:00:41. > :00:45.Good afternoon and welcome to the Daily Politics. 5 billion in trade
:00:46. > :00:50.deals and thousands of jobs as a result, Britain and China now say
:00:51. > :00:54.the relationship is indispensable, but is massive Chinese investment in
:00:55. > :01:00.things like HS2 and nuclear energy really in Britain's interest?
:01:01. > :01:03.George Osborne says the welfare state is no longer affordable, he is
:01:04. > :01:08.expected uses Autumn Statement on Thursday to show how he plans to
:01:09. > :01:12.limit the annual welfare bill, but which benefits would be included and
:01:13. > :01:16.which won't? The UK performance in reading, maths
:01:17. > :01:20.and science has failed to improve in recent years, the coalition says it
:01:21. > :01:25.is a verdict on Labour's education record, Labour - surprise surprise -
:01:26. > :01:29.does not agree. And next year will see the start of
:01:30. > :01:33.a huge programme of events to mark a century since the outbreak of the
:01:34. > :01:35.Great War, but is the Government in a muddle about how to handle the
:01:36. > :01:45.commemoration? All that in the next hour, and with
:01:46. > :01:50.us for the whole programme today is a man with a CV as long as my arm,
:01:51. > :01:54.journalist, historian, author, broadcaster, I will stop there, Sir
:01:55. > :01:58.Max Hastings, welcome to the programme. If you have any thoughts
:01:59. > :02:10.on anything we are discussing today, you can send them to us. Well, let's
:02:11. > :02:14.start with China, because David Cameron is on day two of his visit.
:02:15. > :02:19.Today he has been at a lunch in Shanghai, encouraging businesses to
:02:20. > :02:23.invest in the UK. The Prime Minister said that Britain and China had deep
:02:24. > :02:27.complementary economies. Early in the visit he had talked with Premier
:02:28. > :02:33.Li about co-operation on nuclear power and high-speed rail. Max
:02:34. > :02:38.Hastings, is this a good idea? I wish the Government did not conduct
:02:39. > :02:41.foreign policy in lunches and lurchers, in that every nation has
:02:42. > :02:49.to do business with China, because it is a huge force in the world, but
:02:50. > :02:52.there is something a bit undignified about the Prime Minister almost
:02:53. > :02:59.kowtowing in Beijing. If the Government were able to demonstrate
:03:00. > :03:03.more dignity, I do not believe the headline figure above the 5 billion
:03:04. > :03:08.trade deal instantly signed. It sounds very optimistic. Most trade
:03:09. > :03:15.deals with the Chinese, when you study the small print, it says you
:03:16. > :03:19.will get paid in 2025. He probably had to be there, but one has to suck
:03:20. > :03:23.with a long spoon because they steal intellectual property, the rule of
:03:24. > :03:27.law does not exist as we understand it in China, and it is a bit
:03:28. > :03:32.embarrassing for the Prime Minister that, one week before he sets foot
:03:33. > :03:37.there to gladhanding the Chinese, the Chinese announce this new air
:03:38. > :03:43.defence zone towards the Pacific which could seriously leads to a
:03:44. > :03:46.regional war. How risky is it, then? Taking your point a bit further, we
:03:47. > :03:53.are asking the Chinese to be involved in nuclear power, a very
:03:54. > :03:58.sensitive area. A lot of us feel very uneasy about that, but the
:03:59. > :04:05.Chinese, their record of getting into things, hi-tech things with
:04:06. > :04:08.Western nations, and then you testified that everything goes one
:04:09. > :04:12.way to China, and rather less comes our way. I think a lot of us are
:04:13. > :04:16.very uncomfortable about the Chinese having a strong strategic base.
:04:17. > :04:21.Isn't that the realpolitik of the world as it stands, that China is
:04:22. > :04:25.dominant when it comes to economic affairs and the kowtowing that you
:04:26. > :04:28.talked about is going to be necessary? They need us as
:04:29. > :04:32.customers, but it is a question of how you play your hand of cards, and
:04:33. > :04:37.not only with China, but sometimes you feel, are their grown-ups making
:04:38. > :04:43.foreign policy in Downing Street? Did you sense a difference between
:04:44. > :04:48.the tone towards Sri Lanka on the issue of human rights and, of
:04:49. > :04:52.course, the no mention of it in China? Very obviously, because we
:04:53. > :04:58.want an awful lot out of China! Time for the daily quiz, which is related
:04:59. > :05:03.to David Cameron's visits to China, but which of these is the odd one
:05:04. > :05:10.out? Is it London cabs, High Speed Two, Heathrow Airport, or Weetabix?
:05:11. > :05:13.At the end of the show, we will see of Macs can give us the correct
:05:14. > :05:19.answer, plenty of time to think about it. The welfare state is no
:05:20. > :05:22.longer affordable, so says the Chancellor, George Osborne, who is
:05:23. > :05:26.expected uses Autumn Statement on Thursday to explain how he plans to
:05:27. > :05:31.control spending on welfare after the next election. In short, it
:05:32. > :05:34.could mean more cuts to working age benefits, but one thing the
:05:35. > :05:39.Chancellor will not include in such a cap is spending on the state
:05:40. > :05:43.pension, but should he? New figures out today from the Office for
:05:44. > :05:47.National Statistics show a growing income gap between pensioners and
:05:48. > :05:52.working households. Can a future government afford to protect pension
:05:53. > :05:55.perks? Ahead of the Autumn Statement on Thursday, George Osborne has
:05:56. > :06:00.hinted he would like any future Conservative government to introduce
:06:01. > :06:04.a new cap on welfare spending. This would mean putting permanent limits
:06:05. > :06:08.on around ?100 billion of public spending, on items such as housing
:06:09. > :06:13.benefit and some unemployment payments. Welfare payments account
:06:14. > :06:17.for about a sixth of what the Government spends every year, and
:06:18. > :06:21.the idea would be to set an annual ceiling for welfare spending every
:06:22. > :06:25.four years. However, any such cap will not include state pension
:06:26. > :06:32.payments, which cost a whopping ?74.2 billion in 2001-12 and rising
:06:33. > :06:35.fast. That is largely thanks to the triple lock, which means that the
:06:36. > :06:41.basic state pension goes up by the higher figure out of three variables
:06:42. > :06:46.- the average rise in earnings, inflation or 2.5%. It is an
:06:47. > :06:51.expensive guarantee, because it is predicted to cost the government ?45
:06:52. > :06:54.billion over the next 15 years. No party has committed to keeping the
:06:55. > :06:57.triple lock on pensions at the triple lock on pensions after 2015,
:06:58. > :07:01.and already Labour and the Liberal Democrats have committed to means
:07:02. > :07:05.testing winter fuel payments. I am joined now by former social security
:07:06. > :07:11.Secretary in John Major's government, Peter by pensions expert
:07:12. > :07:16.Robert Altman. -- Peter Lilley. I want to talk about this welfare
:07:17. > :07:23.cap, has it been tried before? It is not on show shall -- social
:07:24. > :07:27.security, but most apartments have a cap, because the Treasury says, we
:07:28. > :07:32.will set them a total amount, if they start exceeding it, they
:07:33. > :07:37.secretly know where the bodies of buried, weather is excessive
:07:38. > :07:43.expenditure, where the cats be made. So now they are applying that logic
:07:44. > :07:46.to the social security department, the Department of Work and
:07:47. > :07:53.Pensions, which has a certain rationale to it. Did you think about
:07:54. > :07:55.it when you were the secretary? No, I was the poacher, not the
:07:56. > :08:01.gamekeeper, I had previously been in the Treasury. I was carrying out
:08:02. > :08:05.reforms according to my priorities, rather than having them imposed from
:08:06. > :08:09.outside. How would it work in practice? Departments have ceilings
:08:10. > :08:13.on spending, but if you were to do it across the piece, how would that
:08:14. > :08:18.work in practice? It would mean that every year the department, looking
:08:19. > :08:22.ahead to the years ahead, would say, we have only got that amount of
:08:23. > :08:27.money, we have got to tailor benefits and entitlements to fit
:08:28. > :08:33.within it. Now, of course, if there is suddenly achromatic recession --
:08:34. > :08:37.a dramatic recession, it would not be possible to keep them to the
:08:38. > :08:40.limits and it would be exceeded. That also happens in other
:08:41. > :08:45.departments, if there is suddenly a war, you increase the budget for the
:08:46. > :08:49.MOD. Would you include housing benefit, a large jug of the bill,
:08:50. > :08:55.and unemployment payments? Would you spread everything more thinly or
:08:56. > :08:59.chop something dramatically? As I said, the Treasury is saying, let's
:09:00. > :09:03.leave that decision as to what to do to the Apartment, they will know
:09:04. > :09:09.where the cats can be made most easily. -- the Department. It will
:09:10. > :09:15.force them to come clean on those things, rather than, for example, as
:09:16. > :09:20.was probably imposed on the Department of Work and Pensions this
:09:21. > :09:25.time, which spreads the pain evenly but may not have been the best thing
:09:26. > :09:30.to do. Chances are, governments tend to break their own ceilings, caps,
:09:31. > :09:34.promises, budgetary rules. What would the penalty be, just a rap on
:09:35. > :09:40.the hands, explain to Parliament and knew much? Yes, in effect, but it is
:09:41. > :09:44.a serious penalty to show that you have overspent, the public is very
:09:45. > :09:47.cautious that we as a whole are overspending, that is why we have a
:09:48. > :09:52.huge deficit, and they want to see it brought under control. One could
:09:53. > :09:58.say it would be meaningless in any real terms, and extremely difficult
:09:59. > :10:05.to keep two. I think all these measures that the Treasury uses to
:10:06. > :10:09.get a grip of spending are cumulative, they help, but it is a
:10:10. > :10:16.hugely difficult problem. Has it got out of control, welfare spending? It
:10:17. > :10:20.has been rising for 50 years, until I became Secretary of State, rising
:10:21. > :10:24.twice as fast as national income for 50 years. Since then, it has been
:10:25. > :10:29.under a greater degree of control, but it has been boosted by the
:10:30. > :10:33.recession. Pensions, let's get onto pensions, because that is a vast
:10:34. > :10:36.proportion of that particular budget. The discussion is going to
:10:37. > :10:44.be, should it be included in any cap? You presumably would not want
:10:45. > :10:47.it in. Well, if you have got a sharp increase in the number of
:10:48. > :10:51.pensioners, which we do have, and you try to cap spending, and you
:10:52. > :10:55.have already got the lowest state pension pretty much in the developed
:10:56. > :10:58.world, certainly one of the lowest in the developed world, then you are
:10:59. > :11:02.going to be plunging millions of your citizens back into poverty,
:11:03. > :11:07.which is what we have successfully come out of over the last few years.
:11:08. > :11:12.And that does not strike me was a very sensible way to run an economy,
:11:13. > :11:17.you know. When we talk about pension spending, we are not being a king's
:11:18. > :11:21.ransom for pensioners, we are paying an absolute minimum, so with more
:11:22. > :11:25.and more pensioners, the sadness is that governments in the past have
:11:26. > :11:29.not set aside money to pay for what they knew was coming. We are already
:11:30. > :11:33.increasing the pension age, changing some of the parameters, and in fact
:11:34. > :11:38.the state pension is going to be cut in the future, but with so many more
:11:39. > :11:42.people... At the moment, you know, 12 million pensioners, that is going
:11:43. > :11:47.to significantly increase. Why would you want to stop that kind of
:11:48. > :11:52.spending? Because it is unaffordable. What would you say? By
:11:53. > :11:55.and large, where you have a contributory benefits, people know
:11:56. > :12:00.the terms, it is more or less politically impossible to cut it.
:12:01. > :12:08.Should it be? We have added these locks, inflation, 2.5%, but that is
:12:09. > :12:15.not the rules they were paying into it under. You would like to see that
:12:16. > :12:18.go after 2015? Certainly. Is it affordable to continue the triple
:12:19. > :12:24.lock posts 2015 so that pensions are paid at that highest rate? Coming
:12:25. > :12:31.back to the basic point, there is no more money, and I had a conversation
:12:32. > :12:35.with the mayor of Chicago, who was Obama's chief of staff, and he said
:12:36. > :12:38.every politician in the Western world except the Governor of North
:12:39. > :12:47.Dakota, weather is gas for fracking, has the same problem. We
:12:48. > :12:51.have to reconcile electrics with -- electorates with how we will win the
:12:52. > :12:57.election. The argument has been that they have had a good recession, that
:12:58. > :13:02.is a blunt instrument, but compared to working households, somehow they
:13:03. > :13:05.have not had to deal with the same sort of restrictions that working
:13:06. > :13:11.households have. Do you agree that it is not affordable to continue, as
:13:12. > :13:16.is put by politicians, with the rise in pensions? I do not agree. We need
:13:17. > :13:20.to look at the overall envelope of spending that we have, which is
:13:21. > :13:25.dedicated to older people, and find different ways of actually slicing
:13:26. > :13:30.the way we spend the money. For example, we have means tested
:13:31. > :13:36.benefits. People, we have non-means tested, non-tax benefits, like
:13:37. > :13:40.winter fuel payments. -- for some people. We are going to save
:13:41. > :13:43.significant sums by increasing the state pension age and encouraging
:13:44. > :13:48.older people generally to work longer has to be part of the
:13:49. > :13:51.solution, but you cannot leave millions of your citizens in poverty
:13:52. > :13:56.and call yourself a civilised country. And won't that happen? If
:13:57. > :14:00.you get rid of the triple lock, if you do not keep spending at a
:14:01. > :14:06.reasonable level, we are all getting older, that is what will happen,
:14:07. > :14:09.many more people living in poverty. The new when they were paying in
:14:10. > :14:16.that it would be prevented against inflation, we should keep that
:14:17. > :14:21.guarantee. -- they knew. But to go up as much as Jennings, even if
:14:22. > :14:27.inflation is less, is in the present circumstances not affordable. -- as
:14:28. > :14:31.much as earnings. What about the winter fuel payments? They are not
:14:32. > :14:38.means tested, should that be done after 2015? There is a perfectly
:14:39. > :14:44.reasonable case for that, it is obvious, not obvious to me that we
:14:45. > :14:47.should receive such a benefit. We should not have all these silly
:14:48. > :14:51.little benefits. Isn't it a knee-jerk idea that we have to feel
:14:52. > :14:55.sorry for pensioners? It is the next generation who will retire that we
:14:56. > :14:59.should feel sorry for, because at the moment a lot of older people,
:15:00. > :15:03.not the poor, but people who have got to be protected, but a lot of
:15:04. > :15:06.elderly people are much better off than the next generation of going to
:15:07. > :15:16.be. It is the ones who will retire in ten or 15 years that will be in
:15:17. > :15:22.terrible trouble. Around the top 20% of current pensioners are reasonably
:15:23. > :15:27.well off. 80% run pretty low incomes, averaging around ?15,000 a
:15:28. > :15:32.year. Somebody in work would call that a low income. The state pension
:15:33. > :15:39.will be around ?7,000 a year, that is it. I agree that the 2.5% figure
:15:40. > :15:44.is a bit arbitrary, a triple lock with 2.5% does not really make sense
:15:45. > :15:49.to me, that deciding whether you want earnings or price inflation is
:15:50. > :15:53.a separate discussion. You can do a double lock or you can say that
:15:54. > :15:57.pensioners have to take the same earnings increases as people in
:15:58. > :16:04.work, or you can say we do not care about earnings, let's tie to prices.
:16:05. > :16:08.What about including pensions in any cap? Ed Balls, the Shadow
:16:09. > :16:14.Chancellor, talked about the idea and perhaps regretted it could be
:16:15. > :16:19.brought in? Would you agree with it? You can predict pretty clearly the
:16:20. > :16:26.number of pensioners and how much they will be paid, you incorporate
:16:27. > :16:30.that when setting up the cap. It is to stop frightening pensioners that
:16:31. > :16:34.you do not included. I would not included in the cap for
:16:35. > :16:42.presentational reasons. Would you included? Yes. So far, on one of the
:16:43. > :16:46.issues I am always being reminded about by my new rich friends, the
:16:47. > :16:50.cuts in public spending will come nowhere near avoiding this past
:16:51. > :16:54.problem looming over our children and grandchildren of facing a
:16:55. > :16:58.completely unaffordable welfare state. We have to go much further in
:16:59. > :17:04.the next generation. One of the reasons for having serious doubts
:17:05. > :17:07.about whether Ed Miliband is fit to govern this country, we should not
:17:08. > :17:12.believe him until he has come clean about where he will save money with
:17:13. > :17:18.these huge bills the state is now facing. Thank you both, Ros Altmann
:17:19. > :17:22.and Peter Lilley. The editor of the Guardian will be appearing before
:17:23. > :17:25.the Home Affairs Select Committee later to answer questions about the
:17:26. > :17:29.publication of the Edward Snowden security leaks.
:17:30. > :17:33.Last month, British spy chiefs were scathing about the impact of the
:17:34. > :17:39.revelations on national security. Giles is at portcullis house. You
:17:40. > :17:44.say they were scathing, it was a difference security committee, but
:17:45. > :17:52.it is the same subject. The head of MI6, M, if you like, said that
:17:53. > :17:55.Al-Qaeda would be rubbing their hands with glee about the things
:17:56. > :18:00.that the Guardian published, the Edward Snowden revelations. Alan
:18:01. > :18:06.Rusbridger will appear before the Home Affairs Select Committee. It is
:18:07. > :18:11.chairman, Keith Vaz, joins me. What do you want to hear from him? We
:18:12. > :18:15.will put our questions at the time, but it is very good that Alan
:18:16. > :18:19.Rusbridger has appeared to come before the committee. Some of the
:18:20. > :18:25.American newspapers believe we have summoned him and making him do this,
:18:26. > :18:29.it is an essential part of our enquiry into counter-terrorism, so
:18:30. > :18:33.even before these revelations the committee wanted to look at these
:18:34. > :18:36.issues, but what the Guardian has published in the last year is
:18:37. > :18:40.relevant to the discussions we will have, the idea of public interest as
:18:41. > :18:44.opposed to the points made by Sir John Sawers and the other head of
:18:45. > :18:51.the security services when they appear. It does not matter what we
:18:52. > :18:55.think about the Edward Snowden revelations or what I think, those
:18:56. > :19:02.people in charge of security were very clear about what damage it had
:19:03. > :19:06.done. The point often made is, is a newspaper editor the right person to
:19:07. > :19:13.make those decisions? Presumably you will want to see some kind of CV
:19:14. > :19:16.justification? These are important questions to be put to Alan
:19:17. > :19:21.Rusbridger. You are absolutely right. I have read the transcript
:19:22. > :19:24.and seen the recording of the appearance of the three spy chiefs,
:19:25. > :19:30.if we can call the matter, before our sister committee, and they are
:19:31. > :19:34.pretty upset over what has been happening, as our senior members of
:19:35. > :19:38.the government and others. I don't think it is a party issue, I think
:19:39. > :19:43.there is a general feeling that questions are to be answered and
:19:44. > :19:46.that is why we are keen to hear from Alan Rusbridger. He needs the
:19:47. > :19:51.opportunity, it is a big opportunity for him to put his views forward and
:19:52. > :20:04.we are glad he is appearing. I wonder whether it has rather
:20:05. > :20:10.polarised on is Guradianesque, if you like, and wonder how dare the
:20:11. > :20:14.Government do this? On the other hand, some people might feel the
:20:15. > :20:21.Guardian has been irresponsible. Have you seen this polarisation? We
:20:22. > :20:28.do not go in there to do party politics, we ask questions relevant
:20:29. > :20:32.to our enquiries. We all need to show an interest, we are all
:20:33. > :20:36.Guardian readers, some of us read it avidly, some of us don't, that is an
:20:37. > :20:41.interest we will have to declare, just like we all watch the BBC from
:20:42. > :20:45.time to time. I think questions will be asked of Alan Rusbridger, he is
:20:46. > :20:50.perfectly capable of dealing with this well and I am sure he will do.
:20:51. > :20:55.He originally wanted to bring his deputy editor, that he wants to come
:20:56. > :20:58.alone and I think he will help us with the difficult task of
:20:59. > :21:06.fashioning a new counterterrorism policy. You can watch it on the BBC,
:21:07. > :21:09.of course dashed from time to time! What is interesting is that Alan
:21:10. > :21:14.Rusbridger is coming along to give the evidence about the Edward
:21:15. > :21:20.Snowden thing, Bagram Greenwald, the journalist who got the information
:21:21. > :21:28.from Edward Snowden, said recently that they might have stuff in the
:21:29. > :21:36.can. To a very avid Guardian reader, I am sure, Max Hastings. Did the
:21:37. > :21:40.Guardian perform a public service? The truth always seems to lie in the
:21:41. > :21:47.middle. It is a very good newspaper which does many good things, but
:21:48. > :21:55.over this particular episode, one found Alan Rusbridger's moral
:21:56. > :22:01.conceit was hard to take. Some of us find that all nations need security
:22:02. > :22:05.secrets. Allen thinks that no secrets matter and he as editor is
:22:06. > :22:14.fit to decide what should be published, some can't go along with
:22:15. > :22:17.that. But what has emerged from the Snowden revelations, although I am
:22:18. > :22:21.somebody who wishes it did not happen, is that there is more
:22:22. > :22:28.scrutiny and supervision, because they have been doing things that
:22:29. > :22:31.many of us will not agree with. Does that in some way to vindicate Alan
:22:32. > :22:35.Rusbridger's decision, because there are things that we know about that
:22:36. > :22:39.we would not have before and it might put pressure on the
:22:40. > :22:44.intelligence services to be more open? I and many people feel
:22:45. > :22:46.uncomfortable but Allen, without reference to anybody else, has
:22:47. > :22:51.published a lot of stuff which undoubtedly makes the security of
:22:52. > :22:57.our society more difficult. The fact that he might have done it for the
:22:58. > :23:02.good is not relevant. He unloaded a dumper truck are very sensitive
:23:03. > :23:08.information, including names of people of all shapes and sizes. We
:23:09. > :23:12.face threats, Al-Qaeda is a threat, it is no good the Guardian
:23:13. > :23:16.pretending they're not threats. If I have to judge between trust in the
:23:17. > :23:21.judgment of the intelligence or Alan Rusbridger, by a narrow margin, I
:23:22. > :23:23.would choose the intelligence services.
:23:24. > :23:27.Next year will be the centenary of the start of the First World War -
:23:28. > :23:30.the chance to pay tribute to the fallen. For some, it's an
:23:31. > :23:33.opportunity to remind ourselves of the futility of war and reflect that
:23:34. > :23:36.millions of lives from all sides were lost. Others, including our
:23:37. > :23:40.guest today, Sir Max Hastings, believe that would fail to tell the
:23:41. > :23:43.whole story, and that far from being a senseless sacrifice, World War I
:23:44. > :23:47.should be remembered as a conflict which simply had to be won against a
:23:48. > :23:50.Germany which, at the time, was intent on dominating Europe. But to
:23:51. > :23:51.what degree should present-day sensitivities influence our view of
:23:52. > :24:10.the past? David Thompson reports. The war to end all Wars, an horrific
:24:11. > :24:16.waste of life. Next you, a century later, the chance to give voice to
:24:17. > :24:20.the millions of mouthful is dead. When we commemorate the centenary of
:24:21. > :24:26.the start of World War I, what are we remembering? Simply sack --
:24:27. > :24:31.simpler remembering the sacrifice is, for some, not enough. Perhaps we
:24:32. > :24:36.should remember what led to war and why they died, even if that trip on
:24:37. > :24:44.what day sensibilities. The soldiers who gave their lives in world will
:24:45. > :24:48.-- World War I were anything but victims. The price was
:24:49. > :24:54.excruciatingly high. And the nature of war on the Western front was
:24:55. > :25:01.awful. But it was not in vain. There were great strategic reasons to
:25:02. > :25:08.contain what Germany had in mind at the time. For some, particularly in
:25:09. > :25:13.Germany, what caused the great War is less important than what adults
:25:14. > :25:17.medley lead to. What remains is the defining event of the 20th century
:25:18. > :25:20.for Germany is, of course, the Holocaust. I think that is the
:25:21. > :25:27.difference. Rather than remembering the dead and worshipping heroes, as
:25:28. > :25:32.Britain tends to do, Germany looks at the biggest tragedy of mankind,
:25:33. > :25:38.of human history, and tries to extrapolate from that lessons for
:25:39. > :25:43.today. The BBC intends to dedicate 2500 hours of programming over the
:25:44. > :25:48.next four hours to the conflict, including 130 newly commissioned
:25:49. > :25:50.programmes. Government has set aside ?50 million for projects
:25:51. > :25:55.commemorating the start of the great War. How will that go down in
:25:56. > :25:59.Germany? With a degree of bemusement, not least because
:26:00. > :26:03.Germany, in a way, has given up on its military tradition the Second
:26:04. > :26:08.World War. The military tradition in Britain, of course, is very strong.
:26:09. > :26:13.The Germans will look at Britain and see a lot of military pomp, which
:26:14. > :26:18.will seem a bit alien. Whatever the view of the watching world, for
:26:19. > :26:23.some, most important is to tell the historical truth. You can't airbrush
:26:24. > :26:30.history just because the values of the time of history of which we
:26:31. > :26:33.speak don't coincide with today. That doesn't marry up. You can only
:26:34. > :26:40.judge it through the prism of that time, the prism of Britain, France
:26:41. > :26:46.and Germany as they were at that time. Next year, of all years, we
:26:47. > :26:50.won't forget. We will never forget. But what we choose to remember and
:26:51. > :26:52.how we remember our past may shine a light on who we are now.
:26:53. > :26:55.Andrew Murrison is the Special Representative for Great War
:26:56. > :26:58.Centenary Commemorations, as well as being a defence minister. And our
:26:59. > :27:04.guest of the day, Sir Max Hastings, also has a particular interest in
:27:05. > :27:11.this area. He has written a new book about the start of the Great Wall.
:27:12. > :27:17.Max Hastings, what is your problem with the government's commemoration
:27:18. > :27:21.programme? The Government has repeatedly used the word
:27:22. > :27:25.nonjudgemental about the approach it proposes to adopt. I am by no means
:27:26. > :27:29.the only historian that takes this view very strongly that it is not
:27:30. > :27:32.enough just to take an awful lot of schoolchildren to France and stand
:27:33. > :27:39.them in cemeteries and say, gosh, wasn't it awful? Part of a function
:27:40. > :27:43.of the commemoration - never use the word celebration - is has to be
:27:44. > :27:50.explaining why it happened. Is that not what you will do? I think this
:27:51. > :27:54.was not in vain. I think those who went to war in 1914 had a very clear
:27:55. > :28:02.sense of doing the right thing. The Prime Minister of the day was right
:28:03. > :28:06.to act as he did when Germany marched through Belgium and
:28:07. > :28:11.threatened France. We need to understand that full well, which is
:28:12. > :28:17.not in any way to be jingoistic. That would be inappropriate for the
:28:18. > :28:20.centenary. That sounds encouraging, because it suggests you have moved
:28:21. > :28:28.on from the nonjudgemental approach, which means you have
:28:29. > :28:34.listened about. Have you change? -- have you changed? Wii we debated in
:28:35. > :28:37.the House of Commons on the 7th of November, there was a surprise in
:28:38. > :28:42.amount of agreement. Furthermore, the polling data available to us
:28:43. > :28:50.suggests we are in the right place in terms of public opinion, which is
:28:51. > :28:53.always reassuring. In terms of sensitivities regarding Germany, how
:28:54. > :29:00.big a part of the Government's thinking was that? It would be an
:29:01. > :29:05.extreme irony if after the centenary of this terrible conflict we ended
:29:06. > :29:09.up in an inn have -- and unhappy place with respect to our
:29:10. > :29:17.21st-century friends and allies. We have no intention of flag-waving,
:29:18. > :29:20.being militaristic or jingoistic. One thing I find extraordinary is
:29:21. > :29:25.that all of us feel an enormous respect for modern Germany, but we
:29:26. > :29:29.don't have a problem with saying that in 1948 was absolutely right
:29:30. > :29:33.that we fought the evil of Hitler's Germany. But we sometimes have a
:29:34. > :29:44.problem with saying that in the First World War it was a problem. I
:29:45. > :29:48.was speaking to a noted historian, and she said that while the world
:29:49. > :29:54.will never forgive Hitler, they seem willing to forgive the Kaiser. I
:29:55. > :29:59.hope the Government's rhetoric for the centenary will say explicitly
:30:00. > :30:03.that all those who died, and it was a colossal tragedy, a catastrophe,
:30:04. > :30:07.there was a cause, and if Germany had won the First World War it would
:30:08. > :30:11.have been almost as ghastly a catastrophe for Europe as if Hitler
:30:12. > :30:19.had one. Do you accept that description that somehow World War
:30:20. > :30:22.II sort of dominate people's thoughts about history in the 20th
:30:23. > :30:30.century, and to some extent has eclipsed the reasons we went to war
:30:31. > :30:38.in 1914 and what was achieved? This is the difference between Max and
:30:39. > :30:47.me, I would not conflate the evils of Nazi Germany with... There was no
:30:48. > :30:51.Holocaust, but Michael Howard has made the point that Germany's
:30:52. > :30:56.territorial objectives in World War I were not much different from those
:30:57. > :31:01.of Hitler a generation later. What is hugely ironic if there is no
:31:02. > :31:06.sense of evil associated with Wilhelmine Germany, as there is with
:31:07. > :31:11.Hitler. We did not go to war for the Jews, but in 1945, the revelation of
:31:12. > :31:15.the Holocaust, in the eyes of posterity, it established the evil
:31:16. > :31:20.of Nazism, and there is nothing comparable in 1918, and this has
:31:21. > :31:23.made it difficult for people to understand why Wilhelmine Germany
:31:24. > :31:28.also would have been a very bad force is a tad won in Europe in
:31:29. > :31:33.1918. Nothing comparable for a very good reason, because Nazi Germany,
:31:34. > :31:37.national socialism and what happened as a result of it, was the very
:31:38. > :31:41.quintessence of evil. I would strongly maintain that. In terms of
:31:42. > :31:45.German attitudes, we have been working very closely with Germany,
:31:46. > :31:50.Germany is a modern, 21st century state with whom we have the closest
:31:51. > :31:54.of bonds, and I am interested to explore German thinking on this
:31:55. > :31:59.matter. They don't want to talk about it at all! They would prefer
:32:00. > :32:02.not to, but they understand they have to, because all of us,
:32:03. > :32:07.Britain, France, the former empire, we are going to be talking about it
:32:08. > :32:10.during the four-year period, and their attitude is surprisingly as is
:32:11. > :32:15.the case with so much on this centenary. What is missing for you
:32:16. > :32:21.in these commemorations? To tell people why it happened, to explain
:32:22. > :32:25.their was a cause. The Blackadder view that it was futile is simply
:32:26. > :32:29.not true, it was ghastly but not futile. There has been an awful lot
:32:30. > :32:33.about the trenches, not just the futility of it, although that has
:32:34. > :32:37.been a major part of teaching and museums' coverage of World War I,
:32:38. > :32:42.but there was a great sacrifice made for the greater good - has that not
:32:43. > :32:46.come across more recently? What I would like to see happen on this
:32:47. > :32:53.centenary, a veteran who had fought in the trenches wrote a very good
:32:54. > :32:57.book called A Schoolboy Goes To War in 1978, and he encapsulated the
:32:58. > :33:02.view that should be put across - he said he deplored the idea that the
:33:03. > :33:08.poets who said it was all futile spoke for his generation. He said, I
:33:09. > :33:10.and my kind went into the war expecting a heroic adventure and
:33:11. > :33:14.believing passionately in the justice of our cause. We are merged
:33:15. > :33:17.bitterly disillusioned about the nature of the adventure but still
:33:18. > :33:25.believing passionately in the justice of our cause. So you need to
:33:26. > :33:29.play up the heroic part of it, but it was a necessary but heroic
:33:30. > :33:32.adventure. Many people feel it was futile, that trench warfare was
:33:33. > :33:40.pointless, lives lost four inches of territory. I agree with the man that
:33:41. > :33:44.Max refers to in his extremely good book, and I think he spoke for his
:33:45. > :33:48.generation, so far as you possibly can speak for a generation. I know
:33:49. > :33:53.my own grandfather, who was involved in this, felt pretty well the same
:33:54. > :33:56.way. It was a terrible catastrophe, the title of your book was well
:33:57. > :34:01.chosen, but we have to accept that it was done for good reason, based
:34:02. > :34:05.upon the information that was available at the time in the summer
:34:06. > :34:09.of 1914. I think very few of in positions of power or responsibility
:34:10. > :34:14.today, faced with the same calculus, would make a difference decision.
:34:15. > :34:17.Briefly, what difference does it make any modern world, talking about
:34:18. > :34:21.the righteousness of this walk you Mike Watt will it change or do? If
:34:22. > :34:29.we are ever going to court about the past, we have got to grow up a bit.
:34:30. > :34:33.We have this idea that the two world wars belonged to different moral
:34:34. > :34:36.orders, that the Second World War was an heroic moment and the First
:34:37. > :34:40.World War was the bad war, and we have to get more grown-up about
:34:41. > :34:43.that, otherwise all this money being spelt, all the parade and
:34:44. > :34:47.commemorations will be for nothing unless we can explain to a new
:34:48. > :34:55.generation what this was about. Thank you very much. How good are
:34:56. > :34:59.Britain's schools? This morning new international comparisons for maths,
:35:00. > :35:03.science and reading were published. The so-called PISA rankings are
:35:04. > :35:07.produced every three years, and last time they came out the UK's showing
:35:08. > :35:14.was not particularly great. Hywel Griffith is at a school in Cardiff.
:35:15. > :35:20.Grim reading for Wales, the lowest ranked UK nation according to PISA,
:35:21. > :35:26.why so bad? That is what I have been asking people, teachers, unions this
:35:27. > :35:29.morning. The answer is complicated, but some are pointing to decisions
:35:30. > :35:33.made in the early years of devolution about ten years ago to
:35:34. > :35:37.get rid of testing, to get rid of league tables, so that some of the
:35:38. > :35:40.15-year-old who would have taken the tests in Wales last year, it would
:35:41. > :35:45.have been their first external exam. They would not have been through
:35:46. > :35:48.that kind of pressure before. Others say the schools do not really aimed
:35:49. > :35:53.towards PISA, GCSEs are much more important, so the whole ethos is
:35:54. > :35:56.geared around that set of qualifications instead of taking
:35:57. > :36:00.PISA seriously. The Welsh government has said the results are
:36:01. > :36:03.disappointing, they are on top of disappointing results three years
:36:04. > :36:07.ago. They said they have made curriculum changes as a result of
:36:08. > :36:10.the bad news three years ago, but of course it could take a decade for
:36:11. > :36:15.those to work their way through the system. The Conservatives have been
:36:16. > :36:22.quick to blame Welsh Labour, how much can be pinned on Labour in
:36:23. > :36:27.Wales? Labour has been in government here since the start of devolution
:36:28. > :36:32.and the election in 1999, so it is hard for Labour to deny that it has
:36:33. > :36:37.been in charge of the education of these 15 and 16-year-olds who we are
:36:38. > :36:41.looking at in terms PISA. However, they do point towards changes they
:36:42. > :36:44.have made more recently, which they say will eventually be better than
:36:45. > :36:48.the changes being made now by the coalition in England. There has been
:36:49. > :36:53.a very recent focus on numeracy and literacy. I think, however, if we
:36:54. > :36:57.look towards 2015, we are going to hear a lot of arguments between the
:36:58. > :37:01.coalition parties and Labour over who is doing best, and that is why
:37:02. > :37:05.the difference between Wales, Scotland, England and Northern
:37:06. > :37:08.Ireland matters, because this is Labour in government, where they
:37:09. > :37:13.have been making decisions, and sadly it is the country that is
:37:14. > :37:17.bottom of the class at the moment. Let's get onto a bit of the blame
:37:18. > :37:20.game with education Minister Elizabeth Truss and Shadow Education
:37:21. > :37:31.Secretary in the, welcome to both of you. Since 2000... Why have we not
:37:32. > :37:36.seem to matter change? I think it is a verdict on the Labour
:37:37. > :37:42.government's lack of reforms over ten years. There are only 200
:37:43. > :37:46.academies in place by the time Labour left office, and at the same
:37:47. > :37:52.time we saw rampant grade inflation over that period, but we did not see
:37:53. > :37:56.an improvement in performance in the international tests, so what has
:37:57. > :38:01.happened is a failure to reform. We are now putting in place the
:38:02. > :38:03.building blocks for form. So a new curriculum, will focus on maths and
:38:04. > :38:09.science, we are seeing the numbers of students taking those subject
:38:10. > :38:13.increasing. We are seeing academies having the freedoms they need to
:38:14. > :38:18.deliver, but the OECD has been very clear that this is too early to
:38:19. > :38:22.judge this government, that the 2012 test is a verdict on Labour's 13
:38:23. > :38:27.years in office, which resulted in Nottingham, even though Tony Blair
:38:28. > :38:34.talked about education, education, education. So in a massive climb for
:38:35. > :38:37.UK and the individual nations? We have said it will take a decade for
:38:38. > :38:42.our reforms to come through in full, and that is what we have seen in
:38:43. > :38:47.Germany and Poland, which did reforms in nearly 2000s. After a
:38:48. > :38:50.decade of putting in place school autonomy, curriculum reforms, higher
:38:51. > :38:55.standards, they started to see was old, but the full results took a
:38:56. > :38:57.decade, and we need much more long-term thinking in education.
:38:58. > :39:02.There has been too much short-term is in the past, and we have to
:39:03. > :39:07.recognise children are in school for 13 years, they need time to embed
:39:08. > :39:12.those reforms, and we need to keep going. We cannot take our foot off
:39:13. > :39:16.the accelerator. We have been carrying on with our reforms. But
:39:17. > :39:19.there has been a people, which is what teachers seem to complain
:39:20. > :39:23.about. There is no doubts that Elizabeth Truss is right, look at
:39:24. > :39:29.the figures, the timing of when Labour was in power, Labour did not
:39:30. > :39:32.do anything in terms of improving educational standards. I do not
:39:33. > :39:36.accept that in terms of the performance in England, we can come
:39:37. > :39:40.to Wales in a moment, but there is clear evidence that in the early
:39:41. > :39:44.years of Labour there were great strides forward in literacy and
:39:45. > :39:50.numeracy, there were very cool levels back in 1987, but if you look
:39:51. > :39:54.at the detail of the OECD report, we have held our position. It is a
:39:55. > :39:57.wake-up call for all of us, to look at these reports in detail, and look
:39:58. > :40:01.at the kind of reforms and messages it gives us, and the message it
:40:02. > :40:06.gives us is that what we ought to do is follow what is happening in the
:40:07. > :40:10.countries that are very successful, like any far east, where they have
:40:11. > :40:12.high standards in maths, and not follow the countries that are
:40:13. > :40:19.plummeting down the league tables, like Sweden and America, which is,
:40:20. > :40:23.strangely, the way that the government is reforming the system,
:40:24. > :40:26.by allowing unqualified teachers, by atomising and fragmenting the
:40:27. > :40:31.schools system. Instead of giving them autonomy within a framework of
:40:32. > :40:37.accountability for schools... Sweden is below us on the table. Because
:40:38. > :40:40.they do not have... I think they have profit-making free schools,
:40:41. > :40:45.something that some Tories aspire to, and their standards are falling.
:40:46. > :40:49.What is clear from these OECD results is that you need autonomy
:40:50. > :40:53.and accountability. Where you have got one and not the other, it does
:40:54. > :40:58.not work. In Wales, you have taken away accountability through league
:40:59. > :41:03.tables... So what is the excuse for you? In England we have both
:41:04. > :41:07.autonomy and accountability, exactly what Germany has achieved. It is too
:41:08. > :41:12.early, can I just finished? It is too early to see the effect of our
:41:13. > :41:16.reforms, and the OECD has been very clear that it is too early to see
:41:17. > :41:21.the effects. We are learning from the far east, we have got a lot of
:41:22. > :41:24.schools using the Singapore methods, teachers going over to
:41:25. > :41:31.Shanghai to look at their teaching methods, and we do want to see those
:41:32. > :41:34.in our schools. Kevin Brennan. The point I was making is that within
:41:35. > :41:41.the Government's reforms, I cannot see how this is the way forward,
:41:42. > :41:45.last week a school in Leeds advertised for maths teachers with a
:41:46. > :41:48.minimum qualification of four GCSEs. How will that leads to improvement?
:41:49. > :41:52.All the jurisdictions that she says she admires required teachers to be
:41:53. > :41:57.properly qualified, to have the right pedagogical teaching methods
:41:58. > :42:01.to be able to teach their subjects, and also do give autonomy to
:42:02. > :42:05.schools, and I agree on that point, but within a proper framework of
:42:06. > :42:09.accountability. I accept that she is right, accountability in the Welsh
:42:10. > :42:13.context, which we talked about earlier, was let slip in early
:42:14. > :42:17.years. Reforms have been put in place now, they should have been put
:42:18. > :42:21.in place earlier, and I agree on that point. But these reforms are
:42:22. > :42:25.going in the wrong direction in relating to allowing us to have
:42:26. > :42:30.unqualified teachers. All the evidence from PISA... All the
:42:31. > :42:33.evidence from PISA says unqualified teachers... There are no more
:42:34. > :42:39.unqualified teachers now than under Labour. And what we are seeing...
:42:40. > :42:44.That is in the private school system. Keven has just said... The
:42:45. > :42:52.other point is we have a record number of teachers with goods
:42:53. > :42:54.degrees thanks to... And actually Labour's Shadow Education Secretary
:42:55. > :43:00.did say it is the quality of the teaching that counts. Let's look at
:43:01. > :43:06.where we are as the United Kingdom and England, Scotland and Wales in
:43:07. > :43:11.the tables. The UK is around 20 and 25, but below as many eurozone
:43:12. > :43:15.countries. It is not as if we are at the bottom of European countries.
:43:16. > :43:20.You are right the Far East are at the top, but yesterday a report
:43:21. > :43:29.showed they are working 13 hours a day. Obviously, they are going to do
:43:30. > :43:34.much better. Is that what we want? This first, then Kevan. There are
:43:35. > :43:39.countries in Europe that are succeeding... Italy, generally,
:43:40. > :43:44.Spain are below us. Poland have looked at the Far East, they have
:43:45. > :43:47.done things like make core academics a focus of their curriculum for all
:43:48. > :43:50.students. They have done things like spend more time teaching those
:43:51. > :43:55.subjects, focused on teacher quality, and they have improved
:43:56. > :44:02.their results over ten years. Poland has improved its results by one
:44:03. > :44:07.whole year. What is not to like? Poland is not following the policies
:44:08. > :44:11.that this government is in relation to free schools, profit-making free
:44:12. > :44:15.schools, and unqualified teachers. You told me off for interrupting you
:44:16. > :44:19.and you have not let me have a say. They have not been following the
:44:20. > :44:23.policy of free schools. Where they have copied that from, profit-making
:44:24. > :44:27.free schools, unqualified teachers in Sweden, they have plummeted down
:44:28. > :44:30.the league tables, and the same is true in America, because it is a
:44:31. > :44:34.race to the bottom, that is what they found in those countries. I do
:44:35. > :44:40.not think any party can make partisan points out of this... They
:44:41. > :44:43.try quite hard! All parties of government have failed to grapple
:44:44. > :44:47.with the enormity, the huge problem that everybody in Britain with half
:44:48. > :44:52.a brain knows, that the shortcomings of the educational system have a lot
:44:53. > :44:55.to answer for. We have not mentioned the educational establishment. I
:44:56. > :45:00.greatly admire Michael Gove, whatever one's quibbles some of
:45:01. > :45:03.these reforms and their small print, but he is willing to take on the
:45:04. > :45:07.educational establishment, the people who have been running schools
:45:08. > :45:10.for 50 years who have abysmally failed. No government until Michael
:45:11. > :45:21.Gove had the nerve to take on these people. You say abysmally failed,
:45:22. > :45:25.isn't that just a blanket representation? We have children not
:45:26. > :45:32.only unemployed but unemployable after leaving school. We need to do
:45:33. > :45:38.better, no doubt. Over many decades... I remember when I was in
:45:39. > :45:42.school, Jim Callaghan called for a rate education debate, and I was a
:45:43. > :45:49.teacher myself in leaky Portakabin classrooms. It has been a long-term
:45:50. > :45:54.solution, let -- it has been a long-term problem, let's look for
:45:55. > :45:57.solutions which do not downgrade the teaching profession so much that it
:45:58. > :46:04.does not even require a qualification. We now have a very
:46:05. > :46:09.good cohort of teachers, it is under threat from Government policy. Under
:46:10. > :46:13.Labour, fewer students studied subjects like science and languages
:46:14. > :46:17.and we diverted into other subjects, students were lied to about the
:46:18. > :46:24.importance of those subjects. Germany and Poland have a core of
:46:25. > :46:28.academics subjects, like the English baccalaureate. We have moored
:46:29. > :46:31.students following those subjects and we have better qualified
:46:32. > :46:35.teachers. I accept that we are learning from Germany and Poland,
:46:36. > :46:42.they have given schools greater autonomy. Allah if you are learning
:46:43. > :46:45.from Germany and Poland, why have you copied Sweden? Thank you both.
:46:46. > :46:47.With most of the big energy companies announcing
:46:48. > :46:50.inflation-busting increases to bills this autumn, Ed Miliband has made
:46:51. > :46:53.much of the political running with his promise of a price freeze.
:46:54. > :46:56.Yesterday, the Government responded. The Energy Secretary, Ed Davey, went
:46:57. > :46:57.to the Commons to set out proposals which would lower the impact of
:46:58. > :47:10.price rises on consumers. We must ensure that the changes we
:47:11. > :47:15.make maintain the support provided to the most vulnerable, then came
:47:16. > :47:20.the investment in clean energy and do not have a negative thing capped
:47:21. > :47:27.and our carbon reduction ambitions -- maintain the investment in clean
:47:28. > :47:31.energy. We have looked at the cost profile, I can announce proposals
:47:32. > :47:37.that would reduce the average household bill next year by ?50 on
:47:38. > :47:42.average. The sum total of everything he has said today, including
:47:43. > :47:46.spending ?600 million of taxpayers' money and weakening the obligation
:47:47. > :47:50.on energy companies to deliver energy efficiency is that the energy
:47:51. > :47:56.companies will still be allowed to put up bills this winter. Does he
:47:57. > :48:04.really think that is a good deal for consumers? I noticed that she did
:48:05. > :48:07.not welcome this cut in energy bills for her constituents. Her
:48:08. > :48:11.constituents will want to know why she was not prepared to welcome it.
:48:12. > :48:16.For every Labour member who stands up today, we want to know if they
:48:17. > :48:20.will welcome it for their constituents? We looked at the
:48:21. > :48:25.energy freeze proposal from the opposition and were very clear that
:48:26. > :48:29.it would not work. We've only got to ask the Secretary of State what he
:48:30. > :48:38.has been doing for the last three and a half years. He told people to
:48:39. > :48:43.wear pullovers. If you work out what people are being offered, it is less
:48:44. > :48:47.than 90p a week from their energy bills. How does this square up with
:48:48. > :48:51.the bedroom tax, which will affect a lot of poor people in this country?
:48:52. > :48:59.This must be one of the most cruel governments we have ever had. He
:49:00. > :49:02.hiked up energy prices when he was Secretary of State for energy and he
:49:03. > :49:08.is now trying to keep them at that level. We have heard the same type
:49:09. > :49:12.of claptrap we heard from the leader of the opposition. Can I tell the
:49:13. > :49:15.Secretary of State for energy that my constituents want the government
:49:16. > :49:22.to source the cheapest rather than the greenest energy. Max Hastings,
:49:23. > :49:27.it has dominated the political debate, the argument over energy and
:49:28. > :49:32.prices. Has the government neutralise the issue? Not for a
:49:33. > :49:38.minute, they have no energy policy. In 2010I wrote a newspaper column
:49:39. > :49:42.saying I thought that David Cameron would bitterly regret turning over
:49:43. > :49:48.energy policy to the Lib Dems, who see like milk and have no credible
:49:49. > :49:53.idea at all, including Ed Davey, who is quite unfit to be Energy
:49:54. > :49:56.Secretary... Except the Conservatives said they were going
:49:57. > :50:04.to be the most green government in history. I have read in the paper a
:50:05. > :50:06.couple of days ago that we will be very lucky to get through more than
:50:07. > :50:11.a couple of winters without interruption to supply. This is
:50:12. > :50:15.almost criminal negligence on the part of the Government. We are
:50:16. > :50:20.talking about keeping prices down, in the real world, energy prices
:50:21. > :50:26.have nowhere to go but up. I am sure it is a huge political problem. Read
:50:27. > :50:32.milk -- Ed Miliband is responsible... But how would you
:50:33. > :50:36.persuade the energy companies to invest on the scale desperately
:50:37. > :50:40.needed as the coal-fired power stations are shutdown unless you
:50:41. > :50:46.allow them to make profits? Neither party is doing very well, neither
:50:47. > :50:50.has a credible energy policy. Is it right for David Cameron to say he is
:50:51. > :50:55.trying to do something to roll back the green levies, even though in
:50:56. > :51:02.practice it is social progress he is rolling back? Is he right to tackle
:51:03. > :51:05.it? He had to face the fact that it would cost consumers as well as
:51:06. > :51:09.Government an enormous amount of money to be, as green as Europe and
:51:10. > :51:13.successive governments promised. It will make it fantastically difficult
:51:14. > :51:21.for British industry to compete with the United States. We will have huge
:51:22. > :51:26.problems. There is a dilemma, but the Lib Dems have never really been
:51:27. > :51:30.serious. Neither of the two main parties are being serious about
:51:31. > :51:35.saying to the public, we will have to face difficult dilemmas to keep
:51:36. > :51:39.the lights on and our laptops going. That is the argument they put
:51:40. > :51:43.forward having a renewables policy, if you invest properly and pay for
:51:44. > :51:48.insulation programmes, bills will come down as a result? We will never
:51:49. > :51:53.produce anything like enough energy to keep the lights on. The Royal
:51:54. > :52:00.Academy Of Mechanical Engineering produced a fantastic report which I
:52:01. > :52:04.recommend to everybody coming in to Government. This report was
:52:05. > :52:09.devastating, about the negligence of politicians about future supply. But
:52:10. > :52:14.isn't Ed Miliband right to say that whether you like the energy freeze
:52:15. > :52:20.idea or not, that breaking up the market in that period of time...
:52:21. > :52:25.That is a different kettle of fish. It is the idea of just a blanket
:52:26. > :52:31.freeze on prizes... So you agree with the policy... You only get
:52:32. > :52:37.proper competition with a real range of choice. Thank you.
:52:38. > :52:42.He is the Conservative MEP who spent nearly half a decade as the deputy
:52:43. > :52:47.leader of the UK Independence Party, and even stood for the UKIP
:52:48. > :52:52.leadership twice. Then in 2011, seven years after walking away, he
:52:53. > :52:57.rejoined the Conservative Party. Happy to be a Tory again? Yes. Happy
:52:58. > :53:03.for Britain to be a member of the European Union? You must be joking.
:53:04. > :53:08.He remains a deeply outspoken critic of the EU, and this week the
:53:09. > :53:15.Conservative MEP has a new book out. It is called Time To Jump and argues
:53:16. > :53:20.wide the EU should consider -- why the UK should consider quitting the
:53:21. > :53:25.EU. The cover has the UK depicted as a lobster in a pot of water, why are
:53:26. > :53:31.you so convinced that boiling point is approaching? We are getting these
:53:32. > :53:39.major problems like immigration, it is clear to everyone that we are
:53:40. > :53:43.lacking control of our own borders. Immigration has been a big thing for
:53:44. > :53:50.many years, why at this particular point? Romanians and Bulgarians
:53:51. > :53:59.coming in is a big issue. What I argue in my book is for Swiss style
:54:00. > :54:02.controls. They are able to differentiate between old EU nations
:54:03. > :54:06.where there is not much of a problem and a new and developing nations
:54:07. > :54:12.where you will get larger numbers coming through. I would probably
:54:13. > :54:17.share many of his concerns. I call myself a lifelong European but of
:54:18. > :54:21.late, I have come to believe that we cannot stay in Europe on any terms.
:54:22. > :54:28.I don't know what she would say to this, but I was at an Anglo-German
:54:29. > :54:31.conference where one the of biggest German industrialists spoke very
:54:32. > :54:36.rationally and said, we all hope Britain will remain within the EU,
:54:37. > :54:40.but we recognise that it is quite possible that they will go out. You
:54:41. > :54:44.said, I would like to say to my British friends with the latest
:54:45. > :54:49.politeness, if you leave, you will find it very cold out there. And
:54:50. > :54:52.where I find myself in a less comfortable position than you is
:54:53. > :54:57.that on the one hand I totally agree that the European project has gone
:54:58. > :55:03.horribly wrong, but I also believe that German industrialist when he
:55:04. > :55:11.said that when we leave we will have a very tough time. I have been to
:55:12. > :55:19.Norway, they have the largest sovereign wealth funds in the world.
:55:20. > :55:25.It is a very small population. It is a different country, you can compare
:55:26. > :55:29.the EU to Norway? We have the largest financial centre in the
:55:30. > :55:33.world, we are big globalists. Nine tenths of the growth in the world
:55:34. > :55:39.will come from outside the EU. White tie ourselves to the EU with red
:55:40. > :55:47.tape? We employ 1 million Germans, hundreds of thousands of French, I
:55:48. > :55:50.believe we will negotiate. I don't know anybody that I would call
:55:51. > :55:57.numerous and sophisticated in the City of London who would... One of
:55:58. > :56:03.the top asset managers said this. I think the tide is turning. We have
:56:04. > :56:08.to look at the facts, it is a plus and minus relationship. You can get
:56:09. > :56:12.a fantastic trade deal, I am on the trade committee of the European
:56:13. > :56:18.Parliament... You can't guarantee it. We are the largest single
:56:19. > :56:21.customer, they would be crazy... What is least credible about
:56:22. > :56:25.everything that UKIP and the Tory right say about Europe is to suggest
:56:26. > :56:30.that the sun will shine, the weather will get better, the England cricket
:56:31. > :56:38.team will do brilliantly. In the real, modern world, do you believe
:56:39. > :56:42.life is that easy? I do. I work with these EA countries like Switzerland
:56:43. > :56:46.all the time in my work as an MEP. Switzerland is the third-largest
:56:47. > :56:54.trading partner with the EU, we can get a British option, which I am
:56:55. > :57:00.calling EA Light, between Norway and Switzerland. What about the
:57:01. > :57:06.negotiations, they are doomed? There is no way that David Cameron could
:57:07. > :57:11.ever negotiate a settlement? I supported referendum policy, and
:57:12. > :57:18.there will be a clear choice between renegotiated in, or negotiated out.
:57:19. > :57:22.Leave it to the people. Thank you for coming in.
:57:23. > :57:25.Now to return to the story about the Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger
:57:26. > :57:28.appearing before a parliamentary committee to answer questions about
:57:29. > :57:32.whether the newspaper compromise national security. The Guardian has
:57:33. > :57:37.sent a statement to respond to some of the things that Mack said. They
:57:38. > :57:39.have said that the Guardian has not published any names and has redacted
:57:40. > :58:03.and deleted information as appropriate.
:58:04. > :58:10.I prefer to listen to the heads of the intelligence services and the
:58:11. > :58:15.Commons select committee. But that is a pretty strong a bottle. They
:58:16. > :58:19.would say that, wouldn't they? I stick with what I said. Although
:58:20. > :58:25.there is a real dilemma, and I do not believe that scrutineers
:58:26. > :58:27.adequate, I believe that there will be more appropriate arbiters of
:58:28. > :58:33.national security than Alan Rusbridger. Very briefly, the quiz.
:58:34. > :58:37.And we asked you to pick the odd one out - London cabs, High Speed Two,
:58:38. > :58:43.Heathrow airport, Weetabix? I presume HS2 is there because they
:58:44. > :58:46.have been talking about the Chinese building it for us. I think they are
:58:47. > :58:51.involved in all the other things we mentioned. Thank you for being our
:58:52. > :58:54.guest of the day. Andrew and I will be back at 11:30am tomorrow with
:58:55. > :58:57.Prime Minister's Questions. Goodbye.