03/12/2013 Newsnight

Beat in, math, beaten in reading, beaten in science, British teenagers

are performing no better in school tests than they were six years ago.

What's gone wrong? How is it that above average spending on education

seems to be delivering no improvement in performance? This man

invented modern British policing, we talk to his greatest fan, the top

cop of New York and Los Angeles about how to restore confidence in

the police. Do you love this country? Is there more than a whiff

of McCarthyism in how the Guardian has blown state secrets. And what

possesses someone to decide to climb up the outside of a skyscraper for

fun? As long as nothing gets broken and you know, hopefully the police

don't get called in and you don't waste their time and nobody gets

hurt, then nothing has been affected. We're a nation of dunce,

at least we are if you take seriously the figures produced in an

international survey of teenage achievement in maths, science and

reading. Let's ignore the fact that in these rankings Britain is ahead

of the United States and most of Europe. Let's ignore too that to

benefit from a Chinese education you would have to live in China. Let's

content ourselves with the simple question, why are British children

so dumb? Which is the interpretation being put on the figures by most of

the political class of this country. Stuck? You're not the only one, in

the latest international tests for 15-year-olds, UK results are at best

stagnant. Standards in some other countries are improving much faster.

The OECD calculates the tables based on results in math, reading and

science. All three are dominated by south-east Asian countries. In maths

the UK comes 26th out of 65. In reading, we're 23rd, in science

we're 21st. We lag behind Estonia and Poland! In the Arc Chain of

schools, children learn maths Singapore style. We learn from maths

mastery and copied from the Singapore style, we focus on number

drilling, not going out into algebra and having depth not breadth. We

encourage our year seven students to explain what they are learning to

one another, and explicitly say what they are learning and how they have

done it. They have only just started secondary school, but these pupils

know in adult life there will be a global market. When you compete with

other people from all over the world, you don't know what their

school has taught them or if it is different from you, you have to try

hard in everything. Michael Gove is shaking up the education system in

almost every way, he has brought in new kinds of school, new kinds of

tests, even new kinds of teacher. The aim of this seemingly constant

change is to improve the results of English schoolchildren, so they can

compete on an increasingly global playing field. So, is there anything

the UK can learn from the Ps of success, like Poland? You can look

at our reforms and the way we not only change the curriculum but we

also have the aligning it with the examination system. On the one side

we give a lot of autonomy, a lot of freedom to teachers and to our

schools, on the other side we clearly state the goals they have to

achieve. Then we test whether they achieve these goals or not on

national exams. That is another thing Michael Gove is changing. He

said today these results justify his reforms. He's following the most

successful countries. But Labour disagree, saying he had learned the

wrong lessons. England's free schools were modelled on Sweden's.

No other country has fallen so abruptly as Sweden in maths over a

ten-year period. Across all three measures, reading, maths, science,

since 2009 Sweden has performed very poorly indeed, and many in Sweden

regard the ideolgical programme of unqualified teachers and unregulated

free schools as responsible for their drop in standards. It is the

DHEAS unfortunately in Sweden results have slid. But as I

mentioned in my remarks earlier, what we need to do is not just grant

greater autonomy, as they have to school leaders in Singapore and in

Hong Kong, in South Korea and elsewhere, we also need a more

rigorous system of accountability. In such a big complex international

study, it is easy to cherrypick. I suppose it is an inevitable that

politicians will want to pick out points that suit their particular

agendas, for us it is really important that we look at both

issues of teaching standards, as well as the structures in education,

and that we also look at the impact on the least advantaged pupils as

well as on the system as a whole. Describe -- many people say they are

simply no good at maths as though it is an inate ability. In its own

conclusions the OECD said that is simply not true. Getting maths right

is mainly down to hard work and high expectations.

With us to discuss all that is Christine Blower, General Secretary

of the National Union of Teachers, Peter Hyman and Mark Lehane. Do you

recognise the picture painted in the survey? I have been in state

education for 11 years, some things have changed an awful lot. Some

things haven't. And what I have talken out of what has come out

today is things haven't changed, or are not showing through in the

survey results yet. It is too soon to see a difference. Do you

recognise the picture painted? What we have done well at is lifting the

floor over the last ten or 15 years and making the worst schools better,

we haven't had a wave of innovation. The danger is we have learned the

wrong lessons from the Far East, we think it is about rote learning, and

it may have been at one point, but they have learned and moved on and

are becoming problem-solvers and creative at the point we were

chasing what they are doing ten years ago. Coming to the question

about how we teach as opposed to what we teach necessarily, it is an

indictment of teachers this isn't it? No it isn't. If you actually

look at the figures today maths results are up for the UK, they are

at the OECD average, and we have got fewer low-performers and we have got

about the OECD of high-performers. You are pleased with these? That is

not to say that schools can't improve things. We are essentially a

self-improving profession. But it is just wrong to say that we stagnate

or dropped. We are 26th in maths? Yes, and we used to be 28th. That is

good is it? It is improving, it is not stagnating and not getting

worse. Peter is right that actually what we really need to be doing is

encouraging problem solving and creativity rather than rote

learning. There is place for rote learning but it isn't the be all and

end all of teaching. It doesn't measure literature or writing,

creativity, which isn't to say maths and science aren't important, of

course they are, but there is a broader picture here as well. There

are a range of international surveys done every so often, there is some

students that I taught a few years ago took part in that. They measure

quite a narrow range of things. When you look across those, the general

picture we have seen is gentle decline, that is fair to say, or a

steady state. That's not good enough. As I say to the students at

my school, you can employ in China a tri-lingual graduate for the same

cost as someone stacking shelves in Bedford for Tesco, if we want to

keep jobs in the country there is no point in being in the middle we have

to be in the top 10%. We have had a catch-up policy not a get out there

model. What is fascinating is the next survey in 2015 will measure

collaborative probl solving. You may ask how will they do that. But Pisa

has caught up with the way the world is going. That is the table, the

Mecca? We are getting more traditional about measuring exam,

Pisa is saying they want collaboration to be measured,

creativity and problem solving. That is the right way of going. You

expect a better result? Only if we follow that. Only if we don't go in

the reverse direction. But the other thing is the very figures themselves

are contested. If you had on for example Martin Steven, the former

High Master of St Paul's, he would say the basic methodology is flawed,

because actually there are children in all jurisdictions that don't

answer all the questions and make assessments of what they might have

said. It is from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and

Development isn't it? But the fact is it is open to contest. What is

true is people do teach to the test in other countries, perhaps we

should, but we don't. Is that one of the things that has gone wrong with

education in this country, teachers teaching to the tests? If you have

high-stakes tests then you would expect teachers to do that because

there is a survival mechanism. Also they don't want the children to fail

do they. All I would say is Peter says we have been getting more

traditional in approaches to teaching and what we are covering. I

know the reason why Peter set up his school and the teachers behind my

school in Bedford set up the school, we think you can have your cake and

eat it, you can have a traditional and core approach to the basics and

blow open and be radical in how you address other things. That is

exactly what we are doing at Bedford Free School, that is one of the

things you will hopefully see it again when they do this again in

2015 and 2018, a lot of the reforms you will see the benefits coming to

fruition then. The National Union of Teachers thinks all schools should

have that level of curriculum and autonomy, you shouldn't have to be a

free school or academy. It is important that all schools and

teachers are trusted to develop the curriculum. That way you do get a

multiple approach. I don't think there is anything we are doing at

our school, School 21 that couldn't have been done in my last school, a

Community School. We are working on well being of the students, their

oral communication, we are working on project-based learning, which

means giving real tasks to student that is have value in the real

world. I hope you are being engaged with the community, that is an

important aspect. A lot of the projects are out in the community.

One of the big changes we are seeing is not just what we are teaching, it

is easier for new entrants to come into local areas and shake things up

where they are needed, we are doing that Bedford. Hopefully that will

spread those ideas further afield. I do d'oh any of you have an

opportunity to have comparison with, you could benefit from Chinese

education but you have to live in China, a bit of a downside many

people might think. There are cultural differences, absolutely,

between living here and China. There are a few things Chinese people are

doing over here. What about your kids and how they behave or whether

they will be happier or more successful adults than children

being raised in South Korea or Singapore or Taiwan or wherever it

is? It is balance of these qualities, the child suicide rates

are very high in some of those countries. You want the balance of

happiness and well being in the child, the rounded child, but also

academic success. Ironically given how badly we have done on some other

scales for happiness for children. In these OECD studies it does show

that children in the UK are generally, generally feeling happy

at school. Now actually children from low socioeconomic groups tend

to feel less happy in school, and that's a big issue. Actually if you

strip out social class, children in these studies are doing as well in

state schools as they are in private schools. So you know, it is true

that social class and socioeconomic status in families does make a

difference to children's capacity. What has been shown in recent

history is the difference in ambition and aspiration, but in

cultures where education is seen as the key thing to do and families

invest in it, they do very well. In those countries hard work is

rewarded n this country we still have an ethos that the talented

amateur is the person to tell blat, wherein -- celebrate, with where as

in those countries they believe hard work. It is the idea you are not

bornal leapted but you work to become successful. The talented

amateur is Michael Gove's idea for teachers, we believe teachers to

have proper status and to be properly trained.

We had to move fast to get off the bridge. Yet another day passed today

without the former International Development Secretary getting his

job back, as things stand at present, it is the police whose

reputation has suffered most in the called "plebgate affair". The

current Police Commissioner in post hasn't had the happiest times of

command. How different it would have been if the rules had allowed the

much more charismatic Bill Bratton from the New York and Los Angeles

police department to be in charge, as was wanted. Bill Bratton's policy

of "zero tolerance" in the mid-1990s revolutionised attitudes to law

enforcement and made him the most sought after police boss in the

world. The idea, based on an academic theory known as "broken

windows" was that if you concentrate on reducing relatively minor

anti-social offences, a reduction in the major would follow. Working

alongside the mayor, crime fell by a third and the murder rate was

halved. Mr Bratton then successfully transferred the policy to Los

Angeles, and there are now suggestions that the new Democrat

Mayor of New York may be about to ask him to return for another run.

But could we see his services being used on this side of the Atlantic,

after riots across the country over the summer of 2011, Bill Bratton

advised David Cameron on urban and gang violence. The Prime Minister

was even keen for him to become the Met Police Commissioner, the rules

at the time stated only British citizens could do the job. Now there

are plans to change that and to bring in talent from outside the UK.

The current Metropolitan Police Commissioner, Sir Bernard

Hogan-Howe's term is up in 2016, which brings the Government plenty

of time to put the new legislation on the statute book. What would Bill

Bratton do to restore public trust in the police? Bill Bratton will

tell us now, I hope, he will join us from his old patch in New York City.

How do you, Mr Bratton, go about restoring confidence in the police?

Good evening. I think that first and foremost you need transparency,

policing for much of its history has been some what hidden behind the

blue wall, if you will. Increasingly the more successful police

departments, the more successful police leaders have embraced

transparency. The idea of opening up their organisations to greater

collaboration with their communities, with their political

leadership. And the term "collaboration" is one that I

certainly embrace and I would hope have modelled in the organisations

that I have been privileged to lead over the last number of years. But

when you get an apparent distinction between public interest and police

interest, it is the absolute opposite of what you are talking

about isn't it? Well, interestingly enough, the founder of modern

policing, Sir Robert Peel, basically his nine principles of policing

which, they are my Bible! They are as good now as they were in the

1800. They are all about the idea of rather than seeing the two as

separate, the idea again of providing platform where they can

join and collaberate. So that the two, when they go their separate

ways that is when you have your problems. You mentioned the

transferability across the Atlantic of his principles to your country,

what about, any object lessons you could have brought from the United

States, New York, or Los Angeles to Britain? Well in the introduction to

this piece that there was an error that I would like to correct, that

the emphasis on "zero tolerance" as you referred to "broken windows"

policing and "zero tolerance" in your country. That in and of itself

will not solve any issue, either public satisfaction with the police

or police effectiveness. What we did not do in this country which, I

would argue you did not do in your country also was understand that you

couldn't just focus on serious crimes and neglect the minor crimes,

that is effectively what happened in my country in the 70s and 80, and as

I have come to understand the situation in your country. You went

the same thing, you began depolicing the enforcement of mine in the

streets, which was what Sir Robert Peel was all about when he created a

bobby, the police presence in the streets to prevent crime. You won't

prevent crime by just looking at serious crime, it is looking at what

causes it over time and what is neglected. It is what happens when

the small crime is neglected the criminal feels embolden to commit

big crime. It is amazing to read those principles about how right he

had it then and they are appropriate for 21st century policing, whether

in my country or yours. What about the minor crimes in this country

that they are not cracking down on? My sense is the hooliganism, the

term he used, the idea of the rowdiness associated with the

emptying of the pubs at a certain time. My personal issue with

graffiti, unchecked graph feety not covered over very quick -- graffiti,

not covered over more quickly or dealt with quickly. I think your

issues are the same as the American issues, the sense that when the

public feels that the police are not dealing with things that are making

them fearful. Whether it is aggressive begs, whether it is use

of narcotics and open view, whether it is street prostitution. These are

often times described as victimless crimes, the idea that there is not a

victim, that the person seeking the services of the prostitute, the

person spray-painting graffiti or smoking a joint in public, the

victim may not be an individual, the victim is society. The victim is the

neighbourhood and the community, the victim is the city. And there is no

place more emblematic of that than New York City in the 1980s, where

for 20 years all that type of anti-social behaviour was not dealt

with by the police. And the public began to lose trust in the police,

began to lose trust in Government. Then it was compounded by, in our

case in the United States because of the gun violence that is so

prevalent here. The horrific violent crime, the combination of the two

together left unaddressed successfully, led to a great loss of

faith in policing and Government. Would you like to come over to

London and do what you did in New York? It remains to be seen. I

happen to be a good friend and admirer of your current

commissioner. I think that some of the recent statistics that I have

seen have been produced by the Met, very promising. Understanding that

you have got political issues that are being wrestled with at this time

over there that I made it quite well known that at some point in my life

if the position were to open that would be certainly something I would

take a look at. The position is not open and is not likely to open for a

few years, in the meantime I think you have g somebody in position

there doing a pretty God job. Thank you very much indeed. An

individual, a committee of politicians and the question "do you

love this country"? It sounds like Senator Joe McCarthy, and his

un-American activities commission. It wasn't, it was the chairman of

the Home Affairs Select Committee, the never knowingly understated Vaz,

having a go at the editor of the Guardian, talking about the evidence

stolen by Edward Snowden. He replied that the newspaper loved the country

and was trying to defend its democratic values. It wasn't only Mr

Vaz asking him challenging questions, here is a flavour of the

exchanges. Some of the criticisms against you in the Guardian have

been very, very personal, you and I were both born outside this country

but I love this country, do you love this country? How do you answer

that? We live in a democracy. Most of the people working on this story

are British people who have families in this country who love this

country. I'm slightly surprised to be asked the question, but yes we

are patriots and one of the things we are patriotic about is the nature

of the democracy and the nature of a free press and the fact that one

can, in this country, discuss and report these things. It isn't only

about what you have published it is about what you have communicated.

That is what amounts or can amount to a criminal offence. You have

caused the communication of secret documents. We classify things as

"secret" and "top secret" in this country for a reason, not to hide

them from the Guardian but from those who harm us. You have

communecated those documents. Is that a question? If you had known

about the enigma code during World War II would you have transmitted

that information to the Nazis. That is a well worn red herring if you

don't mind me saying so. We invited the chairman of that committee and

the man who asked Mr Rusbridger if he loves his country to tell us why

he had asked the question. At first he said yes, and then he changed his

mind and decided he couldn't make it afterall. We are joined by two other

members of the committee, the Lib Dem Julian Huppert, and the

Conservative Mark Reckless. What did you think when the question was

asked? I was some what surprised by it, I don't think it gets to the

heart of the issue. There is a huge issue about the surveillance, and it

is amazing while there is debate in Germany and the US and around the

rest of the world, here is the mobiling cuss of what did the

Guardian do. I don't agree with the Guardian in much of what it writes

but I wouldn't question that. Why do you think the question was asked? I

don't know, I thought it was certainly interesting, it prompted a

lot of coverage. What did you think, could you see why it was asked. Was

anyone going to answer "no I don't love my country". It was an odd

question but it was an odd session. There is this question of what

exactly happened. We had the discussion about whether the

Guardian broke the Fedex terms and conditions. That is a shame, we are

going to have the head of MI 5 to give evidence to our committee. The

real question is what can they do and what difference will it make,

and how can they do their job properly without invading everyone's

privacy. A lot of people from a foreign country would have found it

strange that here you are haul anything a newspaper editor instead

of asking why were the intelligence agencies up to what they were

clearly up to? The Guardian has asked those questions, and I'm not

calling into question the editorial judgment it has made. What I'm

concerned about is how it has treated the information, whether it

has applied the appropriate security, and in particular it seems

to have communicated that information about members of

Intelligence Services overseas and it appears three different

circumstances. I just wonder if that's put potentially our agents,

employees of the services into danger and whether the Guardian

really needed to transfer, to communicate that information

overseas in the way it did. Do you think an offence has been committed?

It may well have been. So should there be a prosecution? I think the

offence has been committed in terms of the communication of the data

about members of the Intelligence Services, I think it could be useful

to people who might be concerned in terrorism. The question is, whether

the Guardian was justified in doing that, and whether it would be a

public interest in prosecution. That is a matter for the CPS. The issue

wasn't, was what the Guardian published in the public interest,

but was it the way it treated the information in the public interest.

In particular transferring 50 thousand miles to the New York Times

and this issue about James Miranda on his games console going ow over

to Rio and other information Fedexed. Why was the Guardian doing

that with members of the Intelligence Services. There clearly

an offence committed under the Terrorism Act? I don't think it is,

because the section referred to in the session actually has a specific

clause 583, which says it is not an offence if there is an excuse. I

think an international news story would count as a reasonable excuse.

I think the Guardian has been really careful. The NSA had all of this

information, 58,000 files containing names and other information, yet a

contractor with little seniority was able to get hold of it and take it

away. There were 850 thousand people with access of t the question is how

the NSA lost so much data, any of the other thousands of people could

have sent it directly to people who could do us harm. Mobiling cussing

on the Guardian is missing the key point. The key point is we know far

more about what is happening in our name. This needs to be discussing.

That what are the rules, we benefit massively from the Intelligence

Service,s what are the limits, what is OK to do and what is not. Isn't

it amazing that 850,000 people had access to this information? I'm not

sure what that exact number is or how much that information was

available and how easily to those people. But I am concerned that the

information has been sent to a number of different countries, a

number of different organisations, by the Guardian, and the security of

that information may not be what it needs to be. In particular that

foreign countries and their Intelligence Services may now have

access to who our agents are in way they didn't before. That is an

issue. The Guardian should assist the Security Services about what

information was transferred and who the individuals were, so if

necessary they can be protected. That is one point. I think it raises

issues about the Intelligence Services, how there is oversight of

that. I think it would be important in parliament to elect at least the

subject of vetting, and the chairman and members of that Intelligence

Committee who oversee these matters so we can be sure that actually the

way they are looking at intelligence, and Julian and I may

disagree about this, I may lean more to allowing the services to keep us

safe by overseeing the information and seeing if there is suspicious

patterns in it. I think parliament should decide and monitor the

appropriate limits. By common consent the biggest threat to the

spirit of world sport comes from the chemistry laboratories, the problem

has been around for the best part of 50 years or so. Now the man at the

head of the international organisation responsible foreign

suring all sporting competition measures talent rather than who can

most successfully get around drugs bans is a 7 #-year-old former bad

minute done player, Sir Craig Reedie. I will talk to him shortly.

First we have this report. Fast e higher, stronger. Mankind has always

sought to perform to the best of its sporting ability. With that desire

comes the temptation to gain an advantage, any advantage and emerge

at the top of the pod come. Those who seek to cheat are using

ever-more efforts to evade the testers. With the world anti-doping

authority recognising the need for effective strategies to uncover

those breaking the rules has never been more needed. I believe we are

doing a vast Himont to keep sport clean. We shouldn't be -- amount to

keep sport clean, we shouldn't be complacent. What we need in the

deterrent effect is to make sure there is a good risk of the athlete

being sampled, that the doping control officer will come and knock

on the door and ask for a sample to be collected. And the methods of

detection are as sensitive as we can make it. Sports Hall of Fame has big

names again it, Lance Armstrong admitted earlier this year he used

doping in his victories, tripped of his title, he's attempting to

convince authorities he should be allowed back from the ban. Asafa

Powell produced a positive test in July. Last week the entire board of

the Jamaican anti-doping body resonde. That follows concerns by

one doping executive that one out of competition test had been conducted

in the six months prior to the London 2012 Olympics. Six Jamaican

athletes have tested positive this year. With the Government there

promising to back and restore confidence in the anti-doping

programme. The London 2012 Olympics were for hundreds of athletes the

pinnacle of their sporting career. It was here in East London and

venues across the UK that some of the drama only sport can provide was

played out. Now only a handful of athletes were caught using

performance-enhancing drugs during the games themselves. Now a new

casting method threatens to expose those who cheated but went

undetected. The samples from the winter Olympics in Turin have been

ordered to be unfrozen and examined. The warning is sooner or later you

will be caught, even if it is some years after the event itself. We

have electronic files on data collected during the Olympics, we

have the possibility of going back simply on our electronic records to

look for substances we may not have thought of. The idea is to say if

you are taking drugs and we collect a sample from you, we will catch

you. Nicola Adams know what it takes to win and win clean, Sheehy merged

as one of the stars for 2012 for Team GB walking away with gold. Now

like many she wants to know with confidence that her opponents are

drug-free. I would hate to think I lost a competition to somebody who

cheated. I go in there 100% all me. I go to compete and win and I like

to think that everybody else, my opponents are doing exactly the same

I am. Sir Craig Reedie, a leading figure within the British Olympic

movement for many years will lead the doping agency. At 72 he

acknowledges this is his final role in sports governance. Can he

strengthen the global effort to combat an issue that threatens

integrity and soul of sport but its very future too.

Sir Craig Reedie joins us now from our Glasgow studio. Is this a

problem, drug use in sport, that is getting worse? I would like to think

that it isn't. I would like to think that it's getting marginally better,

but I'm not niave enough to believe that we can win, absolutely. The

problem will not go away. As one of your speakers there said it has been

around for 50 years. I think there is evidence that we are beginning to

get on top of it, the London Games was a good example. But it wasn't so

much the very few people who were tested and caught positive during

the games, it was the very sophisticated pre-games operation

which was run by the IOC and the UK Anti-Doping Agency. Which I think

encouraged somewhere over 30 athletes didn't appear in London at

all. I think that's rather encouraging. You raised the question

at the London Olympic Games there, given that there are samples and

they are now capable of being analysed for presence of drugs maybe

six months before the test was carried out. Frozen samples, do you

think that they should be re-examined now, maybe even the

Beijing Olympics too? There is a of limitations under the standard

anti-doping codes which is eight years. Let's talk about the IOC they

have a period of eight iritis within which they can retest frozen sample,

that period under the new code will be extended to ten years. As one of

your speakers said technology gets better, testing gets better and we

are able to turn around to athletes and say if you cheat now we may well

be able to test you at a later date and catch you when the technology

gets better. And it wouldn't surprise me at all that London

samples wouldn't be tested eight years from the London Games. Do you

think they should be tested? I do, I think it is a major, major

deterrent, at the end of the day the whole object of this exercise is to

protect the clean athlete. I spent most of my sporting life trying to

promote sport to young people, and I need people to believe, athletes to

believe it is clean. I think this is a very good way of doing it. Not all

samples are retested. They are done on a selected basis. And I mean

London took somewhere around about 5,300 sample, it would be really

over the top to test them all. But I think a reasonable selection will be

tested at a future date in the knowledge of better testing

procedures. That would mean the theoretical possibility that some

medallists in the London Games could be tripped of their medals?.

Absolutely, and the IOC have struggled with that regularly over

the last five or six years, ever since the policy started. We have

had medals returned to us, and they have been medals reawarded, they are

done under the main, in the main under the rules of the international

sports federation. The IOC would cancel a medal award and reallocate

it. But, yes, that is entirely possible. I hope that too is a

sanction. I'm sure you are a very fit and robust man, but do you feel

tough enough for this job? It is an intellectual challenge. If you spent

all your days trying to encourage people to do things, you now take up

the heading of an organisation which in many ways tells people what not

to do. You know, officials in the anti-doping community in some ways

are policemen. That is a tough role. But at the end of the day if we

can't be seen to win this battle then young people will not be

encouraged to take part in sport, and people who watch it will

question the validity of it. We will not have again the bonders of the

London Olympic Games which I thought were outstanding for everybody who

took part and certainly everybody who watched them. Thank you very

much for joining us, thank you. Now for a strange dark side of our

national life that most of us never see, and it is not the parliament

channel! Urban exploring is the strictly unlicensed pursuit of going

into places where you are not really meant to be, sewers, derelict

buildings, or to the top of sky scrapers without taking a lift. Are

these intrepid types taking a stand against property lying idle or

surveillance culture or are they troublemakers going where they are

not wanted. Stephen Smith has made it a habit of working completely in

the dark. Don't try this at home. How are you feeling? I'm loving

this, it doesn't get any better. Any plans for the weekend, or are you

just hanging out? Oh my God. If you haven't

encountered it before, this is the high-adrenaline, high-rise and

high-stakes past time of urban exploring. Taking the fresh air

route up the side of the Shard in London, for example, the tallest

building in Europe. Newsnight went out for a night on the town in

London with with Bradley Garrett, university person during the day and

explorer at night. We see the skyline behind us, what do you see,

a jungle gym, a world of opportunities, what is it? It is a

realm of possibility and opportunity. Over the past four

years we have climbed almost every major construction project in the

city. We have climbed the Walkie Talkie building, the Cheese Grater,

Heron Tower, there is something really enticing about walking into a

building and kind of unravelling its history one thread at a time and

trying to piece together the history of that place on your own. Paris,

why go potholing on some lonely moor when you could go spelunking through

the French sewers instead, like Bradley and friends. For the urban

explorer half the fun is posting images like this on-line once you

make it back, assuming you do. Injury and worse goes with the

unauthorised territory. This is the Forth Bridge as you have never seen

it before, filmed from a element-mounted camera as urban

explorers shuffle across its mighty arches on their back sides. We did

have a bit of a scare about three-quarters of the way down the

bridge when it started raining, we had to move fast to get off the

bridge, you don't want to be stuck on a bridge when it is raining.

Bradley Garrett can't be prosecuted for trespass as it is not a criminal

offence in the UK. Though he and others have appeared in court

charged with criminal damage, following an alleged incident on the

underground. What would you say to people who say what business is it

of yours to enter these premises in this slightly cloak and dagger way?

Obviously there are certain lines that you draw. You would never go

into someone's house, for instance. But there are certain place,

certainly places that were built and maintained with taxpayer money that

urban explorers feel they have, you know, they have a certain right to

see if they want to see them. What about this place over here then,

that wouldn't have been built with tax-payers' money, I'm guessing? No,

not at all. But it was empty, it was covered in scaffolding, it wasn't

being used for any particular purpose. As long as you don't damage

it and nothing gets broken and you know hopefully the police don't get

called and you don't waste their time. And nobody gets hurt? And

nobody gets hurt. Nothing has been affected. Emerging from the high

grass in a corner of Regent's Park, it is Sir Simon Jenkins, chairman of

the National Trust, and fully paid up member of the great and good.

Naturally he thoroughly disapproves of pesky urban exploresers, ex--

explorers, except that he doesn't really. This is where I came as a

tiny boy, it was my sort of Loiin, the Witch and the Wardrobe

territory. He used to let himself in to the ruins of a great house that

once stood here. When I did my urban exploring in my youth we could go

around dozens of warehouse, old churches, houses in Spitalfield,

wonderful all sea captains' houses in Deptford, the London dock, the

top of St Pancras Station. You were chased away by turnkeys and janitors

were you? Frequently, all the time. With all of your weight on the

National Trust that urban exploring is a good thing? There are

circumstances where simply drawing attention to an empty property, that

is wrong, can deliver good. It draws attention to it, it says to the

people who own it, this is wrong, we have used for these build, come on

now let as discuss it. Urban explorers have taken remarkable

photographs like these, here and in Europe. They are accidental curators

of a portfolio of lost properties. Those pictures were taken by these

British urban explorers. There is an element of maybe urban archaeology.

It is not like a strict science, but you are going there, having

experiences and continuing the life cycle of that building by just being

there and interacting with the objects you find, and you do find

out little small stories about people, their lives, just from the

documentation left behind. It is quite interesting to actually

interact with that and be there with it instead of it all falling into

nothingness and decay. Back on the Thames embankment, Bradley Garrett

is off on his adventures again, in another unseen London, the world of

urban exploration and things that go jump in the night! Now tomorrow

morning's front pages: That's all from us tonight, I will

be back with more tomorrow, I will leave you with London mayor Boris

Johnson, stopped in his tracks on a London radio station when he was

asked if he knew the cost of a rail fare, it is one way to kill minutes

of air time. How much would it cost you to travel one way, angel to

London Bridge? On what, on an oyster card? No just a one-off trip, you

have forgotten your oyster, angel to London Bridge, how much will that

cost you. (Countdown music) Here we go, here is the whole list, OK. Even

I knew this. I don't use the things. If you want a one-way, a one-way...

It is currently... . In zones 1-7 it is ?6. 70. Single? I don't think

that's right either? That is what it says here! It seems unbelievably

expensive to me, that is outrageous! Big changes in the weather over the

next few days, through the morning we are going to push the band