15/02/2013 Newsnight

When it comes to the food on our plates, who can we trust?

Can we trust anyone? When schools and hospitals serve

beef adulterated with horsemeat. Cottage pies become the latest to

fail the horse test. Police raid new premises and new cases are

found across Europe. As the Government criticise the

supermarkets for not being o. We have Sainsbury's boss here to

respond. As tonight as the Lib Dem high

command fights to hang on to Chris Huhne's old seat, horsemeat leads

to some political points scoring. We had the horsemeat lasagne and

tested it and it was 100% Tory. is a box-office smash, even if the

singing doesn't do it for everyone. Tonight The Missing Ink director

explains how it works. You have the naturalism die oing, and the key

change singing, there is a simple point of singing.

# If you wondered why I was singing # Why on earth now.

Good evening, school meals, hospital food, Westminster and

retailers, we don't know how horsemeat began to be passed off as

beat, where, or how long it has gone on. Everyone agrees making

more money was the motive. In a moment the Sainsbury's boss on how

the food industry can begin to build trust. First we have been

following the trail from farms to suppliers, via regulators and

retailers, to the consumer. Everyone had been waiting for

today's first batch of industry- wide test results, to get a feel

for how big the horsemeat problem might be. It turned out that all

the positives were in projuncts we already knew about. Up until about

10.00am, the Food Standards Agency had received 2501 results. 2472

were negative. 29 were positive. That means more than 1% of the meat

content was horse. Those positive results include different sized

portion of the same product. So, in total, we are talking about only

seven products. 15 of the positives were on various sizes of packets of

Findus beef last sangria. But do the DN -- Lasagne. Do the DNA

results reflect the size of the problem. The hotel and catering

company, Compass and Whitbread, and Lancashire County Council said they

found products positive for horse. Other places are still testing.

47self of Lancashires primary schools been sent food with

horsemeat. Had children even the the meals that tested positive.

sorry to have to say there is no doubt the children have eaten it T

that is why I'm so concerned and angry, that the suppliers have done

this. We are in exactly the same position as a private individual

who goes into the supermarket and buys a Findus lasagne. We are just

as angry as those people. It is entirely unacceptable, we found it

because we carried out our own tests, they have done something

about it. I asked the head of the FSA how

parents should react to this news? The advice from the Chief Medical

Officer is very clear, there is no need for people to be concerned on

any health grounds at all. I think anybody who has eaten something

which has been misdescribed to them, or whose child as eaten something

that was not what they expected them to be eating has every right

to be extremely angry and indignant. You can imagine the scenes, can't

you, at the school gate, they will be saying, what do you make of this,

our kids have been eating horse. They will be really upset, won't

they? It is completely unacceptable. It is completely unacceptable that

people are being told that product is beef, when it is horse.

They might also, they will presumably be upset with the

company that sold that material to the school. But if they know about

the Food Standards Agency, they will be probably pretty shocked

that you hadn't found that out before? I think they should be

reassured that we are now in the process of get to go the bottom of

this. From the news yesterday around the result of our

investigations and how we are following through, you can see that

we are finding out who are responsible for these things. We

are taking vigorous measures against them, that will ultimately

enable us to get back to the situation that we all know we need

to be in. Nothing is more important to us at

Tesco than the trust of our customers. Tesco said today it will

build a world-class tracability and DNA testing system. In a poll for

the Grocer Magazine, of more than 2,000 consumers, half said they

weren't prepared to pay a penny more to ensure their meat does not

contain horse. The Grocer survey found that consumers are not

prepared to pay more money to guarantee that the food they eat is

horse-free. What I think that tells us is that consumers think this is

the industry's mess, and it is up to the industry to sort it out. And

why should they pick up the bill? There are still thousands of test

results to come in. They have got through a quarter so far. They

asked companies to look at the high-risk products first. So, they

think we may have heard the worst of it T they seemed overwhelmed by

the volume of data coming in, even at the last minute.

Across Europe, countries have withdrawn products found to be

contaminated with horsemeat. There appear to be two meat trails, which

may have introduced horsemeat into the UK. One involving Romania,

France and the Netherlands, the other Poland and Ireland. It

remains unclear precisely how the UK fits in. Until recently,

Professor Morris was an adviser to the British Horseracing Authority.

He told me horses have a passport system, that is supposed to keep

veterinary medicines, like bute, out of the food chain. Yesterday it

confirmed that bute has been found in a small number of horse

carcasses for food. The principle is drugs shouldn't be in food. The

point of the masses of paperwork, instructions to owners, signing

horses out of the food chain if they do have bute, is to protect

consumers. It is a marker that the system isn't working. I think that

consumers can be reassured that in this particular instance, there

isn't a food safety issue, it is a wake-up call. Meanwhile the

criminal investigations continue. Three premises, two in North London,

one in Hull have been raided. There have been three arrests in Wales

and Yorkshire. With me is King, the chief

executive of Sainsbury's. None of whose meat is so far shown to

contain horsemeat. Although, only a quarter of beef products have been

tested. You are not out of the woods yet? I don't think anyone can

say they are out of the woods. As it happens in Sainsbury's, we are

three-quarters of the way through our testing. Indeed it is one of

the reasons I'm able to talk to you tonight. We have done around 200 of

the, nearly 300 products we have to do. Nobody can say they are out of

the woods. There is a long way to go before we can truly say we

understand how this came about, and therefore, what we need to do

differently going forward. You say a long way to go. The fact is, we

are one month into this, since the stories first started to emerge.

Help us understand why it is at this point we don't know how

extensive this is, how long it has been going on for, and how the

horsemeat got into the products in the first place? We are in the

middle of the biggest set of tests ever done, DNA tests on beef. The

first discovery in Ireland was in the middle of January. Most

retailers, ourselves included, started a testing process

immediately after that. One of the reassuring things about today's

news, is of the thousands or so tests back from grocery retailers,

there is no new news. The five grocery products known to contain

horsemeat have already been announced. We have new news is food

service, and as we heard earlier, some schools. There is still more

to find out, as you heard from the FSA. He there is some reassurance

in today's data that we are starting to get to the end of the

bad news. Before all of this, having a look at your website, you

have clearly put a lot of emphasis on tracability. You talk about how

a secure, traceable supply chain, a British supply chain is the key to

consumer confidence. I wonder if you feel why is it your job to

assure the consumers in that way. We have all sorts of other bodies

and regulatory frameworks that are supposed to be playing a role on

this. Is it their job our your's? It is our job, we value our brand,

we have been delivering safe food to our customers since 1869. That

was how Sainsbury's was founded, on the back of a milk food scare in

the mid-Victorian era. What is the Food Standards Agency for if it is

your job to do all the testing and police yourselves? You have to have

a police force in any system, of course you do. Not everybody values

their brand as highly as Sainsbury's does. We have to

reassure our customer, we take responsibility for that. That is

why I think we have been a little bit ahead of the curve in this. The

Food Standards Agency have a role to look much more widely, and the

role that they will play is they will weave together the bits of

information that they have, it does seem, at the moment, that horse has

entered the food supply chain outside of the UK. You mentioned

our beef in our ready meals is only sourced in the UK, that is probably

one of the reasons why we have not had this issue so far. Is the

police force not working as it should? The fact is, it may not be

in Sainsbury's products as far as we know. But it is still out there.

Who is makes the mistakes? As I understand it, the Food Standards

Agency have not tests for horse DNA for eight or nine years. It is not

a safety issue. Therefore, their focus has been on safety-related

issues. The question is whether it was possible for them to have

better evidence earlier, that would have allowed them to target.

it? I don't think we know. Over the next month or so, as we become

clearer on where this got into the food chain, it will be legitimate

then to ask, could we have seen it coming sooner. What are you going

to do in the future, have you stepped up the amount of testing

that you plan to do in general, beyond this crisis. Will you be

testing for more possible contaminants, for instance? We are

in the middle of a major step up, as we have already described. DNA

testing is part of the normal testing of the supply chain, we

require that of the suppliers too. We test for country of origin, we

test and we do for whether meat in particular has been previously

frozen all of these things provide a safety net. For anyone to say

they will not do anything different in the future loob fool hard yo. We

have to look at what this -- will be foolhardy. We have to look at

what will happen in future. Your emphasis is on British, is

that because you acknowledge that it is much harder, if possible to

have the same level of confidence in a supply chain generated abroad?

That is not our emphasise on British, our emphasis on British is

that is what customers expect. They expect the food to come as close to

home as possible. We all eat food from all around the world .0% of

what we sell in Sainsbury's is sourced in the UK. Our customers

have been clear to us, if you can source it in the UK you should.

That has always been our policy S You know what people say about the

supermarkets in general. It is the drive for cheaper food that is

pushing the search for cheaper meat outside the UK. That is why there

is more and more non-British meat endering the food chain? People

have to ask themselves whether or not the shop they go to has meat

from the UK. There are no differences, I would say this of

Sainsbury's, of course, I believe this to be true of the whole of the

grocery supermarkets in the UK, there are no differences in the

safety approach that supermarkets take for the cheapest food that

they sell, the most affordable food they sell, and the more expensive.

Safety is an absolute. Even when it originates abroad, you can't go

checking on a supply that originates abroad than one in the

UK? You can, but safety is an absolute. The issue here is an

ingredient that is in our food supply chain, that is not a safety

issue. But it shouldn't be there. What is on the packet, what it says

the ingredients are, should always be what it says on the tin. And the

issue here is that we have found that meat has got into the food

supply chain. As I said earlier, probably overseas. It then has led

to people misleading customers. That is unacceptable, even if there

was only one instance of that. did you feel when the Government

started to come out today and really put the focus on

supermarkets, saying essentially that the industry, your industry

should have been a lot more open in the first place, and you should

have been doing media interviews, like this one, from day one to try

to reassure people. You are only really starting to do it now?

conversation was premature, we knew and have known since the meeting of

the industry in Government last Saturday, that there were going to

be significant numbers of tests coming out today. I'm doing this

interview now, because it is the first possible moment I could have

done that interview. We had 150 tests coming in today, bringing the

total to just short of 200. Some about 7.00pm. It was unfair of that

suggestion to come out today? we had was a pregnant pause ahead

of this news. Nobody knew what was going to come out today. Today's

news story, ahead of the news coming out was who was going to say

what. I hope on behalf of Sainsbury's I can provide

reassurance through doing this interview, but also, the industry

has started to demonstrate that it is prepared to take its absolute

responsibility on this. Other chief executives have spoken to me too.

I'm sure you have seen the same poll that we have been looking at

from the Grocer. Many consumers feel this is the tip of the iceberg

about finding out about our food. As you look at it, how big a crisis

do you think your industry is in? don't think it is the tip of an

iceberg. As I said, there are encouraging signs from today's test

that is we are starting to get to the bottom of this particular issue.

More widely, the Ishikawa uis what it says on the tin in the tin, we

can be very confident that the answer to that is, yes. We in

Sainsbury's have a huge testing programme. We have 250-odd people

whose job is to test products, the raw materials, the product

delivered to warehouse, and we buy product to test it too, as

customers do. Most in the industry would say something similar. We go

to great lengths to ensure our food is what we expect it to be. Trust

is the score of our businesses, without trust we don't have

customers, we understand that and work hard to win it. Are you going

to do what Tesco's is doing, a world class specific website, you

can look exactly where they are on DNA testing? I'm not sure about the

website, we already do the most testing of any people in the

industry. The reason why we have the highest level of trust for food

by our customers, is our customers know it is this the way of

Sainsbury's doing business for many years. We will have to step up, but

we also have a proud record on this already. Still to come:

The director of Les Mis on when not to burst into song.

Could the future of the coalition be decided by a small town in

Hampshire. The voters in Eastleigh are being closely fought over with

less than two weeks to go before the by-election sparked by Chris

Huhne's resignation. The Conservatives are hoping to snatch

the seat away from the Lib Dems, Labour is hoping the suggestion it

could bring back the 10p tax rate will help it breakthrough. UKIP are

in the hunt also. Learning a new skill on a Thursday

night in February, when the memory of new year's resolutions still nag,

some therapeutic exercise, but while all inside is tranquil, the

moment they leave this room, these women can expect to walk into the

brutish machinery of a British by- election. It is Eastleigh, supposed

to be one NUT cracker of a by- election.

-- nut cracker of a by-election. This by-election is the first of

the parliament that pits the two coalition partners against each

other. For that reason, many see it as last Tango, probably so

acrimonious they couldn't work together afterwards. So far so

disappointing. They have strecheded every sinew to make sure it is

quite a gentile affair. But there are two weeks left. This by-

election matters for both the port and starboard side of the coalition.

The Conservatives are placed second to the Lib Dems, thanks to votes

froms like this here. To get majority in 2015, the Tories need

20 seats off Lib Dem colleagues. Eastleigh is one such seat. It is a

test of whether the Prime Minister is in control. The Liberal

Democrats believe they too can reach dry land. Their national

ratings may suggest ruin in 2015, but, they say, they mask a more

local story of gritty determination. UKIP candidate, nice to meet you.

Thank you very much for stopping there. This isn't a pure laboratory

for the two parties in power. There are other parties keen for their

own upset. The bill that has gone through with the marriage of gays

in church. That is a big issue for us, as we are Christians.

Gay marriage gets a mention on the doorsteps, but it is immigration

that is UKIP's campaign priority. And it has a wide appeal. There

needs to be a moratorium on immigration, for a period of time,

to allow this country to absorb what is here already, and to

develop a national Government policy which says who do we want,

how do we want them, when do they come in, with what level of volume

and frequency over time. Earlier in the week Diane James

came under a lot of criticism for telling a newspaper that Romanian

immigrants were associated with crime. Does she stand by those

comments? I have already been accused in the Times article that

appeared yesterday of being racist and a bigot. I contrast with the

number of text messages, e-mail messages, telephone calls, saying

Diane thank goodness somebody has actually voiced what we are all

thinking. None of the other political parties will do that.

Trying to topple the Lib Dems is the Tory candidate, Maria Hutchings

a mother of four. Hutchings has been the Tory candidate for a near

half decade. She has walked the streets of this constituency many

times over. She's also trodden on many of her leadership's messages.

She strayed away from their message on gay marriage, she's not in

favour. And she would vote to leave in a future referendum on Europe.

That morning the Prime Minister had been in Eastleigh hardening up the

party line on immigration. I think the Conservative Party, as I said

before, are the party that are going to do something about

immigration. UKIP won't be running the country. Would you say that

UKIP is wrong to go as far as saying there should be a moratorium

on immigration? That is an issue for them. You don't agree with that,

that is not something you would do? I think the policy we are looking

at at the moment, is to assess what's immediately coming, in terms

of immigration with Bulgaria and Romania. People around here will

say that is waffle? How can you have a moratorium on immigration,

when you are talking about immigration from outside Europe and

inside Europe. Eastleigh's unemployment figures are not as

poor as some parts of the country. But the town's economy is still

pretty vacant. Eastleigh contains multitudes, it is the have-yachts

and the have-nots, for Labour and Miliband to show they have no

southern England discomfort, they really need to be winning in a seat

like this. So, at a local coffee shop we

caught up with Ed Miliband's celebrity candidate, author of

Things Can Only Get Better, a memoir of a Labour activist in the

1980s and 1990s what he do if he reached Westminster? I would raise

tax. This is me going off message. For the top bankers and football

own - football club owners, how many houses do you need. In your

book and such a recruiting place for the by-election. You said to

your brother in the Richmond by- election, it is best to vote Lib

Dem in your seat. Has that gone away forever as a trend because of

the coalition? I think tactical voting still exists, people are so

cross with the liberals, what do I do to get them out, the answer is

vote Labour. We have been going around the supermarkets today

explaining people, because we found these, this Lib Dem lasagne, we had

it tested and at the found it was 100% Tory.

Testing a Lib Dem lasagne, would once have revealed a lot of Labour

inside it. Here are Vincent Cable and Danny Alexander, visiting an

Eastleigh laser factor. Before they went into coalition, many Labour

voters would vote Lib Dem around the country to keep out the local

Conservative. This by-election will test whether that remains true.

very confused by Labour's point of view. First of all they want to

steal one of our policies, then they want to pick up a discarded

policy that didn't work, try to introduce it and give us no detail

on they are going to. Do that is their policy, not our's. What would

you say to wavering Lib Dem voters who have voted tackically in the

past. Why should they vote like that again in the next election?

have shown we fight the Tories every day and make a huge

difference to their lives by keeping taxes down and license

looking after families. At the coalition level, without us, they

know that the situation would be far worse for them.

What do our dancers make of all of this? Originally I voted Lib Dem

because it was very much the local candidate where I lived, and people

were generally voting Lib Dem. But then I felt very comfortable with

that. I carried on. I have to say this time I'm not sure what I will

do. I used to be quite Conservative, but then with David Cameron as

leader, he has not lived up to what I thought he was. David Cameron has

also to live up to the expectations of his MPs. Though it is not just

him. All-party leaders are under similar pressure to net Eastleigh

for their team. It has been a gentle campaign, but still waters

run deep. There are other candidates standing

in Eastleigh, of course. Here they In a moment we will have a look at

the front pages. First the film most likely playing at a cinema

near you right now. It has had women throwing rowss at the screen.

Mis-- roses at the screen. Les Mis is a hit, despite dubious singing

by Crowe. It is hoping for Oscar glory. The director, Tom Hooper, is

talking exclusively to Steve Smith, he's talking about bursting into

song and whether Hollywood wants drama against. What about Les Mis?

Beautifully pronounced! Yes. Charge. Well, yes, what about Les Mis? The

story of life and love on the barricades, you might have heard by

now it is a musical. # All the love I walk with till

morning But you might not know every star

had to sing for his supper at auditions.

# Pretend I'm not the man I was before.

Even crow crow crow, Jackman -- Russell Crowe, and Hugh Jackman.

When Anne McIntosh who produced the music and was responsible for the

musical himself. He said they should all audition. It has become

so conventional that you can't ask a big star to audition, you just

offer, the Hollywood system, I laughed and thought, calm ran, this

won't work. He was right to say it is a special case, we could say

with singing live we can't have surprises.

Who did you say "next" to? I never say that to anyone.

# Your time is up and your parole has begun

# You know what that means # Yes it means I'm free

# Unless you learn the meaning of the law.

The singing in the movie was a revelation, Russell Crowe has a

voice like an angel, who knew? Interestingly. Is that a fair

comment would you say? Interestingly, Russell had started

off in musical theatre in Sydney in the rock rock. How did he do that?

That was where he got his break as an actor before his film career

started. I remember having cast Hugh Jackman, and thinking for the

film to have suspense, opposite Hugh I have to cast someone

everyone could believe could vanquish Jackman. That is hard once

you have cast Wolverine, it struck me that Gladiator was one of the

legitimate characters who could destroy Wolverine. Unlike many

musicals on film, this one is sung all the way through. With very

little straight dialogue. # If I was suddenly to

# Start ING singing to you now I think we should do the rest of

the programme like that. Apologise. It would be weird if I suddenly

broke into song after talking to you for ten minutes. That is the

very thing that can happen in a musical that adopts that form that

the gear changes are awkward. Hooper's mantle piece already sags

under the weight of the Oscars garnered two years ago by the --

The King's Speech. Isn't he in the wrong business, all the wise acres

have been saying television, box sets are the place for drama.

Before I did The King's Speech, the phrase "the drama is dead" had

become a common place phrase in Hollywood. To a director like me,

and a lot of directors I knew it was a great sadness. It felt like

the business had polarised into the big event movie and the teen comedy,

there wasn't a lot inbetween. And the fact that this year sees not

only the resurgence of drama, and you have Lincoln doing �150 million

domestically, you have Zero Dark Thirty, Argo, all doing well, these

are dramas in the classical tradition of a film drama. I think

there is a lot to take comfort from at the moment. There is an

impressive crop of movies up for the Oscars next week, but some have

said that they are rather on the long side. Do you have any sympathy

for the audience and their stiffening buttocks! My frustration

when you make a long time is the awareness that the programme before

the movie even starts can be as long as half an hour, in this

country. All the ads do you mean? If you make a two-and-a-half hour

movie, because of the programme you are into a three-hour movie

experience. In the hey day of the long film, the 1960s when longer

movies were less usual, you would sit down and the film would start.

You didn't have to contend with the 30 minutes of ads and trailers.

Hooper directed Michael Sheen as the brilliantly spikey football

matcher Brian Clough. What about the director himself, is he

confident of more silverwear next week, make that goldwear. Are you

going to William Hill's to put money on your film? I'm feeling

good about it. I'm pleased with the BAFTAs, I'm very pleased to be

there with eight nominations. It is very exciting to be there two years

after The King's Speech. There is a diplomatic answer for

you. Review is up next with Kirsty. Tonight, my guests gaze at the sea

of souls and the cast including Tom Hanks, Halle Berry and Jim

Broadbent in Cloud Atlas. Multiple roles in the 360 degree work by