Browse content similar to 13/10/2011. Check below for episodes and series from the same categories and more!
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Afternoon folks. Welcome to the Daily Politics. The moment of | :00:27. | :00:34. | |
victory in Libya looks imminent. The new government there's on the | :00:34. | :00:42. | |
brink of saying the country is clear Gaddafy's forces. Meanwhile, | :00:42. | :00:50. | |
here at home, the Defence Secretary, Liam Fox, is still under fire. Can | :00:50. | :00:56. | |
you continue if the job? continuing to do what is needed, | :00:56. | :01:01. | |
focusing on defence issues. Thank you very much. We'll have the | :01:01. | :01:07. | |
latest. We'll also take a look at what's happened to crime in Croydon | :01:07. | :01:12. | |
after the summer riots. Have all the arrests made an impact on how | :01:12. | :01:18. | |
safe it is to walk the streets? And it's that time again - the | :01:18. | :01:25. | |
Westminster Dog of the Year. We'll find out which pooch is top dog. | :01:25. | :01:33. | |
There's no dog in the studio this year. I'm told that Foxy Knoxy's | :01:33. | :01:40. | |
agent has been holding out for double money. All that in the next | :01:40. | :01:42. | |
half hour. Joining us throughout the programme, the former MP for | :01:42. | :01:50. | |
Tatton, war correspondent and now poet, Martin Bell. Good to be here. | :01:50. | :01:53. | |
Published last week. But first, the Foreign Secretary, William Hague, | :01:53. | :01:56. | |
is expected to make a statement in the Commons within the next few | :01:56. | :02:01. | |
minutes. It's on the latest situation in Libya and there is | :02:01. | :02:04. | |
speculation that he'll say that it is almost clear of resistance to | :02:04. | :02:07. | |
the new government. Meanwhile, Liam Fox is still being staked out by | :02:07. | :02:11. | |
half of Fleet Street here at home. Within the last few moments MPs had | :02:11. | :02:17. | |
this to say about the Defence Secretary in the House of Commons. | :02:17. | :02:23. | |
Yesterday, the Prime Minister promised to look -- to publish a | :02:23. | :02:32. | |
list of meetings with the Defence Secretary and Adam Werritty. When | :02:32. | :02:37. | |
will this list be published? Following the BBC's revelations of | :02:37. | :02:40. | |
secretive wealthy donors running a shadow operation at the heart of | :02:40. | :02:45. | |
one of Whitehall's most sensitive government departments, what are | :02:46. | :02:50. | |
the implications for accountibility and probity? On her first question, | :02:50. | :02:54. | |
I'm sure the Prime Minister will honour the undertaking he gave | :02:54. | :03:00. | |
yesterday on the list of visits to ministers. That is as soon as the | :03:00. | :03:07. | |
information has been dealt with. On the earth -- other issue, the | :03:07. | :03:10. | |
Cabinet Secretary is dealing with all issues and will complete his | :03:10. | :03:16. | |
inquiry as soon as he can. George Young there. We are | :03:16. | :03:20. | |
expecting the Foreign Secretary to make a statement probably including | :03:20. | :03:25. | |
some in terms of declaring victory or at least Libya free. Is it | :03:25. | :03:29. | |
difficult to determine that moment of victory, if you like, in these | :03:29. | :03:35. | |
sorts of circumstances? Yes, I think in a long-running war, which | :03:35. | :03:40. | |
doesn't necessarily involve regular forces, and a lot of rumours, but | :03:40. | :03:45. | |
these ones are holding out. I think the moment of victory has just | :03:45. | :03:50. | |
about arrived. As forceful humanitarian interventions go, I | :03:50. | :03:55. | |
think this one has worked. Would you say you were a fan generally of | :03:55. | :03:59. | |
a policy of liberal intervention? The Government will say it has been | :03:59. | :04:04. | |
hugely successful and they did the right thing? Is it legal and | :04:04. | :04:09. | |
proportion nailt and supported and doable? -- proportionate and | :04:09. | :04:17. | |
supported and doable? This one has. It has not been America-led and the | :04:17. | :04:22. | |
boots on the ground are those of the Lybians. That is the difference, | :04:22. | :04:25. | |
looking back to Bosnia, boots on the ground become key or not as it | :04:25. | :04:30. | |
was in Libya? That depends how they are used. We had 34,000 UN troops | :04:30. | :04:36. | |
on the ground at the time of the Srebrenica massacre. Each case is | :04:36. | :04:41. | |
different. Finally we got it right and good for those. Very different | :04:41. | :04:46. | |
from Iraq? Totally and Afghanistan. I don't see how we could have stood | :04:46. | :04:51. | |
back and see that happen to beng. He said he would go from -- | :04:51. | :04:54. | |
Benghazi. He said he would go from house to house and grab people out | :04:54. | :05:00. | |
and kill them. He would have done, since he has previous. We are | :05:00. | :05:05. | |
always criticising politicians, but when they get it right, give them | :05:05. | :05:11. | |
the cid. Liam Fox - I -- credit. Liam Fox, we have a rough idea. The | :05:11. | :05:19. | |
picture is clear now that there were clearly a group of Tories, | :05:19. | :05:24. | |
quite wealthy, very wealthy in some cases and they were bank rolling a | :05:24. | :05:33. | |
Shadow office in the shape of Mr Werritty. Because Liam Fox didn't | :05:33. | :05:39. | |
quite trust the Cameroons or the Civil Service and they were very | :05:39. | :05:41. | |
pro-Israel and they were Thatcherite in tradition and that | :05:41. | :05:47. | |
seems to be what happened. Is that a sacking offence? I think his | :05:47. | :05:52. | |
position is untenable. I think we can wait a few more days and if it | :05:52. | :05:57. | |
turns out that Mr Werritty got any monetary advantage from his | :05:57. | :06:01. | |
friendship with Dr Fox. The people I'm concerned for are those out | :06:01. | :06:07. | |
deployed in far-flung places. This has to be distracting for the | :06:07. | :06:10. | |
Defence Secretary. His judgment has to be called into question. I think | :06:10. | :06:15. | |
we have a few more days. I'm in favour of not hounding people, but | :06:15. | :06:19. | |
it will become clear in a very short time. I will be surprised if | :06:19. | :06:24. | |
in a week's time he's still in his post. I thought at the weekend he | :06:24. | :06:29. | |
might well survive. As the week's gone on and this drip, drip and we | :06:29. | :06:34. | |
have now found out what has happened and Mr Werritty's position | :06:34. | :06:39. | |
becomes more obvious, it does seem that the ministerial rules have | :06:39. | :06:45. | |
been bent, if not broken? Yes. As previous explanations come to be | :06:45. | :06:49. | |
shot full of holes and people say things when turn out to be not | :06:49. | :06:55. | |
entirely true. It's the old case of the cover-up doing the damage. | :06:55. | :07:03. | |
shall see. It will be another weekend of news stories, no doubt. | :07:03. | :07:10. | |
We all remember the riots. The pictures scarred the towns and | :07:10. | :07:17. | |
cities are still in our memories. These pictures are from Croydon. | :07:17. | :07:22. | |
This morning, as guidelines have been published for people involved | :07:23. | :07:26. | |
in rioting, Gavin Barwell, a Croydon MP, claims to have seen | :07:27. | :07:30. | |
evidence that crime has now gone down dramatically in the area. We | :07:31. | :07:35. | |
have going to speak to him in one moment, but first here is Jo on how | :07:36. | :07:42. | |
the courts delts withlet aftermath. Following the -- dealt with the | :07:42. | :07:49. | |
aftermath. Following the riots, 1 ,715 had appeared in court and 73% | :07:49. | :07:52. | |
had a previous caution or conviction. This chimed with Ken | :07:52. | :07:56. | |
Clarke, when he said that a hardcore of criminal classes were | :07:56. | :08:02. | |
involved. The courts got tough. 43% of offenders tried at a | :08:02. | :08:06. | |
Magistrates' Court received an immediate custodial sentence, | :08:06. | :08:09. | |
compared to 12% for similar offences in England and Wales in | :08:09. | :08:16. | |
2010. The average custodial sentence was 5.1 months, compared | :08:16. | :08:21. | |
to 2.5 the year before. At Crown Court the average sentence was 18.5 | :08:21. | :08:26. | |
months, compared with 11.3 months in 2010. Now, new proposals have | :08:26. | :08:30. | |
been set out by the Sentencing Council for England and Wales. They | :08:30. | :08:33. | |
are designed to take into account the harm inflicted on the victim. | :08:33. | :08:36. | |
Under the new guidelines, those who are guilty of domestic burglaries, | :08:36. | :08:40. | |
who normally get up to 26 weeks in jail, could see a sentence of up to | :08:40. | :08:47. | |
two years, if the crime took place during a riot. Gavin Barwell is now | :08:47. | :08:51. | |
with us. Welcome to the programme. This is a first for you? It is. | :08:51. | :08:56. | |
Let's get straight to the fact in this. What figures have you seen | :08:56. | :09:01. | |
and what do they tell us? I've seen some figures from my borough | :09:01. | :09:04. | |
commander in Croydon, which show if you look at the four-week period | :09:05. | :09:09. | |
after the riots and the period including the riots, there has been | :09:09. | :09:13. | |
a significant reduction in property crime. You would expect that. There | :09:13. | :09:17. | |
has been a reduction of 20% in violent crime. That shows very | :09:17. | :09:22. | |
clearly it seems to me that putting the offenders away has worked in | :09:22. | :09:27. | |
terms of reducing crime in the short term. I understand that. I'm | :09:27. | :09:30. | |
puzzled by the period comparison if it tells us very much. You are | :09:30. | :09:34. | |
saying the first period includes the riots? It does. Wouldn't a | :09:34. | :09:39. | |
better comparison be, say, the four weeks after the riots, with four | :09:39. | :09:43. | |
weeks in June or in April? Sure. I hope when we get the investigation | :09:43. | :09:47. | |
complete we'll see all of that data. On the property crime you are | :09:47. | :09:51. | |
making a perfectly fair point, because it's an unfair comparison, | :09:51. | :09:56. | |
but there were very few offences of violent crime on 8th August, that | :09:56. | :10:02. | |
people have been prosecuted for. It shows a significant reduction. | :10:02. | :10:07. | |
conclusion do you draw from this? I they we are offered on crime and | :10:07. | :10:10. | |
punishment a false choice, with some saying we need to put people | :10:10. | :10:14. | |
away for longer and others say prison doesn't work, we need to | :10:14. | :10:18. | |
improve rehabilitation and I think there is merit in both. Prison does | :10:18. | :10:21. | |
work in the short term. It gets them off the streets and make | :10:21. | :10:25. | |
Croydon a safer place, but as Ken Clarke argues in the longer term, | :10:25. | :10:28. | |
it doesn't change people's behaviour patterns, so when they | :10:28. | :10:32. | |
come out they are very likely to reoffend. What I'll argue this | :10:32. | :10:38. | |
afternoon in the House is we are being offered a false choice. | :10:38. | :10:44. | |
Obviously, it is axiomatic, if you put the guys away there will be | :10:44. | :10:48. | |
less crime on the streets. Couldn't there be a play that after a riot | :10:48. | :10:52. | |
and you see this in the United States also, people are exhausted, | :10:52. | :10:56. | |
even the criminals are exhausted, and they need a rest? Sure. Also, | :10:56. | :11:01. | |
there are lots of police around and there is lots of publicity and you | :11:01. | :11:05. | |
lie low. By the way, I've nicked all this stuff and I have to fence | :11:05. | :11:10. | |
it, so I'm busy doing that. Surely there must be an element of post- | :11:10. | :11:16. | |
riot exhaustion? There is an effect that we saw more policing after the | :11:16. | :11:21. | |
riots than on the day itself. What we'll need to see is data for the | :11:21. | :11:25. | |
next few months while people are serving sentences to see if the | :11:25. | :11:28. | |
effect is prolonged. My constituents want to see the | :11:28. | :11:32. | |
maintenance of the visible policing. Why are we dependent on you coming | :11:32. | :11:36. | |
to us with this information, which I understand is unofficial and it | :11:36. | :11:42. | |
was leaked to you. Why - if this was a programme in New York we | :11:42. | :11:49. | |
would be able to through their computer system tell you that crime | :11:49. | :11:54. | |
precinct by precinct in the past 24 hours officially. Why don't we have | :11:54. | :11:58. | |
that here? We are beginning to get it. The Government has started the | :11:58. | :12:02. | |
crime mapping process, but there is a time lag. Historically, there has | :12:02. | :12:10. | |
been far too little information that has allowed people to make the | :12:10. | :12:15. | |
mapgz. There is the time lag -- mappings. There is the time lag | :12:15. | :12:20. | |
that won't help that. We'll get the internal recrew across London and | :12:20. | :12:24. | |
that will give myself and people like yourselves a lot more data. | :12:24. | :12:30. | |
I say, I can see the point that crime's going down because a lot of | :12:30. | :12:34. | |
the rioters with previous convictions have been put away and | :12:34. | :12:38. | |
the streets a bit safer for a while. Even if you put them away for | :12:38. | :12:42. | |
longer than you normally do, they will get out and they won't have | :12:42. | :12:45. | |
been in prison long enough for rehabilitation to matter, so | :12:45. | :12:50. | |
doesn't crime spike up again? agree with what Ken Clarke says. | :12:50. | :12:54. | |
The initial story - You don't agree with him on not putting people away, | :12:55. | :12:58. | |
do you? We are seeing that the guidelines are going to be a bit | :12:58. | :13:02. | |
tougher, but permly I would like to see us go further still. I think | :13:02. | :13:07. | |
also one of the things that very clear from the evidence is far from | :13:07. | :13:10. | |
being spontaneous, in Croydon there was a significant organisation and | :13:10. | :13:13. | |
gang culture was at the core of what happened in our town, so I'm | :13:13. | :13:19. | |
very much looking forward to the stailt from Iain Duncan Smith and | :13:19. | :13:22. | |
the Home Secretary about -- statement from Iain Duncan Smith | :13:22. | :13:26. | |
and the Home Secretary about that. One final question to you for the | :13:26. | :13:31. | |
moment, we know from international experience and we know now from coy | :13:31. | :13:35. | |
done, that if you put a lot of police on the streets crime tends | :13:35. | :13:40. | |
to fall. And your government is cutting police numbers. That can't | :13:40. | :13:45. | |
be right, can it? In London this year we have seen a slight increase, | :13:45. | :13:51. | |
but there is a danger going forward. Boris, as I tried to establish at | :13:51. | :13:56. | |
the Tory conference, Boris Johnson and the Home Secretary can't be | :13:56. | :14:01. | |
right. If he says he has 1,000 more police officers and he needs it to | :14:01. | :14:07. | |
keep it down, so if you take 16,000 away in the rest of the country and | :14:08. | :14:11. | |
that won't effect crime, one or the other is wrong? The Prime | :14:11. | :14:16. | |
Minister's response was that we would see far more officers on the | :14:16. | :14:20. | |
streets. Clearly, numbers is an issue. And you are cutting the | :14:20. | :14:23. | |
numbers? My view is the police can't be expempt from savings and | :14:23. | :14:26. | |
there are ways of saving without cutting numbers, but I've made it | :14:26. | :14:29. | |
clear to the Prime Minister in the House that I would not favour | :14:29. | :14:32. | |
anything that is actually going to reduce the front-line policing in | :14:32. | :14:39. | |
my town. My constituents don't want to see that. Let me bring in Martin | :14:39. | :14:46. | |
Bell in. What is your take? I used to be the BBC's riots correspondent. | :14:46. | :14:51. | |
I have been from Chicago to Belfast. You didn't wear a helmet? | :14:51. | :14:57. | |
certainly didn't. We had no body armour. The most serious riots | :14:57. | :15:02. | |
never go on for four days because people get completely exhausted. | :15:02. | :15:08. | |
Has Croydon recovered from the sense of shock? No, I think the | :15:08. | :15:11. | |
damage to the reputation as a town and also the knowledge that living | :15:11. | :15:14. | |
in the town there are people who are behaving like this in the | :15:14. | :15:24. | |
:15:24. | :15:28. | ||
community is going to take a long I think of Croydon as an affluent | :15:28. | :15:32. | |
suburb. It is a very mixed community. There is some damage but | :15:32. | :15:37. | |
there is also a positive side to this story. There were huge numbers | :15:37. | :15:41. | |
of people look came out to help to clear up at the store. And they are | :15:41. | :15:46. | |
going to rebuild it? Yes. If you look at the way that Manchester | :15:46. | :15:50. | |
recovered from the IRA attack, these things can be turned into a | :15:50. | :16:00. | |
:16:00. | :16:00. | ||
positive. That is the job - to turn it around. | :16:00. | :16:05. | |
Croydon was Nicholas Sarkozy's favourite town. He compared it with | :16:05. | :16:14. | |
Paris. That was before the riots! Thank you for coming on. | :16:14. | :16:20. | |
MPs will always tell you about ha- ha the work - the 14-hour days, the | :16:20. | :16:27. | |
pressure to get re-elected - and that is all before they even think | :16:27. | :16:32. | |
about climbing the greasy pole to the top. -- MPs will always tell | :16:32. | :16:36. | |
you about how hard they work. According to a recent report, we | :16:36. | :16:45. | |
should be encouraged in our MPs to be lazier. -- encouraging our MPs. | :16:45. | :16:49. | |
Don't be fooled by appearances, life at Westminster can be jolly | :16:49. | :16:55. | |
tough sometimes, especially if you're an MP. There is all that | :16:55. | :17:01. | |
"here, here close good business to get the hang of, then they expect | :17:01. | :17:08. | |
you to turn up to vote at all ours of the day and night. There is a | :17:08. | :17:11. | |
school of thought that says that the best way to get to the top in | :17:11. | :17:15. | |
politics is to do less. Peter Taylor reckons that the future | :17:15. | :17:22. | |
belongs to the lazy. Malaysia's air negative term. I think it is a | :17:22. | :17:25. | |
positive thing. There is an approach to doing things in the | :17:25. | :17:29. | |
most efficient way. It is a combination of intelligence and | :17:29. | :17:34. | |
laziness. And you can achieve so much more by going that way. | :17:34. | :17:38. | |
good in theory, but has anyone actually got to the top and stayed | :17:38. | :17:43. | |
there without trying too hard? classic example is Ronald Reagan, | :17:43. | :17:49. | |
who was unbelievably lazy. People would go to visit him and he would | :17:49. | :17:56. | |
talk also -- for several Lars and give them a tour of the White House. | :17:56. | :18:03. | |
-- for several hours. How do you do it? If you want to be this standard, | :18:03. | :18:07. | |
good and conscientious MP, you do all your local staff, supporting | :18:07. | :18:13. | |
the surgeries and so forth. If you want to become Prime Minister, you | :18:13. | :18:17. | |
want to fork is higher. It is about networking and socialising and been | :18:17. | :18:22. | |
involved in the big, important stuff. Are some of the new members | :18:22. | :18:32. | |
of Labour's sham -- Shadow Cabinet real-life examples? People have | :18:32. | :18:37. | |
leapt into the Shadow Cabinet, having been newcomers a year ago or | :18:37. | :18:46. | |
18 months ago. It is probably a good idea because it will allow | :18:46. | :18:51. | |
them to learn their briefs and be ready for office if Labour ever | :18:51. | :18:56. | |
gets back in our lifetime. Finally, do not be embarrassed by your | :18:56. | :19:06. | |
:19:06. | :19:07. | ||
lethargy, embrace Europe in a laziness. -- you're in our laziness. | :19:07. | :19:12. | |
I think it is the right approach. Next time you see a politician or | :19:12. | :19:15. | |
reporter taking the weight off their feet, remember they are not | :19:15. | :19:21. | |
being lazy, they are just being efficient. Honest! | :19:22. | :19:28. | |
Wake up, Andrew! It is like the Daily Politics and | :19:28. | :19:35. | |
ideas room. Were you Ali c m p or | :19:35. | :19:39. | |
unproductively busy? I did not sufficiently understand the | :19:39. | :19:42. | |
procedures of the House of Commons so I made a very slow start but I | :19:42. | :19:48. | |
think I got there in the end. I discovered that too many people | :19:48. | :19:53. | |
were discovered -- expecting me to be a super councillor. A you were | :19:53. | :19:57. | |
in a unique position. It is true that people who are successful and | :19:57. | :20:01. | |
efficient with their time get more done and do not get overstretched | :20:01. | :20:05. | |
in the same way as other people. The classic clip from that was | :20:05. | :20:11. | |
Thatcher and Reagan. I was the correspondent in Washington during | :20:11. | :20:17. | |
that political romance. He worked very short hours. For the first six | :20:17. | :20:24. | |
years he she came over every year - - for the first six years she came | :20:24. | :20:28. | |
over every year. Firstly, she told him up what she thought and then | :20:28. | :20:34. | |
have told him what he thought. -- and then told him. I interviewed | :20:34. | :20:38. | |
him in the Oval Office ones. I forget what it was, some important | :20:38. | :20:45. | |
issue, and he said, Andrew, you are quite right - it is so serious it | :20:45. | :20:49. | |
is giving me sleepless afternoons. How could you be that relaxed, even | :20:49. | :20:53. | |
if you did surround yourself with very good people? Surely, as head | :20:53. | :20:59. | |
of state, you have to do a certain amount of legwork. He concentrated | :20:59. | :21:04. | |
on the ceremonious things. He was the best communicator until the | :21:04. | :21:08. | |
President incumbent. He loved been commander-in-chief, and he let | :21:08. | :21:15. | |
other people to the functioning part. Until about 1986 it went well. | :21:15. | :21:20. | |
I had to persuade people that this was not as stupid person but a | :21:20. | :21:24. | |
formidable operator. One of the examples here was that Gordon Brown | :21:24. | :21:31. | |
used to have the reputation, and he used to say, I will strive harder, | :21:31. | :21:36. | |
work harder. In the end, he did not achieve things. Even when he went | :21:36. | :21:39. | |
on holiday in Suffolk he said, I have got to get on with the job. | :21:40. | :21:46. | |
The whole idea was to get away with it -- away from it. | :21:46. | :21:50. | |
At some stage, he was getting up so early that he met himself going to | :21:50. | :21:56. | |
bed. It is the worst thing to do. What you really need is a good | :21:56. | :22:01. | |
night's sleep, think about it a bit and then get on with it. You cannot | :22:01. | :22:06. | |
drive yourself into the ground. David Cameron is seen now as a | :22:06. | :22:10. | |
slightly more relaxed type. He does not do quite the number of hours. | :22:10. | :22:16. | |
Does it matter? You guys are in the loop. Has he got it right now? | :22:16. | :22:22. | |
I think, on a day-to-day basis, it seems more manageable. There will | :22:22. | :22:25. | |
be those who will argue that he has not been hungry enough and does not | :22:26. | :22:31. | |
work hard enough. If you end up in the House of | :22:31. | :22:38. | |
Commons it is quite hard work. you had no support system. You need | :22:38. | :22:47. | |
a party. I had the best Parliamentary Secretary ever. | :22:47. | :22:53. | |
For the uninitiated, to letter -- Twitter is a way of texting your | :22:53. | :22:58. | |
thoughts to the world, or at least those who follow you. Some MPs have | :22:58. | :23:02. | |
got fed up with others staring at their mobile phones the whole time | :23:02. | :23:06. | |
during debates, so they have put down a motion to ban a habit. It is | :23:06. | :23:14. | |
due to be debated any time now. I caught up with Luciana Berger, who | :23:14. | :23:20. | |
likes to tweet, and James Gray, who wants her to stop. I started by | :23:20. | :23:23. | |
asking James Gray if all mobile devices should be banned. They | :23:23. | :23:27. | |
should be used for the business in hand. You can use them for urgent | :23:27. | :23:31. | |
messages coming in or going out. I was recently chairing a committee | :23:31. | :23:36. | |
upstairs about pensions and benefits reform. Two-thirds of | :23:36. | :23:41. | |
people and the committee were staring at a device of some sort. | :23:41. | :23:44. | |
That just means they are not concentrating on the debate in | :23:44. | :23:48. | |
question. From outside, it looks terrible, looking at all these | :23:48. | :23:52. | |
people in the chamber fiddling with electronic devices. Let us use them | :23:52. | :23:58. | |
for a minimal amount of time, maybe the odd tweak here and there, maybe | :23:58. | :24:02. | |
instead of using paper, but do not let us have a chamber full of | :24:02. | :24:07. | |
people staring at screens. You have a point there. It is distracting if | :24:07. | :24:10. | |
people are staring at the screen. Surely they cannot be concentrating | :24:10. | :24:14. | |
on the debate. The main motion we are discussing today specifically | :24:14. | :24:19. | |
says that we should only use hand- held devices with decorum. That is | :24:19. | :24:24. | |
the main point back. I am concerned about the amendment being proposed | :24:24. | :24:31. | |
which says that you can only send and receive urgent messages. That | :24:31. | :24:35. | |
will prevent MPs from Tooting. That is what I am going to talk about in | :24:35. | :24:41. | |
the debate. What does it mean, all with decorum? People can still sit | :24:41. | :24:46. | |
there and use electronic devices and it will not be, in their view, | :24:46. | :24:51. | |
with decorum. It is also going to deal with what is and is not an | :24:51. | :24:55. | |
urgent message. As MPs, we take responsibility for what we do or do | :24:55. | :25:00. | |
not do in the chamber. I except that me and my colleagues will do | :25:00. | :25:05. | |
that and, therefore, debate -- the debate today is about what that | :25:05. | :25:10. | |
should be. There is a bit of self- regulation there, James. You cannot | :25:10. | :25:15. | |
ask people what they are doing. If the chairman knows that you should | :25:15. | :25:21. | |
only be using these devices for work that is going on in the | :25:21. | :25:25. | |
chamber and he sees someone doing something that is not pertinent, he | :25:25. | :25:29. | |
can intervene and say, the rules of the House are that you should not | :25:29. | :25:34. | |
be doing that. If we do not get my amendment through today we will | :25:35. | :25:38. | |
find that the chamber of a House of Commons and the committees will be | :25:38. | :25:44. | |
full of people doing things with their devices. It will look | :25:44. | :25:48. | |
terrible from the point of view of people outside looking in. We get | :25:48. | :25:51. | |
complaints at the moment that no- one is in the chamber. Look to the | :25:52. | :25:54. | |
future and the complaint will be, all right, they are in the chamber | :25:54. | :26:00. | |
but they are not paying attention to the debate. I would like to see | :26:00. | :26:04. | |
minimal use of them just for the purposes of concentrating on the | :26:04. | :26:09. | |
debate in hand. Why do you think that meeting has taken off in the | :26:09. | :26:13. | |
world it -- in the way it has? live in the 21st century ad | :26:13. | :26:18. | |
tweeting is just one way of better engaging and communicating with our | :26:18. | :26:22. | |
constituency to whom we are accountable. The response is that I | :26:22. | :26:25. | |
have had, and I have asked the question of whether we should | :26:25. | :26:35. | |
:26:35. | :26:36. | ||
continue to tweet, -- the responses that I have had our that people | :26:36. | :26:41. | |
find it engaging. The death lobby in particular finds it useful. | :26:41. | :26:48. | |
Who do you follow most of all? follow and lots of people. Mostly | :26:48. | :26:52. | |
it is organisations and people in and around my constituency. And you, | :26:52. | :26:57. | |
James? I am never sure who is looking and who is listening to | :26:58. | :27:04. | |
what one says on Twitter. I am not a dinosaur, I look at it. I think | :27:04. | :27:08. | |
there is plenty of room for Twitter and all of these other things. The | :27:08. | :27:13. | |
question is about how much of it should be done during a technical | :27:13. | :27:17. | |
debate in the House of Commons. We should be listening to detailed | :27:18. | :27:22. | |
arguments, coming up with alternative views, and not fiddling | :27:22. | :27:28. | |
about with electronic devices. Let us pick up on that point might. | :27:28. | :27:34. | |
The issue is whether you should be tweeting from the chamber. What is | :27:34. | :27:39. | |
your view? If you ever go to war with the British Army, you will | :27:40. | :27:43. | |
find commanders telling people to minimise and concentrate on the | :27:43. | :27:48. | |
business in hand. It is very depressing in the House divide | :27:48. | :27:54. | |
people not paying any attention at all. They did not have Twitter in | :27:54. | :27:57. | |
those days. What is the point of having a debate if people do not | :27:57. | :28:05. | |
listen to it? Except that Luciana's point is that they are did -- | :28:05. | :28:08. | |
tweeting about the debate itself. But how do you not? | :28:09. | :28:16. | |
Before we go we have to announce the winner of the yesterday's Guess | :28:16. | :28:26. | |
:28:26. | :28:36. | ||
the Year competition. It was Susan Emmett from All Saints near Brigg. | :28:36. | :28:41. | |
Thank you to all other guests. I will be back later but it -- way to | :28:41. | :28:49. |