Browse content similar to 09/11/2012. Check below for episodes and series from the same categories and more!
Line | From | To | |
---|---|---|---|
A new crisis for Newsnight. Tonight, this programme apologises, a key | :00:13. | :00:18. | |
allegation in a report about child abuse was wrong. The abuse victim | :00:18. | :00:22. | |
abuse was wrong. The abuse victim says he was mistaken. | :00:22. | :00:27. | |
Humble apologies to Lord McAlpine. That's certainly not the man that | :00:27. | :00:31. | |
abused me. That is certainly not the man I identified as abused me | :00:31. | :00:35. | |
to North Wales Police in the 1990s. The senior Conservative named on | :00:35. | :00:39. | |
the internet steps forward to tackle the slurs. And instructs his | :00:39. | :00:43. | |
lawyer to set the record straight. We need to take a number of | :00:43. | :00:46. | |
different actions. Firstly to try to get this taken down from the | :00:46. | :00:50. | |
Internet. Which is not going to be easy. Then | :00:50. | :00:55. | |
we have to look at Newsnight. MP wonders what on earth Newsnight | :00:56. | :01:00. | |
was playing at. These experts will tell us where it all leaves the BBC | :01:00. | :01:05. | |
and the thousands of abuse victims who were already terrified of | :01:05. | :01:08. | |
speaking up. Also tonight, the Treasury has found a load of cash | :01:08. | :01:12. | |
down the back of a sofa, rather than going on a bender we will pay | :01:12. | :01:17. | |
down the deficit. We ask is there any more down there. Ash dieback, | :01:17. | :01:21. | |
the continental tree killer is here to stay and can't be eradicate, say | :01:21. | :01:26. | |
the Government. Is this the end of the -- eradicated, say the | :01:26. | :01:29. | |
Government, is this the end of the English ash? | :01:30. | :01:33. | |
We start tonight with a statement, issued in the last hour, by | :01:33. | :01:43. | |
:01:43. | :02:16. | ||
This time last week, here on Newsnight, Steve Messham, who was | :02:16. | :02:19. | |
repeatedly abused as a child in North Wales, said one of his | :02:20. | :02:23. | |
abusers was a senior politician of the Thatcher era. There wasn't | :02:23. | :02:25. | |
enough information for Newsnight to name the individual. On the | :02:26. | :02:28. | |
Internet, where the standard of proof was zero, there was no | :02:29. | :02:31. | |
shortage of names. The Prime Minister had a list of them waved | :02:31. | :02:35. | |
in his face on live television. Today, one of the names had enough. | :02:35. | :02:42. | |
Lord McAlpine went public, to denounce false and seriously | :02:42. | :02:46. | |
defamery allegations. Tonight Steve Messham has changed his story and | :02:46. | :02:50. | |
apologised, and so has the BBC. He was at the heart of the Thatcher | :02:51. | :02:56. | |
Government, a fixer, who served as both Deputy Chairman and treasurer. | :02:56. | :03:00. | |
Today he issued a strongly-worded statement, denying he's the man at | :03:00. | :03:06. | |
the centre of abuse allegations. In a statement, which runs to more | :03:06. | :03:16. | |
:03:16. | :03:32. | ||
than 1,000 words, he said: Lord McAlpine has been at the | :03:32. | :03:36. | |
centre of a storm of internet gossip, triggered by a report on | :03:36. | :03:39. | |
Newsnight last week. These were allegation of a paedophile-ring | :03:39. | :03:43. | |
involving people from all walks of life, businessmen, a market trader, | :03:43. | :03:48. | |
a senior public figure. In the report, a former care home | :03:48. | :03:52. | |
resident, Steve Messham, claimed he had been abused by a senior | :03:52. | :03:56. | |
political figure from the Thatcher era. There is no doubt Mr Messham | :03:56. | :04:01. | |
was a victim of serial sexual abuse at the O'Briain home. The | :04:01. | :04:04. | |
allegations were taken so seriously by the Government, that he met the | :04:04. | :04:07. | |
Welsh Secretary this week to discuss the case. The journalists | :04:07. | :04:12. | |
working on the Newsnight reports, did not show a photograph of Lord | :04:12. | :04:15. | |
McAlpine to Mr Messham. When he finally saw one this evening, he | :04:15. | :04:20. | |
said he was not the man who abused him Firstly I would offer my | :04:20. | :04:26. | |
sincere and humble apologies to Lord McAlpine. That certainly is | :04:26. | :04:30. | |
not the man that abused me. That is certainly not the man I identified | :04:30. | :04:34. | |
as abused me to North Wales Police in the 1990s. That's certainly not | :04:34. | :04:38. | |
the man that was on that photograph. I spoke out within the first five | :04:38. | :04:42. | |
minutes of seeing the picture of him, I was on the phone straight | :04:42. | :04:45. | |
away and issued an apology straight away. I was mortified, I felt for | :04:45. | :04:51. | |
the man and his family. This should never have happened. But, Lord | :04:51. | :04:55. | |
McAlpine's lawyers said the peer's reputation is in tatters, after a | :04:55. | :05:00. | |
week of allegations and unfair charter on blogs and internet sites. | :05:00. | :05:06. | |
He's broken hearted over this. His family are very upset. And he feels | :05:06. | :05:10. | |
that, you know, bearing in mind his health isn't that good, that this | :05:10. | :05:16. | |
is a total shock to receive at his time in life. Newsnight did not | :05:16. | :05:20. | |
name Lord McAlpine in its report. And because of that, he was not | :05:20. | :05:25. | |
approached for a response. But rumours of his involvement quickly | :05:25. | :05:29. | |
took off on Twitter, Facebook and other social networking sites. At | :05:29. | :05:33. | |
the heart of all this, is the way in which sites like Twitter look. | :05:33. | :05:36. | |
If you looked up a comment or post about Newsnight this week, you | :05:36. | :05:40. | |
would have seen a list of related search terms, including, like here, | :05:40. | :05:46. | |
paedophile, and McAlpine. I saw, when I put on Twitter on the Friday | :05:46. | :05:51. | |
afternoon, that the thing was ablaze. There was a hashtag | :05:51. | :05:54. | |
Newsnight, that seemed to be leading to the names of certain | :05:54. | :05:57. | |
politicians. That is the sort of thing that Twitter does, there | :05:58. | :06:02. | |
isn't an old media equivalent of it. The only equivalent I can think of | :06:02. | :06:08. | |
is occasionally when people in newspapers used to write somebody | :06:08. | :06:11. | |
something about somebody without naming them, they might put a | :06:11. | :06:14. | |
picture nearby. The process inside Twitter is making connections, and | :06:14. | :06:18. | |
it is not too difficult to work out what the connections are. It is | :06:18. | :06:22. | |
assumed Lord McAlpine's name was on a list of former politicians, | :06:22. | :06:27. | |
handed to David Cameron on live TV, by the presenter Philip Schofield. | :06:27. | :06:32. | |
As I say, if anyone has any information, about anyone who is a | :06:32. | :06:35. | |
paedophile. Number Ten dismissed that, as a silly stunt. And warned | :06:35. | :06:40. | |
against trial by Twitter. We have to be very careful before casting | :06:40. | :06:45. | |
aspersions against individuals, or bandying people's names around, as | :06:45. | :06:49. | |
was being done yesterday, without proper evidence. Every institution, | :06:49. | :06:52. | |
every journalist and politician has to think carefully about those | :06:52. | :06:56. | |
things. Lord McAlpine's solicitor said the peer now has no choice but | :06:56. | :07:01. | |
to take legal action over the claims. We need to take a number of | :07:01. | :07:04. | |
different actions, first thing to try to get this taken down from the | :07:05. | :07:12. | |
Internet. Which is not going to be easy. Then we have to look at | :07:12. | :07:15. | |
Newsnight, and the way in which they behaved, and the way they | :07:15. | :07:20. | |
trailed it. They made it obvious who it was. Newsnight was heavily | :07:20. | :07:24. | |
criticised for its handling of the Jimmy Savile scandal. And internal | :07:24. | :07:28. | |
BBC investigation is under way into the decision to drop its reports | :07:28. | :07:30. | |
last year, into sexual abuse by the star. | :07:30. | :07:34. | |
Now the programme, and the BBC, is under fire again. This time, for a | :07:34. | :07:39. | |
decision to run a report based on information which later turned out | :07:39. | :07:43. | |
to be false. In the last hour, the corporation has issued a statement, | :07:43. | :07:48. | |
saying it apologises unreservedly, for broadcasting that report. | :07:48. | :07:52. | |
Some of us said when this story first came out, victims must have | :07:52. | :07:56. | |
their say, and their day, if you like. Now we have had a victim who, | :07:56. | :08:01. | |
I'm sure was just genuinely mistaken, maybe someone gave him | :08:01. | :08:05. | |
the wrong information some time ago, it makes the whole issue even more | :08:05. | :08:08. | |
complicated. There are still many unanswered questions about the | :08:08. | :08:11. | |
abuse scandal in North Wales, and the Waterhouse investigation, what | :08:11. | :08:15. | |
about the names of other alleged abusers, linked to the children's | :08:15. | :08:19. | |
home, but never charged. What about the victims, who say they were told | :08:19. | :08:25. | |
to keep quiet and not to give evidence. New allegations are still | :08:25. | :08:29. | |
emerging, one man contacted the BBC to say he was drugged, taken away | :08:29. | :08:35. | |
in an expensive car, and raped. He never gave evidence to the inquiry. | :08:35. | :08:39. | |
I mentioned it in years to come, if I said anything, he would send the | :08:39. | :08:42. | |
same people to come and get me and my family, and I would never see | :08:42. | :08:48. | |
them again. Because he had friends in really high places. | :08:48. | :08:51. | |
Government said tonight that it will still go ahead with a series | :08:51. | :08:55. | |
of inquiries into the Welsh care home scandal. But there will also | :08:55. | :08:59. | |
be wider questions asked, about anonymity for people accused of | :08:59. | :09:03. | |
these crimes, and the role of both established media and the Internet | :09:03. | :09:06. | |
in publicising and spreading those names. | :09:06. | :09:09. | |
Obviously we wanted to ask questions of the BBC, but no-one | :09:09. | :09:15. | |
was available for interview. The Conservative MP, Rob Wilson, | :09:15. | :09:19. | |
has been a concerned critic of the BBC's handling of Jimmy Savile's | :09:19. | :09:24. | |
time at the BBC, and also how the BBC has behaved in recent week. Now | :09:24. | :09:30. | |
this, Mr Wilson, how bad can it get? Well it's pretty bad, isn't it. | :09:30. | :09:33. | |
This apology tonight which, I welcome, it needs to go much | :09:33. | :09:39. | |
further, really. We have got a situation now where last Friday | :09:39. | :09:43. | |
Newsnight broadcast an item which triggered a huge wave of innuendo | :09:44. | :09:48. | |
and smears, across the Internet, and across Twitter. It really did | :09:48. | :09:55. | |
bring into disrepute the journalism, really. Because the report was not | :09:55. | :10:00. | |
fair or responsible. I think in terms of Ofcom's code of | :10:00. | :10:05. | |
broadcasting conduct, I think it will certainly be an infringement | :10:05. | :10:12. | |
of that. It was a pretty shoddy piece of journalism, and very poor | :10:12. | :10:15. | |
of the BBC. I have news from the Director-Generar himself, who has | :10:15. | :10:22. | |
ordered several actions, John -- director general's himself who has | :10:22. | :10:28. | |
been appointing several actions, there is a moderator on Newsnight. | :10:28. | :10:33. | |
An apology, and there will be an urgent report from the DG covering | :10:33. | :10:35. | |
what happened on the Newsnight investigation we are talking about. | :10:35. | :10:39. | |
Significantly, I want your response to the last two points. There will | :10:39. | :10:42. | |
be an immediate pause in all Newsnight investigations to assess | :10:42. | :10:45. | |
editorial robustness and supervision, and there will be an | :10:45. | :10:49. | |
immediate suspension of all co- productions with the Bureau of | :10:50. | :10:55. | |
Investigative Journalism across the BBC. I don't know, can you hear the | :10:55. | :11:05. | |
:11:05. | :11:12. | ||
stable door closing? I can't hear a lot of what you are saying. | :11:12. | :11:17. | |
sound isn't working, the investigations aren't working! | :11:17. | :11:20. | |
least the BBC is trying to act decisively, over the Savile | :11:20. | :11:23. | |
incident, it was very slow, dragged the feet and took a long time to | :11:23. | :11:27. | |
catch up. At least this time it seems to be acting fairly swiftly. | :11:27. | :11:31. | |
I do welcome some of the actions it seems to be taking. Although I | :11:31. | :11:35. | |
haven't seen the full detail, because it is only coming in. We do | :11:35. | :11:39. | |
have to have a thorough look at why this happened. The editorial | :11:39. | :11:42. | |
process within Newsnight has clearly gone badly wrong. It has | :11:42. | :11:46. | |
gone badly wrong before over Savile, there is clearly a pattern within | :11:46. | :11:51. | |
this. There are lot of theories about why this particular one got | :11:51. | :11:56. | |
aired in the first place. There is one theory that it was an | :11:56. | :11:59. | |
overcompensation for what happened with Savile. But there is also a | :11:59. | :12:03. | |
theory out there that this was a diversionary tactic, to divert | :12:03. | :12:07. | |
attention away from the BBC. I think if he's looking at this, I | :12:07. | :12:14. | |
think he has to look at those issues as well. Is Newsnight Toast? | :12:14. | :12:18. | |
-- is Newsnight toast? Newsnight has a proud tradition of excellent | :12:18. | :12:22. | |
journalism, I wouldn't like at this stage, without seeing the detail of | :12:22. | :12:25. | |
any investigation that is about to take place. I don't want to just | :12:25. | :12:30. | |
have a kneejerk reaction to what has been going on. I want to have | :12:30. | :12:35. | |
the information and the evidence in front of me, and take a considered | :12:35. | :12:40. | |
view of whether Newsnight should continue or not. | :12:40. | :12:43. | |
What effect will all of this have on the BBC, and on the people who | :12:43. | :12:50. | |
were abused as children. People who were already reluctant to speak out. | :12:50. | :12:53. | |
Professor Richard Wortley is the director of Jill Dando institute, | :12:54. | :12:57. | |
Esther Rantzen founded ChildLine, and knows her way around BBC | :12:57. | :13:03. | |
journalism, and Steve Hewlett is presenter of Radio 4's the The | :13:03. | :13:08. | |
Media Show. Steve, how would you characterise this latest fiasco? | :13:08. | :13:12. | |
is a disaster, little short of it, to be honest. Just weeks ago | :13:12. | :13:17. | |
Newsnight is flayed alive, for not having broadcast something which | :13:17. | :13:21. | |
now appears was probably true. Now it is being flayed alive for | :13:21. | :13:24. | |
broadcasting something which we now know was certainly not true. The | :13:24. | :13:28. | |
question here is, I don't think it is about good or bad faith, I | :13:28. | :13:30. | |
assume good faith on the part of all the people involved in the | :13:30. | :13:34. | |
investigation and the broadcast. But we expect from Newsnight, we | :13:34. | :13:38. | |
need to have from Newsnight, and the BBC, not so much good faith, | :13:38. | :13:43. | |
but we like that, as good journalism. In this case, we know | :13:43. | :13:47. | |
for sure, the BBC had investigated this mission Messham and his -- | :13:47. | :13:51. | |
Steve Messham, and his allegations on two separate occasions and found | :13:51. | :13:55. | |
them wanting. If you go back to the original Waterhouse report, you | :13:55. | :13:59. | |
will see references to his evidence as bordering on fantasy. It would | :14:00. | :14:04. | |
have taken two or three phone calls to establish, not that there is | :14:04. | :14:08. | |
anything wrong with this gentleman, he was seriously abuse, one can | :14:08. | :14:12. | |
have nothing but genuine sympathy about him. But his story about Lord | :14:12. | :14:16. | |
McAlpine, was simply groundless. It would have taken two phone calls to | :14:16. | :14:20. | |
find that out. What about the BBC's defence, that because Lord McAlpine | :14:20. | :14:24. | |
wasn't named in the report, that is different? I think that is | :14:24. | :14:28. | |
preposterous. If they know it is Lord McAlpine. Remember the Bureau | :14:28. | :14:31. | |
of Investigative Journalism tweeted earlier in the day, last Friday, | :14:31. | :14:35. | |
implying, at least, they later apologised they didn't mean it, | :14:35. | :14:38. | |
nevertheless, implying that the person would be named. There is no | :14:38. | :14:41. | |
doubt, that everybody involved in this, knew that the person he was | :14:41. | :14:46. | |
referring to was Lord McAlpine. Strictly speaking, there is no | :14:46. | :14:49. | |
requirement to get an answer from Lord McAlpine, because you are not | :14:49. | :14:52. | |
accusing him of anything. Not to have contacted him, to check the | :14:52. | :14:56. | |
allegation, when you know that is who he's talking about is absurd. | :14:56. | :15:01. | |
Let me make one other point, it is all very well to talk about trial | :15:01. | :15:04. | |
by Twitter, this was trial by Newsnight. Newsnight has turned | :15:04. | :15:08. | |
theself into the internet. It is not Twitter that broadcast this, it | :15:08. | :15:13. | |
is not the Internet that broadcast this, it is the BBC's top nightly | :15:13. | :15:16. | |
current affairs show. That is why, on the back of everything has | :15:16. | :15:20. | |
happened, it is little short of a disaster. What people are asking | :15:20. | :15:28. | |
out there is who is running this show, I don't just mean "this" show, | :15:28. | :15:32. | |
I'm talking about "this" show. You are shaking your head? I feel like | :15:32. | :15:36. | |
I have lived through some of this myself, on That's Life, we | :15:36. | :15:42. | |
investigated a boys' boarding school, owned by a multi- | :15:42. | :15:45. | |
millionaire paedophile, who employed three paedophile teachers. | :15:45. | :15:50. | |
I can say that safely, because they all went to jail over it. We took | :15:50. | :15:55. | |
six months over that investigation, and did so with a barrister, and | :15:55. | :15:58. | |
the BBC in-house lawyers, checking every single stage of the | :15:58. | :16:02. | |
investigation. Telling us, not asking us to drop it, as Newsnight | :16:02. | :16:08. | |
was asked to drop the Savile investigation, but saying you need | :16:08. | :16:12. | |
more evidence, you still need more evidence. The boys themselves had | :16:12. | :16:16. | |
to sign affadavits, the barrister tests to see if their evidence | :16:16. | :16:19. | |
would stand up in court, whether they would be good witnesses. When | :16:19. | :16:22. | |
you make this kind of terribly serious allegation, the lawyers | :16:22. | :16:26. | |
have to be part of your team. I don't know where they were with | :16:26. | :16:30. | |
Newsnight. Either when they dropped the Savile thing, or when they | :16:30. | :16:35. | |
broadcast the other. In a sense, in journalistic terms, this is almost | :16:35. | :16:39. | |
a bigger clanger than the Savile question. In the Savile case. | :16:39. | :16:43. | |
Newsnight has outdone itself? has outdone itself in terms of | :16:43. | :16:46. | |
journalistic failure. At least in the Savile case, you can imagine | :16:46. | :16:49. | |
reasons why the editor might have been nervous about the story. I'm | :16:49. | :16:53. | |
not going to go into all the detail. As a former editor myself. I can | :16:53. | :16:57. | |
imagine he may have felt this is not right, it is not quite ready | :16:57. | :17:00. | |
yet. Why they didn't press on is another question. In that case you | :17:00. | :17:04. | |
can see reasons why, reasons for uncertainty. In this case, two or | :17:04. | :17:07. | |
three phone calls should have established that this man's story | :17:07. | :17:11. | |
was not to be taken at face value. Richard Wortley, let me bring you | :17:11. | :17:15. | |
in here, it is worth saying, that while all of our focus, a lot of | :17:15. | :17:19. | |
the media's focus in recent weeks has been on celebrities, and | :17:19. | :17:23. | |
alleged paedophile rings, for most children who are abuse, if that is | :17:23. | :17:26. | |
our primary concern, they are not being abused by celebrities, are | :17:26. | :17:35. | |
they? Not at all. The serious cases r we know that 95% of child sex | :17:35. | :17:40. | |
abuse occurs between perpetrators and victims who know each other, or | :17:40. | :17:46. | |
had preexisting relationships. About 60%, in fact, occur within | :17:46. | :17:50. | |
the home. The other 35% between friends of the family or other | :17:50. | :17:58. | |
acquaintances. So, it is very much the tale -- tail of the dog. Those | :17:58. | :18:00. | |
children will already have great difficulty in thinking about | :18:00. | :18:04. | |
speaking out. I wonder what effect do you think all of this will have | :18:04. | :18:10. | |
on them? I don't think it will help them speak out. The reasons they | :18:10. | :18:14. | |
don't speak out are very complex. It is not just fear, it can be fear, | :18:14. | :18:17. | |
it can be concerns that they won't be believed. In many cases it is | :18:17. | :18:21. | |
the fact that they are in a pre- existing authority relationship | :18:21. | :18:24. | |
with the perpetrator. Often they don't understand they have been | :18:24. | :18:30. | |
abused, or they can't separate out the abuse from normal parenting, or | :18:30. | :18:33. | |
normal authority kinds of activities. For example they may be | :18:33. | :18:38. | |
abused while being bathed. And it is difficult, they can also have | :18:38. | :18:42. | |
feelings of loyalty towards the abuser. In fact, many cases, if the | :18:42. | :18:47. | |
abuser is a parent or guardian, they love the guardian. In those | :18:47. | :18:52. | |
circumstances, Esther Rantzen, what are those children supposed to do | :18:52. | :18:55. | |
when they have seen all the Savile stuff, with children apparently | :18:55. | :18:58. | |
being ignored. Then they have seen a man, who who was certainly abused, | :18:58. | :19:05. | |
over a number of years in North Wales, getting involved in this | :19:05. | :19:09. | |
media kerfuffle. Any child beg abused now, and whoever the abuse | :19:09. | :19:15. | |
is why, I have had a child ringing ChildLine comaiing why she couldn't | :19:15. | :19:19. | |
tell us where she was, she says I have two dadies, lovely and monster | :19:19. | :19:26. | |
daddy, if I tell you where I am, you will take monster daddy away | :19:26. | :19:32. | |
and lovely daddy too. They must speak out. We encourage them to | :19:32. | :19:36. | |
speak to a trusted adult. That way we can stop the abuse, if it is mum, | :19:36. | :19:40. | |
grandmother, if it is the parent of a friend. We can stop the abuse. | :19:40. | :19:45. | |
What really concerns me, is that abuser doesn't go to trial, and | :19:45. | :19:50. | |
what worries me most about all these stories, is that the reason | :19:50. | :19:56. | |
the original disclosures about Savile didn't go to trial is that | :19:56. | :20:00. | |
our adversarial court process militates so ferociously against a | :20:01. | :20:04. | |
child. A barrister said to me, a defence barrister said to me, I | :20:04. | :20:08. | |
don't care how great a monster my client s or what it takes to break | :20:08. | :20:18. | |
down a child, it is my job to do it and I will. As long as we use our | :20:18. | :20:22. | |
adversarial process to break down children, these disclosure won't | :20:22. | :20:26. | |
come to court. On the journalism, this news that investigations are | :20:26. | :20:29. | |
being suspended on Newsnight. You do wonder then what's the point of | :20:29. | :20:34. | |
it. You will be left with the papers won't you? Sort of. | :20:34. | :20:37. | |
Newsnight's stock in trade is discussion of topical issues. It | :20:37. | :20:41. | |
has always had a tradition of doing filmed piece, but most of them are | :20:41. | :20:45. | |
not, in that sense, investigations. It maybe the BBC will decide if it | :20:45. | :20:50. | |
is going to do investigations, they should be on the radio, and | :20:50. | :20:54. | |
Panorama on TV and you accumulate all the skills necessary to do | :20:54. | :20:57. | |
there. One of the things that the review into the original Savile | :20:57. | :21:01. | |
discussion will no doubt come across, is the sense in which, not | :21:02. | :21:06. | |
with standing good faith all round, it was pretty mismanaged. Handling | :21:06. | :21:11. | |
investigative journalism, from an editor's point of view, is never | :21:11. | :21:18. | |
easy. And the reputation of the BBC in the toilet? Research this week | :21:18. | :21:22. | |
shows that 76% of people asked did not trust senior BBC executives to | :21:22. | :21:27. | |
tell the truth. That is a genuine shocker. On top of which, some | :21:27. | :21:30. | |
ComRes research, always shown in answer to the question whether you | :21:30. | :21:40. | |
:21:40. | :21:42. | ||
trust the BBC, 60% yes, 30% now, 2009, 65/35, this time 47% yes, 47% | :21:42. | :21:46. | |
no, first time the figures have reversed. On trust in the BBC? | :21:46. | :21:52. | |
completely trust the BBC, only the BBC would call us together in a | :21:52. | :21:57. | |
studio and say me cull pa in this way. I think the -- mea culpa in | :21:57. | :22:02. | |
this way. I think the BBC makes fantastic decisions and programmes. | :22:03. | :22:06. | |
Thank you very much. Here is something you don't hear every day, | :22:06. | :22:09. | |
the Treasury has found some money down the of the sofa. Quite a lot | :22:09. | :22:15. | |
of money. Not enough to let the good times roll, but enough to get | :22:15. | :22:19. | |
Joe Lynaminto the studio. This money wasn't really found down the | :22:19. | :22:23. | |
back of the sofa was it? We should start with the printing press. In | :22:23. | :22:27. | |
order to stoke up the economy, the Bank of England was charged with | :22:27. | :22:31. | |
creating money through quanative easing. It created �375 billion | :22:31. | :22:35. | |
over the last few years. What it did of bought Government bonds from | :22:36. | :22:38. | |
banks and pension funds and insurance companies and all that | :22:38. | :22:41. | |
kind of stuff. With this new money. Attached to those Government bonds | :22:41. | :22:45. | |
something that is called a coupon, which is an interest rate. An | :22:45. | :22:51. | |
annual period. Couldn't you do with a graphic to illustrate this, did | :22:51. | :22:56. | |
they close the graphic department down? We don't have the money, the | :22:56. | :22:59. | |
cash pile went else where the coupon has to be repaid by the | :22:59. | :23:02. | |
Government. Here is the funny bit. The Treasury, or the Government, | :23:02. | :23:05. | |
has to borrow from the Bank of England in order to repay this | :23:05. | :23:09. | |
coupon. The difference between what it borrows for, which is half of | :23:09. | :23:12. | |
one per cent, the current bank rate, and what it has to pay on the | :23:12. | :23:17. | |
coupon to the bonds is around 2%. That has built up what is called a | :23:17. | :23:22. | |
cash pile or profit. What is happening now, is that cash pile | :23:22. | :23:25. | |
will no longer necessarily just sit there in the Bank of England. The | :23:25. | :23:29. | |
Treasury will continue to pay the coupon, but it will get a dere- | :23:30. | :23:35. | |
bait every quarter. That is where the -- it will get a rebate every | :23:35. | :23:39. | |
quarter. That is where the figures are massaged, it will help reduce | :23:39. | :23:43. | |
the debt pile in the short-term. What can George Osborne do with | :23:43. | :23:46. | |
this? Potentially very little. The only thing he can necessarily do, | :23:46. | :23:50. | |
is when he stands up to make his Autumn Statement in three woke time, | :23:50. | :23:55. | |
he can say his target of bending the debt curve downwards. That | :23:55. | :24:01. | |
would have been a great graphic, is now on target. Had he not found �35 | :24:01. | :24:04. | |
billion, which is what we are talking with here, he might not | :24:04. | :24:08. | |
necessarily have been able to say that. Labour are saying it is all | :24:08. | :24:14. | |
smoke and mirrors, and us jaundiced journalist are saying why are you | :24:14. | :24:18. | |
doing in the Autumn Statement. The Government say we are coming into | :24:18. | :24:21. | |
line with the Japanese and Americans in our process. Let's see | :24:22. | :24:25. | |
what the office for national statistic, and the independent | :24:25. | :24:28. | |
Office for Budget Responsibility. The disease that came from the | :24:28. | :24:33. | |
continent, and is killing our ash trees is here to stay. According to | :24:33. | :24:35. | |
England's Environment Secretary. They will try to slow it down. They | :24:35. | :24:40. | |
will try to reduce its impact. But the official view is it is not | :24:40. | :24:43. | |
going away. We have been learning that ash trees may not be the only | :24:43. | :24:53. | |
:24:53. | :24:57. | ||
ones under threat. It's not just our ash trees that | :24:57. | :25:02. | |
face an uncertain furtherure. Scientists say trees throughout -- | :25:02. | :25:06. | |
future, scientists say trees throughout our woodlands and cities | :25:06. | :25:13. | |
face a threat from pests that is unprecedented in recent history. | :25:13. | :25:16. | |
Today's focus has been on minimising the impact of the ash | :25:17. | :25:20. | |
crisis. But that's just the latest in a wave of infections that | :25:20. | :25:25. | |
threatens our trees. And the Government's being told, very | :25:25. | :25:30. | |
firmly, by scientists, that if it doesn't get this right, then other | :25:30. | :25:38. | |
species are at risk. The plain tree could be next. | :25:38. | :25:42. | |
We are facing a major threat from this particular pathogen. Which has | :25:42. | :25:49. | |
been in Italy for many years. But is now spreading quite rapidly | :25:49. | :25:53. | |
through the plane trees in many parts of Europe. It is moving | :25:53. | :25:59. | |
northwards in France, quite rapidly too. So heading our way in the near | :25:59. | :26:03. | |
future. Over the past 40 years, the UK has seen tree infections and | :26:03. | :26:09. | |
pests come to light at an increasing rate. Back in 1971, it | :26:09. | :26:12. | |
was Dutch Elm disease, flash forward to the past decade, and the | :26:12. | :26:17. | |
rate of infection has picked up. With a new disease or pest almost | :26:17. | :26:27. | |
:26:27. | :26:35. | ||
every year. The oak prosessionry We are certainly facing a massive | :26:35. | :26:39. | |
threat from potentially damaging agents coming into Britain. Maybe | :26:39. | :26:44. | |
some via Europe, some directly into Britain. And it has accelerated | :26:45. | :26:51. | |
enormously in the last 10-20 years. The reason for that is almost | :26:51. | :26:55. | |
certainly global trade in living plant material. Obviously we have | :26:55. | :26:59. | |
done that for many years, but the scale of it now is absolutely vast. | :26:59. | :27:03. | |
It is very difficult to even conceive of the number of plants | :27:03. | :27:08. | |
that are coming into Europe every year. From all over the world. | :27:08. | :27:11. | |
Environment Secretary said today he's taken on board the scale of | :27:11. | :27:16. | |
the threat, and will spend more money to address it. He warns that | :27:16. | :27:21. | |
other areas of his department's budget will be cut as a result. The | :27:21. | :27:24. | |
UK's largest woodland conservation charity has been calling on the | :27:24. | :27:27. | |
Government to do more. I think the Government is on the right lines. | :27:27. | :27:33. | |
But I think there is a lot more it could do. Owen Patterson was | :27:33. | :27:36. | |
talking this morning about a radical look at things, more | :27:36. | :27:40. | |
resource, we need to see the colour of the money on. That we need to | :27:40. | :27:43. | |
look clearly at how plants come into the country. The controls that | :27:43. | :27:47. | |
they needing to through before they are imported. So we don't | :27:47. | :27:51. | |
inadvertantly bring in diseases that are on continental imports. | :27:51. | :27:55. | |
Others warned this week there is a risk of us dropping the ball on | :27:55. | :27:57. | |
tree health. Expertise in our universities has run down in the | :27:57. | :28:03. | |
past 20 years. We need a standing team of people who have the | :28:03. | :28:06. | |
knowledge and experience built up over years, and continuous among | :28:06. | :28:11. | |
them, to respond to unexpected things that happen. The analogy is | :28:11. | :28:15. | |
with a fire brigade. You keep them there for when you have a fire. You | :28:15. | :28:18. | |
don't sack them because you haven't had a fire for a year. | :28:18. | :28:22. | |
Government said today that on ash, they are not going to chop down | :28:22. | :28:26. | |
mature trees, but try to spot the ones that are resistant and build | :28:26. | :28:29. | |
up a national stock from those. They also want a radical re-think | :28:29. | :28:33. | |
on the way we protect our forests, and they have asked the task force | :28:33. | :28:39. | |
of scientists to come up with the best way to do that. Steven | :28:39. | :28:43. | |
Woodward is one of ten scientists on that task force. He's already | :28:43. | :28:47. | |
clear what he wants the Government to do to protect our plane trees. | :28:47. | :28:51. | |
would suggest an immediate ban on the import of plane trees and any | :28:51. | :28:57. | |
material that is might carry the pathogen into the UK. In the longer | :28:57. | :29:01. | |
term I would suggest that we need to develop quarantine facilities, | :29:01. | :29:07. | |
so we can hold any plant material, trees and so on, in a secure | :29:07. | :29:10. | |
facility for some considerable length of time, before it is | :29:10. | :29:14. | |
actually allowed into the market place in the UK. We asked the | :29:15. | :29:19. | |
Government's key adviser on plant health, if that is a good idea? | :29:19. | :29:29. | |
:29:29. | :29:30. | ||
need to look at all of the risk on the horizon, Chalara fraxinea has | :29:30. | :29:33. | |
caught us by surprise. In the case of plane trees, we already have | :29:33. | :29:37. | |
regulation in place. It is already one of the 250 organism listed in | :29:37. | :29:40. | |
the EU plant health rules. There are measures already there. Which | :29:40. | :29:45. | |
wasn't the case for Chalara fraxinea. | :29:45. | :29:49. | |
On ash, there is at least some breathing space over winter. When | :29:49. | :29:52. | |
infection slows, valuable time for the Government to make sure that | :29:52. | :29:58. | |
the impact of this infection is minimised, and it looks beyond the | :29:58. | :30:04. | |
immediate crisis, to prevent the devastation of other UK trees. | :30:04. | :30:08. | |
Review is up next. Jo Whiley is in glass Government | :30:08. | :30:13. | |
There is a rock 'n' roll vibe tonight, as we prepare to tackle | :30:13. | :30:21. | |
books from legends of the 60s, Pete Townshend Mick Jagger, we are | :30:21. | :30:25. | |
marking the 100 anniversary of Fabricio Coloccini. We look at the | :30:25. | :30:32. |