Browse content similar to 28/06/2012. Check below for episodes and series from the same categories and more!
Line | From | To | |
---|---|---|---|
Morning, folks. Welcome to Daily Politics. The chief executive of | :00:43. | :00:48. | |
Barclays Bank, Bob Diamond, is under huge fire after traders | :00:48. | :00:53. | |
manipulated a key interest rate. The bank's been fined nearly �300 | :00:53. | :00:57. | |
million. MPs are calling for Mr Diamond's head on a plate. | :00:57. | :01:01. | |
This story is huge and it won't stop at Barclays. Other banks are | :01:01. | :01:03. | |
under investigation and there are those who want criminal charges to | :01:03. | :01:07. | |
follow for those who are proved to have been rigging the markets. | :01:07. | :01:12. | |
Is it time to intervene in Syria? Or at least arm the rebels who are | :01:12. | :01:16. | |
getting slaughtered by the Assad regime? | :01:16. | :01:19. | |
Back to the Cold War. The BBC has discovered that the Czechs had a | :01:19. | :01:23. | |
Tory Minister working for them back in the 1960s, he even gave them | :01:23. | :01:29. | |
floor plans of the Houses of Parliament. | :01:29. | :01:33. | |
All that in the next half an hour. Joining us for the programme is | :01:33. | :01:37. | |
Mark Malloch-Brown, once the deputy Secretary General of the United | :01:37. | :01:41. | |
Nations and Labour Foreign Office Minister and now works for FTI | :01:41. | :01:44. | |
Consulting which provides advice to businesses around the world. | :01:44. | :01:50. | |
Welcome. If they had they had floor plans of | :01:50. | :01:54. | |
the House of Commons, I am amazed they lost the Cold War! Information | :01:54. | :01:58. | |
like that. Something that's no laughing matter, the scandal that's | :01:58. | :02:00. | |
engulfing Barclays this morning, threatening to spread to other | :02:00. | :02:06. | |
banks in the City. Pressure is mounting on the boss of Barclays, | :02:06. | :02:11. | |
Bob Diamond to resign after the bank was fined �290 million by US | :02:11. | :02:16. | |
and British regulators for trying to manipulate the price of crucial | :02:16. | :02:19. | |
interest rates, actually the price of money they were trying to | :02:19. | :02:24. | |
manipulate in something called the LIBOR, an interest rate set in | :02:24. | :02:29. | |
London. The George Osborne -- the Chancellor, George Osborne, will | :02:29. | :02:34. | |
make a statement in the Commons. Bring us up to speed. | :02:34. | :02:38. | |
Bob Diamond took over as boss of Barclays in October 2010. The abuse | :02:39. | :02:43. | |
in question took place at the investment arm of Barclays, known | :02:43. | :02:48. | |
as Barclays Capital or BarCap. It happened between 2005 and 2009 when | :02:48. | :02:52. | |
he was in charge of BarCap, quite simply, the allegation is that | :02:52. | :02:57. | |
traders at the bank lied about the interest rates it was paying to | :02:57. | :03:02. | |
borrow money from other banks. The rates in question are the London | :03:02. | :03:06. | |
Interbank Offered Rate or LIBOR or EURIBOR. These rates directly | :03:06. | :03:16. | |
:03:16. | :03:24. | ||
influence the value of trillions of tkhras of -- dollars of of | :03:24. | :03:28. | |
financial rate. It's believed other banks are also | :03:28. | :03:35. | |
being investigated, including Royal Bank of Scotland, HSBC. Bob die die | :03:35. | :03:40. | |
-- Diamond has already said he will waive his bonus as a result of this. | :03:41. | :03:47. | |
Joining us now is Allister Heath. It looks bad for all banks and it's | :03:47. | :03:52. | |
a disaster for the City's reputation. This was a central | :03:52. | :03:56. | |
asset in the City, because the City still has control of the price of | :03:56. | :03:59. | |
global money, that's what an EURIBOR is about and the City's | :03:59. | :04:03. | |
reputation is as a trustworthy marketplace, that's why consumers | :04:03. | :04:06. | |
and banks and institutions from all over the world trusted that price | :04:06. | :04:10. | |
that was set in London. Everybody thought it was a fair market, a | :04:10. | :04:14. | |
fair value of the cost of money of interbank lending. It turns out it | :04:15. | :04:19. | |
wasn't. In fact, it was a farce. You had various traders, not just | :04:19. | :04:22. | |
from Barclays, but almost certainly from other institutions | :04:22. | :04:25. | |
manipulating this to their own advantage and to be honest, they | :04:25. | :04:28. | |
all thought it was a bit of a joke and actually wrote it down in e- | :04:28. | :04:32. | |
mails, which is astonishing when you are breaking the rules in that | :04:32. | :04:36. | |
way. So it's a real blow for London this, a much bigger blow than | :04:36. | :04:40. | |
people realise. The evidence will be there if it was in e-mails and | :04:40. | :04:44. | |
they won't be surprised in the City there will be another round of | :04:44. | :04:49. | |
banker-bashing. This time it will be deserved because there's no | :04:49. | :04:53. | |
justification or excuse. In many ways this central part of what the | :04:53. | :04:59. | |
City does was run like a 1980s- style club, where it was not | :04:59. | :05:04. | |
serious, it was amateurish really and rules weren't enforced, | :05:04. | :05:06. | |
regulators were careless or didn't know what was going on. I think | :05:07. | :05:11. | |
it's a big problem indeed. What our viewers might want to know is what | :05:11. | :05:15. | |
would it mean for mortgages, have people been paying too much for | :05:15. | :05:19. | |
mortgages or loans or too little? It's a very complicated question. | :05:19. | :05:25. | |
In some cases they might have paid too much, in some cases too little. | :05:25. | :05:28. | |
The difference was probably not that massive, but still significant, | :05:28. | :05:33. | |
maybe a 10th of a percentage point at times. It's not a simple | :05:33. | :05:36. | |
question that some people lost, some you won. It's a question of a | :05:36. | :05:41. | |
central price at the heart of the global economy was wrong and wasn't | :05:41. | :05:45. | |
put together in a serious manner. Stay with us, but thank you for the | :05:45. | :05:50. | |
moment. With us now, former banking | :05:50. | :05:54. | |
Minister, Lord Myners and from the Treasury Select Committee, Jesse | :05:54. | :05:58. | |
Norman, who once worked at Barclays, but we won't hold that against him! | :05:58. | :06:02. | |
Welcome. This goes to the heart of the integrity of the City of London, | :06:02. | :06:05. | |
which is probably its most important asset, its reputation. | :06:06. | :06:09. | |
It's another example of Labour having failed to regulate it | :06:09. | :06:14. | |
properly. I think there were very significant shortcomings in | :06:14. | :06:18. | |
regulation, both when Labour was in power and now the coalition is in | :06:18. | :06:22. | |
power. Andrew, we need to be realistic. Regulators will never be | :06:22. | :06:26. | |
able to completely eliminate risk. The responsibility for that must | :06:26. | :06:32. | |
lie with the board of directors, senior management and shareholders. | :06:32. | :06:37. | |
The regulations allowed banks to set LIBOR on their word. It wasn't | :06:37. | :06:42. | |
done independently. It wasn't done on the basis of trades carried out | :06:42. | :06:49. | |
at a LIBOR rate, the banks could say LIBOR today was 2.1%. How could | :06:49. | :06:53. | |
that be allowed? The process for fixing LIBOR was under the | :06:53. | :06:58. | |
supervision of Thompson Reuterss and British Bankers' Association, | :06:58. | :07:01. | |
it was well documented, well published. We have been raising | :07:01. | :07:04. | |
questions about LIBOR for sometime. I put down a number of written | :07:04. | :07:09. | |
questions. You didn't when in power and you had a chance to do | :07:09. | :07:13. | |
something about it. That's absolutely not true, Andrew. This | :07:13. | :07:17. | |
happened when you were in power. am saying that there were failures | :07:17. | :07:20. | |
of regulation. We know that. Regulation simply wasn't good | :07:20. | :07:26. | |
enough t wasn't intrusive enough, it wasn't smart enough. But the | :07:26. | :07:29. | |
regulation won't stop this happening T didn't stop it | :07:29. | :07:32. | |
happening in America, in the Far East. Remember, this failure in | :07:32. | :07:36. | |
Barclays was not just in London, it was global. Worldwide. It was | :07:36. | :07:40. | |
systemic. It was - it involved a significant number of senior | :07:40. | :07:46. | |
managers. Who are the victims? if the rates have been pushed down | :07:46. | :07:49. | |
there will be savers and Allister is right that the amounts in each | :07:49. | :07:53. | |
case may be small, but when you have hundreds of thousands or | :07:53. | :07:58. | |
millions of savers, there may be some people who have suffered, if | :07:59. | :08:03. | |
not individually, collectively... Borrowers will be beneficiaries. | :08:03. | :08:06. | |
Most of the action seems to have been to push LIBOR down, people | :08:06. | :08:11. | |
will be getting lower rates. There were beneficiaries from this | :08:11. | :08:15. | |
manipulation. Well, it's manipulation against the reference | :08:15. | :08:23. | |
rate. It benefits some and hurts others. For savings, that will be | :08:23. | :08:27. | |
be pensioners, people like that. Bob Diamond was head of Barclays | :08:27. | :08:32. | |
Capital, it was where this was taking place, this manipulation, | :08:32. | :08:37. | |
the investment arm. He was the boss then. He's now the boss of all of | :08:37. | :08:41. | |
Barclays, including the retail and the banking. Shouldn't shareholders | :08:41. | :08:46. | |
say it's time for him to go? Well, I think we should wait to see what | :08:46. | :08:49. | |
he says in front of the Treasury Select Committee. There are | :08:49. | :08:52. | |
obviously huge questions about that. Barclays now, I can tell you it's a | :08:52. | :08:56. | |
different organisation from when I joined in 1991 and left in 97, | :08:56. | :09:02. | |
which was a very stodgy one, which had not by the way given up. These | :09:02. | :09:05. | |
institutions, Barclays and Lloyds were set up with a kind of moral | :09:05. | :09:09. | |
purpose, that's what makes this so ironic and sad. It's not a matter | :09:09. | :09:13. | |
for the Treasury Select Committee, whose grilling is mixed when it | :09:13. | :09:15. | |
comes to these things, sometimes it's good, sometimes it's pretty | :09:16. | :09:20. | |
poor. It's a matter for the shareholders who employ this man. | :09:20. | :09:23. | |
And the board of directors and they need to think carefully about this. | :09:23. | :09:27. | |
The chairman of the board of directors, also a director of the | :09:27. | :09:32. | |
BBC... Can he survive? Has been there since 2007. Bob diamond was | :09:32. | :09:34. | |
responsible for this throughout. Very big questions will be asked by | :09:34. | :09:38. | |
the shareholders. Of both of them? Of whether they need significant | :09:38. | :09:42. | |
change. The man now going to run the building of the ringfence | :09:42. | :09:46. | |
between the retail bank and a casino bank was one of the most | :09:46. | :09:56. | |
:09:56. | :09:58. | ||
senior people who have given up a small part of their long-term | :09:58. | :10:00. | |
performance bonus benefits, given up a small part of their bonus. | :10:00. | :10:03. | |
Hardly... If they were really contrite about it they would give | :10:03. | :10:05. | |
up all long-term benefits. You may recall that in Barclays case one of | :10:05. | :10:09. | |
its strategies for getting out of the crash in 2007-8 was to take a | :10:09. | :10:13. | |
lot of assets and put them into special vehicles in which some of | :10:13. | :10:17. | |
its own executives were shareholders in their own right. | :10:17. | :10:20. | |
There is a systemic picture which needs to be investigated. What is | :10:20. | :10:25. | |
your take on this? As a bewildered owner of a bank account at Barclays | :10:25. | :10:29. | |
since I was 16 I am astonished what's happened to my bank. The | :10:29. | :10:33. | |
pwrouder -- broader point is it's clear other banks are involved. We | :10:34. | :10:39. | |
outside suddenly stumble across these things, some hard-living, big | :10:39. | :10:42. | |
talking traders are setting the daily interest rates through this | :10:42. | :10:48. | |
process, you think how can a practice survived? Why is LIBOR not | :10:48. | :10:52. | |
set by the amounts - by the rates actually prevailing in the market? | :10:53. | :10:56. | |
Why is it not just fixed against the rates that have been used that | :10:56. | :11:00. | |
day? It's astonishing. Allister Heath, my understanding is that | :11:00. | :11:05. | |
what has happened to Barclays is kind of the tip of the iceberg, | :11:05. | :11:10. | |
that many other banks were involved in this LIBOR scam and Barclays may | :11:10. | :11:14. | |
get off relatively lightly because they ended up co-operating with | :11:14. | :11:18. | |
authorities and they have fingered others who were involved, so more | :11:18. | :11:22. | |
to come, bigger fines or other banks s that true? Yes, it's | :11:22. | :11:26. | |
absolutely true. Barclays is just one of the many banks that are | :11:26. | :11:29. | |
being investigated by this and I am convinced other banks will also | :11:29. | :11:33. | |
have to settle in a similar way, perhaps have to cough up more. | :11:33. | :11:36. | |
Barclays co-operated faster and more more quickly and fully with | :11:36. | :11:41. | |
the authorities, that's why they're fine -- their fine was announced | :11:41. | :11:45. | |
first. This was a systemic issue in this market. This market wasn't a | :11:45. | :11:49. | |
proper market. It wasn't a serious market. That's the great failure. | :11:49. | :11:53. | |
This LIBOR manipulation did not cause a credit crunch or recession, | :11:53. | :11:57. | |
but it's a very, very damaging scandal and damaging blow to the | :11:57. | :12:04. | |
City's reputation. Ed Millie -- Ed Miliband has called for criminal | :12:04. | :12:08. | |
prosecutions to follow against those who broke the law, but is it | :12:09. | :12:12. | |
career that what they've done was criminal as opposed to a civil | :12:12. | :12:17. | |
breach of the law? I am not a lawyer, Andrew. It's hard to tell, | :12:17. | :12:22. | |
isn't it? I do believe the police and Crown Prosecution Service | :12:22. | :12:24. | |
should look at this. It's lamentable that white collar crime | :12:24. | :12:29. | |
seems to suffer such little consequence in terms of action. | :12:29. | :12:31. | |
That's part lay because the authorities are so -- partly | :12:31. | :12:36. | |
because the authorities are so useless at imposing it. Look at | :12:36. | :12:46. | |
what happened when there were 120 police outside Mayfair for | :12:46. | :12:54. | |
financial crimes and those brothers will win a lawsuit. I know nothing. | :12:54. | :12:57. | |
It's example... This has come from the American authorities. They've | :12:57. | :13:01. | |
been far tougher on this. Always have been. If there's been a breach | :13:01. | :13:05. | |
of the Fraud Act these people should be prosecuted. It's a | :13:05. | :13:09. | |
serious problem. If you think about, the average person who has a bank | :13:09. | :13:13. | |
account or a share in Barclays is going to be outraged by this. If | :13:13. | :13:20. | |
they did something of similar kind, slow payments, any breach of the | :13:20. | :13:26. | |
Fraud Act, they would be vigorously prosecuted. Can I also add the | :13:26. | :13:30. | |
Government is to pump more money into Barclays through their funding | :13:30. | :13:33. | |
for lending programme. The Government is using banks as their | :13:33. | :13:36. | |
principle agent to get the economy going. They're using organisations, | :13:36. | :13:40. | |
at least in one case and several others, where there are serious | :13:40. | :13:43. | |
moral failings at the heart of those organisations. There has to | :13:44. | :13:47. | |
be a change in the constitution of those banks. There has to be change | :13:47. | :13:51. | |
in the senior leadership of Barclays. Allister Heath, should | :13:51. | :13:56. | |
there be criminal prosecutions now and given this country's past track | :13:56. | :14:03. | |
record from Mr Maxwell, young Mr Maxwell skwrpbwards -- onwards, | :14:03. | :14:07. | |
would the prosecutions get anywhere? It seems apparently, I am | :14:07. | :14:11. | |
reporting what others are saying, it seems that these were not crimes, | :14:11. | :14:14. | |
that's why they're not prosecuting them. The question is should they | :14:14. | :14:20. | |
be crimes? Is the UK doing enough to prosecute white collar crimes? | :14:20. | :14:23. | |
Over the last two years they have started jailing and prosecuting | :14:23. | :14:27. | |
some white collar crimes, for example insider trading deals, and | :14:27. | :14:30. | |
actually people going to prison as a result. This hasn't happened in | :14:30. | :14:34. | |
the past. But of course this is is a massive setback and it will be | :14:34. | :14:38. | |
strange indeed if this particular set of circumstances wasn't | :14:38. | :14:43. | |
criminal. But apparently that's why there's merely a fine and not a | :14:43. | :14:45. | |
criminal prosecution. The problem is it's a Government's | :14:45. | :14:49. | |
responsibility to write the laws. It's absurd that you can do | :14:49. | :14:52. | |
something like that and it's not a crime. I don't understand why the | :14:52. | :14:56. | |
Government doesn't change the law in this case if that's what the | :14:56. | :15:00. | |
problem is. A lot of these fines will be going to America. A large | :15:00. | :15:06. | |
chunk is going to the UK. Where does the money go, do we get any of | :15:06. | :15:11. | |
it? To the FSA. Basically, a lot more banks are going to be hit by | :15:11. | :15:21. | |
:15:21. | :15:22. | ||
fines here. What is the law, and is I suppose this is tax-deductable? | :15:22. | :15:27. | |
suspect it may well be. Barclays don't pay much tax, as we know, so | :15:27. | :15:31. | |
it may be they are being caught out by their own cleverness here. | :15:31. | :15:37. | |
right. Well, gentlemen, sometimes if you don't laugh, you would cry! | :15:37. | :15:42. | |
Thank you very much. I hope we will see you on This Week tonight. | :15:42. | :15:48. | |
I think that is a yes! Syria. Kofi Annan has put forward a plan for | :15:48. | :15:54. | |
the formation of a national unity government. This could be get the | :15:54. | :15:59. | |
backing of Russia. It is not clear whether Moscow shares the Western | :15:59. | :16:01. | |
interpretation that it would exclude President Assad. Russia's | :16:01. | :16:06. | |
backing might come as a bit of a surprise. Up till now, the Russians | :16:06. | :16:11. | |
have blocked several initiatives at the United Nations. Should those | :16:11. | :16:19. | |
countries that want to intervene get on and do something? | :16:19. | :16:23. | |
The new home of the General Assembly is ready for business. | :16:23. | :16:27. | |
Some things haven't changed much since then. The Security Council is | :16:27. | :16:32. | |
still based on something called rate power unanimity, meaning the | :16:32. | :16:38. | |
permanent five members - the US, UK, France, China and Russia - have a | :16:38. | :16:43. | |
veto. The Russians have used theirs twice leading some foreign affairs | :16:43. | :16:47. | |
analysts to wonder what is the point? There has to be a way around | :16:47. | :16:55. | |
this, this deadlock, because people are dying. How many genocides, how | :16:55. | :16:58. | |
many instances of "ethnic cleansing" have happened while the | :16:58. | :17:04. | |
UN Security Council is feckless? We had Rwanda in the '90s, we had | :17:04. | :17:08. | |
Darfur and now Syria. When can countries break the deadlock by | :17:08. | :17:13. | |
going it alone and intervening militarily without any blue | :17:13. | :17:18. | |
helmets? Never, unless there is a Security Council Resolution, or it | :17:18. | :17:22. | |
is clear self-defence. There is no other just and legitimate way of | :17:22. | :17:26. | |
using force internationally. Jeremy should know. He was our man | :17:26. | :17:32. | |
in New York when Britain and America failed to get a second | :17:32. | :17:37. | |
resolution authorising the invasion of Iraq. The co-sponsors reserve | :17:37. | :17:41. | |
their right to take their own steps to secure the disarmament of Iraq. | :17:41. | :17:45. | |
Nowadays he says it isn't fair to blame the UN when things go wrong. | :17:45. | :17:51. | |
Or don't happen at all. There is a ceiling to these things. The UN is | :17:51. | :17:55. | |
its member states in the political arena. It is not a separate | :17:55. | :17:58. | |
government, or agency that you go to when there is a fire in your | :17:58. | :18:03. | |
house, that has its own fire engine. The member states provide the | :18:03. | :18:10. | |
solutions. The UN is the forum for that under certain rules. Even the | :18:10. | :18:13. | |
institution's critics don't think it should be circumvented | :18:13. | :18:19. | |
altogether? Doing that is risky. What is the point of having this | :18:19. | :18:21. | |
international institution, international legal system in place, | :18:21. | :18:26. | |
if people are going to run roughshod over it? It is not just | :18:26. | :18:32. | |
the United States and Britain that could do that, any country could do | :18:32. | :18:37. | |
that. Joining us now is David Mellor, who served in as many six | :18:38. | :18:41. | |
Departments of State including the Foreign Office with responsibility | :18:41. | :18:46. | |
for the Middle East. Welcome. This idea of a national unity government | :18:46. | :18:49. | |
in Syria, is that going to work? is probably the only way forward. | :18:49. | :18:56. | |
The fighting is really reaching quite a peak now. A TV station got | :18:56. | :19:00. | |
seized just last night, a government TV station on the | :19:00. | :19:03. | |
outskirts of Damascus. I felt throughout that the only | :19:04. | :19:09. | |
alternative to fully-fledged civil war with huge consequences for | :19:09. | :19:14. | |
civilian life is a negotiated solution which takes Assad out but | :19:14. | :19:19. | |
leaves elements of the regime in. The Russians think that Assad would | :19:19. | :19:23. | |
be included in some sort of national government. That would not | :19:23. | :19:28. | |
succeed? I think they understand... They do? That he is on his way out. | :19:28. | :19:32. | |
The other elements they have backed will still have a part in it. | :19:32. | :19:37. | |
view? Many people have said it would cause more problems. Now, we | :19:37. | :19:43. | |
are hearing today that the Turks are sending military reinforcements | :19:43. | :19:47. | |
to the border after what happened last week. It is getting to that | :19:47. | :19:52. | |
pinch point of potential military action? It is. The point was well | :19:52. | :19:57. | |
made in a discussion I had the other day that Syria possesses | :19:57. | :20:00. | |
quite potent anti-aircraft weapons and they demonstrated that with the | :20:00. | :20:04. | |
Turks. I think though it is inevitable that countries like | :20:04. | :20:09. | |
Qatar, Saudi Arabia - they will continue to arm the rebels. It is | :20:09. | :20:12. | |
obvious if problems continue with Turkey, the Turks would at least | :20:12. | :20:17. | |
rattle their sabres even if they don't do anything about it. They | :20:17. | :20:20. | |
wouldn't probably privately want a full-scale military action. That | :20:20. | :20:23. | |
brings us to the point of arming the rebels. Is that the way | :20:23. | :20:29. | |
forward? It is a very bad second choice. It may be inevitable. But | :20:29. | :20:32. | |
the fact is Qatar and Saudi Arabia evidently already are arming the | :20:32. | :20:37. | |
rebels, which is why they are putting up a much better fight of | :20:37. | :20:43. | |
it now. I think we are into - it is a minute to midnight, there is a | :20:43. | :20:48. | |
last chance for diplomacy. If it doesn't work, it will be a fully- | :20:48. | :20:53. | |
fledged conflict. I agree. I think that Kofi Annan has called this | :20:53. | :20:59. | |
meeting in Geneva and that is a last-ditch. Otherwise, I do think | :20:59. | :21:03. | |
that serious efforts have to be made to persuade the Russians to | :21:03. | :21:06. | |
take a more constructive view. Experienced people in the region | :21:06. | :21:13. | |
have been telling me, like the founding General Secretary of The | :21:13. | :21:18. | |
Gulf Co-operation Council. He said, "Don't worry, he will be gone by | :21:18. | :21:22. | |
Christmas." The worry is, what is there left? I had the privilege of | :21:22. | :21:28. | |
knowing his father - a totally different character. You feel that | :21:28. | :21:32. | |
Bashar was thrust into government. There is a big issue as to whether | :21:32. | :21:36. | |
he is the frontman or whether he is the man of power. I suspect it is | :21:36. | :21:40. | |
the people behind him who pose more of a threat. People continue to be | :21:40. | :21:44. | |
killed in quite large numbers. It does draw attention then to whether | :21:44. | :21:50. | |
the United Nations really is any more a forum... I agree. This may | :21:50. | :21:57. | |
be the one thing where he wants to believe in the UN. I want to | :21:57. | :22:07. | |
believe in the UN. If one or two members of the big five opt out, | :22:07. | :22:15. | |
you can't, the UN becomes impotent. So should countries act outside | :22:15. | :22:19. | |
that forum? They have to. It is a dangerous, slippery path. Then | :22:19. | :22:24. | |
anything becomes allowable. The veto is rarely used now. It's | :22:24. | :22:32. | |
tragic it's been used on Syria. Continually on Syria? Several times. | :22:32. | :22:36. | |
Thank goodness it's been used on Israel. They teach the lessons for | :22:36. | :22:41. | |
others of course. The fact is the veto, may when it is used by Russia | :22:41. | :22:45. | |
or the United States, or China, we may not like it, but it | :22:45. | :22:50. | |
occasionally has some purpose of reflecting the fact there isn't an | :22:50. | :22:53. | |
international consensus. While the Russians have lots of bad ideas | :22:53. | :22:58. | |
about what they are doing, they don't want the precedent of | :22:58. | :23:01. | |
intervention because of their own Chechnya-like problems, they also | :23:01. | :23:06. | |
in some ways may have a more realistic view of Syria being a | :23:06. | :23:10. | |
fragmented, mosaic of a country, different ethnic groups, that if | :23:10. | :23:13. | |
you break it, it is very hard to put it together again. All right. | :23:13. | :23:18. | |
Thank you very much. You are staying with us, David Mellor. | :23:18. | :23:22. | |
Don't go. We are all staying! We are keeping them hostage for | :23:22. | :23:27. | |
another five minutes. We are familiar with the names of Cold War | :23:27. | :23:31. | |
traitors - Kim Philby, Guy Burgess, Anthony Blunt, John Stonehouse - | :23:31. | :23:37. | |
and many others, too. We can add a new name to that list - | :23:37. | :23:42. | |
Conservative MP, Ray Mawby, who a BBC investigation has discovered | :23:42. | :23:46. | |
spent a decade stalking the House of Commons all the time working for | :23:46. | :23:51. | |
the Communist Czechoslovakian Secret Service. He even gave them | :23:51. | :23:56. | |
floorplans showing where the Prime Minister's office was inside the | :23:56. | :24:04. | |
building. I think these are also on tourist maps! LAUGHTER Mr Mawby, a | :24:04. | :24:08. | |
junior minister in Harold Macmillan's Government, and he was | :24:08. | :24:13. | |
a staunch defender of right-wing traditional values. Here he is on | :24:13. | :24:17. | |
BBC Television opposing the legalisation of homosexuality | :24:17. | :24:24. | |
without a hint of irony on the grounds that it might be a security | :24:24. | :24:28. | |
risk. He is more liable to blackmail as | :24:28. | :24:38. | |
:24:38. | :24:38. | ||
we have seen in many of the security cases in the past. Most of | :24:38. | :24:44. | |
the people have been found to be male homosexuals and they were not | :24:44. | :24:47. | |
blackmailed, I believe the main thing was not because of the danger | :24:47. | :24:51. | |
of them being brought into a police court, the danger that their | :24:51. | :24:55. | |
friends and relatives and parents would in fact be told by the | :24:55. | :25:00. | |
blackmailer if they refused to either pay the money or hand over | :25:00. | :25:06. | |
whatever they were asked for. man who exposed Ray Mawby's | :25:06. | :25:10. | |
treachery is Gordon Corera. Welcome. Thank you. Congratulations, too. | :25:10. | :25:14. | |
Did this guy ever hand over anything of any use? Well, none of | :25:14. | :25:19. | |
it was top secret, in a sense. He never had access to national | :25:19. | :25:23. | |
security information. What is fascinating is the Czechs were | :25:23. | :25:27. | |
fascinated with Westminster. They wanted the political gossip. They | :25:27. | :25:31. | |
asked him for information on the personal and financial | :25:31. | :25:34. | |
peculiarities of other Tory MPs, looking to see if there was anyone | :25:34. | :25:39. | |
else they could target. Then there are these interesting floorplans of | :25:39. | :25:42. | |
the Prime Minister's office where he points out where the security | :25:42. | :25:46. | |
guards might be. The implication is they were going to bug it or do | :25:46. | :25:51. | |
something like that. So not top secret, but inside Westminster. | :25:51. | :25:55. | |
They thought it was useful. Why did he do it? Very simple answer - | :25:55. | :26:01. | |
money. He didn't have much money. He wasn't a fellow traveller? | :26:01. | :26:07. | |
at all. He was gambling in clubs. He would lose money and the Czechs | :26:07. | :26:17. | |
:26:17. | :26:19. | ||
would be there to cover his losses... Have a cheque! LAUGHTER | :26:19. | :26:23. | |
There is a bonus if you get some extra staff. You met him, David? | :26:23. | :26:29. | |
knew him very well. I was elected in 1979. Was it still black-and- | :26:29. | :26:39. | |
:26:39. | :26:41. | ||
white television then? No! LAUGHTER He was a member between '79 and '7. | :26:41. | :26:46. | |
-- '7. Ray was more likely to be found in the bar. He was a very | :26:46. | :26:50. | |
jovial character. If you had to spend a long night having a laugh | :26:50. | :26:55. | |
and a joke with Ray and others of similar dispositions so when I | :26:55. | :27:00. | |
heard this morning on the radio that this man had been exposed by | :27:00. | :27:10. | |
:27:10. | :27:16. | ||
our friend here, who - watch out for poisoned umbrellas - I never | :27:16. | :27:23. | |
thought Ray would be the one. our authorities know, did MI5 - MI5 | :27:23. | :27:28. | |
is paid to stop this from happening? It is. No comment from a | :27:28. | :27:34. | |
Whitehall official is all I got. They certainly know then! Maybe he | :27:34. | :27:42. | |
was a double agent? Who knows. If there were warnings to him - but | :27:42. | :27:45. | |
I'm not sure they knew about it. You must have come across a few | :27:45. | :27:52. | |
spies at the UN? Quite a lot. place is full of them! LAUGHTER | :27:52. | :27:58. | |
They mainly live in my building! phone had been tapped which my | :27:58. | :28:03. | |
reply was, "Hell, I worked at the UN, my phone was tapped by | :28:03. | :28:08. | |
everybody!" LAUGHTER How did you get this story? I was looking for a | :28:08. | :28:14. | |
story about Ted Heath. I didn't find any evidence of a blackmail | :28:14. | :28:23. | |
plot against him. I found evidence of Ray Mawby. Hundreds of secrets... | :28:23. | :28:27. | |
I would have been much better value! LAUGHTER I would have | :28:27. | :28:32. | |
charged more than 400 quid! Why didn't anyone ask me? They will now. | :28:32. | :28:36. | |
Listen, thank you to all of you. I will be back tonight with This Week | :28:36. | :28:43. | |
on BBC One at 11.35pm. We will have a sad man on a train, Michael | :28:43. | :28:47. | |
Portillo, Alan Johnson and Hollywood film star, Danny Devito. | :28:47. | :28:51. |