11/02/2014 Daily Politics

Good afternoon, welcome to the Daily Politics. The waters rise, more rain

is forecast as politicians try to get a grip of the flooding affecting

large parts of the UK. We will bring you the latest.

MPs vote to ban smoking in cars with children, but there is opposition

from Cabinet ministers, and it is not clear how the ban will be

implemented. News, there is lots of it, but are

we equipped to take it all in? We will be talking to the author of a

user's manual. And the claws are out in the latest

vote rigging scandal to hit Westminster, MPs get catty over who

has the best looking moggy. All the important stories, of

course, any next hour! And no dispute about who is top cat in the

studio today, television presenter and journalist Fiona Phillips,

welcome to the programme. It is very kind of you! Let's start with

smoking, because last night MPs voted in favour of a ban on smoking

in cars carrying children, and amendment put down by Labour MPs,

and the Government side were given a free vote on the issue. Downing

Street says such a ban would come into force before the next

election. Let's get a flavour of the debate. The Government is clear, and

I think all members are clear, that children should not be exposed to

the harm of second-hand smoke, which can be extremely harmful to young

children. They have chucked no choice about being in places where

they are exposed to smoke in many cases. Are we going to have smoking

police weaving in and out of traffic and looking in car windows? There

must be a serious answer do this, how can it be enforced? If we know

beyond doubt that passive smoking in an enclosed space can do serious

harm to a person's health, and that hundreds of thousands of children

are being subjected to this in a Karl every single week, and if we

know from experience of similar laws passed in this country and other

countries that legislation can have a major impact in changing behaviour

and improving public health, should we act and do something? Or do we

stand by and do nothing? By that same token, would she therefore

concede that we should criminalise pregnant women who smoke on the

basis that their child is in an even more confined space than in a car? I

have no quibble at all with the honourable lady for Liverpool way

betray, she represents the smug, patronising excesses of new Labour

who thinks the only reason they are in parliament is to ban things they

do not like. What perturbs me are the Conservative ministers who

appeared to have not grasped the concept, even though they claim to

be Conservatives, that you can disapprove of something without

actually banning it. This is just yet another in the long line of

Tridents for the nanny state. If the honourable member had been present

at the time, he would argue very strongly against compulsory seat

belts in cars. Of course he would have done! Because when I was

listening to him today, I heard the authentic voice of primitive

Toryism. And on the note of primitive

Toryism, let's speak to Ross Hawkins. People were divided over

this issue, when today, right up to ministerial and Cabinet level? This

is the thing, Jo, this Government is about to introduce legislation, it

says by the election that is the sort of thing that affects real

lives. It is understood and will stick in the memory, it could even

change a little bit of the national behavioural culture. And yet large

swathes of the Government did not want to do it at all. Nick Clegg did

not vote, he could only persuade four to vote against. Many others

were against this, Theresa May, Chris Grayling, pretty important

Conservatives. And yet something that they oppose, something that was

suggested and proposed by Labour in the House of Lords and the House of

Commons, is now set to become law. If you have any complicated

questions, like, what would the penalties beat? How would it work?

How would it function? Keep them to yourself for now, because the

department for health does not know. There will have to be a

consultation, they will have to work out how this is going to happen.

They are not pretending they have all the answers now, but it is an

intriguing development that Labour have managed to get this particular

changing, and I think you heard of there some Conservatives wondering,

in the face of that free vote, why the Conservative front bench did not

come out against an idea like that and why some of their senior

colleagues seem quite enthusiastic. Ross Hawkins, thank you very much.

Fiona Phillips, do you support the idea? In principle, but you can be

against it without wishing for a ban, and you do not start going

inside people's cars, you are talking to someone who has driven

around in a white Ford Anglia. We will not condemn you for that! It

was yellow because my father smoked constantly, lovely nicotine brown

roof. I smoked from the age of 11, gave up about 14 years ago. But you

did not have a choice, isn't the Government saying, we would have

saved you from passive smoking? But how far do you go, into people's

homes? Pregnant women? I mean, that is a direct hits into a feed is

taking nicotine, that is when I gave up, by the way. How much more

traffic police supposed to do than what they are doing already? They

are not enforcing the mobile phone law very much, they are not even

enforcing speeding, from what I have seen. How is it going to be

enforced? It is going to be interesting to see how it unfolds,

what penalties and fines there will be, maybe along similar lines to

mobile phones, but they did manage to ban it in pubs. Well, this is...

People never thought that would happen, but now if you go into a

pub, people will think, I cannot remember when you could smoke! They

are public places, we cannot smoke in the workplace, fine, but you

cannot go into people's homes and cars and tell them what they should

do. What about alcohol at home and children? That is far more

damaging, actually, than cigarette smoke. Sorry, Jo, because of the

education we have had about smoking, education always works. Only 20% of

the population smoke now, so educating these people who have a

fight with a car load of kids, educate them, don't ban it. Is this

the nanny state? Do you agree with the Conservatives who say this is

the nanny state in operation and Conservatives are allying themselves

with it? I never knowingly agree with a Tory, I have to say, but

yeah, I agree! You cannot go into personal spaces and tell people not

to smoke. But they did with seat belts, didn't they? And now it has

become part of everybody's day-to-day life, you put your seat

belt on. I remember the advert, they have changed attitudes. And that is

a direct life-saver, it is for everyone in the car, it makes sense

for the whole population, but only 20% of the population smoke - in

their own space. So will it work? I do not see how it can be forced. You

mentioned the seat belt law, it is very important, we all do now, but

how often is that enforced? We will leave it there. Time for the daily

quiz, and the question for today, which of these roles has the owner,

our guest, not been offered? -- Fiona. Chairmanship of the

Environment Agency, Labour candidate for the Eastleigh by-election, or

Labour peer under Gordon Brown? At the end of the show, Fiona will give

us the correct answer! Water, water everywhere, well, certainly if you

live on the Somerset Levels, and now flooding has spread to the Thames

Valley after days and weeks of seemingly continuous rain. The map

of England and Wales as seen through the eyes of the Environment Agency

is a pretty scary looking place. There are 14 severe weather

warnings, which indicate a threat to life, in place for Berkshire and

Surrey. Two warnings remain in place in Somerset. Over the last 48

hours, things have got much worse in Berkshire and Surrey, where river

levels in some places are at their highest level since gauges were

installed in the 1980s and 1990s. It has meant homes and businesses in

Datchet in Berkshire have been flooded, with hundreds of homes

further down the river, as far as Shepperton, under threat. The

problems will be compounded with more rainfall over the coming days,

with gusty winds and rain fall of 20 millimetres likely across the

country. With more than 30 millimetres possible across parts of

south Wales and south-west England. And here is is the impact that the

rain has had, large sections of the Thames have burst their banks,

meaning homes in places like Wraysbury, Maidenhead and Datchet,

bordering the river, have been flooded. It has meant many people

have had to switch their mode of transport, as residents try to get

around the water, more than a couple of feet deep in places. Ed Miliband

as dust and off his wellies and headed out to the small village of

Purley, and he used the visit to call on the Government to invest

more in flood defences. This is a wake-up call, it is an issue here

and around the country. There is clearly this kind of extreme weather

that is becoming more likely with climate change, and we need to make

sure we put in that investment, we put in the flood defences and

protection so that we prevent this kind of thing from happening as much

as we possibly can. Another man wading through the water was Defence

Secretary Philip Hammond, whose Runnymede constituency has been

badly hit by the floods. The crisis has brought the work of the

Environment Agency, and particularly chairman Lord Smith, into the

spotlight, but Mr Hammond told the BBC that now is not the time to play

the blame game. I don't want to spend the time now, in the middle of

this crisis, recruiting and finger-pointing. Clearly, there are

issues around policy, and long-term planning, around strategy that will

have to be reviewed when all of this is over. And we will have to look at

decisions that were made in the past, whether they were the right

decisions, whether we need to change policy for the future, particularly

on things like dredging. But it would be a great disservice to

people who are facing floodwaters lapping around the threshold of

their houses to spend our time now arguing about what he liked rather

Easter Terex question is, frankly. Transport has been severely

disrupted, the Prime Minister was keeping dry but out and about in

Polish in South Devon, where he was assessing the damage to rail lines.

We have had the wettest start to the four 250 years, some of the most

extreme weather we have seen in decades, and you can see behind me

the effect is as hard. It will take time before we get things back to

normal, we are in for a long haul, but the Government will do

everything it can to co-ordinated national sources. If money needs to

be spent, it will be spent. If the military can help, they will be

there. We must do everything, but it is going to take time to put things

right. Our correspondent Philippa Young is by the River Thames in

Marlow in Buckinghamshire. What is it like there? Amazing news, it has

stopped raining finally! We have a really short weather window. I have

been here since around seven o'clock this morning, it was drizzle, then

pretty soon after that it was hammering down. And the wind is

really whipped up, you can see now the speed of the river. It looked to

be flowing pretty slowly first thing this morning. It really has whipped

up. Firefighters further upriver are pumping very close to houses, which

are very close to the river. You can see how far back it has come into

the graveyard. If you can just about make out that Bush there, that is

normally wear the river bank is, and you can stand there and look at the

river. You can see how far it has come back. Residents say this has

been pretty wet for a couple of weeks, but in the last 24 hours or

so there has been a dramatic rise in the river. The Church earplugs tells

me they have a flooded crypt, the Hotel on the other side of the river

almost certainly must have flooded cellars. -- the church here. They

have put sandbags on the other side of those chairs and tables, I do not

think people will be fancying afternoon tea at there. Fire crews

are using their own pumps, and they also have a high volume pump on loan

from Staffordshire Fire Service, and that can pump 7000 litres of water a

minute, they tell me, and that is in operation further up the river. The

concern is, though, the Environment Agency and buy a cruise here say

that the river for the time being has stabilised, but there is concern

that there is more water on the way. -- Fire crews. They are dealing with

tidal surges further upriver, and of course whatever the weather chucks

at us for the next few days. Do people in the surrounding area feel

the authorities have been doing enough? Marleau, really, does feel

pretty lucky. People I've spoken to this morning and seeing what's been

happening further up and down, not very far away across the river and

they do feel pretty lucky. The firefighters I spoke to this morning

say everything they can do with being done to keep the water away

from houses. There are a couple that are pretty close with sandbags just

haven't quite done the trick, nothing, though, they say alarming

at the moment but they are on stand-by obviously not able to tell

exactly what the weather is going to do. I'm sure anybody who has been

affected would be saying the Environment Agency could be doing

more. I've been speaking to people here who have been measuring the

flow of the river and saying it's pretty fast. They are trying to

enter is about what's going to happen but, of course, there's an

element of guesswork and they are trying to do as much as they can,

they tell me, for the residents in this area. Philip Ah, thank you very

much. Joining me now is John Howell, Conservative MP for Henley. How is

it there? Henley is suffering from flooding as is the rest of the

constituency. It's basically around the Thames, but, fortunately,

there's not that many properties affected. It's not the disaster area

of the bits of the country. So you are seeing this as a crisis that

perhaps the Government should have stepped in earlier to deal with? No,

in my constituency, the flooding is not yet affecting major properties.

The council are working extremely hard on this. They have issued 6000

sandbags already. They are working very hard with the Fire Service to

have the right pumps in place. What I'm saying is if their concentration

on that which is actually helped to give the situation at bay. What

difference has it made seeing Government ministers and senior

politicians of all parties out and about in flood hit areas? It's a

great question and a great PR opportunity, but I'm not sure we do

very much by going out into the water. We can be sympathetic to

people and all of that. What I have done is to have meetings with the

Environment Agency in order to ensure that what I think is being

done is really being done and they are doing all that they can to deal

with the situation. How helpful has it been listening to and watching

the name-calling and sniping between ministers and the Environment Agency

over the past few weeks? I think Philip Hammond's was the best on

this. There are issues with the Environment Agency over the whole

policy of dredging, for example. It's a big issue in the north and my

own constituency but now was not the time to have those issues. Now was

not the time to have a discussion with the Environment Agency. Now is

the time to provide assistance to the people flooded and then tackle

it later. Who should be providing that assistance in your mind? Who in

a broader sense should be providing information? People talk about great

community spirit and volunteer services and the Fire Service and

how marvellous they have been. Should be local initiatives to did

with local crisis is? We are facing an unusual situation with people

saying it's the worst rain for 250 years. Ultimately, it comes down to

a draining a hell of a lot. But who'd you expect to help? The

Government, centrally controlled, or local initiatives in the way you

have described? A bit of both, and the Prime Minister has already set

out what the central Government will provide on the way of assistance

from the military, additional sandbags, flood equipment, but it

also comes down to the fact that we need to be planning properly. And

not building on the flood plain. We will come onto that. Just looking at

it from the outside, I presume your home has not been flooded. What do

you feel for these people who are now dealing with on a daily basis?

What I find, cut, not their situation, but suddenly politicians

going out there and being the font of all knowledge were adding to do

with flooding and how it affects people in what should be done. They

should have been out in the communities before this. But, well,

it's awful. I have a small business near Somerset, actually, a pub which

people are not able to get to the moment. There are small businesses

and homes all over the place being affected. I've heard of landlords is

mourning not re-homing people who are being forced out of their homes.

It needs everyone to help. The HMRC needs the good businesses when their

VAT quarters adieu, and not be hard on them. The banks to listen when

businesses can't afford to pay their small loan payments. It reaches out

further out than people in their homes, but that's really tragic. Who

was going to pay fraud this? Insurers estimate it could be up to

?1 billion. -- pay for this. The Prime Minister has to ?7 million

front to help councils were the immediate clean-up. There will be a

big call on the insurance companies. That's why people pay insurers. So

people's premiums are going to go sky-high presumably as a result of

this, and it could affect people outside of those flooded areas, too?

I have no idea how the insurance industry will react to this, but the

first call has to be on the insurance industry, because people

are their premiums and they need something back for them. You talked

about planning and people would say planning and perhaps more money

going into Government agencies like the Environment Agency, and into

desperate -- DEFRA, may have prevented the excesses of flooding.

Firstly, no more money going into the Environment Agency would have

affected this in the slightest. The amount of money going into the

Environment Agency has continued to increase. Now, the issue of planning

is an important one. We need to ensure, as the National planning

poverty framework makes absolutely clear, that we do not make the

situation worse on the flood plain. It's very clear about the areas in

which building can take place, and if building does need to take place

on the flood plain, because sometimes it does, it needs to make

sure that it takes every precaution it can to overcome the problems of

flooding. When it came to funding for DEFRA in flood defences in real

terms, that amount has fallen since the Government has been in power

from ?690 million to ?576 million. Was that correct? I think you're

being selective in the figures. No, the Government has spent some

amounts to the last four years of a Labour Government, but in real

terms, if you count inflation, it is fallen, and that a Parliamentary

figure. What do we do about things like the policy on dredging for

example? More money might have paid the more dredging. It's not a

question of money coming back. It's a question of policy, and we need to

discuss this with the Environment Agency at a later stage but now is

not the time for that. Thank you. Now, earlier this month the Labour

peer Sally Morgan spoke of her unhappiness at not being

re-appointed to the role of Chairman of the Education Watchdog Ofsted.

Reports over the weekend suggested that Education Secretary Michael

Gove might replace other members of Ofsted's board. Mr Gove was asked

about the issue by Shadow Education Secretary Tristam Hunt in parliament

yesterday. Mr Speaker, we will see that the

Secretary of State has refused to condemn the campaign against the

chief inspector and is not the truth of the matter that Ofsted is

inspecting the free schools without fear or favour and he doesn't like

it. The chief inspector wants to inspect Academy chains and he

doesn't like it. On Friday, a secondary school closed and a new

Ofsted purge on Sunday. Surely he should be focused on raising

standards, not politicising our school inspectorate system. If he

wants to be taken seriously, he must pay close attention to the facts.

And the facts are these, that I had been zealous and making sure that we

applied a typed and more rigorous inspection framework to all schools,

free schools, academies, maintained schools, and I appointed Sally

Morgan and I have been leading change in our schools. I have been

the person in system to be held our education system to the highest

standard and I'm the person demanding the honourable gentleman

once again, once again, withdraws the statement he made earlier

putting words into the mouths of Sir Michael will sure he did not at. If

he doesn't, we will draw the appropriate conclusion that his

policies, are both timid and incoherent. Michael Gove and Tristam

Hunt they are engaging in lively debate. And joining us is a

supporter of the government's education reforms and free school

founder Toby Young. Welcome to the programme. Is this another example

of Michael Gove attacking the educational establishment he wants

to improve? I don't think he has been attacking it. I think Sir

Michael Wilshaw misunderstood and thought that policy exchange had

reports commissioned into Ofsted pondered by the Secretary of

State... Think tanks, that's what was claimed against Ofsted, but is

not undermined. The head of Ofsted as saying he is undermined, he feels

by Michael Gove on the Government, spitting blood about those

briefings. How does I improve standards in schools? Appointing Sir

Michael has helped improve standards in schools in the first place. There

is now timid and 50,000 children being taught in failing schools than

under the last Government. The claim by Tristam Hunt is because Michael

Gove is unhappy that Ofsted are infecting that inspecting free

schools is clearly nonsense, because 75% of those free schools have been

ranked outstanding including the free school I co-founded in 2011.

That's higher than the national average, 64%, so Ofsted are giving a

ringing endorsement of the free schools policy. To suggest Michael

Gove wants to politicise Ofsted because they are criticising free

schools is utter rubbish. Isn't this a storm in a teacup when it comes to

improving standards? Isn't Michael Gove trying to push a teaching

establishment which has been set in its ways for too long? He doesn't

listen to teachers, he's dictator. He doesn't talk to teachers for the

bid and talk to parents, pupils, he doesn't listen to anyone. He has his

own agenda, even taking questions. If anybody opposes him, he puts

down, doesn't want to get into discussion with anyone. He is

closing very good state schools down in Boro 's all over the place and

replacing them with free schools. In your area, the O'Sullivan School in

Hammersmith, an outstanding primary school in the top 2% of the country,

there was a council meeting last night, and the decision by the Tory

council has been to go ahead and close it, despite protests by

parents, they've been to Downing Street with petitions, but it's

going. The closure of that school was because it was undersubscribed,

they went on a pupils for though they are merging two undersubscribed

schools to create a site for much-needed school places in the

area. They are imposing a secondary school, free school the boys... I

don't think that decision has been made yet. If you listen to Andy

Slaughter, the local MP,... I don't recognise your caricature of Michael

Gove as a dictator. I think everyone else does. If you look at this

curriculum reforms, many changes remain to the proposed changes to

the National Curriculum after teachers and other organisations

have spoken. Free schools are untestable moment. Your school is

every two years old. Seven and eight. And nine. No one has taken

GCSE get whatever they will be under Michael Gove. People say they will

be dumbed down qualifications. Free schools have taken, in some cases,

taken public exams. A free school is where Michael Gove delivered a

speech last week, they have got ten offers from Oxbridge, for their

children, extraordinary. Have they got the same intake is you? You have

a remarkably high intake of students going into your school, which have

sat level for, compared to the average in your borough. How does

that happen? It's not a selective school. But let me explain, there

was a Freedom of information request about your school in terms of the

standard already gained of pupils coming into the school and it seemed

incredibly high from nonselective school. Can you explain it? 25% of

the children at the West London free school are on free school meals, 40%

are black and minority ethnic, it's very reflective. I think the reason

we have attracted perhaps above-average children from an

academic point of view is because we offer... You sort them out. Have

they? Isn't a case on offer have a tap attracted those people because

the standards were higher. Not the backgrounds of the children. Isn't

what's on offer from some of these free schools which has attracted

that kind of student? It's all a bit of a noise about nothing because it

hasn't been proven yet because no exams have been taken, but how do

explain at 95.4% of your intake got level four and above in English

compared to the borough average of 62%? Similar figures in mathematics

as well. These are children and parents who can't find the kinds of

opportunities are looking for elsewhere in the borough so I think

their children, who may be above average academically, have a better

chance at school. Parents are discovering the school. If more

state schools offer the rigorous... But they do. Michael Gove said that

teachers need to teach with rigour, isn't that what teachers tried to

do? He calls the educational establishment of the blog, a fairly

antagonistic term, isn't it? -- the blob. Would you call it that? That

is insulting to the pupils, and to call GCSE is that still two years

have got today, dumbed down exams, how dare he do that? My son will be

taking them, and he knows it is a dumbed down exam. He does not have

to take it. Michael Gove has eliminated things like s, BTECso we

are beginning to see positive changes. How does the teaching

establishment response to being called the blob? Is this the way to

encourage and improve standards? I think the teaching, the educational

establishment, not to be confused with teachers, the establishment

have always been hostile to any attempt to reform education. So you

think they are Marxists, the same way as Michael Gove does! They have

been saying no to reform for 50 years, whether proposed by Labour or

the Tories. Isn't there some truth in the fact that they have resisted

a change in order to drive up standards in state schools? But

standards have been driven up in state schools. By what? According to

grade inflation, you are measuring that by the number of children

getting five passes at GCSE, and as we know, that is to do with grade

inflation. If you look at the attainment gap between independent

schools and children from comprehensives at a level under

Labour, it doubled. The number of children getting good A levels at

independent schools doubled compared to children at comprehensives under

the last government. What to think about Michael Gove trying to bring

down the so-called Berlin Wall between state and private education?

That is a wall that can be smashed to pieces by getting rid of private

education and having to play nonselective schools. Don't you

agree with that? He is selecting! Don't you agree with that? If you

got rid of private education, state schools... Everyone would go to good

local schools. I am not opposed to people sending their children to

good state schools, but the way to do that is to raise standards in

state schools, not eliminate private schools, which isn't politically

possible. By emulating private schools, longer school days? Let's

emulate the best practice. At the, the top five independent schools are

getting more children into Oxford and Cambridge than the worst

performing 2000 state schools. That cannot be right, we have got to do

something about it. There are around 800,000 people in the UK with a

disease. It already costs the economy ?23 billion a year. By 2040,

dementia is expected to affect twice as many people, and the costs are

likely to travel. At the G8 dementia summit in December, David Cameron

spoke about the global challenge of dementia. Today really is about

three things. It is about realism, it is about determination, and it is

about hope. Realism because no-one here is in any doubt about the scale

of the dementia crisis. A new case every four microseconds, a global

cost of $600 billion a year. And that is to say nothing of the human

cost. Because it doesn't matter whether you are in London or Los

Angeles, in rural India or urban Japan, this disease steals lives,

wrecks families and breaks hearts, and that is why all of us here are

so determined to beat it. David Cameron there. Fiona Phillips is an

Alzheimer's Society Ambassador, Christian Guy is from the Centre for

Social Justice, the think tank founded by Work and Pensions

Secretary Iain Duncan Smith. That commitment made by David Cameron,

did it impress you? Well... No. What is really needed, so many things are

needed, I don't know where to start, but I spoke to David Cameron right

after, actually, he held a round table thing at Number Ten, and he

only recently clocked that dementia was not just a sign of ageing, old

people saying silly things. It is only recently that he clocked that

it was a disease. That is progress, but the money he has put up for...

We are 30 years behind in this country because of lack of funding,

and the funding that he offered and has put in, he has arranged to

double it, but it is still not fit for purpose. It is good that it is

being talked about and given national importance, but it is not

enough. Both your parents had Alzheimer's, tell us a little bit

about how it affected you . My mum started showing signs in her 50s, my

dad in his 60s. I gave up my job because something had to give, I

couldn't have children, ageing parents and do the whole lot, and

they were living at a distance from me in Wales, I was in London, and

eventually both they went into care. You looked after them... As much as

I could. Is the problem here that nobody has addressed the scale of

the problem that is affecting all of us with this issue? There has been a

gradual awakening, but this thing has taken a long time to emerge. In

relation to cancer, we have seen much more investment in research and

care over the last three or four decades. By 2050, 1.7 million people

will have dementia, against 800,000 now. One of the things that features

is that people deal with it at crisis point, because it is

difficult to plan, to have conversations about the issue, but

often then people go straight to A, they feel they cannot go home

because there is no support, they go into care homes. It is difficult for

families to have that conversation about the future, but as much as we

can plan, it is better for everyone if we can do that, to face up to it.

To have a national strategy which ends in 2015, France is on to its

fourth national strategy now. President Obama as a 25 year

strategy for dementia. Ours ends in 2015, and we do not know what is

going to follow it. A classic example of politicians wanting to

pass it onto the next group, but we cannot keep taking it down the

trail. But who has to actually grab all the problem? There is an endless

discussion, on this programme and lots of others like it, about

whether it is a social problem or a health problem. Would that change

things, classifying it as a health problem? Most care homes and nursing

homes are not just residential facilities, but the way we have

funded nursing homes has been to keep it quite separate. We know for

example that certain risk factors, we can take control of smoking,

exercise and weight. There is also the planning point, can we have

conversations now that so we are not reacting at crisis point. How do you

pay for it, Fiona? Do people have to accept that if more people are going

to get dementia or Alzheimer's, maybe they will get it earlier, they

will have to use some of their own resources? Because it manifests

itself eventually as a mental health problem, it is treated as the bum

end of everything, if you will pardon the expression. It is classed

as needing social care, rather than medical care. It is a physical

disease, and if it was treated as a physical disease, the care would be

funded by the NHS. So would make a big difference to reclassified in

that way? Absolutely, we shouldn't even be talking about this. I was at

a hospital in Portsmouth where they are making their geriatric wards

dementia friendly, and the nurses were saying they keep talking about

this time bomb going off. It has gone off and we are playing catch up

already. How much money would have to go into the NHS, for example, or

local authorities to deal with this problem in terms of providing the

right sort of care and nursing at home? Already cost billions, and we

are well short of what it takes to deal with the problem. When you look

at the way the trends are moving in the next three or four decades, we

are facing up to the fact that this will cost a lot more, and if people

play their part... What you mean by that? You seem to be skating around

the issue, what should people be doing, saying, we will have to sell

our family home to pay for care? That is part of the realistic

discussion that we have to have, because we have challenged the idea

that home is something we want to pass on to our children. Our assets

need to help us through, and a lot of children feel that if mum and dad

need that money, they should not feel it is protected for them.

Selling the home could be an important part of the discussion.

And the younger generation are being disenfranchised from the property

market, they cannot get on the ladder. The bigger question is not

how you funded, which is a problem, but how Health and Social Care Act

work together, what kind of care we want. The big debate is how we fund

it, but no-one is saying that. A really good example is training. GPs

and care workers often do not know how to spot the onset, so it comes

to the crisis point. That is an awareness that we are slowly

catching up to. If it is early-onset, in your 50s, I presume

medical staff are not necessarily looking for it, because at that

point it is still relatively unusual. Even if it is diagnosed,

and only at the rate of about half of people who present with cognitive

difficulties, about 50% now, which is a rise, are being diagnosed, but

once you have been diagnosed, you are pretty much told to get home and

get on with it. So there is nothing there? There is more than there ever

was, and the Alzheimer's Society has done a lot to bring this to the

forefront. There are schemes where people are being trained to

recognise what it is like living with dementia. And there are great

local projects, it is too sporadic, but some wonderful charity sane, we

will come with you on the journey as families. What about carers, usually

family members? What happens to them? It can go on for ten or 20

years. We have looked at unpaid carers who save about ?8 billion a

year for the economy, and we have looked at social prescriptions were

GPs could actually help carers get some respite, but also the workforce

that is official, often there are problems with very low pay, people

doing a 15 minute flying visit, the training is not there. The

experience of being cared for professionally as a problem. Would

you like them to be paid more in those care homes? They have to be in

the longer term, because what value do we place on the care going to

vulnerable people if we will not pay minimum wage? There has to be a gold

standard, training and qualifications in care, and

commensurate salary. It has to be a professional qualification.

Christian Guy, thank you very much. News, there is more of it, from all

sources, and it is more accessible than ever, so do we need to be

taught how to cope with it. In a moment we will talk to the author of

News: A User's Manual. First, Adam has a wry look at our recent news

has been reported. Water! People valiantly struggling

on! We did have nice apples until the rats ate them. Politicians being

shouted at quite incoherently! He says you should resign! You said

dredging is not the answer but now it is! And you wonder why the news

loves a flood, although it has posed a problem for West Country

correspondent Jon Kay - how many ways can he say it has been raining

a lot? This morning it flooded. This is something else, the whole barn

has been flooded. The weekend will bring yet more rain. In fact, it has

already begun. And there is more heavy rain due this weekend. There

is more heavy rain coming in. While he has been doing that, I have been

doing something much more to look goal of life as a journalist, trying

to drum up some interest in the Wythenshawe by-election. Does anyone

in Wythenshawe care about the by-election?! No! I am going to vote

for what is named. Are you excited about the by-election? Oh, no

interest. Why does no one care?! Meanwhile, the boffins back at base

have been experimenting with this, news stories in just 15 seconds on

the Instagram app. So you have seen three sides of our trade, the

exciting, the mundane and the very, very new. After all that, what has

been our most popular items so far this year? And now the weather for

all areas of the British Isles, but definitely not Bongo Bongo Land. And

the author of "News: A User's Manual", the philosopher, Alain de

Botton joins us now. Why was that the most popular, the weather being

done by Nigel Farage? People like that of human sapphire. -- -- people

like humour and satire. People like to know the something behind the

curtain. You guys are making it up, people in the studios. What do you

mean? Lots of research goes into these programmes. Some news is

masquerading as good news and a sound serious. The 8 billion stories

happening every day. The BBC picks on a certain number and says that's

what's happening. Of course, it's only very partial and at a basic

point we have to keep remembering. What would you have on today's

programme, what would have been your agenda on Dailyl Politics? I think a

lot of it would have been how you present the information. Take a

flood. The news likes to make is terrified and helpful. Wildly

hopeful about politicians and what they might do to transform the

country in a minute, and then totally terrified about something

else, because it keeps us coming back to the screens and keep you

guys on the job. I will gently say, the floods are terrible but we will

survive. Humanity, we have been in such things before, and we will come

out of them. The news is catastrophic. Individuals need to be

resilient. We need to be resilient. The news doesn't help that. I debate

the fact whether we are just reflecting what is happening and

what some people feel? Cheryl in defensive as a news percent. Let's

go to another news presenter. Do you think we all go for raw emotion?

Anger? Love, hate, because those are the things which sell newspaper and

put programmes in people's living rooms? To be fair, when they start

the news bulletins, they say these are the headlines. Not, this is the

news going on everywhere. They do pre-empted by saying we can only fit

in the headlines in this bulletin. I agree, but there's a weird way in

which despite the unbelievable technological news-gathering

sophistication, the key stories sometimes don't make it or we don't

quite put our finger on them. Can you give some examples of what you

would think is a key story? Today, we've talked about the floods, the

banning of smoking in cars, dementia. Are those issues salient

issues in your mind? It is said to your viewers, what was on the show

last week and how do you remember it and how are you living that

information? Make it memorable something different. It's about

trying to give the viewer some sense of the continuity of stories. It's

an easy target the modern news leaves you overwhelmed with

information so it's often hard to know what we actually care about and

a genuine political story knows how to make a change. The problem is, by

scattering so many causes, the population is overwhelmed and often

things don't change because politicians can't get an agenda

going because people are so distracted. Are you saying get rid

of it? If you're going to keep it, whoever edits it, you're going to

disagree with whatever is put on it because you don't agree with it. The

problem with the BBC, is so worried people will disagree with that, it's

so much on the one hand and not the other. You want more opinion, more

politicised? More biased? I wish you the best of luck with the BBC! The

BBC only once came off the fence in the last 20 years over apartheid

full for the BBC thought long and hard and decided it was against

apartheid. Ever since then, it's tied to a frame from expressing an

opinion on anything. I was at Sky News writeback on it first started

and we all had this backs to the wall mentality because everyone said

it would fail. Look at it now. There's obviously an appetite for 24

hours news. The issue is not should we have bias or not, but can we have

good bias question isn't it a judgement you're talking about pet

whose bias is good and bad? We get endless criticism for displaying

bias from the tumours. There's multiple crises and if the job of

the BBC to hand out the best possible bias in relation to the big

questions, rather than standing back and saying you make your own mind.

They do that on programmes which digests the news rather than just

give you the news. There is a distinction between Di jesting and

giving you the news. The news is constantly giving used up without

knowing what am I supposed to do with this? What would you like

people to do that? Are you saying the new should provide bigger with

moral guidance? How to improve their lives? We have to get better at

training people to cope with news. I wrote this book as a user manual to

the news. There's a lot of debate about how the news should be

structured with little thought given to the audience. Especially children

today. What should we teach people about the news? We can into the

world of news that thinking about it. I have this debate with a radio

on all the time and I'm not monitoring back closely what they're

listening to and what their absorbing. I remember when my

children were affected by what they have seen on the news, actually, and

you can't say, don't worry, it's not real. It is real. I remember 6pm

news bulletin, I can't member the news was on, and there was rape and

murder and I thought, how do I explain all this away? And how do I

put it into context? Most children grow into a situation where no one

sits down and says there's a weird thing called the news, collected by

people under works like this. Maybe there's a GCSE class in this. On the

whole, media studies is seen as a joke GCSE. It's one of the most

important things out there. Have a word of Michael Gove people listen

to you. Let's not go back to that. Thank you so much. There's just time

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

of these roles has Fiona NOT been offered? A) Chairmanship of the

Environment Agency. B) Labour candidate for the Eastleigh

by-election. Or c) Labour peer under Gordon Brown. Thankfully, Chris

Smith was offered that. I'm very relieved. What about standing as a

Labour candidate and becoming appear and Gordon Brown? I'm very

interested in things which affect ordinary people, people who use

hospitals, go to school, things everything that everyday people care

about. But I don't think the way party politics stands the moment,

people have enough respect the members of Parliament. And that's

what put you off? Did you think about accepting the offer to stand

as a candidate for example? No, I would rather write and campaign and

actually go out and see people, go to care homes and hospitals and talk

to real people and tried to do it from without rather than from within

because of a healthy disregard for politicians of the moment. More than

there ever has been, and I don't want to get into that thing and the

press take me apart, when actually I would be in it for altruistic

reasons yet you're not allowed to be. Let's leave it there. Now a

vote-rigging scandal has hit Westminster this week. Oh yes. Yes,

the fur is flying in the Westminster Cat of the Year competition run by

Battersea Dogs and Cats Home. Organisers became suspicious when

Bosun, cat to Tory MP Sheryll Murray, received 30,000 votes in

just seven hours. Politicians can only dream of such a thing. A

spokesperson for Sheryll Murray said there had clearly been dirty tricks

but denied any wrongdoing on her part. Bosun has now withdrawn from

the competition, leaving eight other felines to fight it out for top cat.

The competition closes on Thursday and the vote is expected to be

close. Organisers said it could come down to a whisker. One MP who

withdrew his cat, Jude, from the vote in protest is Labour's Andrew

Gwynne. Jude, my five-month-old kitten, who was fished out of the

Manchester canal, thought he had the ideal back story to be crowned the

first-ever Battersea Dogs and Cats Home cat of the year in the contest,

so along with ten other cats, he put his name down, but sadly, while all

the other cats were cat napping, one cat in particular seem to clock up

30,000 votes overnight and then tried to claim that his victory was

because of a sudden surge in Australian votes. Clearly, that was

a perfect alibi. Such serious stuff. A serious matter. I'm joined now by

two MPs whose moggies are still in the running for the top prize.

Conservative Justin Tomlinson and Labour's Bill Esterson. Welcome to

you both. Congratulations for the no cat fights on this show. Whose cat

is whose? Mine is the one with a white body and the blackface and

very big risk is. Mine is the black and white cat called Kevin. A

brilliant name. Named after his Schumann Mum's former my friend who

was a boxer. What is the point of all of this? They are supporting

Battersea cats and dogs home who do such a great job, raising profile. I

recently adopted a ten-year-old rescue dog, so it was something I

was keen to support. It was meant to be a bit of fun. It's turned into a

scandal for some how can that be? Yes, who knows? I think the

important thing to remember is we entered the same reason, to support

the good work that Battersea dogs and cats do, but I've also got a

rescue centre in my constituency who do a fantastic job. I think it's

important to support these organisations. Do you think this

might ruin it for future years now? I think they will look at the voting

system for next time. A single transferable vote? Who knows? It

would disappointing it come to this. We are meant to be doing our bit to

support Battersea and certainly, my cat is fast asleep on the keyboard

as we speak at the moment, so he's quite relaxed about it. At least

it's not the MP. I also am a cat from Battersea cats home. I'm not a

cat lover, I have to say. I think they are selfish and on for

themselves, rather like politicians. You have got to defend yourselves.

My cat is very good. He welcomed Susie the rescue dog with open arms.

My cat is called Monty. I like that. I think Kevin might confirm what

Fiona just said, because we've had two new arrivals in the household

but is determined to stay top cat. What about the mouse problem? The

Houses of Parliament are in the stated. Montague would struggle. He

would get excited for 30 seconds and then would have asleep. I think

Kevin's mouse catching days are past for the Pier 16, disabled full so he

went for operation in the summer. Are you going to be very

disappointed if you don't win? Not at all. It's about championing what

Battersea are doing. The cats are big coming good friends. May the

best one winner. Why is Andrew Gwynne so serious about it? Was it

tongue-in-cheek? I can't believe there has been vote rigging. Who

would've done that? I was surprised. Cheryl is one of the nicest and

least capable of cheating and IT system. I did speak to her and she

was bewildered by the whole thing. She entered the genuine reasons, but

I think it's all a bit silly. It's meant to be a bit of fun. Do you

think this is nonsense, Fiona? Yes, I do. It was all a bit of fun but I

would say, though to Kevin. When are you going to hear? Thursday is the

closing date. It's longer for people do look at the potential cats and

dogs to go and re-home. At apparently Apple say it alleged vote

rigging. I wouldn't want to get the lawyers involved. None of you have

seen or heard anything. What did you win? Do you get a prize? The cat

gets to be Purr Minister. Good luck to both of you. Maybe we will read

the winner when the comeback. That's all for today. Thanks to our guests.

Particular to you, Fiona. The One O'Clock News is starting over on BBC

One now. Andrew and I will be here at 11.30am tomorrow with Prime

Minister's Questions and all the big political stories of the day. Bye

bye. It's your job to keep law

and order, isn't it?