Browse content similar to 18/10/2016. Check below for episodes and series from the same categories and more!
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This graph shows us interest rates, starting all the way back in 1694. | :00:00. | :00:09. | |
They never ran lower than 2% - not until the 2008 crash. | :00:10. | :00:15. | |
Then they hit the floor and stayed there. | :00:16. | :00:18. | |
Some think this tells us Mark Carney doesn't know what he's doing. | :00:19. | :00:22. | |
The era of easy money, low rates and heavy borrowing has | :00:23. | :00:25. | |
not been great for savers - and the central bank chief | :00:26. | :00:27. | |
The power that is concentrated in his hands, the hands | :00:28. | :00:45. | |
of committees that he sits on, is huge by the standards of any | :00:46. | :00:48. | |
previous predecessor of his, or anyone else in | :00:49. | :00:50. | |
Is that too much for an institution that's not democratically elected, | :00:51. | :00:54. | |
We'll try to work out if central banking has gone wrong, | :00:55. | :00:58. | |
and whether it's time to put less faith in the people in charge. | :00:59. | :01:01. | |
Also tonight, it is fifty years since Cathy Come Home opened | :01:02. | :01:03. | |
the country's eyes to the plight of the homeless. | :01:04. | :01:06. | |
I'm told you lost your place on the list long ago, | :01:07. | :01:12. | |
But we was meant to be one of those families! | :01:13. | :01:17. | |
It was grim then, and for some it is grim now. | :01:18. | :01:20. | |
We'll look at how housing has changed and should change. | :01:21. | :01:24. | |
And If you hate the way technology runs our lives, | :01:25. | :01:36. | |
It's back for a third series, and we've booked Charlie Brooker, | :01:37. | :01:39. | |
As I came in to work today, I did a double take on spotting | :01:40. | :01:54. | |
the headline on the London Evening Standard. | :01:55. | :01:55. | |
It's true inflation did soar, but that was only to an annual | :01:56. | :02:01. | |
But that soaraway 1% makes the point that we are in exceptional times. | :02:02. | :02:08. | |
Independent central banks have pursued the easiest | :02:09. | :02:10. | |
of money, but have struggled to get inflation up. | :02:11. | :02:13. | |
Central bankers have kept interest rates on the floor, | :02:14. | :02:17. | |
and have sometimes burrowed through the lino to get them even | :02:18. | :02:19. | |
lower - with negative rates in some countries. | :02:20. | :02:21. | |
But they are increasingly getting criticised for not | :02:22. | :02:24. | |
helping the economy, while hurting savers. | :02:25. | :02:27. | |
Theresa May joined the chorus in her conference speech | :02:28. | :02:30. | |
and today the former Foreign Secretary William Hague | :02:31. | :02:32. | |
wrote a Telegraph article which claimed that "central Bankers | :02:33. | :02:36. | |
So, is the era of the all-powerful central bank at an end? | :02:37. | :02:42. | |
Before we discuss that, here's Adam Parsons. | :02:43. | :02:53. | |
Back from the past and emerging from the gloom. | :02:54. | :02:57. | |
A spectre you may just have forgotten. | :02:58. | :03:01. | |
This is inflation, hitting the Bank of England | :03:02. | :03:03. | |
and the rest of the country and grabbing our attention. | :03:04. | :03:14. | |
The secret of a good horror movie is to throw in some surprises. But | :03:15. | :03:23. | |
useful the twist this morning coming, inflation up to 1%, a | :03:24. | :03:28. | |
two-year high but way below the government target of 2%. The | :03:29. | :03:32. | |
projections suggest inflation might be hitting 3% or even more in the | :03:33. | :03:35. | |
year. Typically you would expect the Bank of England to be thinking now | :03:36. | :03:39. | |
about backing up interest rates to control the economy. But a majority | :03:40. | :03:43. | |
of economists actually think the next move will be a cut in interest | :03:44. | :03:51. | |
rates and city traders are pricing in no movement at all. Almost as if | :03:52. | :03:54. | |
no one is quite sure what is going on in this post Brexit referendum | :03:55. | :04:00. | |
economy. If anyone knows it is probably him, the Bank of England | :04:01. | :04:04. | |
Governor Mark Carney has a clear remit from government to keep the | :04:05. | :04:10. | |
economy stable and target inflation of 2%. The bank has been plenty of | :04:11. | :04:16. | |
new fibre nodes but also spent hundreds of billions on a bond | :04:17. | :04:18. | |
buying spree, known as quantitative easing. It has either boosted the | :04:19. | :04:25. | |
economy or promoted inequality almost most likely done both. They | :04:26. | :04:28. | |
have been the only adult in the room, the economy had this Brexit | :04:29. | :04:33. | |
shock and members of the MPC and Mark Carney did all they needed to | :04:34. | :04:38. | |
do. The cut rates, did quantitative easing, said they would do | :04:39. | :04:41. | |
everything necessary and have been extremely impressive, fighting | :04:42. | :04:47. | |
against comments by the Theresa May government and senior Tories trying | :04:48. | :04:48. | |
to do them down. Central bankers do | :04:49. | :04:51. | |
form an elite group. The Bank of England, | :04:52. | :04:52. | |
the Bank of Japan, the American Federal Reserve | :04:53. | :04:54. | |
and European Central Bank. Their low interest rates | :04:55. | :04:57. | |
have shaped the world In 1997 Gordon Brown gave the bank | :04:58. | :05:12. | |
the task of setting interest rates and targeting inflation, jobs that | :05:13. | :05:15. | |
it still retains. But that independence has come under attack. | :05:16. | :05:19. | |
William Hague today wrote that central banks had lost the plot. By | :05:20. | :05:23. | |
allowing very low interest rates to go on for so long, hurting savers, | :05:24. | :05:28. | |
rising house prices, damaging productivity. While in her | :05:29. | :05:32. | |
conference speech the Prime Minister's attack on the QT | :05:33. | :05:36. | |
programme looks like a rather hostile warning shot. While monetary | :05:37. | :05:41. | |
policy with superlow interest rates and quantitative easing | :05:42. | :06:08. | |
provided the necessary emergency medicine after the financial crash, | :06:09. | :06:11. | |
we have to acknowledge there have been some bad side-effects. People | :06:12. | :06:14. | |
with assets have got richer, people without them have suffered. People | :06:15. | :06:15. | |
with mortgages have found their debts cheaper, people with savings | :06:16. | :06:17. | |
have found themselves poorer. A change has got to come. We are going | :06:18. | :06:20. | |
to deliver it. Ignorance teaches us you want a central bank that is | :06:21. | :06:23. | |
independent and do not want things like the column written by William | :06:24. | :06:25. | |
Hague in the Telegraph saying, keep your independence, it is in peril, | :06:26. | :06:28. | |
the point is to prevent people saying ridiculous things like that | :06:29. | :06:30. | |
and Theresa May said the same kind of thing, threatening the | :06:31. | :06:32. | |
independence of the Bank of England which had an impact on cost of | :06:33. | :06:34. | |
borrowing for the UK. Those within the Bank of England | :06:35. | :06:36. | |
highlight the comparison between what they can do and what is open to | :06:37. | :06:39. | |
government. The bank just has one Giant lever, monetary policy based | :06:40. | :06:42. | |
around the interest rate. On the other hand they said the government | :06:43. | :06:47. | |
can change policy around the economy or housing benefits or investment in | :06:48. | :06:52. | |
infrastructure. And that has a much bigger potential to change the | :06:53. | :06:55. | |
nation. But there are those who think the banker -- the bank has | :06:56. | :07:02. | |
long been susceptible to government influence especially when it comes | :07:03. | :07:05. | |
to that bond buying programme. It was instructed by government to | :07:06. | :07:11. | |
undertake asset boosts using printed money to put it crudely. What assets | :07:12. | :07:16. | |
is its purchasing, government bonds. How many, more or less the same | :07:17. | :07:19. | |
amount as the government has borrowed from the market over that | :07:20. | :07:24. | |
period. Government borrowed eczema, the Bank of England printed the same | :07:25. | :07:28. | |
amount and used it to buy government bonds. The bank is not independent | :07:29. | :07:33. | |
while that is going on. That is the case in the UK, the US and Europe. | :07:34. | :07:41. | |
The world central banks have been delivering their brand of emergency | :07:42. | :07:44. | |
treatment for eight years now, putting the frighteners on some | :07:45. | :07:47. | |
comment making others very rich and we're still not sure if the medicine | :07:48. | :07:51. | |
is working. This may be a scary movie, but not when knows how it | :07:52. | :07:53. | |
ends. -- nobody knows how it ends. Well, we did ask the Bank of England | :07:54. | :07:58. | |
to address these issues but they were not able | :07:59. | :08:01. | |
to offer anyone. But I'm joined now | :08:02. | :08:03. | |
by Baroness Altmann, the former Pensions Minister, | :08:04. | :08:04. | |
and in Washington by Adam Posen, who was a member of the Bank of | :08:05. | :08:07. | |
England's Monetary Policy Committee and is now President | :08:08. | :08:10. | |
of the Peterson institute You're not a central banker, not a | :08:11. | :08:23. | |
technocrat, but you feel annoyed with everything that has been going | :08:24. | :08:28. | |
on in monetary policy? I do feel that this policy of continually | :08:29. | :08:34. | |
pushing interest rates down, printing new money to buy government | :08:35. | :08:40. | |
bonds, has ignored very damaging side-effects that that policy itself | :08:41. | :08:45. | |
has. It is one thing to introduce an emergency experiment when we were | :08:46. | :08:49. | |
facing some kind of depression, as we possibly seem to be around 2008. | :08:50. | :08:53. | |
But this policy is still going on now when we have record employment, | :08:54. | :08:59. | |
record jobs, we do have growth. And therefore you have to ask is this | :09:00. | :09:04. | |
really the right way to be running policy especially when much of what | :09:05. | :09:12. | |
the impact is now facing significant groups in the economy. You mean | :09:13. | :09:16. | |
elderly people who may rely on savings. And also pension funds, | :09:17. | :09:21. | |
anyone who has been buying an annuity, who will be poorer for the | :09:22. | :09:25. | |
rest of their life as a result of this exceptional level of low | :09:26. | :09:29. | |
interest rates. It is not the fault of central bank that the economy is | :09:30. | :09:33. | |
flat on its back and there is a glut of savings in the world. And they | :09:34. | :09:37. | |
somehow have got to keep the economy going against that backdrop. It is | :09:38. | :09:40. | |
not clear that pushing down interest rates from already exceptionally low | :09:41. | :09:46. | |
levels is actually keeping the economy going while boosting the | :09:47. | :09:50. | |
economy. In fact low rates have deflationary impact. The expectation | :09:51. | :09:56. | |
in theory that continually push rates down are bound to be | :09:57. | :10:00. | |
expansionary. In some ways they are offset in the real world by the | :10:01. | :10:06. | |
practical realities of pushing rates down. Because for example, one of | :10:07. | :10:13. | |
the intentions of QT is to push up asset prices including housing. But | :10:14. | :10:17. | |
housing wealth is unevenly distributed and so young people | :10:18. | :10:20. | |
cannot get on the housing ladder, if you do not own a home it costs more | :10:21. | :10:26. | |
to rent. I want to put all this to add. This stuff that you are from | :10:27. | :10:33. | |
people who now knock Central bankers quite a bit. This argument that | :10:34. | :10:36. | |
you're making the rich richer and the poor poorer. Is there credence | :10:37. | :10:42. | |
to that. No, it has nothing to do with whether or not it is the | :10:43. | :10:46. | |
central bank or some other technocrats. The fact is it is not a | :10:47. | :10:53. | |
choice between the Bank of England pushing down interest rates and | :10:54. | :10:56. | |
therefore rewarding speculators and punishing small savers. It is a | :10:57. | :11:01. | |
choice, given the fact as you indicated, that the performance of | :11:02. | :11:06. | |
all the rich countries in terms of productivity and risk-taking, has | :11:07. | :11:09. | |
been lousy for almost ten years. The UK has been the worst on | :11:10. | :11:13. | |
productivity. No one is going to get any returns on their investments and | :11:14. | :11:18. | |
no corporation is going to want to invest in that kind of environment. | :11:19. | :11:23. | |
So the Bank of England has, facing a world of slow growth and low | :11:24. | :11:27. | |
opportunities, and if they put up interest rates in that kind of | :11:28. | :11:31. | |
world, what happens is young people become unemployed, small businesses | :11:32. | :11:36. | |
get cut off from credit, the pound goes up instead of down at a time | :11:37. | :11:40. | |
when that will hurt exports. All kinds of knots are good things | :11:41. | :11:43. | |
happen and talking about practicality in the real world, if | :11:44. | :11:48. | |
you look at data instead of just reading the whingeing letters of | :11:49. | :11:52. | |
certain constituents, that is the real world. We saw that in Europe | :11:53. | :11:56. | |
because when the ECB fail to cut rates for the first couple of years | :11:57. | :11:59. | |
of the crisis while the Bank of England and Federal Reserve did, we | :12:00. | :12:03. | |
saw unemployment go up in Spain and Greece. It is not a crisis. You put | :12:04. | :12:10. | |
the point very strongly and physically. Do you concede that the | :12:11. | :12:14. | |
drugs do not seem to be working as well as they used to, you do not | :12:15. | :12:18. | |
have to be William Hague or a politician to say hang on, we have | :12:19. | :12:22. | |
now gone down to negative interest rates, something is wrong. Maybe we | :12:23. | :12:26. | |
need to step back and think about how monetary policy works and maybe | :12:27. | :12:32. | |
have other alternatives. That argument has some credence I think. | :12:33. | :12:39. | |
I think the observation that central banks and monetary policy is less | :12:40. | :12:42. | |
effective now than in the midst of the crisis has credence. Central | :12:43. | :12:48. | |
bankers themselves say that and that is very practical. As I said to the | :12:49. | :12:51. | |
Treasury subcommittee five years ago. In the midst of a crisis of | :12:52. | :12:57. | |
course liquidity policy has more of an effect in stopping a panic. Not | :12:58. | :13:01. | |
in the midst of a crisis, the effect is diminished. I would like to take | :13:02. | :13:06. | |
William Hague's largely ridiculous essay and turned the title on its | :13:07. | :13:10. | |
head. It is not that central banks have lost the plot, but we have | :13:11. | :13:19. | |
moved from Henry IV to Henry V. There is supposed to be a new | :13:20. | :13:21. | |
leading character with central banks now in a supporting role, that is | :13:22. | :13:25. | |
fiscal policy. As Mark Carney said, all the different things the | :13:26. | :13:27. | |
government could do instead of blaming central bank. Putting aside | :13:28. | :13:33. | |
the technical arguments, there is some measure of agreement between | :13:34. | :13:38. | |
you, is it healthy when politicians criticised central bank. It does not | :13:39. | :13:43. | |
end well? I do not know, the point is this is a massive monetary | :13:44. | :13:47. | |
experiment and no one knows what the outcome is. The transmission | :13:48. | :13:51. | |
mechanism is indirect. Just trying to rely on people borrowing more to | :13:52. | :13:55. | |
stimulate the economy when in fact in many ways this supposedly | :13:56. | :14:00. | |
expansionary monetary policy is acting rather like a tightening of | :14:01. | :14:05. | |
fiscal policy. If the government itself was trying to change tax | :14:06. | :14:08. | |
policies to give more money to rich people, there would be outrage. In | :14:09. | :14:13. | |
fact that is what the Bank of England policies have effectively | :14:14. | :14:15. | |
been doing in the hope of stabilising the economy. | :14:16. | :14:24. | |
How we given a central bankers too much deference? It started with Alan | :14:25. | :14:30. | |
Greenspan. Mark Carney was walking on water. I have spent time with all | :14:31. | :14:40. | |
of them. They definitely are just human. I agree. That is a place | :14:41. | :14:48. | |
where we went wrong. We had the ridiculous state of affairs in the | :14:49. | :14:52. | |
late 90s when we had a senators talking about weekend at Bernie 's. | :14:53. | :14:58. | |
If someone died, you would prop the mob just to make sure there was no | :14:59. | :15:02. | |
panic in the market. The inflationary targeting regime the | :15:03. | :15:07. | |
Bank of England has now is to constrain the discretion of central | :15:08. | :15:12. | |
bankers, be they Governor Cani, Chairman Greenspan or whoever, and | :15:13. | :15:15. | |
make them accountable to the government. The cultural of | :15:16. | :15:21. | |
deference to central banks is excessive. Nobody should fear, not | :15:22. | :15:25. | |
even the governor of the Bank of England, should fear saying that. | :15:26. | :15:31. | |
They can say what they want. The central bank should listen and think | :15:32. | :15:35. | |
about it. There is no need for a deference. But there is a need for | :15:36. | :15:40. | |
independence. If the government wants the bank to do something else, | :15:41. | :15:44. | |
let them pass legislation or redefine the target. Do not let them | :15:45. | :15:50. | |
back-seat drive. Thank you. You were Pensions Minister. The government | :15:51. | :15:55. | |
made an important announcement today. You will not be able to cash | :15:56. | :16:00. | |
in your annuity. Good thing, bad thing, sensible, stupid? It is | :16:01. | :16:05. | |
understandable that if we do not have the consumer protection in | :16:06. | :16:08. | |
place, we will now not be able to go ahead. It will be very disappointing | :16:09. | :16:13. | |
to tens of thousands of people who have bought an annuity that they | :16:14. | :16:17. | |
didn't want, didn't need, because they were forced to. Thought they | :16:18. | :16:22. | |
would be able to get some money back for themselves. That opportunity | :16:23. | :16:26. | |
seems to be gone. The Daily Mail leading on that story. The | :16:27. | :16:32. | |
government thought they were going to be ripped off again, according to | :16:33. | :16:33. | |
the paper. More information has come out today | :16:34. | :16:35. | |
about the troubled inquiry We had the chair of the inquiry, | :16:36. | :16:38. | |
some of her colleagues on the inquiry and the permanent | :16:39. | :16:42. | |
secretary of the Home Office giving If you were with us last night, | :16:43. | :16:45. | |
you'll remember the story so far, that the Home Office is accused | :16:46. | :16:49. | |
of trying to bury news - the news that there had been doubts | :16:50. | :16:52. | |
over the former chair of the inquiry Lowell Goddard before | :16:53. | :16:55. | |
she stepped aside. Our policy editor | :16:56. | :16:57. | |
Chris Cook is with me. Just bring us up-to-date on the | :16:58. | :17:10. | |
story. What do we know until today? The most recent chapter of the story | :17:11. | :17:15. | |
starts in August, when Lowell Goddard, the New Zealand judge, | :17:16. | :17:19. | |
appointed by Theresa May, the third chair of the enquiry, resigned. In | :17:20. | :17:25. | |
September, Amber Rudd was called to the Home Affairs Select Committee to | :17:26. | :17:28. | |
discuss this. She said the reason she thought Justice Goddard had | :17:29. | :17:33. | |
resigned was the reason she alluded to in a letter, that she was lonely, | :17:34. | :17:37. | |
that she was homesick, she wanted to go back. MPs pushed her on this | :17:38. | :17:42. | |
fact. Amber Rudd said she knew nothing more. Well, we now know, | :17:43. | :17:49. | |
thanks to the Times reporting, that there were concerns about Lowell | :17:50. | :17:54. | |
Goddard's capacity to run this big enquiry under English law, raised | :17:55. | :17:57. | |
with the Home Office and the Prime Minister prior to her resignation. | :17:58. | :18:00. | |
It is quite sticky for the Home Secretary. What did we learn today? | :18:01. | :18:07. | |
The permanent Secretary of the Home Office was there. He was asked about | :18:08. | :18:11. | |
why it was that the Home Secretary had volunteered this information. | :18:12. | :18:19. | |
You can have a look at the answer. All I'm saying to you is that the | :18:20. | :18:25. | |
Home Secretary answered the questions put to her accurately. | :18:26. | :18:33. | |
That is our obligation. She said, I only have the information that you | :18:34. | :18:40. | |
have. That is not accurate, is it? That went quite badly. He was not | :18:41. | :18:45. | |
able to defend the Home Secretary. Lowell Goddard was given ?80,000 | :18:46. | :18:50. | |
severance when she left, even though she was apparently resigning because | :18:51. | :18:53. | |
she was homesick. There are some issues around that. Where does that | :18:54. | :18:58. | |
leave the enquiry? There was a little incident today. The leader of | :18:59. | :19:05. | |
one of the core participants in the enquiry, he was basically thrown out | :19:06. | :19:09. | |
of the hearing because he got basically annoyed with the town, | :19:10. | :19:14. | |
with what he felt were the -- was the glibness with which things were | :19:15. | :19:18. | |
discussed. It is critical for the public confidence in the enquiry, | :19:19. | :19:22. | |
and for the evidence, that the big victim groups still support the | :19:23. | :19:27. | |
enquiry. His concern, his anger, and he is someone who has been quite | :19:28. | :19:31. | |
supportive of this enquiry at times, is quite a visceral reminder that | :19:32. | :19:35. | |
that cannot be taken for granted. Thank you. | :19:36. | :19:37. | |
Next month will mark 50 years since the BBC aired a television | :19:38. | :19:40. | |
play that probably had more impact than any other programme in the | :19:41. | :19:43. | |
You've got a place in a month's time? | :19:44. | :19:50. | |
I'm told you lost your place on the list long ago, | :19:51. | :19:58. | |
But we was meant to be one of those families! | :19:59. | :20:03. | |
Haven't you got a room in one of your houses?! | :20:04. | :20:16. | |
Haven't you got flats that are empty half the night? | :20:17. | :20:20. | |
It was famously described as "an ice-pick in the brain | :20:21. | :20:26. | |
Well, to mark 50 years, BBC Two is tomorrow airing a programme | :20:27. | :20:35. | |
about homelessness in the 21st century, another one to make | :20:36. | :20:37. | |
the comfortable classes sit uncomfortably as they watch. | :20:38. | :20:39. | |
It goes behind the scenes at the housing department of Barking | :20:40. | :20:42. | |
We see the staff barely cope with desperate people who have been | :20:43. | :20:46. | |
evicted from their home, or can't afford their rent, | :20:47. | :20:49. | |
and the team have to make tragic choices as to which people get | :20:50. | :20:52. | |
emergency shelter and long term housing, and which don't. | :20:53. | :20:56. | |
Have a look at this and you can see what part of the problem is. | :20:57. | :21:00. | |
The amount of social housing built in the UK peaked at 207,000 in 1954. | :21:01. | :21:07. | |
The year that Cathy Come Home was released, numbers | :21:08. | :21:09. | |
By 1967, a year later, when the homeless charity | :21:10. | :21:15. | |
Crisis was founded - numbers increased a little. | :21:16. | :21:19. | |
Now, 50 years on, you can see the number of social houses built | :21:20. | :21:22. | |
Today, social housing is a last resort, rather than an expectation | :21:23. | :21:29. | |
In this clip, we see one man told he has to leave his mother's council | :21:30. | :21:35. | |
And they're going to serve me notice. | :21:36. | :22:05. | |
I'm not being horrible, this is where I end up thinking | :22:06. | :22:13. | |
I'm 40 next week, and I've got no future at all. | :22:14. | :22:31. | |
There is nothing that says he must have this house, | :22:32. | :22:53. | |
You know, we have to be very, very careful and satisfied | :22:54. | :22:59. | |
that we are making the right decision when we give | :23:00. | :23:02. | |
We cannot be sentimental about it at all. | :23:03. | :23:11. | |
That is just a taste of the programme. | :23:12. | :23:13. | |
We are joined now by the writer and activist Poppy Noor, | :23:14. | :23:16. | |
Conservative MP and chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group | :23:17. | :23:18. | |
for Housing and Planning, James Cartlidge and Jon Sparkes - | :23:19. | :23:20. | |
the Chief Executive of the Homeless charity, Crisis. | :23:21. | :23:26. | |
Poppy, you have some familiarity with these difficult decisions being | :23:27. | :23:33. | |
made in housing offices. Tell us about the kind of thing you have | :23:34. | :23:38. | |
seen? I went through the system myself when I was 16 years old, when | :23:39. | :23:42. | |
there was more provision in terms of benefits that people were afforded | :23:43. | :23:46. | |
and in terms of the rhetoric as well around homelessness. And then it was | :23:47. | :23:52. | |
incredibly difficult, even back then. The first council I went to, I | :23:53. | :23:56. | |
was sent away for not looking harmless enough. You watch that | :23:57. | :24:03. | |
scene and it's incredibly sad. But ultimately what it is getting at is | :24:04. | :24:06. | |
the fact we no longer see housing as a basic human rights. Is that | :24:07. | :24:11. | |
acceptable in one of the richest economies in the world? Were they | :24:12. | :24:19. | |
judging you, where they judging what your need was? Or were they thinking | :24:20. | :24:23. | |
about how much they thought you were responsible for your plight? The | :24:24. | :24:31. | |
thing is, these things do not happen in a vacuum, right? Local councils | :24:32. | :24:35. | |
have cuts to their budget. Automatically, when you walk into a | :24:36. | :24:39. | |
council, they are thinking, especially if there isn't enough | :24:40. | :24:44. | |
housing, how can they get you out of here as quickly as possible? This | :24:45. | :24:48. | |
comes across in the programme. It is incredibly easy to do that when you | :24:49. | :24:55. | |
have got a rhetoric that says people who own houses own houses because | :24:56. | :24:58. | |
they have worked really hard, and people who are homeless haven't | :24:59. | :25:03. | |
worked hard enough. James, what you are seeing in the programme is | :25:04. | :25:09. | |
people, who live there in the housing market sector, RTD not going | :25:10. | :25:13. | |
to get a home. They will not be able to afford one. I just wonder whether | :25:14. | :25:18. | |
the most basically obvious fact, and whether it is an accepted now, is | :25:19. | :25:22. | |
whether we do not have enough of the social homes, where they are | :25:23. | :25:27. | |
allocated by other factors than how much money you can afford to pay? | :25:28. | :25:32. | |
Sure. There is a lack of housing of all kinds of options. If I was to | :25:33. | :25:37. | |
summarise the housing crisis, the challenge faces -- the challenges we | :25:38. | :25:43. | |
face today, a huge number of people have no palatable option on housing. | :25:44. | :25:47. | |
The only long-term answer to that is greater supply. That is a huge | :25:48. | :25:53. | |
challenge. We are doing what we can. Greater supply at existing prices is | :25:54. | :25:57. | |
not going to help the small numbers of millions of people who cannot | :25:58. | :26:03. | |
afford the current prices. Housing benefit will help a lot of those | :26:04. | :26:07. | |
people. I just wonder again whether you think we went too far in getting | :26:08. | :26:12. | |
rid of the houses that we can allocate because this person needs a | :26:13. | :26:16. | |
place to live, and we have got one to give them? We have built 300,000 | :26:17. | :26:22. | |
affordable homes since 2010. Before I was an MP, I ran a business in | :26:23. | :26:29. | |
shared Ownership. I was a volunteer for a London homeless charity. We | :26:30. | :26:34. | |
used to sit with homeless clients trying to get them to get on their | :26:35. | :26:38. | |
feet. We award of them grants. The thing that always struck me in those | :26:39. | :26:44. | |
cases, the most severe cases, is how complex and different each case was. | :26:45. | :26:48. | |
I don't think you can talk structurally about each and every | :26:49. | :26:52. | |
case affected. Have we got enough housing that we can allocate to | :26:53. | :26:55. | |
people who do not have enough money to buy them? We clearly haven't. | :26:56. | :27:00. | |
This is the very sharp end of the housing crisis. Homelessness is on | :27:01. | :27:03. | |
the rise in England. Whatever measure you put on it. 73,000 | :27:04. | :27:07. | |
households in temporary accommodation tonight. 3500 people | :27:08. | :27:15. | |
sleeping on the streets on average night. We clearly haven't got it | :27:16. | :27:17. | |
right in terms of affordable housing. There are two ways to house | :27:18. | :27:23. | |
people on low incomes. One is investing in social housing, another | :27:24. | :27:28. | |
is providing Social Security to bridge the gap between what people | :27:29. | :27:32. | |
can afford and social housing. Both of those things are under pressure. | :27:33. | :27:37. | |
Contrast that with Poppy's experience and the experience of the | :27:38. | :27:41. | |
programme with hard-working housing officers with a system which drives | :27:42. | :27:45. | |
them to the crisis point, rather than a system that deals with | :27:46. | :27:51. | |
prevention. They have to sometimes say to people, we have nowhere for | :27:52. | :27:55. | |
you, you have to sleep on the street. They operate within the | :27:56. | :27:59. | |
legal system which says some people are priority need, some people are | :28:00. | :28:04. | |
not. You always have to love and allocation system of some kind. It | :28:05. | :28:10. | |
is a difficult job. Under any government in any circumstance, you | :28:11. | :28:13. | |
have to make rational decisions and prioritise. Poppy, even in the | :28:14. | :28:19. | |
1960s, that is the point of Cathy Come Home, we were building Council | :28:20. | :28:25. | |
houses and still finding that you had to make difficult choices. Cathy | :28:26. | :28:30. | |
was the subject of that. Yeah, I suppose my issue with it is that it | :28:31. | :28:36. | |
is completely reasonable to suggest that we should have readily | :28:37. | :28:40. | |
available social housing for people in one of the richest countries in | :28:41. | :28:49. | |
the world. This discussion about... OK, if I can put the question back | :28:50. | :28:54. | |
to the Tory minister. Is housing a basic human rights? I am not a | :28:55. | :29:00. | |
minister. I'm chairman of an all-party group. Sorry. Every | :29:01. | :29:06. | |
family, every person out there as an aspiration to live in a home they | :29:07. | :29:08. | |
can afford, whether owning our renting. One thing I would say is | :29:09. | :29:16. | |
there is more than an acknowledgement that we have done | :29:17. | :29:20. | |
important things in terms of encouraging homeownership, but we | :29:21. | :29:23. | |
have two have a housing policy that everybody, including those who rent, | :29:24. | :29:28. | |
in other words, those who will probably not be able to afford to | :29:29. | :29:29. | |
buy. Would it be reasonable to say to | :29:30. | :29:41. | |
people, we can get you a home but it will not be in Barking and Dagenham, | :29:42. | :29:45. | |
we will put you somewhere else and if you do not have a job or are not | :29:46. | :29:50. | |
a student here, you could live somewhere else. Someone who is | :29:51. | :29:56. | |
vulnerable, who is homeless, the very best solution for them is to be | :29:57. | :30:00. | |
in their community with positive support systems. With the people | :30:01. | :30:03. | |
they know, schools where their kids can go to school, not someplace, not | :30:04. | :30:08. | |
be shunted somewhere else in the country. That says, if you look at | :30:09. | :30:13. | |
the housing market in London, you can see why there is a tendency to | :30:14. | :30:18. | |
do that. The other thing is that although a huge part of this is | :30:19. | :30:21. | |
about housing and provision of housing, it does not have to be the | :30:22. | :30:26. | |
way that is described in terms of allocations. The system at the | :30:27. | :30:30. | |
moment drives the housing officer to only deal with the person in crisis, | :30:31. | :30:35. | |
it does not put a duty on them to try to prevent homelessness in the | :30:36. | :30:39. | |
first place. Recent legislation in Wales has shown you can reduce the | :30:40. | :30:45. | |
number of people owed a housing duty by getting prevention activity | :30:46. | :30:49. | |
right. And the private members Bill is exactly about that. One other | :30:50. | :30:53. | |
thing that comes out of the documentary, there was not enough | :30:54. | :30:57. | |
emergency shelter, there are people sleeping on the streets because we | :30:58. | :31:02. | |
cannot find a mattress and a whole. Within a year surely we could have | :31:03. | :31:10. | |
also mattresses, better than the church hall you seen the film, and a | :31:11. | :31:13. | |
decent bed for people who are literally on the street. | :31:14. | :31:18. | |
Homelessness has been around for a long time, no one has ever come up | :31:19. | :31:23. | |
with a magic solution. Government is providing support as far as | :31:24. | :31:27. | |
possible, ?40 million this week and of course working with the | :31:28. | :31:31. | |
charitable sector, with voluntary groups and the local authorities | :31:32. | :31:34. | |
judge, with innovative ways to deal with that. There is no magic answer | :31:35. | :31:39. | |
but do not forget a lot of those individual cases come from complex | :31:40. | :31:44. | |
circumstances. No easy general answer to this. | :31:45. | :31:47. | |
If you like dystopian visions of the future, | :31:48. | :31:49. | |
showing how technology will come to manipulate us, you probably | :31:50. | :31:52. | |
There have been two series on Channel 4 and, later this week, | :31:53. | :31:57. | |
it is coming back for a third, but this time on Netflix. | :31:58. | :32:01. | |
It's been compared to the Twilight Zone - | :32:02. | :32:02. | |
each episode is a self-contained story with its own characters | :32:03. | :32:05. | |
and plot twist, but they all share a mix of satire | :32:06. | :32:08. | |
Here is a clip of the first episode - in a world rather like ours, | :32:09. | :32:16. | |
where everybody is always rating each other and keen | :32:17. | :32:18. | |
If we drill down into the numbers, you have got a solid | :32:19. | :32:24. | |
Let's just look at the last 24 hours. | :32:25. | :32:31. | |
You see, even, what's that, 8:40am, you're working hard on your socials. | :32:32. | :32:34. | |
Let's check on your sphere of influence. | :32:35. | :32:46. | |
Healthy inner circle, that's good. | :32:47. | :32:55. | |
Well, the series was created by Charlie Brooker who is with me. | :32:56. | :33:02. | |
Good evening. Do you worry about technology, smartphones and all that | :33:03. | :33:13. | |
kind of stuff. I worry about everything! I am a 360 degrees | :33:14. | :33:19. | |
worrier. Technology is one thing I worry about. Not technology per se | :33:20. | :33:24. | |
so much as our inability to control these new superpowers that it is | :33:25. | :33:31. | |
granting us. But the Black Mirror of the title is the Black front of a | :33:32. | :33:37. | |
mobile phone. Pretty much any screen that is off and just reflects you. | :33:38. | :33:42. | |
We have always tended to worry too much about things, Griggs said the | :33:43. | :33:46. | |
books would be the death of us. I was not around, I dare say they did! | :33:47. | :33:50. | |
People worried about the printing press. The computer in 2001. I am | :33:51. | :34:00. | |
quite a geek, I love technology, I am an early adopter of lots of it. I | :34:01. | :34:06. | |
suppose I tend to worry out loud about the potential worst-case | :34:07. | :34:10. | |
scenario. It is people you worry about rather than the device. Not | :34:11. | :34:16. | |
the computer coming to take us over so much as is not understanding how | :34:17. | :34:21. | |
to use this thing. Yes and certainly in that particular story, it is kind | :34:22. | :34:28. | |
of about the inauthentic nature of our online selves. Which makes it | :34:29. | :34:35. | |
sound like a barrel of laughs! It is better than you make it sound! Good! | :34:36. | :34:44. | |
Personally, if you dropped out of social media, if you drop out of | :34:45. | :34:50. | |
readers comments on your articles... I did not do that. I got fed up with | :34:51. | :34:58. | |
writing columns generally, just because I started feeling like there | :34:59. | :35:05. | |
is so much extraneous communication in the world. I did not want to keep | :35:06. | :35:11. | |
on adding to it. There is a cacophony, technology going back to | :35:12. | :35:14. | |
the printed press has made that possible, basically. It is too easy | :35:15. | :35:19. | |
to say stuff. That is not a negative, though. Just a lot of | :35:20. | :35:24. | |
people shouting and how many columnists are there. Too many, does | :35:25. | :35:28. | |
not like there's a shortage of columnists. So you withdrew a bit. I | :35:29. | :35:37. | |
did a bit because I felt... Is not a good mindset for a columnist to be | :35:38. | :35:42. | |
in, what is the point of saying, of me saying anything, I have said | :35:43. | :35:46. | |
enough. It is great to hear you say that! You were fed up with me | :35:47. | :35:53. | |
talking! No, no. You're also a satirist. I hate that word. Everyday | :35:54. | :35:59. | |
I have people saying satire is dead, at what Donald Trump is said or | :36:00. | :36:04. | |
something like that. Is politics now so ridiculous that you cannot be | :36:05. | :36:10. | |
funny any more? It is difficult to get a foothold on, I think, it is so | :36:11. | :36:17. | |
slippery and ridiculous, you would never create a character like Donald | :36:18. | :36:22. | |
Trump because no one would find it plausible. So it is difficult but I | :36:23. | :36:27. | |
do not know, I do not think of myself as a satirist. It is the word | :36:28. | :36:33. | |
I'm slightly allergic to. You write about politics, you are a funny guy. | :36:34. | :36:37. | |
I do not write about politics so much as, the shows I do, in my head | :36:38. | :36:44. | |
I am reviewing the news as though it is just another entertainment show | :36:45. | :36:49. | |
and I am being appalled by this grotesque soap opera I'm watching. I | :36:50. | :36:55. | |
wonder, I love satire and I am in favour of it, have we if you liked | :36:56. | :37:02. | |
being debasing our political culture by mocking these people who have to | :37:03. | :37:05. | |
make difficult decisions that we cannot talk about honours programme. | :37:06. | :37:09. | |
We make it difficult for them, that is our job, you make it difficult | :37:10. | :37:16. | |
for them. Other programmes make us laugh at them and we come to think | :37:17. | :37:23. | |
of them as being nincompoops. I'm trying to feel some pity! I wondered | :37:24. | :37:27. | |
then if you end up with politicians who claim the fact that... We did an | :37:28. | :37:34. | |
episode of Black Mirror about the comedian who controls a cartoon Bear | :37:35. | :37:39. | |
that runs for office after becoming an anti-politics celebrity. That was | :37:40. | :37:43. | |
loosely based on Boris Johnson and away because he became a sort of | :37:44. | :37:47. | |
figure through appearing on TV should comedy shows, appearing like | :37:48. | :37:57. | |
a kind of buffoon. So it is kind of like inoculating yourself to | :37:58. | :38:04. | |
Mochrie, to become beyond mockery by openly sort of behaving like an oaf. | :38:05. | :38:09. | |
I do not think that is necessarily the fault of comedians. Not the | :38:10. | :38:16. | |
fault of comedy. Do we take offense to easily, people do take offense | :38:17. | :38:22. | |
quite a lot. They take offense quite a lot or they profess to. I do not | :38:23. | :38:27. | |
know how much about this genuine. I think a lot of it is performance. | :38:28. | :38:35. | |
But generally speaking I am in favour of bearing people | :38:36. | :38:40. | |
sensitivities in mind to a degree. It was on Channel 4 and now it's on | :38:41. | :38:46. | |
Netflix, what happened? They said to us go out and get some co-funding | :38:47. | :38:52. | |
because we cannot afford to go on making the show. Then they could not | :38:53. | :38:58. | |
agree, there was a creative disagreement over how we were going | :38:59. | :39:03. | |
about making it. And they needed the money for a tent! Instant Karma! | :39:04. | :39:12. | |
They were saving for that big empty tent with gales of despair blowing | :39:13. | :39:18. | |
through it! You have no beef with Channel 4? No, I'm not furiously | :39:19. | :39:21. | |
angry with them. Thank you very much. | :39:22. | :39:23. | |
We end with news that following the success of Oldstock | :39:24. | :39:30. | |
at the weekend, Chuck Berry, who's alive and well at 90, | :39:31. | :39:33. | |
is upping the ante and releasing his first album in four decades. | :39:34. | :39:36. | |
In case you've forgotten what he looks like, | :39:37. | :39:38. | |
here he is performing in some remarkably fresh looking footage | :39:39. | :39:45. | |
filmed at the Newport Jazz Festival, a mere 58 years ago. | :39:46. | :39:47. | |
And if you look closely in the audience you can just make | :39:48. | :39:50. | |
Good evening. Clear and cool might for many, some showers around | :39:51. | :41:02. | |
coastal districts | :41:03. | :41:03. |