31/07/2014 Newsnight

Newsnight has learned that parents complained to the Department for

Education about racism and bullying at steiner schools, those schools

favoured by less conventional middle-class families. Why has the

Government provided public funds for new Steiner free schools. Newsnight

has exclusively seen two Department for Education memos which relate

serious concerns about Steiner concerns, memos that the British

Humanist Association had to go to court to get released. With Russia

on manoeuvres, does NATO have the resources and capabilities to handle

any future threat from Moscow. No comes the resounding answer from

a group of MPs, who say NATO and Britain must do more. We are

sisters, hand in hand, posters of the sea and land, thus you go about,

about thrice to nine, thrice to mine. The new vogue for joining in

at the cinema and theatre. Why is so called "immersive entertainment" so

of the moment. Is it just a fad. Whether it is cinema with music,

art, theatre I think the audiences now are looking for a new way. I

think this and a lot of similar organisations are showing this is

not just a pop-up culture, this is the future.

Steiner schools, they have been popular for decades among the more

liberal and Bohemian, some white say whacky middle-classes, Sandra

Bulloch and others former students. We have heard reports that in

reports to the Department of Education that some have thought in

these schools bullying was how kids worked out their Karma, and in one

school there was racism linked directly to the school's philosophy.

Since the Government has received these complaints it has agreed to

fund three new schools. I think the Steiner philosophy is really

interesting, for many reasons. Not least it centres on the child and

the child's education hole listically, they focus on the human

being, they nurture and they are affectionate and I think that is

really important to build the human being before the academic. Sometimes

called Waldorf schools or Steiner-Waldorf schools. There are

30 schools. Since 20 # 08 three died ones another son the way. But

Newsnight has exclusively seen two Department of Education memos which

relate serious concerns about the concerns. Memos the British Humanist

Association had to go to court to get released.

Rudolf Steiner was an Austrian born occultist, but his ideas live on. It

is a spiritual doctrine that covers everything from home on thee and

biodynamic farming to the purpose of life. This grand work still fills

bookshops and includes some rather particular ideas about race and

reincarnation. Specifically that people with darker skin are less

evolved, but, if they do well, if they have good Karma, they can hope

to be reincarnated in later lives as a higher ranked race. Why Aryans, of

course, are at the top, they advanced from colonists. Just how

many of his less palatable ideas make their way into the classroom.

Just how much Rudolf is there in the Steiner Schools. The idea that we

have incarnated through the races is a very controversial idea that is

not part of our modern thinking in Steiner Schools at all. In fact I

would find it quite outrageous and unacceptable and it is not a basis

upon which one would want to find any criticism of Steiner schools

today because it is not what we believe. Some of those ideas have

occasionly cropped up within the private Steiner schools very

recently, and some parents are worried about speaking out. There

was diversity training at the school and part of it was ticking boxes of

which ethnicity you were, four of the teachers ticked all the boxes

and the trainer asked why on earth they had done that, because they

said they had been all those races and all those teachers were white

and obviously they see themselves as the pinnacle. The Department for

Education memos also reveal some important concerns about bullying,

for example it said that in eight of the 25 private Steiner schools there

had been serious complaints about staff bullying pupils. There were

also concerns about policies on stamping out bullying, and worries

that this might be related to Rudolf Steiner's teachings. The memo

reports that one parent witnessed a physical attack on their son where

the teacher failed to intervene. The teacher justified the approach by

claiming the children were working out their Karma. That is concernly

not the approach everywhere. There was an incident where my child was

attacked in class, and it was terribly traumatic for everybody

involved. The school, however, were incredible at dealing with it. The

teacher in the classroom, the assistant were both very NUTTing at

the in -- nurturing and caring, and my daughter has flourished and grown

after the event. The school management pounced on the problem

very quickly. Since the memos were written three state Steiner schools

have been opened or approved to open. That is not uncontroversial

given the nature of Steiner's work. The DFE said it wouldn't approve

anything where racism or bullying were issues, tonight it said it can

and would close schools, even private one where is they were. But

that doesn't close the question of whether this Austrian mist

particular's ideas are actually worth public money? Here to discuss

Steiner schools are Francis Russell whose child was a pupil at Greenwich

Steiner school, and the chief executive of the British Humanist

Association. If I could start with you, the evidence seems to suggest

that kids learn at these schools and they are pretty happy, why on earth

are you making such a fuss about them? The reason we tried to get the

document that is the DfE has finally released because we feared what they

contained, eight out of 12 Steiner schools had serious cases of

bullying of children by staff which is massively out of proportion than

other schools, there was secrecy over teacher training materials

within the Steiner teacher training scheme which is he they said they

shouldn't let people see their lesson plans and make sure they were

lost, that was because of the controversial nature of them. The

qasi-religious and mystic systems of Steiner's work was linked directly

to incidents of racism and bullying within those schools as well. That

is why we are concerned. We are concerned if any sort of ideolgical

belief system takes the place of real education in state schools.

Francis, the evidence that in some schools bullying was not just

tolerated but in some senses thought of as a good thing, as a way of

identifying what kind of kid, or what kind of person these kids would

grow up to be, doesn't that immensely worry you as somebody who

was a parent of a kid at one of these kids? This is total rubbish

what you are talking about now, I am a parent who had a child at the

school, but I have been involved in setting up and running a particular

school over the last six years, and been involved with it for ten and

been involved in the movement. The allegations raised in the reports

were never tested. These were some parents who had written to the

Department for Education, and they were being raised in the reports as

issues of how do we manage if parents come up and say these kinds

of things with the media. There is absolutely no proof at all about

these things. I'm sorry, can I just continue for a moment. What you are

decribing does not happen in Steiner schools, that would never happen in

our school, it would never happen in any of the schools that I know

anything about. But why does the handbook talk about kids being, you

know, either victims or bullies and needing to test which category they

go into, why do the handbooks say these things? I'm not clear about

this handbook at all. What I can tell you is what our policy says,

and what policies in all the schools say, and remember they are all

inspected and they all have to abide by the independent schools rules.

What they say is that bullying is not tolerated. But within Steiner

schools, as within many schools, we try to get children to learn to deal

with conflict that is going on, but they are not left do that on their

own. It is done with guidance of the adults, teachers and parents

involved. I'm sorry but all this stuff about the pseudo spiritualism,

that is all to do with Steiner's views on anthroposaphy, it is not

caught in schools, it is for some adults to use as a way of guiding

their lives if they choose to do so. It just does not form any part of a

modern Steiner school. Nonetheless he is the driving force

intellectually behind it. In his philosophy there is this stuff which

I think most people would think of as racist and bonkers about the

Aryans being the super-race. Of course it is. Don't you worry about

being associated with a school founded on such ideas. Rudolf

Steiner had a lot of good ideas about educational provision, which

have been taken and developed and progressed, that is what forms a

part of the education today. Is there any role for public money on

schools based on this kind of philosophy? I obviously don't think

so. I think because any state-funded school should be built on proper

educational practice and theory and Steiner education and theory isn't.

Your attempt to dereceive. Can I say something because you have spoken

for a long time and made claims about the documents which is untrue

and attempted to dismiss the documents as if they contained just

allegations of individual parents, it will completely fail, they quote

teacher training manuals which says many of the things that has just

been said both in the report and now, about some children being

destined by their Karma to be victims and some to be bullied. All

of the things that have just been said. Should public money go to the

schools? I had to pay and there are many parents who can't afford to pay

who would like the education you get in Steiner schools which is really

about educating the whole child in a very imaginative and artistic way,

if you look at the school inspections reports they are telling

parents how good these schools are and how good they are at producing

young people with strong self-esteem, academically able and

well prepared to go on and be good citizens in life. We will have to

leave it there, thank you very much. I thought that was a jolly

interesting discussion. It sounds a bit like a bad joke, doesn't it that

investors should be piling into investments called "catastrophe

bonds", six years after the mother of all financial catastrophes, it

isn't a laughing matter. Pension funds and insurance companies are

pouring our money into investment which is pay them a good rate of

interest, unless, that is, there is a disaster such as a tsunami or an

earthquake, in that case they get nothing. Are catastrophe bonds well

a catastrophe waiting to happen. Be Six years ago the chopping up and

selling on of risk brought the financial world close to disaster,

then it was sub-prime mortgages and when the value of those home loans

fell the whole system was exposed to the losses. Now there is a new

risky, little understood investment. They are called, appropriately,

catastrophe bonds. Catastrophe bondses are being bought by UK and

US pension funds, I'm not sure they understand the real underlying

risks. Catastrophe bondses are basically -- catastrophe bonds are a

bet against natural disasters like hurricanes and earthquake, investors

get paid interests every year, at the end of the term they get their

money back. But, if there is a catastrophe, then the insurers get

to keep all the money to cover their losses, and the investors lose

everything. So far the returns for investors have been pretty good.

Almost 8. 5% a year since 2002. And, they are also a hedge against market

losses elsewhere. Catastrophe bonds are what is called an unco-related

asset class, that means their return doesn't reflect what's happening in

other financial markets. As long as the specified disaster doesn't

happen the investor keeps getting paid. Investing is trade off between

risk and return. What's the chance that you will lose money, and given

that risk, does the rate of return justify taking it. For example would

investors buy something that had a one in four chance of making a loss.

Not if it paid 5% a year. But they might if it paid 50. When it comes

to catastrophe bonds, Giovanni Garcia calculates the probability of

the disaster. The probability is 2-2. 75% a year. The bonds are

designed to trigger once every 55 years. Since 2007, direct investment

by pension funds in catastrophe bonds has gone up by 15-times. But

while the risk of disaster is constant, the rates of interest

offered have fallen. As more investors pile in bond issuers are

offer lower rates of interest, rates on bonds are at record lows. Are

pension funds exposing themselves to massive risk for too low a return?

This is a completely different sort of risk, it is a completely new risk

for pension funds to be getting in to, again I'm just not sure that

they have the experience or the expertise in a size myology, New

canology, or futurology, whatever it might be, to allow them to make a

proper informed decision. The reason why pension funds are dabbling into

catastrophe insurance is down to a bigger shift in global finance.

Central banks created a sea of money in an attempt to clean up the mess

of the last crisis. But this has flooded into all asset classes, from

bonds to shares to housing. That sea of money has been partly created by

keeping interest rates near zero. Over the last six years interest

rates have been at historic lows, so pension funds haven't been able to

get the kind of return they need from traditionally safe investments

like Government bonds. Instead they have been forced to buy riskier and

riskier assets to try to drive up their returns. Since the crash this

search for yield has been the defining characteristic of financial

markets. Some people see it everywhere. I think in one sense

there is lack of discretion in terms of what investors might be investing

in currently, anything with a yield will do. Stephen King is HSBC's

chief economist, he sees low interest rates fuelling a search for

higher yields, across all financial markets and driving ever-greater

risk taking. It does reflect the fact that investors are desperate to

get higher returns, they find is very difficult to get the higher

returns when the economies are so incredibly weak, as a consequence

they are pushed into areas that are riskier or more esoteric. The risks

are real. The valuation of many cat-bonds is based on the minimal

risk of disaster, a major disaster could trigger a large loss in some

bonds that could bring down the price of all of them. The worry is

so much money has flooded into catastrophe bonds that they have

become overvalued, you can see the same alarm signals across all sorts

of different financial instrument, a lot of confidence in any of these

could trigger a sell-off across wider markets. Low interest rates

have been used by central banks to try to restore the economy to

health. But they have been so low now for so long that investors are

taking risk they otherwise wouldn't take. Catastrophe bonds might prove

a risk too far, the next little understood investment that could

spiral into disaster. Here with me to assess whether the cure for the

banking crisis all that cheap money that the Bank of England and other

central banks created is enbeginedering in fact a new

financial disaster is the economist George Magnus. Everywhere you look

at the moment you see bonkers prices, if you look at the market in

Italian and Spanish Government bonds, two pretty risky Governments

they are more expensive than an American Government bonds, which

most people would say is rather crazy. Why haven't investors learned

their lessons? Why do they appear to be taking such ridiculous crazy

risks again? Well, the cynical answer is that they are just myopic

and prone to crowds and sheep, all marching off in the same direction

together. The slightly more serious answer but one that begs a lot of

questions, is investors and financial markets are just totally

geared to the idea that money is cheap and they have been told by

Mark Carney, January until Yellin, the heads of the central banks

around the world. They have been told in no uncertain terms that

interest rates will stay close to zero for an extended period of time.

So they have no risk to worry about that interest rates will go on they

can carry on crowding into risky investments, extracting higher

interest rates, or as the course pond dent said the search for --

correspondent said the search for yield without impunity, despite the

fact that the risks haven't changed and may change soon. The thing is

what goes up will come down, how worried are you that the bubbles in

property and Government bonds as and when they burst there will be a bit

of a mess, not just for investors but for all of us? That is bet I

would take. Because partly because we can see that the debate is

beginning to change. In this country, in the UK, we know that the

Bank of England is now on the cusp of, not on the cusp but it is

certainly debating very actively whether it should raise interest

rates later this year and almost certainly will do. And in the United

States the process of withdrawing from the quantitative easing

programme, called tapering, will end October. The markets are, some

markets are actually quite wedded to the idea that interest rates in the

US will rise some time towards the summer or the autumn of 2015. But it

could happen earlier, because the economy actually is coming back

quite nicely. As and when interest rates rise, is that when we will see

the first real test of whether the markets are safe or, essentially is

that when we might see the first cracks that could be rather

damaging? Yes, today there was a minor crack, Wall Street at one

stage was down 300 points, and could have been lots of reasons for this,

but one of the reasons could have been that employment costs, wages

and salaries rose by their fastest rate in the second quarter since the

great financial crisis. Which obviously gets people worried about

the fact that interest rates may go up sooner. It will happen and even

though interest rates in five years time may not be substantially higher

than they are today, certainly not as high as they were ten or 20 years

ago, the shock of moving out of one regime into another one which is

uncertain I think will exact a big toll, I think. Our Government,

Central Bank governor, Mark Carney, Governments in America and Europe

will say that they have put in place new regulations to protect us from

the kind of shocks to the financial system we saw in 2008. Have they

done that in fact? As and when these markets cracked will there be a

significantly damaging impact on our proport? Yes, I think so. To a

degree, I think they talk a lot about macro Prudential regulation,

which is about trying to make financial institutions safer, you

can do that with a big bank ore insurance company. But you -- bank

or insurance company, but you can't really protect the system from an

environment. What has happened is the price of lending and capital has

fallen to level which is are inappropriately low. We have to get

back to normal and it will be a difficult transition. In a moment we

will be looking at recommendations for NATO reform from the Commons

defence committee. But while we have been on air the American Secretary

of State, John Kerry, and the United Nations secretary-general, Ban

Ki-Moon, have announced a 72-hour humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza

through du to begin at 8.00 on Friday morning. Our diplomatic

editor has the latest news. That is the news, the ceasefire has

been agreed, the Secretary of State said that Israel and Hamas have

agreed to it. We have had some shaky or non-existent attempts at

ceasefires before, this is meant to last 72-hours, it may well

illustrate an Israeli sense that America is losing patience. And the

opinion of the world is moving against them. Do you think this is a

ceasefire that will hold, because we have had false dawns before now? I

wouldn't make a judgment one way or the other. It could be the beginning

of the end as it were, but it may be a temporary ceasefire. On this other

issue that we have been looking at today which is the capability of

NATO, MPs have raised concerns that NATO is not in a position to defend

itself, were there to be a renewed threat from Russia, what has their

argument been? We have a situation now where there are fresh Russian

build-ups with the borders of Ukraine, we have seen pictures over

the plast few days. NATO talk about 15,000 Russian troops amassing

there. The west could get caught again in this respect. The MPs have

looked at what already has happened there, and also asked questions

about well what if suddenly one of the battic Republics or Poland feels

very threatened by one of these Russian moves. What could we

actually do? They think the answer is not much and not much quickly. So

they have got a series of recommendation which is they

published today, the defence committee staking a claim, if you

like, to get the Government moving on this, and calling for dramatic

improvements to rapid reaction, moving stuff to threatened areas,

pre-positioning to help that happen faster, putting kit down in some of

the eastern European countries ready to go, and the continuous presence

of NATO forces there. I think historically the military and

Government haven't always been as one on this kind of thing. What is

your sense, is there unity on what to do? I have discovered there has

been quite a battle going on behind the scenes and actually in the run

up to the paper from the Defence Select Committee today, the British

general who stepped down in the spring from his job in the NATO

military structure, he made some outspoken remarks in a newspaper,

which caused Alex Hammond to basically -- Philip Hammond to try

to get the man disciplined and stop him speaking again on the subject.

He was furious about it, it endangered in his mind his sort of

discipline he thought he had got the department under. The defence

committee asked the general to come in and tell them what sort of risk

he is thought there were to the Baltic Republics for example. The

fact is that there is a Russian aviation base within 40 minutes

flying time of Riga. So unless NATO has stationed forces in the Baltic

states I think it is highly unlikely that NATO could respond quickly to a

sudden surprise attack. Now, of course the MPs at the time wanted to

know what did the Defence Secretary make of this. He in fact pretty much

rubbished the general. He said this morning, sitting in that chair, that

he thought we ought to have a significant NATO and UK presence in

the Baltic states. Now that is not in the SDSR and the SDSS. It is not

the Government's view, and it is not NATO's view, and he is a retiring

general on resettlement leave. He can speak for himself but he doesn't

speak for the department. What has happened today is effectively the

MPs have bought almost everything the general said. They have been

wrapped into the recommendations of what should happen. This, if you

like, pre-figures a bigger battle that will happen about the defence

budget, about the posture of the Armed Forces over the next year as

they move into the next defence review and do the Government

statements about the seriousness of what has been happening in Eastern

Europe actually mean they have got to change course, spend more on

defence and reposition the forces? Thank you. Now one of the MPs' main

recommendation was the establishment of a continuous NATO presence in

vulnerable states including Estonia. That country's Defence Minister

joins us now. Can I just ask you, how vulnerable do you feel, do you

regard a threat from Russia as a serious really serious thing to your

security? Well there is definitely no panic in Estonia in the streets

or among the policy makers. We have invested significantly in our

defence and security over the years. We have very strong relationships

with the strongest and biggest allies, both in Europe and on the

other side of the Atlantic. However, we have seen a very significant

build up of Russian military forces in our region. So basically I would

agree with most of the recommendations that were made by

the MPs from the House of Commons, indeed actually those reflections,

those recommendations reflect very much what I told the delegation when

they visited Tallin. I definitely believe we need pre-positioned

forces and assets in our part of the world. We need better, clearer

defence plans, we need to improve our situational awareness and our

early, our rapid reaction capability. So basically I agree

with the majority of those recommendations definitely. Just to

be clear, how serious do you think NATO's deficiencies are? NATO

collectively I believe is still very much the, by far the strongest

player when it comes to conventional military forces. However, I do

believe that the current regime in the Kremlin, Putin's regime thinks

they have certain advantages, they have parity with NATO and

superiority in convention terms when it comes to certain regions, they

believe probably with some justification that they have a time

advantage. They have been doing snap exercises while Putin can take most

of the strategic decisions on his own, so basically in order to cope

with this situation we need to improve our ability to take

decisions quickly, but also to implement those decisions quickly.

So this definitely requires pre-positioning of assets, this

requires also more regular exercises with more realistic defence

scenarios. You would be happy to have foreign troops on your soil,

that is not a problem for you? Well, basically, yes, foreign troops, but

also pre-positioning of equipment, of the kind that is required to

respond quickly to any scenario that we can foresee realistically

unfolding. I would say that we have very strong confidence in NATO

Article 5 and the allied solidarity. However, we would like to do

everything it takes to avoid a situation that would trigger Article

#R5, and deterrence is the best way to do that. I do believe that

strength is language that Putin's regime understands. I think some

would say it also occasionally inflames him. Thank you very much.

As MPs flee Westminster for their summer holiday one man will be left

behind pouring over polls and that infamous news grid, he's Linton

Crosby and the adviser paid to propel David Cameron back into

Number Ten in 2015. Like Labour's Peter Mandelson and Alastair

Campbell, he's seen as the Tory Party's controller of who is up and

down in the cabinet. Has he become too powerful? We have been finding

out. You always play to win, you don't play to come second. The smirk

is attitude, it is a person who says he can get away with this.

I'm no genius, just an ordinary person who wanted to help the

Conservative Party. If, for some reason, you would like

to see the most powerful people in the Tory Party on a Monday morning

at 8.00am come down to this street corner and you will see loads of

them streaming out of this building, the campaign headquarters and up to

Whitehall and Downing Street and the Prime Minister's layer, where they

will have a planning meeting for the week, but actually nine months out

from a general election they are on war footing. One of their number is

head of their general election campaign, Linton Crosby, to many

people he's the most powerful person in the Tory Party.

Tory communication chief, Craig Oliver got into trouble for getting

Crosby into Downing Street. But since arriving he has been kept

close. Whenever David Cameron is in trouble he brings Crosby to assure

restless MPs, they know's a winner. Thrusting immigration into the

campaign glare has been attributed to Australian election strategist,

Linton Crosby. He notched up a woulding four victories for John

Howard, and the boss was grateful. Briefly but sincerely I can't let

the opportunity of Linton's report go by without recording mime mens

personal gratitude to you Linton. But it also got pretty nasty. The

Indonesian ferry carrying the asylum seekers was intercepted by the

Australian Navy at the end the Prime Minister John Howard said those on

board threw children into the sea to force the Navy to pick them up. Yes

he did run campaigns for John Howard that were largely, or significantly

fear-based, they were trying to worry people about the fact that

there was this asylum seeking and illegal immigration going on, and

John Howard would determine who comes to the country and under what

circumstances. There is a lot of unfair stuff thrown at Linton about

the dog whistling and the racism. You will read here that this is part

of Crosbyism, well it wasn't, it was John Howard, the Prime Minister at

the time, and his Defence Minister, Peter Reith, who actually said those

things. In 2005 he came to work in the UK for another Howard, Michael

Howard, and he went hard on immigration again. The theory is

that you some how put out these messages, that people can't

generally hear, but the people who need to hear them pick them up and

pond and vote your way. They are not issues you talk about in the broad.

But, hey, everyone knew that Michael Howard and the Conservatives were

focussing on immigration and crime and all of these things, no-one

could say they were trying to secretly, below the line, through

phone calls or direct mail letters, address an issue that they were

trying to hide from the rest of the voters. The Tory vote share went up

in that election, but they still lost. Polling would later show that

the country wanted a crackdown on immigration, just not from the

Conservatives. Unlucky in 05, things picked up on getting Boris Johnson

elected in 2008 and 2012. Boris is a very loyal member of the team and

good to have. Immigration took a back seat, instead they promised to

cut commuting costs and crime for the outer suburbs, Linton Crosby

doesn't appear to run cookie cutter candidate, which brings us to 2015

and how he will run David Cameron. Linton Crosby is fond of the saying

of this man, General Slim, whose statue is not far from Downing

Street. Slim said in battle things are rarely as good or as bad as the

first reports of excited men would have them. I can tell you firsthand

that Linton Crosby detests the breathless ups and downs of

Westminster gossip, instead he gets his politicians to focus on three or

four core messages and rams them home over months and months and

preferably years and years. Sources of mine who have dared to deviate

from those messages know about it. They get rung up for the Linton

Crosby hair dryer treatment. It doesn't found like a hugely big

insight, you would be amazed how many British politicians find it

difficult to stick to the script. Scrape barnacles off the boat said

Linton Crosby. The energetic Health Secretary, Jeremy Hunt is always

trying to announce new ideas on health but stopped by the iron grip

of Crosby. But the biggest barnacle of all, Michael Gove, the Prime

Minister was shown polling that he was so unpopular it could be an

electrical barnacle, he moved Gove and the Prime Minister remonstrate,

and the Chancellor remonstrated but lost. Everyone would love to come to

a party and say they have a silver bullet for all the problems. They

don't, they have the techniques and mechanisms for consolidating the

vote and growing the pool. That is what you try to do, grow the pool of

voters who potentially might listen to you. That is obviously the advice

that Linton is giving to the Tories. Try to grow the pool on right by

finding policies to appeal to the defectors, to UKIP, find some

policies which appeal to women voters. It is 2. 30 and we have seen

a steady stream of Tories into the building although it is the

holidays. He's running a tight ship. Every day he's in from six through

until late at night. Instead of his own office tucked away on the side,

he sits in the thick of things alongside juniors and interns alike,

that is why he's liked he has few airs and graces. It is from this

building he's controlling the Tory message, if at the last election

there was four different characters with four different takes on how the

Tories were fighting the election, this time round it will be just one.

In the words of one of my source, Linton Crosby's word is the law.

Economic competence, immigration, welfare reform, Crosby's messages

next year, but too heavy on immigration and ethnic minority

voters will be frightened off the Tories. Too harsh on welfare won't

help them with the north of Britain. Right now the PM is on holiday,

Linton Crosby is not taking a break, for a few weeks at least he's really

in charge. Here to discuss Crosby's influence are the former London

mayor, Ken Livingston and Conservative activist and Times

columnist, Tim Montgomerie. Allegra says the Chancellor was overruled by

Linton Crosby and as a result of polling Michael Gove was demoted.

That's no way to run a Government is it? I think it is probably true. But

the reason why David Cameron is listening to Linton Crosby is partly

you have the reason there in Ken Livingston. The stories couldn't

defeat Tony Blair, Ken Livingston did, he won huge majorities in

London, but it was Linton Crosby's strategy with a little help from man

called Boris Johnson that unseated Ken. In Australia Linton Crosby

helped John Howard to four victories. It is that campaigning

nouse, and the ability to run a campaign, understand it properly,

understand opinion polls and the public. That is why the

Conservatives are willing to hire and listen to him. There is a

paradox, all the evidence shows one of the reasons politicians are so

unpopular is people think they don't show leadership that it is all about

spin and polling. Isn't it just part of the whole eating away at

confidence in politicians that are actually powerless and they are run

essentially by the ad men? We say we like conviction politicians but when

they do things we don't like them to do we don't necessarily respect

them. Opinion polls are our way of voting between election, telling

politicians what we think about what is going on. Sometimes it is wise to

listen to them, and sometimes it is right for Ken Livingston to ignore

views about the Congestion Charge and plough ahead. But it matters

during elections and Linton Crosby is a good interpreter of them. You

don't like Linton Crosby, you think of him as an evil person, isn't that

just because he got you defeated? He was incredibly successful? He's

probably the most successful progandists since Dr Joseph Gobeles,

it is a joke I'm not suggesting for one minute they are in the same

league. They have one thing in common, it is about fear, that is

what is so demeaning about the politics. When I came into politics

it was debating about issues, now it is smear and fear. What we should

have in the next nine months is an endless debate about how to turn the

economy round and where it will go in the future. Crosby will do

everything to stop that, it will be immigration, benefits cheats, trade

unions. It is not true, if you look at the long-term economic plan every

Tory spokesman has to use day in and day out, that is Linton Crosby's

argument, he's arguing for them to focus on the economic issues not

just welfare. He's not honest about that. We have had 30 years of

neo-liberal economics under Thatcher and continued by Tony Blair, it

hasn't worked. We are worse off than we were. Surely the issue here is a

different one. We recently had the leader of the Labour Party, Ed

Miliband, saying he will back away from image building and spin, let's

be clear they just hired David Axelrod from America, the game is up

and Government is run by spin and pollsters. That was one of the

weaknesses of new Labour, they forgot about the core issues and

pandered to it. Have you confidence that Ed Miliband will be different?

Absolutely, whenever I'm with Ed Miliband he's talking about issues,

what do we learn from the success of the German economy. He's never

obsessed by this sort of spin nonsense. You look at the key

people, they are people who mobilise and organise activists. What about

David Axelrod an American campaigner at a lot of money paid for by Labour

activists, the idea th Ed Miliband is very different? The key thing

about Clinton is he built a machine. That is what I tried do I couldn't

defeat Boris, but we built a machine that mobilise add lot of people

across London, got them out, not enough to win N situation where Ed

Miliband faces what I faced, a completely hostile media, that is

the core. Build the machine, reach people on the doorstep. I think this

debate will run all the way to next May and it would be jolly

interesting to see what it does to the overall turnout, I'm not sure

everyone is enthused? Let's remember the real smear tonight was yours

with Joseph Gobeles. Not Linton Crosby.

Cinema fans were venting their fury, but after a few nights of a new

fangled screening of Back to the Future were cancelled at the last

night, tonight 4 thousand young people made it to -- 4,000 young

people made it to a secret location dressed as characters of the film,

it is what is known as "immersive entertainment", we have jumped on

the hover board for a look. It is so exciting, take one of your

favourite movies of all time and feel like you are part of it. The

secret is now out, somewhere in East London, after delays and

cancellations the first night of a summer-long project. Every time from

now on when I watch the film it will be I was there. This is the biggest

event of its type ever held. A full on replica of Hill Valley, as any 80

nostalgia will tell you, scene of Back to the Future. Each of the

shops and buildings is say theed to be true to the film itself, from the

estate agents to the bank on the corner. There will be live

performances from actors and live music once the night is finished. A

long way from the Multiplex or the cinema on the high street. The film

is shown in full, but the plan is more ambitious than outdoor cinema,

with some dressing-up. There is a generation of audience that is are

not satisfied with the massive experience any more I think they

want to be part of it. That is what I am I'm interested in, that the

audience and performance is blurred, that wherever you are you can become

part of the story. Secret cinema has come a long way from its underground

roots, screening cult clackss to small audiences. Like a video game

there are areas to explore and hidden secrets to find. All too much

effort say some. The problem I guess with the immersive experience is

because there is so much of it and because you are so aware that there

is so much going on it can become a box-ticking exercise where you feel

you have to complete the thing rather than letting it wash over you

as a purer experience. But immersive entertainment is a broad term,

taking in everything from Michael Sheen's performance of the passion.

To this tower block in Popular where a new version of Macbeth is played

in different rooms in the building. The performance stops at 7.00, and

the audience is split into smaller groups of ten, and brought into this

doorway part of the underground car park, part of the network of housing

estates in East London. The weird sisters, hand in hand, posters of

the sea and land, thus do go about. We have just been astound today the

reception we have got and the amount of audience members, and selling out

four months before the performance is incredible. Our audiences

yearning for something different and outside of the living room. With so

much choice nowadays in terms of media, this type of performance

gives people the real experience which they are looking for,

interaction with audience and actors and being able to see a story from

the inside out. Whether film or theatre, events like this are doing

well at the moment, Back to the Future has sold 65,000 tickets at

more than ?50 each. Secret cinema is making real money. Charging over ?50

a ticket. You think about it, a cinema you are looking about ?10.

London prices. So they are making huge amounts of money for the Grand

Budapest Hotel a production they put on recently, that contributed over

one million pounds to the UK box-office for that film. We are

looking to be obviously a profitable business. But we're not, for me the

passion of it is making it the best it could be. This then is no longer

a niche experiment, it is well and truly mainstream. The challenge for

secret cinema and others like it will be to keep growing without

losing the sense of mystery, the things that made it popular in the

first place. I have massively enjoyed keeping the seat warm for

the past three days, sadly that is all I and we have time for. Good

night. There is rain in the forecast, some a lot some very

little. The main focus of rain