Browse content similar to 08/04/2016. Check below for episodes and series from the same categories and more!
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Hello it's Friday, it's 9 o'clock, I'm Joanna Gosling. | :00:10. | :00:11. | |
Five statements in five days - the Prime Minister is accused | :00:12. | :00:16. | |
of hypocrisy after revealing he did profit from an offshore fund set | :00:17. | :00:18. | |
A report published by a House of Lords committee today | :00:19. | :00:25. | |
on the social mobility of school leavers and their path | :00:26. | :00:27. | |
into employment, finds that teenagers should be encouraged | :00:28. | :00:31. | |
to decide earlier whether they follow a mainly | :00:32. | :00:34. | |
We'll discuss all that with our audience and let us know | :00:35. | :00:39. | |
At 13, Alicia was lured from her home by a man she thought | :00:40. | :00:49. | |
What happened next changed the course of her life. | :00:50. | :00:55. | |
She tells us about her ordeal and why she is campaigning | :00:56. | :00:57. | |
I feel, and I felt at the time, that he was going to kill me. | :00:58. | :01:03. | |
It feels horrible to say this, but if I didn't serve a purpose, | :01:04. | :01:13. | |
that he was going to kill me, that he didn't have another option. | :01:14. | :01:26. | |
We're live until 11:00am this morning. | :01:27. | :01:30. | |
Five days, five statements from the Prime Minister attempting | :01:31. | :01:33. | |
Is he a hypocrite, as he has been called? | :01:34. | :01:36. | |
We will explain the story from the beginning. | :01:37. | :01:41. | |
And we will bring you the extraordinary story of a young | :01:42. | :01:44. | |
woman who was held captive in an ordeal that changed her life. | :01:45. | :01:47. | |
Do get in touch on all the stories we're talking about this morning. | :01:48. | :01:52. | |
Use the hashtag Victoria live and If you text, you will be charged | :01:53. | :01:55. | |
And don't forget if you've got a story you think we should be | :01:56. | :01:59. | |
Some of our best stories come from you, our viewers. | :02:00. | :02:04. | |
Our top story today - Labour is accusing David Cameron | :02:05. | :02:06. | |
of double standards, after the Prime Minister revealed | :02:07. | :02:08. | |
he'd previously owned shares in an offshore trust, | :02:09. | :02:10. | |
Mr Cameron sold them for more than ?30,000 in 2010 | :02:11. | :02:15. | |
shortly before becoming Prime Minister. | :02:16. | :02:16. | |
The Prime Minister has faced persistent questions | :02:17. | :02:27. | |
about an offshore trust set up by his late father. | :02:28. | :02:29. | |
It was based in a tax haven and did not pay tax in Britain. | :02:30. | :02:33. | |
Faced with bad headlines all week, the Prime Minister gave away more | :02:34. | :02:36. | |
information bit by bit about his own financial affairs. | :02:37. | :02:42. | |
He said he did not own any shares in offshore trusts and would not | :02:43. | :02:46. | |
But last night he revealed he had profited from the sale of shares | :02:47. | :02:50. | |
in his father's trust when he was Leader of the Opposition. | :02:51. | :02:53. | |
We owned 5000 units in Blairmore Investment Trust, | :02:54. | :03:00. | |
That was worth something like ?30,000. | :03:01. | :03:06. | |
He insisted the trust was not set up to avoid tax. | :03:07. | :03:09. | |
The criticisms are based on a fundamental misconception, | :03:10. | :03:13. | |
which is that the unit trust was set up with the idea of avoiding tax. | :03:14. | :03:17. | |
But Labour and the SNP said the public would not | :03:18. | :03:22. | |
and he will face more questions when Parliament resumes on Monday. | :03:23. | :03:25. | |
What other shareholdings did David Cameron hold while he was | :03:26. | :03:27. | |
Was he invested in any other trusts that were | :03:28. | :03:33. | |
Tax doesn't need to be taxing, says the slogan, | :03:34. | :03:44. | |
but the Prime Minister is currently finding it very taxing indeed. | :03:45. | :03:49. | |
We will discuss this a little later with a couple of MPs. | :03:50. | :03:53. | |
How much pressure is the Prime Minister under? It's certainly | :03:54. | :04:03. | |
embarrassing for the Prime Minister. I think Downing Street have been | :04:04. | :04:07. | |
thrown on the defensive on this all week. And I think they are pretty | :04:08. | :04:12. | |
furious too. The Prime Minister now says he will publish his tax return, | :04:13. | :04:18. | |
and after the admission he made last night, he will hope he can finally | :04:19. | :04:23. | |
draw a line under it. Labour is not satisfied and says the public will | :04:24. | :04:27. | |
find it difficult to trust the Prime Minister. The SNP says David Cameron | :04:28. | :04:32. | |
has played the public over his tax affairs. I think the questions will | :04:33. | :04:35. | |
keep coming and the pressure will stay on the Prime Minister. Remember | :04:36. | :04:40. | |
that neither David Cameron nor his late father have done anything | :04:41. | :04:46. | |
illegal and ten point out that he has been the most open Prime | :04:47. | :04:51. | |
Minister in recent times when it comes to tax affairs, but it doesn't | :04:52. | :04:55. | |
help his political image. He's currently in the middle of the | :04:56. | :04:59. | |
political fight of his life to keep Britain in the EU and anything that | :05:00. | :05:03. | |
creates distance between him and the electorate not help. One final | :05:04. | :05:08. | |
thing, a Downing Street source admitted to me that the well-known | :05:09. | :05:12. | |
phrase, hindsight is a wonderful thing, I think it was an admission | :05:13. | :05:16. | |
that they would do things very differently if they had their time | :05:17. | :05:20. | |
again. It has been a week in the headlines with MPs back to | :05:21. | :05:24. | |
Westminster next week. Presumably this will not go away any time soon. | :05:25. | :05:30. | |
And Labour is calling for David Cameron to come to the House of | :05:31. | :05:33. | |
Commons next week to deliver a statement on his tax affairs. We | :05:34. | :05:37. | |
will also get the publication of his tax return, and I'm told that will | :05:38. | :05:41. | |
come as soon as and we should expect it in the coming days. Questions | :05:42. | :05:43. | |
will continue to be asked. We'll be discussing this story | :05:44. | :05:46. | |
in more detail at 9.15 - but first, a summary of the rest | :05:47. | :05:51. | |
of the day's news. In the past half hour, | :05:52. | :05:58. | |
the first of two boats carrying migrants from the Greek island | :05:59. | :06:01. | |
of Lesbos, has arrived in Turkey. It's part of the deal agreed | :06:02. | :06:04. | |
with the European Union last month aimed at deterring migrants | :06:05. | :06:07. | |
from making the hazardous Around 45 migrants, mostly of | :06:08. | :06:22. | |
Pakistani origin, made up the first sailing to Turkey. | :06:23. | :06:26. | |
A second boat is scheduled to leave later today. | :06:27. | :06:28. | |
Let's get the latest from our correspondent Mark Lowen | :06:29. | :06:30. | |
So far it seems to be going relatively smoothly. Yeah, pretty | :06:31. | :06:41. | |
smoothly. We can see the scene, the boat that came in about an hour ago | :06:42. | :06:46. | |
with 45 people on board, Pakistani 's who have been escorted off one by | :06:47. | :06:53. | |
one onto the port and mainland. They have been taken to white tents to | :06:54. | :06:56. | |
have names and fingerprints taken before they are put on buses to be | :06:57. | :07:05. | |
sent to a deportation centre on the Turkey and Hungarian border. Turkey | :07:06. | :07:09. | |
has signed a readmission agreement with Pakistan, and we expect a | :07:10. | :07:15. | |
second boat in about an hour with about 100 people on board from three | :07:16. | :07:21. | |
Greek islands, again, mainly economic migrants who Turkey will | :07:22. | :07:22. | |
try to deport. What's been the picture there? In | :07:23. | :07:36. | |
the last ten minutes another boat left Lesbos for Turkey. It was | :07:37. | :07:43. | |
carrying 79 migrants and we are told 50 of them came from the island of | :07:44. | :07:54. | |
Kos and 29 from Samos. The dream of a better life in Europe is over for | :07:55. | :07:58. | |
those on board but European leaders hope their disappointment will deter | :07:59. | :08:01. | |
others from making the dangerous journey across the short stretch of | :08:02. | :08:06. | |
water. It's difficult to tell if it is working at this stage, but we | :08:07. | :08:10. | |
know the Greek authorities and those assisting here say they are still | :08:11. | :08:14. | |
massively understaffed. We went to a detention camp yesterday and they | :08:15. | :08:20. | |
said they needed another 400 officers and 400 interpreters to | :08:21. | :08:23. | |
process asylum applications effectively. The numbers of people | :08:24. | :08:28. | |
arriving have reduced significantly since the deal between the EU and | :08:29. | :08:32. | |
Turkey were was struck. In the days before the deal be regularly sought | :08:33. | :08:37. | |
1500 people arriving on a daily basis on Lesbos, and now the numbers | :08:38. | :08:42. | |
are much smaller, normally under 100 per day. On Wednesday, there were in | :08:43. | :08:50. | |
-- there were no new arrivals at all. | :08:51. | :08:52. | |
A man has been arrested and is being questioned on suspicion | :08:53. | :08:54. | |
of murder over the disappearance of a London police officer. | :08:55. | :08:57. | |
PC Gordon Semple was reported missing a week ago and was last seen | :08:58. | :09:00. | |
on CCTV on a street near London Bridge. | :09:01. | :09:02. | |
Yesterday, police were called to a property in Southwark | :09:03. | :09:04. | |
where human remains were discovered and a man was arrested. | :09:05. | :09:07. | |
The property is still being examined and the arrested man | :09:08. | :09:10. | |
Live to Scotland Yard - and our correspondent | :09:11. | :09:16. | |
It was just last Friday when PC Gordon Semple left his home in | :09:17. | :09:29. | |
Dartford for work as normal. He went to a business meeting at a hotel | :09:30. | :09:38. | |
near the famous London Shard, leaving around 12:30pm. At 3:30pm he | :09:39. | :09:43. | |
was captured on a CCTV Cameron Neild London Bridge, the last confirmed | :09:44. | :09:47. | |
sighting of him. When he failed to return home his partner called the | :09:48. | :09:52. | |
police and reported him missing. A search began, and at one stage last | :09:53. | :09:56. | |
week it involved police divers. There was no trace of him until | :09:57. | :09:59. | |
yesterday when a member of the public called the police and they | :10:00. | :10:05. | |
attended an address in a housing estate in south-east London, and | :10:06. | :10:08. | |
they arrested a 49-year-old man on suspicion of murder. We recently | :10:09. | :10:13. | |
heard from the commander of a short time ago who said the police also | :10:14. | :10:15. | |
found human mains at the address. Due to the condition | :10:16. | :10:18. | |
of the human remains, it will take some time for the cause | :10:19. | :10:20. | |
of death to be established, and for At this point, I do not wish | :10:21. | :10:24. | |
to speculate on what has happened. Yesterday, a forensic search started | :10:25. | :10:29. | |
at the address and is still going. A postmortem examination is still to | :10:30. | :10:45. | |
be carried out and police are not commenting on any possible cause of | :10:46. | :10:50. | |
death, neither are they speculating on a possible motive. Specially | :10:51. | :10:54. | |
trained police officers are working with the family of PC Semple, and | :10:55. | :10:58. | |
this has been a very difficult time for colleagues as well. He was an | :10:59. | :11:05. | |
officer for 30 years, so it has been a tough time at the Met. A | :11:06. | :11:10. | |
49-year-old man remains in custody and is being questioned on suspicion | :11:11. | :11:12. | |
of murder. The fourth strike by junior | :11:13. | :11:15. | |
doctors in England over the government's new contract, | :11:16. | :11:18. | |
has finished in the past hour. Government sources say | :11:19. | :11:21. | |
that the British Medical Association has blown its chance to negotiate, | :11:22. | :11:23. | |
and a new contract will now be But the BMA is planning | :11:24. | :11:26. | |
another walkout at the end of the month when - | :11:27. | :11:33. | |
for the first time in the dispute - emergency cover will | :11:34. | :11:36. | |
also be withdrawn. There's a warning this morning that | :11:37. | :11:40. | |
young people in England who don't go to university are being overlooked | :11:41. | :11:43. | |
and left behind. A report by the House of Lords | :11:44. | :11:45. | |
claims teenagers who don't go into higher education often end up | :11:46. | :11:50. | |
drifting into their first job. And is having one going to get | :11:51. | :11:53. | |
you a well-paid job? The Lords say that young people | :11:54. | :12:04. | |
are being let down by vocational qualifications, disadvantaging | :12:05. | :12:16. | |
even the most ambitious. I would like to be a journalist | :12:17. | :12:18. | |
doing current affairs. He did not get the grades to study | :12:19. | :12:20. | |
A-levels but likes the You should value all skills | :12:21. | :12:25. | |
and talents and just because someone can't do theory, | :12:26. | :12:30. | |
theory, theory and do really well at it compared to someone else, | :12:31. | :12:34. | |
then I think it is unfair. The majority of young people don't | :12:35. | :12:40. | |
go on to A-levels or university, but according to this report, | :12:41. | :12:44. | |
this group are in fact overlooked. Left with an array of | :12:45. | :12:53. | |
qualifications that employers They're not work ready | :12:54. | :12:55. | |
and the difference in the funding between further | :12:56. | :12:59. | |
and higher education is too great. Schools and employers in further | :13:00. | :13:05. | |
education colleges have The government says it is investing | :13:06. | :13:08. | |
in improving careers education allowing more young people to gain | :13:09. | :13:17. | |
action to work experience to prepare And Joanna will be discussing this | :13:18. | :13:20. | |
story, asking whether social mobility for young people | :13:21. | :13:27. | |
is actually achievable, after 9:30 Tata Steel is refusing to comment | :13:28. | :13:30. | |
on claims it made significant profits from a policy designed | :13:31. | :13:37. | |
to protect the climate. Three separate experts say Tata made | :13:38. | :13:41. | |
hundreds of millions of pounds selling carbon emissions permits | :13:42. | :13:49. | |
it was given for free under It's a controversial allegation | :13:50. | :13:52. | |
because Tata had complained that one of the reasons it wasn't able | :13:53. | :13:55. | |
to make a profit was because of EU Last week the firm announced it | :13:56. | :14:08. | |
would sell its UK steel plants threatening thousands of jobs. | :14:09. | :14:10. | |
The private hire firm, Uber, has agreed to settle a legal case | :14:11. | :14:13. | |
in the US state of California over how it described its vetting | :14:14. | :14:16. | |
Uber was accused of misleading customers after calling itself | :14:17. | :14:19. | |
Uber has paid $10 million, that's around ?7 million, | :14:20. | :14:30. | |
to settle the claim and says it will now change its adverts. | :14:31. | :14:32. | |
Prosecutors said Buber had failed to prevent 25 people with criminal | :14:33. | :14:45. | |
convictions from becoming drivers. -- Uber. | :14:46. | :14:47. | |
Pope Francis is releasing a document later which will set | :14:48. | :14:50. | |
out his views on family life, marriage, contraception | :14:51. | :14:52. | |
The publication has been eagerly awaited by the world's | :14:53. | :14:55. | |
Many are hoping that it will lead to the church offering Communion | :14:56. | :14:59. | |
to the divorced and people who have civil marriages, something | :15:00. | :15:01. | |
That's a summary of the latest BBC News - more at 9.30. | :15:02. | :15:10. | |
a story of extraordinary courage - a young woman who was kidnapped | :15:11. | :15:22. | |
and abused over four days as a child and who now has made it her life's | :15:23. | :15:26. | |
work to highlight the dangers of online grooming. | :15:27. | :15:28. | |
Do get in touch with us throughout the morning - | :15:29. | :15:33. | |
use the hashtag Victoria live and if you text, you will be charged | :15:34. | :15:36. | |
A lot of you getting in touch on the Prime Minister. Violet said that it | :15:37. | :15:46. | |
is outrageous that David Cameron can continue to lie to the British | :15:47. | :15:52. | |
public and he should resign today. Another says he wishes people would | :15:53. | :15:57. | |
get off the Prime Minister's back. He said the tax expert clarified he | :15:58. | :16:07. | |
had paid any tax due on profits. I think that is a reference to the tax | :16:08. | :16:12. | |
expert on Radio 4 earlier. Keep getting in touch with your thoughts | :16:13. | :16:17. | |
on that. We will talk about it after the sport. We can catch up with the | :16:18. | :16:20. | |
sport. Good morning Liverpool fans will be | :16:21. | :16:26. | |
happy with the draw away at Dortmund. Especially as they got | :16:27. | :16:31. | |
what could be a crucial away goal. Before the game a nice moment as the | :16:32. | :16:40. | |
stadium sang You'll Never Walk Alone. Jurgen Klopp was proved right | :16:41. | :16:49. | |
choosing the Belgian youngster in the first half. Neither side could | :16:50. | :16:54. | |
force a decisive goal. The second leg is at Anfield next Thursday. | :16:55. | :17:01. | |
They are still in a good position. It was important for us to show | :17:02. | :17:07. | |
this. A lot of people thought a lot of things about our possible | :17:08. | :17:14. | |
performance. Maybe they are surprised and I am really happy with | :17:15. | :17:20. | |
the performance. Another man happy was Jordan Spieth who said he was | :17:21. | :17:23. | |
extremely pleased with his opening round at the Masters. The defending | :17:24. | :17:29. | |
champion is top of the leaderboard. It was a windy Augusta and Jordan | :17:30. | :17:35. | |
Spieth managed a six under par 66 to finish the day two shots clear off | :17:36. | :17:41. | |
the field. Rory McIlroy still believes he can spoil Jordan | :17:42. | :17:45. | |
Spieth's dreams of a second straight title he is four shots off the pace. | :17:46. | :17:51. | |
He dropped two in the last three to card 70. Conditions were tricky out | :17:52. | :17:58. | |
there. I was four under with three left to play and it would have been | :17:59. | :18:02. | |
nice to get it in under 70, at least. It is a tough golf course and | :18:03. | :18:10. | |
you will make bogeys. I need to be aggressive tomorrow and get the | :18:11. | :18:13. | |
shots back as quickly as possible. How about this? Former world number | :18:14. | :18:27. | |
one Ernie Els has a putt for par. Nine shots in total. The ball | :18:28. | :18:32. | |
eventually dropped. That is the worst opening hole in Masters | :18:33. | :18:39. | |
history. He said he could not explain it. You can see first round | :18:40. | :18:45. | |
highlights now on the red button and on BBC Two at 6:30pm. The BBC sport | :18:46. | :18:50. | |
website has comprehensive coverage. Ben Stokes says he felt complete | :18:51. | :18:56. | |
devastation following England's Twenty20 final defeat to West | :18:57. | :19:00. | |
Indies, giving his first interview since he was smashed for four sixes | :19:01. | :19:06. | |
in the final over. He told the Daily Telegraph it was like the whole | :19:07. | :19:10. | |
world had come down on him. That is all the sport. I will be back with a | :19:11. | :19:13. | |
look at the headlines at 9:30am. Five days, four different statements | :19:14. | :19:16. | |
about his financial affairs. Now the Prime Minister admits he did | :19:17. | :19:19. | |
own and he did profit from shares He said he and his wife Samantha | :19:20. | :19:22. | |
sold their shares in the fund in 2010 for ?30,000 - | :19:23. | :19:27. | |
before he became Prime Minister and he insisted all UK | :19:28. | :19:33. | |
taxes had been paid. So why didn't he want to tell us | :19:34. | :19:35. | |
about it earlier? It follows a week of questions | :19:36. | :19:38. | |
about his tax arrangements - When the Panama Papers | :19:39. | :19:40. | |
were released on Sunday night, and Ian Cameron's name appeared | :19:41. | :19:45. | |
in them, journalists began to ask whether Mr Cameron had benefited | :19:46. | :19:49. | |
from Blairmore Holdings, On Monday, the Prime Minister's | :19:50. | :19:56. | |
official spokesman told journalists in a briefing | :19:57. | :19:59. | |
that it was a "private matter". On Tuesday Downing Street issued | :20:00. | :20:02. | |
a statement saying: the prime minister, his wife | :20:03. | :20:05. | |
and their children do not benefit from any offshore funds," adding | :20:06. | :20:14. | |
the prime minister owns no shares. Mr Cameron reiterated his position | :20:15. | :20:18. | |
after a speech in Birmingham. And on Wednesday morning another | :20:19. | :20:21. | |
statement was released or trusts which the prime minister, | :20:22. | :20:22. | |
Mrs Cameron or their children And then last night the Prime | :20:23. | :20:27. | |
Minister spoke to ITV News. Samantha and I had a joint account | :20:28. | :20:33. | |
and we owned 5,000 units in Blairmore Investment Trust | :20:34. | :20:38. | |
which we sold in January 2010 - that was worth | :20:39. | :20:42. | |
something like ?30,000. There was a profit on it | :20:43. | :20:44. | |
but that was less than the capital gains tax allowance, | :20:45. | :20:55. | |
so I didn't pay capital gains tax, but it was subject to all the UK | :20:56. | :20:59. | |
taxes in all the normal ways. I think a lot of the criticisms | :21:00. | :21:02. | |
are based on a fundamental misconception which is that | :21:03. | :21:05. | |
Blairemore Investment, a unit trust, was set up with the idea | :21:06. | :21:07. | |
of avoiding tax. It wasn't - it was set up | :21:08. | :21:11. | |
after exchange controls went so that people who wanted to invest | :21:12. | :21:18. | |
in dollar-denominated shares could do so, and there are many | :21:19. | :21:24. | |
other, thousands of other unit It was reported to the HMRC, | :21:25. | :21:27. | |
it reported itself every year Joining us now is Damian Collins, | :21:28. | :21:31. | |
who's the Conservative MP Heather Self is a tax | :21:32. | :21:38. | |
partner at Pinsent Masons. And joining us from Cardiff, | :21:39. | :21:46. | |
is the Shadow Work and Pensions Thanks for joining us. It has taken | :21:47. | :21:57. | |
a long time to get here? If the Prime Minister made the statement on | :21:58. | :22:01. | |
Monday, Tuesday this week is dead yesterday I do not think there would | :22:02. | :22:05. | |
be much difference. There would be interesting what he had to say. I | :22:06. | :22:10. | |
think we can get too focused on the process and not the issue, which is | :22:11. | :22:16. | |
did he do anything wrong? No. Was he avoiding tax? No. He paid UK tax on | :22:17. | :22:21. | |
the investment and sold the shares six years ago and made his personal | :22:22. | :22:26. | |
declaration of that now. I do not see he has more questions to answer. | :22:27. | :22:31. | |
On the point of it making a difference if it was declared up | :22:32. | :22:35. | |
front, it maybe would not have led to five days of headlines of | :22:36. | :22:38. | |
different details coming out gradually. We are talking two, three | :22:39. | :22:43. | |
days, and there would be interesting what he said regardless of when he | :22:44. | :22:47. | |
said. He gave the impression he was not being completely straight at the | :22:48. | :22:51. | |
beginning. There is no question that anything he said was not correct or | :22:52. | :23:03. | |
accurate. He was not avoiding tax, he paid UK tax on that investment | :23:04. | :23:10. | |
and he has made that clear. Were the shares declared when he was a | :23:11. | :23:17. | |
regular MP? I have not looked at his register of members' interest from | :23:18. | :23:21. | |
that period but he has sold that investment in that unit trust. Units | :23:22. | :23:26. | |
rather than shares. He paid UK tax on that, this is a trust registered | :23:27. | :23:31. | |
with HMRC and Inland Revenue and all UK investors would have paid UK tax | :23:32. | :23:36. | |
on the investments. Owen Smith, he sold the shares, they were declared | :23:37. | :23:41. | |
to the Inland Revenue, tax was paid on them as it should have been, what | :23:42. | :23:47. | |
has he done wrong? I think the main thing is he has been hypocritical, | :23:48. | :23:51. | |
arguing for the last six years tax avoidance was a bad thing, he said | :23:52. | :23:58. | |
it was morally repugnant. He gave a speech where he talked about a | :23:59. | :24:02. | |
travelling caravan of international tax accountants and lawyers hiding | :24:03. | :24:06. | |
money from state governments. At the same time, he has invested into a | :24:07. | :24:11. | |
vehicle designed to avoid paying tax. Registered overseas. That is | :24:12. | :24:19. | |
legal stop should it be legal to be able to avoid tax in this fashion? | :24:20. | :24:24. | |
He clearly did benefit from this and although he may have paid tax at the | :24:25. | :24:29. | |
end point when he took the money out, when he sold the units or | :24:30. | :24:33. | |
shares, of course he would have benefited from the fact the company | :24:34. | :24:36. | |
was making money in the period in which he invested without paying tax | :24:37. | :24:43. | |
for 30 years. Heather, picks that in terms of the benefits. We need to | :24:44. | :24:50. | |
distinguish between overseas companies, separate legal entities, | :24:51. | :24:54. | |
and offshore funds. This is an offshore fund, it is like a | :24:55. | :24:58. | |
partnership, there has been a special tax regime since 1984 and it | :24:59. | :25:04. | |
says if you are a UK investor in an offshore fund you pay tax as it goes | :25:05. | :25:07. | |
along on everything the entity earns. What about whether the funds | :25:08. | :25:13. | |
grow because of benefits arising from the fact they are overseas? Why | :25:14. | :25:18. | |
have them overseas if there is no benefit? It is an intermediate layer | :25:19. | :25:23. | |
investing in companies that pay tax and the investors pay tax. You have | :25:24. | :25:28. | |
profits that pay tax at the bottom, investors at the top who pay tax and | :25:29. | :25:32. | |
in the middle you have something that does not pay tax because it is | :25:33. | :25:36. | |
a pass-through vehicle, saving an extra layer of tax in the middle. He | :25:37. | :25:45. | |
could have set up, David Cameron's father, this vehicle, hedge funds or | :25:46. | :25:50. | |
any investment vehicle, in the UK, but he set it up overseas and we | :25:51. | :25:55. | |
know from the papers he went searching for the most tax | :25:56. | :25:59. | |
efficient, as they put it, tax friendly location, and simply to | :26:00. | :26:04. | |
avoid tax and scrutiny. The big picture is surely that we have a | :26:05. | :26:08. | |
Prime Minister who has sought to say we are in it together and that the | :26:09. | :26:14. | |
burden of austerity has been evenly born and this reveals that is not | :26:15. | :26:19. | |
true, there is an elite in society and he is part of it, who do not | :26:20. | :26:24. | |
play by the same rules as the rest, it is one rule for ordinary people | :26:25. | :26:28. | |
who pay taxes and another for those who don't, and that is the | :26:29. | :26:32. | |
underpinning I think double standards that have been exposed. I | :26:33. | :26:37. | |
think the Prime Minister has to come to Parliament and give a fuller | :26:38. | :26:41. | |
description of what his holdings have been in the past and explain | :26:42. | :26:46. | |
how it was he can speak out over the last six years and explain what the | :26:47. | :26:52. | |
government's real attitudes are to wealth being hoarded in this | :26:53. | :26:59. | |
fashion. Hypocrisy? I think Owen is deliberately confusing issues. David | :27:00. | :27:04. | |
Cameron did not avoid tax. He paid tax on the dividends whilst he held | :27:05. | :27:09. | |
the units in the trust and was liable for UK tax when he sold his | :27:10. | :27:13. | |
interest as everyone was. It is not double standards. Why not be clearer | :27:14. | :27:18. | |
about it from the beginning. He has been clear about his relationship | :27:19. | :27:24. | |
with that trust. The bigger issue... He has been asked about it | :27:25. | :27:29. | |
repeatedly. The big issue is that is the Prime Minister saying one thing | :27:30. | :27:34. | |
and doing another? He is not, he has not avoided tax and as Prime | :27:35. | :27:37. | |
Minister he has led a government that has clamped out on tax | :27:38. | :27:40. | |
avoidance in the way the last Labour government never did. Recouping | :27:41. | :27:46. | |
taxes that might have been avoided by people who do use vehicles and it | :27:47. | :27:50. | |
is right we clamped down on tax avoidance but at no point has the | :27:51. | :27:55. | |
Prime Minister try to avoid tax. A lot of people are concerned there | :27:56. | :27:59. | |
has not been transparency. Steve saying it is fairly typical in the | :28:00. | :28:06. | |
comments, he said the issue is not David Cameron has done anything | :28:07. | :28:09. | |
wrong rather the lack of transparency and changing stories. | :28:10. | :28:13. | |
The story has not changed. It has developed. He has added to what he | :28:14. | :28:18. | |
said but has not gone back on anything he said and this investment | :28:19. | :28:22. | |
he got rid off before he was a government minister, before he was | :28:23. | :28:27. | |
Prime Minister. He made a voluntary declaration, it was not dragged out | :28:28. | :28:30. | |
of him, he has set the record straight and published his tax | :28:31. | :28:35. | |
return. Owen Smith, the Prime Minister says this government has | :28:36. | :28:39. | |
done more than any other to tackle tax avoidance and he says that | :28:40. | :28:43. | |
demonstrates his view of the issue. He keeps repeating that but the last | :28:44. | :28:49. | |
Labour government introduced in 1998 rules to open up the tax behaviour | :28:50. | :28:54. | |
of overseas territory and introduced the most important piece of tax | :28:55. | :28:58. | |
avoidance legislation, the disclosure of tax avoidance | :28:59. | :29:04. | |
vehicles, in 2004, but the big question here is speaking out of | :29:05. | :29:11. | |
both sides of his mouth, the fact the Prime Minister has talked a | :29:12. | :29:15. | |
great game about tax avoidance and transparency. He said sunlight is | :29:16. | :29:22. | |
the greatest disinfectant and we should be open about financial | :29:23. | :29:25. | |
dealings to restore trust in politicians and yet he did not | :29:26. | :29:29. | |
include this in the register before he became Prime Minister and did | :29:30. | :29:33. | |
divest himself of it as soon as he became Prime Minister, and he has | :29:34. | :29:37. | |
refused to divulges not the past six days but the past six years. If | :29:38. | :29:42. | |
there was nothing wrong, why has he been coy for so long? Damian | :29:43. | :29:49. | |
Collins, why not be clearer sooner? You are talking about an investment | :29:50. | :29:53. | |
he got rid off before he was Prime Minister some years ago and he is | :29:54. | :29:57. | |
now because of the interest made a declaration. He was an MP sometime | :29:58. | :30:02. | |
before that. The question is has he done anything wrong? Nobody is | :30:03. | :30:07. | |
saying he has done anything wrong. He has not avoided tax, which is the | :30:08. | :30:11. | |
view of independent experts talking today. To pretend he is in some way | :30:12. | :30:15. | |
saying one thing and doing another is wrong, he has led a government | :30:16. | :30:21. | |
that has gone after tax avoidance and people using offshore vehicles | :30:22. | :30:24. | |
to hide from paying tax in the way no other government has done before. | :30:25. | :30:30. | |
It has long been not to include measures that would have introduced | :30:31. | :30:35. | |
greater transparency of ownership of trusts, even as he was saying, we | :30:36. | :30:38. | |
are clamping down on tax avoidance in this country. He has been guilty | :30:39. | :30:41. | |
of double standards throughout the period. I don't think that is true | :30:42. | :30:47. | |
and if you go further than the measures on tax avoidance, the new | :30:48. | :30:51. | |
measures the government has brought in to make sure anyone with a stake | :30:52. | :30:54. | |
in a British company is registered so people cannot hide their identity | :30:55. | :30:59. | |
behind offshore vehicles is an important reform. We have a | :31:00. | :31:03. | |
clamp-down on tax avoidance had greater transparency in investments. | :31:04. | :31:08. | |
That's not true, because there has been some welcome progress, largely | :31:09. | :31:15. | |
driven by the European Union, I'm glad to say, giving us some insight | :31:16. | :31:19. | |
on vehicles where there are profits and interest paid, but we do not | :31:20. | :31:25. | |
have full disclosure about who owns overseas held just, investment | :31:26. | :31:28. | |
vehicles, and who the true beneficiaries are. In order to have | :31:29. | :31:32. | |
that, we would need full country by country reporting and a public | :31:33. | :31:36. | |
register. I think we should be talking about that, and I suspect | :31:37. | :31:40. | |
this Prime Minister will resist that rigorously. Should the Prime | :31:41. | :31:44. | |
Minister looked at these issues to make it clear where he stands? In | :31:45. | :31:51. | |
our own jurisdiction we have made it clear. This whole story, the release | :31:52. | :31:55. | |
of the documents, it has revealed the extent to which UK territories | :31:56. | :31:59. | |
are caught up in this. Does the government is now need to take a | :32:00. | :32:02. | |
look at what's going on and take a much stronger line and, possibly | :32:03. | :32:10. | |
change the way governments are run, if they do not take a tougher line | :32:11. | :32:16. | |
on this? It's rather difficult to change the way other governments run | :32:17. | :32:25. | |
their own affairs. What we should insist on is transparency. Anyone | :32:26. | :32:29. | |
who has investment or interest in a British company should declare that, | :32:30. | :32:34. | |
make it known, and not hide behind an offshore vehicle or hide their | :32:35. | :32:38. | |
identity. We have much greater transparency so it is much harder | :32:39. | :32:42. | |
for people to hide their money off shore, or in investments in | :32:43. | :32:45. | |
Switzerland in a way we cannot trace what they are. Progress has been | :32:46. | :32:50. | |
made in the last six years on that. Owen Smith, what do you see the | :32:51. | :32:55. | |
Prime Minister position being now? I think he still has questions to | :32:56. | :33:00. | |
answer. Is this a resignation issue? I will not call for the Prime | :33:01. | :33:04. | |
Minister's resignation, but I think you should look to himself, and ask | :33:05. | :33:09. | |
himself whether it was right that he spent the last six years and longer | :33:10. | :33:14. | |
lecturing Britain and indeed the world about transparency and the | :33:15. | :33:19. | |
need to get rid of these morally repugnant practices, and telling us | :33:20. | :33:24. | |
he has been at the vanguard of changing the world and these tax | :33:25. | :33:28. | |
practices, while in truth he has benefited from those sorts of | :33:29. | :33:33. | |
shadowy practices. Even when in office he's lobbied to maintain | :33:34. | :33:41. | |
greater secrets in trusts and the European want to introduce. I think | :33:42. | :33:44. | |
he needs to explain to the country whether he has been stringing us | :33:45. | :33:47. | |
along over the last six years whether believes in this stuff. | :33:48. | :33:52. | |
Thank you for your comments on that, keep them coming in. | :33:53. | :33:54. | |
Should teenagers decide at fourteen whether to do A-Levels | :33:55. | :34:01. | |
One group of politicians says they should. | :34:02. | :34:04. | |
What do you think - get in touch with us | :34:05. | :34:06. | |
It's the last in our London Mayor cab share series | :34:07. | :34:12. | |
and today it's the turn of the Lib Dems to join Norman | :34:13. | :34:15. | |
But will Caroline Pidgeon pass his London Knowledge test? | :34:16. | :34:25. | |
Opposition parties are accusing David Cameron of hypocrisy, | :34:26. | :34:33. | |
after he revealed he'd previously owned shares in an offshore trust, | :34:34. | :34:36. | |
The Prime Minister sold the shares in 2010, before | :34:37. | :34:42. | |
he entered Number Ten, and insists he paid all | :34:43. | :34:44. | |
Mr Cameron has been under pressure all week to give more details about | :34:45. | :34:57. | |
his involvement with Blair more Holdings, registered in the Bahamas. | :34:58. | :35:02. | |
I think the main thing is, he has been hypocritical, arguing for the | :35:03. | :35:06. | |
last six years that tax avoidance is a bad thing, he said it's morally | :35:07. | :35:11. | |
repugnant and he gave a big speech in which he majored on this and | :35:12. | :35:15. | |
talked about a travelling caravan of international tax accountants and | :35:16. | :35:20. | |
lawyers hiding money from state governments, but at the same time he | :35:21. | :35:25. | |
has invested into a vehicle that was designed to avoid paying tax, | :35:26. | :35:28. | |
something that was registered overseas. It's perfectly legal, but | :35:29. | :35:33. | |
the problem is, should it be legal to avoid tax in this fashion. The | :35:34. | :35:39. | |
issue is, did he do anything wrong? No, nobody is suggesting that. He | :35:40. | :35:43. | |
wasn't avoiding tax by investing in this trust, he paid UK tax from this | :35:44. | :35:47. | |
investment and sold those shares more than six years ago and has made | :35:48. | :35:51. | |
a public declaration of that now. I don't see he has any more questions | :35:52. | :35:53. | |
to answer. The first of two boats | :35:54. | :35:54. | |
carrying migrants from the Greek island of Lesbos - | :35:55. | :35:56. | |
has arrived in Turkey. It's part of the deal agreed | :35:57. | :35:58. | |
with the European Union last month aimed at deterring migrants | :35:59. | :36:01. | |
from making the hazardous Around 45 migrants, mostly | :36:02. | :36:03. | |
of Pakistani origin, made up the first sailing | :36:04. | :36:07. | |
to the Turkish port of Dikili. A second boat is on | :36:08. | :36:11. | |
it's way right now. A man has been arrested | :36:12. | :36:19. | |
and is being questioned on suspicion of murder over the disappearance | :36:20. | :36:21. | |
of a London police officer. PC Gordon Semple was reported | :36:22. | :36:24. | |
missing a week ago and was last seen on CCTV on a street near London | :36:25. | :36:27. | |
Bridge. Yesterday, police were called | :36:28. | :36:30. | |
to a property in Southwark where human remains were discovered | :36:31. | :36:32. | |
and a man was arrested. The property is still | :36:33. | :36:40. | |
being examined. The fourth strike by junior | :36:41. | :36:43. | |
doctors in England, over the government's | :36:44. | :36:45. | |
new contract, has ended. Government sources say | :36:46. | :36:47. | |
that the British Medical Association has blown its chance to negotiate, | :36:48. | :36:49. | |
and a new contract will now be But the BMA is planning | :36:50. | :36:52. | |
another walkout at the end of the month when - | :36:53. | :37:04. | |
for the first time in the dispute - emergency cover will | :37:05. | :37:07. | |
also be withdrawn. Young people who choose not to take | :37:08. | :37:08. | |
A-Levels or go to university are being let down by our education | :37:09. | :37:11. | |
system, according to a report It proposes that 14 to 19 year olds | :37:12. | :37:14. | |
should go through a "transition stage" where they can make | :37:15. | :37:19. | |
choices about their career, rather than having to make | :37:20. | :37:21. | |
all the big decisions at 16. We will be discussing this story on | :37:22. | :37:33. | |
the programme in the next human rights. | :37:34. | :37:39. | |
Time to catch up with the sport. Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp was | :37:40. | :37:48. | |
defiant after his side's draw in Dortmund last night. Klopp said | :37:49. | :37:55. | |
people thought his side would be beaten, but Divock Origi scored a | :37:56. | :37:59. | |
crucial away goal as they drew with Dortmund. Jordan Spieth says he | :38:00. | :38:05. | |
would have taken a two under par in windy conditions on the first at | :38:06. | :38:08. | |
Augusta, but the defending champion leads again with an opening six | :38:09. | :38:15. | |
under par 66 to finish the day two shots clear. Rory McIlroy says | :38:16. | :38:21. | |
Jordan Spieth will be tough to beat, he dropped to four shots off the | :38:22. | :38:25. | |
pace, chasing the only major Mac easier to win. Ben Stokes says he's | :38:26. | :38:28. | |
only just coming to terms with the complete devastation he felt after | :38:29. | :38:36. | |
the England lost to the West Indies in the T20 final. Stokes says he | :38:37. | :38:40. | |
felt just shock. We will be back with more from the masters just | :38:41. | :38:41. | |
after 10am. The Liberal Democrat's mayoral | :38:42. | :38:45. | |
candidate, Caroline Pidgeon, will be speaking to our political | :38:46. | :38:48. | |
guru Norman Smith. Social mobility is described | :38:49. | :38:55. | |
as the ability of people or groups to move up or down in status based | :38:56. | :38:59. | |
on wealth, jobs or education. Today a House of Lords committee has | :39:00. | :39:03. | |
put out a report looking at the social mobility | :39:04. | :39:06. | |
of school leavers and their They say that more than half | :39:07. | :39:08. | |
of teens who don't head down a traditional academic route | :39:09. | :39:13. | |
into work are being let down And that the 53% of school leavers | :39:14. | :39:15. | |
who opt not to got to university or do A levels are often allowed | :39:16. | :39:21. | |
to "drift" into their first job or further education | :39:22. | :39:24. | |
with no real prospect A possible solution to this | :39:25. | :39:27. | |
is argued to be letting teenagers decide earlier whether to follow | :39:28. | :39:35. | |
a mainly vocational Let's speak now to Hashi Mohamed, | :39:36. | :39:37. | |
who arrived in London in 1993 He's now an Oxford-educated | :39:38. | :39:45. | |
barrister. Naivasha Mwanju works | :39:46. | :39:50. | |
at youth employment charity Elevation Networks, which aims | :39:51. | :39:54. | |
to help underprivileged teenagers Andrew Kingston is 18 and has | :39:55. | :39:56. | |
completed an apprenticeship. He has landed his first job | :39:57. | :40:05. | |
as a web and social media Ali Rashid is also 18 years | :40:06. | :40:07. | |
old and studies performing arts. Laine Esperanzate is a 17-year-old | :40:08. | :40:12. | |
apprentice in digital marketing. And from Bristol we have | :40:13. | :40:20. | |
Baroness Corston, chair of the Lords Select Committee | :40:21. | :40:23. | |
on Social Mobility and who is Thank you for joining us. Baroness | :40:24. | :40:36. | |
Corston first, are you saying social mobility is a myth for many kids? | :40:37. | :40:41. | |
I'm saying it's not achievable for them, and the evidence is that it is | :40:42. | :40:45. | |
going backwards. What are the issues? There are young people who | :40:46. | :40:51. | |
find that when they leave school they haven't had careers advice, | :40:52. | :40:56. | |
because there isn't a careers service. They haven't had the | :40:57. | :40:58. | |
opportunity forward experience because they don't have the family | :40:59. | :41:02. | |
contacts to make that possible. They are not ready for work, they do not | :41:03. | :41:08. | |
have the life skills that will enable them to succeed in the | :41:09. | :41:12. | |
workplace. If they go into further education, they are in a situation | :41:13. | :41:16. | |
where there is a bewildering array of qualifications, many of which are | :41:17. | :41:24. | |
not even understood by employers. Explain what you mean when you say | :41:25. | :41:29. | |
that for many kids social mobility is going backwards. The evidence is | :41:30. | :41:36. | |
that in the last ten years, social mobility, that is people from poorer | :41:37. | :41:40. | |
backgrounds becoming high earners, has gone down from 17% to 13%. There | :41:41. | :41:47. | |
is an element of going backwards. As part of this enquiry, which started | :41:48. | :41:52. | |
last June, we made strenuous efforts, successful, I'm pleased to | :41:53. | :41:58. | |
say, to contact as many young people through social media as possible. | :41:59. | :42:02. | |
The message from them, and these were people who did feel overlooked | :42:03. | :42:07. | |
and left behind, was that they didn't have those opportunities to | :42:08. | :42:12. | |
be work ready, and at school, following a solely academic path | :42:13. | :42:19. | |
until the age of 18 was very demotivating. If they had the | :42:20. | :42:25. | |
opportunity to do some work experience at the age of 14, or | :42:26. | :42:30. | |
vocational work, while continuing to do the core subjects like English, | :42:31. | :42:34. | |
maths and science, they felt it would give them a better opportunity | :42:35. | :42:40. | |
for their future. Explain a bit more how that would work. You say that | :42:41. | :42:44. | |
you think the national curriculum should end at 14. What sort of | :42:45. | :42:48. | |
things could go out of the window for some? How it would operate is | :42:49. | :42:52. | |
for the government. We are making a recommendation. What we are saying | :42:53. | :42:58. | |
is that the exclusively academic pathway doesn't suit everybody. It | :42:59. | :43:03. | |
suited me, it suited five of my grandchildren. It didn't suit one of | :43:04. | :43:08. | |
them, and I saw how he struggled. If you speak to these people, who know | :43:09. | :43:14. | |
they could be high achievers, but stopped from being so, they know | :43:15. | :43:23. | |
what it is they are missing. We can talk to our panel in the studio, | :43:24. | :43:29. | |
some of who... All of whom have been through education in one form or | :43:30. | :43:33. | |
another. Andrew, you finished an apprenticeship, you are 18 and have | :43:34. | :43:36. | |
your first job. How do you feel about this debate and how you were | :43:37. | :43:41. | |
helped, or helped or hindered through your education. I feel like | :43:42. | :43:47. | |
in education you are prepared academically for certain aspects, | :43:48. | :43:51. | |
using computers, learning how to use programmes and basic knowledge, but | :43:52. | :43:55. | |
I think when you step into the real workplace you are not given certain | :43:56. | :43:59. | |
skills from school. I went straight up to London, learning how to | :44:00. | :44:02. | |
commute, or tell your boss you will not be in, you are not given certain | :44:03. | :44:08. | |
skills in education and you lack that real life experience, which is | :44:09. | :44:12. | |
why I chose doing an apprenticeship that being better for me. Is that | :44:13. | :44:16. | |
the same for everyone, how good school address that? If schools | :44:17. | :44:20. | |
could give you more work experience time, give you more chance to | :44:21. | :44:24. | |
experience real life in the workplace. Did you get any work | :44:25. | :44:30. | |
experience? I got about three weeks in total but it was such a rush and | :44:31. | :44:33. | |
so disorganised, is you don't know what you want to do, you don't know | :44:34. | :44:37. | |
where you want to work or what experience you need. I think it | :44:38. | :44:41. | |
needs to be more targeted and more help needs to be given to young | :44:42. | :44:44. | |
individuals to help target what they want to work in. You want to be an | :44:45. | :44:51. | |
actor and studying performing arts, Ali. How do you see the debates? | :44:52. | :44:59. | |
It's 50-50. At school I never really got work experience until I got to | :45:00. | :45:03. | |
college. It felt a rush for me, as he said, it felt rushed for me as | :45:04. | :45:12. | |
well. I think we need more practical training, we need to be there to | :45:13. | :45:16. | |
feel it, because, personally, I don't feel I'm actually ready for a | :45:17. | :45:20. | |
work place job, or subbing similar to that. This is all about whether | :45:21. | :45:25. | |
kids are able to break out of their background and go on to achieve | :45:26. | :45:31. | |
whatever they want to, effectively. Have you ever felt constrained by | :45:32. | :45:32. | |
your background? I have never felt constrained. It is | :45:33. | :45:43. | |
about the individual at the end of the day. If I am going to put in | :45:44. | :45:49. | |
100% effort I will get 100% out of it. You are a 17-year-old | :45:50. | :45:55. | |
apprentice, what is your experience of school and moving on from that? I | :45:56. | :46:03. | |
left school at 15 so I did not take all of my GCSs. I was actually in | :46:04. | :46:09. | |
hospital for nine months. By the time I came out, everybody was in | :46:10. | :46:14. | |
the sixth form or college and I felt stuck, as if they had just dropped | :46:15. | :46:20. | |
me. I did not know what I wanted to do, what career I wanted to get | :46:21. | :46:25. | |
into. I felt I was unprepared for the situation. You did not think | :46:26. | :46:29. | |
school was gearing you up for a world outside of studying? In terms | :46:30. | :46:34. | |
of everything I have learned from school, I have not really applied | :46:35. | :46:42. | |
any of that in the working world. I just was not given the opportunity | :46:43. | :46:51. | |
to work out what I wanted to be, instead of thinking about what other | :46:52. | :46:56. | |
people wanted to be. You work at a youth employment charity. Do you | :46:57. | :47:02. | |
think background is still a constraint on ambition and schools | :47:03. | :47:06. | |
are not doing enough? I think sometimes the problem is that people | :47:07. | :47:10. | |
think there is a one size fits all solution and do not look at things | :47:11. | :47:17. | |
such as gender, do not look at race, socioeconomic status, which all play | :47:18. | :47:23. | |
into potential careers people may want to go into. Another thing is | :47:24. | :47:28. | |
representation. A lot of students might not go into particular sectors | :47:29. | :47:32. | |
if they don't see people who look like them that are excelling in | :47:33. | :47:38. | |
there. There needs to be emphasis at school on work experience and things | :47:39. | :47:43. | |
like that. I did work experience in year ten and also year 12. I wanted | :47:44. | :47:49. | |
to become a barrister but after two weeks of working in chambers I | :47:50. | :47:53. | |
realised I no longer wanted to do it and it saved me going to university | :47:54. | :47:57. | |
and doing law to come out and find I did not want to. It is quite | :47:58. | :48:05. | |
important. You are a barrister, you arrived as a child refugee from | :48:06. | :48:08. | |
Somalia. You achieved from a difficult background. For me, what | :48:09. | :48:15. | |
the baroness has done with the report represents important steps | :48:16. | :48:20. | |
about choice in the school system. At the moment it is clear a lot of | :48:21. | :48:25. | |
people are not provided with choice early on to be able to make an | :48:26. | :48:28. | |
informed decision about what they want to do and it is critical | :48:29. | :48:33. | |
because if you go to university and you are not sure about going and you | :48:34. | :48:37. | |
do it and come out with debt to discover that route was not for you | :48:38. | :48:42. | |
is quite difficult. What the baroness has done with the report is | :48:43. | :48:47. | |
say the system as it is set up is not assisting the vast majority of | :48:48. | :48:54. | |
people and not giving them that choice. If they choose not to go | :48:55. | :48:57. | |
down the academic route, do they have the skills to get on and do | :48:58. | :49:00. | |
what they need to do next time? What I see, when I have kids coming on | :49:01. | :49:05. | |
work experience, who might ask for help, they lack the most basic | :49:06. | :49:09. | |
things of understanding the issues of being on time, being presentable, | :49:10. | :49:15. | |
understanding how to network, firm handshakes, eye contact. Following | :49:16. | :49:22. | |
up on friendships, relationships, finding ways of getting somebody to | :49:23. | :49:27. | |
mentor you, what does that mean? What are your targets? These are | :49:28. | :49:31. | |
skills the system does not equip anyone for, and people who do | :49:32. | :49:39. | |
succeed, it seems, are people whose parents and networks are able to | :49:40. | :49:43. | |
assist them to solidify those things. Most people who are from a | :49:44. | :49:48. | |
very poor background or disadvantaged background do not have | :49:49. | :49:52. | |
those networks. That is not true to say people only get on in life if | :49:53. | :49:56. | |
their parents give them a leg up the ladder? That is not what I am | :49:57. | :50:01. | |
saying, I am saying the majority of people, especially in this country, | :50:02. | :50:07. | |
especially in the English system, the nepotism and the way in which | :50:08. | :50:11. | |
people help one another, and I am not suggesting there is anything | :50:12. | :50:15. | |
wrong with that because every parent wants their child to get on, it is | :50:16. | :50:19. | |
skewed against people who do not have those contacts. I can tell you | :50:20. | :50:25. | |
myself, my mother was not formally educated. At the age of 18 I did not | :50:26. | :50:29. | |
know what a barrister did, let alone be one. The connections and options | :50:30. | :50:36. | |
given to me by people who assisted me and introduced me to people, | :50:37. | :50:40. | |
without that I would not be where I am today and so in this country more | :50:41. | :50:45. | |
than any other, how you connect yourself, whether through family, | :50:46. | :50:51. | |
other ways, is so central to being able to succeed. Baroness, in the | :50:52. | :50:56. | |
end, isn't the best way a state can help any kid to give them the best | :50:57. | :51:01. | |
education they can get, the alternative argument could be put to | :51:02. | :51:08. | |
when you say about ending the National Curriculum at 14, people | :51:09. | :51:12. | |
might say that case, at 14 you are effectively writing off somebody's | :51:13. | :51:16. | |
potential if they choose not to go down the academic route at that | :51:17. | :51:21. | |
stage. Interesting you use the phrase writing off because I do not | :51:22. | :51:25. | |
think young people see it that way. People who want to do an | :51:26. | :51:29. | |
apprenticeship at Rolls-Royce do not feel they are being written off. It | :51:30. | :51:33. | |
is because we do not value this training. It's 14 too young to | :51:34. | :51:39. | |
decide they do not want to do something that might require a | :51:40. | :51:42. | |
higher level of academic achievement? That is not my opinion, | :51:43. | :51:48. | |
it is based on evidence we have taken from academics, teachers, over | :51:49. | :51:53. | |
the last almost a year and it was recommended to the previous Tony | :51:54. | :51:57. | |
Blair government in 2004 by Professor Tomlinson, who could see | :51:58. | :52:02. | |
the system was not assisting social mobility and your young people have | :52:03. | :52:09. | |
made the case. They want life skills, work experience. Work | :52:10. | :52:12. | |
experience is usually related to whether your family knows somebody | :52:13. | :52:16. | |
and in smaller enterprises, new jobs often go through that route. Andrew, | :52:17. | :52:25. | |
did you feel early on something more academic was not for you? My father | :52:26. | :52:32. | |
is very academic and my sister is studying for a masters and my | :52:33. | :52:36. | |
brother is training in medicine. I feel that I was going along the | :52:37. | :52:41. | |
route, and I was doing well, especially in business, but | :52:42. | :52:43. | |
everything else was not working out for me and I thought maybe the best | :52:44. | :52:49. | |
way of achieving my potential was going into the workplace, | :52:50. | :52:53. | |
emphasising the professional skills, and networking. The company I work | :52:54. | :53:01. | |
for, the CEO champions networking and I feel it helps. The drive of | :53:02. | :53:05. | |
having your own motivation to get out there and develop skills to help | :53:06. | :53:09. | |
you will also be the deciding factor on where you get to. Anyone can | :53:10. | :53:14. | |
decide they want to be someone, they want to drive to that and develop | :53:15. | :53:21. | |
their skills. How do you see this, you spoke earlier about making your | :53:22. | :53:25. | |
own choices and making good on those choices? As I said about putting in | :53:26. | :53:36. | |
100%, personally, if I put in 100%, I will get 100%. It is all about the | :53:37. | :53:44. | |
work rate and ethic. It is about the individual, that is what I think. | :53:45. | :53:54. | |
And what people keep coming back to is the issue of networking and being | :53:55. | :53:59. | |
able to reach out to people, whether in the academic world or another | :54:00. | :54:02. | |
one, to help you. How do kids get that? At elevations networks that | :54:03. | :54:09. | |
was the premise of the youth charity being born, to connect students from | :54:10. | :54:14. | |
underrepresented backgrounds and build their network. We built the | :54:15. | :54:23. | |
charity on know who and know-how. I feel networking definitely plays a | :54:24. | :54:28. | |
big part in it. It is something at school they should definitely try to | :54:29. | :54:34. | |
push. It is a skill you not taught but you learn the way and I think it | :54:35. | :54:40. | |
is not encouraged at school. It is important especially when you get in | :54:41. | :54:45. | |
the career. People get promotions through networking and talking to | :54:46. | :54:49. | |
people in the organisation says it is a skill we cannot forget. | :54:50. | :54:54. | |
Baroness, we have to let you go, we will carry on chatting in the | :54:55. | :55:00. | |
studio. Thanks for joining us. Thank you to your guests who have made my | :55:01. | :55:04. | |
point. Would you say you have been good at networking? Before having my | :55:05. | :55:14. | |
apprenticeship I did not have experience in even talking to | :55:15. | :55:21. | |
employers. I feel if I were encouraged more to get myself out | :55:22. | :55:27. | |
there, I would probably be in a really good place. A better place. | :55:28. | :55:35. | |
Success is different for everyone and everyone has a different way of | :55:36. | :55:41. | |
getting to where they want to be. Schools should maybe try to | :55:42. | :55:46. | |
encourage teachers to show students what it is like to be in the working | :55:47. | :55:53. | |
world. Did you feel inside yourself you knew where you wanted to go and | :55:54. | :55:56. | |
you would get there, or did you feel you did need support? I had no idea | :55:57. | :56:04. | |
there was support available. I was stuck on what to do. I had to look | :56:05. | :56:12. | |
myself, and young people should be encouraged to look for themselves. | :56:13. | :56:16. | |
When I was in education, I thought work would be handed to me. I was | :56:17. | :56:23. | |
not sure what I wanted to do. You are nodding. I agree. I have been | :56:24. | :56:30. | |
lucky where I have got to and I am representing my company in meetings | :56:31. | :56:34. | |
in London and networking with influential people. I feel in | :56:35. | :56:38. | |
education these skills are not taught to people, how to greet | :56:39. | :56:42. | |
someone who might be very important to your career down the line. You | :56:43. | :56:48. | |
are not taught how to cope in these situations but thankfully I was | :56:49. | :56:52. | |
guided by by CEO for that but sitting in a run with 50 other | :56:53. | :56:57. | |
people who are top bankers in London can be intimidating. You are | :56:58. | :57:00. | |
entering the world of work at a younger age if you do not go to | :57:01. | :57:06. | |
higher education. It can be intimidating, oh, I am 18, you 40 | :57:07. | :57:10. | |
and you have money and are influential, but you have to learn | :57:11. | :57:14. | |
to stand your ground and know you are worth something and can get | :57:15. | :57:18. | |
there if you push us up. Thanks. Are out of time. Still to come. We will | :57:19. | :57:26. | |
hear the story of a woman who was kidnapped as a child and held | :57:27. | :57:31. | |
hostage for four days. She describes her ordeal and how it changed her | :57:32. | :57:36. | |
life. Let's catch up with the latest weather. | :57:37. | :57:40. | |
Good to see you. Welcome to the weekend. A lot of | :57:41. | :57:48. | |
sport taking place this weekend, with the golf in Augusta, but I will | :57:49. | :57:54. | |
talk about the Grand National. You may notice this temperature, which | :57:55. | :58:00. | |
is 6 degrees, which is what we expect, cold for the Grand National | :58:01. | :58:05. | |
at Aintree. There will be showers around and also spells of sunshine. | :58:06. | :58:09. | |
Not the warmest Grand National ever. I talked about the golf and we are | :58:10. | :58:14. | |
set fair for the rest of the tournament but the wind has been a | :58:15. | :58:18. | |
feature so far but by Sunday it will ease. That is the sport covered, now | :58:19. | :58:26. | |
I will take you to a weather watch a picture from West Yorkshire. | :58:27. | :58:30. | |
Daffodils enjoying the sunshine. Looking at the satellite, cloudy in | :58:31. | :58:36. | |
Northern Ireland, which will produce rain. Cloud in the UK and elsewhere, | :58:37. | :58:42. | |
producing showers, but the majority is so far have had a cold but lovely | :58:43. | :58:46. | |
morning. This is the picture at midday with sunny spells around. | :58:47. | :58:52. | |
Temperatures gradually recovering. The odd shower breaking out where we | :58:53. | :58:56. | |
had sunshine to start the day and this afternoon focused on the East | :58:57. | :59:01. | |
Midlands, East Anglia and the south-east. Not as heavy as recent | :59:02. | :59:07. | |
days. The odd heavy one around but not as widespread. Lighter wind and | :59:08. | :59:11. | |
sunshine, it will feel quite pleasant. In Northern Ireland, you | :59:12. | :59:16. | |
have rain moving in, spoiling things for the afternoon. That will reach | :59:17. | :59:21. | |
into Western fringes of Scotland and Wales and the far west of England | :59:22. | :59:25. | |
this afternoon. The temperatures higher than the past few days. | :59:26. | :59:30. | |
Tonight the rain will push eastwards across the UK and behind it it will | :59:31. | :59:36. | |
turn colder with a touch of frost developing. Temperatures dipping | :59:37. | :59:39. | |
markedly with clear skies in Northern Ireland, close to freezing | :59:40. | :59:44. | |
in some spots. Showers will move in and will deliver sleet and snow | :59:45. | :59:49. | |
tomorrow morning to the hills of Wales and the Moors in south-west | :59:50. | :59:53. | |
England and also maybe a few flakes in lower levels. The rain pushes | :59:54. | :00:00. | |
away and northern Scotland might have outbreaks of rain through the | :00:01. | :00:03. | |
day but elsewhere sunshine, scattered showers, some heavy and | :00:04. | :00:08. | |
thundery. They push of colder air coming into the UK and the chill we | :00:09. | :00:15. | |
talked about at the Grand National. On Sunday, possibly rain in the far | :00:16. | :00:23. | |
north of Scotland. Some outbreaks of rain in the west. Away from the wet | :00:24. | :00:28. | |
weather systems, fine but breezy weather and less cool weather on | :00:29. | :00:29. | |
Sunday. Five statements in five days - | :00:30. | :00:35. | |
the Prime Minister is criticised after finally revealing that he did | :00:36. | :00:43. | |
profit from an offshore fund set We have a Prime Minister who has | :00:44. | :00:54. | |
sought to say, we are all in it together, and the burden of | :00:55. | :00:57. | |
austerity in the last six years has been evenly born. What this reveals, | :00:58. | :01:04. | |
is that this isn't true. Did he do anything wrong? No, he has not done | :01:05. | :01:07. | |
anything wrong. He didn't avoid tax by investing in this trust. He paid | :01:08. | :01:13. | |
UK tax on this investment and souls those shares more than six years | :01:14. | :01:16. | |
ago. She was 13 when she snuck | :01:17. | :01:19. | |
out of her home to meet But he wasn't a boy - | :01:20. | :01:21. | |
he was a man who then tortured and abused her for four days | :01:22. | :01:26. | |
and broadcast it online. I feel, and I felt at the time, | :01:27. | :01:28. | |
that he was going to kill me. It feels horrible to say this, | :01:29. | :01:32. | |
but if I didn't serve a purpose, that he was going to kill me, | :01:33. | :01:36. | |
that he didn't have another option. Spieth you can hear the full | :01:37. | :01:43. | |
interview after 10:30am. It's more than a year since | :01:44. | :01:47. | |
Robin Williams took his own life - and today his last major film | :01:48. | :01:50. | |
Boulevard comes out in the cinema, and it's being hailed as one | :01:51. | :01:53. | |
of his best. We can go to the BBC Newsroom | :01:54. | :02:00. | |
with a summary of today's news. Opposition parties are accusing | :02:01. | :02:11. | |
David Cameron of hypocrisy, after he revealed he'd previously | :02:12. | :02:13. | |
owned shares in an offshore trust, The trust had been set up by his | :02:14. | :02:15. | |
late father. The Prime Minister sold | :02:16. | :02:25. | |
the shares in 2010, before he entered Number Ten, | :02:26. | :02:27. | |
and insists he paid all The Prime Minister has faced | :02:28. | :02:36. | |
persistent questions about an offshore trust set up by his late | :02:37. | :02:40. | |
father. It was set up in a tax haven and didn't pay tax in Britain. Faced | :02:41. | :02:44. | |
by bad headlines all week, the Prime Minister gradually gave away more | :02:45. | :02:48. | |
information about his own financial affairs, saying he didn't own shares | :02:49. | :02:51. | |
in offshore trusts and wouldn't benefit from them in the future. | :02:52. | :02:55. | |
Last night he revealed he had benefited from shares in a Father's | :02:56. | :03:01. | |
trust when he was Leader of the Opposition. Samantha and I owned | :03:02. | :03:06. | |
5000 units in Blairmore investment trust which we sold in January 20 | :03:07. | :03:12. | |
ten. That was worth something like ?30,000. He insisted his father's | :03:13. | :03:17. | |
trust wasn't set up to avoid tax. The criticisms are based on a | :03:18. | :03:22. | |
fundamental misconception, which is that Blairmore investment, a unit | :03:23. | :03:25. | |
trust, was set up with the idea of avoiding tax, it wasn't. Labour and | :03:26. | :03:33. | |
the SNP say the and he will face more questions when Parliament | :03:34. | :03:38. | |
resumes on Monday. What other shareholdings did David Cameron hold | :03:39. | :03:41. | |
when he was an MP and leaders of the opposition? Did he invest in any | :03:42. | :03:44. | |
other trusts that were established in this kind of way? Revenue and | :03:45. | :03:49. | |
Customs had a slogan, tax doesn't need to be taxing. The Prime | :03:50. | :03:52. | |
Minister is currently finding it very taxing indeed. | :03:53. | :03:55. | |
The first of two boats carrying migrants from | :03:56. | :03:57. | |
the Greek island of Lesbos - has arrived in Turkey. | :03:58. | :03:59. | |
It's part of the deal agreed with the European Union last month | :04:00. | :04:02. | |
aimed at deterring migrants from making the hazardous | :04:03. | :04:04. | |
Around 45 migrants, mostly of Pakistani origin, | :04:05. | :04:10. | |
made up the first sailing to the Turkish port of Dikili. | :04:11. | :04:13. | |
A second boat is on it's way right now. | :04:14. | :04:15. | |
Let's get the latest from our correspondent | :04:16. | :04:17. | |
What's the picture there this morning? The first boat has now | :04:18. | :04:32. | |
arrived here in the last hour or so. This is the scene behind me, it has | :04:33. | :04:38. | |
docked here from Lesbos this morning. White a lot of the 45 | :04:39. | :04:46. | |
Pakistanis on board are still on the boat, it's a slow process to get | :04:47. | :04:50. | |
them off. Turkish officials are boarding and escorting the migrants | :04:51. | :04:54. | |
off, who then have their names and fingerprints taken, have a medical | :04:55. | :04:59. | |
check, and are then taken to a deportation centre in north-west | :05:00. | :05:01. | |
Turkey close to the Hungarian border, from where the Turkish | :05:02. | :05:05. | |
government hope they will be sent back to Pakistan. The second boat is | :05:06. | :05:09. | |
docked in the sea a few hundred metres away. That will soon come in, | :05:10. | :05:14. | |
and we think 145 in total will arrive today. The second wave has | :05:15. | :05:20. | |
been delayed by lack of personnel on the Greek islands and a surge in | :05:21. | :05:23. | |
last-minute applications by migrants. The Turkish Prime Minister | :05:24. | :05:28. | |
said the Turkish government would only stick to the deal if EU stuck | :05:29. | :05:33. | |
to its side of the bargain, giving more money to Turkey, opening up | :05:34. | :05:41. | |
talks, and by the end of June if certain conditions are met. He's | :05:42. | :05:44. | |
playing hardball and saying both sides need to stick to the deal if | :05:45. | :05:46. | |
it is to work. A man has been arrested | :05:47. | :05:54. | |
and is being questioned on suspicion of murder over the disappearance | :05:55. | :05:57. | |
of a London police officer. PC Gordon Semple was reported | :05:58. | :05:59. | |
missing a week ago and was last seen on CCTV on a street near London | :06:00. | :06:02. | |
Bridge. Yesterday police were called | :06:03. | :06:04. | |
to a property in Southwark where human remains were discovered | :06:05. | :06:06. | |
and a man was arrested. Due to the condition | :06:07. | :06:12. | |
of the human remains, it will take some time for the cause | :06:13. | :06:14. | |
of death to be established, and for At this point, I do not wish | :06:15. | :06:17. | |
to speculate on what has happened. Yesterday, a forensic search started | :06:18. | :06:24. | |
at the address and is still ongoing. The fourth strike by junior | :06:25. | :06:33. | |
doctors in England, over the government's new | :06:34. | :06:39. | |
contract, has finished. Government sources say | :06:40. | :06:40. | |
that the British Medical Association has blown its chance to negotiate, | :06:41. | :06:42. | |
and a new contract will now be But the BMA is planning | :06:43. | :06:45. | |
another walkout at the end of the month when - | :06:46. | :06:49. | |
for the first time in the dispute - emergency cover will | :06:50. | :06:52. | |
also be withdrawn. Tata Steel is refusing to comment | :06:53. | :06:59. | |
on claims it made significant profits from a policy designed | :07:00. | :07:01. | |
to protect the climate. Three separate experts say Tata made | :07:02. | :07:03. | |
hundreds of millions of pounds selling carbon emissions permits | :07:04. | :07:06. | |
it was given for free under It's a controversial allegation | :07:07. | :07:10. | |
because Tata had complained that one of the reasons it wasn't able | :07:11. | :07:16. | |
to make a profit was because of EU Last week Tata announced it would be | :07:17. | :07:20. | |
selling its UK steel plants, Uber has agreed to pay around | :07:21. | :07:24. | |
?7 million to settle a dispute in the United States over | :07:25. | :07:32. | |
its background checks for drivers. The company was sued in 2014 | :07:33. | :07:36. | |
after it claimed its vetting process was safer than systems that | :07:37. | :07:41. | |
traditional minicab firms used. Prosecutors said Uber had failed | :07:42. | :07:44. | |
to prevent 25 people with criminal The firm will now | :07:45. | :07:47. | |
change its adverts. That's a summary of the latest BBC | :07:48. | :07:53. | |
News - more at 10:30. Coming up, the latest in our trips | :07:54. | :08:15. | |
around London, prospective mayoral candidates, Norman will be speaking | :08:16. | :08:22. | |
to the Lib Democrat candidate. We will be speaking about Robin | :08:23. | :08:24. | |
WIlliams' latest film Boulevard. Do get in touch with us | :08:25. | :08:27. | |
throughout the morning - use the hashtag Victoria LIVE | :08:28. | :08:29. | |
and If you text, you will be charged Social mobility inspiring lots of | :08:30. | :08:36. | |
comments. We will bring you a flavour of some of those in a little | :08:37. | :08:46. | |
while. Time to catch up with the sport. A positive result for | :08:47. | :08:54. | |
Liverpool in Dortmund last night, but they were left with a major | :08:55. | :08:59. | |
injury worry for Jordan Henderson just a month before Roy Hodgson | :09:00. | :09:01. | |
names his England squad for Euro 2016. | :09:02. | :09:04. | |
Jurgen Klopp's side drew 1-1 with his old club | :09:05. | :09:06. | |
Borussia Dortmund in the first leg of their Europa League | :09:07. | :09:08. | |
quarter-final - Divock Origi with an important away goal. | :09:09. | :09:10. | |
But Henderson suffered a knee injury and Klopp said it didn't look good. | :09:11. | :09:14. | |
The German side levelled through Mats Hummels | :09:15. | :09:16. | |
but Liverpool will feel positive going into the second leg | :09:17. | :09:18. | |
Now to the Masters and a terrific start for the defending | :09:19. | :09:26. | |
The American is two clear of the field after an opening 66 | :09:27. | :09:30. | |
and he's the first player in the history of the tournament | :09:31. | :09:32. | |
to lead the field for five successive rounds. | :09:33. | :09:34. | |
Our man at Augusta is Stephen Watson. | :09:35. | :09:40. | |
It was the start of the defending champion had been dreaming of. A | :09:41. | :09:47. | |
near flawless opening round of six under par for Jordan Spieth. Three | :09:48. | :09:51. | |
birdies on the front nine, and three on the back nine to open up a first | :09:52. | :09:56. | |
day two shot lead. Another impressive round from a player who | :09:57. | :10:02. | |
has finished first and second on his two masters appearances. I was | :10:03. | :10:09. | |
accepting so taking four extra strokes out there with no bogeys, it | :10:10. | :10:14. | |
was just awesome. It's a good feeling to be in this position | :10:15. | :10:17. | |
again. It's the first round and we have a long way to go. Playing | :10:18. | :10:22. | |
alongside Jordan Spieth was the impressive Paul Casey, who finished | :10:23. | :10:26. | |
three shots adrift of the champion. A joy to be playing with, the | :10:27. | :10:31. | |
defending champion. I'm not sure I've been privileged to be paired in | :10:32. | :10:35. | |
that group before, and to get up close and personal and see how he | :10:36. | :10:40. | |
really took the golf course apart today was really oppressive. Paul | :10:41. | :10:45. | |
Casey is one of a trio of Englishmen in contention, including Justin | :10:46. | :10:49. | |
Rose, the joint runner-up a year ago. And Ian Poulter, who is also | :10:50. | :10:54. | |
well placed on three under par. It's the only major I'm in right now, so | :10:55. | :10:58. | |
I have to take advantage of that. I worked hard last week. Practised | :10:59. | :11:03. | |
hard, worked well with Pete Carroll and, and I feel pretty fresh. | :11:04. | :11:10. | |
Fitting is a good golf shots. Tournament favourite, Australian | :11:11. | :11:13. | |
Jason Day, started brilliantly but dropped five shots in the last four | :11:14. | :11:18. | |
holes to slip down the leaderboard. And a patient Rory McIlroy made a | :11:19. | :11:26. | |
good start, two under and inside the top ten. Disappointed with the three | :11:27. | :11:35. | |
put back on 16. -- three putt. I need to make those shots back as | :11:36. | :11:39. | |
quickly as I can. Execute the game plan, which is to take advantage of | :11:40. | :11:43. | |
the par fives and if I know I can do that, keep it tidy, then by the end | :11:44. | :11:48. | |
of the week I will not be far away. It was another Irishman who grabbed | :11:49. | :11:54. | |
some of the headlines. Shane Lowry, in just his second Masters, showed | :11:55. | :11:59. | |
the composure and ability of an Augusta veteran. It's a very healthy | :12:00. | :12:02. | |
British and Irish looking leaderboard and we should be set for | :12:03. | :12:04. | |
an intriguing day two. The Prime Minister has now admitted | :12:05. | :12:10. | |
he did own and profit from shares He said he and his wife Samantha | :12:11. | :12:14. | |
sold their shares in the fund in 2010 for ?30,000 - | :12:15. | :12:21. | |
before he became Prime Minister. And he insisted all UK | :12:22. | :12:23. | |
taxes had been paid. So why didn't he say that | :12:24. | :12:27. | |
at the start of the week when he was first questioned | :12:28. | :12:30. | |
about the matter? The Panama Papers were | :12:31. | :12:32. | |
released on Sunday night, and when Ian Cameron's name appeared | :12:33. | :12:34. | |
in them, journalists began to ask whether David Cameron had benefited | :12:35. | :12:40. | |
from Blairmore Holdings, On Monday, the Prime Minister's | :12:41. | :12:42. | |
official spokesman told journalists in a briefing | :12:43. | :12:46. | |
that it was a "private matter". On Tuesday Downing Street issued | :12:47. | :12:49. | |
a statement saying: "To be clear, the Prime Minister, his wife | :12:50. | :12:53. | |
and their children do not benefit from any offshore funds, adding | :12:54. | :12:59. | |
the prime minister owns no shares. Mr Cameron also stated his position | :13:00. | :13:01. | |
in a speech in Birmingham. And on Wednesday morning another | :13:02. | :13:04. | |
statement was released by Downing Street, saying: | :13:05. | :13:06. | |
"There are no offshore funds or trusts which the prime minister, | :13:07. | :13:08. | |
Mrs Cameron or their children And then last night the Prime | :13:09. | :13:11. | |
Minister spoke to ITV News. Samantha and I had a joint account | :13:12. | :13:17. | |
and we owned 5,000 units in Blairmore Investment Trust | :13:18. | :13:20. | |
which we sold in January 2010 - that was worth | :13:21. | :13:22. | |
something like ?30,000. There was a profit on it | :13:23. | :13:27. | |
but that was less than the capital gains tax allowance, | :13:28. | :13:38. | |
so I didn't pay capital gains tax, but it was subject to all the UK | :13:39. | :13:40. | |
taxes in all the normal ways. I think a lot of the criticisms | :13:41. | :13:44. | |
are based on a fundamental misconception which is that | :13:45. | :13:48. | |
Blairemore Investment, a unit trust, was set up with the idea | :13:49. | :13:51. | |
of avoiding tax. It wasn't - it was set up | :13:52. | :13:55. | |
after exchange controls went so that people who wanted to invest | :13:56. | :13:59. | |
in dollar-denominated shares could do so, and there are many | :14:00. | :14:02. | |
other, thousands of other unit It was reported to the HMRC, | :14:03. | :14:05. | |
it reported itself every year Labour has accused David Cameron of | :14:06. | :14:23. | |
hypocrisy and says voters would not believe the Prime Minister's | :14:24. | :14:27. | |
assurances. Conservative backbench MP Damian Collins said he had | :14:28. | :14:32. | |
nothing to apologise for. The issue is, did | :14:33. | :14:34. | |
he do anything wrong? He wasn't avoiding tax | :14:35. | :14:36. | |
by investing in this trust, he paid UK tax from this investment | :14:37. | :14:40. | |
and sold those shares more than six years ago and has made a public | :14:41. | :14:43. | |
declaration of that now. I don't see that he has any more | :14:44. | :14:46. | |
questions to answer. On the point whether it would have | :14:47. | :14:55. | |
made a difference if it was declared upfront, it may be wouldn't have led | :14:56. | :14:58. | |
to five days of headlines on different details coming out | :14:59. | :15:02. | |
gradually. We are talking about two or three days. I think there would | :15:03. | :15:05. | |
have been interest in what he said regardless of when he said it. There | :15:06. | :15:09. | |
was the impression he wasn't being completely straight at the | :15:10. | :15:12. | |
beginning. There is no question that anything he said was in any way | :15:13. | :15:15. | |
incorrect or inaccurate and he has now made a full declaration of | :15:16. | :15:29. | |
previous holdings. David Cameron says this was not set up to avoid | :15:30. | :15:35. | |
tax is. It is a company he had shares in, he sold them, he paid all | :15:36. | :15:42. | |
UK taxes. Talk us through what this fund was and what has gone on here. | :15:43. | :15:50. | |
These funds exploded in the 1980s, 1990s as a way of allowing people, | :15:51. | :15:56. | |
often wealthy people, to invest in international assets. If you wanted | :15:57. | :16:03. | |
to invest in Africa, African countries, if you wanted to invest | :16:04. | :16:08. | |
in the emerging markets in Asia, these funds allowed you to do that | :16:09. | :16:13. | |
when the rules changed in the 1980s and money could move around the | :16:14. | :16:17. | |
globe much more easy. They weren't to avoid tax directly because these | :16:18. | :16:22. | |
companies are taxed in the country they invest in. All the profits | :16:23. | :16:28. | |
taken by the funds are taxed by the individuals themselves in the | :16:29. | :16:31. | |
country where they live, so David Cameron when he sold his shares was | :16:32. | :16:35. | |
tax on that income in the UK. What they were therefore was to stop the | :16:36. | :16:43. | |
being a third layer of tax by the actual fund itself. All these tax | :16:44. | :16:48. | |
havens set themselves up to allow that to happen and competed with | :16:49. | :16:52. | |
each other on having on the tax environment. That is really to avoid | :16:53. | :16:57. | |
a third layer of tax rather than to avoid tax altogether. The other | :16:58. | :17:05. | |
point is that for the wealthy, they would have direct investment in | :17:06. | :17:09. | |
these funds but all of us if we have a pension fund, if we have a savings | :17:10. | :17:13. | |
account of some description are likely to indirect Lee have used | :17:14. | :17:21. | |
similar sorts of structures to avoid this third layer of tax. What these | :17:22. | :17:29. | |
funds were forward to allow people to invest in global assets around | :17:30. | :17:34. | |
the world and for money to be more easily investable interfaces like in | :17:35. | :17:38. | |
Africa countries and these funds were legally set up for the British | :17:39. | :17:43. | |
ones, like the British Virgin Islands on the Bahamas were set up | :17:44. | :17:49. | |
under British law, so you could be at least have some security that the | :17:50. | :17:54. | |
legal system in these countries, like the British Virgin Islands, | :17:55. | :17:57. | |
would be as strong as it would be in the UK and you would not be exposed | :17:58. | :18:03. | |
to legal risk. If you were to invest in Nigeria, for example, there would | :18:04. | :18:07. | |
be legal risk. These funds were set up in British jurisdiction because | :18:08. | :18:12. | |
they sat under British law funny meaning there were much more legally | :18:13. | :18:17. | |
robust. Let's talk to Stuart Hosie of the SNP. David Cameron said this | :18:18. | :18:23. | |
was not set up for tax avoidance purposes. We have just had the | :18:24. | :18:32. | |
explanation on why there were set up by Kamal Ahmed, David Cameron said | :18:33. | :18:37. | |
he sold the shares and paid all UK taxes on them anyway. What do you | :18:38. | :18:43. | |
think he has done wrong? I don't doubt that is correct and I don't | :18:44. | :18:47. | |
think he has done anything wrong in any legal sense at all. Some of | :18:48. | :18:54. | |
those institutions were set up to do precisely what he said. The problem | :18:55. | :18:58. | |
is there are tens of thousands of them and we know that many of these | :18:59. | :19:05. | |
companies have been set up not to avoid paying tax directly, but to | :19:06. | :19:12. | |
hide the real ownership behind them, so you have a company established in | :19:13. | :19:16. | |
a British Overseas Territory administered by a Panamanian lawyer | :19:17. | :19:20. | |
so that the beneficial owner, the ultimate owner of the business might | :19:21. | :19:25. | |
not be known to the tax authorities in this country or another country. | :19:26. | :19:31. | |
Specifically in terms of David Cameron, he said exactly what he | :19:32. | :19:35. | |
had, he has spelt about coming he said he sold them. As Farid -- as | :19:36. | :19:41. | |
far as you're concerned does that draw a line under the matter for | :19:42. | :19:45. | |
him? For him personally I don't think he has done anything illegal | :19:46. | :19:51. | |
at all. The profit he made was under the capital gains tax thresholds so | :19:52. | :19:55. | |
that was no tax due. That is not the point. The point is, what we know | :19:56. | :20:03. | |
from the Panama Papers is that there are now tens of thousands of these | :20:04. | :20:07. | |
organisations in any number of countries administered by Panamanian | :20:08. | :20:13. | |
lawyers so that the ownership is not known to the tax authorities. That | :20:14. | :20:24. | |
is exactly the kind of tax avoidance mechanism that this government have | :20:25. | :20:28. | |
railed against, calling tomorrow. What we need now is not David | :20:29. | :20:32. | |
Cameron to tell us any more about his private affairs, but real | :20:33. | :20:37. | |
transparency so that the ultimate beneficial ownership of all of these | :20:38. | :20:42. | |
institutions is properly known to the appropriate tax authorities. In | :20:43. | :20:47. | |
terms of personal difficulties for David Cameron who has been under a | :20:48. | :20:51. | |
lot of pressure over this with people accusing him of hypocrisy, as | :20:52. | :20:55. | |
far as you're concerned is that now over and the at how to address the | :20:56. | :21:00. | |
bigger issue, issue, the broader issue of these overseas trusts? As I | :21:01. | :21:08. | |
said, I don't think he has done anything wrong in the legal sense | :21:09. | :21:15. | |
the difficulty for him is that it went four or five days from saying | :21:16. | :21:22. | |
this is nobodies business, two we forgot that we had ?30,000 in this | :21:23. | :21:28. | |
trust. The Chancellor should have come clean right at the very stark | :21:29. | :21:33. | |
rather than making this go away. The big issue is not David Cameron, it | :21:34. | :21:36. | |
is the regime that allows this to happen in the first place. Thank you | :21:37. | :21:39. | |
very much, Stuart Hosie. Still to come, with Robin Williams's | :21:40. | :21:57. | |
last film. The race to succeed Boris Johnson | :21:58. | :22:07. | |
as London Mayor has In less than a month's time | :22:08. | :22:10. | |
a new person will be elected to one of the biggest political jobs | :22:11. | :22:14. | |
in the country. I have in the back of my cab today | :22:15. | :22:25. | |
Caroline Pidgeon, the Lib Dem candidate for London Mayor. | :22:26. | :22:30. | |
Caroline, welcome. You have made housing one of your big issues. You | :22:31. | :22:35. | |
said you want to start at City Hall house-building company. Isn't this | :22:36. | :22:41. | |
basically going back to council housing? I truly believe in council | :22:42. | :22:46. | |
housing and I'm afraid the Conservative government at the | :22:47. | :22:50. | |
moment just wants to get rid of it. I will build the homes that we need. | :22:51. | :22:55. | |
One in four of those homes will be genuinely council housing. I will | :22:56. | :23:02. | |
ask Londoners to continue paying the level of council tax rulers last | :23:03. | :23:04. | |
year. money into the housing, | :23:05. | :23:11. | |
and then on top of that I believe We don't have enough skilled | :23:12. | :23:14. | |
construction workers, so I'd set up a state-of-the-art | :23:15. | :23:17. | |
building academy in London to make Ket's talk about those who have | :23:18. | :23:29. | |
to rent in the private sector, No, I'm not, but we have got to do | :23:30. | :23:32. | |
something to help those people who too often | :23:33. | :23:37. | |
are being ripped off What I'd do is by massively | :23:38. | :23:39. | |
boosting the supply, But that's going to | :23:40. | :23:43. | |
take years and years? Then on top of that, | :23:44. | :23:47. | |
I'd be looking at bringing in licensing across London to make | :23:48. | :23:50. | |
sure that every landlord meets a certain minimum standard and give | :23:51. | :23:53. | |
them some kind of kitemark, so you know if you are a private | :23:54. | :23:55. | |
renter, this is a decent landlord, There has been a lot of hoo-ha | :23:56. | :23:59. | |
about the Panama Papers, really wealthy foreigners buying | :24:00. | :24:06. | |
properties in London which they just What about saying you can only buy | :24:07. | :24:09. | |
in London if you're a UK taxpayer? I want to see investment | :24:10. | :24:13. | |
coming in from overseas. I'd far rather see it being put | :24:14. | :24:17. | |
into building blocks of quality private rented housing, | :24:18. | :24:20. | |
so they get a regular return but it's affordable | :24:21. | :24:22. | |
housing for Londoners. I think we've got to work | :24:23. | :24:23. | |
with government to make sure that there aren't any loopholes that | :24:24. | :24:26. | |
are allowing people... It's not just that people | :24:27. | :24:28. | |
are buying properties, We need to make sure we tackle | :24:29. | :24:30. | |
that loophole that's You want 3000 more police | :24:31. | :24:35. | |
officers in London. What I would do is put them | :24:36. | :24:38. | |
on the transport network, on the Tube, trains and buses, | :24:39. | :24:42. | |
to make sure as Londoners move I'd take it out of transport | :24:43. | :24:44. | |
funding. I'm going to increase the congestion | :24:45. | :24:50. | |
charge, I'm going to bring I've got other ways to raise money | :24:51. | :24:52. | |
in the transport budget and that's how I'd pay for them, | :24:53. | :24:57. | |
because they'd come Quickly, before we go on to some | :24:58. | :24:59. | |
London-based questions, how much are you putting | :25:00. | :25:02. | |
the congestion charge up by? I'd be looking to increase | :25:03. | :25:04. | |
it to ?14 a day. And also, if you're | :25:05. | :25:07. | |
travelling at peak hours, I would charge you even more, | :25:08. | :25:10. | |
because I want to get those private vehicles off the streets so that | :25:11. | :25:13. | |
taxis like this and buses can move Let me ask you some London | :25:14. | :25:16. | |
questions, because you're Central Line, not a difficult line, | :25:17. | :25:19. | |
a lot of people use it. If I started at Holborn, | :25:20. | :25:24. | |
then I went to Tottenham Court Road, then I went to Oxford Circus, | :25:25. | :25:27. | |
what would be next? If I said to you, Chelsea, | :25:28. | :25:29. | |
Albert Bridge, what would That's the other side | :25:30. | :25:35. | |
of London to where I focus. You're a South London woman, | :25:36. | :25:40. | |
so you'll get this. When you said wrote, | :25:41. | :25:45. | |
I was thinking it was a book rather Lastly, we're in a cab, | :25:46. | :26:01. | |
so let me ask you this question, It's cabbie slang | :26:02. | :26:04. | |
for something. Caroline Pidgeon, thank | :26:05. | :26:07. | |
you very much. We have the Lib Dem plans for London | :26:08. | :26:21. | |
with their mayoral candidate, In total, 12 candidates are hoping | :26:22. | :26:24. | |
to succeed Boris Johnson as mayor of London in the election on 5th | :26:25. | :26:29. | |
May. You can find a full list of them | :26:30. | :26:30. | |
on the BBC News site. And if you want to watch back | :26:31. | :26:34. | |
the other interviews You can find them on our programme | :26:35. | :26:36. | |
page - bbc.co.uk/victoria. Lots of you getting in touch about | :26:37. | :26:52. | |
our discussion on social mobility. Jordan has got in touch to say 14 is | :26:53. | :26:57. | |
far too young, it is a choice that should not be forced onto them, that | :26:58. | :27:03. | |
is because of the call for the national curriculum to end up 14. | :27:04. | :27:07. | |
Josie has said that everyone working in education need to remind you that | :27:08. | :27:12. | |
academia is not the norm for all. Someone else has said that | :27:13. | :27:16. | |
interpersonal and life skills around the centre of career success and | :27:17. | :27:19. | |
Stephen has tweeted to say that young people know what networking | :27:20. | :27:24. | |
is, just teach them in school how to apply it in the working world. | :27:25. | :27:29. | |
Someone else says school is not responsible for getting you into | :27:30. | :27:39. | |
work, children can make an informed decision for education over career. | :27:40. | :27:43. | |
Someone else says I worked in a school for 30 years, some children | :27:44. | :27:47. | |
develop later rather than earlier. Lots of you getting in touch on | :27:48. | :27:54. | |
David Cameron, as well. He did say that he did have some shares in an | :27:55. | :27:58. | |
investment trust that was set up by his father, but he sold them and | :27:59. | :28:03. | |
paid all UK taxes due on those shares. Steve has tweeted to say | :28:04. | :28:09. | |
that the issue is that Cameron has done anything wrong, it is the lack | :28:10. | :28:11. | |
of transparency and changing stories. An e-mail from Alan saying | :28:12. | :28:18. | |
and typical furore over nothing. There are many other reasons we | :28:19. | :28:24. | |
people have offshore accounts. John has e-mail said that if David | :28:25. | :28:28. | |
Cameron has nothing to hide, why has he gone to such lengths over a | :28:29. | :28:32. | |
number of years to hide it. Paul has said that I think if anybody was | :28:33. | :28:39. | |
given the opportunity to make money from investing in the legal offshore | :28:40. | :28:43. | |
trust, people would grab that with both hands. Keep your comments | :28:44. | :28:45. | |
coming in. We will hear the extraordinary story | :28:46. | :28:48. | |
of a woman who was kidnapped as a child and held hostage | :28:49. | :28:51. | |
for four days. She describes her ordeal and how | :28:52. | :28:53. | |
it changed her life. It's more than a year | :28:54. | :28:57. | |
since Robin Williams' death and we'll review his final film | :28:58. | :28:59. | |
Boulevard, which comes out That's to come before the end | :29:00. | :29:02. | |
of the programme. Opposition parties are accusing | :29:03. | :29:13. | |
David Cameron of hypocrisy, after he revealed he'd previously | :29:14. | :29:19. | |
owned shares in an offshore trust, The Prime Minister sold | :29:20. | :29:23. | |
the shares in 2010, before he entered Number Ten, | :29:24. | :29:28. | |
and insists he paid all Mr Cameron has been under pressure | :29:29. | :29:30. | |
all week to give more details about his involvement | :29:31. | :29:36. | |
with Blairmore Holdings, I don't think he's done anything | :29:37. | :29:49. | |
wrong in a legal sense. The difficulty for David Cameron is that | :29:50. | :29:52. | |
it took four or five days from, this is a private matter with no overseas | :29:53. | :30:03. | |
interest to, we forgot. We made a profit on this some years ago. | :30:04. | :30:06. | |
The issue is, did he do anything wrong? | :30:07. | :30:08. | |
He wasn't avoiding tax by investing in this trust, | :30:09. | :30:12. | |
he paid UK tax from this investment and sold those shares more than six | :30:13. | :30:17. | |
years ago and has made a personal declaration of that now. | :30:18. | :30:19. | |
I don't see that he has any more questions to answer. | :30:20. | :30:22. | |
The first of two boats carrying migrants from | :30:23. | :30:26. | |
the Greek island of Lesbos - has arrived in Turkey. | :30:27. | :30:29. | |
It's part of the deal agreed with the European Union last month | :30:30. | :30:32. | |
aimed at deterring migrants from making the hazardous journey | :30:33. | :30:34. | |
Around 45 migrants, mostly of Pakistani origin, | :30:35. | :30:36. | |
made up the first sailing to the Turkish port of Dikili. | :30:37. | :30:43. | |
The second boat has 79 people on board, none of them from Syria. | :30:44. | :30:48. | |
A man has been arrested and is being questioned on suspicion | :30:49. | :30:51. | |
of murder over the disappearance of a London police officer. | :30:52. | :30:53. | |
PC Gordon Semple was reported missing a week ago and was last seen | :30:54. | :30:56. | |
on CCTV on a street near London Bridge. | :30:57. | :30:58. | |
Yesterday police were called to a property in Southwark | :30:59. | :31:00. | |
where human remains were discovered and a man was arrested. | :31:01. | :31:03. | |
The property is still being examined. | :31:04. | :31:06. | |
Young people who choose not to take A-Levels or go to university | :31:07. | :31:09. | |
are being let down by our education system, according to a report | :31:10. | :31:12. | |
It proposes that 14 to 19 year olds should go through a "transition | :31:13. | :31:17. | |
stage" where they can make choices about their career, | :31:18. | :31:20. | |
rather than having to make all the big decisions at 16. | :31:21. | :31:26. | |
We'll be discussing this story on the programme | :31:27. | :31:29. | |
For about the last 25 years, governments have focused on getting | :31:30. | :31:42. | |
more young people into university, which is laudable. They have also | :31:43. | :31:47. | |
focused on the very small number of people who have left school, who are | :31:48. | :31:51. | |
not in training, who are not at work. But the majority of young | :31:52. | :31:57. | |
people are in the middle. 53% of young people are not in either of | :31:58. | :32:01. | |
those categories. We found that in many ways they have been overlooked | :32:02. | :32:02. | |
and left behind. That's a summary of the latest news, | :32:03. | :32:04. | |
join me for BBC Newsroom Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp | :32:05. | :32:07. | |
was defiant after his Klopp said people thought his side | :32:08. | :32:16. | |
would lose 2, 3 or 4-0 but Divock Origi scored an important | :32:17. | :32:21. | |
away goal, as they drew 1-1 with Borussia Dortmund in the first | :32:22. | :32:24. | |
leg of their Europa League Jordan Spieth said he'd have taken | :32:25. | :32:27. | |
a 2-under par in the windy conditions on Day One of the Masters | :32:28. | :32:34. | |
at Augusta but the defending champion is leading again | :32:35. | :32:37. | |
with an opening 6-under par 66 And Ben Stokes says he is only just | :32:38. | :32:39. | |
coming to terms with the "complete devastation" he felt | :32:40. | :32:47. | |
after following England's World Twenty20 final | :32:48. | :32:49. | |
defeat to West Indies. After being hit for four | :32:50. | :32:53. | |
sixes in the final over, Tyson Fury's trainer and uncle, | :32:54. | :32:58. | |
Peter, has said on Twitter that Britain's World Heavyweight Champion | :32:59. | :33:03. | |
will have a rematch with Wladimir Klitschko | :33:04. | :33:05. | |
in Manchester on July 9th. Tyson Fury ended Klitschko's 11 year | :33:06. | :33:10. | |
reign as champion in November. Alicia Kozakiewicz was 13-years-old | :33:11. | :33:18. | |
when she snuck out of her home in Pittsburgh to meet a boy she'd | :33:19. | :33:21. | |
been chatting to online. But far from an innocent adventure, | :33:22. | :33:24. | |
what followed was a nightmare that Alicia had been lured into a trap | :33:25. | :33:30. | |
by a man who kidnapped, Chillingly, her attacks | :33:31. | :33:35. | |
were being broadcast online, but that eventually led | :33:36. | :33:40. | |
to her dramatic rescue. Now 27, Alicia has rebuilt her life | :33:41. | :33:44. | |
and made it her mission I met somebody online who I thought | :33:45. | :33:59. | |
was my friend. He immediately began to groom me, and made me feel these | :34:00. | :34:05. | |
things that kids don't feel every single day of their lives. He made | :34:06. | :34:11. | |
me feel beautiful, important and special and unique. He told me what | :34:12. | :34:15. | |
I wanted to hear against what I needed to hear. As a kid, that feels | :34:16. | :34:20. | |
quite good. Over a period of about eight or nine months, I had agreed | :34:21. | :34:28. | |
to meet him. Again, I thought it was somebody around my own age, somebody | :34:29. | :34:34. | |
who was a friend. I remember on New Year's Day 2002, my family were | :34:35. | :34:37. | |
having a nice meal, celebrating the New Year. I look back at those | :34:38. | :34:43. | |
moments and think it was the last few moments of my life being, I | :34:44. | :34:49. | |
don't want to say normal, but, yeah, normal. I remember asking my mother | :34:50. | :34:55. | |
if I could be excused from the table because I had a stomach ache. She | :34:56. | :35:01. | |
said, of course. And then I got up, slipped out of the front door. I | :35:02. | :35:07. | |
left the door open a little bit because I was planning on coming | :35:08. | :35:12. | |
back through it. To show how intense and effective grooming is, this was | :35:13. | :35:16. | |
something completely out of my character. To this day, I can't | :35:17. | :35:21. | |
understand how that happened, why that happened, and why I made that | :35:22. | :35:26. | |
decision. But kids don't always make the best decisions. I was a | :35:27. | :35:31. | |
13-year-old kid, and they make mistakes, kids, but it's an adult's | :35:32. | :35:38. | |
prerogative to never exploit those mistakes. Ireland rendered stepping | :35:39. | :35:42. | |
outside into the coldest night, it was so very cold. -- I remember | :35:43. | :35:47. | |
stepping out. I walked down the street about a block or so, and I | :35:48. | :35:51. | |
could still see my house when I turned around. I felt quite safe. I | :35:52. | :35:55. | |
stood there, and finally the little boy showed up. My intuition kicked | :35:56. | :36:03. | |
in, what are you doing, this is dangerous, go home. I turned around, | :36:04. | :36:08. | |
and my name was called, and the next thing I know, I was in a car and | :36:09. | :36:12. | |
this man was squeezing my hand so tightly I thought it was broken. He | :36:13. | :36:17. | |
was barking commands at me to be quiet and be good. At this point he | :36:18. | :36:23. | |
began a five-hour drive from Pittsburgh to his house in Virginia. | :36:24. | :36:28. | |
How were you feeling at that moment when you realised you had the | :36:29. | :36:31. | |
situation completely wrong and you were in danger? It's hard to | :36:32. | :36:38. | |
describe that sort of tear, that fear of death, that you are no | :36:39. | :36:46. | |
longer in control of your life. And just absolute fear again. There are | :36:47. | :36:54. | |
no words. Did he talk much on that five-hour journey? I don't remember | :36:55. | :37:01. | |
him speaking much. I just remember sitting there and crying. He had | :37:02. | :37:04. | |
threatened me a few times. He had taken me through a few tollbooths. | :37:05. | :37:12. | |
Ireland the thinking at each one that it was an opportunity, somebody | :37:13. | :37:16. | |
would see me and I would be rescued. But he would threaten me, and the | :37:17. | :37:22. | |
person behind the counter wouldn't recognise there was a little girl | :37:23. | :37:28. | |
crying in the seat. Each mile, I had lost hope. At first direct it and I | :37:29. | :37:36. | |
of streets on the signs, but then they were completely unfamiliar. -- | :37:37. | :37:45. | |
at first, I recognised the names of streets on the signs. After five | :37:46. | :37:50. | |
hours of driving, the car finally stopped, and he took you into a | :37:51. | :37:56. | |
house and let you down into a basement, which was effectively a | :37:57. | :37:59. | |
dungeon. At that point did he start talking to you? He did. One of the | :38:00. | :38:04. | |
first things he did was he propped me up on a sort of table, kind of | :38:05. | :38:15. | |
device, and he said, this will be really hard for you. It's OK, cry. I | :38:16. | :38:25. | |
can remember wanting to scream and cry, but also at the same time | :38:26. | :38:34. | |
thinking that's what he wanted. Being in this strange and terrific | :38:35. | :38:41. | |
battle, and fighting for my life. What happened at that point? Over | :38:42. | :38:47. | |
the next four days I was raped and beaten and tortured in that | :38:48. | :38:57. | |
basement. He kept reaching to the floor, either in the basement or | :38:58. | :39:04. | |
next to his bed upstairs. Again, you can't explain that kind of terror | :39:05. | :39:10. | |
and fear, and feelings of hope, and never losing that feeling of hope, | :39:11. | :39:14. | |
but fighting off the hopelessness every second. Not knowing what is | :39:15. | :39:19. | |
going to happen next, not knowing what terrible thing could possibly | :39:20. | :39:29. | |
occur. Did you fear, believe, you would end up dead? I did. I feel, | :39:30. | :39:38. | |
and I felt at the time, that he was going to kill me. I felt it was | :39:39. | :39:43. | |
necessary, and it feels horrible to say this, but if I didn't serve a | :39:44. | :39:49. | |
purpose, that he was going to kill me, that he didn't have another | :39:50. | :39:54. | |
option. He couldn't simply say, OK, go home and don't tell anyone. I | :39:55. | :39:59. | |
knew that, I had seen enough movies to know that wasn't how it worked. I | :40:00. | :40:07. | |
truly felt, and still feel, that my days were numbered. How did you get | :40:08. | :40:16. | |
through that? It's amazing what lies within us to survive. Whether it's | :40:17. | :40:24. | |
surviving an abduction, or surviving any sort of tragedy, an abusive | :40:25. | :40:29. | |
relationship, a terrible childhood, whatever it is, how much we have | :40:30. | :40:34. | |
within us to survive. Not that it's easy or simple, not that it even | :40:35. | :40:39. | |
really makes sense, but we do it. What really kept me going was the | :40:40. | :40:43. | |
fact that I knew my parents were looking for me. And that they would | :40:44. | :40:50. | |
never give up. And that they loved me, and they could find me, and | :40:51. | :40:55. | |
would find me, because they were super heroes. Because they were the | :40:56. | :40:58. | |
people who could do absolutely anything in this world. I truly | :40:59. | :41:03. | |
believed that, and I just wanted to get back home to them, and that my | :41:04. | :41:11. | |
days were numbered, and the question was, would they find me in time. | :41:12. | :41:16. | |
Would they find me alive, or would they find me somewhere in a ditch? | :41:17. | :41:22. | |
Amazingly, you were rescued after four days. What was the first to you | :41:23. | :41:26. | |
knew that you were about to be taken away from that situation? Earlier | :41:27. | :41:37. | |
that morning he had looked at me, and said, I'm beginning to like you | :41:38. | :41:44. | |
too much. Tonight we are going to go for a ride. At that point, I knew | :41:45. | :41:53. | |
the fight for my life was over, there was nothing more I could do, | :41:54. | :41:58. | |
and he was going to kill me. And then he fed me for the first in four | :41:59. | :42:05. | |
days. After that, he left for work. It's amazing, the questions people | :42:06. | :42:10. | |
ask you in a situation like this, like, why didn't you try to jump out | :42:11. | :42:16. | |
of a window or scream or yell? Please never asked anybody who has | :42:17. | :42:22. | |
been in a sort of tragic situation, why they didn't do what they could | :42:23. | :42:27. | |
have done. Or say, this is what I would have done in this situation. | :42:28. | :42:31. | |
You truly do not know, and could never know. I was terrified, a | :42:32. | :42:37. | |
13-year-old little girl, and I didn't know if he was standing right | :42:38. | :42:42. | |
outside the doorway tinker here me scream for help, at which point he | :42:43. | :42:45. | |
would come and kill me. Arch outside the door, listening. I was thinking | :42:46. | :42:57. | |
what I would do if I was bigger or stronger, if I was some character in | :42:58. | :43:00. | |
a comic book or action movie, what would I do. I made a promise to | :43:01. | :43:08. | |
myself that I would fight him. I had thought him before and lost, and | :43:09. | :43:14. | |
then my thoughts quickly shifted to, you are not going to be able to | :43:15. | :43:18. | |
fight him. He's going to win, he has won so many times before. You are | :43:19. | :43:23. | |
going to die. It was at that point I really lost all hope, and I started | :43:24. | :43:30. | |
to think about my family in a different way. I started to think, | :43:31. | :43:35. | |
when was the last time I told my parents, my brother, my grandmother, | :43:36. | :43:40. | |
that I really loved them. And that they meant the world to me. Did they | :43:41. | :43:47. | |
know that? Did they know that I was not in pain at the moment, what did | :43:48. | :43:53. | |
they think was going on? I wanted to tell them and reach out to them, and | :43:54. | :43:57. | |
I couldn't. It was so hopeless and helpless. I drifted off into a sort | :43:58. | :44:06. | |
of stupor. It wasn't sleep, but it was something away from there. I | :44:07. | :44:11. | |
drifted off in my mind. Hours passed, and I was brought back to | :44:12. | :44:16. | |
awareness by a loud crashing on the door downstairs. At this time I had | :44:17. | :44:21. | |
been chained to the floor in his bedroom. I heard men screaming, we | :44:22. | :44:27. | |
have guns! The door crashed in, and I thought that these were people | :44:28. | :44:31. | |
coming to hurt me. It did not occur to me at this moment in time, | :44:32. | :44:35. | |
because I had given up hope, that they were there to do anything but | :44:36. | :44:40. | |
hurt me. I was terrified and try to roll underneath the bed to hide from | :44:41. | :44:45. | |
them. I stayed as quiet as I possibly could, but I must have made | :44:46. | :44:49. | |
some sort of noise because a man came along beside the bed, I saw | :44:50. | :44:54. | |
boots come along, and he demanded from me to crawl out and put my | :44:55. | :45:00. | |
hands up. I can remember meekly crawling out, pulling a heavy chain | :45:01. | :45:06. | |
behind me and covering myself because I didn't have closing on, | :45:07. | :45:09. | |
and staring down the barrel of a gun. This was the moment I was going | :45:10. | :45:15. | |
to die. And then he turned around, and I saw FBI on the back of his | :45:16. | :45:21. | |
jacket, and all these law enforcement agents rushed in, cut | :45:22. | :45:24. | |
the chain from around my neck and set me free to give me a second | :45:25. | :45:28. | |
chance at life. The way I was rescued was, I don't have on the -- | :45:29. | :45:34. | |
I don't have another word for it, but it was miraculous. He was | :45:35. | :45:38. | |
broadcasting me online to other people, and one of the viewers was | :45:39. | :45:42. | |
watching this awful video, and they will have recognised a little girl | :45:43. | :45:48. | |
in the missing poster as the little girl in this horrific video. And he | :45:49. | :45:54. | |
feared he would get in trouble, because this was a real person, and | :45:55. | :46:00. | |
he knew that. And Hugh and off to a payphone, and contacted the FBI. -- | :46:01. | :46:08. | |
and he ran off. Through that screaming they were able to track | :46:09. | :46:12. | |
down the IP address, which led to his computer, which led to me. It | :46:13. | :46:14. | |
was a miracle. I'm so lucky. You had been through four days of | :46:15. | :46:34. | |
hell. You realised he had been given a second chance at life. The | :46:35. | :46:37. | |
newspaper headline at the time said a happy ending. Resume with the just | :46:38. | :46:45. | |
slotting back into the life that you had no on. How did you manage that | :46:46. | :46:53. | |
transition? I am also very lucky that they have such a strong support | :46:54. | :46:58. | |
system. I have incredible family and they think about the children who | :46:59. | :47:04. | |
are returned home and they don't have that kind of support. I was | :47:05. | :47:10. | |
very lucky to have that. My mother allowed me to hurt, and I think that | :47:11. | :47:19. | |
is so important. No matter what sort of horrific circumstance Jews | :47:20. | :47:23. | |
survive, you have been through something truly awful, somebody has | :47:24. | :47:27. | |
hurt you. Your life has been completely altered and turned upside | :47:28. | :47:35. | |
down. It isn't -- it is OK for you to to cry. There is no timeline on | :47:36. | :47:41. | |
healing. People might say it has been weeks, months, years, how are | :47:42. | :47:46. | |
you not over this? While you may feel you are safe on a physically. | :47:47. | :47:54. | |
The victims of post-traumatic stress disorder, you're reliving that | :47:55. | :47:59. | |
experiencing night carers, flashbacks and panic attacks. You're | :48:00. | :48:03. | |
reliving it so while you may be physically safe, it is still | :48:04. | :48:08. | |
occurring in some way. It is different for everybody. There is no | :48:09. | :48:13. | |
timeline non-healing. Whatever you need to do to help you to heal, | :48:14. | :48:21. | |
whether it is painting, dancing, whatever it is, you have to find | :48:22. | :48:26. | |
that one thing for you that helps. That moment when you were reunited | :48:27. | :48:29. | |
with your parents, when your parents knew you were serious, how did they | :48:30. | :48:36. | |
react? It is almost unimaginable to think of how they had been feeling, | :48:37. | :48:40. | |
then that moment that they knew you were safe, they were getting you | :48:41. | :48:46. | |
back. My dad was the first one. It is kind of funny. He was the first | :48:47. | :48:55. | |
one to really hug me. If you ask this hug, he would go on and on | :48:56. | :49:01. | |
about it. It was incredible. While I had been surrounded by law | :49:02. | :49:04. | |
enforcement and they knew they could protect me, would they? Would they | :49:05. | :49:10. | |
protect me like my father would? I don't know. I know that my dad would | :49:11. | :49:15. | |
lay down his life for me, do anything to protect me. When I was | :49:16. | :49:22. | |
in my father's arms, then I knew my ordeal was over and I was truly safe | :49:23. | :49:26. | |
under one could hurt me again. My mum was there as well, but she | :49:27. | :49:32. | |
didn't get that really powerful hug that my dad and I shared, it was a | :49:33. | :49:38. | |
really special moment. From the age of 40 team, you try to turn this | :49:39. | :49:46. | |
into something good by talking to other people, talking about what you | :49:47. | :49:50. | |
had been through, to raise awareness. What did you start to do? | :49:51. | :49:55. | |
I started going into schools and speaking with students. I'm knew | :49:56. | :50:00. | |
that little or no Internet safety education was being taught. I went | :50:01. | :50:07. | |
to the kids and started sharing my story, sharing tips and tools for | :50:08. | :50:12. | |
them to stay safe online. It grew into the Alicia project, which has | :50:13. | :50:18. | |
been such an amazing journey. It has been the one true thing that this | :50:19. | :50:21. | |
helped me to heal. Not everybody has to turn to advocacy. It just really | :50:22. | :50:30. | |
helped me. It gave my horrible experience a purpose to say, yes, | :50:31. | :50:35. | |
this did happen to me that I can use it for good. That is what I have | :50:36. | :50:41. | |
been working to do, educate parents, children, teachers, law enforcement, | :50:42. | :50:46. | |
anybody I can talk to. It has been great to reach the international | :50:47. | :50:52. | |
community, which has been happening more frequently as well. I hope to | :50:53. | :50:56. | |
be able to travel. That would be incredible. There is so much more | :50:57. | :51:04. | |
awareness around the dangers online. What would your message beta kids | :51:05. | :51:10. | |
and parents watching you? One of the most important messages to get | :51:11. | :51:16. | |
across is to realise that this can happen to you. Violence, crime, | :51:17. | :51:26. | |
there is not the type of person that it happens do. I am from a good | :51:27. | :51:32. | |
family, good neighbourhood, I'm a good kid. And this happened to me. | :51:33. | :51:37. | |
When I speak am I shot this photograph of me when I am sitting | :51:38. | :51:42. | |
at the computer at 13 years old, it is not a flattering photograph at | :51:43. | :51:47. | |
all, but it is very important of what this photograph shows, a | :51:48. | :51:52. | |
13-year-old girl. What I tell these kids is that if this little girl | :51:53. | :51:56. | |
came and sat in this room with you with Dewey thinks she is so strange? | :51:57. | :52:02. | |
You just know something is going to happen to her, she is good to get | :52:03. | :52:06. | |
kidnapped. They realise that that would not happen I would just blend | :52:07. | :52:10. | |
into the crowd, I am just like them. For parents, please, please monitor | :52:11. | :52:17. | |
what your children are doing on the intruders, mobile devices, gaming | :52:18. | :52:21. | |
systems, anywhere that they can connect to the Internet. Learn what | :52:22. | :52:26. | |
you -- what they are doing, downloading apps. Protect your kids. | :52:27. | :52:33. | |
I know that if my parents could go back there would have such a lengthy | :52:34. | :52:39. | |
conversation with me, but they didn't have the knowledge, the | :52:40. | :52:44. | |
tools. But you do. Find them. Educate yourself, talk to your kids | :52:45. | :52:48. | |
and realise that kids make mistakes and you are the one who is supposed | :52:49. | :52:52. | |
to be there to guide them and help them through, and also keep them | :52:53. | :52:58. | |
safe. Alicia, thank you for joining us. Thank you. That was two. Someone | :52:59. | :53:09. | |
has contacted us to say heartbreaking, but is empowering. | :53:10. | :53:13. | |
Someone else says, what we are free to talk so candidly about an | :53:14. | :53:14. | |
horrific experience. Robin Williams' final film, | :53:15. | :53:17. | |
Boulevard is released today. It is the story of a man facing | :53:18. | :53:19. | |
loneliness and depression The US actor and comedian best known | :53:20. | :53:21. | |
for his comic roles such as Mrs Doubtfire or as the troubled | :53:22. | :53:26. | |
psychologist in Good Will Hunting - died in August 2014 in an apparent | :53:27. | :53:29. | |
suicide at the age of 63. He was known for his energy, | :53:30. | :53:32. | |
quick-fire improvisations and ability to mimic | :53:33. | :53:34. | |
other famous people. In a moment we'll speak | :53:35. | :53:36. | |
to Stefan Kyriazis, Digital arts editor for the Daily Express, | :53:37. | :53:42. | |
who's seen the movie. We should think about | :53:43. | :53:44. | |
a cruise sometimes. You've been here 25 years now. | :53:45. | :53:55. | |
Almost 26. You must have thought about making | :53:56. | :54:03. | |
a change from time to time. Nothing turned out the way | :54:04. | :54:06. | |
I thought, I guess. You want to give me a ride? | :54:07. | :54:10. | |
Excuse me? I asked if you want | :54:11. | :54:15. | |
to give me a ride. I don't even know | :54:16. | :54:18. | |
your name. I'm really swamped at work here, | :54:19. | :54:23. | |
and the only way to get We have separate beds, | :54:24. | :54:29. | |
separate lives, separate rooms. I went out on a limb for you. | :54:30. | :54:33. | |
Get out of my house. It's just time for us | :54:34. | :54:41. | |
to be in the real world. Maybe it's never too late to start | :54:42. | :55:13. | |
finally living Thank you for joining us. Tell us | :55:14. | :55:27. | |
more about it. It is a wonderful film. It is a man at the end of his | :55:28. | :55:32. | |
life thinking about what he has missed out on, what choices he | :55:33. | :55:36. | |
didn't make. There is a wonderful line where he talks about being a | :55:37. | :55:40. | |
12-year-old who had a dawning of realisation who he really was. We | :55:41. | :55:45. | |
felt like I've made him promise, and he feels like that promised never | :55:46. | :55:49. | |
came. He is angry, afraid, and finally may be about to try and | :55:50. | :55:55. | |
reach for something, to be part of life. In personal terms, it is | :55:56. | :55:58. | |
poignant saying this because of the fact of what was going on, things | :55:59. | :56:03. | |
that he knew about his health but we didn't. Yes, it is hard to distance | :56:04. | :56:08. | |
it from our own feelings about the act, the sadness of the story, what | :56:09. | :56:13. | |
the man is going through in the film and what he was wrestling with. | :56:14. | :56:18. | |
Also, to wonder if you knew what was coming, what he was going to do. | :56:19. | :56:22. | |
There is a sense of resolution in this film, it is a person working | :56:23. | :56:26. | |
through the own personal Demons, the own life and what they missed out | :56:27. | :56:34. | |
on. The face. Yes, the face. It is a man he is living in his own head for | :56:35. | :56:40. | |
a large part, that expressiveness is vital. Robin Williams spent a long | :56:41. | :56:46. | |
time with physical, the, animated performances. Only gets the chance | :56:47. | :56:50. | |
to be more muted there is a real power there, like we saw in Good | :56:51. | :56:54. | |
Will Hunting. He doesn't have to do too much. There was a bunch of | :56:55. | :56:59. | |
recent clips released from Mrs Doubtfire which were not released in | :57:00. | :57:02. | |
the film because they were too upsetting. It is closer to this, | :57:03. | :57:07. | |
more internalised moments, upsetting. He did it so well. It is | :57:08. | :57:14. | |
wonderful to remember about. You wonder if you pick to do this | :57:15. | :57:17. | |
because he knew it was going to be his final movie. Sure. If there was | :57:18. | :57:23. | |
an awareness that the Parkinson's disease was coming, but his | :57:24. | :57:27. | |
faculties were going to be reduced. There is a sense of maybe seizing | :57:28. | :57:34. | |
the moment to express. That stuff aside, is it a great movie that | :57:35. | :57:40. | |
stands alone for anyone to watch? Particularly for the fans of Robin | :57:41. | :57:44. | |
Williams? It is an honest film about life. It is uncomfortable at times | :57:45. | :57:50. | |
to watch and it is upsetting within its content, not just what we know | :57:51. | :57:56. | |
about him. It is also profound, wonderful, sad, melancholy, but it | :57:57. | :58:00. | |
is threaded through with hope. It is about the most normal of men who are | :58:01. | :58:04. | |
thinking about their life, wondering what they missed out on. It is about | :58:05. | :58:08. | |
choice is not made, not having enough bravery, do you have a last | :58:09. | :58:13. | |
chance? And think everybody can respond to that. I think it is a | :58:14. | :58:15. | |
fitting end to his career. Have a lovely weekend, I will see | :58:16. | :58:28. | |
you on Monday. Goodbye. | :58:29. | :58:32. |