09/01/2014 Daily Politics

Afternoon, folks, welcome to the Daily Politics. Police and

politicians try to calm an East London community after yesterday's

verdict of unlawful killing over the death of Mark Duggan. -- lawful

killing. We will bring you the latest.

The government says it can save ?500 million putting government services

online, but admits that ?40 million has already been wasted on the IT

for welfare reform. Love is in the air. What has brought

on an unexpected rapprochement between the Deputy Prime Minister

and shadow chancellor? And this man has got a bit of spare

time on his hands. Could Alex Ferguson do for the Labour Party

what he did for Manchester United? All that in the next hour. And with

us for the duration, our very own guru, a former canon chancellor of

St Paul's Cathedral. He is now a parish priest in south London. Giles

Fraser, welcome to the programme. Let's start with the Mark Duggan

inquest. Yesterday, a jury concluded that Mr Duggan was lawfully killed

when he was shot dead by police in August 2011. His death led to days

of rioting across the UK. His aunt, Carol, gave this defiant message

from outside the court. These pictures contain flash photography.

For as long as it takes, God give my family strength. Not only the

family, the whole of our legal team, the whole of our friends, the whole

of the who have supported us. The majority of people in this country

know that Mark was executed, and we still believe that. We are going to

fight until we have no breath in our body for justice for Mark, for his

children and all of those deaths in custody that they have had nothing

for. No justice, no peace! Well, this morning Carole Duggan

said although the "struggle" will go on, she's called for "no more

demonstrations, no more violence". She added that the family would be

pursuing their case through peaceful channels.

In a moment, we hope to be joined by the MP for the area, David Lammy. He

is coming from a meeting with the Met Police. Giles, what is your

overall impression of what has happened here? Just looking at the

footage of Mark Duggan's aren't, there was something slightly

intimidating about that" no justice, no peace". That felt to me at the

time as if it was a call for some sort of violence. I am very glad to

hear that they have pulled back on that a bit. But I thought the

atmosphere outside was really intimidating. Jores Okore be at and

that sort of thing. This is unacceptable -- jaw is worth being

lunged at. At that has to reflect the feelings of the community, the

fact that the police have had a pretty bad track record of late,

from Jean Charles de Menezes and even Andrew Mitchell recently. A

jury came to this verdict and that is the way our legal system works,

and we have to accept that. The media talk about the concerns of the

community, but the evidence of what the community really thinks is quite

thin. There were a number of people outside the Tottenham police station

last night for the demonstration, but there was little evidence that

other people then joined in. It was worried much the people who had been

outside the court. There is a lot of evidence that this man terrorised

his community and that people were frightened of him. There is indeed,

and I am always be specious about people commenting about immunity

leaders, these self-proclaimed people. -- community leaders. Mark

Duggan was not on trial here. But their sins to be a lot of evidence

that this was a gang member who did terrorised the local community. None

of that justifies him being shot. Policing these areas, with dangerous

criminal gangs, is a difficult job for the police to do. The police

look to be on shaky ground over some questions, particularly the gun. We

have no witnesses saying they saw the gun being thrown away. The gun

was 20 feet away from the police. On the other hand, I would suggest that

there is a great danger, if our mythical community leaders and other

activists try to turn this man into another Stephen Lawrence, it is

clear that he was not a Stephen Lawrence. He was not any sort of

hero in this community. It is interesting about the nature of

evidence in these complicated crime scenes. That is why there is this

idea that has come up about the police having cameras on their

hats, which I guess sounds like a good idea. It is interesting that

the police, in difficult situations, have to make split-second decisions

about whether to shoot. We saw that in the case of the murder of Lee

Rigby and what happened after that, with people rushing at the police

and having to make a split-second decision. And how you make those

decisions is a really interesting thing. You can't looked up in a book

and see all the. You don't get a chance to do it again. These are

very difficult things. I have done quite a bit of work with the Army

over the last few years about how you make instant moral decisions. It

is nothing that comes out of a rule book, it comes out of your character

and your instinct. Let's go to David Lammy now. You were at a meeting

with the police this morning. What did you learn? Well, the meeting was

really a series of community meetings with local council and

members of the community, reflecting on the verdict. As you will have

seen and heard yesterday, many close to the family were communicating in

a powerful way, but also looking forward to hopefully a peaceful

vigil at the weekend, but also to broader police relations in the

constituency and beyond. Where will the vigil be, and who will be part

of it? That is still being determined. It is the intention of

the Duggan family to have a peaceful vigil. That will take place this

weekend. I suspect it will be, in the normal way in my constituency,

outside the police station. It is a moment in which members of the

community are able to reflect on the loss of life of Mark Duggan. But the

family will also be able to convey their feelings about where they find

themselves at this moment. For them, this is not the end of the

process. There is an Independent Police Complaints Commission enquiry

that has yet to report, so this story continues for them. But you

seem to have some doubts about the ability of the IPCC to get to the

bottom of this? It is not just me that has doubts. The Home Secretary

has doubts about that a black body. The Independent Police Complaints

Commission is a body that, across the political spectrum, there is

concern about its strength, its resources, its ability to command

the respect of officers and actually to be able to interview officers. In

this case, the officers did not give interviews. This investigation has

been going on for two and a half years. And with reason is not

attached to the Mark Duggan case, Andrew Mitchell, a former Cabinet

office the list, has expressed concerns. It full is the -- it falls

to the to look at questions the jury raised, and also questions that came

out of the inquest itself, and to come back to the public in the

coming weeks. In many people's mines, the police still have

questions to answer. It looks as if there are some contradictions in

what they have been saying. Are you not in danger of making a hero or a

national figure out of someone who was clearly a pretty nasty

gangster? Look, it is not for me, as an elected official, to determine

the rights or wrong is of a particular individual. That is for a

jury and our prosecution services. But are you in any doubt that he was

a gangster? I know what the jury said. It is your constituency and

you say you are close to the family. Are you in any doubt that he

was a gangster of whom people were terrified? Andrew, I have not come

on this show to start calling people gangsters, particularly when they

don't have significant criminal records. Mark Duggan had a small

criminal record for possession of marijuana, and that was it. So I

recognise that others have portrayed him as such. His family said he was

not an angel. But the truth is that there are many young men in

inner-city areas that reach the age of 29, have small criminal records,

but he had no record for violence, gun possession and other things. But

yes, operation Trident have said he was absolutely on their list. They

were watching him, and certain things came out of the inquest.

You were bursting to get in with something. I wanted to ask David

Lammy something. David, why is it that the natural place for a

peaceful vigil is outside a police station? That seems to be the

natural place for a demonstration. At a vigil may be churches and so

forth. That does not seem to be the natural place for a vigil. That is a

good point. It is a matter for discussion over the next 24-hour. --

24 hours. What has happened in Tottenham is that there have been

four deaths at the hands of the police in as many decades, each

decade of my life. This goes back to just before the Broadwater farm

riots. Roger Sylvester in the late 90s and now Mark Duggan. For those

reasons, protest outside the police station is something that has been

an established norm. Of course, in many respects, there are broader

issues here in terms of police relations, and if that protest is to

happen, I would like some of it to be in central London outside

Scotland Yard and not entirely directed at my constituency. The

vast number of people in Tottenham want to support this family. They

certainly don't want to see violence, and the family have

reiterated that there can be no violence at attached to the name of

Mark Duggan. Now to something different, our

daily quiz. The question for today is what new TV programme has been a

leader Nick Griffin launched on his party's website? Is it his own

fitness and work-out DVD? A cookery programme? And interior design show

or a money advice service? At the end of the show, Giles has the

privilege of giving us the correct and soft. -- the correct answer.

Hasn't he just gone bankrupt? So a money advice service? I am just

guessing. Apparently, you don't need to step

down from the European Parliament if you are bankrupt, whereas you do

across the road. Now, at this stage, I should have a bit of paper in my

hand, but I left it in the newsroom. Anyway, you know that in addition to

the plastic licences we get for driving, you still have to have some

back-up paper, even though we now have photographic licences. If you

want to rent a car when you go abroad, you need one. As soon, the

paper part of the driving licence will not be needed. They are going

to go away. It is part of the government drive to put more stuff

online. They say it will save money. Yes, the government is committed to

making the UK the most digital government in the G8 by 2015. Today

Cabinet office minister Francis Maude is unveiling lands to make

that a reality. Today's announcement is over the abolition of paper

driver licenses. But by 2015, the new system will be supporting

student loan applications, people registering to vote and tax

self-assessment is. The government says that on average, an online

service is 50 times cheaper than face-to-face transactions. According

to Francis Maude, tackling the waste in IT spending will save at least

?500 million this year. But of course, it is not all plain sailing.

The government's universal credit project, which is meant to

consolidate all working age benefits into one payment, has been troubled

by serious IT problems. This has led to the write-off of ?40 million and

led to the Cabinet office minister Francis Maude sending in

troubleshooters to get the project back on track. And there have been

leaked reports that there have been disagreements between the work on

pension secretary Iain Duncan Smith and Francis Maude over the way the

project is managed. I am joined now by Bryan Glick, editor in chief of

Computer Weekly. Government IT has been seen as a disaster. Why is

that? It comes down to the fact that the disasters we hear about are very

big projects and they are large politically driven initiatives and

because they try to deliver a promise of a politician, it is not

like a business with the Chief Executive says, let us slip that for

six months, but in politics you get attacked for that. It is that

physical pressure along with the sheer scale of what they try to

achieve. Universal Credit, was not to be? And the timescale to short?

-- too short? It certainly seems that has come back to bite them in a

rather nasty way since. The sad thing about Universal Credit is that

they chose to pursue initially some of the older ways of doing things

that had previously been criticised and they have not learned lessons

from past mistakes. There is a new breed of people within government,

led by Francis Maude, who believe it is better to do things differently.

Is this achievable? This project? It is certainly achievable at some

point and they shall be able to deliver that. Deliver software that

does what it is wanted to do. But not in the timescales overpromised

and to the budget they have committed to. Once this mod is

committed to making the UK the best in the G8. How good are we? Looking

across the G8, he would not about anyone to say, they are particularly

good. If you want to be the best, it is not a project really difficult

race to win! But over the last couple of years, this new digital

service that Francis Maude is responsible for has made some

significant progress and has done good work. Can they say the money

that Francis Maude is talking about? ?500 million every year? It costs a

lot of money to do a face-to-face transaction in public service and it

costs less to do that by telephone and a lot less online. If you can

take services that are done predominantly face-to-face or on

telephone and get them done over the internet, it will cost less money.

Thank you. Andrew? With us now is the man in charge - Francis Maude,

the Cabinet Office Minister. The Bill Gates of the Coalition

Government! How will look -- will be measure success in becoming the most

digital government by next year? There are independent rankings done

by outside bodies and we did not rank particularly high on that.

Estonia, remarkably, always comes up at the top. They are not in the G8

and that is a fair point. But the competition is not fierce. But that

word, by word for disaster, and repetition is shockingly bad and we

spend more per capita on IT in any other country with the exception of

Sweden and Switzerland. And you must include the cost of a certain

laboratory. That is a rather unusual piece of equipment. We were spending

a lot and were ranked fairly low. Now, we are rising but there have

not been recent rankings. But this is about how many transition --

transactions get done. We have good applications but they are not well

used. If you can get 20 percentage people to use an application, you

should be able to get up to 80% quickly and government applications

get stuck at 50% and a lot of that is the transaction failing so you

get huge numbers of enquiries by phone and people having to do things

face-to-face or by post, which is not the way most people want to do

this. Some people do but you want the individual attention to be

focused on the people who cannot operate online rather than on the

majority of people who want to do things quickly and conveniently at a

time of their own choosing. I have my prop! There are a lot of

endorsements on this! Is that yours? ! Quite clean! You must get rid of

this? That is a consequence. We will not need tax discs in the future

because that is a relic of the past. The police can now pick you up

on number recognition? And with the paper counterpart, you don't need to

have that any more because everyone has... And insurance companies and

companies for car hire have access to that online and one consequence

will be that insurance premiums should come down for honest drivers,

which is the majority, and it is reckoned that remains will drop by

?15 every year. Not huge but a little bit. Better than nothing.

When we think of government and digital, we think of the Williams

spent on the NHS patient records. And electronic borders. And we have

seen you willing your chaps out of the project to deliver Universal

Credit? There are only a dozen of our people on that. And the

intention of these projects always is that we do not expect central

government to be there forever, we are there to give support and build

the team. MoJ, for example, that team is 65. We help them recruit and

all of that. But the programme of building the digital online

applications has to be done within the Department. Is your team saying

everything is OK at the Department for Work and Pensions? There are two

projects over their because there was the original Pathfinder which

has run into big problems. Iain Duncan Smith spotted the problems

earlier on and commissioned a review more than two years ago, and that

highlighted to the officials in the Department... What are your people

saying I? They have come out. Or they saying, it is fine? It has been

done in a way that is agreed with the digital leader in the

Department, who is strongly supported by our digital

infrastructure. Relations are very good. I am a strong supporter of

what Iain Duncan Smith is doing and Universal Credit is an exceptionally

powerful visionary policy and I am confident it is capable of being

implement it. The Guardian said that Mr Maude and his team fell out with

Mr Duncan Smith's that is simply incorrect. The Guardian got it

wrong? It is impossible to conceive such a thing! But we have worked

very closely together. We got involved with this project less than

one year ago at Ian's request because there was a real problem

going wrong and could we help? We put people in but it was always on

an interim basis, we had our most experienced project manager in

government on a temporary basis and he gripped that and reset everything

and we have been given commercial support because of problems in the

relationships with suppliers and be put in a digital team, so it was

always meant... We hope it shall work out well. There are two

projects. You would not hope it works out badly! Nobody has any

doubt that the digital solution that the team in Victoria Street, which

is predominantly Work and Pensions, are working on a prototype in three

months at a cost of just over ?1 million. Will it be all right? We

hope so. There is no certainty in these things. I think the gentleman

from Computer Weekly was right. One of the problems is we have set

deadlines and we feel locked into those and other organisations, you

would give yourself more fixable itty and everything we do in

government is incredibly public and one of the problems with the Oldroyd

of doing things, which are referred to, is that politicians and advisers

and officials produce a policy and gets handed off to someone to

implement and what has happened in the past easy draw up a huge amount

of money and specifications, going through lengthy procurement and give

that to a big firm to develop and two years later it comes back and

does not work. That is wrong, the way we do things now is very much

more interactive and you develop and test it all the time with users, it

has to be driven by user needs and it is a completely different

approach. We shall see. What is your take? I am quite grumpy about this.

But about the money that is wasted but about moving away from

face-to-face. I quite like the fact that so many of these things are

done face-to-face and so many interactions have become

depersonalised and it was rotating phrase is unexpected item in bagging

area. -- the most irritating. You get terribly frustrated. The idea

that we are moving online, with nobody to shout out! And for the

elderly, people without computers have to go to libraries, if there is

a library that has not been shot down near you. I can sense you

getting angry. But the point is at the moment have enormous numbers of

telephone calls and only driver licenses, there are 1 million

enquiries every year, most by phone, and most are quite unnecessary and

people don't want to do that. For most people, they want to do this

quickly and conveniently and it is a chore that has to be done. What you

need is the focus of the face-to-face contact centres

available for those who need it but not actually spread... People who

really need that RNA queue of people who do not. -- who need that are in

a queue. Thank you both. When the Occupy movement set up camp outside

St Paul's Cathedral towards the end of 2011, it did more than mount a

four-month protest against global capitalism, it provoked a series of

rows and resignations not least that of our guest of the day who was

senior member of the cathedral's clergy. But for all the turmoil,

some argue the episode actually did the Church of England some good and

provoked a passionate, if sometimes painful, debate about its role and

ability to speak on social, moral and financial issues. David Thompson

reports. St Paul's Cathedral. For some, the interface between God and

man. Two years ago, conflict came to its front door. They Occupy movement

was meant to bring a campaign against greed and inequality

straight to the spiritual heart of London. It's true the world 's media

to the steps and led to high-profile resignations at the church. The

protest began on October the 15th 2011. Around 3000 people gathered

outside the London Stock Exchange with a view to occupying it. And it

failed they moved to Saint Pauls. Within days, with an 100 tents were

set up and the cathedral had a crisis. It was visibly shocked when

Ocuupy turned up. You could see that on the face of the bishop and the

clergy. They did not know how to respond to this. Those built of

human flesh to back at first it remained open but citing health and

safety, it closed one week later and 13 days after the protest began the

cathedral took legal action to give it the protesters. But that came at

a price. The decision to evict the protesters had the backing of the

city. But the consequences were not good for Saint Pauls in the

short-term. The cause of the number of resignations. Giles Fraser, the

Dean and others. The protest came to an end on February 20, 2012, when

police moved tents and activists. It had lasted more than four months.

But what long-term impact did it have on the wider church? The

protest might even have influenced the decision for Justin Welby to be

Archbishop. He came from the world of the city, he had massive

experience in finance and through the oil industry. But he also has

this very strong ability to speak on issues of poverty, so he is a man

who can bridge those worlds. The protest was worthwhile and we still

can seek repercussions are broad and here and we have seen long-term

change in the church in the church and the right action. And the people

did that I'd have free will, they wanted to. They thought it was

worthwhile. Shaking up a church every now and again is no bad

thing. Very few months, it was the centre of a noisy and sometimes

painful debate about the role of the church in a capitalist society. Two

years later, its effects are still being felt. So what should be the

real role of the church in the social and political life of the

country? Joining Giles Fraser to discuss that

is the Conservative MP and committed Christian, Steve Baker. Giles

Fraser, since the Occupy protests, you have been a critic of the

government. Is that the right thing for Anglican cleric to be doing? It

is not the government, per se. As a Christian clergyman, I feel that the

gospel calls us to preach in a way that is particularly good news to

the poor. This government has not necessarily been good news to the

poor, and that is something we can debate, but it is not a party

political issue. I am happy to criticise any government that is not

good news to the poor. It is not a party political thing. The idea that

the Church should stay out of politics is one of those cliches.

Tell that to Desmond Tutu. It is absurd. It is a diminished sense of

what constitutes politics if you think that. Let me welcome our

viewers in Scotland who have watching First Minister's Questions.

We are talking about the role of the Church and St Paul's cathedral since

the protests a few years ago. Why shouldn't the church criticise

something that they feel affects their constituents? The church

should do what Jesus did. Jesus was born King of the Jews and died King

of the Jews. He was a born politician. He said a lot of things

which disrupted society. But what is surprising about Jesus is that he

rejected the use of practical politics to force things. So the

question for the church is, what kind of politics do you want to make

relevant? What frustrates me is that there we are, a church which follows

Jesus, the servant King, and he avoided the use of political power,

against all expectations. So I think the church should be preaching

freedom and virtue and love for your neighbour, but not Kenzie and

economics and an extension of political power. Giles was talking

about championing the rights of the poor. He feels that some government

policies have not helped the poor. Steve, you you are a member of the

Christian conservative fellowship. You see the church should stay out

of politics. Here is the mission -2 bad prayer is the foundation of all

our activity, to seek Kristian to support the Conservatives. You are

politicising religion heavily, so don't put that on me. I did not see

the church should stay out of politics, I said the church thing

about what Jesus did in politics. You should be speaking for society

in the way Jesus did, which was to witness personal service and love,

not to reach for political power and coerce people. Are you saying that

because it is the politics you don't agree with? If Giles was supporting

conservative policy, you would not be criticising him. What I am

critical of is the wrong kinds of all attacks to serve the poor.

Wallace six you don't agree with! This is one of the unfortunate thing

is about the Bible and why the law should never be justified on the

grounds of faith. You have to keep faith out of legislation. The Bible

can be used to justify more or less anything, from anarchic hominis on

the one hand to a profound conservative on the other. I am an

old-fashioned liberal, so when I look at Galatians, the law is a

schoolmaster. I think the church should be preaching what Jesus said,

which is liberty and virtue and love for our neighbour. I am glad you

think that in one sense, you should separate the church from politics.

Presumably you are in favour of the disestablishment of the Church of

England. I am. I was baptised into the Church of England, but I am now

a Baptist, so I am happy to leave those issues to the Church of

England. I would be very happy to see the Church of England

disestablished, but I'm not about to start campaigning for it. We have

had enough nonsense about the House of Lords. You can see the

difficulties it creates for the Church of England over, for example,

women bishops. They have to play out that drama in public when actually,

it is a faith matter. You are presiding over a divided community.

The in your former role, you are presiding over a divided community

on those issues. The Church of England was invented as a board

church. We invented the big tent, Tony Blair didn't. We have all sorts

of people. That is what we want. There are not many people in the

10th these days. I don't know what tent you go to, but come to see me

sometime! Let's go back to the protests. With hindsight, do you

think the church got itself into a mess over it? Yes. I think the

church had ignored the idea of social and economic justice.

Economic justice is the number-1 moral issue in the Bible. I think

there was not enough talk about money and the morality of finance

and so forth. I think the church was fingers and thumbs when the

financial crisis hit. Part of what happened at St Paul's Cathedral was

what led us to having Justin Welby as Archbishop of Canterbury. And is

he getting the politics right as well as the faith? He is doing a

good job, yes. Does he bridged the two worlds? It is not about reaching

the two worlds -- bridging them . It is Christianity trying to speak out

of its own truth. And would you like people like Giles to not say a word?

No, it is important that Giles is part of a spectrum of debate. But

for me, and understanding of the Bible justifies an old-fashioned

liberalism which is about freedom and institutions and eliminating the

moral hands at from the banking system which the state put there. We

should have a free society where people have responsibility for the

consequences of their actions. I don't remember anything about the

banking system in Bible classes. Or whether they had a view on

quantitative easing or not. Anyway, in the past, the shadow chancellor,

Ed Balls, has not been a fan of Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg. This was what

he said about him in September 2012.

I am not thinking to myself, I want a coalition for the future. I want a

Labour majority government in 2015. But right now, I want this and

people who put the country first and are sensible. Yesterday in an

interview with the new statesman, Ed Balls changed his tune, suggesting

that the Deputy Prime Minister was a man he could work with, saying" I

can disagree with Nick Clegg on some of the things he did, but I have no

reason to doubt his integrity". No lag responded on Twitter simply with

the words "Ed Balls". Ed Balls responded" I agree with Nick" .

Isn't that nice? We are joined now by the political editor of the New

Statesman, Rafael Behr. What is Mr Balls up to? It is a good question.

The interpretation from the Liberal Democrat side is that Ed Balls has

understood that it is still difficult for Labour to win a

majority at the next election. Labour have underestimated Nick

Clegg. They thought he would be toast by now. He is still there. He

might hold the balance of power in a hung Parliament, and there will be

coalition negotiations. Ed Balls has to demonstrate that he is capable of

doing business with everyone. This was an act of Rand decontamination

on his part, saying, I am not the angry trouble person you thought I

was. We might be able to get along. Was he speaking to the New Statesman

as an individual on this, or was there a decision in the Miliband

office? The relationship between the Miliband office and the Ed Balls

office is always complex. They communicate, but I don't think it

would be fair to say they always speak as one. There has been a broad

change in that own the Labour Party has adopted would the Lib Dems, as

they have realised that Nick Clegg is not the sort of zombie that they

can be had with one that of their wrist as the next election

approaches. He will be there, and he might want to be Deputy Prime

Minister under a Labour government. Ed Balls in particular has been

feeling isolated recently. He did not have a great end of the year.

People feel he has not been popular. He needs to show he is a figure that

is not just the angry man on the front bench of the Labour Party,

flapping his arms and shouting. Is there a lot of talk in the Labour

high command that "we might not get an overall majority" ? They have to

be careful about this. The official quote you will always get is that

they want to win. I can't even a hint of a signal plan for coalition

negotiations out. They know that in the run-up to 2010, they made a

mistake in not thinking about the fact that there might be coalition

negotiations. And they discovered that the Lib Dems and Tories been

thinking about it very hard privately. I would be surprised if,

very privately, there was not serious discussion close to Ed

Miliband about what that would involve. That is why Labour now

support a mansion tax, the Lib Dem policy. They are thinking about what

is compatible with a Lib Dem platform, but you will never hear

them say that. Fascinating. Now, should it be illegal to be

annoying? You might think it sounds like a good idea. I can think of a

few people! But could buskers, carol singers or even, dare I say it,

political interview fall foul of the law? Well, members of the House of

Lords were an annoyance to the government last night when they

defeated the plans to make causing nuisance and annoyance a criminal

offence. Here is what peers had to say about it. Nuisance or annoyance

cannot, I would maintain, and should not be applied to the countryside,

the public park, to shopping mall is, sports grounds, the high

street, Parliament Square, speakers Corner and so on. Because that risks

it being used against any of us and against anyone in society. It risks

being used for those who seek to protest peacefully, noisy children

in the street, street preachers, canvassers, carol singers, trick or

treat is, church bell ringers, clay pigeon shooters, nudists. And yes,

they also have raised objections with me. If people feel threatened

and their lives are badly impinged upon, that is what the government is

trying to prevent by this Bill. I don't want to downplay the impact of

some bad behaviour on a lot of people. I want to take you back to

1970s Soho, where as a young constable, I was patrolling with a

much more streetwise officer, when we were approached by a large

Westminster councillor who was objecting to people handing out

leaflets about rent rises. He said he was really annoyed by this. And

the officer I was with said "well, sir, my aunt Mabel is annoying, but

I'm not going to let anybody arrest her for just being annoying" .

With us now is the Home Office minister Norman Baker. It is an

embarrassing defeat for the legislation, isn't it? Are you going

to accept the wedding that was suggested, harassment, alarm and

distress rather than nuisance or annoyance? It is certainly

disappointing and I despair, having heard some of those comments. They

are misinformed. It is not a criminal offence that is being

proposed, it is a civil matter. There are tests of reasonableness

put in to make sure we don't have aunt Mabel being arrested. But they

are not convinced. That sounds as if the government has not done its job

properly. Someone from the Lib Dems said these laws would be used to

stamp out a plurality, to pursue children for the crime of being

young and together in a public gaze. They can't be used for that. There

are safe guards in place with our reasonableness test. They have to go

to the courts to uphold any application. There are amendments in

the Bill which I have put down with my colleagues which specifically

protect political protest. This is not the end of civilisation. But

they think it is. Nuisance and annoyance is a very elastic term.

One person's nuisance, you must accept, would be another person's

exuberance. Yes, but that is constrained by the test which are in

there. It has to be just and reasonable. Then why change the

wording in the first place? Because we are moving away from Labour's

failed ASBO process, where people continually reoffend, despite the

ASBO being given to them. We are moving to a civil standard which is

better in terms of not criminalising young people. We want to deal with

that and anti-social behaviour. It is silly for this to be built around

words like annoyance and nuisance. This is the wrong part of the

dictionary. These are words that we cannot make subject to any

legislative stuff, and we shall keep on hearing about this, about aunt

Mabel, and unless you make something more, this is silly. Let me stress,

it is not a criminal offence for introducing this and this is an

injunction they would have to grant. The fact that carol singers could be

stopped is nonsense. They would be five miles down the road. What could

happen? If you breach a subsequent order, that is a different problem.

If somebody says the government is planning to kill every 10th child,

the assumption is that the worst possible interpretation is the one

the government is putting forward. But you will look at changing the

wording? The House of Lords have spoken and we must look at that.

Will that satisfy you? Yes, they need to look at this again and they

need to change it and get rid of these silly words. We want a society

in which people have the right to be annoying. I absolutely degree, no

dispute. Then you must change the words. This does not do what you

think it does. People should be allowed to be awkward and cause a

nuisance by exercising their credit right. Some people do not like

Morris dancers. But others might. As a Lib Dem, there will be many who

will say, do you not feel uncomfortable about championing

legislation around this framework? Anti-social behaviour was a big

problem and no one doubts that this should be looked at but are you

comfortable championing this in this way? I am because it does not do

what opponents say it does and the did say that, I would not supported.

But I am very happy to look at the wording and we shall analyse this in

detail. But there is no intention from either side of the government

to do anything to limit civil liberties. This is to stop

anti-social behaviour. What is your response to what the Mark Duggan

family is calling for? We have had a verdict from injury and we need to

be careful in terms of civil liberties and the IPCC is carrying

on with its investigations and that is a proper course of action and it

is right that Mr Duggan's and said she wants to pursue this through

proper channels rather than any other means. That is the correct

response. Thank you very much. Can I clarify? Is a government policy to

kill every 10th child? ! Know, every fifth child! At least we cleared

that up! One answer to the population explosion! I am glad you

were listening! The Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee

met today and, surprise, surprise, they're sticking to a historically

low interest rate of 0.5%. But should rates rise soon? Joining me

to discuss the pros and cons of an interest rate rise is Nigel Mills

from the North East Entrepreneur's Forum, who is against a rate rise,

and Andrew Lilico from the Institute of Economic Affairs, who is in

favour. The initial circumstances that justify that has passed and we

should seek to normalise levels to around to present at the earliest

opportunity. The Bank of England has missed really as opportunities to do

that when growth was picking up but with a more sustained growth it

should be taking that chance. One problem with rates being so

extraordinarily low is if anything further goes wrong, there is no

scope to act so we should seek to have some normalisation, but going

back to 5% something overnight but raising a little bit night and

taking this chance. What do you say? Interest rates should stay where

they are, the recovery is extremely fragile and people are dependent on

no interest rates to be able to afford mortgages and businesses

depend on them to be able to pay their loans and in the absence of

any sustained growth period and the absence of wages inflation, which is

1.1%, I do not see any point in raising interest rates and pouring

cold water on the economy at this stage. Isn't an argument that the

recovery is only just getting underway and it looks like it shall

be quite strong this year but there is still a lot of zombie companies

out there and if they had to pay more to service the debt, they could

be in trouble and lots of people with mortgages could be in trouble

as well. Why rush into this? It would be helpful to liquidate some

of those companies because they are tying up capital and workers could

be used in more productive activities and it slows growth the

medium term. Furthermore, adding such low interest rates is liable to

mean that as a recovery occurs, a number of businesses take on unwise

loans in order to fund non-viable projects so it would be better to

take the opportunity to make things a little to eliminate the most

egregious examples of zombie companies and nobody is talking

about rates becoming unsupportive, we still want loose monetary but

this is just to move away from the emergency levels from 2009. That is

the point, the emergency is over and we wait to see the strength of the

recovery but the crisis has gone both here and in the Eurozone? Not

.5% is a huge historical anomaly? They will have to rise? Interest

rates will have to rise in terribly, inevitably, but a long

time in the future. The UK economy operates not independently but as

part of the world economy and when you have lower interest rates in

America, record rates in Europe, those economies slowly recover as

well. Why would we put the British economy at a huge disadvantage are

advocating an interest rate rise now before the recovery has retaken hold

and before the benefits of that recovery have been felt? We are only

talking about the minister to freight by the Bank of England but

the markets a body spoken? -- administrative rate. Bonds will

likely rise more and that is a return to normality and the basis

upon which many companies will borrow, on 3% and this is happening,

you are getting the rates rise? And I am pleased by that and I think the

Bank of England is behind that curve. As illustrated by the broader

yields. Does it matter if it is behind the curve? Because one of the

dangers that we can see is once we get into recovery, the enormous

amount of printing gets leveraged as Hanks look healthier and they are

more willing to lend and we have had a strong recovery over the past year

with bank lending continuing to contract and that started to rise,

we could see a rise in broad money that was difficult to control which

might lead into an unsustainable and one of the key things is to act

early. It is a mistake to wait until everything looks like it is

completely sweet because by then, you might be too late to act to

prevent the next crisis. We shall have to leave it there. Thank you.

If success in leadership is measured by how badly your organisation does

after you leave then if there were any doubts about Alex Ferguson's

credentials, then Manchester United's losing streak since he

stood down have perhaps confirmed his brilliance. And with Fergie at a

loose end, where should he direct his energies next? Well, one Labour

MP has written to Ed Miliband urging him to call on the Labour supporter

and donor's talents in the run-up to next year's general election. You

were a left winger playing football? ! I was not a great footballer? My

brother was a goalkeeper. Fascinating insight into the talents

of Ed Miliband! We're joined now by the Labour MP John Mann and Michael

Crick, who has written a biography of Alex Ferguson. Y Alex Ferguson?

What can he do for the Labour Party? Leadership. He is a proven leader, a

proven winner, and if he was to use his test on all of our policies,

that would root out ones that will not actually persuade the British

people. He would be a big asset to shake things up. Is it because Ed

Miliband is not providing leadership or there is not enough morale? We

always need a better cutting edge and I think Sir Alex Ferguson could

give that. And make sure the entire Cabinet is performing as a team.

They are not gelling together? They can always improve and to win this

election, that kind of leadership at the top and that kind of advice

would be very valuable indeed. I am sure Ed Miliband is considering this

and I am sure that Sir Alex will be called upon. Would the chemistry

work? It would be perfect because what leaders need, to become Prime

Minister, Ed Miliband has to surround himself by people not

liking. It is what Tony Blair did, Campbell, Mandelson. Alex Ferguson

is not like Ed Miliband. They are poles apart. Is this a brilliant

idea? You have kept a straight face! I am absolutely amazed! This is a

joke? ! No, it is not! I am a Chelsea fan. Do you believe football

managers could help? This is nonsense but there was a load of

divisiveness that surrounds Sir Alex Ferguson, people think he is a

bully. He is a great leader? You will not push me on that, I am blue

to the core. There is no way that micro-you might be read in

politics... That is part of the problem politics has. Abraham

Lincoln brought his enemies into the camp and I am saying to Ed Miliband,

who is a Leeds fan, bring our archenemy, Sir Alex Ferguson, in,

let his skills work. There is a move to draft Sir Alex Ferguson into the

no campaign for Scottish independence. There's just time

before we go to find out the answer to our quiz. The question was: What

new TV programme has BNP leader Nick Griffin launched on his party's

website? His own fitness and work-out DVD? A cookery programme?

An interior design show? Or a money advice service? What's the correct

answer? I do not know! A cookery programme. In case you're not a

regular viewer of BNP TV, here are the not-so-subtle political messages

that Mr Griffin managed to shoehorn into his show: Look at this that

micro-2 carrots, some sweet. You cannot have too much sweet, unless

you are good. English cookery was the best in for centuries. Very

advanced, great mixture of spices. It became very simple after the

Hanoverian skim over from Germany and they had a very bland form of

cookery. Don't let people tell you you must have huge drummers of

immigrants to have good cooking. We have Mexican and Italian restaurants

not far from here. No worries for Nigella Lawson! That's all for

today. I am back at 11:35pm tonight. Katie Hopkins joins me. Goodbye.