21/06/2013 Daily Politics

Politics. Is economic growth being backed by a workforce without the

skills needed, including basic numerous sea and literacy? That is

what British businesses. What has gone wrong? It is Ed Miliband 's big

idea but I bet you were wondering what pre-distribution actually

means. You have come to the right place! Let the wonkathon begin!

London is the place for me... It is 65 years since HMS Windrush arrived

with the first wave of West Indian immigrants. We will debate where

multiculturalism went right and wrong. And do you believe in strange

little men from other than its? -- other planets? We have one live in

the studio! Lembit Opik will be here to talk about UFOs.

All that in the next hour. Who better to discuss it all than the

Captain Kirk and Mr Spock of Westminster punditry. You can decide

which is which! I am talking about the Daily Mail 's Andrew Pierce and

Carla Buzasi from the Huffington Post. You got that right!Let's

start with the scandal over the cover-up of the deaths of 16 babies

and two mothers at Furness General Hospital 's maternity unit in

Cumbria. This morning the Health Secretary said he had little

confidence in the work of the care quality commission, the CQC, the

body that is supposed to regulate the health service and make sure

they do their job. He thought it needed to undergo big changes.

have these awful deaths in that hospital in Morecambe Bay is awful

enough, but then the very body whose job it is to speak up for the

public, speak up for patients, to be involved in covering it up, is

totally unacceptable. I think we do have to pause for a moment and

recognise that if we didn't have this new management at the CQC,

coming in with a new broom, we wouldn't have this independent

report, we wouldn't have the names in the public arena. There is a huge

job to do to restore public confidence. He didn't mince his

words. You wonder if the Secretary of State would take such a line like

that, maybe he should just abolish the whole thing and start again? We

are in a difficult position. Lives have been lost, babies lives, the

general public is understandably upset. You need a statement like

that, you need to feel someone is going to do something about it. You

would end up with another body, may be the same people doing the same

thing. They need to fix this and move on and ensure that if tragedies

like this occur, people will be held to account. Things can go wrong in

hospitals, we all understand that, but two things seem to have happened

here. A lot went wrong at this hospital, too often. And the people

that we, the taxpayers, paid to monitor these things, to step in,

make sure it doesn't happen again, they did not do their job and they

covered up the fact they hadn't done their job. They gave this hospital a

clean goal of health. extraordinary thing is the cover-up.

This week the banking commission recommended a new criminal charge

for bankers who are guilty of reckless conduct. We can all think

of a feud bankers who perhaps should have been charged with that. Isn't

it time that this approach was brought into the NHS, which is a

life or death industry? Years now, terrible things have been going

wrong, we saw it in Stafford, where 1200 people died needlessly. Sir

David Nicholson is now the Chief Executive of the NHS, you has not

been held to account. I think Jeremy Hunt should go further and get the

law officers to look at what sort of criminal sanction can be introduced

into the NHS. A lot of people see this as another example of the

divide between the governing elite and ordinary people, this is a

country where we have bankers who can money-laundering the Mexican

cartels drugs money, create a financial crash that leaves millions

unemployed, we have health service bureaucrats who don't do their job

even when lives are at stake and nobody goes to jail. There is also

an issue here, there is a salary thing, the bankers want to line

their pockets and everyday people 's savings are not worth worrying

about. By the standards of everybody else, these Chief Executive 's are

earning a lot. And she has a pension of 1.35 million, gold-plated public

sector pension which you couldn't get in the private sector. Do you

think this undermines the British love affair with the NHS? I don't

think so. That is a broad brush stroke, this is one hospital, they

have been other hospitals where they have been horrific incidents.

have been told at mid Staffordshire was not untypical. We have been told

the British public still wants to use the NHS... I wonder if that is

partly because their expectations are too low for a start, and

secondly, that until recently, this CQC which has not done its job

properly, but as Alan Johnson pointed out last night in this

studio, until about 2000 we had nothing monitoring what was going on

at all, we didn't really know. last time I was on the show we were

talking about the number of complaints, that was mainly about

GPs. That had gone up, the reason seems to have been because we have

made it easier for people to complain. My parents generation,

which was the first to enjoy the NHS, were so grateful because they

had lived through the 20s and 30s, they wouldn't really think of

complaining. If anything went wrong, it was their fault. They have been

several generations since then, generations who now think that

complaining is their right and of course it is. We have been told by

successive governments, they are spending ever-increasing amounts of

our money. Millions of millions of pounds of money has been spent on

gagging orders in the NHS, gagging whistleblowers, which is a scandal,

because they are trying to raise concern with what is going wrong in

hospitals and they have been suppressed with taxpayers money,

legally. There is a lot to go on here. I want to ask you, what is

your favourite political buzzword? Crowd sourcing? That Heidi Parenti,

omnishambles? What shame none of you mentioned the current phrase in

Labour circles, which is pre-distribution. It is an idea

dreamt up by Ed Miliband 's new intellectual guru, Jacob Hacker. It

is a way of redesigning what the government does when you don't want

to spend any more money or raise A conference in Oxford, 2012. The

leader of the Labour Party meets an academic called Professor Jacob

Hacker. He is sceptical of an economic system that lets the rich

get richer and pays off the rest with benefits and tax credits.

it has left them in is a position of having to mop up after the market

when things go bad, either do redistribute to make sure that

middle and working class people have enough income and adequate benefits,

or to clean up after financial crises. The answer?

Pre-distribution. A fairly similar -- simple idea, that inequality can

be prevented before it even starts. Historically, the most important and

effective things the state has done has been through pre-distribution,

sanitation standards that protected public health, setting the standards

that allowed Labour to -- labour movements to form. It can't just

involve the government endlessly stepping in after the market deck

has been built. We need to get the deck stacked a little bit in the

favour of the people. It is a thread that runs through many of his

biggest fans, like Ed Miliband. The idea that employers should be

encouraged to pay a living wage which is higher than the minimum

wage, so that business shares responsibility for the issues of

income along with the government. But there is someone who isn't

buying, David Cameron, who ridiculed Richard Bhushan last year. --

redistribution. His recommendation is we spend an extra 200 billion and

borrow an extra 200 billion in this Parliament. But in the work I have

done, I have discovered his new book. It is published ) is to need

of the press and it is called, the road to nowhere. We joke in the use

of the best thing that can happen to a progressive is you are attacked in

the Wall Street Journal. The best thing in the UK is you get attacked

by conservative Prime Minister. His next appointment is he's off to

Parliament to see if Miller band. -- Ed Miliband.

We're joined by a former adviser to new Labour. Tell us, give us a

simple explanation, short and simple, of pre-distribution.

idea of prudish to be shown is added into the back of the jobs market in

Britain has become hideously in equal -- pre-distribution. Tax

credits are unsustainable so we have to make work, jobs and the labour

market much fairer. For example, the best example that has been developed

is the minimum wage has made some improvements in terms of making jobs

fairer for people but the minimum wage, particularly in areas like

London, is far too low. So the idea of a living wage is that we have

higher minimums to which people are entitled, which makes the jobs they

do fairer. It is an issue that speaks... A few years ago that was

called London weighting. If you particular profession, he led a

national salary but if you worked in London where the costs of living was

higher, you got London weighting, a bit more to account for that.

role sorts of ways in which governments step in to make things

fairer, but the issue that is speaking to is the fact that despite

lots of changes in benefits in the last 15 years or so, we still have a

situation where insignificant parts of the country you will have a

household with two income earners, going to work every day will working

long hours, which is not adequate to keep them and their family in

reasonable conditions. The notion of pre-distribution is looking at

different ways of making the outcome fairer. The last Labour government

favours tax credits and the minimum wage, so is this really --

repudiation of that approach? an interested critique of some of

the policy measures that were introduced by the previous

government. One of the measures was to introduce a huge number of tax

credits designed to subsidise low wages. There is a recognition that

that approach has become unsustainable for a number of

reasons. Wages were simply not improving in time, real wages were

actually decreasing for a significant proportion of the

working population, but also, since the financial crisis, the amount of

public money available to spend on these measures is falling, so we

cannot rely on the government to keep stepping in. Except Labour has

not imposed any cuts. The recent speeches by Ed Miliband and Ed balls

have signified that Labour is going to... They didn't mention tax

credits. The reason why wages have not kept pace with rice is and why

real wages have been static, if not falling in some cases, it is a

Western world phenomenon, it is true in the Eurozone and the US. The

reasons behind it are complex that they are a huge macroeconomic

reasons. There has been a shift from Labour to capital, Cheryl profits

has risen substantially, share of wages has fallen. These are big

changes which any Labour government would want to address although they

all continued under the last Labour government. But I'm not sure if

pre-distribution is not a mouse taking on an elephant. That is one

aspect, but there are big structural changes which have driven the kinds

of inequalities we have seen in countries like the UK. One aspect

has to be about education and skills, all governments in the last

30 years have talked about the importance of making the

distribution of skills fairer, but we have a long way to go into and of

addressing the needs of low skilled workers. Another aspect of this

debate, in terms of changing structural attribution, is

increasing the supply of well-paid, high-quality jobs in the UK economy,

addressing issues like the manufacturing industry. The previous

governor did not have a good record on that. So the point is that in

Russian to pre-distribution, it is not just about addressing wages in

the labour market, it is about the the doorstep of the big society.

That bad? I am afraid so.You are seeing it is like the big society in

that nobody knows what it means. They haven't a clue. I was talking

to members in portcullis house when this came out and they were shaking

their heads in disbelief saying, he is too much of a nerd. At the heart

it is a good idea but the problem with political philosophies is how

do you educate the average man and woman to what it means to them. You

can't put predistribution on a pamphlet when you are campaigning

for the next election. If you have a great idea, fantastic. But what will

that manifest itself for the average person? What is the answer?If I

knew that, I would be doing that job. Rather than minimum wage, I am

struggling to see what Labour gets out of this. Administered wages

should be related to the economic circumstances of the region, and

that is only a reflection of what the Tories say about welfare

benefits. If you are nursing in Durham you should not have the same

wage as a nurse in Kensington. Is this, Labour has a problem in the

polls at the moment. It is a head but not by a a lot and Labour

strategists are worried that the league is not robust. If the economy

is going to start picking up, they are even in more trouble. They need

something that says, vote for me. This team does not think this is it.

This team is not yet convinced. Andrew is right that predistribution

is a terrible buzzword. Probably makes very little impact on most

voters. You need a new word!The question is what is the underlying

policy programme. You have addressed the issue of wages. I think there

are big issues about the school system and industrial policy, to use

government to improve the quality and supply of jobs. Political

parties have grappled with that. Since the end of the Second World

War. This is not a search for novelty for the sake of novelty. It

is making sure ideas have an impact. The big society has been a failure.

The previous government did talk about this idea but did not

implement what that meant. The final question to do with perception

rather than substance of what you have been talking about. The public

already think that Ed Miliband is a bit of a Westminster policy wonk.

Don't they reinforce everybody's worst fears? The big test is does

the government have the ideas and policies to make a success of

government? I am sure we could invent a much more voter friendly

concept than the notion of predistribution but the point is,

does the future Labour government have the ideas to make a

difference? That is underlining test. That is true whether you call

it predistribution or not. Indeed. Thank you. Pleasure.Next week

Chancellor Osborne will set out his spending review which will take

departmental spending through the period of the next election in 2015

and into 2016. The election is in May and that he runs until 2016.

Jeffrey, sorry, I mean George, is looking for a further �11.5 billion

from most departments to cover the extra borrowing he's had to

undertake over the last three years. This morning, the ONS released their

latest borrowing figures and Hugh Pym's been looking at them and joins

us now. The Chancellor has been saying

consistently that the deficit was coming down year by year. It looked

as if it would happen by the skin of his teeth and that is what the

estimates showed but the latest figures from the office of National

statistics show that borrowing was up slightly in 2012 than 2011. The

Treasury are saying they have revised down 2011, they borrowed

less and that is good news. Labour as you can imagine are seeing the

whole narrative has been about deficit reduction and borrowing was

up. That is embarrassing for the Chancellor.

They are dancing on the head of a pin. This is a small difference

between two huge numbers and they are the residue of another two even

bigger numbers. For most people, the fact is the deficit was the same

last year as it was the year before. Isn't that the truth?

And probably this financial year as well. Yes. �120 billion flat. No

messing around. The borrowing picture is flat. 120 billion,

unchanged over three years, quite a lot of money. That is where you are.

Playing around with hundreds of millions does not amount to much.

But when you talk about reducing the deficit and borrowing has gone up a

bit, that does raise some questions. It is the same for three years. You

could set deficit reduction has stalled. But the main -- May figures

look a bit better. I understand that is partly because of a shed load of

money has arrived from Switzerland. Yes. The figures for May, the

Chancellor borrowed 12.5 billion rather than 15.5 the previous year,

so down a bit. Once you strip out lots of factors like the Royal mail

pension fund that I will not bore you with. He got �3 million as a

result of deals with the Swiss tax authorities to get more money out of

British people with accounts in Switzerland. That is a one-off

though. But yes, the figures for May were helped by the Swiss factor.

Given that his deficit reduction plan has clearly stored and could be

for three years, I suppose the one thing he may be optimistic about is

if these signs are brought and he does not use green shoots, he says

the economy is healing, if these signs are right and we get more

growth, the deficit will resume its downward trajectory?

Indeed. Growth and more growth than he predicted means more tax revenues

coming in, lower spending on benefits and the deficit coming

down. That is what he is hoping for. The three years, including this

current year, were flat. He will hope to put that behind him. But

where will the growth come from? That debate will go on. Will the

Bank of England new governor help, will the housing market measures

help? We will have to see. That will have a big potential impact on

borrowing and the deficit. Thanks for joining us.

Now, what might be holding back economic growth? Familiar answers

include cuts in infrastructure spending and lack of consumer

confidence but what about the workers? The Confederation of

British Industry thinks we just don't have the right skills or

attitude. According to their new survey, half of UK companies are

having to provide training in basic numeracy and literacy to get their

workforce up to the standards required to do the job. The survey

of 294 firms found 48% of employers organised remedial training in at

least one basic skill area for adult staff already for them. The CBI

found there was also a problem with potential employees leaving schools

and colleges, with a third of companies saying they are

dissatisfied with their basic literacy and numeracy. Almost half

of businesses are worried about whether they can recruit high

skilled workers in the future, with a particular problem in the

technical STEM skills of science, technology, engineering, and maths.

The CBI warn that the "stubborn skills shortage" could hold back

growth in the UK, and is calling on the government not to cut Vince

Cable's budget in next week's spending review.

Neil Carberry, the CBI's director of education and skills, joins us now

along with Christine Blower, the general secretary of the National

Union of Teachers. Welcome to both of you. Let's start with the CBI.

The report is very interesting but I would also say to you it tells us

nothing we did not know already. Reports like this have appeared

since the Royal commission in 1868. Why don't you do something about it?

If you have known for all these years that this country does not

have the right skills, why doesn't industry do something about it?

Businesses all across the country are. If you have been to the JCB

Academy, we have a lot of our major members investing in the kind of

technical and vocational education that will help address the kind of

things you have been talking about. I know the JCB Academy, I know the

work that Ken Baker is doing as well, but these are not the result

of a concerted effort by industry to upscale the nation. These are

individuals who are doing their best by collectively -- but collectively

there is a drop in the pond. We are looking to have up to 200 UCTs, we

are looking at working with colleges, so business spends about

�40 billion a year on training staff, well over �1000 per worker in

the labour market. If that was working properly, we would not have

the skills shortage? Part of the problem is that the skills system is

driven by government and not by businesses so at the moment, the

funding stream to things like apprenticeships runs from government

through the providers. Why doesn't it run on the other way round? Why

doesn't business say, this is what we want, we will pay for it, and we

will take it off the tax bill with government support. That would make

business needs, business would come to be treated as a customer, better

quality of apprenticeships. And importantly, we will build some

links with schools that will help replace the careers advice deficit

that we have at the moment. There are quite significant industry -

school links. I started teaching in 1973 and we had them then. In

teaching, we regret the lack of proper face-to-face careers guidance

and we think careers education should be starting in primary school

and be all the way through. You can have all the careers guidance you

want but one in three school leavers to not have basic numerous sea and

literacy skills. There is a debate about what basic numerous sea and

literacy means. We have half the country getting GCSE maths and

English, a to C, and that is a universal exam, so kids who did not

do any exams aren't doing this. you can't get a job because you

haven't got the basic maths and literacy skills, the debate is

irrelevant. The employers have decided the debate. Why do so many

young children leave our schools without a sick maths and literacy

skills? I am contesting the point about basic literacy and maths. We

are a dressing... I am saying, for example, London schools are doing

the very best in the country and that is because of schools working

together and with other people. Those things are being addressed

through the system. In the way I read the report, these people are

getting jobs and then employers are seeking to address this. There is

probably a discussion we can have about making sure there is an

agreement earlier on. Let him reply. She must be saying that there aren't

these problems. There are but the critical issue is for the most part

we have made some progress on this. You started off saying things rarely

change. Actually we are in a better place today on literacy than we were

ten years ago. The issue is the one son Michael Wilshaw pointed to

yesterday, that we have these pockets of underachievement driven

in particular by a focus on getting people over the C grade GCSE

boundary, which encourages you not to bother with the people there were

down, and that leads to the fact that there is a significant minority

of young people who are not being well served. Your report says 41%

cannot solve problems, 54% have poor self management. That is because

there are perverse incentives in the education system. If schools are

focusing on getting kids across the C grade boundary, and not focusing

on creating rounded and grounded young people, that appears twice in

the introduction to the CBI report and we agree with that. We need to

make sure the whole young person is developed. Problem-solving skills

are critical, creativity is critical, so just focusing on

getting a grade C is not enough. We need to be making sure that we are

dealing with the whole young person so that actually they are more able

to be self-starters, to be self managing, and to deal with

creativity and solving. Did you talk to the NUJ before producing this

report? We had a steering group, talked to them. Have you contributed

to this report? Not to this report we will be working together going

forward. We are all in favour of industry. People need jobs! Would do

you make of it? If those two sticks are true, I think it is shocking. --

statistics. We here at all the time, employers saying that kids are

leaving school and they can't construct a sentence and it is

terrible. Not all employers say that, they will be some people whose

literacy need some support, but the fact is there are large numbers of

people who are now doing public examinations who didn't do them

before and actually who are perfectly literate and numerate. It

is not the case to say there are swathes of these people. The point

that Neal picked up on, that there are pockets... 50% need extra

training according to this report, so there are swathes! There should

be a responsibility on business to provide training. You are saying

about time management, there are two points here, one is that we have a

huge focus on getting people passing exams, identikit is all about that,

it is not about sending everyone to university. It should be on life

skills... But it is about getting basic reading, writing and

arithmetic... You are talking about those things and of course they are

important but then you are talking about time management and those

skills as well, and there is very little emphasis on that in schools

and universities because everyone is going after the grades. Doesn't this

report highlight again the long-running weakness in British

education. All the political elite consecrate an academic excellence

and they have never given, unlike the Germans, due weight to

education? We would like to give the idea that vocational education is

important, but we identify in the report is a shortage of skills at

level four, in the first couple of years of university, in key

technical things that underpin the industrial strategy. If you talk to

businesses around the country, they will say for every engineering

graduate they hire, they hire ten people doing technician work and

unless we can get good people from our schools understanding that these

jobs are available and getting them into them to build the new DLR...

That vocational education should be regarded as just as important.

things we think of as vocational are completely different from other

things we think of now as vocational. I am bound to say there

is no pushback from the National union of teachers about the fact we

need good quality vocational education. The other thing is the

thing of modern foreign languages. If it hadn't been in and out,

voluntary, compulsory, we would be in a better position with that.

the Daily Politics we are fluent in that! We may proceed with the rest

of the programme. We are glad to have brought you to together. Thank

you both. Tomorrow marks the fifth anniversary of the arrival in

Tilbury, Essex, of HMS Windrush. -- 65th anniversary. On board with the

first wave of immigrants from the Caribbean, lowered by us to what was

then regarded as the mother country with the promise of work and a new

life. We were in those days short of labour. Let's have a look at how the

news was covered back in 1948. Empire Windrush brings to Britain

500 Jamaicans, many are ex-servicemen who know England. They

served this country well. In Jamaica they couldn't find work. Discouraged

but full of hope, they sailed to Britain, coming to the mother

country with good intent, prodded by public opinion. The Colonial office

gives them a more cordial reception than was at first envisaged. Our

reporter asks them what they want to do. To seek a job. Anything that can

get a good pay. What is your name? Lord Kitchener. London is the place

for me... London, this lovely city... You can go to France or

America, India, Asia or Australia, but you must come back to London...

The think tank British Future is leading the celebration of the

positive contribution to British education and we're joined by its

director, Sunder Katwala. Just to stick with the people who came off

the HMS Windrush all those years ago, when they arrived here, they

came here, they have their hats on, they are dressed in suits and shirts

and ties. When they got here, this was a country that it isn't today, I

would suggest, a pretty widespread racist attitude to people who came

from the Caribbean. That was a shock to them, because they were brought

up in their schools as British, with Shakespeare, they know the history

of Britain, and they think the British people all know the history

of Jamaica and where it fits in, so that is a shock, to realise it.

There is a sense of people who have come here for a better life, a sense

of change and loss on both sides and of conflict over years and decades.

Also people have come saying, we might come and go back but you have

children and you decide to stay and at that point you fight the place in

society. The shock must've been all the more because we had lured them

to come, especially in the London area, we needed people to drive the

buses, run the tube trains, there was a huge labour shortage the

Second World War. So there is an appeal for immigration, this is

voluntary immigration. They had been a lot of previous immigration to

Britain, but they had to flee, and people had chosen to pay �20 to get

a passage. A lot of them are returning to Britain, Sam King who

was on the boat, had been in the RAF, he had his medals, he was going

back to what he thought was a colony and he didn't want to live in a

colony. He wanted to go for a better life. In spite of the racial

generation, had the Windrush generation there? There was a lot of

conflict, the initial group that came was quite well educated, they

didn't get to use their skills, didn't get jobs at the level they

would have expected, and the children probably had to fight for a

place in society and thought that parents were too deferential and not

assertive enough. We still have a lot of anxiety about immigration but

the question of who is Britain -- British and who isn't is relatively

settled. We now claim the HMS Windrush, it is part of a shared

history and it has become symbolic. About a third of us, our parents or

grandparents were immigrants. But is it also shared by the whole country?

What if your family go back many generations before, do you know

share this part of your shared history? The years after the

Windrush, there were much bigger waves of aggression to this

country, Ugandan Asians, the Kenyan Asians, all those from the

subcontinent as well. Then we had the huge influx and the last Labour

government. There seems to be consensus now that immigration got

kind of out of hand. It is a legitimate debate about what the

choice is Britain should make are, but whatever level of immigration

you decide to have, welcomed the contribution of those who have come,

who have made... It is important that we accept the previous groups

that have come as part of that debate, one of the ways people

integrate is how we bring about the next wave of immigrants. Have we

allowed... The fact is, we have, you only have to go to a northern city

and seamless link amenities living on their own. People want to belong

to a new society, here you have people who felt they belonged and

were told they didn't and earned the right to belong again. People have

too want to feel British and Britain has deep say, you are equally part

of us. I disagree about the words of multiculturalism, we are a

multiethnic society now, we don't have debates about sending them

back, do we have a shared society everyone contributes to? It does

take time, it can be difficult, but as a society, I think a bid to other

European societies and the US we would be getting them more than

other countries. One of the things about Windrush Day is whether you

have been here for generations, we have a shared response ability to

make society work. Would you think? Ed Miliband said that the last

Labour government got it wrong. I think it was their policy to

increase immigration. I think in this designer Labour party

strongholds. There is a failure there of integration is you only

need to go to Tower Hamlets, a few miles from here, people are separate

from the rest. That is regrettable, and in cities like Bradford as well.

It is a very delicate area and a sensitive area as well and David

Cameron is quite right, I think, to say he wants to cut immigration.

is a dodgy figure, the net figure because it depends on the number of

people leaving and that includes just people leaving as well. The

political rhetoric now is pretty much, we have had enough immigration

for a while, let's get the numbers down, isn't that right? It is, but

it feels to me like a knee jerk, negative rhetoric because of the

success that UKIP is having. I think it is wonderful we are celebrating

this and I think we should be remembering and reminding people how

important it is to have migrants coming to this country. The vast

majority of people coming to this country is because they want to find

jobs and they believe they will do here. They are filling huge numbers

of jobs at the youth of Britain are not prepared do. Perhaps because

they haven't got the skills! We have these debates, this is the scourge

of the welfare state, in the vast majority, that isn't the case.

many years, we have come on leaps and bounds. You can still see the

old TV footage from Notting Hill of no dogs, no blacks. No Irish, in the

windows for vacancies. But where does the debate on immigration and

integration go now? Of course you should worry about people who are

being racist but the majority of people worried about immigration are

not being racist and we should become fluent about having that

debate. The Prime Minister wants to reduce immigration, you once more

people, but he's celebrating the Windrush generation, it is important

to get the foundations right and have the debate about what the

choices are. The people who want to say shut the border, that is not the

real world. If the pace of change too great,? Is their fairness? You

can only be fair to migrants if you are fair to everyone and say, if you

get the rules right, then people who want to come and contribute and be

part of a society, you have a history. But it is not racist to say

we should cut immigration and we tomorrow.

Now, have you seen any strange objects in the night sky recently?

Maybe you've spotted little green men from Mars having a look around

Planet Earth. You might even have spent some time on board ship after

being abducted by aliens. It happens to the best of us. Well, if so, this

item's for you! Yes, the National Archives have released files today

relating to reports of unidentified flying objects made between 2007 and

2009. They explain why the Ministry of Defence's UFO desk and telephone

hotline were shut down in December 2009 after 50 years service - a

victim of government austerity. The decision to axe the MOD desk

came despite an increase in UFO reports. Annual sightings rose from

an average of 150 a year at the beginning of the century to 520 in

2009, before the desk was shut down, as well as 97 Freedom of Information

requests. Sightings reported between 2007 and 2009 included "discoid

shapes" above Stonehenge. A report that somebody was living with an

alien in Carlisle. Even coloured lights just down the road over the

Houses of Parliament. So why did the UFO desk face the chop? Well,

according to civil servants, after 50 years' work, it had found no

evidence of a military threat to the UK and that despite costs going up,

it was providing no valuable defence output.

Well, if the truth is out there, maybe one of these gentlemen has

stumbled over it. We're joined by Dr David Clarke, an expert on UFO

history at the National Archives, and Lembit Opik, erstwhile Lib Dem

MP, and a lecturer for the Association for the Scientific Study

of Anomalous Phenomena. Being a Lib Dem, he is pretty qualified to deal

with anomalous phenomena! Greetings. The USA has got a much bigger UFO

desk. Had, in the 60s.We are cutting hours down. Because we

didn't find anything. It all started with Winston Churchill because he

was interviewed by the daily Telegraph in 1954 and his response

was that he thought people on other planets should be treated with the

contempt they deserve. We have just been talking about what a welcoming

country we are! The problem you have is if there are people out there and

they are constantly visiting us, some of these sightings may even be

true, why did none of them ever land and say hello? My stepmother is

Estonian, an alien, that is the same thing. The complaints process is now

underway! In a nice way.They do not land because they are not there!

beggars belief to think there is no other intelligent life among 6

million planets. If there is intelligent life, would they be 10

million years ahead? If so they will be making interstellar journey is

the way we will. I think if they have made 15 trillion mile

journeys, they will be smart enough to cloak themselves from us, we will

not be able to see them. Why do they leave the lights on when they

arrive? As you well know, most of those UFO observations are made at

closing time all over the country and 90 8% of them are explainable,

but a small percentage have not been explained and it is a crying shame

we have not kept that open. Yes I agree but not with public money.

Scientists can do that kind of research. Given the size of the

universe, it is perfectly possible there is life somewhere else in the

universe. But when you look at the distances involved, I think the

nearest Sun, four light-years away, and so many billions of light years

away, it is perfectly possible that these will exist and we will never

ever crossed paths. Patrick Moore said we could expect a visit once in

the entire history of humanity, and yet if you look at these files they

are here every night. They are coming to listen to your programme

perhaps. Some of them are on it!The bottom line is, the universe ought

to be teeming with life. Why haven't they been here already? Because they

are too far away. And maybe, no matter how advanced you are, nobody

knows how to travel at the speed of light. You do not have to get to the

speed of light, you get close to it. If you travel at the speed of light

it could take a billion years to come from one of these? I used to do

astronomy. You are right. I beg to differ. I will see your astronomy

and I will raise you my grandfather, a professional astronomer, and he

would say you can make these journeys with advanced technology.

In 100 years we have gone from the first flight to the most incredible

technology at the space station. What will we be doing in 10,000

years? The big danger is that intelligent civilisations could wipe

themselves out. If we survive this dangerous nuclear adolescence...

want to bring in another point. You want us to believe, I am not arguing

that there could be life out there but I do think the distances of the

universe mean it is perfectly possible our paths will never cross,

but you really want us to believe that some people have come here,

have a look, given a wave, and then departed. Not waived.I made that

bit up. They will not have made contact because it is too

dangerous. We could annihilate ourselves through our lack of

immunity between the two planets and the diseases. That is the anomaly.

The sad thing is the fact it does not happen maybe means that

civilisations do not make it through this dangerous adolescence. But that

would mean they could not come here in the first place. That is one grim

possibility. I choose to believe we can survive and if we can survive we

will eventually meet our alien friends. With the Daily Mail, you

must be used to working with aliens. This is a lovely idea and

perhaps if they did come, they didn't stay because they didn't like

the weather, and who could blame them? Babe all seem to come -- they

all seem to come to the south-west of the United States! They have

visited Stonehenge. They saw Prime Minister 's questions and that was

enough, out of here! Does the Huffington Post have a line on

aliens? Bobbins. -- no. Maybe we should get one. This is officially

the weirdest thing I have ever been asked to comment on! Then we will

move on. We will let you go now. When they make contact with you, we

want to know first! The scoop is ours! Will be get the first

interview? I won 20 of your other percent in that case. It is a deal.

Thank you, gentlemen. Now, if you think that was strange,

it's been pretty weird here on Planet Politics this week too. From

tie-less leaders to the President of the United States confusing the

Chancellor of the Exchequer with his favourite soul singer, here's the

week in 60 Seconds. The G8 in Lough Erne, Syria was on

the agenda along with tax, trade and transparency. As well as ties.

what I was told to do. Good boy. After Frankenstein food it is

apparently time to bring the GM industry back to life according to

Owen Paterson. Politicians saying things are safe risk coming a

cropper. Not been much quality in the care quality remission after

claims it covered up and expects and of a hospital where mums and babies

had died -- the Care Quality Commission. And Boris said that

London is to the suit as Parma is to the Parmesan cheese. And Mr

President's bungle after calling George Jeffrey. That of course is

not his name. It is Gideon. George, Jeffrey, Gideon have to

deliver the spending review next week and we will be live on the

daily politics. My understanding, there is still quite a lot of

argument on between the Treasury and the government departments. All the

champions of the austerity cuts are now running government departments

that are about to be cut and are getting very upset about it.

Understandably none of them want the cuts to hit them. We know education

and the NHS will be protected throughout this. This means that the

smaller amount of departments will have to take these cuts up to 8%

each. If it had been perfectly shared it would have been 2.8% per

department. They thought by the time we got to this stage, the economy

would be flourishing again and we would be starting to spend and that

is just not the case. Danny Alexander will have to say to his

Lib Dem colleague Vince Cable, we have to cut some money. Michael Gove

will also have to save some money. He is resisting. After the

disappointing borrowing figures, it is all the more important George

Osborne gets the cuts he wants. does not resonate with the public

could it is about public spending in 2015-2016 and the figure could

change. This is the problem for the average man and woman on the street.

These numbers keep changing. Every time we hear the budget. It means

people start to glaze over. It does not affect me, I still have less

money in my pocket and therefore I am not happy with the way the

country is being run. It is a tough one for Geoffrey Gideon, because he

has had problems with his own union of ministers, problems with the

coalition, he wanted to cut more welfare. He wanted six billion and

Nick Clegg said no. As I understand it, it is going down to the wire,

they have not got the 11.5 yen yet. They could always cut international

aid which would be popular with the voters but the Prime Minister will

not let him do that. I saw what a bad time Nick Clegg got over student

tuition fees so they are desperate not to go back on explicit

promises, international aid, NHS... Tuition fees was a popular policy

for the Lib Dems. Increasing international aid is not a popular

policy. You will be tuning in, I hope. Absolutely.The one o'clock

news is starting over on BBC One now. I'll be back on BBC One on