09/07/2012 Newsnight

Tonight, the Olympic symbol has always been five intersecting rings,

might a more appropriate thing be five fattening doughnuts. As the

athletes prepare to gather in London. An angry cardiologist asks

why some key sponsors are linked to obesity and unhealthy eating.

find is fascinating that the Olympics chooses to be associated

with sugary drinks, fast food, and alcohol. We speak to an olympian

and marketing man. Cuts in benefits and making work

pay, an ally of David Cameron wants to means test pensions and cut Sure

Start for children. What is the difference between a

cess pit and our banking system? Paul Mason knows.

A key official at the Bank of England testifies, somebody's

reputation is going to get flushed away.

And having failed with electoral reform, Nick Clegg is on the eve of

the first major Government defeat over House of Lords reform, at the

hands of Tory MPs. Good evening, the Olympic Moto is

Citius, Altius, Fortius, faster, higher, stronger. Why are some of

the key sponsors of the greatest sporting events in the worlds,

McDonalds, Coca-Cola and Heineken, likely to be associated with the

motto, fatter, et cetera. The logos of those associated with the

Olympic Games are responsible for some heart disease.

We turn to a cardiologist and see what he has to say.

Over the last 30 years, processed food has taken over the British

diet. And over the past 30 years, obesity

has more than doubled. Now, as London prepares to host a

global sporting celebration, processed food has taken over the

Olympics. It is a scandal the food and drink industry, are high-

profile sponsors of the Olympic Games. The Olympics are supposed to

be about fitness, and health, and to associate them with products,

which are damaging our health, particularly our children's health,

is quite wrong. A human heart is a thing of

simplicity and wonder. It is designed to pump blood around your

body, at 60 beats per minute, for close on 80 years. Unless, you live

on a diet of processed food. I work at the Heart Attack Centre

in London's Royal Free Hospital, where we have witnessed an

explosion of diet-related diseases. By 2050, 90% of Britain --

Britain's population will be overweight. And treating obesity

will cost the NHS �45 billion a year. The UK is on the verge of a

major public health disaster, the cost of which could dwarf that of

alcohol and tobacco, and even cripple the NHS. What is the most

important factor? Sugar and carbohydrates added to processed

food. I believe what we eat is killing us.

This is not the same old warning about junk food. I'm much more

concerned about all processed food. Processed foods contain few of the

natural nutrients we need to survive, yet are loaded with added

sugars and carbohydrates that the body does not need. So the body

converts them to fat. If you look at when the obesity

epidemic took off in the UK, late 1970 early 1980s, our consumption

of processed food has increased in parallel. It is not an add on to

real food, it is our entire diet. Zoe Harkumhas studied the rise of

processed food in our diet, she says we have it all wrong. Bodies

know how to process butter, meat and eggs, but it has no idea what

to do with all the added sugars appearing in processed foods.

is the only thing that humans digest that has no nutritional

value, no protein, vitamins or minerals, it is unique in that

respect. In terms of sugar, we eat it on top of what we should be

eating, in which case it can make us fat, or we eat it instead of

what we are eating, in which case it leaves us nutritionally

deficient, so we end up sick, so we are getting fat and sick at the

same time. Globally, diet-related diseases

kill 35 million every year. That is five-times more than tobacco.

Whilst big food companies continue to make huge profits, in Britain,

the bill is borne by the NHS and the taxpayer.

In the shadow of the Olympic stadium, doctors are facing an

epidemic of diabetes. Within the borrowing of Newham, we

are probably seeing -- borough of Newham, we are probably seeing

doubling of patients with type two diabetes in the last ten years. 40-

50% of the consultations in the practice are related to diabetes or

the complication. I have come to a GP's surgery, just two miles from

the Olympic Park. The doctor says the majority of his resources

already go towards fighting diet- related illness.

Diabetes is a multiorgan, multisystem disease, leading to

heart attacks, strokes and amputation, treating it early is

vital. We are seeing patients present with other conditions, like

high blood pressure-related to the diabetes, high levels of

cholesterol, some long-term complication of diabetes, which is

affect the eyes, the kidneys, with chronic kidney disease. Every day

the NHS has to battle the effects of sugary foods, and the marketing

campaigns used to push them. Surely the Olympics should be sorting this

out. I find is obscene that the Olympics

is associated itself with sugary drinks, fast food and alcohol, and

fast food. The sponsors can't be held accountable for Britain's

health, but they send a dreadful message being associated with the

games. I'm not the only one who thinks so? I think it is shocking

that companies like McDonalds's, Coca-Cola, Cadbury's and Heineken

are the main food sponsors. These are products which are all very

well as a treat. But what Olympic sponsorship allows them to do is

promote their brand, and insinuate their way into people's Dail yiey

day yet. Whether you are looking at obesity -- daily diet. Whether you

are looking at obesity, or people's dental problems, whether you are

even looking at the rising youth alcohol issue, these companies are

the culprits. They shouldn't be such prominent sponsors of the

Olympics. Diane Abbott is not only shadow

public Health Minister, she's also an East End MP.

In the 19th century, the poor faced illnesses like cholera, and typhoid,

today, with inner city areas, effectively fresh food deserts, and

childhood obesity levels rocketing, the health of Britain's poor is

still determined by class. Obesity is now a disease of poverty.

When you look at the statistics, as I have done, what you find is

obesity is a bigger problem for people on lower incomes. For

instance, just recently we found out that the largest number, and

the rising number, of gastric band operations, for people who are

heavily obese, are amongst the people with the lowest income. Once

upon a time, poor people couldn't get enough to eat, nowadays poor

people's health is threatened by obesity.

In Newham, the largest McDonald's in the world has been built, in the

Olympic Park. It is 30,000-square feet inside, and will seat over

1500 people. That the London Olympics allows this kind of food

such prominence, is, in my opinion, disastrous for public health.

I avoided excess sugars and sugary products, I try to keep to fairly

normal, mother would tell you, fresh vegtables rules that kind of

thing. Athletes don't base their diet on processed food. One of the

Olympic greats tells me even 30 years ago he was avoiding it.

the Olympic Games people would take a lot of sugary products and it was

free, and you see athletes pump on the weight in the games. I noticed

that and avoided it. Weaning ourselves off fast food and sugary

drifrpbgs, appears to be a problem for the International Olympic

Committee too. We know the negative health impact, obesity, of

processed foods and sugars, I suppose the IOC, now, have a really

challenging situation. Yes, they need the money from the sponsors,

and that money has come in, and really helped. But more than that,

they have benefited for many years of the reach these sponsors had

into new market places. To children, and others. It isth has really

helped. Now their challenge -- and it has really helped. Now their

challenge is how to deal with the health impact of that. But there

seems little sign that the Olympic movement will move away from its

current sponsors. Indeed, when challenged, the London organisers

talk of the financial black hole their absence would cai. -- create.

But obesity will open up a much bigger black hole in the NHS's

budget. It may not be a priority for the London Olympics, but the

costs of obesity are foremost in the mind of all of us who work to

improve public health. Obviously we asked to speak to

someone from the London organising committee, and the IOC, as well as

the sponsors mentioned in that report, but no-one was made

available. There is plenty of statements from all of them on our

website, broadly saying that all is well, and the Olympics would not

happen without their support. We can speak to the cardiologist you

saw in that report, Michael Payne, former director of marketing for

the international Olympic Committee, and CRACKING, the rower, who twice

won Olympic -- James Cracknell, who won gold twice for Britain.

Surely there is other manufacturers? It is a broader

lifestyle agenda of people getting active, to do with obesity.

Associating the epitomy of health with foods that make people obese,

there is a mixed message there? McDonald's from when they started

to become a sponsor of the Olympics sake how do you broaden the agenda.

They introduced salads, and the testing of salads and the

broodening of the menu started at the Olympics. Same with Coca-Cola,

sports drinks, and sugar-free drinks, started with the Olympics.

It is not just kies of the revenue and funding these companies bring,

not just to the games but the TV and sport. But the programmes, in

Germans of Go-active that they run. You wouldn't accept cigarette money,

would you? The IOC was the first to drop that. Or weapons manufacturers.

You accept beer money, but not whiskey money? Not spirits, you can

go after every industry. Before you know it you will say not cars

because they impact the environment, not airlines, and sports clothing

made in India. Do you think athletes care about this, the IOC

President said in the FT today, that there is a question mark over

whether to continue with McDonald's? As within athlete there

is people in society, and they will always fall down the gap. I don't

think people who watch the Olympics will assume that as a fast food

chain and a drinks chain sponsoring them, that those are the products

the athletes live on. When you are training, you wouldn't have much of

that in your diet? Athletes need to have self-discipline, but also, in

the 20 years I was an athlete, I consumed a lifetime of food. I had

6,000 calories a, as opposed to 2,000. I had 60 years of food in 20

years. Not processed food? No, but you also have to live. Everything

in moderation is good. The most important thing an athlete can do

is when they stop competing, is that they don't change shape, they

don't balloon in weight. So they don't eat this stuff? They keep

moving, you know, as long as you burn off more calories than you put

in, and you do eat the sensible things. You don't want to show you

are just healthy and fit because that's what you needed to do in

order to win. You need to have that as a guiding principle in life to

make the most of it. Would you accept that if you don't companies

to sponsor the Olympics, there might not be an Olympics, and it

helps people and encourages people to take part in sport, which is

part of a healthy lifestyle, it is good, in other words? Firstly, I

would like to say that I don't believe we need to rely purely on

food companies that promote unhealthy foods for the Olympics.

Secondly, I want to pick up this point about physical activity, it

is an interesting one. From my perspective, I think it is

something that is used quite well by the food industry, almost to

deflect from their own culpability and marketing to children, if you

look at the data and evidence, over the last 30 years the physical

activity levels have increased slightly. That may sound odd, but

all the data, when we have looked at this, suggests that our

overconsumption of cheap sugary and cheap junk foods is the main thing

to contribute to obesity. To put it in context for you vooers, if I was

to have a barf chocolate, a pact of crisps and a burger and chips

washed down with a fizzy drink, I would have to run for five hours to

run off the calories. To talk about physical activity isn't there.

Clearly there is a benefit to these companies in associating themselves

with the healthy living of athletes, that is why they do it. But it is

phoney, isn't it? In a way the Olympics is saying this is OK, you

are endorsing it? It is not phoney at all. I think the whole issue is

whether you take any of these products in some moderation. The

programmes that these sponsors are running, without it, in terms of

not just from the funding of the game, but the programmes around the

world, in getting kids active. The Government's are cutting back, they

are not putting the funding in. just heard the doctor saying, the

question of exercise, you would have to exercise and run for five

hours to burn off those calories? Would we be better off saying let's

not have the Olympics. That is not what we are saying, it is we would

be better off if the sponsors were other people? Where is the queue of

people to sponsor the games, they don't exist. Each company, every

time the Olympics come along, you get a call saying you can't have

this company and that company. If the IOC took that position and

walked away from all the companies, game over, no Olympics, no support

for support. The challenge -- sport. The challenge is to make sure these

companies understand their responsibility and the way the IOC

has told them. Are you literally a spoil sport, if you had your way

there might be no Olympics? I don't agree with that. Let's look at the

statistics, in 204, the World Health Organisation announced that

obesity was a global epidemic, yet eight years later we have the

Olympics, on our own turf, and the statistics tell us that we have now

one in three children, by the age of nine, who are overweight or

obese. So, these called intervention about physical

activity, as far as I'm concerned, the most effective intervention

needs to be a public health strategy that targets the

population as a whole. You have to remember, the Olympic Games is the

most effective international marketing platform in the world.

This will go out to over 200 countries, reaching billions of

people. We have the main sponsors associated with unhealthy foods. In

particular, I'm most concerned about the children.

James, there is comments from the head of the IOC, suggesting there

may be some reconsidering here. Most people have not heard of him,

they have heard of you and other athletes, don't you think you have

a responsibility, not just not to get fat in your old age because you

are not training so much, but to set some example while you are

training, because you are a role model? There is a responsibility.

And there is also a responsibility that we have as a society. Because

the hugely complex issues here, just to say it is the sporting

event every four years and the sponsors cause the obesity children.

If the children under nine are obese, they will have had maximum

two Olympic Games in that period. It is something as a society we

need to make sure that there aren't people falling through the gaps,

the same we support them in every other way. But it is absolutely

crucial to change the way that we lead sedintary lives. There are

other sponsors. The Olympics plays a part in that by encouraging you

to get involved in sport? There are other sponsors other than the food

and drink products. Whether it is the technology, whether it is the

television company. There is so many other sponsors, but they are

the ones with the money to fund it. Our Olympic warm-up continues

tomorrow night with the first black power olympian, Tommy Smith, and to

great fanfare, we will unveil our plans on how Newsnight will cover

the games this summer. Throughout the year Newsnight is

looking at the increasing cost of living in hard times, tonight we

have a radical piece of thinking about what might be done. It comes

from the Conservative thinker, Nick Boles, a close ally of David

Cameron. He's suggesting something that many of his Conservative

colleagues will regard as politically pose sonous, the

scrapping of universal benefits, to better off pensioners, a deeper

overhaul of housing benefits, and possible cuts to the Sure Start

programme for young children. All with the aim, he says, of making

Britain more productive and competitive, and in the end,

increasing wages. We will debate it in a moment, first Allegra Stratton.

It has been called the great stagnation, but you could call it

the incredibly shrinking family budget. We just keep getting poorer.

Disposable income for low-to-middle income homes will fall 8% by 2015

then where do we go from there. For optimists it will take to the end

of this decade to get back to where we were before the 2008 crash. For

the gloomy among us, we go into 2020 earning what we earned in 2001.

It is a mark of the size of the problem, that the Resolution

Foundation, an independent think- tank, is kept busy by its scale,

and what can be done about it. are saying a deterioration in some

countries, a breakdown, in the relationship between overall

economic growth, even in the good years, and the benefits flowing

through to ordinary workers on middle or below middle pay. That is

happening not just here in the UK, that is happening in a number of

countries, particularly Anglo-Saxon countries, not just them, where in

the past you would have seen quite a tight relationship where GDP went

up, ordinary wages tended to go up with it, that has dissipated

significantly, wherein some countries you see almost no

relationship over the last 10-20 years, between economic growth on

the one hand, and the benefits felt by someone on an ordinary pay pact.

That is a massive change in an ordinary economy.

The way to deal with it in the past is you would try to get a pay rise

or work longer hours. A pay rise is difficult to imagine when you have

real wage increases not due on the horizon until 2013, 14, working

long hours is a diminished possibility. The people who want to

work longer hours is running at its highest level since 1992. Then

there are historical trends. The reason we have rising living

standards over the last 40 years in large part due to women entering

the work force. In the last ten years rising living standards have

also been affected by tax credits. Neither of those things are due to

be replicated. Now, a close ally of the Prime Minister, Nick Boles,

also a parliamentary aide, has been doing some work on this, and in a

speech tomorrow, but given to Newsnight, he issues this morning.

Of the historic roots to increased earning, either a partner entering

work, or one or other of a couple working more hours, Nick Boles says

neither of the trends are sustainable, and if they were, we

shouldn't want them to be. What will it do for our health and

happiness if the only way to achieve a growing income is to work

longer hours. His prescription could be described

as an intense workout. Nick Boles wants to improve people's chances

of earning a better wage through improving their skills. He wants to

make us more competitive and productive.

What does it mean? Nick Boles is saying that any policies that don't

have a discernable impact on our productivity or competitiveness,

they should go. For him it means that pensioner benefits for the

very well off should go they next election, and Sure Start, and

policies he doesn't think have a proven ability to keep us in work

or better us at work, they should go through. You may just be

digesting the last round of cuts, this is the taste of the next round

to come. Nick Boles believes there should be

growth in public spending, only where the productivity and

competitiveness of the British people is improved. He believes

there should be further cuts elsewhere, to ensure as a total,

spending falls. He suggests the Chancellor should come up with

policies that augment this thinking, and bin those that don't. It leads

He also proposes re-examining Sure Start children's centres. He says

they have no measurable impact. Improving competitiveness is

clearly desirable, but analysts point out, that wages may not have

gone up as GDP has, because companies have chosen to make

larger profits. There are a number of different factors behind it, one

of these is we have seen a large scale increase for wage

inequalities. The top half of earners, are seeing an ever-larger

slice of the cake going to them. That is part of T we have also seen,

particularly over recent years, a growth in the share of GDP going to

business, in the form of profits. That happened in the UK in the 200

0s, there is another squeeze on the pay pact bit of GDP. What of Boles'

view that tax credits haven't work to get us into work. When it comes

to social security, the tax credit system, I think two things are

rather important here, first of all, the tax credit system for people in

work, of course it is redistribute today poor families, but it is also

helping to move them into work. It is good for productivity, it is

worth being clear that whilst this Government has taken some money out

of those budgets, they are still more generous than they were back

in 1997, before the last Labour Government really started putting

significant amounts of extra money into the tax credit system.

Families running up the down escalator to build living standards

back up. Leading politicians are now lending a hand, it sounds a

simple task, but it is actually as ideolgical as it gets.

Nick Boles is with us, as is the former Labour minister, Lord Adonis,

and the editor of a sister organisation for mums net.

How much of this will feature in the next Conservative manifesto?

don't know, I'm thinking out loud. We live in an age where we face

uncomfortable choices. Politicians have to be straight with people.

None of us want to do any of the stuff I talked about, we would all

love the ship to go rolling on as it has, people get better off and

the state providing lots of stuff. It is not possible, it is not

honest, and I'm hoping others will pitch in with their ideas. David

Cameron, and Iain Duncan Smith and George Osborne and others are not

being honest with us? We have done a lot, nobody has accused the

coalition of not having taken radical and difficult steps with

educational maintenance allowance. Are they listening when you are

transmitting? I don't know, I haven't given the speech yet.

you see some merit in this, the stagnation of living standards, or

wages not keeping up with prices, is causing real problems to just

about everybody. This may be, in the long-term, a way of tackling

it? I'm not exactly sure what Nick is proposing. But the general theme

of improving the productivity of the economy is vital. The root

problem is high levels of unemployment. The I can't remember

I have been paying close attention to recently youth unemployment,

youth unemployment of a million, 24% of under-24-year-olds

unemployed. We have to give a kick start to the youth market. So not

giving benefits to very well off pensioners, Mick Jagger doesn't

need it, does he? We should be providing subsidised jobs for the

long-term youth unemployment. It is quality of spending, education

standards aren't high enough and not a proper apprenticeship route.

He's pointing out that politicians are great at spending money, but

finding money, he has found some money, and it is a hard choice?

is the old politics that Nick is talking about, the hard bit is

simply about finding money. The hard bit is producing programmes

that work. Where are the apprenticeship programmes for those

not going to university. Where are the subsidises jobs, which the

Government says it is providing, it won't provide figures forks the

long-term youth unemployment. You have to have a Government machine

that works and it doesn't work well enough. What do you think people

joining Mumsnet and Gransnet, what will they think, that the better

off pensioners et cetera? I think it is hard to argue that Mick

Jagger needs pensions, people on the websites would accept that

those on pensions of �60,000 plus shouldn't get universal benefits.

The problem then comes where the cut-off comes. Only 10% of

pensioners have an become of over �30,000. So you are talking about

people probably with incomes of between �11,000-�30,000, you have

to decide where you you are going to make that cut. We know that

whenever you have means testing, you get a cliff edge, and very

often the wrong people fall off the cliff. Do you think there is some

merit in universal benefits because they are for everybody, there is no

stigma and that is the traditional argument? We know the take-up is

better, they are cheaper to run and they are efficient. The politics

are pretty poisonous. The Tory plans here are to axe pensioners

benefits on the front page, it is the granny tax all over again.

Whenever you argue this you are the nasty party? This is what has got

us into this mess, where we have the biggest budget deficit of any

OECD country, and yet we have all the social problems that Andrew has

been referring to and everything else. The fact is, it is because we

have had a series of Governments, and I am afraid the last Labour

Government was good at making choices about spending money and

badly about getting the money. Maybe it is true of your Government,

it is not practical politics? Government has been more radical

and been willing to court unpopularity, through a series of

decisions to begin to get the deficit under control.

reversing, not implementing the 3p extra on fuel. This is not a

Government that immediately you say this is going to take courageous

decisions of the type you said? completely overhauled tuition fees

so students now have to pay �9,000 a year, and scrapped educational

maintenance allowances. These were all things people valued and mostly

young people who were paid those. It is not fair to say we weren't

brave. And more bravery is needed. Hopefully people will come up with

an idea more palatable. More bravery is needed, and perhaps the

headlines fail to understand the sophistication of the argument?

is the absence of growth causing the pressure on the welfare date,

the absence of growth since the 2008 crisis. I agree we have to

make the economy more productive, we have to get more people into

jobs, and get them sustainably into jobs, earning higher wages. So, of

course, the economy is in a much healthier state. Could you defend

all the universal benefits for some that don't need them, could you

defend them, all of them? Obviously there needs to be continuing debate.

This shouldn't be cast in aspic. These aren't easy decisions to be

made, nor are they simplistic. of the things people like to see

the occasions where politicians might agree and form consensus on

things, is that at all possible? there is going to be a consensus,

it requires a Government that is prepared to seek to promote

consensus. We have been debating long-term care over the last two

years now there still hasn't been a consensus generated by that. A lot

further to go. People are now more resistant to any cuts in living

standards, if you are told in a few years time younger people will have

higher wages, and you have to pay the electricity bill this week, it

is difficult? One of the things worrying about this, and worries a

lot of our members. Is there seems to be an underlying resentment of

older people. And a sense that older people are some how selfish

or greedy and not productive. One in three working families relies on

grandparents for childcare. We know that grandparents and older people,

contribute, net, more than �4 billion a year to the economy. It

is ridiculous to say that older people are not a productive part of

the economy. I agree we need big thinking. A huge issue about older

people's contribution to society, we know social care is a big issue,

and the Government is not addressing the problem. The debate

is what does it mean to age well in the 21st century, there is no

answer to that. There is a debate about where older people among us

fit in and what it means to be old in 291st century? Agree with that,

-- I agree with that, there are no debates about a lot of important

questions in this country. Most people at work have been stagnant

for over ten years, through the period of growth. And unless we

make Government spending focus on those things that actually supports

people to gain skills, supports people to make investments in

infrastructure and in research. Unless we do that, we are going to

fail the next 100 years, not just the next two or three. The trouble

with that it is jam tomorrow? their kids and grand kids, they

want their lives to be better than the lives they had. It is jam

tomorrow and cuts today. That is the world we are in.

The deputy Governor of the Bank of England, Paul Tucker, effectively

exonerated the Shadow Chancellor, Ed Balls, and other former Labour

ministers, from charges that they had asked him to lean on Barclays

Bank in the rate-fixing skam scandal. He shot holes in the

allegations made by George Osborne last week in a heated Commons

debate. We have been dipping a toe into what Mr Tucker described as a

cesspit. This is Barclays.

This is a cesspit. Today the second in command at the Bank of England

poured a bit dollop of approbium on to Barclays and the entire LIBOR

market. You can't be confident of anything about learning about this

cesspit. For those not used to Central Bank terminology, the word

"cesspit", is not normally used to describe a major bank, or financial

market. This was Mr Tucker fighting back furiously against a PR

offensive, by Barclays, that it sought to put him, and senior

Labour politicians, in the frame. When Barclays boss, Bob Diamond,

resigned last week, the bank released a note of his conversation

with Paul Tucker. At issue, why did this man, Jerry Del Missier, end up

thinking, he had been instructed to manipulate LIBOR by Paul Tucker.

Does that file note of 29th of October, 2008, accurately reflect

the conversation with him that you had? Not completely. It would help

to explain...Why Don't we do it in stages. Is there anything in that,

that is wrong? The last sentence gives the wrong impression, yes.

He has impuned my insteingity. there was more, last week the

Chancellor, George Osborne, provoked fury in the Commons, with

an interview in the Spectator, in which he said Ed Balls was clearly

involved in pressuring the bank to manipulate LIBOR, with other

accusations at aides of Gordon Brown. These assertions seemed to

be swept away. Did anyone urge you to. Absolutely not. Did Shriti

Vadera ever ask you to lean on Barclays or any bank to lure the

LIBOR submissions? No. What's more, I don't think I spoke to Shriti

Vadera throughout this whole period at all. Did Ed Balls ever ask you

to lean on Barclays or any other bank? No. Or any other Government

minister? No. Labour tonight demanded an apology and restrax

from George Osborne. It is just a shame that -- Retraction from

George Osborne. It is a shame the Chancellor doesn't have the biggest

of character to come forward and admit he was misleading in those

allegations. Sources close to the Chancellor said they were

dismissing Labour's call, there would be no apology, and those

close to Gordon Brown still had questions to answer. And Paul

Tucker too came in for a hard time, confronted with minutes, that

showed a committee he had chaired had seemed to recognise that

somebody was doing something wrong with LIBOR, he said it didn't

really mean that? This doesn't look good, Mr Tucker. I have to tell you.

It doesn't look good. We have in the minutes, and in the

15th of November 2007, what appears, to any reasonable person, to be a

clear indication of low-balling, about what nothing was done.

thought was a malfunking market, not a dishonest market. Today was

just another step on the road to finding out the truth about LIBOR.

At the end of it, we still don't know whose representation is going

down the pan. When you wake up in the morning and

contemplate the day ahead, in the middle of a horrible wet come here,

an economic crisis and the defeat of Andy Murray, it is unlikely the

future of the House of Lords will come to mind, except if you are a

parliamentarian. The other place debated the issue among stress in

the coalition. 70 Tories threatening to vote against t and

tomorrow, this plan so dear to the Liberal Democrats, could turn into

the first major defeat for the coalition. Is it doomed? I don't

think the Government expect to win the vote. I don't think that the

Liberal Democrats even expect to win it now, it is the scale of the

extent to which they lose it. Political journalism, hyperbole, I

think we would be in a new phase for the coalition. So far you had

have things -- have had things in the coalition put through, they

have gone through with it and tried to enact it. This is now, many

Liberal Democrats are saying, the first instance of things not going

into action. That means game on for them, in terms of, in future, they

don't know quite over what, but in future they will say, you didn't

support us on this, we won't support you on. That we haven't had

it that clearly so far. With us is the Conservative MP, Nadine Dorries,

and the Lib Dem minister, Jeremy brown, who supports it. This is a

Conservative bill, piloted by a Conservative minister. Why are you

not supporting it? It was not in the manifesto, a commitment to look

not go ahead of the bill was in there. It wasn't in the bol

coalition agreement to come forward with a bill to reform the House of

Lords. Ultimately it is damaging to the constitution, and damaging

long-term to the Conservative Party. Which is why many Conservatives are

opposed to this. It is almost inconceivable we would have a House

of Lords that would become a Senate, elected by PR, with a greater

political mandate than any MP in the House of Commons, and the

Commons would remain "first past the post". It is a way of getting

PR in through the back door. What would be the sanctions or

consequences for the coalition, and for the Government, if this fails

tomorrow, because of a major rebellion, which David Cameron

can't control? There are consequences. The worst types of

coalitions nobody agreeing on anything, so you agree to do

nothing. The best type of coalitions, and this one has

achieved this, is when you are more than the sum of your parts, and you

have a mutual trust and faith in each other. There is a reciprocol

nature to that relationship. There is a contract, if you like. The

coalition agreement is be a agreement between the parties -- is

an agreement between the two parties. What will be the

consequences? You have to act in good faith to your partner. We know

the consequences. Let's see what happens tomorrow. Because, what has

been striking, I think, in the two years of the coalition so far, is

the Liberal Democrats have behaved with, if you like, let me, a

maturity. What would you actually do? I think parties in Government

have to have maturity and discipline, and act with good faith

to their coalition parties. Richard Reeves has said what they would do.

Richard Reeves has said. Richard Reeves, head of strategy for the

Liberal Democrats, until days a has said, quite clearly, that if this

does not go through, the Liberal Democrats will not support the

boundary changes. That is almost blackmail. The Liberal Democrats

were given, it is political blackmail, Jeremy, they were told

there was a deal, there was a coalition agreement. And the

agreement was this, that in replacement, in exchange for AV

referendum, for the Liberal Democrats, they would support

boundary changes. The public said no the AV referendum. Is that

blackmail? Of course it is not. And I have read this in newspaper, I

think it is ridiculous. Richard Reeves said it, he was Nick Clegg's

righthandman. If I had a contract with you, and I discharge my

contractural obligations to me and I to you, I can't be accused of

blackmailing, the person who has acted in bad faith is you not me in

that situation. We did not have an agreement that in exchange for

Lords reform there would be boundary reforms. It is a package

as a whole. You lost AV, now you want Lords reform. I will give you

an example. Will you support them on bound radio changes? Will you,

will you support bound wry changes if you lose Lords reform in the

Commons tomorrow? I'm answering the question, there is a package of

measures, on the NHS, on health, on police, that constitutes the

coalition agreement. You can't go along, and an a la carte menu

taking the ones you like. Is this an answer? Just stick to boundary

issues? This is crucial. You don't know what I'm going to say. Will

you or will you not support them on boundary changes? I support the

Government proposals as a whole. that a no then? Is that a yes or a

no? Let me finish the sentence, I support, I'm a Government minister,

I support the package, which is the coalition agreement. If one of the

parties, within that agreement, reneges on their commitment to the

package, that, of course. Lords reform is not in the package.

have to look afresh. I'm committed to the coalition, I think it is

essential to tackle the sorts of issues you have been discussing

with Nick Boles, and the deficit this country faces. All the parties

and people in the coalition have to act in good faith. This is not

happy Government relationship, is it? That was an answer constructed

out of nonsense. Lords reform is not in the coalition agreement.

Everything you said was based on the substance of nothing. You were

asked a very simple question, if tomorrow, the Lords reform bill is

voted down, in the House of Commons, will you still support the

Conservative Party on boundary changes. That is a yes or no. It is

a ficticious? I have answered that. You support the package, one bit of

it goes, you can't support the other? Give me a chance to explain.

I will give you an example, directly elected police

commissioners, constitutional change, not in the Lib Dem

manifesto, but in the Conservative manifesto, it went into the

coalition agreement, the Liberal Democrats supported it because we

were honourable and disciplined about the coalition agreement and

the Government as a whole. We hope that the Conservatives will be

honourable and disciplined tomorrow as well. We will have to see. I'm

not responsible for discipline in the Conservative Party. I want the

coalition to be a success. Do you vote for some things that you

weren't entirely for. There is something simple here, the police

commissioners agreement was in the agreement for Lords reform. I don't

know how long you can continue to say Lords reform is in the

coalition agreement, it was not. I will be rebelling tomorrow, as will

many of my colleagues, because we think it is bad for the

Conservative Party, bad for the country. And David Cameron doesn't

get that? It is bad for the parties interested. I have no idea, but I

don't know why we are spending time discussing this when we have so

many other problems. Would you like the coalition Government to end?

won't end t will stay until 2015 there is nowhere to go. It will put

it under extreme stress over the next few months.

That's all tonight. We wanted to leave but news that NASA has

released pictures of the Martian landscape taken by their Mars

exploration Rover, which they described as the next best thing to

being there, or, by the look of it, # The chances of anything coming

from Mars # Are a million to one

Simply put, there is more rain to come this week overnight, outbreaks

of rain across many parts of the UK, heavy rain developing and targeting

parts of the Midlands going into the morning. The north and East

Midlands in particular becoming heavy and thundery downsupport r

pours into the afternoon. -- downpours The afternoon. An amber

warning for the Midlands. Further south, scattered heavy

showers, maybe with rumbles of thunder. To end the afternoon

across much of south-west England and Wales, although there is a lot

of cloud around. Maybe with hints of brightness, it is mainly dry.

There will be outbreaks of mainly light rain affecting North West

England and for Northern Ireland showers here. Not a complete

washout, there will be dry spells inbetween the showers. Dry weather

for western fringes of Scotland. A lot of rain to come down the

eastern side, persistent rain here that continues into Wednesday. The

rain falling in Edinburgh, disappointingly cool for the time

of year. The persistence of the rain may cause problems. Rainfall

totals adding up. South on Wednesday in England and Wales,