08/11/2013 Daily Politics

Afternoon, folks - welcome to The Daily Politics. MPs debate a

Conservative plan for a referendum on Europe in 2017, but Tory

backbencher Adam Afriyie demands a vote next year. We'll have the

latest. MPs criticise the Home Office over

illegal immigration, accusing the department of a "poor record". The

Government says it is getting tough on the issue.

Should pubs in England be allowed to open late during next year's World

Cup? We'll hear why one MP wants a free-for-all during the footie.

And in the latest of our series on political thinkers, the comedian

Alistair McGowan explains why EF Schumacher is his favourite

philosopher. People who writes for the Glasgow Herald.

Welcome to The Daily Politics. First, I want to bring you some sad

news, the BBC's former BBC political editor, John Cook has died at the

age of 85, after an illness. Let's start with the news that only

1.5% of reports alleging illegal immigration result in a person being

removed from the UK. That's the headline finding of a report from

Parliament's Home Affairs Committee. Its chairman, the Labour MP Keith

Vaz, is not a happy chap. This is a very poor record. One -- what

Vaz, is not a happy chap. This is a Odone, there is a backlog of more

than 400,000 immigration asylum cases and that is never going to be

cleared, is it? I cannot imagine it will. But I will tell you what is

very sad for the Government, when I found out that it was going to be

part of the agenda today, 34 hours ago, I tried to put in, I want to

report an illegal immigrant on Google, and management system gave

me error error after error. And then I thought, maybe it is my computer.

So when I came in today, instead of doing my make up properly, I got our

research are here to look up from this computer the same thing. I

fear, it could even be just IT. When you see this particularly, the

asylum cases are one thing, if they are real asylum cases, but it would

seem to me are real asylum cases, but it would

says, the idea of grassing, or shopping, call it what you like, but

it strikes me that that was never going to yield tangible results, and

I suspect what it is all about is the appearance of doing something,

giving people the feeling they are involved. But there is an aspect of

absurdity, with those government vans. Absurdity is a euphemism, I

think it was really, really awful to see Britain, and whatever one says

about its policies towards immigrants, it has always been

generous and fair, and to have those vans focusing on six London boroughs

where ethnic minorities are really big, I thought that was... I thought

it was really awful almost unBritish, I thought. I think that

is why they unBritish, I thought. I think that

all. But the aim of successive Scottish Government has been to

increase that, and Alex Salmond is one of the leading cheerleaders for

it. Now it's time for our Daily Quiz.

The question for today... Vince Cable has unveiled a ?1.5 million

project for Milton Keynes - but what is it? Is it... A) No university

tuition fees for the town's students? B) Driverless cars? C) A

20-metre statue of himself? D) Reversible roundabouts? At the end

of the show, our guests will give us the correct answer. Do you have a

clue? No. Now, I know you've all been missing

it but don't worry - it's back! I'm talking of course about James

Wharton's EU Referendum Bill, which returns to the Commons today for its

report stage. It is a private member's bill sponsored

report stage. It is a private abstaining. The bill aims to set in

stone - or at least in legislation - David Cameron's pledge at the

beginning of the year to hold a referendum on Britain's membership

of the EU by the end of 2017. But more than 50 amendments have been

tabled. One of those is from Conservative backbencher and

occasional troublemaker Adam Afriyie, who wants a referendum much

sooner, in October next year. Very few private member's bills ever

become law because they can easily be talked out by MPs who don't like

the legislation. With his 36 amendments, Labour's Mike Gapes

might be hoping to ruin Mr Wharton's day. But one person who has come to

James Wharton's aid is the Foreign Secretary. William Hague has written

to all Tory MPs asking for them to "refrain from speaking"

designed to cause a headache for the rest of his party. The truth is, I

get on very well with my Parliamentary colleagues. This is

nothing to do with me, it should not really be much to do with MPs, other

than passing legislation. What I am trying to do is to try to give a

voice to the British people. This has been kicked down the road time

and time again, so what I have got is an amendment, which I hope will

because, so that actually, Parliament can say, once and for

all, right, within this Parliament, let's settle this question. Let's

get the latest on this from our political correspondent Carole

Walker. -- Iain Watson. What has been happening in the chamber this

morning? So far, they have been confining their comments to a very

small part of Europe, the Rock of Gibraltar.

small part of Europe, the Rock of Parliamentary elections. However, as

you pointed out, this is a private members' bill, not a government ill,

and it is struggling for Parliamentary time, with Labour MPs

against it. Then, they opened up the debate and spoke about Argentina,

decolonisation and a whole range of other issues. What they are trying

to make sure is that there is not enough time for this bill to become

law before the next election, so that Ed Miliband is not asked the

question, are you in favour of a referendum or aren't you go off and

this amendment, my understanding is that not even many Tory Eurosceptics

are going to act it, is that right? It is, for the very simple reason,

going back to the issue of time again, that basically, if more

people chat away about issues to do with Europe,

did get that, it would be very difficult to get a parliamentary

majority for it, because the Liberal Democrats are opposed to holding a

referendum before 2015. So, that is why they do not want people to speak

for a very great deal of time. We do not yet know if it is going to be

called. We will know at about two o'clock this afternoon. But

bizarrely enough, that may well endanger the chances of getting the

referendum on to the statute books. We are joined now from the central

lobby in Parliament by the Conservative MP James Wharton. It is

his bill, the one they are all trying to amend, and also by the

Liberal Democrat MP Martin Horwood. James Wharton, is your bill now in

some danger? I hope not. It is being debated at some length as we speak.

I think we are making reasonable progress but it is going to be slow

going. happening. Have your backbench

colleagues followed Mr Hague's instruction to be pithy and to the

point? They have. I have been delighted by how much support I have

had from Conservative MPs. Today in the chamber, I thought there might

be a few who would not be able to resist the urge to make a comment,

but it has not happened. There have been barely a handful of very short

interventions. The party is being disciplined and focused in trying to

deliver this bill, because we know it is the best chance of delivering

the referendum that the British people deserve. Martin Horwood, I

think you are the only Lib Dem to table an amendment to the bill

today, you want to change the wording, so are you trying to be

hopeful, or are you being part of the blocking operation? The idea of

that blocking group is a bit fanciful. The amendment

that blocking group is a bit to fight crime across borders, to

protect the environment across borders, many other things to do

with consumer rights, we should debate these bills properly. It is

not unusual to do that. I understand that, and I am grateful you do, it

keeps us in a job, and it gives yourself in a job as well. It is the

reason we get up in the morning. You speak for but if you get the wording

changed, as per your amendment, would you then be happy to see a

referendum in 2017? Well, we are not afraid of a referendum. I voted for

a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty, I voted for a referendum... So, we are

not remotely afraid. We have said we are in favour of a referendum if it

is at the right time. We do not want it to be held at a time when we are

potentially in the middle of negotiating

potentially in the middle of the offing if you take British,

European and world affairs, there will always be something! Except we

did actually vote and call for a referendum at the time of the Lisbon

Treaty, not in five years' time but actually at that time. We supported

it. So, we are not afraid of referendums. You say that but you

will not give let me bring Mr Wharton back in - Mr Wharton, is

Martin Horwood and ally or an enemy in this debate? He is of course a

coalition colleague... So he is an enemy? On this particular issue, we

have a slight disagreement. The fact is, he has tabled quite a few

amendments, some of them were not selected, and he had a little row

with the Speaker about that. But a selected, and he had a little row

the north-east, said that if anything has to change in Britain's

relationship with Europe, we would need to reconsider our strategy and

our investments for the future? No, because I have not been arguing that

we should be in all we should be out of the European Union. My argument

is that people should be given a say on it so that we can end the

uncertainty and get a proper settlement which is in the interests

of the United Kingdom. Anybody is entitled to but you would vote to

come out if you were presented with the choice of the status quo? If I

was presented with that exactly as it is today, then yes, I would.

Thereby jeopardising 6500 jobs 30 miles from your constituency in a

car plant with some of the highest productivity in the world? That is

not true. productivity in the world? That is

But it is only the Conservatives and this bill which are giving people a

choice. Mr Horwood, regardless of what you would like to happen, is

your coalition colleague there are going to get his bill through today?

I am sure it will survive, but Nissan and the CBI have focused on

the real issue, which is about British jobs. This is about the

jeopardy into which a campaign to exit from the European union would

put millions of British jobs, not just those at Nissan, at risk. The

Liberal Democrats are united at keeping the party in. The Tory party

is deeply divided. They tried to conjure up the spill to conjure up

some unity to last them until the next

some unity to last them until the Nissan plant is still there. Why

should we take notice of that? Woodworkers in Sunderland be

prepared to take that gamble? Maybe you should not have taken that risk

and we should have listened this time, but the CBI spoke for a much

wider cross-section on Monday when they said there were no realistic

alternative that would serve our economic interests. Are you going to

get this Bill through today? The report will take a few more days.

You will live to fight another day? Absolutely. Anybody listening to

this? It is not just as that matters. If it happens in 2017, will

the voters be better educated in the whole issue

the voters be better educated in the Are we in Europe? You are not having

a referendum on independence. The two are similar. You are always

saying that the electorate are not educated. That this was your poll.

All that is true, but at the end of the day a referendum is the best way

of resolving that. And in the meantime education. It is the same

in Scotland. The prime minister directly linked both referendums. He

said both had been building up a head of steam for so long it

dominated everything else and you have to draw a line underneath it.

dominated everything else and you Simple answer, simple question. The

spotlight must have been blinding after so many years in the shadows

and into Parliament's Intelligence and Security Committee strode

GCHQ's director, MI5, boss and MI6's chief. It was their licence to

spill. Here are some highlights from yesterday's historic session in

Parliament. Why do you think it is necessary to

collect information on the majority of the public in order to protect us

from the minority of potential evildoers? I will work up to that,

if I may. To clarify issues we do not spend our time listening to the

if I may. To clarify issues we do That is not the case. It would be

very nice if we knew who the terrorists were, but the Internet is

a great way to make identification anonymous. So we have to do

detective work. Can you guarantee us that you do not conduct operations

that are out with the British legal framework? Yes, I can do that. We

are subject to the law and I am also sure that is true of my sister

agencies as well. The public are entitled to know more about the

enormous damage that has been caused by the publication of classified

material. Can you give examples? One is the dependence we now have on the

fantastic work that GCHQ do to detect terrorist communications and

that leads detect terrorist communications and

agencies that used to that opportunity can be fragile if we use

it. Then we are making a very difficult task even harder. I am not

sure the journalists who are managing this very sensitive

information are particularly well placed to make those judgements.

What I can tell you is that the leaks from Edward Snowden have been

very damaging. They put our operations at risk. It is clear our

adversaries are rubbing their hands with glee. Al-Qaeda is lapping it

up. You have made that remark. I think we need to hear why you feel

you are entitled to say that. Can you say why you believe that to be

true? I you say why you believe that to be

We are joined by Isabella Sankey from the human rights pressure group

Liberty and the intelligence historical writer Nigel West. Were

they convincing about the threat to security caused by the leaks? To the

extent they were free to disclose supporting evidence I think it was

convincing. They are going to go into private section with the

Intelligence and Security Committee and give them chapter and verse and

identify specific cases. The disappointment is they were not even

stronger pointing out this information even though it may have

been disclosed illegally by the Guardian and by Edward Snowden

remains classified. It is an offence for anybody to download this

material and put it on their laptop. What do you think?

questions about whether Cabinet ministers knew about the extent of

mass surveillance we now understand takes place. They did not. How

parliamentarians were allowed to have extended debate about extending

capabilities which we now know are being made use of and what authority

they had specifically to undertake interception of the British public.

It was interesting we have from GCHQ that they do not look at the vast

majority of communications, leaving them room to look at the minority.

It is preposterous to expect these individuals to work in a handicapped

way, one hand tied behind their back. The technology is there and

there is nothing illegal about what they are doing. They are collecting

the haystack so as to be able to they are doing. They are collecting

being intercepted. It is impractical and it is beyond their capability,

they do not have resources to do that. They made this claim and they

used the committee as a platform to do so, and they all did it to say

that what the Guardian published had been of benefit to our enemies. But

that is a claim. They did not, maybe for obvious reasons, present the

evidence. You say it is going to be done behind closed doors, but that

means we have to take it on trust and we do not think we should always

take spies on trust. Trust is not what they operate on. You have had

long experience of encounters with the intelligence community at the

Sunday Times. And it was not always an issue to trust. But where

Sunday Times. And it was not always current operations. That is the

claim. I am sure you could get an off-camera briefing to explain to

you how one of the disclosures has directly affected a major

counterterrorism operation costing a lot of money being run right now.

Does it not stand to reason that if you expose the manner and methods by

which the intelligence services are trying to access communications of

those who would do us harm, that helps those who would do us harm?

Everyone in the world has been talking about using alternatives to

communicate given the unprecedented come -- abilities they have. But

there is a distinction to be made. We are not talking about the

technical capabilities, We are not talking about the

widely in these disclosures and was confirmed yesterday. It is often

claimed that they are listening to as all the time, or they are

tracking our communication. Do we know that? There is no evidence

that. The meter data, that information went to the Supreme

Court in the United States and the Dutchman was that there was no

expectation of privacy because the information was already known to the

telephone company. A lot of people were upset, but this has been going

on for decades. Who you called and how long you spoke to them. Yes, it

is not the content of the call. The other thing that is really

important. other thing that is really

say none of this has compromised any sources or methods or techniques,

that is a lie. They do not realise it. What is your response? It is

about interception. The disclosures told as millions of communications

are being intercepted every day by GCHQ, including many interceptions

of British citizens will stop do you mean the content? A physical

interception has taken place and they have alternated mechanisms to

try and trawl through the contents, so content is being read in an

automated way. You are shaking your head. You do not think there is

evidence to show that? There is no evidence. What is your evidence?

evidence to show that? There is no is taking place. There is a

difference between interception and collection. I would trust the

director GCHQ to know whether he was collecting or not. Interception and

reading the content is protected under the 1986. I am more concerned

with the spooks intercepting my telephone call ban the Guardian

holding to ransom, and I do not see that a newspaper editor, even the

best ones, has the expertise to know exactly who he is placing in

danger, which plots he is hampered -- he has hampered, and it is

danger, which plots he is hampered that at the end of the day, the

intelligence services, like government business, relies on much

of its day-to-day business being conducted in secret. Sure, there may

be some overreach, but I am not sure any of this is leading anywhere

particularly useful. There, the case has been laid out from both sides.

Now, what will you be doing at 11pm on June 14 2014? Cheering on the

opening games of the World Cup in Brazil, of course. The problem is,

you probably will not be doing it in the pub, because of the time

difference. Quite a few of the matches will be happening when it is

last orders. So, the pub trade and one Tory MP have joined forces to

campaign for a change to the licensing laws. Here is Adam to

explain. if you want to. Well, they can,

thanks to the 2003 Licensing Act. It has happened before, most recently

in the royal wedding, two years ago, when 20,000 pubs took advantage of

it. The idea of doing it again has been raised at the highest level.

Football fans across England are looking forward to cheering on Roy

Hodgson's team in Brazil next year. There is no better way to do that

than by enjoying a pint in your local pub. Yet because of Britain's

licensing laws and because of the time delay, many people will be

unable to watch the football and enjoy a pint at the same time. Pub

trade say it would help them raise an extra ?20 million in revenue, and

they only want to open longer in the opening and closing weekends, rather

than for the whole tournament. The Home Office say they are considering

the request, but say they only Home Office say they are considering

British Beer And Hub Association. Welcome to The Daily Politics. Can

pubs apply locally anyway? Yes, they can apply for a temporary event

notice, but as your piece showed, if you have to pay and you can only

have a certain number each year... This was done for the Diamond

Jubilee and for the royal wedding. We believe that football is our

national game, that British beer and British pubs are hugely important to

local communities, and it is worth probably conventionally about ?20

million. The biggest business will be done when you are following

England games, this is going to be a very temporary event, why not just

leave it to the local authorities? We are not asking for it just for

the England games, and of course, the police have the right

the England games, and of course, some football, but we do not yet

even know whether that would be England or not. I suspect crowds

going to the pub for the royal wedding would be slightly different

to those going to the pub for a foot or match. But leaving that to one

side, don't most people watch these football matches, particularly at

this time of night, in the comfort of their homes, with a few mates?

No, actually, people have a tradition of going to the pub to

watch matches which we do every weekend. The increase was up to 8%

on food, as well as 5% on alcohol. Food is a very important part now

make up, we need an economic boost in this country at the moment, as

well as for pubs. We are still closing pubs. We have had a

fantastic reduction in beer duty this year, we would like to see

fantastic reduction in beer duty worth ?1.5 trillion. I have already

said that the World Cup is worth ?50 million overall to pubs. That ?20

million is purely for these extended hours. It is about drinking a bit

more, but it is also about, I mean, beer in is a great British product,

it is relatively low in alcohol. But then they will be pouring out of the

pubs at one o'clock in the morning in a drunken stupor, creating

problems for the police, creating noise... And some of us know that

the proper sports in this world are rugby and cricket, so what are we

going to do? Andrew, you know that football is a great British

institution. We know that 35,000 pubs showed the last World Cup.

institution. We know that 35,000 a proper sport. Even though England

have not it is real men that play that. Where are you on this? I loved

everything you said, and also, can we please bring back the real pub,

as opposed to the gastropods which ICN my bit of London? They are so

snooty, they are so fake. -- which I see in my bit. Where do you live? S

W ten, West London. It is only posh pubs around there. What about in

Scotland, will they be cheering on whoever England is playing, even if

it is North Korea? whoever England is playing, even if

that Labour had never liberalised the licensing laws in England. Let

me just get a final word from our friend up in Leeds - how is your

argument going with the Government? The reason we are asking now is

because this is quite a complicated process, and would need a vote in

both Houses of Parliament. But I think there is a lot of support for

this, and from an economic perspective, there should be,

whether you are interested in the football or not. Thank you for being

with us. I will let you go because the pubs are open. Now, for the

latest in our series of political thinkers. This week, the comedian

Alistair McGowan has been to Giles' allotment to explain why his

favourite thinker is the Green Economist EF Schumacher, best known

for his 1973 bestselling book Small Is Beautiful.

The environment and sustainability are ideas which we have become used

to in the modern world, but where did they come from? I have come to

my allotment to meet an impressionist the things we could

all imitate the ideas of EF Schumacher. Alistair McGowan,

welcome to my little patch of soil. We are going to dig up some

beetroot. What attracts you about what Schumacher was saying? I first

became an environmentalist, if you like, 25 years ago. I had read an

article about recycling and how we were throwing away our national

resources, and it was amazing to think that 15 years before that,

Schumacher, in Small Is Beautiful, have been saying the same thing. He

was ahead of his time, but actually we are still catching up with his

theories. You should be we are still catching up with his

Schumacher talking about? He wrote a treaty of 280 pages, and people are

still trying to come to terms with it. But really, funny, it is living

within your means. We all try to that financially. He refers to

natural resources as capital, and that they are finite, so we have to

manage them, and make sure we do not run out of them. In this country we

are consuming enough that we would need three planets to sustain as if

the whole world lived like us. Let's go and get some lunch. Does it have

to be beetroot? It does not. Small Is Beautiful is undoubtedly one of

the most influential and important political books of the 20th-century.

His work speaks to people political books of the 20th-century.

for our time. Fritz Schumacher, a German emigre who came to Britain

before the Second World War, became an internationally influential

economic thinker, statistician and economist, serving as CEO and

adviser to the coal board in the 1950s for 20 years. But bits of his

thinking made some people uncomfortable. He had ideas of the

great chain of being, different kinds of economics, Buddhism, into

his moral view about how human life should be led. So, it is not

beetroot, we have got cake, but isn't there a problem for the

environmental movement that it sometimes comes across as a bit of a

religion, that if you do not believe, then you are a bad person?

Possibly, yes, because people who believe in the environment show a

lot of emotion. The very sensitive to the way the world is being

ruined, the way animals are to the way the world is being

screens, all of them on, nobody watching any of them. I thought,

that sums up our wistfulness, our lack of sustainability, right

there. You eat up, I have got a plan. Fritz Schumacher would be very

proud of us. Michael Schumacher might not be quite so impressed. I

suppose the essential question is, are we paying any attention to

Schumacher today? Inadvertently, I think we are. A huge number of

businesses have put sustainability at the call of their business model.

They know it makes sense ethically, and also it saves them money. But I

do think an awful lot of politicians, the likes of William

Hague, Boris Johnson, and even Andrew Neil, still think that

business is about making money at all costs. It cannot do that because

there is a huge cost all costs. It cannot do that because

are joined from Bristol by Ian Roderick, the director of the

Schumacher Institute. Welcome to the programme. Can we discern an

influence of this man on our current politics? I think the influence he

has is indirect, in many ways, that we have both a vibrant green

movement in this country and across Europe, which is extremely

influenced by his work, and also, where we see issues is in the way

that our politics is organised, which makes it very difficult to

make big decisions. Schumacher in many ways worked towards big

decisions. Should we see him as an environmentalist or as an economist?

He was certainly environmentalist or as an economist?

and how we are employed. Work was an extremely important aspect of his

own work. Small Is Beautiful is the catchphrase which he is most

associated with in the public mind - what did he mean by that? That is a

very interesting thing. In many ways, you can rephrase it as

appropriateness. Going just after things which are small is not

necessarily right, it has to be of an appropriate level and scale. He

was reacting to the gigantism of his day, where the idea that bigger was

better. So, smallness is a nice idea, because it gets you back to

working with your local people, with the community, getting everything in

the right the community, getting everything in

not seem to have won the argument? , it is true, but there is a

tremendous social appeal. For me it is the catholic social justice. He

says, take pleasure and pride in your work. Even if it is a small bit

of carpentry that you are doing. Take great pleasure in that. You are

never a cork in the wheel, you are part of a big, holistic industry. I

know it sounds romantic and sentimental to you, but I loved

Small is Beautiful. I remember when it came out. Is Scottish

independence part of it? Schumacher is excited by

reality of modern governance and globalisation is that we are at

different levels and the trick is finding the best one. He was writing

at a time in 1973 where prices have quadrupled and the world was running

out of oil and sustainability became popular. The world is awash with oil

and gas now, compared to 1973. People like him who said it was all

going to run out for them it has not worked out that way. Yes, it has. We

are running out of conventional oil, which peaked probably about two or

three years ago. Now we are using unconventional oil from deep ocean

drilling. It is difficult to get it and it is extremely expensive, that

is why the Schumacher published his book.

Certainly there are reserves that are being tapped, but we are very

seriously seeing the decline in conventional oil and that is going

to continue. We are trying to patch a system, we are trying to keep

things going and we are very successful at that. Thank you for

joining us today. With his incisive questions, his Ulster broke and the

trademark overcoat, John Cole led us through the turbulent political

events of the 80s. As the political editor he had a ringside seat on

Thatcherism, the unions and the Falklands War. Yesterday at the age

of 85 he passed away. Let's revisit some of his finest moments.

For years I some of his finest moments.

first offered another post... Rather dramatically I appeared on radio for

having dashed downstairs from Radio 2 to say the same thing. You have

heard about these atrocities and bombs and you do not expect them to

happen to you. But life must go on. And your conference will go on? The

conference will go on as usual. Which I joined by a colleague of

John Cole's Nick Jones. It is a sad day for the country, for journalists

and the BBC. He is famously known for his broadcasting, but he was

originally a print journalist. He started in Belfast and was on the

Guardian and on the observer and started in Belfast and was on the

I also work. You had to remember that he had this background

knowledge about the whole of the trade union movement and the

industrial world which is exactly where Margaret Thatcher was

interested. And where the story was. And you saw that moment with

Margaret Thatcher after the bomb in Brighton and she sees John Cole and

she picked him out. She knows he is a recognisable face, although the

security people are pushing them away. She goes straight to John Cole

and that is the tribute. He became a national figure through being the

BBC's political editor and a very distinctive figure as well, not in

the tradition of BBC political editor is. He had the ability to be

emphatic. editor is. He had the ability to be

remember those days, I am sure you do, we are talking about the early

80s and there was not rolling news. The nine O'Clock News was a very

important statement by the BBC. John Cole would come in and he would

often have that lovely, herringbone coat, because it was very cold

during the miners' strike, and there he would be. There was no doubt

about it, he was putting that ending to the story in a way that people

understood. That is the authority he brought and he had this tremendous

experience in print, so he was able to command that position. Because of

his knowledge and his contacts and the distinctive Ulster broke, he

became very popular. it onto spitting image. Everybody

tried to take him off. One of the things that was so memorable to me

when I got into television was the camera crews used to say, we made

John, because they used to frame the picture in the best possible way

because he got on with everybody. They made sure there was never any

problem with the shock of John Cole. That made it for him. You would turn

on the television on a major story and you knew he would be there. Who

did Mrs Thatcher turn to? John Cole. I do remember him and I think the

authority he had, but it was never cold. He was a warm, sympathetic

person as well as that authority. What a good man.

as well. He carried writing dashed carried on writing during his BBC

career and that had a lot of authority as well. When I look back

on those years there is no doubt about it, because of rolling news,

our journalism has become a bit diluted. There is not so much. It

was very authoritative when he wrote it. Who has had a good week and who

has had a shopper? This is the political week in 60 seconds. Ed

Miliband stopped by for a quick cuppa and offered a friendly deal.

The living wage. It was also boosted by the victory of Bill de Blasio,

New York's left leaning Mayor. by the victory of Bill de Blasio,

put. It is clear our adverse arrays are rubbing their hands with glee. I

cannot apologise. That sorry is not the hardest word for the Toronto

Mayor. I sincerely, sincerely, sincerely apologise. I mean that

most sincerely, folks. You have got this new book out on Scotland. Am I

right in thinking that the vote for Scotland to leave the United Kingdom

and those who want to stay is not changing very much as the campaign

gathers pace. No, it is changing very much as the campaign

most recent poll makes it look as if it is down, but it has not changed

on the yes side or the no side and that is after a year of campaigning.

Am I right in thinking when the Nationalists had led conference

there was a change in tactics or strategy? The emphasis had been on

independence and the case for it. At this conference they started

treating it more like a general election. If you voted to leave, the

minimum wage would rise, the energy bills would fall, you can retire

early, there will be no welfare cuts. I am going to fight it like a

general election to see if that moves the polls. In a week or so we

have the White Paper which has been overhyped. This is from Edinburgh?

Yes, overhyped. This is from Edinburgh?

they got a majority. I wonder what it would take to move the polls much

more in their direction and bring the two sides much more even

Stevens? The New York Times correspondent said it would take a

seismic event in England, a catastrophic political crisis, a

memo by the prime minister saying why Scotland was terrible, something

of that magnitude to see a decisive shift, and that has not happened so

far. There is still time. The quiz. Vince Cable is putting ?1.5 billion

into Milton Keynes. What was it for? Driverless cars. That is the correct

answer. Really? Driverless cars. That is the correct

Remembrance Sunday. My guests will include labour's deputy leader

Harriet Harman and the leader of UKIP, Nigel Farage. Sadly not

together. That would be fun!