09/06/2014 Newsnight

Closer supervision of schools and a requirement that they instill

British values. The Education Secretary is trying to appear

resolute in his response to keeping schools out of the hands of the

extremists. But the Chief Inspector of Schools says he suggested closer

supervision to Michael Gove years ago and got no

You said to the Secretary of State you wanted to make unannounced

inspections and what did he say? Yes. We had a discussion and we felt

we needed to pull back from that one. The opposition smelt blood.

They are the main stay of science fiction, places where gravity is so

strong, not even light can escape. Einstein established their basis

years ago, but suppose black holes don't exist in the way we think.

This physicist is proposing something very like that.

Also tonight... There was a spike sticking out of my head with park

keeper on the end of it. And he said what are you doing going to sleep

underneath the litter you vagrant, I said I'm not, an investigative

reporter. Rik Myall, the comic genius of the 1980s has died.

Five schools in Birmingham are being put into special measures after the

disclosure of a plot to take them over. The Education Secretary,

Michael Gove, says he will make it impossible for such a thing to ever

happen again and make sure all children are properly thought about

"British values". The leader of Birmingham City council has admitted

his own council's supervision was inadequate. The scandal has raised

huge questions about the way our children are taught and how our

schools are run. First tonight we have this report the ??FORCEDWHIT

Why are schools serving this predominantly poor Pakistani

neighbourhood in Birmingham taking over the news.

There is reports that a conspiracy of Muslim hardliners are taking over

state schools. Today the first barrage of reports from the saga

emerged from the authorities. Ofsted looked into 21 schools and the Chief

Inspector said that in some of them there was a culture of fear and

intimidation. An organised campaign to target schools to alter their

character and ethos. Examples of governors exerting inappropriate

influence in the day-to-day running of schools. And children being badly

prepared for life in modern Britain. It is probably more around a strong

conservative interpretation of faith rather than goading and encouraging

students towards violent activities. What we are more concerned about is

whether students are denied the full breadth of the curriculum and

entitlement in normal state British funded schools. The so called Trojan

Horse letter", the document that sparked all of this, is widely

considered now to be a hoax. But the inspectors did find evidence that a

small clique of hardline Muslims were having an undue influence on

some schools. The worst allegations relate to four schools, all in

special measures. Inspectors found examples of pupils being taught that

they shouldn't believe in evolution. They found one example of an

external speaker with very extreme views, and head teachers who got in

the way, being eased out. I am proud to be able to make sure that I meet

the cultural needs of the community. I am from the community and I know

what it is like to be someone from that background. I know from my own

experiences what I have experienced. I want the children to come to

school every day, our attendance is phenomenal, parents and children are

happy. I want to provide as much as I can. But equally when I say too

much is too much and no, we are not faith school i need to be listened

to. Still, among local parents at those schools there is support for

the governing bodies. Some parents are even campaigning for them. They

teach Arabic at this school, but they teach Latin at other schools,

that is not a problem for them to teach Latin, it shouldn't be a

problem if the parents want them to learn Arabic. 90% and above are

Muslim people and Muslim children, it should be right to the school

caters for the needs and requirements of the Muslim children.

Staff at one of the schools, Park View, have fought back. Despite

being an agnostic, this school closely reflects my values and the

moral purpose that brought me to teaching, as it does those my

colleagues from all faith backgrounds and none. For the

community in which you now stand, as visitors covering our story, our

school stands as a beacon of hope against isolation, poverty, drugs,

crime, and yes, potential extremism. Park View is part of the solution,

not part of the problem. There is a big policy problem, in a

neighbourhood like this, how do you construct a school system which

gives parents what they want, and makes sure that pupils don't get an

insular education. We work hard to make sure our governing bodies were

diverse, we were greatly supported by colleagues at Canary Wharf, where

he where we put many senior industrialists on our board. It

meant we had collective policies on issues like PE or school uniforms or

long-term holidays. We worked together to create these lines so

heads were able to say to whoever who was trying to change those

positions, actually, no, this is the position of all of us and we will

hold the line because it is for the good of the whole community. Labour

have noted many of the schools at the centre of the stories are

academies, that means they are regulated by the Department for

Education, not local authorities. They think this illustrates a

broader theme that this department doesn't have a handle on its

schools. That is a view that seems to be shared by Theresa May,

incidentally, in the letter that she wrote to Michael Gove last week.

These schools do also get inspected by Ofsted, but, two of the four,

Park View and one other -- Oldknow were previously rated outstanding,

it would have been years before inspectors visited again. Michael

Gove said the original inspections were wrong because the schools had

too much time to prepare. We need to strengthen our inspection regime

even further. The requirement to give notice of inspections clearly

makes it more difficult to identify and to detect the danger signs. The

Chief Inspector and I have argued in the past that no-notice inspections

can help identify when pupils are at risk. I have asked him to consider

the practicalities of moving to a situation where all schools know

they may receive an unannounced inspection. So the education

department is reviewing its own investigations and the City Council.

Ofsted is considering its methods and the Home Secretary and he

issedcation secretary have been fighting about whether Islamic

methodism is on the road to Islamic extremism. Michael Gove said today

he would make sure this sort of thing didn't happen again by making

it possible for inspectors to pounce on schools with no warning. This

apparently is a sign of his determination. When I went to see

the Chief Inspector of schools earlier this evening, he painted a

rather different picture. He started by telling me he stood by Ofsted's

now much debated 2012 inspection of Park View School.

I visited that school in my first few months at Ofsted. I visited Park

View, I met with the headteacher there, it was an outstanding school

because she was an outstanding leader. She has been undermined by

the governors of that school who haven't understood their role. The

job of governors is to set the strategic direction and to hold the

headteacher to account. That is their job. And she told me, when I

visited Birmingham, that she had been steadily undermined. She didn't

want the sort of things that were happening in that school, and in

other schools in Birmingham. She didn't want somebody with known

extremist views to attend the assemblies. She didn't want a mat

drays is a to be introduced into the personal, social education

programme. She didn't want all those things. She had been steadily

undermined to the point where the governors now are controlling that

school on a day-to-day basis. That reveals something wrong with the

system, any parent thinking about where their child should go to the

school will look at the latest Ofsted report and says it is

outstanding, they can't believe it could go so wrong so quickly? Where

there is great turbulence in staffing and in terms of leadership,

things can go badly wrong. The lessons of this situation in

Birmingham is that you need to keep a really careful eye on schools,

between inspections. Here you are, you work for central Government. You

come in and there is nothing between you and the school, there ought to

be someone looking at it every week shouldn't there? That is the job of

the local authority, for those schools that are controlled by the

local authority, and that's the job of the Department of Education, and

the Education Funding Agency for academies and free schools. Do you

say that the system for overseeing academies, for example, is

inadequate? I'm saying it needs to be tightened up, and there needs to

be a role for Ofsted to look at these schools in much greater depth

and more regularly. I'm pleased with the Secretary of State's

announcement today about unannounced inspection. It was something I

called for two years ago when I first joined. I suspect we won't go

for all schools to receive that. Why haven't you been doing that? I

called for it and it has been rolled back. We need to do it now for some

schools. It is after the event now? We need to do it and for those

schools. You saw that two years ago and you didn't do it? That was

something I discussed with the Secretary of State and we pulled

back. You said to the Secretary of State you wanted to make unannounced

inspections? Yes I did. Has the Secretary of State changed his mind?

I think he has. Because when you put it to him beforer he said what? He

said we need to look at this and listen to what head teachers are

saying about needing to be in the school, prior to an inspection, so

they can have a preliminary dialogue with the inspectors about how the

inspection should be conducted. So we pulled back on that, so they have

now just a few hours. On his say so? Yes. He told you no we are not going

to do that? We had a robust discussion about it, and I'm really

pleased that minds have been changed. That he has come to see

your point of view? I hope so. How do you keep extremists out of the

position of Governor of A school? At the moment anyone can be appointed

as governors, there is no mandatory training for governors, that is

something we have called for in my report. We need to think carefully

about who is appointed and once we do appoint them make sure there are

checks on them and make sure they are trained in what they have to do.

Does the Secretary of State agree with you? Yes. Has he acted upon it?

I hope he will do. You hope he will? He has executive power, he's the

Secretary of State. Do you think that we need to pay any closer

attention to the sort of things that are taught on the curriculum in some

of these academies? My view is there should be much more regulation on

what is caught in schools. It is wrong, for example, that children at

key stage III, that is between 11-1 shouldn't have music -- 11-14,

shouldn't have drama, art, music or the creative arts, that is wrong.

Yet it is possible for governors to say we will get rid that have and

music because it doesn't accord with our beliefs. I'm on the spectrum

which says at the end of the spectrum that says there needs to be

more prescription. Chris Cook is with us here, how significant is

what was said there? It is very significant for three big reasons.

The first is there he seemed to be suggesting that he had said to

Michael Gove that he had wanted no-notice inspections some years

ago. That puts Michael Gove, if he had refused that request on the side

of the unions, which I think is a first ever on any education

discussion! The second thing is he suggested that academies needed to

have an obligation to offer a broader curriculum at the moment.

That again is significant. That is not something we have heard about.

Thirdly, he's also worried about what is known in the jargon as the

"middle tier", do we have people looking after schools. This is a

major flash point between the Conservative Party and Labour

particularly. The education second, the shadow Education Secretary, only

a question of time perhaps, the Shadow Education Secretary is here.

Do you support the principle of unannounced visits? That is

absolutely fine. You are in favour of them? That can play a part. What

we in the Labour Party are more interested in is getting in there

earlier than that. That is why, as Chris said, we want a middle tier,

we want a local director of accountability and standards

operating in a city like Birmingham, operating across local authorities

to make sure we are addressing under performance, rather than waiting for

it to wind its way up to a desk in Whitehall. What Birmingham shown is

the coalition's model of schooling is not working. This is a seismic

and important moment when we think about English schooling. Academies

are your invention? The sponsored academy was a great Labour

innovation, but we were clear that they should operate in a partnership

with other schools, to be part of a collaborative network of schools.

What we did in Government was the London Challenge, which raised

standards across the capital, academies, maintained, control,

voluntary aided all work together, rather than the isolated schools we

have at the moment. Can you explain why it is your predesets or --

predecessor Stephen Twigg said he sought the freedom academies have

for all schools? We know autonomy works within a network of

interrelationships within a school. Giving heads' hours is absolutely

radio -- powers is absolutely right. But in partnership. I agree with Sir

Michael Willshaw, Ofsted inspectors should have the right to look at the

teaching of the curriculum. If they are not teaching a broad and

balanced curriculum they should not get an outstanding. Some of the

schools in Birmingham were narrowing the curriculum and getting rid of

music. But why were they given an outstanding rating? They wouldn't

get an outstanding rating if they were not teach ago broad and

balanced curriculum. I think the important point was about heads,

strong heads rather than an overpouring governing body. What

about the British values that Michael Gove was talking about, do

you support that? I am in support of that but I'm not sure if Michael

Gove would know what that was if it bit him on the bum. It regards

Blackadder as unpatriotic and takes books out of prison and To Kill A

Mockingbird out of the curriculum. Do you want schools to instill

British values? I want schools to instill values of inquiry, and those

are in periods of history British values. We want them to teach

democracy and the rule of law and peculiarism, but what I'm really

interested in is getting young people in Birmingham career and

college ready so when they come out of these schools they will lead

successful and prosperous lives in a multicultural city like Birmingham.

British values absolutely part of that. That is why citizenship,

history, that should be part of a broad and balanced curriculum. Thank

you very much. It so often seems an inevitable part of war, but if

gathering in London has its way, rape and other sexual violence will

no longer be an effect of war to be mentioned alongside bombs and

artillery fire. The Foreign Office is holding a four-day meeting as a

culmination of a two year operation to get the issue taken more

seriously. It is much more easier said than done. A case study first,

south Sudan has only been a country for three years, yet in that time

suffered terrible violence, both Government and rebel forces are

accused of sexual violence. We travelled from Unity State and the

state capital into the remote Ler area and then into south Sudan's

capital, Juba. Conflict has made this woman a refugee in her own

land. Beneath the surface we find another sinister threat, rape en

massive scale, not seen here before. In the world's newest state, in the

grips of a military rebellion, women here are being sexually abused,

singled out because of their tribe. Tens of thousands are in UN camps.

Two ethnic groups now pitted against each other. ??FORCEDYELL Jane has

broken a taboo by speaking of sexual assault. She cowered in the grass

clutching her nine-year-old school as her sister-in-law was gang raped

and then shot dead right in front of her. I was helpless. Both of them

raped her, four of them all raped her, they are finishing and the

other one into her. She was scream anything a loud voice, she screamed

slowly and slowly until we lost her voice and was not able to scream

again. They were arguing, the other one is saying let's finer her, the

other one saying let's kill her, and the other one saying she is already

gone. The other one released three bullets on her chest, she died on

the spot. 31 women were allegedly raped there on that day. It happened

in the town of Bentau in the north. Now it is deserted except for

Government soldiers, they are backed by militia from Darfur who are

blamed, but all sides are accused of sexual violence in south Sudan.

We're going to a local radio station sexual violence in south Sudan.

bald BentauFM, until recently in opposition hands. There is clear

evidence that one rebel commander used the airways to incite young men

to come and join them and to commit rape. We meet the director in

charge, when the rebels burst in he was forced to hand over controls. We

have obtained leaked testimonies that reveal that the rebels Claired

on air that the rebels had raped women and they were pregnant with

the babies. They called at young men to meet in the barracks to go to

Dinka sites and rape women. A helicopter takes us further goes to

Leer, one of the hard to reach areas, only now people emerging from

hiding still in rebel hands. Here we discover women more prepared to show

their faces, safety in numbers, despite the stigma. They are the

prey of war. TRANSLATION: They cut off the little boys testicle, until

they bled to death in front of us, when they were sure the children

were dead, they divided us up into groups and took us under the tree,

there they stole all of our money, and then they raped us. Just how

many women have been raped in south Sudan is not clear. 24,000 are at

risk, claim UN officials, and the cases we have uncovered are just the

tip of the iceberg. At the hospital here you get a sense of the

brutality of the past few months. This is the surgical department. Run

by the charity Medecins Sans Frontieres, the place has been

utterly destroyed. As you can see we have lost everything. Only bats

remain. Here in the capital Juba peacekeepers are stretched, with

every new wave of violence the camp swells and we don't have to go very

far to find more evidence of sexual attacks. Emily here was bitten,

beaten and gang raped in what appears to be an ethically targeted

operation. Emily tell me what happened at each of these three

trees? TRANSLATION: At the first three we were ambushed by armed men

hiding in the undergrowth. They stopped us and ordered us to put

down our bags. Then they took us to the second tree where they searched

us. They groped us, reaching into our bras, where we keep our money.

Along with our mobile phones. Then they led us to the third tree where

they raped us. From this watch tower here you can see in the distance the

cluster of trees where the gang rape allegedly took place. We have

discovered at least seven other women who claim they were sexually

assaulted in exactly the same spot, on the periphery of the camp, right

under the noses of UN peacekeepers. Under a revised UN mandate,

protecting civilians is now the top priority, are they letting women

down? There have been incidents that have happened right outside our

gates and we have had to make horrible choices. I will never have

enough resources and ultimately we must remember this is not the

international communities' problem to fix, this is the south Sudanese

problem to fix. They have to reconcile and come together and

build their country and make sure the population, whoever it is, is

safe. There are very real fears that women could be denied justice for

the sake of peace. The authorities say they will act on evidence. In

order to resolve this problem in a modern and civilised way and to go

to the modern court someone has to come out of the silence. And they

have to put their case and we are letting them know we will

understand. Sex is a weapon of war and deemed a crime against humanity.

But with more than a million people here trapped in the cares of

conflict, securing the means to survive is likely to Dom -- dominate

for some time to come. My guests are with me, one who survived an attack

by a so called death squad. And we have an activist who survived a

sexual assault in Tahrir Square in Cairo. You are both victims of

sexual assault, how much hope do you attach to this conference? Well,

we're here in great number. The Noble Women's Initiative, which I

chair, there are six women who have received the prize and work with

women's organisations around the world working for sustainable peace.

We took the lead in creating an international campaign to stop rape

and gender violence in war. The point is to bring Non-Governmental

Organisations together round the world and press Governments to do

what they should do any way. What you are hoping to do is to make

something, sexual violence a recognisably different category of

offence in an environment in which killing other people is the way it

happens, that is what happens in war? Well it is true but that is

different from rape because the victim of rape has to live and

assume responsibility towards society, towards kids, towards the

economy of the country. This is almost impossible with the stigma

and the reprecussions of such attacks. Part of the problem is what

happens in every society in the world when a woman is raped or

sexually assaulted. The immediate focus is on what did she do?

sexually assaulted. The immediate dressed like a tramp? Instead of

where it should be, on the perpetrator. The person who raped

the woman is the person we should be looking at, not the woman who was

raped. Part of what we want to see happen at this ministerial level

conference is states taking concrete actions for prevention, protection

and prosecution. Because a raped woman as we have seen in South

Sudan, may I just finish. Go on. Thank you, a raped woman is not just

a raped woman, it affects her family, if you rape enough woman in

a village you destroy the social fabric of that village. Isn't there

a problem here, of course it is a noble objective, but when you look

at that report from South Sudan here, the men who conducted those

rapes are not at this conference, here, the men who conducted those

it at all? But maybe the ones who are responsible for giving orders

for these men to hear, maybe the system would allow fair trials they

will have to be part of it. I think part of the problem though is

thinking it only happens over there. Over there we're going to help those

poor women over there who are raped in conflict. I'm sorry the

secretary-general's report I think in 2011 on sexual violence, one out

of every three women in the world will at some point in their life

suffer rape or sexual assault. So hello, we have to put this in a

continuum. And in my military, in the United States of America, rape

and sexual violence is rampant. And it is only recently that it is being

addressed properly in my country. So trying to pretend it is only them

over there is a bit ludicrous. I was not trying to suggest it was only

women somewhere else, merely that those people responsible for it are

not at the conference? Well that's not exactly true, because the

militaries in those countries engage in rape as well. It is not just the

rebel forces. And hopefully the Governments who come here will

outline a plan of action by which they begin to address these

problems. And we're here to state what we think should happen and

we're here to tell them that we will not turn away and listen to

beautiful words if they are not turned into action because beautiful

words are irrelevant. Are you optimistic that there will be any

kind of initiative as a consequence to this? I'm very optimistic,

because I think that the sheer fact that we have this summit means that

those countries, 150 countries, participating do acknowledge that

there is a problem. This is just one great step ahead. Because many

Governments for years haven't acknowledged those attacks do take

place. I think that also the fact that it puts the Governments, the

Government representatives together with the NGOs, this will create

dialogue that definitely would have a very positive outcome. Thank you

both very much indeed. Now regular viewers will of course be familiar

with this, the formula for the Becenstein Authropy for the black

hole. The existence, though defies the laws of if Is sicks was first

surmised centuries ago. Suppose black holes didn't exist, that is

the potential thinking of a University of Cambridge physicist,

imagine it, no region of space time for which gravity prevents anything

escaping. We will discuss that with her in a minute.

Black holes are some of the strangest and most mysterious

objects in the universe. The theory is they are born from the death

throess of massive stars that explode and collapse. In less than a

second every last bit of matter is crushed down to almost nothing. But

despite being tiny these incredibly dense objects exert a massive

gravitational pull. Like a swimmer trying to escape a waterfall, there

is an invisible line where the water rushes down faster than you can

swim, a point of no return, known as the "event horizon". But in black

hole it is not water that is flowing in, it is space itself. And nothing

can travel fast enough to escape it, not even light. That is why black

holes are completely invisible. Einstein predicted the existence of

these cosmic oddities in his theory of relativity in 1916. Even though

they can't be seen, most scientists are certain they exist. They have

seen stars being literally ripped apart as they spiral into blackness.

But black holes aren't just weird, they are an embarrassment. Because

at the bottom lies something that no physicist can explain, a point of

infinite density and gravity. physicist can explain, a point of

singularity. This is where everything that falls into the black

hole ends up, crushed out of existence, gone forever. But

according to the laws of physics, that is just not possible, stuff

can't just disappear. In the 1970s Steven hawking came up with an idea,

some material could leak out, it is called Hawking radiation, it has

never been detected, and how could this come out when everything else

gets sucked in. These are the issues keeping physicists up at night.

Decades of hard thinking from the finest minds have yet to solve the

paradox. Some are thinking the unthinkable, maybe block holes don't

forget. The author of the paper of the University of North Carolina of

Cambridge is here, also with us is a reader and theoretical physics in

Imperial College London. What effect did it have upon you to realise you

may have disproved such a commonly held conviction about the nature of

the universe? It was very nerve racking of course, although not a

surprise. The history of black holes versus no black holes goes back to

at least as far as Eddington in the 1930s. In 1935 he had this argument

with a scientist about to show there are black holes, that very massive

stars collapse under their own gravity into one point in the

centre. That story goes back to later on it goes back to Oppenheimer

and Willer, and the singularity theorem, and here we are now. What

are the implications of your conviction? I would think if this

result holds and the calculation was done under a series of arocks makes,

so -- productsations -- approxima tickets ons, and if it turns out

there are no event horizons or massive stars, there is a place

where quantum mechanics is as important as the Einstein's theory

of gravity. What do you think of the implications of this calculation?

The impoliticcations f it turns out to be confirmed, would be very

dramatic, it would be a real surprise. It would be a revolution

wouldn't it? It would be a revolution in terms of people who

think about black holes, certainly. It would be very revolutionary, one

of the reasons is that one of the cherished views we have is when

black hole forms we don't need to understand quantum mechanics to

understand how the event horizon develops. That is the surface out of

which you can never escape. So we, up to this point, were fairly

convinced that standard Einstein's classical theory, ignoring quantum

mechanics works there. We understand if you went inside the block hole at

mechanics works there. We understand some point, you have to worry about

mechanics works there. We understand quantum mechanics with singularity.

Where as Laura's paper claims otherwise. You don't believe it do

you? I have not had enough to study it, it was in my e-mail this

morning, and it is a technical work and I would need to go through the

calculations in detail. It is absolutely surprising, given results

in the past, but we are all hoping for a surprise. Are you worried it

may not be proved by others? I am worried that once I and the

collaborator in Cambridge have dropped the assumptions that were

made in this first part of the work that we will challenge ourselves.

But having spent the last five months working intensively and

focussed on this problem alone, I do think that the results will hold up.

How much do you think this sort of discovery, this sort

How much do you think this sort of black hole, I mean no-one has

actually seen a black hole, black hole, I mean no-one has

they? No-one has fallen into one that we know of. But to say people

haven't seen a black hole is probably wrong. By very definition

of a black hole light can't escape from it. So you will never see a

black hole directly. But there have been many indirect observations of

black holes. But we are at the limits here of human ambition and

human capacity, aren't we? I would say to understand astro physical

black holes in our universe we are not at all at the limits.

Observations in the last few decades have made remarkable progress. We

now know at the centre of our Milky Way is a black hole a few million

times the mass of our sun. We are pretty certain about that fact. What

happens when you fall in and quantum mechanics becomes an issue is more

complicated. But the exist of the objects... I should probably clarify

what you mean, usually we associate the black holes with the existence

of a singularity at the centre known in could lobingism as the "edge of

space time itself", that translates into it is so exotic we don't

understand what happens at that point. We are at the limit? The

second feature associated with black holes versus massive stars is

something known as an event horizon. Which is a sort of boundary, not

physical, but a point, a location in the space outside the black hole

where not even light can escape. So whenever an object has a singularity

at the centre and an event horizon outside we call that a black hole.

What my work has shown is once you include Hawking radiation in the

interior of the star collapsing into a black hole, and that is the key

point, Hawking Radiation is produced by the collapsing star, the one

about to collapse into a back hole, once you include that radiation in

the interior of that star, that star will never reach zero size and claps

all the way to singularity. It will still be a massive star, the same

mass that the black hole would have had, it will have the same

gravitational forces that we normally associate with indirect

observations of black holes, but it won't have an event hor rise on or

singularity. Rather exciting isn't it? Very exciting.

The hugely popular comedian Rik Mayall was found dead at his home

today. There was there were no suspicion circumstances, he just

died, "selfish bastards" said Ade Edmundson of his friend. This seemed

to be man that expressed an entire period of British history. Flash by

name, Flash by nature. Where have you been? Where haven't I been?

Would have. With timing second to none Rik Mayall burst own to our TV

screens, everyone has a favourite character, Lord Flashheart may be

yours. Thanks bridesmaid, like the beard. Gives me something to hang on

to! But part of his comedy genius was he created so much and so many

characters. Most of my work is based in Redditch, sometimes the library.

Kevin Turvey was an early creation, the roving reporter from Redditch

that lived with his mum and investigated very little. Fish that

are like cod, whales, that is the fish not the place. A spokesman for

Britain's youth now. But it was this obnoxious anarchist that British

youth audiences took to their hearts. My name is Rik. You put that

back, that is my personal property. You just said all property is dead.

It is. So I'm nicking it. Stop, thief, thief. His collaboration with

Ade Edmundson who he met at university changed a generation.

They were part of a generation who took on the establishment, known as

alternative comedy. Rik is a banker, signed the rest of the club. No that

was an in-joke we had in my form. They were prepared to take on the

establishment and be riotous in the way they performed their comedy, to

be very, very bold. In the 80s there was perhaps less difference --

deference then, and it divided people, it was not a defer relation

show. Their famous appearance on university challenge too. Who has

been tampering with my question cards. It was me, it was me. All the

anarchy you saw was always very well prepared, with the sort of anarchy

that takes six months right. There was a lovely moment where he wanted

me to take my teeth out as Thatcher and I said I think I can make my

mouth looks a if it hadn't got any teeth in, because I could do my

grandmother. I said Mrs Thatcher would end up talking like that, he

loved it and asked to put more in. I want to be true to the spirit of

Thatcherism. All you care about is number one. I thought that is what

it is all about. Of course it is. He had great eyes for a comedian. When

he was doing Kevin, where he sat on the chair and stared straight into

the camera, he was like Ronnie cosh bet on as -- Corbett on acid. You

could see into his head. You could see the electrical thunderstorm

going off in his head. And that would come straight down the camera

and very few comedians have been able to do that strike. That is why

he was so brilliant on Jackanory. I'm going shopping in the village

George's mother said on a Saturday morning, be a good boy and don't get

up to mischief. Rik Mayall was found dead at his home this lunchtime, he

was just 56. The Times columnist and devoted man Caitlin Moran is here.

What was the appeal? I started watching him at ten. What I

connected to was he was incredibly childlike f you look at everything

he is doing, it is the state of hyperenergy and unself-consciousness

that you have when you are a kid, you are screaming in a room and

shouting rude words, you are in love with a rude word, and there is

nothing funnier or more clever than using that. He still had that at 30

and ho. It is that thing -- and 40. It is that thing I'm alive, I have a

face and can say the word "poo". He's billed as an alternative

comedian, alternative to what? There was an amazing intelligence there.

There is a saying about how comedy is what you have when you have

intelligence left to burn. Obviously we know him for silly faces and

saying "poo" a lot. Things like ottom was based on Waiting

saying "poo" a lot. Things like Godot. They had done it in theatre,

they said what if we do a version that is ruder and sillier and

funnier. He was constantly on that is ruder and sillier and

One of the greatest cameos in a sitcom is his Lord Flashheart in

Blackadder. He bursts through the doors. In the run through he didn't

do it, he walked through all of his blocking. When he went for the take

he explodes through the doors. You watch the cast, Miranda Richardson,

Steven Fry and others, they don't know what hit them. They are like

what is going on here. If you ask people about Blackadder, people

think he was one of the main characters. But he was in the series

for less than five minutes, but made such an impact. There was an

interesting conversation on Facebook about how different he was to most

British comedians, he does a thing a lot of American comedians do, people

like Jack Black, you come in the room and own it. What are you going

to do, let as play, English characters are characterful and

playing with words, he could do that as well, he came in and owned the

room like a rock star. That time that he appeared in that school of

comedy, the 1980s, this is, you know, it was a

comedy, the 1980s, this is, you otherwise? He was great for that. In

the Young Ones, it otherwise? He was great for that. In

now, and I speak as someone who likes to be funny but likes to write

about politics, it is very difficult to write about politics and try to

be honest and passionate about it without sounding like Rik did in the

Young One, "down with Thatcher's junta", that great childlike, I have

great dungries. When I watch people talking about young people talking

about politics, I think you need to watch The Young Ones. The naivity he

had as well, alternative comedy at that time, people would say what is

theth the alternative to, it was the childlike and teenage view of the

world we hadn't had before. He was perpetually as stoppished by the --

astonished by the world. I never saw anyone who enjoyed having a face

more than him. He was beautiful in repose, but he was egoless about it,

gurning and posing and throwing himself on the floor. He always had

five more muscles in his face. It was young people speaking to young

people? I have watched a lot of celebrity deaths on Twitter, Amy

Winehouse, and Elizabeth tailor, I have never seen -- Taylor. I have

never seen more love outpouring. They loved him from Bottom,

Jackanory, which he was amazing in, Drop Dead Fred, it was we watched

him as kids and saw someone like you on television, that is COMPLEEKT

what you would do is smash a television over someone's head and

say the word "poo", and gurn as much as possible and eggs ployed. --

explode. Who are his heirs? It is difficult, in terms of charisma,

watch someone... It is very difficult. The childlike quality

that Eddie Izzard brings to stuff and that rock 'n' roll thing. I

don't know, it is odd, his career was cut short, we thought he would

be a Hollywood star after Drop Dead Fred and it all stopped there. That

is why people took it personally when they heard he died, he was

still a British secret. Americans don't know who he is. There is an

amazing warmth towards him? Yes. Again, if you are a kid watching

that, it was one of the programmes you weren't allowed to watch scat

young Ones or Bottom, you sneak up and watch it and this is your secret

and you feel a kindred spirit watching it. For me he was a massive

role model as a wonky young girl, talking them about being complete

outsiders and loners and loving each other, I thought that is a role

model in the way that girls on Sweet Valley High and Dynasty are not.

Thank you. That is all we have time for tonight, there is lots more on

tomorrow. Good night.