Miliband on Today programme – live

Rolling coverage of all the day’s political developments including prime ministers questions 8.20am: Humphrys turns to other subjects. Q: Did Labour get it wrong on immigration? Miliband says Labour significantly underestimated the number of EU migrants who would come to Britain. It’s a class issue. The arrival of Polish builders is good of people who need a builder. But not for anyone who works as a builder. Immigration will contribute to the economic and culture life of Britain, he says. But the problem arises when politicians make false promises. David Cameron is promising to control immigration. But he can’t control the numbers coming in from the EU. The government’s proposed cap is a “very dubious thing”. Q: Are too many people coming into the country? Miliband says you cannot make that judgment. It depends what the economic circumstances are at the time. Cameron’s plan for a cap is not realistic. And it would not be good for British people working abroad. Q: Will your nose operation make you sound different? Miliband says he does not know. He hopes not. But he is having the operation for medical reasons. Humphrys concludes the interview by thanking “David Miliband”. Oh no. Another Humphrys gaffe. He’s not having a good slip. Miliband laughs it off, describing it as a “Freudian slip”, although he must find this a bit humiliating. I’ll post a full summary of the interview in a moment. 8.15am: Q: Why did you not change the voting system when you were in office? Miliband says: “We should have done.” He argued for putting a commitment to an AV referendum in the manifesto. But it didn’t happen earlier because Labour had “too big a majority”. Humphrys says this shows that Labour were motivated by party advantage. Miliband says he is giving an honest answer. Q: People understand first past the post, don’t they? Miliband says AV is an “equally simple system”. Q: But Cameron said yesterday that under AV people have their vote counted twice. Miliband says Humphrys got into “a bit of a tangle” over this. Cameron was wrong. Everyone has their vote counted when votes are counted for a second time. Q: Do you support PR? Miliband says he is not in favour of PR. He supports the constituency link. Q: Would a vote for AV be the end of electoral reform? Yes, says Miliband. “That’s the system I want.” Q: If you lose, is it over for a generation? Miliband says he does not want to speculate on the result. But if the yes camp lose, “we won’t be coming back to this quickly.” 8.10am: John Humphrys is interviewing Ed Miliband. They’re starting now. Q: Why can’t you persuade your own party to support AV? Miliband says Labour has been split on electoral reform for 80 years. But he’s in favour because it would change the political culture. It would force parties to reach out to others. Q: You talk about reaching out. But you were not prepared to share a platform with Nick Clegg? Miliband says he did not want the AV campaign to become a referendum on any individual. He did not share a platform with Clegg because that would damage the campaign. People were “shocked” by what Clegg did at the election. He posed as a politician of the centre left, but then went into government and supported policies that he had opposed. Q: But didn’t Vince Cable, with whom you have shared a platform, do this too? Miliband says Clegg was the “poster boy” for the new politics. But he has broken his promises, showing that he exemplifies the worst of old politics. Q: But so did Cable. Miliband says this is the decision he has made. 8.08am: There’s one day to go until the elections and Ed Miliband will be on the Today programme at 8.10am for an interview. He will be mainly talking about the alternative vote. Miliband is in favour of AV, but today there is a ComRes poll in the Independent showing the no camp 32 points ahead . And we’ve got PMQs at 12pm. Otherwise it looks quite quiet. That will probably suit most MPs. They were here until 4am this morning debating the finance bill. As usual, I’ll be covering all the breaking political news, as well as looking at the papers (I didn’t have time yesterday, but I don’t think you missed much because they were dominated by Osama bin Laden stories) and bringing you the best politics from the web. I’ll post a lunchtime summary at around 1pm, and an afternoon one at about 4pm. Alternative vote AV referendum Elections 2011 PMQs House of Commons David Cameron Ed Miliband Andrew Sparrow guardian.co.uk

Posted by on May 4, 2011. Filed under News, Politics, World News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.