24/04/2017 Look East

Hello, I'm Tom Williams. pro-Brexit MPs in the election.

Here in the East, he came, he saw,

Why this millionaire has pulled

out of the election race for Clacton.

And 60 years after his first Guineas win, a legend

of horse racing returns to Newmarket.

And it may be late April, but winter is not done with as yet. I will have

the weather forecast at the end of the programme.

It's been a day of twists and turns in the

general election, with one of Britain's biggest party donors

changing his mind over standing as an MP.

On a visit to Clacton today, Arron Banks had hoped to persuade

Ukip supporters to choose him as their candidate for June eighth.

But the multimillionaire has withdrawn from the race.

It seems the combination of wealth and influence failed to win

Mr Banks said tonight, "I have no intention

"hard-working activists who are the soul of the party".

This afternoon, Arron Banks was a picture of confidence, posing for

the photographers, meeting voters, and appealing to be looking forward

the photographers, meeting voters, and appearing to be looking forward

Everyone has got a sense of humour, which they are

clearly going to need if I am standing here.

In political circles, he is well-known

as the man who bankrolled Ukip, a close friend of Nigel Farage.

The media were very excited about him

standing here, but there was an obvious problem.

His day began meeting party members over sandwiches and

He told them he wanted Ukip to win here

again, and he wanted to be the candidate,

but they told him they already had a local person in the frame,

and afterwards when we spoke, this was clearly playing on

There is a very good local candidate.

I am not just going to rush in here and take over from him,

And if there is a local candidate, you will still support him?

What I said in the meeting was, that Clacton is Ukip's

number one seat, and I will be financially supporting them come

Obviously, there are unquestionable benefits to

someone like Mr Banks coming to Clacton and being the candidate.

It would be among them, certainly, but

you cannot ignore his media expedience, that is important.

But I think also what came out there was

the need perhaps for a local element.

Tonight, Mr Banks issued a statement, saying it would be

wrong to stand in the way of a good local candidate,

and he promised the local party his full support.

The question now is, can Ukip win again

After the last one, when everyone, I was quite

leaflets and things out in their garden, "Vote Ukip".

I think that Douglas Carswell won because he was

a good local MP, I don't think it was the Ukip factor,

so I think it is quite false to say that this is a Ukip area.

For Mr Banks, it has all been a bit embarrassing today, but

at least he got an ice cream out of it.

Earlier, I asked our political correspondent, Andrew Sinclair,

how much of a blow this turn of events was for Ukip.

Looking at the amount of media attention there was for Arron Banks

today, it was very clear that if he had become Ukip's candidate,

Clacton and Ukip would have got a lot of

attention in the forthcoming election, and that probably won't

happen as much now, but Ukip have done OK out of this, because

for a start, they have got Arron Banks' money.

He has promised to give them financial support in this

He has also promised to go down and campaign for them on

several occasions, along with Nigel Farage, so that is a big

On top of that, he has also promised his support for

Ukip, and that will go down very well with the Ukip hierarchy,

because a couple of months ago, he was talking about going off and

forming his own political party, because he had fallen out with Ukip.

Now he is back on board again, and in the Ukip hierarchy tonight,

a lot of people will be breathing a sigh of relief.

And all this confusion, is this basically because the

general election caught everyone by surprise?

Yes, particularly those in Labour, Liberal Democrat and Ukip,

even though their party leaders had put them last September on an early

election footing, this has caught many people short, and so all over

the region at the moment, there are a lot of hurried

meetings going on, about, "Where do we find a candidate from?"

"Do we have the right sort of candidate?"

"Can they take time off work to fight an election?"

Those meetings are going to continue for the next week or so, because

everyone, as you said, has been caught by surprise.

Meanwhile, in Colchester, the former Liberal Democrat MP

confirmed he would be trying to win his old seat back.

Sir Bob, who's now 71, lost in 2015 to Will Quince.

He'll have to overturn a 5,500 Conservative majority.

Farmers in the region say rain is desperately needed,

after the UK's driest six months in 20 years.

In places, there's been no significant rainfall since February.

Irrigation has begun months ahead of schedule to save some crops.

You can see over this site, that we have irrigated

ready for planting. Yet, over here, where it has not had

any irrigation, you can see that it is very sandy.

There is nothing at all in the soil here.

And this is a direct result of months and months of no rain.

Every year, they grow thousands of bedding plants, shrubs,

and trees at Swans Nursery near Woodbridge.

The start of this growing season has been far from

normal. Months earlier than usual,

they have had no choice but to irrigate.

We would lose our stock, we would lose our plants, there would

not be anything here for us to go on with.

We have overhead irrigation and trickle irrigation here.

Trickle irrigation on most of the containers that you can see

behind me here, it just uses less water.

At this farm, they have been irrigating

autumn and spring cereal crops, something they would not normally do

Met Office data shows that between October last year and

March this year was the driest in the UK for 20 years,

During that period, the region had just over 251

That makes it the 19th driest spell since 1910.

Getting this sugar beet crop to germinate

now it is at risk of damage from sand, stirred up by a biting wind.

We have had a below average rainfall since the end of last year, and no

significant rain, certainly in this part of Norfolk, for the past six or

Growers are well used to the vagaries of our weather, but

all say just some rain soon, even if it is short lived,

Now, would you believe this fresh faced chap is a 12-year-old

Lester Piggott, who'd just won his first race?

70 years on, he's guest of honour tonight

celebrating the life of the greatest jockey of all.

With the first Classics of the season,

The Guineas, less than two weeks away,

He is a racing great, a sporting icon, and tonight, once again,

Lester Piggott is the toast of Newmarket.

Now 81, Lester is a special guest at the launch of the

British Champions Series, with a new exhibition

on show at the National Heritage Centre, 60

years after his first Guineas triumph,

And Lester Piggott is drawing ahead yard by yard,

He was the big favourite in the race,

and he was always going to win quite easily.

Last year, it was Hugo Palmer that struck gold in

the 2000 Guineas with Galileo Gold, handing the local trainer has first

What it has meant is that we have got more clients and

more horses this year, which is very exciting,

entirely a numbers game, racing, having 40 or 50 more horses, there

is a chance that within those 40 or 50, there is going to be another

This year, all eyes are on another racing legend, Frankel.

In fact, it is the stallion's babies that are the centre of attention.

His foals are now three, all grown up, and part of the Classic

Being the first British Classics of the year,

they're the type of races that everybody wants to win,

and I think the added excitement of this year is the fact

that Frankel's children, both girls and boys,

will be competing in the 1000 and the 2000 Guineas.

Back in the yard, Hugo has 12 days to decide whether

Either way, he has memories to last a lifetime.

After all, he is flat racing's greatest ever jockey.

That's all from me and the late team.

I'll leave you with the weather from Dan Holley.

It is going to be cold over the next few days, watching a cold front

moving its way southwards over today, bits and pieces of rain

earlier which has cleared now. A run of northerly winds behind, bringing

some Arctic are southwards. It is clear out there from any of us

tonight, but also quite cold, a futures of the north-east of

Norfolk, which could be wintry. It is good to be a chilly night with

widespread frost and temperatures below zero. A bright start tomorrow,

though, and as we go through the day, the cloud will bubble up, some

showers could be heavy with sleet and thunder. Some sunshine in

between, ten of 11 Celsis, but it will feel quite chilly through the

day tomorrow. On Wednesday, another day of sunshine and April showers,

could be some hail mixed in as well. Temperatures will be subdued as a

result. We have this warm weather from swapping its way southwards on

Thursday, a dry start and a frosty start with some sunshine, but we

will eventually get some showery rain working its way southwards, but

also with some less cold here. Temperatures as high as 13 on

Friday. One or two isolated showers on Friday, which could be heavy and

slow moving, but very few of those to dark about. As we head into the

bank or the weekend, Saturday mainly dry, temperatures back up into the

mid teens. Sunday, some rain moving in from the west which could linger

into Monday. course, there'll be the threat of

some rain. More with the national forecast now.

Good evening. It's been turning colder from the north so far today.

It's been cold enough for significant snow in northern

Scotland. This was mid afternoon. More recently it's been blowing

around over the tops of the mountains. Snow in April not

necessarily unusual but it's usually unwelcome. The colder air coming in

behind the front which clears towards the near continent, opening

the floodgates to this Coldstream of air all the way from the Arctic.

That cold air increasingly cold air will spread its way across all parts

tonight and will be with us tomorrow and Wednesday as well. A cold night

ahead of us. A widespread frost developing and further wintry

showers. Most in Scotland and the north-east of England too. Cold

winds as well. Maybe a few wintry showers in Northern Ireland and

Wales, maybe the odd few into the Midlands. Clear skies, windy and

cold. Major