18/09/2016 The Andrew Marr Show

Just now, the political world seems to be shifting.

Everywhere, from left and right, liberals,

populations and open markets are under attack.

Are we edging after Brexit into a post-liberal world?

The Liberal Democrats themselves are back on their heels.

On the eve of his party conference, their leader, Tim Farron,

We also speak to the new Work and Pensions Secretary,

Damian Green, Theresa May's longest-standing friend in Cabinet

with less than a week to go in the Labour leadership race,

the Jeremy Corbyn enthusiast, Clive Lewis, join us from Norwich.

And that fiesty Scottish actor, Ken Stott, has some depressing

I'd say do an hour of drama classes a week, and do 42 hours of gym.

Because that's how you're going to be an actor in this climate.

And we have some lively music this morning.

The Nordic Fiddlers Bloc have nothing to do with

A stellar cast of paper reviewers this morning

a former and now co-leader of the Green Party.

And Ukip's former and maybe future leader, Nigel Farage.

Plus Sun columnist Jane Moore to help referee.

All that after the news, read this morning by Tina Dahealey.

An explosion in New York City has injured 29 people.

It happened in the Chelsea district of Manhattan last night.

The city's Mayor, Bill De Blasio, said it was a deliberate act,

but there was no evidence of a connection to terrorism.

Witnesses said it was like a volcano going off in the heart of Manhattan.

Dozens of people were caught up in the explosion.

One person is believed to have serious injuries.

fearing there might be other devices.

I heard, boom, boom. Boom, boom.

We were watching TV, and then there was a huge flash

And we went outside to the front porch, and we saw

An image of a badly-damaged rubbish container was published

by the police, but they refused to say the blast was caused

All they would say was that the explosion was caused

There is no evidence at this point of a terror

It's something we will be investigating very carefully,

but there is no evidence, at this point, of a terror connection.

The mayor also said there was no evidence of a connection to a blast

The FBI said a pipe bomb went off just before a charity run.

There are some reports that the first device

was concealed in a tool box in front of a building.

American and Russian diplomats at the United Nations have strongly

criticised each other, following a US air-raid in Syria

The White House has expressed regret for what it called

The Russians have demanded an emergency meeting

The former Labour leader, Lord Kinnock, has given

the BBC his bleakest warning yet about the future of the party

if Jeremy Corbyn wins the leadership election.

He told Panorama - in a programme to be

broadcast tomorrow - that he wouldn't expect

to see another Labour government in his lifetime.

Tributes have been paid to an Iranian cyclist who's died

Bahman Golbarnezhad, who was 48, crashed during the last full day

of competition and died later in hospital.

Overnight there were more medals for Great Britain

Paralympics GB now have a total of 147 medals, with 64 gold,

It's the best medal haul since the 1988 Seoul Games.

The next news on BBC One will be at 12.15.

The Mail on Sunday says an anarchist group has smuggled a Syrian migrant

into Britain on Ryanair - a pretty difficult way to enter the country!

It says that Lord Mountbatten has come out as gay. A story about

Ritter soldiers facing prosecution over the Iraq war. A new group

saying that Leave means leave. Tory MPs have campaigned -- have formed a

new group to campaign inside the party. And the scandal of war vets

and vanished Charity funds. Big headed babies are the brightest, it

says, particularly if they have very big ears! And Jeremy Corbyn's plans

to shift the party further to the left if he wins that leadership

election at the end of the week. Labour members may be able to choose

Shadow Cabinet members. But before we dive into the papers

in detail, I just want to highlight a interesting theme crackling

through these pages and which - one way or another -

we're going to be talking From John Major and Tony Blair

to David Cameron, top politicians hunkered round a belief

in economic liberalism - free markets, open borders,

huge movements of money and people across Europe and the world,

the great disruption of our age. But now, with a new more

conservative mood under Theresa May in Downing Street,

and Labour moving sharply to the left,

that consensus seems to be over. If so, it's a big turning point

in our national life. Nigel Farage, Caroline Lucas,

is that how you see it? I think there is a big change going

on, not just in Britain but across the West. It all depends what

liberalism means to you. I look at it as a metropolitan elite, backed

by big business, who are increasingly out of touch with

normal voters. Exit, in a way, was the first big fight back against

that. -- Brexit. I suspect we will see big shocks across Europe and in

the US. I don't think it is about values about environmental issues

and someone. Those are key values across our society, which will

continue. Let's dive into the papers proper. Headlined their says it all.

Caroline makes a swift exit as PM and buries his political legacy. I'm

interested in how quickly history is being rewritten. Part of this piece

in the Observer says that Cameron has quite a benign, cuddly liberal

conservatism, and now Theresa May is coming in with something more

radical. But under David Cameron we saw a massive reduction in the size

of the state, welfare rolled back, the privatisation of the NHS, and

austerity. Although Cameron had a different language about it, we

shouldn't imagine it was so different. Theresa May has said over

and over that she wants to work with the hard-working people of society.

But the big crunch is going to be over Brexit. Nigel Farage, I

mentioned this leave means leave group. Nick Clegg, of all people,

predicting a huge fight in government over soft Brexit against

hard Brexit, and the whole thing falling apart. Nick Clegg is busy

today. He's written this and other articles. It is partly the Liberal

Democrats wanting to be relevant and the King for voter base among

hardline remainers. I do agree with Nick Clegg that it is clear that the

European Union, even though it's not in their interests, are going to

start off negotiations by saying that you will not have free access

and less you accept the free movement of people. In the last

weekend, the Home Secretary, Amber Rudd, was saying all sorts of

extraordinary things, like it might cost us ?50 to go to Calais for a

day trip. Clearly not right. I felt she was still fighting the

referendum. But David Davis this week said that if there is no deal,

so what. I do think that Nick Clegg is right over the fact that this

issue has the potential to split the conservative cabinet dramatically.

Meanwhile, there are ordinary voters wondering what to do next. Barbara

Ellen in the Observer has an interesting thought. She sums up the

mood along -- among lifelong Labour voters. She says that a Corbyn

victory is a strangely liberating feeling, but possibly not for the

reasons he would like. She's basically saying, she calls it

meaningless neo- hipster drivel. Generally not in favour. She says

enough is enough, now it is the 11th hour, and a different mood has

landed. What else is out there, she says? Will she vote Tory? Probably

not. She seems to be going for the idea that the Labour Party will

split. The Liberal Democrats are the areas far down the polls, below 8%

in some. There is a big Sunday Times investigation done with Dispatches

about whether momentum is digging in with the Labour Party all across

Britain. They have used secret cameras, but they probably didn't

have to look far to find this sort of activity. Momentum, the

activists, the people that Neil Kinnock did so well crushing in his

time, are rising up again. Dispatches has done this undercover

investigation. It says that Tom Watson, who is in the middle of all

this, has called Momentum a rabble. Dispatches is saying they are very

well organised, very ambitious, and they have plans to put a Labour

engagement officer in every local party. At the careful with these

labels. Lots of people who have joined Labour are genuinely excited

about what could be a different part -- party politics. And the idea that

MPs should we stand again for selection before they stand as an MP

again, that is common sense. That is democracy and it happens with the

Greens all the time. But surely the idea is that they want to get

elected, otherwise it's just a different kind of student policy. It

has no impact. But there is a big disconnect here. There is big Labour

going on, and clearly some pretty hard left figures wanting to get the

moderate out. Over half the Labour voters voted for Brexit. There is

nothing in today's Labour Party speaking to those people. It was the

effect that Ukip had on the Labour Party in the last election, which

made a big difference in terms of the Tories getting a majority. I

have retired now, but I have a feeling... I have a feeling that

everything that is going on here, potentially, gives Ukip a real

opportunity with the Labour Party. Your comrades in arms and funder,

Alan Banks, has talked about Ukip becoming a mass popular movement, a

bit like Momentum. When you see how Momentum is operating, do you feel a

bit jealous, and feel like it is the kind of thing you are going to be

doing? I think it is exactly the sort of thing we will be doing. That

is what Alan Banks intends to do. The five Star Movement in Italy is a

completely online political party. There is a very new kind of politics

out there. You just said that you had resigned, but you are having

some influence Thom due be the sort of Ted Heath of Ukip? Perish the

thought! You seem to be saying a lot about the new order. I am going to

go on as an MEP. I lead a group in the European Parliament, so I will

go on with my helpful contributions over there. We have a new leader,

Diane James, and I am going to let her get on with it. Now, let's move

to another story you have chosen here, Caroline. A big global story.

65 million people are displaced, 20 million people are fleeing for their

lives. This is a map of the world, and the

red routes where the migrants are moving. It is interesting here. You

go through the countries where they are running from, and they all have

big wars going on. It is absolutely about war. It is about abuse of

human rights in places like Eritrea. And with climate change coming soon,

it will mean even more people on the move. It is about to some it's

coming up and real concerns this week. The countries are not facing

up to their responsibilities. David Cameron had a summit for people to

give finance towards the Syrian refugee crisis, but only a six of

the money that was pledged has been given. There was a big march in

London yesterday. The message is, you promised to help these three

without -- these 3000 unaccompanied children in Calais. This is a story

about a magnitude of a challenge and a paucity of a political response.

And it is changes to the places where these migrants are going. You

have been standing alongside Donald Trump, talking about his wall. What

did you make of him, up close and personal?

Here's a reality TV star, he makes brash statement and gets publicity,

that's what he does. On one on one, I him interact with people, and he's

very good with people. He seems less... He has had media training, I

think. They have got him on message of it, he has been much better over

the course of the last month and I believe he is on course to win. And

you have a story about Hungary because they will be holding a

referendum on no refugees at all being allowed into Hungary. The 2nd

of October is a big day, you have that referendum and a rerun of the

Austrian Presidency and the freedom party, a pretty hard right party,

favourites to win that. In the last opinion polls I saw, his party was

on 47% so he has a massive, clear, huge level of support. He is saying

we will not pay for Angela Merkel's mistakes. Angela Merkel said we can

cope with as many people as come, they have said that each country

that is part of Schengen has got to take quotas, they are not going to

do it. You are a man of the right, are you worried about how the Right

has developed in eastern Europe? Yes, frankly some of the movements

there are pretty scary. It may be that the EU doesn't exist because

quite honestly the row that is going on between Germany and those eastern

countries over migrants and quotas I think is the most serious crisis the

EU will face. Jane, you have another story, Hillary Clinton. Going back

to Donald, who has had media training, Donald, don't be yourself,

is what they said I have think. I love this picture regarding

pneumonia being infectious. The phrase in America is, we are country

of 300 million and this is the best we can do? People saying, I will

vote for Hillary Clinton because I don't like Trump. Let's scuttle back

home again and an interesting section from the business part of

the evening Telegraph. Yes, this is a story about Hinkley. The deal has

been done on Hinkley but it is quite interesting we have the front page

of business and also Jeremy Warner inside the business pages saying

Hinkley will happen but also Bradwell, these are the things China

wants to build that will lock us into nuclear. It is interesting that

the EDF boss said that next year we will be cooking our turkeys off the

energy from Hinkley. It strikes me as interesting that they are just

looking at the costs of this in the evening Telegraph in particular. It

is very expensive energy as well. Double the price of wholesale

electricity. In reviewing the papers, we reveal which headlines

might not be entirely accurate, Jane. Ukip nude dip, by Nigel. Nigel

has told me this is not his actual body. In the intro, it does say

bursting into a wedding party almost naked after skinny-dipping. You were

actually wearing your boxers. I think if you are wearing a pair of

properly stitched Jeremy Paxman underpants, you are not

skinny-dipping. I agree with that and it was lovely, the water was

great, it was great fun. Thank you, all, very much indeed.

If Jeremy Corbyn is re-elected as Labour leader next Saturday,

as the polls suggest, can he heal the party after a summer

One of them is the Shadow Defence Secretary, Clive Lewis,

Welcome. Can I start by asking you about all of the stories we have

been reading in the papers about plans to deselect Labour MPs if the

party membership has moved a bit to the left, and if some of your

colleagues still go back to the Blair years and Brown years for

their loyalties, should they not be removed and MPs who are more in tune

with the New Labour Party put in their place? There are lots of red

under the bed scare stories coming out now, and we have form on this.

Last year the same production company produced a hatchet job on

Jeremy Corbyn a weak or two before the election announcement and we are

seeing the same thing again. I think we have had a robust debate this

year. Deselection hasn't come up as an issue as far as I understand. If

it does, that the democratic choice for our members. We will have churn

in the boundary committees, there will be MPs going up against one

another, but whole process of deselection, you call it

deselection, another word for it is democratic election for your

representatives in Parliament. If the party is a centre of balance in

the country has moved to the left under Jeremy Corbyn, something has

got to change if he is re-elected. The MPs cannot continue in

opposition to him all the way through the Parliament, can they? I

don't think he has created a shift to the left, I think we are seeing a

change in politics. There has been a shift in politics across the west,

across Europe, across this country. In terms of that I think there has

been changes. Do I think the PLP inside Westminster are homogenous

group? No, I don't. A new Tribune group has been set up, I think that

is fantastic. Last year politics was a small managerial approach to

politics which people were tired of. We now have open Labour, Progress,

Momentum. I think it is important we have these groups, debating, coming

out with ideas. The PLP is not homogenous. There are people who

will come back and work with Jeremy Corbyn, and a small group who will

not choose to do that. Do you think that group of parliamentarians

should elect the Shadow Cabinet? We should see a complete reform of our

party and there is a role for the PLP to play in that. I am part of

the PLP and I would like to be a part of that. The PLP could elect a

certain percentage of the Cabinet, the leader another percentage, and

the membership another percentage which is something that could be

reviewed. Tom Watson himself has said it is an idea he is open to. I

think it is the ideas coming out about democratising our party,

allowing members to have a real say in how their representatives

represent them and the policy we have as a party. What about the idea

advertised on the front of the Observer that as the party changes

direction a bit, so ordinary party members should have a more direct

say on policy than they do at the moment? I think that a good idea.

You probably know one of the things I'm really interested in is the idea

of proportional representation. The reason I think that is a good idea

is it allows more people to have a say in their political system and

the decisions being made. I think that should apply to political

parties as well. I think ultimately it's about finding a balance between

not having chaos, but having some sort of organisation whether members

feel they have democratic say in the policies being implemented. Some

people in the Labour Party, including people on the left, think

what has happened has pushed Labour too far to the left to win an

election. Neil Kinnock, a man of the left, says on panorama tomorrow that

if Jeremy Corbyn wins he will not be another Labour government, he fears,

in his lifetime. Lord Kinnock is respected by many people in this

party and he is entitled to his view. I'd like to see the crystal

ball he is using. Unfortunately he cannot make that prediction any more

than anyone else come. People are saying Jeremy Corbyn has shifted the

party to the left, actually I don't think his policies would be a

surprise to Edward Heath or Wilson. He's talking about public NHS,

talking about having non-selection in our schools, not having grammar

schools, about democratising the Internet. This isn't a shift to the

left, these are good politics, good policies. I see that as reacting and

responding to a changing world, where too many people in this

country feel they have been left behind and it's about tackling that.

Clive Lewis, thank you for speaking to us this morning. Now to the

weather. After some blistering heat

earlier in the week, it's pretty obvious that lingering,

laggard and largely unwelcome autumn has finally stumbled

blearily into view. Talking of stumbling

blearily, here's our weather The make-up department works

wonders, as you well know. You mentioned unwelcome autumn and I

think these swallows in north Yorkshire would share your view,

they seem to be getting ready to depart. But they obviously haven't

seen the forecast, it will be a lovely day across England, the cloud

in Saudis gradually breaking up. There is some rain in the forecast

which will march steadily on across Northern Ireland, something clearer

coming in behind bars. Eastern Scotland hanging onto the dry

weather. Widely into the high teens elsewhere. Even 21 in the warm spot.

That rain clearing over this evening and through the night. The rain

moving across England and Wales, could turn on the heavy side.

Temperatures dipping into the single figures overnight. The rain

increasingly moving and across northern England and Wales, where is

that rain staggers eastwards and starts to fizzle out. Temperature is

widely into the mid-teens, those temperatures we will see through the

rest of the week, so, Andrew, enjoy that autumn light.

Now, if we really want to understand what Theresa May is about,

there's nobody better to talk to than Damian Green,

her oldest friend in the Cabinet - and by the way the man now in charge

of welfare - where we may see some changes

We have been talking perhaps loosely this morning about a post-liberal

era, and one of the headline writers suggest that compared with the

economic liberalism and so forth of past Conservatives, Theresa May

represents a break. Do you recognise that language? No, clearly liberal

capitalism and Western values are under threat, they need fighting for

what they always do. This idea of reaching a point of the end of

history was optimistic nonsense, you always have to keep fighting for

your values. But Theresa May and her government will fight for those

small liberal free-market values as hard as any previous Conservative.

Do you see any change of direction in this Government at all? There is

clearly a large element of continuity because we are still

Conservatives and still modernising Conservatives. I think the

Conservative Party went through a big change with David Cameron that

was necessary and desirable and that element will continue. Of course any

Prime Minister has their own individual policy priorities and

their own way of doing business. I would like you to explain further,

since you knew Theresa May for a long time, what is the essence of

the Theresa May approach? The essence is a desire to serve. She is

a classic public servant coming from her personal background... But

everyone has a desire to serve. But that is innate, she sees it as her

role in life. The point she has made in her first few weeks as Prime

Minister about trying to help those who are just about managing is

squarely addressing that issue of how do we recapture the ground for

liberal capitalism. Talking about families that are struggling at the

bottom of the heat being her big priority, which is why am interested

to talk to you about welfare. Can I ask about the disabled people,

people in the working group who will lose ?30 per week under current

plans, are you comfortable about that?

Our system of welfare reform is designed to help people get back

into work. And it is the balance you need to strike between benefits and

help, which is always a sensitive one. What we are about is helping

people who are struggling, and one of the things I most want to achieve

is have a modernised welfare state, where we try to help people get a

job, get some work, not because it is the best route out of poverty --

poverty, but it is the best route to personal dignity and greater

self-esteem. Leaving people on benefits is an old-fashioned way

that doesn't help them. Can I ask our Yukon to new to? Is there any

change of tone from Iain Duncan Smith? Any politician will have

their own tone and use their own language. The difference will be is

that I am different from him and will use different language. I know

we both share the desire for increasing social justice, and this

is the change we need to get. You do not just measure it by the benefits

bill. You measure it by the help you are giving those individuals. And

the help you taking away. That ?30 taken away from disabled people you

hope to get into work but who aren't in work yet, that is a lot of money

for those people. That Paralympics are over. The great Paralympian,

Tanni Grey-Thompson, called this brutal and inhumane. We are changing

the system so that the main benefit will become Universal Credit. You

are taking a lot of money away from these people. It is specifically

designed to make sure that work always pays. There are other

benefits specifically for disabled people, that the central thrust of

making work always pay is what we must have to have a successful

welfare state. Under Iain Duncan Smith, those were the toughest

austerity years, and a lot of disabled people felt they were

unfairly targeted during that period. Now that we are told that

posterity is going to unwind a bit, I'm interested in whether any of

that will change. The commitment that the Prime Minister has made

since she took office has been that we will meet the previous

commitments we have made, but there will be no new search for cuts in

individual welfare benefits. That is the end of the cuts? You are right

that the period of austerity meant that tough decisions had to be taken

across the board. I am not looking for... There are things that have

been announced that haven't yet been introduced. People know they are

coming, but no new things. Can I ask you about the system of assessment

for disabled people going into work? This has been hugely controversial.

There have been some highly controversial and tragic cases, such

as a diabetic man whose heating was cut off and who sadly died. People

who have killed themselves when they heard their benefit was getting cut.

People suffering from terrible illnesses and in terrible trouble.

You know these cases. They must be on your desk. When you look at them,

are you completely satisfied yourself that the government has

done this right in the past? Do you want to think again about the way

that the Sables people are assessed for work? There are cases where it

looks like the system is not working for those people, and you could look

at those cases very hard. I think you need a system of assessment, and

it is a case of continuous improvement. Of course we are always

seeking to do that. Nobody wants and inhumane system. One man was born

with the terrible deformities produced by Phyllida might, and he

has had ?30 a week taken away from him, and feels very upset about

that. Are you going to look again at the way people have been assessed,

generally, to see whether it has been fair and humane? I am

permanently looking at all these systems. Of course, there are tens

of thousands of assessment is going on all the time. I dare say there

will be individual cases that are wrong, and as they are brought to

the attention of ministers, we look at them. Will you review those

cases? We are permanently looking at them. Some argue that you should

just pay at the benefits and not test people. I don't agree with

that. Just now, you mentioned some cuts that are to come. Universal

Credit people will lose ?42 a week on average. 3 million working

families, the same people that the Prime Minister was talking about

when she spoke about glaring social injustice. That is a lot of money

for those people to lose. The Resolution Foundation said, with

most economic forecasts showing higher inflation and other things in

the coming years, this cut will have a negative effect on people. This

foundation have been quite supportive of some of the things you

have done. There is an element of consensus around these areas. But as

I say, that cut which has already been announced is a part of a

programme we need to go through to make sure we keep our public

finances under control. We are rolling out Universal Credit in a

way that already shows that people are much more likely to get work if

they are on Universal Credit than the previous benefits, and are much

more likely to stay in work. It is the sort of compassionate

conservative policy I am happy to introduce. Iain Duncan Smith said to

me that this very sharp and narrow attack on people's living standards,

people at bottom of the heap, compared what was being done to

pensioners, risk destroying intergenerational fairness. He

worried you were doing too much for pensioners because they vote for

you. I accept that we need to look, over time, at the area of

intergenerational fairness, but I do think that we should step back from

this view that we are being too generous to pensioners. All these

things are very long term. Pension policy in the 1980s was 40% of

pensioners. It is now down to 14%. That is an enormous beneficial

social resolution. You knew Theresa May back in the day when she was at

university. Was she always going to be Prime Minister? She always had

the capacity to do it, and she always wanted to be. Now we know

why. With each end of start she has made as Prime Minister, she has

shown that the Conservatives are the... Did she ever say to you that

she wanted the job? She never said it to me. She said it to others,

including my wife. It was clear that she was ambitious, but unlike many

others, and this is essential to to reason, if she thinks something is

worth doing, she will go after it, and by and large, she will get it.

That is why she will be an extremely good Prime Minister. Thank you for

talking to us today. Ken Stott is a very busy actor -

the Hobbit films, last year's hit TV drama,

The Missing, and now back on stage Stott plays a grand but waning actor

struggling to play King Lear in a wartime theatre while an air

raid is going on overhead. I talked to Ken Stott ahead

of the play's London transfer and he told me about the big ego

that defines his character, What I think is most important here,

it's the quality of being driven. Those who are driven,

people who are driven are impossible to live with and make life hell

for those around them. Here is no different,

this in a sense is the And everybody living

really quite poorly. There is no money around,

life is quite tough. And it is still the same

for actors today. Life was tough because these

were touring companies, I remember, I am old enough

to remember theatrical digs. I remember Mrs Law in Belfast,

where we had an open fire but there was only one

in the house and we came home And there was enough coal for us

to have an hour's worth of fire And for people watching -

who see people like yourself, they think an actor's life

is a terribly glamorous one and it is fantastic -

what about young actors? Working in London in particular

is incredibly hard for young people When unions were involved,

you had to be a member of Equity It made life very difficult,

it made it very difficult for you to become an actor,

but those who did, did It would sort out the wheat

from the chaff in that those who stuck with it, those

who persevered, went on. And of course it also meant

that the standard of work, Now anybody can be an actor,

you don't have to be a member of the union, you can

work wherever you like - television, film, theatre,

in London, in the West End people They want to see professionals,

they don't want to see somebody who has made a bad choice,

choosing somebody who can't act. And the union would

help in that way. And your character here,

playing Lear is clearly a great The next Lear, we are told,

is going to be Glenda Well, I would say to Glenda

that it's a great idea, I quote Ronnie Harwood here -

I hope you have the health I know it's a hell of a role,

although I haven't played it, because I play Sir in this,

and quite frankly playing this is pretty much as much as playing

Lear. Can we move from theatre to TV,

and the last big drama In many ways a really hard subject,

echoes the McCann story a bit, and your character

is a pretty noxious paedophile. You have been quite critical

of the current Too many explosions,

too much CGI? We have got a new toy now,

we have got a new toy We can make anything

happen on screen. We can make people's faces morph

into something else. I say, all right, listen,

can we just get over it now, because what is really

important ultimately That's what we really

want to see, as people, So, worry more about the writing

and about the acting, less Let's start writing

about relationships. We're now living in

the world of superhero. If I was to give advice to a young

actor today, I'd say, I'd say do an hour of drama classes

per week, and do 42 hours of gym, because that's how you're

going to be an actor Now, you play Sir in a Scots accent,

and you supported the nationalist How do you now feel about it

all after Brexit, looking We have...which is in effect

English independence, It wants to take Scotland

and Northern Ireland with it. It has already got Wales

because they voted Brexit. Now, Scotland has only

since the war, since Attlee's government, has only received

the Government it voted In order to achieve democracy,

Scotland should be independent. Scotland is a country

that is an oil-producing country, And so you see a second referendum

as essential after Brexit? It is essential, absolutely

essential. To shy away from that

is undemocratic. Ken Stott, thank

you very much indeed And The Dresser by Sir

Ronald Harwood opens at the Duke of York's Theatre

in London's West End next month. Now coming up in just over an hour,

the other Andrew - Andrew Neil - will be here on BBC One

with the Sunday Politics and Andrew and his team have been poring

over the Conservative Party's 2015 manifesto, tracking how much of it

the Government is delivering and how The Liberal Democrats are gathering

in Brighton after one of the most dramatic falls from fortune

in recent political history. The old jibe was that you could get

all the members of the Liberal party But of course, there's hardly

any phone boxes left. Tim Farron, leader of

the party, joins me now. I wanted to start by reminding

ourselves how people think of this country. When you describe if you

are on the left, hard left, right, middle, this is how it breaks down.

They are your target people, and yet your party is below 8% in the polls.

There is a massive mismatch between people saying I am a liberal, they

like the word liberal but they don't like your party. How do you begin to

break out? The theme of whether liberalism is under threat or not, I

think your poll shows that while there is massive challenges it is in

good health. I think we are up against a rising populism, that is a

new dichotomy in politics, nationalism versus liberalism. You

see the Labour Party going down and unelectable route, a Conservative

Party that is unaccountable. We are in a very good place at the moment.

The election last May was devastating for us but two things

have happened since. 7% is not a good place, surely. Two things have

happened, one is that Britain looks to be heading out of the European

Union, I would say that is disastrous for our country and

artful liberalism. The other thing is the Labour Party's choice to go

down a route which is fantasy, populist politics. There is a gap

for a Liberal party with a clear plan for Halliburton should operate

in the world now is vast. Our membership has doubled since the

election. We have made massive gains in local government over the last

few months, but that opportunity for us is enormous. If Labour won't

oppose the Conservative Party, we will. Let's look forward. Jeremy

Corbyn will probably be re-elected as Labour leader at the end of the

coming week, or if not it will be Owen Smith. If it is Owen Smith, he

has said he wants to fight the next election by saying if Labour winds

or are in a position to exercise power, he wants to be applied to the

EU, would you join him in that? I am interested in the things he has to

say, I have to say that might be too late. My sense is that we have to

focus on the fact we trusted people, and we must now trust them with

destination. The relationship with the single market is utterly

unclear, there needs to be a referendum on that deal. That is the

best option for staying in. But you can't make that happen, that will be

in Theresa May's gift to have that referendum or not. If public opinion

changes, if people see the deal unravelling not being what they

voted for, Theresa May is a pragmatic enough person to

understand that if the population of this country believe the deal she is

stitching up with Brussels is something they don't think they

voted for, I think she will shift. But Owen Smith seems to be a

reasonable moderate guy and I think there is every chance we could work

with him. The problem is I don't think Jeremy Corbyn would work with

anybody else. If Jeremy Corbyn does win, and winds big, there will be a

lot of Labour MPs who are very unhappy. You have said in the past

they have been on the phone to you as some kind of therapy, none of

them came over to you. My job is not to be some kind of home-wrecker. I

think it would be a tragedy for British democracy. I think even a

lot of Conservatives think it is terrible there is no decent

opposition in this country, so my job is to build the Liberal

Democrats and be the moderate opposition to the Tories, and hope

people come and join us. A lot of voters for whatever reason don't

like your political tribe. How un tribal are you prepared to be?

It has been said, if the Government doesn't have a road map, I think new

parties will grow. If gridlock were to lead to a real sense of drift and

malaise, it could be a government of national unity where parties of

different dissuasion will act together. Paddy Ashdown, has said,

why not have one pro-European union and the Conservative candidate.

Would you put to one side the Liberal Democrats' party interests

to work with Labour Party people, and George Osborne is Dell saying he

is now liberal -- now saying. It was about spending time and working with

people in different parties with more in common than the fact we

believe Britain should remain in the European Union, but my assessment of

the situation is this. The Conservative government may be in

power for another quarter of a century because of what is going on

in the Labour Party at the moment, and Britain will sleep walk out of

the European Union to immense calamity. The best thing I can do,

whilst being... This is democracy. Indeed, but I'm allowed to keep my

principles. My job is to build a progressive movement that can

challenge the Conservative Party. My view is that Britain will sleepwalk

out of Europe unless the Liberal Democrats can grow and build support

for us to have a referendum on the deal, which we must have, and we

will have a Tory government for perhaps the rest of our lifetimes

unless we can fill the space of the Labour Party. So that requires you

do politics differently, in an unconventional way. What I'm asking

directly is whether you would see a low Liberal Democrats to stand down

in some seats to allow other non-Conservatives to have a free run

or if all of these non-Conservative parties like the old days fight each

other in a first past the post system and be machine-gunned down.

The danger of all of this is it is political parlour room discussions

about pacts and the rest of it. I don't think most people out there

are interested in that, they want a clear voice that will hold the

Conservative government to account. There are Tory voters out there and

feel it is dreadful for British to proxy that there is no decent

opposition to the Conservatives, and that space is vast. My job is to

fill that space and I'm still and to do that. I still don't understand

quite how you will track that problem but we will come back after

the news and talk about that. Now what's coming up

after this programme? On Sunday Morning Live: We discuss

how faith could decide what school your children

could get into. And should we allow

marijuana as a medicine? Plus, Alan Titchmarsh

talks gardening and God, and X Factor's Jahmene Douglas

performs a tribute I'm joined again by Tim

Farron and Nigel Farage. You have both got very different

points of view, but you both expect there to be real trouble ahead

inside this Conservative government when so-called hard Brexit versus

soft Brexit has to be debated and argued. How much of a political

opportunity is that for each of you? I think it is a huge opportunity for

us but a massive risk for Great Britain. However you voted in the

referendum, the fact there was no plan on the table, people voted for

a blank sheet of paper, I don't think the Conservatives had any plan

for a post leave vote, and three months on it appears Theresa May has

no plan and she's not sharing it with us. The effect is of Musick

significance. I agree, because everything will get much cheaper. We

can buy cheap food, there are lots of opportunities. So the biggest

market on the planet on our doorstep is something we will turn our back

on. Lots of your lot believe we should be in the single market.

Let's be clear about this blank sheet of paper, I agree there was

nothing prepared so it's a good job David Cameron and George Osborne

have gone, but the idea that people who voted for Brexit voted for a

blank sheet of paper is nonsense. They voted for us to take back

control of our lives and come out of the single market. They voted for us

to make our own laws. Everybody from Boris Johnson to Kate Hoey and Frank

Field, we all put that message out absolutely clearly. Could I just

intervene for a second, gentlemen. If we are opening up to the rest of

the world, and I define liberalism as open borders for capital, and the

great disruption which has changed the last century, could we see more

of it after leaving the EU? Here is the nonsense. So many on the

pro-European side portray themselves as being internationalist. The

European Union is a protectionist club that has closed itself off from

many parts of the emerging world and I want Britain to be engaged on a

global basis. If you were an African farmer, Tim Farron, you would be

nodding at what Nigel Farage has said because they have had a very

hard time trying to export their products into the EU. That is

nonsense because most Commonwealth heads and governments are absolutely

horrified at what the United Kingdom... They are queueing up to

sign trade deals, get with it, we have moved on! So here we are,

Australia, a market of 20 million people, literally on the other side

of the planet in case you hadn't worked that out, and a market

literally 20 miles away across the Channel with 500 million people. Who

would you do a deal with, Nigel? I tell you what is so interesting, the

way you disparage them as being on the other side of the world. We are

leaving the European Union, we are going global, it's an exciting

future for us. I knew this was going to happen. What Nigel stands for is

the popular, nationalist sentiment and I believe in democracy also. You

fight for what you believe. Do you respect the referendum result? Time

is up. Join us next week at nine,

live from Liverpool and the Labour Party Conference,

when our guests will include the leader of the Labour Party,

whoever that may be. In the meantime, we leave

you with a group whose members hail The Nordic Fiddlers' Bloc

will be on a UK tour soon. This is "Talon's Trip to

Thompson Island".