ANY QUOTES USED MUST BE ATTRIBUTED TO MURNAGHAN, SKY NEWS

DERMOT MURNAGHAN: Now over the coming weeks on Murnaghan I’m interviewing parliamentary candidates from the main political parties and finding out how they plan to change politics, this week it’s the Conservatives.  I’m joined now by Afzal Amin who is a British Army Captain and the Conservative candidate for Dudley North, a seat currently held by Labour; Andrea Jenkyns is the Conservative candidate in Ed Balls’ seat of Morley and Outwood and Craig Mackinley is the Conservative candidate in South Thanet, the seat where of course Nigel Farage is standing.  Craig is himself a former member of UKIP and for a short time was the party’s deputy leader.  A very good morning to you all, let’s start with you then Craig, you’ve gone the other way.  We are more used to Conservatives jumping ship and joining UKIP but you’ve got a hill to climb there, taking on Nigel Farage, given the current climate.  

CRAIG MACKINLAY: Not at all actually.  What we’re finding on the doorstep is that our pledged base is holding up and there was the Lord Ashcroft poll which a well-respected poll which last week gave us five points ahead, so no, we’re doing well down there, doing well indeed. What you probably want to know is why I left.

DM: What is the flaw with UKIP from your point of view, what have they got wrong?  

CRAIG MACKINLAY: It is a massively flawed party.  It used to have an academic base, that seems to have gone, everybody who was there from the early days has now gone and I think Andrea’s seat personifies exactly what my concerns were.  When I saw those results in 2010 that the UKIP vote was far more than the vote Ed Balls won by really puts into focus that voting UKIP can actually get a Labour …

DM: Well let’s bring Andrea in here, do you think voting UKIP could let Ed Balls keep his seat?

ANDREA JENKYNS: Yes, I think it’s possible but I am also finding on the doorstep that they are taking from Labour as well.  I have been canvassing where they have got some strong voters there and I have been finding a considerable amount are …  

DM: But are you finding, and I’ll bring in Afzad on this, are you finding that they are saying to you you’ve got it right on immigration given the Prime Minister’s pledge about cutting net migration to tens of thousands?  

ANDREA JENKYNS: Well I believe we’ve got it right with what we’re trying to do.  The biggest thing that I’m hearing, I mean it’s 96% a white British constituency so it’s a fear of immigration but what I’m finding on the doorstep…

DM: Do you think it’s an irrational fear?

ANDREA JENKYNS: I don't know about irrational, you’re talking to a Eurosceptic here but I do feel …

DM: But there is this point, isn’t there, there seems to be this fear of immigration is higher in areas actually with pretty low migration.  Afzal?

AFZAL AMIN: There is certainly a mixed bag across the country.  There are areas where immigration is very high, where there are jobs and the economy is improving and we heard the other day only that the reason so many people from Europe want to come to Britain is because the economy is doing so well and in my constituency in Dudley, the number of jobs being created is phenomenal.  I was at the Job Centre only last week and the manager there told me she has seen far more people going through work in the last two years than in the previous ten years and that’s fantastic news.

DM: So what are you fighting, it’s a small Labour majority?

AFZAL AMIN: My colleagues here have got celebrity opponents but I’ve got a very unknown opponent who is hanging on with a 649 majority and he is undoubtedly going to lose, in the last five elections their majority has gone down by 3000 every election and we expect that trend to carry on.

DM: But you have got the UKIP factor as well.

AFZAL AMIN: As has everybody and that is actually a welcome entry into politics because it’s focused our party and the Labour party on recognising on what voters actually want to hear from politicians.  

DM: Andrea, we are having the autumn statement, we’re going to hear form the Chancellor, the economy is doing well and I am going to give some money to the NHS.

ANDREA JENKYNS: If I can just say one more thing about UKIP though which is interesting, I met the PPC the other day standing in my constituency and on their leaflets they are saying they are the new voice to Labour so they are really targeting them.   So I do think it is going to be surprising come the election.  

DM: So Craig, do you think you are as a party cutting through on that core economic message?

CRAIG MACKINLAY: Oh very much so.  In my constituency it has had some figures that are pretty low down the list in the south-east, we’ve had 40% reduction in all of those measures, in unemployment, in youth unemployment, in new apprenticeships, if these things are now being felt then …

DM: We are nearly out of time, you are all going to tell me you are not out of touch, none of you have been members of the Bullingdon Club?

ANDREA JENKYNS: I started on the shop floor at 16 and worked my way up.   

AFZAL AMIN: We are certainly the party that is connecting with the people and at the end of it all, whatever the issues are, at the end when we elect the Westminster government we want a competent government and the only competent party at the moment is the Conservative party.

CRAIG MACKINLAY: I am putting myself up because I have real experiences, I am a chartered accountant and …

DM: You have to take a breath because you are coming back after the break so we have much more to discuss with these potential faces of the future as they say.  
Before the break if you were watching I was talking to a panel of prospective Conservative MPs and Craig Mackinlay, before the break I was getting you all to tell me about ordinary and how in touch you are.  Do you feel the current parliamentary set up has justifiably been accused of being out of touch with the general public?

CRAIG MACKINLAY: I don't think it has.  Just looking at the MP I currently have, Laura Sandys, who is standing down next time and hence I’m her replacement.  I’ve never known an MP that actually gets out in the community more than she does.  She’s very well respected, known by a vast number of the community, goes to every single event that she possibly can and if you look at her postbag that she gets, this is life in the real so I think for most constituency MPs they do know what’s happening out there, very much so and Westminster has been at times maligned.

DM: That’s interesting but is that communicating itself to the doorstep though?  One thing is for sure, Andrea Jenkyns, we need to see more of your gender in parliament.  

ANDREA JENKYNS: I’d like to see more Conservatives in parliament full stop really.  

DM: But it would help, would it not?  Craig was touching on it there, Laura Sandys, one of the female Conservatives leaving and there seems to be quite a few women who can’t take it anymore.  

ANDEA JENKYNS: I can’t comment on their individual decisions but I know what’s driving me into politics is just trying to change things.  I lost my dad in a hospital infection in a local hospital and some of the things I saw, I think that’s what drives most of us is personal experiences and wanting to change things.  

DM: But it would help wouldn’t it?  Are you one of those who say we should have more women in cabinet, more women on the front benches, the shadow front benches, we should have more women in parliament overall?

ANDREA JENKYNS: I’m not for all-women shortlists or anything like that to be honest with you, I think it should always be on merit.  I think that perhaps certain professions attract certain genders and we have got to make it more appealing to all genders really so I agree with that but I do think it should be on merit.

DM: Afzal, what do you think about that core point about being out of touch?  We have just been discussing on the programme David Mellor, the former chief whip Andrew Mitchell, Emily Thornberry, politicians from all parties seeming out of  touch with the general public.  

AFZAL AMIN: An observation we can make, and it is more stark with the Conservative party than any other party, is a positive move towards representing the nation as a whole.  Politics is following business very closely, more diversity in cultural, economic, social and gender terms than we’ve seen ever before and that’s very welcome but we must always stress the importance of merit.  When I was selected what my selection panel liked was that I had been to the local state schools, I’d left school without very good GCSEs, I’d worked as a manual labourer, my daughter was born and I then decided I’ve done something very serous and I applied to universities as a mature student and I got through university, I went to Sandhurst, got through Sandhurst, unheard of for somebody from the Black Country, and then I served eleven years in the army with four operational tours. This is what people like to hear, people with real experience.  

DM: Is it a sense of frustration for you all that at the top there is this small it seems Notting Hill clique, a lot of them went to top public schools, ended up in exclusive clubs when they went to university and one scenario for your party is you get one man who went to Eton and joined the Bullingdon Club replaced by another, is that a frustration for you?  Do people say to you on the doorstep, you Tories are out of touch when you have got stories like you have?

AFZAL AMIN: These are terrible caricatures and these are outdated.  What people recognise is competence and it no accident that a good schooling leads to high performance in work and if the cabinet is full of people who have been to the very best schools in our country we should look at what happened in the 13 years under Labour that that bridge wasn’t properly built between independent schools and …

DM: But Andrea Jenkyns, would you welcome George Osborne, the Prime Minister, the Mayor of London, would you welcome them up there if you are getting it in the neck on the doorsteps?

ANDREA JENKYNS: I have already had Osborne and Cameron and got a good response really.  If you look at West Yorkshire as a whole, the Conservative MPs, they are all from working class backgrounds, have worked in the real world and are representative of what it’s like up in West Yorkshire really so I think it’s up to us on the doorstep in our own individual constituencies to break these stereotypes.

CRAIG MACKINLAY: All of us as MPs have a very similar broad spectrum of backgrounds and as I say I went to a state school, my father was in business and I became a chartered accountant. Funnily enough I did a degree in zoology so I’ve got a wide range of experiences.  

DM: That may be very useful in parliament, you’d have an awful lot to examine there!

CRAIG MACKINLAY: But when people I speak to on the doorstep, they are more interested in me as a local candidate as I am going to actually serve them.

DM: But it’s not just about the schools you went to, the universities you went to and the jobs you did or maybe not before you got into parliament – Nigel Farage is a case in point, I’ve just been discussing that with Suzanne Evans their deputy leader.  Of course he went to public school, of course he worked in the City but he’s seen, he’s understood, you can’t deny it, all the polling tells us, as somebody who gets it, somebody who understands what ordinary people are going through.  

CRAIG MACKINLAY: That’s not entirely true on the doorstep.

DM: But that is how he is perceived.

ANDREA JENKYNS: My slogan in my campaign is actions speak louder than words.  I got elected 20 months ago, I’m getting into the community, I’m doing jobs fairs, I’ve been to the local prison working on schemes with this, I’ve been working with the youths in the area and it is really showing that we do care, getting into the community and we’re listening and actually trying to come up with solutions to issues in the area.  

DM: I just want to move back to the Autumn Statement, do you want to something coming out of the Autumn Statement that says we do understand that some of you have been left behind by this recovery, it’s been a bit stuttering so far but we want to signal to you that the fruits of recovery will come your way, Afzal?

AFZAL AMIN: I think that’s already happening on a practical level.  In Dudley for instance we have many thousands more jobs being created every few months.  In the West Midlands alone 176,000 new businesses just in the last two years, so these are all very positive signs so employment is going up, unemployment is going down even though in Dudley we have particular difficulties in the last ten years with this issue and I think that people are seeing that the fruits of four years of austerity and hard work for the nation as a whole are now bearing …

DM: But they have seen their wages depressed.  Okay, they may be in work but they are not getting as much money as they used to do, it has been eroded by inflation outstripping average wage rises, what do people say about that?

ANDREA JENKYNS: I have got to firstly say that the figures are looking good in the constituency, 40,000 people have had a tax cut, 5000 out of tax altogether so we are feeling it.  I agree maybe not to the levels we want to feel it and I’d like to see it going further but we have come through the worst recession in peacetime so …

DM: Is it all a bit too late for you Craig Mackinlay?

CRAIG MACKINLAY: I obviously wish some of the figures had come through a year earlier, these really good figures because people are not feeling wealthier at the moment and we are just this last month, we saw that wage rises are actually outpacing inflation  and Mark Carney said this week that that’s likely to accelerate next year.  Obviously it would have been nice if it had been a year ago but it is all really good news.  Just very briefly on the cost of living crisis, just think of the price of fuel at the moment.  I’ve noticed it, when I fill up my tank it’s about £8 or £9 cheaper than it was last year so these are really good signs as well.

DM: More to do with American fracking and OPEC than the Chancellor it must be said but thank you all very much, Craig Mackinlay, Andrea Jenkyns and Afzal Amin and as I said to our prospective Labour candidates last week, I would say good luck but I can’t!