01/06/2017 The Election Wrap

Hello and welcome to The Election Wrap, your guide

to all the day's news from the campaign trail.

What does Brexit mean...of course, silly...it means Brexit.

All the party leaders today were desperate to make that clear with

their own modifications thrown in, naturally. Obviously the debate that

you didn't take part in, you are getting a hard time on social media

for not doing it, having seen that do you think you made the right

decision? Do you think she watched it on telly with a cup of cocoa? If

we only knew. We'll be visiting the most marginal constituency in the

country, Gower in South Wales to see if Labour can topple the Tories. And

in sunny Skegness for a lovely day by the sea to check if the folks

there have already made up their minds to vote for. Thank goodness

these two didn't do a Theresa May and leave empty chairs. Gracing us

with their presence, Caroline Wheeler of the Sunday express and

Jack Blanchard from the Mirror. Hello and first of all,

let's bring you up to date with the latest developments

on the campaign trail - and today everyone seems keen

to focus on Brexit. Theresa May insists only she can

bring back a good deal from those I am confident that we can fulfil

the promise of Brexit together, and build a Briton that is stronger,

fairer, and even more prosperous than it is today.

No, No, says Jeremy Corbyn, accusing the Conservatives of fostering what

he calls a toxic climate ahead of those talks. We will confirm to the

other member states that Britain is leaving the European Union, that

issue is not in doubt. But instead of posturing and pumped up animosity

Labour government under my leadership will set out a plan for

Brexit based on mutual interests of both Britain and the European Union.

The Liberal Democrats, campaigning at a hospital in Kingston,

issue a warning about the possible effects of Brexit on the NHS.

Remember that lie, emblazoned on the bus, ?350 million of the NHS,

everyone knows it is a blatant lie but now we've found out that the

truth is even worse, it will actually cost the NHS hundreds of

millions of pounds. In Edinburgh, Nicola Sturgeon says

the more SNP MPs there are, the greater the chance of stopping

a "hard Brexit". Meanwhile in Northern Ireland,

the Ulster Unionist party Party leader Robin Swann says he'll

oppose Brexit becoming a backdoor I, nor my party will tolerate any

attempt to undermine the principle of consent. There can be no border

up the middle, there can be no passport checks the citizens of

Northern Ireland arriving at Heathrow. All our energies should be

focused on the Brexit negotiations and getting the best deal for all

people. We'll be discussing why

Brexit's back at the heart First let's take a look at how

the parties' approaches compare. The Conservatives are

promising to bring down Labour accepts the end

of free movement too, but would immediately guarantee

the rights of EU Ukip wants a points-based

system, while the Lib Dems On trade, Theresa May says we'll

leave the single market but would negotiate to retain

the benefits of both, while the Liberal Democrats

want to stay as members. The SNP wants Scotland's

place in the single On legal matters,

the Conservatives say they would end the jurisdiction

of the European Court of Justice. Labour would keep EU protections

on worker and consumer While the Lib Dems

would hold a referendum on the final Brexit deal before

it was put in place. Caroline. Brexit, the Tories must be

happy that it is back on a subject they believe they are top of. That's

right, we've seen an election supposed be about Brexit not mention

it for weeks, or indeed not have it as the main thrust of the agenda,

that has changed today, one reason for this has been this tightening in

the polls and the suggestion that the campaign strategists now see

that in their focus groups its Brexit that can win the election for

the Conservatives. The notion being that they can assure up their vote,

they can say to Labour voters who voted for Brexit, we are the only

ones who can deliver Brexit. They can say this into you could voters

and that will help them get over the line, particularly as we are now

seeing discussions, even if we find them fanciful, that could be a

coalition government. So Jack we are not talking about the NHS, social

care, unemployment or housing. We are talking about Brexit. Not the

best day for Labour? In Venice Jeremy Corbyn made it the theme of

his speech, he chose to do that you didn't have to. It was an active

decision and I think it's because Labour can't run away from this

issue, it will be one of the biggest this country has a red-faced, or

suddenly for a hundred years. So Labour can't not have a position on

Brexit, he had to make a big Brexit speech in the final days of the

campaign. Conservatives think it is their strong point so Labour want

want to talk about this issue for the next week but they can't just

run away from it and in fairness to Jeremy Corbyn he isn't doing that.

Are they clear on it? One moment they are criticising the Tories were

saying that no deal is better than a bad deal, does this mean that they

would go for a bad deal or a compromise that wouldn't benefit

anyone. The terms are so vague, one person's bad deal is another person

is no deal. Deal or no Deal? Exactly. I think everyone agrees

that no deal is bad, nobody wants is to have no deal so to say that...

Surely that's the difference in negotiating strategy. Theresa May is

saying that if we get to a point with is about to deal it will be no

deal because she is saying, if we don't get what we want we will walk

away and using this notion that ultimately they have more to lose

and we have four hours what Corbyn is saying is a more conciliatory

approach to negotiations basically saying we should do this in tactile

way, saying we want a consensus, we want one that will work well for

Britain. She's taking quite a gamble in the way she's doing it, if at

all. Park that will be a bit of a disaster for her. OK. You will be

back in a second. One seat where Brexit may make

a difference is Southport - a marginal Liberal Democrat seat

where the Conservatives came Southport went Remain

in the referendum, so is the Lib Dems' pro-Europe

message going to help Is sunny south but still save for

the Lib Dems, it hasn't swung since 1997. The Tories want it, to win it,

they will need workers like those in Latham's Bakery. The ones I've seen

the most of the moment are the Labour ones, the red ones. Sales of

reserves and gingerbread men reflect surely's story. She's sweet and Mr

Corbyn. I wouldn't have voted for him at the beginning, I thought he

couldn't lead me down the garden path at one time. But the more I've

listened to him, and I have listened, it's right what he is

saying. It comes across as honest. You don't have to shout to be heard.

I have no influence over the customers whatsoever. Education and

the NHS decided Shirley's vote although Mr Latham has Brexit on his

plate, higher import costs, worries about his Polish staff and customer

trepidation at the tills. It takes away his feel-good factor and when

you've got the feel-good factor you want to spend and buy cakes, so

people are nervous of spending at the moment. And he thinks a

Conservative government will calm those nerves. Of a great deal of

admiration for Theresa May. -- I have a great deal of admiration. Who

I think is doing a good job in difficult circumstances.

Theoretically all it would take for Mr Latham to get his wish would be

several hundred Lib Dems switching. But Pam says they will be another

coalition is a thing of the past. I was a bit annoyed when they went

with the Conservatives, that's what put me off them, in the coalition

but you cannot hold a grudge forever. You've got to think, what

is best for us, and that is best. The Liberal Democrats. Yes. Two

years ago the Lib Dems held surfboard Buttle hammered elsewhere.

The number of MPs dropped from 57 to only eight. -- they held surfboard

but they were hammered elsewhere. But in many places that voted Remain

in the referendum the Lib Dems will hope that their pro-European stance

will help win back some and possibly others, no it's the voters to

decide, go for what looks familiar or take a chance on change in a

different direction entirely. Warhurst, BBC News.

Now - there was a bit of a morning after the night before feel

to the campaign today as politicians and pundits picked over the pieces

I was one of those journalists! Where exactly was Theresa May.

She'd sent Home Secretary Amber Rudd in to bat her place -

even after Jeremy Corbyn's spectacular change of heart

And it didn't take long for the Prime Minister's political

rivals to criticise her for not taking part in the debate.

The Prime Minister is not here tonight. She cannot be bothered so

why should you. In fact Bake-Off is on BBC Two next, why not make

yourself a brew, you are not worth Theresa May's time, don't give her

yours. I think the first rule of leadership is to show up. She won't

turn up to these debates because her campaign of sound bites is falling

apart. The Prime Minister do not have the guts to come along this

evening to tell us. Well, social media quickly

got in on the act, with the hashtag "where's Theresa"

trending on Twitter, and Missing May memes popping up

all over the internet. Lee James Brown posted

up this Where's Wally style picture,

she's in the top-right hand corner, if you're having

trouble spotting her. The Liberal Democrats

tweaked their website, this is what you get when you search

for a page that doesn't exist. And the Twitter account

for the American political drama House of Cards had this advice

from President Underwood Even Mrs May's Foreign Secretary

didn't seem entirely clear when he was asked on BBC

Breakfast this morning. I, I, I don't know exactly where she

was, I can tell you whenever she was she was right not to be a bad debate

because it was a yammering cacophony of views, many of them left, even by

the BBC's own standards I think you would agree that that audience was

notably to the left of many people in this country. The audience was of

course picked by ComRes, but that's by the by.

And the issue even came up when the Prime Minister was meeting

voters at a West Yorkshire factory this afternoon.

I am sure you are fed up of talking about and but just a quick one, the

debate last night that he didn't take part in, you are getting quite

a hard time on social media for not doing it today. Having seen that do

you think you made the right decision? I'm running the sort of

campaign I've run throughout my career which is a campaign when I

get out and about and talk to people and listen to people and hear

questions, that's what I'm doing today, it's what I've been doing

throughout the campaign. According to Boris, it was a yammering

cacophony anyway, did it make sense for her to miss it, Jack? He would

say that! It might make sense for her political ends to avoid it

because she is leading in the polls and she knows she's not good on TV.

But the reality is that it looks terrible for all the other leaders

to turn up except her, she looks frit as Mrs Thatcher would have

said, a cynical ploy by a politician who knows she is winning and doesn't

want to do it. But it made sense, didn't it? The argument is that if

you are out in front and you are the Prime Minister you have nothing to

gain from that in that sense. The notion is that people would

literally start turning on her as we saw to a certain extent on Amber

Rudd, and that's not a great look for a Prime Minister who is

basically refereeing a quarrel. Politically she took the decision

and it wasn't going to win her any votes ultimately so she didn't take

part. I kind of agree with Jack to a certain extent that it doesn't look

great. One reason why it doesn't for her in particular is that there have

been so many questions asked about her ability to

reach out to people and be personal. She goes to factories rather than

meeting voters in the way that Corbyn does and I think that is what

social media has tapped into. But the difference with this campaign,

social media plays a bigger role than it has done on previous

campaigns in the past so it quickly starts trends and the more they

build in momentum the more difficult it looks for her. So where was she?

We still don't know. When she was asked about it the day before she

said she had to spend time thinking about Brexit. I mean, come on,

that's ludicrous. And then she says I want to be out campaigning on the

ground and none of it is true, she wasn't doing an event last night,

she could easily have turned up if you'd wanted. I find it a bit

embarrassing that the Prime Minister can't... Except that she did send

Amber Road. Uninteresting strategy because we have seen Amber Rudd put

out again and again as the spokesman for the Prime Minister -- that is an

interesting strategy. That in the game is a gamble in itself. A number

of people have suggested that she might even become the next Prime

Minister after Theresa May, should things go pear shaped. She probably

did a better job than it Theresa May to be honest but that is because

Theresa May isn't good at this kind of thing and her advisers know it

and that was why it should was too scared to do it. We've heard she was

at Downing Street so maybe she was cooking dinner for Philip. She was

asked if she had watched it and she dodged the question twice, she

wouldn't even answer that straight. We'll leave that for a few seconds.

One of the most closely watched contests in this election will be

in Gower in south wales - the most marginal

The Conservatives won the seat from Labour last time around -

Bethan Lewis has been to meet the candidates.

Mumbles, linking Swansea to the Gower Peninsula.

No sign of the election here amongst the half-term busyness, but

this is the UK's most marginal seat.

The Conservatives' election taxi is back on the road, only two years

after former policeman and assembly member

Byron Davies took the seat in

the biggest shock of the Welsh results last time.

In this election he says he's not taking any notice

And I have to say, my vibes are good.

Unsurprisingly Brexit is high on the agenda.

In the last 2015 election we had something

in the region of just under 5000 people who voted for Ukip, many,

many of those that I have spoken to have said that they can only see

Theresa May as the person who will now take it forward.

Out and about in Gorseinon it's another day of

doorknocking for Labour's Tonia Antoniaz.

She's a former Welsh rugby international battling to take

Gower back for the party which held it for decades.

Any lessons you can take from the rugby pitch to

She says she's seen real examples of poverty

Seven years ago when we had the Conservatives in

Westminster, my life changed massively.

I'm a schoolteacher and I was on my own and basically

financially yes, I do have a good wage, but I was feeling the pinch.

Ukip were third in Gower last time but what's the message now we are

I believe Ukip has done extremely well by winning the referendum, but

All we have had since is the triggering of Article 50.

That alone is simply a useless piece of paper

unless it is acted upon and I believe only

a strong Ukip vote will

The Lib Dems came fifth here last time.

They say health, education, even fly-tipping

Council and Assembly responsibilities, but

still relevant to this election, says their candidate.

The monies come from the UK Government, as Lib

Dems for example we are pledging to put a penny on income tax to allow

for more monies to go to the NHS and to be given to the Welsh

Harri Roberts, I'm your Plaid Cymru parliamentary candidate.

For Plaid Cymru as well it is a challenge to

get their voice heard, but they argue voting Plaid

Labour are so disunited and ineffective and the Tories

represent nothing that will gain for Wales.

There may be a bit of tactical voting going on after

last time, but I'm absolutely convinced that the bigger the Plaid

Cymru vote, the more the other parties will have to listen to us.

Past experience suggests in this constituency more than any other

And here is the list of candidates standing in the Gower consistency.

Now Ellie is back with her balls. She has been on a tour of the UK

during this campaign. With her balls.

Today's she's been to the seaside resort of Skegness

to ask people if they've made their mind up yet

on who they will vote for in a week's time.

Have you decided who to vote for? She's decided. Labour. I've always

voted Labour. I decided about a week ago. I decided it better to keep

what we've got. Why are you undecided? Because they are all as

bad as one another and they make promises and it doesn't come off.

Will you vote? I haven't decided. He hasn't decided if he's going to make

a decision! I decide on the day, I'll just go and put an X on

whoever. We want to do what is best for the disabled and we are not yet

sure which party will do that, aren't we, Thomas. You've decided to

be undecided, fair enough. Because of the weak leadership of the Labour

Party of decided to vote for Theresa May for the first time ever, it's a

break with family tradition that you have to do what's best for this

country and Jeremy Corbyn isn't best. He knows what he's doing,

Theresa May just once and for herself, I don't think she

considering anyone else. But Iraq she just wants it for herself.

There's been too much on the news for me to take it in, that's why, I

think. Otherwise I would decide if I could understand it a bit more. I've

decided for quite a while, just listening to the policies of the

parties, forget the fighting between their politicians, it's policies

that's important. I've done by post already. Improperly decided. Yes.

They all in each other's pockets, it doesn't matter who is in government,

it doesn't affect me or my wages my house. You don't think it does? I

will vote for someone, I'm not sure who. Do you think you will make a

decision? Eventually but for now we are just having fun. I can see. The

good people of Skegness and those on holiday here have made their

decisions, the trouble is, I can't decide if it is the decideds or the

undecided Dexter who won the mood box today. The one thing I have

decided is that I need an ice cream. Thank you, Skegness. There's too

much on the news to take it all in. I'm with her. Ellie and her balls

there. We've all learnt to be a little wary

of the opinion polls after recent elections -

and now there might The last week's seen them predicting

widely different outcomes - from a huge Tory majority

to a hung parliament. Joining us is Joe Twyman,

Head of Political and Social research at the pollsters,

YouGov. Joining Caroline and Jack. It's good

to see you. Hi. YouGov, what's the latest thinking on what will happen

next week. Well we are not thinking about what is happening next week...

About what's happening now. We've conducted estimates for seat

distribution based on what the polling is showing at the moment.

And that's as we are looking at between 275 and 345 seats of the

Tories. They need 226 for majority so it could be a hung parliament, it

could be a small majority for the Conservatives. But on current

polling is not the sort of three figure majority that Theresa May and

the Tories hoped for at the start of the campaign when the election was

called. So a definite shift. Have you had a poll done since the debate

last night? Knox 's last night, we have updated our statistical model

but the next poll will be out in the next couple of days. -- not this

last night. Since last night several thousand new survey is going into

the model replacing some from a week ago, it is all complicated but the

upshot is that didn't change significantly. So why the polls so

all over the place? That depends how you mean, all over the place, yes

there has been a since the start of the campaign, not surprising given

that in 2015 we had five years to look forward to the delight of an

election and the last year that was one long campaign. This time we had

seven weeks to get to know the people, their policies and bouts of

thing. So perhaps not surprising that we've seen a lot of movement

but generally speaking we have seen seen the gap closing. The question

is, how far has that gap closed and that is where there is some

difference. If you look at the underlying data, who people are

voting for, when asked, if there was an election tomorrow, would you vote

for, that data is pretty much the same for all the pollsters. It shows

a small lead the Conservatives. Whoever you talk to, which method

you use, that is what it is showing. The reason the difference is when

adjustments are made for turnout. INAUDIBLE

Elements to this, which party people support and whether or not they will

turn out to vote. Two equally important elements, the adjustments

made what is causing the difference. I write. Caroline. We had Shadow

Foreign Secretary Emily Thornberry said there would be no deal in the

event of a hung parliament. Is that creeping into their minds that there

could be a hung parliament. Think that's the message they need to get

out because we don't want a rerun of 2015 with a story woods about

whether there would be a labour- SNP coalition and that was the message

we saw the Tories drumming home time. So Labour wants to get that

message out as early as possible that they want to do a deal with the

SNP so they can circumnavigate that argument. But there seem to have

been suggestions that Mr Corbyn hasn't run ruled out a coalition so

we are not sure what it all means and we'll learn more about this

coalition of chaos notion as we move further towards polling day, I am

sure. Are you hearing that they are thinking that there could be a hung

parliament? They've always thought there was a chance of getting that,

they were from such a low base, it was, what can we achieve in a snap

election with only weeks to campaign and certainly some people in the

Labour team were hoping they could do just enough to deny today made

that majority and then who knows what happens, she'd have to resign

so you won a big victory just by doing that. I must say spent a lot

of time speaking to candidates from the Labour and the Conservative

Party, people inside the campaigns today, and I can't find many people

who don't think the Tories will win. Everyone I speak to, knocking on

doors, this is not scientific, it's anecdotal, MPs making phone calls

all day and they say, I don't think it's going to happen and that is

from both sides. Great to have you all in. Thank you for joining us.

That's it for the Election Wrap today.

We'll be back at the same time tomorrow.

Huge contrasts in the weather today, we've