04/09/2014 Daily Politics

Afternoon, folks. Welcome to the Daily Politics.

As the life of a British hostage hangs in the balance somewhere

in the so-called Islamic State, David Cameron and Barack Obama say

yet again they won't be cowed by the barbarism of the terrorisists.

yet again they won't be cowed by the barbarism of the terrorists.

Nato leaders are in Wales for a crucial summit.

But Islamic State is now top of the agenda.

Will the UK commit to joining the US in air strikes against terrorist

Some crimes are on the verge of being decriminalised

because some police forces have all but given up investigating them.

We'll be joined by a former presenter of Crimewatch.

Ed Miliband makes a heartfelt plea for Scotland to remain part

But as support for the Union shrinks, are Scots in a mood to

And, we reveal the secret of success in public life - the dark art of not

With us for the duration, broadcaster and writer Nick Ross.

David Cameron has said he will not rule anything out in relation to

military action against the so-called Islamic State.

It's what leaders usually say in current circumstances.

Two US journalists have already been beheaded by jihadists now in control

Now they're threatening to murder a British national they hold hostage.

At the request of the family the BBC is still not naming him,

though the name has appeared in other media outlets.

Last week, President Obama admitted the US still did not have

a strategy for how to deal with Islamic State - though America has

mounted over 120 air strikes which have played their part in removing

This morning, the Prime Minister did the media rounds to tell us

I think the most important thing to consider is that we must not see

this as something where you have a Western intervention, over the heads

of neighbouring states, leaving others to pick up the pieces. What

is required, and we have this, is a strategy to help those on the

ground, and have an Iraqi government that can make a real difference.

Kurdish forces that can make a difference, and then we ask what

more we can do to help them. It needs to be that way around,

properly thought through and patiently delivered, rather than

sometimes, as in the past, these considerations have not been made.

That was the Prime Minister at the NATO summit in Wales earlier this

morning. He met with President Obama just before we came on and they will

get into a plena recession later and over lunch. -- plena repossession.

Joining me now is the former Defence Secretary Liam Fox.

In your view, what would military action look like for the British in

Iraq and Syria? We know that the allies in the region, the Iraqis and

the Kurds, like a sufficient degree of air power. They are unable to get

strategic targets in Iraq or Syria, from which ISIS draw their

strength. That needs to happen. Secondly, were there to be a ground

counteroffensive, they may require air support which they cannot

deliver themselves. Other allies in the region may deliver them but it

would require help from the West. So we should join America in its air

strike campaign? Yes. Not just in Iraq but in Syria? To answer that

question, you first need to answer the question, what is the real

threat? Where does it come from? How can we properly counter it? The main

bases are in Syria. Some of them, yes, which is where they have

command and control. We need to deal with those and the lines of supply.

If you are asking for a legal basis on which to do it, we have the fact

those command and control centres are directing a lot of what is

barbaric treatment of the Syrian population. So you would not just

join with the Americans in the air strikes in Iraq? You would extend

the air strikes into Syria? If required. The border really exists

only in the minds of western cartographers. The border does not

really exist in practice. If that is where the threat is coming from, and

we believe it is of the magnitude we say it is, we need to deal with it.

And in your way of doing things, with this bombing of bases in Syria

take place, first consulting President Assad in the massacres or

without his permission -- in Damascus. We need to do what we need

to do. We would go ahead without his permission? Yes, the Prime Minister

is right that we need to get as wide a coalition in the region as

possible but we have to understand that they may lack the military

capability to do what is required to deal with the threat, as I have said

before, it is threefold. It is a humanitarian threat immediately to

the population. It is the wider destabilisation of the region which

could lead into a religious war. And it is the centre of export for

jihad. We must understand the necessity for action. Despite

Syria's military assets being seriously decomposed, the one thing

they do have is one of the most sophisticated anti-aircraft defence

systems in the world. The Russians have provided it for them. What

happens if he unleashes that on the jets because he has the capability

to knock them down? What do we do? It is a military question but you

have other assets, complex weapons that can be released from a long way

outside contested airspace, for example. So we would not have to go

into Syrian airspace? If you look at the Libyan campaign, we often have

the ability to raise weapons which are highly accurate but don't

require air power in the space. That worked well. The other macro

militarily, yes. But not afterwards. Politically is not the

same thing but you are asking me from the military perspective. What

do you make of this? You're right, militarily, lots is possible.

Diplomatically, politically, strategically on the ground it is

more compensated. As we have seen from Libya, the region sees with

ethnic differences, tribal and religious views which we barely

understand and we have made a mess. We assumed the Arab Spring was going

to be fantastic and it has not turned out the way that the Liberals

and Democrats hoped it would. You say we but not everybody did.

Assumed it would. Many people were worried that it would be a disaster.

Well, they turned out to be right. If you look at what has happened in

Iraq, the failure to brand the basic difference between the different

branches of Islam, and propping up one against the other, we have made

a terrible mess in the past. I agree with Liam that weakness is not a

good solution but nor is what headedness. If we go in without a

clear idea of what we're doing, we will be seen as imperialists. What

is the endgame? To keep Syria and Iraq intact, along the lines of the

boundaries that were drawn in this city during the First World War? Is

it their sovereign integrity we are protecting from Islamic State? Why?

I am not sure that the current democratic structures in Iraq will

hold. There is a strong likelihood you will end up with a much more

federal structure. Some of the Sunni tribes will want to have more

autonomous provinces. There could be partition, let's be, and if the

Kurds have their way, it will be. All you have a federal structure. --

otherwise you will have. The reason I'm saying this is that federal

solutions where the post-colonial answer of the Foreign Office to

every problem they faced, from central Africa, to the Caribbean, it

was all federations and not one of them lasted more than a couple of

years. And Iraq and Syria are the last two vestiges of the Versailles

settlement, which is worth picking up a history book to read about.

What is happening in Iraq is there is a dynamic developing, where you

are now effectively, you call it partition, but you could finesse it

as a more federal structure. But that is what is happening on the

ground. You are getting ethnic divisions appearing in the country.

The most important thing is that one way or another, the ISIS threat,

which is serious, is diminished. It is not for us to tell the countries

in the region how they should govern themselves. But they have made it

clear they cannot deal with the threat of ISIS on their own and they

will need help to do so. The danger of this is that you begin to think

you can win with just their power. In a sense, it seems for the West,

it is not so bad, our boys and girls will not be in danger, we will not

put boots on the ground apart from special forces that we never know

about. We don't really get our hands dirty. But almost no war is decided

by air power alone. That's right. Every voter who has an opinion on

this and every politician who decides on this has got to

recognise, once you are there, you are truly committed. You may say

that you are committed but you are prepared to pull out if a few RAF

pilots get shot down, we will bail out in the hope they do as well. But

I think it is so easy to be headstrong on this because the

threat is sober ministers -- so pernicious, violent and ghastly, we

must do something about it. But I think that doing something about it,

particularly uninvited... If we are invited in, that is different. I

think the Iraqis will invite us and the Kurds are certainly well. But

not President Assad. Of course. As we have your experience as a defence

minister here, Liam Fox, the plight and position of this British hostage

is dreadful. And our options, I would suggest, are seriously

limited. Very limited. You come up against what we all feel, which is,

if that was someone in our own family, what we would want to be

done to help them, which is anything at all. Against the position that

governments find themselves in, which is if they given to groups

like this, it is simply increasing the chance of others being taken

hostage in the future. It is a terrible dilemma for governments. It

is one of those decisions that leaders have to take, which are very

lonely and difficult. I really feel hugely for the family but also for

the Prime Minister and other leaders who have to take such difficult

decisions. Thank you for joining us. But don't go away because we are

sticking on this broad bean, particularly with the NATO summit

taking place. -- this broad theme. Any discussions

about tackling the jihadists in Iraq and Syria will be taken

on the fringes of this Nato summit. The crisis

in Ukraine is supposed to be This morning,

the Nato Secretary General said Russia was still de-stabilising

eastern Ukraine, despite talk Yesterday, President Obama said he

wanted Nato to send an "unmistakable And will President Putin

pay any attention? There may be talk of a cease-fire

but the crisis is still set to dominate the two day summit which

began this morning. Ukraine wants to join the organisation, but the move

has made a number of leaders nervous. Article five of the NATO

treaty states that an attack on one NATO country is considered an attack

against all of them, meaning Britain would be obliged to defend Ukraine

from any Russian aggression. British troops will soon be participating in

joint military exercises with Ukraine, but actual membership could

be seen as a step too far. So what could we see announced over the next

couple of days? It is expected there will be an announcement on a

so-called readiness action plan, which would include a 4000 strong

rapid reaction force, that good response to a Russian attack. There

will also be calls for all member states to follow Britain and spend

at least 2% of their GDP on defence. Finally, there will be

discussions over whether NATO should have permanent bases in Baltic

member countries. Some think it is currently forbidden under an

agreement with Russia. Let's talk to

our defence correspondent, Jonathan I understand there is still no

appetite for NATO to send arms to the Ukrainian government. So far, it

is verbal professions of support but no military hardware, is that right?

That is right in one sense. They are sending body armour and they are

certainly giving quite a lot of expertise. What they will agree at

the summit is to set up what they call a trust fund, which will help

train the Ukrainian military in things like command and control, how

to look after wounded soldiers. There is practical help, but of

course, as you say, Ukraine is not a NATO member, nor has it asked to be

a member, yet at least. They are pretty limited. What they are trying

to do more is reassure those members of NATO who were former Soviet

satellite states, like the Baltic states, and talk about beefing up

their presence but also beefing up military activities, exercises,

essentially come in Eastern Europe, to reassure them.

Do they feel that they have got to reinforce Article five, that if one

member is attacked, all members are attacked and they have got to go to

the the member that has been attacked? Is there a sense that

people have lost faith in Article five and that the primary purpose of

the NATO summit is to reassure people that Article five is alive

and well? You will not find any leader here saying that they do not

believe in Article five and that they would not come to the military

help of another country if it was attacked. That is a founding

principle of NATO, if you throw that away, you probably do not have much

of an alliance. In theory they are committed to that, in practice, you

could ask questions as to whether they would want a war with Russia,

and whether Russia it self would like to create a war. Certainly

creating instability in Ukraine at the moment. You will not find

anybody here that says that it is not going to be enacted upon as a

founding principle. Since we have got you here, could I move onto

Islamic State: Last night there was a number of reports coming out of

the summit that it looked more likely now that Britain would join

America in air strikes against Islamic State. Have there been any

developments on that front this morning? A very clear message from

the Prime Minister who says that he is keeping the option open. We

understand they are inching forward, the British government, in helping

Kurdish forces, Iraqi forces, already supplying body armour, an

aeroplane landed this morning, and there is talk, they have supplied

arms, and munition. Supplied by a third country. There is a

possibility Britain may directly supply weapons to the Kurdish, to

the Iraqi forces. This probably is not a summit where they are going to

come out with some statement that for example Britain may join America

in air strikes, certainly, that is one of the discussions on the

sidelines, on the margins. The focus is president of Balmer and David

Cameron. President Obama would like sub old. Not just the support

Britain but the neighbours as well. -- President Obama would like

support. That is the key, as David Cameron has said, he would not like

this to be seen as some kind of Western intervention, they did that

as a matter of interest in Libya, Jordan and the UAE were taking part.

Always looks like Western intervention, because they provide

most of the warplanes and the assets. Hinchey very much. -- thank

you very much. Liam Fox, what is the most that this

NATO summit can do about Ukraine? It is to reassure our allies, in NATO,

that Article five does mean something, and to send a very clear

message to Russia, the problem is that we are playing catch up, Russia

launched a cyber attack on Estonia and we did nothing, they cut off

gas, they invaded Georgia, in these situations we have done very little.

The message that this has sent to Vladimir Putin, the West will be

prodded and will probably not respond. That is where we need to

get realignment. While Isis is an imminent military crisis, there is

also a political crisis, and it is a crisis principle: We believe

sovereign nations like Ukraine should be able to exercise self

determination, Russia believes in a sphere of influence, that the former

soggy and republics, Russia has a veto on their behaviour, it believes

that the protection of ethnic Russians lies with Russia, we

believe that it lies with the countries in which those people 's

lives. There is a clear difference in principle. What we require is

de-escalation, Russian forces out of Ukraine, so that they are... It is

not going to happen... Why would he do that, the separatists he supports

are losing the war, the Ukrainian military is moving in on the main

centres of population in eastern Ukraine. He has now sent in,

although he denies it, but it is clear that it would not happen

without his support, Russian armour and Russian forces. They are helping

them and the tide is turning, indeed they may be moving onto this major

town in the south by the Black Sea. Why would he pull back? If that

happens there has got to be another wave of Western responses, that

economic sanctions. Hopefully there can be some sense seen between

President Vladimir Putin and the Ukrainian president about how to

de-escalates the issue. If the Russians continue their behaviour,

which is completely unacceptable and illegal, we will have no alternative

but to have further economic response. The real politic, the

harsh reality, certainly in eastern Ukraine, Mr blood and a Putin can do

whatever he wants, there will be penalties but he can do what he

wants. The emphasis of NATO now, as Liam Fox says, trying to catch up.

They are trying to reassure the Baltic states, the members of NATO,

which Ukraine is not, that we will not let this happen to you. Two

separate things: NATO defending NATO nations, that is Article five.

Ukraine is not a NATO nation, it is an ally, but that is new. The other

side, how do we make sure that we are not making Vladimir Putin even

more popular than he already is? Liam is correct, he is prodding us

and he is doing that because it is making him very popular at home. The

thing at this from his perspective, look at this... Think about liberal

Russian citizens... We see our people. -- think that they were

Russian citizens. We could say that they were out people in some

islands. And they are British, and we have some other not very

legitimate regime, remember, this did not go from a democracy to a

democracy, it occurred through a coup. That is when the uprising

began, that is when the Russians began supporting the people. We

British may feel about self-determination for our own

people. The Russians see this as Russians under threat. But in a

Putin is very popular. We have got to be very careful that we do not

play into his hands. What you say? -- blood in a Putin is very popular.

We have a responsibility to international order and law, which

says that if Russians who live in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, their

protection is the responsibility of their governments. Of their laws, of

their constitutions, not an external power. If you allow the principle to

take hold them there is no international law. Only if those

governments are sensible, and if they believe in self-determination

they must consider that there are times when they must allow a vote,

as we are allowing in Scotland, to ask if you want to do your own

thing. May well be... The last time there was a pol, 80% of people in

Crimea said they wanted to be independent of Kiev. No matter how

independent and irresponsible, are we going to support them? That is

not what we are saying, what we said was, any move towards independence

in Crimea has got to be legal and in line with the constitution of laws

of Ukraine. It cannot simply be a good guitar. -- cannot seem to be a

coup d'etat. One final question, the Americans were moving their

attention elsewhere, particularly to the Pacific, the Americans were

getting angry that at the height of the Cold War, they accounted for 68%

of NATO defence spending and 20 years after, when Europe did not

seem under threat, 75%, this year repair and sad demobilised and cut

defence. -- because Europeans had been mobilised. Is there really an

appetite, with the Eurozone mired in stagnation and mass unemployment, to

defence -- increased defence spending. They decided they would

bank the Article five guarantees and cut the defence spending. Now they

are beginning to think again. Looking at countries like Estonia,

it is over 2%, and rising. They are beginning to realise that life

outside of the soviet union does not mean life without the threat of

Russia's. We are barely over that. But we are. Barely. We should be

leading at the summit by saying that the Brymon Vista can say that a

future Conservative government would guarantee we stay over to depend of

GDP. -- we stay over 2% of GDP. The built-in NATO comes, and this is in

a cartoon, the built-in NATO comes and everybody is searching for their

wallet! The idea that America could choose to pivot away from European

and American security towards Asia, it was never a choice will stop it

has global interest and therefore global responsibility, this idea

that America could suddenly turn its back on Europe and turn towards the

Pacific, looks a bit odd today. I understand what you are saying but I

still think that it is the modus operandi of Barack Obama to do so.

Some police forces in England and Wales have given up investigating

certain crime, a scathing report has found that in some areas, police

were asking victims to investigate for themselves instead of sending an

officer. Roger Baker is the inspector who produced the report.

37 forces carry out what are called displaced investigations, the other

six have and attend everything policy. We do not criticise the desk

-based investigations. But it is when a member of the public phones

the police, and they ask if there is any evidence. What we did have a

problem with, a lot of these crimes will simply then be filed straight

away and the public have been asked to effectively carry out their own

investigations to the extent of, if you do not contact us back further

with more evidence, that is the end of the case. We have found that in a

third of the forces we examined. Arab guest of the day, Nick Ross,

former presenter of that highly rated show Crimewatch, he founded

the Jill Dando Institute of crime science at university. He has

written books about crime. -- at the University College London. I thought

that you were meant to be the government of law and order, why are

citizens investigating their own crimes? I don't think the Liberal

Democrats have ever been the party of law and order, they are a part of

the government. Are they to blame? They certainly do not help. I voted

against the government reducing the police budget each year, I see it

first hand, how stretched police forces are. I believe in strong law

and order measures. It is unacceptable to be sending out the

message that people have got to investigate their own crimes, that

is a ludicrous message to send out. The police have got to be realistic

and say to people, look, without any evidence, we cannot really pursue

this any further. I think that is just being honest with people,

nothing wrong with being honest. There are organisations that have

been set up, like face watch by Simon Gordon in London, rolled out

across the country, businesses are going through CCTV evidence for

police and handing them a crime sheet with the relevant CCTV

evidence, to enable them to crack on and get people to justice, rather

than sitting for hours, waiting for CCTV footage, which they will not

realistically do. -- wading through. Can you blame this on cuts, you

follow the mantra of the left whenever public services are in

trouble, you say that it is all the fort of the cuts, but in fact, six

of the 43 forces in England and Wales actually attend the scene of

every crime. -- it is all the fault of the cuts. If six can do it, why

not the other 37? They do not. Just because they are attending does not

mean they are doing anything meaningful all worthwhile, it may be

that the other police forces are being more honest. Without any

particular evidence there is not a great deal that we can do. How do

you know unless you look? It depends upon what the crime is, it may be

that you depend upon CCTV footage, we have got to look at all of the

methods. With things like face watch, and test it in, set up by

businesses, it is they found years ago that police are wading through

CCTV footage, spending hours doing that. -- Facewatch. That seems to be

a useful thing. But the police will turn up to every event in an ideal

world, they will investigate and bring everyone to justice but we do

not live in an ideal world. Certainly in my area, the police do

a pretty good job in difficult circumstances. What you make of the

idea that the police tell victims of crime to look for fingerprints, to

check CCTV... And scour second-hand goods websites to see if they can

find their stolen property? Three things to say: It can be

distressing, we forget that some crimes which to an outsider do not

seem very important, like a burglary within your own household, can be

hugely important. And live with you for a long time. And if you do not

think anyone is on your site, it can be upsetting. But it is incredible

that Her Majesty 's Inspectorate have suddenly stumbled upon this as

if it is new, car crime and burglary have gone down by three quarters,

perhaps he is too young to remember the 1970s. He is not that young! In

those days, very few, if your car was broken into, very few would have

been investigated. Even going back much further, it was our

responsibility, as citizens, to put up a hue and cry before there was

police force. The pendulum has gone so far the other way, that we have

become utterly dependent almost on the nanny state. In some extends it

is right, but it is a bit of a distraction. Only three or 4% of

known crimes finish up in court anyway. We will never arrest all of

those making travel and the reason we have wrestled it down, these kind

of crimes, that the police are not investigating, is nothing to do with

magistrates. We should stop talking bread and circuses and look at why

they came down and we will copy it across to other areas. Doesn't this

report view all the line of the Association of Chief Police

Officers, which says because of the cuts, we have got to make choices,

and therefore, we decide that there is some things we do not have to

resolve, the less important stuff, less important in our opinion, we do

not investigate? That will be the message that they give. Police

forces have to prioritise. There are not the resources to do everything

and there never will be. Of course they have to prioritise what they do

but it is not necessary about police priorities. The police should

reflect the public's priorities. It is not just a question of saying the

public can go hang and the police will decide what is important. The

police should concentrate on what the public think is important. Nick

mentioned burglary and it would be completely an acceptable to me if

the police did not attend every burglary. -- completely an

acceptable. But there is one police officer to every 450 citizens also

and you are more likely to meet Doctor van you are a police

officer. There's only one every ten square miles. They have so me things

to do. You only have 40, roughly two answer emergency call that any one

time. We have to tailor expectations to what is realistic. Absolutely,

and that is my point, we have to be realistic. I go out with my police

force on many occasions. I have been with scenes of crimes officers to

see what they do. In my experience, the police do a very good job, given

how stretched they are, and with the issues they have to deal with. It

will never be perfect. There will be issues they get wrong but broadly,

they do a pretty good job. Wood reassurances one thing but bringing

people to justice is another. We have made it progressively more

difficult for the police to do that, probably rightly. If you go

back 100 years, I homicide trial at the Old Bailey would have lasted a

couple of hours, and now it is weeks and months. With things like the

police and criminal evidence act, it is increasingly difficult for the

police, they have do have a trial before a trial with the CBS. We have

to lower people's expectations about what the courts can achieve. We are

having the debate about rape and we need to have it more widely. It is

not a panacea and not the only tool in the tool box. Philip Davies, stay

with us, because I am going to talk about crime some more.

"Tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime",

"prison works", "tougher sentences" "more bobbies on the beat".

These are just some of the slogans politicians love to trot out to show

Indeed, crime has been declining over

So do our politicians deserve a hearty pat on the back

Or is the explanation, well, a bit more complicated?

We'll talk to our guest, Nick Ross, in just a moment - he's written all

For some time, The Blue Conservatives eyed the boys

- and girls - in blue as the last great unreformed public service.

Whilst others did not go along with that view,

the Coalition has made reform a key plank of its home affairs policy.

Its argument is that even after reforming and having to make

financial cutbacks, crime overall is still falling and has been

Today, the lightbulb moment for many in the Home Office seems to be

trying to understand why, and what the so-called drivers of crime are.

We believe they are alcohol, drugs, opportunity, the effectiveness of

the criminal justice system, character, and profit. If we can

understand each of these drivers better, and how they relate to one

another, we should be able to devise better policy to prevent crime

occurring in the first place. The Home Secretary signalled

in the last 24 hours a move towards more preventative policing policy,

mergers of emergency services, and repeated her belief that

the necessity and indeed desire is The Labour government in the late

90s introduced reforms that put a big focus on prevention, the police

working with local councils and communities, and introduced

neighbourhood policing which made a huge difference in cutting crime.

However, we have seen neighbourhood policing being undermined, and a lot

of things going backwards. I think it is a problem as well that fewer

criminals are being brought to justice. Victims need support and

justice as well. Some see the grand scheme

of crime and how to control it went back earlier into the 90s

and are clear what it was down to. I think what Michael Howard started

doing as Home Secretary, his prison works, toughening up policy, set

sentencing, and changing the whole view of the Home Office that had

before seen rising crime as inevitable, and a problem to be

managed. I think that was a key part of what happened. Since 1994-1995,

crime has been falling most years, a fairly consistent trend under

governments of both stripes. It is not just locking people up because

they will come back out again. Why house somebody so they can come out

and commit more crime? We can be much smarter about that.

And now it seems policing will involve not only uniformed officers,

but us just being a bit smarter about how we use our stuff.

We are carrying thousands of pounds of goods around in our bags,

laptops, mobile phones, iPads, all kinds of things which are tradable.

They are worth something. If you think about the levels of theft, and

how they actually track, you can look at spikes in crime, for

example, when a new mobile phone comes out. It goes up, shock horror.

In the past, this was labelled as blaming us.

Now it seems whilst focusing on our traditional demands on them,

politicians and police are making reducing opportunity and temptation

Nick Ross and Philip Davies are still with us.

Nick Ross, the official crime figures have been going down across

the Western world. But across the Western world, you have a huge

variety of law and order regimes, some putting more emphasis on

prison, and others putting less. Do we really know why it is falling?

Yes, and firstly, can I just point out what you have said is

revolutionary. Here you are on the BBC, taking it as read that crime

has fallen across the industrial world. I have been saying this since

about 1997-1998. I have been ridiculed by MPs, saying it was

complacency, they were just statistics, official figures and so

forth. We know from hospital admissions, insurance and lots of

ways of trying elating crime, it is falling all across the Western

world. The other dispiriting thing is the tribalism you get from

politicians, who are all trying to put their own spin on it. Generally

in crime, someone to the right of centre, who is conservative,

believes if you are nasty to people, you will get less crime.

Lock people up, bring back hanging, deterrence and all the rest.

Liberals on the left tend to believe that if you are nice to people, you

will get less crime, community sentences and so forth. Each of them

madly cherry picks the data, starting with the ideology and

getting the data to make it stick. Actually, the criminal justice

system as only tangential, very marginal effects on crime rates. We

can see this for the very reasons you have pointed out because the

same pattern is happening in the industrial world. Theresa May, bless

her, said something I have never heard her say before on that clip

you just showed. She said there were six drivers of crime, and the

criminal justice system was only the fourth on the list. She is right and

that film was right, the summary was right, temptation and opportunity

are what changes the crime rate. Can I give you a political example? If

you make the expenses system in the House of Commons very easy to

fiddle, you will find it is fiddle. You will find that those with the

greatest opportunity, constituencies outside London, tends to fiddle it

more than those within, not because they have a different moral

character but because of opportunity. Even the Prime Minister

had to pay back some money, as I recall. If you make it difficult,

these things don't happen. If you make society by default, difficult,

which is the reason car crime has come down, they are great difficulty

in steel now. There is concern about moral character which is proper and

justified but it is not the way to manipulate crime figures and

certainly not the way we will reduce victimisation. Philip Davies, are

you and your kind going to stop taking credit for falling crime

rates? I agree with a lot of what Nick said. I have got his book and I

have met him and he's gone into more detail about his views. He is right

about car crime, the enhanced security measures are clearly the

reason why it has come down and no one can deny that. It is only part

of the story. There are other things, other technology has played

a big part, CCTV has helped bring evidence to court, the DNA database

has made a massive difference in terms of highlighting who has been

responsible for things. Technology generally has been a massive help in

dealing with crime, bringing people to justice. But I don't think it is

the whole picture. I think we still need to be tougher on crime. If you

speak the local police forces and asked them how to reduce crime in

the area by 50%, they will all say that the best thing is to take the

ten most political offenders and put them in prison. It is perfectly

obvious that if the most prolific offenders are in prison, they cannot

commit crime. We should not forget that aspect either. That is

logically true but is it true in practice? In America and in this

country, we put, particularly America but by European standards,

Britain to put quite a high proportion of people in prison. No,

we don't. Higher than France, Germany and Italy. This is the

Howard league's we send 17 people to prison for every 1000 crimes

committed in this country. You will find it hard to find a lower

percentage. But in terms of percentage of the population, we do.

Let me finish my question, when you look at other countries, which don't

put as many people in prison, crime is still falling. Where is the

correlation, the causation? Different countries have different

experiences and cultures and histories. They have different

issues. I prefer to look at what has happened in this country in the past

and what is happening now. The fact is, whether people like it or not,

since we started putting more people in prison, crime has come down. The

facts of the matter are, and the Ministry of Justice figures are very

clear, the longer people spend in prison, the less likely they are to

reoffend when they come out. Let me put that point Nick Ross because we

hear it a lot. I agree with Philip on lots of things but he is making

the classic error, his ideology is defining the way he sees this. Here

is a correlation that he says is causation because it happens to fit

with his ideology. There are lots of other correlations which don't fit

with the ideology. But he has said something which is important, which

I agree with. Huge numbers of real-life experiments and academic

experiments show that deterrence does not work in the way we think it

should. That is why people who promote the -- who could suffer the

death penalty, will still promote those behaviours. It is like people

not stopping smoking even though they know it will kill them. If you

lock people away, particularly a very fine group of highly prolific

offenders, but you have to define the group very carefully, then it is

true they cannot commit offences outside prison. Filipe, I will give

you the final word. -- Filipe. Prison is essential in reducing

crime but it is also about an appropriate punishment for people.

Should not forget that sending people to prison is because they

deserve to be punished for what they have done. We should not pretend

that punishment should never play a part in the criminal justice system.

The Labour leader is in Glasgow today to make a last-ditch pitch

for a no vote in the upcoming referendum.

Ed Miliband says Scots should vote for a Labour government to get

the change they need, rather than "erecting a new border"

Alex Salmond says hundreds of thousands

of Labour supporters are considering voting Yes on September 18th.

But Mr Miliband says he'll give Scots a better deal.

This is the change I bring, change to bring a fairer country, changed

to bring a fairer Scotland. Not the change of erecting a new border, the

only ambition of the Nationalists. This is my programme to change. This

is my contract with the people of Scotland. -- for change. Freezing

energy bills, raising the minimum wage, fairer taxes with the new 10p

starting rate, and a higher rate of 50p, taxing the bankers bonuses, to

get our young people back to work, including here in Lanarkshire.

APPLAUSE And yes, abolishing the bedroom tax

across the UK. APPLAUSE Not just here.

Joining me now from Glasgow is Jeane Freeman from the Yes campaign.

She has a background in Labour

having been a senior political adviser to First Minister Jack

The battle is clearly on to the Labour vote, if I can put it that

way, particularly in the West of Scotland, to do with social

services. -- for the Labour vote. Why is Alex Salmond and the yes

campaign saying that if Scotland stays in the union, they risk a

privatised NHS? The only person that can privatise the NHS is Alex

Salmond. The campaign is saying that because

while the Scottish Parliament has power over the shape of the NHS,

what we do not have is control over the finances. The finances that come

to Scotland to spend on public services come as part of a formula,

which is based upon how much public expenditure those services is made

in England and Wales. We may have control over the kind of NHS that we

want in Scotland, what we do not have control over is the total

financial package that would allow us to fund it. Those are two

separate issues. Taking them one at a time: one is privatisation, the

other is amount of money that you get to run the health service. Can

we establish right away, regardless of the amount of money, that there

is no danger of Scotland having a privatised health service unless the

Scottish Parliament decided that is what it wants. We cannot establish

that, Andrew, because there is the transatlantic trade and investment

agreement that is currently being negotiated between the European

Union and the United States, the UK Government has refused to exempt the

National Health Service from that agreement. What that agreement will

do is open up the market of the NHS, and therefore, let me finish...

Let me finish... I'm trying to... That is a European issue. It is not

and you know that, it is a UK Government issue. If the UK

Government does not exempt the National Health Service, and we

remain a part of the union, no matter what the Scottish parliament

may want to do about the NHS in Scotland, the market for the UK,

because it is the UK that signs it, is then open to private companies

coming in. They can insist upon doing that. We cannot separate the

two matters in the way that the No campaign would like us to be able to

do. Labour supporters across Scotland are coming to realise that

increasingly. Having now had to admit that threats of Tory

privatisation in Scotland can work because you control your own health

service, you are now saying that the danger may come from a free trade

agreement which is not even been agreed or signed? You are mistaking

me for a politician and an SNP politician, I have not asserted any

of the things you are suggesting. I represent women for independence and

we are very clear that the privatisation agenda, south of the

border, is a threat to the National Health Service, because of the

reason I have given you, and because we do not control in Scotland the

total finances that Scotland earns, because that comes back to us from

the Treasury, based on that formula that I mentioned. Let's be crystal

clear about who is asserting what, this debate is about what Labour

supporters in Scotland want to do. Labour in Scotland is run by the

United Kingdom, is run by London Labour, and they are conflating a

Labour against SNP argument with an argument about independence, which

is about the decisions in Scotland being taken by the people who live

and work in Scotland. The second issue, the amount of money. Is it

not a fact that every year, under the last Labour government, since

1997, and every year under this coalition government, Scotland,

along with the rest of the UK, has had an increased health budget. It

is not. It is not? Alistair Darling asserted that, perhaps that is where

you have taken it from. The ombudsman followed up the Andy

Burnham question, that is the Labour UK shadow health spokesperson, his

assertion that that claim was not true and the as men said Andy Berman

was right. -- the ombudsman said Andy Burnham was right. In real

terms the spend at UK level by the Westminster government has declined

on health. How much has the health budget been cut in Scotland? It has

not been cut in Scotland because our Parliament has taken a decision to

ring fence health spending in Scotland and protect it. You can

only do that within the limited pot of money that comes not from the

Treasury, which is significantly less than Scotland contributes to

that country. That depends which way you look at it. When it comes to

health spending, the fact is that you could move money from anywhere

in the Scottish budget to help if you wanted to, and if you still felt

there was not enough money, even as things stand now, you could increase

tax or increase spending on health but you have chosen to do none of

that. Not true. We are dancing on the head of a pin, I am not an

elected politician, so I do not get to increase or decrease taxes. You

are confusing me with someone else. We are dancing on the head of a pin.

If you increase health spending, that would mean that in Scotland

because of the fixed money, not because of the resources that we

earn in Scotland and contribute to the UK but because of the fixed

amount of money, we would need to cut spending on education or justice

or housing, that is what it would mean, your argument. In terms of

increasing taxes, let me remind you, people in Scotland already pay taxes

for the National Health Service. Are you seriously suggesting we would

pay twice for a health service simply because down south, the UK

Government wants to decrease its spending on health by introducing

privatisation and market forces? That is a nonsense. As you know, I

was not suggesting that, but we have run out of time. Where are you on

this, on the union? We are not dancing on the head of a pin, it is

on the edge of a precipice! Emotionally I am for independence, I

will swallow my profound dislike of nationalism, Scottish, Russian,

English, such a chip on the shoulder mentality, but rationally, I am

really concerned. I am really concerned for the left. If they

believe there is going to be Nirvana after independence, look to France,

where they had a left-wing Prime Minister, who came in expecting

that, and the fiscal reality has meant that they have had to be quite

right wing and conservative. I think you will find that spending on the

health service and also some other things, which are so precious to the

left, will decline very rapidly within three or four years after

independence. We will see, we will see how it goes on after September

18. The new Education Secretary Nicky Morgan was apparently brought

in to calm the nerves of the education establishment.

She was facing questions in the Commons yesterday and, lo and

behold, she used the opportunity to rebut rumours that the government

was planning to introduce compulsory setting by ability in secondary

schools - something that would no doubt irritate the education

establishment. She was taking part in a debate about infant class

sizes. Let's get a flavour. The number of primary schools with over

800 pupils in them as rocketed by 381%, so we can forget about the

smaller schools with no anonymous pupils, we can forget about knowing

every child's name with the growth of these Titans goals. More and more

so-called Titan primary schools are struggling to educate their pupils.

Assemblies and shift patterns, multiple lunch hours, expanding

class sizes, head teachers and teachers doing their best in the

most difficult of circumstances. The number of infants taught in classes

more than 30 has soared to 93,655, a staggering 200% rise since 2010.

This claim, that children are routinely taught in classes of 70 or

more, is utterly wrong. This shows that some pupils are taking part in

activities such as swimming or arts and craft while supervised by a

number of adults. It is hardly unexpected to find this in a normal

primary school at some point on a Thursday during the year when the

census is taken I will in a moment. It is not how they will be taught in

a classroom normally, he has as good a grasp of school census figures as

he does of 19th-century history. Macro and audible something has been

repeated from what was in the Guardian, which was a compulsory of

-- a system of compulsory setting. For the benefit of the house, there

is no truth in those rumours at all... Let me also say, to the

honourable members here, that there are some people outside of his house

who have a rather unhealthy interest sometimes in speculating about what

I am or am not about to announce... There is a flavour of the new

Education Secretary. Now it's a tough job being

a presenter. In at the crack of dawn,

having your finger on the political But one of the greatest hardships is

trying to get a straight answer. Well, Rob Hutton is

a political reporter for Bloomberg and has written a book about it

called Would They Lie to You?: How to Spin

Friends and Manipulate People. It examines the dark art

of what he calls "uncommunication", the art of not saying what you mean

which he argues is the key to making His new book helpfully gives us a

guide "I'm deeply humbled to accept this

award, as I shall now demonstrate by gently boasting

for the next three minutes." Another example is "regret",

what people really mean when they talk about regret is

"We're sorry that people are upset about the thing that we did that

we're not sorry we did." Its actual definition is, "We're

not going to let the fact that we can't work out how to do it stop us

from announcing what we want to do." And finally,

"That's deeply patronising". Of course something we have

never heard on this programme. Meaning, "I'm not going to dispute

your conclusion, but I think you We are now joined by the author. I

see that you have got the book there are, it is quite small, given the

kind of language you have got to deal with, I thought it would be the

size of Encyclopaedia Britannica! An awful lot of it, inevitably, is the

same things coming round again. There was a nice story outside of

the United States last year, some people sat down and analysed every

answer that the spokesperson for Barack Obama had given, and produced

14,000 ways in which he is not going to answer your question. -- a nice

story coming out of the United States. 13 categories which are

variations of "I have not discussed it within". No spokesman should ever

discuss anything with the person they are speaking for, because then

they can sing the say, "I do not know what he thinks". -- because

they can simply say. Do you think of the scare true language has become

worse? Yes, over the last 20 years or so, because there is so much more

language that politicians have got to produce, we had the Prime

Minister here, he did five broadcast interviews over the last hour. I

very much doubt Harold Macmillan was doing the morning round every six

months or so. -- obfuscatory language. If you find ways, in his

position, to survive that, without creating news... Interesting point,

when we began in journalism, a televised interview by the Prime

Minister of the day was a big event. It did not happen very often. All

the Chancellor. Now, they are on all of the time, quite often without

much to say, and what they want to say they want to hide. Too many

political programmes, that is the problem. How can you say that, you

helped to start the programme and now you stab us in the back!

LAUGHTER Matthew Parris indulged my book on

crime, knee has a 4 word here, so you can tell Eddie is a good book!

-- the as a foreword in the book here. -- so you can tell that it is

a good book. There could have been a Europe saying that Europe makes a

30% more energy efficient, but instead, "Europe is going to take

away the hairdryers! " John Bercow has been accused of appointing this

clerk over the head of parliament, no where are we saying, well, the

committee of six including the Parliamentary ombudsman made the

decision... We never spoil a good story ourselves, most PR people

begin as journalists. My last book was the language of journalists,

that is what led to this one. Journalists have language that makes

everything more furious, a furious blistering row! Every split is a

chasm! Coalition on the brink of disaster... While doing that, we

realised the other side of this, is that people in government try to

make everything as boring as possible. Sometimes, they succeed!

We will have two leave it there. Thank you for joining us for the

duration, neck. Thank you to Nick Ross.

The one o'clock news is starting over on BBC One now.

There's no This Week tonight, but Jo will be here

at noon tomorrow with all the big political stories of the day.

She will have all of the information on the latest news, including the