ANY QUOTES USED MUST BE ATTRIBUTED TO MURNAGHAN, SKY NEWS

DERMOT MURNAGHAN: Now how worried should the Labour party be about the threat from UKIP?  Labour lost votes to Nigel Farage’s party in the local elections last week as did the Conservatives and the Lib Dems, so should Ed Miliband take a stronger line on key issues like immigration?  In a moment I’ll speak to the Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary, Rachel Reeves but first I am joined for his thoughts by the Labour MP for Rochdale, Simon Danczuk, a very good morning to you Mr Danczuk.  We saw how well UKIP did in your area, do you think your party has got its reading of and response to UKIP wrong?

SIMON DANCZUK: I wouldn’t say they have got the response wrong but I think it could be better and I think the reasons UKIP did particularly well are in a number of respects.  First of all I think they do well where politicians of all parties are too relaxed and don’t engage with the electorate in their area so UKIP have made gains in that respect.  I also think they have been having what you would call a passionate conversation with the electorate and we’ve been too much about sloganeering and being on message and I think a more passionate conversation with the electorate has done UKIP well.  I also think that we could do better in terms of strengthening our policies around immigration and around welfare and I think that resonates with the electorate and I think we’ve lost votes because of that. 

DM: Okay, so tell me, give me some practical ways you think that Labour could act on immigration. 

SIMON DANCZUK: Well I think we have to be stronger about it.  If you take places like Rochdale as an example, it’s quite clear that there is some unfairness about it.  We have a disproportionate number of asylum seekers being places in Rochdale, that will apply to a lot of other towns and cities across the country as well, a lot of Eastern Europeans coming into the town.  We have a very good history of immigration in Rochdale, a lot of tolerance but it’s about fairness and there has been a consensus amongst politicians that all immigration is good.  Well that’s clearly not the case and the public don’t believe that either so we need some more practical solutions in terms of addressing these concerns.  We need a stronger border force, we need to be able to get people who are illegally coming into the country out of the country more quickly.  We have to look at how we define Britishness, should it be acceptable to have dual nationality, more around the English language.   We should be looking at housing allocations and benefit allocations in terms of Europeans coming into the country so we need a stronger policy in my view, it’s about fairness.

DM: Okay but do you think there is still a tendency within your party that you referred to it that there are people who think all immigration is good, do you think there is still a tendency within the Labour party who think that people like Gillian Duffy are bigots when they speak out about immigration? 

SIMON DANCZUK: Well that’s right and people have been labelled as racist.  I don't think immigration is about race at all actually, it’s more about class, it’s about working people not getting a fair deal and people in Rochdale, who are very tolerant, we are a very cohesive community but there real pressures on education, on schooling, real pressures in terms of housing and people are fed up with this.  There is competition in terms of employment, wages are being pushed down and I think it is incumbent on politicians of all parties, but I’m interested in the Labour party, about talking a language that clearly resonates with hard working people so that they know we’re on their side and I think that there is more we can do in that regard.

DM: Okay Mr Danczuk, thank you very much indeed, very good to talk to you.  Simon Danczuk in Rochdale and as I said we’ve got lined up waiting for us Rachel Reeves, she’s the Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary, a very good morning to you there in the rain, Rachel Reeves.  Listening to Simon Danczuk, do you think that Labour hasn’t quite got it right, there has got to be much more straight talking, much clearer particularly about its message on immigration?

RACHEL REEVES: I’m sympathetic to a lot of what Simon has just said and as somebody who has been out knocking on doors in Croydon and Leeds and Great Yarmouth in the last few weeks, I do understand what voters are saying to us about the pressures on them and their families in terms of jobs, in terms of housing and yes, in terms of immigration as well.  We have to listen to those concerns.  Now we won over 330 seats in the council elections on Thursday so we are doing some of the right things and we are moving in the right direction but we do need to understand why people are voting for UKIP and as Simon says, making the emotional case as well as the policy case for why they should be voting Labour, with policies like for example strengthening the minimum wage, enforcing the minimum wage, cutting down on the exploitative use of zero hour contracts, guaranteeing access to see your GP and yes, taking tough action on immigration as well like strengthening the Border Agency and border police, as Simon stressed in his interview.

DM: But would you say that you didn’t quite get that listening and understanding right before the election?  There seemed to be confused messages, not mixed messages but confused messages coming from different leaders, different senior figures within your party, are they or are they not racist, are they right or wrong about immigration – and you clearly think they’re wrong about leaving Europe. 

RACHEL REEVES: … more than 330 seats last week and that is fantastic news for a party that is seeking to be the government across the country in just a year’s time but of course we’ve still got more work to do.  There were two main things that were coming to me on the doorstep wherever I was in the country, the first is that people feel incredibly let down by this Conservative led government and of course by the Liberal Democrats as well but also that there was an alienation and a frustration with politics in general and people have this frustration, they don’t feel that politics can change anything.  Now we’ve got to do more to explain our policies and show them that we are on their side and that is work in progress, more to do before the next election but we are clearly moving in the right direction  with those fantastic gains from Croydon to Amber Valley, Hastings to Watford in the elections last week.

DM: Let me talk to you about leadership because as I mentioned and as you know well, eight years ago you stood in a by election which Nigel Farage also stood in, we’ve just got a bit of it here, back in 2006 and there you are, two down from Mr Farage, very calm and applauding very politely but he actually beat you in that election didn’t he, he finished ahead of you.  He didn’t win of course but do you understand then, having seen him campaign, do you understand part of his appeal?

RACHEL REEVES: I do, in Bromley and Chislehurst in 2006 the Conservatives just held on to that seat, one of the safest seats for the Tories in the country and yet they only won it by a whisker actually over the Liberal Democrats, I don’t imagine the Lib Dems are doing too well in Bromley or anywhere else at the moment but I do understand why people vote for UKIP.  Part of the reason is about Europe, part of it is about immigration but also a lot of it is about saying a plague on all your houses, we don’t trust politicians, let’s give somebody else a chance.  Labour need to show that we are the insurgents, that we are the party with the policies where we are going to make a difference to you and your family’s lives, whether that is strengthening the minimum wage, freezing the gas and electricity prices, increasing the number of apprenticeships, improving the National Health Service which has suffered so much under this Conservative led government.  So we are moving in the right direction but we have to understand and respect people who vote for other parties and do more to win their trust.

DM: It’s about leadership though as well, to get that message across and having seen Nigel Farage up close and personal on the doorstep, he’s got an easier way than your leader hasn’t he, in talking to people in plain language?

RACHEL REEVES: I’m not sure about that.  I mean Nigel Farage hasn’t come under anything like the scrutiny that the leader of the opposition is going to come under and that is right and fair, Ed Miliband is seeking to be Prime Minister at the next general election and I think even in his wildest dreams Nigel Farage doesn’t believe that that is on the cards but Ed has shown incredibly strong leadership whether it is standing up to the vested interests of the gas and electricity companies, whether it is standing up to the vested interests of the press and the media barons, whether it is saying to businesses you have got to pay your workers more.  So Ed is a strong leader, he’s made tough decisions, he’s reformed the Labour party and within four years after an incredibly damaging defeat in 2010, we’re back in there and there is all to play for in the next election.  I think that Ed will do it, I think the Labour party will be the government in a year’s time and that’s down to Ed’s leadership.

DM: Well you would, wouldn’t you but that’s the feeling from parts of the Labour leadership but you’ve seen the polling haven’t you, when people focus down on who will make the best Prime Minister, David Cameron is streets ahead of Ed Miliband and there are those in your party who say he is costing your party momentum, at the underperformance in these local elections, that he’s a drag on Labour.

RACHEL REEVES: I just don’t buy the idea that it was an underperformance in the elections last week.  Hammersmith and Fulham, Croydon, Hastings, Bradford, here in Leeds, strong results, winning in those marginal seats like Lincoln, like Hastings, like Amber Valley, like in Croydon, that we need to win back if we are going to form the government at the next election so look, we are doing something right.  Ed is winning back people who left the Labour party in 2010 and with results like we secured in the election last week we are on course to win the next general election and the poll that came out from Lord Ashcroft that you’ve been reporting earlier on Sky today also shows that the marginal seats that are key to victory for any party in 2015, Labour are on course to win.

DM:     Okay, Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary, Rachel Reeves, thank you very much indeed and thank you for coping with that bucketing rain, it played a little bit of havoc with some of the sound there but not too much thankfully.