:00:18. > :00:22.resign, but insists he never used resign, but insists he never used
:00:22. > :00:28.the words "pleb pleb" or" more ran". Why did the row drag itself out for
:00:28. > :00:32.another month until he finally quit. They weren't the exact words he
:00:32. > :00:38.used, but accusations that chimed with the worst stereotypes of the
:00:38. > :00:42.modern Tory toff. There are those who praise and bury Andrew Mitchell
:00:42. > :00:46.with us. The Savile affair, a criminal
:00:46. > :00:49.investigation, with accusations against living people. The police
:00:49. > :00:55.claim there are 200 potential victim, and potential prosecutions
:00:55. > :01:01.to come of the He's possibly going to be be one of the prolific
:01:01. > :01:11.exoffenders that the NSPCC has come across, he spans five decades.
:01:11. > :01:20.
:01:20. > :01:26.man who was Children's Minister "dear David" read the letter. It is
:01:26. > :01:32.with enormous regret that he was write to go resign as Chief Whip,
:01:32. > :01:38.were the words of Andrew Mitchell, after resigning, some would he say,
:01:38. > :01:41.eventually, he said he never used the word "pleb" or more ran", in
:01:41. > :01:46.the altercation outside Downing Street. Why did the resignation
:01:46. > :01:51.come now, of the toxic "pleb" word, ever used now. How damaging has the
:01:51. > :01:54.episode been to David Cameron. Our political editor is can us now.
:01:54. > :01:59.This has already proved quite devisive? Behind the scenes there
:01:59. > :02:02.are many people who think he was handed out by a campaign wrought by
:02:02. > :02:06.the police. It wasn't as simple as what he said or didn't say, that he
:02:06. > :02:09.was framed. But they were intent on getting his scalp. By David Cameron
:02:09. > :02:13.letting him go, that David Cameron is weakened in that battle which
:02:13. > :02:16.will go on and on. Equally there are loads who think it went on far
:02:17. > :02:23.too long. This is a man who goes around Westminster, saying he would
:02:23. > :02:27.like to be known as a big swinging dick. He's an incredibly bomb
:02:27. > :02:30.bastic individual. It rang too true for a lot of MPs who were facing
:02:30. > :02:34.this man being their Chief Whip, he was going to be disciplining them,
:02:34. > :02:44.they weren't that keen about it. When he was caught saying what he
:02:44. > :02:45.
:02:45. > :02:49.said, it rang too true. For 28 days and nights, the
:02:49. > :02:54.pressure rained down on Andrew Mitchell. This time a week ago, it
:02:54. > :02:58.looked like he had weathered the storm, but a week really is an
:02:58. > :03:02.eternity in political life. Last Friday night David Cameron had just
:03:02. > :03:08.delivered a conference speech that sent his people awhich with a
:03:08. > :03:12.spring in their step. Since then we have had a storm with the energy
:03:13. > :03:17.bills, completely of the Prime Minister's own making. Now we have
:03:17. > :03:21.the resignation of the man supposed to be the enforcer. Losing his grip,
:03:21. > :03:24.he was left just clasping his hands, the first Prime Minister's
:03:24. > :03:28.Questions of the autumn, was always going to be the test. Here Mitchell
:03:28. > :03:31.was the butt of both jokes and jabs, perhaps nearing the bottom of
:03:31. > :03:36.despair. It was said he had lost a stone in weight, and it looked like
:03:36. > :03:40.he had. They say that I practice class war, and they go around
:03:40. > :03:43.calling people "plebs", can you believe it? I know individuals at
:03:44. > :03:48.the top of Government and inside Downing Street, who have been
:03:48. > :03:52.frustrated at the amount of time it has taken for Andrew Mitchell to
:03:52. > :03:54.resign. They believed his tenacious clinging on to power was harming
:03:54. > :03:57.the Prime Minister. For his part over the last week and the return
:03:57. > :04:00.to parliament, the Chief Whip was also assessing the damage to his
:04:00. > :04:04.own career. Too many people have told him, at all levels of the
:04:04. > :04:07.party, that he cannot hope to do a job that ask people to vote in a
:04:07. > :04:11.particular way, they may not agree with, and do so for the good of the
:04:11. > :04:14.party, when he has done so much to damage that party. In short, he was
:04:14. > :04:20.told, he couldn't hold a role of authority when he had lost so much
:04:20. > :04:25.of it. Today in his resignation letter to
:04:25. > :04:29.the Prime Minister, Andrew Mitchell reiterated his finely-worded
:04:29. > :04:32.defence, that he didn't call the police pleb, but he did swear at
:04:32. > :04:35.them. The tone is this, that he was going, but not for what he did, but
:04:35. > :04:38.because he couldn't recover from what he did.
:04:38. > :04:43.Do you know who that guy is? particular problem for the
:04:43. > :04:46.Government was brought out by this focus group, conducted by the BBC's
:04:46. > :04:56.Sunday Politics, Mitchell's problem was made clear. Which of those
:04:56. > :04:56.
:04:56. > :05:02.three is the most insulting? Number two. It is just the one word?
:05:02. > :05:07."place", earn your place. He has been marked by everyone, you know
:05:07. > :05:10.your place, and he knows his, which won't be in our's. Despite this,
:05:10. > :05:15.there is anger among Andrew Mitchell's former colleagues, that
:05:15. > :05:23.he is lost by a politically motivated campaign by the police,
:05:23. > :05:29.angered by cuts to the force. # He's either a little Blairite
:05:29. > :05:33.# Or else a modern Conservative Speculation continues tonight that
:05:33. > :05:37.Mitchell might choose to stand down from his constituency, a plum seat
:05:37. > :05:45.being eyed up by many. But for now, he's left Government, taking with
:05:45. > :05:50.him his unique mix of pomp and pomposity.
:05:50. > :05:56.You mentioned the wider question of David Cameron's Government now,
:05:56. > :06:01.does he look en feebleed by this? If you look at opinion polls, they
:06:01. > :06:04.have struggled and still a linger problem for them. Every time they
:06:04. > :06:07.have a good moment, like David Cameron's good speech last night,
:06:08. > :06:12.they come back and go to an old narrative, which they try to
:06:12. > :06:17.correct and don't seem to do so. -- succeed in doing so. As the Prime
:06:17. > :06:21.Minister suggests that he didn't help himself with an energy policy,
:06:21. > :06:25.it needed 48 hours before he could say something. Then tonight. In and
:06:25. > :06:30.of themselves these are not killer blows, the problem is when the two
:06:30. > :06:34.start to reinforce each other, you have the terrible word, the
:06:34. > :06:39.omnishambles, I hate it, it is cliched. You have the continuing
:06:39. > :06:43.problem of incompetence, mixed with the perception that these guys are
:06:43. > :06:45.out-of-touch. It is our old friend, can you be heartless, you can
:06:45. > :06:48.appear to have a lifestyle and a background and privilege that is
:06:48. > :06:51.different from lots of people, but if you are not very good at what
:06:51. > :06:54.you do, if you are hopeless, that is when it becomes a problem. We
:06:55. > :07:00.have been talking about that on this programme for months, we are
:07:00. > :07:04.still there. With me now in the studio is Labour's Mary Creagh, we
:07:04. > :07:10.hop to be joined in Birmingham by the Conservative MP, Jacob Rees-
:07:10. > :07:14.Mogg, and we are joined from Bristol by the former Chief
:07:14. > :07:18.Constable of Gloucestershire, Tim Brain. You welcome the resignation,
:07:18. > :07:21.Labour has welcomed the resignation tonight, do you think that it's
:07:21. > :07:25.right that one mistake can end, what, 30 years of good public
:07:25. > :07:30.service? Well, I think it's right that Andrew Mitchell has resigned,
:07:30. > :07:34.and I think he should have resigned four weeks ago when this incident
:07:34. > :07:38.occurred. I think the problem for the Prime Minister now is that he
:07:38. > :07:42.now looks weak, and as was said, it is about the nature and competence
:07:42. > :07:47.of this Government. These damaging rows are piling up one after the
:07:47. > :07:51.other. The whole issue of entightment, of a Government that
:07:51. > :07:55.is out-of-touch, of -- entitlement, of a Government out-of-touch, of
:07:55. > :08:00.tax breaks for millionaire, one rule for those at the top and
:08:00. > :08:02.another for those at the bottom. fits Labour's narrative, the out-
:08:02. > :08:08.of-touch delete. You have heard Andrew Mitchell insist today he
:08:08. > :08:14.didn't use the words he's accused of using. Are you happy to abide by
:08:14. > :08:17.the other side of the story, the police's version? In his
:08:17. > :08:22.resignation letter he says what he said, why did it take four weeks to
:08:22. > :08:25.come out and say what he said. He says which swear word he uses, in
:08:25. > :08:31.that resignation letter. The question is, which is more damaging
:08:31. > :08:37.for the Conservatives, to use the "pleb" word or the F-word, it was
:08:37. > :08:40.the fleb-word that did for him. Are you -- Pleb-word that did for
:08:40. > :08:44.him. Are you totally happy accepting the police version of
:08:44. > :08:49.events here? No, what we are seeing here a man who was an embarrassment,
:08:49. > :08:53.who became a laughing stock, and who failed to tough it out at the
:08:53. > :08:57.political party conference a couple of weeks ago. From that moment on
:08:57. > :08:59.wards, it had nothing to do with what he said or didn't say or what
:08:59. > :09:03.the police thought, it was all about Westminster politics. Has
:09:03. > :09:06.left it about three weeks too late before he could say he went with
:09:06. > :09:10.honour. Jacob Rees-Mogg, I think you have
:09:10. > :09:14.joined us now, you heard Mary Creagh, perhaps. Basically this
:09:14. > :09:17.confirms the narrative of the posh Tories, doesn't it, we have had, if
:09:17. > :09:21.we needed further proof, George Osborne in the wrong first-class
:09:21. > :09:26.carriage on the train tonight? is an exceptionally silly way of
:09:26. > :09:30.looking at it. Train tickets are so confusing, anybody could get into
:09:30. > :09:35.the wrong carriage. On what Mr Mitchell did or didn't say, he has
:09:35. > :09:38.made it clear that he didn't use the most contentious words. In any
:09:38. > :09:42.confrontation, people have different views of what was said.
:09:42. > :09:49.It's perfectly reasonable to take Mr Mitchell's view of it. Do you
:09:49. > :09:54.find it odd that he's being replaced with a man who said "the
:09:54. > :09:59.homeless are people you step over when you come out of the opera",
:09:59. > :10:03.from Sir Tony Young? I think you can dig up from every politician's
:10:03. > :10:08.past a quotation that sounds unfortunate. Sir Tony Young is a
:10:08. > :10:12.civilised figure, a very capable leader of the house, and admired --
:10:12. > :10:15.leader of the House, and admired Transport Secretary that will do a
:10:15. > :10:19.great job. Would people be wrong to assume that the Tories are out-of-
:10:19. > :10:23.touch, and let's face it, a bit posh? I don't think the Tories are
:10:23. > :10:25.out-of-touch, if you look at the figures on the deficit which came
:10:25. > :10:28.out, they are better, what is really in touch is making sure that
:10:28. > :10:32.the economy works and people's taxes can come down, and the
:10:32. > :10:37.economy can begin to grow again. That is what Government is about.
:10:37. > :10:41.Not about little arguments at the gates of Ten Downing Street. That
:10:41. > :10:46.is trivialising it. Little arguments that can be blown into a
:10:46. > :10:50.class warfare narrative if it suits your purpose? Jacob Rees-Mogg says
:10:50. > :10:53.the man charged with the economy going back on track, can't tell the
:10:53. > :10:56.difference between a first class chancellor carriage on the train.
:10:56. > :11:00.That speaks volumes for the Chancellor and desperation of the
:11:00. > :11:04.Conservative Party this evening. A Chancellor trying to blag his way
:11:04. > :11:07.into first class, without paying the �160 upgrade. Again, one rule
:11:07. > :11:10.for the people at the top, another rule for the rest of us. I don't
:11:10. > :11:13.think this has been blown out of proportion, I think the Prime
:11:13. > :11:18.Minister's handling of it has been terrible, he's looked weak, he is
:11:18. > :11:24.weak, and piling up one shambles after another, does the Government,
:11:24. > :11:26.and the country, no favours at all. Jacob Rees-Mogg, what are we to
:11:26. > :11:31.make by the insistence by Andrew Mitchell that he didn't use any of
:11:31. > :11:36.the words levelled at him? I think you can have two different versions
:11:36. > :11:39.of an event, but I do think we need to ask questions, whilst the
:11:39. > :11:45.Leveson Inquiry is still going on, as to how these files were leaked
:11:45. > :11:49.from the police. The conversation, first of all, and then the actual
:11:49. > :11:51.police officers' log. We have seen enough trouble from the police
:11:51. > :11:54.leaking manufacture, and the scandals involving News
:11:54. > :11:58.International, I hope that the Metropolitan Police will look very
:11:58. > :12:03.carefully at what has happened, how it has happened, and will try to
:12:03. > :12:07.ensure such leaks don't happen again. Dr Brain what do you make of
:12:07. > :12:11.those leaks? I think they should be looked at. But I think, of course,
:12:11. > :12:15.this is a desperate tactic on the part of the Conservative Party and
:12:15. > :12:20.the Government, to try to deflect away from the fact that this has
:12:20. > :12:24.been a big embarrassment for them. And it brings into light the
:12:24. > :12:27.general feeling that police officers have about this Government,
:12:27. > :12:29.that they don't really sympathise with policing, they are not
:12:29. > :12:34.interested in their concerns and frankly, they have it in for them.
:12:34. > :12:40.This all seems to just Summers up that. The attempt to distract won't
:12:40. > :12:45.work. When you -- Just sum that up. The attempt to distract won't work.
:12:45. > :12:51.Does this have a ring of vendetta to it, with the pay freeze and the
:12:51. > :12:55.job cuts in the police? It is not just that there is a pay freeze or
:12:55. > :12:58.jobs cut, that can be accepted. Some of the leadership of the
:12:58. > :13:03.Conservative Party shows little short of contempt for policing.
:13:03. > :13:08.That is summed up in this incident. It is very interesting, this is the
:13:08. > :13:13.first time when Tom Watson rather seemed to love what the Sun was
:13:13. > :13:16.publishing, when it was a leak of what the Chief Whip had said?
:13:16. > :13:19.Andrew Mitchell is not the victim, he's the man in charge of order and
:13:19. > :13:23.discipline across the parliamentary Conservative Party, and who
:13:23. > :13:26.couldn't impose his own order and discipline on himself, when faced
:13:26. > :13:30.with a police officer who wouldn't open the gates for him at Downing
:13:30. > :13:34.Street. If someone had sworn at a police officer in any of our town
:13:34. > :13:38.centre, our constituents would rightly be outraged, as we would be.
:13:38. > :13:43.This is the man in charge of order and discipline, he didn't have the
:13:43. > :13:46.self-control to behave properly to a police officer. This is hugely
:13:46. > :13:50.exaggerated, somebody lost his temper, frankly, big deal, all
:13:50. > :13:54.sorts of people lose their temper in their daily lives. It is part of
:13:54. > :13:56.human nature. To blow this up into a resignation issue, has been very
:13:56. > :13:59.unfortunate, and trivialises politics, when there are many
:13:59. > :14:03.important things going on. In relation to the police,
:14:03. > :14:06.particularly, who do have difficult negotiations on their pensions, for
:14:06. > :14:09.which I feel great sympathy for them. I think they are very
:14:09. > :14:15.difficult. You would never have sworn at a police officer in that
:14:15. > :14:21.manner, would you Jacob Rees-Mogg? Miss Maitlis, I don't think I have
:14:21. > :14:26.sworn in my adult life. Leaving aside the par gones of virtue, most
:14:26. > :14:30.of us do -- paragones of virtue, most of us do let a swear word out.
:14:30. > :14:33.This is the man in charge of order and discipline in the party, and
:14:33. > :14:36.these police officers are guarding number 11 and Number Ten Downing
:14:36. > :14:41.Street, one of the highest - security areas in the country.
:14:41. > :14:45.Thank you very much. This resignation comes at the end
:14:45. > :14:48.of a week where the Government has made all the wrong kind of
:14:48. > :14:54.headlines, and boy we know how that feels. From confusion over energy
:14:54. > :15:03.policy, dubbed the "combishambles", suggestions of a U-turn on the
:15:03. > :15:09.badger cull, let's call that the omnivore shambles, and the
:15:09. > :15:13.Chancellor going into the wrong carriage, that goes to be the The
:15:13. > :15:17.Great Train Snobbery. We have the man who broke the Sun story and
:15:17. > :15:21.Peter Oborn of the Telegraph, what should we make of the timing of
:15:21. > :15:25.this. We had this story of how he had to wait for David Cameron to
:15:25. > :15:31.get back from a summit, as if it had been a six-month trip, why did
:15:31. > :15:34.it come now? It is like a bedroom farce of in a country house, et
:15:34. > :15:40.cetera. There is a conspiracy theory this afternoon that people
:15:40. > :15:43.were trying to bring on, the George Osborne fiasco on the train, with
:15:43. > :15:48.Andrew Mitchell's sudden resignation, to link them. It is
:15:48. > :15:55.not too much to say that George Osborne was going to be the front
:15:55. > :16:00.splash under the headline The Great Train Snobbery, until the Mitchell
:16:00. > :16:03.resignation came in. It is a conspiracy theory, the way it was
:16:03. > :16:10.written, Mitchell said he wanted today see him today. It didn't work
:16:10. > :16:20.like that. Unfortunate low, the day has created, the sort of utter mess
:16:20. > :16:21.
:16:21. > :16:25.that makes the -- The Thick Of It look tame, reality it worse. This
:16:25. > :16:30.is David Cameron's reshuffle and the new beginning, but is it really,
:16:30. > :16:35.do things like this have a lasting effect? There is an issue of
:16:35. > :16:37.competence in the Government. By the way, basically the 1922
:16:38. > :16:42.Committee meeting, the meeting of the Conservative Party earlier this
:16:42. > :16:45.week, that's what did for Mitchell, because it was basically made plain
:16:45. > :16:50.there that he didn't have the confidence of the parliamentary
:16:50. > :16:54.party. And a mutiny of the whips? You had a whips office revolt from.
:16:54. > :16:57.That moment on, Andrew Mitchell was finished. Does that tell you that
:16:57. > :17:02.they now have more power than David Cameron does, the right of the
:17:02. > :17:07.party is actually telling him what to do now? No. Certainly, I think
:17:07. > :17:11.the Prime Minister has a problem. He called it wrong after the Sun's
:17:11. > :17:16.original story, he should have, he would have been right to have
:17:16. > :17:21.sacked Mitchell at once. It is unacceptable that a cabinet
:17:21. > :17:25.minister insults a policeman and swears using the F-word at the
:17:25. > :17:28.policeman. You can't have that. The Prime Minister called it wrong, no
:17:28. > :17:31.new information, new damning information emerged, that enabled
:17:31. > :17:35.the Prime Minister to reconsider the issue. What happened of that
:17:35. > :17:39.there was a revolt against his judgment. So he has been humiliated
:17:39. > :17:42.in this, yeah. We have heard both politicians say you can have two
:17:42. > :17:48.versions of events. When the story came to you, was it very clear.
:17:48. > :17:53.Were the officers very clear of what language had been used?
:17:53. > :17:58.Crystal clear, not only did we take one source's view on it, it is a
:17:58. > :18:02.hugely serious allegation, usually defamery if you got it wrong. We
:18:02. > :18:05.have three different sources which the time we went to print.
:18:06. > :18:11.Including passers by, including people who weren't in the police?
:18:11. > :18:15.If you don't mind I won't go into the precise sources. We were 100%
:18:15. > :18:19.sure that was precisely what the police had told their bosses what
:18:19. > :18:24.Mitchell had said to them. In the Leveson Inquiry do you feel odd
:18:24. > :18:31.about getting leaks from the police? Not at all, we have had in
:18:31. > :18:35.the last few week, from Conservative MPs, and and the
:18:35. > :18:39.lovely Jacob Rees-Mogg, utterly the wrong person to come on Newsnight
:18:39. > :18:43.tonight and saying the Tory Party feel their humble pain. The
:18:43. > :18:48.messenger is always shot when people don't like what we are
:18:48. > :18:54.saying. There are a fair share of Eatonians in the Sun, or in the
:18:54. > :18:59.Tony Blair -- Etonians at the Sun or in jobs replacing each other, is
:18:59. > :19:06.that a narrative that is continuing to damage David Cameron?
:19:06. > :19:09.definitely think it was part of the reason why Mitchell had to go. As
:19:09. > :19:13.Mary Creagh was impressive about, there is one law for these
:19:13. > :19:16.Conservative Party ministers, and another for voters. It is important
:19:16. > :19:20.to point out in the defence of the Conservatives that new Labour was
:19:20. > :19:23.far worse than this. Again and again ministers were doing things
:19:23. > :19:28.that were utterly unacceptable. Think of David Blunkett, all of
:19:28. > :19:31.them, almost, Tony Blair himself, again and again they would do, and
:19:31. > :19:35.be guilty of behaviour which would have sent an ordinary citizen to
:19:35. > :19:38.jail. And they seemed to get away with it. It is worth rembering, or
:19:38. > :19:43.certainly got them sacked or disgraced, and yet they just
:19:43. > :19:45.carried on in office. Let's remember that this hypocrisy, this
:19:45. > :19:50.difference between the way politicians behave, and what they
:19:50. > :19:56.say, is not just a Conservative thing. But the plays particularly
:19:56. > :19:58.dangerously to the Conservative thing, because the because of the
:19:58. > :20:01.issues. Do you think they were particularly harsh on this, a lot
:20:01. > :20:06.of countries would say it is not so much to ask that your politicians
:20:06. > :20:09.should be asked to sit in a quiet first class carriage, without the
:20:09. > :20:13.whole world erupting into class war? There is a difference between
:20:13. > :20:18.the individual instance, such as Mitchell having a rant at a copper,
:20:19. > :20:21.or Osborne walking into a first class carriage when he meant to sit
:20:21. > :20:26.in standard. Why those apparently small things are massively damaging
:20:26. > :20:30.for the Government, for our reader, or decent, normal working people,
:20:30. > :20:35.is because of the stereotype they project. Exactly what Allegra has
:20:35. > :20:39.been saying, people do feel you have a bunch of toffs in the
:20:39. > :20:43.cabinet who went to Eton, and I didn't, despite the appalling
:20:43. > :20:47.accusation you made there. People don't think they feel their pain
:20:47. > :20:51.and what they are going through, any small incident that might
:20:51. > :20:56.reveal the real image behind the politician trying to tell you the
:20:56. > :20:59.nice things, is very damaging indeed, and right for us to pursue.
:20:59. > :21:03.The investigation into Jimmy Savile has now become a criminal inquiry,
:21:03. > :21:07.Scotland Yard has revealed they will be looking into allegationing
:21:07. > :21:11.concerning living figures, as well as the deceased star. They
:21:11. > :21:14.identified more than 200 possible victim, detectives have refused to
:21:15. > :21:18.give a figure for the number of people under investigation, said to
:21:18. > :21:25.be a handful. And said they are dealing with abuse on an
:21:25. > :21:27.unprecedented scale. It started with one single
:21:27. > :21:32.allegation. Now the Jimmy Savile investigation has reached, what
:21:32. > :21:37.Scotland Yard is calling, a staggering scale. Officers are
:21:37. > :21:42.pursuing 400 separate leads in this complex case. 200 victims have now
:21:42. > :21:46.come forward, up from 60, just a few days ago. The investigation is
:21:46. > :21:50.now officially a criminal one. And for the first time, police have
:21:50. > :21:55.confirmed they are dealing with accusations of abuse involving
:21:55. > :21:59.other living people connected to Savile, including, it's thought,
:21:59. > :22:02.other celebrities. The whole Savile investigation does now seem to be
:22:03. > :22:08.moving with some speed. One former senior police officer with
:22:08. > :22:11.knowledge of the investigation, told Newsnight, he expects to see
:22:11. > :22:17.suspects questioned and even arrested quickly, perhaps within
:22:17. > :22:20.days. But Operation Yewtree, as it is known, is likely to take at
:22:20. > :22:24.least six months in total. It is understood that officers working on
:22:24. > :22:29.the case originally expected it to be wrapped up in 30 days, but it is
:22:29. > :22:34.now much more complex. Looking into hundreds of possible crime,
:22:34. > :22:38.committed decades ago. This former detective works on dozens of sex
:22:38. > :22:42.abuse cases. The point is quite clear, for recent events,
:22:42. > :22:46.recollection will be fresh in victims' minds, it might have been
:22:46. > :22:51.reported straight away, there might be forensic evidence, CCTV evidence,
:22:51. > :22:55.all those sorts of things, but we won't have that here, it is
:22:55. > :23:02.historic, the police have to do the best they can, rely on people's
:23:03. > :23:07.memories, they have to trawl for withins, that sort of thing. Today
:23:07. > :23:11.the NSPCC said, this is fast becoming the worst campaign of
:23:11. > :23:16.sexual abuse the charity has ever had to deal with. Yet, it received
:23:16. > :23:21.only one complaint about the star back in 2008, before the latest
:23:21. > :23:26.allegations surfaced. He is quite possibly going to be
:23:26. > :23:30.one of the most prolific sexual predator, certainly we at the NSPCC
:23:30. > :23:33.have come across. It spans five decades. At the moment we are
:23:33. > :23:36.talking about over 200 victims, I suspect that number will go up.
:23:36. > :23:39.What is happening, the more the story develop, more people are
:23:39. > :23:42.coming forward and feeling confident enough to say this
:23:42. > :23:46.happened to me. The criminal case might be the most significant
:23:46. > :23:50.development so far in this scandal, but there are now half-a-dozen
:23:50. > :23:54.separate inquiries under way, into his alleged abuse. The hospital
:23:54. > :23:58.where Savile worked, Stoke Mandeville, Leeds and Broadmoor,
:23:58. > :24:03.have started their own. The Department of Health has opened a
:24:03. > :24:07.separate inquirey, the BBC is quarrying out three other reviews.
:24:07. > :24:11.The BBC confirmed today it will broadcast a Panorama investigation
:24:11. > :24:17.into Jimmy Savile on Monday. The corporation has also been given the
:24:17. > :24:19.go ahead by the police, to start the own formal inquiry into the
:24:19. > :24:25.culture at Television Centre at the time Savile was employed there. It
:24:25. > :24:29.is understood that inquiry will start work immediately.
:24:29. > :24:32.Jimmy Savile may be dead and gone, the focus is now on other abusers.
:24:32. > :24:41.The people who might have helped hip, and the institutions that
:24:41. > :24:45.might have turned a blind eye. What are the implications now this
:24:45. > :24:50.has become a criminal inquiry, and how wide is the net of abuse.
:24:50. > :24:54.Joining me is the former Children's Minister. What would be your
:24:54. > :24:58.response to that news tonight. This is a live criminal investigation,
:24:58. > :25:04.what do you understand by how big this could get? I think it is going
:25:04. > :25:08.to get bigger. I'm afraid these news reports coming out daily have
:25:08. > :25:12.almost made us immune to it. Clearly, as the NSPCC have said
:25:12. > :25:15.today, a prolific abuser of children, but the worry is how much
:25:15. > :25:18.further will it go. Are there other people involved? The police are
:25:18. > :25:22.suggesting there are, these are people still alive and charges can
:25:22. > :25:27.be brought against them. Have you any knowledge of how many people
:25:27. > :25:31.they are looking in to now? All we have heard today is there are over
:25:31. > :25:34.200 victims who have come to the police. The NSPCC have taken
:25:34. > :25:38.hundreds of calls and referred 138 people to the police as well. I
:25:38. > :25:42.fear we have only seen the tip of the iceberg, we are only dealing
:25:42. > :25:45.with the BBC at the moment. This is a wake-up call for all sorts of
:25:45. > :25:49.institutions who regularly deal with children and young people and
:25:49. > :25:53.performance, independent television and so on, to absolutely thoroughly
:25:53. > :25:57.look at their set-up, and check that they have got a robust plan to
:25:57. > :26:02.make sure this sort of abuse is not happening under their watch too.
:26:02. > :26:06.You say this is a wake-up call, how can so many institutions, and I
:26:06. > :26:10.count the BBC amongst those, failed to pick up on what was happening
:26:10. > :26:13.for so long? That is the exorder wry thing, so many different report
:26:13. > :26:19.-- extraordinary thing, so many different reports, so many people
:26:19. > :26:22.saying I heard the rumour, and I had a constituent saying was back
:26:22. > :26:27.in Stoke Mandeville in the 1980s and said they knew all about it.
:26:27. > :26:36.Nobody came forward then and was able to make it stick, it was the
:26:36. > :26:40.sort of "it's Jimmy" attitude. This is not just a caper, it is serious
:26:40. > :26:46.offence against children, and a serious crime, and absolutely
:26:46. > :26:52.should be prosecuted. The wrapper of celebrity did make it easier. Do
:26:52. > :26:57.you sense that showbiz still has that insulation? I think there is a
:26:57. > :27:01.complacency of celebrity, we have seen that in the revelations of the
:27:01. > :27:06.BBC. It is also if a teenage girl is found in the dressing room of a
:27:06. > :27:09.football star or whatever, there is nudge, nudge, wink, wink. We have
:27:09. > :27:16.to look at ourselves in society, where girls who have been the
:27:16. > :27:22.subject of abuse, the Rochdale cases and the child exploitation we
:27:22. > :27:32.have seen, or caught with celebrities, that a 14, 15-year-old
:27:32. > :27:38.girl used for sexual gratification with older men, can be accused of
:27:38. > :27:45.grat fying -- allowing that to happen. The celebrity status that
:27:45. > :27:50.allows you groupies hanging outside the dressing room, how is that?
:27:50. > :27:54.When I launched the Government's child exploitation strategy, in
:27:54. > :27:58.response to the Rochdale cases and things like that, I warned that we
:27:58. > :28:03.are only seeing the tip of the iceberg. That this was happening
:28:03. > :28:08.all over the country and all racial backgrounds, what we are now seeing,
:28:08. > :28:10.and I didn't imagine a year on, that we would be talking about
:28:10. > :28:17.celebrities. You talked about a constituent member talking to you,
:28:17. > :28:22.it never came up before? We are all shocked by the Pakistani male gang
:28:22. > :28:26.revelations, and the political correctness allowing them to hide
:28:26. > :28:32.behind those cultural sensitivites, we have seen it in the church, a
:28:32. > :28:37.culture of fear where people didn't come forward, we are now seeing a
:28:37. > :28:41.complacency of celebrity status as well. Wer we also are seeing
:28:41. > :28:43.regulations around child -- we are also seeing the regulations on
:28:43. > :28:49.child performances, I wanted to change them. They are out of date
:28:49. > :28:52.going back to the 60s and before I want that to be changed. I was
:28:52. > :28:56.unable to persuade our Secretary of State to put it in the children's
:28:56. > :29:00.bill. I will take it forward as a private member's bill, and hope the
:29:00. > :29:04.Government will support it. So a change to children who are
:29:04. > :29:08.performers? It is very bureaucratic. Lots of children involved in
:29:08. > :29:11.performances, and concerts, a lot of bureaucratic legislation is
:29:11. > :29:15.there that isn't followed, we need something proportionate and safe.
:29:15. > :29:19.So children, who are generally vulnerable to people who do ill by
:29:19. > :29:24.them, can be assured they are being locked after. We need to bring it
:29:24. > :29:28.into the 21st century. Tomorrow's papers in just a second,
:29:28. > :29:32.first a look at the London Film Festival on the review show. We
:29:32. > :29:36.have come to the capital to sample a selection from the BFI London
:29:36. > :29:40.film festle value, we have the story of Belfast Godfather of Punk,
:29:40. > :29:46.an adaptation of Salman Rushdie's supposedly unfilmable novel,
:29:46. > :29:52.Midnight's Children, and the latest of the master of the macarbre, Tim
:29:52. > :30:02.Burton, all that and Tori Amos live in the studio. Let's just whip
:30:02. > :30:04.
:30:05. > :30:09.through the papers. Forgive the pun. Mitchell on his bike, and something
:30:09. > :30:14.about the US elections tracking technology. The front of the
:30:14. > :30:17.Independent, Newsnight e-mail accusing the BBC of a cover-up, it
:30:17. > :30:20.says they were warned that broadcasters had misleading
:30:20. > :30:27.statements about the Savile documentary. And police get their
:30:27. > :30:33.man as Mitchell quits at last. And this look at Malali, who was shot
:30:33. > :30:37.by the Taliban, now on her feet and making a recovery. The scratch