15/04/2014 Newsnight

Ukrainian troops are face-to-face with pro-Russian insurgents tonight,

the Kremlin says it may be the brink of Civil War. As protestors march on

the airport, will the Ukrainian army roll over again or fight? This guy

is saying to the Ukrainian soldiers the other side of the wall, get out

of here, this is our airport, this is our air trip, this is Donetsk's

air strip. We will ask a leading member of the Ukrainian parliament

what they are going to do. Also tonight. And in, and fling! Oh!

Matron, take them away! A UN investigator is appalled at how

sexist Britain is. Absurd or has she got husband banged to rights. And

the story of a telepathic Russian dog that depreppeds -- befriends a

disabled boy, what drug addled hippy wrote that! You might be surprised

at the answer. Government forces in Ukraine today

began trying to take back the ground occupied by protestors in the best

part of a dozen towns in the east of the country. There was gunfire but

to no-one's great surprise the United States said the Government

had no choice and Russian officials said they were worried about

casualties. Pretty much the precise reverse of the attitudes the two had

struck when the protesters were on the streets of Kiev. This is the

most dramatic confrontation between east and west since the end of the

Cold War. At Kramatorsk airbase this evening, the pro-Russian

demonstrators came face-to-face with the troops they see as their enemy.

These soldiers are loyal to the Government in Kiev, and only this

wall separates them from the mob. This guy is saying to the Ukrainian

soldiers, the other side of this wall, get out of here, this is our

airport and our air strip, this is Donetsk's air strip. The soldiers

had arrived by helicopter a short while earlier. Kiev has said it will

dislodge the seperatists from Government buildings they occupy by

force if necessary. They have already lost control of police

stations, they don't want to lose a military base. But the crowd fears

this might be the start of the anti-terrorist operation announced

by the Ukrainian President this morning. TRANSLATION: We don't know

who these people are or why they are shooting, the whole town has come

out to defend itself. For the first time inside Ukraine proper the

demonstrators have raised the Russian flag over a Ukrainian

military base. Yesterday we had filmed a group of seperatist leaders

urging their followers to take control of military installations.

This situation now is beginning to feel very, very familiar indeed.

Angry locals, surrounding Ukrainian military installation, until

eventually they fall. The only thing that is missing here is those little

green men with the big guns. But today in nearby Slovansk we did see

those men on control. They are different from the pro-Russian

demonstrator, they have a high level of military training, they are

heavily armed and discipline. We don't know if they are Russian or

Ukrainian, their loyalty is not to Kiev. They were not keen to be

filmed, but after some fraught negotiation some did agree to speak

to me in private. I have just had quite a long conversation with those

men in green with the big guns, they didn't want to go on camera but they

did talk to me, I asked them straight, I said are they Russian?

They said they are all Russian, it became clear they meant culturally

Russian, they are citizens of Ukraine, one got his passport out,

clearly a Ukrainian passport. They talked about Iraq, Syria, the evils

of the west, they accused me of being an MI six spy. But then they

asked me am I an orthodox Christian, I said I grew up in an Anglican

tradition, then they said I must be a Pederast, then, their concerns

were partly political but partly cultural. They felt threatened by

what they saw as the culture of the west. 50 miles to the north the

Ukrainian army began moving troops and military hardware in an

adepartment to reassert its authority. Moscow has warned the

country is on the brink of a Civil War, sending in soldiers against the

protesters could lead to a Russian invasion. If Kiev does nothing it

risks losing control of the east. Nervous militia men run around a

children's playground, there are rumours of incursions, for ordinary

citizens these are worrying times. TRANSLATION: I don't know what to

do, I don't know what's going on. The masked armed man are clearly not

from round here. As night falls over the Kramatorsk military base, the

stand-off continues. This woman is berating one of her fellow

protesters for trying to climb over the wall into the base. But moments

later gunfire rings out as two men make their way towards the Ukrainian

soldiers. They are warning shots, no-one was hurt, but some of the

bravado here looks like it might be fuelled by alcohol. This is a

dangerous moment for Ukraine, mistakes could have terrible

consequences. About an hour ago I spoke to the leader of Ukraine's

governing Fatherland party in parliament. I asked him why Ukraine

was sending in the troops. We decided to do this because it is a

very similar situation that we had in Crimea. When again these green

men, again terrorists with Kalashnikovs, again we had the

surprising uprising of civilians, the only way to clear these cities

of real gangs of Russians is anti-terrorist operations. This is

the same sort of language as Mr Yanakovic used when he was talking

about moving against the protesters in the middle of Kiev. What is the

difference between what the Government is doing now and what he

tried to do then? You and all other correspondents, all our citizens

never saw arms in the hands of those who make this uprising at the events

during this Independence Square. We really saw how people without any

weapons were killed and they were killed not only one day, they were

killed second day, third day, and just now we hear 106 people without

weapons were killed on the square and first of all on the central

square of Ukraine. Now at this period in the region of Donetsk city

we saw not our citizens, we saw a special troops that were prepared in

the Russian federation who occupied all main buildings and not only

buildings of, for example of councils. How do you imagine that

this situation in eastern Ukraine will end? The Russian Federation,

through their special troops that have the best ment they want to

divide the Ukraine, they want to claim this is their territory and it

will become the territory of the Russian Federation. First of all we

need all the areas, airports, buildings of police, special

services offices without common people and after this we propose to

people with the weapons to put this weapon down. If no it will be a

special anti-terrorist operation against people with weapons. There

is a real danger though isn't there of Civil War? No, it is not a Civil

War. When we are struggling against Russian troops it is not a Civil

War. It is a war for our independence, it is a war against

aggression, Putin's aggression, and so the only way, if we do no have

some result in negotiations, any terrorist as well as in Great

Britain, the United States, in all other countries all over the world,

they must be localised and after this anti-terrorist operation have

to do the main task, to stop this invasion of Russian troops against

Ukraine. But in the long-term you are going to have to have, won't

you, a federal system in which the rights of minorities are properly

protected? Only 12% of people supported so called federalisation,

more than 80% of people supported the unity of one state, the state of

Ukraine. Even in eastern regions our constituencies supported the union

country, not the federalisation, so it is a choice of the Ukrainian

people. Ev now we proposed the referendum. Please we want to

provide a referendum on the 25th of May, with a question, you are for

unity of the country or not? And when we announce this proposition,

first of all the members of the Yanakovic party refused the

proposition, they want local referendums in some small cities and

regions, but it is impossible. Our proposition, if really they want to

hear a voice of the people, please we are ready to provide all country

referendum in which people will answer. But they are afraid of the

result of such a referendum. It is not a question of federalisation in

Ukraine. Thank you very much for sparing the time to trac to us,

thank you. Inflation in this country is now

running at its lowest rate for four years. One. 6%. Figures out tomorrow

are said to show wages rising ahead of inflation. A year before the

election this is good news for the Conservatives. Ed Balls the Shadow

Chancellor was steadfastly maintaining that this didn't mean

the cost of living crisis was easing. Labour has already had to

change its attack on the Government once.

Let's face it, for years millions of voters have felt skint. So to use

the ghastly political venacular, Ed Miliband has taken this jazzy retail

offer right around the country. We have got a cost of living crisis

facing ordinary families. I wanted to talk about the cost of living

crisis. We have a lost of living crisis in the country.

The top priority for the budget today has to be the cost of living

crisis. Is it still a crisis. Prices are rising at their slowest pace for

four years, tomorrow expect number crunches to say wages have caught

up. Rejoice if you are worried how far your cash goes, maybe not if you

are a Labour strategist. For as long assuages were dragging behind price

rises the retail offer, to use the jargon, made a certain political

sense. Now the misery gap between wages and inflation has nearly

closed, might Labour find they have made a mistake and put all their

eggs in one basket. So if the statistics suggest the so

called crisis is abating, has Labour almost started to shift, listen

carefully. There is a long-term challenges to make sure if our

economy grows that people share fairly in that rising prosperity.

That's why Labour says not there is no cost of living crisis, that's the

out-of-touch Conservative view, Labour says there is a challenge, we

will rise to it. They can't return to Ed Balls's favourite hand

gesture, the accusations about the slowdown in Government spending to

kill off growth, because the economy, month after month is

growing, but in real life there is still gain in talking about the

pound in our pocket. Next year, come 2015, whilst incomes may be a bit

higher than they are now, they will almost for sure be still

considerably lower than they were in 2010 or in 2008 before the

recession. One Shadow Cabinet member told me there is a conscious move to

talk about the future economy. Another source said it is pretty

desperate. Economic policy isn't more than bits and bobs that won't

convince. But one senior Labour figure told me people are not just

suddenly going to feel better off, the Tories' optimisim, they said, is

disconnected with the public. The crucial question is what bargain

does Labour try to strike? That is trick year, some Labour MPs want to

take on the rail industry, perhaps even supermarkets after the energy

prize freeze row, but this former ministers warns about pushing

business away. I want to see a Labour Party that takes wealth

creation as seriously as distribution of wealth. I'm all for

justice and fairness in the work place, and in terms of public

spending decisions in terms of health and education and everything

else, but you have to create wealth too, and we have to be a party that

cares every bit as much about the creation of wealth as how it is

distributed. Is Labour at the moment saying enough to give business any

confidence? It is really important to communicate, not only to business

people, but to everybody who works for them, that you take wealth

creation every bit as seriously as you take fair distribution of

wealth. I think Labour has always been strongest when it does that.

There is not much sign that Labour's able yet to agree how to make the

sums add up. But it can't be oblivious to an ugly truth. When

things get better for your political on Ponte al opponents it is harder

to -- opponents, it is harder to cash in. Growth is up, and inflation

is down, wages are going to be above inflation, do you want to apologise

to the Conservatives? Look the growth that we have seen after three

very damaging years of a flat-lining economy is very welcome and today's

fall in inflation and what we expect might happen with the wages figures

tomorrow, that is all moving in the right direction. It doesn't however.

Well done them eh! ? It don't make up for all the lost ground we have

seen since the Government came to power. We know that on average wages

are down ?1600 a year since the election, and by next year

households will be ?1,000 a year worse off. That is on IFS figures.

That is not small sums of money for ordinary families to be struggling

with. Absolutely not, but if people feel life is getting better, that is

the key things isn't it? I think this is where the cost of living

crisis continues to be suffered in a very keep way. Families are under

real pressure, if I think about my own constituency where every time a

bill comes on the doorstep people have their head in their hands

thinking how they are going to pay for it. Whilst obviously the changes

that we have seen in terms of inflation and what we think will

happen with the figures tomorrow, as I say, they are welcome steps in the

right direction, but people don't live their lives on a graph. Out

there in the country millions of people are struggling because they

are worse off and because by next year they will still be worse off

than in 2010. Your policy started off being the Government was cutting

too far and too fast, when there was a bit of growth you said you would

match their spending. Then you said there was a cost of living crisis.

What exactly is your policy now? Well the truth is that this

Government did choke off, there was a recovery under way in 2010, and

the choices this Government made on its economic plan choked off that

recovery and led to three very damaging years of flat-lining. I

don't think we can just write that off and say because we have growth

very late in the day, with George Osborne way off on his own figures

that some how that makes up for the calls that he made at the beginning

of this parliament which I think were wrong. You have to have a

policy going forward? We have set out a range of measures that deal

with this very real and deep-seated cost of living crisis, whether that

is on energy prices, which we said we would freeze, or childcare where

we said we would increase the hours for parents of three and

four-year-olds to 25 hours a week, these are practical measures. I tell

you another name for practical measures, what one of your

parliamentary candidates calls "bits and bobs" that don't add up to much

at all? I don't accept that. We are also talking about the long-term

changes we are seeing in the economy, whether that is setting up

a proper British investment bank to support British businesses to grow,

whether that's what we were talking about this week when it comes to

regional economic development, a huge devolution of power,

responsibility, money, to city and county regions, to really power

regional growth. That is a whole range of measures. If this is so

brilliant, why do people trust the Conservatives to run the economy

much more than they trust you to run the economy? We are trying to do

something we managed before. Manage competently? No, to be a one-term

opposition, we know we came down to one of our worst defeats in our

history in the 2010 general election, we still have to make the

case to every section of British society and every member of the

public about our offer. That is a task for us which we are not

complacent about, we know the job of work we have to do. But the policies

we have, the range of policy offers we have, I think, put us in a good

place going ahead to make that case to the British electorate. Do you

believe that the next election will be determined by whoever is judged

to be the most competent at managing the economy? It will be a range of

measures, that is in the gift of the British electorate to give. The

argument I will be making and my colleagues will be making is that

ordinary people. You can't think of a bigger issue can you? The economy

will be a central issue at the next general election. The thing is

people don't trust you? We know ordinary people are going to be, as

the OBR tells us, worse off because wages will be five. 6% down on 2015

than 2010. Why aren't people saying you will be better off running the

economy? We have to continue to make the case to the electorate. There is

a year to go and you failed to get through to them? Actually we are

still ahead in the polls, the bounce the Chancellor saw after the budget.

Not in the economy you are not? The bounce the Chancellor saw after the

budget has dissipated. Looking at the polls today I would say if you

are a Conservative you have a bit more to be worried. We are not

complacent about the job of work that we have to do, we know what

happened in 2010, we know what it is going to take for us to come back

and form a Labour Government in 2015. We are up to that task, we

have a range of policies, we have more to come which will deal with

not just the short-term economic measure that is we need but actually

looking ahead to the long-term, how we are going to get to a high-wage,

high-skilled economy with sustained growth shared all over the country.

What must it be like to live in the most sexist country on earth? Take a

look around, according to the United Nations Special Special Raporteur on

violence against women, who spent a whole 16 days in the country, found

that sexism in Britain was more in your face than other places. She

made no comparisons with her own country, South Africa, or Saudi

Arabia, she was clearly rather appalled. This is a flavour of what

she said. I think I saw that in yesterday's paper about the

harassment on the tubes, that is sexist culture when you think you

sit on public transport that it is OK to harass someone,

inappropriately touch them, it is sexist culture. If I was walking in

the street and they were whistles, which won't happen at this stage of

my life, I know, but that is sexist culture. What is clear from these s

of portrayals of women and girls is there is a boys' club sexist

culture, that exists and it does lead to perceptions about women and

girls in this country. My guests are with me. A writer and commentator

who was born in Sudan, and Louis Chum, former editor of the

Guardian's women's pages and Laura Bates is the founder of the Everyday

Sexism Project, which collects women's experienced of sexism. What

do you make of the comments? It doesn't really reflect my experience

living in the UK. What do you mean? I think that women, there are

problems for women, I quite agree, particularly young women at the

moment, but I think by overstating it, by saying it is one of the worst

most sexist cultures in the world, it just makes everybody believe

there isn't any, you know. It just seems ridiculous. Your take

presumably is entirely the opposite? Not completely the opposite. I would

absolutely argue there is still a huge amount that women in this

country are facing both on the more sexism end of the scale and when you

look at sexual violence and that is often underestimated with a

propensity to point the finger elsewhere. But I don't think it is

particularly helpful to think about this in terms of one country being

worse than another, women are facing horrendous things all over the

world, the important thing is that we take it seriously everywhere. How

does it seem to you? It seems it is obviously a bit ridiculous to hear

that the UK is considered more sexist than places like Saudi

Arabia, Somalia and Afghanistan. I think she was let down by her

expression. It is important to understand that there are different

grievances everywhere across the world. It is not a competition, and

it is certainly not one anybody wants to win. But it is important to

watch our language when we talk about these things, because if you

are trying to highlight things that you think are sexist but not FGM or

honour killings etc, you need to say it in a way that doesn't have people

tune out of the conversation at the beginning. Look behind you at the

screen that some person on the production screen has made you sit

in front of? So kindly. I would have been up in arms about that if I was

in your shoe, there we are. These are images with which we are all

familiar. And they do represent women in a particular way don't

they. Don't you believe that feeds into anything more sinister? I do. I

think the kind of sexualised images of particularly of younger women is

a real problem. I speak also as the mother of two girls. So I see it as

a real problem. But I think when you overstate it, it doesn't help

anybody. I think the sort of things that Laura Bates has been doing, I

applaud them I think they are great. But I think we should also remember

that we have come such a long way in the time, even I have been around.

Do you think this is a generational thing? No, I don't think so, I think

it is something that women experience of all age, women of all

backgrounds and in all places as well. Do you think you face the same

degree of sexual harassment as Louis might have done? I think it is

really difficult to say, I think it is not necessarily about comparing,

it is really dangerous to kind of go down that road of what things were

like at one point. The point is that we are still in a country where

85,000 women are raped annually, where over two women are killed

every week by a current or former partner, where one in four women is

the victim of domestic violence. To throw the baby out with the bath

water and say this has been an exaggeration and everything is fine

isn't accurate at all. We have made progress but we have a long way to

go, is that a fair enough argument? It is a fair enough argument, but

there is also a danger of viewing feminism or criticising sexist

culture in the UK and in the west in general only through the prism of

images and of popular culture. There has been a move in recent years to

talk about feminism and women in terms of page three in terms of

pornography, in terms of body image and the pictures we have behind us,

that, I think, sort of hides far more serious issues that people need

to speak about, equal pay, maternity leave, the lack of women in

boardrooms and I think that there is a danger that we spend too much time

talking about body image and the popular culture of sexism rather

than actual practical challenge that is aren't FGM that aren't honour

killings and all these things that obviously aren't happening in the UK

but are practical drawbacks to women's lives every day. It's not

fashionable to say there is a continuum, we should be obviously

bothered by all things at the same time, but I'm far less bothered by

the imagery of women in the popular culture by the lack of equal pay. It

is funny you mention a continuum, the spectrum means all things are

connected. I agree with the importance of addressing all those

issue, I would argue that the sexualisation of women in the media,

issues like page three feed into an impact on exactly those areas. On

discrimination against women in the work place, on women in business,

because if we're presenting women in the media sphere as sexualised

dehumanised objects I think that has a knock-on impact on the way they

are portrayed and the way they are behaved towards elsewhere. I would

say that things, what goes around comes around in a way. You know I

became the Guardian women's page editor at a time when Madonna was

striding the world, and people talked about it as a post-feminist

time, and it was very difficult you know, I can remember on the Guardian

people groaning when I mentioned FGM, one feature over about four

because everybody wanted it to be lipstick lesbians and how great

their sex lives were. And then that grew and grew and grew to the point

where, fortunately people then said no this is too much, we don't like

this, and this is not about women showing their power, because that

was only about ten years that was where everything was heading. If we

wish to shake off, however merited or not, this opinion that has been

delivered by the UN Special Raporteur, what are the practical

steps that need to be taken by us as a society as a whole? I think one of

the most important things which was one of the issues she raised herself

is the importance of addressing these issues in the classroom. We

know from a recent survey also quoted in this report that one in

three girls aged 16-18 experienced unwanted sexual touching in school,

and yet we won't have compulsory sex and relationships education that is

dealing with issues like consent, like healthy relationships and

violence. And I think it is just absolutely vital that we look at

implementing that recommendation. Have you got further suggestions you

two? As a foreigner and somebody who has come to the UK from a culture

where women aren't visible I'm still shocked at how invisible women are

in the public sphere? The UK. And I think something that should be

encouraged is to have more women in the media, in Government, in the

cabinet, visible, in influential positions, and not only in a pen of

women's issues or women's health issues or as we are sitting here

today talking about sexism, that is an important thing. Louis? I think

one of the things that women have children and they very often want to

spend time with them. You will also run into problems where women, they

may be aiming for those kinds of roles but then they may draw back

because they will always have a problem, a tension there. Even if

the best childcare is offered there are some women that won't want to do

that, they will want to spend that time with their children. But

fathers have children too, there is so much we can do to make that

easier for women, flexible working hours, shared parental leave. Those

are all good advantages that have been made in this country. Right OK

thank you very much. From what has emerged from the world of espionage,

and counter espionage, it seems received wisdom that the greatest

terrorist threat in this country comes from radicalised young men who

have travelled to Syria to fight in the Civil War and then returned to

Britain. How do these networks form, how does a young man get drawn into

an experience so utterly alien to his life here. A group of

researchers from King's College London have unearthed the vital role

played by social media. Syria is being called the world's

first social media Jihad. A conflict with combatants posting on-line in

real time. -- real-time. Social networks have been embraced

enthusiastically by foreign fighters. This is the most social

mediated conflict in history. They want to use it to inspire people to

come out and join their cause. They use the social media to promote an

excitement, and excite youngsters over here to join them and commit

violence. New research scene by Newsnight charts the rise of this

social media Jihad. Academics from King's College London have built a

database of tens of thousands of social media interactions, to map

the conflict as never before. Their analysis provides a fascinating

insight into the motivations of British and European radicals who

flock to Syria to fight President Assad. Young Brits are travelling to

fight. Big machines! Big boys, big machines! We have seen an horrific

video with a fighter holding up a severed head taken from a bag of

heads, that reveals the brutality of the conflict. Many are joining an

Al-Qaeda group called Islamic State of Iraq or ISIS, fighting to Straub

a regional Islamic calm ic Kalafet. The overwhelming majority in the

database belong to ISIS, they have a low threshold for who they take for

fighters, they brand their material. For young people that visual imagery

is very attractive and seductive, that is the team they want to be

part of. Remember this man? From Portsmouth. We obtained an exclusive

interview with him near the Syrian front line in November via Skype. I

am ISIS, this is the group I'm joining. Two weeks after our

interview he was killed fighting with ISIS. What advantage is there

in mapping it like this? The researchers from kings have

mapped foreign fighters' social media connection, the lines, who

they follow and who follows them. You can pull up details of

individual fighters. What is going on here, can you actually go into

say Iftaka Germain. Yes, all the lines you see are the individuals he

follows on Twitter. And some of those lines are other foreign

fighters who follow him on Twitter as well. He was a prolific tweeter,

he is one of 190 fighters to feature in the new research. On Twitter we

have elected more than 80,000 individual unique users who follow a

foreign fighter or are followed by a foreign fighter. On Facebook we

collected more than 4,000 pages liked by the foreign fighter

community. Once we put the data together we were able to build a

unique picture with other information as well about who is the

most popular, who is the most important within these networks.

What really shocked us is when we pulled up the data in tab later --

tabular form, we noticed number one and three were two Sheikhs. So Ahmed

Jabrul, a an American preacher was the most popular. He doesn't speak

directly of Jihad, but speaks against democracy and the supremacy

of Islam. Our religion was sent to be supreme not equal, we must be

different to other faiths. He preaches the worldwide community of

Muslims must spurn the unbelievers, the kaffar. Masses of our people

will join in with the unbelievers in a celebration? Jibril sent a direct

message to those who have died on Twitter saying it made them weep. We

consulted an Islamic scholar about Jibril, he rejects democracy. These

are sloganisation to create Anwar Animosity, saying we are superior

and we are better. Democracy has a different meaning to different

societies. Essentially it is about three people coming together in an

association to air their views in a freedom. And the Koran supports

that? Court ran -- the Koran supports that. The next most popular

preacher is an Australian called Moussa Seretonian, from an Italian

Catholic family he converted to Islam ten years ago. We will be the

soldiers of Islam, holding high the banners. He says he supported ISIS

because it is trying to establish an Islamic state. The capital of the

Islamic city will be Al Quds. He's more explicit about his support for

Jihad. He's extremely anti-American, and refers to the Department of

State as the "Department of Rape". Last year a post on his Facebook

page highlighted terrorist attacks on America, and talked of abhorrent

and Satanic evil in both Republican and Democratic parties.

Controversially the post also states they should be fought, explaining

that we should stop them by fighting them, by assassinating their

oppressive leaders. This is This is dangerous talk isn't it? It is quite

dangerous, isn't T it is a selective passage quoting from a selective

type of ideology. What they are doing is increasing the facade that

is going there already. The chaos? The chaos on the ground, they are

increasing it. They are increasing it mercilessly. They are increasing

it and they are doing a disservice to Islam itself. Because this is not

Islam. No serious cleric of knowledge will recognise it. He

declined to give us an interview, but answered some questions on

Facebook. He admitted supporting ISIS, but he also says he has been

critical of the group. Some will argue his words are free speech, but

when it comes to Jihad in Syria, crickets will say his sermons

encourage young Muslims to go to fight.

Now, pilot, trade union rep, member of parliament, cabinet minister,

member of the House of Lords, cook book writer, what else could life

offer a man like Norman Tebbit? His latest incarnation is as a

children's writer. For man known in ward as Chingford Skinhead, it is

gentle stuff, featuring a talking Labrador, the central character is a

14-year-old who is left paralysed after a car crash that killed his

father. Lord Tebbit's wife has been in a wheelchair paralysed since the

Conservative Party bomb 30 years ago. He has learned a lot about

disability in that time. What is the attraction of writing for children?

I wanted to write something else, something different, I thought I had

a few things to say and a few debts to pay as well. I wanted to pay some

tributes to some of the people at Stoke Mandeville, the guys at Canine

Partners, that train dogs to be help dogs, and they are quite remarkable

animals when they are trained. And things like that. And to say

something about the awfulness for a youngster particularly to suddenly

find his world has changed right about him. Samuel, your hero is in a

wheelchair, he's 14, isn't he? You have had 30 years effectively of

looking after someone in a wheelchair, what have you learned

about disability? That everything takes longer and costs more. They

are the two principal things about disability and how much it cramps

life. You get excluded from things. It just becomes more difficult to

get places and to do things. There are not many hotels around where we

have got hoists in bathrooms and things like that. So there are lots

of places you can't go. I think that's what I have learned about it.

On the other hand the country is surely much better if you are in a

wheelchair or otherwise disabled now than it was say 30, 40, 50 years

ago? Yes indeed. And a tribute to that goes to particularly the people

at hospitals like Stoke Mandeville. The average life span of someone who

is spinally injured is not much different to somebody who is

perfectly fit. 50 years ago it was a very short span of life you could

expect after a serious spinal injury. And caring for someone who

is disabled is a special sort of task isn't it? It is and there are

lots of easier jobs, so it isn't always easy to find people to do it

professionally. My wife has to have somebody with her within hearing

distance all the time, day and night. She often needs help and

somebody has to be there. It is not easy, it is not an easy job to do.

Are there any consolations to it? If there are I have not really found

them yet. A friend of mine in a wheelchair once said it was very

irritating whenever you went to a social gathering, always looking at

people's stomachs? I could very much think that, fortunately my wife has

a big power wheelchair and she can lift it up so she can still be

eye-to-eye with her if you are at a cocktail party or something like

that. Things are getting better slowly. Do you think we have become

a more compassionate society, do you think politics are more

compassionate now than they were? It is not so much more compassionate.

We are better equipped in many ways to know what to do. How to handle

things. There are more ramps, there are rather less obstructions in

shops and things like that. Partly self-interest, retailers realise

that disabled people have got wallets and if you can't get, if

they can't get into your job they won't buy anything from you. You are

a terrible cynic, I thought we had become a more compassionate society?

Perhaps we have a bit. More thoughtful? We have a bit too I

think. We don't hide disabled people away in the way that we used to. I

think that's the important thing. That's part of the message of this

book and this extraordinary alliance between the boy and the dog and one

or two other characters, all of whom have a counterpart in real life. The

places are all real, the things that happen are perhaps a little bit

stretched, there is a little old lady in the book, as you may know, a

dear, peaceful white-haired little old lady who played a key role in

this, she is drawn in the memory of my former colleague lady Daphane

Park who was just a great lady. The MI6 lady? Who ran is in South

Africa, perhaps there is a streak of feminism in it, I never saw that, my

goodness me. People will say you have gone nuts writing about

telepathic dog? You have got a dog, you know your dog often knows what

you are thinking. What's more he knows what mood you are in before

you have got to the front door, when you come home. Now listen as you are

here I must ask you something about contempory politics or they will say

I have been too easy on you. What do you think of this new softer

Conservative Party? Well, I think that the Conservative Party's place

in the world is to do the hard, tough things. Because the Labour

Party certainly won't. As you explored this evening. Forget the

point scoring, get to the point about the Conservatives? I don't

want to point score against my own side. I think that's happened. I

think it was a terrible mistake in the election campaign of 2010 to try

and move on to the centre ground. Because there is a centre between

you and me, if I move to there the middle has moved towards you as

well. And in fact I think Mr Cameron in his campaign persuaded lots of

potential liberal voters, yes, even Cameron thinks that the liberals are

right, so we vote liberal. I'm great exponent of the common ground. Which

is rather different. You would never vote UKIP would you? I don't think I

would want to vote UKIP. But I understand why people do vote UKIP.

Very often people say to me why don't you leave the stories they

have got so far away from you. I always say I have been a member of

the Conservative Party since 1946, I'm not going to be ousted by people

who are in charge at the moment. You know! Thank you. That's all for

tonight, liver Football Club today commemorated the 96 people who lost

their lives 25 years ago at Hillsborough. We leave you not with

that but the voice of the Anfield Kop two days earlier before Sunday's

game when it felt like it was more than just a football game the people

of Liverpool had finally won. Good Good night.

# Walk on # Through the rain

# Walk on # Through rain

# For your dreams will be whole # Walk on

# With hope # In your heart

# And you'll never walk alone # You'll never walk alone

# Walk on # Walk on

# With hope in your hearts Another cold one out there tonight, but

another fine day to look forward to for England and Wales, through

tomorrow, any more sunshine to come. Windy north and west, cloudy with

rain extending in across Northern Ireland and Scotland, particularly

across western areas, a real change in the weather, feeling cooler here.

This is the snapshot mid-afternoon, patchy rain into Northern Ireland,

west