Browse content similar to 10/10/2016. Check below for episodes and series from the same categories and more!
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Or a Rotten Bank for Small businesses? | :00:00. | :00:10. | |
Damning new evidence that RBS penalised distressed firms | :00:11. | :00:14. | |
to make money for itself, ignored warnings of potential | :00:15. | :00:16. | |
conflicts of interest, and mistreated healthy businesses. | :00:17. | :00:23. | |
But there's nothing worse when you know that you're - it sounds really | :00:24. | :00:31. | |
arrogant - you know you're good at what you do. This was, this was 35 | :00:32. | :00:36. | |
years of my life and I knew I'd got it right. | :00:37. | :00:37. | |
We'll hear what the bank did, and what we should do in return. | :00:38. | :00:41. | |
Also tonight, we are leaving the EU partly to restore power | :00:42. | :00:43. | |
So should our Parliament not be allowed some say | :00:44. | :00:49. | |
It's a new a battle in the Brexit war. | :00:50. | :00:53. | |
It's not been a good week for clowns. | :00:54. | :00:57. | |
Donald Trump has had his troubles too - but did the debate | :00:58. | :01:00. | |
If I win, I am going to instruct my Attorney-General to get a special | :01:01. | :01:13. | |
prosecutor to look into your situation, because there has never | :01:14. | :01:17. | |
been so many lies, so much deception. There has never been | :01:18. | :01:19. | |
anything like it. To my mind, she's wrong about | :01:20. | :01:29. | |
everything, but she's wrong within the normal parameters of wrong. It's | :01:30. | :01:36. | |
the kind of wrong we've had before. It's a wrong we can endure. With | :01:37. | :01:40. | |
him, who knows. You don't need to get bogged down | :01:41. | :01:47. | |
in the details of the RBS story. RBS lent money to | :01:48. | :01:52. | |
lots of businesses. Some of them had problems - | :01:53. | :01:56. | |
maybe minor, maybe But then a cash-strapped RBS decided | :01:57. | :02:00. | |
to use business distress It would pretend it was there | :02:01. | :02:05. | |
to help the firms, put them into special measures | :02:06. | :02:10. | |
in its supportive turnaround And then, in some cases, | :02:11. | :02:12. | |
it fleeced them, tipping RBS even appeared willing to force | :02:13. | :02:17. | |
perfectly sound companies Now these allegations are not new, | :02:18. | :02:22. | |
but Newsnight and Buzzfeed have obtained a cache of interesting | :02:23. | :02:28. | |
documents the bank did not want Andrew Verity has | :02:29. | :02:32. | |
been through them. It has been another extraordinary | :02:33. | :02:46. | |
day of fast moving developments for Britain's financial world, so with | :02:47. | :02:49. | |
an economy eatering on the edge of recession and a squeeze on other | :02:50. | :02:52. | |
Government spending, where is all the money coming from? | :02:53. | :02:59. | |
2008, overborrowed, overlent and bailed out, RBS was under pressure | :03:00. | :03:02. | |
from its shock new owner, the Government, to get bad debts off the | :03:03. | :03:07. | |
books and boost its depleted cash. A fair goal, perhaps, but it was | :03:08. | :03:12. | |
accused of using foul means to achieve it, looking for ways to trip | :03:13. | :03:17. | |
up business customers so it could drain them of cash and get their | :03:18. | :03:21. | |
assets on the cheap, for a disregard for the owners who created them. RBS | :03:22. | :03:28. | |
furiously denied it. Now there's evidence these highly sensitive RBS | :03:29. | :03:34. | |
documents were leaked by a whistle-blower prompting an | :03:35. | :03:37. | |
investigation by Buzzfeed news and BBC Newsnight. They contain secret | :03:38. | :03:43. | |
information and internal e Mails, showing that while one part of the | :03:44. | :03:47. | |
bank was claiming to help business customers, another part of the bank | :03:48. | :03:51. | |
was collaborating with it, looking to buy up customers' property when | :03:52. | :03:55. | |
they got in trouble and extract maximum economic value. I'm sorry. | :03:56. | :04:09. | |
What I've always held onto is that I - I know what I'm doing. In what one | :04:10. | :04:19. | |
e-mail described as a dash for cash, RBS commercial bank staff could | :04:20. | :04:21. | |
boost their bonuses by scouring their loan books for defaulting | :04:22. | :04:25. | |
customers. Even if they'd never missed a payment, the bank had ways | :04:26. | :04:30. | |
of finding them in default. Imagine your mortgage lender telling you | :04:31. | :04:33. | |
it's revalued your property, the price has dropped and it's now worth | :04:34. | :04:37. | |
too little compared to your loan. Even though you may never have | :04:38. | :04:41. | |
missed a payment, it wants its mortgage money back. Then later you | :04:42. | :04:45. | |
find out that all along it had a property division that wanted to buy | :04:46. | :04:49. | |
your property for a gain. That wouldn't happen with residential | :04:50. | :04:54. | |
mortgages, they're regulated. But it's very much like what happened to | :04:55. | :04:59. | |
many business customers. This was the old back of the shop... Andy | :05:00. | :05:07. | |
Gibbs aan entrepreneur and architect. He made his dream real, | :05:08. | :05:12. | |
designing and building a thriving hub for creative companies. A lot of | :05:13. | :05:17. | |
my work is giving a hand rail to the past... In May 2008 RBS mis-sold him | :05:18. | :05:23. | |
a financial product, supposed to protect against rising interest | :05:24. | :05:26. | |
rates. When rates fell, it started draining cash from the business. The | :05:27. | :05:29. | |
bank's response to his business trouble was to put it in what it | :05:30. | :05:36. | |
says ways turn around division, the global restructuring group, GRG. | :05:37. | :05:40. | |
Then he was told the property had been revalued. It was now worth too | :05:41. | :05:43. | |
little compared to the loan. Tell us about the fees and interest rates. | :05:44. | :05:49. | |
At one stage, I found out that they'd cancelled my professional | :05:50. | :05:52. | |
indemnity insurance premium, which I have to have and could have damaged | :05:53. | :05:56. | |
me professionally. Foreignly I manage -- fortunately, I imagined to | :05:57. | :06:00. | |
sort that without a gap of time. They cancelled small Energy Bills, | :06:01. | :06:06. | |
the smallest one something like 6. ?6.53. It was all the time taking | :06:07. | :06:13. | |
away, taking away the control of what I had which was a beautiful and | :06:14. | :06:18. | |
energetic business really. Andy was warned he may have to sell assets or | :06:19. | :06:24. | |
go into insolvency. He raised more than ?500,000 selling the family | :06:25. | :06:28. | |
homement That money was swallowed up by GRG and it didn't change any | :06:29. | :06:33. | |
course of action whatsoever for a ten month period. So ?500,000 was | :06:34. | :06:43. | |
wasted? ?537,000 completely wasted and the family home gone. GRG wrote | :06:44. | :06:48. | |
demanding repayment of its loan. They continued to support his | :06:49. | :06:52. | |
business if they sold a stake in the business to West Register, the | :06:53. | :06:56. | |
bank's property company. He decloind and within days the bank called in | :06:57. | :07:00. | |
the receivers. He and his staff were thrown out. Andy lost his business, | :07:01. | :07:03. | |
then his health and then his marriage. I'd had a breakdown. At | :07:04. | :07:08. | |
one point, I'd lost four-and-a-half stone in hospital. I didn't actually | :07:09. | :07:13. | |
know when I was going to get out of hospital. What, for you, was the GRG | :07:14. | :07:28. | |
treatment? Sorry... Oh, God. Sorry. What I've always held onto is that I | :07:29. | :07:33. | |
erm...... I'm a good... I know what I'm doing. RBS says it's winding | :07:34. | :07:45. | |
down GRG but agreed business customers are now clubbing together | :07:46. | :07:49. | |
to try and sue the bank. I've spoken to a lot of people and I've heard a | :07:50. | :07:54. | |
lot of stories and I can hear within them a great repetition of the same | :07:55. | :08:00. | |
kinds of activities and actions. These are very unsavoury. These are | :08:01. | :08:03. | |
not the behaviour of a normal banking process to deal with | :08:04. | :08:08. | |
customers in stress. These appear to be the activities of an organisation | :08:09. | :08:14. | |
trying to acquire the assets of people who otherwise seem to have a | :08:15. | :08:20. | |
perfectly solid business. The bank's claimed for years GRG was an | :08:21. | :08:24. | |
intensive care unit to help stricken businesses recover. The documents | :08:25. | :08:28. | |
show that you didn't even have to be distressed. Falling out with the | :08:29. | :08:31. | |
bank or just wanting to leave and bank elsewhere, could mean a | :08:32. | :08:35. | |
referral to GRG. I've not seen one case where the evidence points to | :08:36. | :08:39. | |
the fact that they were artificially distressed to transfer to GRG. It | :08:40. | :08:44. | |
wasn't true. Just because of a break down in relationship with the bank. | :08:45. | :08:48. | |
No, there are a range of factors that point to financial distress. In | :08:49. | :08:53. | |
one e-mail they discuss provoking a default event for a customer. All | :08:54. | :08:58. | |
businesses that were transferred to GRG were in financial difficulty. | :08:59. | :09:03. | |
That's contradicted by an e-mail I have here. Would you look at it? It | :09:04. | :09:09. | |
might enlighten you to your bank's practises. It says they could | :09:10. | :09:16. | |
provoke a default event. This is in relation to GRG customer, provoke a | :09:17. | :09:20. | |
default event. Doesn't that suggest that GRG was engineering defaults? | :09:21. | :09:25. | |
No, look, I've spent two-and-a-half years looking at all the cases in | :09:26. | :09:29. | |
terms of GRG - You don't seem to want to look at this. I know what | :09:30. | :09:34. | |
your document says. You've seen the e-mail? I'm clear - Doesn't that | :09:35. | :09:39. | |
bother you. If you let me finish my answer, I'm really clear in all the | :09:40. | :09:42. | |
evidence I've seen over two-and-a-half years, looking at | :09:43. | :09:46. | |
millions of documents, there was no artificial distressing of businesses | :09:47. | :09:54. | |
to put them to GRG. Alison Loveday a litigation lawyer says RBS goes to | :09:55. | :09:59. | |
great lengths to stifle customers claims of wrongdoing. They were a | :10:00. | :10:02. | |
necessary evil, that's how the bank saw it. They knew most business | :10:03. | :10:07. | |
owners wouldn't have the mental resilience or the finance to be able | :10:08. | :10:11. | |
to challenge them and they were typically acting aloan, so it took a | :10:12. | :10:16. | |
long time for people to realise they weren't the only ones treated like | :10:17. | :10:19. | |
that. Why would the bank behave this way? Well, it could charge customers | :10:20. | :10:24. | |
in its turn around division much higher interest and fees, much of | :10:25. | :10:28. | |
the debt could be written off with a taxpayer supported the bank. | :10:29. | :10:32. | |
Crucially, capital, held against the risk that the loan went bad, could | :10:33. | :10:36. | |
be released, because it already had gone bad. Then there was what the | :10:37. | :10:41. | |
bank called its upside. If it could take a stake in the business or some | :10:42. | :10:45. | |
of its property, when the market bounced back, there should be big | :10:46. | :10:50. | |
gains. The Financial Conduct Authority ordered a report by two | :10:51. | :10:55. | |
firms of consultants checking out the allegations of mistreatment. | :10:56. | :10:58. | |
Nearly three years later, it's completed and with the FCA. The | :10:59. | :11:01. | |
regulator won't say when it will be published. | :11:02. | :11:04. | |
With me now is Andy Keats, a former RBS customer, who, | :11:05. | :11:07. | |
like Andi in the film, has had problems with the bank. | :11:08. | :11:10. | |
Also here is Sir Vince Cable, former Business Secretary, | :11:11. | :11:13. | |
with responsibility for overseeing the regulation of | :11:14. | :11:16. | |
Can I start with you, you represent many of the victims of what we've | :11:17. | :11:27. | |
seen described there, the SME alliances, you're involved with | :11:28. | :11:31. | |
that. How many of the businesses that were dragged into this GRG | :11:32. | :11:36. | |
group, how many were fundamentally bad businesses, had got into trouble | :11:37. | :11:42. | |
or needed help? As you say, I deal with hundreds, we support and | :11:43. | :11:47. | |
investigate hundreds of businesses and I'm one of those businesses | :11:48. | :11:53. | |
myself. It really annoys me actually to hear RBS saying what they've just | :11:54. | :11:58. | |
said that - They say no-one was made a distressed business that wasn't a | :11:59. | :12:03. | |
distressed business. I can tell you categorically that I've dealt with | :12:04. | :12:09. | |
literally tens of businesses myself, investigated them and found that | :12:10. | :12:15. | |
they were honest, proper businesses, properly run, with no defaults, no | :12:16. | :12:20. | |
distress and they were put into GRG just like me. Your case is an | :12:21. | :12:24. | |
interesting one. You weren't put into GRG... I was put into the | :12:25. | :12:30. | |
intensive care exposure committee and I didn't even realise for five | :12:31. | :12:35. | |
years that I was in it. You say that's because you were selling your | :12:36. | :12:38. | |
business and it was going to move the account to Barclays. Then they | :12:39. | :12:43. | |
started cutting up rough basically. We told them we were moving to | :12:44. | :12:49. | |
Barclays and four weeks later we had our merchant account terminated with | :12:50. | :12:56. | |
30 days' notice. They said that we were financially distressed. We were | :12:57. | :12:59. | |
moving to Barclays. Why would they say that? 14 days before that, we'd | :13:00. | :13:08. | |
had an offer for the purchase of the business, after four months of due | :13:09. | :13:11. | |
diligence. What was going on? You lost that offer and you lost the | :13:12. | :13:16. | |
move to Barclays because Barclays said, hang on, RBS has found | :13:17. | :13:22. | |
something dodgy here. Exactly. Then this has got caught up into your | :13:23. | :13:27. | |
personal life as opposed to your business life because now, they're | :13:28. | :13:29. | |
trying to repossess your house. What they did in the business, they then | :13:30. | :13:36. | |
took all my money. So they retained all of my business money until we | :13:37. | :13:42. | |
went bust. After we went bust, I unfortunately had a mortgage with | :13:43. | :13:46. | |
RBS and said to them, what do you want me to do, do you want me to | :13:47. | :13:50. | |
sell. They said no, they didn't want that. Wait until later | :13:51. | :13:58. | |
down-the-line. We entered into more borrowing facilities on the basis | :13:59. | :14:03. | |
that I was a good customer. We have so little time. Basically it ended | :14:04. | :14:08. | |
up with them saying, we're claiming money back from you and we need to | :14:09. | :14:14. | |
repossess the house. They said I was in arrears of ?50,000 when I was in | :14:15. | :14:19. | |
borrowing facilities. They've obviously been playing quite a rough | :14:20. | :14:24. | |
game with a lot of small businesses. What do you see today that you | :14:25. | :14:27. | |
didn't know when you were Business Secretary? Well, I discovered, | :14:28. | :14:33. | |
partly through lots of individual cases, but partly as a result of a | :14:34. | :14:37. | |
report that was done by somebody called Lawrence Tom Lynnson, who I | :14:38. | :14:42. | |
appointed. He collected case material which was exactly the kind | :14:43. | :14:46. | |
you've just heard and is corroborated in your report. The | :14:47. | :14:51. | |
problem we had was that there wasn't a smoking gun. There were a lot of | :14:52. | :14:55. | |
people who had been shot but we couldn't see the evidence within the | :14:56. | :14:59. | |
bank itself. I asked the bank to investigate this properly. They | :15:00. | :15:03. | |
called in Clifford Chance, who as far as I know, did a fairly | :15:04. | :15:07. | |
professional job, that they didn't have access to the material you've | :15:08. | :15:11. | |
now got. Crucially, I asked the regulator, the Financial Conduct | :15:12. | :15:13. | |
Authority, to do a proper investigation. They should have | :15:14. | :15:16. | |
published last year, but they haven't. It's worse than that | :15:17. | :15:21. | |
because I think they started the report back in the third quarter, | :15:22. | :15:27. | |
the end of 2013. And they said it would be ready in the third quarter | :15:28. | :15:31. | |
of 2014. I think we're now in the third quarter of 2016. What is going | :15:32. | :15:38. | |
on? Well, the conspiracy theories or just inefficiency, I don't know. | :15:39. | :15:44. | |
What would the conspiracy theory be? That they're covering tracks from - | :15:45. | :15:49. | |
Why would they cover the tracks of RBS? I don't know. From my point of | :15:50. | :15:53. | |
view, I was the minister who asked them to investigate. I'm very, very | :15:54. | :15:56. | |
disappointed that they haven't published it. Why they haven't | :15:57. | :16:02. | |
published it I don't know. Looking at the documents that we've got, | :16:03. | :16:07. | |
they lock a smoking gun because they are the conversations going on | :16:08. | :16:11. | |
internally. That's what we lacked before. There were a lot of people | :16:12. | :16:14. | |
damaged, there was circumstantial evidence that the bank were | :16:15. | :16:19. | |
profiting from these activities. But the other people would looked at it | :16:20. | :16:23. | |
have hitherto said well there's bad practice, but there's no evidence | :16:24. | :16:27. | |
it's been done systematically. Now this evidence you've acquired, | :16:28. | :16:35. | |
suggests that it may well have been. It is possible, the bank would say, | :16:36. | :16:39. | |
we are just people who are not understanding the game they are in, | :16:40. | :16:44. | |
they are trying to retrieve money for a taxpayer, incidentally, and | :16:45. | :16:50. | |
businesses who are in trouble are probably making the money in fees | :16:51. | :16:54. | |
and interest rates but are losing money on the fact they are writing | :16:55. | :16:57. | |
off chunks of their loan, and they are entitled to say they are going | :16:58. | :17:02. | |
to play hardball and by going to get everything they can? We are talking | :17:03. | :17:08. | |
about events in the aftermath of the financial crisis, there is a long | :17:09. | :17:12. | |
time lag, you are right, they are acting in the interests of the | :17:13. | :17:17. | |
taxpayer and even if they are found at fault, they will be fine, with | :17:18. | :17:21. | |
the taxpayer taking the fine, ludicrous situation. The fact is | :17:22. | :17:26. | |
many thousand companies will have been affected and many people will | :17:27. | :17:30. | |
have been ruined, marriages and mental health will have been | :17:31. | :17:33. | |
affected, and when it has happened on this scale, we cannot let this | :17:34. | :17:34. | |
matter drop. Thanks for joining us. Who in Britain should decide | :17:35. | :17:39. | |
what Brexit looks like? The Government is clear, | :17:40. | :17:41. | |
and it reiterated its position again today in a statement to the Commons: | :17:42. | :17:44. | |
it has to negotiate withdrawal and it has to decide | :17:45. | :17:47. | |
what we negotiate. It says the mandate for Britain | :17:48. | :17:50. | |
to leave the European Union is It also says it doesn't want any | :17:51. | :17:53. | |
kind of obstruction from So get out the way, leave the three | :17:54. | :18:01. | |
Brexiteers and Theresa May to it. But there is another view, | :18:02. | :18:05. | |
which is that Parliament should have the say on what kind | :18:06. | :18:08. | |
of deal we aim for. Now it is mostly Remainers who want | :18:09. | :18:11. | |
that, but not exclusively. This Conservative MP voted to Leave | :18:12. | :18:14. | |
and trenchantly made Nearly half of those who voted | :18:15. | :18:16. | |
wanted no substantive change at all in the relationship | :18:17. | :18:22. | |
between this country Their voices, although they did not | :18:23. | :18:24. | |
chime with my own, appear entirely to have been forgotten | :18:25. | :18:30. | |
in the rhetoric of hard Brexit which has somehow become | :18:31. | :18:32. | |
received wisdom on the part The government has | :18:33. | :18:34. | |
no mandate for that. You cannot extrapolate | :18:35. | :18:38. | |
from the result of the referendum the specific terms upon | :18:39. | :18:42. | |
which the majority of those in this country wish their relations | :18:43. | :18:45. | |
with the European Union And that can only be done by seeking | :18:46. | :18:47. | |
a mandate from this House to which the citizens of this | :18:48. | :18:53. | |
country return honourable members Our political editor, | :18:54. | :18:55. | |
Nick Watt, is with me. Are the government going to stick to | :18:56. | :19:07. | |
this? Very much. That in passionate plea from Stephen Phillips was | :19:08. | :19:10. | |
rebuffed by the speaker on the grounds that the Labour Party is | :19:11. | :19:13. | |
having a debate on this matter on Wednesday, so let them get on with | :19:14. | :19:17. | |
it. Some people were taken by Stephen Phillips who say maybe that | :19:18. | :19:21. | |
is a better option, if he had got his way he would have knocked out | :19:22. | :19:24. | |
the Labour debate and there would have just been a vote on a | :19:25. | :19:30. | |
generalised motion instead. But now with the Labour debate we have a | :19:31. | :19:33. | |
vote afterwards on a specific motion which is likely to call on the | :19:34. | :19:36. | |
government to seek the consent of MPs in Parliament regarding its | :19:37. | :19:41. | |
Brexit negotiations and there are some Labour MPs and a small number | :19:42. | :19:44. | |
of Conservative MPs who said they will maybe defeat the government and | :19:45. | :19:49. | |
that will not use David Davis who had ruled out a vote in parliament | :19:50. | :19:54. | |
on those Article 50 negotiations. It is a non-binding vote on Wednesday. | :19:55. | :20:00. | |
Yes. In terms of the substance of the negotiations, anything we didn't | :20:01. | :20:06. | |
know? David Davis said he would update MPs, and to days word he | :20:07. | :20:09. | |
covered a large piece, you play down the significance of the fall in | :20:10. | :20:14. | |
sterling and he gave a strong indication that in his mind UK would | :20:15. | :20:18. | |
not remain a member of the single market and it would not remain a | :20:19. | :20:22. | |
member of the customs union, but eyebrows were raised when he had a | :20:23. | :20:25. | |
pop at the French president Francois Hollande and Angela Merkel, remember | :20:26. | :20:31. | |
last week Francois Hollande said the UK would have to pay a price for | :20:32. | :20:34. | |
leaving to discourage others and Angela Merkel said if the UK wanted | :20:35. | :20:38. | |
to remain in the single market outside the EU it would have to | :20:39. | :20:43. | |
accept free movement of people. This is what he said in his exchange with | :20:44. | :20:46. | |
Crispin Blunt about Francois Hollande. | :20:47. | :20:53. | |
What plans does he have to publicly to publicly ennumerate | :20:54. | :20:55. | |
the implications of there being no deal at the end of two | :20:56. | :20:58. | |
What I will say to him at this point, is that... | :20:59. | :21:05. | |
If the European Union adheres to a punishment plan and it fails, | :21:06. | :21:10. | |
as I believe it would, then that's an even bigger | :21:11. | :21:12. | |
incentive to countries that want to leave, than a punishment | :21:13. | :21:15. | |
One senior Whitehall source said that by taking on Europe's two most | :21:16. | :21:27. | |
powerful leaders, David Davis was displaying what this person said was | :21:28. | :21:29. | |
an unhelpful swagger. Thank you. Joining me now is the Shadow Foreign | :21:30. | :21:34. | |
Secretary, Emily Thornberry, and Bernard Jenkin, Conservative MP | :21:35. | :21:36. | |
who was one of the leading He also chairs the Commons Public | :21:37. | :21:39. | |
Administration Committee. How would the House of Commons | :21:40. | :21:49. | |
express a view on a complex multidimensional negotiation? What | :21:50. | :21:54. | |
form would that take? It has a commons is not very good at voting | :21:55. | :21:59. | |
for complex things, it is very binary -- the House of Commons. I | :22:00. | :22:04. | |
understand that, but we're getting no information from the government | :22:05. | :22:07. | |
about how it is they are going to negotiate Brexit. We start on the | :22:08. | :22:10. | |
basis that we have instructions on the British people that they want to | :22:11. | :22:14. | |
leave and we want to do our job properly and we want to leave in the | :22:15. | :22:17. | |
best interests of the British people. I don't think this is right. | :22:18. | :22:22. | |
That the Tories have a mandate to go into a locked room and fight it out | :22:23. | :22:25. | |
amongst themselves and then decide which way they are going to leave | :22:26. | :22:29. | |
Europe, it is the future of my children and my grandchildren at | :22:30. | :22:32. | |
stake, the future of the economy and we think the government should come | :22:33. | :22:35. | |
to Parliament and put forward a plan. A plan before they negotiate? | :22:36. | :22:44. | |
Yes. They say they are paying their cards close to their chest because | :22:45. | :22:46. | |
it could undermine their position, but we know they have a load of | :22:47. | :22:50. | |
different ideas for stop what Philip Hammond things is different to what | :22:51. | :22:53. | |
Theresa May things and is different to what Liam Fox things, so on what | :22:54. | :22:59. | |
basis are we going to Europe? And different to what Bernard Jenkin | :23:00. | :23:04. | |
thinks. I'm sure it is. What is the mandate for the government taking | :23:05. | :23:08. | |
this ahead and doing it? The biggest ever vote cast for any single | :23:09. | :23:11. | |
proposition in this country ever, that is the mandate, to leave the | :23:12. | :23:17. | |
EU. The Leave campaign was very clear that leaving the EU meant | :23:18. | :23:23. | |
leaving the single market and the Remain campaign said if you vote to | :23:24. | :23:26. | |
leave we will have to leave the single market, so I don't see why | :23:27. | :23:28. | |
there is any argument about this now. What you are relying on is | :23:29. | :23:34. | |
Michael Gove, on one television programme saying he was... Saying we | :23:35. | :23:40. | |
would have to leave the single market. During the Brexit vote, | :23:41. | :23:45. | |
there was no, it was not clear what the options were, yes, we were going | :23:46. | :23:48. | |
to leave, but there are different ways of leaving the European Union, | :23:49. | :23:52. | |
and those options were not made clear. If you are lying on Michael | :23:53. | :23:57. | |
Gove, remember he is the man whose wife said you are only supposed to | :23:58. | :24:01. | |
blow the doors. He was not even serious in terms of leaving. It is | :24:02. | :24:10. | |
an important point, we are holding the Leave campaign to its promises | :24:11. | :24:17. | |
because they are not giving us 350 in pounds a week for the NHS. -- 300 | :24:18. | :24:25. | |
?50 million. Norway is not in the European Union, so that is | :24:26. | :24:28. | |
compatible, if we adopt their model, that would be compatible with the | :24:29. | :24:33. | |
vote? On the question of accountability. Just answer the | :24:34. | :24:38. | |
question. It would be compatible with what the public voted for? | :24:39. | :24:46. | |
Except the Leave campaign said the Norway option would not be our | :24:47. | :24:50. | |
choice and we made that clear, and the Remain campaign said it would be | :24:51. | :24:54. | |
the worst option of all possible worlds, so who was advocating for | :24:55. | :25:00. | |
the Norway option? Nobody. The Swiss model is compatible with what the | :25:01. | :25:03. | |
public voted for, and the Canadian model is compatible. All of these | :25:04. | :25:09. | |
models are compatible. If I can just make my point. If I could make one | :25:10. | :25:14. | |
point about accountability, in the introduction to this discussion, it | :25:15. | :25:18. | |
was pointed at their is a debate on Wednesday and there will be a vote. | :25:19. | :25:22. | |
You could have put down a vote about what kind of Brexit you want, but | :25:23. | :25:25. | |
you are not doing that, you are having a family row about procedure. | :25:26. | :25:35. | |
It is not a family row. -- phoney. Your party is more divided than we | :25:36. | :25:43. | |
were about Brexit. You guys are in government, you have a new leader | :25:44. | :25:47. | |
who is taking a new direction and she did not even stand for | :25:48. | :25:50. | |
leadership herself, she has no manifesto, she has no mandate. It is | :25:51. | :25:54. | |
not clear on what basis you are leaving and it is right for us as | :25:55. | :25:57. | |
the opposition to hold you to account, excuse me. We are saying, | :25:58. | :26:02. | |
tell us what your plan is, we want to have a debate, the British people | :26:03. | :26:08. | |
need to know. You owe it to them. At the moment the government is | :26:09. | :26:10. | |
developing a plan, and when they have a fully fledged band I've no | :26:11. | :26:15. | |
doubt it will be tabled. -- fully fledged plan. The idea is that | :26:16. | :26:21. | |
Parliament will not have a say on that plan. That is not the case, | :26:22. | :26:25. | |
there will be a second reading of the vote in May or June on the | :26:26. | :26:29. | |
repeal Bill. That is not the same point. By that stage you will have | :26:30. | :26:35. | |
triggered Brexit. We need to have it before you triggered Brexit. They | :26:36. | :26:41. | |
are a motion. We need to know on the basis on which you are going into | :26:42. | :26:46. | |
those negotiations, you have two years after triggering Brexit and we | :26:47. | :26:49. | |
want to know the basis on which you are doing it. What is the plan on | :26:50. | :26:54. | |
migration and the continuing relationship with Europe. The single | :26:55. | :26:58. | |
market. I can answer those questions. The Prime Minister made | :26:59. | :27:04. | |
clear in her speech two weeks ago that what migration policy we have | :27:05. | :27:07. | |
as a country after we leave is a matter for the British Parliament, | :27:08. | :27:11. | |
that is a separate matter from taking back control over migration | :27:12. | :27:14. | |
which is not negotiable, end of story. What you think the majority | :27:15. | :27:26. | |
view in would be? -- what do. If you take the spectrum of options, exit | :27:27. | :27:32. | |
options, where would the majority be? The majority in parliament and | :27:33. | :27:37. | |
in the country, I think whether they voted to remain or to leave, did not | :27:38. | :27:41. | |
vote to take someone else's job away, did not vote to undermine the | :27:42. | :27:49. | |
economy, that is the priority. Where do you think the majority in | :27:50. | :27:53. | |
parliament would be? When it becomes clearer what the government is | :27:54. | :27:57. | |
proposing, that is the only practical way forward, and when | :27:58. | :28:00. | |
people understand that there isn't this Armageddon black hole in front | :28:01. | :28:02. | |
of the country, because we are leaving the European Union, the | :28:03. | :28:06. | |
House of Commons will support the position of the government, that is | :28:07. | :28:10. | |
what I think. What ever they come up with they will support. And if they | :28:11. | :28:16. | |
welcome you when put it to a vote, anyway. There are lots of votes. -- | :28:17. | :28:24. | |
and if they won't come at you when put it to a vote, anyway. We will | :28:25. | :28:31. | |
come back to this. It is a procedural point, she's arguing. It | :28:32. | :28:32. | |
is about substance. Or a debasement of American | :28:33. | :28:38. | |
democracy? Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump had | :28:39. | :28:43. | |
a messy 90-minute encounter, And if you thought it might be | :28:44. | :28:45. | |
the end of Trump, you were wrong. Mark Urban has been looking | :28:46. | :28:50. | |
at what we learned. Donald Trump went into the second | :28:51. | :28:58. | |
debate after a wretched weekend, where he is demeaning comments about | :28:59. | :29:01. | |
women resulted a one poll putting Hillary Clinton 14 points ahead. She | :29:02. | :29:07. | |
sought to capitalise on her advantage. I said starting back in | :29:08. | :29:14. | |
June that he was not fit to be president and commander-in-chief and | :29:15. | :29:19. | |
many Republicans and independents have said the same thing. What we | :29:20. | :29:27. | |
all saw and heard on Friday was Donald talking about women, what he | :29:28. | :29:33. | |
thinks about women, what he does to women, and he has said that the | :29:34. | :29:40. | |
video doesn't represent who he is. But I think it is clear to anyone | :29:41. | :29:45. | |
who heard it that it represents exactly who he is. With Republican | :29:46. | :29:51. | |
party bigwigs melting away, and facing widespread condemnation, | :29:52. | :29:55. | |
Donald Trump went on to the offensive, fighting on multiple | :29:56. | :29:58. | |
fronts, first off, his attitude to women. He called out Bill Clinton | :29:59. | :30:04. | |
for alleged sexual assaults but also attempted deflection, than Bastin | :30:05. | :30:08. | |
Hillary Clinton for breaching of secrecy laws with her private | :30:09. | :30:12. | |
e-mails -- than Bastin. And covering up afterwards. I did not think I | :30:13. | :30:17. | |
would say this, but I'm going to say this and I hate to say it, but if I | :30:18. | :30:24. | |
went, I am going to instruct my Attorney General to get a special | :30:25. | :30:28. | |
prosecutor to look into your situation, because there has never | :30:29. | :30:33. | |
been so many lies, so much deception, there has never been | :30:34. | :30:35. | |
anything like it, we're going to have a special prosecutor. In this | :30:36. | :30:41. | |
90 minute onslaught Donald Trump interrupted her or the moderator 27 | :30:42. | :30:45. | |
times, she interrupted just three times. And at moments she was on the | :30:46. | :30:53. | |
ropes. Nobody wants dizzy Hillary Clinton thrown into a, but they do | :30:54. | :30:57. | |
want to see her held accountable for the e-mails and the foundation and | :30:58. | :31:02. | |
it is the reason why Trump has done so well in this campaign, voters | :31:03. | :31:06. | |
think that he is the only one that would actually hold Washington | :31:07. | :31:11. | |
accountable. As the debate moved past its first half-hour, it allowed | :31:12. | :31:16. | |
Trump to allow a second perceived weakness on policy substance where | :31:17. | :31:20. | |
he tried to make the running on health care tax and foreign affairs. | :31:21. | :31:24. | |
But he ran into problems here, as well, disavowing remarks on Syria by | :31:25. | :31:29. | |
his own vice president shall running mate. He and I haven't spoken and I | :31:30. | :31:35. | |
disagree. You disagree with your running mate? Right now Syria is | :31:36. | :31:40. | |
fighting ices and we have people that want to fight both at the | :31:41. | :31:48. | |
signed time. -- Isis. The sensor disarray means he hasn't done enough | :31:49. | :31:52. | |
to reassure the party grandees who now wonder if they should let him | :31:53. | :31:56. | |
hang out to dry. I'm not sure if they would publicly abandon him, | :31:57. | :32:00. | |
that would probably impact the down ticket just as badly so they are | :32:01. | :32:04. | |
trying to figure out the way they can triage the situation. As the | :32:05. | :32:10. | |
house bigger told its members, it is important to find out what is | :32:11. | :32:14. | |
important in your district. He is not going to defend Donald Trump, | :32:15. | :32:17. | |
but they do not think abandoning the nominee is going to get Republicans | :32:18. | :32:19. | |
to the polls. Here Trump has shown contempt for | :32:20. | :32:29. | |
the GOP elite, may delight his base but it could hurt him on polling | :32:30. | :32:33. | |
day. I definitely think it hurts him. There's no question about it. | :32:34. | :32:36. | |
He needs to have as many people supporting him as possible. The | :32:37. | :32:41. | |
truth is Donald Trump is never really been a Republican in my view. | :32:42. | :32:44. | |
He's an independent. He's always really been an independent. After | :32:45. | :32:48. | |
nearly 90 minutes of slugging it out. They were asked to name one | :32:49. | :32:52. | |
thing they admired about the other. Hillary went first. Iery inspect his | :32:53. | :32:59. | |
children -- I respect his children. His children are incredibly able and | :33:00. | :33:03. | |
devoted and I think that says a lot about don oold. That hit Trump where | :33:04. | :33:10. | |
it hurts, with his lamentable attempts to improve his image with | :33:11. | :33:14. | |
women, where after the last few days, he has further to go than | :33:15. | :33:18. | |
ever. I don't believe he will have improved among women. His apology | :33:19. | :33:22. | |
wasn't well received. The comments that he made really bothered women | :33:23. | :33:27. | |
in particular. And frankly, in that debate, Hillary Clinton has run as a | :33:28. | :33:30. | |
champion of women. That's going to do well for her. What I do see | :33:31. | :33:35. | |
happening is that Trump continues to improve among men. You've got the | :33:36. | :33:39. | |
biggest gender gap in the history of American politics. Good night | :33:40. | :33:45. | |
everyone. The debate hardly revived Trump's fortune, but it did | :33:46. | :33:49. | |
supporters argue, show his refusal to buckle under pressure. | :33:50. | :33:52. | |
Well, this is clearly no ordinary election and Mr Trump does | :33:53. | :33:55. | |
not have the support of many natural Republicans. | :33:56. | :33:58. | |
He's in the UK at the moment, speaking at an Intelligence Squared | :33:59. | :34:03. | |
He has declared his support for Hillary - | :34:04. | :34:08. | |
I spoke to him earlier today, so does he think Donald Trump's | :34:09. | :34:13. | |
I would say yes, but I've been absolutely wrong | :34:14. | :34:24. | |
And so I think I may hex it if I just said yes. | :34:25. | :34:30. | |
Before this latest revelation of the inner Trump. | :34:31. | :34:36. | |
He was already slipping in the polls. | :34:37. | :34:43. | |
Now the thing to keep one's fingers across is, Hillary has | :34:44. | :34:46. | |
the electoral maths on her side, and yet she remains dependent | :34:47. | :34:51. | |
on groups of voters who are famous for not voting. | :34:52. | :34:57. | |
So, will she be able to get them out? | :34:58. | :35:00. | |
Of course, he's doing everything he can to help. | :35:01. | :35:02. | |
So my guess is, yes, I don't think his campaign is viable. | :35:03. | :35:07. | |
What portion of good college educated, professional | :35:08. | :35:09. | |
Generally speaking when pressed they will say, well, | :35:10. | :35:21. | |
he was my 18th choice for Republican candidate. | :35:22. | :35:23. | |
An office like the Presidency of the United States has to have | :35:24. | :35:27. | |
It is to the point for me, simply, that I would rather have | :35:28. | :35:33. | |
someone whose judgment I don't think greatly of and whose character | :35:34. | :35:37. | |
To my mind she is wrong about everything, but she is | :35:38. | :35:49. | |
wrong within the normal parameters of wrong. | :35:50. | :35:52. | |
It's a kind of wrong we've had before. | :35:53. | :35:56. | |
And I think a phenomenal like Trump is part of an underlying frustration | :35:57. | :36:12. | |
That has shown itself in all sorts of populist outbreaks | :36:13. | :36:21. | |
Trump, a rather comic version of that. | :36:22. | :36:27. | |
And if you want truly tragic, Vladimir Putin, too, is a populist. | :36:28. | :36:38. | |
And Brexit is a sort of example of it. | :36:39. | :36:40. | |
So is the rejection by the Colombians | :36:41. | :36:43. | |
So, you know, to what extent it is a comfort | :36:44. | :36:49. | |
What do you think of the Republican establishment? | :36:50. | :36:59. | |
Is there anything they could have done to stop him? | :37:00. | :37:03. | |
And a lot of them lined up to endorse him but were then | :37:04. | :37:06. | |
apparently shocked at this tape of sexual predatorship. | :37:07. | :37:10. | |
Did you find anything surprising in that tape? | :37:11. | :37:13. | |
Did you get a new insight into the real character | :37:14. | :37:15. | |
To be perfectly fair to Donald Trump, it was a weak field. | :37:16. | :37:24. | |
It may have looked good from afar but in point of fact | :37:25. | :37:27. | |
each of the candidates turned out to be lukewarm. | :37:28. | :37:31. | |
Dividing up the good sense vote, and leaving the poor sense vote | :37:32. | :37:39. | |
Then, not universally, but they lined up pretty quickly | :37:40. | :37:47. | |
to endorse him and then did Rick from Casablanca. | :37:48. | :37:54. | |
That this man should say those things. | :37:55. | :38:00. | |
Do you think impartial broadcasters and impartial newspapers should try | :38:01. | :38:02. | |
and cover this election in the way they would normally cover | :38:03. | :38:06. | |
an election between two candidates? | :38:07. | :38:09. | |
I think we just have to endeavour to do our best, | :38:10. | :38:18. | |
to find the best obtainable version of the truth. | :38:19. | :38:21. | |
To keep a straight face through some of this, | :38:22. | :38:25. | |
Would you use the phrase American politics is broken? | :38:26. | :38:32. | |
It's always had difficulties, hasn't it? | :38:33. | :38:36. | |
Are we in a particularly silly moment? | :38:37. | :38:44. | |
And is there danger in that silliness? | :38:45. | :38:48. | |
All of the above, yes. But, you know, democracy is always | :38:49. | :38:50. | |
It's a scary way to govern ourselves. | :38:51. | :38:54. | |
And the scariest part of it all of course being the famous | :38:55. | :38:57. | |
Churchill quote," it's worse than everything except everything | :38:58. | :39:01. | |
So, don't want to fall off that tightrope. | :39:02. | :39:10. | |
Now, you may have been following the rather worrying spate of people | :39:11. | :39:22. | |
dressed as knife-wielding clowns, terrifying unsuspecting punters | :39:23. | :39:25. | |
here's and abroad. The traditional view of the happy or at least sad | :39:26. | :39:30. | |
clown seems to have been consigned to history's rubbish bin. We've | :39:31. | :39:35. | |
tried to pin point the exact moment when clowns became irredeemably | :39:36. | :39:38. | |
scary for this generation. Our best guess is this: From the adaptation | :39:39. | :39:46. | |
of Stephen King's It from 1990. If you're afraid of clowns, look away | :39:47. | :39:51. | |
now. Good night. Come on up Richie. I've got a balloon for you. Don't | :39:52. | :39:59. | |
you want a balloon? What's the matter, one balloon not enough? Try | :40:00. | :40:13. | |
a bunch! LAUGHTER | :40:14. | :40:20. |