Browse content similar to 06/09/2011. Check below for episodes and series from the same categories and more!
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- folks. Welcome to an hour-long special edition of the Daily | :00:31. | :00:35. | |
Politics. Yes, there's just too much to into a piffling 30 minutes | :00:35. | :00:42. | |
today. The rioters were a feral underclass, according to the | :00:42. | :00:47. | |
justice secretary, Ken Clarke. Equally worrying, he said, was the | :00:47. | :00:52. | |
instinctive criminal behaviour of random passers-by. Strong words. In | :00:52. | :00:56. | |
the last hour, the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, has been telling | :00:56. | :01:00. | |
parliament that what he thinks caused the August riots, and he's | :01:00. | :01:03. | |
not a man to hold back, either. other big parliamentary story | :01:03. | :01:07. | |
today: further inquiries into the News of the World and the phone | :01:07. | :01:10. | |
hacking scandal. In the last Daily Politics special but one, we | :01:10. | :01:13. | |
broadcast the evidence to parliament of Rupert Murdoch and | :01:13. | :01:17. | |
his son, James. Today, the same select committee has been hearing | :01:17. | :01:22. | |
from some of their former employees. Did the mur docks' evidence stack | :01:22. | :01:32. | |
:01:32. | :01:33. | ||
We will look back and ask what, if anything, the protesters achieved. | :01:33. | :01:39. | |
That's coming up in the next half- hour. With us for the duration is | :01:39. | :01:42. | |
Freddie Forsyth. Welcome back. Thank you. It's been too long. | :01:42. | :01:46. | |
You're the inviter. I made that bit up! First, today, | :01:46. | :01:49. | |
let's talk about Libya and the apparent extent of the links | :01:49. | :01:54. | |
between Britain and Colonel Gaddafi's intelligence services. | :01:54. | :01:58. | |
Some of it centres on a Libyan rebel commander - you've seen him | :01:58. | :02:05. | |
on television recently - there he is. Evidence suggests that our MI6 | :02:05. | :02:09. | |
colludeed with the CIA in transporting him back to Libya in | :02:09. | :02:12. | |
2004 where he was almost certainly tortured, because that's what they | :02:12. | :02:16. | |
do, by the Gaddafi regime. David Cameron yesterday promised that the | :02:16. | :02:19. | |
allegations would be investigated. There is indeed already a committee | :02:19. | :02:26. | |
set up to do that under I think Lord Gibson. Freddie, I can | :02:26. | :02:31. | |
understand the realpolitik of wanting to build better relation | :02:31. | :02:35. | |
was Libya, particularly on within of we're going to get rid of their | :02:35. | :02:38. | |
weapons of mass destruction, but does that mean that we have to hand | :02:38. | :02:42. | |
over people to be tortured by them? I wouldn't have thought it did, no. | :02:42. | :02:46. | |
What happened with Libya was bizarre, because this man Gaddafi | :02:46. | :02:52. | |
has been, for 30 years at at least, a die-hard enemy of the West. One | :02:52. | :02:57. | |
of his apes murdered PC Yvonne Fletcher; another one put the bomb | :02:57. | :03:03. | |
on the Pan Am jet; he funded Baader-Meinhof for the Black | :03:03. | :03:09. | |
September, and gave the IRA five ships of weapons, and we only got | :03:09. | :03:12. | |
the fifth. This has been going on for 30 years. Then suddenly he | :03:12. | :03:18. | |
decides to change, which is most unusual. Normally, dictators either | :03:18. | :03:21. | |
fall or stay the way they were. They don't become better people. | :03:21. | :03:26. | |
This one decides to reform. Bearing in mind he did at the time have a | :03:26. | :03:31. | |
nuclear programme, which was well advanced, and he had, what do you | :03:31. | :03:38. | |
call it, a gas warfare programme. Biological and - Chemical weapons - | :03:39. | :03:43. | |
he had the lot. We cut with with deal with him. We had no choice but | :03:43. | :03:46. | |
to do it saying if you dismantle the lot under our supervision, you | :03:46. | :03:48. | |
can be readmitted into the community of nations, which he | :03:48. | :03:52. | |
accepted, and, it all was dismantled under our supervision. | :03:52. | :03:56. | |
So he didn't keep anything - co- operate keep anything back - | :03:56. | :04:02. | |
because we were there. I understand the diplomacy that that involved. | :04:02. | :04:07. | |
The thing that I don't understand is why didn't we, having done that, | :04:07. | :04:11. | |
still sup with a pretty long spoon with him, but instead we're handing | :04:11. | :04:19. | |
over people to be tortured. It seems from the evidence given. We | :04:19. | :04:23. | |
have got Mr Blair helping Saif Gaddafi with his phd, we've got the | :04:23. | :04:33. | |
:04:33. | :04:34. | ||
second senior figure in MI6, a famous or Rabiest writing friendly | :04:34. | :04:43. | |
letters to mousse Ka to Mousa Cousa. My father spent five years in the | :04:44. | :04:48. | |
like that. Why are we now sending nice letters to them. What went | :04:48. | :04:54. | |
wrong, I think, was that we accepted his expressed desire to | :04:54. | :04:57. | |
reform; we supervised the dismantlement of most of his really | :04:57. | :05:02. | |
nasty stuff, which was much, much more, and worse than Saddam Hussein | :05:02. | :05:06. | |
ever had, who didn't seem to have anything at all anyway. Then | :05:06. | :05:10. | |
someone at the top - I suspect Blair, personally, went over the | :05:10. | :05:20. | |
:05:20. | :05:20. | ||
top. Suddenly, he starts schmoozing, he wants to be best palls. There is | :05:20. | :05:24. | |
no need to do that. You can accept the reformation of a tyrant, a | :05:24. | :05:29. | |
dictator - he went on being a savage bustard internally, and | :05:29. | :05:34. | |
still to treat him with frosty courtesy, nothing more. Why we had | :05:34. | :05:37. | |
to go so far, I don't know. That was really bad form. Thank you, | :05:37. | :05:42. | |
that was the point of my question, thank you. Finally on this, how | :05:42. | :05:45. | |
badly does this damage our intelligence services to be seen to | :05:45. | :05:52. | |
be in cahoots with people like Mous Kousa and the Libyan Gestapo - | :05:52. | :05:55. | |
let's call it what they are. This begs a rather long lecture, but I'm | :05:55. | :05:59. | |
not going to give it to you. Basically, the entire intelligence | :05:59. | :06:04. | |
world out there beyond our shores is one ever-changing kaleidoscope, | :06:04. | :06:08. | |
and most of those who participated in it, whether they're the Russians, | :06:08. | :06:13. | |
the Chechens, or the dictators of the Arab world, the dictators of | :06:13. | :06:19. | |
the black African world, are bustards, OK? And we have to deal | :06:19. | :06:22. | |
with them as best we can. Sometimes they rise, sometimes they fall, | :06:22. | :06:27. | |
sometimes they rarely convert, sometimes they are toppled, | :06:27. | :06:30. | |
sometimes they're assassinated - not usually by us, the Israelis are | :06:30. | :06:35. | |
rather good at that - we leave them to it. Klabation: yes. We have to | :06:35. | :06:38. | |
collaborate. It's the only way. All our intelligence services have got | :06:38. | :06:43. | |
one job, and that's one job, and that is to protect our country from | :06:43. | :06:50. | |
its citizens and enemies whatever it takes. If they go to a minister | :06:50. | :06:54. | |
- and you'll hear some ministers laying what they call moral law | :06:54. | :06:57. | |
down - if they go to a minister and say this is going to happen, a | :06:57. | :07:00. | |
major bomb has been planned for this country, what do we do? The | :07:00. | :07:05. | |
answer would be "whatever it takes", and then the second sentence would | :07:05. | :07:10. | |
be "but we didn't have this conversation," in other words - and | :07:10. | :07:14. | |
there is nothing you can do about it, unless you want to say we butt | :07:15. | :07:21. | |
out of it in which case there can probably be a 7/7 every six months. | :07:21. | :07:27. | |
Is that what you want? No. It's not what we want. I remember Robin Cook | :07:27. | :07:32. | |
talking about an ethical foreign policy. In a was way back at the | :07:33. | :07:36. | |
beginning of Tony Blair's - learn quickly. There's no such | :07:36. | :07:40. | |
thing. Two big developments today in the whole News of the World | :07:40. | :07:44. | |
phone hacking scandal. Lord leave son is beginning the judicial | :07:44. | :07:49. | |
inquiry into the whole matter. There is another development in the | :07:49. | :07:54. | |
Commons too which we will come to in a minute. Ross Hawkins is there | :07:54. | :07:57. | |
for us. Tell us what's happening at the Royal Courts of Justice. At the | :07:57. | :08:00. | |
moment, those people who think they should have a special status in the | :08:00. | :08:03. | |
inquiry, their lawyers are standing up and making the case. When you | :08:03. | :08:07. | |
listen to them, you get a sense of just how big the range of people | :08:07. | :08:11. | |
there are just waiting to try to explain what the press and the | :08:11. | :08:14. | |
media did to them. There are lawyers in there representing over | :08:14. | :08:20. | |
a hundred phone hacking victims, politicians like criticises Bryant, | :08:20. | :08:25. | |
Tessa Jowell, Lord Prescott, Dennis McShane, representing people like | :08:25. | :08:30. | |
Kate and Jerry McCann, even the son of Harold Shipman and Max Mosley, | :08:30. | :08:34. | |
all very much wanting to have their say. The second point of what we | :08:34. | :08:38. | |
heard today is the sheer size and scale of what this man has got to | :08:38. | :08:41. | |
do. He's got an enormous amount to get through. He's going to start | :08:41. | :08:44. | |
with sessions trying to learn about how the media works and what it | :08:44. | :08:47. | |
does, including one behind closed doors - probably sensibly, Andrew - | :08:47. | :08:52. | |
on how you intercept e-mails and phone calls. When is he going to | :08:52. | :08:56. | |
finish this report, then? By 2020, do you think? He's got two stages | :08:56. | :09:00. | |
to do it in. He's got a latter stage where after the police | :09:01. | :09:04. | |
investigations, he will look at what happened in the News of the | :09:04. | :09:07. | |
World. This one, the Prime Minister only gave him a year. If you look | :09:07. | :09:10. | |
at his opening statement, he has said well, we will do our best to | :09:10. | :09:15. | |
stick to that but we're not going to do that at all costs. He kept on | :09:15. | :09:20. | |
he's got to look at: the relationship between the public and | :09:20. | :09:22. | |
the press, between politicians and the press; regulation; the way the | :09:23. | :09:26. | |
whole legal structure is set up. These are big, big questions with, | :09:26. | :09:30. | |
on the one side, all sorts of special interest groups trying to | :09:30. | :09:33. | |
stop change from happening, cluck the media, and, on the other side, | :09:33. | :09:38. | |
a bunch of hurt, angry and upset victims. It is going to be quite a | :09:38. | :09:41. | |
series of hearings and it is going to take some time. Because, if you | :09:42. | :09:46. | |
want to know how to phone hack, you only have to read Piers Morgan's | :09:46. | :09:49. | |
memoirs where he explains how - I'm not saying he did it - but he | :09:49. | :09:55. | |
explains how to do it. I don't understand why that is in camera. | :09:55. | :09:59. | |
Will anything else be in camera or will we get to see stuff being | :09:59. | :10:05. | |
played out? He referred to learning sessions and seminars which all | :10:05. | :10:08. | |
sounded terribly pleasant. Most of it will be exposed. He also | :10:08. | :10:12. | |
referred to in that private session about e-mail interceptions. When | :10:12. | :10:16. | |
you you speak to some people around this story, you think maybe there | :10:16. | :10:20. | |
is technologically more than that than that old trick of trying to | :10:20. | :10:23. | |
get in someone's voice mail which, as you say, has been fairly | :10:23. | :10:27. | |
widelyert roed. This is a judge who takes a lot to learn before he | :10:27. | :10:29. | |
takes a single bit of evidence and long before he reaches a single | :10:29. | :10:34. | |
final public decision. Sounds like you'll be standing outside that | :10:34. | :10:39. | |
building for quite a while in the weeks and months ahead! I would | :10:39. | :10:42. | |
find the nearest coffee bar and open an account with them. Over | :10:42. | :10:44. | |
there! Now, within the last hour, there | :10:44. | :10:48. | |
have been developments in the other inquiry into what went on at the | :10:48. | :10:52. | |
Murdoch newspapers, this one being carried out by the culture select | :10:52. | :10:55. | |
committee. Last month, you may remember, we carried it live here | :10:55. | :11:01. | |
on the Daily Politics in another special when Rupert and James | :11:01. | :11:07. | |
Murdoch went went in front of the MPs. That was of course the foam | :11:07. | :11:16. | |
pie incident and Mrs Murdoch becoming a heroine. Joe, who is in | :11:16. | :11:19. | |
the spotlight today? The four people appearing may not have the | :11:19. | :11:24. | |
star quality of Rupert and James Murdoch, or even Mrs Murdoch, but | :11:24. | :11:26. | |
their evidence promised to be explosive. First up this morning | :11:26. | :11:33. | |
was former legal adviser, Jonathan Chapman, and Daniel Cloke, who was | :11:34. | :11:39. | |
News International's HR director. Following them was Colin Myler, and | :11:39. | :11:42. | |
tomorrow kroepb, another legal adviser. One of the big issues for | :11:42. | :11:48. | |
these two is a document which has been dubbed the "for Nev I am" e- | :11:48. | :11:52. | |
mail, this not only implicates another journalist in the scandal, | :11:52. | :11:54. | |
but it also contains detailed evidence of hacking at the paper. | :11:54. | :12:01. | |
When asked if he was aware of the document in July, James Murdoch | :12:01. | :12:04. | |
replied, "I was not aware of that at the time." In a joint statement, | :12:04. | :12:08. | |
both Colin Myler and Tom kroepb dispute this claim. James Murdoch | :12:08. | :12:11. | |
has since issued a statement saying he stands by his evidence. The | :12:12. | :12:15. | |
committee are also expected to try to get to the bottom of both Rupert | :12:15. | :12:19. | |
and James Murdoch's assertion that they believe phone hacking was | :12:19. | :12:22. | |
limited to just one rowing reporter, because they were relying on a | :12:22. | :12:29. | |
review of staff e-mails by the legal firm Harbottle and Lewis. | :12:29. | :12:32. | |
However, Jonathan Chapman disputes this evidence as very misleading | :12:32. | :12:37. | |
and said that inquiry had a very restricted remit. The law firm has | :12:37. | :12:40. | |
also issued a statement saying the the scope of their inquiry was very | :12:40. | :12:44. | |
specific. So what really went on at Britain's Sunday newspaper | :12:44. | :12:49. | |
according to its executives? The committee starting off questioning | :12:49. | :12:53. | |
the head of legal affairs Jonathan Chapman and the former head of | :12:53. | :12:58. | |
resources at the company Daniel Cloke. Phillip Davies pressed them | :12:58. | :13:03. | |
on the circumstances surrounding Clive good man who was jailed for | :13:03. | :13:07. | |
phone hacking in 2007. Committed a criminal offence and bringing the | :13:07. | :13:11. | |
company to shame, it seems the group HR director would have had no | :13:11. | :13:15. | |
involvement at all in the decision to sack him or the decision to - | :13:15. | :13:21. | |
can I just go back. It seems that, during his trial, when he was | :13:21. | :13:27. | |
pleading guilty, he employed the services of John Kelsey-Fry to | :13:27. | :13:31. | |
represent him in court, one of the most expensive lawyers in the | :13:31. | :13:35. | |
country - if not the most expensive lawyer in the country - and it | :13:35. | :13:39. | |
appears News International paid for his legal representation at that | :13:39. | :13:45. | |
case. Who authorised News International to pay for Clive | :13:45. | :13:48. | |
Goodman's legal costs at a trial when this is a chap pleading guilty | :13:48. | :13:51. | |
to a criminal offence that's a summary dismissal and is bringing | :13:51. | :13:56. | |
the company to shame? Who authorised that News International | :13:56. | :14:03. | |
would pay his legal fees? I don't know. I think, Mr Davis, you'll | :14:03. | :14:09. | |
have to ask Mr Kroepb that because it's a matter for the newspaper | :14:09. | :14:14. | |
lawyer that. Even though the company were not obliged to do | :14:14. | :14:19. | |
anything at all, in lieu of his previous work for the company, they | :14:19. | :14:23. | |
would as a gesture of goodwill pay a year's salary to him which | :14:23. | :14:28. | |
appeared to be in the region of �90,000. Who decided that that was | :14:29. | :14:33. | |
a good course of action to pay him a year's salary based on the fact | :14:33. | :14:39. | |
that he had committed a criminal offence? I think that is a a | :14:39. | :14:43. | |
question you will have to ask Mr Hinton. Decisive said, I was not | :14:43. | :14:47. | |
involved until the appeals pro-set. Mr Chapman, were you not involved | :14:47. | :14:52. | |
at all? Mr Hinton asked me to help him with that letter, indicated he | :14:52. | :14:57. | |
was going to pay 12 months' salary, and he said that he wanted to do it | :14:57. | :15:01. | |
on compassionate grounds because of the family situation of Mr Goodman. | :15:01. | :15:06. | |
That's all I can recall on that. It is a question for Mr Hinton. | :15:06. | :15:10. | |
you not express any surprise that this was a strange resident for the | :15:10. | :15:14. | |
company wanting to be set in to pay a year's salary for the committing | :15:14. | :15:17. | |
of a criminal offence? It could be seen on the outside as a strange | :15:17. | :15:21. | |
thing to do, but it was Mr Hinton's decision. Would it not seem a | :15:21. | :15:27. | |
strange thing to you on the inside? I can see it - I can see both sides | :15:27. | :15:30. | |
of it. I can see viewed externally, it looks strange, but I can also | :15:30. | :15:36. | |
see that if you have someone who has got a hitherto unblemished | :15:36. | :15:39. | |
record and they have family to throw them straight out with no | :15:40. | :15:43. | |
financial support leaving the family is a tough thing to do, so I | :15:43. | :15:46. | |
can do both sides. You didn't raise any objections to this as a | :15:46. | :15:50. | |
strategy? Mr Hinton had decided to do it. According to James Murdoch, | :15:50. | :15:55. | |
you two took the decision not to defend yourselves at a tribunal, | :15:55. | :16:02. | |
but to pay off Clive Goodman not to the tune of �60,000, but to the | :16:02. | :16:12. | |
tune of �140,000 plus �130,000 of costs. Now, if you had made the - | :16:12. | :16:15. | |
�13,000 of costs. If you had made the decision and there was no basis | :16:15. | :16:19. | |
for Clive Goodman's allegations, what on earth were you doing paying | :16:19. | :16:24. | |
him a 40 �140,000 on top of the �90,000 he had already been given | :16:24. | :16:28. | |
as a year's salary. May I answer that? Please do. We didn't take the | :16:28. | :16:32. | |
decision. The decision was taken by Mr Hinton that it should be settled | :16:32. | :16:36. | |
following our work on it, and recommendation having been told to | :16:36. | :16:42. | |
try to get a reasonable settlementor him - settlement for | :16:42. | :16:46. | |
him. Within the last few minutes, it has started hearing from the | :16:46. | :16:51. | |
former News of the World editor Colin Myler and the paper's chief | :16:52. | :16:58. | |
lawyer, Tom Crone. Can I start with asking you about what has become | :16:58. | :17:02. | |
known as the "for Neville" e-mail which is essentially the same | :17:02. | :17:07. | |
reason why we first wished to ask you to come since you made a | :17:07. | :17:10. | |
statement following this committee's session with Rupert | :17:10. | :17:15. | |
Murdoch and James Murdoch in which, essentially, you gave a different | :17:15. | :17:22. | |
account of what had occurred. Can I first of all establish that both of | :17:22. | :17:28. | |
you are certainly, in your mind, you told James Murdoch about that | :17:28. | :17:33. | |
e-mail when you came to discuss the terms of the settlement with Gordon | :17:33. | :17:40. | |
Taylor? I'm certain. You're certain. It was never referred to as a "for | :17:40. | :17:44. | |
Neville" e-mail. That was quite significant. And me too. I'm as | :17:44. | :17:51. | |
certain as I can be, yes. Perhaps I can just explore that. I think, Mr | :17:51. | :17:55. | |
Cone, you essentially have said it was the sole reason for settling | :17:55. | :18:02. | |
with Gordon Taylor? That's correct. So, in your mind, this changes the | :18:02. | :18:06. | |
picture entirely. Until you were made aware of this e-mail, there | :18:06. | :18:11. | |
wasn't reason to settle, and this "Right, everything is now different, | :18:11. | :18:18. | |
we're going to have to settle"? that was the decision or the advice | :18:18. | :18:23. | |
that was sort of formulated in consultation with the outside | :18:23. | :18:30. | |
lawyers after sight of that e-mail transcript, yes. Well, Tom Crone | :18:30. | :18:34. | |
there giving evidence. For the latest, our political correspondent | :18:34. | :18:39. | |
Vicky Young joins us. What strikes us here is the evidence we've heard, | :18:39. | :18:45. | |
this insistence from Tom Crone in Tom Myler, the former editor, that | :18:45. | :18:49. | |
James Murdoch seemed to indicate that phone hacking was more | :18:49. | :18:53. | |
widespread than they initially thought. As you say, this is still | :18:53. | :18:57. | |
going on. Tom Cone has talked more about that e-mail. He said he did | :18:57. | :19:00. | |
have a conversation with James Murdoch about it which he said | :19:00. | :19:04. | |
lasted for 50 minutes; he he said there were no notes made about it, | :19:04. | :19:09. | |
and he can't recall all the details. He twhas then pushed further and | :19:09. | :19:13. | |
asked "Did James Murdoch show you a copy of that e-mail?" He said, | :19:13. | :19:18. | |
"I've been reminded recently it had very restricted access." He was | :19:18. | :19:23. | |
told he was not allowed to make copies of it - this was by Gordon | :19:23. | :19:27. | |
Taylor's lawyers who said they wanted it to have restricted access | :19:27. | :19:32. | |
- and he was limited what he could Murdoch is ever called to this | :19:32. | :19:35. | |
committee, because it's clear the committee felt they haven't got to | :19:35. | :19:38. | |
the bottom of this, and that is a possibility of course. Then he will | :19:38. | :19:41. | |
have that defence that he didn't see the e-mail itself although he | :19:41. | :19:44. | |
was made aware of it. I think we've seen today in past committees, a | :19:45. | :19:49. | |
lot of people saying, "I don't recall this." It struck me clearly | :19:49. | :19:54. | |
you've got a bank of lawyers sitting behind the lawyers, saying, | :19:54. | :19:57. | |
"I haven't got any notes" and able to say I can't recall the details | :19:57. | :20:00. | |
of one thing or another. I don't think the committee will be happy | :20:00. | :20:04. | |
with some of the answers they've been getting. | :20:04. | :20:09. | |
He's now the former News of the World political editor David | :20:09. | :20:14. | |
Wooding and criticises Bryant was - Chris Bryant a victim of is phone | :20:14. | :20:18. | |
hacking. Chris Bryant, I suggest to you given the testimony we've just | :20:18. | :20:21. | |
heard there which directly contradicts the testimony that | :20:21. | :20:24. | |
James Murdoch gave to the same select committee in July that there | :20:24. | :20:29. | |
is no doubt that James Murdoch will be recalled. I would be amazed if | :20:29. | :20:31. | |
he's not recalled. I think one of the problems that we faced in this | :20:31. | :20:33. | |
whole process is there was the original criminality which was | :20:33. | :20:36. | |
scandalous enough, but then on top of that, there's been this | :20:36. | :20:41. | |
sustained cover-up. It's gone on and on and on, and anybody knows | :20:41. | :20:44. | |
that once you're found out, the first thing to do is to put your | :20:44. | :20:48. | |
hands up and get all the facts out there, tell the truth. That's not | :20:48. | :20:50. | |
what has happened. I think parliament needs to learn a 11. | :20:50. | :20:53. | |
I've been going through all the evidence that people have given. | :20:53. | :20:58. | |
I'm up to 53 lies to parliament to parliament so far - direct lies, | :20:58. | :21:04. | |
not just casual evasions. You mean by Murdoch organisation people? | :21:05. | :21:09. | |
News International, by police, by a variety of different people. | :21:09. | :21:13. | |
Four more, and you'll have 57 varieties. I think I might get up | :21:13. | :21:22. | |
to 77 trombones or is it 76! The point is of course the courts can't | :21:22. | :21:25. | |
deal with that as perjury because of parliamentary privilege. If we | :21:25. | :21:31. | |
are to deal with the powers in the land, whether that is Murdoch or | :21:31. | :21:35. | |
Tesco, or BP or whoever else, we need to know that the evidence that | :21:35. | :21:37. | |
is being given to parliament is true and honest, the whole truth | :21:37. | :21:41. | |
and nothing but the truth. As they do in major congressional | :21:41. | :21:46. | |
committees on Capitol Hill. Indeed, and I think we should move to a | :21:46. | :21:49. | |
system where we have all evidence being given on oath. They can't lie | :21:49. | :21:56. | |
to Lord Leveson, can they? Exactly. That's why, when you see the | :21:56. | :22:01. | |
Murdochs giving evidence on oath and being probed I think very, very | :22:01. | :22:04. | |
carefully, and for that matter when the police complete their | :22:04. | :22:06. | |
investigations, I think we'll see that we're still only at act three | :22:06. | :22:13. | |
in a five-act play. Are we seeing a cover-up unravelling here in that | :22:13. | :22:20. | |
the News International used to form a pretty solid united phalanx on | :22:20. | :22:25. | |
most issues. It was more united on the invasion of Iraq Iraq than the | :22:25. | :22:29. | |
Blair or Bush governments, for example. Now they seem to be more | :22:29. | :22:33. | |
like a circular firing squad. Is that what we're seeing? We had | :22:33. | :22:38. | |
James Murdoch saying, "I did not see this crucial e-mail", the | :22:38. | :22:44. | |
crucial mart of it would have expanded it, and former employees | :22:45. | :22:48. | |
saying, "We told him about it." What has been clear this morning, | :22:48. | :22:53. | |
and I will try not to add to Chris's tally in your answers to | :22:53. | :22:58. | |
your questions today, is that this investigation they had we heard | :22:58. | :23:00. | |
this morning from the human resources directorate and the legal | :23:00. | :23:05. | |
manager, that it wasn't quite as thorough as we thought it would be. | :23:05. | :23:10. | |
The question we're asking now was it covered up or was it just not | :23:10. | :23:14. | |
unearthed because they didn't do a proper inquiry? It's going to be | :23:14. | :23:17. | |
one or the other. The senior people at News International pretended | :23:17. | :23:23. | |
that inquiry into the 2,500 e-mails had given News International help. | :23:23. | :23:27. | |
That's completely and utterly untrue. The other thing is that | :23:27. | :23:32. | |
when James Murdoch said they had to pay Gordon Taylor �700,000 because | :23:32. | :23:37. | |
the lawyers had told them they would have to pay �100,000 if it | :23:37. | :23:41. | |
went to court and then you would have to add on all the legal fees, | :23:41. | :23:45. | |
that's not how it works. They're either stupid or got really, really | :23:45. | :23:49. | |
bad lawyers or just just lying. In truth, they were trying to buy his | :23:49. | :23:52. | |
silence. You see, that is one conclusion that you can take from | :23:52. | :23:55. | |
this morning's hearings. The question was asked was Clive | :23:55. | :24:00. | |
Goodman who was the Royal correspondent went to jail for | :24:00. | :24:05. | |
criminal behaviour in the employ of News of the World. Why, given that | :24:05. | :24:09. | |
he went to jail, and they are all contracts, if you bring this | :24:09. | :24:13. | |
company into disrepute, you're subject to summary dismissal - why | :24:13. | :24:17. | |
did he have to be paid anything? That was quite shocking this | :24:17. | :24:23. | |
morning that he was paid nearly �250,000, a year's salary twice. I | :24:23. | :24:26. | |
think some of the 280 people who lost their jobs, many of them, the | :24:26. | :24:29. | |
vast imagine order of them innocent, who had nothing to do with any of | :24:29. | :24:33. | |
this, will be wondering why this man is getting such a large amount. | :24:33. | :24:36. | |
So what is the answer other than a cover-up? I do understand, I do | :24:36. | :24:43. | |
take the point that was made this morning that a company tries to aan | :24:43. | :24:48. | |
industrial tribunal if it can. if you're dealing with an employer | :24:48. | :24:52. | |
who's been stuck in the slammer for four months. They said they didn't | :24:52. | :24:56. | |
want to go to a an industrial tribunal was because they didn't | :24:56. | :24:59. | |
want it to go to the public. That's backfired completely. Did you know | :24:59. | :25:03. | |
that the phone hacking was widespread? No, I've never hacked a | :25:03. | :25:09. | |
phone in my life. You knew something was going on? We knew | :25:09. | :25:12. | |
something was going on because two people were jailed five years ago | :25:12. | :25:16. | |
and then it was talked about some people were doing it. We didn't | :25:16. | :25:21. | |
have an idea it was as widespread as - You thought it was more | :25:21. | :25:23. | |
widespread than a rowing reporter in We thought some people were | :25:23. | :25:27. | |
doing it into celebrities once or twice, that's all. You think, I'm | :25:27. | :25:31. | |
told, by our team of researchers, that this is Much Ado About Nothing. | :25:31. | :25:38. | |
I do. Why is that? Minority view. Not for the first time in my life! | :25:38. | :25:43. | |
Well, firstly, two adjectives: one is surprising, one is shocking. No, | :25:43. | :25:47. | |
it's not surprising, as far as I'm concerned. Call it hacking, but | :25:47. | :25:50. | |
it's actually evesdropping. It has been going on sips the Old | :25:50. | :25:57. | |
Testament. It was going on in the days of Sir Francis Walsingham, and | :25:57. | :26:04. | |
when we were young, it was called bugging. In the Old Testament, the | :26:04. | :26:10. | |
story of Hannah in the elders, that's evesdropping and the elders | :26:10. | :26:14. | |
got it in the neck. I'm sure people will get it in the neck here. The | :26:14. | :26:17. | |
other thing -. It's not surprising. We're on the word surprising. There | :26:17. | :26:20. | |
is nothing surprising about people listening to other people's | :26:20. | :26:23. | |
conversations. But it is illegal, is it not? Yes, of course it is. | :26:23. | :26:30. | |
What is surprising to me is that anybody should be so naive, so | :26:30. | :26:35. | |
gullible, so irretrieveably thick to think that an e-mail is a | :26:35. | :26:38. | |
confidential document. I think Freddie's view is a record by the | :26:39. | :26:43. | |
wider public. I would take it most people didn't care about this until | :26:43. | :26:48. | |
the Milly Dowleer revelation, then it was a game change. What do you | :26:48. | :26:55. | |
say - They didn't give a dam until it came out with Milly Dowler, | :26:55. | :27:01. | |
listening to the relatives of Helmand, and the relatives of the | :27:01. | :27:06. | |
girls in Soham. I think that's true. One element of it that is been | :27:06. | :27:08. | |
profoundly damaging to British society is the involvement of the | :27:09. | :27:11. | |
Metropolitan Police and their failure to investigate for whatever | :27:11. | :27:14. | |
reasons, whether that is collusion or just laziness or incompetence, | :27:14. | :27:18. | |
or whatever, but their systematic lies to parliament as well I think | :27:18. | :27:23. | |
are problematic, and for my constituents the problem is about | :27:23. | :27:26. | |
Murdoch owning TV. Do you think people listening toe phone | :27:26. | :27:30. | |
conversations has never happened before in this country? It's been | :27:30. | :27:32. | |
going on for decades. That doesn't make it a good and right thing. | :27:33. | :27:38. | |
Part of the problem is actually not so much obviously the original act | :27:38. | :27:41. | |
had become illegal, but they've got themselves into a real mess because | :27:42. | :27:45. | |
of the cover-up. Of course, as usual. It's a Watergate situation. | :27:45. | :27:50. | |
It's what happened with nickson. think the maximum you can get for | :27:50. | :27:54. | |
hacking is two years. The The maximum you can get for perverting | :27:54. | :27:57. | |
the course of justice is ten. That's the territory we're now in. | :27:57. | :28:02. | |
Let me ask you this question we're now in. A lot of it has been put on | :28:02. | :28:07. | |
this "for Neville" e-mail because it's meant to show that glen mull | :28:07. | :28:14. | |
care, the private - Glen Mucrare was hacking for more than Clive | :28:14. | :28:18. | |
Goodman. Given this refers to a case involving Mr Taylor who was | :28:18. | :28:20. | |
the head of the professional footballers' association or | :28:20. | :28:23. | |
something like that, why would anybody think that Clive Goodman | :28:23. | :28:27. | |
who want to hack his phone in the first place? This was a point that | :28:27. | :28:31. | |
was made systematically and regularly but nonetheless News | :28:31. | :28:34. | |
International came back time and again there is one rowing reporter. | :28:34. | :28:37. | |
I've got 32 instances of them relying on that. They knew, | :28:37. | :28:43. | |
including James Murdoch, knew that that was not true. Gentlemen, thank | :28:43. | :28:49. | |
you for that. I would like to point out, as far as we're concerned, our | :28:49. | :28:52. | |
family think we are slim, young and irresistable! | :28:52. | :29:00. | |
Before we came on air, we had the former MP for Luton South. She is | :29:00. | :29:06. | |
called Margaret Moran, who will face charges to her expenses claim. | :29:06. | :29:13. | |
She will face 21 charges. Our correspondent Robin Brant joins us. | :29:13. | :29:18. | |
Remind us what has happened now. Margtd jirbgts moran who is no | :29:18. | :29:26. | |
longer an MP, is facing a whopping 21 charges twice as many as other | :29:26. | :29:32. | |
suspects others have faced. They are charges of theft and forgery. | :29:32. | :29:34. | |
It's the forgery that will be looked upon by the court as far | :29:34. | :29:39. | |
more serious. This is a relation between a a period between November | :29:39. | :29:43. | |
2004 and November 2008 when it is alleged that the Labour MP as she | :29:43. | :29:47. | |
was at the time made a series of claims for expenses relating to | :29:47. | :29:51. | |
�60,000, �20,000 for that for dry rot in a property in Southampton. | :29:51. | :29:55. | |
That property a hundred miles or so from her Lieutenant son South | :29:55. | :29:58. | |
constituency, claims also relating to other properties in Luton and | :29:58. | :30:03. | |
London, so, in total, claims for �60,000 over a four-year period, | :30:03. | :30:10. | |
and 21 charges in all, so she's in court on 19 cement, and as I said I | :30:10. | :30:14. | |
think it's the forgery accusation that could be most serious for | :30:14. | :30:17. | |
Margaret Moran if found true because she could find herself in | :30:17. | :30:21. | |
jail for several years over that. She has now been charged. I think | :30:21. | :30:25. | |
it's probably legally wise that we leave it there. | :30:25. | :30:28. | |
The other committee, the home affairs select committee, has also | :30:28. | :30:32. | |
been holding a hearing this morning, and they've been looking at the | :30:32. | :30:37. | |
summer riots. No doubt they'll be aware of the justice secretary Ken | :30:37. | :30:41. | |
Clarke's comments in the Guardian. Mr Clarke argues what he calls the | :30:41. | :30:44. | |
appalling social deficit as well as the financial deficit should be | :30:45. | :30:47. | |
addressed, saying a rocket booster needs to be put on to plans to fix | :30:47. | :30:51. | |
not just the criminal justice system but education, welfare, and | :30:51. | :30:54. | |
family policy. The justice secretary adds that the | :30:54. | :30:57. | |
hard-core of the rioters were in fact known criminals, and claims | :30:57. | :31:01. | |
that is the legacy of a broken penal system. Mr Clarke writes that | :31:01. | :31:06. | |
as well as the need for tough sentencing, more must be done to | :31:06. | :31:11. | |
reduce reoffending, and calls for the paying of those who | :31:11. | :31:15. | |
rehabilitate offenders by the results they achieve. The home | :31:15. | :31:17. | |
affairs committee has been hearing evidence for much of this morning | :31:17. | :31:20. | |
from both senior police officers and senior London politicians. | :31:20. | :31:25. | |
Starting with the Mayor of London himself. I think he's called Boris | :31:25. | :31:35. | |
:31:35. | :31:36. | ||
Johnson. I think, obviously, with Twenty20 hind - 2020 hindsight, and | :31:36. | :31:39. | |
you'll have your opportunity in a minute to talk to the commissioner | :31:39. | :31:43. | |
on the night - people think it might have been wiser to upscale | :31:43. | :31:47. | |
the police presence. This is the Prime Minister. When you look | :31:47. | :31:50. | |
overall at the police which is what you want to get out of us, when you | :31:50. | :31:53. | |
look at what the police did on that night, on successive nights, and | :31:53. | :31:57. | |
what they're doing now in their detect work, which is - detective | :31:57. | :32:04. | |
work, which is quite remarkable, arrested 288 people, and be in no | :32:04. | :32:08. | |
doubt, more and more people will be arrested and charged. The CCTV is | :32:08. | :32:11. | |
still being gone through. They're doing an exceptional process. And, | :32:11. | :32:16. | |
in spite of everything, these riots were contained, there was the very | :32:16. | :32:21. | |
tragic death of Mr Boews in Ealing, but otherwise, there were | :32:21. | :32:28. | |
remarkably few casualties. I just remind the committee that - We will | :32:28. | :32:31. | |
come on to all this detail. people of London, my impression, | :32:31. | :32:34. | |
they have the the very strong support and respect for the way the | :32:34. | :32:39. | |
police were able to handle these riots. The issue for this this | :32:39. | :32:41. | |
committee is do you agree with the Prime Minister in his statement to | :32:41. | :32:45. | |
parliament when parliament was recalled that the tactics were not | :32:45. | :32:49. | |
working, and too few police officers were deployed? Do you | :32:49. | :32:57. | |
agree with him or not? It is self- evident, Mr Vaz, that there was a | :32:57. | :33:01. | |
difficulty, there was a crisis on the Saturday, then the Sunday, then | :33:01. | :33:05. | |
the Monday, which caught everybody unawares, and there is no doubt | :33:05. | :33:10. | |
about that. I think when people come to aopblise this event, they | :33:10. | :33:15. | |
will want to pay particular attention to the role of social | :33:15. | :33:20. | |
media, the black berry messaging, all of that, and how that allowed | :33:20. | :33:24. | |
the dispersal of this disorder. That's from Boris Johnson. Next up, | :33:24. | :33:34. | |
:33:34. | :33:36. | ||
it was the turn of the acting Met commissioner, Tim Godwin. He asked | :33:36. | :33:43. | |
how the death of Mark Duggan started the riots. It's one of the | :33:43. | :33:47. | |
things we're looking into now in terms of what actually went on. | :33:47. | :33:51. | |
There was some confusion in terms of who was going to tell Mr | :33:51. | :33:54. | |
Duggan's family, and that we deeply regret, and our commander has been | :33:54. | :33:59. | |
round to see the family to actually apologise for those errors, albeit | :33:59. | :34:03. | |
I can understand why those errors occurred, but they were errors I've | :34:03. | :34:07. | |
apologised for. I think one of the things we need to look at is the | :34:07. | :34:11. | |
whole whole management that took place at Tottenham so that we can | :34:11. | :34:15. | |
learn from it. I think there were some good decisions taken, and | :34:15. | :34:18. | |
additionally, there were some misunderstandings. We need to get | :34:18. | :34:24. | |
to the bottom of that. Lynn Owens sitting next to me has been tasked | :34:24. | :34:30. | |
by me to pick up those issues, causeiality, et cetera, and those | :34:30. | :34:33. | |
conclusions, and this is so important, and we want to be | :34:33. | :34:38. | |
transparent, those conclusions will be shared with this committee. | :34:38. | :34:46. | |
Nothing possibly can justify what occurred with the looting and the | :34:46. | :34:50. | |
rioting - certainly not myself in any way is trying to find some | :34:50. | :34:58. | |
justification. But coming to the actual event that some considered | :34:58. | :35:02. | |
triggered off, we read in the past that the partner of Mark Duggan | :35:02. | :35:06. | |
went to the police station waiting hours before any information was | :35:06. | :35:09. | |
given, and even then, she considered it unsatisfactory. I'm | :35:09. | :35:16. | |
just wondering how far you as the most senior person, the most senior | :35:16. | :35:20. | |
officer of the Met looked into this? We've got, as I say, the | :35:20. | :35:24. | |
review going through in terms of what went on at Tottenham during | :35:24. | :35:31. | |
that period following the death of Mark Duggan, and it is fair to say, | :35:31. | :35:36. | |
as in all investigations, there are different views and interpretations | :35:36. | :35:41. | |
of what and wasn't said and we need to get to the bottom of that. There | :35:41. | :35:49. | |
is an issue for us how we look at and relate with the IPPC. That is | :35:49. | :35:51. | |
the learning that will come out of this. That is a critical one we | :35:51. | :35:55. | |
have to get done speedily so we can make sure we don't make those | :35:55. | :36:01. | |
mistakes again. Can I ask you about techniques used by the police in | :36:01. | :36:04. | |
dealing with the disturbances. Are there any lessons to be learned? Do | :36:04. | :36:09. | |
you feel other techniques could have been used initially which | :36:09. | :36:13. | |
could have helped the situation to restore order? I think the - again, | :36:13. | :36:17. | |
that's part of our review process. One of the things that impressed me | :36:17. | :36:21. | |
was the use of vehicle-borne tactics in terms of moving people | :36:21. | :36:27. | |
forward and keeping cordons. I think for us initially, though, we | :36:27. | :36:31. | |
had a fuel ring of tactics that we could deploy. It was purely numbers | :36:31. | :36:37. | |
that was the inhibitor, so we got to look at that. The point about | :36:37. | :36:41. | |
"where are all the cops?" Is an issue we're going to be addressing | :36:41. | :36:44. | |
in the next few months in terms of maximising our footprint and | :36:44. | :36:48. | |
getting the numbers out there. I think there are a number of the | :36:48. | :36:52. | |
levels we've got that are public- order trained. All of that of | :36:53. | :36:57. | |
course has a cost. We're joined now by Conservative MP David Davis, the | :36:57. | :37:00. | |
Labour MP David Lammy, whose Tottenham constituency was blighted | :37:00. | :37:06. | |
by the riots. David Davis, David Cameron characterised the riots as | :37:06. | :37:09. | |
criminality pure and simple. Do you agree with that? Yes, I do, really. | :37:09. | :37:16. | |
What was clear, certainly by day two - not on day one - was these | :37:16. | :37:18. | |
riots were occurring where there was a lot of gang activity in | :37:18. | :37:21. | |
London, a lot of basic criminality there, and then from that you had a | :37:21. | :37:25. | |
sweep of all sorts of - - suite of all sorts of people getting | :37:25. | :37:33. | |
involved, and we heard today 75% of people they've taken on board so | :37:33. | :37:36. | |
far have previous criminal records. David Lammy, does that surprise | :37:36. | :37:40. | |
you? Three-quarters of those aged 18 or over charged with rioting | :37:40. | :37:44. | |
offences already had a prior conviction. On the gang-related bit, | :37:44. | :37:48. | |
they said it was 19%, perhaps not as high. It's difficult to get the | :37:48. | :37:50. | |
figures completely straight but those initial figures are three- | :37:50. | :37:53. | |
quarters of those who already have prior convictions. Pretty shocking, | :37:53. | :37:56. | |
isn't it? It was clear on the Saturday night when things started | :37:56. | :38:02. | |
in Tottenham that half of those who were caught up in this were not | :38:02. | :38:06. | |
from Tottenham, and I said that on Sunday morning. I think the second | :38:06. | :38:09. | |
thing was this rioting went on throughout the night. Many people | :38:09. | :38:12. | |
stayed up watching the images well into the early hours. You then had | :38:12. | :38:16. | |
looting in another part of London, in Wood Green, with no police there | :38:16. | :38:21. | |
at all. It was a red rag to any criminal in and across London to | :38:21. | :38:25. | |
arrive and to cause criminal damage and to take goods away. So it's not | :38:25. | :38:29. | |
surprising, of course, that criminals were caught up in this. | :38:29. | :38:34. | |
You do point the finger at the police. Tim Godwin was asked could | :38:34. | :38:39. | |
the police have shut it down in Tottenham? He said, "I don't know, | :38:39. | :38:42. | |
I'll have to look at all the evidence." I was with the victims, | :38:42. | :38:46. | |
the homeless people who have lost everything they own. They said | :38:46. | :38:49. | |
standing around their flats, where were the police? Where were the | :38:49. | :38:53. | |
fire? Why were they down the road outside the police station not | :38:53. | :38:56. | |
supporting my my flat? Why did I have to set the alarm to get out of | :38:56. | :39:01. | |
my building? There was and has been another point of view presented | :39:01. | :39:05. | |
which is actually if they had gone in in a hard, tough way in | :39:05. | :39:08. | |
Tottenham, it could have made it worse, but it could have been more | :39:08. | :39:13. | |
or looting or "going shopping" it could have been really violent. | :39:13. | :39:17. | |
can understand that fear after the Mark Duggan episode and the fear | :39:17. | :39:22. | |
that would cause some Brixton-type riot, but I don't think that excuse | :39:22. | :39:25. | |
applies to anything that happened later. The next day, we had riots | :39:25. | :39:28. | |
pretty much all over London. There was no excuse whatsoever. There was | :39:28. | :39:35. | |
some excuse on the first day. None by day two. Ken Clarke used pretty | :39:36. | :39:39. | |
strident language for Ken Clarke. He talked about the appalling | :39:39. | :39:42. | |
social deficit. Which do you think the government should concentrate | :39:42. | :39:46. | |
on? Stopping people reoffending on the criminal side of it, or the | :39:46. | :39:49. | |
social side? You can't do one or other. You've got to do both, | :39:49. | :39:55. | |
actually. Ken and I don't agree on prison policy. Surprise, surprise! | :39:55. | :39:59. | |
And I think we should have more people in prison I'm afraid. | :39:59. | :40:03. | |
Prisons have gone off the rails in the last ten years with very, very | :40:03. | :40:05. | |
high reoffending rates. It wasn't always so. You've got to put that | :40:05. | :40:08. | |
right. You've got to do something about that, but you've also got to | :40:08. | :40:13. | |
deal with the gangs. The 19% number shows what the police don't know e | :40:13. | :40:16. | |
there are a lot of areas, estates around London, some in Tottenham, | :40:16. | :40:20. | |
some in Hackney, some in Brixton, where the gangs rule, and where | :40:20. | :40:25. | |
youngsters growing up have no choice. They're forced into and | :40:25. | :40:28. | |
become reluctant gangsters, if you like,. How do you see it in those | :40:28. | :40:31. | |
terms that actually we have this gang culture that's grown up, they | :40:31. | :40:36. | |
took an an opportunity and this is what what occurred. I think that is | :40:36. | :40:41. | |
self-evident. What surprised me was the speed of the conteenage young. | :40:41. | :40:45. | |
99.9% of people had never heard of Mark Duggan, that he didn't know | :40:45. | :40:49. | |
who he was, whether he threatened to pull a gun on the police, they | :40:49. | :40:52. | |
might have heard he was dead, but that wasn't the concern at all. It | :40:52. | :40:57. | |
spread to the Midlands and then north of England. We have had riots | :40:57. | :41:01. | |
before: Toxteth, Brixton, Broadwater Farm, but never sort of | :41:01. | :41:05. | |
suddenly bursting out in Manchester or Birmingham, or Nottingham. Again, | :41:05. | :41:12. | |
the one - the new factor which we've touched on already in another | :41:12. | :41:17. | |
subject: cyberspace. They're able to see it all on this gizmo they | :41:17. | :41:20. | |
carry. Yes, it's contagious. can't pull that back. People have | :41:20. | :41:25. | |
argued what what can you do about social media. Can something be | :41:25. | :41:28. | |
done? I don't know the technology well enough whether you can close | :41:28. | :41:34. | |
it down? You can't. It's there. It's oddly enough also fuelling the | :41:34. | :41:39. | |
Arab spring, actually. All it's done is accelerate what happened | :41:39. | :41:44. | |
before. In the mid-1980s, not the first riots, but in the made 1980s | :41:44. | :41:49. | |
Brixton riots, there were two phases where it was a demonstration, | :41:49. | :41:54. | |
and the second phase it was straightforwardly criminal, people | :41:54. | :42:00. | |
selecting shops and helping themselves, and planning to do so. | :42:00. | :42:05. | |
There's People looking ahead and forward as to what actually can be | :42:05. | :42:07. | |
done. The police have said one of the questions that's got to be | :42:07. | :42:12. | |
raised is where are all the cops? There a view about where they're | :42:12. | :42:15. | |
deployed, how many are deployed? That to a certain extent was passed | :42:15. | :42:19. | |
aside because of the view it was pure criminality or would you like | :42:19. | :42:22. | |
a proper review of where the cops are? Absolutely. Boris is proposing | :42:22. | :42:26. | |
to get rid of 600 srjents. We've got a reduction in police numbers | :42:26. | :42:32. | |
after the Olympics. People in London want to see officers, not | :42:32. | :42:36. | |
less, and clearly on a Saturday night in August, the officers there | :42:36. | :42:39. | |
were not able to contain young people who started burning a car, | :42:39. | :42:45. | |
then a second car, and then a bus. Will they realistically ever be | :42:45. | :42:51. | |
able to contain the wildfire that spread? Yes, we pay our taxes. | :42:51. | :42:56. | |
People are entitled to be policed. Let's be clear on this. In my | :42:56. | :43:00. | |
constituency, ordinary people - not the rioters, not the looters - | :43:00. | :43:05. | |
ordinary people do not feel policed. They saw young criminals outfox our | :43:05. | :43:09. | |
police officers. Two stark facts: number one, there are 32,000 police | :43:09. | :43:14. | |
in London. Only 3,000 were turned out as it were in in Tottenham | :43:14. | :43:17. | |
eventually. Number two, when they were turned out the next day, there | :43:17. | :43:21. | |
were lots of heroic actions by individual policemen, but what was | :43:21. | :43:26. | |
clearly the case was they were told to stand back. You could see | :43:26. | :43:32. | |
policemen watching arson, theft. They hated it themselves but the | :43:32. | :43:34. | |
leadership, there was a massive police leadership failure. That's | :43:34. | :43:37. | |
the point we have to understand. One final thing, the Prime Minister | :43:38. | :43:40. | |
is going to say this this afternoon, views on televising court | :43:41. | :43:43. | |
proceedings. Will that make a difference? I think we need to | :43:43. | :43:49. | |
televise the courts. People need to see justice done. They want to see | :43:49. | :43:55. | |
the sentences. We absolutely need to get past this business of behind | :43:55. | :44:00. | |
closed doors. I'm I'm happy about seeing the sentencing and I've | :44:00. | :44:05. | |
watched the American court cases. The theeate kalt of it is - the | :44:05. | :44:09. | |
theatre of it is different from the sober justice we're used to. Look | :44:09. | :44:14. | |
at the OJ case. They said this about the House of Commons. The | :44:14. | :44:18. | |
same Conservatives, let's not televise the House of Commons, | :44:18. | :44:22. | |
people see their democracy in front of them, whether they like it or | :44:22. | :44:26. | |
not. We now need that with the courts. To be respected or admired, | :44:26. | :44:30. | |
probably not? That's the sense of the time, if you've got MPs on the | :44:30. | :44:38. | |
take, of course it's not admired! It could be to do with the quality | :44:38. | :44:43. | |
of MPs of course! It might have been lousy in the 1950s, and we | :44:43. | :44:49. | |
didn't see them. And so ends the discussion, but stay with us. | :44:49. | :44:53. | |
Now, speaking of seeing MPs, we've seen quite a lot of backbenchers | :44:53. | :44:56. | |
today questioning all sorts of witnesses at those select committee | :44:56. | :44:59. | |
inquiries, select committees often being more important than what | :44:59. | :45:02. | |
happens on the floor of the House. Usually, it's the government that | :45:02. | :45:07. | |
sets the agenda in terms of what gets debated in the floor. What has | :45:07. | :45:11. | |
been a new development, however, is something called the backbench | :45:11. | :45:14. | |
business committee which can get the odd item on to the agenda, run | :45:14. | :45:18. | |
by MPs, and it's meeting this lunchtime. Not only that, but we | :45:18. | :45:24. | |
can also try and influence what subjects they pick for debate by | :45:24. | :45:26. | |
signing E-petitions, which is online. So, what have you been | :45:26. | :45:30. | |
getting cross about recently online? Giles has been taking a | :45:30. | :45:36. | |
look. 8 E-petitions - an exercise in 21 | :45:36. | :45:42. | |
century digital democracy or a handy way of plaibgt people feel | :45:42. | :45:45. | |
like they have a voice but actually don't. It doesn't matter what you | :45:46. | :45:49. | |
think because it's no doubt people are signing them, but only those | :45:49. | :45:53. | |
with 100,000 signatories will be considered for debate, and so far, | :45:53. | :45:58. | |
that is just two. Over the summer, Twitter fans may have seen an | :45:58. | :46:06. | |
online campaign to get the death penalty to return. A counter E- | :46:06. | :46:12. | |
petition to keep the status qo had 26,000 signatures and came six. | :46:12. | :46:21. | |
What are in the top five? At five, 36,000 signed to ask the | :46:21. | :46:23. | |
government's change public sector pension increases to be reversed. | :46:23. | :46:28. | |
At four, 57,000 agreed financial education should be a compulsory | :46:28. | :46:33. | |
part of the school curriculum. At three, an E-petition for cheaper | :46:33. | :46:42. | |
petrol and diesel attracted 67,500 but as yet, all of those are still | :46:42. | :46:45. | |
short of the magic 100,000. Which were the two which cleared the | :46:45. | :46:49. | |
threshold? At two, a request for full disclosure of all government | :46:50. | :46:58. | |
documents relating to the 1989 Hillsborough disaster. This got | :46:58. | :47:02. | |
13137,600 signatories, and some publicity from a well-known | :47:02. | :47:08. | |
footballer. Last week, the government suggested it wasn't - at | :47:08. | :47:15. | |
one, normally 212,000 agreed MPs debate whether convicted London | :47:15. | :47:17. | |
rioters should lose all their benefits. Will the backbench | :47:18. | :47:21. | |
business committee look at scheduling a debate for that? Since | :47:21. | :47:25. | |
every E-petition is open for a year, will those currently under the | :47:25. | :47:30. | |
100,000 make the magic marker? Incidently, there are two others | :47:30. | :47:34. | |
running: one saying 100,000 is too much, and another saying 100,000 is | :47:34. | :47:40. | |
too little. Neither of them has significant support. | :47:40. | :47:45. | |
David Lammy and David Davis are still with us. Is it a gimmick? | :47:45. | :47:48. | |
it's a good idea, actually. I think the whole backbench business | :47:48. | :47:52. | |
committee thing has been an astounding success. You've heard | :47:52. | :47:57. | |
about one change of government policy on Hillsborough, prisoner | :47:57. | :48:00. | |
votes, the government was driven off its own policy, changed on that. | :48:01. | :48:05. | |
I think it's a very good idea. it really make a difference? | :48:05. | :48:08. | |
think we're seeing a far more assertive group of backbenchers. | :48:08. | :48:11. | |
Select committees are working, and I think that the public need to | :48:11. | :48:15. | |
find ways to influence what they see as a political elite and a | :48:15. | :48:19. | |
political class removed from them. So things like Hillsborough, a huge | :48:19. | :48:24. | |
huge development Thai don't think you could have left to parliament | :48:24. | :48:28. | |
itself. The committee will presumably select select one of | :48:28. | :48:31. | |
these E-petitions for debate, debate it, and then what? Then the | :48:31. | :48:37. | |
government will have to respond. They've first of all got to decide | :48:37. | :48:39. | |
what they should do about whipping. They shouldn't really whip these | :48:39. | :48:43. | |
things at all. We had this with the prisoner votes, they tried to whip | :48:43. | :48:45. | |
various proposals and the Conservative Party wouldn't play so | :48:45. | :48:50. | |
they then had to give in it and change their line. The petition to | :48:50. | :48:53. | |
take away welfare benefits from rioters, that's something the | :48:53. | :48:57. | |
political parties are going to have a view on, that would have to be | :48:57. | :49:00. | |
whipped, I thought have thought. Not necessarily. Just because we | :49:00. | :49:04. | |
have a view, it's not we're all of the same view. That's something | :49:04. | :49:07. | |
frankly the Prime Minister put into the public domain when he made his | :49:07. | :49:10. | |
statement after the riots. There are very, very different views in | :49:10. | :49:14. | |
both main parties, all three parties, about whether it is a good | :49:14. | :49:19. | |
or a bad bad idea. This is the sort of debate that parliament August to | :49:19. | :49:24. | |
be able to assert its view. Throughout the Blair/Brown years, | :49:24. | :49:28. | |
there were complaints that the legislature was not holding the | :49:28. | :49:32. | |
executive to account. Do you really think that's improved? I think | :49:32. | :49:35. | |
that's a fair saemt, to be honest, about backbench activity in the | :49:35. | :49:39. | |
first two terms that certainly I was in parliament. I do think we're | :49:39. | :49:45. | |
seeing a more robust parliamentary system. You're concentrating on | :49:45. | :49:47. | |
select committees where frankly a show like this would have regarded | :49:47. | :49:54. | |
them previously. Not this kind of show! Maybe Panorama or Newsnight | :49:54. | :50:00. | |
or these other downmarket programmes! And there there is - | :50:00. | :50:03. | |
there is a sense of there is action back in the House of Commons after | :50:03. | :50:07. | |
a period where the action was in other places. Do you buy this? | :50:07. | :50:11. | |
approve of just about anything, any measure whereby backbenchers can | :50:11. | :50:13. | |
hold the government to account because it's their job. I've spent, | :50:13. | :50:23. | |
:50:23. | :50:24. | ||
as we both know, I think, 15 years watching virtual an obsequious | :50:24. | :50:34. | |
:50:34. | :50:39. | ||
backbench entrepreneurial lafrpbgs grant them a debate or a change of | :50:39. | :50:42. | |
policy that they don't wish. They can see Hillsborough but they're | :50:42. | :50:46. | |
not going to concede a referendum - They had to on prisoner votes. They | :50:46. | :50:51. | |
had no choice on that one. Explain that. The government was going to | :50:51. | :50:56. | |
grant them? Because everybody under a four-year sentence, and then - | :50:56. | :51:01. | |
They didn't want to do it. often do you hear governments say | :51:01. | :51:05. | |
we don't want to do this but we have to because of Europe. It's | :51:05. | :51:08. | |
four years, then one years, then six years, then magistrates, and | :51:09. | :51:11. | |
then they gave in. The other thing that is altered all this is the | :51:11. | :51:16. | |
existence of the coalition itself. If Simon Hughes jumps up and says | :51:16. | :51:19. | |
he doesn't like what the government is doing, they can hardly turn | :51:19. | :51:24. | |
round to me and say you can't jump up and say you don't like - the | :51:24. | :51:28. | |
coalition has caused a new debate as well. Coalition may have | :51:28. | :51:33. | |
liberated the backbenches? In a way. We shall have to say goodbye to | :51:33. | :51:38. | |
these two not so obsequious backbenchers! Thank you! 30 years | :51:38. | :51:41. | |
ago, a group much women took a stand, protesting about the arrival | :51:41. | :51:45. | |
of American nuclear missiles at an air base in Berkshire and stay | :51:45. | :51:54. | |
outside the gates of Greenham Common in all weathers for 19 years. | :51:54. | :52:00. | |
# God save our gracious Queen... # Thatcher was Prime Minister, the | :52:00. | :52:04. | |
Cold War reaching a new peak, and a group of Welsh women had marched to | :52:04. | :52:13. | |
Berkshire. They were concerned because the air | :52:13. | :52:18. | |
base at Greenham Common was soon to become home to a new kind of | :52:18. | :52:22. | |
nuclear weapon belonging to the US: the cruise missile. Women from | :52:22. | :52:26. | |
across the country and around the world joined the all-female, all- | :52:26. | :52:30. | |
hours peace camp. Living conditions were rudimentary, and especially | :52:30. | :52:34. | |
tough during winter. At one point, 35,000 women linked arms around the | :52:34. | :52:38. | |
place, although some of their stunts got some of them imprisoned, | :52:38. | :52:42. | |
as one veteran explained to me. Well, of course, if you have a | :52:42. | :52:45. | |
group of women who occupy the century box at the opening of a | :52:45. | :52:54. | |
nuclear weapons base, or go - seentry box, dance on the nuclear | :52:54. | :52:57. | |
weapons silos or climb up the outside and get into the air | :52:57. | :53:01. | |
traffic control tower, hang a big banner saying, "Peace on earth", | :53:01. | :53:06. | |
this technically is considered illegal. But we did it entirely | :53:06. | :53:09. | |
with non-violence, always. That's not how it was seen by some | :53:09. | :53:15. | |
sections of the media. "They suspect the nuclear issue here has | :53:15. | :53:20. | |
been hijacked by radical feminists who tend to give the majority a bad | :53:20. | :53:23. | |
image." Or by the governments of the day. What they tried to do was | :53:23. | :53:29. | |
give a very clear image of peace- loving people, very reasonable, et | :53:29. | :53:33. | |
cetera, but when I went to Greenham Common, it turned out that they | :53:33. | :53:37. | |
were violent mob on the streets, and I think that completely cut the | :53:37. | :53:40. | |
ground from underneath them. But it was this that eventually brought | :53:40. | :53:47. | |
the protest to an end: the agreement between Reagan and | :53:47. | :53:51. | |
Gorbachev in 1987 that began the drawdown of stocks of nuclear | :53:51. | :53:55. | |
weapons which meant the missiles of Greenham Common were loaded on to a | :53:55. | :53:59. | |
plane and taken home. A smaller group of women remained until the | :53:59. | :54:03. | |
year 2000 after the base had been dismantled. | :54:03. | :54:07. | |
This weekend, some of them were back there, the site of their 19- | :54:07. | :54:13. | |
year protest now an industrial estate and country park. There's a | :54:13. | :54:19. | |
herd of Exmoor ponies, there are cows, people people take their dogs | :54:19. | :54:22. | |
and toddlers for walks on that base. It's beautiful, how, in the deepest | :54:22. | :54:28. | |
darkest days when I wondered if it was worth it, that's how I imagined | :54:28. | :54:31. | |
Greenham Common could be restored to common land and it has been. | :54:31. | :54:36. | |
We're joined now by one of the ladies of Greenham Common, Joan | :54:36. | :54:42. | |
Ruddock, who was the former chair of CND. Picking up there what | :54:42. | :54:45. | |
Michael Heseltine said, he characterised them as a violent mob | :54:45. | :54:50. | |
on the streets. Obviously not true in your view? Entirely not true. If | :54:50. | :54:54. | |
there was any violence going, it was in his own mind. We saw some of | :54:54. | :54:58. | |
the pictures indicating - There really wasn't. The whole purpose of | :54:58. | :55:01. | |
the women's protest, and the whole reason that the peace movement gave | :55:01. | :55:06. | |
the space to women and didn't invade them and get involved was to | :55:06. | :55:12. | |
remove aggression, so that it was seen to be a women's-only event, | :55:12. | :55:19. | |
and it was actually non-violent and always was non-violent. I never saw | :55:19. | :55:22. | |
any violence at that base. People say it brought worldwide attention | :55:22. | :55:25. | |
perhaps to the issue. It didn't actually achieve anything, did it? | :55:25. | :55:29. | |
We saw those pictures of Gorbachev and President Regan. They made | :55:30. | :55:33. | |
those decisions. It wasn't as a result of the women at Greenham | :55:33. | :55:36. | |
Common. It's very difficult to know what actually motivates leaders, | :55:36. | :55:40. | |
and when you've got huge public protest on both sides of what was | :55:40. | :55:45. | |
then the Iron Curtain, this certainly was likely to have have | :55:45. | :55:50. | |
had some effect. What we saw from the women was was a symbolism that | :55:50. | :55:53. | |
ordinary people could challenge authority, that they were not | :55:53. | :55:57. | |
afraid, and that nuclear weapons which were things that respect | :55:57. | :56:02. | |
going to kill millions, hundreds of millions of people, did not have | :56:02. | :56:07. | |
any part in a reasonable society. The arguments were all about reason, | :56:07. | :56:11. | |
and the reason prevailed. One of the most significant things, I | :56:11. | :56:15. | |
think, that was said to me, because I dealt quite a lot with Gorbachev | :56:15. | :56:18. | |
advisers, and one of them said to me one day, "You know, we learned | :56:18. | :56:23. | |
by your example." We have many contacts with the police movement | :56:23. | :56:28. | |
with dissidents in the east, and we were part of that growing democracy | :56:28. | :56:35. | |
movement across eastern Europe that was challenging the old hegemoy of | :56:35. | :56:38. | |
the eastern states. One of the Gorbachev advisers said it had an | :56:38. | :56:42. | |
influence, it was symbolic. think it brought Gorbachev to | :56:42. | :56:47. | |
power? Not the Greenham Common women. Emphatically not. No-one is | :56:47. | :56:50. | |
suggesting that for a moment. rather closer to the coal face | :56:50. | :56:53. | |
because I was a foreign correspondent for East Germany, | :56:53. | :56:57. | |
Czechoslovakia and Hungary at the height of the Cold War. I watched | :56:58. | :57:01. | |
the brutality of the communist regime, this so-called protest | :57:01. | :57:06. | |
movement both sides. Come on, the only way you got a protest protest | :57:06. | :57:10. | |
movement on the other side of the Iron Curtain was you got a one-way | :57:10. | :57:17. | |
ticket to Siberia. But them protest. I've been in Moscow trying to visit | :57:17. | :57:21. | |
protesters in Moscow. I've been arrested by the KGB. You weren't | :57:21. | :57:25. | |
imprisoned, were you? I was visiting them in flats that respect | :57:25. | :57:30. | |
surrounded by the KGB. Of course they were under enormous pressure. | :57:30. | :57:34. | |
Where do you think they got the inspiration, both from themselves | :57:34. | :57:38. | |
and their own ideas of what might be different, but also because | :57:38. | :57:43. | |
people in the West challenged the whole idea of nuclear weapons | :57:43. | :57:47. | |
maintaining the so-called peace. Nuclear weapons wra danger to all | :57:47. | :57:55. | |
of us, people in the East and West understood that. People generally, | :57:55. | :57:59. | |
as populations, not just behind the Iron Curtain, do you think they | :57:59. | :58:06. | |
were affected?. What caused finally the Politburo to lose its nerve and | :58:06. | :58:09. | |
the man they knew was going to change things in the form of | :58:09. | :58:13. | |
Gorbachev was the fact that they economically they were going broke. | :58:13. | :58:17. | |
Communism had failed economically. It was failing socially, and it was | :58:17. | :58:24. | |
failing militarily largely because we were deploying weapons like per | :58:24. | :58:29. | |
shinning two and Cruise that they couldn't match with SS20s. We put | :58:29. | :58:39. | |
:58:39. | :58:40. | ||
up more More pershingIIs, then the voice of people like Gorbachev | :58:40. | :58:45. | |
prevailed. It's got nothing to do with ladies sitting - We were | :58:45. | :58:50. | |
certainly proud of. He needed to find some support. He needed | :58:50. | :58:54. |