03/12/2015 Daily Politics

Afternoon folks and welcome to the Daily Politics.

The ayes to the right 397, the noes to the left, 223, so the ayes have

Parliament decides and RAF tornadoes take off for their

first sorties over Syria - but will MPs votes hasten the defeat of IS?

Last night's vote left Labour MPs and the Shadow Cabinet split.

What will be the consequences for Labour MPs who defied

the apparent will of the majority of party members?

IS, Isis, Isil or Daesh - what should we call the Islamist

And after a dramatic night in the Commons,

why the palace of Westminster is such a popular setting for fiction?

All that in the next hour, and with us for the whole

of the programme today, the Daily Mail's parliamentary

So the Government won last night's vote with 397 in favour

In the Conservative Party there were seven rebels who voted against

the airstrikes, and seven who abstained on the Labour benches.

153 voted against the government, 66 in favour

And that balance was reflected in the Shadow Cabinet,

with 17 voting against extending airstrikes but 11 voting in favour,

So we heard David Cameron and Jeremy Corbyn opening the debate

Let's get a taste now of some of the other contributions in over

10 hours of deliberations ahead of last night's vote, including

an impassioned plea from the Shadow Foreign Secretary, Hilary Benn, for

Labour MPs to support the government's plan to extend air

I find this decision as difficult as anyone to make.

I wish I had, frankly, the self-righteous certitude

of the finger-jabbing representatives of our new

Who will no doubt soon be contacting those of us who

But I believe, I believe that Isil-Daesh has to be

confronted and destroyed if we are to properly defend

I believe that this motion provides the best way to

When you are thinking about the hard choice that has to be

You may feel pious about it, looking back on the wrong decision

But a very similar decision confronts us tonight.

Instead of having dodgy dossiers, we now have bogus battalions

This twisted perversion of Islam that is to Islam what fascism is to

nationalism, that is to Islam what communism is

to socialism, this vile, Stalinist death cult, this dreadful regime,

Sadly, the only way to stop it is not through talks.

These are people, this is a group that does not wish to speak to us.

They have defined us clearly in their theology as infidel.

They have taken the readings of Mohammed of the Wahhab and

They have defined us, sir, as people who must die or convert.

We are being asked to intervene in a bloody civil war of huge complexity.

We are being asked to do it without an exit strategy

and no reasonable means of saying we are going to make a difference.

We should not give the Prime Minister that permission.

I hope the house will bear with me if I direct my closing remarks to

my Labour friends and colleagues on this side of the house.

As a party, we have always been defined by our internationalism.

We believe we have a responsibility, one to another.

We never have and we never should walk by

And we are here, faced by fascists, not just their calculated brutality

but their belief that they are superior to every single one

of us in this chamber tonight, and all of the people we represent.

They hold our belief in tolerance and decency in contempt.

They hold our democracy, the means by which we will make

And what we know about fascists is that they need to be defeated.

And it is why, as we have heard tonight, socialists

and trade unionists and others joined the International Brigades in

It is why this entire house stood up against Hitler and Mussolini.

It is why our party has always stood up against the denial

And my view, Mr Speaker, is that we must now confront this evil.

It is now time for us to do our bit in Syria.

And that is why I ask my colleagues to vote for this motion tonight.

A snapshot of some of the contributions in the debate on

Syrian air strikes finishing with Hilary Benn, widely regarded as the

standard speech of the ten hour debate. It prompted applause on both

sides of the House of Commons, which under parliamentary convention you

are not meant to do. Quentin, how did it shape up as a parliamentary

occasion? Not particularly well until half past nine. Then it really

took off when Hilary Benn was on his feet. It was most like seeing a

plane take off from an aircraft carriers. We shot off the runway at

speed. That was a speech, as you got a flavour there, it had repetition,

variety, emotion, anger. It also directed against the fascists of our

enemy. That was what was brilliant about the speech. He computed it

through a perfectly reasonable Labour ideology of standing up

against fascists and his own side suddenly saw there was a good reason

for supporting the bombing action. Do you think he swung some Labour

votes? I do. Stella Creasy has said she was persuaded. I suspect some

others work, too. It was a slightly bigger majority than expected. The

day began with the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition.

David Cameron made a stupid mistake when he made a remark that a private

meeting of Conservative MPs about some terrorist sympathisers opposing

the war. Stupid thing to do. That led to lots of interruptions of his

speech. Jeremy Corbyn started pretty well by attacking Mr Cameron on that

point. Once he had gnawed the meat of the bone on that particular

pointy and very little to say. He was really dislodged by a question

from John Woodcock about whether or not he supported action in Iraq. And

after that, Mr Corbyn was going nowhere. He responded to that in a

rather tetchy way. We saw perhaps that Jeremy Corbyn is not quite as

tolerant as congenial a colleague as he might claim to be. We saw 's

strong speeches from Margaret Beckett and Alan Johnson. There were

Tory rebels as well. Seven voting against the Government, seven

abstaining. Any strong contributions from them? Use -- might you saw some

clips area. A Conservative MP from Twickenham was close to tears at one

point talking about the emotion. I think if you are an MP you should

not be a big Bertie about this but she was obviously moved. Margaret

Beckett, very strong. That speech was text and around two Labour

waverers. And Julian Lewis, a powerful voice in the Conservatives,

was raising some questions that he would say, perhaps we might agree,

the David Cameron was perhaps not quite able to answer, about the

strength of the Syrian Armed Forces. Where does Labour go from here? I

think it goes into a therapy suite! I cannot see there is much

likelihood of the two sides of the Labour Party getting on with each

other. It is ludicrous. In the press lobby at Westminster you have two

teams of briefers. One briefing for war, the other against. This cannot

continue. You need unity as a party if you are going to make sense of

the political arguments. Technically I said Labour rebels.

They were not rebels in the sense it was a free vote. No but I think we

can understand there was a tremendous amount of pressure on

Labour MPs to do as Jeremy Corbyn and the Stop the War Coalition

wished. In that sense there was a rebellion, a rebellion against the

corporate leadership. It is a nice point about whether it was whipped

or not but that is the basic reality.

After last night's vote, RAF planes wasted no time embarking

on a campaign they've been planning for months.

Four RAF Tornados took off from RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus

It's the first sortie in a mission that will also involve

Tornado planes can carry the Brimstone missile - a weapon that's

particularly effective at hitting moving targets with great accuracy.

There are hundreds of different armed groups fighting in Syria,

The government's forces are concentrated

around Damascus and in the west of the country.

To the north and south of them are the so-called moderate rebels,

In the north, along the Turkish border, there are the

Our bombs will be targeting so-called Islamic State.

They control a huge swathe of territory across Syria and

The Defence Secretary has confirmed that last night they hit the

Omar Oil Fields in eastern Syria, very close to the Iraq border.

It is targets in Raqqa - IS' de facto capital

- that are likely to be the focus for the bombing, which is

Meanwhile, the Russians have said they soon hope to have more than

They also claim to be hitting IS targets, but intelligence suggests

that many of their bombs are, in fact, falling on targets of the

moderate rebel forces that we're relying on to fight the ground war.

This is what the Defence Secretary said this morning.

There was a lot of talk in the House of Commons about bombing Raqqa.

This is about cutting off the Daesh terrorists, cutting off their supply

routes, dealing with the oil and the smuggling and making sure that they

can't reinforce their efforts in Iraq and that they don't become a

safe haven for terrorist attacks in Britain. There are plenty of targets

in eastern Syria that the French and the other air forces involved

With this strong decisive vote in the House of Commons, the RAF is now

able to strike in Syria, just as it has already been striking in Iraq.

That was the Defence Secretary. We're joined by Frank Gardner and by

Crispin Blunt. Frank Gardner, the Tornado jets had

their first bombing raids in Syria. They chose to go to these oilfields

in the east. They have already been attacked by American and other

allied planes. On October the 21st there was a much bigger attack than

there was last night. What happens next in the British effort over the

skies of Syria? Well, the Tornado pilots did not choose the targets.

They were selected for them. They were selected by the operation

centre and cat are but it would have been done with political approval by

Michael Fallon. It was done very carefully. You can imagine how

politically disastrous it would be if the very first air strike carried

out by an RAF plane went and mistakenly bombed a school or a

hospital, or there were civilian casualties. The RAF say that in over

400 air strikes they have conducted in Iraq over the past year, there

has not been a single civilian casualty. It is hard to validate

that on the ground. You cannot do the bomb damage assessment. You have

no freedom of access. They have not had any reports of civilian

casualties. Where do they go from here? Britain is sorting into a

wider air campaign predominantly by the Americans but also that the

French and in conjunction with the Russians, who are doing their own

targeting. Britain will have some say in what the targets are. They

have got officers and analysts in Qatar who are poring over satellite

maps and intelligence and looking at what the targets are. But

essentially we will be a small cog in a very big machine run by the

Americans. The oilfields are being hit, the

ones under control of Islamic State because they get revenues from them,

by selling the oil to be but you live in areas controlled by Islamic

State. But we are told it is also exported and Turkey has been

mentioned as somebody who pays for this oil. Do we have any evidence of

where this oil is going beyond that which is not sold domestic league?

Yesterday, the Russian military rolled out what they said was

conclusive satellite evidence of the supply of Isis controlled oil to

Turkey. It is part of the ongoing spat between anchor and Moscow. What

actually happens in practice is that oil is produced in eastern Syria and

sold by Isis to middlemen, smugglers. Then it gets transported

across-the-board -- across the border into Turkey and is also sold

to the Assad regime. It is hard to find evidence to say the Turkish

government bought the oil or the Syrian government did. These are

paperless transactions, it is no good trying to hit the banking

system because it's not done through that, it is cash in hand through

smugglers and middlemen. It's been going on for quite some time. I have

to say that the Russians have taken an incredibly proactive role in

hitting the vast com boys of oil tankers that are the economic

lifeline for Isis. They have really been the first to do this in a big

way. The lead is now being followed by the Americans. There is a kind of

belated attempt to choke off Isis' revenues from oil. Don't go away

because we've got lots more to talk about with you and Crispin Blunt.

We're joined now from RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus by our correspondent,

That is the base where the RAF jets left overnight. It is busy and

crowded in the skies in the conflict area in Syria. How difficult is this

mission for the British jets and their fighter pilot? Essentially, in

terms of the risks because the skies are so crowded, certainly, obviously

as far as Britain and the coalition led by the US are concerned, it is

absolutely all coordinated with them, through the air operations

centre in Qatar. They will be coordinating, deciding which planes

are going where, from which country. That is all co-ordinated.

To what extent it is coordinated with Russia is another matter but my

understanding is there has been an agreement between the US and Russia

to prevent any accidents happening. In theory, it should all be

co-ordinated to prevent any problems. They have returned safely

from the first mission. What is the scope, looking ahead, to the British

air offensive? In terms of the number of aircraft, it is about to

double. They have eight Tornados based here at the moment but there

are another eight on the way. Six typhoons and another two Tornados

coming and also a transporter bringing all the ground staff and

the crews, etc, over. In terms of capacity, it is about to double. In

terms of scope, how often, the targets they are going to hit, is

another matter. The targets are more difficult because ice is clearly

know they are under attack from multiple air forces from different

countries. They can't be as open as they were being above ground. They

need to be much more hidden, particularly in Raqqa. There are

reports that they are much more mingled into the civilian

population. As we saw from Sinjar, which was retaken by the Kurds

recently, the Isis militants had been digging tunnels to protect

themselves there. The targets are more difficult but there is a

significant intelligence gathering operation going on, not fees with

the bridges biplane which has been flying over Syria for some time. One

of the criticisms here has been that British forces will make little

material difference to the offensive already underway in Syria. What is

your assessment? I think that probably, any contribution is going

to be welcomed, however small. Obviously, it is limited because the

RAF as limited resources so it is a limited contribution but it does

help. Certainly, the RAF are talking up the technology they have. There's

been a lot of talk about the Brimstone missile which is very a

it, which poses less risk of civilian casualties. -- very

accurate. They say it is fairly unique so they can bring it to the

operation. It means with extra crews and aircraft coming in, it takes the

strain off some of the other countries. It is a contribution but

absolutely, yes, it is limited. But again, the other issue is if bombing

really works, whether it will succeed in defeating Isis.

Obviously, everyone says it won't, it can impact and weaken them but it

won't be defeated until brown forces go into absolutely take them out.

Richard Galpin in Cyprus, thank you. Frank Gardner is still with us in

Broadcasting House and Crispin Blunt is with us in the studio. Crispin

Blunt, let me come to you and pick up the points made from Cyprus on

ground forces. The government has made something, some would say much

of the 70,000 disparate fighters on the ground that are not part of

Islamic State and not part of al-Masirah and other hardline

organisations -- al-Nusra. But aren't these the people the Russians

are striking? They appear to be. What is happening here is that you

have an exercise of the Russians trying to strengthen the regime's

position by some of their targeting on Isis but some on these people.

You have got the Saudis and other countries who are continuing to

provide lethal weaponry, which we are not, to these people, to try to

strengthen their position before we get into ceasefire talks. Frankly,

this should stop on both sides. We need a ceasefire and we need the

transition process to happen so we can get both of these forces after a

ceasefire, and with a transitional government then turning their guns

on Isil. That is not going to be enough, 70,000, the Syrian army,

with 200,000 plus effective, I understand, is not going to be

enough. They are going to need significant support from the

surrounding Sunni nation in a military said on the ground and very

possibly from the rest of the international community as well in

order to take on these 20-40,000 fighters in Iraq and Syria, many of

whom are determined to fight to the death. But none of that is going to

happen very quickly. If it is to happen, doesn't it mean that Britain

has two except that for a transition -- has to accept that transition

period of indefinitely, President Assad is there and not much on the

ground can happen without the Russians being onside? Things are

moving. Our language has changed about President Assad. What the

Foreign Secretary was saying to the select committee in the summer was a

very firm line on Assad and by September, it changed. We are

envisaging a role for Assad at the beginning of a transition process.

If we and the Americans have dropped the precondition that he must go

before talks can be entered into, that is enabling the talks to happen

and with a target date of them starting on January the 1st, the

Saudis are assembling the opposition spokesmen for these talks now, it

seems, in Riyadh. There is a date, the 1st of January, for the talks to

commence. The Russians need to deliver the Assad government to the

talks because they have got to get out of the position they are in

otherwise they will be there in definitely trying to support a

regime under assault from well over half its population. Frank Gardner,

the politicians on both sides of the debate yesterday, those who were in

favour of bombing and those who were against, made much of the Vienna

talks, said there was real progress being made that some kind of deal

could be done among the disparate anti-Assad forces but also involving

Mr Assad and involving the Russians. Are they not really, this diplomatic

move, aren't they really still at ground zero? No, if you were to use

the analogy of Matt Every, I would say they are at camp one, no longer

at base camp. They are not very far up the mountain but slightly ahead

of where they started. The big difference, I think, the big

positive is, and I never thought I would hear myself say this, is that

Russia is involved. When Russia joined in the air strikes on their

own agenda at the end of September, a lot of people, huge amount of

people, especially in the Middle East said it was a disaster and it

would be another Afghanistan, which would mobilise the whole Middle East

against them. It has not done that. It is true that a lot of the

strikes, in fact the bulk of them have been hitting what most beagle

would consider to be the wrong targets. They have been hitting the

non-Isis rebels who are the biggest threat, just as Crispin Blunt said,

to President Assad. But the fact is, they are at the table and so is

Iran. Both of those countries are the ones who can, when they choose,

at the right time, make Assad go. The problem here is that if you

force President Assad out in a rush, you risk the whole regime

collapsing and the next thing will be Isis in the massacres and nobody

wants that. The trick is to get -- in Damascus and nobly wants that.

The trick is to get enough of the regime to leave so it is except a

ball to the rebels who have spent the last four years fighting the

Assad regime but not so many that the entire country collapses and you

have total and keep throughout what is left of Syria. I would suggest

that is quite a mid-Ishant's trick that will be required. It is -- a

magician's trick. This diplomatic process has been going on the whole

time and has not been very effective so far, not for want of trying.

People ask why people aren't talking but they are. Part of the problem is

that the people who have been turning up to the smart, fancy

hotels in Geneva and elsewhere have not really been representative of

the people doing the fighting. The people doing the most effective

fighting against President Assad have been the Islamists, who said we

do not share the West's vision of a future for Syria. They are not

really pluralistic. The people who have spent four years in the

trenches, as it were, fighting away, if they are of a Sunni Islamists

went, they will not be interested in sharing government and power with

Allah whites, who they have been fighting, or Christians for that

matter. There is a long-term problem. But the government's view

and maybe I will let Crispin Blunt say what that is because I don't

want to be accused of being a spokesman for anyone! Quite right.

Not that he is, either. Are the allies all in place? We learn that

Turkey is keeping the border open for its own reasons, it could be

buying Islamic State oil and we have learned recently that both the

Saudis and the UAE have moved their fighter planes, their bombers away

from action in Syria or Iraq to the Yemen, where they are leading the

war themselves. Can we count on them? Hopefully, Yemen, there is a

prospect of some kind of settlement there. It has been made much off by

the Saudi Foreign Minister for at least a month but they are still not

there yet. There is a hope that there would be the forces of the

Emirates and Saudi Arabia are available to redeploy. There's no

shortage of aircraft which is the issue in the Syrian theatre. To use

Frank's analogy of base one, at least we are there and you can see a

route to the summit which you could not see before. There were always

barriers in the way, conflicting national interests which would

always prevent the international community getting there. Now those

have been cleared out of the way. You can see in the detail in Vienna

Wyatt is going to work. Jordan, for example, is identifying which of the

Islamic groups are so beyond the pale that they will never be part of

a transitional governor at because they reject the whole concept. In

addition to Isil and al-Nusra. The process is in place and it is in all

the nations' interests to defeat Isil, bring the civil war to an end.

You have the unity of interest which I believe is means that finally the

international community might get its collective act together, and can

see a way to sorting this. Frank Gardner has gone to do another

interview because he is a man much in demand for obvious reasons,

because he is across the street like no one else. One other question for

you, meanwhile, the British role in the bombing raids continues. Do you

by the government's emphasis on how the Brimstone missile is so superior

to anything else that anyone else has? Well, it is a marginal

additional capability to the whole effort of the coalition. If you need

to take out a target with a low lethality warhead, so there is

rather less collateral damage than other weapons would create, with a

high precision capability, Brimstone is your weapon. But it's marginal?

If you have France, Russian and US air forces queued up over Syria and

the target appears, the likelihood of them saying, "stop! Wait for the

Royal air force to get loaded up and fly over and do this because they

have exactly the right weapon buzzword, you probably want to

engage the target that is a beard but if you can plan these things and

you have the time to do all the planning, to get it right, then it

is a good bit of extra. How many of these missiles do we have? I don't

know but they are not as expensive as some. The Saudis are the only

other country that have bought this missile. Have they been using them?

Apparently they are using them in the Yemen. Not in Iraq or Syria?

They have the capacity to use them over Syria but for them, the Yemen

is their current preoccupation. So is the claim fewer civilian deaths,

is that the idea? That is one of the benefits, one of the claims being

made for this missile. But the one thing we do know is that there have

been many civilian deaths in the Yemen but we need to leave it there.

So Her Majesty's Armed Forces are now at war with Isis militants

in Syria, but another war has been raging in the run-up to the vote

and that's the one inside Her Majesty's Official Opposition.

Labour MPs who backed airstrikes came under pressure on social

And some were sent graphic images, which included dead children.

They have also been threatened with deselection.

That means they would no longer be the Labour Party candidate in their

And anti-war demonstrators protested outside the home of Stella Creasy,

the Labour MP for Walthamstow in North London.

And on Twitter this morning, left-wingers are calling

on the 66 Labour MPs who backed military action to be deselected.

We're joined now by Nancy Taffe, a member of Waltham Forest for Corbyn,

who is active in Stella Creasy's constituency.

You would like to see Stella Creasy deselected, is that right? Yes, I

would. I am active in Waltham Forest for according. One of the things we

are arguing for, Stella has called a meeting this weekend in her

constituency, and we will be putting a motion to that meeting calling for

her resignation, for a vote of no-confidence because of her role in

voting for this war. We believe that the majority of residents in Waltham

Forest are opposed to her actions. And it is an absolute disgrace that

she called a meeting before this vote where the constituents were

urged to turn up and express their opinions. They did so. She took a

photograph. She tweeted it and said the majority of people at the

meeting did not support air strikes on Syria, and yet she went ahead and

voted for them. Are you working with the Labour Party locally on this

attempt to have heard deselected? You say she is holding this meeting

on Sunday. I cannot speak for the Labour Party in Walthamstow. I'm a

member of the Socialist party. But within the community in

Walthamstow, among activist inside and outside the Labour Party, there

has been a huge swell of sentiment against this war, which was

expressed in a local demonstration outside a local mosque. Of lies are

being told about that demonstration. It was families with candles and jam

jars. We marched from the local mosque to the Labour Party offices

and one of the chance was, what do we want? Peace. When do we want it?

Now. What evidence you have that those people who are against air

strikes want to get rid of Stella Creasy as their MP? You just have to

look at what is happening on social media amongst many people who said

they voted for Stella Creasy, people who said they went out and campaign

for Stella Creasy. I stood against Stella Creasy as a socialist. But

there are people who genuinely believed that Stella Creasy was

anti-war because she always said she was anti-war. Genuinely believed

that she stood as a socialist. And on that one issue, very important

issue, you think all of those people would now like to see her

deselected? What we are saying is, we will be putting this motion to

the public meeting. We will take this motion throughout the

constituency of Walthamstow and we urge other Labour Party members in

ward to take this motion or similar motions to demand mandatory

reselection. They called a conference to change the rules. You

could easily have a conference to make mandatory reselection in the

heart of the new Labour project, the Corbyn project if you like, and make

this a Democratic party to readmit people like myself back into the

Labour Party so we have a genuine anti-austerity and anti-war party.

I'm going to welcome viewers in Scotland. In the studio is Labour MP

John Mann and Shelley Asquith from the pro-Corbin pressure group,

momentum. Does Nancy Taaffe have the right to try to use the democratic

process is available to her to try to deselect the Labour MP, Stella

Creasy? She stood against the Labour Party. She got a pitiful vote. And

she is part of the militant tendency. We don't want them in the

Labour Party. They are nothing to do with the Labour Party. Her language

shows the obscure nature of these Trotskyites, who talk to themselves

all the time but claimed to talk on behalf of the people. Nancy Taaffe,

what do you say to that? I wish that John Mann would engage in political

debate rather than slurs. It would be easy for me to say he is a member

of the millionaire tendency, he represents a past, a romp that

existed around Tony Blair. And the Corbyn supporters represent the

future. What is happening inside Walthamstow Labour Party in the

general community is a warning to people like John Mann, who are

sitting comfortable on their nice MP salaries, who march into the

chamber, vote for war and then accuse all of those good anti-war

activist outside of being irrelevant. We will come back to

John Mann, who did not actually vote for air strikes. That shows it is

nonsense. She cannot even work out who voted what. What they are doing

to Stella Creasy is outrageous. Bully boy tactics. We had them from

the militant tendency before with Peter Taff, I don't know if he is a

relative. He was a nasty person. I saw their bully boy tactics, trying

to abuse people, break-up meetings. We had that in the late 1970s. The

militants were in the middle of it. If that comes back into the Labour

Party, the Labour Party is dead and buried as a credible force.

Can I come back on that? That is an insult to all good socialist in the

Labour Party who fought Blair. Do not forget, the legacy of Blair has

been played out in the politics of John Mann. These are the people who

hijacked the Labour Party. He can make all of the personal slurs he

wants, but he represents the old Blairite right. We need to get rid

of MPs like him. Nancy Taaffe is appealing to Labour

Party members, perhaps like you. Is that what you want to see in the

Labour Party? This sort of squabbling, which is quite brutal.

Of course not, we what we want to see healthy debate. Abuse thrown at

anyone on either side is totally unacceptable and cannot be

tolerated. It should be investigated by the NEC. But that is a small

minority of people who have been vocal about Labour not supporting

the war. There are a lot of people who have been protesting peacefully

and holding people to account. You say the abuse should stop and it is

not acceptable, it should be investigated by the NEC if there are

concrete examples. Wets look at some of the tactics used and deployed.

John Mann has said some of it is disgraceful. Tweeting MPs with

pictures of dead children, is that acceptable? I'm not going to sit

here and say what is acceptable and what is not. If it is illegal abuse

it should be reported. I think that things like marching outside a

constituency office, as somebody who has worked in a constituency office,

I think that is legitimate. But it is about how that is conducted. This

is an issue that gets people very emotive and people will want to hold

their MPs to account. There is a difference, isn't there, between

tweeting examples of dead women and children for people who voted for

air strikes, and people legitimately pro-testing outside the homes and

offices of MPs? What is wrong with that? It is a coordinated attempt to

bully people. I was still getting abuse this week. I will not use the

language because it is highly inappropriate. There is not a word I

have not been called. That is just in the last week. As it happens I

totally disagreed with David Cameron. I was part of creating the

amendment that was put forward by Graham Allen and others. But

nevertheless, I still got the abuse. What has been done to Stella

Creasy, this isn't socialist democratic progressive politics.

This is the mob. I think what Jeremy Corbyn needs to do is to remove

these people from the Labour Party. We don't want them, we don't need

them. If momentum agreed with that, they could join in. I have noticed

what they have been saying in Nottingham, rather and Lincolnshire

to me. It is unacceptable. You part of the bully boy tactics? Of course

not. I am not involved in bullying anybody. I e-mailed my MP like lots

of different people. They are not all doing that, are they? There is

an echo chamber as well. Of course it is unacceptable but most people

just want answers, just want to hold their MPs to account. Should MPs do

with their local parties tell them to do or use their own judgment? If

they were elected, like Stella Creasy, with more than 28,000 volts

compared to Nancy, who got 394, but Nancy said she made a mistake,

Stella Creasy, involving for air strikes. Should MPs do whatever

their local parties tell them to do? No, I think they need to listen to

the wider constituency. She has got a mandate. You have to balance what

you think is right and what your constituents are telling you. She

came to her own decision in the end. You have to have the balance and you

have to listen to the electorate. Would you like to see people like

her deselected if they do not reflect the view of the majority of

Labour Party members in constituencies? No, I don't think

that is the answer. John and Jeremy have said there will not beady

selections. I don't see that happening. But there does need to be

some level of accountability. I think that is what we are going to

see from the membership and from the wider electorate. Nancy Taaffe says

she would like to come back into the Labour Party. Would you like to see

that happen? The Socialist Party is a rival party. A party against us.

Currently that is obviously not the way it runs. If she was to come back

would you welcome her? It comes under certain rules and regulations,

I suppose. I don't know. But you do agree with her on her views on the

war? We definitely agree on air strikes in Syria. Nancy, sorry.

Firstly, Stella Creasy is a member of the co-operative party and the

Labour Party. She has a dual membership. The Labour Party was

born out of a federal structure. There is no reason why I cannot be a

member of the Socialist Party and the Labour Party under a federal

structure. We have heard of John Mann talking about expulsions and

suspensions. There is no more a bullying tactic than that. We oppose

all personal slurs, all bullying tactics, but we are struggling for a

democratic accountability within the Labour Party. Corbyn himself has

said we have to wait three years. If Stella calls a meeting and absorbs

all of the anger and thinks nobody can touch her, nobody can deselect,

she will betray the members in Walthamstow.

So now we're bombing them in Iraq and Syria.

During yesterday's debate David Cameron said that henceforth

But the BBC came under fire from one MP for the terminology it uses.

Can I thank you for that change in terminology and all members of

Parliament across the House for their support in this. Would the

Prime Minister join me in urging the BBC to review their bizarre policy?

They wrote to me to say they could not use the word Daesh because it

would breach their impartiality rules. We are at war with

terrorists. We have to defeat their ideology. We have to be united. Will

he join me in urging the BBC to review that bizarre policy?

I agree with my honourable friend. I have already corresponded with the

BBC about their use of IS, Islamic State, which I think is even worse,

frankly, than either saying so-called IS or indeed Isil. But

Daesh is clearly an improvement and I think it is important that we all

try to use this language. Rehman Chishti joins us now,

along with Shashank Joshi, Senior Research Fellow at the

Royal United Services Institute. Welcome to you both. You are a

politician. What has it got to do with you what the BBC says? We are

not a state broadcaster. It has nothing to do with you. What it has

to do with me is like everyone else, the first duty of the state is to

detect its citizens there when I see a report by a military expert who

says Miniter reaction can to grade, contain and control Daesh but you

have to defeat the entity, the idea. For me, when you see the BBC using

the word Islamic State, this terrorist organisation has

deliberately chosen to call itself Isil, Isis, Islamic State, to give

it the legitimacy and the appeal which is sucking in thousands of

people from around the world to its poise and ideology, including 800

from here in the UK, then on that basis, I think we have a more

responsibility to defeat them in their entirety by using force but

also defeating the ideology and appeal. If we call them what you

want, they are going to lose but your muck that's it? They will lose

in relation to recruiting people to their poisoned ideology. Why? Orange

maggot let me give you an MOD reference, Isil's strength is based

in large part on the success of its brand image which is due to the

group's ongoing appeal and recruitment efforts. Yes, you can

destroy an entity but when you get the poisoned ideology, sucking

people in from the UK, we have a duty to ensure we use the right

terminology, not to let anyone get sucked into this poisonous ideology.

There's a bomb and we have two address it. Is there a problem? It's

very when tensioned but Daesh means Islamic State, it's the same thing.

It doesn't. It in Arabic acronym that means Islamic State. You are

telling us what we should do but you can't agree with what it means? I

recognise some in the region feel it has pejorative connotations because

it is an acronym and it sounds a bit silly. You don't get to dominate the

conversation. You finish your point and I will come back for you. What

does the D stand for? State. It is DA I S H. The way we spell it and

the way the French cosmic spells it is D8 E S H of someone who so is

discord and is a bigot. That is why we should refer to them in that way

and you used the word Daesh in your article before. I comply with the

house styles of the publications are right. I don't have a problem with

using it, I don't think it is offensive and I agree many people

feel has some satirical value and that is a good thing. But overall,

the amount of time we devote to this absurd issue in every parliamentary

debate I watch on this subject makes me despair. That is five minutes we

could be debating issues of ground forces or strategy. Its displacement

tactic like a politician because someone like you commie Hajrovic fun

with this and you've made a bit of a name for yourself with this and that

is how parliamentarians were, they can talk about it and the SNP talks

about this a lot rather than talking about the issue. View have been

talking about the issue as well? I have... You have a clear view of the

issue? You voted for bombing? Can I say that when as individuals who

deliberately used the name is lamb, it is my faith, link to a terrorist

or -- Islam, my faith, link to a terrorist organisation, who have

chosen to call themselves is a mistake to get legitimacy and appeal

and when you see Islamophobia increasing by over 300% in this

country by deliberately linking, inadvertently, a terrorist

organisation with Islam, we have a duty to ensure we use the right

terminology. I don't think that British has been diminished by using

it with British National Party. Or Hezbollah, we don't imply it is

divinely faction because it means Army of God. We use the names

organisations big which does not legitimise or science in them. That

is not correct because we use the word Boko Haram, a terrorist

organisation in Nigeria who don't call themselves that. They call

themselves the preachers of the Prophet's message but local people

said, "we don't want to link our faith to this organisation" and the

BBC uses Boko Haram. If they can use that as a pejorative, they can use

Daesh. Is going to make a blind bit of difference to some kid in

Bradford who is thinking of going to join Islamic State? Let me put it

this way, two years ago, I spoke to Peter Neumann, one of the world's

leading experts on counter radicalisation and extremism and he

said what I say in relation to addressing this poisonous ideology,

that using the right words makes a difference. When you have people in

the country who are disillusioned and disturbed and some are clearly

dangerous and therefore they get sucked in and if we can use a word

which will help us, it won't help us completely but help us address

people being sucked into this poisonous ideology, I think we have

a duty to use that term. Are you poisonous ideology, I think we have

aware, if your expert has ever met a kid from Bradford? The professor I

reported about is the one who has been looking at the terrorists in

Syria and his organisation at Kings College London is looking at the

Internet they are using and their backgrounds. He's a world expert and

he understood the point I've made. Maybe you should get him on? Maybe

we will. The hard truth is that the people we are talking about our

Islamic, people may not like their version of it but it is an Islamic

and they do things in the name of that religion and it is a state, at

least a proto- state. It levies commissions on trucks passing

through its land, it taxes the people who are in it and it provides

services. It is a proposed eight. I think we can recognise some of what

they do has elements of statehood, taxation, public services, a very

well structured machine which is in part inherited from Saddam

Hussein's intelligence organisation. In no way does that mean we can

accept it as a state in the long run. But the point is really, North

Korea is the DPRK, the Democratic people's Republic of Korea. So what

the East German republic! Are any of us seriously taken in by these

absurd naming conventions? The Germans were Nazis so we used a

pejorative term. That may have been offensive to national socialist. Our

discussions on word! The BBC didn't want to put anyone up

for an interview this afternoon "The BBC uses the name the group

itself uses, using additional descriptions to help make it clear

we are referring to the group as they refer to themselves,

such as 'so-called Islamic State' We also note newspapers refer to the

group as Islamic State or Isil." That's cleared that up. While we

have been on air, Justice Secretary Michael Gove has confirmed the

criminal courts charge will be abolished from December the 24th,

saying that while the intention behind the policy was honourable, in

reality, the intent has fallen short. Our legal correspondent Clive

Coleman has been across this story and can tell is more. What is

happening? Let me tell you why the child was so highly, perhaps

universally unpopular and with just about everyone working within the

criminal justice system. It was introduced in April and it is

mandatory, it has to be imposed. It is not means tested and it is

imposed on top of everything else, so in top of -- double fine,

compensation, prosecution costs order and the victim surcharge. And

it is hefty, starting at ?150 for someone who pleads guilty in a

Magistrates' Court, rising to ?1200 for some of who is found guilty

following a trial in the Crown Court. That has led to widespread

opposition, so far, at least 50 magistrates have resigned, just the

other week, we had a powerful report from the Justice committee that

found that the charge is unjust and grossly disproportionate to people's

ability to pay and critically, and this is based on a lot of anecdotal

evidence, it creates perverse incentives for people to plead

guilty, effectively making a commercial decision to avoid the

higher criminal courts charge. Today, Michael Gove has bowed to the

pressure and has told initially the magistrates Association and just

recently to Parliament that the charge will be scrapped from the

24th of December. Is this Michael Gove's tax credits climb-down

equivalent? I don't think we can say that because Chris Grayling brought

this in, not Michael Gove. But I can't remember the imposition of a

financial penalty which has been so universally opposed. We are talking

about magistrates, the senior judiciary, lawyers, nobody has

really spoken up in favour of the charge. It was designed to partly

paid for the costs of the criminal courts. Interestingly, Michael Gove

has said this whole morass of fines and charges and penalties is very

complex and he has ordered a review into all of that. He has not

reversed the idea that guilty Biba will pay something their court

costs. Lots of real-life drama in Westminster in the last few days but

our guest of the day has used his knowledge

our guest of the day has used his basis of a work of fiction. His

novel, The Speaker's Wife, its book shelf this month.

And we're also joined by former BBC political reporter Terry Stiastny,

whose Westminster based novel, Acts of Omission,

Westminster is full of intrigue, power and relationships but we work

in this bubble, as it is sometimes called. What makes you think it has

broader appeal? I think in Parliament at least, it is

tremendous theatre. You have vanity sometimes in Parliament. You have

been out and verbal violence, all the Vs. You have a tremendous Kofler

new voices and all of these people wriggling up the greasy pole. It is

tremendously jolly as a place to watch even if some other things they

are talking about are so jolly witches what makes it gripping. Is

that what it is? All novels need conflict of some sort and as we've

seen in the last two days, you have every kind of conflict, between

individuals, parties, conflicts of ideas and within families. It is

great, a big called on. A lot of the best novels are set in closed

worlds, whether it is the world of espionage, or in all sorts of

interesting, different places where people are thrown together in that

environment. You have to make it interesting make people understand

why are real characters with flaws and good qualities as well. So you

can make the sort of parochial, some might think, politics appeal to a

more global audience like that? Absolutely, you read a murder

mystery set in a big country house and you don't necessarily have to

have been to one, and you can read about Tudor history and will fall

and find it fascinating. It is about finding out what the world is like.

Fiction gives you a bit of covering fire, too. What are you saying? My

book is plainly a work of fiction, The Speaker's Wife! It is not about

Sally Burgo. I did wonder when I first heard about it! You can convey

troops about politics without being factual. Is it overused? Or

underused as a setting, Westminster? Absolutely, you could

have so many more stories. I think it's brilliant but you have to

relate it to the wider world, explain why it matters and why it's

not just about little people fighting each other, Wyatt matters

to the world at large. It was used more, Anthony Trollope used

Parliament a lot and in the 1950s we had a lot of Parliamentary novels.

We've had Michael Dods but since then, not quite so much. Although

Andrew Marr might have done one or two! The setting for yours is the

loss of a computer disk containing the names of British informants to

the Stasi which brought up issues of transparency and privacy in the

background is obviously Westminster. Were you thinking of a particular

audience or just writing something because of your background knowledge

as a political correspondent? I was just writing a story I found

fascinating, where I said to myself, what if this happened? It has a

kernel of truth in something that happened but I took it further. What

I also did was relating it to Berlin and the conflicts you had then in

the Cold War, trying to make it not just about Westminster, where

sometimes the stakes can feel small, but bigger ideas about the world

around us. Your title could draw people in even under full

presenters, The Speaker's Wife! There is one of them in my book but

you won't find Sally Burgo. You will find a speaker who is a pernicious

little hobgoblin but that again must be in tidy fictional! Entirely!

I thought you regarded as documentary. I don't know why you

think that. I read your column. The character of John Bercow is straight

out of fiction in some ways. Not in the book! And my libel lawyers asked

me today that. What about Chris Mullin's fictitious very British

coup? Is that becoming a reality? You could argue he predicted Jeremy

Corbyn's rise in fiction. A lot of the things have happened, discs

going missing, secret going missing. The thing with my book, Acts Of

Omission is that some of the people are trying to do good but they are

terribly flawed. It is not a conspiracy but it is people messing

up, who are out of their depth and struggling. Have you read each

other's books? Not yet. You had better get going.

The One O'Clock News is starting over on BBC One now.

I'll be back tonight on BBC One at 11.35 for a special episode of

This Week, with the latest from the Oldham West and Royton by-election.

That coverage will continue through the night. Labour is battling it out

with Ukip. I'll be joined by Michael Portillo,

Alan Johnson, Emily Maitlis and Marin Alsop, the first woman to

conduct the Last Night of the Proms. If you want to see all the

candidates in the by-election, they are on the BBC website. Hope you can

join us. It's a weeknight, Roger.

I won't ask again. You think some loveless coupling

is going to solve all our problems? It's a weeknight, Roger.

I won't ask again. We just don't know who

the bad guys are any more.