03/06/2014 Newsnight

Tonight with days to go to the start of the World Cup, we report from

Brazil on the grotesque under-side to one of the world's greatest

sporting occasions. In the shadows of the football stadiums another

side to the competition, the chirp being traffiked for prostitution. Do

the police never check? Millions of us tune in for this

stuff week after week, why do we love it, why do women seem to like

crime drama that features violence against women. The crime writer Anne

Cleaves is here to help us with that. And remember this? How a 1980s

computer game has lived to the ripe old age of 30 and is still gathering

new fans. At 9.00 on Thursday next week the football teams from Brazil

and Croatia will begin the first match in the 2014 World Cup. Best

not to think what the start of that great sporting carnival means for

untold numbers of children in Brazil. Gangs of pimps are

trafficking young girls to ply their trade around the stadiums of host

cities there. The country is already facing an epidemic of child

prostitution with children as young as nine selling their bodies to

escape poverty. Even though they are the victims of sexual exploitation

some of the children and their parents were happy for them to be

identified on camera. In this country only. We report now from

Brazil. This is the BR 116, a road that runs

almost the entire length of Brazil. The route takes you through towns

where children try to escape poverty by selling their bodies. This

highway is nearly 3,000 miles long and a recent police survey

discovered almost 300 areas where child prostitution was taking place.

And that means on average children can be found offering sex nearly

every ten miles. We're heading to a remote town 300 miles from the World

Cup host cities in the northern tronnics. And more than 1,000 miles

away from Rio January in the south. Prostitution is legal over 18, yet

the number of children selling their bodies across the country is said to

run into the hundreds of thousands. Here I'm told the clients are mainly

truck drivers, hiring children as young as 11. We filmed very young

girls flirting and working the tables in a bar near a truck park.

Regular police patrols of truck parks targeting child prostitution

are already overwhelmed. But they are facing a new problem, the

trafficking of girls to World Cup host cities.

In the last six months around 100 young girls have been referred to

the social services. A social worker took me to meet some of them. That's

your house? A flower and this is the sky. This girl has just turned 12

and lives close to the highway. She seems like such a typical child. But

social services tell us just how grim her childhood has been.

Is it not scary being on the streets late at night? Everywhere you turn

in this small town you see the poverty that is stealing childhood.

Angela began selling herself when she was 13, she's now 17 and

pregnant for the fifth time. Her first three children were either

adopted or aborted, she kept her fourth. Is life tough here? What is

tough about it? How is this human misery possible in

a country which has the seventh-largest economy in the

world, just behind the UK. Congresswoman, Lillian Sarh has just

released the findings of the parliamentary inquiry into child

prostitution. Her research took her to all 12 World Cup host cities.

The parliamentary report highlights the traffics of children from rural

communities to World Cup host cities. To the prop calm north-east

the BR 11 six takes you to this stadium, in the shadow of the city's

World Cup stadium young girls are trading their bodies. We spot two

girls on the street, right outside a police station. As we get close it

is clear they are very young. With a charity worker we play the part of

British tourists, and they immediately offer us a programme,

the local slang for sex. How old are you? They look much younger. With

girls look so young, some look younger than others, but none of

them have any ID whatsoever. And how much would it be for a "programme"?

That is about ?40 pounds. I have to be afraid. Do the police never

check? A police car has just gone by we are talking to a very young boy,

didn't take any notice. The police told the BBC that complacency can be

an issue and are training their officers to be more proactive.

During the World Cup the Government promises more police patrols like

these, to spot exploitation and a hot-line to report abuse. Even in

daylight young girls are selling themselves around stadiums. This

girl is 14 years old. On the other side of the Atlantic Brazilian

footballer David Luiz warns England fans of the consequences of hiring

child prostitutes. This video is being shown on some flights to the

World Cup host cities, a campaign funded by British charities and

backed by British police agencies. It is a penalty! But evidence

suggests pimps are determined to cash in on anticipated demand.

13-year-old Fernada was already selling her body on the B-116

highway, she was drugged, kidnapped and forced to work on the streets

here. She managed to escape. She is back

home with her mother. But her pimps are still at large.

She and her mother are reunited, but in a country that is criticised for

failing to tackle poverty and child exploitation, there are thousands

more children that have little hope of escaping Brazil's sex trade. You

can see more of that report on Panorama tomorrow night on BBC One

at 10. 35. Now the bureaucrats at the European

Commission generously dispensed unwanted advice to the British

Government today. They were kind enough to advise on the council tax,

house building and London property prices. It is time for our betters

now to choose a successor to that Prince among men, the current

President of the European Commission, Jose Manuel Barroso.

There are five-and-a-half candidates for the job, a couple of Greens want

it as some sort of job SHAFRMENT the front runner is Jean-Claude Junker.

In the wake of elections which demonstrated how little enthusiasm

people have for the political elite's job, there were rumours that

the Germans might be heeding David Cameron's campaign for Junker. Who

is the kind of democratic political leader you would love on our shores,

the one who says they are ready for being insulted for being

insufficiently democratic, he is for secret, dark debates, if it is a yes

they will say on we go and if no they will say they will continue.

Some of Jean-Claude Junker's worst hits which means the UK is not keen.

It is not hard to see why David Cameron doesn't really want

Jean-Claude Junker in the job, there is an obvious appeal to keep them at

bay from beyond the water. There is a risk in publicly opposing

something that will be decided in private, in a process that the UK

can't completely control. Junker does have some fans, but Government

sources are adamant you can't make the case for change in Europe with a

face from a small country in Europe first a minister in the 1980s. But

he is the front runner, and if David Cameron's strategy is to make enough

friends behind closed doors fails he will have to deal with the ire of

his euro-sceptics. ??FORCEDYELL Euro-sceptics use the word

"federalists" too loosely, someone they disagree with. But this is bona

fide federalism, he believes in reciprocal voting rights at national

election, he wants all the national foreign ministries to be merged into

a European one, he wants a European police force and tax system. This is

the whole 1950s federalist agenda, undulated. Killing off his bid would

be difficult. The most powerful office holder in the EU went through

the ordeal along with the audience of live debates. But because Junker

is the candidate put forward by the EPP, the biggest block in the

European Parliament, and they expect their man to be put in charge. That

whole jazzy process could have been a waste of time though. Because

there is nothing to stop other names being put forward by this lot,

Europe's actual leaders, the council at the last minute. One senior

Conservative source told Newsnight the Irish Prime Minister, Enda Kenny

is their preferred option, even though publicly he has backed

Junker. But is Angela Merkel trying to make life harder for her

political naughty fetch few. In the last few days she has hardened her

support for Junker, but tonight it appears she might have suggested an

elegant way out, suggesting the head of the IMF, Christine Lagarde. It

would be a godsend for David Cameron, she is a French candidate

with an Anglo-Saxon feel to her, she speaks fluent English, run the IMF,

run a big American law firm. She ticks so many boxes at Number Ten,

she may be blocked by others precisely because of that. If the

appointment doesn't go the UK's way, does it push us nearer leaving the

EU all together. That thought may tickle euro-sceptic, but Number Ten

officially says no. Mr Junker or whoever is President of the European

Commission, will not decide on what happens to a renegotiation which

will not even begin until a year from now the President of the

European Commission is an important person with a lot of influence, but

he does not take the decisions. And as our relations with our

continental cousins are never straight forward, there is another

complication in this torturous process, it is not just about trying

to choose the next President, it is also who gets what in the commission

and who decides the agenda. Submit to Junker and perhaps the UK gets a

juicy deal elsewhere. One senior Conservative suggests what matters

is who runs the internal market. With phone calls tonight and a

summit in Brussels tomorrow, David Cameron has more chances to win

friends across the channel, but he will need them, the machinations are

complex and will take time to complete. Jacob Rees-Mogg a

euro-sceptic MP is here, the Dutch MEP from the liberal grouping in the

European Parliament joins us from the Hague. What do you make of David

Cameron's objections to Mr Junker getting the job? What is important

is the European Union becomes more democratic and the process of who

gets the jobs is more transparent and people have a voice in who this

person is. A first step has been taken by the European Parliament

putting forward candidates by political groups. The largest group

in the European Parliament has put forward Mr Junker. It is up to Mr

Cameron to make his case among the council and see what the European

Parliament will make of it. I don't think he has much of a chance

because the European Parliament has committed to this system before the

elections to take a step towards a more democratic and more transparent

Europe which I think is very urgently needed. This was agreed

that the largest party would endorse a candidate and that candidate would

be more or less a shoe-in, before the election? Who was it agreed by?

It was agreed by the European Parliament? The European Parliament

decided amongst itself. It doesn't have the power to appoint, it has

the power to approve, which is different. And in the election there

is a poll done to see if anybody had heard of the candidates. 6% of

voters had never heard of Mr Junker, with a British parliamentary

election people know who the candidates are. The idea that

democracy comes through the European Parliament within the EU is false.

It comes through the Council of Ministers. But this is the mechanism

and it was agreed beforehand, why not play a straight bat on it?

Because the European Parliament rbitrarily decided this is what it

was going to do. This was only one of the institution bus not the most

democratic, it must be the Council of Ministers that represent the

Governments. Fair enough, they are involved. What is wrong with the

principle of the largest party which gathers the largest the largest

number of votes being the most effective operator in the

endorsement? I think it is a mistake to view the EPP as a single party,

that the campaigns in individual parties were run on individual

national political grounds, the fact that they picked some obscure

Luxembourger to be their candidate that 66% of voters haven't heard of

really doesn't give him any credibility. If the price of getting

Mr Junker into the position is that a country like Britain decides it

has to advance its referendum on whether it stays in the European

Union, is that a price worth paying? I'm really sorry I'm having trouble

hearing you, what I think is important is that the European

Parliament becomes a stronger player, representing European

citizens on the EU level, and what we need in Europe is more democracy

and more transparency. We do not need back door dealings, back room

dealings that the council is known for, so I think it is important, we

have put forward as political groups these candidates, and if some groups

have buyers remorse to put it that way, that is something they have to

deal with, as the liberal group in the European Parliament we have put

forward the former Prime Minister of Belgium and the leader of our

political group in the European Parliament. There have been debates

on television between these candidates to give European citizens

a sense of who these people are that are candidates for the President of

the European Commission. So this is a first step in what should be many

more steps towards a more effective democratic and transparent European

Union. I think if there is a problem that we have in Europe, but in

politics more broadly in the EU, it is that there are politicians who

say one thing, one day and then something else the next day. So we

have to stick to what it is we have said we would do, now we must Folau

through. Jacob Rees-Mogg you would accept this is an improvement on the

previous system would you? Not particularly. You don't think it is

more transparent? I don't think it is particularly, nobody has heard of

these candidates. Is there any single candidate among them you

would support for the job? Perhaps Bill Cash should become a candidate.

He is not unfortunately a candidate? He could become one the Council of

Ministers could put him forward, it is their choice. This isn't open and

transparent because the European Parliament is a closed,

inward-looking system, that nobody has paid any attention to the

European Parliament's candidates or these debates other than people who

are tied into the system. As a member of the organisation there

will be somebody who will be President of the Commission? I have

more confidence in the pre-Nice system where there was a veto. It is

a pity that was given up. National countries represent their countries

not the European Parliament, it would be better to do it on that

system and whether that is done in private or the near private of the

European Parliament, because however much they may have it debates I

think they are watched by as many people as watch the Eurovision Song

Contest. Or not. But how big a problem is it for David Cameron if

he doesn't get his way and Mr Junker is appointed? It is a minor problem.

I think back to the appointment of Jack Santer, who took over by the

man vetoed by John Major. He courageously vetoed one pro-European

federalist, replaced by another, seen as a great victory for British

diplomacy. I don't think it would be a great defeat if it went against

David Cameron, but equally it won't be a great victory if it goes his

way. If there is some sort of compromise, say Christine Lagarde,

seems to be popular at present, would that be something that you and

your friend could live with, or would it be a subversion of what you

see as a process that was agreed upon beforehand? I'm sorry, I can't

hear you sufficiently. I heard that the MP of the Conservative Party

said that the council should make these decision, but what has been

clear is that the system as it has been working with the council and

ministers trading different interests is not doing enough for

European citizens so it is clear that we should not rely on business

as usual, but we have to reform the EU to make it more democratic. I

think that is essential. I'm sorry if I cannot hear your question, the

satellite connection is not strong enough. I'm terribly sorry you

haven't been able to hear properly either. Thank you very much for

joining us and thank you Jacob Rees-Mogg too. Regular viewers will

perhaps recall a couple of Newsnight reports from Owen Bennett Jones of

the activities in Britain of a Pakistani exile who seems to have

instilled a rule of fear in the city of Karachi. Finally he was arrested

in London and being questioned about alleged money laundering. It set off

protests in Karachi where his organisation has terrorised great

numbers of people. Such is their reputation that fear of what it

might do almost paralysed the city today. Here we are with the latest.

IT With little drama Mr Hussein was picked up in a quiet, wealthy

suburb. He's Karachi's most important politician w a solid

parliamentary block and the ability to deliver formidable street power.

He is famous for speeches like this. One of the investigations he faces

in the UK is asking whether these kind of remarks amount to incitement

to violence. Two Newsnight films revealed the investigations into Mr

Hussein and caused a big impact in Pakistan, now he's in custody

suspected of money laundering. The party today said it was in shock

that he is critically ill and there will now be peaceful protests. But

after the arrest, many parts of Karachi emptied as people feared a

more violent reaction. Those in the city who passionately support him,

and those who fear him, are all waiting to hear the latest news from

London. And whether the arrest will be Folaued with charges. I'm joined

in the studio now, what is the situation in Karachi tonight? The

MQM have their people out on the streets in the city, they say they

will be doing a peaceful protest until's out of custody, that could

be as long as 36 hours, that is happening. I mean it has been more

peaceful than many people thought, some buses were set alight. These

guys in the screen are his supporters in Karachi? So he has a

very passionate support base, very loyal support, but also many people

in the city who fear him. The city is divided by him. But those people

who support him are always, he has huge street power, he can deploy

them whenever he wants. It is extraordinary that one man can have

that much sway? Particularly when he has lived in London for 23 years.

This is all done down a phone line. He has complete control of his party

and now he is gone one of the problems the party has got is they

don't know what to do because he's not there to tell them. How can he

control a party thousands of miles away living in London? The party

critics would say it is by the use of violence, by the use of force

that many of his party officials are afraid of him, and that it is being

done in that way. His supporters would say he's a charismatic and

brilliant politician able to pull it off. Now the last episode of the

gritty television crime series Happy Valley ended half an hour or so ago,

it has been great success, with the central character, Sergeant

Katherine Corn hugely popular. It is widely recognised that the most

eager consumers of this sort of television are women. The question

is why? Why should entertainment that so often features violence

against women appeal to women? In a moment we will talk to two crime

writers about the attraction of events we all fervently pray will

never occur for real. They have this, in the meantime, as you would

expect it contains some scenes of violence you might find distressing.

Is it a realistic depicks of the kind of violence women can suffer in

real life, or gratuitous titillation to win ratings. The cameras also

focus on women, abused, battered, raped or dead, but has it gone too

far. I find it increasingly rare to come across a drama where there

isn't a woman being terrorised at the least, having her throat cut,

tied up somewhere, menaced or murdered or scared out of her wits.

It seems to have become a norm, without anybody noticing really. It

seems to have crept in particularly over the past, I would say two or

three years, and it has become quite intense now. Happy Valley, which

ended tonight has been pretty gruelling viewing at times, but six

million people have tuned in and only 15 complained, its female

writer defended the violence as necessary and says in the end she

has created uplifting television with strong female characters at its

heart. The Fall was dubbed the most repulsive drama ever shown which one

writer, it was a serial killer attacking attractive young women. It

is all about context, set in the 1950s Bletchley Circle saw four code

breakers becoming investigators, it didn't shy away from female death,

but it wasn't gratuitous, and it showed the female leads reacting to

it. Why did we have to come here and see her if we couldn't help her,

what was the point of it. But criticism of too much female-based

violence on TV is changing behaviour. I have been developing a

show where the female writer which involves murders, all of the people

who are dying are men. That doesn't mean it is a better or worse show,

or we don't think about violence towards men. But certainly she did

say when she started to write it that she would be damned if the

first person to die on the TV show would be a woman. I think it

self-regulates, people are aware, it has become an issue and it will

affect how violence is depicted and violence against women. That shift

can't come soon enough for those who trace violence against women on

television back to our love affair with Nordic noir, The Killing with

frightening scenes from the start spawned too many a British crime

drama with brutality at its heart. Ripper Street, set in East London

six months after backthe ripper's killings was simply attacked for the

period back drop and the portrayal of violence. Do charities that

campaign against real world violence worry about the TV versions.

Violence against women is a reality, and it is really important to

recognise how much of it there is. So in one sense no I don't have

concerns. What does concern me though is when TV dramas perpetuate

some of the many myths that exist around violence against women.

Violence of course can be used to powerful effect, in the past even

Women's Aid itself hasn't shied away from pretty graphic story telling

that wouldn't look out of place of a TV drama and curtesy of Keira

Knightly to get the own message across. With us is Anne Cleaves

whose novels have been done both for the BBC and ITV, and the crime

fiction critic Jake Kerridge. Let's look at the question of the appeal

to women. It is clear that very large numbers of women form the core

of the audience and many of these programme, yet these programmes do

feature a lot of violence against women? Not all of them do of course.

I agree. What women watch crime drama for is the strands of the

story, quite often it is domestic, it is about family and the clips you

didn't show from Happy Valley are about a close family. Sometimes

dysfuntional. I think the writing was brilliant about that, and that

is why women are watching it. What is your theory? I think we have to

wonder why when two-thirds of the people who read and buy crime

fiction are women why these interesting and ingenious ways of

slaughtering so many women are so popular, apart from some kind of

prevalent misogyny among women, I don't think it can be that. And

factually we know that most murders are perpetrated against men,

specifically young men? It may be to do with sexual violence as well. The

crime writer Val McDermott that women are incull culcated by a fear

of violence that men are not, so they read something to get a thrill

that preys on their very deepest fears. What do you make of that

idea? I don't agree with that. I think there is a tendency to put on

what you think is going to be popular. We were talking about The

Killing, the start of that came from the Dragon Tattoo, where it started

with quite playful, quite domestic and the violence got stronger and

stronger and less appropriate, I think. And because the male central

character was very sympathetic, he was a great supporter of women, some

how that was fine. That made the violence against the central woman

character some how all right. Is there something also in drama that

has a strong female lead, some how often feels it is OK if you have

that to have violence against women in the same thing too. Have you

noticed that? I think that is a cop-out too. But you have noticed it

I bet? I'm not sure that I have, I suppose The Killing, but I know more

about crime fiction in books. Prime Suspect, The Killing, The Bridge,

all these things? It is true. Go on? It is true, why do women watch it,

I'm not convinced that they watch it because they like seeing women

raped, tortured and mutilated. I think it is sad if that is what we

think, and if that is why people watch television for those things.

Do you have a further view on why it has this appeal? In the days of

Agatha Christie crime writers got a lot of criticism for not taking

murder seriously making it into a parlour game, when you have the

books, the original Swedish title of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo was

first called Why do men hate women. It was prevalent amongst the

establishment and in society, he thought to justify write beg it he

had to write about it in some detail and he had to have rape scenes in

the books. I don't think they are gratuitous, I think he sets enough

details going in the readers mind that they know what is going on. He

doesn't linger. The problem is when the books are adopted into films, as

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo was in Swedish and American, that the

viewer is just hit over the head with the rape scenes. You read a lot

of this stuff, is it getting more violent? I think so. I do worry

about the normalisation of sexual violence towards women and I find it

very boring, because I get a flood of book which on the first page some

poor woman, usually a young pretty woman has something quite nasty done

to her. Do you come under pressure from publishers or television

producers? Not at all. But I have too been sent books to blurb, and

one sent by a publicist saying this is a really thrilling story about a

serial rapist terrorising the town and leaving behind him a trail of

tortured and mutilated women. We know you will love this book. No,

really, I won't love this book. I worry I suppose that new writers

feel that's what's going to sell. And young women writers write it too

because they think that's what a best-selling crime novel is going to

be like. I think we know that Hitchcock knew that people wanted to

see a blonde get stabbed in the shower not a man. But at the same

time when you watch the shower scene in Psycho, you don't see the knife

going into the body, it is the editing and cutting, it doesn't

linger on the face. Now Happy Valley, excellent series, but if you

want to get value you have to see the young police woman getting run

over four or five times to make an impact. You wonder how far people

will be able to go in the future next time they want to make an

impact. Do you not think the pendulum will swing back too, I get

that feeling with fiction and novels. I think so, in your books a

lot of the violence happens offstage and done very subtly. I think people

will try to become more ingenious in their use of violence and they won't

just have all guts strewn everywhere. I think the lovely crime

writer Bob Barnard said more than one murder in a novel was rather

vulgar. At the time trees, the -- Tetris,

the game familiar to everyone under the age of 60, if you are over 60,

you might learn something. It is a game developed in Russia and

celebrating its 30th anniversary this week. That is the equivalent of

two entire geological eras in the world of computing. Yet the game is

still available and hugely popular on mobile phones and other devices.

Even David Grossman hasn't been cool that long, he hasn't been off his

chopper bike that long. He has this report. It has been rep Tate cathed

on keyboards. On guitars. -- replicated on key boards, and

whatever this is. But the original eight bit Tetris version is the

Madingley catchy -- Madingley catchy like the game. I have been playing

for 25 years and I love it still, I feel really relaxed when I play it.

I'm passionate about it, it is a fantastic experience for me. So much

has changed since this game was brought out, not just the computer

graphics or the hardware, geopolitics too. Back then Russia

was considered a dangerous and expipingsist state. Oh, hang on...

The game was invented in the secret computer labs in the Moscow academy

of science, an adaptation of an old Russian shape puzzle. I played a lot

with this strange proto-type, and I can stop it myself and other people

in my room were asking what are you doing here. And then I let people

play and I realised it is not myself who is cuckoo and has something

wrong in the brain, because everybody who touched this game

couldn't stop playing either. Tetris spread via pirated floppies reaching

the US. Everyone who played it realised this was something

different, up until then video games were a scripted progression through

a fine night number of -- finite number of levels, and boring. Tetris

was different from the start because every time you played it was more

difficult, it was different and it was impossible to win. That is

probably the reason why Tetris has this enduring appeal. It is because

however hard you try you can't win. In the late 80s the superpowers of

the gaming world started a Cold War-style battle for the rights to

Tetris. They descended on Moscow, Atari versus Nintendo. Nintendo made

a video of the trip to Moscow in search of the elusive rights. Take a

look outside, this is Moscow. Watching a video of Hawaii, because

the TV doesn't work. The radio doesn't work. I have read everything

I could read. He was negotiating with the Soviet Ministry of

Software, who, he says, were pretty much clueless, he walked away with

the hand held and console rights. To them it was more money than they had

ever seen. For me it was more money than I had ever seen, we were happy

campers. Could you put a figure on how much it was worth to you? At the

end of the day, gosh, I would have to calculate, 35 million copies, it

would have been multiple millions of dollars. And the game still appeals,

now shrink wrapped in the smooth cellophane of nostalgia. There is

demand for the original versions on the originalens machines. It is the

impolicity, that modern games are very absorbing and time-consuming,

but something like Tetris you can pick up and play for ten minutes or

hours, it is an addictive game. In Tetris the World Service you up all

this random chaos and it is your job to put it in order and make sense of

it and make it neat. But time, there isn't enough time. Your successes

are brief, they soon disappear, all that's left is a big pile of failure

of dashed intentions of incomplete dreams until... You die. The Tetris

world is pretty bleak. There are 337 days left to the date

of the next election. Tomorrow we shall discover what the Government

plans to spend them doing. Famously much of the time with Government is

spent dealing with events they didn't foresee but the Queen's

Speech to parliament tomorrow will tell us what the coalition

Government would like to be doing with whatever time they have left in

Government. The newspapers have had plenty of suggestions, some of them

dressed up as impecably authoritative leaks. We have some

ideas about what might really happen. What will happen? The first

thing is it will be short, ten minutes, it will alling over by 11.

45, as one observer put it unless Her Majesty does a Jean Carlos on us

it will be forgotten by six. It is 11 bills, technical ways of

implementing what we have heard. The pensions reform, we have heard a lot

about the Dutch-style collective and the fund for that. We know there

will be help for landlords, that rather excruciating scene between

Clegg and Cable today setting out that. We know there will be an end

to resolving day pay-offs, where senior civil servants get a

redundancy pay off and come back in. And companies won't be allowed to

drill without asking owners' permission, this is the fracking

stuff. In terms of the mood it is difficult to set out all the

legislation so quickly after what you call mid-terms, the European

elections and the local elections, my reading of this is there will not

be a lot of red meat thrown to the Tory backbenchers, there won't be an

EU referendum bill or big moves on immigration curbs, or an Immigration

Bill, and perhaps a way of saying the Government is confident with the

results they have just seen. Is there likely to be anything really

contentious? The most controversial thing is the recall bill, a measure

by which constituents have the power to throw out their MP if there has

been serious wrongdoing. Now there was a lot of toing and freeing on

this, after the expenses scandal people wanted to put this mechanism

in. People got cold feet in the first draft the Government thought

they would end up with a lot of Newarks on their hands, they tried

to remove it, now it is back in and in, in a very loose woolly way, the

wording will be "my Government is committed to continue the programme

of reform with legislation for the recall of MPs... " there are many

who fear the bill in the current form won't have any teeth. I know

Zach Goldsmith behind this from the start will be looking very closely

at what is said and what is not said about recall. If all that ends up

being is a system whereby it goes to another part of parliament, the

Standards Committee for example, to decide on when there should be a

by-election or when somebody should be removed from office then he will

table an early day motion and take it to the Labour benches and say we

need help because the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats have failed to

get it through. Thank you. Tomorrow morning's front pages or some of

them: That's it for today. We say good

night with pictures from a town in Argentina that was flooded beneath

10ms of salt warter in 1985 but then reappeared 25 years later. The

director has made a film about Danny McAskall's cycle through the ruinsa

film about Danny McAskall's cycle through the ruins.

Good evening, warm and humid weather heading our way for the end of the

week, breaking down into thundery showers. No warmth around, spreading

into central and eastern Scotland through the afternoon. But Northern

Ireland is escaping most of the rain, largely dry here. The western

fringes of Scotland doing OK, but central and eastern Scotland, the

rain sets in through the afternoon. Here temperatures of only 12 degrees

moving down into northern England through the Midlands and the

persistence of the rain means the temperatures could struggle in

Birmingham and Oxford to get any higher than 11 degrees. That will

feel like we have slipped back a couple of months. The rain on and

off for much of the day here. Heading further west Devon and

Cornwall getting dryer and brighter through the afternoon. I think

across western parts of Wales the rain will begin to ease off, perhaps

some