12/01/2017 Daily Politics

Any thoughts that Donald Trump was planning on toning

down his style as he heads to the White House were banished

yesterday as he answered head-on extraordinary allegations

about Russian attempts to blackmail him.

Mr Trump also went on the offensive against the media bigly,

as he might say, and now seems to have gone to war with his own US

Theresa May's claims that the NHS has more money than it asked

for were challenged yesterday by the man who runs

What's the truth of it, and is money the whole answer?

We'll be paying tribute to Professor Anthony King,

political expert and veteran of the BBC's election coverage

for more than 20 years, following news of his death this

Protest should ensure people coming here filling gaps in the labour

market not taking jobs British people could do.

And did this really amount to a 'hate incident'?

The police apparently think so - we'll be joined by the man

who complained about a speech by the Home Secretary.

All that in the next hour, when we'll bring you more stories

than a Donald Trump press conference.

And joining us for the whole of the show, it's the former

Conservative leader - he's now a Tory peer -

The President-elect of the United States hadn't given

a press conference for six months, and if we'd perhaps been

beginning to forget just how different his style of politics

is to the Washington consensus, then we were reminded

In a free-wheeling and, at times, chaotic hour of taking

and answering questions, he had plenty to say

about what he intends to do with his business interests once

he takes office, about his tax returns, job creation

But the most explosive part was his response to allegations,

so far unsubstantiated, but published in some media outlets

that his election team colluded with Russia,

and that Russia held compromising material about his private life.

I saw the information, I read the information outside of that meeting.

It is all fake news, it is phoney stuff, it didn't happen, and it was

gotten by opponents of hours. Since you are attacking our news

organisation... Your organisation is terrible. I think it is a disgrace

and I say that and that is something Nazi Germany would have done and did

do. I think it is a disgrace that information that was false and fake

and never happened got released to the public as far as BuzzFeed, which

is a failing pile of garbage, writing it, I think they will suffer

the consequences, they already are. Does anyone believe that story? I

We're joined now by the foreign affairs analyst Tim Marshall.

And by what some say will be the ambassador to the EU. It cannot be

confirmed until it comes from his mouth. Tim Marshall, let's look at

the providence of this stuff, particularly what BuzzFeed has been

publishing. A company in Washington called Fusion GPS started by a

journalist from the Wall Street Journal is hired by a billionaire

Republican to gather dirt on Donald Trump to stop him becoming the

Republican candidate. That fails. Rich Democrats pick up the contract

from Fusion GPS because they want to stop him becoming president of the

United States. The information is provided largely or compiled largely

by a former British intelligence officer. This is paid for

information that we cannot verify. Was it right to publish it? Probably

not. And people that are desperate to believe it and want to believe

it, especially the most lurid allegations, which has garnered all

the attention, are desperate to believe it and I think their

suspension of disbelief is suspended. Let me tell you a story,

young reporter, 30, first time in Moscow, knock on the door, a young

Natasha. I knew what was going on and I closed the door with her on

the outside of it because the way they work, they try to get you on

camera when you are younger and if you become a senior reporter they

have something on you. I knew that at 30 years old. Do I believe Donald

Trump will be in a Moscow hotel suite acting in that manner in his

60s when he knows the way the world works? I don't. If that does not add

up, and not does not add up. It was doing the rounds, what gave it some

credibility was when it was distilled into two pages and the

authorities thought, we need to show it to the president and President

elect and that opened the floodgates. I can understand it

being published but I ask people that view things through the otter

dislike of Mr Trump, which, for give me, some of which I share, future

ambassador to the EU! Yet to be confirmed. I am not a fan but I ask

people to look at this story not through the prism of their dislike

of this man but the prism of its reliability and if it was the same

thing about President Obama, would you be thinking, this looks dodgy?

This is what Mr Trump did with Mr Obama when he tried to make out he

was not born in the United States. He is playing by the sword and dying

by it but it does not make the allegations against him right. Let

me come to the presumptive ambassador of somewhere, it could be

Moldavia, you never know. Is this damaging Donald Trump? Yesterday, it

was an incredible news conference. He comes out the winner, he looks

confident, robust, he defends himself and he proves that the news

media, some part of it, is trying to delegitimise his presidency and

election and doing it by the use of fake news. If it is not fake news,

and we don't know... Let me tell you what British intelligence told me.

This person, who was MI6. It is Christopher Steele, who was also

FBI, say he has an intelligence background, but he was paid by the

people you have mentioned who were working for Jeb Bush. He kept adding

to the dossier and using information given to him by the FSB in Russia,

most of it fabricated, the more he put into the dossier of the more he

got paid, so he made a sensationalist Bosnia and just like

your lawyer charges you more hours to get paid more. You said most of

it fabricated, what was not fabricated? I do not know what was

fabricated. You do not know if most is fabricated? The salacious stuff

we have read... Some of it might be true? It is true Mr Trump was in

Moscow. For be Miss universe contest.

Interesting, what British intelligence has been saying here.

Why was Mr Steele so keen to get this out? I understand he sent it to

Senator McCain, no friend of Donald Trump, he was touting it around and

suddenly he says, gosh, I have to disappear, the Kremlin could now be

after me. If he is a former MI6, he would have worked that out. We know

what happened to Alexander Litvinenko. Poisoned in London. The

former FBI man who took it to McCain, you can justify this in that

if he genuinely feels this is swirling around about the future

leader of the free world, it is necessary that the administration

knows this stuff is swirling around and knows this is what people are

saying, I think it is legitimate to have passed that on, legitimate for

James Clapper to pass it on. Was it legitimate to be done in the way it

was done? The intelligence services in America had a report for the

president which they were going to share with Mr Trump and parts of

Congress, which was their best intelligence on Russia's involvement

in the US election. Authenticated, their work, they stood by it. It was

a proper intelligence briefing for the oval office and two that they

attached a 2-page summary of Mr Steele's 35 page report which they

don't know whether it is gossip or anything, the Washington Post, no

friend of Mr Trump, as it says, that devalues the intelligence that the

president is getting. The New York Times has a similar approach. You

can make the case that if this is swirling around, they need to be

aware of it. When you are at the very top, you only know as much as

the people below you tell you. Two things yesterday were overlooked

which was Donald Trump shifting and saying it was the Russians he thinks

who hacked originally and the other is Rex Tillerson, the incoming

Secretary of State, evidence to the House, where his attitude, excuse

me, the Senate, where it was so far away from what Donald Trump is said

about Russia we either have a disconnect between the Secretary of

State and incoming president or we saw the real US policy. This must've

happened to you every day when you were Home Secretary, Michael? My

memory must be playing the tricks. I cannot quite bring it to mind! We

have the dossier at! I agree with what Tim has been saying, it may be

entertaining in a way, it is not much to do with us. This man... As

the United Kingdom? This man in eight days will be president of the

most powerful country in the world and president of our most important

ally. We have to do what we can to build good relations with the

administration to try to influence them where we can, that is what we

in this country should focus on. There is a serious undertone and

that is that we know now from the BBC's Paul Wood, who has been

well-informed in this, that on October 15 the US secret

Intelligence Corps issued a warrant to investigate two Russian banks and

had to do it because the CIA discovered, and that is not allowed

theoretically to operate in the US itself, so joined with the FBI and

other agencies to investigate if Russian money went into the Trump

campaign and this is an ongoing investigation, a warrant issued by

the US court. If that was true it would be illegal and a major problem

for Mr Trump. It sound so, I do not know if it has been proven yet. It

is being investigated. There are constant investigations about

foreign entities dabbling in American... They are not allowed to

finance? That is correct. This happened in previous elections where

we discovered after the fact some governments have tried to have

influence. That would be untoward and illegal. It would be dangerous

for Mr Trump if it is true? Certainly. These hypotheticals. It

would be dangerous if the Chinese or North Koreans did it. It is not

hypothetical in the sense... We do not know if it happened but there

are six US agencies involved in the investigation and a US court has

issued a warrant. There is some thought, trying to step back from

the lurid detail, that what is going on is all our emphasis is on Russia

and Mr Trump's relationship or attitude to Russia, whereas the real

story is his hard-line attitude to China and that came out in the Rex

Tillerson hearings yesterday. That is probably more important. If these

are true allegations they are devastating, but I do not see any

reason to believe them and it is tittle tattle but the substantive

stuff is what you say. Policy on Russia are laid out yesterday and

policy on China. We may be heading and I say we, a major trade war with

China. Led by the Trump administration. The Chinese will

lose more but the Americans will lose and we will lose if they have a

trade war and that is the tough stuff. We are worried about the

Russian battalions on the Estonian border and we should be worried

about what the Americans and Chinese are doing and yesterday the Chinese

aircraft carrier sailed close to Taiwan, within its air

identification zone, a deliberate push back to the Americans. The tie

with the scramble jets and ships and went out to see them. They sending

signals but it is that signal and more important, more than likely the

trade war, that will impact our lives.

President Obama told us at the start of the referendum campaign that the

way forward for trade deals were multilateral regional block trade

deals, and that if Britain left the EU we would be at the back of the

queue for a bilateral deal. Could I suggest to you that he was wrong on

both counts, that the future is now back to those deals, cheated is

over, the Brent Celek 's elections will kill it dead -- TTIP is over. I

have said all this in print, the UK is now at the front of the cube. You

heard it here first. Good news? It is, if it happens, and

I hope it will, but Tim is right, if the Trump Administration plunges the

world into the kind of protectionism we saw in the nineteen 30s... Which

was a Republican administration which did that. It would be

disastrous for the whole world economy and for us as well as the

United States and China. Would you want to work with Nigel Farage? I'm

not a UK citizen, I don't belong to a political party... He is not an

American citizen but thinks he can get a job there! I have had

conversations with him on numerous occasions. Wherever you are

Ambassador of, would you come back and speak to us? I would be glad to,

I watch your show. Along with the Queen! Jeremy Corbyn

has repeated his offer to Donald Trump to visit a London mosque with

him as and when he comes over. I think that would be a very high

priority. Let's turn our attention back

to home now, and what is probably the biggest story of the week

and the year so far, It was the focus at yesterday's

Prime Minister's Questions, but probably the more significant

moment came later on when the chief executive of NHS England appeared

before the Public Accounts Committee and was asked about

whether the health service You may remember the Prime Minister

was asked about this at the weekend, and she said, "We asked the NHS

a while back to set out what it needed over the next five years

in terms of its plan for the future They did that -

we gave them the funding. In fact, we gave them more

funding than they required, so funding is now at record levels

for the NHS." But yesterday Mr Stevens said that

interpretation of the funding Well, it's right that, by 2020,

NHS England will be getting an extra 10 billion over the course

of six years. I don't think that's the same

as saying we're getting more than we asked for over five years,

because it was a five-year forward And, over and above that,

we've obviously had a spending review negotiation in the meantime

and that has set the NHS budget for the next three years,

and it's a matter of fact, I've said it previously

to Select Committee back in October that, like probably every part

of the public service, we got less than we asked

for in that process, and so I think it would be

stretching it to say that the NHS And we're joined now

by Saffron Cordery, who's the director of policy at NHS

Providers, which is the public voice We did ask to speak to a minister

from the Department of Health, Welcome to the programme. The Royal

College of Nursing and the Royal College of physicians say conditions

in the NHS are the worst their members have experienced. The

opposition has said there is a crisis in the NHS and the Government

is in denial, but yesterday the Prime Minister maintained the real

problems are confined to a few areas. Which is it in your mind, is

it a national crisis or a handful of struggling first? You might expect

me to say this, but I think it is somewhere between the two. What

we are seeing is extreme pressure in hospitals up and down the country,

we have heard talk about trolley waits and talk about people facing

some really difficult situations, whether you are a member of staff or

a patient in A, but what I would say is that NHS trusts are really

stretching every sinew to make sure that they manage the pressure on

them. I don't think it is the humanitarian crisis that we heard

talked at the weekend from the Red Cross, but what we can't deny is the

fact that there is severe pressure out there and there is a funding

shortfall for the NHS. Spiralling demand is what some NHS trusts have

said, where has that come from? It is spiralling demand and it comes

from many, many places. We have seen things like social care cut to such

a level that people are not receiving the care they need in

their own homes, which means the severity of their conditions might

increase so they are more likely to turn up at A Also things like

cuts in local authority services for things like drug and alcohol

services, which means people who need those

services, perhaps people with mental health conditions, are turning up at

a D because they are not receiving the preventative support they need,

so we see it coming from all sources. Also we have to look at

things like GP care, so when people cannot get an appointment with their

GP, and we know how difficult that is up and down the country, when

they cannot get an appointment they often turn up at A, so there are

many sources. Could the demand have been better anticipated by some of

the hospital trust? I think it is a very, very difficult position, a

very complex picture, and it is hard to anticipate the level of demand

increases when they are already running at such a high level, so

even if you anticipate that demand, when you reach 100%, you reach 100%,

it is impossible to run at 105% capacity, so that is

a difficult question to answer. Theresa May said yesterday at Prime

Minister's Questions that there have only been a small number of

incidents in which unacceptable practices have taken place, evidence

of people being left on trolleys for hours and hours, some people dying

on them unfortunately in hospital corridors. Is that a fair

assessment, that it is only a small number of incidents? I think it is

fair that it is only a small number of severe incidents, but what is not

acceptable to anyone in the NHS or any patient turning up to a D is

the fact that we are now in a situation where trusts are not

meeting the 95% of patients being seen in four hours target, it is

about 70 to 80% at the moment, lover in many places, and that is not

acceptable, it is a constitutional target that trusts should meet.

Michael Howard, listening to Saffron Cordery, if you take on board what

she says, do you accept that at this stage when many trusts have reached

100% capacity with many others just below, 95 to 100%, that more money

is now urgently needed? No, because if you talk about now what is

clearly beyond dispute, as Sieben Stevens has accepted, the ?4 billion

extra funding I think is 4 million this year, is what the NHS after

four... He is very clear between now and 2020 what he asked for, but

needed now to prevent a further crisis in future years... Let's talk

about future years and the possibility of future crises. The

Prime Minister was right to emphasise the fact that it is a

minority of trusts which are finding it extraordinarily difficult to deal

with these extreme pressures, and that it was very important to spread

best practice across the NHS. Let me give you two specific examples. I

have the privilege of chairing Hospice UK, the umbrella

organisation for our hospices. We have a plan which we are about to

test which would enable us to take out of hospital before they died

50,000 of the 250,000 people who died in hospital every year, many of

them don't want to die in hospital, don't need to die in hospital, and

should not die in hospital. That would relieve pressure on beds.

Another example, in Cardiff Bay have a treatment centre for people who

have had too much to drink, so people who have had too much to

drink are referred to that centre, not accident and emergency, they

don't add to the pressure in accident and emergency, they don't

make life difficult for the staff and other patients, and what I think

is necessary, what the NHS should be better at, is spreading best

practice, taking advantage of initiatives of this kind and making

sure that the money is much better spent. But they cannot do that

because there have been cuts to council services, and I take the

preset... They do it in Cardiff. Councils themselves say they have

had to cut the kind of care that leads to the bottleneck at A How

do you answer those points, that the kind of best practice he has

outlined could be spread more widely across the NHS? I have two points to

make, it is ?3.7 billion this year and Simon Stevens was clear in

saying that unless there is significant extra investment in

social care and broader services then this would not be enough, and

it is important to take that on board. In terms of beds, best

practice, we are seeing NHS trusts up and down the country working with

partners, the voluntary sector, other bits of the public sector to

put those schemes into place but it takes time, and to really transform

services takes time. What we need to do is double running, fun and what

we have got there and fund investment in transformation. There

has been some briefing against Simon Stevens in the newspapers, has he

been treated unfairly by Number Ten? At a time of extreme stress and

pressure in the NHS when everyone is doing everything they can, I don't

think it is fair at this point, or acceptable, to focus the blame on

NHS leaders and, by extension, NHS staff and the patients that turn up

at A What we have to see is maybe standing back on this and starting

to look at the problem in hand, which is demand going through the

roof, nowhere to divert patients to, and we need to start preventing some

of these problems from arising, rather than starting to call for

people to look at their own position. And you think it was

Number Ten that has been briefing against him? I don't have any

information on that. Thank you very much.

Now, who remembers the EU referendum?

Well, in case you had, too, here are some of our favourite moments.

And I will go to Parliament and propose that the British people

MUSIC: Should I Stay Or Should I Go? by the Clash.

I'm actually ringing you from the Vote Leave campaign.

It's nonsense, it's not true. I couldn't be clearer than that.

Why should they tell us how powerful our vacuum cleaners should be?

Why should they tell us how powerful our hairdryers should be?

The UK is going to be in the back of the queue.

Britain will be permanently poorer if we left the European Union.

The shock to our economy after leaving Europe will tip

They have done this in order to scare the pants off

The UK asparagus will be just as sprouting, just as delicious,

The European Union, many warts and all, has proved itself to be

If we vote Leave and take back control, I believe that this

Thursday could be our country's Independence Day.

Ah, it seems like it was only last summer.

It was. Oh, right there you go!

Well, we're going to reflect a little on the referendum campaign

now, and look ahead to what might happen once the Brexit process has

really begun with two pivotal figures from the Leave

It's Paul Stephenson - he worked on the victorious

And James McGrory, who worked on the not-so-victorious

Let me come to the victor first, what is the single biggest reason

why you one, looking back? I think the renegotiation, the failure of

the renegotiation to deliver anything that was sellable on the

doorsteps to the British people. The British people have been sceptical

of the EU for a long time, only about a third of the public really

like the EU and want to stay in regardless, and a whole bunch of

people in the middle that both campaigns were chasing, the swing

vote, needed to be convinced, and one way

to convince them was to scare them about the consequences of change,

the other way was to get a good deal out of Europe. Lots of people like

me were in favour of reform who might have been convinced by a

better deal but when you are forced into a binary choice, it is, if this

is what is on the table, let's go for God. What do you think was the

biggest reason that you lost? I think what Paul said, especially

when there was 30 years of almost unchallenged Euroscepticism in this

country that had been allowed to take hold and people on my side of

the argument have to take responsibility for not challenging

that in the decades running up to the referendum. When you had such

clear messages about money, border and laws, which the Leave campaign

did, trying to counter them in, what, six months, without anything

new to show that European reform was a big deal that was going to be able

to deliver, changes that people wanted, made it difficult.

There are always mistakes made in campaigns, looking back, were their

mistakes you made that if you had not made them, the campaign, would

have made a difference? You cannot point to one single finger and say

if we did this differently we would have won, there were too many

different factors involved. The fact that our campaign was reluctant to

attack the Leave campaign in the same way the Leave campaign were

perfectly ready to attack our campaign did not help. Was it a blue

on blue problem? It was, coming from Downing Street, and I understand the

reasons, there were political reasons why they wanted to keep the

party together afterwards but sometimes it was like bringing a

spoon to a knife fight. I think they were right because it was when

Downing Street authorised attacks on people like Boris Johnson and

Michael Gove and suddenly these people realised they were in a death

match. The Prime Minister and Chancellor's language was severe

throughout the campaign. They said people were economically literature

and half the MPs were threatening World War III. I take the point that

when they started going for senior figures, they got John Major and

Michael Heseltine out to attack people on our campaign that people

like Boris and Michael foot they needed to go on the attack. What are

your thoughts, Michael? I am more interested in the future. It is a

huge historic event. I agree, David Cameron and his Bloomberg speech

saying he was setting out to achieve fundamental reform of the European

Union. If he had got it, like Paul, I would have been on his side in the

referendum campaign, but the deal he brought back was so inadequate, it

was barely mentioned during the campaign. No one could say... In my

experience, it was not mentioned. Nobody could say look at this

wonderful deal it was a dreadful deal. The same is true of Harold

Wilson in 75 when he brought back a deal barely mentioned and he won. He

did but it was a different time and different European community and I

think there is a limit to which you can draw parallels. Who was the hero

of your campaign? The single most important person? Can I have three?

No. I would say Boris. Will Straw deserves credit for running a

professional campaign. Bringing parties together without falling

out. Let's look forward. Is it not clear although the government will

not quite say it, but the Prime Minister came close on Sky News the

weekend, that we will not be members of the single market, and the

argument will be how much access will we have and on what terms, but

it will not be membership and therefore the access cannot be as

great as membership and the question is is it 90%, 70% of what we have

now? That is at the crux of negotiations? I think so. People

accept we will leave the debate now is whether we stay in the customs

union and get benefits of free trade deals with countries like America,

and what length of transition period and will there be one and what

length? Beyond the two years? Correct, if we leave the customs

union and single market there is an argument for having a transitional

deal of two, five years that allows you to move from one complicated

system to another. Do you accept that although there will be an

argument over the degree of access to the single market, we will not be

members in the way we are now? It is interesting the government have not

ruled it out. They have been given ample opportunity to do so. You have

to consider whether it is on the table because it is the best trading

model available. I think signs are there that is the direction of

travel the government is headed and if so, we are in a phoney debate

between in and out and the points you make are right, what is the

degree of access and if there is less Access, who are the winners and

losers under any free trade agreement? You cannot have full

access without membership therefore you will have losers, which will

mean real impact on some sectors and a debate about who the winners and

losers will be. What is your view? We must leave, it is not called the

single market, it is called the internal market and the clue is in

the name and if we leave the EU we cannot be part of the internal

market or single market and I do not believe we should be members of the

customs union. I do not think it is a question of negotiating 90%

access, 80% access, I think it's basically a choice between two

models. One which will be in the interests of the EU and of the UK,

which would be to have free trade in goods and access for services on the

basis of equivalence of regulation, something like that, that would be

the best, that is in their interests as well. If they are not interested

in that and want to somehow punish us, we should say we are very happy

with WTO rules, we can trade with you perfectly happily on that basis

and what's more, if that is what you want, we will have six, 12 months

after we leave when we will give you free access and then you can decide,

the onus is on you, do you want to follow our lead and have free

access, or do you want to put up tariffs, in which case we will too.

In the campaign you were credited with coming up with policies that

could be implemented if we left the European Union, things like an

Australian style points system on migration and more money for NHS and

cutting VAT on energy bills. These were discussed, but it is clear from

the Theresa May government that of course the Brexit campaign had no

authority to promise these things. It hasn't happened. It has not

happened but those people at the top of the Leave campaign went into a

leadership campaign they lost and Theresa May does not feel obligated

to do what we set out in the policy platform, which is a shame will stop

I think the government will give more money to the NHS. They would

have had to do that anyway. The OBR identifies money coming back from

the EU and it should be spent on the NHS. Are you reconciled now to us

leaving the EU, or do you still think there may be ways, once the

deal is done for example, perhaps a push for another referendum, that it

could be stopped? That is not what we are arguing for, but I think MPs

should be given a say on the deal in the same way they would be given a

vote on the triggering of Article 50. David Davis said it would be

inconceivable they wouldn't. If the European Parliament also had. But in

your mind, it is on what terms we leave rather than stopping it? I

think we are leaving but we should have a frank debate about the terms

without being shouted down and saying you are a democracy denier

and trying to frustrate the will of the people because you make the case

for the single market, the customs union, any of those things. We need

to debate that moves beyond remain and leave. No shouting down here. We

will end our mature debate. Now, our guest of the day

Michael Howard was of course Home Secretary under John Major,

and if there is one phrase from his time in office that has

stuck in the public's mind then it But, since then, the Conservative

Party has taken some quite different views on what prison is for,

and how many people should be in it - questions that have again been

thrust into the spotlight following recent disturbances

in English jails. Strangeways, Manchester,

27 years ago. Two people died and ?60 million

of damage was caused in the riots. Overcrowding and harsh

conditions were blamed. Three years after the Strangeways

riots, the new Home Secretary, Michael Howard, told his party

conference that he wanted to lock more criminals up and keep them

in austere conditions. It ensures that we are protected

from murderers, muggers and rapists, and it makes many who are tempted

to commit crime think twice. Michael Howard's "prison works"

speech without doubt hit a nerve and it offered an apparently very

powerful answer to the problem From then on, the prison

population grew. This continued under

New Labour, who also wanted Crime fell, but when Ken Clarke

became the Justice Secretary under the coalition government,

he turned years of Conservative Too often prison has proved a costly

and ineffectual approach that fails to turn criminals

into law-abiding citizens. Since 2010 we've seen a bit

of a kind of ambivalent shift between different justice ministers

and different governments. So under the coalition government,

you had Ken Clarke gently trying to drive the prison population down

a little bit, then his successor, Chris Grayling, showed

no interest in that. Under this government,

if you commit a crime, you are more likely to be caught

and charged, you are more likely to go to prison,

you will go there for longer, and it will cost the hard-working

taxpayer less to keep you there. But, under his watch, a series

of reports highlighted rising Then there was another

change, when Michael Gove He wanted to bring the focus back

to the rehabilitation revolution It's because I'm a Conservative I

believe evil must be punished, but it is also because I'm

a Conservative and a Christian that After the EU referendum,

the new Prime Minister, Theresa May, gave Liz Truss the justice brief

and her challenges include overcrowding,

understaffing and riots. She's promised the biggest reform

of the system in a generation. My starting point is refocusing

the system so that everyone is clear that safety and rehabilitation

is the purpose of the prison system, setting this out for the first

time ever in statute. But some feel the government

is still failing to address Both Labour and Conservative

politicians have made the mistake of allowing sentence length

to increase, so they are always Our prisons have never been

resourced to the degree that they need to be to do

what all parties want, which is they should be

places of rehabilitation Soon after the recent riots,

two former Home Secretaries and the former Deputy Prime Minister

called for the prison population to be halved

to the level it was at before But the jury is out on how long it

would take to achieve this and how much public appetite

there is see this happen. Michael Howard, author

of the "prison works" We heard from the Prison Reform

Trust that says it has been a mistake by Conservative and Labour

governments to allow prison sentence length to increase, is he right? No,

look, you can argue and I would strongly dispute that perhaps the

prison population as it is today is a little bit too high, much higher

than it was when I left office, but what this discussion all too often

fails to take into account is the relationship between the prison

population and crime. It is true the prison population has increased

since I was Home Secretary. And recorded crime, crime according to

the British crime survey has fallen by two thirds. Why is there a high

prison population? Because the people who would otherwise be

committing the crimes cannot commit them because they are in prison.

There is often confusion. Or they should not be there with the first

place or as long, which is what the Prison Reform Trust says? I do not

agree. When I said prison works I did not been in the sense it should

rehabilitate people. I am all for rehabilitation but nobody has found

the best way to achieve rehabilitation and offending and

reoffending rates for people sentenced in the community, not sent

to prison, are also far too high, so rehabilitation I am in favour of, it

is a very difficult nut to crack. Meanwhile, when you have serious

professional criminals who are wreaking havoc on the community in

which they live, you can prevent them continuing to commit crimes by

putting them in prison so that they cannot continue to commit those

crimes. You say it is a hard nut to crack but were you willing to look

at the idea of rehabilitation, putting it at the centre in the way

Ken Clarke would say he tried to do and perhaps arguably Michael Gove

and Liz Truss are trying to do now, whereas you and Chris Grayling

concentrated more on rhetoric. It was more about locking up people,

punishing people and rehabilitation was a secondary thought. It was not

just rhetoric because the prison population did rise and crime fell.

My main objective was to stop the rising crime. When I became Home

Secretary I was told crime had risen by an average of 50% for the

previous 50 years and there was nothing I could do about it and I

was determined to do something about it and I did so crime fell by 18% in

the four years I was Home Secretary. I was also keen on improving

education and we spend more on education in prisons when I was Home

Secretary because that is a key to rehabilitation.

You say you think the prison population is too high... I do, I

don't know... You said it may be too high, we can debate whether it is

too high or not but the prison system is in some sort of crisis,

there are overcrowded jails and understaffing of resources and we

have seen outbreaks of violence. Would you say the prison system as

it is currently does not work any more? I certainly wouldn't say that.

You do need to build more prison places if the population continues

to rise, and when I was Home Secretary we set out a programme for

building more prisons. I entirely accept that. But they have not come

on board, Chris Grayling announced a seven wood close in 2013, two more

partially shut, the new ones will not come on board until February and

2020. There is a gap of six or seven years and the prison population is

rising, that is a mistake in the planning? You have got to try to

keep the rising places in pace with rising population, but it is judges

who send people to prison, not politicians, and it is the judges

who determine the length of sentences. All right.

Now, according to the Crown Prosecution Service,

a hate incident is "any incident which the victim, or anyone else,

thinks is based on someone's prejudice towards them

because of their race, religion, sexual orientation, disability

British businesses have driven the economic recovery

in this country with, employment at record levels.

However, we still need to do more so all British people get

the opportunities they need to get on in life.

The tests should ensure people coming here are filling gaps

in the labour market, not taking jobs that

But it's become a tick-box exercise, allowing some firms to get away

We won't win in the world if we don't do more

It's not fair on companies doing the right thing,

so I want us to look again at whether our immigration system

provides the right incentives for businesses to invest

That was Amber Rudd speaking at last year's Conservative conference.

Journalists were told after her speech that a consultation

paper would include an option to require companies

to publish the proportion of international staff they employ.

She was fairly roundly criticised, with Labour accusing her of "fanning

Well, we learn from this morning's Times that one

academic was so concerned about the implications

of the Home Secretary's speech that he reported it to the police,

and, under a new policy approved by Amber Rudd,

it has been recorded as a "hate incident".

The complainant is Joshua Silver, and he joins us now

Welcome to the programme. At the Tory conference, the speech of which

you complained, she said, we need to do more so all British people get

the opportunities they need to get on in life, the test should ensure

people coming here are filling gaps in the labour market, not taking

jobs British people could do. In what conceivable way was that a

hate speech? What I had been looking at is to what extent statements made

by senior politicians about foreigners can be interpreted as

some sort of mechanism, if you like, to help foster the idea in the

country against the EU. That is a broad brush approach, and I

understand that, but what was hateful about Amber Rudd's speech,

on these words? Well, you just picked a few words... That is the

key part of the speech from the briefing later talked about... What

would be hateful about looking at companies... It is discriminating

against, picking on foreigners? Why is it picking on foreigners to say

people should be able to get on in life? She did say that she would

keep lists of foreigners. That is not what the briefing was, I was at

the conference, it was a press report that said that. Well, I

certainly picked up, the press report was not accurate. What the

briefing was, we had people at the briefing, it was an option, didn't

happen in the end, but it was an option to look at a breakdown of

companies of what percentage of foreign-born workforce they were

employing and British-born, roughly an idea that Ed Miliband had

proposed himself several years ago. You are a physicist, right, at

Oxford? A Labour economist may well find that information very useful to

work out where we are failing to give people already in this country

of all hues and ethnicities and colours the proper skills. What is

hateful about it? Keeping lists of foreigners is something... But that

is not what was proposed. You just said it was. No, the proposal was,

it was an option that was never done, was to find out if a company

was employing 25% migrants or 30... What do you mean it was an option,

what are you saying? It was an option, they didn't proceed. But

they floated it. Did you watch the speech? No, but I read the draft and

read all the feedback. But it was the speech you complained about?

Yes. So you complained about a speech you haven't watched? I have

read it carefully and looked at the feedback. I understand the feedback,

politicians and sometimes journalists can't believe the

feedback in itself. I'm still trying to find out what is hateful about

the remarks... It is discriminating against foreigners, that is what it

is about. Why? Because you pick on them and say, we want to give jobs

to British people and not foreigners. That is not what she

said. She simply wanted to find out if there are skills shortages and we

are bringing people into do these jobs because our people don't have

them, why would you not want to give British people the skills? It can be

interpreted that way. The police in the end did not do a formal

investigation but did recorded as a hate incident. Yes. Was this a hate

incident? Michael Howard, I was asking you. Of course it wasn't. I

think, you cited Ed Miliband, what Amber Rudd said was no different to

what Gordon Brown said when he was Prime Minister, that there should be

British jobs for British workers. That was much more expert is! It

was, and nothing was done about it. I think Mr Silber should be

thoroughly ashamed of himself, because what he's doing is to bring

a piece of well-intentioned legislation into disrepute. The

meaning behind the legislation is very important. It is meant to deal

with hate crimes and Mr Silver, who has been unable to justify what he

has done in the face of your questioning, is bring dingbat

legislation into disrepute. I will give you a quick response,

Professor. The response of the public was that this was

discriminating. Have you made other complaint about politicians'

speeches? Well, no, I'm not a typical, normal complainant but I

have also looked at one of the statement, a statement made by Mrs

May. Mrs May stated that she... Very briefly. Mrs May said she was in

effect going to expel all foreign doctors. And that was also picked

up. We are going to leave it there, I don't run by Mrs May saying that,

but if you take it forward I will look forward to it. Thank you very

much. Now, some sad news this morning

as we learned of the death of Professor Anthony King,

one of Britain's leading experts He helped us understand electoral

trends, the opinion polls and political history,

and for more than 20 years helped Let's look back at some of his most

memorable contributions. Conservatives are deeply

schizophrenic about the Labour Party. On the one hand they don't

like the idea of red in tooth and claw socialism but they also believe

they are the party to beat so they find it difficult to make up their

minds on this issue, quite understandably.

Even if our forecast did not exist I would say on the strength of these

results that Mrs Thatcher will be back in Number Ten for the next four

or five years with a much reduced majority but a perfectly adequate

working majority, more than a slender majority.

Paddy Ashdown is still talking the language of somebody who thinks one

day the Liberal Democrats can be a major force, possibly even oust the

Labour Party as the main opposition to the Conservatives. I really think

that particular balloon needs to be punctured. If our exit poll is

correct, this is a sensational night that we face. Absolutely. Landslide

is too weak a word. I offer you the following, it is an asteroid hitting

the planet destroying practically all life on Earth.

Brilliant! The master of understatement!

And we're joined now by Professor John Curtice,

You are smiling, give us your memories of him. The extraordinary

thing about Anthony King, especially on television, was that you could

give him a relatively dry statistical essay, for example,

maybe the Labour Party doing relatively well in places with lots

of students, and at 2am or 3am Tony King would be able turn that into an

interesting story, and to do so with butter fluency and with remarkable

elegance. I think probably if you were to go through the whole of the

recordings that you still have of Tony King's contributions to the

BBC, you will probably struggle to ever hear and umm or ahh or any sign

of linguistic evidently, he was extraordinary in his turn of phrase,

a broadcaster's dream, and it also meant he was somebody who conveyed

to the public the story of election night, what was interesting, what

was the implication for the politicians, and to that extent at

least turned it from simply being a night about numbers into a night

about politics. How did he come to dominate our screens in terms of the

coverage in the 80s and 90s, how did he get here and into our political

life, as a Canadian? He came to the UK in the 1960s as a scholar, having

done a degree in Canada. He went on to do a degree at Oxford and moved

not long thereafter, and with the contributions he has made he is one

of those people who could turn lessons into a place where the study

of politics was one of his strengths, and it became one of the

leading department, partly to do with Anthony King. He worked with

Doctor Gerald Butler, also a doyen of election television, on the 1966

election and he became part of the world of those academics who on the

one hand are very serious academics, no doubt that Anthony King was a

serious academic, but at the same time are also contributing to the

world of journalism. Apart from his involvement with the BBC he was also

the Daily Telegraph's psephologist the many, many years and wrote up

monthly polls and weekly during the general election, said he was

involved not just in broadcasting but also writing and that is how he

came into that world because, like David Butler, he had that

combination of talents. Do you remember his coverage well?

Of course I do, and I think this is an opportunity for us to pay tribute

and remember the importance of people like Anthony King, but not

just him, who explain clearly to the public... Make it accessible. What

lies behind the story, make it interesting, give it great depth.

Well, John Curtice, thank you very much, I am sure you will miss him

very much, thank you for coming onto the programme to talk about Anthony

King, who has died, very sadly. Very sad, Professor Anthony King.

The one O'Clock News is starting on BBC One, I will be back on BBC One

tonight for the first This Week Of The Year.

That's with Michael Portilo, Chris Leslie, Dr Saleyha Ahsan,

Miranda Green and Paul McKenna from 11:45.

And I am back here again at noon tomorrow with all the big

If we don't do something, it's going to burst, and it'll kill him.

It'd be good to get it over and done with

There is a rumour, there is a rumour that they have a bed.