ANY QUOTES USED MUST BE ATTRIBUTED TO MURNAGHAN, SKY NEWS

DERMOT MURNAGHAN: Now then, in a new poll for the Mail on Sunday suggests as many as four in ten UKIP supporters could vote Conservative to stop a Labour SNP deal.  The party has been winning support from both Conservative and Labour of course but will that translate at the ballot box?  I am joined now by UKIPs deputy chairman, Suzanne Evans, a very good morning to you.  I want to start first of all with the issue of the housing crisis because we’ve been talking about this Labour policy on rent controls but overall at UKIP you feel that part of the reason for the housing crisis is immigration don’t you?  

SUZANNE EVANS: It’s part of the reason and it’s a very pressing reason.  If you have got since 1997 an additional nine million people coming into the country, of course that’s got to be part of the mix and I think UKIP is the only political party that is actually being honest about the role that immigration plays but of course it is not just immigration, we are getting older as a nation, more of us are living on our own so we have to do something about it and UKIP I think has some very good policies, you go to our manifesto and you look at what we’re saying, we’re saying keep our green fields green, let’s not build on the countryside which unfortunately is too easy under the current planning law so let’s look at brown field sites.  So we’re offering grants to developers to be able to bring brown field site land up to scratch to be able to build on it and we think we have a very realistic proposal for that.

DM: On people having a lot of housing, there is an article here, you’ll have seen that, where you admit to having two and a third homes.  Do you rent any of them out?  What do you do?

SUZANNE EVANS: This is a ridiculous story.  I would like to be a Member of Parliament, I am standing for a seat as a Member of Parliament, I have a home in that constituency which I am very, very proud to have and I have long standing connections with that and of course I also have a home in London so in  a sense I am not doing anything very different from what most MPs do.  As far as the third…

DM: So you don’t rent any of them out?  

SUZANNE EVANS: I rent out the third property, the third section that I have.  

DM: So what are you making as a landlord?  

SUZANNE EVANS: Well to be honest actually, to be absolutely honest I am making absolutely nothing.  I am making a loss of around £200 a month because in fact the room that I rent out in that house is empty at the moment.  

DM: So you don’t think this Labour policy is any good?  

SUZANNE EVANS: No, it is absolute nonsense.  We actually looked … well first of all rent controls, all that happens is that if landlords can’t make enough money they won’t keep the property up to scratch. This has been tried in Cuba, it didn’t work, it was an absolute disaster.  As long as longer tenancies are concerned, that’s something that you can do anyway under existing legislation, you can roll things on.  We looked at actually in UKIP about possibly bringing in a medium hold tenancy but our lawyer said this is going to be extremely difficult to legislate for, leave well alone but it is a very populist idea that Ed Miliband has decided, never mind the complications, we are going to promise it anyway.

DM: Well a lot of populist ideas are around during an election campaign aren’t there?

SUZANNE EVANS: Indeed.  

DM: What about this latest poll that says that the Conservative message about the SNP and Labour in any form of potential alliance is actually appealing to as many as 40%, well a bit below that, of potential UKIP voters?  It’s working isn’t it?

SUZANNE EVANS: Well we could spin the story round the other way can’t we and say well six out of ten UKIP voters are absolutely determined, even if they perhaps live in seats where they don’t think UKIP can get a majority, that they are still going to carry on voting UKIP.  

DM: But isn’t Mr Cameron right in the core accusation that Labour and the SNP together would obviously give you no referendum and move Britain to the left.

SUZANNE EVANS: Well first of all I don’t believe for a moment that David Cameron is going to give us a referendum anyway.  He has promised a referendum in the past and has actually reneged on his promises.  It’s interesting, you interviewed him earlier, I watched that interview with great interest, he talked about some of the rubbish that comes out of his mouth during an election campaign and he said in that interview that the Conservatives were the only party that were going to lower taxes, all the others wanted to raise taxes, that’s clearly not true, UKIP is committed to lowering taxes.  He also said that the Conservatives were the only party that were standing a candidate in every part of the UK – again that’s not true and in fact UKIP already has representatives across the United Kingdom so Mr Cameron I think needs to make a new definition of what is truth and what isn’t.  

DM: You said you don’t trust Mr Cameron to deliver on a referendum, what about Boris Johnson?  If he is elected and if something happens with the Conservative leadership, is that someone that UKIP would like to deal with over Mr Cameron?

SUZANNE EVANS: I don’t think … there has been too much speculation about what’s going to happen after the general election.  The fact is, none of us knows and just to go back to the survey that …

DM: But we know it’s important who leads the Conservative party because we know your leader has said that Mr Cameron is one of his big problems.  If Mr Johnson were leading the Conservatives would that make a difference?

SUZANNE EVANS: Do you know, I don’t actually know what Nigel’s views are on Boris Johnson so I am certainly not going to sit here and try and guess them or pretend them.

DM: Well what are your views?

SUZANNE EVANS: I think that Boris has made a very interesting Mayor of London, I do not think he is PM material at all, personally.

DM: Interesting and while we’re talking about leadership and we’re talking about Mr Farage and he’s been talking about his health and he’s also been talking explicitly about how if he doesn’t manage to win a seat in the House of Commons he’ll stand down as leader of UKIP.  You were the face of UKIP at the manifesto launch and everyone said an impressive job you did, it’s something that you would have to go for isn’t it?

SUZANNE EVANS: Well I don’t think I am going to have to go for it because Nigel is going to win his seat in Thanet South, he is nine points ahead in the polls and interestingly done by the same company that the Mail on Sunday has done so I think he is streets ahead and the Conservatives might want to play it down, Labour might want to talk him down and I gather that the Labour and Conservative candidate have been photographed together trying to … if you are talking about coalitions maybe that’ll be it.  

DM: But your own ambitions and if you wanted to serve UKIP, if they wanted you and Mr Farage for other reasons, perhaps for health reasons, he doesn’t want to lead UKIP, you would throw your hat into the ring?

SUZANNE EVANS: His health is fine, his health is absolutely fine and whilst Nigel is leader he has my 100% support.  He’s a great leader, look what he’s done for this party over 22 years, battered, bruised, physically, verbally, in all manner of ways.  He is the man for the job and I can’t wait to see him parliament.  He has ripped them apart in the European parliament, imagine that man in the House of Commons …

DM: But if he says look, Suzanne, I’m standing down and I want you to carry on the mantle?  

SUZANNE EVANS: Well if he said that to me, of course I would, yes but he’s going to win and I cannot wait to see him in the House of Commons, he will really shake things up, it is a very exciting prospect.  

DM: All right, Suzanne Evans, thank you very much indeed, Deputy Chairman of UKIP there.