Question: What are the issues concerning the voters you have met out on the doorsteps?

Jonathan Evans: What people are looking for in this European election are representatives who are seen to be Britain's representatives in Europe, rather than Europe's representatives in Britain.

I think that this has been an election in which there has been much more interest in the campaign than there has been in previous European elections. The clear indications from our canvassing are that the Conservative message of putting Britain first is going down very well with the voters.

Question: Is it European issues that people are considering when they cast their votes, or national and local issues?

Jonathan Evans: I think that in a sense national political issues, local government issues, are coming into the campaign as well and that is an inevitable consequence of the fact that local government elections have been put on the same day as the European parliament elections by the government.

To that extent the government can hardly complain about that. We were of the view that it might have been better if there had been separate elections, but the government was of the view that they should put all the elections on the same day and I think it is right that we are seeing local issues and national issues figuring as well, but also European elections figure.

Question: Is the high profile campaign being run by the UK Independence Party going to cause problems for the Conservatives?

Jonathan Evans: I certainly think that the press and the media have generated acres of coverage for UKIP that is going to be wholly disproportionate to the contribution of votes that they are likely to get at the end of the day. I think that it is curious that an opinion poll in the Daily Telegraph just over a week ago seems to have been the catalyst for all this.

I remember in Wales in the run-in to the assembly election campaign last year that there was an opinion poll indicating that the Conservative Party would get only 11 per cent of the vote. It was the only opinion poll that was conducted through the whole campaign. At the end of the campaign the Conservative Party got 20 per cent of the vote - twice as much as the opinion poll had claimed.

When I appeared on television and said to the people who commissioned the poll that it was misleading, they said: 'Time has moved on now, the issues are different.'

I certainly think that it is clear that UKIP will probably increase their proportion of the vote, but I think that some of the stuff that has been written about their relevance in this campaign has been massively exaggerated.

Question: Does the recent removal of the whip from a number of Conservative peers indicate that the Tories are still split when it comes to European issues?

Jonathan Evans: I think that the peers from whom the whip has been withdrawn were expressing a view about our future in Europe that is a view that everyone, both in politics and the media, was very well aware that they held.

I believe that Lord Pearson actually introduced a private members' bill calling for withdrawal from the European Union, so nobody should really be surprised that there is this small number of peers who hold these views.

What was new was that Conservative members were suggesting that people should vote for another party.

Certainly all Conservatives recognise that the only vote in the forthcoming elections that Tony Blair fears is a Conservative vote. That is why their behaviour was unacceptable and that is why Michael Howard did the right thing by withdrawing their membership of the Conservative group in the House of Lords.

Question: Is the party finding it difficult to balance the need to appeal to the wider public on Europe while at the same time retaining the support of its core voters?

Jonathan Evans: I would say that probably at the European elections in 1999, our appeal in that election was just to core Conservative voters.

I think we have a much wider appeal in this election campaign and it is certainly the response that I get that a significant number of the people who are clearly deserting the Labour Party are coming directly over to supporting the Conservative Party in this election.

That is being reported by our canvassers throughout the United Kingdom and it has been for some little time since we were able to report some former Labour voters coming over to support the Conservative Party.

In a European election we always anticipate that a good proportion of people who would vote Liberal in a Westminster election would be voting for the Conservative Party because the indications that we have are that as many of half of Liberal Democrat supporters prefer the Conservative Party's policies on Europe to that of their own party.

Question: Turning to the role of the European parliament, have you found that the Conservatives have been able to play a constructive role there?

Jonathan Evans: It is clear that the Conservative group in the European parliament is the second largest delegation from any political party in the parliament. And within the EPP/ED group we are influential players. 

We don't win every debate, but our contribution is, I think, increasingly recognised.

The perception that is sometimes portrayed of us by our political opponents in the Labour Party is, I think, proved by experience to be completely wrong.  We are not isolated in the work that we do, we are increasingly influential in the work that we do in the European parliament.

We are very proud of what our record has been over the last five years.

Question: Is the Conservative Party comfortable with its alliance with the European People's Party bloc?

Jonathan Evans: I am very pleased that you used the word 'alliance'.

We are not members of the EPP party as our opponents sometimes claim.  We are associate members of the group and that gives us complete freedom in relation to the approach that we take on all the issues that are going through the parliament.

The rules of the group were recently modified in order to state on the body of the statute of the group in order to state that as British Conservatives we are absolutely entitled to our own distinct views with constitutional and institutional issues.

That sets in context, what Robert Kilroy-Silk likes to call lies, the lies that come from Mr Kilroy-Silk and others in claiming that we are in any way associated with the policies of the EPP party. We are not members of the party and have no relationship with the EPP party.

The recent modification of the basis of our membership of the group has curiously been attacked by some parties who are regarded as being the more federal parties within the European parliament.  That is also, in a sense, a measure of the success we have had in clearly identifying where we stand in Europe.

We can make a constructive contribution while remaining entirely true to our own principles and that is what we do in terms of this relationship.

Question: Has your party's campaign been neutralised by Tony Blair's pledge of a referendum on the proposed EU constitution?

Jonathan Evans: I don't think so. I think it probably would have been the case that the call for a referendum on the constitution would have been a bigger part of the European election campaign had it not been for Mr Blair's announcement.

But I think that there are many hundreds of thousands of people across the country who recognise that the Conservative Party, and particularly the Conservative MEPs, played a critical role in obliging the prime minister to concede the referendum. He had no intention of doing so.

We have been engaged in a year-long campaign, with the British people taking up the opportunities that we presented such as leaflets and postcards, to try to convince Mr Blair of the fact that, since a referendum was to be held in a whole variety of other European countries, one should be held in the UK.

We are pleased that he has made the announcement. I think we recognise it has meant we are able to address a wider range of issues during the course of the European election rather than just the referendum issue.

But certainly people remain very concerned about what is proposed in this constitution and we all know that Mr Blair intends to sign the constitution within a week of the European election. That remains a very live issue on the doorstep.

Question: The Conservatives have called for the repatriation of powers on fishing and international development. Is it really feasible that other governments in Europe are going to agree to that?

Jonathan Evans: I'm not sure that the British government is going to agree to it and that is why we need to change the British government so we have a UK government that is going to start putting these matters on the European agenda.

But it is really a question of what the debate in Europe should be about. We are strongly of the view that rather than look for new areas in which to give the European Union powers, we should be concerned to ensure that we revise the powers where the EU is currently operating to ensure that those areas work better.

And in areas where the EU is demonstrably failing to deliver the policies that people need, we should consider whether those are policies that we should be exercising at local or national level.

We currently have a government that does not even want to start that debate. We think the debate should be started because we are confident that there are other parties within the European Union who share our view that, for instance, the operation of the fisheries policy has been an absolute shambles. And that is not what I say as leader of the Conservatives in the European parliament, that is what Franz Fischler, the fisheries commissioner, has said himself.

Question: So you are confident you could start a movement that would lead to the repatriation of these powers?

Jonathan Evans: We are absolutely confident that there are a number of others who share our views in relation to the re-examination of issues like overseas aid and fisheries. But we need to ensure that we get a government elected in the United Kingdom that is prepared to put that sort of discussion on the agenda.

Question: Are you concerned that a potentially low turnout could undermine the legitimacy of you and all the other British MEPs?

Jonathan Evans: I think we are very used to low turnouts in European elections. My personal guess is that the turnout in this elections will be higher than we have seen before.  I certainly sense that from the returns that I am getting from visiting all parts of the country and meeting voters myself.

If there is one area where I think we are in need of some urgent review of the structure of the European parliament, it is the concession that Gary Titley [Labour leader in the European parliament] made in his interview with you that the current structure has meant that MEPs are anonymous within the vast euro-constituencies that his Labour government has created.

I am glad that he now recognises that his government's determination to drive this structure through, in the teeth of opposition from the Conservatives, was a negative.

I think that his concession that the structure is one which we should review is welcome. I think we should review it because ultimately democracy depends on having electors who are able to at least identify who their public representative is. The structure that has been visited on us by Mr Blair doesn't do that.

Question: Do you have a preferred alternative method for electing MEPs?

Jonathan Evans: I think at the very least an open rather than closed list system would be a step in the right direction.

I have found as I go around that many people are resistant to this idea of the closed list system.

As far as the Conservative Party is concerned, we have been the most democratic of all parties in at least ensuring that the party list that we put forward is drawn up as a result of a democratic vote of all of our party members.

But that is, I think, a poor substitute for a situation in which we allow the electors to make the selection of their representatives.

I certainly personally feel that that is something which should be considered.

I think there needs to be a far wider review of the electoral system, and I am glad that at long last - having for very many years defended the Labour government's decision to enforce this system upon the UK - that Gary Titley has come around to my view point.

Question: Finally, what would be a good result for the Conservatives? Are you looking to increase your number of MEPs?

Jonathan Evans: Our aim in this election, keeping in mind that the number of MEPs from the UK is falling from 87 to 78, is to retain our current membership in the European parliament.

I think we recognise that is a tall order, given the fact that we have nine MEPs fewer from the UK as a whole. That certainly is the declared aim that we have in these elections.