An ecstatic crowd in london wait to cheer a fresh face young politician in a huge rally, bedecked with red white and blue flags. Hes emmanuel macron, and hes running for french president. Not sincejeremy corbyns Leadership Rallies has there been such enthusiasm for a political leader in the uk, and even british Liberal Remainers are pinning their hopes on him. Well ask two british centrist politicians if they are for him, and if his politics are for us. Also tonight, is this the reason why Hiv Infection rates are plummeting among gay men . We went back over all our new Hiv Diagnoses and each month we looked, it was the same. And we just couldnt believe it. But then we asked our colleagues in other clinics in london and they said the same thing. So we thought it is true, its real. And is the nhs The Last Bastion of communism . Four hours for emergency care, two months to start Cancer Treatment and six months for a routine operation. Lets stop trying to fix it, lets totally change the model. Hello. French politics has never been more interesting. For one thing, Marine Le Pen is the leading candidate in Opinion Polls for the first round of the president ial election. No one can dismiss her as fringe anymore. But her opponents make the race interesting too. In the final round of election, le pens rival is expected to win. And the leading opponent just is emmanuel macron. He is interesting because he has the potential to redefine liberal politics in europe. Hes young, hes an outsider with a new party, and today, he was in london. His message might appeal to the many french voters in the uk, but for that dispirited group of british Liberal Remainers here, he seems to have quite a bit of appeal too. Theyd queued around the corner to see the french politician everybodys talking about. Is he the europeanjustin trudeau . Is he a Potential Beachhead in the fight against the populist far right of Marine Le Pen . Macron look whos here. There is a lot of liberal hope being invested in his politics. He looked very comfortable here in london, and in a way he fits the grand liberal british tradition. He is socially liberal, believes in same sex marriage. He is economically liberal, hes against the french 35 hour week. And he is an unashamed globalist. He is the antithesis of donald trump. What i like best about macron is that he is not of the right. Not of the far right. Where we are now in politics, anybody who can win who is not of the right and who will fight off the right is an asset. Its a second order issue precisely what policies are, what we know is that hes not racist, he is pro european, he is socially liberal. And he will fight off some of the dark forces in france and across europe. Hello to everyone. This is a message for american researchers. He has a canny political sense for appealing to liberals. I do know how your new president now has decided to jeopardise your budget, your initiatives, as he is extremely sceptical about climate change. Please, come to france. You are welcome. Its your nation. We like innovation. Now, the French Election comes to a showdown between the top two candidates. Current poll ratings say he would be one of them and then he goes on to win. Which raises an interesting question. If he is so popular in france, why isnt there a british version of him . Could he or his ilk make it over here . In some ways, our old Party Loyalties disguise the changing patterns of politics here. Conservative anna soubry is surely closer to say, the centrist alanjohnson in labour, than she is to jacob rees mogg, in her own party. Alanjohnson must be surely closer to her or to nick clegg in the lib dems than he is to his own leaderjeremy corbyn. And you could even argue a slew of Big Name Conservative and labour mps are natural allies these days. And they have a minority segment of the public behind them. Over the last year it is clear the old ideas about left and right are not sufficient to fully understand politics in britain, in france and across developed democracies. And so in yougov we have looked at the new tribes emerging from politics. And we have found that with 37 in france and 37 in britain, its the pro eu, internationalist moderates, this centrist group, who are actually the largest single group. And they support the eu, they support controlled immigration and they support a globalised world. And the question now is can macron in france or indeed any candidate in britain or france sufficiently capture enough of those people to win . The problem for british centrists is not just that theyre stuck in three different parties, the Voting System makes it hard for a new party to break through. A new approach to politics. Memories of the old sdp, a macron esque party of the early 80s, instil fear in those wanting to break the mould. It came close. But not nearly close enough. As for macron, no one really knows if he is a winner yet, let alone a good president. But for liberals, feeling pretty battered, he is reviving their spirits. Well, conservative ed vaizey was Culture Minister from 2010 16 and labour mp Alison Mcgovern is the chair of progress a labour think tank which has been associated with new labour in the past, and now describes itself as an organisation which aims to promote a radical and progressive politics for the 21st century. Weve got you both here because we think you are pretty similar in your politics even know you are in different parties. You are going to concoct an argument between yourselves. Do you like macron, alison . Tempting though it is to draw conclusions about whats happening in france, the parallels are limited because there is a totally different system in france. The internal dynamic that happens because of their system isnt necessarily applicable. Im keen that we have lots of european cooperation, despite brexit, because my constituents jobs depend on it but having a direct read across from what is happening in france isnt really possible. But basically, you know, on the big issues, you are in the same places . On things like the idea that in a world where most companies of any size are multinational, i think that european cooperation is the right thing and im pretty sure he would agree. I think he would. Yeah. Lets put the same question to you, you have met macron . I spoke to him a couple of times, once when he was wooing Tech Companies in london about a year ago, when it was still a part of the European Union and French Companies were flowing over here. Hes very charismatic and i like a lot of what he says and a lot of his policies for france. For me as a centre right politician, very attractive policies, attacking the 35 hour week, deregulating the labour market, which urgently needs doing. Whether he will succeed if he wins is another question. Interesting to see Polly Toynbee endorsing him as the only backstop to stop Marine Le Pen. Hes in that position by accident because the Fillon Campaign has imploded but would she say the same thing about that, supporting anybody who would stop le pen . She is more enthusiastic about macron. Lets get to the real gist of this, should you be in the same party . No, no. Absolutely not. Im kind of im a left wing politician. As much as i think we should modernise our ideas and look to the future, for me, the nature of politics is about where you come from, what youre shaped by, who you listen to, and thats very different across the two parties. We have a different system in britain. Yeah, i understand the conservative party and labour party are different, but im wondering if you are closer to ed than jeremy corbyn. Lets be absolutely honest here. Im a Labour Politician and i walk through the lobbies Withjeremy Corbyn to oppose a lot of what the tories did which has put the economy in a mess that when it came to the brexit vote, they had to protest against David Cameron and George Osborne for what they have done. Im afraid ijust i dont buy the idea that, you know, theres a sort of centre where we are all the same. We have a different system. You arent all the same, its just that the differences between new two are smaller than those differences between your leaders. The natural coalition may not be between your leader, but it may more naturally be between you and other people in the centre. So where i think there is an important point to that argument is that the debate we are in in britain at the moment, is like, everything in politics is being flown to the ends. Blown. Brexit seems to have given a lot of power to people on the hard right and the far right and i think thats problematic because they dont represent the interests of the majority of people in our country. Getting issues like, you know, schools funding, things like that, on the agenda can be really difficult because brexit is sweeping Everything Else out the way. That is where i think theres a very good point. Do you think you should be in the same party as alison, ed . I agree on the point that brexit has thrown up talk of some kind of crazy political realignment. Maybe there will be a Brexit Remainer realignment over the next there years. But people have been talking about a third way for 20 years or so. People forget, theres a tendency, especially for remainers like me to characterise brexiteers as these insular, non globalist parochial politicians but Boris Johnson is a liberal, open the globalist, michael gove keeps a copy of tony blairs autobiography on his Bedside Table and refers to blair as the master. So then why on earth did they find themselves campaigning alongside the likes of nigel farage, if thats true . This is what i dont understand about the conservative party. Campaigns can make unusual bedfellows as we see Polly Toynbee backing emmanuel macron, she properly disagrees with his policies, to prevent something. Remainers like me must understand why people voted for brexit. I feel very strongly the way it has shifted, over the last few weeks. The remainers had given ground. Not saying we are going to fight the referendum all overagain, were saying we want a relationship with europe and we will campaign for that. That reaches back to borisjohnson and michael gove who believe in free trade, open trade, and also, david davis in tomorrows times is talking about keeping Immigration Levels high because of the skills we need. It will lead to a million arguments about whether we should be detaching ourselves or not. The argument isnt over. The nature of our relationship. It isnt clear what those people really think. You say they are interested in openness and working with our european colleagues but theyve done nothing to bring about that vision. Isnt the real vision that you as a centralist, remainer tory, you are harbouring hopes that the tory party is essentially an open party, socially liberal, a macron party, you hope that theresa may is the british macron . I think theresa may can be the british macron. If i was going to critique the last six months, and i said this in the debate on the article 50 bill, i hope the government changes its rhetoric and recognises that 48 of people voted to stay in europe because they have that globalist and open agenda. I think theresa may has that opportunity. I think the article 50 bill has given her exactly what she perhaps didnt want, an opportunity to rally people behind the fact that we are leaving europe and forcing people like me to accept that and say, what is our relationship with europe . Now is a chance for the government to build beaches to people who have these concerns. In that debate a number of reasonable amendments were put down to the bill which would shape, make for representations on behalf or people who voted league and remain about the brexit they wanted and all i can remember is the tory mps cheering as it was announced that the bill had passed without amendment. Rhetoric is important but actually, deeds matter too and were going to face the kind of brexit that is really damaging to british interests. It used to be said the sdp split the vote on the left and kept the tories in power. Is it possible to say the Tory Labour Duopoly has split the votes of the centrists . I think all Political Parties are a coalition because of the system that we have in this country, first past the post and that dictates the coalition. I would not be in the same party as alison because i do not think the state is the answer to our problems or higher spending or taxes. But the funny thing is i have watched tories in power over the past six years running down Public Services and doing real damage to their economic prospects for ordinary people. For most people who think about politics for two minutes a week, those are the things they want us to focus on. Thank you both. There has been a dramatic and under reported change to the number of new Hiv Infections among gay men in the uk. The good news is that in 2016, the rate of infection plummeted. Its not because a vaccine was invented, it appears to be down to new uses of drugs. Quickly treating those who are recently diagnosed as hiv positive, stops them being so infectious. And then there is the use of Pre Exposure Prophylaxis or prep. A drug for treating hiv turns out to be good at preventing it too. The moment i was told i had hiv, it was confusing, i suppose. They said to me, your test has come back positive. And so without saying, you are hiv positive, it took me a couple of moments to really understand what that meant. I never want anyone to go through what i had to go through in 2014. I almost died, i was in hospital for a week after my diagnosis. We first looked at the graphs, we thought no, it cant be true. So we went back over all our new Hiv Diagnoses and each month we looked, it was the same. And we just couldnt believe it. But then we asked our colleagues in other clinics in london and they said the same thing. And so we thought, it is true, its real. There is actually truly a reduction in new Hiv Diagnoses. And i cant get across to you how excited we were because initially, we didnt believe it. But now we know that its true. The most significant thing thats happened in that time is that we found that a lot of people who are really high risk who come to our clinic were taking prep. So prep means basically giving people who are really high risk for hiv two drugs that are used to treat hiv, to stop them from catching it. And recently, in the last year, 18 months or so, increasing numbers of people are taking prep. Weve discovered this because they come into our clinics and we ask them what medication they are taking and they tell us they are taking prep. Which they are getting online. Now over the course of my lifetime its going to cost around £300,000, to effectively keep me alive. And so by providing prep, then it would have cost the nhs maybe a couple of thousand. You know, i definitely would have been taking prep had it been available to me back then. And yeah, i probably wouldnt have hiv now. So yeah, is there a danger that with prep, sti rates might go up . Yes, there are certainly is. And there are some studies that have demonstrated this. Its important, though, to recognise that sti rates are high and have been going up for quite a long time. And were going up before prep became available. So i dont think we can say with any certainty that prep is responsible for the current increases that we are seeing in sti. I dont think that now there is any doubt at all that it works. And i think what now has to happen is that as many people as possible who are at risk, should have access to it. You think that there might be a time, actually reasonably soon, where we wont get any new Hiv Diagnoses . Well, i cant say how soon, i would hope soon, but i think yes. Our Producerjames Clayton compiled that report. Matthew hodson is the Executive Director of aids Charity Nam Aids map, which shares information about hiv and aids. Which is more important is it the prep which is not yet available on the nhs or the treatment of new cases much earlier so theyre less infectious . Both are important, you need to recognise if people are treated theyre not an Infection Risk to their sexual partners and this is important. But we have been rolling out treatment on diagnoses since 2012. And the very dramatic drop we have seen in new Hiv Infections last year, it feels it cannotjust be about that because it must be something new. The thing that has dramatically changed is people accessing prep. And theyre mostly doing it by self prescription, just getting online. It is not yet available on the nhs so some websites have been set up grassroots activists, and theyre putting people in touch with suppliers of generic prep drugs. Which incidentally are cheaper than perhaps the nhs would pay. Considerably cheaper than the nhs would be paying. The nhs would say why would we want to buy this drug for people, especially as we would pay full price, when it appears to be working anyway because people willjust go and buy it themselves. We have seen that dramatic drop which is fantastic news, really exciting. But it is only reaching those people who are well informed, and who also have income to say im going to spend about £40 a month and if you considered the number of people quite young gay men for example still be