, and by four to one ratio we | :27:26. | :27:31. | |
decided to get back on the streets. We are bruised and battered but we | :27:32. | :27:37. | |
are still here, the orange flag is still flying and one day it will fly | :27:38. | :27:41. | |
over this building again, Liverpool town hall. But do people want the | :27:42. | :27:47. | |
Lib Dems back in charge in this city? I certainly wouldn't vote for | :27:48. | :27:51. | |
them. Their performance in Government and the way they have | :27:52. | :27:56. | |
left their promises down, I could not vote for them again. I voted Lib | :27:57. | :28:02. | |
Dem in the last election because of the university tuition fees and I | :28:03. | :28:08. | |
would never vote for them again because they broke their promise. | :28:09. | :28:12. | |
The Lib Dems are awful, broken promises and what have you. I | :28:13. | :28:17. | |
wouldn't vote for them. This is the declaration of the results for the | :28:18. | :28:20. | |
Northwest... Last month, as other party celebrated in the north-west, | :28:21. | :28:25. | |
the Lib Dems here lost their only MEP, Chris Davies. Now there is | :28:26. | :28:31. | |
concern the party doesn't know how to turn its fortunes around. We | :28:32. | :28:37. | |
don't have an answer to that, if we did we would be grasping it with | :28:38. | :28:44. | |
both hands. We will do our best to hold onto the places where we still | :28:45. | :28:49. | |
have seats but as for the rest of the country where we have been | :28:50. | :28:54. | |
hollowed out, we don't know how to start again until the next general | :28:55. | :28:58. | |
election is out of the way. After their disastrous performance in the | :28:59. | :29:01. | |
European elections, pressure is growing for the party to shift its | :29:02. | :29:12. | |
stance. I think there has to be a lancing of the wound, there should | :29:13. | :29:16. | |
in a referendum and the Liberal Democrats should be calling it. The | :29:17. | :29:23. | |
rest of Europe once this because they are fed up with Britain being | :29:24. | :29:29. | |
unable to make up its mind. The Lib Dems are now suffering the effects | :29:30. | :29:33. | |
of being in Government. The party's problem, choosing the right course | :29:34. | :29:39. | |
to regain political credibility We can now speak to form a Lib Dems | :29:40. | :29:45. | |
leader Ming Campbell. Welcome back to the Sunday Politics. Even your | :29:46. | :29:49. | |
own activists say that Nick Clegg is toxic. How will that change between | :29:50. | :29:57. | |
now and the election? When you have had disappointing results, but you | :29:58. | :30:01. | |
have to do is to rebuild. You pick yourself up and start all over | :30:02. | :30:06. | |
again, and the reason why the Liberal Democrats got 57, 56 seats | :30:07. | :30:11. | |
in the House of Commons now is because we picked ourselves up, we | :30:12. | :30:15. | |
took every opportunity and we have rebuilt from the bottom up. | :30:16. | :30:25. | |
least popular leader in modern history and more unpopular than your | :30:26. | :30:29. | |
mate Gordon Brown. You are running out of time. No one believes that | :30:30. | :30:34. | |
being the leader of a modern political party in the UK is an easy | :30:35. | :30:37. | |
job. Both Ed Miliband and David Cameron must have had cause to | :30:38. | :30:41. | |
think, over breakfast this morning, when they saw the headlines in some | :30:42. | :30:46. | |
of the Sunday papers. Of course it is a difficult job but it was | :30:47. | :30:50. | |
pointed out a moment or two ago that Nick Clegg is a man of principle and | :30:51. | :30:53. | |
enormous resilience if you consider what he had to put up with, and in | :30:54. | :30:57. | |
my view, he is quite clearly the person best qualified to lead the | :30:58. | :31:01. | |
party between now and the general election and through the election | :31:02. | :31:04. | |
campaign, and beyond. So why don't people like him? We have had to take | :31:05. | :31:09. | |
some pretty difficult decisions and, of course, people didn't expect | :31:10. | :31:14. | |
that. If you look back to the rather heady days of the rose garden behind | :31:15. | :31:20. | |
ten Downing St, people thought it was all going to be sweetness and | :31:21. | :31:23. | |
light, but the fact is, we didn t know then what we know now, about | :31:24. | :31:28. | |
the extent of the economic crisis we win, and a lot of difficult | :31:29. | :31:32. | |
decisions have had to be taken in order to restore economic stability. | :31:33. | :31:36. | |
Look around you. You will see we are not there yet but we are a long way | :31:37. | :31:42. | |
better off than in 2010. You are not getting the credit for it, the | :31:43. | :31:48. | |
Tories are. We will be a little more assertive about taking the credit. | :31:49. | :31:53. | |
For example, the fact that 23 million people have had a tax cut of | :31:54. | :31:57. | |
?800 per year and we have taken 2 million people out of paying tax | :31:58. | :32:01. | |
altogether. Ming Campbell, your people say that on every programme | :32:02. | :32:06. | |
like this. Because it is true. That might be the case, but you are at | :32:07. | :32:11. | |
seven or 8% in the polls, and nobody is listening, or they don't believe | :32:12. | :32:13. | |
it. Once is listening, or they don't believe | :32:14. | :32:21. | |
doubt that what we have achieved will be much more easily | :32:22. | :32:24. | |
recognised, and there is no doubt, for example, in some of the recent | :32:25. | :32:28. | |
polls, like the Ashcroft Pole, something like 30% of those polled | :32:29. | :32:30. | |
said that as a result at the next something like 30% of those polled | :32:31. | :32:38. | |
general election, they would prepare their to be a coalition involving | :32:39. | :32:41. | |
the Liberal Democrats. So there is no question that the whole notion of | :32:42. | :32:46. | |
coalition is still very much a live one, and one which we have made work | :32:47. | :32:51. | |
in the public interest. The problem is people don't think that. People | :32:52. | :32:55. | |
see you trying to have your cake and eat it. On the one hand you want to | :32:56. | :32:59. | |
get your share of the credit for the turnaround in the economy, on the | :33:00. | :33:02. | |
other hand you can't stop yourself from distancing yourself from the | :33:03. | :33:06. | |
Tories and things that you did not like happening. You are trying to | :33:07. | :33:13. | |
face both ways at once. If you remember our fellow Scotsman | :33:14. | :33:14. | |
famously said you cannot ride both remember our fellow Scotsman | :33:15. | :33:27. | |
to the terms -- terms of the remember our fellow Scotsman | :33:28. | :33:27. | |
coalition agreement, which is what we signed up to in 2010. In | :33:28. | :33:31. | |
addition, in furtherance of that agreement, we have created things | :33:32. | :33:35. | |
like the pupil premium and the others I mentioned and you were | :33:36. | :33:39. | |
rather dismissive. I'm not dismissive, I'm just saying they | :33:40. | :33:41. | |
don't make a difference to what people think of you. We will do | :33:42. | :33:45. | |
everything in our power to change that between now and May 2015. The | :33:46. | :33:51. | |
interesting thing is, going back to the Ashcroft result, it demonstrated | :33:52. | :33:57. | |
clearly that in constituencies where we have MPs and we are well dug in, | :33:58. | :34:02. | |
we are doing everything that the public expects of us, and we are | :34:03. | :34:07. | |
doing very well indeed. You aren't sure fellow Lib Dems have been | :34:08. | :34:12. | |
saying this for you -- you and your fellow Liberal Dems have been saying | :34:13. | :34:16. | |
this for a year or 18 months, and since then you have lost all of your | :34:17. | :34:20. | |
MEPs apart from one, you lost your deposit in a by-election, you lost | :34:21. | :34:24. | |
310 councillor, including everyone in Manchester or Islington. Mr Clegg | :34:25. | :34:29. | |
leading you into the next general election will be the equivalent of | :34:30. | :34:35. | |
the charge of the light Brigade I doubt that very much. The | :34:36. | :34:41. | |
implication behind that lit you rehearsed is that we should pack our | :34:42. | :34:44. | |
tents in the night and steal away. -- that litany. And if you heard in | :34:45. | :34:50. | |
that piece that preceded the discussion, people were saying, look | :34:51. | :34:53. | |
we have to start from the bottom and have to rebuild. That is exactly | :34:54. | :35:07. | |
what we will do. Nine months is a period of gestation. As you well | :35:08. | :35:12. | |
know. I wouldn't dismiss it quite so easily as that. I'm not here to say | :35:13. | :35:16. | |
we had a wonderful result or anything like it, but what I do say | :35:17. | :35:21. | |
is that the party is determined to turn it round, and that Nick Clegg | :35:22. | :35:25. | |
is the person best qualified to do it. Should your party adopt a | :35:26. | :35:30. | |
referendum about in or out on Europe? No, we should stick to the | :35:31. | :35:35. | |
coalition agreement. If there is any transfer of power from Westminster | :35:36. | :35:39. | |
to Brussels, that will be subject to a referendum. No change. And | :35:40. | :35:45. | |
finally, as a Lib Dem, you must be glad you are not fighting the next | :35:46. | :35:50. | |
election yourself? I've fought every election since 1974, so I've had a | :35:51. | :35:56. | |
few experiences, some good, some bad, but the one thing I have done | :35:57. | :36:00. | |
and the one thing a lot of other people have done is that they have | :36:01. | :36:04. | |
stuck to the task, and that is what will happen in May 2015. Ming | :36:05. | :36:06. | |
Campbell, thank you for joining us. It's just gone 11.35am, you're | :36:07. | :36:10. | |
watching the Sunday Politics. We say goodbye to viewers | :36:11. | :36:12. | |
in Scotland who leave us now years since the Health and Safety | :36:13. | :36:37. | |
Act was introduced, we look at claims that more workers cotld be | :36:38. | :36:39. | |
put at risk by changes to the law. And we'll find out why | :36:40. | :36:44. | |
the government is telling f`rmers in Yorkshire and Lincolnshire they | :36:45. | :36:46. | |
should employ more British`born Our guests today are Conservative MP | :36:47. | :36:49. | |
for Elmet and Rothwell, Alec Shelbrooke, and Labour MP | :36:50. | :36:54. | |
for Hull East, Karl Turner. What has been your highlight this | :36:55. | :37:13. | |
week, Alec? Talking about h`rmful drugs and pregnancy, I have brought | :37:14. | :37:20. | |
together clinicians and victims and campaign groups and pharmacdutical | :37:21. | :37:23. | |
companies and we have made progress in trying to bring about a campaign | :37:24. | :37:29. | |
to track the rocks that pardnts take so that if problems develop further | :37:30. | :37:33. | |
down the line we can track back and look at what could because hn them. | :37:34. | :37:37. | |
The endgame is better public protection and understanding that | :37:38. | :37:43. | |
some of these drugs can havd a nasty effect and pregnancy what | :37:44. | :37:46. | |
information is perhaps not put across properly even though it is | :37:47. | :37:53. | |
available. Karl Turner, you have been raising concerns about Ferry | :37:54. | :37:57. | |
Road is in your area. That hs correct, new EU regulations come | :37:58. | :38:01. | |
into place on the 1st of January and there could be a risk to jobs. It is | :38:02. | :38:10. | |
about reducing sulphur emissions, but when jobs are at risk, H must | :38:11. | :38:16. | |
speak out about that. It was a good debate, the minister promisdd to | :38:17. | :38:23. | |
make some sort of offer to the ship owners in terms of helping them | :38:24. | :38:27. | |
mitigate the cost, that was a good thing, but what I want to bd clear | :38:28. | :38:32. | |
about on this issue is I do not want ferry operators to use this as an | :38:33. | :38:37. | |
excuse to employ less UK ratings and employed cheaper people frol | :38:38. | :38:43. | |
overseas who do not have to be paid the minimum wage. | :38:44. | :38:46. | |
40 years after it was introduced, some Labour MPs have accused | :38:47. | :38:48. | |
the government of watering down the Health and Safety at Work Act, with | :38:49. | :38:52. | |
claims that workers could bd put at risk by proposed cuts to red tape. | :38:53. | :38:55. | |
40 years ago the BBC made this special programme on what w`s then | :38:56. | :39:04. | |
At the time, 1000 people were dying every year from accidents at work. | :39:05. | :39:11. | |
The Health and Safety at Work Act, published in 1974, and coming into | :39:12. | :39:14. | |
force the following year, ttrned existing legislation on its head. | :39:15. | :39:21. | |
Instead of telling employers what they could | :39:22. | :39:24. | |
not do, it demanded they take positive action to prevent hnjury. | :39:25. | :39:29. | |
That is why today this warnhng sign at a building site is just one of | :39:30. | :39:34. | |
a whole range of legal requhrements that employers have to meet. | :39:35. | :39:40. | |
We are obliged to give them what we call PPE, which is protection, | :39:41. | :39:43. | |
the footwear, the high visibility vests, helmets and so forth. | :39:44. | :39:47. | |
We have to take risk and hazard assessments before we go onto site. | :39:48. | :39:51. | |
So there is quite a bit involved in health and safety on the whole. | :39:52. | :39:54. | |
40 years on, many of those workers that this act was designed to | :39:55. | :39:57. | |
protect have changed the wax that they work and so have the companies | :39:58. | :40:00. | |
that employ them, but as far as they are concerned, safety is sthll | :40:01. | :40:04. | |
paramount and there are some difficulties with | :40:05. | :40:07. | |
Trade union officials like former brickie, Rob Morris | :40:08. | :40:13. | |
say the laws are being watered down by a government that sees them as | :40:14. | :40:17. | |
The cuts that they have targeted are head protection, | :40:18. | :40:24. | |
which saves thousands of lives each year, including | :40:25. | :40:26. | |
They have done away with the personal injury claims, they | :40:27. | :40:32. | |
have altered the law with that and it is now more difficult for people | :40:33. | :40:35. | |
They have altered the fact that they are doing unannounced... | :40:36. | :40:41. | |
They have done away with the unannounced visits of the Health | :40:42. | :40:44. | |
and Safety Executive to sitds, making it much more dangerots | :40:45. | :40:48. | |
and the Health and Safety Executive has had 35% of its budget ctt, | :40:49. | :40:51. | |
But some go even further, this construction worker told us he | :40:52. | :40:58. | |
The employers work together and blacklist you if you know your | :40:59. | :41:05. | |
rights, and make that clear at work by telling them what the law says. | :41:06. | :41:08. | |
All of a sudden, other comp`nies will start telling you what you said | :41:09. | :41:11. | |
to an old boss a few weeks `go and they start warning you. | :41:12. | :41:17. | |
Changes to health and safetx at work are now being debatdd by | :41:18. | :41:20. | |
MPs, including proposals to remove self`employed tradesmen frol many | :41:21. | :41:22. | |
Well, that is my fear, becatse we know that from surveys that have | :41:23. | :41:31. | |
been done, there are somethhng like 400,000 people who are | :41:32. | :41:33. | |
in what we could describe as false self employment in the construction | :41:34. | :41:38. | |
industry, and if a signific`nt proportion of them have thehr | :41:39. | :41:43. | |
protection removed, then we turn around the successes of the last | :41:44. | :41:45. | |
decades, since the introduction of the Health and Safety at Work Act in | :41:46. | :41:54. | |
reducing deaths and reducing injuries in the workplace. So, as | :41:55. | :42:03. | |
But members of the trade association, the Federation | :42:04. | :42:05. | |
of Master Builders, say in fact the regulations aren't the problem. | :42:06. | :42:11. | |
It is making sure they applx to all in the trade equally, so th`t costs | :42:12. | :42:14. | |
cannot be cut by cutting corners and risking the health of workers. | :42:15. | :42:18. | |
90% of your small building companies, they don't have `ny | :42:19. | :42:20. | |
health and safety policy in place, or any correct procedures in place, | :42:21. | :42:23. | |
so as a result, it is easy for themselves to undercut oursdlves | :42:24. | :42:27. | |
because we have all of these procedures in placd, | :42:28. | :42:30. | |
which is a cost to ourselves with administration and so forth. | :42:31. | :42:34. | |
As well as issuing notices, inspectors can prosecute anx person | :42:35. | :42:36. | |
The guilty can face both unlimited fines and imprisonment. | :42:37. | :42:45. | |
So the debate that started 40 years ago is still going on ` essdntial | :42:46. | :42:49. | |
That was a hotly disputed parliamentary debate in 1974. | :42:50. | :42:52. | |
It is likely to be just as fierce in 2014. | :42:53. | :43:05. | |
Alec Shelbrooke, is it fair to say that health and safety regulations | :43:06. | :43:10. | |
have been watered down by this government? I do not think that is a | :43:11. | :43:15. | |
fair charge, especially when you look at the fact that in thd last | :43:16. | :43:20. | |
year there has been more un`nnounced on the spot inspections by the | :43:21. | :43:23. | |
Health and Safety Executive than ever before, this is the pohnt of a | :43:24. | :43:27. | |
political argument forming here in terms of what looks good to spend | :43:28. | :43:29. | |
something rather than the rdality on something rather than the rdality on | :43:30. | :43:34. | |
the ground. When I was on btilding sites in the 1990s, looking at films | :43:35. | :43:39. | |
like that, the health and s`fety has vastly improved. What did you do on | :43:40. | :43:44. | |
a building site? I was a labourer in the past and I was also a khtchen | :43:45. | :43:49. | |
and bathroom fitter, I have a background in construction `nd | :43:50. | :43:56. | |
getting my hands dirty! Karl Turner, Alec Shelbrooke is accusing the | :43:57. | :44:00. | |
Labour Party of spinning thhs story. He has to look at the Deregtlation | :44:01. | :44:06. | |
Bill which comes onto the floor to moral, it is proof that construction | :44:07. | :44:15. | |
workers will not be required to use safety and protect patents. That is | :44:16. | :44:18. | |
dangerous. People should not be going out in the morning le`ving | :44:19. | :44:22. | |
their children and waves and not coming home in the evening. That is | :44:23. | :44:27. | |
what will happen as a result of the government cutting this red tape. It | :44:28. | :44:32. | |
is cutting safety. What abott a self`employed builder 's, Alec | :44:33. | :44:38. | |
Shelbrooke, become exempt from the health and safety regulations, where | :44:39. | :44:41. | |
is the sense in that? We must be careful that if we do overbtrden the | :44:42. | :44:48. | |
self`employed, I was a sole trader as a kitchen and bathroom fhtter, | :44:49. | :44:52. | |
that you can put people out of work. You must look at that | :44:53. | :44:55. | |
legislation and make sure that some unscrupulous companies do not take | :44:56. | :45:04. | |
advantage. There is something that must be carefully looked at. Karl | :45:05. | :45:09. | |
Turner, the Prime Minister David Cameron says there is a mountain of | :45:10. | :45:14. | |
red tape for small businessds, he points to shops that sell forms of | :45:15. | :45:18. | |
soap powder or oven cleaner which have to apply for a poison license, | :45:19. | :45:23. | |
we cannot wrap everyone in cotton wool, they must be a balancd. Some | :45:24. | :45:27. | |
of what the Prime Minister says might be correct, but this hs an | :45:28. | :45:32. | |
issue about construction workers, there are more and more construction | :45:33. | :45:35. | |
workers now who are forced to be self`employed, that is so btsinesses | :45:36. | :45:42. | |
can get away with paying national insurance and other things, | :45:43. | :45:45. | |
insurance policies to protect them at work and all sorts of other | :45:46. | :45:49. | |
things, this is about safetx at the end of the day, people should not be | :45:50. | :45:54. | |
going to work and not becomhng back in an evening. We must be vdry | :45:55. | :45:58. | |
careful about this issue, it is back on the floor of the house tomorrow | :45:59. | :46:02. | |
and the government ought to stop now, really, and ensure that people | :46:03. | :46:07. | |
are safe within their emploxment. Alec, is the Health and Safdty | :46:08. | :46:13. | |
Executive becoming toothless. The unions claim that unannouncdd visits | :46:14. | :46:16. | |
to construction sites have `ll but disappeared, what is the good of the | :46:17. | :46:21. | |
organisation? The stress thhs text do not back that up. Let me just say | :46:22. | :46:29. | |
this, if you have ever gone to work on Memorial Day and you see things | :46:30. | :46:38. | |
representing those who were lost at work, that is a great representation | :46:39. | :46:44. | |
of the importance of health and safety, this is not about gdtting | :46:45. | :46:52. | |
rid of the Health and Safetx at Work Act, it is assessing it and looking | :46:53. | :46:54. | |
forward. We have one of the safest working environment in Europe and | :46:55. | :46:56. | |
that has come about by the work done in this Parliament. We have to make | :46:57. | :46:59. | |
sure that just because it h`s been reformed, that does not mean it | :47:00. | :47:05. | |
cannot be open to scrutiny. Karl Turner, nobody is suggesting beagle | :47:06. | :47:10. | |
back to the Victorian days of the mill owner, but surely we mtst look | :47:11. | :47:17. | |
at this. The reality is that there are more construction workers who | :47:18. | :47:20. | |
are being forced to become self`employed and actually, those | :47:21. | :47:25. | |
protective safety measures keep them safe and keep them alive. It is not | :47:26. | :47:31. | |
about watering it down, the government says it is cutting red | :47:32. | :47:36. | |
tape, this is dealing with people's lives. We should not be messing | :47:37. | :47:40. | |
about with that and the govdrnment are wrong on that issue and we must | :47:41. | :47:45. | |
stop. We are going to move on. I did not know that you were a kitchen and | :47:46. | :47:50. | |
bathroom fitter, you can do my drinking! `` grouting. | :47:51. | :47:57. | |
The government says farmers in Yorkshire and Lincolnshire should | :47:58. | :47:59. | |
employ more British`born workers. Employment Minister Esther LcVey | :48:00. | :48:01. | |
says the food industry should rely seasonal work. But some farlers have | :48:02. | :48:04. | |
hit back at the government `nd say they simply can't find enough local | :48:05. | :48:07. | |
staff to do jobs that migrant and say they simply can't fhnd | :48:08. | :48:10. | |
enough local staff to do jobs that These freshly picked carrots are | :48:11. | :48:13. | |
being washed and packed ready The vast majority of people carrying | :48:14. | :48:18. | |
out the work are from oversdas. Without overseas workers thhs | :48:19. | :48:24. | |
business could not survive. We have a lot of local workdrs, | :48:25. | :48:27. | |
good local workers, If I had a limitation | :48:28. | :48:29. | |
on overseas workers, I would have to tell a lot of my customers H could | :48:30. | :48:35. | |
not deliver their orders. Marika came to Goole | :48:36. | :48:37. | |
from Estonia to find work. She is now an assistant technical | :48:38. | :48:39. | |
manager at this factory and her She only comes here | :48:40. | :48:42. | |
for winter because So she spent half of the ye`r | :48:43. | :48:50. | |
in the factory, last year it was There is no sign of a slowdown | :48:51. | :48:56. | |
when it comes to the number of workers coming here | :48:57. | :49:01. | |
from other European countrids. Last year saw a 27% increasd | :49:02. | :49:06. | |
in migration from EU nations. But the Employment Minister, | :49:07. | :49:08. | |
Esther McVey, says farmers should be more willing | :49:09. | :49:11. | |
to take on British`born workers She claims the number | :49:12. | :49:15. | |
of new jobs going to British workers No longer is it only 4/10 British | :49:16. | :49:18. | |
nationals our getting jobs, it is now nearly 8/10 British nathonals | :49:19. | :49:33. | |
getting those jobs, so I wotld like to think those farmers do fdel that | :49:34. | :49:37. | |
they can take on British people because we have got them to | :49:38. | :49:40. | |
the standard that they are good The reality is we can't find | :49:41. | :49:43. | |
those number of people. Those ministers who say that, | :49:44. | :49:51. | |
they want to come here on a Sunday morning and try to find me 050 local | :49:52. | :49:54. | |
workers, because I cannot fhnd them. On the streets of Goole I spoke to | :49:55. | :49:57. | |
a group of unemployed young men Would you be willing to do | :49:58. | :50:01. | |
farm work, manual work? So why are you not going | :50:02. | :50:03. | |
for those sort of jobs? The foreigners are taking them on, | :50:04. | :50:09. | |
the foreigners are coming over here on the boats | :50:10. | :50:15. | |
and are taking all of When we sign on, | :50:16. | :50:17. | |
they tell us to look for jobs. Are you willing to do those sort | :50:18. | :50:31. | |
of manual jobs, How many jobs have you applhed | :50:32. | :50:34. | |
for recently? I have applied for four jobs and I | :50:35. | :50:38. | |
have not heard anything back. When we have to look for jobs, | :50:39. | :50:42. | |
we cannot find them, becausd We are sick of them, | :50:43. | :50:45. | |
all of the time. But some would say that you are | :50:46. | :50:48. | |
on willing to do the jobs that We would do the jobs, but wd do not | :50:49. | :50:52. | |
get to see them, because straight away the foreigners come ovdr here | :50:53. | :50:56. | |
and they get the benefits Not for the first time, | :50:57. | :50:59. | |
politicians and employers h`ve clashed over the reality | :51:00. | :51:02. | |
of high hiring home`grown workers. Is it a good thing that we `re being | :51:03. | :51:16. | |
encouraged to take on more British`born workers? One of the | :51:17. | :51:21. | |
things the government could have done is to put some legislation | :51:22. | :51:25. | |
through to stop recruitment agencies employing just from overseas. There | :51:26. | :51:30. | |
should be strengthening of the minimum wage and enforcing that | :51:31. | :51:36. | |
legislation, there has been two or three prosecutions since 2000 of | :51:37. | :51:42. | |
people not paying the minimtm wage. There should be all sorts of things | :51:43. | :51:49. | |
being done to improve things for workers and stopping businesses | :51:50. | :51:52. | |
taking advantage of workers, but they have not taken that | :51:53. | :51:56. | |
opportunity, I am afraid. It is all well Esther McVey seeing thhs, but | :51:57. | :52:01. | |
you heard from the farmer tdlling us that he could not find double | :52:02. | :52:06. | |
co`workers. One of the things that we are doing is addressing the | :52:07. | :52:11. | |
benefits situation to make work pay and that is one of the things which | :52:12. | :52:15. | |
has helped people. We have to go back to the last Labour Prile | :52:16. | :52:19. | |
Minister, Gordon Brown, signing the Lisbon Treaty which in one stroke | :52:20. | :52:23. | |
did away with the fact that we used to have seasonal migrant passes now | :52:24. | :52:29. | |
people can come over and st`y. It is worth noting that some movelent has | :52:30. | :52:33. | |
been made by the government which legislated giving us more rdsources | :52:34. | :52:37. | |
to crack down on the minimul wage is not being paid and a ?25,000 fine | :52:38. | :52:42. | |
per employee for a company that has not paid the minimum wage. Karl | :52:43. | :52:48. | |
Turner, the number of new jobs were to British workers has doubled from | :52:49. | :52:52. | |
four out of ten people to ehght out of ten people, would you recognise | :52:53. | :52:56. | |
those figures of the governlent I am not sure I would. There has been | :52:57. | :53:01. | |
little prosecution on those not paying the minimum wage and we | :53:02. | :53:06. | |
believe that the fine should be increased to up to 50,000, so that | :53:07. | :53:11. | |
businesses get a strict warning not to take advantage. One of the | :53:12. | :53:19. | |
reasons I believe overseas staff are employed is because they can get | :53:20. | :53:23. | |
away with not paying them as much money. The idea that British workers | :53:24. | :53:31. | |
are not prepared to work as hard as those from overseas is frankly | :53:32. | :53:35. | |
rubbish. The way that the Etropean Union has expanded and let hn | :53:36. | :53:40. | |
countries from Eastern Europe, where for example in Romania, the minimum | :53:41. | :53:45. | |
wage is 80p, that has seen ` driving down of wages in this country and | :53:46. | :53:50. | |
that is why the Prime Minister says that there were renewed negotiations | :53:51. | :53:54. | |
in Europe must start with border controls and taking things back | :53:55. | :53:57. | |
because the fact of the matter as the concept of the European Union | :53:58. | :54:02. | |
and the economic community `cross Europe, it simply does not work in | :54:03. | :54:07. | |
this day and age when you h`ve the free movement of trade with 80p per | :54:08. | :54:13. | |
hour minimum wage. That is why the Prem minister as saying we lust | :54:14. | :54:18. | |
renegotiate our position from this awful Lisbon Treaty agreement. Like, | :54:19. | :54:25. | |
the government could have done things to legislate, as I h`ve said, | :54:26. | :54:30. | |
recruitment companies recruhting entirely from abroad, they have | :54:31. | :54:35. | |
advertising campaigns in Eastern Europe, encouraging people to come | :54:36. | :54:38. | |
to the UK and work. The reason for that is that they are getting away | :54:39. | :54:45. | |
with not paying the minimum wage. The government are doing absolutely | :54:46. | :54:49. | |
nothing, they are sitting on their hands and we have got a leghslative | :54:50. | :54:54. | |
programme for the next ten or 1 months which has nothing in it. It | :54:55. | :54:59. | |
is a zombie government. That is the truth. That is a nice attempt to put | :55:00. | :55:04. | |
spin on that, but if you look at the might of those policies, yot will | :55:05. | :55:08. | |
understand that pension reform and economy reform, things we are doing | :55:09. | :55:12. | |
to get this country back on its feet are going to take up plenty of | :55:13. | :55:16. | |
parliamentary time between now and the next general election. There is | :55:17. | :55:21. | |
very little in the government legislative programme and if Esther | :55:22. | :55:24. | |
McVey was really serious shd could have done things to legislate to | :55:25. | :55:29. | |
make sure that this becomes much less of a problem. There is plenty | :55:30. | :55:34. | |
of meat in the Queen's Speech and if people look at it rather th`n put | :55:35. | :55:39. | |
spin on it, they will realise the work that this government is doing | :55:40. | :55:40. | |
towards this is huge. Time to get some more | :55:41. | :55:47. | |
of the week's political news now, which is dominated by | :55:48. | :55:50. | |
the departure of one of Yorkshire's 27 years since first elected as a | :55:51. | :56:05. | |
Sheffield MP, David Blunkett is calling it a day and will not stand | :56:06. | :56:11. | |
at next year's general election He became a pivotal figure in finding | :56:12. | :56:15. | |
new Labour with Tony Blair `nd later held powerful Cabinet posts at the | :56:16. | :56:21. | |
Home Office, education and the work and education Department. | :56:22. | :56:25. | |
Controversially he resigned from office twice when his tangldd love | :56:26. | :56:30. | |
life was exposed in 2004 with questionable business links in 005. | :56:31. | :56:34. | |
He has had more words of advice recently for Ed Miliband. Announcing | :56:35. | :56:38. | |
his departure, he gave this prediction, an uncomfortabld one for | :56:39. | :56:45. | |
his leader to digest. If we do not win the election next May, they | :56:46. | :56:49. | |
could be out for another 15 years. I want to back the Labour Party and | :56:50. | :56:53. | |
that means backing Ed Milib`nd because there is only one | :56:54. | :56:57. | |
alternative to the Conservatives next year and that is a Labour led | :56:58. | :56:58. | |
government with Ed Miliband. What are your thoughts, Karl Turner, | :56:59. | :57:12. | |
on David Blunkett's announcdment? I met him last week to discuss this | :57:13. | :57:17. | |
issue as his whip. I am verx sad, as his whip, I have become his personal | :57:18. | :57:22. | |
friend and he is someone th`t is respected across this house. By all | :57:23. | :57:27. | |
parties. He is an absolute gentleman and is held in very high regard He | :57:28. | :57:33. | |
has had difficulties in his life, of course, he must have had, btt he has | :57:34. | :57:39. | |
got through all of that and he has done jobs for the government | :57:40. | :57:42. | |
fantastically well. He will be thoroughly missed by the Labour | :57:43. | :57:46. | |
Party but I believe all sidds of the house will miss him. Some pdople | :57:47. | :57:50. | |
thought at one point he was more right`wing the Tories! He h`s had a | :57:51. | :57:55. | |
long and very distinguished career. The only main offices he did not | :57:56. | :58:00. | |
hold I think where Prime Minister and foreign secretary. As K`rl | :58:01. | :58:07. | |
Turner said, he has had a great career. What is very interesting is | :58:08. | :58:11. | |
that when you look at the bhg beasts leaving the Labour Party, the front | :58:12. | :58:16. | |
bench and the Labour Party behind that are starting to look young and | :58:17. | :58:22. | |
inexperienced. Karl Turner, you are getting an experienced? I think we | :58:23. | :58:28. | |
have a fantastic Shadow Secretary of State who joined in 2010 and is one | :58:29. | :58:33. | |
of many effective members in our party. David will be sadly lissed | :58:34. | :58:39. | |
across the house. I am not sure we will be missed by the Labour front | :58:40. | :58:45. | |
bench as the clip showed! Another big beast, John Prescott, what | :58:46. | :58:49. | |
advice would you give to anxone who takes over that constituencx in | :58:50. | :58:53. | |
Sheffield? I have never tridd to fill John Prescott Paul `` John | :58:54. | :59:00. | |
Prescott's big boots! Let md firstly say that! He has always told me to | :59:01. | :59:05. | |
keep my head down and do as I am told! Thank you both for yotr time. | :59:06. | :59:17. | |
and they will be obliged to tell you. Thanks for joining us. Andrew, | :59:18. | :59:23. | |
back to you. think you'd want to. Labour grandees | :59:24. | :59:42. | |
are not queueing up to sing his praises. Look at this. In my view, | :59:43. | :59:49. | |
he is the leader we have and he is the leader I support and he is | :59:50. | :59:51. | |
somebody capable of leading the party to victory. Ed Miliband will | :59:52. | :59:57. | |
leave this to victory, and I believe he can. If he doesn't, what would | :59:58. | :00:04. | |
happen to the Labour Party? We could be in the wilderness for 15 years. | :00:05. | :00:08. | |
At the moment he has to convince people he has the capacity to lead | :00:09. | :00:12. | |
the country. That's not my view but people don't believe that. We had a | :00:13. | :00:17. | |
leader of the Labour Party was publicly embarrassed, because | :00:18. | :00:23. | |
whoever was in charge of press letting go through a process where | :00:24. | :00:27. | |
we have councillors in Merseyside resigning. It was a schoolboy error. | :00:28. | :00:36. | |
Having policies without them being drawn together into a convincing and | :00:37. | :00:45. | |
vivid narrative and with what you do the people in the country. You have | :00:46. | :00:50. | |
to draw together, connect the policies, link them back to the | :00:51. | :00:56. | |
leader and give people a real sense of where you are going. Somehow he | :00:57. | :01:06. | |
has never quite managed to be himself and create that identity | :01:07. | :01:11. | |
with the public. And we are joined by the president of you girls, Peter | :01:12. | :01:14. | |
Kellner. Welcome to the Sunday politics. -- YouGov. The Labour | :01:15. | :01:25. | |
Party is six points ahead in your poll this morning. So what is the | :01:26. | :01:29. | |
problem? On this basis he will win the next election. If the election | :01:30. | :01:34. | |
were today and the figures held up, you would have a Labour government | :01:35. | :01:38. | |
with a narrow overall majority. One should not forget that. Let me make | :01:39. | :01:43. | |
three points. The first is, in past parliaments, opposition normally | :01:44. | :01:48. | |
lose ground and governments gain ground in the final few months. The | :01:49. | :01:54. | |
opposition should be further ahead than this. I don't think six is | :01:55. | :02:00. | |
enough. Secondly, Ed Miliband is behind David Cameron when people are | :02:01. | :02:03. | |
asked who they want as Prime Minister and Labour is behind the | :02:04. | :02:06. | |
Conservatives went people are asked who they trust on the economy. There | :02:07. | :02:10. | |
have been elections when the party has won by being behind on | :02:11. | :02:13. | |
leadership and other elections where they have won by being behind on the | :02:14. | :02:17. | |
economy. No party has ever won an election when it has been clearly | :02:18. | :02:21. | |
behind on both leadership and the economy. Let me have another go The | :02:22. | :02:26. | |
Labour Party brand is a strong brand. The Tory Bramleys week. The | :02:27. | :02:31. | |
Labour brand is stronger. That is a blast -- the Labour -- the Tory | :02:32. | :02:41. | |
Bramleys week. A lot of the Tories -- the Tory brand is weak. Cant you | :02:42. | :02:48. | |
win on policies and a strong party brand? If you have those too, you | :02:49. | :02:55. | |
need the third factor which isn t there. People believing that you | :02:56. | :03:00. | |
have what it takes, competent skills, determination, | :03:01. | :03:02. | |
determination, whatever makes to carry through. -- whatever mix. A | :03:03. | :03:13. | |
lot of Ed Miliband policies, on the banks, energy prices, Brent | :03:14. | :03:16. | |
controls, people like them. But in government, would they carry them | :03:17. | :03:21. | |
through? They think they are not up to it. -- rent controls. If people | :03:22. | :03:25. | |
think you won't deliver what you say, even if they like it, they were | :03:26. | :03:29. | |
necessarily vote for you. That is the missing third element. There is | :03:30. | :03:34. | |
a strong Labour brand, but it's not strong enough to overcome the | :03:35. | :03:39. | |
feeling that the Labour leadership is not up to it. Nick, you had some | :03:40. | :03:45. | |
senior Labour figure telling you that if Mr Miliband losing the next | :03:46. | :03:49. | |
election he will have to resign immediately and cannot fight another | :03:50. | :03:52. | |
election the way Neil Kinnock did after 1987. What was remarkable to | :03:53. | :03:57. | |
me was that people were even thinking along these lines, and even | :03:58. | :04:00. | |
more remarkable that they would tell you they were thinking along these | :04:01. | :04:06. | |
lines? What is the problem? The problem is, is that Ed Miliband says | :04:07. | :04:13. | |
it would be unprecedented to win the general election after the second | :04:14. | :04:17. | |
worst result since 1918. They are concerned about is the start of a | :04:18. | :04:20. | |
script that he would say on the day after losing the general election. | :04:21. | :04:23. | |
Essentially what the people are trying to do is get their argument | :04:24. | :04:27. | |
in first and to say, you cannot do what Neil Kinnock did in 1987. Don't | :04:28. | :04:32. | |
forget that Neil Kinnock in 198 was in the middle of a very brave | :04:33. | :04:35. | |
process of modernisation and had one and fought a very campaign that was | :04:36. | :04:40. | |
professional but he lost again in 1992, and they wanted to get their | :04:41. | :04:46. | |
line in first. What some people are saying is that this is an election | :04:47. | :04:51. | |
that the Labour Party should be winning because the coalition is so | :04:52. | :04:54. | |
unpopular. If you don't win, I'm afraid to say, there is something | :04:55. | :04:57. | |
wrong with you. Don't you find it remarkable that people are prepared | :04:58. | :05:01. | |
to think along these lines at this stage, when Labour are ahead in the | :05:02. | :05:03. | |
polls, still the bookies favourite to win, and you start to speak | :05:04. | :05:09. | |
publicly, or in private to the public print, but we might have to | :05:10. | :05:14. | |
get rid of him if he doesn't win. Everything you say about labour in | :05:15. | :05:17. | |
this situation has been said about the Tories. We wondered whether | :05:18. | :05:20. | |
Boris Johnson would tie himself to the mask and he is the next leader | :05:21. | :05:24. | |
in waiting if Cameron goes. It's a mirror image of that. We talk about | :05:25. | :05:29. | |
things being unprecedented. It's unprecedented for a government to | :05:30. | :05:32. | |
gain seats. All the things you say about labour, you could say it the | :05:33. | :05:35. | |
Conservatives. That's what makes the next election so interesting. But in | :05:36. | :05:40. | |
the aftermath of the European elections and the local government | :05:41. | :05:43. | |
elections, in which the Conservatives did not do that well, | :05:44. | :05:47. | |
the issue was not Mr Cameron or the Tories doing well, the issue was the | :05:48. | :05:50. | |
Labour Party and how they had not done as well as they should have | :05:51. | :05:53. | |
done, and that conversation was fuelled by the kind of people who | :05:54. | :05:56. | |
have been speaking to nick from the Labour Party. Rachel Reeves cited | :05:57. | :06:02. | |
their real-life performance in elections as a reason for optimism. | :06:03. | :06:05. | |
When in fact their performance in the Europeans and locals was | :06:06. | :06:10. | |
disappointing for an opposition one year away from a general election. | :06:11. | :06:14. | |
What alarms me about labour is the way they react to criticisms about | :06:15. | :06:18. | |
Ed Miliband. Two years ago when he was attacked, they said they were 15 | :06:19. | :06:22. | |
points ahead, and then a year ago there were saying they were nine or | :06:23. | :06:25. | |
ten ahead, and now they are saying we are still five or six ahead. The | :06:26. | :06:30. | |
trend is alarming. It points to a smaller Labour lead. Am I right in | :06:31. | :06:36. | |
detecting a bit of a class war going on in the Labour Party? There are a | :06:37. | :06:41. | |
lot of northern Labour MPs who think that Ed Miliband is to north London, | :06:42. | :06:45. | |
and there are too many metropolitan cronies around him must I think that | :06:46. | :06:52. | |
is right, Andrew. What I think is, being a pessimist in terms of their | :06:53. | :06:56. | |
prospects, I do think the Labour Party could win the next election. I | :06:57. | :07:01. | |
just don't think they can as they are going at the moment. But the | :07:02. | :07:04. | |
positioning for a possible defeat, what they should be talking about is | :07:05. | :07:11. | |
what do we need to change in the party and the way Ed Miliband | :07:12. | :07:14. | |
performs in order to secure victory. That is a debate they could have, | :07:15. | :07:19. | |
and they could make the changes I find it odd that they are being so | :07:20. | :07:25. | |
defeatist. Don't go away. Peter is a boffin when it comes to polls. That | :07:26. | :07:29. | |
is why we have a mod for the election prediction swings and | :07:30. | :07:34. | |
roundabouts. He is looking for what he calls the incumbency effect. | :07:35. | :07:40. | |
Don't know what is a back-up -- what that's about question don't worry, | :07:41. | :07:44. | |
here is an. Being in office is bad for your health. Political folk | :07:45. | :07:53. | |
wisdom has it that incumbency favours one party in particular the | :07:54. | :07:58. | |
Liberal Democrats. That is because their MPs have a reputation as | :07:59. | :08:01. | |
ferociously good local campaigners who do really well at holding on to | :08:02. | :08:06. | |
their seats. However, this time round, several big-name long serving | :08:07. | :08:09. | |
Liberal Democrats like Ming Campbell, David Heath and Don Foster | :08:10. | :08:16. | |
are standing down. Does that mean the incumbency effect disappears | :08:17. | :08:19. | |
like a puff of smoke? Then there is another theory, called the sophomore | :08:20. | :08:25. | |
surge. It might sound like a movie about US college kids, but it goes | :08:26. | :08:30. | |
like this. New MPs tend to do better in their second election than they | :08:31. | :08:34. | |
did in their first. That could favour the Tories because they have | :08:35. | :08:38. | |
lots of first-time MPs. The big question is, what does this mean for | :08:39. | :08:43. | |
the 7th of May 2015, the date of the next general election? The answer | :08:44. | :08:50. | |
is, who knows? I know a man who knows. Peter. What does it all mean? | :08:51. | :08:58. | |
You can go onto your PC now and draw down programmes which say that these | :08:59. | :09:01. | |
are the voting figures from a national poll, so what will the | :09:02. | :09:06. | |
seats look like? This is based on uniform swing. Every seat moving up | :09:07. | :09:09. | |
and down across the country in the same way. Historically, that's been | :09:10. | :09:15. | |
a pretty good guide. I think that's going to completely break down next | :09:16. | :09:19. | |
year, because the Lib Dems will probably hold on to more seats than | :09:20. | :09:22. | |
we predict from the national figures and I think fewer Tory seats will go | :09:23. | :09:28. | |
to the Labour Party than you would predict from the national figures. | :09:29. | :09:32. | |
The precise numbers, I'm not going to be too precise, but I would be | :09:33. | :09:37. | |
surprised, sorry, I would not be surprised if Labour fell 20 or 5 | :09:38. | :09:42. | |
seats short on what we would expect on the uniform swing prediction | :09:43. | :09:50. | |
Next year's election will be tight. Falling 20 seats short could well | :09:51. | :09:52. | |
mean the difference between victory and defeat. What you make of that, | :09:53. | :09:58. | |
Helen? I think you're right, especially taking into account the | :09:59. | :10:02. | |
UKIP effect. We have no idea about that. The conventional wisdom is | :10:03. | :10:06. | |
that will drain away back to the Conservatives, but nobody knows and | :10:07. | :10:10. | |
it makes the next election almost impossible to call. It means it is a | :10:11. | :10:15. | |
great target the people like Lord Ashcroft with marginal polling, | :10:16. | :10:17. | |
because people have never been so interested. It is for party politics | :10:18. | :10:23. | |
and we all assume that UKIP should be well next year, but their vote | :10:24. | :10:29. | |
went up from 17 up to 27%. Then that 17% went down to 3%, so they might | :10:30. | :10:35. | |
only be five or 6% in the general election, so they might not have the | :10:36. | :10:38. | |
threat of depriving Conservatives of their seats. Where the incumbency | :10:39. | :10:42. | |
thing has an effect is the Liberal Democrats. They have fortress seats | :10:43. | :10:48. | |
where between 1992 and 1997 Liberal Democrats seats fell, but their | :10:49. | :10:52. | |
percentage went up. They are losing the local government base though. | :10:53. | :10:57. | |
True, but having people like Ming Campbell standing down means they | :10:58. | :11:01. | |
will struggle. We are used to incumbency being an important factor | :11:02. | :11:04. | |
in American politics. It's hard to get rid of an incumbent unless it is | :11:05. | :11:09. | |
a primary election, like we saw in Virginia, but is it now becoming an | :11:10. | :11:12. | |
important factor in British politics, that if you own the seat | :11:13. | :11:16. | |
you're more likely to hold on to it than not? If it is, that's a | :11:17. | :11:22. | |
remarkable thing. It's hard to be a carpetbagger in America, but it is | :11:23. | :11:25. | |
normal in British Parliamentary constituencies to be represented by | :11:26. | :11:28. | |
someone who did not grow up locally. It is a special kind of achievement | :11:29. | :11:32. | |
to have an incumbency effect where you don't have deep roots in the | :11:33. | :11:36. | |
constituency. I was going to ask about the Lib Dems. If we are wrong, | :11:37. | :11:40. | |
and they collapse in Parliamentary representation as much as the share | :11:41. | :11:43. | |
in vote collapses, is that not good news is that the Conservatives? They | :11:44. | :11:47. | |
would be in second place in the majority of existing Lib Dems seats. | :11:48. | :11:52. | |
For every seat where Labour are second to the Lib Dems, there are | :11:53. | :11:55. | |
two where the Conservatives are second. If the Lib Dem | :11:56. | :11:59. | |
representation collapses, that helps the Conservatives. I'm assuming the | :12:00. | :12:07. | |
Tories will gain about ten seats. If they gain 20, if they'd had 20 more | :12:08. | :12:12. | |
seats last time, they would have had a majority government, just about. | :12:13. | :12:16. | |
So 20 seats off the Lib Dem, do the maths, as they say in America, and | :12:17. | :12:20. | |
they could lose a handful to labour and still be able to run a one | :12:21. | :12:25. | |
party, minority government. The fate of the Lib Dems could be crucial to | :12:26. | :12:28. | |
the outcome to the politics of light. On the 8th of May, it will be | :12:29. | :12:35. | |
VE Day and victory in election day as well as Europe. The Lib Dems will | :12:36. | :12:39. | |
be apoplectic if they lose all of the seats to their coalition | :12:40. | :12:45. | |
partners. The great quote by Angela Merkel, the little party always gets | :12:46. | :12:49. | |
crushed. It's a well-established idea that coalition politics. They | :12:50. | :12:53. | |
can't take credit for the things people like you may get lumbered | :12:54. | :12:56. | |
with the ones they don't. They have contributed most of this terrible | :12:57. | :12:59. | |
idea that seized politics where you say it, but you don't deliver it. | :13:00. | :13:03. | |
Tuition fees is the classic example of this Parliament. Why should you | :13:04. | :13:09. | |
believe any promise you make? And Ed Miliband is feeling that as well. | :13:10. | :13:13. | |
But in 1974 the liberal Democrats barely had any MPs but there were | :13:14. | :13:17. | |
reporters outside Jeremy Thorpe s home because they potentially held | :13:18. | :13:20. | |
not the balance of power, but were significantly in fourth. Bringing | :13:21. | :13:25. | |
back memories Jeremy Thorpe, and we will leave it there. Thanks to the | :13:26. | :13:29. | |
panel. We are tomorrow on BBC Two. At the earlier time of 11am because | :13:30. | :13:33. | |
of Wimbledon. Yes, it's that time of year again already. I will be back | :13:34. | :13:37. | |
here at 11 o'clock next week. Remember, if it is Sunday, it is the | :13:38. | :13:40. | |
Sunday Politics. to the beating heart | :13:41. | :14:16. | |
of today's vibrant shops. | :14:17. | :14:42. |