13/05/2016 Newsnight


13/05/2016

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From high-street hero to retail tragedy -

:00:00.:00:00.

what really happened at British Home Stores?

:00:07.:00:09.

Did Sir Philip Green act responsibly when

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You get really egregious cases, which I suspect this is one,

:00:12.:00:19.

then it brings to light how casually the duties of directors

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Facebook agrees to look into charges of political bias.

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Did it remove right-wing stories from its trending list?

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And should we worry that we are increasingly getting news

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And on Artsnight, Tate director Nicholas Serota dares to ask -

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just how important is contemporary art?

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We stand here, on the point of opening the new Tate Modern,

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the extended Tate Modern, with many people still doubting that

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Just how did the tycoon dubbed the King of the High Street

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become the "unacceptable face of capitalism".

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Philip Green, the man behind many key fashion brands,

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was lauded and loved - knighted indeed.

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That was before he sold British Home Stores a year ago for ?1.

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Last month, the retail chain went into administration,

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and is likely to be sold again in coming days.

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Crucially, the move left a ?571 millon hole in its pension fund.

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The blame has been laid squarely at Philip Green's door.

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Well, Newsnight has been trying to untangle what happened

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with the business - and how much blame, if any,

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Nothing scroomed British style more than British Home Stores, it became

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a thriving chain of 160 odd shops nationwide.

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That was then, now BHS is in administration, led by a man who has

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been bankrupt three times, and lumbered with a hole in its pension

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pot that seems to be ?571 million wide. And the fall out from this

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could be immense. One of the BHS known retailers in this country, a

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Knight of the Realm has been accused of recklessly selling BHS, even

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though it has helped to make him a multiple billionaire, overnight a

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man feted as one of our greatest entrepreneurs has been regarded as a

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pariah. When you get egregious case, I suspect this is one, it brings to

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light how casually the duties of directors are being taken by some

:02:58.:03:01.

people, and I think we therefore need to remind people who work in

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business, who have directored duty, that they do include more than

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simply making money in the short run.

:03:11.:03:16.

Sir Philip Green makes an almost pant mile villain, the ?100 million

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superyacht, the models, the massive dividend, the tax haven. Feted by

:03:23.:03:26.

some in the establishment, seen as vulgar in the eyes of others, but

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how much is Sir Philip Green really to blame for all this? Newsnight has

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heard the views from all sides in what everybody agrees is a sorry

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tale. So what really happened to BHS?

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Great value, good quality. It had all looked so hopeful. Money in one

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side, money out the other. Friends have told us Sir Philip Green thinks

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he should have sold it is a decade ago.

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When he did sell in 2015, it went for just a pound. But the buyer

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wasn't anyone you have heard of. It was a very little known businessman

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called Dominic Chappell. A man with no retail experience at all, but a

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very colourful past. So, who is he? Since his take over of BHS, it has

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merged that Dominic Chappell has been made bankrupt three times,

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although he insists that one of those bankruptcies is going to be

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annulled. Newsnight has discovered that 15 years ago he was charged

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with theft, and the handling of stolen goods in relation to the

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disappearance of a 47,00 pounds sports car. When we spoke to him

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about this, he invisited that the case had been thrown out, and that

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he was innocent. -- insisted. But what about those bankruptcies?

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Anyone wants to know about Dominic Chappell has to come here, to the

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Isle of Wight. We have just come off the hovercraft. He used to make this

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journey in his helicopter. This is island harbour, a unique and

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historical area, a true jewel in the Crown for the Isle of Wight. Not my

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words but those of this man. This is Dominic Chappell, the chief

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executive of island harbour holdings. At least he was. Until his

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development here went bust, seven years ago, owing more than ?20

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million. Much of it to local businesses, who were and still are

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absolutely furious, including the company that printed this brochure.

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How many did you make of these? From memory about 5,000. Tim lost out on

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nearly ?13,000. In this particular project we have to pay our paper

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suppliers who gave us the paper, ink suppliers, our people that did the

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Varnishing, we had to pay them as well. So a considerable amount of

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money other than staff that is paid out by a company, and this type of

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work happens. Would you say it was reckless the

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behaviour? Yes. Damaging and reckless? It damaged me to the tune

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of ?13,000. Hamilton's Fine Foods lost a similar amount If BHS phoned

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you and say we are thinking of selling up to this man, what would

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you have said? I would have been speechless they even accepted the

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approach. I would have say there is to way you can do this Mr Green.

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Well, there is a lot of prominent businessmen and women who have been

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through bankruptcies and administration so there is nothing

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wrong with selling a company to someone with a chequered financial

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past but this feels a bit different. BHS, such a prominent name on the

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high street but responsible for a lot of people's livelihoods and

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pension, so the questions that arrive now are is who was checking

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the credentialles of Dominic Chappell, and were enough questions

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asked at the right time. Right at the top of that list, who was

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vouching for Dominic Chappell? Sir Philip Green's lawyers ling laters

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told us they got reassurances from MrChappell's lawyers Olswang.

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That pels lawyers told us: -- Dominic Chappell.

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What is clear, is that everybody involved in the sale of BHS knew

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about Dominic Chappell 's bankruptcies but nobody thought they

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were a deal breaker. So a very rich Mansells his shops to

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another man, who has no retail experience. On paper that looks odd.

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Is there anything legally wrong with what happened? If you want to sell

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the asset and you own this company, you are entitled to dispose of it as

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you wish, and you don't have to ensure that the person purchasing

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the asset can comply with his or her own obligations to the company, that

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is after the event. You are entitled to dispose of your shares as you

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wish. The single most controversial part of the collapse was the hole in

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the staff pension scheme, valued at of ?570 million. Controversial

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because those pensions are being paid out of a rescue fund, that

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millions of workers have paid into. And not by Sir Philip Green, by

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Dominic Chappell, or by anyone else who has made money out of BHS.

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What has never before been revealed, is that two years ago, Sir Philip

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Green planned a massive restructuring of BHS called Project

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Thaw. One of the main things it would have achieved was putting more

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money into the pension fund including 80 million from Sir Philip

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Green himself. It needed approval and that is something the regulator

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wasn't prepared to give. At months of discussion the global economy had

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changed and project thaw was shelved. Could the regulator have

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saved the scheme? On Monday the boss suggest it had kept in the dark

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about plans to sell to Dominic Chappell 's group. They discussed

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propositions with us and the next we heard that there was a specific

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development, was the sale. Not so says the man who oversees the BHS

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pension fund. My recollection is clear, that all of the key

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stakeholders were involved in that sale process and we were all

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involved in regular dialogue and discussions Once it learned of the

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sale the pension regulator launched an immediate inquiry known as an

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anti-avoidance case, I spoke to Dominic Chappell at lent today and

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he said that inquiry had a huge impact on his ability to borrow

:10:03.:10:06.

money from banks at a competitive rate. He said the inquiry was, in

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his opinion, one of the main reasons that BHS had gone into

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administration. But others say there was one very

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simple option available to Sir Philip Green, but he failed to take

:10:21.:10:28.

it. It. John Ralph has been asked to provide specialist briefing on

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pensions to their inquiry If you are thinking about selling, and that

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could you know, that could increase the risk of the pension scheme,

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there is a very straightforward mechanism you can use, it is called

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preclearance, you go to the regulator you fill in a form, it is

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on the website, it is straightforward. You explain what

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the facts you are doing are, you explain the impact on pension scheme

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and what you are doing to mitigate that impact. That might involve

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putting in an amount of money, you then can get a sign off from the

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regulator, that they will not pursue you, and I think I would like to ask

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however strong your legal advice was, what was the commercial reason

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for not taking a bit of time and effort and trouble, and getting that

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preclearance. There are senior executives within

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BHS who believe the brand can be saved, but even if it is, the

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pension scheme won't be. That lifeboat fund will now prop it up.

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That raises bigger questions, some see this as an corporate equivalent

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of a get out of jail free card. Let us be clear, setting up the

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Pension Protection Fund was a progressive step forward, because it

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was wrong that if somebody lost their job in a company failure they

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should lose their pension. It is right to underwrite pensions in

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those situations but clearly it is open to abuse, by employers, taking

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money out of a company and then dumping responsibility on the

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taxpayer. There is every chance Sir Philip Green hasn't broken any rules

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at all to do with the sale of BHS, he stuck to the letter of the law,

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that he followed advisers' recommendation but there is a chance

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he will still have to write a big fat cheque to the pension fund? Why?

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Because his reputation really is at stake here. This whole complex story

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is about more than who is legally or technically right, it is about

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perceptions of fairness, about what we as a society think of as fair.

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At the marine that it was a new develop ever who pecked up the

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recommend napts of the failed venture, with BHS, it is now down to

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the Pension Protection Fund to help pensioners and the administrator to

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try to sell the company. He is analysing five or six separated by,

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one of which involves Dominic Chappell.

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Joining me now, the Labour MP Frank Field, who chairs the Work

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He has suggested Philip Green should hand back his knighthood

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if he doesn't cough up the money to cover the pensions scheme.

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Thank you for coming in. Let me ask you to help us unpack this, first,

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did you know that Sir Philip Green tried to plough back the profits,

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from BHS into the pensions fund, and that he was stopped from doing that?

:13:16.:13:22.

No. But quite a lot is emerging, and one of the roles of both business

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Select Committee and Work and Pensions Select Committee, coming

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together, is be able do a number of audits, so those audits, we hope

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will be tested but published by Parliament. There is some obvious

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questions that we need answering, first of all when was as Adam was

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suggesting there, when were the profits generated? And was it by

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book-keeping or by other arrangements? Real improvements in

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the firm? And to whom did they go? Let me go back on this one, if it

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turns out that he did in fact try and plough those profits back, from

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BHS, into the pensions fund, including that 80 million of his own

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money and he was stopped by the regulator, would that concern you

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and if so, where would you be looking now? Well, we are looking in

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lots of places, Would you question the regulator? Is the pensions

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regulator in your perview. We have questioned the regulator

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without knowing this and immediately companies on behalf of Sir Philip

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Green came back to disputing many of the key thing she said and again

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another audit which we will be doing to publish is, was this a failure of

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the existing law, or is the law adequate, but people trusted with

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enforcing it did not match up to the job? Are you clear what Philip Green

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has done wrong? No, that is the point of our inquiry. Do you think

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he has done anything illegal? We are not starting from a basis of

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anything illegal. Do you think he has been a moral? I am answering the

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first question. That side of whether nor has been broken is being looked

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at by the Serious Fraud Office. We have been in contact with them. I do

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not want to do anything that would allow inadvertently somebody to

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shout they cannot get a fair trial. Why would you say so clearly that

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Philip Green has a moral duty to make good the pension scheme, or I

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would personally recommend he should lose his knighthood? Why would you

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go back far if you do not know he has done anything wrong? He was in

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charge of the stewardship over a period where considerable dividends

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were paid. We want to look at to whom they went and also he was

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Stuart ineffective the pension fund. You know now he may have tried to

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put into that fund and been stopped. Why would you come out with a phrase

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that sounds like you are prejudging him? When you asked me on here you

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said you would mention this and we would pass on because there are

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important issues I would like to discuss. Let me have another go at

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answering. I think there is one in moral case. Those who are developing

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unacceptable face of capitalism. If you are a Steward, take the rewards

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and then walk away and find there is a mega some of money, that people

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will not get in full. Did he do bronchi think by selling it to Vista

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Chappel? He has not sold it to Dominic Chappell. I'm sorry, he did

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for ?1. Mr Chappell is up for buying it again. He is a businessman who is

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trying to make good. What was the thing that you think he actually did

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wrong that would lead you to say maybe we should rescind his

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knighthood? You do not have to rely on your lawyers whatever they are

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paid and that is part of the business inquiry. Who does advise

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for these deals and what are they paid, what do they take out of it?

:17:36.:17:40.

We have to go on the internet and find the man is three times

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bankrupt. To think he is a serious player with no retail experience, to

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whom you entrust the livelihood of a large workforce, the destiny of the

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foregone wages and salaries in the pension scheme, I would have

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thought, if the BBC was run like that, do you think it would have

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such an easy run from the government this week? Frank field, thank you

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very much. To those that live there,

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and those that don't, London often feels like a different

:18:12.:18:13.

country to the rest of the UK. Londoners seem to dress

:18:14.:18:16.

differently, live differently, think differently and -

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increasingly - vote differently. Polling suggests Londoners are more

:18:20.:18:35.

for the EU then the rest of the country.

:18:36.:18:35.

But what does that mean for the future of the capital?

:18:36.:18:38.

And more importantly, you'll no doubt be shouting at

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David Grossman offers us his thoughts.

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London has always been a bit different.

:18:49.:18:52.

It's not just its scale that makes it unique, but demography too.

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It's younger, better qualified and richer.

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Londoners are more likely to rent, more likely to live

:19:00.:19:02.

in a flat, and more likely to use public transport.

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And London politics has diverged from the UK as well.

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My name is Sadiq Khan, and I'm the Mayor of London.

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Sadiq Khan's victory in London was as emphatic as it was welcome

:19:15.:19:17.

It's been building since the late '90s.

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1997 was the first general election when Labour pulled substantially

:19:26.:19:30.

ahead of their national average voting figures -

:19:31.:19:34.

at least in London, compared with the rest of the country.

:19:35.:19:38.

It has continued since then, and in 2015, further ahead again.

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Now, whether this is because of changing Labour politics in the '90s

:19:43.:19:48.

and 2000s, the late '90s and 2000s under Tony Blair,

:19:49.:19:50.

or a change in the make-up of the London population -

:19:51.:19:54.

to be honest, nobody really knows, but the effect is obvious.

:19:55.:19:58.

It's not that the Conservatives are doing worse, it's that Labour

:19:59.:20:01.

is doing better at the expense of lots of smaller parties.

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One reason is that London has expanded well beyond its formal

:20:05.:20:07.

Early morning commuters crowd on to packed trains.

:20:08.:20:21.

As London has grown, many of the Conservative-voting

:20:22.:20:23.

middle classes have moved to the surrounding counties,

:20:24.:20:25.

driven by the search for affordable housing.

:20:26.:20:27.

The people who used to vote Conservative in places

:20:28.:20:29.

like Greenwich and Lewisham, they haven't stopped

:20:30.:20:31.

voting Conservative, they just don't live

:20:32.:20:32.

They are now voting Conservative out in Essex and Kent.

:20:33.:20:41.

In place of the middle classes have come migrants, from all

:20:42.:20:43.

Nearly 40% of Londoners were born overseas.

:20:44.:20:48.

It is totally different from anywhere else in the UK.

:20:49.:20:54.

No other region has anything like it, and that does make it look

:20:55.:20:57.

It has links to all sorts of parts of the world, not only personal

:20:58.:21:05.

links, but business links, and it simply and inevitably means

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that the way people think in London is always going to be a little

:21:08.:21:11.

different from middle England or middle Britain.

:21:12.:21:13.

We can see that difference in polling.

:21:14.:21:15.

In the UK as a whole, 60% put immigration and asylum

:21:16.:21:19.

in their top three issues facing the country.

:21:20.:21:22.

Housing is the most important issue, on 44%.

:21:23.:21:31.

But housing only rates 20% in the UK as a whole.

:21:32.:21:34.

Not only that, but when Londoners say they are concerned about asylum

:21:35.:21:38.

and immigration, they can mean something very different.

:21:39.:21:42.

Because an awful lot of people in London,

:21:43.:21:45.

immigration is important because they have come here to live,

:21:46.:21:51.

and they want to have the freedom to work and to live in London.

:21:52.:21:55.

If they are from elsewhere in the world they may

:21:56.:21:57.

want to have the right to bring their extended family

:21:58.:22:00.

here and come and live here, London works very different,

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immigration works differently in London because a lot

:22:03.:22:04.

And this different view of course feeds into the debate

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In the UK as a whole, one recent poll found

:22:09.:22:14.

that the Remain side was just two points ahead of the Leave side,

:22:15.:22:17.

whereas in London the Remain side was ahead by 12 points.

:22:18.:22:23.

It may be that Labour's dominance over the capital is shortlived.

:22:24.:22:31.

As the new luxury investment apartments go up, poorer Londoners

:22:32.:22:37.

may follow the struggling Conservative-voting middle classes

:22:38.:22:39.

The Boris boom created this sort of Dubai on Thames landscape we can

:22:40.:22:46.

If we see the sort of policies we have in London at

:22:47.:22:53.

the moment continuing, where you have on the one hand,

:22:54.:23:01.

up to 100 council estates are up for demolition, and on the other

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hand, you have 300 towers being built of predominantly luxury

:23:05.:23:07.

apartments all over the city, you have that twin track process.

:23:08.:23:11.

If that continues, what we are going to see is this

:23:12.:23:14.

hollowing out of the city, where it really is going to become

:23:15.:23:21.

a very, very different sort of environment,

:23:22.:23:22.

and in five to ten years' time you will have a very

:23:23.:23:25.

different population, and a very different demographic.

:23:26.:23:31.

Part of London's abrasive charm is it doesn't seem to care

:23:32.:23:35.

It is always been slightly detached from the UK as a whole,

:23:36.:23:43.

but there is perhaps a danger this remoteness turns into isolation -

:23:44.:23:45.

Mark Zuckerberg has today announced plans to invite

:23:46.:23:51.

from across the political spectrum to discuss accusations

:23:52.:23:58.

The Facebook founder and CEO has always denied allegations that

:23:59.:24:03.

Facebook routinely suppressed news stories of interest to conservative

:24:04.:24:05.

readers and that the company would artificially inject stories

:24:06.:24:08.

into what appeared to be user-generated trending topics.

:24:09.:24:12.

Launched in 2014, the topics appear for the right of the news feed

:24:13.:24:15.

The question is, has Facebook deceived its users by chosing

:24:16.:24:21.

And crucially, have they played to a left-leaning

:24:22.:24:28.

audience's preference for news in their choice of story?

:24:29.:24:34.

the head of social and trending content for the Independent.

:24:35.:24:38.

And Louise Mensch, the editor of Heat Street, who is in New York.

:24:39.:24:45.

Gina Rik Mayall, many people I think would be surprised to know Facebook

:24:46.:24:53.

is in the news game and it is such a big player. I would not say it was

:24:54.:24:58.

in the news game traditionally, in the way you and I understand it, but

:24:59.:25:04.

what people need to realise is that many people get their news via

:25:05.:25:08.

Facebook and that would be the Facebook news feed rather than what

:25:09.:25:13.

is generated in trending topics that only appear on desktops. Most people

:25:14.:25:19.

who use Facebook do it on mobile. Louise, do they have that much

:25:20.:25:25.

influence, does it make such a difference? Of course it makes an

:25:26.:25:30.

enormous difference. Facebook brings the world together and brings the

:25:31.:25:36.

world it's news. I think we have seen Facebook admit and Mark

:25:37.:25:41.

Zuckerberg admit that they have been suppressing conservative news. They

:25:42.:25:47.

issued a statement from a PR firm, a non-denial denial, saying we allow

:25:48.:25:52.

Facebook trending topics that are well supported. The question is,

:25:53.:26:01.

what is well supported? . We had a list yesterday. One right wing news

:26:02.:26:05.

source which was Fox News, the others were left wing including the

:26:06.:26:09.

Guardian, the BBC and New York Times. To be fair, Facebook says it

:26:10.:26:15.

monitors thousands of websites per week. There were right wing

:26:16.:26:24.

publications. It is not saying it feels it is left-leaning, it is

:26:25.:26:31.

saying it will invite Conservatives. It acknowledges it has relied for

:26:32.:26:36.

what is good enough to support a trending topic. If you are not

:26:37.:26:42.

supported by these sources, including the BBC, Guardian and New

:26:43.:26:45.

York Times, your trending topic is not good enough. I think you are

:26:46.:26:54.

being deliberately disingenuous. You are running a right wing leaning

:26:55.:26:58.

website and it looks good for you to say you are suppressed. I have not

:26:59.:27:03.

seen evidence of right or left-wing contents doing better or worse

:27:04.:27:17.

online. These are trending topics. Not news publications. The basic

:27:18.:27:23.

technological... We are not discovering which news publications

:27:24.:27:27.

are suppressed by Facebook and my publication only launched in the

:27:28.:27:32.

last couple of weeks. They are talking about trending topics, not

:27:33.:27:36.

news publications. Can we step back from this? Right wing sites, if they

:27:37.:27:44.

are suppressed, why are they successful on Facebook? The question

:27:45.:27:49.

is trending topics, not news sites. It is amazing you have a basic lack

:27:50.:27:54.

of knowledge on the issue at hand, it is topics, not news sites. Is it

:27:55.:28:00.

the political bias allegations that concern you all the idea that anyone

:28:01.:28:05.

is editing what we think of as a trending topic? Does that worry you?

:28:06.:28:12.

You have to have an element of human duration otherwise it would be easy

:28:13.:28:20.

for Isis to make a trending topic out of an execution video. The

:28:21.:28:24.

sources on which they rely are far too left wing. And that is why, and

:28:25.:28:30.

to give Mark Zuckerberg credit, he is willing to meet with conservative

:28:31.:28:35.

leaders and changes ways, which has to be a good thing. Did you hear

:28:36.:28:39.

that as an admission, that they think they have been biased? No. In

:28:40.:28:45.

the same statement he said he did not think the allegations were true.

:28:46.:28:49.

When you look at where they came from coming they came from one

:28:50.:28:53.

contract working with Facebook. They said that certain sites were not

:28:54.:29:00.

trusted. Like the one we mentioned before. What do you define as a

:29:01.:29:15.

right wing topic? Let's take all lives matter. They would promote

:29:16.:29:22.

black lives matter and the socially conservative response all lives

:29:23.:29:25.

matter would be suppressed. You think that is wrong? Yes, as long as

:29:26.:29:33.

something is not completely it... It is not child abuse, something like

:29:34.:29:37.

that, you have to treat topics equally. Your guest is confused.

:29:38.:29:44.

Should they treat all lives matter, a rival campaign setup in the wake

:29:45.:29:50.

of black lives matter, equally? I have no evidence Facebook have been

:29:51.:29:56.

treating all lives matter, black lives matter, unequally. When I look

:29:57.:30:02.

at the trending topics and what is there, I do not have a look and

:30:03.:30:06.

think, there is something that is not there or artificially. We have

:30:07.:30:15.

run out of time. I am sorry we have to end it there but thanks to both.

:30:16.:30:17.

I'll be back on BBC Two with This Week's World,

:30:18.:30:20.

Next on Artsnight, in a crisis-ridden world,

:30:21.:30:26.

with our national economy on the ropes, Tate director

:30:27.:30:28.

Nicholas Serota dares to ask, does contemporary art really matter?

:30:29.:30:33.

He visits Los Angeles and Middlesbrough, and talks

:30:34.:30:35.

to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne.

:30:36.:30:37.

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