The Daily Politics

Sole UKIP MP Douglas Carswell insists he suggested UKIP leader Nigel Farage should take a break as leader, not that he should take a break from being leader. "It's important that, as leader, he takes a break, and I think it's important that we work out how these complex questions are answered by a team. No one person has all the answers."

The Daily Politics

Labour leadership candidate Mary Creagh is challenged as to why she is standing, as she is one of the less well-known candidates. "I'm standing because I think the party needs a fresh voice that can reach out to middle England, the suburbs that we lost, but also to our industrial heartlands, which have seen the changes of globalisation, the consequences of immigration, and feel that the Labour party has turned their back on them."

John Pienaar
Pienaar’s Politics

Jim Murphy "has been at the epicentre of the ideology that has alienated Scottish working class for years", Unite general secretary Len McCluskey says. "Not just in the election, not just in the referendum, but for years, since 2008, the SNP have been gaining ground, and Scottish Labour have displayed an arrogance that unfortunately led us to where we were at the general election."

John Pienaar
Pienaar’s Politics

On Jim Murphy's resignation, Len McCluskey, general secretary of Unite, says Mr Murphy blaming Mr McCluskey individually was "looking for a bogeyman as an excuse". He says: "I wasn't the one that lost Scotland to the SNP... It wasn't just Unite who called for him to step down. Unison, GMV, Aslef, CWU, a growing number of MSPs..." He adds that he doesn't hold a personal grudge against Mr Murphy.

The Andrew Marr Show

Education Secretary Nicky Morgan is asked: Will every single state school become an academy? "I would like to see many academies, we have made a pledge in the manifesto to have many more free schools as well... the best people to run schools are the heads, the unions, and the governors." 

The Andrew Marr Show

Nick Morgan is challenged that an education bill the Conservatives want to introduce will give the government powers to swiftly move in on "coasting" schools. She says: "Why is it that in some schools students are reaching their full potential, and in other schools they're not? Now, it may be down to leadership... where heads show they absolutely have the capacity to improve... we want to give them time to do that, but where it is clear that a school does not have the capacity or the plan... to help their students fulfil their potential... then yes, we will intervene, we will put in support, and yes, we will look at the academy model too."

Academies are better than local authority schools, says Education Secretary Nicky Morgan. "We can see in the results that actually students do do better in academies, both at key stage 2, that's the end of primary school, and also in GCSEs." They also give "power to heads and teachers" in running their schools, she says.

On calling for the EU referendum to be brought forward, Andy Burnham says: "It's clear the British interest is in staying in the European Union, but I am warning that we will only be able to win that argument if we have a credible package of reforms on immigration.. If David Cameron does not deliver it, then we will be sleepwalking to exit of the European Union."

Andy Burnham says Labour "allowed the deficit to get too high in the middle part of the last decade." He says: "When the [financial] crash happened, we weren't in a strong enough position." Nevertheless, Mr Burnham, who was chief secretary to the Treasury in 2007, said he conducted a spending review "where we had decided to grow public spending below overall growth in the economy, because we were beginning to see that this was a looming issue and we had to deal with the deficit, and bring it down."

On going back to New Labour policies, and moving further to the left: "both approaches are wrong", Andy Burnham says. "We've got to bring people back together." 

The Andrew Marr Show

Andy Burnham says he is the "change candidate" in the Labour leadership contest, rather than the continutity candidate "We've got to reach out to those voters who had doubts about us on immigration and on economic competence."

On the problems inside UKIP, Suzanne Evans says she doesn't think "anyone hates anyone" in the party. "We've had some problem with some advisers around Nigel who very much kept him in their pocket... but they've gone now." She adds that on the perception that the party is aggressive, the party has to address why there are "shy kippers" - "If our party brand is working at the moment, why don't people want to sing and dance about it?"

Andrew Marr
Presenter, The Andrew Marr Show

UKIP leader Nigel Farage is "on a knife-edge between being himself and being a parody of himself," Zoe Williams says. "His vow is to be the boss for the next 20 years."

Fraser Nelson says: "The point he is making is that UKIP may have 4 million votes, but it's still Nigel's party, it's still a one-man organisation."

The Labour party are "falling back into this really old channel - is it the unions, or is it the Blairites?" Zoe Williams, a columnist for The Guardian says, about Scottish Labour leader Jim Murphy's resignation. Murphy was characterised as Blairite - but what's important is that  - "nobody voted for him, so it doesn't matter what the party thinks of him".

Fraser Nelson, the Editor of The Spectator, says: "If unions don't like Jim Murphy, they do like Andy Burnham, who is now the front runner in the [Labour leadership] race."

Labour's Andy Burnham:

UKIP's Suzanne Evans:

and Education Secretary Nicky Morgan:

It's unclear what a "coasting" school actually is at the moment, Kevin Courtney, deputy secretary of the National Union of Teachers (NUT) tells BBC News. "For some people it seems to be suggesting that every school has to be above average, and that is statistically impossible." The NUT wants schools to improve, he says, but wants to look at evidence on how to improve schools. Good evidence was provided by a schools improvement scheme called the London Challenge, he says, but this scheme was dropped by the coalition government. He adds that there is "no convincing evidence" that academies improve standards. "This is serious error that the government is making. They are following something which has no evidence base."

BBC Radio 4

Image source, Getty Images

Labour must rediscover its fundamental purpose, says MP John Cruddas, in an interview with Radio 4 to be broadcast later on The World This Weekend. He says: "The question of political character is now more important than political policies, because people don't know who we are. There isn't that basic sentiment now, in and around Labour, so our candidates sometimes find it difficult to articulate a sense of purpose, vision, and we have to go back to fundamentally rethinking who and what we are."

A "coasting" school is one where "the results might be ok... but it's a school where the pupils aren't making as much progress, and I don't think that that's a satisfactory position," says Jonathan Simons from right-wing think tank Policy Exchange, which supports the government proposals on schools. "Parents should be pleased by this, because this isn't necessarily just about poor schools, or schools in challenging areas. There can be some very leafy schools... where the schools aren't making satisfactory progress."

BBC Breakfast

There is a "real struggle" going on at the heart of the Labour about how it should rebuild itself after its "shattering defeat" at the polls last week, political correspondent Carole Walker tells BBC Breakfast. "Interesting to hear John Cruddas, who played such a key role in drawing up the Labour manifesto, saying its not enough just to come up with a series of 'micro-policies'," Carole says. Mr Cruddas said it's not just about reaching out to aspirational voters, but Labour also needs to win back core voters too.