16/03/2017 Newsnight

For a party of law and order - indeed a party that makes

the law and order - the Conservatives have come up

short, fined not just for breeching election law,

but failing to co-operate with the authorities' investigation.

They have imposed a fine on the Conservative Party

and the Conservative Party will be meeting that fine, will

A report into the Tory battlebus and the way the 2015 election

campaign was accounted for makes damning reading.

Is this the next expenses scandal, or just the way political business

The main political parties didn't want to put anyone

But we do have guests to discuss how serious the Tory breech

And Scotland said no in its referendum two and half years

ago, Theresa May has said no to another vote, at least for now.

What the Scottish nationalists are suggesting is that they're not

the engines of uncertainty, of chaos -

with Brexit, the British government is.

Also tonight, is the accusation of racism bandied

We'll ask if majority white communities are racist

when they want the best for people like them.

So the Electoral Commission published a report on allegations

against the Conservatives today and the way they've accounted

for their spending in various recent elections or by-elections.

First thing to remember is that national parties are obliged by law

to keep records and receipts of election spending,

because there are national caps on how much they can spend.

There are also caps on what each local candidate can spend.

This was the national party affair, but several police forces have been

looking at various Conservative MPs as well.

Now, today's news from the Electoral Commission

was extraordinarily damning, finding the Conservatives

guilty on multiple counts, much of them exposed,

Failing to declare all their national spending.

Failing to keep proper accounts and records.

And, crucially, counting some local spending as national,

which may then obviously distort local battles.

The Commission said the then Tory Treasurer may have broken

criminal law in signing the election records off, and it condemns

the party for not even co-operating with its investigation.

Well, our political editor Nick Watt is with me.

damning report. Take us through some more of the detail. You cannot cross

this over. It is a bad day for the Conservative Party. That record

fine. The Conservative Party said we complied with the Electoral

Commission and they said excuse me, we had to go to the High Court to

get some of these documents out of you and the registered treasurer at

the time has been referred to the police because he may not have

filled in those forms properly. The Conservatives point out that a

similar thing recently happened to the Liberal Democrats. There are two

particularly important findings from this report off the back of that

investigation and the first of those is in Thanet South where the

Conservatives defeated Nigel Faia Raige. The report says that the

Conservatives should have declared some of the hotel costs for Tory

officials, they should have declared that as local spending. The

commission said it is located declared some of it as national

because the Tories have their anti-UKIP national centre there. The

reason why that matters is Nick Timothy, the joint Chief of staff,

he was one of the officials down there and the second thing that

matters is the same principle about you should have declared some

national spending as local applies to the Tory battle buses and that

matters because there are Tory MPs under investigation by the police on

that matter. We heard from one of those MPs last night. He is now no

longer under investigation. What are those Tory MPs with that cloud

hanging over them saying? The atmosphere has been dreadful. I

understand the atmosphere has calmed down and the reason for that is

there is a little noticed element in the Conservative Party statement

today and crucially it said that MPs in constituencies visited by the

battle buses would have no reason to consider whether it should be

included in their local return and then look at the last words, they

were directed that the bus would be visiting as part of the national

spending. The significant word there is directed at that has been

welcomed by MPs because that is the party acknowledging that it obliged

them to accept the buses. That statement comes after senior party

figures right up to the Cabinet were given a stark warning this week by

MPs under investigation saying that one of their central defences, if

this got to court, would be to say that feels campaigners, those are

the paid party officials, were told by CC HQ to accept a visit by the

bus and that would mean that all those connected, the campaigners,

the people who gave the orders, they would be brought into court and they

would be cross-examined by those MPs defence barristers. What are the

party saying about all of this? I spoke to one member of the Prime

Minister's circle who was bullish and said there was a cat in hell 's

chance of successful prosecutions and the reason for that is because

you would have to prove intent to deceive and they think that is a

hurdle that will not be met. Ministers are really annoyed with

the Electoral Commission and they say that there is no consistency.

Why are you not investigating the Labour Party which also had battle

buses? I understand that these concerns have been passed to the new

leadership of the Electoral Commission but I am told that if

this whole saga ends in no prosecutions, the Conservative Party

will go public and make a big song and dance about how the Electoral

Commission is not living up to its statutory obligations to act fairly.

Thank you. This is one of those gambles were everyone is at it

and... Well, is this one of those scandals

where everyone's at it and it carries on until suddenly some light

is shone upon it, at which point there is outrage,

followed by a reset The MPs' expenses scandal

comes to mind as similar, or the broadcasters' use

of premium-rate phone Chris Cook has been looking

at the thorny issue This week than Westminster election

spending bills have been in the news. Today we learned that the

Conservative Party has been fined a record ?70,000 and its former

treasurer reported to the police for breaching the rules on campaign

spending. This matters because campaigning matters. There is a

pretty good science quantifying what it takes to turn someone out. We

know that if you have a volunteer, a knocking on doors that forever 14

doors you not, if they have the right type of interaction you can

generate a Bolt. In certain types of direct mail, for about $50 per vote,

you can turn a nonvoter into a voter. These are things that have a

measurable impact. The spending rules for election are important and

they occupy a lot of time for candidates on the ground and the

type of people who work in places like Conservative campaign

headquarters. They keep the money from taking too big a role in our

politics and it makes it harder for an individual rich person to buy

themselves a seat in our Parliament. There is an important extent to

which the spending rules really are very otherworldly. A key principle

of these rules as they split spending into local and national,

local has tight spending limits, national does not. That is why the

Electoral Commission found itself investigating whether people bust

into marginal seats were promoting the local candidate or the Tory

party at large. If the leaflets have the local candidate's name on it it

counts as local campaign material. If they do not and have David

Cameron on, they would not. Political parties pay a lot of

attention to these rules, it affects the way they behaved but it

constrains the amount of money they spend mentioning local candidates

and consistent -- constituencies and the concentrate their money and

firepower on a much more presidential style of campaigning,

where they mention the national party, the leader of the party and

you can actually basically parachuting millions of pounds worth

of leaflets in theory, so long as they stay away from the local name

of the area. An important principle to political parties is everything

happens summer. National parties will often put on national events

for the national media that count against national spending. These

events are often much larger than anything a local party could ever

afford. These events, though, have to happen summer. Take the so-called

Ed Stone launch, it did not happen in either a rock-solid or a no-hoper

seat, these things are big local events in important marginals. And

actually, sometimes campaigners can drive national campaigns to avoid

breaking local spending limits. It is quite easy to dress up

effectively local campaigning so that it looks like a national

campaign. There are examples, like in Sheffield Hallam, the seat of

Nick Clegg, some of the unions invested a lot of money in these

enormous billboards criticising the Liberal Democrats. They were clearly

targeted at trying to cut down his vote in the local area but because

his name was not mentioned and it did not say Sheffield, a counted as

a national campaign. Still, our parties only spent ?38

million at the last General Election. Hillary Clinton spend ?100

million in just the last three weeks of her campaign. We managed to keep

our politics cheap, which is almost certainly a good thing. Generally we

find that once you get up into a presidential election, tens and

hundreds of millions of dollars, that marginal increases of the next

ten or $100 million are not doing a lot, mostly because people are

bombarded with information, a lot of it conflicting and contrary and we

know that it is very difficult to change the minds of people. The

Tories did break the spending rules so why aren't other parties pressing

them too hard? In short, it is because of this fuzziness in the

national and local rules and as the MPs expenses scandal shows,

sometimes everybody does it is not an excuse that the public will

accept. Let's talk about what this story

tells us about the purity None of the parties wanted to

discuss this. Let's talk about what this story

tells us about the purity or otherwise of our political

and electoral system with Phil Collins, commentator

for The Times and former speechwriter for Tony Blair,

and writer and comedian Ava Vidal. I consider you the political

outsider in this conversation. He is a complete insider. How does it

feel, what do you feel when you see what the Tories were doing? It is a

reasonably technical distinction, but do you think it is outrageous?

Yes, I do feel outraged. I think a lot of ordinary people are going to.

You have the Tory party, they are constantly talking about having to

live to certain standards, the standards that they want to impose

on ordinary people, one of the things they talk a lot about is

benefit fraud which is actually minuscule, but they make a big deal

about it. They came up with the strivers and shirkers and you find

out that they are corrupt themselves. People are not going to

take that kindly. It is the principle of them breaking a law or

is it the particular thing? Are you thinking, these people should not

have won the last election because they cheated?

That is what some people think. Politician should be beyond

reproach. They are leaders in society, they are supposed to show

the way. We find out they are doing things like this. Of course people

will be angry and disappointed. Just on the narrow point and we have seen

it in the peace there, how serious or how egregious was it what the

Tories did? It was bad. They broke the rules and their attitude in

forcing the Electoral Commission to go to court to get their information

was foolish and stupid. It is bad and they have been fined and I think

it is a rather paltry fine and I think it should be more. That is an

issue. The fine could have been bigger. I think the fine should be

bigger and the fact that we take this case very seriously even though

I regard it as not terribly egregious but the fact we take it

seriously is one of the reasons why it is quite rare in British politics

that we have cases like this. Do you think the public care? Yes, they do.

We know that they do. That is why this is such a bad case. Although, a

bit like benefit fraud, this is also small, but it does not seem like it

when you have incidents like this. It gives people a reason to think

they are all in it for themselves and it is quite corrupt. That is a

thing. Is it a defence to say, one suspects that the fuzzy line between

local and national spending has been used or abused by other parties in

other elections? Does that make a difference? It makes absolutely no

difference. They keep speaking about it being a fuzzy line, I do not

think it is fuzzy. It is clear. It shows the way they go around it and

I do not think the fine is good enough either, especially for the

Tory party. I do not think it is a deterrent. They say SNMP is found

guilty of doing it, they will step down. That is not enough. We see MPs

walk out or lose their job and walk into the board of a business and

earn lots more money. How does that make sense?

Let's step back, because although this deserves the condemnation

you've given it, in the big scale of things our system is relatively

clean, and eyes that -- I defend that proposition. Yes, relative to

other countries and relative to our own history. The transparency do an

audit of corruption every year and we come tenth out of 176 measured

countries, so we are a relatively clean system. I think that's in part

because we are so vigorous in trying to police things like this, so we

are not deeply corrupt in our politics at all. We are relatively

clean. So is your line that this is not a particularly large offence? We

are right to make a big fuss about it but in the big picture of things,

this isn't, you know, people being given palaces and things? I think

most of the money parties spend on elections is wasted anyway! They are

wasting their money. We've seen so many lavishly funded campaigns that

lead to failure. Hillary Clinton, Jeb Bush. Swimming in money for no

good at all! And I think that's true of a lot of spending in politics. So

we could reduce the spending and make no difference at all. Do you

think our political system has a sort of corruption at the heart of

it? People say it about the US political system, you know, you need

to be rich to be president of the United States. Do you think that's

the case here? I read the piece today and I thought it was a bit

naive, sorry to be rude. Today we have a relatively clean system here

is absolutely not true, and we are only just seeing the effects of the

bribery that came in 2010. It takes a while for the law to catch up. And

then you have the deferred prosecution agreement, so you have

that that is basically the government that doesn't look like a

government that wants to tackle corruption properly. It's basically

giving people an out cause. Sorry. Do you think the party with the most

money winds? Is it about money? The Conservatives have the most money

and they won. Is it the money or is it something else? The money as a

consequence of them being likely to win. It doesn't cause the victory,

it is because people think they will win, so it flows. Do you agree with

that? No, I don't. I don't want to get into the Jeremy Corbyn side of

it, but if you say we have one of the cleanest systems in the world, I

don't think so. This is not me saying so, these are

well-established surveys that go through all the countries and they

conclude we are tenth out of 176 out of a range of measures. That seems

to accord with what I know about British processes. Gas, I've read

them, the latest one I read was 2013, but if you look at the case of

Rolls-Royce, we're at the tip of the iceberg of the level... There are

lots of other aspects of our lives which may or may not be... Systemic,

which is actually going on. Thank you to you both.

Theresa May has told Nicola Sturgeon there won't be an independence

That leaves us in a new constitutional place -

a real argument between Westminster and Holyrood about the legitimacy

There's no doubt about the law - it's the UK Parliament that governs

But Nicola Sturgeon called it a democratic outrage today

that the elected Scottish Government is being blocked.

It felt like quite a significant day. Is that right? Yes, this is a

really big move by Theresa May, and, as you say, her mantra today was,

now is not the time, and she was saying how on earth can you expect

the voters of Scotland to decide to leave the UK when they don't know

what the Brexit deal for the whole of the UK will be until 2019?

Ministers believe they are on very strong ground, because Alex Salmond,

the former First Minister, signed the Edinburgh Agreement that created

the grounds for the last referendum in 2014, and in that agreement, he

agreed to abide by what the result was, whatever it was. Alex Salmond

said his resignation believe the Scottish Government of its duties

under the Edinburgh Agreement, however, and Nicola Sturgeon is not

bound by it. But the Prime Minister's take today did not say

whether she would reject a referendum right up to 2020, which

means maybe there could be one after Brexit. But I spoke to one Cabinet

minister who floated the idea of actually rejecting the referendum

for the whole of the UK Parliament and essentially challenging the SNP

and say, go ahead, get a mandate in the next Holyrood election in 2021

for a referendum, and hope that because they lost their majority

before, they would lose even more seats and not be in a majority for

independence. The SNP were very cross as they hold their conference

now. They are officially crossed but I spoke to one member in private who

said they are delighted. They have said Theresa May has walked into a

trap laid by them and it might actually leave both sides of the

issue feel they are being denied a vote by Westminster. So she could be

feeding a sea -- a sense of grievance. There is a big tent --

contingent at Westminster who can disrupt business there, let's not

forget. Parnell was able to drum up business in the late 19th century

and here's a of Alex Salmond, and UK ministers no one crucial bit of

Brexit legislation, the great repeal bill, which takes all that EU law

into UK law, that will need the permission, ministers believe, a

legislative consent motion in Holyrood, and they could cause

trouble there. Thank you. Well, John Sweeney has been

in Edinburgh and Dundee over the last couple of days,

to see how the referendum Are you for or against Scotland

staying in the UK? What do you think? I'm asking the question. From

BBC News. I think Scotland should be a country that is part of the world,

and because Westminster has put Scotland in such a terrible

position, Scotland is going to want to be independent. Two and a half

years ago for -- a referendum voted to stick with the UK. We don't want

to go through that process again. Do you detect any change in the

position of your friends? Both ways. If you want independence at all cost

then another referendum is a good thing, but there are those who were

pro-independence who are thinking, this is too much, too soon. On

Monday, Scotland's First Minister opened fire. I can confirm today I

will seek the authority of the Scottish Parliament to agree with

the UK Government the details of a Section 30 order. It is a procedure

that will enable the Scottish Government to legislate for an

independence referendum. UK Government was clear in 2014 that an

independence referendum showed in their words be made in Scotland by

the people of Scotland -- should. That is a principle that should be

respected today. Nicola Sturgeon's ambush was a great piece of

political theatre and it was rude, too. What the Scottish Nationalists

are suggesting is that they are not the engines of uncertainty. -- was

shrewd. . With Brexit, the British government is. Once Scottish

technology lead the world. The dream of the Nationalists is that

independence will make Scotland great again.

Never mind this new rubbish, this is the great classic of Scottish

engineering. So what do the descendants of the people who built

this great thing, people who live here in North Queensferry, think

about the new Scottish referendum? I really do not want to be out of

Europe. Also, I feel... That in Scotland, we have a lot more

ecological thinking, I like the way the SNP has combined with the Green

Party, in that they share a lot of use. The referendum gives you hope

because it makes you feel safer? Yes. So you are safer out? I just

think Scotland has grown very far away from England in terms of the

viewpoints. And we are a country. Scotland is a country. Are you

pleased not pleased about the referendum? Very not pleased. It was

supposed to be once in a generation with the referendum and that's not

the case. I voted against Brexit but I support the vote because the

majority voted that way. Unionists like him can take succour from the

Prime Minister's remarks today. There is a proposal that has been

put forward by the SNP Government in Scotland that wants to start

talking now about a second Now is not the time,

because if we were to put energies We want to be coming together,

working together, because that's the best opportunity we've got

to get the right deal for Scotland, the right deal for the UK as we're

negotiating with the European Union. Theresa May has just said now is not

the time for a second Scottish referendum. What, right this moment?

I would disagree personally. Disagree that she's blocked it,

because it's taking away from the autonomy of the Scottish Parliament,

personally. Are you in favour of leaving the UK? Yes, now that

Britain is leaving the EU. I did vote for independence only for the

sake of my children, because they were all for it, and I thought we

might not be here in ten or 20 years, so to help them, I voted for

independence last time. Will you do so again this time? Probably.

Our wholly unscientific sampling found no great enthusiasm for

another referendum. But also perhaps that Brexit is

weakening the glue that keeps the kingdom united.

If you've spent the last few months trying to work out why Donald Trump

won the American election and how he gets away with as many

inconsistencies and inaccuracies as he does, you're not alone.

The journalist and writer Peter Pomerantsev has been giving

some philosophical thought to the President, his

We asked him to set out his theory for us, and in return we put

These sorts of ideas have been prevalent among philosophers

for the last few decades, often described as post-modernist.

Originally meant to help unseat those in power to bring

in previously repressed voices into the political debate,

they are today being used by a new breed of leaders

Meet the post-modern politician, who doesn't just bend the truth

like his predecessors, but fundamentally subverts the idea

that there is any knowable or objective truth at all.

He happily contradicts himself, for example, boasting that he had

once pretended to pose as his own PR man and then denying it.

He asserts things that most sources claim are just false -

that the crowds at his inauguration were bigger than Obama's

Putin has the same disdain for facts.

As his army blatantly annexed Crimea, he went on TV and,

with a smirk, told the world there were no Russian

Meanwhile, Trump maintained that we will never really

know who shot down MH17, despite all the evidence pointing

Putin and Trump's undermining of the possibility of establishing

They thus remove the space where one can make a rational

Criticism becomes lost in a fog of unknowing.

Indeed, maybe Putin and Trump's post-modernist disdain for objective

Facts are, after all, unpleasant things.

They tell you that you are going to die,

that you might not be good-looking, rich or clever.

There is a rebellious joy in throwing off the weight of them.

Trump's disdain for the truth is an anarchic liberation

He comes from the fantasy land of the reality show -

that magical space where ordinary people can burst through the usual

glass ceilings of class and brains to attain fame and fortune.

So is the post-modern politician unbeatable?

Whether one is building a bridge or a new society,

facts are necessary to prove you're achieving your vision.

It's no coincidence that both Trump and Putin are backwards-looking,

selling fake memories to make America or Russia great again.

Nostalgia has an emotional appeal, but to bring back facts,

What one paradoxically needs is the imagination to envisage

Well, that's Peter Pomerantsev on Donald Trump's

Well, among the President's preoccupations today has

been his travel ban meeting new legal obstacles.

It's an example of populism in action which divides opinion

between those who say it's racist and those who say it's quite

reasonable to listen to the concerns of ordinary people.

In a way, populism has opened up a debate about the word racism.

Can a majority white community assert its interests as a community

Or is that just to use the word too widely?

Let's talk about that now with Eric Kaufmann,

Professor of Politics at Birkbeck University of London,

and Zubaida Haque, researcher at the Runnymede Trust,

a think tank that deals with racial equality.

Given name. What has been the problem in terms of the relationship

of those who use the word racism and the majority community? I think,

there is an interesting piece by a Muslim American writer who makes the

distinction between racism and racial self interest and with racial

self interest, something like wanting slower immigration,

something that a certain section of the majority community once, to

label that as racism is problematic and counter-productive. We need to

get more forensic about what is racism. That partly explains what

some would call the backlash and the populism. People are being fed up of

being told they cannot talk about these things. Do you buy any of

that? I think part of the problem is that you simplify what racism is.

Racism is very complex. It is a problem that we just use the word

racism when in fact racism hides a whole plethora of attitudes.

Prejudices, of overt racism of covert racism, of subtle

discrimination and unless you unpack back, you do not really understand

the nation -- nature of the game off racism and understand how people

experienced disadvantages, discrimination and how they end up

worse off when they should be better off. I want to work out on what you

agree and disagree on. Would you both agree there should be a taboo

around public expression of hatred for an ethnic or religious group?

You would both say that should be a to-do social thing and the charge of

racism, if you say you hate black or white people. I think you both agree

it would be racist if you said I do not want as many black people in my

neighbourhood? When you are focusing on a single group you do not like, I

think that is racist. You would agree with that. I think it is more

complex. This is where I want to challenge his work. Professor

Kaufman himself has said, that it is perfectly reasonable and legitimate

for people to say, I want to live with my own kind and even if that

involves colour, that is perfectly legitimate. What I would say, what

does that exactly mean when people say I want to live with my own kind?

I was on the race riot panels in 2001 and I am a social scientist and

what I would challenge you with, is what I found in 2001 during the

riots is when I asked people, white communities and ethnic communities,

what do you mean? Are you living in segregated communities? It was

interesting, what you slowly unpicked was behind people's views

about wanting to live along with the same kind, unconscious biases or

prejudices, but also with ethnic minorities, there were fears. They

were afraid to live in isolated communities and not amongst

themselves. Is it correct that you say that people should be allowed to

say I want to live with my own kind even if that has a racial view? I do

not believe in living segregated lives but I think it is legitimate

for a group to be attached to a community and be worried about rapid

change. I think that is fine. It does not mean we should stop the

change. I think it is not necessary -- necessarily racist to express

that sense of cultural loss. Why is it not racist? Just because someone

says it is not racist but you have to understand that underneath racism

are unconscious biases, people do not realise they are racist, but

that is how we have moved on. You're both the green on the most

fundamental point is that the word racism covers a million different

things. I want to say something about the study we did with Policy

Exchange and what you see, what people consider racism is affected

by their partisan ship. Most Clinton voters do not think it is racist for

a Latin American to want more immigration from Latin America to

boost their group's share the big think it is racist for white

American to want less immigration to midtown their group share and vice

versa for Trump voters. You have a certain sense of what proportion you

are in the country and you want to stabilise that or hold it. There is

an assumption there that when they say races, you and that person mean

the same thing and we have seen it in the immigration debate and you

know this is a politics professor that when you ask people about their

views on immigration and they are talking about immigrants, you do not

always been the same thing. Their interpretations of what kind of

immigrant is acceptable and who they mean is very different from the

questions will stop I think I know what you might say, but what

proportion of the population do you think are meaningfully racist.

Overt. Over we can measure. We can see in hate crime statistics. That

is a difficult question. We can see it through hate crimes. Do you think

the professor is racist. I think the professor has come up at the wrong

answer to the right question. I think the right question you had

every right to ask and we are all interested in, is what is British

does, what does it take to be British, what is acceptable in

Britishness and our ethnic minorities British? You can ask it

but you also need to ask our white majority groups British? In many

ways, what you have done is, but the wrong diagnosis in the wrong answer

to the right question. I also think we need to open up space to be able

to talk about these majority cultural interests. What are they?

We know that in this country, 75% or so of people want less immigration

and I do not think that makes them racist. There are a hard-core

racists, this is about a sense of cultural loss. It means it is

something we should be cognisant of. If we call that races, we are going

to alienate a lot of people. I am so sorry, we have to leave it there. We

will get you back on and talk another time.

Some say remainer, some say remoaner.

Whatever you call the tribe, it's going to be a tough couple

of years for those who are not comfortable with Brexit.

So here's a challenge for that group - without changing their mind,

can they at least find something positive to say about it?

We're asking prominent remainers to find a reason to be

We're starting with Matthew Parris, the former Tory MP

A couple of weeks after the referendum, he wrote that

"for the first time in his life he felt ashamed to be British".

Can he now see the glass as half-full?

On cost-benefit, I think Remain wins.

But it's more than that - it's also an emotional thing.

We've never liked the European Union and I've never really

liked the European Union, and I don't think we ever will.

It's like one of those little stones in the shoe.

It's not a very big stone, it doesn't stop you walking but it

Well, leaving will be getting rid of the stone in the shoe.

Now, the cost-benefit analysis may be in favour of staying but the "get

rid of the stone in the shoe" analysis is perhaps a bit more

It will help us, perhaps, take a firmer grip on our

sense of who we are, our sense of identity.

It may make us sleep a little more comfortably in our beds.

So here, with the glass not quite half-full, is to Brexit.

Matthew Parris looking on the bright side of Brexit, which does not come

naturally to him.