12/01/2014 The Andrew Marr Show

Good morning. Right before we start, a serious

message on the half of all of us on scooters. President Hollande, arret

now. For a fridge president to have a mistress is a requirement of the

job, but that Scooter is one of those silly ones with two wheels on

the front, it is ridiculous. As the French say, in politics, Billy Joel

killed. Joining me for our review of the Sunday newspapers, Jane Moore

and David Lammy. -- ridicule kills. Full beast -- for the Tories, this

is supposed to be a year of steady rebuild and growth, but can the

Colour Vision stay together? We have already seen criticisms by Liberal

Democrats of Tory plans for the economy, immigration and the

European referendum. Can the odd couple cohabit for much longer? I am

joined by Nick Clegg to talk about the future of this government. We

may also want to talk about the still bitter fallout from the

banking crisis, the excess and greed of those years forming the

centrepiece to a new film, the wolf of Wall Street, starring Leonardo

DiCaprio. It has been fated by some critics, while others say it is too

celebratory of sleazy and amoral behaviour. Leonardo DiCaprio has

been telling me of what he thinks about Wall Street.

These people were a ship moving forward that did not think about the

wake of their destruction, they cared only about themselves.

Is Britain are ready to resume full diplomatic relations with Iran and

bring it in from the cold? The former Foreign Secretary Jack Straw

has just returned from leading a Parliamentary delegation to take

wrong, he joins us from the Cotswolds.

First, the news. Tributes have been paid to the

former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who died yesterday at 85. He

had been in a coma for the past eight years after suffering a stroke

while in office. A state funeral will be held tomorrow morning.

In life, he was admired and reviled for his uncompromising style. In

death, he remains an equally divisive figure. Benjamin Netanyahu

said a real Chevron's memory would forever remain in the nation's

heart. TRANSLATION: The state of Israel as its head at the passing of

a real Chevron. He played a central role in the struggle for the

security of the state of Israel over all of its years. But there was

little sorrow among Palestinians, who celebrated his death. A leading

Palestinian political figure said he had issued a path of war and

aggression. He did everything he could to prevent a peaceful solution

and to prevent the right of the Palestinians to be free and have

their own independent free state. Barack Obama said in his

statement... Today, Ariel Sharon one's Coughlin

will lie in state so the public can pay their last respects. His funeral

will take place on Monday. Further heavy rain today is expected

to bring more misery to areas that have already seen widespread

flooding. Nearly 80 flood warnings remain in place throughout the

country, while there are more than 115 flood alerts, though none deemed

severe. River levels have been rising steadily in some counties in

the West and across the Midlands. The Environment Agency has warned

homes on the rivers Thames, -- on the River Thames that they are at

risk of flooding. An announcement is expected tomorrow

from Total, they are expected to be the first overseas energy firm to

invest in the British shale gas industry. Fracking has led to

protests, over fears it could cause environmental damage.

Shale gas has been described as a new North Sea, with the potential of

halving energy bills. One of the largest oil giants, but at a macro

total, once a piece of the action. It is a very welcome sign, it is

also a vote of long-term confidence, it recognises that the

government have set about creating the right conditions to maximise the

benefits of the industry. Fracking is the process by which gas is

extracted from sale rock -- from shale rock. It is banned in some EU

countries but the UK government welcomes fracking companies with

open arms. Opponents say it damages the local community and contaminate

water supplies. Dream piece says the government wants to overcome local

resistance by allowing local authorities to retain all business

rate income earned from fracking in their area. It is a naked tribe, an

attempt to sway local authorities at a time when they are hard-pressed,

to not go out to consultation, to not take in the views of a local

community that is opposed to it. And to just go through and get the

planning permission granted. The cost of energy in America has

plummeted as a direct result of abundant shale gas supplies. The

government he hopes to replicate that success, but will have to do so

in the teeth of passionate resistance from some quarters.

Iraqi officials say that a car bomb has exploded at a bus station in

central Baghdad, killing at least nine people and wounding 16 others.

Last Thursday's suicide bomber himself up, killing 23 people.

Foreign ministers from 11 countries backing the Syrian opposition group

are to meet in Paris today for talks on how to resolve the crisis. The

talks with the Syrian National Coalition are being led by John

Kerry. They, fed off the proposed peace conference in Geneva later

this year, which the rebels have not said they will attend.

To the front pages. There is the front page of the Observer, and a

lot of Europe into their's papers, and about the Tottenham events. A

slightly nervous dove of peace. The Sunday Telegraph has a different

story, 95 Tory MPs are calling on David Cameron to back an EU VTOL or

for the house of commons. The House of Commons could give any European

legislation a red card in the future. The Sunday Times, this time

Iain Duncan Smith suggesting that everyone coming in from Europe

should be banned from taking any kind of welfare payments for up to

two years. We will talk about that, I am sure, later. Lots of other

stories, female MP abused boy in care, save the Sunday express. I

have no idea what this is about, I am sure Jane Moore will explain! You

will kick off with a real Chevron. -- with Ariel Sharon one. It is our

third world leader in a year, when you look at Margaret Thatcher and

Nelson Mandela. It is quite fascinating. More controversial than

Nelson Mandela, of course, and Nelson -- and Margaret Thatcher.

That is the point I was going to make! Anyone would think it was your

show! That is the point I was going to make, it is fascinating, a lot of

people would call him a conviction politician, which was the phrase

used for Margaret Thatcher. People are calling him a criminal, the

Palestinians are calling him that. He was a conviction politician, as

David Cameron said, he made brave decisions for his country, which

means difficult decisions and often wrong decisions, I would suspect.

You look at Margaret Thatcher, instantly, people started taking to

the streets, they said, thank goodness she has gone, and Nelson

Mandela was also a conviction politician,

dying. A controversial figure, but a big figure. You would expect a lot

of discussion and debate about him. That is one of the kindest pieces,

in the Sunday Telegraph, a lot of division in the papers about how to

deal with his death. Every time you read pieces about the Middle Creek

-- the Middle East crisis. David? Mark Duggan is the big story from

yesterday also. A huge vigil in your constituency last night, which was

peaceful and dignified. Yes, it started at two o'clock and ended

appropriately at about a quarter to four. The difficulty is there are a

lot of debates, one is about police relations with black communities,

the other is different groups with different axes to grind jumping on a

bandwagon. That is reflected in some of the newspapers. You got a bit of

stick for not going to the vigil. You thought there was a bandwagon? I

have done a lot to support this family, and I will be diluted to

that, but I will not share a platform with anarchist groups of

people who do not accept that a jury reached a decision. There is a legal

process that continues, there is an IPCC investigation, and I will

continue to put pressure on them, but anarchy and extreme protest

groups, I am not prepared to share a platform with them. What should the

police be doing to reconcile with the community? The central issue is

that we have to have a Met Police that looks like London. We are a

long way that -- a long way away from that. In New York, the police

force looks like the city. We cannot have a police force where less than

10% comes from minority ethnic backgrounds. Many of them are from

other parts of the country. The police are not being trusted? We

think about Andrew Mitchell. Yes, I am interested to ask, how did this

become a race issue? He was described as black, but his mother

is white. There is a large multicultural issue. He looks like

my son, of mixed heritage. Is it a race issue, or how the police deal

with the community in general? It bleeds into a trust issue. In the

times, Andrew Mitchell and trust in the police. That is right. This has

been a terrible period, with packing, Andrew Mitchell, Mark

Duggan, and a series of cases. They have to respond to it. The police

are fighting for their lives in quite a lot of these situations.

Home secretaries say they will deal with the police problem, they will

confront the federation, and they always back away, it is always too

difficult. Absolutely. In the Mail On Sunday, the coroner has said that

he will invite the family to help change police tactics, he says, I

will take the unusual step, perhaps unique step. This is good, because

in a sense, an inquest is not a child. What he says, if you could

beneath the story, I have to give guidelines, I will say more on this,

I want many families who are involved in inquest to say more

about what the police should be doing. That can only be a good

thing. Would it be good for police to wear cameras? Definitely. If we

had police cameras in this case, we would know absolutely where the gun

was, how each of the car, and some of the issues that are at the heart

of the controversy. It is a sad day, though. Let's turn to mainstream

politics. A lot about the coalition relationships, which we will talk to

Nick Clegg about. A good column by Andrew Walmsley. I hate saying that,

but it is true! There are two aspects to this. Ed Balls is

perceived to have been friendly about Nick Clegg this week, and that

is what Andrew lands on, but there is a range of issues over which, if

there were a coalition after the next election between Labour and the

Liberal Democrats, you would expect the club -- you would expect the

parties to work mostly. You cannot cosy up to them publicly,

because... We have to highlight the areas of difference, but there are

many Liberal Democrats who are sympathetic to our concerns about

social mobility, about poverty, and, yes, looking forward, they are

named, education, MOT 's, childcare, transport issues, taxation, there is

synergy. So there is parallelism in the politics. One of the big issues

in the next year or two will be childcare. Yes, this poll says the

cost of childcare in Britain has soared by 19% over the past year.

Nannies behaving like utility companies! It is unbelievable, and

it says the impact is a triple whammy, it is keeping unemployed

parents on benefits, preventing mothers from climbing the career

ladder, and holding back economic recovery, but no one seems to be

ever getting to grips with this whole childcare issue. Successive

governments were to run about what they are going to do, but they just

seem to back away from it. Where is the actual increase coming from? Is

it childcare or nappies? Ordinary families, you say you have two kids,

40% of the household costs will be on childcare. We must keep moving on

and you have chosen a story about UKIP having a go at Nelson Mandela.

We said he was not controversial earlier, here is the controversy.

You would expect controversial stories as we head towards the

election, but they really have to deal with members of their party

making horrific statements. Here in the Daily Mail we have statements

about Mandela being a slave, and we have really horrible statements

about Doreen Lawrence and why is she banging on constantly about her

son. It is worse, it is saying there are certain people marked out for

slavery because of their birth. To say that Doreen Lawrence risks

boring everyone to tears, it just absolutely makes your mind boggle as

to what sort of person puts that, even thinks that. This is the worst

kind of saloon bar broadcast nationally, isn't it? Unbelievable,

yes. To a more chirpy subject, your next story? It is not chirpy but it

reminds me of a Hollywood movie plot and when I read it, I kind of went,

yes! These hapless robbers went into a convenience store of a gentleman

in greater Manchester and they went in with a couple of baseball bats

and a hammer and said, give us your money. Little did they know he had

been a special forces veteran in the Iranian army, also a kung fu expert

who trains four times a week, and he said, if you want the money you will

have to come and get it, and they ran off. Clint Eastwood, fantastic!

I'm beginning to get slightly bored of the Oscar nomination stories.

Nevertheless, you are going to unbore me. We have some great

prospects for Britain, we have Idris Elba, Jane Doody Dench again, you

are going to see the -- speak to Leo later... So there is a lot to enjoy

at the moment. The cinema is going through a good period. It makes a

change to not see Iron Man 475, isn't it? It is generally good at

this time of year as you build towards the Oscars. You are just a

soft-hearted film buff really, aren't you?

Yesterday, certainly in London, felt like an early promise of spring. But

we deserve it following the deluge and flooding which has made life a

misery for so many people. I hardly dare ask what the week ahead holds

weather-wise but, as it's traditional, I think I'd better.

Stav Danaos is in the weather studio.

misery for so many people. I hardly dare ask what the It looks like we

will see unsettled conditions from mid week onwards. Today starts off

cold, sunny and dry, and we have the first batch of rain pushing into

western areas as the day progresses. This vale of cloud begins to push in

and the rain already across western areas will continue to move across.

Strong winds, feeling quite cold and raw today as the cloud arrives in

the east. This evening and overnight the band of rain continues to spread

eastwards, some snow falling across the Scottish mountains and the

Pennines. As it clears away overnight, it turns cold, with a

touch of ice possible in some areas. Monday is looking like a bright

start across Scotland, central and eastern England with some sunshine

around. Some of the showers will be heavy with some hail and some snow

falling over the higher ground. Milder in the south, still quite

chilly in the north. The pressures chart shows this big area of

pressure arriving on Tuesday, -- on Thursday, but we have fine weather

on Tuesday. Sunshine and showers for the rest of the week.

As we heard earlier, the death of Ariel Sharon is on the minds of many

people in Israel today. Another major topic for reflection in Israel

right now is November's agreement between Iran and the international

community. This thaw in relations will see some sanctions eased in

return for Tehran's promises on limiting its developing of a nuclear

capability. The former Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, has just

returned from Iran, where he's been talking to its leaders as part of a

UK parliamentary mission. And he joins me now from his home in

Oxfordshire. Good morning. You have been entered the lair -- into the

lair of this country, do you believe this country has got it right with

international relations or not? We have been right and wrong. In the

Ahmadinejad government between 2005 and last year, and very hardline

government was pretty unwilling to bring itself into line with the

requirements of the United Nations Security Council about its nuclear

power and possibility of nuclear weapons activities. What is also the

case however is that those hardliners who got elected in 2005

in many respects to their election to the way in which the right wing

of the Bush Administration between 2001 and 2005 systematically

undermined the model and -- the moderate government so that in the

end the Iranian political elite turned round and said, or what are

you getting back in return for making concessions to the United

States? After 911, the president not only reached out in words to the

United States but also with actions which benefited the United States,

especially in Afghanistan, and for that courageous stand, he was

slapped around the head when President Bush in his January 2002

State of the union speech rocketed Iran with Iraq and North Korea as

the access of evil. I talked to you about a military strike on Iran,

which you described as nuts... Tony Blair has always said that wasn't

the reason he invited me to take the short walk to the Leader of the

House of Commons, but he and I were in different places both on Iran and

the issue of Israel and Palestine, and what was absolutely true is that

part of the US administration, led by John Bolton, the undersecretary

in the State Department on this kind of area, were briefing against me.

Bolton briefed against me to the London Times, and I was determined

that whatever the Bush Administration did, the British

Parliament should not be asked to approve military action against Iran

and that was why, on the radio, I said it was inconceivable that we'd

be involved in military action. When you put it to me, a report which I

think came from Bolton that the US was thinking about new King Iran, I

described it quite rightly as nuts. In that time, 2003/2004, there were

repeated claims in the press that Iran would be getting a nuclear

weapon in the following six months. Ten, 11 years on, that hasn't

happened. Let me say, it is not just my belief it has not happened but

the US National intelligence estimate published in 2007 said that

they judged, not me, they judged that Iran had abandoned nuclear

weapons aspirations in 2003. Can I move onto the other big story of the

day, the death of a real Charon. Hero or villain, in your view? --

Ariel Sharon. A bit of both. The funeral is taking place today, and

out of respect to those who did revere him, I would rather not get

drawn into too much controversy about him today. Returning to Iran

for a moment, it remains a pretty brutal regime with a poor human

rights record, and the supreme leader was saying some blistering

things again about the dangers of dealing with the west. Do you think

there is a danger of being conned by the Lebron -- liberal phase of the

current government? No, I don't. There is a decision to be made about

whether or not we want to move gradually and carefully to better

relationships with Iran, or move away from it. If we want a row with

Iran, that is easy to arrange, to pick on those things that we find an

acceptable, but if we do that, what will happen is that it will not

carry on being an international pariah, but the whole sanctions

regime will erode. Although China and Russia are part of the sanction

regime, China is already cleaning up in terms of industrial activity and

exports to Iran, Russia is entering into further agreements, you are

seeing a great nervousness among many European exporters about

whether these sanctions should continue. Don't let anybody believe

that if we intensify our hard line against Iran, this will help to

bring Iran in from the cold, it certainly won't help those people

who suffer from human rights abuses in Iran. I read a story this morning

that there is a huge dossier about war crimes being sent to the

International Criminal Court which could involved colleagues of yours

like Geoff Hoon and Adam Ingram, how do you react? Is it a serious threat

to them? I have not seen the dossier, it is the first I heard

about it when I read it in the Independent on Sunday. I am

surprised about it because there has been a huge investigation under Sir

Peter Gibson, the interim report of which was published before

Christmas, and that was designed to look at all these allegations

against the United Kingdom government and serving army and

intelligence officers, and I don't recall from very careful study of

that report that any of these allegations were included. I cannot

really make any further comment until I see the document. Thank you.

This is the local hotel, it is not our garden! I understand! A very

fine hotel! A new Martin Scorsese movie is

nearly always an event in itself, but when it has got Leonardo

DiCaprio, one of the biggest stars in the world, the film is guaranteed

to make use of. It is The Wolf Of Wall Street, it is based on the true

story of Jordan Belfort, a financial fraudster of the first rank, a tale

of ill gotten wealth. Excuse me. Is that your car? Make a

lot of money? I do all right. I am trying to put it together. How much

money do you make? 70,000 last month. I am serious. I am serious

too. Seriously. I told you, 70,000. Technically, 72,000. You show me a

pay stub, I quit my job now and I work for you. Hey, what is up?

Listen, I quit. I am going into stocks.

The film revels in drugs, sleaze and sickening if exhilarating excess.

Some critics have fouled that the wolf does not get his comeuppance,

but when I met Leonardo DiCaprio, he defended the lack of moralising and

explained why he was drawn to this leading role.

In particular, this movie was hard to get finance, it has got Wall

Street in the title, people have disdain for this world, and who

these people represent in our culture and what they have done to

us. But we did not take a traditional approach. To do a grand

scale American epic, like the fall of the Roman Empire, was something

studios will not rush into financing. After reading the script,

I have been thinking about it for seven years, there was only one

person to do it, and that was Martin Scorsese. From my early

conversations with him, he has done films like this before, I am not

traditionally used to it. You can look back, he said to me early on,

as long as you portray these people as authentically as you can, the

audience will go along with you. My name is Jordan Belfort. At 22, I

headed to the only place that would be fit my ambitions. Move the money

from your client's pocket into your pocket.

This is a difficult film to watch at times, it is misogynistic, it can be

sleazy, and the criticism is, on the fine line between having a truthful

account of how people were behaving and validating their behaviour, the

film has gone to the wrong side of that line. The truth is we are

trying to give an authentic or trail of who they were. This is a

cautionary tale. Jordan's original intention was to reflect back on a

time period where he gave into every possible indulgence that he could.

He went astray. But he has made millions out of the book, he is a

rich man again, there is no real comeuppance. He gets away with it.

Most of the people on Wall Street have got bonuses from the damages --

from the damage they have done to us. Jordan was more of a street

urchin trying to emulate the real people decimating the economy, but

for us in this movie, we were trying to capture something in our culture.

This is the greatest company in the world!

I was becoming a legend. Are you not married? We are not going to be

friends. I was making so much money, I did

not know what to do with it. We are not poor any more. They cure

cancer, that is the problem, that is why they were expensive.

What about the fact there is no moral tale? Does it make the film

stronger? Absolutely. We have seen a few films which have a strong moral

undertone, showing to the people whose lives were destroyed, the

result of this. We purposely did not do that. To me, the best thing a

phone can do is immerse an audience completely in somebody else's

mindset. These people were not thinking about their victims, they

were a ship moving forward that did not think about the wake of their

destruction, they cared only about themselves. People have talked about

a protagonist getting his proper punishment, our film does not have

that. Because it is the truth. That is what is interesting about making

a film like this. In a lot of ways, it is not by tactic. You have become

the face of this gross, amoral, destructive period, so what do you

think of that period? I think it is incredibly destructive. It is more

and more damaging in our culture today. As our economy continues to

expand, the population continues to surge, this has to do with the very

evolution of our species. This is the tottering off the West in many

respects. Absolutely. The real question is, what this

legal? Absolutely not. You have chosen a lot of difficult,

edgy roles recently. I wonder how much of that is a response to

Titanic and that period when you were the matinee idol. To tell the

truth, it has not been a response at all. That is how I started out. I

started doing these types of movies from the very onset, in a lot of

ways, Titanic was a departure for me. A film you never wanted to make.

That is not true, I made it! But you were ambiguous about it at the

start. Not even that. If anything, it was the reaction and what

happened to me in my personal life. It was too much? It was a lot of

attention at a younger age. But for me, it was about rebooting and

saying, that get back to the stuff you started out doing, and to be

very candid and honest, my taste and the type of movies I wanted to do is

the same as when I was 15. Thank you very much.

The Wolf Of Wall Street howls into cinemas on the 17th of January.

Nick Clegg has been firing up the rhetoric against his conservative

coalition partners, part of a strategy whereby the Liberal

Democrats gradually cleaved from the Tories as pre-election warfare

begins. Relations on both sides are already fractious, so how do the

Tories and Lib Dems managed the task of exposing their differences while

at the same time governing together for the next 16 months? That is the

question, can I start by talking about the welfare issues and the

European stories? Iain Duncan Smith has a plan to absolutely ban

everyone coming in from the European Community from getting any kind of

welfare for up to two years. Is that plausible? I am up for establishing

a clear principle that says that the freedom to move around the European

Union to look for work is one thing, but it is not the same as the

freedom to claim benefits on the first day, no strings attached. What

I am not up for is what the Conservative party appeared to be

doing, flirting with exit from the European Union, which would be

economic suicide for the UK. It would inflict a lot of damage to

many British families across the country. To be clear, when it comes

to the possibility of a referendum, which has been blocked so far, is it

the case that you are going to try to stop that becoming law, the

referendum Bill? The Conservatives have decided to swerve wildly on

this referendum issue, because they and we joined forces in the early

part of this Parliament for the first time ever, to pass a law,

giving the British people a legislative guarantee about when a

referendum will take lace. When a transfer of powers next happens from

the UK to the European Union, we have, with my full support, we will

say to the British people, that is when a referendum will take place.

William Hague and David Cameron spoke eloquently about why that is

the right approach, and the wrong approach is plucking and arbitrate

eight out of the air to suit internal party management purposes.

To return to my point, the proposal for a 2017 referendum is one which

the Liberal Democrats. Happening if you can? We do not agree with it.

The coalition government have already passed legislation to give

people the guarantee about when a referendum will take place. I know

some people feel strongly about this, but most people feel that the

priority should not be endless parliamentary games on Friday

afternoons about when you do or don't hold a referendum, we have a

referendum guarantee, but the priority should be locking in the

economic recovery, which is emerging, and you do not do that if

you constantly lurched this way and that. If there were to be a

referendum in 2017 and you look at the opinion polls, there is quite

some chance that Britain would leave the EU. Is that a serious

possibility? I am clearly not in favour of it, over 3 million jobs in

this country are dependent on our position within the world's largest

borderless single market. Politically, we have two parties,

UKIP and the Conservatives, locked in this deathly embrace, this fight

to the finish. My concern is that what ends up happening is they argue

with themselves and ratchet up the rhetoric against the European Union

and our place in it. What ends up happening, you get a race to the

bottom, a drift towards the exit, which jeopardises millions of jobs,

reduces our standing in the world. The country notes this and votes to

go out. I believe that the British people will not vote for exit in a

referendum. Not because they do not want the EU to be reformed. But

because people know that in a globalised world, in a footloose,

fancy free economic world in which money can be moved from one place to

the other so easily, positions in boardrooms in Latin America or Asia

can determine jobs in our neighbourhoods, it is essential we

remain and outward facing, engaged, open trading nation. Not Karen

behind the cliffs of Dover, but to be self-confident, the British

bulldog spirit, to know we can win by being open. You are talking about

talking about leaving the EU as much as leaving the EU, it is the endless

discussion about the possibility of leaving that is damaging in itself?

Of course, if you are an investor, we depend massively on investment

from other parts of the world into this. We have heard from senior

bosses from companies like Nissan, this has a chilling effect. They

mostly keep their heads down. Yes, but I have had an on top number of

conversations with major investors, if the UK is going to pull up the

drawbridge and pull out of the world's largest borderless single

market, upon which 3 million jobs depend in our economy, it is not

only bad for Britain, it would lead to more people out of work, the CBI

has said clearly that they think our membership of the European Union is

worth about ?3000 per household. Why on earth, just at the time when we

are recovering from this calamity of 2008, when locking in the economic

recovery is our priority, why jeopardise that by risking

confidence in our place in Europe in the future? What would your reaction

to the story that 92 Tory MPs are asking David Cameron for a new right

of parliamentary veto against any future EU legislation? Very popular

in the country, this idea. To be candid, Conservative MPs need to

make up their mind. If they want full exit from the EU, they should

come clean. Basically, they want to be part of a European club, but they

do not want to play by the rules. You cannot safeguard a single market

where British firms can export and trade if you are constantly saying,

the rest of Europe has got to play by the rules, but we will not. I

really do think you are in or out. You can't be half in, half out. I

want us to be in and lead in the EU and to reform the EU, but I want is

to be in the EU because it means that people are in work. Being in

Europe means people being in work. This proposal comes from the

European scrutiny committee of the House of Commons and was endorsed by

people like Tim Farren and Labour MPs, so it has cross-party is a

port. The idea is that Parliament around Europe have the same power.

We already have a procedure where parliaments are enshrined in the

existing treaties in the European Union, but parliaments can club

together and say, do you know what, we don't like this particular

proposal. If one of them doesn't like the particular look of the

measure and says, we are not going to abide by it, that is the same as

having your cake and eating it. At the end of the day if you are the

member of any club, there are certain rules by which everyone has

to operate. Otherwise you don't get the single market. That is a good

whack for the notoriously Europhobic Tim Farron then. It is not about

saying we don't like the proposal, it is about saying how we will

behave. Vince Cable said on this show it could not happened for this

reason, do you agree? The principle of moving around the European Union

to work, if you want more jobs to be created you need to give people the

right to look for it. By some estimates 2 million Brits working

other European Union countries so if we were going to say to Europeans

who work here you have got to leave, what will that mean for British

people who work elsewhere? I don't think that's entering into a

tit-for-tat war that we will serve our national duty. I don't love the

European Union because it is called the European Union, I care about

what is right for Britain, and you don't create jobs in Britain or

safeguard prosperity by basically saying you will cower behind the

battlements. What about Parliamentary democracy? Is it right

that peers are stopping measure to give British people the right of the

power of choice? In the end we are Parliamentary democracy, that is

what everything is founded on. If it is not able to stop proposals coming

in from the EU, what point is their voting for you and the House of

Commons? The vast bulk of regulation is still domestically generated, but

democratically elected governments get together in the European Union

and thrash out amongst themselves rules which they think would help

them collectively. There is a whole bunch of things, like dealing with

cross-border crime, environmental issues and climate change, that we

cannot deal with on our own. Do you believe in the kind of world we live

in at the moment, where you have global economic forces... Lots of

people would say, no, I don't! In this world you get more things done

by doing them together than apart. We are going to have an identical

debate north of the border in Scotland. Do we believe the family

of nations that make up the UK can do more good things together than

falling apart, which I fervently believe. That will be at stake in

the European elections in May. Where I stand is very clear, we do more

and better things together than apart. Can I turn to the economy

because the big difference at the moment seems to be that George

Osborne wants to claim back the deficit through welfare cuts and

because we have a triple lock on pensions, that means a burden on

work-related benefits, do you think that is sustainable? I think it is

wholly unfair. You cannot say that we are all in it together, and then

say that the wealthy will not make any contributions with their taxes

if there is a Conservative government after 2015. We are not

even going to ask - because they don't appear to have suggested this

- that very wealthy people who have retired with benefits paid for by

taxpayers will have to make a sacrifice, the Conservatives appear

to be saying that only the working age poor will have to make

sacrifices. You have got to have a mix of spending reductions, welfare

reform, and I am no slouch on welfare reform, but also the

contributions from those with the broadest shoulders. You have got to

start at the top and work down. Lets do some specifics, what about

removing housing benefit from under 25-year-olds, half of whom have

children by the way. You can go through a shopping list of

individual ideas if you want. I think, certainly when it comes to

the free TV licence and winter fuel payments for wealthy pensioners,

there is a case to say that some of them should not receive the

benefits. I am asking about housing benefits for the under 25s. I am not

in favour of penalising the young, a Chinese style family policy, with

the state saying it is not OK to have three children. This is what

Iain Duncan Smith is suggesting at the moment, a cut-off. This is a

child benefit that goes to many families who are working very hard.

My priority is a fair approach to ongoing fiscal education. We are in

it together and everyone should be making a contribution. To be

balanced about it, on the other side you have the mansion tax. That

doesn't raise nearly enough money to fill the gap. You would have two

rays of the taxes, would that include income tax? We Will come

back on this programme when we have this decided, there are still 16

months ago. You have to finish the job of clearing the decks of the

debt we inherited from the past. You have to finish the job fairly, by

asking those with the broadest shoulders and starting from the top

and working down. What would the Labour Party have to do to make

themselves a plausible possible partner in government at some stage?

I think they have become an effective campaigning position

party, they go around pointing at things and saying they are terribly

expensive. And it has worked. There is no wonder that opposition

politics is easy when you have a government which is doing the most

painstaking and unpopular spadework, but at the end of the day, until

they demonstrate more clearly that they have understood the lessons of

2008, what went wrong, their responsibility... So they have to

come up with a clear economic strategy? At the moment I don't

think people trust them with money because they messed up in such a

spectacular fashion in the past. They spent money when they shouldn't

have done, and that is important because without strong finances you

don't have the foundations on which prosperity can be built. But you

would probably agree with the Labour Party on Europe, the problems with

hating people at the bottom of the heap, and I am saying to you that

you have much bigger problems with a future Conservative government than

a future Labour government. You are viscerally and deeply and totally

opposed to David Cameron on three big issues. I would characterise it

differently. You have one task to create a stronger economy, and we

are working with the Conservatives effectively and we will do until

2015 to repair the damage inflicted on the economy in 2008, and then you

have got to build a fairer society. Where I think the Conservatives

don't have the same instincts in fairness that we do. We are the only

British party in politics to marry the two. One of the greatest risks

to the ongoing economic recovery is a single party government in 2015,

either only the Labour Party or the Conservative party. The Labour Party

risks jeopardising the economy again, and the Conservatives appear

to want to yank us out of the European Union, increasing

joblessness in this country. You cannot possibly go into another

coalition with the Conservatives, because you have used up all of the

space on which you agree already. The things left are which you

viscerally disagree on. It is not my choice, it is the choice of the

British people. After the last general election there was a clear

instruction from the British people... The British people will

need to decide next time. We will carry on in a few moments, but we

will have the news first. Now over to Naga for the news headlines. Nick

Clegg has said he doesn't believe the UK will vote for exit from the

EU, however he did tell this programme that Conservative MPs need

to make up their mind and stop flirting with the threat of an exit.

He warned his coalition partners' stance on Europe might inflict

damage on many British families. Health managers in Northern

Worcestershire are trying to contain an outbreak of the nonvoter --

vomiting winter virus. We will get back to Andrew in a moment, but

first let's look at what is coming up after this programme. At ten

o'clock we will be debating one big question - should human rights

always outweigh religious rights? See you at ten o'clock on BBC One.

Nick Clegg is still here and we are joined again by Jane Moore and David

Lammy. The two words I didn't mention in our interview was Ed

Balls. You don't like him, he loves you. Are you softening? We had a

passing and perfectly friendly conversation in the House of Commons

and it has been ballooned! He really irritated you, is that still true?

That was a perfectly light-hearted joke. I have many flaws but one

thing I always try to do, however strongly I might disagree with

people and their points of view, I generally try not to personalise it

and I will not do that with Ed Balls. He is a great big Honey

monster and he adores you. I agree with you, that for me, if you look

at the electorate and people with children perhaps, we have squabbling

parents who just don't seem to agree on anything at the moment, and I

think going forward we kind of feel better separate parents making

better decisions. My experience is that in politics, people amplify the

differences between political parties. People out there get that

you can work with people you don't agree with but still disagree in an

open and grown-up way. I suspect after the next election it will be a

single government. I'm just surprised you didn't mention living

standards. You are opening a huge political debate and we have ten

seconds to go. You cannot improve living standards without a stronger

economy. That's all for this morning. Join me again at the same

time next Sunday here on BBC One when my guests will include the

leader of the opposition, Ed Miliband, and also the President of

Russia. That's an exclusive interview with Vladimir Putin ahead

of the Winter Olympics. Will you be able to tell us apart? Until then, a

very good morning.