01/11/2013 Daily Politics

Afternoon, folks. Welcome to the Daily Politics. David Cameron

travels to Cardiff to announce new powers for the Welsh Assembly. The

state-owned bank RBS announces it will restructured to deal with ?38

billion of bad assets. George Osborne said the move will make it

easier to sell off the bank and get taxpayers' money back. Should

football fans have more say over how clubs are run? We will discuss

a plan to make English football more German. And in the first of a

series on political thinkers, we have the low-down on Karl Marx. If

you want to understand and have an interest in social justice, you

cannot ignore Karl Marx. We never ignore Karl Marx on the

day the politics. -- the Daily Politics. We asked for the duration,

I am joined by the Birgitte Nyborg and Kasper Juul or British

political commentary. Zoe Williams, of the Guardian newspaper, and Ian

Collins, a broadcaster. We start with RBS, which is always in the

news. The chief executive announced a pre-tax loss of ?634 million.

That was for the three months to September. He put an end to

speculation the bank would be split to deal with the ?38 billion of bad

assets. These are moments that are not expected to be repaid. This is

what the Chancellor said he was on a trip to a bicycle shop. I am

determined to build a banking system that supports the British

economy and today RBS undertakes a new direction to deal with that by

dealing with toxic assets and making sure it is focused on the UK,

and making sure it is the best small business bank. It should be a

boost the economy and not a burden. We are joined by a City commentator,

Allister Heath. Explain to us what the internal bad bank is. Surely

the bad loans will still be on the balance sheet? You are not the only

one to not understand what is going on. There is a weird triangulation,

moving the assets from the bank, injecting taxpayers' cash, and

dealing with them, and the status quo. I think it is not viable, the

plan, it is more about substance. Nothing much will change. It still

has three years to get rid of the bad assets. I do not think it has

been doing as badly as people think, reducing bad assets by 85 per cent.

But what has happened is the Chancellor thought it was going

faster and he now realises that it will take a few more years and he

will not be able to privatise the bank before the election and he is

upset about that. He wants to change RBS and make it entirely a

domestic and retail business bank, getting rid of the investment

banking division and the US division and possibly the eye which

division. He is trying to remodel the back. -- the Irish division. Is

that in the best interests of taxpayers and when it maximise the

resale value? And is it the best way to run the operation? A lot of

today is not substance, it is not a really bad bank in the traditional

sense. If he had wanted to do that, he should have done at five years

ago. He was not in charge. They thought the way they were managing

it would be the right way and now they are changing their mind. I

would like to get another question in before it is time for dinner!

Why is it still losing over ?600 million in a single quarter? It

still has a lot of bad debt. They are still a lot of problems. The

biggest problem for this and other banks is the endless spate of

scandals that keep on hitting them. There is now an investigation into

foreign-exchange markets and whether they have been manipulated.

In terms of getting rid of bad assets, the bulk of that has

happened. In some ways, they are fighting yesterday's battle. A lot

of people underestimated the problem they still had. Maybe one

year ago, even though the economy is recovering, there are still

challenges. If you want to kick start credit in the economy, you

have to get rid of the bad assets but pretending you are creating a

bad bank by redefining some assets, it is an accounting change. I do

not think it will help the problems. It does not look like the

Chancellor gets his windfall this side of the election. He has had

plenty. There are many interesting things about this. Fighting the

last battle, as they say, regulators are always fighting the

last thing because they do not understand what is going on. If you

look at why they have lost 634, rather an -- and over 400 million,

they are looking at payment protection in -- protection

insurance. The Balkan bad debts have been offloaded. -- the bulk of

the bad debt. They pursued banking in a dishonest way and it will

continue until they stop it. I am probably the one person who

bothered to try to read the last RBS business report. It is the most

extraordinary concocted peace of writing you have ever... Whether

you are an economist or not, put on to paper. Nobody can understand it.

Nobody knows what is going on. Different people and wrote it. The

overseas arm does not know what the domestic arm is doing. If they lend

domestically, bat will be fabulous. It says to me that is his almost

meant to be that complicated. It is the end of RBS as a major

international...? It will cover domestic banking. That is a good

thing. We have lost sight of what a bank is supposed to do. Briefly it

was one of the biggest banks. But why? Because it was not doing due

diligence on the lending. I am bored with RBS. And I am with RBS,

also. It has been a busy Friday for the Cabinet. George Osborne has

been touring a bicycle shop. David Cameron and Nick Clegg hot-footed

it to Cardiff to announce new powers for the Welsh Assembly. What

we believe in is a strong Wales within a strong United Kingdom and

I think it will make for better government. It is good for the

Government to be responsible for raising some of the money that its

Benz. That leads to better conversations about how to raise it

and spend it and how to spend it effectively and how to manage your

economy battered. I think the changes will be good for Wales and

accountable government. We can go to our political correspondent.

What does this mean for Wales? The debate in the past couple of years

has been about Scotland and independence, but, quietly, the

Welsh Assembly has added to its powers and already has control of

health, education transport and other things. It shifted on, the

debate, on how it raises money and how it should be responsible for

the money it spends each year. David Cameron and Nick Clegg came

to announce that the Welsh Government will have the power to

borrow money. They want to build a new motorway, so that is important.

And also taking control of stamp duty and other taxes. The most

significant is the proposal to take over responsibility for collecting

some income tax in Wales. Some politicians are talking about

cutting taxes in Wales here. They would have to have a referendum,

endorsed by the people first. The Welsh Government is saying, we do

not want to take on the power over income tax and the Treasury using

it as an excuse to cut funding for the Welsh Government. It sounds

like a big headline, but it is not cut and dried yet. Is there

correlation between the more powers devolved to Cardiff and the worse

the Health and school system gets? This is one of the proposals. If

they are not devolved, should it have a knock on effect on the money

coming in from the Treasury that stop one argument from David

Cameron is that that it is about growing up as a country and taking

responsibility for money you spend. There are politics about this

because we will hear more about what has happened in Wales in the

Scottish referendum campaign. The Unionist side saying you can have

more powers without going the whole way and leaving the United Kingdom.

In other words, devolution can work. When will England get home rule?

Factory, it is hilarious. The idea that Wales is a country no more

than England. Of course it is not a country. Check the United Nations.

I doubt. It is not a country. It is not a nation state, it is still a

country. We are the United Kingdom. We are regions. The idea that

something the size of a postage stamp has four administrative

bodies is a massive waste of money. The idea that nobody questions it

is like a huge elephant in the room. Do you see something that will

counteract the complaints we will get from Wales? I do not agree. You

can have a conversation as you would in America between federal

and state legislation and rights without reference to how large the

state is. What you are talking about his self governance. Many

people believe that everything you can make at a local level you

should make at a local map will. We have county councils. Wales is like

a big county council. The more they raise revenue, the more autonomy

they can have a good decisions. When you look at what they do, they

ring-fence budgets and freeze taxation. The council may have

rights on paper, but they have no actual money. Should England have

more home rule? From Wales? If Wales can set tax rates and if

Scotland can. Scotland has total control of schools and its health

system. Should England have the same? They do not interfere with

what we do any way. Every Scottish MP can vote on English schools and

Scottish schools. You want to hound the Scottish MPs for fun. I was

asking a serious question! It is time for the daily quiz. It is ?5.

A huge donation for the Poppy Appeal. That has doubled my fee!

Wife did the Green Party leader Natalie Bennett give me ?5

yesterday? At the end of the show, our guests will give the correct

answer. A new campaign group in favour of change in Britain's

relationship with the EU has a survey out. Almost half the

business leaders said the cost of complying with single-market

regulations outweigh the benefits of being in the European Union.

It's part of a growing debate about our membership if the European

Union. Here's a reminder of where we are. In January, David Cameron

made a keynote speech on in which he pledged an in-out referendum on

the UK's membership of the EU. In his speech the Prime Minister said

it was time for British people to have their say. Before negotiations

can get under way, he has to wait for the European elections. The

next important date is the British election on 7th May 1920 15. If

there is a Conservative victory, there will be an intense period of

renegotiation with the European Union for a new settlement between

UK and the European Union. Why would our European partners

allow us to essentially do a pick and mix? First of all, I am not sure

that is what would be happening, because there is a lot of discontent

about what the EU is doing in terms of centralisation, all over Europe.

Secondly, I think there is a real danger from the rest of the EU

needlepoint if you that if no change is made, and if there is a poll in

2017 and beyond, that Britain would leave, and I think a lot of

countries in the EU do not want to see that happening. But if this is a

unilateral Britain negotiating, and if it becomes a grand plan for

reform, in which everybody would be involved, well, firstly, I would

suggest to you that there is no consensus about what these reforms

would be, and secondly, it would take forever. It would take a

decade. I am not sure the EU has got a decade to get all of this done,

but there are really serious problems in the Eurozone. Not as

serious as they nobody is talking about Greece leaving now. Not at the

moment, but only because huge debts have been run up they may well come

back to bite everybody belatedly soon. But there will have to be

substantive changes in Europe to make the Eurozone viable in the

long-term, and that is going to involve considerable changes of all

sorts, which provides us I think with an opportunity, for the people

not in the euro, to redefine the role we are going to have. Give me a

concrete example of how British business would benefit if we were

either out of the EU or if they was a major renegotiation and we stayed

in, how would we benefit? Well, I think some of the changes which

would be made would be ones which are detailed in the report, issues

around employment law, health and safety, taxation, all of these other

issues which have been raised. I think the real emphasis which comes

out of this report is that it is business wants to have these

decisions taken in London and not in Brussels, and they do not believe

that a one size fits all approach on these issues works well. But

overall, is it your view that British business still wants to stay

in? I think British business does want to stay in, if they can get

changes made along the lines that we propose. Does it want to stay in if

all that is on offer is the status quo? I think that would be a much

closer call, and it depends a bit on what happens with the Eurozone and

the euro over the next few years. But if those who want to see Britain

staying in the euro want to support the right course, I think they want

to support ours, because they are much more likely to stay in the EU

if the changes we advocate are made. What is your take on this,

Zoe? I think it hinges on being able to renegotiate with trading

partners. A lot of people think it is not that important, because our

non-European partners are not buying very much. Resume ugly, one hopes

that once the EU recovers, they will buy much more from us. In terms of

volume, it is still our biggest... Exactly, and that is not going to

change. It is only changing rapidly because the EU is skint, but once

they recover, we are not going to replace our EU trading partners with

the new countries, not in a million years. The whole thing is an organic

process, is it not we can have a pick and mix approach, everybody

goes, that is fine, we want to keep you in the EU so much that you can

have what you want, and if they did say that, there would be a good case

for it, but we do not know. Hold on, Mrs Merkel may well agree to a pick

and mix approach, but she is now going to have to form a grand

alliance with the social Democrats, and they are against the pick and

mix. That is assuming she loses. There is no evidence whatsoever that

M Hollande, whose son the ratings are falling by the minute, is going

to do Britain any favours at all. And I detecting a certain animosity

towards Europe? No, what you detect Israel politic, which is the

opposite of the position that our guest is taking, that the Europeans

will be in any mood to do us any favours, and why should they? --

realpolitik. Are you talking about the heads of state, the various

treasuries within it, the commissioners? Is it the whole

immovable system called the EU, or is it individuals within it? The

thing is, they do tend to vote as a block, you rarely get a situation

where they are split. They might want to say, hello, EU, we have got

a new idea, let's give it a go. The logic of a Treasury Minister in

France would have to see that. That is right. Also, there are enormous

problems going to be created by the rest of the EU if we leave. We pay

in net something like ?12 billion per year. Who is going to replace

that? But you would want to bring that down, presumably. We would want

to bring it down a bit, yes. Here is the irony, that the only way you

will get this kind of reorganisation you are talking about is if Mr

Cameron wins the next election, and I thought you donate money to the

Labour Party? Well, I think there is a feeling across the political

spectrum that we want changes. Mr Miliband is not promising to

renegotiate anything. Well, I do not think that is entirely true, they

want some changes. But not a major renegotiation. The only person

promising a renegotiation, and then a referendum, in or out, is David

Cameron. I think that so you really need Mr Cameron to win the next

election. Well, it is not just Mr Cameron who is saying that we will

be having a referendum. You need to prepare the ground. Mr Miliband is

not promising one. No, but the Lib Dems are moving a little bit in that

direction. Really? I do not know, but I do think that if you want to

stay in... It is interesting that if that is your line, it would seem to

me that your best chance of getting there is a Tory government. Do you

now regret within the Labour Party this donation of shares, which led

to the accusations of tax avoidance? Well, there was no tax avoidance at

any stage. I said accusations. Well, the I do not regret it at all.

Giving them shares, why did you not just give them the dosh? Because I

had not got the dosh. Why did you not sell the shares and give them

the dosh? I did not want to sell the shares. So why did you not -- so why

did you just give them away? You do not pay dividends. Yes, we do. You

are a private company. That does not stop us paying dividends. How big is

your dividend? It is normally about a third, up to 40%, of the net

profit we make. But you measure a dividend by its value to the shares,

so, if the Labour Party has got ?1 million worth of shares, what income

will it get? It produces about ?8,000 a month. Just about enough to

keep Ed Miliband in Boston red Sox shirts. Wine are you giving money to

the Labour Party? I have always supported the Labour Party. I think

there are loads of people on the left who want to negotiate about the

EU. There is nobody who has put it on the table, nobody who has made

that statement, but that does not mean it is part of -- it is not part

of the discussion. Workers of the world Unite! Go on,

you know you want to. Yes, the teachings of Karl Marx have been in

the news a fair amount recently, with David Cameron accusing Ed

Miliband living on a Marxist planet, after he announced plans to freeze

energy prices. So, does Marx have any relevance to the 21st century?

In a new Daily Politics series on political thinkers, Giles has been

checking out the story of Karl Marx, with an all-time fan, the

left-wing columnist Owen Jones. London's trashy, trendy SoHo is not

the first place that comes to mind when you think of Karl Marx. He

would be very at home here. He was at home here. He lived in this

building in the 1850s, and London became the Communist capital of the

world. I am off to meet a man who not only thinks Karl Marx is much

maligned, but that he is still relevant today. That is quite hard

for 21st century society, when the man was waiting here, exiled from

Paris, in the 1850s. But my guest wants to drag him from museum relic

to modern relevance, via the pub. So, come on, why do you like Marx so

much? I could not avoid him growing up. I have got four generations of

family who were involved in some sort of radical politics. More than

a few copies of Karl Marx were lying around when I was growing up. We are

sat opposite the British Museum, where he wrote Das Kapital, but he

was often more comfortable sat in the pub. He certainly like to drink,

he went on these infamous pub crawls. He is reputed to have

smashed a mirror in this very pub with a bar stool. He was chased by

police officers because of his drunken antics. That is not what

makes me interested in Marx, it is his ideas, and I think a lot of them

are still relevant today. One example, alienation, the idea that

by working for someone else, you lose control of your own life, your

destiny, your humanity. I think today, when you work in a call

centre or an office, you could certainly drink to that. As Karl

Marx himself would say, prost! Another expert says, like him or

loathe him, Marx is a huge figure. Karl Marx is the one who has got an

ism, the only person for whom you can be a Marxist. The criticism of

him, however, is extensive. Marx is criticised for exactly the reason

that his admirers admire him. According to him, it is production

which explains everything else and many of his critics say that is just

plain wrong. There is another issue, which is that he thought about the

role of the Communist Party in a way that, with hindsight, we can see

enabled Lenin to develop his idea of the Vanguard Party, which opened up

the way to the authoritarian states of the Soviet era. That is clearly

something to put to our fan, but not before I have shown him something at

the Marx Memorial library. So, for decades after it was first

rubbished, this very early edition of the The Communist Manifesto. This

was when Engels was still alive, and do not forget, this is the second

most read book on earth. But is that not the problem, of all think, he is

the one that gets the charge, you are responsible for the death of

millions of people. Blaming Marx for the Stalinist totalitarian regimes,

which killed millions of people, it is a bit like blaming Jesus for the

Crusades. There is nothing in his book whatsoever which backs the

Stalinist police state. But there is lots in there about revolution.

Absolutely, but do not forget, he is writing at a time when despots

dominated the European continent. Even in Britain, there was not

universal suffrage, even for men. He later argued that if you had

universal suffrage for men, you could have a democratic, peaceful

transition to socialism, as it would allow a majority of working people

to be elected to Parliament just. Karl Marx's grape is a big monument.

Of the jury it was quite small -- his grave. Originally, it was quite

small. There he is. What an relevance does Karl Marx have to

politics today? Is it over? You would have to be an armed

revolution or even on the left to think that he was a prescient bloke.

He wrote how capitalism lurched constantly from crisis to crisis.

He also predicted capitalism would create a huge working-class and on

a global scale, that is what has happened. If you want to understand

the world, and you are interested in social justice, you cannot

ignore Karl Marx. Owen Jones joins us now. You are a fan of Karl Marx?

He was a big influence. Like row -- Ralf Miliband, does that mean you

hate Britain?! The Daily Mail, which hates everything about

Britain, demonising somebody on the left. Often you have the left

construed as the enemy within when the left is about fighting for

country which is more equal. That is not hating the country. The

British Communists were not that keen to fight for Britain until

Nazis had invaded. If you want me to defend Stalinism, you have the

wrong person. You said in the film you cannot blame Karl Marx for the

gulag. Give me a Marxist state that did not lead to that. It was not

about prescriptions and saying this is what socialism would look like.

It was an analysis of capitalism. Give me a state that did not lead

to terrible loss of life. You had two branches of Marxism. One of

them ending up in totalitarianism and starred in. If you look at the

German Social Democrats, they themselves are an offshoot of

Marxism. In 1958, the Democrats met and repudiated Karl Marx. They

presided over a country that became one of the richest in the world.

The German Social Democrats were in power longer than that. However

they are involved, and it is a crucial point, Marxism is an

analysis of capitalism. It did not say what socialism would look like.

Name me a Marxist country in the 20th, 21st century, that did not

need to a terrible loss of civil liberties, poverty and degradation?

As I had said, when you look at European social democracy, the

French Socialists, the German Social Democrats, in Spain, the

Socialist Workers' Party, those originated from the Marxist

tradition. And the modern form of social democracy, even though it

has departed from where it began, it traces its origins to Marxism. I

was asking for any example. I have given examples. They detested the

parliamentary road to socialism. That is a misconception. When they

are talking about the revolution they discussed at the time when

kings and despots ruled Europe, what Karl Marx said, in the early

18th Fifties. -- 1850s. We were not ruled by a despot. Britain was not

a democracy then. It excluded working-class people. The point I

am making is what Karl Marx said was if you had universal suffrage,

instead of armed insurrection, in a country like Britain, as it moved

to Universal's up bridge, it would allow the majority of people from

working-class Britain to be elected -- universal suffrage. The air must

be something wrong with Marxism if everywhere where it has been

attempted to implement it, it has ended up with totalitarianism, the

loss of democracy. We keep coming back. You will get annoyed because

you will find me repetitive. The Soviet totalitarian system... It is

not just the Soviet, it is China and Cuba. Venezuela has shades of

it. Venezuela is a separate case. The point is that modern social

democracy, the lap, in this country, and across Europe, -- if you like.

A Social Democrat is about accepting capitalism as the best

model that needs to be changed. A society not in the interests of the

people at the top, but extending democracy. It is about empowering

working people in the broadest sense. Shifting power from those at

the top. Are you a Marks is? I would not say I am. I would say I

am influenced -- are you a Marxist? I am influenced. I will give you

another example. The senior economist at UBS bank, he wrote an

article talking about how we need to learn from Karl Marx. You cannot

understand the modern world without looking to him. There is something

superstitious about the way nobody can hear the word without saying we

will be Communists, we are going to die! The millions of Russians and

Chinese that turned out to be true. You have not had to live in these

societies. You asked me what I thought and you talk to the me. --

talked over me. This man was an economist. He told the world what

was going wrong with capitalism. He told the world right on many issues.

The fact that some people use his name to start revolutions that

resulted in comm Estates is nothing to do with Karl Marx. East Germany,

the Democratic Republic, would we ever argue... Good Marxism and bad

Marxism, a narrative forced... It is crazy. Surely the lesson is that

if you tinker with left-wing politics, that is where you end up?

The lesson is not if you go near Karl Marx, we will end up in a

gulag. Read it, find out if it is true, and if you find something,

take it seriously. You keep saying he was right. He predicted the

collapse of capitalism. The last time I looked, cap and it --

capitalism... It you look at the process where he predicted the end

of capitalism, he was talking about cannibalistic capitalism, so

rapacious it closed down competition between itself and you

ended up with large corporations running everything. It you see

something like the energy markets and the public markets, it is

happening in front of us. We have run out of time. His Ed Miliband a

Marxist? I do not think any... Well, the Daily Mail. It is interesting,

the rhetoric, if you want a fairer society and you want working people

to have wealth and power, you are a frothing at the mouth, a guest. I

am a democratic socialist who wants a society where wealth and power is

distributed -- -- Marxist. If you understand it, people are looking

to Karl Marx. And you cannot get rid of it. You are a failure at

giving us a better system. We are waiting for the Utopia. The

argument that left have to come up with is a coherent alternative that

resonates with people. We gave you the airwaves to do it today. We

have been talking about Karl Marx and the Soviet Union for most of it,

but fair enough. I found that... Never mind. We will be looking at

political thinkers ranging from Edmund Burke to Thomas Paine. The

Trans Atlantic row over States by none civilians took a new turn with

John Kerry saying that in some cases you are -- US buying has gone

too far. -- US spying. We are in danger of sleep walking. It is not

planned, it is not the actions of benevolent individuals, it is the

trend of what will happen if nothing is done to stop it. The

definitions of war and peace are no longer the same and the enemies of

faces, it can be argued. That argument is one that prime

ministers and Home Secretaries have put. If we shake up the law in

response to this fear, chipping away at liberty and privacy, they

have won. Every operation that has foiled a terrorist plot in this

country has been dependent upon communications data over the past

decade and it is essential for the agencies to have those powers. UK

surveillance over citizens has increased exponentially. The legal

basis has sometimes appeared strained. At best, oversight is

frayed. Legitimate debate is at risk of being drowned out by

assertions of national security. Spying is dangerous. It is about

risk. Our men and women put their lives at risk to protect Britain.

There is a downside of getting it wrong. If you do, people die. The

this is the secret state laid bare. The Government acting without the

knowledge or permission of citizens, a breach of the moral and legal

rights of individuals. Just like when they take away the votes of

the misguided, but common good is not a defence. Our basic rights as

individuals have to be sacrosanct. We have been joined by the

Conservative MP who spoke in that debate. You say the surveillance

has grown exponentially. What is the evidence? Reports show that.

You have raw numbers. It is difficult to delve down into them.

I do not have the numbers to hand, but there has been an increase, for

example, in the interception of communications data and wide use of

surveillance. We do not have a huge amount of data. The annual report

showed it has increased. Do you think telephone calls are being

monitored? Is it depends what you mean, they look at what is called

the envelope. If you trawl back over a long period, and you can

develop a close picture of what people are doing. And the

distinction drawn between the envelope and content. It breaks

down quite quickly. How many people does GCHQ employee? Many hundreds.

5000. But even 5000 could not keep tabs on every telephone call. This

is an Aunt Sally. There is no doubt the scope of surveillance has

increased. Do we know what they are doing? Do we have proper oversight?

These are questions the Secretary of State in the US is asking, John

Kerry. We had a good debate, but we will have to see a closer scrutiny

Opel what is going on. -- scrutiny over what is going on. Then reason

why it's certain types of surveillance have increased is

because the nature of terrorism has changed. It does not involve people

flying planes into buildings any more, coming from Saudi Arabia, it

involves people in this country, communicating with each other to

plan to kill. That is why these are Bateman's, I would suggest, has

grown. I suspect the nature of terrorism has not changed, but the

nature of communication. There is no doubt they should have

the powers to pursue that, although quite what the safeguards should

be, that is another question. But we want to make sure that we have got a

rough idea of what they are doing. We want to make sure the legal

position is protected. If you believe in democracy and the rule of

law, and at the same time you want to pursue national security, it

cannot be healthy. Is it your view that Parliament oversight is too

weak and should be strengthened? Yes. I think Sir Malcolm Rifkind and

the IOC do a reasonable job, I have no doubt about their individual

capacity, but I think the Intelligence And Security Committee

needs to be made of it more independent, like they have in the

US. Although in the US, they did not produce any better results than in

Britain, they were not monitoring what their own intelligence services

were up to. Well think if you look over the years, it has produced a

bit more transparency. Across the board in Congress, and from the

Secretary of State, we are hearing from them, we are going to act. I

think this committee needs to be a proper committee of Parliament, and

accountable to Parliament. The tweaks that need to be done

relatively small, to make that work more effectively. What do you say? I

spoke to someone, I do not know whether you would call her a spook,

somebody who formerly worked in one area of intelligence, who said, a

lot of this, as bad as it is, and we have heard about governments doing

things without the permission of the citizens, a lot of this is the

vanity project of the different head honchos who sit there in the

intelligence services. The idea that the Prime Minister is saying, spy on

Merkel, it is just nonsense. Most of the time, it is just because they

are able to, because they are allowed to, and they have the

technology, so, give it a go. They may need it, they might not. But

surely there is a widespread view that American intelligence is just

off the reservation, and it seems to be on the rampage. But I think it is

because they can do it, as distinct from looking for a specific story.

What are they going to find on Angela Merkel's phone, for goodness

sake of she is the Chancellor of the most powerful country in Europe. I

do not think she is going to be leaving voice mails. This is absurd,

it is absolutely absurd. I care a lot less about foreign leaders

surveilling themselves, and more about Big Brother looking at

innocent British citizens. The point is that even if the surveillance is

done almost inadvertently, because they can, and you do it on such a

scale, and there are so many contractors, thousands having access

to it, it actually ends up making us more vulnerable. And I do not think

it helps the cause of the agencies. There is one other point, but if you

think of all of this controversy around national security

surveillance, what do you think about the snooper's charter, which

was proposed, to extended to town halls and quangos? I hope that one

effect of this will be to cut off at the legs the idea of increasing even

further that kind of surveillance. England's football clubs have

revenues of more than ?3 billion a year, with much of it coming from

football fans paying for tickets, TV subscriptions and merchandising. But

there is a growing mood among fans that they have been taken for

granted, and they want more say over how the clubs are run. It has been

on the minds of politicians as well. Mark Denten reports. It is a damp

evening, but this club are going through their paces in training. It

is what happens off the pitch which is really interesting, because this

is a place where fans really have their say. We have our annual

general meeting, where the fans can turn up, the chairman, all of the

roles are voted on. It is up to the fans. If you have done a good job,

you stay. If you have not, you can be voted out as easy as that. 50

miles away, nine levels up the football ladder, a rather different

mood. There have been a series of protests by Newcastle United fans

against the club's owner. Just outside St James' Park, in this pub,

you will not struggle to find frustrated fans. The board have

never taken our support seriously. It is almost as if the fans have

supported the club despite what has gone on at board level. Newcastle in

my it is a one club city. In recent years particularly, the club has

been disengaged from the people who put money into the club. I want a

fan member on the board, I think that would be enormously important.

It would make a big difference to the football club and it might stop

the football club making PR disasters as frequently as they do.

Just a few months ago, the Government said it wanted to bring

in a law as soon as possible to give fans a bigger say in the running of

football clubs. But we have learned that idea has now been shelved. It

seems there is not enough time in the Parliamentary schedule - no

option for extra time for a foot or fans law. But people over there want

action. -- a football fans' law. At this Business School, there is a

conference organised by the supporters trust at Newcastle. It is

just unfair to raise expectations, to go with what appears to be a

populist idea, and then simply to say, we do not have time now, we are

not going to do this. It helps them to appear to be part of the people

they represent, but it is just not high enough up on their agenda,

which is disappointing. They do things these fans have a big say in

the running of their club. In fact, there is a national and on anyone

owning more than half a football club. In Germany, traditionally, all

clubs are member owned. That means we, the members, the club belongs to

us. For example, at the AGM, we have the right to change the club

statute. If you are a member, you really feel the club belongs to you.

You are not just a fan, you are a lot more. It is our club, instead of

something you just support. Grassroots football, the players

show their skills but it is the fans that call the shots. It is the kind

of thing supporters at top clubs can only dream of. It is the way English

football works these days, and tackling it would be a challenge. We

asked the Premier League and the Football League for an interview,

but they both declined. The Government's sports Minister also

declined. We are joined by the Labour MPm Thomas, who did not

decline. Don't you think politicians have more to worry about than

football? I think we do, but I think there are football clubs across the

country which are hugely important in the lives of their fans and

communities up and down the UK. I think the number of clubs where fans

are saying, we want to have more of a say in the running of our club,

the numbers of clubs which have got into financial trouble, suggests

that with the Premier League and the Football League not being willing to

act, then the Government should be willing to act to give for the oil

fans more of a say. Is that not a matter between the fans and their

club? Well, it is, but at the moment, the odds are stacked against

the football fans being able to get a say in the running of their club,

unless the club gets into financial trouble. The reason we need

government to act is because then, you have the chance of the playing

field being levelled up, and fans being given more of a right perhaps

to send a representative along to board meetings, perhaps to have much

more information about the way in which their club is run. That is

surely not too much to ask and would not take too much Parliamentary time

to deliver. If fans should in your view have this power, why shouldn't

workers have the right to be on the boards of the companies they work

for? Well, in some countries, that is the case. I belong to the

co-operative party, and we think that people should have more ability

and support to cooperate in the running of enterprises. It just

seems to pick on foot hole, which, at the end of the day, is just a

sport. Whereas if this is an important principle, of consumers

and workers being involved, then should they not be playing a much

bigger role in the running of our companies? Why is it not right for

the people who work for British Telecom or Vodafone or Tata Steel?

Used the example in your package of Germany. In Germany, for example,

much of the energy supply increasingly is delivered right

energy cooperatives, individual people combining, pulling resources,

to produce energy. We know it works in Germany, both in foot and in

energy and in other ways. Why can't we have more of those types of

models in the UK? But where would it leave a company, and I say company

advisedly, like Manchester United? It is a multi-billion pound empire,

so how would it work? It seems to me there is nothing wrong with the idea

of one of Manchester United's fans being elected by their supporters

trust, and Manchester United has the biggest such trust in the country,

being elected to sit on their board. So, you have got one guy

sitting on this board full of Arab sheiks and American businessmen and

sponsors and all the rest of it, property developers, and you have

got this one we chuck on his own... It does not sound fair! There is

always a risk of somebody going native in that sense. But if you are

answerable to all of the other fans through the trust, your

accountability is different. I am very interested that you would raise

the example of Manchester United, because it is the key of everything

that has gone wrong in foot all. The Glazer family come in, they did not

have the money to buy it, they borrowed the money, and in order to

pay back the money, they screwed the fans for all they are worth. You say

it is just sport, it is only foot all, but what you are talking about

is a massive thing which people care deeply about, which is a huge binder

of communities, which is a huge pride and joy, and big corporations

come in and sting the people for everything they have got it is

terrible. I love the idea that Labour are going to come in and give

us free energy, and a free football club as well. How generous! Thank

you for your advice, but... We have run out of time. I mentioned

Manchester United because it is the only football team I have heard of.

Now, The Week In 60 Seconds. High noon for the dirty half-dozen, with

MPs gunning for the big six energy firms at a select committee hearing.

And the heat is on at the Old Bailey. David Cameron's former spin

doctor Andy Coulson and seven former colleagues are in the dock over

allegations of phone hacking. They deny the charges. High Speed 2

trundled onwards, with APs MPs voting to start spending money on

the project. We had the news that two thirds of the text received in

this campaign were fake. The vans themselves have been sent home. And

he really is Red Ed, at least when it comes to the Boston red Sox. He

was up all night watching his favourite baseball team and treating

his delight at their victory in the World Series.

All these politicians, they talk about football because they think it

links them to the people. Even people who went to public school and

never touched a football. There is Ed Miliband doing something which,

there is no votes in it, I thought it was rather endearing. He loves

baseball, so he stayed up all night to watch the red Sox. There are no

votes in it on paper, because none of us are red Sox fans, but it is an

identity builder. It is, I may seem a bit geeky, and IM, but I am also a

bit like you, because I stay up all night. He is looking for a

personality, isn't he? He knows a lot about it. I thought it was very

human of him. Time to find the answer to the quiz, and the question

was, why did the Green Party leader Natalie Bennett give me five quid?

Because she offered to pay your next month's gas bill? No, it is because

she bet me that UKIP would have more councillors than the Green Party, or

the other way around. Thank you to all of my guests. I will be back on

Sunday with The Sunday Politics. My guests will include Len McCluskey

and the Secretary-General of the Muslim Council of Britain. Bye-bye.