:00:10. > :00:15.Tonight, the week the Government and the opposition stepped up the
:00:15. > :00:20.fight to win over the middle- classes. Call them the alarm clock
:00:20. > :00:26.generation, or the squeezed middle, their fortunes or misfortunes, may
:00:26. > :00:28.dictate the next election. The cost of living will make-or-break the
:00:28. > :00:31.Conservative Party and the coalition at the next election. It
:00:31. > :00:34.is the number one thing that concerns people. Privately, I'm
:00:34. > :00:37.being told that this week's reshuffle is all about the cost of
:00:37. > :00:40.living. Putting those faces to the front that can sell the
:00:40. > :00:45.Government's message, that it understands hardship. Labour gave
:00:45. > :00:48.us a big idea too. It wasn't redistribution. We will be talking
:00:48. > :00:53.to Stan Greenburg and Stefan Shakespeare, about who has the
:00:53. > :00:58.answers. Also tonight, when you have six for mobile phone credits,
:00:58. > :01:05.the kids that are being groomed, deused and abused. Dominic West
:01:05. > :01:08.played the serial killer, Fred West, in BAFTA-winning performance, it
:01:08. > :01:11.motivated him to learn more about child safety. What happened when
:01:12. > :01:16.you met up? I went for a drive. What did he say? Nothing, he gave
:01:16. > :01:25.me a phone. We speak to Dominic and guests here in the studio, and ask
:01:25. > :01:30.whose responsibility those kids are?
:01:30. > :01:34.Good evening. The cabinet juggling of this week has been called in
:01:34. > :01:37.inner circles, "the cost of living reshuffle", a clear sign, perhaps
:01:38. > :01:41.the Government recognises it is the very issue that will win or lose
:01:41. > :01:45.the next election. All week politicians on both sides of the
:01:45. > :01:48.house, both sides of the Atlantic, have been struggling to articulate
:01:48. > :01:54.solutions to what many believe will be next month's conference
:01:54. > :02:03.battleground. The struggling middle-classes facing rising food
:02:03. > :02:08.and fuel prices, here is our political he had dor. An average
:02:08. > :02:12.residential area, in an average part of down, basking in London's
:02:12. > :02:15.India summer. Things look so much better in the sun. Even the best
:02:15. > :02:19.September glow will struggle to improve the look of a wage that
:02:19. > :02:23.doesn't grow, and hasn't for a few years now. Acute economic problems
:02:23. > :02:28.squeezing households might pass like a plane across the sun. But
:02:28. > :02:37.there are broader shadows cast. In an average estate, in an average
:02:37. > :02:43.part of town, this is issue number one. Bread and butter issues
:02:43. > :02:45.persuaded the Government, a reshuffle, and may not be relevant
:02:45. > :02:48.to this Government. What Ed Miliband and David Cameron were
:02:48. > :02:51.doing is readying themselves for the debate. The cost of living is
:02:51. > :02:55.the number one issue for the British public. This week David
:02:55. > :02:58.Cameron kicked things off with a cost of living reshuffle.
:02:58. > :03:01.New jobs were announced by the company,Am stkpon, today, the Prime
:03:01. > :03:07.Minister was there are willing them on, but he and his advisers know
:03:07. > :03:09.that even for those with work, the problem is balancing the books.
:03:10. > :03:14.David Cameron's Government believes its policies are helping the
:03:14. > :03:18.squeeze on people's lives, having frozen council tax, and letting
:03:18. > :03:20.people keep more of their salary. But focus groups, carried out by
:03:20. > :03:23.Downing Street, show people believe local councils to be responsible
:03:24. > :03:28.for the first, and no-one knows about the second. Now Keneth Clarke
:03:28. > :03:32.is the highest-profile of a number of ministers, tasked it with better
:03:32. > :03:35.getting that message out there. The minister for Ronnie Scott's, may
:03:35. > :03:39.have suddenly been made the minister for the cost of living.
:03:39. > :03:42.This Government has long frozen council tax, and is also increasing
:03:42. > :03:46.the personal tax allowance. These are good policies that help with
:03:46. > :03:50.the cost of living problem. Now they have put the people in place
:03:50. > :03:53.to help promote those policies, they know they need to do more.
:03:53. > :03:56.Ideas doing the rounds include action on childcare, or a further
:03:56. > :04:00.delay to the fuel duty increase. George Osborne's speech to
:04:00. > :04:03.conference this autumn, is expected to be the moment it would be
:04:03. > :04:13.unveiled. His speeches are often rabbit out of the hat moments. This
:04:13. > :04:19.rabbit has to be pretty big to feed a lot of families. One of those
:04:19. > :04:24.waiting on Osborne's rabbit is the foodbank supporter, like this
:04:24. > :04:28.minister. They offer food to struggling families. The cost of
:04:28. > :04:32.living issue will make-or-break the Conservative Party and the
:04:32. > :04:35.coalition at the next election. It is the number one thing that
:04:35. > :04:38.concerns people, the petrol bills, the food bills, how much tax they
:04:38. > :04:41.are paying. Wherever I go I see people struggling to keep their
:04:41. > :04:45.head above water. The husband, I meet couples and the husband is
:04:45. > :04:52.working all day, he comes in and his wife goes out to work all night.
:04:52. > :04:56.These are many families across Harlow, people getting up at 4,
:04:56. > :05:01.5.00am, working every hour they can in order to keep the family
:05:01. > :05:05.finances in order. The Government are wise to that I gend da, they
:05:05. > :05:09.are trying to do -- agenda, they are trying to do things about it.
:05:09. > :05:14.It requires tough choices, if they were to overhaul environmental
:05:14. > :05:19.policy we could get energy bills down, it requires tough choices and
:05:19. > :05:23.those with subsidise in industry wouldn't like that.
:05:23. > :05:28.Subsidies in industry wouldn't like. That we have to look at getting the
:05:28. > :05:31.most out of public services to ease resources and the squeeze on
:05:31. > :05:34.people's pockets. If the Government wants policies to ease the squeeze
:05:34. > :05:39.right now, there are those in all parties looking at how long-term
:05:39. > :05:45.they can improve people's ability to make more money in the first
:05:45. > :05:50.place. Forget the growth they arey, and the post bureaucratic age, Pete
:05:50. > :05:56.pre-distribution. Pre-business tribbuegs is about saying we cannot
:05:56. > :06:00.allow ourselves to be -- pre- distribution, means we can't allow
:06:00. > :06:04.ourselves to be about taxes and benefit and low wages. Our aim must
:06:04. > :06:11.be to transform our economy so it is a much higher school and higher
:06:11. > :06:15.wage economy. Government sources today are saying they are already
:06:15. > :06:18.pre-distributing, they are rewarding schools and enabling
:06:18. > :06:25.skills so people can get better jobs in the future. But pre-
:06:25. > :06:30.distribution, in the form Ed Miliband intends, ined crudest form,
:06:30. > :06:33.could involve the nobbling of companies. The two approaches that
:06:33. > :06:37.they are take to go relieve living standards pressures, one is a tax
:06:37. > :06:40.cut, aimed at working people, broadly, in the form of increased
:06:40. > :06:44.personal allowances, and deregulation, it is an interesting
:06:44. > :06:48.twist on deregulation. It is deregulation on parts of public
:06:48. > :06:50.services, which people have to pay for, like childcare, to try to make
:06:51. > :06:55.those things cheaper. There is a lot of scepticism about whether
:06:56. > :07:00.that will work, it is a traditional, centre right approach, being
:07:00. > :07:05.applied to an area of public policy. Over in America, ahead of their
:07:05. > :07:08.election, a new book deals with how all politicians have failed to help
:07:08. > :07:12.middle earners deal with the squeeze. Though America's middle
:07:12. > :07:17.making for a muddled model for the British middle, there are lessons.
:07:17. > :07:21.There is no other way of putting t the two Titans of the American
:07:21. > :07:24.political scene, we have failed. Their British opposite numbers air
:07:24. > :07:28.strikes cross all three parties, are trying to ensure there is
:07:29. > :07:32.another way of putting it. The author of that new book, it is
:07:32. > :07:42.Middle Class Stupid, is Democrat pollster, Stan Greenburg. He joins
:07:42. > :07:44.
:07:44. > :07:47.us now. And Stefan Shakespeare is co-owner of the website
:07:47. > :07:52.ConservativeHome. If we can start with you and that quote, that the
:07:52. > :07:58.reason you wrote the book is because they have failed and that
:07:58. > :08:04.is it. You recognise the middle- class is vital? It is vital to
:08:04. > :08:11.America identity. It is vital to the middle of the country. When we
:08:11. > :08:14.talk about milledle, we are talking about the -- middle, we are talking
:08:14. > :08:18.about the middle-classes, people who have an aspiration for
:08:18. > :08:22.education for their kids and rising prosperity. Hard work is a central
:08:22. > :08:27.value. If you look at the Democratic Convention this week,
:08:27. > :08:33.hard work, work just ran through the entire thread. Work is supposed
:08:33. > :08:37.to pay. We wrote the book, because work wasn't paying. People were
:08:37. > :08:41.expressing great frustration. We wanted politics to work for the
:08:41. > :08:45.middle-class. It wasn't happening. That's why we wrote the book.
:08:45. > :08:52.you look across the Atlantic here, what has to change for us not to
:08:52. > :08:55.fail on that issue? I'm not sure I should provide the prescription. Ed
:08:55. > :09:01.Miliband talked about the squeezed middle for a long time. What we
:09:01. > :09:05.tried to argue in if this book, is this problem wasn't produced by the
:09:05. > :09:12.financial crisis. People understand this preceded it. There has been
:09:12. > :09:17.long-term lack of jobs, lack of income growth. Our polls even in
:09:17. > :09:21.even in the last week or so, still have dae Kleining income. And the
:09:21. > :09:26.way it is -- have declining income. And the way it is expressed is
:09:26. > :09:30.prices in the grocery stores. Price is the filter for a long period of
:09:30. > :09:33.jobs that don't have increased pay. It is lack of jobs and lack of jobs
:09:33. > :09:37.that pay. People understand and say long-term problem, and they are
:09:37. > :09:40.looking for, I think, bold solutions that address those kinds
:09:40. > :09:44.of problems. It is interesting, we heard it referred to as the cost of
:09:44. > :09:48.living reshuffle, if you like. The Government recognising that it is
:09:48. > :09:51.those prices, it is train fares, rising fuel, food, all the rest of
:09:51. > :09:56.it, whether they win or lose the next election, is that what this
:09:56. > :10:01.change in the last week was all about? Yes, I think it was. Until
:10:01. > :10:04.recently the whole Conservative presentational case was put through
:10:04. > :10:07.David Cameron. It was David Cameron, the prime ministerial one, versus
:10:07. > :10:11.Ed Miliband, the non-prime ministerial one. Now it doesn't
:10:11. > :10:17.seem enough. People do feel the squeeze, they are getting it from
:10:17. > :10:20.both sides. It is aptly called the squeezed middle. They feel upwards
:10:20. > :10:24.and downwards it has all gone wrong, and it is not enough. Is your
:10:24. > :10:30.suggestion that David Cameron cannot be the person that sells
:10:30. > :10:35.that to the electorate himself, it is too awkward? There is
:10:35. > :10:38.recognition of that in Tory circles. He has done well on the fronts he's
:10:38. > :10:42.good at. But we are in new territory and we need an additional
:10:42. > :10:48.cast of characters to get that method across. The argument in the
:10:48. > :10:52.states has been tax ku cuts versus tax breaks, we have this clunky
:10:52. > :10:57.phrase from Ed Miliband called "pre-distribution", I think it was
:10:57. > :11:00.imported from America. Is that something you can implement? Is it
:11:00. > :11:04.a vote-winner? We will know soon whether it is a vote-winner in
:11:04. > :11:09.terms of how the election goes. One thing that is clear, is President
:11:09. > :11:15.Obama, in the last three or four months, has come to identify the
:11:15. > :11:21.middle-class, the squeezed middle, as the central issue. If you looked
:11:21. > :11:25.at the convention hall this week. Signs saying "middle-class first",
:11:25. > :11:28.were plastered all over the convention hall. He has made it
:11:28. > :11:32.essential. What is clear, if you look at his speech, this is
:11:32. > :11:36.something that we have said in the book, this is a long-term problem.
:11:36. > :11:40.Therefore, it needs, people get that there needs to be policies
:11:40. > :11:46.that create jobs with rising incomes. That is, I think, is what
:11:46. > :11:50.Ed was hinting at when he said we have to get the right kind of jobs
:11:50. > :11:53.and strategies, to have the right kind of jobs that can produce
:11:53. > :11:57.rising incomes. It is an interesting idea. Pre-distribution,
:11:57. > :12:01.meaning, essentially, that the wages have to be something worth
:12:01. > :12:06.getting. Would you be brave enough, would a Government be brave enough
:12:06. > :12:10.to say, yes, employers have to pay more. We are going to raise the
:12:10. > :12:14.minimum wage? One thing I think is a problem with this is the name.
:12:14. > :12:21.That is very important, people will not understand this phrase.
:12:21. > :12:25.Miliband came up with a good phrase with the squeezed middle, "pre-
:12:25. > :12:29.distribution" will confuse people rather than entighten them. What
:12:29. > :12:32.the authors have done really well in their book, is put together a
:12:32. > :12:35.really serious and comprehensive policy to deal. I don't think it
:12:35. > :12:39.would work here, it may work in America. It is such a simple idea,
:12:39. > :12:43.it is a wage that pays you enough money. That you are not going back
:12:43. > :12:48.for tax credits and looking for the right kind of loopholes, it is a
:12:48. > :12:52.wage that pays you enough money to live on? Everyone would want that
:12:52. > :12:55.to happen and nobody would argue against it. How you get there is
:12:55. > :13:05.the argument. That is a serious economic argument that isn't
:13:05. > :13:05.
:13:05. > :13:08.contained in the current debate. Stan Greenburg. In the book we
:13:08. > :13:12.introduce, relevant to the, but bold in comparison to what people
:13:12. > :13:16.are talking about here. We talk about how to get healthcare costs
:13:16. > :13:21.under control, how to have an industrial manufacturing policy,
:13:21. > :13:25.using energy that promotes American jobs. I can't judge whether those
:13:25. > :13:30.are right, but I can't believe there isn't a set of policies that
:13:30. > :13:33.can be focused on, how do you have a growing number of jobs that have
:13:33. > :13:38.associated with them enough income to have a rising standard of living,
:13:38. > :13:40.so you don't have to address the kind of price struggle that people
:13:40. > :13:44.face now. If you are David Cameron, if you are the Conservatives, going
:13:44. > :13:50.into conference next month, knowing this is the issue on everyone's
:13:50. > :13:55.mind, what would you take. We were talking about the fat rabbit coming
:13:55. > :13:58.out of the hat. What has that got to be? Osborne is good at fat
:13:58. > :14:02.rabbits, but he has also had a clear message about austerity and
:14:02. > :14:07.it will pay off. But it hasn't, so far, it has been very, very
:14:07. > :14:11.difficult to find any sense of growth or anything positive? There
:14:11. > :14:15.is no rabbit that will replace real growth. Only if that happens can
:14:15. > :14:19.the Conservatives possibly win the next election. Thank you both very
:14:19. > :14:23.much indeed. One girl describes having sex in
:14:23. > :14:27.exchange for mobile phone credits, another describes the abuser, he
:14:27. > :14:31.believed, on-line, was a fellow teenager. Child grooming is not a
:14:31. > :14:36.new problem. But these tales are a timely reminder it still goes on.
:14:36. > :14:40.25 years after the serial killer Fred West was convicted of raping
:14:40. > :14:45.and murdering 1 girls. He was characterised in a BAFTA-winning
:14:45. > :14:49.performance by Dominic West, who since has become deeply involved in
:14:49. > :14:53.the issue. He made a film for us about vulnerable teens. We will
:14:53. > :15:03.speak to him in the studio about his experiences in a few moments.
:15:03. > :15:04.
:15:04. > :15:08.First their stories. When I made a programme recently on
:15:08. > :15:11.television about the Fred West case, one of the thing that alarmed me
:15:11. > :15:17.most is a man could prey on vulnerable young people for nearly
:15:17. > :15:22.25 years and go undetected. The sad fact was a lot of his victims were
:15:22. > :15:28.not missed by anybody, and not cared for by anybody, that is why
:15:28. > :15:38.it went undetected. He made me feel down all the time. I always felt
:15:38. > :15:38.
:15:38. > :15:42.down all the time. I always felt upset. And so how long you had been
:15:42. > :15:47.on the Internet talking before you met up? Only like a month. And then
:15:47. > :15:55.what happened when you met up? went for a drive. And what did he
:15:55. > :16:02.say? Nothing. He just gave me a phone. And then when did he start
:16:03. > :16:08.wanting to have sex with you? two weeks later. Were you happy you
:16:08. > :16:12.didn't want to? I didn't want to. Did you say you didn't want to?
:16:12. > :16:18.What did he say? He said I gave you a phone, so I get something in
:16:18. > :16:23.return. I kept saying no. He was always like, if you don't come out
:16:23. > :16:27.and see me, then send me a picture of your fanny and all this. I was
:16:27. > :16:32.like, no I don't want to he will keep going on and on, I just do it
:16:33. > :16:39.to shut him up. What does he do with that picture? I don't know.
:16:39. > :16:47.have a young daughter on Facebook all the time, how dangerous is it?
:16:47. > :16:53.How can you tell? I don't know. don't know. What made you want to
:16:53. > :16:59.meet up with the guy? I don't know. Were you curious, did he sound
:16:59. > :17:04.interesting and exciting? Well, I just used to do it because for love,
:17:04. > :17:09.to get love out of it. Because I didn't get enough at home. My mum's
:17:09. > :17:15.an alcoholic, so she always drinks, so I don't really...Did She know
:17:15. > :17:19.what was going on? No. Does she know now? No. How many children do
:17:19. > :17:24.you deal with here? At any one time we could be working with up to
:17:24. > :17:28.about 50, on a direct one-to-one basis. Right, so what happens in
:17:28. > :17:32.here? This is our client room. If we are bringing young people into
:17:32. > :17:37.the service, if we are doing a special on relationship, we would
:17:37. > :17:42.look at how you feel in certain relationships. You are looking at
:17:42. > :17:47.things like they are feeling nervous, and they feel weird and
:17:47. > :17:53.scared, reckless, excited. And sometimes kids can, you know, not
:17:53. > :17:56.be able to identify if they have positive people around them.
:17:56. > :18:00.problem with child sexual exploitation, with things like
:18:00. > :18:05.internet and that, is the problem getting worse or are we just more
:18:05. > :18:08.aware of it? Yes, as opposed in the community, if they are going to
:18:08. > :18:13.target a young person to groom them, when you are on-line you can target
:18:14. > :18:22.any amount of young people, and out of say 50, I guarantee you will get
:18:22. > :18:30.quite a few that are going to fall into that process of being groomed.
:18:30. > :18:34.What amazed me is so many kids, it seems to me, go missing, and
:18:34. > :18:40.unaccounted for, and nobody knows about them, those are the most
:18:40. > :18:45.vulnerable people to exploitation? I think that the process of, with
:18:45. > :18:52.perpetrator, is becoming more sophisticated, with awareness of
:18:52. > :18:55.the law, awareness of vunbgts, and children may be just mis--
:18:55. > :19:00.vunerabilities, and children may be missing for a few hours and taken
:19:00. > :19:03.back home. There may not be an indication that they are being
:19:03. > :19:09.sexually exploited, because the perpetrators are becoming wise.
:19:09. > :19:14.in ten of the children Barnados treat are boys, they call them the
:19:14. > :19:18.hidden problem, and say the aftereffects of sexual exploitation
:19:18. > :19:26.on a boy's identity can be devastating. The person just wanted
:19:26. > :19:32.to know everything about me. What did you think about the police, did
:19:32. > :19:35.you think they were there to help or were you frightened of them?
:19:35. > :19:40.was frightened, they were pressurising me. Why? They wanted
:19:40. > :19:43.to know every single bit of detail. And they were putting me on the
:19:43. > :19:49.spot, as I said they wanted to know everything. I couldn't remember
:19:49. > :19:56.everything. They were, presumably, because they wanted to talk to the
:19:56. > :20:01.guy who was corresponding? They said they were on my side, but it
:20:01. > :20:04.didn't feel like it. How did it feel? Nervous, I thought I was the
:20:04. > :20:09.one who was going to get into trouble. Did you think it was your
:20:09. > :20:19.fault, in a way? Yeah. Do you still think that? Sometimes, but not as
:20:19. > :20:20.
:20:20. > :20:29.much. What happens sometimes that making you think that? Em, because
:20:29. > :20:33.I think to myself that I shouldn't have responded or replied to him. I
:20:33. > :20:37.should have known better. Do you think you were duped, or you were,
:20:37. > :20:43.it wasn't what you thought it was? Yeah. Or maybe it was and you were
:20:43. > :20:48.excited by it, or interested in it? Yeah.
:20:48. > :20:51.The most shocking thing for me today was hearing from a young
:20:51. > :20:55.woman prepared to sleep with men she didn't want to, purely for
:20:55. > :20:58.mobile phone credit. It is clear the children on the end of this
:20:58. > :21:03.abuse, struggle to identify it for what it is. For them gifts must be
:21:04. > :21:08.paid for, and friends are people whose demands can't be turned down.
:21:08. > :21:18.Since they are not able to, some how Government and wider society
:21:18. > :21:19.
:21:19. > :21:24.has to do more to identify it for them. You saw Facebook mentioned in
:21:24. > :21:29.that piece, and "tagged", they say they have many features to protect
:21:29. > :21:38.users from misuse, and they have many platforms to keep young people
:21:38. > :21:40.safe. Claire Perry and Dominic West are here, leading a campaign to put
:21:40. > :21:44.filtering devices. And a representative from the charity,
:21:44. > :21:48.Safe and Sound. If we can pick up where you just left out. That idea
:21:48. > :21:53.when you are speaking to these kids, and it is quite hard to work out
:21:53. > :21:58.whether they saw themselves as victims, or when you said gifts
:21:58. > :22:03.must some how be paid for, it is a very confused relationship for them,
:22:03. > :22:07.sometimes? I think that was what was one of the more depressing
:22:07. > :22:13.things, was they seemed totally unaware that they are being
:22:13. > :22:20.exploited and they are victims, and that, I suppose, certainly Harriet,
:22:20. > :22:27.the girl I spoke to, she was from, she had a bad home background, and
:22:27. > :22:32.so had no idea, I suppose, about what affection and love was about.
:22:32. > :22:39.I assume that is one of the things she was looking for, and had really,
:22:39. > :22:43.or she said she didn't realise that, when she was in a room full of ten
:22:43. > :22:50.men that was exploitive. It is unusual for an actor to go this far
:22:50. > :22:58.along a theme or a role, presumably, outside a role. What was it that
:22:58. > :23:06.drew you in here? The Fred West case, I obviously got very involved
:23:06. > :23:10.in. The most, the appalling aspect of it was it was essentially a case
:23:10. > :23:15.of child sexual exploitation, and it was also a case that a lot of
:23:15. > :23:20.his victims were children, and they were also people who nobody klted
:23:20. > :23:25.for. That their parents -- not accounted for, that their parents
:23:25. > :23:29.didn't know them or care homes couldn't keep tabs on them. I
:23:29. > :23:33.wanted to see who was dealing with that and sorting it out. I spoke to
:23:33. > :23:39.Barnardos who have a campaign that deals with missing children and
:23:39. > :23:42.sexual exploitation, the two are very much linked. What was your
:23:42. > :23:50.experience when you saw how the problem is being dealt with, or
:23:50. > :23:54.tackled, or approached, did you feel reassured? Not really, no. It
:23:54. > :24:01.seems incredibly difficult. I mean, the Millennium Dome, the centre I
:24:01. > :24:05.went to was a very quiet place. It was I thought a lot about a charity
:24:05. > :24:08.I came across in Baltimore and we were doing The Wire, and we were
:24:08. > :24:13.raising funds for a woman who had set up an afterschool club for kids
:24:13. > :24:16.who were vulnerable and on the streets and couldn't go home. I
:24:17. > :24:21.thought it would be a centre like that. Obviously this centre, the
:24:21. > :24:24.Barnados centre was much more specialised, because it was about
:24:24. > :24:29.specifically abused kids. One looks around for people to blame, the
:24:29. > :24:35.Government or parents, and the truth is that's everyone's
:24:35. > :24:40.responsibility, really. Your nodding. Do you recognise it is
:24:40. > :24:48.some how isn't taken on board by smaller community, much more grass
:24:48. > :24:52.roots? Yes. Sorry. I think my experience in Baltimore, and I
:24:52. > :24:56.think Natalie will talk about it, conviction that is have happened
:24:56. > :24:59.recently seem to have come from a community-based thing rather than a
:24:59. > :25:02.national-based thing. What do you make that have? I think it's
:25:02. > :25:05.make that have? I think it's everybody's responsibility. The
:25:05. > :25:08.Government could do a national awareness raising campaign. It
:25:08. > :25:11.needs to be recognised as everyone's responsibility. It is
:25:11. > :25:14.parents, it is communities, it is people who work in shopping centres,
:25:14. > :25:18.people who work in hotels, it is police, it is local authorities.
:25:18. > :25:23.Everybody needs to work together to address this. At the end of the day
:25:23. > :25:27.it is the perpetrators to blame, nobody else. As we heard there,
:25:27. > :25:32.they are getting more sophisticated, they have a whole range of
:25:32. > :25:36.technology, and all the rest of it to deal with? Dominic has made the
:25:36. > :25:42.point, having played Fred West. This is a problem that has existed
:25:42. > :25:46.for years. What technology has done is amplify the problem and make it
:25:46. > :25:49.much, much easier to contact children and young people. We had a
:25:49. > :25:52.cross-party parliamentary inquiry into the issue, specifically of on-
:25:52. > :25:55.line child protection. We had various charities that educate in
:25:55. > :26:01.this area, and parents are frequently incredibly complacent.
:26:01. > :26:05.Right now, the way you are supposed to protect your family from adult
:26:05. > :26:08.contact on the Internet is to download filters delivered by your
:26:08. > :26:12.service providers. Great technology, and only four out of ten families
:26:12. > :26:16.use it for various reasons. That is the stable, structured families.
:26:16. > :26:20.What your investigation found, is how, as children become more and
:26:20. > :26:23.more vulnerable, and out there in society, in children's homes,
:26:23. > :26:26.perhaps with more dysfuntional families, they become even more
:26:26. > :26:31.vulnerable, and the technology makes it even harder to shield them.
:26:31. > :26:38.As a dad and parent do you feel able to get more involved. Would
:26:38. > :26:45.you step into your daughter's virtual life? No. I tried, but
:26:45. > :26:48.she's in charge of setting up filters in our family. So, she
:26:48. > :26:52.comes to you and says you might have to put that on for me?
:26:52. > :26:55.didn't know about the filters, to be honest if I talk about it.
:26:55. > :27:00.think we need an opt in, because you need a feed that is clean, if
:27:00. > :27:04.you want the material, no-one here is anti-porn, there is no Mary
:27:04. > :27:07.white house campaigning, you opt in to get it. The mobile phone
:27:07. > :27:10.question we were talking about, now with a smartphone you are
:27:10. > :27:15.accessible all the time. I have three children, I was asking myself
:27:15. > :27:19.why do I not feel confident in looking at their phone message, we
:27:19. > :27:25.pay for their phones. We have given our children an unprecedented
:27:25. > :27:31.private space. Or who they friend on Facebook. Would it occur to you
:27:31. > :27:35.to read your children's texts? would be like reading her diary.
:27:35. > :27:39.there were a bunch of guys hanging around, we give them a private
:27:39. > :27:43.bubble. If you picked up a landline call, in the old days, you would
:27:43. > :27:46.have a sense of whether somebody sounded a bit dodgy. Completely.
:27:46. > :27:49.You might not know that these children have got mobile phones.
:27:49. > :27:53.What we find is that the perpetrators will buy them a new
:27:53. > :27:57.mobile phone, and they will have two. They will be very, very
:27:57. > :28:01.secretive about the one that the perpetrator has bought. As a parent
:28:01. > :28:05.you might not know about it. It is about educating children around
:28:05. > :28:08.this issue, it is about raising their awareness in primary schools
:28:08. > :28:11.W appropriate messages around staying safe, safe choices. You are
:28:11. > :28:14.always going to be one step behind f you try to legislation on
:28:14. > :28:18.technology, you will always be a step behind whatever they have
:28:18. > :28:21.thought of next? We are not calling for legislation, the idea of the
:28:21. > :28:26.Government legislating the Internet, Governments can be clunky in this
:28:26. > :28:30.area. What I want, and it gets back to the issue of lots of people
:28:30. > :28:34.being involved, specifically the Internet service providers, six
:28:34. > :28:38.provide 95% of access in the home in Britain, they make about �3.5
:28:38. > :28:42.billion in internet access revenue, it is the only form of media where
:28:42. > :28:46.there is no control. In television we have watershed, films we have
:28:46. > :28:50.ratings, why should the Internet be different. If Natalie is right, it
:28:50. > :28:53.is not a question of whether the kids can get on to the right search
:28:54. > :28:56.on the Internet, it is whether, it might not even have parents around,
:28:56. > :29:00.they might not have parents that notice whether they are missing for
:29:00. > :29:05.a couple of hours. It is quite possible with teenagers? It is also
:29:05. > :29:08.the case that, sorry, lots of kids in stable families will have
:29:08. > :29:11.laptops in their bedrooms, the parents don't necessarily know what
:29:11. > :29:16.is happening either. It is about education for me, it is about
:29:16. > :29:20.educating children so they are aware, they know why not to put
:29:20. > :29:25.certain things on-line, and certain photos or personal information on-
:29:25. > :29:29.line. How do you educate, though, a girl who has come from, probably a
:29:29. > :29:33.pretty abusive or addictive family. Who might not have had any kind of
:29:33. > :29:36.stable relationship in her life, she falls in love with the first
:29:36. > :29:39.guy that gives her a mobile phone? That is very difficult, but it is
:29:39. > :29:43.everybody's responsibility, it needs to happen in schools, in
:29:43. > :29:46.children's homes. So we do awareness-raising sessions in
:29:46. > :29:52.schools and children's homes and youth clubs and places like that,
:29:52. > :29:55.so we try to hit as many young people as we can with the stay safe
:29:55. > :29:59.message. Those who have been groomed effectively, need support
:29:59. > :30:05.to get out of abusive relationships. Dominic, going back to some of
:30:05. > :30:11.these kids, did you get the sense that they had learned just another
:30:12. > :30:16.level of not to trust, or do you think? What was really shocking is
:30:16. > :30:20.they, particularly Harriet, she felt, I'm addicted to the Internet
:30:20. > :30:26.and my mobile phone, it doesn't matter with me, she felt if she
:30:26. > :30:30.didn't have a phone, the guy who was abusing her, all he had to say
:30:30. > :30:36.was, I'll take your sim card away, and if she didn't have a mobile
:30:36. > :30:39.phone or access to social network, she did not exist. And she was a
:30:39. > :30:47.non-person. That's something that my generation never had to deal
:30:47. > :30:53.with. We met our friend, do still, but it is like you have no identity
:30:53. > :30:57.now. And when my daughter went to school, aged pre-legal Facebook age,
:30:57. > :31:01.her peers came up to me and said why are you not letting her on
:31:01. > :31:04.Facebook, she as the only one here and missing out on all the social
:31:04. > :31:08.interaction, you are mad, what is the matter with you. It is that
:31:08. > :31:12.sense of children living their lives in an on-line world, that we
:31:12. > :31:16.all a little hard. That is why the Internet has become the place where
:31:16. > :31:20.they socialise, get information, I would like more protection and
:31:20. > :31:23.filtering of some of the adult content. We have run out of time.
:31:23. > :31:33.Thank you very much indeed. That's all tonight, there will be plenty
:31:33. > :31:37.
:31:37. > :31:41.more next week, until then, have a Hello there, it is going to remain
:31:41. > :31:44.very warm for some of us this weekend, a chilly start in the
:31:44. > :31:48.south west with fog too. That will soon clear, patchy fog in parts of
:31:48. > :31:52.Wales and the Midlands. It gets burned off by the sun, further
:31:52. > :31:57.north the sunshine does arrive eventually. In the north of England
:31:57. > :32:01.a while to brighten up. A lovely day through the Midlands, highest
:32:01. > :32:07.temperature in East Anglia and the south-east, could hit 27 Celsius in
:32:07. > :32:11.the light winds. Southerly Brize, the highest temperatures will be --
:32:11. > :32:16.southerly breeze, and highest temperatures 25. A lot of sunshine
:32:16. > :32:20.in Wales. Warming up nicely. Lovely day. Across Northern Ireland,
:32:20. > :32:23.conditions will be improving, after a cloudy start, more sunshine
:32:24. > :32:28.developing, like we did today, 20 degrees is likely. Across Scotland
:32:28. > :32:33.it is the North West that could be cloudy, elsewhere some sunshine and
:32:33. > :32:37.it will be a pleasantly warm when it was out. In Paris, 30 degrees on
:32:37. > :32:44.Sunday, in the sunshine, a little bit more cloud in Berlin, warming
:32:44. > :32:47.up as weekend goes on. Fine, stuny hot weather continues in Rome and
:32:47. > :32:51.Athens, a few showers inland Spain. Wetter conditions arriving in