13/06/2012 Newsnight

Tonight, is the care being offered to children and young people

adequate, why are social service departments apparently dumping

children in towns and cities miles from where they live, which even

the local police don't know are being used as childrens' homes.

you have a situation where a sexual predator is sitting in car outside

a children's home, targeting the children inside this home, a home

that the police do not even know exists. The three key people

involved are here with us. The undercover policeman who was

supposed to be there to keep us safe, but is now accused by an MP

of carrying out a firebombing. The MP is with us, as is a former Home

Office Minister. The US told Russia again today to stop arming Syria

with weapons, including helicopter. We talk to the former presidential

contender, Callum Kane, who says it is time to take action.

Martin Amis, on the state of England, and whether he's become a

grumpy old man. When you hit 60, you think, this can't possibly end

well t will end in tears. It was one of the most troubling

police investigations of recent years. A group of predatory men

abusing some of our most troubled and vulnerable children. The

criminals in Rochdale are said to have sought out troubled girls for

sexual exploitation. When children are taken into care, the care

provided on behalf of all of us, they are supposed to be being put

into place of safety. We know where they are, don't we? It turns out we

don't necessarily. Newsnight has learned that according to estimates

based on police figures, there could be 4,000 incident as year of

children going missing from care in England.

It's a lovely place for day out, if the sun shines. But when the beach

and the amusement arcades empty in Margate, there are plenty of

outsiders left behind with no ticket home. Providing for children

in care from other parts of the country is an industry on the Kent

coast. They are looked after here in unusually large numbers, though

not always very well. Craig, not his real name, was sent

here from London five years ago, when he was 1. Now he's got his --

11. Now he's got his first job, at one time he was getting into a lot

of trouble. At first when they saw I was doing it they didn't cautious

that is when I got into trouble with the police for crime. I was

able to do that a couple of years ago when I was able to go out on

your own, they don't care about you, they sort of give up on you.

But the risk is not looked after children getting into crime, it is

those children becoming the victims of older criminals. Last month a

gang of men was jailed in Rochdale for the sexual abuse of teenage

girls, one of whom had been in a residential care home. What is to

stop similar crimes being committed again in places like this? As in

many seaside resorts, there is an unusual transient population here.

It is exactly the kind of place you might think, well you shouldn't be

sending vulnerable children, who need security more than anything

else. But in a system which depends

largely on private provision, it is not always the best interests of

the children that come first. They are sent where there are places

available. Councils are legally obliged to

place looked after children in their own area unless it isn't

reasonably practicable. Of the roughly 65,000 children in care in

England last year, about a third were placed outside their own

council area. Sometimes a long way away. Of the nearly 6,000 in care

homes, almost half are outside their own area.

Once grand resorts like Thanet, with its large, cheap house, are

among the places where fostering and privately-run children's homes,

are now an important source of income. The local MP says areas

like her's are the solution for the many councils, particularly in

London, who can't find enough places locally for the children

they care for. They aren't much of a solution for the children

themselves. I find it staggering that those

authorities then placed them in areas that they haven't done a

proper assessment of the safety for those children. They have been

taken out of traumatic environments, difficult families, and then, they

are placed miles and miles away from anything, any point of

reference, in an area that doesn't necessarily have the profile that

you would expect that a local authority should find for a child

who is already traumatised. Kent police recently identified a high

concentration of privately owned children's homes, in one small I

can't remember of Thanet, which also has a high concentration of

drug dealers, prostitute, probation hostels, and ropblgsterd

paedophiles, all in close prox -- registered paedophile, all in close

prox simty. Two years ago schools in Margate refused to take any more

looked after children from outside Kent, in protest of what they call

an immoral policy. We wonder why London Boroughs would want to send

their most vulnerable children to this part of the country. We find

it utterly extraordinary they would want to send their most vulnerable

children to an area with such significant social problems. We

think it is irresponsible of them. We also think it is cynical.

know there has been a high number of arrests in this I can't remember

for drugs, for soliciting sex. We know that is going on in this area

in Cliftonville, and yet we have still got children's homes set up

there, and children network with each other. Rochdale is waiting to

happen in Thanet, it could be happening already for all we know.

Head teachers Kent say they are often told nothing about the

complex needs of children from other areas. Social workers rarely

attend meetings, because it is too far to come.

Councils who move a child to another area are obliged by law to

give the host authority details of the child's care package. And of

any risks involved. But often, information's not passed

on. The child becomes invisible. Invisible sometimes until he or she

runs away, and the police are brought in. Philip Shakesheff, a

from West Mercia police, has helped collate a computer programme to put

together details of missing children. Details should be given

in advance. First time we find out is when they become a victim of

crime or, more commonly, go missing. We have to play catch up, it is a

complete shock to us that we have a child living on us who is high-risk,

from another area. Holly, not her real name, is 16.

She's run away many times in the two years she has been in care in

the West Midlands. Once, while missing, she found herself in place

where she feared other girls were being used for sex. But her care

workers, she says, don't really care at all. All they have to do

when you go mis, they just have to ring the police and say you are

gone, that is how you get dealt with, it is the police who deal

with it. They aren't trying to find you? No, they don't search for you.

They will try to ring you a few times. But they don't come looking

for you. If you say you needed to be picked up from somewhere, they

don't come and pick you up. Even if you ask them to pick you up? They

don't pick you up. You have to get back on your own. There was many

times when I used to go missing, I would say I'm stuck, I have no bus

fare, I can't get home. They were like you have to ring the police

and get the police to drop you back. But they are supposed to be caring

for you? Yeah. They are meant to, but... In my 31 years service I

have never had a phone call from a carer saying this child's been

missing for three days, this is what I have done to try to find the

child. What have you done? How can we work together? Many care homes,

up and down the country, are making significant amounts of money, up to

�200,000 a year to look after one child, and I think there are clear

issues in terms of resources, and I feel there is significant evidence

there that would suggest that the police are filling in the vacuum in

these resources. Dealing with a missing person report costs police

on average �2,000 a time. And police believe figures collated by

councils massively underestimate the scale of the problem.

England, there were two thirds, approximately two thirds of the 152

local authorities that said nil, there were no children in their

care who went missing for longer than 24 hours in their area. I

thought that is not a reflection on our experience in West Mercia. In

West Mercia we are dealing with about eight children who go missing

a day. The Government says 930 children in

care in England went missing in 2010 to 2011, it records only those

absent for more than 24 hours. But an estimate by the UK Missing

Persons Bureau, based on records from several police forces suggests

the total number of cared for children, who went missing, is

about 10,000. The number of incidents is estimated at 42,000, a

figure that's been little noticed until now.

But police can't tackle the problem of disappearances properly, because

they don't always know where the children's homes are. It is

important, of course, for the children's protection that the

homes aren't marked. But it is absurd, many think, that the

inspection agency, Ofsted, won't even tell the police.

That's one of the points made by a group of MPs in a hard-hitting

report on the care system, to be published next week.

Under the current system you can have a situation where a sexual

predator is sitting in a car outside a children's home,

targeting the children inside this home, a home that the police do not

even know exists. Sometimes you wonder who the care system is for,

whether it's for the children in the system, or for the

organisations that run the system. A system where, despite the huge

sums spent on care, children often feel they are on their own.

From the last year or two they have looked after me all right, but

before that I didn't think it was much of caring, it weren't caring,

they weren't them sort of people, they were there for the money. If

you had a little flip out, they would have a go at you, they would

always bring their problems into work, they wouldn't let you have

your outburst, but it was all right for them to have their problems n

and discuss it with the staff, and then be stressed off with you

because of their family problems. In a system dependant largely on

private provision, where it is easy to set up a children's home, the

role of the inspection agency, Ofsted, is crucial.

But something, the regulator itself -- some think, the regulator itself,

is failing. At no stage throughout have Ofsted approached us to ask us

about concerns for any home in West Mercia, pro-actively have they

approached the police and asked is there any concerns about any of the

homes. At no stage have they asked us to share with them data about

any of our homes and numbers of missing persons' op soweds that

they are reporting. I think it is - - I think it is amazing that a

number of missing persons have been recorded from a home, and Ofsted

can award a "good" inspection. That leads me to believe they are

checking box, not waiting -- weighting what care the home

provides in the case of what is important for the child.

Government accepts it needs better figures on missing children. It is

pressing for fewer out of area placements, and higher standards in

homes. But there can be no quick fix for a system that some

professionals think is broken. For children like holly it is too late,

she will be living semi- independently in her own flat,

leaving behind a home she believes never even tried to be a home for

her. I had issues, that is why I went missing. But to go back home

and have people, like, being off with you, like you don't belong

there, there is no point in you being there, that is what makes it

worse. We can now talk to the care home

provider, the care home inspector, and the local authority boss.

Jonathan Stanley is from the Independent Children's Homes

Association, representing the providers of 60% of care home

places in England. We have the director of social care

for Ofsted. And Andrew Webb, director of Children's Service at

Stockport Council, and Vice President of the umbrella work, the

Association of Children's Service. In the ideal world, if you had a

child in your care, how far away from their previous home would you

keep them? Some children need to be placed a fair way away, for their

own protection. Some need to be protected from their familiarly if

they have been removed because they have been abused. The majority, we

know, do best if they are kept as close as possible near their roots,

schools they have attended for years. The first thing I would want

to say about the film we have seen t reflects only a very small part

of the care system. The majority of children in care do very well, the

stability in their placements is improving all the time. It has

always been difficult to place teenagers. You don't dispute the

figure that half of children in care are not being in care near

their original home? I think it was a third in the film. No, and as I

say, the reason for those placements being out of area are

complex, many of them good reasons. Particularly in the urban areas,

you could be place add couple of miles across the border and be in

roughly the same communety. There isn't an issue of a third of

children -- community. There isn't an issue of a third of children

being placed away from home and in seaside towns. Do you assess the

sort of area in which they are going to be placed? No, we place

them in homes that have been registered and approved for the

purpose of placing children. I'm not sure how you could assess an

area. I tell you what you could do, one very easy thing to do, is talk

to the local police? I think what you have heard is the police don't

always know what is going on. You don't get a very good picture of

what an area from a single phone call. Are you suggesting that we

might create no-go areas for children in care, something like

that? I'm suggesting if you were told by the police that there was a

highly transient population, there was a great deal of drug use, there

was a hostel for paedophiles released from prison, that sort of

thing, that you might think twice about it? Yes, if the young person

was at risk. Would it not be a good idea to ask the police? I'm not

sure how wide would you cast the net, one street, two streets? The

idea is fraught with problems, as soon as you start trying to unpick

it. What we need to do is make sure the care prove vieders are capable

of managing -- providers are capable of managing the children

that are with them. You are acting as parents, effectively, and yet

children are clearly being put in places you wouldn't put your own

children? There are children, local children living in these areas. I

don't think it is reasonable to say you can write off a whole area and

not place children in them. I think there is a lot more sophistication

required to understand the nature of an area than simply ringing the

police. I'm wondering why you don't inquire? The police don't always

know where a children's home is, as you heard Ann Coffey MP explaining.

Can you help us here Mr Stanley, why is it that so many of these

children's homes are in seaside towns, with highly transient

populations and the rest of it? Before I answer that, I think there

is a very good reason, and a good way of knowing where the children

homes are. The social workers have to advise the children's homes and

the independent reviewing officers, twice a year. They will know where

the homes R the reason why we have homes where they are, it is a very

complex and historical journey we have been on, originally in London,

for example, the homes were placed outside the city by Victorian

philanthropists. The reason is, it is cheaper to get larger

accommodation there, isn't it? isn't always the case that

children's homes are placed in cheaper areas. I can take you to

places around the country. Maybe not always, but there is pattern

here, do you accept? We have can take you to places around the

country where providers have set up in select areas of towns, so they

get good access to schools and a good supportive nurturing community.

You have some other explanation, have you for the fact that there

are various seaside towns in this country, where there is a high

concentration of children's homes? I can understand how they arrive,

we have to go back to the historical roots. We saw Victorian

philanthropists set up outside the city, and regional planning set up

on the coast. As the councils closed their homes on the coast, so

people open them up as private homes. If we want to move forwards,

we have to understand how to get the children back from the coast to

the city, but that will mean us thinking of the economics of care.

Are you also able to provide some long-winded explanation of why it

is a child in one of your homes goes missing and the owner not

trying to find the child? I'm not accepting it is long-winded, I'm

accepting it is very complex and we can't go into that. When someone

goes missing, every local authority has a missing person's protocol,

which children's homes have to follow. They have to be reported to

regulators and social workers, it isn't the case that people do

nothing n all cases. Nobody says it is in all cases. But it does happen,

and it should never happen, should it? It should never happen. Is it

not reasonable for a child in care to expect that should they

disappear, get into trouble and whatever, that someone would try to

seek them? I'm saying that does happen, in the instances in your

film, clearly that didn't happen, in that child's experience, but it

does happen, because that is what the local authority protocols and

the children's homes protocols say must happen. These are homes

getting up to �250,000 a year, aren't the people of this country

entitled to expect that the people who take money in that sort of

volume, will, in all circumstances, exercise due care? As we were

talking earlier, we know that not all of the children are of that

level of need. There are some children that do need that level of

need, and with that package of care comes psychology, psyche kiery, and

high levels of staff who have been reporting that young person. From

the regulator's point of view. Why aren't the police told which houses

are children's homes? I agree with the person in the film, who said

that's an absurd position. The reason is, quite simply, is the law

doesn't allow us to share that information at the moment.

would like to? Personally I would very much support a change in that

regulation. At the moment the regulations pro-hib bit us from

sharing that information with -- pro-hib bit us from sharing that

information with anything but local authorities. Do you, as regulators,

assess the suitable of an area for children's homes? No, we don't.

Shouldn't you? We don't because that is not a basis within the

regulation that is are set for us that we have to work within. That

is not Within the boundaries of us shutting down or opening up a

children's homes. I think it is gaps and weaknesses in the planning

legislation. Will you do anything about it? It is not within our

power to take action on that particular issue, but certainly

taking part in this kind of debate, I accept there is a serious consen

racial of homes in particular areas -- serious consideration about

homes concentration in particular areas. The people best to decide on

these issues are local people and local authorities have a part to

play. There is a part planning legislation can be used in this

debate. That needs to be revolve and it needs to be clearer what

powers the local authorities have in these situations. What about the

suggestion of your own rating of homes. If a child disappears from a

home 100 times, how can that home be entitled to get a rating of

good? No home is entitled to get a rating of good. It is a question of

weighing up all the evidence and coming up with a judgment. That

would be a very rare event, you would have to know the

circumstances of the case to make a judgment. Where we might find a

home, where the staff are doing everything they conceivably could

do, to try to keep that child safe to track that child, to know where

that child is going to protect that child, liaising very actively with

the police and other agencies involved to try to protect that

child, but they simply, at that point in time, cannot crack that

very difficult behaviour. We would not necessarily say that home was

failing. Mr Webb, do you agree that you have two people here saying it

is time for a change in the law, do you agree? The Association of

Directors of Children's Service will stimulate a debate charting

next month on what care should be for. -- starting next month on what

care should be for. The model we have for young people is outdated.

It doesn't assess the complexity of the interaction between the youth

justice system and the care system. It doesn't pick up the issue of

preventing young people becoming detatched from their communities in

the first place, and so on. It is time for a debate about what, as a

society, we should be doing for our more troubled young people.

would all like to see that? There is unanimity, everyone agrees it is

not working properly? It is not just a strategy, it is meeting the

needs of children with high level needs. Some need national resource

force the specialist care they need. I agree it is not working properly

for all children, that is what we should expect. The saddest thing in

the film is the two young people who said quite separately "they

didn't care", that is bad home, a failing home, and an inadequate

home. It is important to say a description of every children's

homes in this country, many are doing a very good job. Nobody will

say that was a skriings of all homes? That is the picture put

across by the media. We know most of our homes are good in Ofsted

ratings. Could it really be possible that a policeman took part

in a firebombing causing millions of pounds worth of damage, that he

did so on an undercover mission, on the public payroll, and never

caught by colleagues and the police. According to the Green Party MP,

Caroline Lucas, it is certainly possible. Today in Westminster,

around the cloak of parliamentary privilege, she named the man

concerned. Summer 1987, the early hours of the morning, and three

firebombs light up three department stores. Later that night there is a

call to the BBC, the Animal Liberation Front has claimed

responsibility. Those attacks, 25 years ago, were serious and

effective, eight million pounds worth of damage was done to

Debenhams stores, and the chain was forced to drop all its fur clothing

a policy that still holds today. Only two of the arsonists

responsible for the attacks have ever been caught and convicted.

Today's allegations centre on this store in Harrow, North London.

Using parliamentary privilege, the Green Party leader, Caroline Lucas,

named the man alleged to be responsible. Not extremist animal

rights protestor, but a serving police officer, Bob Lambert. There

is no doubt in my mind, that anyone planting an incendiary device in a

department store, is guilty of a very serious crime, and should have

charges brought against them, that is absolutely anybody, including f

the evidence is there, Bob Lambert, or the people supervising him.

This is the man she's talking about. Lambert was unmasked as a police

spy last year, but these angry members of London Greenpeace.

you proud of what you did, it was abusive to people, it was damaging.

He spent much of his career undercover, working for the met

police, he ended up running the whole unit responsible for

infiltrating protest groups, and is now a respected axe dem ib. Back in

the 198 -- academic. Back in the 1980s with long hair and a cheap

bedsit in London, he went by the name of Bob Robinson. He was Bob

Robinson, someone I really liked, I got on well with, I thought he

really liked me. Maybe he did. But he was still willing to put me away

for over four years of imprisonment. This man did go to prison for the

Debenhams attacks, he was caught, redhanded, making firebombs on his

kitchen table. It was Geoff Shepherd's allegations about Bob

Lambert that were raised in parliament today. Caroline Lucas

quoted his statement. "Three Debenhams stores had attacks on

them, including the Harrods store. Straight away I knew Bob had

carried out his part of the plan. There was no doubt in my mind

whatsoever, that Bob Lambert placed the incendiary device at the store

in Harrow". Since unmasked, Bob Lambert admitted he did work

undercover, and has apologised to law-abiding protestors for some of

his actions. He denies planting an incendiary device in the Harrow

store. Since Mark Kennedy was he revealed as an undercover spy last

year, there has been other allegations against undercover

officers. This is a serious alleged criminality by the police, but it

fits into a pattern of apparent misconduct, at all levels of the

police and the prosecution, in all sorts of different ways.

Lambert was promoted after the Debenhams fires, and eventually led

the police's undercover operations. One reason why the allegations are

being taken so seriously. Seniority of the officer at the

centre of these latest allegations is incredibly important, because it

shows that this is not the result of a one-off rogue officer acting

alone, but it is systemic and it is cultural, it is approved, and it is

authorised. Geoff Shepherd says the police

could have arrested the Debenhams arsonist, when they collected the

insendry device on the morning of the attack of -- incendiary devices

on the morning of the attack. met on the morning where we picked

up two incendiary devices each, and each person went off in a separate

direction to their particular store. The key question, that still hasn't

been answered, is why, if the police knew about these attack, if

they knew about the planning, they didn't stop them in advance, when

they had the chance. One question was answered today, Bob Lambert is

one of a group of undercover officers, sued by women, who say

they were duped into having sex. Senior police officers said that

should never happen, today the Government disagreed. To ban such

actions would provide a ready-made test for the criminal group target

today find out whether there was an undercover officer deployed amongst

them. Once minute, today's allegations have led for calls for

fall public inquiry into the actions of undercover officers. The

Government says there is no need for that. And the guidelines now in

place are tough enough to protect the public.

Here to discuss this are the Green Party MP, Caroline Lucas, who

raised the subject in Westminster today, and Tony McNulty, who was a

councillor in Harrow at the time of the bombing, and later MP for the

area, and minister for policing and security under the last Labour

Government. You don't object to the idea of undercover policemen, do

you? I don't, what I do think we need to be clear about, as the

rules governing that undercover behaviour. There are more and more

concerns about what exactly is allowed, who is being held to

account and so forth. We have the story you have just reported there,

and we have these eight women who have been duped, not just into

having sex, but having long-term relationship, including children,

with undercover officers. I think that means we really do need to

have a public debate about what limits, if any, there are to the

activity of undercover police people. If you think about the

furore, if you think about the furore over hacking phones, or

internet snooping, how much more intimate is it for somebody to come

into your house, into your bed, share your life but. We need a

public debate about how much the police get involved with that.

Nothing wrong with public debate and setting the rules, and making

it clear? No, I'm glad Caroline accepts in a democracy, undercover

policing has a role to protect T I think to besmirch a police officer

under the cowardly cover of parliamentary privilege, based only

on the assertion of a convicted arsonist is terrible. She merely

read out a statement? With nothing other than this individual's

assertion, that is an abuse of parliament. Can you ask me a

question of why it is, that if the police know in advance of an

intended firebombing why they choose to let it happen? No in

these circumstances, bearing in mind that I was probably shopping

on a regular basis in this department store, I would be

interested. As I would be in catching perpetrator. The actions

under the cloak of parliamentary privilege have prevented, that I

don't know. The notion that there should be a substantive debate on

the perameters around undercover policing to prevent extremism and

public disorder, violently, I'm with her. You think there should be

an inquiry? I think there needs to be a comprehensive public inquiry

into the whole issue of undercover policing. We have up to now 12

secret inquiries going ahead, so people can't challenge what is

being said. One of the concerns of the eight women bringing legal

action against the police right now, is at the moment the police

solicitors are saying that the evidence will be held again in

secret, the women won't know what is being said about them, by the

people that they are accusing. This needs to be really in the fresh

light of day, so that we can have this debate, and say, OK, in our

society, we are happy to have undercover police officers working,

but these are the rules under which they operate, and these are what we

do when they step outside that. would accept that? The Met are

carrying out a review of their work from 1962, should that be broader

and carry the concerns that Caroline has, I would agree, and

the commissioner needs to look at that, hissor clee. Aspersions

against police officers does not -- assertions and as St Petersburgs

against police officers does not -- aspersions against police officers

does not include in that debate. You are looking for clear rules?

These things don't happen in a vacuum now, there is clear rules,

there is the Ripper legislation and other aspects. Of course there are

elements an the edges. The point about personal relationships and

how deeply embedded and for how long someone is embedded undercover

raise serious issues. You are not right to say that the rules are

clear on. That I raised with the ministers today and asked about

whether or not it is right that an undercover police officer can get

into such an intimate relationship with children and it is completely

unclear. It is clear, whether that framework and issues should be

further explored in public debate I agree. Not by using the sanctity

and privilege that is parliamentary privilege, that is an abuse you

should be ashamed of. It is not an abuse f it is used in the context.

I asked you in the Green Room, what have you done so far to work with

the police, CPS and others to stand up to the assertions that this

individual can be saying. You have gone straight from a chat with him

to parliamentary abuse of parliamentary privilege. I replied

in the Green Room to say that I don't know if the person is guilty,

of course I don't. I do know this is something that ought to be

investigated, that was the point of raising it in the context of

parliamentary privilege and parliament to say we need a proper

comprehensive inquiry that we haven't had until now, until now

the police have been brushing it under the carpet? Not true, Dennis

O'Connor, the Chief Inspector, set clear perameters in a clear report

on undercover policing, the shame is this Government want to put Tom

Windsor into his place who has no experience. We can agree on that.

The French Foreign Minister has called for the United Nations

Security Council to threaten the Syrian Government with a no-fly

zone if they don't adopt the international peace plan. But there

seems little prospect that have august body taking any action. As

Russia and the United States continue to trade insults. The

Russians have denied American claims they are supplying attack

helicopters to the Al-Assad regime, and have accused them in return of

destablising the renal. Some in Washington are calling for action.

As you found a little earlier when I spoke to Senator John McCain.

Senator, what do you make of the Russian reNile that is they are

supplying arms to President Assad? It is a return to the old kind of

Cold War rhetoric, that Russians used to use denying the undeniable,

it is very obvious that Russian tanks and artillery, and helicopter

gunships are being used by Al-Assad. The Russians are the main supplier.

To call it a civil war is the wrong description, it is an unfair fight.

Even though some arms are coming in from some other countries, not the

United States, to help the rebels. The Russians, of course, say the

United States is supplying the rebels. I wish the United States

was, I think we should. I'm absolutely believing that we should

provide a sanctuary, that we should provide them with a, particularly

anti-tank weapons, with which to depend themselves. Here are people

demonstrating peacefully, now being massacred in the most brutal and

atrocious fashion. But creating safe havens might require the use

of American force, might it not? could require the use of the United

States and other countries' air power. But if you told Bashar Al-

Assad, that if he attacked a sanctuary, that he would pay a very

heavy prie, I think it is very possible he would -- price, I think

it is very possible he would not do T the best way for Bashar Al-Assad

to be motivated, with the help of the Russians, to leave Syria, is if

he thinks he can't win. Right now, on the battlefield, he is

prevailing. Why is Syria worth risking the life of a single

American serviceman? First of all, I don't think we would be risking

the lives of many, because I don't believe there would be American

boots on the ground. But, second of all, in the words of our military

experts, the fall of Bashar Al- Assad would be the greatest blow to

Iran in 25 years. As you know Syria is a client state of Iran. This

would free up Lebanon, it would be a huge blow to Hezbollah and have

enormous effects. Second of all, people are being massacred, people

are being tortured and raped and killed. I went to a refugee camp on

the Turkish-Syrian border, it is a horrible thing to hear these

stories and meet these people. These wars are a lot easier to get

into than out of, aren't they? I heard the same thing about libia.

We helped in Libya, -- Libya. We helped in Libya, Gadaffi came down,

and on July 7th they will have their first election, which I would

view as reasonably free and fair. They said the same thing about

Bosnia and Kosovo, they said the same thing about Rwanda. So. They

said the same thing about Afghanistan and were ignored, 11

years on, troops are still there? That's right. We cannot forget that

we went to Afghanistan because it was the place where the 9/11

attacks originated, and we had no other choice. Because the Al-Qaeda

was there. That is where the attacks came from that killed

several thousand brave, innocent Americans. That is why we went to

Afghanistan. But, it is still 11 years on, and on going military

problems in which lives are being lost. That is the big danger can an

intervention like this in Syria, isn't it? As I said, I do not, and

I know none of us who want intervention and want boots on the

ground. This is a multinational effort, the Turk would play a very

lead role. America should lead, that is the Americans job, that is

to lead, this President won't even utter a word on behalf of these

people who are being slaughtered and massacred, as short a time ago

as Friday. That is not what Ronald Reagan was all about, I will tell

you. Thanks thank you.

Can you work out where this is? It has a life expectancy on a par with

Djibouti, and a fertility rate somewhere between Millauy and Yemen,

dead before 60, an average of six children per family, or single

mother. It is the fictional state of Diston, conjoured up by Martin

Amis in his latest novel, Lionel Asbo: State of England. He has the

disposition of someone more violence than most. He wins the

lottery. In Diston everything hated

everything else, and everything else in return hated everything

back. Everything soft hated everything hard, and visa versa,

cold, fought heat, heat fought cold. Everything honked and yelled and

swore at everything. All was weightless and all hated weight.

Lionel Asbo, the protagonist of our book, is a aggressively ignorant,

he's violent, he's a lout, and the book is subtitled "State of

England", are you saying he some how represents the state of

England? I'm not saying anything, all I'm saying is the book, all 270

pages of it. This is not strict realisim, this is a sort of

fairytale world of abitary rewards and abitary punishments, of nursery

rhymes. That's the imagery of the novel. It is not a frowning

examination of England. But you have chosen to put State of England

as a subtitle? I sometimes regret that. When people say that this is

a pretty scathing attack upon what we used to call the working-class,

what are you saying? That is not an attack on the working-class. He is

not a member of the working-class, he's a member of the criminal class.

A member of the unworking-class? The residuals, it used to be called,

the underclass. It is not even an attack on that. It is, novels don't

come out of negative feelings. You couldn't write with disgust and

contempt, they are you will erotic and embracing feelings. But Lionel

Asbo represents something, doesn't he, he represents a particular sort

of human being, whom many of the middle-classs in this country live

in terror of? I don't know if he represents it, he's an example of

it, and is then comically magnified by a stroke of luck. He joins that

considerable strata of English society who are famous of being

famous, in the trite phrase, and yet, some how, capture the

imagination of England. You wonder what kind of shape the imagination

of England is that it is captured by the marginal, and as you say,

undeserving figures. What do you conclude about the imagination of

the state of England, by the fact it is so obsessed with celebrity

and material success, unearned very often? I think you could make the

labourious historical case that we have been in decline for 70 years,

and what are the consequences of that in the public mind. They are

not going to be obvious, they are going to be subliminal. The

obsession with triviality is one of the symptoms of decline. We lead

the world in decline. America is just embarking on that, they are

children in the matter of decline, we have been doing it longer than

anyone else. We rose earlier than any other country, with the

exception of Holland, perhaps. We had our revolution a century before

the French and the Americans. We were further along and we're

further along in decline. Do you like England? I'm as attached to it

as you would expect after living here...I Don't know, having read it

I don't think you are attached to it at all? Having lived here for

half a century, it is affectionate, not scathing. England, it seems, it

getting and you yourself are getting more sensitive about

criticism from without. Do you think England is above reproach?

of course not, nowhere is above reproach? I'm connected to England,

not only through habitation, and having lived here, but through its

literature. I'm proud of being English, I'm proud of coming from

the the country of Shakespeare and others. You are not a bitter man a

jolly man? I think my love of life has increased. When you hit 06, you

think it can't possibly end well, it will end in tears. Very quickly

you begin to value life as much as you did when you were a child. If

this is a second childhood, it is good fun. You have a leave-taking

point about you. Not anger, and not reactionry anger, I don't want to

turn the clock back. That is the idlist kind of inquiry. I want to

see what is there, and see what comedy is there in it.

She says let's seal our pledge with a jobby in the limo. That's all

tonight, Kirsty is in the chair tonight, Kirsty is in the chair

tomorrow night, good night. Hello there we are still expecting

another dose of a wet and windy weather to sweep northwards across

the whole country, Thursday night and Friday. Ahead of it is fairly

quiet for most of Thursday, after a bright start cloud will increase. A

scattering of showers but fairly light. Some sunny spells, in

northern England, not too bad here, we will see the cloud increasing in

the Midlands. That could give us one or two showers. Some sunshine

hanging on across East Anglia, cloud amounts increasing in the

south-east of England, the wet and windy weather arriving in the south

west of England during the afternoon. The weather here going

downhill, as the wind picks up in Wales, so the cloud will increase

in the afternoon. Light showers ahead of the main rain which,

arrives in the evening. A scattering of hours for Northern

Ireland. Sunshine inbetween. Temperatures much as they have been

over the past few days, 14-15. Pleasantly warm in the sunshine in

Scotland. Many parts will be dry. It looks pretty good in Edinburgh,

with sunny spells around here. Notice how the weather changes as

we head into Friday. It is Thursday into Friday as the rainband moves

south-west wards northwards across the whole of the country. The main