:00:08. > :00:11.There are all sorts of scapegoats, the Japanese tsunami, the Royal
:00:12. > :00:16.Wedding, but the plain fact is, that the British economy is in
:00:16. > :00:21.trouble. The latest figures out today show it is growing at 0.2%,
:00:21. > :00:25.not recession, but not recovery either. Just a nether world of
:00:25. > :00:28.stagnant growth, gathering inflation, and Government austerity.
:00:28. > :00:32.Can we escape from the zombie economy?
:00:32. > :00:37.Services are up, manufacturing is down, the economic rebalancing we
:00:37. > :00:40.were promised doesn't seem to be going quite according to plan.
:00:40. > :00:44.As the economy flatline, are we months from sustained recovery,
:00:45. > :00:50.years or even a decade? All three main political parties
:00:50. > :00:55.are here with their prescriptions. Last week we revealed accusations
:00:55. > :00:59.of celebrity phone hacking at the Sunday Mirror, now Mirror Group are
:00:59. > :01:03.launching a review of their journalistic standards, but still
:01:03. > :01:07.denying everything. A year tomorrow, the Olympics begin,
:01:07. > :01:11.the author, Ian Sinclair, asks if the huge costs can be justified.
:01:11. > :01:20.Many of the great things promised as a result of the Olympic legacy,
:01:20. > :01:28.are here already. Or were here and have disappeared.
:01:28. > :01:33.Paralympic gold medallists, Will Self are here, as is the Olympics
:01:33. > :01:37.board member, Tessa Jowell, with Baroness Gray-Thompson.
:01:37. > :01:43.Dismal is perhaps the best word to describe the state of the British
:01:43. > :01:47.recovery from recession, if you can really call growth of 0.2% recovery
:01:47. > :01:50.at all. The word the Government prefers is "stability" which is
:01:51. > :01:56.another thing all together. The opposition claimed again it was
:01:56. > :02:01.proof of the need for plan B. No chance, said Number Ten.
:02:01. > :02:08.0.2% is a bit of an unimpressive number, it tests the creativity of
:02:08. > :02:10.the politician to turn it into evidence of soaring success. I am
:02:10. > :02:14.afraid the conclusion is that George Osborne's policies have
:02:14. > :02:18.choked off the recovery in the previous nine months. It was 2.1%
:02:18. > :02:22.growth, now in the last nine months just 0.2% growth. This is a
:02:22. > :02:25.flatlining economy. Growth would have been a bit higher,
:02:25. > :02:29.except, you know how the Royal Wedding was going to be really good
:02:29. > :02:33.for the economy and everything, well it turns out it wasn't. Along
:02:33. > :02:36.with the Japanese tsunami and the warm weather in April, the Office
:02:36. > :02:40.for National Statistics have said they have had to revise their
:02:40. > :02:44.guests on growth by making some other guesses. The effects of these
:02:44. > :02:49.different special factors do go in different direction, and are
:02:50. > :02:59.subject to a high degree of uncertainty, but our overall broad
:02:59. > :03:04.brush and illustrative anal sis suggest that they together have sub
:03:04. > :03:06.- anal sis suggest that they have subjected from GDP
:03:06. > :03:11.There are more voices telling the Prime Minister to do something
:03:11. > :03:16.different, at the moment if we believe the rumour, one of those
:03:16. > :03:19.voices belongs to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who wants, we are
:03:19. > :03:22.told, an early reduction in the top rate of income tax. Both sides are
:03:22. > :03:25.denying there is any sort of disagreement between them. Today,
:03:25. > :03:28.it was almost as if the Prime Minister and the Chancellor were
:03:28. > :03:32.reading from the same script. I think we should be positive,
:03:32. > :03:36.because the economy is growing. There is positive news today, which
:03:36. > :03:41.is the economy is growing. More people are in work than a year ago.
:03:41. > :03:45.We are creating jobs. Clearly we are, if you like, some stability in
:03:45. > :03:48.a very uncertain world. crucially, at a time when many
:03:49. > :03:51.other countries in the world face a lot of instability, we are
:03:51. > :03:56.providing stability in Britain, and we are a safe haven in the storm.
:03:56. > :04:00.Why has growth been a bit, well, mouse had-like. The graph has been
:04:00. > :04:03.falling for the past year, only just staying above the line in
:04:03. > :04:08.positive territory. How do you boost it? Some believe the
:04:08. > :04:11.Government has to retarget cuts in spending. You don't want to be
:04:11. > :04:15.hitting the people most likely to be spending all the money they have,
:04:15. > :04:19.and you don't want to be pushing people out of work, for instance,
:04:19. > :04:22.by removing child cautious which means often the second earner it
:04:22. > :04:25.might not be worthwhile them working any more. Some cuts you
:04:25. > :04:29.should be avoiding, if you want to find the money you need to look
:04:29. > :04:31.elsewhere. Where elsewhere? At the top end of the earnings
:04:31. > :04:36.distribution, if we have to find money, rather than hitting people
:04:36. > :04:39.who rely on childcare to work, take the money from top earners, and we
:04:39. > :04:44.spend a huge amount of money as a country still, we should look there
:04:44. > :04:47.first, rather than the lower to the middle ends of the income
:04:47. > :04:50.distribution. Is getting households to spend more really the answer to
:04:50. > :04:53.growth? We don't want them spending more, it is just a mistake to think
:04:53. > :04:57.there is some solution out there, some magic bullet where the
:04:57. > :05:01.Government runs even more debt and the private sector runs more debt.
:05:01. > :05:04.We need to get out of the debt as a country, that will be a long, slow
:05:04. > :05:08.and painful process. It is not likely, I think, to be a prd of
:05:08. > :05:13.quiet, some people suggest that - period of quiet, some people
:05:13. > :05:19.suggest that it might be like Japan in the 1990s where it was slow. I
:05:19. > :05:24.suggest it will be a bumpy ride, with some periods where we have
:05:24. > :05:27.recessions and others with rapid growth and quickly.
:05:27. > :05:32.The Prime Minister was in Caerphilly, at a company that helps
:05:32. > :05:35.the jobless back to work. When we talk about growth figure, we are
:05:35. > :05:39.talking about the UK-wide average, there is a lot of regional
:05:39. > :05:44.variation within this. In this part of Wales, the average person
:05:44. > :05:52.contribute as fifth of the GDP that the average Londoner does. Although
:05:52. > :05:59.the economy has created jobs in the past year, 416,000 of them, 34
:05:59. > :06:03.4,000, or 80% went to people born over seas. There are people who
:06:03. > :06:06.come to me in my surgeries and constituency, and tell me they are
:06:06. > :06:11.better off staying on benefits rather than going to work. If that
:06:11. > :06:17.is the situation up and down the country, it is no wonder it is hard
:06:17. > :06:22.to get people into work, and make sure that culture of work expands.
:06:22. > :06:27.So changinging the welfare system is actually vital to the long-term
:06:27. > :06:32.growth of our economy. The problem, in case you hadn't noticed, is that
:06:32. > :06:42.money is a bit scarce. All the the options for growth seem to come
:06:42. > :06:43.
:06:43. > :06:47.with hefty price tags, making a supersonic recovery a bit tricky.
:06:47. > :06:52.Why are these growth figures so rubbish? I think it is safe to say
:06:52. > :06:56.it is not because of the cuts. Although cuts in services and some
:06:56. > :07:00.job cuts started in March, April, they are not big enough to cause
:07:00. > :07:04.this level of flatlining. I think it is clear that it is because of
:07:04. > :07:08.this falling spending power. Which is what contributes to that,
:07:08. > :07:12.inflation, static wage, higher deductions from wage, it amounts to
:07:12. > :07:15.a cut in real wage a cut in spending power. When you add to
:07:15. > :07:18.that, people are worried when they hear all these stories, they are
:07:18. > :07:25.starting to pay down debt, pay down their credit cards, pay their
:07:25. > :07:29.mortgages off if they can. That is the problem. Now, is it a disaster,
:07:29. > :07:33.is, are three quarters of poor growth a disaster, after the crisis
:07:33. > :07:37.we went through, probably not. What they are, what we can begin the
:07:37. > :07:40.discussion among the politicians from, is they represent the
:07:40. > :07:44.Government missing its own target. It missed its own prediction. Let's
:07:44. > :07:48.look at the graph. It has set up this Office for Budget
:07:48. > :07:52.Responsibility, which is supposed to predict what happens to growth.
:07:52. > :07:56.Here are the first four prediction, the first three of which were
:07:56. > :08:01.pretty straight line upward growth. pretty straight line upward growth.
:08:01. > :08:06.Based from early 20106789 It had a go in March 2011 in
:08:06. > :08:10.bringing it down, here is reality, the actual growth is lower. We are
:08:10. > :08:16.1.5 percentage points less in the space of a yor than what the
:08:16. > :08:22.Government predicted. This has - - a year than what the Government
:08:22. > :08:25.predicted. This is has an affect on how people live but on what they
:08:25. > :08:30.predicted. Does that mean if they are 1.5
:08:30. > :08:35.percentage points fewer they need a plan B? Plan B has been knocked
:08:35. > :08:38.about a bit, we heard it when the IMF came and put a rubber stamp on
:08:38. > :08:43.it. It is more quantitative easing if you need it, printing more money,
:08:43. > :08:49.tax cuts, if you need it, you could always Miss Your deficit reduction
:08:49. > :08:51.targets, the IMF won't slap their wrist too much with that. These
:08:51. > :08:56.things Ron the horizon when Liberal Democrat and Conservative
:08:56. > :09:00.politicians start to talk about it. Waib waib waib at the weekend start
:09:00. > :09:07.- Stephen McCabe at the weekend started talking about more quees
:09:07. > :09:10.quees quees, and we had bore - quantitative easing, we had Boris
:09:10. > :09:14.Johnson talking about cuts in National Insurance. Will it work,
:09:14. > :09:19.quantitative easing, as we have already got it, isn't exactly
:09:19. > :09:23.pushing money out into the economy. You would have to ask, tax cuts for
:09:23. > :09:26.what? To give a short-term boost to next year, or tax cuts, as we heard,
:09:26. > :09:30.some of the Conservative politicians in David's piece, talk
:09:30. > :09:34.about, to restructure the economy. If you start talking about tax cuts,
:09:34. > :09:38.you suddenly have to explain to people what they are supposed to be
:09:38. > :09:45.doing. Thank you very much. Now we had hoped to interview a
:09:45. > :09:49.Treasury minister, but we were told no-one was available. But Michael
:09:49. > :09:52.Fallon Deputy Chairman of the Conservative Party is here, for his
:09:52. > :09:57.weekly visit, and Chuka Umunna and Lord Oakeshott from the Liberal
:09:57. > :10:00.Democrats is also here. The various excuses being canvased
:10:00. > :10:04.today, put out by the office of national statistic, there was a
:10:04. > :10:08.Royal Wedding, a tsunami, a bit of nice wedding, do you buy any of
:10:08. > :10:15.this? They said if you add all of them up growth would have been 0.7%
:10:15. > :10:18.rather than 0.2%, that is quite a big difference. You buy that
:10:18. > :10:21.explanation? They are an independent office of national
:10:21. > :10:24.statistics. I asked whether you believe them? I do believe them.
:10:24. > :10:29.They are independent. Do you believe them? Well they said it was
:10:30. > :10:34.broad brush and highly illustrative. I think you can have one quarter's
:10:34. > :10:38.excuses is fine, but when you have three in a row, why don't the
:10:38. > :10:42.tsunami and bad weather affect the Germans, when their economy is
:10:42. > :10:46.booming away. One wonders what will happen in the autumn? It is very
:10:46. > :10:48.worrying, I think these figures are a devastating indictment of George
:10:48. > :10:54.a devastating indictment of George Osborne's action, I tell you why.
:10:54. > :10:56.One of the things Paul mentioned was confidence, he used the most
:10:56. > :11:01.irresponsible language before the election to describe the state of
:11:01. > :11:04.the economy, decribing it as on the brink of bankruptcy. It was?
:11:04. > :11:08.serious economist denied that was the case. And of course, afterwards,
:11:08. > :11:13.when people heard what he was planning to do with his two far,
:11:13. > :11:16.too fast cuts, confidence fell. there something about our economy
:11:16. > :11:19.that makes it so much more difficult for it to grow at the
:11:19. > :11:22.rate some other economies can grow? Yes there is something about it,
:11:22. > :11:27.the reason, you weren't there, the reason is that Gordon Brown left it
:11:27. > :11:31.in such a very bad state with such a desperately flawed banking system.
:11:31. > :11:35.I mean it is much harder for us than it is say for Germany, but the
:11:35. > :11:38.fact is, the economy is only progressing at the pace of a lame
:11:39. > :11:43.snail, it is very disappointing, and we need to look at ways to try
:11:43. > :11:47.to get it going. Just hang on a moment, the economy is growing, it
:11:47. > :11:50.may be growing more slowly than you would like, but it is growing. That
:11:50. > :11:55.growth has added half a million new jobs in the last year, it is
:11:55. > :11:59.expanding every week, there are new jobs being created every week. Of
:11:59. > :12:03.course everybody would like it to be faster, we inherited, not only
:12:03. > :12:09.the worst deficit, but a very unbalanced economy. It is growing
:12:09. > :12:12.at a lower rate than you yourselves predicted? The office of budget
:12:12. > :12:17.responsibility is independent, it is a lower rate they predicted.
:12:17. > :12:22.Inflation is higher, there is a rise of commodity prices around the
:12:22. > :12:26.world that effects us as well. raising VAT help matters? That is
:12:26. > :12:29.part of sorting out the deficit. Did it help the rate of growth?
:12:29. > :12:33.There is a big difference between us and the turmoil in the eurozone,
:12:33. > :12:40.we had to deal with the definite, we announced a plan, we are stick
:12:40. > :12:44.to go that plan. That is why the market rates for which we borrow
:12:44. > :12:49.money is down there with the German rates, we are not in the mess that
:12:50. > :12:54.Spain or Italy are in. Michael talks about the eurozone, look at
:12:54. > :12:57.the strategies in Greece and Portugal, they whacked up VAT and
:12:57. > :12:59.imposed massive spending cuts, and look at the mess they are in. There
:12:59. > :13:05.is a lesson there. One of the problems with the strategy of the
:13:05. > :13:09.Government is it is self-defeating, we already know, the OBR has
:13:09. > :13:12.mentioned already there will be borrowing of �46 billion more than
:13:12. > :13:16.originally forecast. Why? Because growth will be slower, because that
:13:16. > :13:19.is also going to be linked to falling jobs. I am afraid you have
:13:19. > :13:23.to take some responsibility for your own last Government, we are in
:13:23. > :13:27.a mess here, because the banks are not lending, and because our
:13:27. > :13:32.deficit was very deep. Now, we are starting to get, I agree with
:13:32. > :13:36.Michael, we mustn't take chances and end up with an olive oil credit
:13:36. > :13:39.rating, but the problem we have got, you are right on this one, if
:13:39. > :13:45.growth is too slow we will not get the taxes in we need and welfare
:13:45. > :13:51.payment also go up. We need to take targeted measures. Stephen McCabe
:13:51. > :13:55.said for the Liberal Democrats over the weekend, there - Vince Cable
:13:55. > :13:58.said over the weekend we need to pump more money in through
:13:58. > :14:02.quantitative easing, but the other thing, I believe is important, if
:14:02. > :14:07.there is money for tax cuts, which George Osborne is talking about, we
:14:07. > :14:12.don't give it to the people at the stop who don't need it and won't
:14:12. > :14:16.spend it, we put it into a targeted tax cut, and my suggestion would be
:14:17. > :14:21.cutting VAT from 20% to 5% on home improvements and repairs, that
:14:21. > :14:24.would get white van man going. is something argued for by the
:14:24. > :14:28.Federation of Small Businesses. have been arguing it for years.
:14:28. > :14:33.by one. Let's continue the tax thing. This isn't just about
:14:33. > :14:37.balancing the books and sorting out the deficit, we have to help the
:14:37. > :14:39.economy grow, that means cutting business stackss, we have cut
:14:39. > :14:44.National Insurance, cut corporation tax for business, we have made it
:14:44. > :14:47.easier to start up business in the regions. It means deregulation,
:14:47. > :14:51.simplifying the systems. We have said the higher rates, we have got
:14:51. > :14:54.to be competitive, at the moment we have said these are temporary rates
:14:54. > :14:57.that we inherited, and we need to make sure, all the time, they are
:14:57. > :15:02.competitive. We have a study going on as to the yield they bring in.
:15:02. > :15:07.Is that really a priority, when life is really, really tough, day-
:15:07. > :15:11.to-day, for people outside London, it is not a priority to cut the 50p
:15:11. > :15:17.rate, why is George Osborne talking about it, why not put the tax cuts
:15:17. > :15:21.where they are working. We are not cutting the tax rate at the top. We
:15:21. > :15:24.are studying the yield to it. We need to make sure our tax rates in
:15:24. > :15:28.the country are competitive. That is the answer, we need to make the
:15:28. > :15:32.whole economy as competitive as we can, that means more deregulation,
:15:32. > :15:35.backing by-election helping people grow their businesses, so we can
:15:35. > :15:40.rebalance the system. We have been hearing this for the last year, and
:15:40. > :15:45.we have got 0.2% growth. inherited an economy with the worst
:15:45. > :15:50.deficit in the west. We inherited an economy that was fundamentally
:15:50. > :15:53.unbalanced. If you let me finish. In the previous nine months...It
:15:53. > :15:56.Was all on financial services and public spending. We need to
:15:56. > :16:00.encourage the rest of the economy, the real economy, manufacturing,
:16:00. > :16:03.science, innovation, in the regions. Manufacturing output has dropped in
:16:03. > :16:06.the figures we have seen, business services and finances has gone up.
:16:06. > :16:09.This magical rebalancing that apparently George Osborne is
:16:09. > :16:12.bringing about, we are not seeing happen. What about the point that
:16:12. > :16:16.Lord Oakeshott mentioned, which is more quantitative easing, more
:16:16. > :16:20.printing of money by the Bank of England. What about that? I don't
:16:20. > :16:23.see that at the moment. If inflation is as per the Bank of
:16:24. > :16:27.England's central projection, I don't see how they can do another
:16:27. > :16:30.round of quantitative easing, it is incredibly inflationary, the other
:16:30. > :16:35.option in terms of monetary policy would be reducing interest rates,
:16:35. > :16:38.they are on the floor already. This is where the ball bounces straight
:16:38. > :16:42.back to the Government, people are looking for fiscal policy changes.
:16:42. > :16:45.The question is how bad does it have to get before George Osborne
:16:45. > :16:51.agrees to change course. Changing course, means, as you said,
:16:51. > :16:55.reversing the VAT cut, that means spending �12, �13 billion a year
:16:56. > :16:59.you haven't got. Coming off the. Can you just engage, let him engage
:16:59. > :17:02.with the question. Can you engage with the question of quantitative
:17:02. > :17:06.easing, more printing of money, what do you think? It is for the
:17:06. > :17:10.bank to decide how much money to print, there is no evidence that
:17:10. > :17:13.printing the money got through to the economy. There are bigger
:17:13. > :17:17.problems as Matthew identified, about bank lending and so on,
:17:17. > :17:20.getting money through to the banks. We have the new agreement with the
:17:20. > :17:24.banks, the Merlin agreement, so they have to lend more, it started
:17:24. > :17:29.in February, it is starting to come through. In the first quarter �2.2
:17:29. > :17:33.billion less than the target. big question is when the vicar's
:17:33. > :17:37.report comes out recommending major reforms on the banks, hopefully
:17:37. > :17:40.spliting them up, will Labour support it this time because they
:17:40. > :17:45.totally failed to before, will you support it now. I will interrupt
:17:45. > :17:48.you all there. The owners of Mirror Newspapers
:17:48. > :17:51.have begun an investigation into journalistic practices across the
:17:52. > :17:57.group's titles, last week a Newsnight investigation alleged
:17:57. > :18:02.that hacking was common place at some papers in the group. The
:18:02. > :18:05.Government, meanwhile, has released figures of how often the Government
:18:05. > :18:07.and their ministers met Rupert Murdoch and his staff. There were
:18:07. > :18:11.16 meetings by the Chancellor of the Exchequer alone since the
:18:11. > :18:15.election. Our political editor is here with more.
:18:15. > :18:19.So? You will recall on Friday, Richard Watson did a story for
:18:19. > :18:23.Newsnight based on a source a former journalist on the Sunday
:18:24. > :18:29.Mirror who had told him that phone hacking was prevalent in the past
:18:29. > :18:36.at the Sunday Mirror, against celebrity, including Liz Hurley,
:18:36. > :18:39.well, today, Trinity Mirror have announced a review of editorial
:18:39. > :18:42.control and procedures, they have told us it is not an investigation
:18:42. > :18:45.into phone hacking or any other allegation like that, and it is not
:18:45. > :18:48.a response to Friday's story on Newsnight. What about the meetings
:18:48. > :18:52.with the Murdoch organisation on the part of Government? These were
:18:52. > :18:57.promised by the Prime Minister a few days ago. Disclosure was
:18:57. > :19:01.promised? Yes. And of the 16 meetings that you mentioned George
:19:01. > :19:07.Osborne had over the last 15 months, two of those were with Rupert
:19:07. > :19:12.Murdoch, three of them with James Murdoch. Jeremy Hunt, the Culture
:19:12. > :19:15.Secretary, met Rupert Murdoch twice, James Murdoch three times, Rebekah
:19:15. > :19:20.Brooks once. What is interesting, Michael Gove, the Education
:19:20. > :19:24.Secretary, who has met, held six meetings in the last year or so,
:19:24. > :19:30.which he has met Rupert Murdoch, including three in the case of, in
:19:30. > :19:34.the space of just six weeks in May and June of this year. What I think
:19:34. > :19:38.is interesting about these links is it shows the extent to which senior,
:19:39. > :19:43.so many senior figures, were compromised, and to a degree were
:19:43. > :19:47.embarrassed by their links with Murdoch and the empire.
:19:47. > :19:52.Compromised? Potentially compromised. Michael Gove's case,
:19:52. > :19:57.he used to work for the Times, and Murdoch, highly regarded by him,
:19:57. > :20:02.his wife still works for the paper. One of the interesting aspects of
:20:02. > :20:05.what has don on over the last few weeks, is to the extent of which
:20:05. > :20:09.David Cameron has been isolate. People like Michael Gove or George
:20:09. > :20:12.Osborne, who might normally have come to his aid in public, haven't
:20:12. > :20:16.done so. In other interesting case, William Hague, who the details
:20:16. > :20:20.today don't suggest he had any particularly interesting meetings
:20:20. > :20:25.with News International. It is worth noting that he may well have
:20:25. > :20:30.been the man that introduced Andy Coulson to the Conservatives in the
:20:30. > :20:36.first place. Although George Osborne is often credited with that,
:20:36. > :20:41.calls calls calls, - Andy Coulson, way back in 2003, employed William
:20:41. > :20:45.Hague as a columnist at the News of the World at a salary of over
:20:45. > :20:48.�200,000 a year. What will you do tomorrow, in an unpredictable world,
:20:48. > :20:51.we can reasonably be confident that large numbers of us will be
:20:51. > :20:54.watching the same thing, the opening ceremony of the 2012 London
:20:54. > :20:59.Olympics will usher in the world's greatest festival of sport. The
:20:59. > :21:05.thing is on time and under budget, or under the budget that trebled
:21:05. > :21:11.after the bid went in, and will cost us all the thick end of �9
:21:11. > :21:15.billion. The massive expense was justified by the last Government
:21:16. > :21:20.because it would regenerate massive areas of East London. As we report,
:21:20. > :21:25.there is many a slip. This is how the dream took shape.
:21:25. > :21:30.Space age arenas for the world to visit. Built on three years, on
:21:30. > :21:36.wasteland and what were polluted industrial sites. The centre piece,
:21:36. > :21:42.the 80,000-seat Olympic Stadium. Amazing what a few billion can do.
:21:42. > :21:46.Already they are laying the running track, for the 100 sms. But then
:21:46. > :21:49.the most ambitious - 100ms, but then the most ambitious pledges are
:21:49. > :21:53.still to be kept. London got the Olympic, not only because they
:21:53. > :21:57.could put on a big show on time, but because of what they promised
:21:57. > :22:01.to come next. The regeneration of London's poorest areas. This is to
:22:01. > :22:06.be the launch pad, the future is supposed to start here. Behind the
:22:06. > :22:12.�9 billion plus of public money, there is, of course, a buzzword,
:22:12. > :22:17.the buzzword is "legacy". Legacy seems to be mean different
:22:17. > :22:21.things to different people. A point gleefully seized by the current BBC
:22:21. > :22:26.satire. The Olympics isn't really about sport at all, this whole
:22:26. > :22:31.thing starts when the sport ends. Sustainability is closely related
:22:31. > :22:34.to legacy? They are not the same, sorry. The original London bid
:22:35. > :22:38.promised legacy would mean the regeneration of an entire community
:22:39. > :22:44.for the benefit of everyone who lives there.
:22:44. > :22:47.Most of the Olympics will happen in the East London borough of Newham,
:22:47. > :22:52.the locals have already faced years of disruption with the building
:22:52. > :22:56.work, there is no let up. The mayor says it will only be worth it if
:22:56. > :23:00.they see the benefits? This is an area of poverty, and has been for a
:23:00. > :23:04.century. We want to change that. You are worried at the moment that
:23:04. > :23:08.people could end up resenting things. We will have an opening
:23:08. > :23:11.ceremony dress rehearsal, we want residents at that. We don't get the
:23:11. > :23:14.opening ceremony, but the dress rehearsal. We will get the feel of
:23:14. > :23:19.an Olympics being in the park. There is lots of things to do to
:23:19. > :23:22.get a feel and be part of the Olympics. You believe local
:23:23. > :23:27.residents should be invited to that? Of course they should. In the
:23:27. > :23:31.longer term East London needs job. The mayor, Sir Robin Wales, says
:23:31. > :23:34.construction of the new �1.5 billion shopping centre, privately
:23:35. > :23:38.funded, has offered far better prospects than the Olympic project.
:23:38. > :23:45.But the man so far delivering the Olympics on time and under budget
:23:45. > :23:49.says that is unfair. I could not have built this relying on Robin
:23:49. > :23:53.turning up with people to provide the labour force to the contractors.
:23:53. > :23:59.You always want to get the thing built on time and create jobs. We
:23:59. > :24:02.gave more focus here than in my experience we have ever done to
:24:02. > :24:06.creating training opportunities for people, we made it a condition of
:24:06. > :24:09.the contract with the contractors that they had to employ a certain
:24:09. > :24:13.percentage of trainees with their work force. These youngsters
:24:13. > :24:19.training in south London, are part of a charitable project run in the
:24:19. > :24:24.most deprived boroughs, to encower participation in sport. It has no
:24:24. > :24:28.olympics funding, but its director is unconvinced by promises of the
:24:28. > :24:32.game's sporting legacy. In the original bid, Lord Coe pledged the
:24:32. > :24:34.London Games would inspire a new generation of youth to greater
:24:34. > :24:38.sporting activity. Some believe no- one at the Olympics is delivering
:24:38. > :24:41.on that promise. I'm not sure who is taking
:24:41. > :24:45.responsibility, at the moment I'm not sure who it is. There are
:24:45. > :24:49.various people you could say, Sebastian Coe was obviously the
:24:49. > :24:52.person in Singapore who made the comment. Since then it is unclear
:24:52. > :24:56.whose responsibility it is to create the participation and aspect
:24:56. > :25:02.of the legacy. If you don't know who to ask, then what hope is
:25:02. > :25:05.there? I think there are many sports where participation is
:25:05. > :25:10.decreasing overall. We're hoping that the legacy will be obviously
:25:10. > :25:18.something that will happen after the Olympics. In order to have
:25:18. > :25:22.success we need to plan now. Michael di Giorgio's GreenHouse
:25:22. > :25:26.project has been lauded for encouraging sport not just for
:25:26. > :25:29.those doing it but for everyone. There are many programme where is
:25:29. > :25:32.people go in and say there are 50,000 people doing this now, and
:25:32. > :25:36.there weren't before. Yes, but you are not going to make any
:25:36. > :25:40.difference to their lives by going in for a short-term. They will stop
:25:40. > :25:44.doing it in a few weeks time? Absolutely. Perhaps the biggest
:25:44. > :25:51.headache of the games will be transporting millions of visitors,
:25:51. > :25:55.the satirists of 2012 have already made hey. It is low flying
:25:55. > :26:00.aeroplane, if you get it right everybody noticed, if you get it
:26:00. > :26:03.wrong, first everybody notices it and then they die. Stratford, home
:26:03. > :26:08.of the Olympic Park, is a growing transport hub, with 14 rail lines
:26:08. > :26:12.in and out. But the sheer volume of passengers for the games will be a
:26:12. > :26:20.challenge, and the roads, already notorious for snarl ups, are a real
:26:20. > :26:25.concern. At the Railway tap vern, just opposite the Olympic Village,
:26:25. > :26:28.- tavern, just opposite the Olympic Village business is booming. The
:26:28. > :26:33.landlady is worried, next year the road outside will be closed for 18
:26:33. > :26:37.hours a day for three months, the beer lorries won't get through.
:26:37. > :26:42.have already had the road shut for 18 months when we were dismandling
:26:42. > :26:46.a new bridge. How did you cope? managed, we were part of a building
:26:46. > :26:53.site. I know we were going to have disruption, because we are so close
:26:53. > :26:59.to the proximity of the actual site. I understand that. And people do
:26:59. > :27:03.speak to you, they just seem to think it is the Olympics, and
:27:03. > :27:07.that's it, you have to swallow. But the head of the Olympic legacy
:27:08. > :27:11.company, the man in charge of the future, says it will pay off. He
:27:11. > :27:14.knows the real regeneration of niece London will take another 20
:27:14. > :27:19.years, and private investors with further billions to spend. And
:27:19. > :27:23.there are no guarantees. If the idea that is being floated around
:27:23. > :27:27.the country at the moment, for greater realisation, stuff moving
:27:27. > :27:30.away from London to the region, maybe London won't need to grow any
:27:30. > :27:35.more? London is always growing, it is projected to grow between seven
:27:35. > :27:38.to eight million people, it is a global city, it needs to
:27:38. > :27:41.accommodate the growth. Look at all the buildings in the back drop,
:27:41. > :27:47.that is testimony to the fact that London is growing, this will be a
:27:47. > :27:51.new centre for London. Predicting whether 2012 has a
:27:51. > :27:55.successful legacy is an exercise in speculation. Because legacy is
:27:55. > :28:00.something which by definition can only be really judged with
:28:00. > :28:06.hindsight. So we will have to wait until after next year, in fact,
:28:06. > :28:15.until years after 2012, before we can really see whether the �9
:28:15. > :28:20.billion plus gamble is paying off. Tessa Jowell MP is here now, she's
:28:20. > :28:25.a member of the linlic 2012 Board, and former Olympics minister, she
:28:25. > :28:29.shadows the department. Why has the legacy plan gone wrong? It hasn't.
:28:29. > :28:34.It had two elements, the first the regeneration of East London. You
:28:34. > :28:39.have seen the evidence of that. The second was transforming a
:28:39. > :28:44.generation of young people through sport. Young people, in our country,
:28:44. > :28:49.are playing more sport than ever before. We had disagreemented with
:28:49. > :28:53.the coalition Government's decision to dismantle ...They Are playing
:28:53. > :28:57.more sport than ever before because the Olympics are coming here?
:28:57. > :29:03.Olympics are certainly an element. Certainly, when I was in Government,
:29:03. > :29:07.we put substantial amounts of money into sport that every level there
:29:07. > :29:13.is, because of the Olympics. This is a legacy before the event?
:29:13. > :29:18.you are going to create legacy you have to plan beforehand. The sports
:29:18. > :29:24.programme that we created, which saw every child playing, between
:29:24. > :29:29.three and four hours of sport a week. That took eight years to
:29:29. > :29:36.realise. The increase in budget, the original bid was �2.4 billion?
:29:36. > :29:41.We put in what is called an indicative bid. It wasn't very
:29:41. > :29:46.indicative, the original bid was �2.4 billion, and the final bid
:29:46. > :29:49.will be the best part of �9 billion. I made clear to parliament if we
:29:49. > :29:54.won the right to host the games we would have to review the budget,
:29:54. > :30:00.which we did. The substantial part of the increase was contingency,
:30:00. > :30:04.security after 7/7, VAT and the decision to be bolder and do more
:30:04. > :30:07.on regeneration than the original budget suggested S My question is
:30:07. > :30:12.given the budget was three times what you thought it was going to be
:30:12. > :30:17.when you put in the bid, have you got three times the legacy? I think
:30:17. > :30:21.without any shadow of a doubt. do so many people in the area think
:30:21. > :30:26.that is a question mark? I take that very seriously. We can talk
:30:26. > :30:36.here in west London about the Olympics in East London, and people,
:30:36. > :30:40.
:30:40. > :30:44.the people that Robin Wales are talking about. Robin Wales is being
:30:44. > :30:49.a first-class champion for the people of Newham. He wants them to
:30:49. > :30:53.have a fair share of the cake. is the population of Newham, about
:30:53. > :30:59.a quarter of a million. Is it a gesture of good faith they have had
:30:59. > :31:04.to pay �30,000 to get tickets for 100 events. Is that a gesture of
:31:04. > :31:10.their involvement? I hope that what that means is that children from
:31:10. > :31:15.Newham schools, and so forth, will be able to come to the games.
:31:15. > :31:23.free? I don't know exactly how Newham are planning to distribute
:31:23. > :31:27.their tickets, Newham will get, as do tower hamlets, as the other six
:31:27. > :31:30.Olympic boroughs. They have asked for more, they will get them will
:31:30. > :31:34.they? We are talking about legacy. And a very important part of the
:31:34. > :31:39.legacy is changing the nature of the economy, in the poorest
:31:39. > :31:44.boroughs in the country, certainly in London. What we have seen,
:31:44. > :31:50.40,000 people will work on the Olympic Park, twice the number of
:31:50. > :31:55.local people, the emphasis on' present tisships, actually creating,
:31:55. > :32:00.- apprenticeships, actually creating the legacy. This is for �9
:32:00. > :32:04.billion? You can turn up your nose and sneer at this. I'm not, I'm
:32:04. > :32:10.asking how you justify this vast amount of money? It will actually
:32:10. > :32:14.be rather less than �9 billion. The cost of the park will be �7.2
:32:14. > :32:21.billion. A snip! You have to remember that either this great
:32:21. > :32:26.tract was going to remain as contaminated wasteland, or become
:32:26. > :32:31.the largest urban park in Europe for 150 years, with 2,700 homes in
:32:31. > :32:36.the first stage, state-of-the-art, sporting venues, and the
:32:36. > :32:39.opportunity for jobs, because what East London needs is jobs and
:32:39. > :32:43.investment. We will explore a bit more of this in a moment or two,
:32:43. > :32:48.the vast sums of money being spent on the Olympics were committed
:32:48. > :32:52.before the nation woke up to how broke we are. Worth it, we are told,
:32:52. > :32:56.for the legacy, but inheritance is notoriously much more easily
:32:56. > :32:59.dreamed than realised. That is someone else's problem, as the
:33:00. > :33:06.author Ian Sinclair knows, we have heard these sorts of promises
:33:06. > :33:10.before, indeed we have begin legacies before.
:33:10. > :33:15.If the drama of international competition, man against man on the
:33:15. > :33:18.track was required, then Hackney Wick, found ways to provide it, as
:33:18. > :33:25.a modest private investment, the nation didn't have to go into hock
:33:25. > :33:30.to pull in the punters. It is my contention that many of
:33:30. > :33:34.the great things promised as a result of the Olympic legacy are
:33:34. > :33:38.here already. Or were here and have disappeared and been allowed to
:33:38. > :33:43.wither away for lack of investment. We couldn't afford to keep them,
:33:43. > :33:53.examples of some of these things, these great ghosts of London can be
:33:53. > :33:59.
:33:59. > :34:03.found behind me in Victoria Park. This was once the Crowning glory of
:34:03. > :34:07.East London, the Victoria Park boating lake, temporarily drained,
:34:07. > :34:10.as part of the grand Olympic make- over. And including an
:34:10. > :34:17.extraordinary structure that looks like an east German border post. It
:34:17. > :34:19.is a recreation of a Chinese pagoda, and the original had come out of
:34:19. > :34:23.Hyde Park at the time of the great exhibition, it decayed as the way
:34:23. > :34:27.these things do, and it is such a strange notion, that when we are
:34:27. > :34:37.trying to invent London again, we go back to something that had its
:34:37. > :34:54.
:34:54. > :34:57.This locked doorway is to what was once the Eton Mission, whereby
:34:57. > :35:01.benevolent figures from the great English public schools came to
:35:01. > :35:08.Hackney and provided everything that the Olympic games is now
:35:08. > :35:13.promising to do. They had playing fields, boating, they had swimming,
:35:13. > :35:18.they had allotments, and inside this particular building they also
:35:18. > :35:22.did culture, they were teaching people to paint. Now, unfortunately,
:35:22. > :35:32.all that is gone, we can't get inside the building and that
:35:32. > :35:35.
:35:35. > :35:40.building will disappear very soon. Brought through from the pool room
:35:40. > :35:44.of the now closed Eton Mission, into the grander space of St Mary's
:35:44. > :35:48.Church, we have what really is the legacy of the first attempt to
:35:48. > :35:54.bring sports and athletics to the people of East London. All that we
:35:54. > :35:59.are left with are a series of quiet haunting images of the sporting
:35:59. > :36:09.teams of the past. A sort of cabinet of curiosities for a great
:36:09. > :36:24.
:36:24. > :36:28.High above Hackney Wick, if we're looking for the one big cultural
:36:28. > :36:33.legacy of the Olympics, maybe we should just observe more closely
:36:33. > :36:37.what is around us, rather than trying to impose something massive
:36:37. > :36:42.and spectacular, a lot of the best qualities are the very things that
:36:42. > :36:49.you have to tease out for yourself, by going up in weird elevators into
:36:49. > :36:58.the tops of mysterious buildings. If I look over there, I see water
:36:58. > :37:08.playing, remediating over a pile of rubble, and for me that is as good
:37:08. > :37:14.
:37:14. > :37:18.I feel that the real legacy is the place itself, which is something
:37:18. > :37:23.you can't predict. So legacy is defined as being the unpredictable,
:37:23. > :37:25.and should be kept away from all kind of planners and promoters, and
:37:25. > :37:29.left to the people themselves hidden within these buildings to
:37:29. > :37:39.fix their own legacy and to write their own history, and anything
:37:39. > :37:40.
:37:40. > :37:50.else is false, impractical and, in the end, wrong.
:37:50. > :37:57.Tessa Jowell is still with us, I'm joined by Will Self and Baroness
:37:57. > :38:00.Gray, who has won 16 gold medals. What is Britain trying to say with
:38:00. > :38:04.these Olympics? It is part of the same old song of what our society
:38:04. > :38:08.has been doing during the boom years. This is a creation
:38:08. > :38:14.essentially of capital, capital has to find things to do with itself.
:38:14. > :38:18.It is essentially a kind of boosterism, huge monumental
:38:18. > :38:24.buildings, massive amounts of infrastructure, mood music, you
:38:24. > :38:30.heard it all from Tessa, state-of- the-art was a phrase we heard there,
:38:30. > :38:35.it is not about social capital, it is about capital capital. Watch out,
:38:35. > :38:40.she's looking very angry here? don't agree with you Will? What a
:38:40. > :38:47.surprise? We have done this before. What I think the Olympics is saying
:38:47. > :38:51.about us is that we are a proud, modern, open and diverse country,
:38:51. > :38:57.that celebrates tolerance, and that it is quite different from some of
:38:57. > :39:01.the is iteryo types of Britain. never understand - Stereotypes of
:39:01. > :39:06.Britain. I never understand what elite athletes have to do with the
:39:06. > :39:12.state of Britain. Do you see it like that? It is hugely positive.
:39:12. > :39:16.The Paralympics will be an amazing legacy, having 4,500 disabled
:39:16. > :39:22.athletes in London, will change attitudes and legislation more than
:39:22. > :39:25.anything else will be able to do. Any more than seeing the same thing
:39:25. > :39:29.on television anywhere else? will be in London and they will be
:39:29. > :39:33.around. London is an old city, incredibly expensive and difficult
:39:33. > :39:37.to change. Having the athletes here will do more to normalise
:39:37. > :39:41.disability than anything we see. Disabled people are still excluded
:39:41. > :39:45.from society. Paralympic sport is about elite sport, it also has a
:39:45. > :39:49.secondary message. For me, the legacy of the Olympics what that
:39:49. > :39:54.can do to change the Paralympics. It is one organising committee
:39:54. > :39:58.promoting itself as two games, will be incredibly powerful. Is it not
:39:58. > :40:04.the case that this obsession with elite sport, as in the Olympics, is
:40:04. > :40:07.damaging some grassroots sport? There is the view that elite sport
:40:07. > :40:11.doesn't help long-term grassroots participation. However there will
:40:11. > :40:15.be a Wimbledon effect. In the weeks after the games, lots and lots of
:40:15. > :40:18.young people will want to do sport, they will want to do art, and lots
:40:18. > :40:22.of different things. It is how we are then geared up to deal with it.
:40:22. > :40:25.That is another part of it, will the clubs be ready, will the
:40:25. > :40:29.governing bodies be ready, will the volunteers and coaches be there to
:40:29. > :40:34.accept all the young people who will come in. What do you make of
:40:34. > :40:37.the legacy argument? It is not there at all, really. It is a sort
:40:37. > :40:40.of boon dog, I don't think it matters whether you talk in terms
:40:40. > :40:46.of disabled, young people, or you talk in terms, I had dinner with
:40:46. > :40:48.days abled friend this week who said, I'm afraid to say is a big
:40:48. > :40:52.critic of the Paralympics and doesn't feel it does that for the
:40:52. > :40:58.disabled community at all. There are many disabled people who stand
:40:58. > :41:03.in the same relationship to elite disabled athletes as you or I do to
:41:03. > :41:08.the elite athletes. There aren't the resource there is, we have had
:41:08. > :41:13.a decade or two decades, where playing fields have been sold off
:41:13. > :41:19.by local authorities, and swimming pools. It is beginning to make me
:41:19. > :41:28.slightly angry. Simon Jenkin, by no means a firebrand on this issue,
:41:28. > :41:34.said the games would be elitist, and stupifying in his column today,
:41:35. > :41:42.that is the perception in the games. Sepp Blatter will be riding in
:41:42. > :41:47.special lanes to this games, with his cronies, and that is where the
:41:48. > :41:53.�9 billion. That wouldn't be so if we had the sell-out games. It was a
:41:54. > :41:58.clever piece of marketing. Tickets sold at prices that people could
:41:58. > :42:03.have afford. Two-thirds of tickets �50 or less, the Robin Hood tax on
:42:03. > :42:08.the corporates to get kids from schools into the Olympic Stadium,
:42:08. > :42:13.watching Olympic sport. At every level, at every single level these
:42:13. > :42:20.Olympics have been, you can't answer every single challenge,
:42:20. > :42:26.focusing on training young people, creating jobs for young people.
:42:26. > :42:32.many jobs were created. 40,000 people have worked on it. How many
:42:32. > :42:36.were local. 25%. I think I could create more than 10,000 jobs, if
:42:36. > :42:41.you give me �9 billion, I can create a lot more than that. I
:42:41. > :42:47.could have cleaned up that whole area. 40,000 people working in the
:42:48. > :42:53.park, 8,000 when Westfield hope, another 8,000 in the press and
:42:53. > :42:57.broadcast. These are sustainable aspect of it is a shopping centre.
:42:57. > :43:00.With an academy to train people in the retail industry. It is a
:43:00. > :43:04.shopping centre and a training academy for people to sell more
:43:04. > :43:08.things. I'm not seeing that as particularly sustainable. Retail is
:43:08. > :43:11.an important part of our economy, we had a gloomy discussion at the
:43:11. > :43:15.beginning. East London will become an engine of growth. But in the
:43:15. > :43:19.meantime, in the meantime, as a country, as the evidence is, and
:43:19. > :43:25.the number of people who volunteered to take part, the kids
:43:25. > :43:30.who want to be part of team GD, the rate of ticket sales, the country
:43:30. > :43:34.is getting behind this. You're on theing willcy, that is two weeks,
:43:34. > :43:44.what comes afterwards? Hang on skaebgd, please, as an athlete,
:43:44. > :43:49.
:43:49. > :43:53.what do you make of it, these concerns are widely held, as an
:43:53. > :43:56.athlete? The atmosphere during games time is very different, it is
:43:57. > :44:00.how to harness that for a positive value. The trouble with legacy is
:44:00. > :44:04.it means different things to different people. Athletes aren't
:44:04. > :44:09.that bothered about legacy. From my experience is from the five games I
:44:09. > :44:13.competed at and the one that I worked at, is that we all need to
:44:14. > :44:18.be responsible for legacy. There is so much of what is happening at the
:44:18. > :44:22.moment we are are panicking about it. This is my analogy, Sebastian
:44:22. > :44:27.Coe is a multi-millionaire who has made an awful lot of money out of
:44:27. > :44:32.sports club and being a global brand ambassador for Nike shoes, he
:44:32. > :44:38.gets a lot of tax-payers' money, it is like giving a brewer money to
:44:38. > :44:43.mount an Octoberfest. Sebastian Coe has done a fantastic job as
:44:44. > :44:49.chairman of the organising committee, let's hope for every
:44:49. > :44:55.Tany Gray. Not that there will be many. There will only be one.
:44:55. > :45:02.we will have 16 gold medals and more kids playing sport and feeling
:45:02. > :45:06.better. Where will they play it about, they will not play it in the
:45:06. > :45:09.cracked Olympic buildings that will reside back into the marshes where
:45:09. > :45:14.they came from. Even the centre is not fit for purpose. They are
:45:14. > :45:17.trying to sell it to a football team who don't really, it is not an
:45:17. > :45:22.ideal football. It is a multipurpose stadium. This could go
:45:22. > :45:25.on for a long time. It will go on for a year at least. Thank you all
:45:25. > :45:32.very much. That is all from Newsnight tonight, friend and
:45:32. > :45:35.family of the singer Amy Winehouse, sent her off today with a funeral
:45:35. > :45:40.service in North London, she was 27. Here she is at the height of her
:45:40. > :45:50.powers. # Black
:45:50. > :45:50.
:45:50. > :45:57.Tl # Black # Black
:45:57. > :46:04.# I go to # I go back to
:46:04. > :46:10.# We only said goodbye with words # I died a hundred times
:46:11. > :46:18.# You go back to her # And I go
:46:18. > :46:28.# We only said goodbye with words # I died a hundred times
:46:28. > :46:39.
:46:39. > :46:43.# You go back her Hello there, the western side of
:46:43. > :46:45.the UK saw the sunniest weather we had, that is where we will start
:46:45. > :46:49.with most of the sunshine in the morning. We will keep more cloud
:46:49. > :46:52.for central and eastern areas of England, sunny spells in Scotland.
:46:52. > :46:55.Rain will eventually arrive into Northern Ireland and the Western
:46:55. > :46:59.Isles. For northern England though it should be dry, we will have
:46:59. > :47:03.sunshine. It may brighten up a touch to the Pennines. The odd
:47:03. > :47:06.shower feeding to the east of London. Better chance of seeing
:47:07. > :47:13.some sunshine as you head further best for the south west of England.
:47:13. > :47:17.It should be a dry day. 23, 24 degrees, it will feel pleasant when
:47:17. > :47:22.the sun is out. Patchy cloud around here and in Wales in the afternoon.
:47:22. > :47:26.Still some sunshine as well. For Northern Ireland a bright start in
:47:26. > :47:29.the east and west. Drizzley rain heading towards Belfast by the end
:47:29. > :47:34.of the afternoon. By that time seeing rain heading into the
:47:34. > :47:44.mainland of Scotland, ahead of it sunshine, a warmer day in
:47:44. > :47:54.
:47:54. > :47:56.Aberdeenshire, and 24 degrees in For Scotland, we see the rain