12/07/2011 Daily Politics

Afternoon, folks. Welcome to the Daily Politics. This story may have

been running for days, but not an hour seems to go by without another

astonishing development in this phone-hacking story. This morning,

Gordon Brown told the BBC he was reduced to tears when News

International published that his son, Fraser, had cystic fibrosis,

and then launched a full-throated attack on their links to what he

called "the criminal underworld". This is the scene right now in the

Home Affairs Select Committee, where they've been grilling the

policemen in charge of the original investigation. We'll bring you the

very latest on what's been said. And we will be talking about other

political news! There is some, you know?! Today, the Government's

going to say how its going to keep carbon emissions down, fuel prices

low and generate enough electricity to keep the lights on, all at the

same time! We'll try to find out just how they're going to do it.

All that in the next half an hour. With us for the duration, former

Liberal Democrat leader, Charles Kennedy. He was then promoted to be

Lord Rector of the University of Glasgow, a far more important

decisions. It is rather nice, you calling me Lord something, I could

get used to that. Well, I wouldn't! Indeed not!

First, as Andrew said, every day is an extraordinary day in this whole

phone-hacking saga. Today is no exception. Early this morning, the

former Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, gave his reaction to allegations

that his personal life had been intruded upon by journalists

working for News International. had my bank account broken into. I

had my lawyers' files effectively blacked, with someone getting

information from my lawyers. My tax returns went missing and one point.

Medical records had been broken into. I don't know how all this

happened, but I know that in two of these instances, there is absolute

proof that News International was involved in hiring people to get

this information. I do know also that the people that they work with,

because this is what really concerns me most, are criminals,

known criminals, criminals with records. Criminals who sometimes

have records of violence as well as fraud. These links with the

criminal underworld mean that there is nothing, I think, that a serious

organisation can say, when it is alleged that they are operating

underhand tactics, by using criminal elements. People will

rightly say, how can a reputable news organisation in this country

run their affairs by using known criminals to carry out much of the

work? News International put out a

statement basically saying "no comment" to all of that. Although

they did insist that their information about Fraser Brown had

not been obtained illegally. How significant is this Gordon Brown

intervention? It is another nail in the coffin. As every day goes by,

there is another outrage. An innocent child, for heaven's sake,

who is born with a terrible condition like that. There is no

real legitimate public interest in that, however the material was

granted. Unless the parents had decided to talk about it, which

they did not. I think it is bad for them. Having said that, and there

will be 110% sympathy for the Browns in this issue, and I share

it. News International say no comment. I think if I was in Gordon

par shoes, I would have no comment be on the statement I made last

night -- Gordon's shoes. wouldn't you, and why is he?

would do so on a personal basis, I would feel distressed about this

coming into the public domain, and I would leave it at that. People

sometimes feel the need to talk to television cameras, maybe get

something off their chest. There is quite a lot of swelling and

discussion going about the village of Westminster over these past few

days. Others had a lot of this stuff come up before the general

election, given the tightness of the result, would have influence

things in a Labour's direction. I think that is fanciful but there is

an element of psychology at work. Is this an element of revenge for a

man who feels personally slighted and attacked? I don't understand

the feeling. It drove him to tears, then he goes to a wedding, he goes

to a summer party. In 2009, he tells the Guardian, I have regular

communications with Rupert Murdoch, as you would imagine. He has the

most enormous personal regard for Rupert Murdoch, he told the

interviewer. There is nothing unusual in the prime minister

talking to Rupert Murdoch. That was before The Sun turned. On

the same day as Mr Brown made his last speech as Prime Minister to

the Labour Party conference, Cade - - came out against him. I was there

at the time. We were in no doubt as to how furious Mr Brown was, how

angry he was, how betrayed he felt, by papers that had supported him

and Mr Blair before. And timed with such a detonation effect, on the

morning of the big speech. There must be a great residual bitterness,

there is no doubt about that. Having said that, let's face it,

politicians across the spectrum have been far too supine, not just

with News International, but with loads of titles. We are all chasing

approval, complimentary remarks, as close as we can get to newspapers,

saying vote for this party, that party. That has always been the way

of things. Have you always found yourself having showers the morning

after, thinking I wish I didn't do that yesterday, cosying up to the

newspapers, but I was frightened not to? Certainly not with News

International, I never expended any energy with the Liberal Democrats,

in my day -- they never expended any energy. That was never a moral

dilemma that I faced. I don't think there was anything terribly

corrupting. The position at the Lib Dems were in 10 years ago is very

different from where we are today. You didn't have the same level of

pressure upon you. You were worried about The Independent and The

Guardian, and that was pretty much it. The New York Times is saying

that all of these MPs coming out of the woodwork, they are calling it

the British bring. -- British spring. William Hague

had a very good joke. He said, 1 million people are marching on our

Palace, meaning Buckingham Palace, and we are completely relaxed!

This morning, a big event in the Commons Select Committee. Some of

the police officers involved in the original investigation into phone

hacking, which didn't seem to get that far, have been giving evidence

to this Home Affairs Select Committee. Not for the first time.

Chief among them, John Yates, the Assistant Commissioner of the

Metropolitan Police who has been criticised for deciding in 2009 not

to reopen an earlier inquiry into the whole scandal. Saying, in

effect, he thought it was job done. Clearly, that wasn't the case. He

was asked by the committee chairman this morning, who work -- who he

was apologising to today. I am regretting, I express regret, we

didn't do enough about dealing with those who are potentially affected.

I hold my hands up. I passionately believe I'm doing the right thing

around these matters. If I'm about to be wrong and have made an error,

I will hold my hands up. Please do not take that admission as in any

way accepting that I accept responsibility that News

International have not done, with regards to this case, from 2005,

2006, 2009, 2010, even up until yesterday. Please do not take that

as an admission that I am accepting responsibility for that. Why did

you not properly review the evidence that was sitting in bags

at Scotland Yard? Because there was nothing to indicate to me, in July

2009, out of the article that was written in The Guardian, that so

there was new material in there that would justify the investment

of resources, to go through all that material. Let me be clear, it

may have been placed in bin bags, as is the common parlance, but it

was in exhibit bags that was placed in bin bags. That material was gone

through by counsel in 2005 and 2006, it was reviewed by counsel in light

of the indictment they had framed. You know that when council is

focused on a particular indictment, they are going to be focused on

looking for evidence about that indictment. Your responsibility was

to look for matters outside of the individual indictment in that case.

You had thousands of pages of documents, why did you not look at

them? The case had been finished. Two people had gone to court and

had been sentenced. All the material... I appreciate the point

about relevance... Had been seen by the council and reviewed by the CPS.

I think it is accepted, I daren't say, that there was nothing in that

Guardian article that said, that is new, we don't know about it in the

police. We knew about that. That was Mr Yates giving evidence

this morning. I think he is still doing so. We are joined by our

political correspondent, Ross Hawkins. When I was watching, I had

never seen this before. A select committee of the House of Commons,

treating a senior police officer of their met with a mixture of

hostility and mockery. -- of the Met. Absolute derision, laughing at

him. He was reading through letters from use on the international

saying, they weren't telling me the truth. One of the MPs -- from News

International. One of the MPs said they -- would you expect MPs to

Four you and I know normally, in the select committee hearings, one

political side favours the witness more than the other side. They

differ in their approach. Right now, everyone on the committee seems

keen to give John Yates a bit of a kicking. A bit earlier, something

significant from Ian Blair, the commissioner when the first

investigation was carried out. He said, 2006, this was not regarded

as terribly significant at the time. He was warning about 50-50

hindsight, everyone has got that now. But the mistakes of the past

are coming back to haunt the police, and the MPs want to make sure they

are seen at the forefront of dragging them up. Thank you. Giving

some flavour of what has been happening. We are joined by David

Ruffley, who was Shadow Minister for Police Reform when the Tories

were in opposition, and Peter Kirkham, who used to be a detective

chief inspector in the Metropolitan Police. David Ruffley, as you look

at what has just been happening, MPs in the Commons calling for Miss

Yeates to go, it is hard to conclude that his position is not

untenable -- calling for Mr Yates to go. I think it is untenable. I

don't think he is lying. He can't answer this question. That the

11,000 pages of documents referred to the details of Milly Dowler,

relatives of 7/7 and also the Soham murders. That was the information

in the bin bags when in 2009, he was asked, is there anything more

could we should be looked at -- looking at? For him not to know, or

not to have reliable lieutenants to go in and say, this is what we have

looked at, is beyond belief. He is not a liar, but he is not competent.

I think there is a wider issue. The London public and the British

public. They think, are the police on top of things? I think the

answer from today's evidence must be no. You have been backs of

evidence full of smoking guns, as it turns out, and you don't bother

looking at their -- you have been bags. They will look at to some

extent by the original investigation. John Yates was asked

to consider whether there was a new evidence which merited the official

-- initial investigation, which she had not been part of. He took the

view that it wasn't, there was nothing new. Effectively took it on

trust that they had done a competent job originally. He wasn't

asked to check whether they had done a competent job. He gave the

impression, and we as journalists were given the impression that

another voice had looked at the original inquiry and rolled it OK.

Now we are being told that is not what has happened. There is

learning in terms of the language that was used, and what it means

and people consider it to mean. are dealing with the police force,

elements you seem to be in the pay of News International -- elements

of whom seem to be. Elements of whom have an incredibly cosy

relationship with News International. Some of whom end up

working for News International. And you are telling us, we need to

learn about the use of language? I am saying on that point, what

John Yates was saying was misinterpreted because he was using

phrases that meant one thing. Nobody put us right. I am not sure

he recognised he was being misunderstood. In relation to the

whole thing, there are serious issues about the whole framework of

how the media and police work together. It is an inevitable

relationship that needs a clear ethical framework. A former

commander of operations at Scotland Yard said at the time Mr Gates was

dealing with a serious terror threat, he had his hands full -- Mr

The police have never been it so well resourced. If he did not have

the resources, it was his duty to say, I do not have the resources

and to be clear what investigation he had done. All the stuff we heard

from Ian Blair about hindsight, this is not acceptable. It is

talking about words. There was a set of smoking guns in the Met it

and they signed up saying there is no more to investigate. John Yates

should have had a team tasked by him to give the right answer. His

position is not tenable but it also asks the questions about police

resources. I hear the nonsense, they had a 50% real-terms increase

in a decade. If he did not have enough officers he should have said

so. They have 70 on it now. Let me ask you this. It is part of my job

to mix with political leaders on the left and right and centre. I

have been doing that a lot in the past week. I have never known,

among senior politicians in this country, such hostility to the

police. Is the Met a where they have lost the confidence of the

political leaders of this country? I am sure they are, this is a

unique situation where the police have a relationship with the

organisation suspected. We have the issue of come up are their old

scores being settled? People deflecting attention from their

failings? Positions deflecting attention on to the police, and on

to the media. This wasn't considered a major issue. There is

a massive market in trade in personal data. In the Guardian

newspaper, Devon and Cornwall are invested in a major investigation

which came to court in 2005, and it was kicked out. Charles Kennedy.

You speak to politicians more than I do, do you agree there is almost

a complete collapse of trust in the competence and integrity of

elements of the police? That is a fair assessment. It is not the

usual suspects with a face like the anti- establishment view. Cabinet

ministers have expressed their concern. It is also a reflection of

this. Going back to the revelations of last week. MPs and, our role

should not be dismissed completely. It sometimes is, as being a

reflectors of our electorate. There are certain occasions when the

whole purpose of parliamentary democracy works and we are

lightning conductors. Every one of us the length and breadth of the

country when the revelations came out, a tidal wave of public anger

was communicated to us. You have seen that affected. We will have to

leave that here. I have a feeling we will be coming back to it. The

News of the World story is gripping us all at Westminster. But, unless

you're famous, or for some other reason you're in the public eye,

it's not going to affect your life very much. One thing that will, is

the sheer cost of gas and electricity. Today, the government

will be publishing proposals for reforming the electricity market.

It doesn't sound like a sexy subject. But the challenge is

enormous. They've got to find a way of generating enough power to keep

the lights on, cut carbon emissions, and keep energy bills down at the

same time. Energy Secretary Chris Huhne will unveil his electricity

market reforms in the Commons this afternoon. He is aiming to redraw

the energy market to ensure that we have the right investment so that

we can cut carbon, as well as guaranteeing the supply, and keep

the lights on. The numbers are staggering. Ofgem says �200 billion

may be required over the next 10-15 years for new power stations, and

to upgrade the grid. And the government is forecasting that

electricity consumption will double by 2050, as heating and road

transport switches to electricity to reduce CO2 emissions. And who is

going to pay for this massive change in the way we generate,

transmit and use electricity? Yes, we, the consumers. Ofgem has

Although Mr Huhne has promised that overall bills will be "down in the

long-run." With us now is David Porter, chief executive of the

Association of Electricity Providers, which speaks on behalf

of anyone and everyone who generates electricity.

Are we in this disaster when it comes to household bills because

the companies have been creaming off profit for such a long time and

not reinvesting? No, that is quite wrong, the companies are major

investors, they are among the UK's big investors. The problem we have

had recently is something different from the one that the White Paper

is seeking to redress. The recent problem has been to do with fuel

price rises. But, the white paper is about securing investments in at

low carbon electricity for the long term. But also it is acknowledged

there has not been the investment in the grid, there will be a

massive investment of �200 billion just to keep things going. Energy

generators are still making a windfall according to one report.

They carry on taking hefty windfall profits. There is some confusion

here. What we are talking about today is a bold move by the

government to create a framework in which the energy companies can

raise �200 billion of investment, mostly in power stations and partly

in the networks. That is designed to deliver low carbon electricity.

I understand that. But he acknowledged the assessment that in

every given that scenario it is going to hit the consumer hard?

think it is a fair bet that prices will rise. They have gone up

recently because of increases in Vauxhall fuel prices, coal and gas.

But, somehow, if we do make this �200 billion of investment, by the

way, the equivalent of building two Channel tunnel's a year for nine

years, if we do make it, the companies have to get a return. And

that eventually finds its way to customers and their bills. There

are those who said his White Paper is tinkering at the margins, there

needs to be a root and branch overhaul, to take the power away

from the Big Six. "stitching up the market" says Tim Yeo. The White

Paper is designed to attract investment, it may well attract

investment from companies that are not in the industry at the moment.

That could be quite important. A good many of the major players in

our industry at the moment do not have particularly attractive

balance sheets. Thank you for coming in to talk to us. Wobbles in

the eurozone are now no great surprise to us. Ireland, Greece and

Portugal have needed and had bailouts. Recently, Italy has felt

the chill of a euro crisis building. So is this currency collapsing and,

if so, what do people like our guest Charles Kennedy, who called

for us to be part if it, think now? There's Euro-scepticism. And then

there's scepticism of the euro. Indeed, some would say they told

you so, from the start. The script was written, not by the British

have necessarily, but by the Bundesbank, they said if you take

monetary policy and give it to a central bank, and had a one size

fits all policy, that interest rates around Europe would not fit

everyone all the time. The euro has always been a wholly political

project, designed to bind Germany into Europe. But no one has ever

really explained how they would overcome the fundamental economic

problem, have you can have one interest rate for different

economies, how you could have a currency without a government. The

fact there isn't a government has proved a fatal flaw. There is an

element of I told you so. Not so gleeful but in sorrow. Yet,

government in Britain, indeed leading members of rival parties in

Britain, sat alongside one another to show their commitment to making

it work. Were they naive? In every tide of human history, there is a

part of the time way you put hope first. Your potential

disappointment you put to one side. As pro-Europeans, we are not in

favour of rushing into the euro head first, we don't believe Europe

is perfect and we will want to see reform takes place. But, we do

believe that Britain can and must lead in Europe. Need reform in

Europe, lead on the euro's benefits for Britain. I think people felt we

were being isolated, this was a political view also. They felt we

should be the heart of Europe in order to influence things. There

was a thought the markets bought into this. People didn't realise

they had been speculating on the system apparently succeeding. The

same people are now speculating on it failing. Now, it's not the

discomfort over just Portugal, Ireland and Greece they're

speculating on. In recent days, Italy is also threatening the

euro's future. If you do not deal decisively with

the small southern countries which are in trouble, if you do not solve

the great problem, it will spread to Spain and Italy. And Italy

cannot be bailed out, it is too large. Over the next three years,

the eurozone will get smaller, the weaker countries will split away.

After that who knows what will happen. Uncertainly correction

Margaret uncertainty and doubt after all that hope. Charles

Kennedy, President of the European Movement.

Who said, the euro despite gloomy predictions has proved to be a

success? We cannot afford, Britain cannot afford to be isolated any

longer? That sounds like Kennedy prose? Someone called Charles

Kennedy. That must have been another Charles Kennedy. You played

a rather fair clip of me from all those years ago, you could have

been prejudicial. In that I was making the point, I was strongly

there and I remained strongly in favour of the euro. And Britain

joining? Not now, obviously. 2000 you said it was time. It is

not going to happen in this Parliament. In your lifetime?

really don't know. I hope it will. Because I have always taken the

view you cannot be blamed for economic realities, but the

political determination it should be to have Britain within the

single European currency if we are within the single trading area.

said at one time, one size does not fit all. Clearly. At the same time,

and it's interesting listening to what has been said at a continental

level, there has to be a political will to get this fixed. If not, the

economic implications for the UK are awful. We have run out of time

for this subject. What a shame. That's all for today. Thanks to our

guests, especially to Charles Kennedy. We'll be back at 11.30am