06/09/2011 Daily Politics

- folks. Welcome to an hour-long special edition of the Daily

Politics. Yes, there's just too much to into a piffling 30 minutes

today. The rioters were a feral underclass, according to the

justice secretary, Ken Clarke. Equally worrying, he said, was the

instinctive criminal behaviour of random passers-by. Strong words. In

the last hour, the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, has been telling

parliament that what he thinks caused the August riots, and he's

not a man to hold back, either. other big parliamentary story

today: further inquiries into the News of the World and the phone

hacking scandal. In the last Daily Politics special but one, we

broadcast the evidence to parliament of Rupert Murdoch and

his son, James. Today, the same select committee has been hearing

from some of their former employees. Did the mur docks' evidence stack

We will look back and ask what, if anything, the protesters achieved.

That's coming up in the next half- hour. With us for the duration is

Freddie Forsyth. Welcome back. Thank you. It's been too long.

You're the inviter. I made that bit up! First, today,

let's talk about Libya and the apparent extent of the links

between Britain and Colonel Gaddafi's intelligence services.

Some of it centres on a Libyan rebel commander - you've seen him

on television recently - there he is. Evidence suggests that our MI6

colludeed with the CIA in transporting him back to Libya in

2004 where he was almost certainly tortured, because that's what they

do, by the Gaddafi regime. David Cameron yesterday promised that the

allegations would be investigated. There is indeed already a committee

set up to do that under I think Lord Gibson. Freddie, I can

understand the realpolitik of wanting to build better relation

was Libya, particularly on within of we're going to get rid of their

weapons of mass destruction, but does that mean that we have to hand

over people to be tortured by them? I wouldn't have thought it did, no.

What happened with Libya was bizarre, because this man Gaddafi

has been, for 30 years at at least, a die-hard enemy of the West. One

of his apes murdered PC Yvonne Fletcher; another one put the bomb

on the Pan Am jet; he funded Baader-Meinhof for the Black

September, and gave the IRA five ships of weapons, and we only got

the fifth. This has been going on for 30 years. Then suddenly he

decides to change, which is most unusual. Normally, dictators either

fall or stay the way they were. They don't become better people.

This one decides to reform. Bearing in mind he did at the time have a

nuclear programme, which was well advanced, and he had, what do you

call it, a gas warfare programme. Biological and - Chemical weapons -

he had the lot. We cut with with deal with him. We had no choice but

to do it saying if you dismantle the lot under our supervision, you

can be readmitted into the community of nations, which he

accepted, and, it all was dismantled under our supervision.

So he didn't keep anything - co- operate keep anything back -

because we were there. I understand the diplomacy that that involved.

The thing that I don't understand is why didn't we, having done that,

still sup with a pretty long spoon with him, but instead we're handing

over people to be tortured. It seems from the evidence given. We

have got Mr Blair helping Saif Gaddafi with his phd, we've got the

second senior figure in MI6, a famous or Rabiest writing friendly

letters to mousse Ka to Mousa Cousa. My father spent five years in the

like that. Why are we now sending nice letters to them. What went

wrong, I think, was that we accepted his expressed desire to

reform; we supervised the dismantlement of most of his really

nasty stuff, which was much, much more, and worse than Saddam Hussein

ever had, who didn't seem to have anything at all anyway. Then

someone at the top - I suspect Blair, personally, went over the

top. Suddenly, he starts schmoozing, he wants to be best palls. There is

no need to do that. You can accept the reformation of a tyrant, a

dictator - he went on being a savage bustard internally, and

still to treat him with frosty courtesy, nothing more. Why we had

to go so far, I don't know. That was really bad form. Thank you,

that was the point of my question, thank you. Finally on this, how

badly does this damage our intelligence services to be seen to

be in cahoots with people like Mous Kousa and the Libyan Gestapo -

let's call it what they are. This begs a rather long lecture, but I'm

not going to give it to you. Basically, the entire intelligence

world out there beyond our shores is one ever-changing kaleidoscope,

and most of those who participated in it, whether they're the Russians,

the Chechens, or the dictators of the Arab world, the dictators of

the black African world, are bustards, OK? And we have to deal

with them as best we can. Sometimes they rise, sometimes they fall,

sometimes they rarely convert, sometimes they are toppled,

sometimes they're assassinated - not usually by us, the Israelis are

rather good at that - we leave them to it. Klabation: yes. We have to

collaborate. It's the only way. All our intelligence services have got

one job, and that's one job, and that is to protect our country from

its citizens and enemies whatever it takes. If they go to a minister

- and you'll hear some ministers laying what they call moral law

down - if they go to a minister and say this is going to happen, a

major bomb has been planned for this country, what do we do? The

answer would be "whatever it takes", and then the second sentence would

be "but we didn't have this conversation," in other words - and

there is nothing you can do about it, unless you want to say we butt

out of it in which case there can probably be a 7/7 every six months.

Is that what you want? No. It's not what we want. I remember Robin Cook

talking about an ethical foreign policy. In a was way back at the

beginning of Tony Blair's - learn quickly. There's no such

thing. Two big developments today in the whole News of the World

phone hacking scandal. Lord leave son is beginning the judicial

inquiry into the whole matter. There is another development in the

Commons too which we will come to in a minute. Ross Hawkins is there

for us. Tell us what's happening at the Royal Courts of Justice. At the

moment, those people who think they should have a special status in the

inquiry, their lawyers are standing up and making the case. When you

listen to them, you get a sense of just how big the range of people

there are just waiting to try to explain what the press and the

media did to them. There are lawyers in there representing over

a hundred phone hacking victims, politicians like criticises Bryant,

Tessa Jowell, Lord Prescott, Dennis McShane, representing people like

Kate and Jerry McCann, even the son of Harold Shipman and Max Mosley,

all very much wanting to have their say. The second point of what we

heard today is the sheer size and scale of what this man has got to

do. He's got an enormous amount to get through. He's going to start

with sessions trying to learn about how the media works and what it

does, including one behind closed doors - probably sensibly, Andrew -

on how you intercept e-mails and phone calls. When is he going to

finish this report, then? By 2020, do you think? He's got two stages

to do it in. He's got a latter stage where after the police

investigations, he will look at what happened in the News of the

World. This one, the Prime Minister only gave him a year. If you look

at his opening statement, he has said well, we will do our best to

stick to that but we're not going to do that at all costs. He kept on

he's got to look at: the relationship between the public and

the press, between politicians and the press; regulation; the way the

whole legal structure is set up. These are big, big questions with,

on the one side, all sorts of special interest groups trying to

stop change from happening, cluck the media, and, on the other side,

a bunch of hurt, angry and upset victims. It is going to be quite a

series of hearings and it is going to take some time. Because, if you

want to know how to phone hack, you only have to read Piers Morgan's

memoirs where he explains how - I'm not saying he did it - but he

explains how to do it. I don't understand why that is in camera.

Will anything else be in camera or will we get to see stuff being

played out? He referred to learning sessions and seminars which all

sounded terribly pleasant. Most of it will be exposed. He also

referred to in that private session about e-mail interceptions. When

you you speak to some people around this story, you think maybe there

is technologically more than that than that old trick of trying to

get in someone's voice mail which, as you say, has been fairly

widelyert roed. This is a judge who takes a lot to learn before he

takes a single bit of evidence and long before he reaches a single

final public decision. Sounds like you'll be standing outside that

building for quite a while in the weeks and months ahead! I would

find the nearest coffee bar and open an account with them. Over

there! Now, within the last hour, there

have been developments in the other inquiry into what went on at the

Murdoch newspapers, this one being carried out by the culture select

committee. Last month, you may remember, we carried it live here

on the Daily Politics in another special when Rupert and James

Murdoch went went in front of the MPs. That was of course the foam

pie incident and Mrs Murdoch becoming a heroine. Joe, who is in

the spotlight today? The four people appearing may not have the

star quality of Rupert and James Murdoch, or even Mrs Murdoch, but

their evidence promised to be explosive. First up this morning

was former legal adviser, Jonathan Chapman, and Daniel Cloke, who was

News International's HR director. Following them was Colin Myler, and

tomorrow kroepb, another legal adviser. One of the big issues for

these two is a document which has been dubbed the "for Nev I am" e-

mail, this not only implicates another journalist in the scandal,

but it also contains detailed evidence of hacking at the paper.

When asked if he was aware of the document in July, James Murdoch

replied, "I was not aware of that at the time." In a joint statement,

both Colin Myler and Tom kroepb dispute this claim. James Murdoch

has since issued a statement saying he stands by his evidence. The

committee are also expected to try to get to the bottom of both Rupert

and James Murdoch's assertion that they believe phone hacking was

limited to just one rowing reporter, because they were relying on a

review of staff e-mails by the legal firm Harbottle and Lewis.

However, Jonathan Chapman disputes this evidence as very misleading

and said that inquiry had a very restricted remit. The law firm has

also issued a statement saying the the scope of their inquiry was very

specific. So what really went on at Britain's Sunday newspaper

according to its executives? The committee starting off questioning

the head of legal affairs Jonathan Chapman and the former head of

resources at the company Daniel Cloke. Phillip Davies pressed them

on the circumstances surrounding Clive good man who was jailed for

phone hacking in 2007. Committed a criminal offence and bringing the

company to shame, it seems the group HR director would have had no

involvement at all in the decision to sack him or the decision to -

can I just go back. It seems that, during his trial, when he was

pleading guilty, he employed the services of John Kelsey-Fry to

represent him in court, one of the most expensive lawyers in the

country - if not the most expensive lawyer in the country - and it

appears News International paid for his legal representation at that

case. Who authorised News International to pay for Clive

Goodman's legal costs at a trial when this is a chap pleading guilty

to a criminal offence that's a summary dismissal and is bringing

the company to shame? Who authorised that News International

would pay his legal fees? I don't know. I think, Mr Davis, you'll

have to ask Mr Kroepb that because it's a matter for the newspaper

lawyer that. Even though the company were not obliged to do

anything at all, in lieu of his previous work for the company, they

would as a gesture of goodwill pay a year's salary to him which

appeared to be in the region of �90,000. Who decided that that was

a good course of action to pay him a year's salary based on the fact

that he had committed a criminal offence? I think that is a a

question you will have to ask Mr Hinton. Decisive said, I was not

involved until the appeals pro-set. Mr Chapman, were you not involved

at all? Mr Hinton asked me to help him with that letter, indicated he

was going to pay 12 months' salary, and he said that he wanted to do it

on compassionate grounds because of the family situation of Mr Goodman.

That's all I can recall on that. It is a question for Mr Hinton.

you not express any surprise that this was a strange resident for the

company wanting to be set in to pay a year's salary for the committing

of a criminal offence? It could be seen on the outside as a strange

thing to do, but it was Mr Hinton's decision. Would it not seem a

strange thing to you on the inside? I can see it - I can see both sides

of it. I can see viewed externally, it looks strange, but I can also

see that if you have someone who has got a hitherto unblemished

record and they have family to throw them straight out with no

financial support leaving the family is a tough thing to do, so I

can do both sides. You didn't raise any objections to this as a

strategy? Mr Hinton had decided to do it. According to James Murdoch,

you two took the decision not to defend yourselves at a tribunal,

but to pay off Clive Goodman not to the tune of �60,000, but to the

tune of �140,000 plus �130,000 of costs. Now, if you had made the -

�13,000 of costs. If you had made the decision and there was no basis

for Clive Goodman's allegations, what on earth were you doing paying

him a 40 �140,000 on top of the �90,000 he had already been given

as a year's salary. May I answer that? Please do. We didn't take the

decision. The decision was taken by Mr Hinton that it should be settled

following our work on it, and recommendation having been told to

try to get a reasonable settlementor him - settlement for

him. Within the last few minutes, it has started hearing from the

former News of the World editor Colin Myler and the paper's chief

lawyer, Tom Crone. Can I start with asking you about what has become

known as the "for Neville" e-mail which is essentially the same

reason why we first wished to ask you to come since you made a

statement following this committee's session with Rupert

Murdoch and James Murdoch in which, essentially, you gave a different

account of what had occurred. Can I first of all establish that both of

you are certainly, in your mind, you told James Murdoch about that

e-mail when you came to discuss the terms of the settlement with Gordon

Taylor? I'm certain. You're certain. It was never referred to as a "for

Neville" e-mail. That was quite significant. And me too. I'm as

certain as I can be, yes. Perhaps I can just explore that. I think, Mr

Cone, you essentially have said it was the sole reason for settling

with Gordon Taylor? That's correct. So, in your mind, this changes the

picture entirely. Until you were made aware of this e-mail, there

wasn't reason to settle, and this "Right, everything is now different,

we're going to have to settle"? that was the decision or the advice

that was sort of formulated in consultation with the outside

lawyers after sight of that e-mail transcript, yes. Well, Tom Crone

there giving evidence. For the latest, our political correspondent

Vicky Young joins us. What strikes us here is the evidence we've heard,

this insistence from Tom Crone in Tom Myler, the former editor, that

James Murdoch seemed to indicate that phone hacking was more

widespread than they initially thought. As you say, this is still

going on. Tom Cone has talked more about that e-mail. He said he did

have a conversation with James Murdoch about it which he said

lasted for 50 minutes; he he said there were no notes made about it,

and he can't recall all the details. He twhas then pushed further and

asked "Did James Murdoch show you a copy of that e-mail?" He said,

"I've been reminded recently it had very restricted access." He was

told he was not allowed to make copies of it - this was by Gordon

Taylor's lawyers who said they wanted it to have restricted access

- and he was limited what he could Murdoch is ever called to this

committee, because it's clear the committee felt they haven't got to

the bottom of this, and that is a possibility of course. Then he will

have that defence that he didn't see the e-mail itself although he

was made aware of it. I think we've seen today in past committees, a

lot of people saying, "I don't recall this." It struck me clearly

you've got a bank of lawyers sitting behind the lawyers, saying,

"I haven't got any notes" and able to say I can't recall the details

of one thing or another. I don't think the committee will be happy

with some of the answers they've been getting.

He's now the former News of the World political editor David

Wooding and criticises Bryant was - Chris Bryant a victim of is phone

hacking. Chris Bryant, I suggest to you given the testimony we've just

heard there which directly contradicts the testimony that

James Murdoch gave to the same select committee in July that there

is no doubt that James Murdoch will be recalled. I would be amazed if

he's not recalled. I think one of the problems that we faced in this

whole process is there was the original criminality which was

scandalous enough, but then on top of that, there's been this

sustained cover-up. It's gone on and on and on, and anybody knows

that once you're found out, the first thing to do is to put your

hands up and get all the facts out there, tell the truth. That's not

what has happened. I think parliament needs to learn a 11.

I've been going through all the evidence that people have given.

I'm up to 53 lies to parliament to parliament so far - direct lies,

not just casual evasions. You mean by Murdoch organisation people?

News International, by police, by a variety of different people.

Four more, and you'll have 57 varieties. I think I might get up

to 77 trombones or is it 76! The point is of course the courts can't

deal with that as perjury because of parliamentary privilege. If we

are to deal with the powers in the land, whether that is Murdoch or

Tesco, or BP or whoever else, we need to know that the evidence that

is being given to parliament is true and honest, the whole truth

and nothing but the truth. As they do in major congressional

committees on Capitol Hill. Indeed, and I think we should move to a

system where we have all evidence being given on oath. They can't lie

to Lord Leveson, can they? Exactly. That's why, when you see the

Murdochs giving evidence on oath and being probed I think very, very

carefully, and for that matter when the police complete their

investigations, I think we'll see that we're still only at act three

in a five-act play. Are we seeing a cover-up unravelling here in that

the News International used to form a pretty solid united phalanx on

most issues. It was more united on the invasion of Iraq Iraq than the

Blair or Bush governments, for example. Now they seem to be more

like a circular firing squad. Is that what we're seeing? We had

James Murdoch saying, "I did not see this crucial e-mail", the

crucial mart of it would have expanded it, and former employees

saying, "We told him about it." What has been clear this morning,

and I will try not to add to Chris's tally in your answers to

your questions today, is that this investigation they had we heard

this morning from the human resources directorate and the legal

manager, that it wasn't quite as thorough as we thought it would be.

The question we're asking now was it covered up or was it just not

unearthed because they didn't do a proper inquiry? It's going to be

one or the other. The senior people at News International pretended

that inquiry into the 2,500 e-mails had given News International help.

That's completely and utterly untrue. The other thing is that

when James Murdoch said they had to pay Gordon Taylor �700,000 because

the lawyers had told them they would have to pay �100,000 if it

went to court and then you would have to add on all the legal fees,

that's not how it works. They're either stupid or got really, really

bad lawyers or just just lying. In truth, they were trying to buy his

silence. You see, that is one conclusion that you can take from

this morning's hearings. The question was asked was Clive

Goodman who was the Royal correspondent went to jail for

criminal behaviour in the employ of News of the World. Why, given that

he went to jail, and they are all contracts, if you bring this

company into disrepute, you're subject to summary dismissal - why

did he have to be paid anything? That was quite shocking this

morning that he was paid nearly �250,000, a year's salary twice. I

think some of the 280 people who lost their jobs, many of them, the

vast imagine order of them innocent, who had nothing to do with any of

this, will be wondering why this man is getting such a large amount.

So what is the answer other than a cover-up? I do understand, I do

take the point that was made this morning that a company tries to aan

industrial tribunal if it can. if you're dealing with an employer

who's been stuck in the slammer for four months. They said they didn't

want to go to a an industrial tribunal was because they didn't

want it to go to the public. That's backfired completely. Did you know

that the phone hacking was widespread? No, I've never hacked a

phone in my life. You knew something was going on? We knew

something was going on because two people were jailed five years ago

and then it was talked about some people were doing it. We didn't

have an idea it was as widespread as - You thought it was more

widespread than a rowing reporter in We thought some people were

doing it into celebrities once or twice, that's all. You think, I'm

told, by our team of researchers, that this is Much Ado About Nothing.

I do. Why is that? Minority view. Not for the first time in my life!

Well, firstly, two adjectives: one is surprising, one is shocking. No,

it's not surprising, as far as I'm concerned. Call it hacking, but

it's actually evesdropping. It has been going on sips the Old

Testament. It was going on in the days of Sir Francis Walsingham, and

when we were young, it was called bugging. In the Old Testament, the

story of Hannah in the elders, that's evesdropping and the elders

got it in the neck. I'm sure people will get it in the neck here. The

other thing -. It's not surprising. We're on the word surprising. There

is nothing surprising about people listening to other people's

conversations. But it is illegal, is it not? Yes, of course it is.

What is surprising to me is that anybody should be so naive, so

gullible, so irretrieveably thick to think that an e-mail is a

confidential document. I think Freddie's view is a record by the

wider public. I would take it most people didn't care about this until

the Milly Dowleer revelation, then it was a game change. What do you

say - They didn't give a dam until it came out with Milly Dowler,

listening to the relatives of Helmand, and the relatives of the

girls in Soham. I think that's true. One element of it that is been

profoundly damaging to British society is the involvement of the

Metropolitan Police and their failure to investigate for whatever

reasons, whether that is collusion or just laziness or incompetence,

or whatever, but their systematic lies to parliament as well I think

are problematic, and for my constituents the problem is about

Murdoch owning TV. Do you think people listening toe phone

conversations has never happened before in this country? It's been

going on for decades. That doesn't make it a good and right thing.

Part of the problem is actually not so much obviously the original act

had become illegal, but they've got themselves into a real mess because

of the cover-up. Of course, as usual. It's a Watergate situation.

It's what happened with nickson. think the maximum you can get for

hacking is two years. The The maximum you can get for perverting

the course of justice is ten. That's the territory we're now in.

Let me ask you this question we're now in. A lot of it has been put on

this "for Neville" e-mail because it's meant to show that glen mull

care, the private - Glen Mucrare was hacking for more than Clive

Goodman. Given this refers to a case involving Mr Taylor who was

the head of the professional footballers' association or

something like that, why would anybody think that Clive Goodman

who want to hack his phone in the first place? This was a point that

was made systematically and regularly but nonetheless News

International came back time and again there is one rowing reporter.

I've got 32 instances of them relying on that. They knew,

including James Murdoch, knew that that was not true. Gentlemen, thank

you for that. I would like to point out, as far as we're concerned, our

family think we are slim, young and irresistable!

Before we came on air, we had the former MP for Luton South. She is

called Margaret Moran, who will face charges to her expenses claim.

She will face 21 charges. Our correspondent Robin Brant joins us.

Remind us what has happened now. Margtd jirbgts moran who is no

longer an MP, is facing a whopping 21 charges twice as many as other

suspects others have faced. They are charges of theft and forgery.

It's the forgery that will be looked upon by the court as far

more serious. This is a relation between a a period between November

2004 and November 2008 when it is alleged that the Labour MP as she

was at the time made a series of claims for expenses relating to

�60,000, �20,000 for that for dry rot in a property in Southampton.

That property a hundred miles or so from her Lieutenant son South

constituency, claims also relating to other properties in Luton and

London, so, in total, claims for �60,000 over a four-year period,

and 21 charges in all, so she's in court on 19 cement, and as I said I

think it's the forgery accusation that could be most serious for

Margaret Moran if found true because she could find herself in

jail for several years over that. She has now been charged. I think

it's probably legally wise that we leave it there.

The other committee, the home affairs select committee, has also

been holding a hearing this morning, and they've been looking at the

summer riots. No doubt they'll be aware of the justice secretary Ken

Clarke's comments in the Guardian. Mr Clarke argues what he calls the

appalling social deficit as well as the financial deficit should be

addressed, saying a rocket booster needs to be put on to plans to fix

not just the criminal justice system but education, welfare, and

family policy. The justice secretary adds that the

hard-core of the rioters were in fact known criminals, and claims

that is the legacy of a broken penal system. Mr Clarke writes that

as well as the need for tough sentencing, more must be done to

reduce reoffending, and calls for the paying of those who

rehabilitate offenders by the results they achieve. The home

affairs committee has been hearing evidence for much of this morning

from both senior police officers and senior London politicians.

Starting with the Mayor of London himself. I think he's called Boris

Johnson. I think, obviously, with Twenty20 hind - 2020 hindsight, and

you'll have your opportunity in a minute to talk to the commissioner

on the night - people think it might have been wiser to upscale

the police presence. This is the Prime Minister. When you look

overall at the police which is what you want to get out of us, when you

look at what the police did on that night, on successive nights, and

what they're doing now in their detect work, which is - detective

work, which is quite remarkable, arrested 288 people, and be in no

doubt, more and more people will be arrested and charged. The CCTV is

still being gone through. They're doing an exceptional process. And,

in spite of everything, these riots were contained, there was the very

tragic death of Mr Boews in Ealing, but otherwise, there were

remarkably few casualties. I just remind the committee that - We will

come on to all this detail. people of London, my impression,

they have the the very strong support and respect for the way the

police were able to handle these riots. The issue for this this

committee is do you agree with the Prime Minister in his statement to

parliament when parliament was recalled that the tactics were not

working, and too few police officers were deployed? Do you

agree with him or not? It is self- evident, Mr Vaz, that there was a

difficulty, there was a crisis on the Saturday, then the Sunday, then

the Monday, which caught everybody unawares, and there is no doubt

about that. I think when people come to aopblise this event, they

will want to pay particular attention to the role of social

media, the black berry messaging, all of that, and how that allowed

the dispersal of this disorder. That's from Boris Johnson. Next up,

it was the turn of the acting Met commissioner, Tim Godwin. He asked

how the death of Mark Duggan started the riots. It's one of the

things we're looking into now in terms of what actually went on.

There was some confusion in terms of who was going to tell Mr

Duggan's family, and that we deeply regret, and our commander has been

round to see the family to actually apologise for those errors, albeit

I can understand why those errors occurred, but they were errors I've

apologised for. I think one of the things we need to look at is the

whole whole management that took place at Tottenham so that we can

learn from it. I think there were some good decisions taken, and

additionally, there were some misunderstandings. We need to get

to the bottom of that. Lynn Owens sitting next to me has been tasked

by me to pick up those issues, causeiality, et cetera, and those

conclusions, and this is so important, and we want to be

transparent, those conclusions will be shared with this committee.

Nothing possibly can justify what occurred with the looting and the

rioting - certainly not myself in any way is trying to find some

justification. But coming to the actual event that some considered

triggered off, we read in the past that the partner of Mark Duggan

went to the police station waiting hours before any information was

given, and even then, she considered it unsatisfactory. I'm

just wondering how far you as the most senior person, the most senior

officer of the Met looked into this? We've got, as I say, the

review going through in terms of what went on at Tottenham during

that period following the death of Mark Duggan, and it is fair to say,

as in all investigations, there are different views and interpretations

of what and wasn't said and we need to get to the bottom of that. There

is an issue for us how we look at and relate with the IPPC. That is

the learning that will come out of this. That is a critical one we

have to get done speedily so we can make sure we don't make those

mistakes again. Can I ask you about techniques used by the police in

dealing with the disturbances. Are there any lessons to be learned? Do

you feel other techniques could have been used initially which

could have helped the situation to restore order? I think the - again,

that's part of our review process. One of the things that impressed me

was the use of vehicle-borne tactics in terms of moving people

forward and keeping cordons. I think for us initially, though, we

had a fuel ring of tactics that we could deploy. It was purely numbers

that was the inhibitor, so we got to look at that. The point about

"where are all the cops?" Is an issue we're going to be addressing

in the next few months in terms of maximising our footprint and

getting the numbers out there. I think there are a number of the

levels we've got that are public- order trained. All of that of

course has a cost. We're joined now by Conservative MP David Davis, the

Labour MP David Lammy, whose Tottenham constituency was blighted

by the riots. David Davis, David Cameron characterised the riots as

criminality pure and simple. Do you agree with that? Yes, I do, really.

What was clear, certainly by day two - not on day one - was these

riots were occurring where there was a lot of gang activity in

London, a lot of basic criminality there, and then from that you had a

sweep of all sorts of - - suite of all sorts of people getting

involved, and we heard today 75% of people they've taken on board so

far have previous criminal records. David Lammy, does that surprise

you? Three-quarters of those aged 18 or over charged with rioting

offences already had a prior conviction. On the gang-related bit,

they said it was 19%, perhaps not as high. It's difficult to get the

figures completely straight but those initial figures are three-

quarters of those who already have prior convictions. Pretty shocking,

isn't it? It was clear on the Saturday night when things started

in Tottenham that half of those who were caught up in this were not

from Tottenham, and I said that on Sunday morning. I think the second

thing was this rioting went on throughout the night. Many people

stayed up watching the images well into the early hours. You then had

looting in another part of London, in Wood Green, with no police there

at all. It was a red rag to any criminal in and across London to

arrive and to cause criminal damage and to take goods away. So it's not

surprising, of course, that criminals were caught up in this.

You do point the finger at the police. Tim Godwin was asked could

the police have shut it down in Tottenham? He said, "I don't know,

I'll have to look at all the evidence." I was with the victims,

the homeless people who have lost everything they own. They said

standing around their flats, where were the police? Where were the

fire? Why were they down the road outside the police station not

supporting my my flat? Why did I have to set the alarm to get out of

my building? There was and has been another point of view presented

which is actually if they had gone in in a hard, tough way in

Tottenham, it could have made it worse, but it could have been more

or looting or "going shopping" it could have been really violent.

can understand that fear after the Mark Duggan episode and the fear

that would cause some Brixton-type riot, but I don't think that excuse

applies to anything that happened later. The next day, we had riots

pretty much all over London. There was no excuse whatsoever. There was

some excuse on the first day. None by day two. Ken Clarke used pretty

strident language for Ken Clarke. He talked about the appalling

social deficit. Which do you think the government should concentrate

on? Stopping people reoffending on the criminal side of it, or the

social side? You can't do one or other. You've got to do both,

actually. Ken and I don't agree on prison policy. Surprise, surprise!

And I think we should have more people in prison I'm afraid.

Prisons have gone off the rails in the last ten years with very, very

high reoffending rates. It wasn't always so. You've got to put that

right. You've got to do something about that, but you've also got to

deal with the gangs. The 19% number shows what the police don't know e

there are a lot of areas, estates around London, some in Tottenham,

some in Hackney, some in Brixton, where the gangs rule, and where

youngsters growing up have no choice. They're forced into and

become reluctant gangsters, if you like,. How do you see it in those

terms that actually we have this gang culture that's grown up, they

took an an opportunity and this is what what occurred. I think that is

self-evident. What surprised me was the speed of the conteenage young.

99.9% of people had never heard of Mark Duggan, that he didn't know

who he was, whether he threatened to pull a gun on the police, they

might have heard he was dead, but that wasn't the concern at all. It

spread to the Midlands and then north of England. We have had riots

before: Toxteth, Brixton, Broadwater Farm, but never sort of

suddenly bursting out in Manchester or Birmingham, or Nottingham. Again,

the one - the new factor which we've touched on already in another

subject: cyberspace. They're able to see it all on this gizmo they

carry. Yes, it's contagious. can't pull that back. People have

argued what what can you do about social media. Can something be

done? I don't know the technology well enough whether you can close

it down? You can't. It's there. It's oddly enough also fuelling the

Arab spring, actually. All it's done is accelerate what happened

before. In the mid-1980s, not the first riots, but in the made 1980s

Brixton riots, there were two phases where it was a demonstration,

and the second phase it was straightforwardly criminal, people

selecting shops and helping themselves, and planning to do so.

There's People looking ahead and forward as to what actually can be

done. The police have said one of the questions that's got to be

raised is where are all the cops? There a view about where they're

deployed, how many are deployed? That to a certain extent was passed

aside because of the view it was pure criminality or would you like

a proper review of where the cops are? Absolutely. Boris is proposing

to get rid of 600 srjents. We've got a reduction in police numbers

after the Olympics. People in London want to see officers, not

less, and clearly on a Saturday night in August, the officers there

were not able to contain young people who started burning a car,

then a second car, and then a bus. Will they realistically ever be

able to contain the wildfire that spread? Yes, we pay our taxes.

People are entitled to be policed. Let's be clear on this. In my

constituency, ordinary people - not the rioters, not the looters -

ordinary people do not feel policed. They saw young criminals outfox our

police officers. Two stark facts: number one, there are 32,000 police

in London. Only 3,000 were turned out as it were in in Tottenham

eventually. Number two, when they were turned out the next day, there

were lots of heroic actions by individual policemen, but what was

clearly the case was they were told to stand back. You could see

policemen watching arson, theft. They hated it themselves but the

leadership, there was a massive police leadership failure. That's

the point we have to understand. One final thing, the Prime Minister

is going to say this this afternoon, views on televising court

proceedings. Will that make a difference? I think we need to

televise the courts. People need to see justice done. They want to see

the sentences. We absolutely need to get past this business of behind

closed doors. I'm I'm happy about seeing the sentencing and I've

watched the American court cases. The theeate kalt of it is - the

theatre of it is different from the sober justice we're used to. Look

at the OJ case. They said this about the House of Commons. The

same Conservatives, let's not televise the House of Commons,

people see their democracy in front of them, whether they like it or

not. We now need that with the courts. To be respected or admired,

probably not? That's the sense of the time, if you've got MPs on the

take, of course it's not admired! It could be to do with the quality

of MPs of course! It might have been lousy in the 1950s, and we

didn't see them. And so ends the discussion, but stay with us.

Now, speaking of seeing MPs, we've seen quite a lot of backbenchers

today questioning all sorts of witnesses at those select committee

inquiries, select committees often being more important than what

happens on the floor of the House. Usually, it's the government that

sets the agenda in terms of what gets debated in the floor. What has

been a new development, however, is something called the backbench

business committee which can get the odd item on to the agenda, run

by MPs, and it's meeting this lunchtime. Not only that, but we

can also try and influence what subjects they pick for debate by

signing E-petitions, which is online. So, what have you been

getting cross about recently online? Giles has been taking a

look. 8 E-petitions - an exercise in 21

century digital democracy or a handy way of plaibgt people feel

like they have a voice but actually don't. It doesn't matter what you

think because it's no doubt people are signing them, but only those

with 100,000 signatories will be considered for debate, and so far,

that is just two. Over the summer, Twitter fans may have seen an

online campaign to get the death penalty to return. A counter E-

petition to keep the status qo had 26,000 signatures and came six.

What are in the top five? At five, 36,000 signed to ask the

government's change public sector pension increases to be reversed.

At four, 57,000 agreed financial education should be a compulsory

part of the school curriculum. At three, an E-petition for cheaper

petrol and diesel attracted 67,500 but as yet, all of those are still

short of the magic 100,000. Which were the two which cleared the

threshold? At two, a request for full disclosure of all government

documents relating to the 1989 Hillsborough disaster. This got

13137,600 signatories, and some publicity from a well-known

footballer. Last week, the government suggested it wasn't - at

one, normally 212,000 agreed MPs debate whether convicted London

rioters should lose all their benefits. Will the backbench

business committee look at scheduling a debate for that? Since

every E-petition is open for a year, will those currently under the

100,000 make the magic marker? Incidently, there are two others

running: one saying 100,000 is too much, and another saying 100,000 is

too little. Neither of them has significant support.

David Lammy and David Davis are still with us. Is it a gimmick?

it's a good idea, actually. I think the whole backbench business

committee thing has been an astounding success. You've heard

about one change of government policy on Hillsborough, prisoner

votes, the government was driven off its own policy, changed on that.

I think it's a very good idea. it really make a difference?

think we're seeing a far more assertive group of backbenchers.

Select committees are working, and I think that the public need to

find ways to influence what they see as a political elite and a

political class removed from them. So things like Hillsborough, a huge

huge development Thai don't think you could have left to parliament

itself. The committee will presumably select select one of

these E-petitions for debate, debate it, and then what? Then the

government will have to respond. They've first of all got to decide

what they should do about whipping. They shouldn't really whip these

things at all. We had this with the prisoner votes, they tried to whip

various proposals and the Conservative Party wouldn't play so

they then had to give in it and change their line. The petition to

take away welfare benefits from rioters, that's something the

political parties are going to have a view on, that would have to be

whipped, I thought have thought. Not necessarily. Just because we

have a view, it's not we're all of the same view. That's something

frankly the Prime Minister put into the public domain when he made his

statement after the riots. There are very, very different views in

both main parties, all three parties, about whether it is a good

or a bad bad idea. This is the sort of debate that parliament August to

be able to assert its view. Throughout the Blair/Brown years,

there were complaints that the legislature was not holding the

executive to account. Do you really think that's improved? I think

that's a fair saemt, to be honest, about backbench activity in the

first two terms that certainly I was in parliament. I do think we're

seeing a more robust parliamentary system. You're concentrating on

select committees where frankly a show like this would have regarded

them previously. Not this kind of show! Maybe Panorama or Newsnight

or these other downmarket programmes! And there there is -

there is a sense of there is action back in the House of Commons after

a period where the action was in other places. Do you buy this?

approve of just about anything, any measure whereby backbenchers can

hold the government to account because it's their job. I've spent,

as we both know, I think, 15 years watching virtual an obsequious

backbench entrepreneurial lafrpbgs grant them a debate or a change of

policy that they don't wish. They can see Hillsborough but they're

not going to concede a referendum - They had to on prisoner votes. They

had no choice on that one. Explain that. The government was going to

grant them? Because everybody under a four-year sentence, and then -

They didn't want to do it. often do you hear governments say

we don't want to do this but we have to because of Europe. It's

four years, then one years, then six years, then magistrates, and

then they gave in. The other thing that is altered all this is the

existence of the coalition itself. If Simon Hughes jumps up and says

he doesn't like what the government is doing, they can hardly turn

round to me and say you can't jump up and say you don't like - the

coalition has caused a new debate as well. Coalition may have

liberated the backbenches? In a way. We shall have to say goodbye to

these two not so obsequious backbenchers! Thank you! 30 years

ago, a group much women took a stand, protesting about the arrival

of American nuclear missiles at an air base in Berkshire and stay

outside the gates of Greenham Common in all weathers for 19 years.

# God save our gracious Queen... # Thatcher was Prime Minister, the

Cold War reaching a new peak, and a group of Welsh women had marched to

Berkshire. They were concerned because the air

base at Greenham Common was soon to become home to a new kind of

nuclear weapon belonging to the US: the cruise missile. Women from

across the country and around the world joined the all-female, all-

hours peace camp. Living conditions were rudimentary, and especially

tough during winter. At one point, 35,000 women linked arms around the

place, although some of their stunts got some of them imprisoned,

as one veteran explained to me. Well, of course, if you have a

group of women who occupy the century box at the opening of a

nuclear weapons base, or go - seentry box, dance on the nuclear

weapons silos or climb up the outside and get into the air

traffic control tower, hang a big banner saying, "Peace on earth",

this technically is considered illegal. But we did it entirely

with non-violence, always. That's not how it was seen by some

sections of the media. "They suspect the nuclear issue here has

been hijacked by radical feminists who tend to give the majority a bad

image." Or by the governments of the day. What they tried to do was

give a very clear image of peace- loving people, very reasonable, et

cetera, but when I went to Greenham Common, it turned out that they

were violent mob on the streets, and I think that completely cut the

ground from underneath them. But it was this that eventually brought

the protest to an end: the agreement between Reagan and

Gorbachev in 1987 that began the drawdown of stocks of nuclear

weapons which meant the missiles of Greenham Common were loaded on to a

plane and taken home. A smaller group of women remained until the

year 2000 after the base had been dismantled.

This weekend, some of them were back there, the site of their 19-

year protest now an industrial estate and country park. There's a

herd of Exmoor ponies, there are cows, people people take their dogs

and toddlers for walks on that base. It's beautiful, how, in the deepest

darkest days when I wondered if it was worth it, that's how I imagined

Greenham Common could be restored to common land and it has been.

We're joined now by one of the ladies of Greenham Common, Joan

Ruddock, who was the former chair of CND. Picking up there what

Michael Heseltine said, he characterised them as a violent mob

on the streets. Obviously not true in your view? Entirely not true. If

there was any violence going, it was in his own mind. We saw some of

the pictures indicating - There really wasn't. The whole purpose of

the women's protest, and the whole reason that the peace movement gave

the space to women and didn't invade them and get involved was to

remove aggression, so that it was seen to be a women's-only event,

and it was actually non-violent and always was non-violent. I never saw

any violence at that base. People say it brought worldwide attention

perhaps to the issue. It didn't actually achieve anything, did it?

We saw those pictures of Gorbachev and President Regan. They made

those decisions. It wasn't as a result of the women at Greenham

Common. It's very difficult to know what actually motivates leaders,

and when you've got huge public protest on both sides of what was

then the Iron Curtain, this certainly was likely to have have

had some effect. What we saw from the women was was a symbolism that

ordinary people could challenge authority, that they were not

afraid, and that nuclear weapons which were things that respect

going to kill millions, hundreds of millions of people, did not have

any part in a reasonable society. The arguments were all about reason,

and the reason prevailed. One of the most significant things, I

think, that was said to me, because I dealt quite a lot with Gorbachev

advisers, and one of them said to me one day, "You know, we learned

by your example." We have many contacts with the police movement

with dissidents in the east, and we were part of that growing democracy

movement across eastern Europe that was challenging the old hegemoy of

the eastern states. One of the Gorbachev advisers said it had an

influence, it was symbolic. think it brought Gorbachev to

power? Not the Greenham Common women. Emphatically not. No-one is

suggesting that for a moment. rather closer to the coal face

because I was a foreign correspondent for East Germany,

Czechoslovakia and Hungary at the height of the Cold War. I watched

the brutality of the communist regime, this so-called protest

movement both sides. Come on, the only way you got a protest protest

movement on the other side of the Iron Curtain was you got a one-way

ticket to Siberia. But them protest. I've been in Moscow trying to visit

protesters in Moscow. I've been arrested by the KGB. You weren't

imprisoned, were you? I was visiting them in flats that respect

surrounded by the KGB. Of course they were under enormous pressure.

Where do you think they got the inspiration, both from themselves

and their own ideas of what might be different, but also because

people in the West challenged the whole idea of nuclear weapons

maintaining the so-called peace. Nuclear weapons wra danger to all

of us, people in the East and West understood that. People generally,

as populations, not just behind the Iron Curtain, do you think they

were affected?. What caused finally the Politburo to lose its nerve and

the man they knew was going to change things in the form of

Gorbachev was the fact that they economically they were going broke.

Communism had failed economically. It was failing socially, and it was

failing militarily largely because we were deploying weapons like per

shinning two and Cruise that they couldn't match with SS20s. We put

up more More pershingIIs, then the voice of people like Gorbachev

prevailed. It's got nothing to do with ladies sitting - We were

certainly proud of. He needed to find some support. He needed