23/09/2016 Newsnight


23/09/2016

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What's to become of a cycling superhero?

:00:00.:00:00.

Since the hacking of his medical records, Sir Bradley Wiggins has

:00:07.:00:09.

been mired in questions over his use of a powerful steroid before

:00:10.:00:12.

Tonight his former team doctor tells Newsnight he was "surprised"

:00:13.:00:17.

I would say now, certainly in retrospect, it doesn't look good,

:00:18.:00:24.

From a health or sporting perspective.

:00:25.:00:29.

We hear from a doctor at the hospital attacked today

:00:30.:00:36.

where two weeks ago we watched an operation guided

:00:37.:00:38.

I'll be talking to the surgeon who directed that operation

:00:39.:00:42.

It's 99% sure it's going to be Jeremy Corbyn's big day tomorrow.

:00:43.:00:47.

But can the rebels and the Corbynistas learn to live together?

:00:48.:00:52.

The Labour Party unites behind whoever wins,

:00:53.:00:54.

I hope and believe it will be Jeremy Corbyn.

:00:55.:00:57.

I do not approve of a decent 66-year-old man being mugged

:00:58.:01:00.

in broad daylight in cold blood by people who do not see

:01:01.:01:04.

A former team doctor of the cyclist Sir Bradley Wiggins has questioned

:01:05.:01:21.

the decision to allow him to inject banned steroids ahead

:01:22.:01:23.

Prentice Steffen, the doctor at Sir Bradley's former

:01:24.:01:29.

team Garmin Slipstream, has weighed into the debate

:01:30.:01:32.

over his former rider's use of a powerful corticosteroid.

:01:33.:01:40.

Many believe it has potent performance enhancing benefits.

:01:41.:01:42.

Sir Bradley, who is Britain's most decorated Olympian,

:01:43.:01:44.

was given permission by cycling authorities to inject the drug ahead

:01:45.:01:50.

of three major stage races, including the 2012 Tour de

:01:51.:01:52.

Sir Bradley and his former cycling Team Sky have said his use

:01:53.:01:56.

of the drug was for legitimate medical reasons, and that no

:01:57.:01:59.

But the disclosure of the medical data, which was stolen and leaked

:02:00.:02:04.

by a group of suspected Russian hackers, has polarised

:02:05.:02:07.

the sport of cycling, which is has been attempting

:02:08.:02:10.

to confine its troubled history of drug-taking to the past.

:02:11.:02:12.

Team Sky launched in 2009 as the poster boy for a clean cycling.

:02:13.:02:29.

Accepting the mantle of dragging the sport out of the doping gutter. And

:02:30.:02:34.

proving the biggest races could be won without crossing the line into

:02:35.:02:39.

using banned drugs. But where that line actually lies is under more

:02:40.:02:43.

scrutiny than ever before. With the disclosures from the suspected

:02:44.:02:48.

Russian hackers over the therapeutic use exemptions for TUEs, obtain for

:02:49.:02:53.

its former star rider, Sir Bradley Wiggins. And whether these have

:02:54.:02:57.

strayed into the so-called grey area between clean and doping. From Team

:02:58.:03:05.

Sky, pro cycling... Sir Bradley Wiggins! And asthma and allergy

:03:06.:03:12.

sufferer, the stolen data revealed he was given permission to inject

:03:13.:03:17.

the banned drug triamcinolone, a powerful corticosteroid just ahead

:03:18.:03:22.

of three major races, including the 2012 edition of the Tour de France,

:03:23.:03:26.

which he won, becoming the first Briton ever to do so. The story has

:03:27.:03:33.

polarised the sport. This is, after all, stolen data containing the

:03:34.:03:38.

medal records of our greatest ever Olympian. Data which shows that

:03:39.:03:43.

neither he nor Team Sky have broken any rules, they have followed the

:03:44.:03:46.

cycling authorities' procedures to the limit. So why is this being

:03:47.:03:50.

discussed? Because there are those who believe that this was unethical.

:03:51.:03:56.

But it does not smell right. And now the figures intimate with the world

:03:57.:04:01.

of cycling and the fight against performing its enhancing drugs,

:04:02.:04:06.

including Sir Bradley Wiggins' team doctor, have told Newsnight they

:04:07.:04:11.

fear something is amiss. 2009 was his breakthrough year in road

:04:12.:04:16.

racing. Riding for the Garmin Slipstream team. Doctor Prentice

:04:17.:04:19.

Steffen cannot comment on Sir Bradley Wiggins' private records but

:04:20.:04:27.

he did say this... I was surprised to see that there were TUEs

:04:28.:04:31.

documented for intramuscular triamcinolone just before three

:04:32.:04:39.

major events, the Tour de France and the Giro D'Italia. We do think it is

:04:40.:04:44.

coincidental that a big dose of intramuscular corticosteroid would

:04:45.:04:50.

be needed at that time of year at that exact time before the most

:04:51.:04:56.

important race of the season. The rules for obtaining TUEs stipulate

:04:57.:05:01.

these conditions. The banned drug can only be used to treat an acute

:05:02.:05:05.

or chronic medical condition. That it is highly unlikely to produce any

:05:06.:05:10.

additional enhancement of performance. And that there is still

:05:11.:05:15.

reasonable therapeutic alternative. So what of the first? The

:05:16.:05:19.

interpretation of acute or chronic is subjective. But some of those who

:05:20.:05:22.

treat these conditions in athletes say this is not the course of action

:05:23.:05:28.

they would expect to see. Doctor John Dickinson has worked with more

:05:29.:05:30.

than 1000 athletes with respiratory problems. You are not being

:05:31.:05:38.

controlled with your normal inhaler, then that medication is reserved for

:05:39.:05:43.

individuals who have a very severe asthma responds and they are in need

:05:44.:05:47.

of emergency care, which would suggest that particular individual

:05:48.:05:49.

is maybe not fit and well to compete in any league road race at that

:05:50.:05:54.

point. So what of the second condition, that the TUE must be

:05:55.:05:58.

highly unlikely to produce any additional enhancement of

:05:59.:06:02.

performance? Some experts say cortical strides don't but others,

:06:03.:06:06.

including former pro cyclists, insist they do. I have come to

:06:07.:06:09.

Denmark to meet one man who should know. Michael had been just four

:06:10.:06:17.

stages away from winning the Tour de France in 2007 when he was thrown

:06:18.:06:21.

out of the race for avoiding doping controls. He later blew the whistle

:06:22.:06:25.

on his own doping and the culture within the sport at that time. Is

:06:26.:06:32.

there any doubt in your mind that corticosteroids are put into

:06:33.:06:36.

performance enhancing drug? There is no doubt. There are very strong.

:06:37.:06:44.

Banned performance enhancing. What sort of benefits would

:06:45.:06:52.

corticosteroids give the rider? Well, Edward postpone the sensation

:06:53.:07:00.

of fatigue, increased recovery speed and most importantly, quite easily,

:07:01.:07:10.

I would maybe drop one or none two kilos, which is maybe a problem when

:07:11.:07:14.

you want to climb mountains fast. It would help you burn fat? Yes, it

:07:15.:07:21.

would strip the body of excess fat in quite a short period of time. And

:07:22.:07:27.

you have watched this happening to your body? Yes, it is very fast and

:07:28.:07:31.

very effective in that sense. So what of this depletion that they

:07:32.:07:36.

should be no reasonable therapeutic alternative? For severe asthma and

:07:37.:07:39.

allergy attacks, the people we spoke to agreed that triamcinolone will

:07:40.:07:45.

certainly do the job. But that does not make it necessarily the right

:07:46.:07:49.

drug for the job. I have never myself been involved with another

:07:50.:07:54.

late who is going that far in terms of treatment for an asthmatic

:07:55.:07:58.

condition, we really concentrate on working on athletes to make sure

:07:59.:08:01.

that when we know they are asthmatic we make sure they're on the ultimate

:08:02.:08:06.

inhaler therapy so they never need to go to that level, to go above or

:08:07.:08:13.

into the TUE area. Had Bradley Wiggins needed triamcinolone when

:08:14.:08:16.

with his former team, he would have been deemed to sick to race, in

:08:17.:08:24.

which he finished fourth. Garman and the rest of the peloton formed a

:08:25.:08:29.

group called the movement for credible cycling, whose members were

:08:30.:08:32.

bound by strict rules around racing on corticosteroids, Team Sky never

:08:33.:08:40.

joined. I was never there to see what Bradley's condition was. But

:08:41.:08:46.

many of us would say that if you are in bad shape to need medically to

:08:47.:08:52.

resort to high-powered corticosteroids, you should not be

:08:53.:08:57.

racing at all and that is the position of the MPC see. Only Sir

:08:58.:09:03.

Bradley Wiggins and the Team Sky doctors know the full details of his

:09:04.:09:08.

medical condition. What we do know is he had a TUE from standard

:09:09.:09:12.

inhaler in 2009 which would no longer need an exemption. And it was

:09:13.:09:17.

in that year that Bradley Wiggins made his breakthrough, finishing

:09:18.:09:20.

fourth in the tour of France. Without any corticosteroid TUE.

:09:21.:09:25.

According to the TUE form in 2011 and nasal endoscopy was performed

:09:26.:09:31.

with Team Sky Doctor suggesting a more serious intervention was

:09:32.:09:34.

required to treat Sir Bradley Burrowes like allergies. However, he

:09:35.:09:38.

continued to race in the years following his final TUE in 2013 in

:09:39.:09:45.

high pollen areas, albeit in a shorter and less profile race. In

:09:46.:09:50.

2012 he published a 300 page autobiography and there is no

:09:51.:09:53.

mention of asthma or allergies but he does speak about how healthy he

:09:54.:09:59.

had been in 2012, suffering only from one or two minor colds. The

:10:00.:10:06.

convicted doper, Michael Rasmus, says the pattern of Sir Bradley

:10:07.:10:09.

Burrowes Mike TUE use look similar. Just looking at the drugs and the

:10:10.:10:18.

dates of the injections, it looked very much like something that could

:10:19.:10:22.

have happened ten years ago when I was riding. If you look solely at

:10:23.:10:30.

the pattern of the TUEs of Bradley Wiggins, then you would say that

:10:31.:10:41.

this looks very suspicious. It is something that a rider would do if

:10:42.:10:45.

he wants to perform on a grand tour. Something that I would do something

:10:46.:10:52.

that I did. I would say certainly that in retrospect, it does not look

:10:53.:10:56.

good, it does not look right. From a health or sporting perspective. The

:10:57.:11:03.

process around the granting of TUEs is now under question. Each

:11:04.:11:06.

application is submitted by the team doctor and in the case of Bradley

:11:07.:11:10.

Wiggins it is understood that was Doctor Richard Freeman, now the head

:11:11.:11:14.

doctor at British cycling. The application is then supposed to be

:11:15.:11:18.

assessed by three independent medical experts, with the relevant

:11:19.:11:22.

sporting authority. In this case, the new CI, before being authorised.

:11:23.:11:28.

I would say that Bradley is probably at the bottom of the list, to be

:11:29.:11:32.

held personally responsible. I think his doctor and his team, to make the

:11:33.:11:39.

decision to apply for that TUE, is questionable and then I think, for

:11:40.:11:44.

the international cycling union or UK cycling or the World Anti-Doping

:11:45.:11:51.

Agency to sign off on that, that application, all things considered,

:11:52.:11:58.

I think really bad as the end point where the TUE committee should have

:11:59.:12:02.

looked at that and said, this is not acceptable. We're not going to it.

:12:03.:12:07.

You see I told Newsnight it had a robust TUE policy. This is a story

:12:08.:12:13.

that seems to be painted in shades of grey and even then, we don't have

:12:14.:12:17.

the full picture. But at least in the eyes of one former cheat, there

:12:18.:12:21.

remains a clear line between right and wrong. Well, a lot of riders

:12:22.:12:26.

feel that they are playing by the rules. But I think that once you

:12:27.:12:35.

actually make that decision, to get the certificate for the wrong

:12:36.:12:38.

reasons, then you are crossing the line. Sir Bradley Burrowes met

:12:39.:12:45.

representatives did not respond to questions from Newsnight. But

:12:46.:12:47.

previously they said in a statement...

:12:48.:13:01.

Sir Bradley Wiggins team insist that nothing has been done that is wrong.

:13:02.:13:25.

But for some, it is a situation with echoes of cycling past that was

:13:26.:13:28.

hoped had disappeared for good. And a situation which some believe needs

:13:29.:13:31.

all the facts disclosed. And there will be an exclusive

:13:32.:13:33.

interview with Bradley Wiggins on the Andrew Marr Show

:13:34.:13:35.

on Sunday morning. Aleppo has been under

:13:36.:13:37.

intense bombardment today. More than 45 people are reported

:13:38.:13:40.

to have been killed in rebel held areas, but it's not clear

:13:41.:13:43.

whether it was from Syrian The White House said tonight that

:13:44.:13:45.

Russia's credibility is at stake. We understand that a hospital

:13:46.:13:52.

was attacked - the same hospital from where you may remember,

:13:53.:13:55.

Newsnight was able to bring you film of an operation being guided

:13:56.:13:59.

from London over Skype Today we got alarming

:14:00.:14:01.

news of the current I must warn you that his film begins

:14:02.:14:07.

with an image that some Two weeks ago this man

:14:08.:14:12.

got a new jaw, thanks In a world first, they were talked

:14:13.:14:20.

through how to do the operation by London surgeon Dr David Nott,

:14:21.:14:27.

via Skype and WhatsApp. The patient is recovering well

:14:28.:14:31.

and that is pretty amazing for a city under siege,

:14:32.:14:34.

but tonight Newsnight has learnt that the hospital is running out

:14:35.:14:36.

of food and neither doctors nor patients have

:14:37.:14:39.

eaten properly for days. So this man who was pulled

:14:40.:14:44.

through an incredibly complicated Today, the surgeon in Aleppo

:14:45.:14:47.

sent Dr Nott an update. The writing on the cluster bomb

:14:48.:14:59.

is in the Russian alphabet. We cannot verify the photo,

:15:00.:15:23.

but Human Rights Watch has identified cluster bombs being used

:15:24.:15:25.

at least ten times The Russians have consistently

:15:26.:15:27.

denied using cluster bombs. You have many of them

:15:28.:15:36.

in a larger bomb casing. These are dispersed

:15:37.:15:41.

above the target. They fall onto the target

:15:42.:15:43.

and they explode on contact. We find that these type

:15:44.:15:45.

of cluster munitions, many of them do not explode

:15:46.:15:48.

and you get remains like this, partial remains of them as you can

:15:49.:15:51.

see in these photographs. What is interesting about these,

:15:52.:15:54.

is the specific type of cluster munitions was not seen

:15:55.:15:57.

until the Russian bombing campaign in Syria started and we also have

:15:58.:16:02.

images from the Russian Ministry of Defence that show Russian jets

:16:03.:16:05.

using these cluster bombs in Syria. Back in the hospital,

:16:06.:16:12.

doctors sent these images of children being operated

:16:13.:16:14.

on to David Nott who This boy has lost right arm and this

:16:15.:16:16.

is the latest victim. Newsnight has been told that five

:16:17.:16:29.

rockets hit the area around Just two weeks ago, the doctors

:16:30.:16:31.

were breaking medical boundaries Tonight, they are hungry,

:16:32.:16:36.

under fire, under siege David Nott - the surgeon who you saw

:16:37.:16:42.

in that piece - joins us. Good evening. You are getting

:16:43.:17:02.

increasingly frantic messages today then. From this morning onwards,

:17:03.:17:08.

they sent a message to save the hospital had been bond with cluster

:17:09.:17:13.

bombs and I was asking if they were OK and there was no response with --

:17:14.:17:18.

from hours on end and then there was a response to say they were OK but

:17:19.:17:22.

they were inundated with patience and there are no beds, the beds are

:17:23.:17:29.

full, no ITU beds and they were running out of intravenous fluids to

:17:30.:17:34.

resuscitate their patients. A dire situation. These doctors are working

:17:35.:17:38.

night and day. 24 hours a day, there are only three of them now, three

:17:39.:17:44.

surgeons, very good surgeons, well-qualified, but

:17:45.:17:55.

they are there constantly. When we watched you on the Newsnight

:17:56.:17:59.

filament gauging the operation, extraordinary, in the hospital, it

:18:00.:18:01.

would be unbelievable if they had managed to keep that man alive, they

:18:02.:18:04.

had done all that and then through lack of a feeding tube... He was not

:18:05.:18:10.

able to eat and we put a tube into his stomach. Every patient that goes

:18:11.:18:16.

through trauma goes through a catabolic phase where you break

:18:17.:18:21.

down, you need protein, carbohydrates, fluid to continue the

:18:22.:18:24.

building up of the healing process and if you have not got any of those

:18:25.:18:30.

nutrients, then you are... Things will break down, your operation will

:18:31.:18:34.

break down, everything will break down. They showed me the photograph

:18:35.:18:38.

of him today and it is wonderful, but he has had no food for 24 hours

:18:39.:18:42.

and neither have the doctors. They said all they are

:18:43.:18:58.

having is super and water. We know tonight that there is no running

:18:59.:19:02.

water in Aleppo, what about the sale eyeing drips? There is no say line

:19:03.:19:04.

to resuscitate patients. If the patient comes in without any blood

:19:05.:19:06.

pressure, they need to resuscitate them with fluids and they do not

:19:07.:19:09.

have any. Apart from talking to these doctors, what is it that you

:19:10.:19:12.

are actually doing for them on so many different levels? When this

:19:13.:19:14.

operation happened, it was fantastic, it was a fantastic morale

:19:15.:19:19.

booster. They were happy, we got information that they were so happy,

:19:20.:19:23.

it went round the whole of Aleppo, everyone saw the film, they wanted

:19:24.:19:28.

more information, I started sending them books and we broke the siege by

:19:29.:19:35.

surgical aid. It was wonderful. This week has been a reversal. Do you

:19:36.:19:41.

feel about psychological impact you had, every time you speak to them,

:19:42.:19:46.

use break the siege? It is wonderful to be able to do that. I break the

:19:47.:19:52.

siege and they are happy and it is great. Do you think if the people

:19:53.:19:55.

who were making the decisions about what to do in Aleppo could see what

:19:56.:19:59.

was happening in these subterranean operating theatres, do you think

:20:00.:20:03.

there would be a different set of equations? Yes. Everyone is talking

:20:04.:20:09.

about the political aspects of Russia and America, but what is

:20:10.:20:11.

actually happening on the ground, these guys are working day and night

:20:12.:20:17.

to try and save civilian patients, children and everything else and it

:20:18.:20:21.

is a wonderful actor and if only people could see the humanitarian

:20:22.:20:25.

side, what they are doing is amazing. Thank you very much indeed.

:20:26.:20:28.

It would be a massive shock if Owen Smith were to be elected

:20:29.:20:31.

Labour leader tomorrow - but not impossible.

:20:32.:20:33.

However, it is almost certain that Jeremy Corbyn will win again,

:20:34.:20:35.

and then the battle to restore the party begins.

:20:36.:20:38.

But when one of Corbyn's main backers, the Unison boss

:20:39.:20:40.

Dave Prentis, writes in the Times today that Labour is unelectable -

:20:41.:20:43.

his exact words "Labour looks as far away from power and changing

:20:44.:20:46.

the country for the better than at any point in my lifetime",

:20:47.:20:49.

you know there is a Herculean task ahead.

:20:50.:20:51.

Here's our Political Editor Nick Watt.

:20:52.:21:03.

How will pan out,? There is widespread expectation that he will

:21:04.:21:13.

be re-elected. We will hold back from pronouncing on that until the

:21:14.:21:18.

envelope is opened. We have some idea of a meeting later on in the

:21:19.:21:22.

day and how that will go. There was a deadlock in a meeting earlier over

:21:23.:21:27.

the issue of whether Labour MPs should be entitled to elect members

:21:28.:21:31.

of the Shadow Cabinet and as I understand it, the non-Corbin forces

:21:32.:21:35.

are going to hold fire and not say a great deal and they are going to

:21:36.:21:39.

hope that Jeremy Corbyn will eventually think that in the spirit

:21:40.:21:43.

of his victory if he wins he should form a Shadow Cabinet including the

:21:44.:21:46.

likes of Yvette Cooper in the frame and

:21:47.:22:09.

to do that, he would have to allow Labour MPs to elect members to the

:22:10.:22:13.

Shadow Cabinet. Jeremy Corbyn is not expecting a great deal to happen at

:22:14.:22:16.

the NEC but here's hoping he gets a new mandate, he will be able to push

:22:17.:22:19.

gently for his idea that party members should have a say on who

:22:20.:22:22.

sits on the Shadow Cabinet. We thought we would take a look at the

:22:23.:22:25.

State of play in the party and here is my film.

:22:26.:22:25.

Until just a decade ago it bestrode the political stage.

:22:26.:22:28.

But the party which established the modern welfare

:22:29.:22:30.

As old battles are re-fought and debates turn into bitter personal

:22:31.:22:35.

For now, there is a lull in the fighting.

:22:36.:22:41.

Labour's warring factions have paused for breath as

:22:42.:22:44.

they wait to hear if Jeremy Corbyn has won.

:22:45.:22:50.

It is not since the 1930s, when the pacifist George Lansbury

:22:51.:22:53.

drew adoring crowds, that Labour has been

:22:54.:22:55.

led by such an unlikely Prime Ministerial figure.

:22:56.:23:00.

Three cheers for the international social democracy!

:23:01.:23:04.

But over two consecutive summers, Jeremy Corbyn has drawn

:23:05.:23:11.

similarly passionate crowds, prompting his admirers to say he is

:23:12.:23:13.

As the dust settles on this leadership contest,

:23:14.:23:20.

is now time to accept his authority, if he wins.

:23:21.:23:26.

I think it is going to be incredibly important that the

:23:27.:23:29.

Labour Party united behind whoever wins.

:23:30.:23:31.

I hope and believe it will be Jeremy Corbyn.

:23:32.:23:34.

decent 66-year-old man being mugged in broad

:23:35.:23:39.

daylight in cold blood by

:23:40.:23:43.

people who do not see that it is time for a change.

:23:44.:23:45.

Unity means listening on both sides but I am

:23:46.:23:48.

heartened by suggestions that people already are talking about coming

:23:49.:23:50.

There are all sorts of potential olive branches on offer.

:23:51.:23:56.

But it cannot just be a rhetorical olive branch.

:23:57.:24:01.

It has to be real, it has to be backed by action.

:24:02.:24:04.

The job of a leader is to stop bad things

:24:05.:24:07.

happening, not just to say, I am not accountable

:24:08.:24:09.

So it is about leading by example, it is about creating a culture where

:24:10.:24:17.

the leader's office and everybody around the leader and the

:24:18.:24:23.

PLP behave in a comradely way that shows we are a party of

:24:24.:24:26.

There are still deep doubts about Jeremy Corbyn among the

:24:27.:24:34.

172 Labour MPs who voted in favour of a no-confidence motion in the

:24:35.:24:38.

Leading figures are saying he would have to mend his

:24:39.:24:44.

ways before they would agree to rejoin his front bench.

:24:45.:24:48.

Well, we have got to change the approach and

:24:49.:24:51.

And that is the first task for whoever is elected leader tomorrow.

:24:52.:24:59.

I resigned from the Shadow Cabinet because not of policy differences

:25:00.:25:02.

but because of a fundamental disagreement with the sort of

:25:03.:25:06.

approach that says this is a battle, this is a war.

:25:07.:25:08.

And it must be won and dissenting voices must be silenced.

:25:09.:25:12.

I think a Shadow Cabinet can function and should function

:25:13.:25:15.

with policy disagreements, that is how you get the right answers.

:25:16.:25:18.

But a political party, a social movement,

:25:19.:25:20.

a Shadow Cabinet simply cannot survive if you refuse to hear

:25:21.:25:22.

dissenting voices and work as a team to try and resolve differences.

:25:23.:25:25.

Then it is not a Shadow Cabinet, it is

:25:26.:25:30.

One critic says there are two sides to the

:25:31.:25:34.

Like any movement it has a light side and a dark

:25:35.:25:38.

The challenge for the Labour Party is to harness that positive

:25:39.:25:45.

energy, it is fantastic that we have so many young people who have joined

:25:46.:25:49.

our party but there is a darker side of the movement.

:25:50.:25:55.

Which I think becomes more about a personality cult.

:25:56.:26:01.

While Jeremy Corbyn will be able to establish some

:26:02.:26:03.

form of front bench, his opponents are not giving up.

:26:04.:26:07.

They are fighting to ensure Corbyn supporters cannot win control

:26:08.:26:10.

It will be a battle between the heirs of Tony

:26:11.:26:16.

Benn, who wanted to increase the role of party members, and the

:26:17.:26:19.

custodians of Clause I of the Labour Party constitution.

:26:20.:26:23.

This stresses the importance of a

:26:24.:26:24.

Parliamentary Labour Party in seeking to form a government.

:26:25.:26:30.

That being a test, can we get into government?

:26:31.:26:34.

It certainly seems to have been accepted by the Jeremy

:26:35.:26:38.

Corbyn campaign this time round and that is good,

:26:39.:26:40.

Because I think it is important that we become a movement

:26:41.:26:46.

But our primary purpose is to get into government

:26:47.:26:53.

and that distinguishes us from NGOs or protest groups.

:26:54.:26:55.

One former frontbencher says voters are switched off

:26:56.:26:57.

We are stuck in an argument about how

:26:58.:27:04.

to wrest control of a machine without a real vision about what we

:27:05.:27:07.

There are real pressing debates going on in this

:27:08.:27:13.

country and at the moment, because we are locked

:27:14.:27:16.

in this internal war, Labour simply is not thinking

:27:17.:27:18.

We are not just failing to be an effective opposition, we're

:27:19.:27:21.

also failing to be an alternative to this Tory

:27:22.:27:24.

government and frankly it

:27:25.:27:25.

The public will not forgive us unless we stop arguing

:27:26.:27:29.

with each other and start to look outwards to the country.

:27:30.:27:32.

Some of Jeremy Corbyn's former comrades on

:27:33.:27:34.

the left believe the party is facing the worst crisis in its history.

:27:35.:27:42.

Jeremy, and I am sure he would be the first to concede this, is no

:27:43.:27:46.

But in addition, he never has attained, and I fear he won't,

:27:47.:27:51.

the stature of somebody who could be Prime Minister.

:27:52.:27:59.

We are facing the biggest crisis, I believe, that the party has faced,

:28:00.:28:07.

even compared with the Ramsay MacDonald defection, what was that,

:28:08.:28:13.

80 years ago or so, and the crisis that followed the 1979 defeat and

:28:14.:28:18.

the breakaway by the social Democratic party and the defection

:28:19.:28:23.

of significant numbers of Labour members and leaders. This is more

:28:24.:28:28.

serious. Corbyn's old friend Chris Mullin who has not supported his

:28:29.:28:33.

leadership believes that Corbyn has disproved the central thesis of his

:28:34.:28:39.

own landmark 1982 thriller. In a very British coup, the unseen state,

:28:40.:28:44.

ensured that a left-wing Labour leader would fail. It is not the

:28:45.:28:49.

unseen hand of the establishment that is seeking to undermine this,

:28:50.:28:52.

the establishment hardly need bother themselves because Labour is doing a

:28:53.:28:58.

pretty good job itself. The contortions in the Labour Party are

:28:59.:29:03.

even causing alarm amongst Tories. Of course, it looks at first sight

:29:04.:29:10.

as if it is to the advantage of one party if its main opponents are in

:29:11.:29:14.

the state of some disarray. Actually my experience is that the government

:29:15.:29:18.

does a better job of governing if it has an opposition keeping it on its

:29:19.:29:22.

toes and I hope the Labour Party, as it will, will eventually work its

:29:23.:29:26.

way back to a point were we are having a more sensible discussion.

:29:27.:29:31.

As the warring tribe gathers in Liverpool tonight, there is a

:29:32.:29:34.

growing realisation that Labour can ill afford a repeat of the

:29:35.:30:01.

last year and must push for a lease some semblance of unity. My

:30:02.:30:05.

messages, do not leave this party, do not quit it and splitting it

:30:06.:30:07.

would be disastrous. I think something very exciting has

:30:08.:30:10.

happened. I am one of hundreds of thousands of new members to the

:30:11.:30:12.

Labour Party in recent months and I would like members of the PLP, many

:30:13.:30:15.

of whom have been in the party all their lives, to feel encouraged by

:30:16.:30:17.

that and not threatened and hopefully we can bring all of these

:30:18.:30:20.

very exciting forces together and unite. Tomorrow in Liverpool, Labour

:30:21.:30:22.

will clear up the pieces and embark on the next age of its momentous

:30:23.:30:25.

journey, nobody has any clue of the destination. Our political editor.

:30:26.:30:27.

That's almost it for tonight, but before we go...

:30:28.:30:29.

The government has announced plans to re-classify all cars made before

:30:30.:30:32.

1977 as "classic" cars - meaning they are exempt from MOTs.

:30:33.:30:34.

This means that the humble Ford Cortina, once a mainstay

:30:35.:30:37.

of Britain's roads, will now be branded a collectors item.

:30:38.:30:39.

We leave you with Newsnight's homage to a new classic.

:30:40.:30:42.

# She gives him love on the leatherette.

:30:43.:30:56.

# But she only loves him because he's got a Cortina.

:30:57.:31:04.

# But she only loves him because he's got a Cortina.

:31:05.:31:15.

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