24/10/2013 Daily Politics

Good afternoon, welcome to the Daily Politics. The union goes back into

talks with management in Grangemouth, but will it be enough

to save the plant? Cameron and Clegg catch over green levies and gas and

electricity, but how much will scrapping them reduce energy bills?

And can I say on behalf of the committee that we have found your

evidence most unsatisfactory. PC plebs feel the heat from MPs, but

still no apology for the man they helped force from office, Andrew

Mitchell. And oh, for a simpler age, and

overwhelmed white hole holds an e-mail free day. -- Whitehall.

All that in the next hour. With us for the whole programme today is

political columnist Will Hutton, former editor in chief of the

Observer and principal of Hertford College, Oxford, were also works

with the Work Foundation, what a long introduction! Let's start with

the situation at the oil refinery and petrochemical plant at

Grangemouth. Yesterday the company which owns the plant, INEOS, said

they would close the petrochemical plant with the future of the

refinery on the same site uncertain. Last night Unite, which represents

workers at the site indicated they were prepared to agree to new terms

and conditions from INEOS. In the last hour, Unite General Secretary

Len McCluskey left the talks, saying he was optimistic that the plant

would survive. I think I was encouraged by what the First

Minister said that the Scottish government are not going to allow

this plant to close down, and that is also our position. We are not

going to allow this plant to close down. We are not going to allow 800

jobs to go and the community of Grangemouth to become a ghost town.

And we are not going to allow the security of Scotland to be put in

peril. Scotland correspondent Laura Bicker joins us now from

Grangemouth, talks and now continuing, or restarting, I should

say, today - how likely is it in your view that INEOS will reverse

their decision to close the plant? It is a very difficult one. It is

interesting to hear Len McCluskey's use of the word optimistic. When

workers left here yesterday, optimism was not any thing that they

would have thought when it came to this plant. But the pressure is now

ramping up on the company, INEOS. Yesterday you heard from the First

Minister, saying that he would not allow this plant to close. This

afternoon we expect the Scottish finance secretary, John Swinney, and

the Scottish Secretary, Alistair Carmichael, together to have talks

at this plant, a sign that both be Scottish Government and the

Westminster government are really taking this seriously and working

together. So the pressure is now on INEOS. The problem is, this plant,

according to INEOS, is losing ?50 million per year, the petrochemical

side of it. They claim it needs ?300 million worth of investment, and

that is because of the depletion of these North Sea gas supplies, and

they want to import gas from America. They need to re-equip the

sites to do that, and they say that will cost ?3 million. Now, whether

or not these new pay and conditions that the union are agreeing to will

allow them to go ahead and do that, that will be something that the

shareholders will have a look at. The interesting thing is that the

main shareholder is a man called Jim Ratcliffe. He rarely gives

interviews, he is a man who trained in Birmingham, and at the weekend he

did still a Sunday newspaper that if the workers did not make the right

decision, there would be no happy ending for this plant. Certainly, he

has carried through his bread. If there were substantial changes to

the union position, they would consider it. The pressure, as I

said, is ramping up. Hopefully, we will get a clue as to what will

happen then. The union clearly did not believe

INEOS, when it said it was losing money hand over fist, but now it

seems like the union is prepared to accept those demands. They certainly

overplayed their hand. INEOS and Jim Ratcliffe, the company he built, by

buying petrochemical plants and oil refinery is around the world that

nobody wants, putting it together and making them work better, I

suspect he would, if you could, hold on to petrochemical plant. So in

that sense, the union got that right. INEOS is in an invidious

position. The kind of cuts to pay and bonuses and in particular the

final salary pension were swingeing, unbelievable. Better than losing

jobs? Better than losing jobs. We have a system of industrial

relations in Britain that allows a situation where the union has to

take on a problem side by side, rather than bargaining across a

whole industry. That allows the union and employer to fall into this

kind of pit, but the straight answer to your question is the union

overplayed their hand. Do you think they will reverse the decision?

Despite all the big words from any as, if the union does agree to the

new pay and conditions, will they say, all right, we will keep it

open? I think Kabul would like to keep it open. There was a sense that

they would... That is their business model, buying these low margin,

high-volume parts of the petrochemical and chemical industry

worldwide that nobody wants, running them rather well. They have a very

flat management team, and they go in hard on the workforce in the way

they are doing here. That is how they do it. Whether or not, after

all that has been said, that will be seen as a climb-down by them is

another matter. I also think, by the way, Len McCluskey and Alex Salmond

saying they are not going to let us close - actually, they have no

instruments. The decision is entirely INEOS's, not theirs. Is

there another buyer out there? There is only INEOS, people want to sell

these plans, not by them. One of the problems is the rise of shale gas in

the United States, and there is too much refining capacity in the

reviewer been union, so actually these plans are on the edge of

utility. In the European Union. So they are impotent, Alex Salmond and

Len McCluskey, in that sense. That is my view, unless they come up with

serious money to help the old Grangemouth complex retool around

imported shale gas. Now, that was in play, kind of in the weeks after

this, and what Jim Ratcliffe wanted was that money from government plus

the deal from the union, and they thought they might have enough to go

with. Let's see if that can be reinstated. I have to say, one thing

that does need to be said, we all talk about our kids being less well

off than ourselves, we all mourn the end of final salary schemes, we'll

think about how tough it is going to be ten, 20, 30 years' time. This

fight is everyone's fight, and Unite are going to lose it.

Time for our daily quiz, and the question for today is what gift did

the cabinet give to Prince George as a christening present? Was it a

teddy bear, a pint toy box, a signed photo of the Cabinet, what every

newborn wants, or a chunk of national debt in the form of a

government bond? At the end of the show, Will Hutton will give us the

right and is a! You have got time to think about it! What is the best way

to cut energy bills? Yesterday the Prime Minister announced he wanted

to roll back on so-called green taxes that added to the cost of our

bills. This morning the Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg, said he

disagreed with that approach but confirmed that the Government was

reviewing ways to bring down bills. The debate about how to bring down

the cost of living is the number-one talking point in Westminster. Ed

Miliband has the agenda with his plan to freeze gas and electricity

prices until the start of 2017. Former Prime Minister John Major

added fuel to the fire on Tuesday when he suggested that energy

companies should be hit with a one-off windfall tax on profits.

Yesterday, David Cameron said he wanted to roll back some of the

green regulations and charges that are putting up bills. But what are

they? And how much do they cost as? According to the department of any,

about 9% of the average dual-fuel bill is made up of green charges. --

department of energy. However, the government says these measures will

actually help to reduce bills by up to 11% by 2020. This morning Nick

Clegg into that other ways the obligations could be met. We will

provide money to low income households funded from these levies.

We could perhaps fund that through general government expenditure, but

one way or another, we need to help those low income families with their

fuel bills this winter. I don't want us to turn our backs on the poorest

in society, the thousands of people who are employed in the green

renewable energy sector, I don't want us to turn our backs or the

sake of future generations on the environment. But of course we can

strike a balance, we will provide solutions to this as a government,

and we will do it in the weeks and months to come.

With us now is the Conservative MP and Parliamentary Private Secretary

to the climate change minister, Greg Barker, welcome to the programme.

Were you taken by surprise when the Prime Minister announced he wanted

to roll back some of the green regulations and charges? I don't

think there is anybody within the coalition that is not concerned

about rising... I asked if you were surprised. No, these were the things

that were ensuring that low income families at the biggest amount of

opportunity to lower their costs, to ensure we are getting the best value

from our energy sector. So I was, you know, the cost of living is a

big issue, particularly in a constituency like mine. So green

levies to put a burden on consumers? Well, if you look at the

fuel poverty element of the levy, actually, what that is doing is

taking 250 thousand families out of fuel poverty this year alone. --

250,000. These are long-term investments, but we have to look at

the vet facts very clearly, because next year we will be affecting

?750,000. It is delivering real benefits to real families. So why

does the Conservative prime Minster want to roll them back? I think one

wants to review whether they should be on bills, general taxation, there

is a lot of debate about that, but the fuel poverty element is a very

important policy that both parties in the coalition are very committed

to. It was a U-turn, wasn't it? He is under pressure from Ed Miliband

who has been leading the debate on cost of living, and he panicked. I

absolutely do not believe that. We have taken ?178 of everybody's

bills. How have you done that? The renewable heat incentive was put

onto everyone's Energy Bill, and that is now in general taxation.

Every single government levy, government taxation needs to be

reviewed, and how it is impacting the lowest income families in our

country. So you want to roll back the judges for bills and put them on

general taxation? These are things that are being discussed at the

moment, but the issue that we are not concerned about energy bills as

they had the doorstep in constituencies is very much at the

forefront of the Prime Minister's mind and the Department of Energy

and Climate Change. But it has to go somewhere, you are arguing? There is

fuel poverty that is crucial, and we need to ensure we are getting better

value for money out of the levies which are being implemented by the

energy companies, who needs to ensure they are delivering when they

can. I mean, the difference between what the Conservatives are offering

as part of the coalition, even though the Liberal Democrats do not

agree with it, and what Labour is proposing is these were actually cut

bills, not just freeze prices, this will actually bring down energy

bills. Well, there are three elements to these subsidies. One is

the subsidies to renewables, to the nuclear power plants that are going

to be built, and that is not going to go, I don't think. Then you

cannot do that, otherwise you will not get the investment. So that is

one element that is going to stick in this, the ?112 that is talked

about. The actual amount that can be taken out of bills and put into

general taxation which, by the way, is the proper place for it - if you

are looking at public interest things like having more efficient

homes, particularly for poor people, it is a good thing for Britain if we

have energy-efficient housing stock, and the question is, if you make the

lowest pay the same tax as the highest paid, it is very regressive.

So it is good to see this being discussed. I would not lay a lot of

money on actually bills being reduced by more than ten or 20

quid, frankly, that is the maximum you could take out. There is a small

amount which can be rolled back, in that sense. The essential point is

that when the coalition came into government there wasn't a department

looking at energy efficiency. There is now a whole unit. If we can

reduce our leaky housing stock, if we can permanently invest in the

infrastructure of our homes, we will start to reduce bills. Metering. By

30%. Smart metering, I think it's a really important point. Over the

next decade, every home in Britain will have a smart meter you can

control, hopefully with your mobile phone. You can decide where you want

to buy your energy from commerce which quickly. Smart metering is not

something we should retreat from. The amount of money which can

actually be taken out without sacrificing some policies, is very

low. How many properties of hard work committed under the Green

Deal? 250,000. The answer is 12 actually. That's under the Green

Deal finance. 80,000 people have had their homes assessed, for energy

efficiency measures. But having the work actually done? Many have taken

measures to make their houses more efficient. Haven't gone into the

finance part of the Green Deal. But they have accessed energy. It is the

biggest roll-out of energy efficiency measures across our

housing stock in generations, if not decades. Wright, the Prime Minister

has done this to draw on the dividing line with the Liberal

Democrats, hasn't it? Not at all. There's clear understanding that we

are concerned about bills. These are things we are committed to

addressing. So I don't think there is a dividing line there, at all. I

am self named as a turquoise Tory. The Miller band price freeze will

only work because companies will have two hedge -- Ed Miliband.

That'll be a tax on their profits. Frozen energy prices. Isn't that a

better idea than John Major's tax? Not at all. Freezing energy bills

first of all, it's going to ensure energy companies hike their bills

up. Or they hike them up at the end. It's a false solution. All it

does is put it on pause, not looking at the competition we need to set

up. OK, thank you. Green levies haven't been the only source of

coalition tensions over recent days. This morning, Nick Clegg has been

making a well-trailed speech in which he's stated his opposition to

some of freedoms enjoyed by free schools in England, including their

ability to hire teachers without Qualified Teaching Status. I support

free schools and academies but not with exemptions from minimum

standards. That is the bit I want to see changed and that will be clearly

set out in our next general election manifesto. There is nothing,

absolutely nothing, inconsistent in believing that greater school

autonomy can be married to certain core standards for all. And I'm

totally unapologetic that the Lib Dems have our own ideas about how we

do that. And I'm joined now by the the Liberal Democrat deputy leader,

Simon Hughes. What is the Lib Dem policy on free schools? We support

the idea people being able to set up schools but we think they should

have minimum standards, they should be inspected by Ofsted, the

regulator. They should have qualified teachers and they ensure

that the curriculum taught in all schools in England is taught in

them, too. Why is Nick Clegg only bring this up now? The idea of

having unqualified teachers was agreed two years ago and nothing was

said by Nick Clegg publicly and it's come as a total surprise to the

Conservatives. We had our policy which has always argued that we

should have qualified teachers. We've always argued that we should

have an agreed curriculum. We negotiated with the Conservatives an

agreement in which that wasn't confirmed as part of the coalition

policy. The Tories wanted a much greater freedom of the education

sector. And Nick Clegg was happy forward in the last two years. We

negotiated and it wasn't our policy. It didn't come from our side of the

coalition. Nick is very clear and reaffirmed this this year that we

want a change to do the idea of free school management to make sure we

have qualified teachers. So parents have a guarantee, and there is the

same core curriculum taught there so parents have enough choice. That was

a dramatic change by what was publicly said by David laws. One of

the key tenets of freedom, freedom to set your own curriculum, if you

like, and freedom to take on the teachers you want, whether they are

qualified or not. That is the core principle of free schools which

David laws was signed up for. We have debated many times, the

coalition parties have their own positions and we win some arguments.

But you are not clear this. We were. Never policy saying we take

everybody out of tax up to ?10,000. It's become coalition policy because

we agreed it. Free schools came from the Tories, Nick is reinstating the

parents guarantee that we will give free schools greater success. Do you

think it was a mistake to take the family didn't agree with the

government 's court bans on this? It's hypocritical, if you feel your

schools minister helped design the policy, has stood by the policy,

publicly, in the last two weeks. Didn't say anything about the

problem with unqualified teachers and yet, here we have this from Nick

Clegg. It looks hypocritical. I don't think it looks hypocritical at

all. I'm a trustee of a secondary school and I don't think parents and

teachers must understand this at all. It's a department led by

conservatives, Michael Gove, and is number two is a Liberal Democrat,

and they have agreed between them what to do in this coalition

government that is what the Liberal Democrats want to do in the next

Parliament. If you remove the exemptions from minimum standards,

the heart of the case for free schools, what is the point of it?

What is the point of creating this instability in the education system

when you already have academies? I understand the case for having many

runners and riders, but, actually, once you move the exemptions, I'm

not sure what you are left with. I'm a huge fan of free schools,

personally. In my own constituency. You think there are two idea

logical? They are too big a risk of parents but there are good ones and

bad ones. There is one which is doing well and one struggling in my

constituency. The answer to your question as you allow anybody to

come forward with a proposal to set up a school, in order to challenge

the supremacy of either the local education authority or the local

Christian academies. There is, I think, watching the fragmentation of

a national system, and parents are left navigating in high degrees of

uncertainty. You have no idea who's going to run a free schools. You

have no idea who's going to be around. There's no underwriting of

it whatsoever because... That's why rolling back on the reforms. I just

think, I am for challenging incumbents, monopoly, but there's a

point we have to say these are careers and lives at stake. I have a

constituency in which we have all these issues bubbling around. I have

argued we need new school provisions and it's better you get an existing

provider to expand if you have a good reputation because it gives

security. This is about making sure all the providers under laws have

minimum guarantees to parents. You and labour are at one on this. You

have got to guarantee it's going to be there for ten years. Once you do

that, how was it free? In what way is it free? There's only 174 free

school so far. Let's see how many more,. A lot, the private sector

schools started off as independent creations because somebody thought

we need to have a school here and they have done very well

academically. Just briefly... Hang on... It sounds exactly the same.

Before I let you go, green taxes, did you know David Cameron is going

to announce a new policy to announce a deposit of rollbacks that a

rollback of this? I was surprised about point but not surprised in the

Tories. Are we don't have this from now in, various sides of the

coalition... Let me answer the previous question. A lot of Tories

are sceptical of green things, even though the Tory party did have an

argument saying vote Green before. We are traditionally a Green party,

and environmental party, committed to renewables and all those things,

so we're trying to make sure the coalition is secured about that. I

think in the end, there may be adjustments in whether taxation

float falls. Would you be happy to see it on general taxation? If we

don't invest continually in renewables, we don't give ourselves

good energy sources which are good for climate and the pilot that

planet. That planet. Simon Hughes, thank you. European Leaders are

travelling to Brussels this morning for a European Union Summit. But the

the agenda there has been rather overshadowed by revelations that the

US National Security Agency may have eavesdropped on the German

Chancellor Angela Merkel's mobile telephone calls. I'm joined now from

the summit by our political correspondent Iain Watson. Is there

a theory in Bill and about what has happened in terms of allegations of

eavesdropping on Angela Merkel's calls? Yes, she said to be livid

about this. She spoke to Barack Obama about it and despite a

telephone call, presumably not monitored, she clearly wasn't happy.

So much so, the American ambassador has been summoned to a meeting with

the German Foreign Minister. Angela Merkel has been accused of not

taking this seriously. She said she has got no idea how insecure their

messages have been. It's in danger of overshadowing this EU summit

because the European Commissioner in charge of the internal market has

said that the internal market has said that this shows Europe

shouldn't be dependent on America any longer and should create its own

digital infrastructure. Data cloud which the Americans can't penetrate.

Although this isn't officially on the agenda, believe it or not, there

will be a session on data protection and on the Digital economy so it's

inevitable it will be discussed. There are concerns from France but

the extent of US monitoring there. Theory on behalf of the Chancellor

Angela Merkel. -- fury. What about David Cameron? Cutting red tape.

Absolutely. He might be uncomfortable if he gets drawn into

a debate on security given the role of GCHQ. He wants to talk about

cutting red tape, he wants to hold Brussels's feature to the fire. He

will be flanked by two members of his business task force. They are

puzzled by this because they have been getting rid of 5000 regulations

in the last five years and, in addition to that, David Cameron is

happy to talk about deregulation across the EU but hasn't talked at

all about bringing powers back from Brussels. He hasn't talked about

repatriation of powers and saying there are certain things Brussels

shouldn't be doing. He says it got no idea which powers he once

returned to the UK and he's trying to help deregulatory the European

economy to boost competitiveness. Thank you very much. Should Angela

Merkel really be surprised that America is listening to everybody? I

think it is a surprise, actually. She is the de facto leader of Europe

at the moment and the idea that your biggest ally, the USA, their

security agency is aided and abetted by GCHQ, listening to mobile phone

calls. Goodness, it's gobsmacking, I think. Actually, a lot of talk in

Britain about press regulation and we mustn't have the Leviathan

sitting behind us with the recommendations. But here is

Leviathan. Sitting across, not just Angela Merkel's and Francois

Hollande's but also David Cameron's, too. I think it's a

major, major, major issue. It's important because the manner in

which it's done, there is no accountability, no framework in

which it's done. What do you say David Cameron accusing the guardian

of linking -- leaking that information that they were

threatening national security? If you are an editor, and I'm on the

Observer and the Guardian, you can either be duty-bound to put into the

public domain. Even if it was a threat to national security? You

know, you can't take an absolutist position that everything must be put

into the public domain without any attempt... That's not been the

Guardian's position. But, I mean, putting into the public domain, the

NSA has this extensive surveillance on e-mail traffic, whether or not it

aggregated, and there's no framework of accountability, it may or may not

be alerted by a Labour minister, come on. This is big potatoes. It's

important it is discussed and actor. It's going to be even more

after the news today. Back in 1981, more than 360 concurred that

Thatcherite policies would end in financial calamity. Offence are

generally held to have proved them wrong. -- events. A similar debate

has been occurring over George Osborne's prescription for the

economy. Those arguing that his austerity package is similarly

flawed had felt vindicated, but have recent signs of promising growth

changed the economic weather? Here is David.

Cast your mind back to 1981, Princess died's wedding, the Brixton

riots, and 364 economists signing a letter to the I'm saying that the

government economic policy would end in disaster. -- letter to the

times. Quite the reverse now, where we still have had legions of

economists saying that the present Conservative government's economic

plans will end in tears, or at least they did. One has to be flexible.

George Osborne is, I think, being crazily inflexible. Of late, things

have been looking up. His best news is that the economic recovery is

finally picking up speed and we are seeing strong economic growth,

employment rising, unemployment falling, consumer confidence rising,

public sector borrowing falling. He has had a raft of good news. That

has allowed economist on the other side of the document to settle a few

scores on the Chancellor's Bihar. I think his detractors were wrong from

the outset. If he had not reduced government borrowing, we could have

ended up in the situation that Japan is in today with 20 years of

increasing government borrowing to try to get economic growth going,

but it has failed and it has now got a national debt of 250% of national

income. Britain could have ended up in that position is George Osborne

had taken the advice of his detractors. I wonder who he is

thinking of... There is nothing credible about a plan that leads to

a double-dip recession, to thousands of businesses going bust, to 1

million young people out of work, billions wasted on soaring benefits,

borrowing going up, not down. That is not credible, that is just plain

wrong. But was it all a cunning plan, or did George gets lucky? It

is hard for us to tell whether people were wrong to question his

strategy, or has his timing been quite fortunate and things have come

together for him very conveniently ahead of the general election? It is

hard to know in retrospect how the economy would have done if we had

not imposed those cuts, those tax rises. It might have done better,

consumer demand would have been stronger, but equally bond markets

might have taken fright, we might have become the next Greece.

Economic iTunes are rarely settled definitively. Fans of us there at

a... Liam Halligan of the Telegraph joins

me now, Will Hutton is still here. Last year you called George Osborne

the kamikaze Chancellor, were you wrong? I think I called the kamikaze

Chancellor rather earlier than that. Look, economies have cycles,

they go up and down, that is one of the rhythms of economic life. I

remember, back in 2010, I had to make a decision about when I thought

levels of output would get back to where they were in 2008. And you

know, normally, the great recession of the 1930s took four years, and

the office of budget responsible to and others would say that we would

get back to those 2008 levels in 2012. -- the Office for Budget

Responsibility. What I saw in his first budget, I thought it would

take longer than that, and it has taken longer than that, and what

happened was, he has taken his foot off deficit reduction in the last 12

or 18 months, it is stable, and there has been a renewed reduction.

The way I see it, it has been 100% validated. It has lasted six years,

not four, the longest in 100 years. When he actually has a pause in it,

we get some kind of recovery, and a snapback is what we were always

going to get, and we are watching that. The question is what follows

after the snap back. I am surely will agree 100%! My hero! Was George

Osborne just lucky? Jo, I am not going to be painted into austerity

versus growth, as a defender of the coalition by Will or anybody else.

This is the economic reality. Yes, growth is going to be better than we

have seen. We have just had two consecutive quarters of growth for

the first time since mid-2011, we are about to get a third, but it is

a very long way from a recovery. I have serious problems with the UK's

economic policy mix. We are still running a very big trade deficit,

the biggest in 30 or 40 years. That has carried on into this year. The

money that we are borrowing is actually bigger than the increase in

nominal GDP. We have credit card lending, the highest it has been for

all but one month in the last 11 years. Does that mean Will was

right? The austerity policies... It does not at all, it does not mean he

is right at all, but it is not as if you are either for austerity or

against it. What I am saying, what I am saying is that the growth that we

are seeing, yes, it is great we have got some growth, that there will be

a little bit more investments now, but we are all being extremely

complacent. The UK economy has not turned a corner. That is my

position! The gilts market has been propped up by printed money. We are

doing more to increase borrowing, that would make the situation worse.

Full to I have to say, for 30 years, I have been trying to argue that

Keynesian economics is not about the doctrine of permanently having

budget deficits. That was not what he argued. But you were for spending

more in 2010? I was in favour of reproducing, in 2010, what we did

after the IMF crisis in the 1970s. We took eight years to get back to

budget balance then, and my view was we should take eight years to do

it... It will be ten! It would have been much better, if we had declared

that before, in 2010, than to do what was done, which was utterly

unnerving. There has been some savage cuts in local government...

They have not carried out all the cuts they said they would in the

timescale. Jo, our national debt is going to increase by 50% in the next

four years. He in Westminster, everyone focuses on the deficit, but

it is about the debt, which is massively increasing. How much more

can we bear? Of course, it is about dead in a larger sense than that. --

debt. The story is about private debt, much more than public debt.

The story is about an economy which does not have, as you have correctly

identified, it does not have a strong trades of goods sector, to

sell services overseas. There has been no rebalancing. The response by

our economy to this big devaluation, the biggest in our history, has been

unbelievably disappointing. Deed George Osborne, in the rhetoric he

used, choke off consumer demand early? We are never going to know

categorically, whether we would have had growth last year or the year

before, whether there was a stimulus undertaken by Labour, if they had

been in power, or whether George Osborne was right to try to shrink

the state and that growth has come back, albeit anaemic league. Did he

joke of consumer demand? We can never know, and all I would say, for

all the political parlour games that we are engaged in, even in this

interview, the reality is that we have seen in this country, in

numerical terms, the biggest Keynes Ian boost in our history. Because

public spending has continued. A smart guy like you, one of the

younger heroes... You could feel and insult coming! Would I debt?! It is

all about getting ahead of the curve. The idea of having crisis

conditions, like in 2008- 10, is to get ahead of what happened, and the

reason that Dedham went up, we got behind the curve, so the dynamic of

this. You defended, for years and years and years... Absolutely not,

absolutely not. The that is a calumny! Did you know that economics

could be this interesting?! If I had, we would have done more of it!

You said there would be no growth in 2013, on the basis of what had been

carried out by George Osborne, but there is growth and in that sense

you were wrong. I have always tried to say, you have peak levels of

output... 2008, output got to a peak. It then fell. The question was

when it was going to get back to its previous peak, but everyone said it

would be 2012. I have stuck to the position that it will be 2014, it

will be 2014, and that is not a wrong call. About cost of living,

growth has returned, but the big question is cost of living, because

prices are going way ahead of wages. You'd think that will continue, we

are not going to say that correct? Absolutely, the squeeze on wages,

real wages, has been unprecedented in the last 100 years. Yes, we have

got nominal GDP growth happening, but we have got interest rates lower

than inflation, so people are losing out on their savings. There will

continue to be a cost of living squeeze. In my view, with all

respect, the way to increase the cost of living is not to borrow and

spend more in a situation where you are already at the limit of what you

can borrow and spend, so much so that the gilts market has to

continue to prop up... I am going to have to stop you. We have to

innovate and invest our way out of this crisis. Hallelujah to that, but

NASA necessarily state investment. We need our own show! You do, you

can get together afterwards. Be quiet! The long-running scandal

known as plebgate, which led to the downfall of the government Chief

Whip Andrew Mitchell, came in for a detailed investigation at the Home

Affairs Select Committee yesterday. The saga began when Mr Mitchell, as

he was cycling out of Downing Street, had an altercation with

police officers. He was accused of calling the officers pleb is, a word

he has denied using. At a meeting later, three police officers met Mr

Mitchell. After the meeting, they told journalists that Andrew

Mitchell had refused to elaborate on what he did or did not say in the

Downing Street incident. It was that meeting that dominated the hearing

when the three self-styled PC plebs appeared before the committee.

Detective sergeant said at the end of the meeting, I appreciate your

candour, I appreciate that you have gone beyond what you said in the

media. In an interview with BBC Midlands afterwards, you said, he

has come out with what he has not said, but he is not saying what he

did say, and that has caused an integrity issue. I suggest to you

that when you spoke to BBC Midlands afterwards, you were not telling the

truth. I was telling the truth. I was telling it as I saw it. I had

just come out of the meeting, there had been a fair deal said during the

meeting. Mr Mitchell's account, with regard to saying things under his

breath, that was said at the beginning of the meeting. Later in

the meeting, he reiterated that he had not gone beyond what he had said

previously... You said that he spoke with candour in the meeting, how can

you go from saying he was candid in the meeting do what you said to the

BBC outside? I explained that earlier. Prior to the meeting, my

understanding was that Mr Mitchell had only ever said, I do not agree

with the words attributed to me. The candour I was referring to was that

during the meeting, he came out and said, I did not use the specific

words pleb and moron. OK, fine, so Mr Mitchell should not be included

because he happens to be a member of the public. Have you changed your

position at all? Mr Jones, you don't want to apologise for any think you

might apart from not having... Can I remind you, gentlemen, as I have

reminded all witnesses, that giving false evidence to a select committee

is contempt of the house, and can I say on behalf of this committee that

we have found your evidence most unsatisfactory?

Proceedings at the Home affairs Select Committee yesterday. And this

morning the Home Secretary, Theresa May, addressed issues arising out of

the Plebgate saga in a speech to the College of Policing. The events of

last year proved overwhelmingly the case for a beefed up IPCC and that's

what I'm determined to deliver. The expansion of it is on track. And the

IPCC will begin to take on additional cases from next year.

Where the IPCC has needed new powers, for instance in its

investigation of Hillsborough, we have legislated to provide them and

if the evidence of the past week shows we need to go further, we will

do so. The Home Secretary, Teresa May, talking about beefing up the

Independent Police Complaints Commission, and it was one of them

who looked at this and criticised the account given by the three

police officers we saw before the home affairs select committee. Can

the police recover from this? This is... In opinion polls, their trust

ranking is quite high and in some respects, deservedly so. I know some

young police officers who are really, really passionate public

officials who really take their job seriously but there is, without

doubt, a real problem amongst police leadership. Half a dozen chief

constables have had to step aside. In the last five years. There's been

a number of cases of cover-ups of this type. The way in which the

leadership of the Metropolitan Police took the opposite side almost

from the start, and seemed disinterested. The wave the

politician has been effectively framed, it leaves a terrible,

terrible taste in our mouths. And actually, I think there has to be

some reform at the top of the police. Ian Blair, the former head

of the Metropolitan Police, was brought down by whispering campaign

within the Metropolitan Police. Do you think the same would happen with

Bernard Hogan-Howe? I just think of the culture at the top of this

institution, their capacity to inspire, to lead, there's a lot of

sex is in the police, and there's some fantastic police officers doing

a fantastic job. Lions led by donkeys. -- sexism. Teresa May has

got to get to grips with it. That Sotheby's commission is therefore,

ideally. Margaret Thatcher. Formidable or foolish? Brilliant or

bullying? Virtuous or vicious? However you describe her, she

remains one of the most iconic prime ministers of the modern age. In a

moment, I'll be joined by former Conservative MP and Minister,

Jonathan Aitken, a friend of Lady Thatcher. He's just written a candid

book about her. One that shows a very different side to the longest

serving post-war Prime Minister. But first, let's look at some

photographs taken from the book. With me now, Jonathan Aitken.

Welcome. There are numerous biographies of Margaret Thatcher

recently. I interviewed Charles Moore about his. Why did you decide

to write this book now? I wrote it because I think I have got an angle

on Margaret Thatcher which is summed up in the title. Personality.

Anybody who thinks that Margaret Thatcher Furlong realises the

extraordinary impact of her personality, which changed things --

for long. It changed attitudes, cabinet. I think it's been worth

exploring, not the psychobabble way, but by going through the history of

her life with a lot of new material. And I thoroughly enjoyed doing it.

You got arguably too bad start with there because he went out with her

daughter Carol and split up with her. How did that relations between

you? It was nice, romantically, but it was one of my less successful

career moves. Inevitably one understands why Margaret wouldn't be

happy with the young man who hurt her daughter 's happiness. It was

never, for me, an issue, except to be sorry about it. But, in reality,

one thing from the point of view right now, being a biographer, I did

see her at a much closer quarters than I otherwise might have done as

a young MP. What insight to that give you into her personality? Well,

in home life, the Thatcher family life is pretty dysfunctional. It

also revolves around the political ambition. It had its hilarious

moments, too. I remember the first time I went to lunch with Margaret

Thatcher, on the wall there was a great inscription, a picture would

have been given to her by President Assad, in Arabic. She said to me,

rather suspect it, I don't suppose your Arabic is good enough to tell

me what it is? It was, there is only one God. And Dennis said, thank God

we didn't ask the padre to lunch. So was it fun? Spending time with her

outside of the political sphere? There was never a dull moment with

Margaret Thatcher. She always had such strong views on almost

everything. In terms of their personality, people have described

her in different ways. While she unkind, difficult, bullying? I think

she was all those things. She was never unkind to anybody who might be

called in a junior position. Private secretaries, drivers, so on. She was

a honey with her staff but the vinegar with her Cabinet. She could

be brutal to the high and mighty as I often thought of themselves,

ministers who haven't read their briefs properly. Ministers with whom

she disagreed and she touring to Geoffrey Howe as is well known. We

know how right she was with a howl air of ministers and officials but

she was on a mission to get her way. Do you think they will be anything

in this book you don't know about Margaret Thatcher? I thought some of

the extracts I've read, I thought was interesting the role Denis

Thatcher, securing that huge arms deal with Saudi Arabia, and how his

friendship with Dick Evans, the chief executive British Aerospace, I

thought that was a well told story. One of the things I wanted to ask

you. She was lucky with their enemies, Arthur Scargill, he was

there for the taking and she took him. That gave her a political base.

Up until then, she wasn't seen as a heroine of Thatcherism, but it

wasn't made in 1979. In her early moves, on privatisation and

deregulating the labour market, they were done very cautiously and her

caution comes through in the book, I note. Was she more cautious? I think

everything you've said is spot-on, thank you for reading the book so

carefully. She was complex in her political personality and of

course, it changed over the years. At the beginning, she was very

cautious. And she resisted for quite some time, some of the most

successful of her policies like privatisation. She held it back for

quite awhile. But as she got on in her term, the realistic political

caution was replaced by an almost reckless ride of the Valkyries, and

she wouldn't listen to anybody, and the poll tax was the classic thing.

She could easily have stayed in power for much longer. If she hadn't

refused to listen. If there a ten year rule about this? After ten

years, you've just consumed all your political capital as a national

leader and can't go beyond ten years. Tony Blair and Margaret

Thatcher found at. You run out of steam. She created too many enemies,

didn't she? Certainly towards the end. America may have got it right.

Two terms and the end. She got wilder and wilder towards the end in

terms of just stamping on people. There was no need for the quarrels

with Geoffrey Howe or Nigel Lawson. What anybody able to say, you're

pushing it far too far? I have an interesting story which follows on

that Saudi Arabian story. The story goes back to Dick Evans, chief

executive, of British Aerospace, who goes out to lunch with Denis, and

that happened and Backe comes at 5pm and soon as Margaret comes back into

the room, Dennis says, have you done it? And she said, I said you

wouldn't do it, you are too afraid to do it. Dick Evans thinks there's

a domestic quarrel and wants to leave the room but in actual fact,

Dennis has got to promise that morning to sack Nigel Lawson. And

she said, you can't make to any enemies all the time. I'm going to

have to end it there. Very briefly. You should sack mighty chances if

your Prime Minister. OK, OK, thank you. Now, do you remember when

offices looked like this? The patterned carpets, the yellow and

purple colour scheme, the kipper ties and big hair. Oh, and the

technology-free desks. There's not a computer, smart phone or tablet in

sight. Today the Cabinet Office will resemble a 1970s office as civil

servants are having an email-free day between colleagues. There will

be no tapping on the phone during meetings, sifting through emails

during lunch or messaging the person sitting next to you. Today will all

be about talking to each other face to face or on the phone. Will that

create a happier work life, making sure you enjoy the company of your

colleagues? Or just take up more time and make you stay late at work?

Joining me now is Stephen Taylor, an entrepreneur who has recently

criticised our reliance on email. Are we obsessed with it? Yes, we are

obsessed with e-mail. We live in a society which seems to be obsessed

with nonverbal communication. Colleagues sitting next to each

other don't want to speak to each other and are happy to send an

e-mail. How often do check your e-mails? Too often. How many e-mails

do get a payday? From all sources? It runs into hundreds, yes. It's

impossible to monitor. Unless you reply to something almost

instantaneously, you forget. But do you think it's damaging to

business? Surely this is what is speeded up the process of business?

I can do so much more. Like everything, it's a blessing and a

curse. It's incredibly powerful and useful but when it overused, what's

also interesting there is a shift blame. If somebody puts it into an

e-mail, suddenly it's in your inbox, didn't you see it? You must read it.

And you say, I didn't sit amongst the thousands of e-mails, so it's a

powerful tool, but it's got completely out of hand. Picking up

the phone is what's important. I so agree with you. People who work for

me and with me, for goodness sake, pick up the phone. How old do you

regulate it? If somebody e-mails you, you automatically want to speak

to them, and an e-mail you back. I think this is a great idea and it

needs to be a more holistic approach to communication overall but thank

God somebody is taking common-sense and I think it's got to be praised.

Would you say to your company, you're not allowed to e-mail each

other if you are sitting within somebody's eyeliner. I would. Are

you going to do it? Probably not. People need to talk and

communication is important. Verbal communication is faster than sending

an e-mail. And waiting for their reply. What about customers? People

do want to speak to somebody. They want to have a conversation and

engage. Is that being lost? Yes, when you see website had no phone

number, it's counterintuitive. We need to get back to speaking to

people. I think you're on a hiding to nothing but anyway, thanks for

coming in. There's just time before we go to find out the answer to our

quiz. The question was what gift did the Cabinet give to Prince George as

a Christening present? Was it. A) A Teddy Bear. B) A pine toy box. C) A

signed photo of the Cabinet. Or d) A chunk of national debt in the form

of a Government Bond. I do know the answer but I'm guessing it was the

signed photo. Really? A pine toy box. Thanks to our guests. The One

O'Clock News is starting over on BBC One now. Andrew will be on BBC One

tonight. I buy. -- by die.