07/09/2012 Newsnight

Tonight, the week the Government and the opposition stepped up the

fight to win over the middle- classes. Call them the alarm clock

generation, or the squeezed middle, their fortunes or misfortunes, may

dictate the next election. The cost of living will make-or-break the

Conservative Party and the coalition at the next election. It

is the number one thing that concerns people. Privately, I'm

being told that this week's reshuffle is all about the cost of

living. Putting those faces to the front that can sell the

Government's message, that it understands hardship. Labour gave

us a big idea too. It wasn't redistribution. We will be talking

to Stan Greenburg and Stefan Shakespeare, about who has the

answers. Also tonight, when you have six for mobile phone credits,

the kids that are being groomed, deused and abused. Dominic West

played the serial killer, Fred West, in BAFTA-winning performance, it

motivated him to learn more about child safety. What happened when

you met up? I went for a drive. What did he say? Nothing, he gave

me a phone. We speak to Dominic and guests here in the studio, and ask

whose responsibility those kids are?

Good evening. The cabinet juggling of this week has been called in

inner circles, "the cost of living reshuffle", a clear sign, perhaps

the Government recognises it is the very issue that will win or lose

the next election. All week politicians on both sides of the

house, both sides of the Atlantic, have been struggling to articulate

solutions to what many believe will be next month's conference

battleground. The struggling middle-classes facing rising food

and fuel prices, here is our political he had dor. An average

residential area, in an average part of down, basking in London's

India summer. Things look so much better in the sun. Even the best

September glow will struggle to improve the look of a wage that

doesn't grow, and hasn't for a few years now. Acute economic problems

squeezing households might pass like a plane across the sun. But

there are broader shadows cast. In an average estate, in an average

part of town, this is issue number one. Bread and butter issues

persuaded the Government, a reshuffle, and may not be relevant

to this Government. What Ed Miliband and David Cameron were

doing is readying themselves for the debate. The cost of living is

the number one issue for the British public. This week David

Cameron kicked things off with a cost of living reshuffle.

New jobs were announced by the company,Am stkpon, today, the Prime

Minister was there are willing them on, but he and his advisers know

that even for those with work, the problem is balancing the books.

David Cameron's Government believes its policies are helping the

squeeze on people's lives, having frozen council tax, and letting

people keep more of their salary. But focus groups, carried out by

Downing Street, show people believe local councils to be responsible

for the first, and no-one knows about the second. Now Keneth Clarke

is the highest-profile of a number of ministers, tasked it with better

getting that message out there. The minister for Ronnie Scott's, may

have suddenly been made the minister for the cost of living.

This Government has long frozen council tax, and is also increasing

the personal tax allowance. These are good policies that help with

the cost of living problem. Now they have put the people in place

to help promote those policies, they know they need to do more.

Ideas doing the rounds include action on childcare, or a further

delay to the fuel duty increase. George Osborne's speech to

conference this autumn, is expected to be the moment it would be

unveiled. His speeches are often rabbit out of the hat moments. This

rabbit has to be pretty big to feed a lot of families. One of those

waiting on Osborne's rabbit is the foodbank supporter, like this

minister. They offer food to struggling families. The cost of

living issue will make-or-break the Conservative Party and the

coalition at the next election. It is the number one thing that

concerns people, the petrol bills, the food bills, how much tax they

are paying. Wherever I go I see people struggling to keep their

head above water. The husband, I meet couples and the husband is

working all day, he comes in and his wife goes out to work all night.

These are many families across Harlow, people getting up at 4,

5.00am, working every hour they can in order to keep the family

finances in order. The Government are wise to that I gend da, they

are trying to do -- agenda, they are trying to do things about it.

It requires tough choices, if they were to overhaul environmental

policy we could get energy bills down, it requires tough choices and

those with subsidise in industry wouldn't like that.

Subsidies in industry wouldn't like. That we have to look at getting the

most out of public services to ease resources and the squeeze on

people's pockets. If the Government wants policies to ease the squeeze

right now, there are those in all parties looking at how long-term

they can improve people's ability to make more money in the first

place. Forget the growth they arey, and the post bureaucratic age, Pete

pre-distribution. Pre-business tribbuegs is about saying we cannot

allow ourselves to be -- pre- distribution, means we can't allow

ourselves to be about taxes and benefit and low wages. Our aim must

be to transform our economy so it is a much higher school and higher

wage economy. Government sources today are saying they are already

pre-distributing, they are rewarding schools and enabling

skills so people can get better jobs in the future. But pre-

distribution, in the form Ed Miliband intends, ined crudest form,

could involve the nobbling of companies. The two approaches that

they are take to go relieve living standards pressures, one is a tax

cut, aimed at working people, broadly, in the form of increased

personal allowances, and deregulation, it is an interesting

twist on deregulation. It is deregulation on parts of public

services, which people have to pay for, like childcare, to try to make

those things cheaper. There is a lot of scepticism about whether

that will work, it is a traditional, centre right approach, being

applied to an area of public policy. Over in America, ahead of their

election, a new book deals with how all politicians have failed to help

middle earners deal with the squeeze. Though America's middle

making for a muddled model for the British middle, there are lessons.

There is no other way of putting t the two Titans of the American

political scene, we have failed. Their British opposite numbers air

strikes cross all three parties, are trying to ensure there is

another way of putting it. The author of that new book, it is

Middle Class Stupid, is Democrat pollster, Stan Greenburg. He joins

us now. And Stefan Shakespeare is co-owner of the website

ConservativeHome. If we can start with you and that quote, that the

reason you wrote the book is because they have failed and that

is it. You recognise the middle- class is vital? It is vital to

America identity. It is vital to the middle of the country. When we

talk about milledle, we are talking about the -- middle, we are talking

about the middle-classes, people who have an aspiration for

education for their kids and rising prosperity. Hard work is a central

value. If you look at the Democratic Convention this week,

hard work, work just ran through the entire thread. Work is supposed

to pay. We wrote the book, because work wasn't paying. People were

expressing great frustration. We wanted politics to work for the

middle-class. It wasn't happening. That's why we wrote the book.

you look across the Atlantic here, what has to change for us not to

fail on that issue? I'm not sure I should provide the prescription. Ed

Miliband talked about the squeezed middle for a long time. What we

tried to argue in if this book, is this problem wasn't produced by the

financial crisis. People understand this preceded it. There has been

long-term lack of jobs, lack of income growth. Our polls even in

even in the last week or so, still have dae Kleining income. And the

way it is -- have declining income. And the way it is expressed is

prices in the grocery stores. Price is the filter for a long period of

jobs that don't have increased pay. It is lack of jobs and lack of jobs

that pay. People understand and say long-term problem, and they are

looking for, I think, bold solutions that address those kinds

of problems. It is interesting, we heard it referred to as the cost of

living reshuffle, if you like. The Government recognising that it is

those prices, it is train fares, rising fuel, food, all the rest of

it, whether they win or lose the next election, is that what this

change in the last week was all about? Yes, I think it was. Until

recently the whole Conservative presentational case was put through

David Cameron. It was David Cameron, the prime ministerial one, versus

Ed Miliband, the non-prime ministerial one. Now it doesn't

seem enough. People do feel the squeeze, they are getting it from

both sides. It is aptly called the squeezed middle. They feel upwards

and downwards it has all gone wrong, and it is not enough. Is your

suggestion that David Cameron cannot be the person that sells

that to the electorate himself, it is too awkward? There is

recognition of that in Tory circles. He has done well on the fronts he's

good at. But we are in new territory and we need an additional

cast of characters to get that method across. The argument in the

states has been tax ku cuts versus tax breaks, we have this clunky

phrase from Ed Miliband called "pre-distribution", I think it was

imported from America. Is that something you can implement? Is it

a vote-winner? We will know soon whether it is a vote-winner in

terms of how the election goes. One thing that is clear, is President

Obama, in the last three or four months, has come to identify the

middle-class, the squeezed middle, as the central issue. If you looked

at the convention hall this week. Signs saying "middle-class first",

were plastered all over the convention hall. He has made it

essential. What is clear, if you look at his speech, this is

something that we have said in the book, this is a long-term problem.

Therefore, it needs, people get that there needs to be policies

that create jobs with rising incomes. That is, I think, is what

Ed was hinting at when he said we have to get the right kind of jobs

and strategies, to have the right kind of jobs that can produce

rising incomes. It is an interesting idea. Pre-distribution,

meaning, essentially, that the wages have to be something worth

getting. Would you be brave enough, would a Government be brave enough

to say, yes, employers have to pay more. We are going to raise the

minimum wage? One thing I think is a problem with this is the name.

That is very important, people will not understand this phrase.

Miliband came up with a good phrase with the squeezed middle, "pre-

distribution" will confuse people rather than entighten them. What

the authors have done really well in their book, is put together a

really serious and comprehensive policy to deal. I don't think it

would work here, it may work in America. It is such a simple idea,

it is a wage that pays you enough money. That you are not going back

for tax credits and looking for the right kind of loopholes, it is a

wage that pays you enough money to live on? Everyone would want that

to happen and nobody would argue against it. How you get there is

the argument. That is a serious economic argument that isn't

contained in the current debate. Stan Greenburg. In the book we

introduce, relevant to the, but bold in comparison to what people

are talking about here. We talk about how to get healthcare costs

under control, how to have an industrial manufacturing policy,

using energy that promotes American jobs. I can't judge whether those

are right, but I can't believe there isn't a set of policies that

can be focused on, how do you have a growing number of jobs that have

associated with them enough income to have a rising standard of living,

so you don't have to address the kind of price struggle that people

face now. If you are David Cameron, if you are the Conservatives, going

into conference next month, knowing this is the issue on everyone's

mind, what would you take. We were talking about the fat rabbit coming

out of the hat. What has that got to be? Osborne is good at fat

rabbits, but he has also had a clear message about austerity and

it will pay off. But it hasn't, so far, it has been very, very

difficult to find any sense of growth or anything positive? There

is no rabbit that will replace real growth. Only if that happens can

the Conservatives possibly win the next election. Thank you both very

much indeed. One girl describes having sex in

exchange for mobile phone credits, another describes the abuser, he

believed, on-line, was a fellow teenager. Child grooming is not a

new problem. But these tales are a timely reminder it still goes on.

25 years after the serial killer Fred West was convicted of raping

and murdering 1 girls. He was characterised in a BAFTA-winning

performance by Dominic West, who since has become deeply involved in

the issue. He made a film for us about vulnerable teens. We will

speak to him in the studio about his experiences in a few moments.

First their stories. When I made a programme recently on

television about the Fred West case, one of the thing that alarmed me

most is a man could prey on vulnerable young people for nearly

25 years and go undetected. The sad fact was a lot of his victims were

not missed by anybody, and not cared for by anybody, that is why

it went undetected. He made me feel down all the time. I always felt

down all the time. I always felt upset. And so how long you had been

on the Internet talking before you met up? Only like a month. And then

what happened when you met up? went for a drive. And what did he

say? Nothing. He just gave me a phone. And then when did he start

wanting to have sex with you? two weeks later. Were you happy you

didn't want to? I didn't want to. Did you say you didn't want to?

What did he say? He said I gave you a phone, so I get something in

return. I kept saying no. He was always like, if you don't come out

and see me, then send me a picture of your fanny and all this. I was

like, no I don't want to he will keep going on and on, I just do it

to shut him up. What does he do with that picture? I don't know.

have a young daughter on Facebook all the time, how dangerous is it?

How can you tell? I don't know. don't know. What made you want to

meet up with the guy? I don't know. Were you curious, did he sound

interesting and exciting? Well, I just used to do it because for love,

to get love out of it. Because I didn't get enough at home. My mum's

an alcoholic, so she always drinks, so I don't really...Did She know

what was going on? No. Does she know now? No. How many children do

you deal with here? At any one time we could be working with up to

about 50, on a direct one-to-one basis. Right, so what happens in

here? This is our client room. If we are bringing young people into

the service, if we are doing a special on relationship, we would

look at how you feel in certain relationships. You are looking at

things like they are feeling nervous, and they feel weird and

scared, reckless, excited. And sometimes kids can, you know, not

be able to identify if they have positive people around them.

problem with child sexual exploitation, with things like

internet and that, is the problem getting worse or are we just more

aware of it? Yes, as opposed in the community, if they are going to

target a young person to groom them, when you are on-line you can target

any amount of young people, and out of say 50, I guarantee you will get

quite a few that are going to fall into that process of being groomed.

What amazed me is so many kids, it seems to me, go missing, and

unaccounted for, and nobody knows about them, those are the most

vulnerable people to exploitation? I think that the process of, with

perpetrator, is becoming more sophisticated, with awareness of

the law, awareness of vunbgts, and children may be just mis--

vunerabilities, and children may be missing for a few hours and taken

back home. There may not be an indication that they are being

sexually exploited, because the perpetrators are becoming wise.

in ten of the children Barnados treat are boys, they call them the

hidden problem, and say the aftereffects of sexual exploitation

on a boy's identity can be devastating. The person just wanted

to know everything about me. What did you think about the police, did

you think they were there to help or were you frightened of them?

was frightened, they were pressurising me. Why? They wanted

to know every single bit of detail. And they were putting me on the

spot, as I said they wanted to know everything. I couldn't remember

everything. They were, presumably, because they wanted to talk to the

guy who was corresponding? They said they were on my side, but it

didn't feel like it. How did it feel? Nervous, I thought I was the

one who was going to get into trouble. Did you think it was your

fault, in a way? Yeah. Do you still think that? Sometimes, but not as

much. What happens sometimes that making you think that? Em, because

I think to myself that I shouldn't have responded or replied to him. I

should have known better. Do you think you were duped, or you were,

it wasn't what you thought it was? Yeah. Or maybe it was and you were

excited by it, or interested in it? Yeah.

The most shocking thing for me today was hearing from a young

woman prepared to sleep with men she didn't want to, purely for

mobile phone credit. It is clear the children on the end of this

abuse, struggle to identify it for what it is. For them gifts must be

paid for, and friends are people whose demands can't be turned down.

Since they are not able to, some how Government and wider society

has to do more to identify it for them. You saw Facebook mentioned in

that piece, and "tagged", they say they have many features to protect

users from misuse, and they have many platforms to keep young people

safe. Claire Perry and Dominic West are here, leading a campaign to put

filtering devices. And a representative from the charity,

Safe and Sound. If we can pick up where you just left out. That idea

when you are speaking to these kids, and it is quite hard to work out

whether they saw themselves as victims, or when you said gifts

must some how be paid for, it is a very confused relationship for them,

sometimes? I think that was what was one of the more depressing

things, was they seemed totally unaware that they are being

exploited and they are victims, and that, I suppose, certainly Harriet,

the girl I spoke to, she was from, she had a bad home background, and

so had no idea, I suppose, about what affection and love was about.

I assume that is one of the things she was looking for, and had really,

or she said she didn't realise that, when she was in a room full of ten

men that was exploitive. It is unusual for an actor to go this far

along a theme or a role, presumably, outside a role. What was it that

drew you in here? The Fred West case, I obviously got very involved

in. The most, the appalling aspect of it was it was essentially a case

of child sexual exploitation, and it was also a case that a lot of

his victims were children, and they were also people who nobody klted

for. That their parents -- not accounted for, that their parents

didn't know them or care homes couldn't keep tabs on them. I

wanted to see who was dealing with that and sorting it out. I spoke to

Barnardos who have a campaign that deals with missing children and

sexual exploitation, the two are very much linked. What was your

experience when you saw how the problem is being dealt with, or

tackled, or approached, did you feel reassured? Not really, no. It

seems incredibly difficult. I mean, the Millennium Dome, the centre I

went to was a very quiet place. It was I thought a lot about a charity

I came across in Baltimore and we were doing The Wire, and we were

raising funds for a woman who had set up an afterschool club for kids

who were vulnerable and on the streets and couldn't go home. I

thought it would be a centre like that. Obviously this centre, the

Barnados centre was much more specialised, because it was about

specifically abused kids. One looks around for people to blame, the

Government or parents, and the truth is that's everyone's

responsibility, really. Your nodding. Do you recognise it is

some how isn't taken on board by smaller community, much more grass

roots? Yes. Sorry. I think my experience in Baltimore, and I

think Natalie will talk about it, conviction that is have happened

recently seem to have come from a community-based thing rather than a

national-based thing. What do you make that have? I think it's

make that have? I think it's everybody's responsibility. The

Government could do a national awareness raising campaign. It

needs to be recognised as everyone's responsibility. It is

parents, it is communities, it is people who work in shopping centres,

people who work in hotels, it is police, it is local authorities.

Everybody needs to work together to address this. At the end of the day

it is the perpetrators to blame, nobody else. As we heard there,

they are getting more sophisticated, they have a whole range of

technology, and all the rest of it to deal with? Dominic has made the

point, having played Fred West. This is a problem that has existed

for years. What technology has done is amplify the problem and make it

much, much easier to contact children and young people. We had a

cross-party parliamentary inquiry into the issue, specifically of on-

line child protection. We had various charities that educate in

this area, and parents are frequently incredibly complacent.

Right now, the way you are supposed to protect your family from adult

contact on the Internet is to download filters delivered by your

service providers. Great technology, and only four out of ten families

use it for various reasons. That is the stable, structured families.

What your investigation found, is how, as children become more and

more vulnerable, and out there in society, in children's homes,

perhaps with more dysfuntional families, they become even more

vulnerable, and the technology makes it even harder to shield them.

As a dad and parent do you feel able to get more involved. Would

you step into your daughter's virtual life? No. I tried, but

she's in charge of setting up filters in our family. So, she

comes to you and says you might have to put that on for me?

didn't know about the filters, to be honest if I talk about it.

think we need an opt in, because you need a feed that is clean, if

you want the material, no-one here is anti-porn, there is no Mary

white house campaigning, you opt in to get it. The mobile phone

question we were talking about, now with a smartphone you are

accessible all the time. I have three children, I was asking myself

why do I not feel confident in looking at their phone message, we

pay for their phones. We have given our children an unprecedented

private space. Or who they friend on Facebook. Would it occur to you

to read your children's texts? would be like reading her diary.

there were a bunch of guys hanging around, we give them a private

bubble. If you picked up a landline call, in the old days, you would

have a sense of whether somebody sounded a bit dodgy. Completely.

You might not know that these children have got mobile phones.

What we find is that the perpetrators will buy them a new

mobile phone, and they will have two. They will be very, very

secretive about the one that the perpetrator has bought. As a parent

you might not know about it. It is about educating children around

this issue, it is about raising their awareness in primary schools

W appropriate messages around staying safe, safe choices. You are

always going to be one step behind f you try to legislation on

technology, you will always be a step behind whatever they have

thought of next? We are not calling for legislation, the idea of the

Government legislating the Internet, Governments can be clunky in this

area. What I want, and it gets back to the issue of lots of people

being involved, specifically the Internet service providers, six

provide 95% of access in the home in Britain, they make about �3.5

billion in internet access revenue, it is the only form of media where

there is no control. In television we have watershed, films we have

ratings, why should the Internet be different. If Natalie is right, it

is not a question of whether the kids can get on to the right search

on the Internet, it is whether, it might not even have parents around,

they might not have parents that notice whether they are missing for

a couple of hours. It is quite possible with teenagers? It is also

the case that, sorry, lots of kids in stable families will have

laptops in their bedrooms, the parents don't necessarily know what

is happening either. It is about education for me, it is about

educating children so they are aware, they know why not to put

certain things on-line, and certain photos or personal information on-

line. How do you educate, though, a girl who has come from, probably a

pretty abusive or addictive family. Who might not have had any kind of

stable relationship in her life, she falls in love with the first

guy that gives her a mobile phone? That is very difficult, but it is

everybody's responsibility, it needs to happen in schools, in

children's homes. So we do awareness-raising sessions in

schools and children's homes and youth clubs and places like that,

so we try to hit as many young people as we can with the stay safe

message. Those who have been groomed effectively, need support

to get out of abusive relationships. Dominic, going back to some of

these kids, did you get the sense that they had learned just another

level of not to trust, or do you think? What was really shocking is

they, particularly Harriet, she felt, I'm addicted to the Internet

and my mobile phone, it doesn't matter with me, she felt if she

didn't have a phone, the guy who was abusing her, all he had to say

was, I'll take your sim card away, and if she didn't have a mobile

phone or access to social network, she did not exist. And she was a

non-person. That's something that my generation never had to deal

with. We met our friend, do still, but it is like you have no identity

now. And when my daughter went to school, aged pre-legal Facebook age,

her peers came up to me and said why are you not letting her on

Facebook, she as the only one here and missing out on all the social

interaction, you are mad, what is the matter with you. It is that

sense of children living their lives in an on-line world, that we

all a little hard. That is why the Internet has become the place where

they socialise, get information, I would like more protection and

filtering of some of the adult content. We have run out of time.

Thank you very much indeed. That's all tonight, there will be plenty

more next week, until then, have a Hello there, it is going to remain

very warm for some of us this weekend, a chilly start in the

south west with fog too. That will soon clear, patchy fog in parts of

Wales and the Midlands. It gets burned off by the sun, further

north the sunshine does arrive eventually. In the north of England

a while to brighten up. A lovely day through the Midlands, highest

temperature in East Anglia and the south-east, could hit 27 Celsius in

the light winds. Southerly Brize, the highest temperatures will be --

southerly breeze, and highest temperatures 25. A lot of sunshine

in Wales. Warming up nicely. Lovely day. Across Northern Ireland,

conditions will be improving, after a cloudy start, more sunshine

developing, like we did today, 20 degrees is likely. Across Scotland

it is the North West that could be cloudy, elsewhere some sunshine and

it will be a pleasantly warm when it was out. In Paris, 30 degrees on

Sunday, in the sunshine, a little bit more cloud in Berlin, warming

up as weekend goes on. Fine, stuny hot weather continues in Rome and

Athens, a few showers inland Spain. Wetter conditions arriving in