Browse content similar to 19/01/2012. Check below for episodes and series from the same categories and more!
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Afternoon, folks. Welcome to the Daily Politics. Can markets have | :00:39. | :00:43. | |
morals? Or is capitalism just a savage beast that can never be | :00:43. | :00:47. | |
truly tamed? David Cameron thinks he, and he alone, has the answer. | :00:47. | :00:55. | |
So does Ed Miliband. And, of course, Nick Clegg. But who's right? | :00:55. | :00:58. | |
don't more universities just go private and charge students what | :00:58. | :01:00. | |
they like? They are independent of Government control after all. So | :01:00. | :01:05. | |
what's in it for them to settle for nine grand a year per head? Doctors | :01:05. | :01:08. | |
are talking about strike action over cuts to their pensions. But | :01:08. | :01:11. | |
would that be putting patients at risk when they've done pretty well | :01:11. | :01:18. | |
in terms of pay and perks over the last few years? And we'll be joined | :01:18. | :01:26. | |
by one Somerset MP who wants his county to have its time zone. | :01:26. | :01:31. | |
you do. All that in the next half hour. And with us for the duration | :01:32. | :01:34. | |
is the philosopher and now Master of a private university called the | :01:35. | :01:37. | |
New College of the Humanities, Anthony Grayling. Welcome to the | :01:37. | :01:42. | |
show. First, the British Medical Association said last night that | :01:42. | :01:45. | |
two thirds of its members support industrial action over cuts to | :01:45. | :01:55. | |
:01:55. | :01:55. | ||
their pensions. The BMA does and like to be called a trade union, | :01:55. | :02:00. | |
but it sounds like it is to me. is if they go on strike. The police | :02:00. | :02:05. | |
and army are not allowed to strike. Is it morally acceptable for | :02:05. | :02:09. | |
doctors to threaten to strike? not clear quite what they mean by | :02:09. | :02:15. | |
that. Do they mean work to rule, or something like that? But the only | :02:15. | :02:18. | |
weapon they had if they have a genuine grievance, I suppose for | :02:18. | :02:21. | |
the butt of some bodies in need of medical attention, they should get | :02:21. | :02:31. | |
it. Do they still sign up to the medical oath? I think it's a myth. | :02:31. | :02:36. | |
They don't announce the Hippocratic oath. They do have a moral | :02:36. | :02:41. | |
obligation. If you don't care, when care is needed, that is harsh. | :02:41. | :02:46. | |
lot of people will look at what has happened to doctors pays, our GPs | :02:46. | :02:54. | |
are the highest paid in Europe, and they used to be badly paid. 54% of | :02:54. | :03:01. | |
consultants, their pay is now frozen, but they now earn an | :03:01. | :03:05. | |
average of �110,000 a year. And have a pension, according to the | :03:05. | :03:14. | |
Telegraph, the average, �1.7 million a year. They all sound like | :03:14. | :03:18. | |
large sums of money but when you compare the kind of pay consultants | :03:18. | :03:24. | |
get to what people get in the City, it's not a great deal for a very | :03:24. | :03:27. | |
responsible job, and they take a long time to train for that job, | :03:27. | :03:32. | |
and it's very stressful. If people are going to be rewarded by money, | :03:32. | :03:39. | |
rather than status, one accepts that might be about right. | :03:39. | :03:44. | |
university professor average is about �50,000. There are other | :03:45. | :03:54. | |
:03:55. | :03:55. | ||
perks. The high table. A low table maybe? They do have a lot of | :03:55. | :03:58. | |
opportunity to pursue their interests, which is great value. | :03:58. | :04:08. | |
:04:08. | :04:08. | ||
You are right. They can do other things. Now, as the bankers' bonus | :04:08. | :04:11. | |
season swiftly approaches, all the party leaders have been keen to | :04:11. | :04:14. | |
tell us they are against the excesses of the city. And reforming | :04:14. | :04:20. | |
capitalism has become the buzz phrase of the moment. | :04:20. | :04:24. | |
On the left and the right. This morning both David Cameron and Ed | :04:24. | :04:27. | |
Miliband have been out making speeches. David Cameron talking | :04:27. | :04:29. | |
about moral capitalism. And Ed Miliband tackling the surcharge | :04:29. | :04:39. | |
:04:39. | :04:44. | ||
culture. Jo, give us the details. David Cameron and Ed Miliband have | :04:44. | :04:47. | |
both been trying to outdo each other and show his brand of | :04:47. | :04:51. | |
capitalism is better than his rival's. This morning, the Prime | :04:51. | :04:53. | |
Minister talked about responsible capitalism and called for a new | :04:53. | :04:58. | |
popular capitalism. In short, how to make markets have morals. But | :04:58. | :05:01. | |
he's also stressed this should not be at the expense of making free | :05:01. | :05:09. | |
markets work. Where markets work properly, open markets and free | :05:09. | :05:14. | |
enterprise can actually promote plurality. Why? Because they create | :05:14. | :05:19. | |
a direct link between its contribution and reward between | :05:19. | :05:23. | |
effort and outcome. The fundamental basis of the market is the idea of | :05:23. | :05:29. | |
something for something. An idea we need to encourage, not condemn. So | :05:29. | :05:34. | |
we should use this crisis of capitalism to improve markets, not | :05:34. | :05:38. | |
undermine them. I believe Conservatives in particular are | :05:38. | :05:41. | |
well-placed to do this. Mr Miliband, you may remember, divided companies | :05:41. | :05:46. | |
into predators and providers in his conference speech last year. And | :05:46. | :05:48. | |
this morning he's called for tighter regulation on company | :05:48. | :05:52. | |
takeovers to protect the long-term interests of British business. But | :05:52. | :06:00. | |
he said politicians should be judged on actions not words. | :06:00. | :06:03. | |
welcome any politician who wants to talk about these issues and I point | :06:03. | :06:07. | |
out, David Cameron attacked me when I talk about these issues last | :06:07. | :06:10. | |
September, but let's judge every politician on what they are willing | :06:10. | :06:15. | |
to promise they are going to do. Not on their rhetoric. That's the | :06:15. | :06:19. | |
test for David Cameron today, not whether he can talk the talk on | :06:19. | :06:23. | |
responsible capitalism, but whether he can walk the walk and take | :06:23. | :06:27. | |
action on behalf of hard-pressed consumers and the squeeze Middle | :06:27. | :06:31. | |
who want action from him, not words. Two issues that both David Cameron | :06:31. | :06:34. | |
and Ed Miliband know that gets the public angry, bank bonuses and | :06:34. | :06:37. | |
executive pay, are also back on the agenda. Next month, many of the | :06:37. | :06:42. | |
banks will announce their bonus payments. Yesterday, Goldman Sachs | :06:42. | :06:45. | |
announced a bill of �7.95 billion for pay and bonuses, despite a fall | :06:45. | :06:50. | |
in profits. And today's papers are full of talk about stripping the | :06:50. | :06:57. | |
former boss of RBS, Sir Fred Goodwin, of his knighthood. | :06:57. | :07:01. | |
Impeccably pronounced. Unlike this side of the team. With us now is | :07:01. | :07:10. | |
the Conservative MP who coined the term crony capitalism, Jesse Norman. | :07:10. | :07:13. | |
You can't say the word capitalism these days without putting an | :07:13. | :07:18. | |
adjective in front of it. And the Shadow Treasury Minister Owen Smith. | :07:18. | :07:25. | |
Thank you. Let's go through it. Mr Cameron, where they work openly, | :07:25. | :07:30. | |
free-enterprise can promote morality because they create a | :07:30. | :07:34. | |
direct link between contribution and reward, effort and outcome. | :07:34. | :07:43. | |
you agree? I agree that they say, of course, the sincerest form of | :07:43. | :07:46. | |
flattery is imitation and frankly, that's what we're seeing out now | :07:46. | :07:51. | |
from David Cameron. We have an agenda set by Ed Miliband, set up | :07:51. | :07:54. | |
the conference speech last year, and we are seeing some of those | :07:54. | :07:58. | |
words coming out of the mouth of the Prime Minister today. You could | :07:58. | :08:01. | |
see some of those written by Jessie Norman, but we will judge him by | :08:01. | :08:08. | |
what he does. It's interesting, as you make a political point, rather | :08:08. | :08:10. | |
than straightforwardly answering my question, are you saying Ed | :08:11. | :08:15. | |
Miliband could have said this, too? There is a huge amount of | :08:15. | :08:19. | |
similarity between the rhetoric that we are seeing from the current | :08:19. | :08:23. | |
government right now and we all recognise that, after the financial | :08:23. | :08:27. | |
crash of 2007-nine, there is a need to reform capitalism. There is | :08:27. | :08:31. | |
widespread agreement about that, but I think there are differences | :08:32. | :08:36. | |
between both the sincerity with which we hold the parties and the | :08:36. | :08:41. | |
actions prepared to take. Markets are not immoral. There is no issue | :08:41. | :08:45. | |
there. There is no disagreement there. It's a question of what the | :08:45. | :08:48. | |
government is prepared to do to regulate those markets, to make | :08:48. | :08:52. | |
sure they act properly in the interests of consumers. Ed Miliband | :08:52. | :08:57. | |
has concrete solutions around companies ripping people off, and | :08:57. | :09:01. | |
we want to see whether the Prime Minister is going to imitate those | :09:01. | :09:10. | |
as well as our language. What is new and original that there should | :09:10. | :09:14. | |
be a direct link between contribution and reward? I think | :09:14. | :09:18. | |
it's pretty obvious and why people respond to the language of crony | :09:18. | :09:22. | |
capitalism, because they realise something has gone wrong. Is any | :09:22. | :09:28. | |
politician saying they should not be a link between them? Yes, I | :09:28. | :09:31. | |
don't think people think that but of course, the point is the | :09:31. | :09:35. | |
duration has got out of control and that's why you have the Fred | :09:35. | :09:40. | |
Goodwin saga, and it's not necessarily for politicians to | :09:40. | :09:44. | |
directly intervene on that. But to try to address the problems of the | :09:44. | :09:49. | |
system is absolutely right for the Prime Minister to look up. Do you | :09:49. | :09:54. | |
think it matters whether Fred could win keeps his knighthood or not? | :09:54. | :09:59. | |
think it's important. Do you? become a question of the values | :10:00. | :10:03. | |
inherent in the market system. With Fred Goodwin, you have a man who | :10:03. | :10:06. | |
has made an enormous amount of money from running one of the | :10:06. | :10:11. | |
greatest financial institutions in this country into the ground, RBS. | :10:11. | :10:17. | |
He's not done anything illegal and has not been charged. In America, | :10:17. | :10:22. | |
he might have been. Why should he lose his knighthood? Why does it | :10:22. | :10:29. | |
matter? I'm not advocating that. I didn't imply that. He was right to | :10:29. | :10:33. | |
be concerned about this issue. You would get a totemic question like | :10:33. | :10:37. | |
this because people feel so strongly about executive | :10:37. | :10:43. | |
compensation and bonuses. The Prime Minister, the City should be a | :10:43. | :10:47. | |
powerhouse of competition creativity, and instead it became a | :10:47. | :10:51. | |
byword for financial wizardry, which left at the risk with a tax | :10:51. | :10:54. | |
payer excellence other popular capitalism, we ended up with | :10:54. | :10:58. | |
unpopular capitalism put up agree or disagree? I agree with the word | :10:58. | :11:04. | |
but let's see what is going to do about it. The reason finance | :11:04. | :11:13. | |
capitalism recently became such a voracious beast in this country was | :11:13. | :11:19. | |
because of the deregulation in the 1980s, which opened up this. Jessie | :11:19. | :11:23. | |
would argue this is not the case. He would say, under Labour years, | :11:23. | :11:28. | |
we saw that the regulation but the de Regulation occurred earlier and | :11:28. | :11:33. | |
the growth in inequalities between the wealthy at the top, in | :11:33. | :11:41. | |
particular in financial markets,... Remind me what Labour did. Did you | :11:41. | :11:45. | |
do anything? Did you regulate any more than the regulatory | :11:45. | :11:49. | |
environment you inherited from the Conservatives? I think there were | :11:49. | :11:54. | |
lots of things we should have done. Did you do anything? I'm not saying | :11:54. | :12:04. | |
we did anything to they glide the banks. -- do regulate the banks. We | :12:04. | :12:12. | |
went to a tripartite system. let's... What I'm not going to say | :12:12. | :12:22. | |
is we did enough. Are the problem is, the truth is, they did | :12:22. | :12:26. | |
virtually nothing. Are they did not added to the regulation. They | :12:26. | :12:31. | |
changed it but did not added. I cannot find any quote from any | :12:31. | :12:36. | |
Conservative politician, While You were in opposition, saying this | :12:36. | :12:39. | |
Labour government is not the regulating the markets tightly | :12:39. | :12:45. | |
enough. Can you? Well, I haven't looked. The only quote which sits | :12:45. | :12:49. | |
in my mind is a from Peter Mandelson which says we are | :12:49. | :12:56. | |
intensely relaxed about people getting filthy rich. Hold on. | :12:56. | :13:01. | |
me speak. I asked for a Conservative quote and you throw a | :13:01. | :13:05. | |
hackneyed old quote from Peter Mandelson at me. Is that the best | :13:05. | :13:09. | |
you can do? If anyone is seriously suggesting a man like William Hague | :13:10. | :13:13. | |
or Iain Duncan-Smith or David Cameron would be prone breakneck | :13:13. | :13:18. | |
captors and we have seen over the last few years, I would deny that. | :13:18. | :13:24. | |
Can you produce a'attacking the de regulated City as it operated in | :13:24. | :13:30. | |
the 1990s? I think it's pretty clear that there was a strand of | :13:30. | :13:33. | |
criticism of the tripartite regime which came in because people were | :13:33. | :13:36. | |
very concerned about the Bank of England being taken out of | :13:37. | :13:44. | |
regulation. They were worried that the they were worried that the | :13:44. | :13:49. | |
split of the responsibility between the three institutions... But that | :13:49. | :13:56. | |
was the nature of criticism. Let me bring you back to the modern day. | :13:56. | :14:01. | |
Anthony has been incredibly patient, as a philosopher should. I'm sure | :14:01. | :14:09. | |
he is despairing, listening to both. Mr Cameron speech today, nothing | :14:09. | :14:16. | |
much new in it. Mr Miliband talks about rip-off Britain. There is | :14:16. | :14:21. | |
nothing new about that. The hard fact is, all you politicians talk, | :14:21. | :14:30. | |
and Goldman Sachs has announced �7 billion, almost �8 billion in | :14:30. | :14:35. | |
bonuses for a company whose share price has fallen and profits have | :14:35. | :14:42. | |
fallen. What will the people think watching this programme? What we do | :14:42. | :14:46. | |
about that? There ought to be transparency in the reporting of | :14:46. | :14:50. | |
the salaries and bonuses by not just Goldman Sachs but all | :14:50. | :14:53. | |
corporations operating in the UK so we have some sense of the | :14:53. | :14:57. | |
differential, the enormous growing differential between those at the | :14:57. | :15:01. | |
top and bottom. Secondly, there ought to be people from within the | :15:01. | :15:06. | |
workforce in those sorts of companies are sitting on the | :15:06. | :15:09. | |
renumeration boards of those companies, to put a brake on the | :15:09. | :15:14. | |
page. All the employees of Goldman Sachs are getting the money. | :15:14. | :15:18. | |
Putting them on the board would not make any difference. That's not | :15:18. | :15:23. | |
true, Andrew. It's ironic because Goldman Sachs went public in order | :15:23. | :15:27. | |
to raise money allegedly to strengthen its capital base and | :15:27. | :15:30. | |
then used that money to spare could on the market and had to be bailed | :15:30. | :15:35. | |
out by the American authorities. What we do about it? We have one | :15:35. | :15:45. | |
iota of time. I had written a I welcome there being a vigorous | :15:45. | :15:49. | |
debate about the nature of capitalism. I hope other voices | :15:49. | :15:54. | |
will come into the debate as well. You don't only want a hear party | :15:54. | :15:58. | |
leaders, we also want to hear from people outside St Paul's, and | :15:58. | :16:03. | |
people in the city itself. You should roll out the academics at | :16:03. | :16:13. | |
:16:13. | :16:14. | ||
every opportunity! They are not getting massive bonuses. For a long | :16:14. | :16:18. | |
time there's been a distinction drawn between the slightly softer | :16:18. | :16:21. | |
capitalism in Europe as against the tooth and claw version, I go for | :16:21. | :16:27. | |
the former. We need to stop. Last year, the rise in university | :16:27. | :16:30. | |
tuition fees caused some of the biggest scenes of public disorder | :16:30. | :16:33. | |
since the poll tax riots. But universities are independent | :16:33. | :16:35. | |
organisations, the Government doesn't own them. So why don't more | :16:35. | :16:39. | |
of them just tell the Government that they're not happy with fees of | :16:39. | :16:42. | |
about �9,000 a year and just say they're going to charge whatever | :16:42. | :16:44. | |
they like? What's actually stopping them? Giles donned his college | :16:44. | :16:52. | |
Not being students of our higher education system, you may be under | :16:52. | :16:54. | |
the impression with Government setting fees, and divvying up | :16:54. | :16:57. | |
research grants, that the dreaming spires of our universities are run | :16:57. | :17:04. | |
by the state. But study them and you'll find unlike Europe, they are | :17:04. | :17:13. | |
not. It is different to public- private, but they are free-standing | :17:13. | :17:17. | |
bodies, most of them have charitable status. But confusingly, | :17:17. | :17:20. | |
the UK has only one officially independent university in | :17:20. | :17:25. | |
Buckingham. It sets its own fees and operates outside the confines | :17:25. | :17:29. | |
of others, but is not for profit. It does two-year degrees, charges | :17:29. | :17:32. | |
just over �9,000 a year, and cannot bid for certain tranches of State | :17:32. | :17:38. | |
research grant. It has around 1,500 students, nearly 400 of which are | :17:38. | :17:47. | |
UK undergraduates. And many argue there should be more like them. | :17:47. | :17:51. | |
Independence translates into care for customers. If you are being | :17:51. | :17:55. | |
funded by the student, you look after the student. It is a good | :17:55. | :17:59. | |
thing to be independent. We are the only British university that has | :17:59. | :18:02. | |
chosen not to fire -- signed a contract with the Government agency | :18:02. | :18:08. | |
and the others all have. University of Buckingham was | :18:08. | :18:11. | |
established in 1976 and at the time, because it charged fees, it became | :18:11. | :18:16. | |
one of the most expensive universities for students in the UK. | :18:16. | :18:18. | |
But it has stayed in existence so it must have been doing something | :18:18. | :18:24. | |
right. Now tuition fees have come in, weirdly, it has become one of | :18:24. | :18:28. | |
the most cost-effective universities in the UK because it | :18:28. | :18:31. | |
offers two year degrees, which then begs the question, why isn't anyone | :18:31. | :18:36. | |
else doing it? Because unfortunately, the way Britain's | :18:36. | :18:40. | |
funding for research is currently constituted, if you go independent, | :18:40. | :18:47. | |
you can't get the infrastructure will research money. Universities | :18:47. | :18:54. | |
of the highest quality don't want to go but research money. -- give | :18:54. | :18:57. | |
up research money. Supporters want the UK to build a | :18:57. | :19:00. | |
private Ivy league that can charge what it likes in fees, but avoids | :19:00. | :19:03. | |
degrees for the rich by subbing poorer students from its own | :19:03. | :19:06. | |
pockets, AND can bid for that research money. Students reacted | :19:06. | :19:08. | |
angrily to our guest's proposals for a private university by | :19:08. | :19:12. | |
disrupting a talk he gave with a smoke bomb. What's interesting is | :19:12. | :19:20. | |
that those who support private universities also dislike his plans. | :19:20. | :19:24. | |
I would argue quite strongly that the profit motive is almost | :19:24. | :19:28. | |
certainly inappropriate in higher education. Higher education must | :19:28. | :19:33. | |
ultimately reflect a desire for public service by the teachers and | :19:33. | :19:37. | |
the trustees. I think once you have shareholders and profit, you will | :19:37. | :19:41. | |
end up, ultimately, like the bankers, only worried about their | :19:41. | :19:44. | |
bonuses. Last year, our guest AC Grayling | :19:44. | :19:47. | |
founded, and became the first master, of the New College of the | :19:47. | :19:49. | |
Humanities, a private undergraduate college in London. Tessa Blackstone | :19:49. | :19:52. | |
was once Labour's Education Minister in the Lords and former | :19:52. | :19:58. | |
Vice Chancellor of the University of Greenwich. It is all going to be | :19:58. | :20:01. | |
about profit, you will not look after the students, that is what | :20:01. | :20:07. | |
the vice chancellor said. happens that technically, the New | :20:07. | :20:09. | |
College is a not-for-profit organisation so that is a | :20:09. | :20:15. | |
misunderstanding. The important point made in that clip is that if | :20:15. | :20:20. | |
you are charging fees, you do have to think extremely carefully about | :20:20. | :20:24. | |
the quality of teaching and the kind of experiences students have. | :20:24. | :20:29. | |
That can only be a good thing in the end. But what and who will | :20:29. | :20:32. | |
regulate the quality of teaching? People want to know what they are | :20:32. | :20:38. | |
getting for their money. Who will say �18,000 is worth it? There are | :20:38. | :20:44. | |
a number of different constraints. From day one, Twitter and Facebook, | :20:44. | :20:48. | |
your own students are keeping an eye on you. Then there are the kind | :20:48. | :20:55. | |
of degrees you get out of it. They are being examined by colleagues in | :20:55. | :21:01. | |
the University who will be a very strong check on quality. Finally, | :21:01. | :21:05. | |
when our graduates go out into the world, how they succeed and how | :21:05. | :21:08. | |
acceptable they are to employers and others will also itself be a | :21:08. | :21:12. | |
quality check. There are lots of ways in which you find yourself | :21:12. | :21:16. | |
under scrutiny and you have to match up. A good idea that will | :21:16. | :21:20. | |
raise standards? At a very much doubt it. I have nothing in | :21:20. | :21:24. | |
principle against the idea of private institutions in higher | :21:24. | :21:29. | |
education, but I don't think we need them in the UK. We have one of | :21:29. | :21:33. | |
the strongest systems of higher education in the world, with many | :21:33. | :21:39. | |
institutions represented in the top 200 and those league tables. Right | :21:39. | :21:45. | |
across the system, we do provide students with a wide range of | :21:45. | :21:49. | |
choices and a lot of opportunity to make decisions and then when they | :21:49. | :21:53. | |
have made those decisions, to actually say what they think of the | :21:53. | :21:56. | |
provision they are getting. You say the choice is there, but what about | :21:56. | :22:01. | |
funding? That is the key issue, the struggle for higher education | :22:01. | :22:04. | |
funding. If there are private institutions that charge higher | :22:04. | :22:08. | |
fees and people are willing to pay and they will get those higher | :22:08. | :22:13. | |
standards, why would you want to stop it? I just said at the | :22:13. | :22:17. | |
beginning and not against it in principle, but they will not help | :22:17. | :22:21. | |
the funding of hundreds of institutions. We will never have | :22:21. | :22:26. | |
large numbers of them. One of the dangers is that once they get | :22:26. | :22:31. | |
established, they will simply say to the Government, and some | :22:31. | :22:34. | |
government might be inclined to accept this, that they want to be | :22:34. | :22:38. | |
funded just as the existing institutions are. You will not | :22:38. | :22:42. | |
benefit in that way. I would like to challenge what Anthony said | :22:42. | :22:47. | |
about regulation. One of the problems about starting up new | :22:47. | :22:50. | |
institutions, and there are many other alternatives to the kind of | :22:50. | :22:56. | |
institution he is starting, which are very big, basically focusing on | :22:56. | :22:59. | |
training for management -- management type institutions, | :22:59. | :23:04. | |
undercutting the market, rather poor in quality, not very strong | :23:04. | :23:08. | |
staff and very few facilities. I don't actually want a lot of young | :23:08. | :23:12. | |
people to go to those places unless they are really fully regulated | :23:12. | :23:16. | |
because they are committing themselves and affecting their life | :23:16. | :23:20. | |
chances by going somewhere which might charge lower fees, but being | :23:20. | :23:27. | |
very bad deal for them. How answer that because that is... I agree | :23:27. | :23:32. | |
with a last point. There's a real danger that a lot of very cheap, | :23:32. | :23:36. | |
short degree institutions teaching mainly vocational... The will be a | :23:36. | :23:42. | |
waste of time. Her that would be very. Eventually bid will drive | :23:42. | :23:50. | |
down quality. I think there is room in our system for independent | :23:50. | :23:54. | |
colleges. There will be very few of them and they will be small like | :23:54. | :23:57. | |
ours, there will not be any competition to the existing | :23:57. | :24:00. | |
structure and the existing structure should continue to exist | :24:00. | :24:04. | |
and be fully supported. But the reason why you want to allow the | :24:04. | :24:08. | |
field to be a bit more open it is that it is terribly important that | :24:08. | :24:11. | |
there should be innovation and it is also the case that the situation | :24:11. | :24:17. | |
as we look at it today with the �9,000 cap is unsustainable. It is | :24:17. | :24:21. | |
a politically chosen number, the universities are not happy about it. | :24:21. | :24:25. | |
It doesn't compensate for the loss of teaching subsidies for | :24:25. | :24:29. | |
humanities and social sciences. In a few years the landscape will have | :24:29. | :24:34. | |
changed pretty dramatically because they will be forced to find ways of | :24:34. | :24:38. | |
trying to charge more. Thank you both very much. We will see over | :24:38. | :24:45. | |
the next few years have money coming to the field. -- how many | :24:45. | :24:47. | |
will come into the Field Officer in Brigade Waiting | :24:47. | :24:51. | |
On Friday, MPs will debate a bill to move the clocks forward by an | :24:51. | :24:54. | |
hour, bringing us into line with the continent. But one Conservative | :24:54. | :24:57. | |
MP wants to use the opportunity to give his part of the country its | :24:57. | :25:00. | |
own separate time zone. No-one could ever accuse Jacob Rees-Mogg | :25:00. | :25:03. | |
of being a moderniser, but now he wants to put the county of Somerset | :25:03. | :25:07. | |
15 minutes behind the rest of Great Britain. The idea is not new - | :25:07. | :25:11. | |
'Bristle time' existed 170 years ago. Then, every town took its own | :25:12. | :25:16. | |
time from the position of the sun. When it was midday in London, it | :25:16. | :25:21. | |
was 11.55 in Oxford and as early as 11.47 in Barrow in Furness. But all | :25:21. | :25:24. | |
that changed in November 1840 when Isambard Kingdom Brunel demanded | :25:24. | :25:33. | |
that his Great Western Railway timetable make sense. London time | :25:33. | :25:38. | |
ruled across the UK and ruined the Bristolians' lie-in. Jacob Rees | :25:38. | :25:48. | |
:25:48. | :25:48. | ||
Mogg is with us now. He has woken up! Correct me if I'm wrong, but | :25:48. | :25:52. | |
hasn't Somerset always been behind 15 minutes behind the rest of us? | :25:52. | :25:55. | |
In many ways Somerset is ahead of the rest of the country. Her why do | :25:55. | :26:00. | |
you want to put it 15 minutes behind? The problem with daylight | :26:00. | :26:05. | |
saving time is a dozen save any daylight. There's only a limited | :26:05. | :26:10. | |
amount and in the winter not a lot of it. Changing the clocks is a | :26:10. | :26:14. | |
basically fruitless exercise and is highlight the point. Would you have | :26:14. | :26:18. | |
your own pips on BBC Radio Somerset? I think the world would | :26:18. | :26:21. | |
follow us and we would replace Greenwich Mean Time with Somerset | :26:21. | :26:27. | |
meantime. It would take a bit of getting used to watching the 10 | :26:27. | :26:32. | |
o'clock news at 9:45pm. We are always huge queue when you on. | :26:32. | :26:39. | |
would be on earlier tonight. At finish earlier! Is this just to | :26:39. | :26:42. | |
bribe your constituents with an extra quarter of an hour in bed. It | :26:42. | :26:45. | |
means when they go to Wiltshire, they would have another quarter of | :26:45. | :26:52. | |
an hour. What other plans do you have for your county? Selling | :26:52. | :27:00. | |
crisps by the bushel? Need by the court? Road signs... No, we are | :27:00. | :27:07. | |
quite happy with our road signs. Do people drink a lot of need? You can | :27:07. | :27:13. | |
buy cider by the Court in Somerset anyway. It is only two points. | :27:13. | :27:17. | |
would happen to the railway timetables? And what they did in | :27:17. | :27:22. | |
Bristol previously was they had two minute hands. Between 1840 and 1880, | :27:22. | :27:26. | |
they had two minute chance so people could tell the time. The | :27:26. | :27:29. | |
people of Somerset are so clever that they can deal with these | :27:29. | :27:33. | |
things. In other parts of the country, people might not be able | :27:33. | :27:39. | |
to. You'd better hope you don't get deselected from Somerset because | :27:39. | :27:44. | |
you won't get a seat anywhere else. I didn't state specifically where. | :27:44. | :27:48. | |
You are trying to sabotage the bill to move forward the clocks? | :27:48. | :27:53. | |
Basically, yes. Because? I don't think it makes any sense. We tried | :27:53. | :27:57. | |
it before and people don't like long, dark mornings in the winter. | :27:57. | :28:02. | |
They want to get up in daylight. If you put the clocks forward, you | :28:02. | :28:06. | |
find that people are going to work in the dark. If you try it, people | :28:06. | :28:11. | |
find they don't like it. It would all be a waste of time. That is | :28:11. | :28:15. | |
what I am trying to highlight. won't dignify the 15 minutes by | :28:15. | :28:18. | |
asking you anything about it. Now, we weren't able to pick a | :28:18. | :28:21. | |
winner to our guess the year competition yesterday. The answer | :28:21. | :28:31. | |
:28:31. | :28:32. | ||
was 1988. Anthony, pick a winner. Des Ryan's. Ewe 1. Jacob Rees-Mogg | :28:32. | :28:39. | |
will be on and 15 minutes. That is all we have time for today. Thanks | :28:39. | :28:42. | |
to all our guests. Don't forget This Week tonight on BBC1 after | :28:42. | :28:45. |