:00:00. > :00:09.This graph shows us interest rates, starting all the way back in 1694.
:00:10. > :00:15.They never ran lower than 2% - not until the 2008 crash.
:00:16. > :00:18.Then they hit the floor and stayed there.
:00:19. > :00:22.Some think this tells us Mark Carney doesn't know what he's doing.
:00:23. > :00:25.The era of easy money, low rates and heavy borrowing has
:00:26. > :00:27.not been great for savers - and the central bank chief
:00:28. > :00:45.The power that is concentrated in his hands, the hands
:00:46. > :00:48.of committees that he sits on, is huge by the standards of any
:00:49. > :00:50.previous predecessor of his, or anyone else in
:00:51. > :00:54.Is that too much for an institution that's not democratically elected,
:00:55. > :00:58.We'll try to work out if central banking has gone wrong,
:00:59. > :01:01.and whether it's time to put less faith in the people in charge.
:01:02. > :01:03.Also tonight, it is fifty years since Cathy Come Home opened
:01:04. > :01:06.the country's eyes to the plight of the homeless.
:01:07. > :01:12.I'm told you lost your place on the list long ago,
:01:13. > :01:17.But we was meant to be one of those families!
:01:18. > :01:20.It was grim then, and for some it is grim now.
:01:21. > :01:24.We'll look at how housing has changed and should change.
:01:25. > :01:36.And If you hate the way technology runs our lives,
:01:37. > :01:39.It's back for a third series, and we've booked Charlie Brooker,
:01:40. > :01:54.As I came in to work today, I did a double take on spotting
:01:55. > :01:55.the headline on the London Evening Standard.
:01:56. > :02:01.It's true inflation did soar, but that was only to an annual
:02:02. > :02:08.But that soaraway 1% makes the point that we are in exceptional times.
:02:09. > :02:10.Independent central banks have pursued the easiest
:02:11. > :02:13.of money, but have struggled to get inflation up.
:02:14. > :02:17.Central bankers have kept interest rates on the floor,
:02:18. > :02:19.and have sometimes burrowed through the lino to get them even
:02:20. > :02:21.lower - with negative rates in some countries.
:02:22. > :02:24.But they are increasingly getting criticised for not
:02:25. > :02:27.helping the economy, while hurting savers.
:02:28. > :02:30.Theresa May joined the chorus in her conference speech
:02:31. > :02:32.and today the former Foreign Secretary William Hague
:02:33. > :02:36.wrote a Telegraph article which claimed that "central Bankers
:02:37. > :02:42.So, is the era of the all-powerful central bank at an end?
:02:43. > :02:53.Before we discuss that, here's Adam Parsons.
:02:54. > :02:57.Back from the past and emerging from the gloom.
:02:58. > :03:01.A spectre you may just have forgotten.
:03:02. > :03:03.This is inflation, hitting the Bank of England
:03:04. > :03:14.and the rest of the country and grabbing our attention.
:03:15. > :03:23.The secret of a good horror movie is to throw in some surprises. But
:03:24. > :03:28.useful the twist this morning coming, inflation up to 1%, a
:03:29. > :03:32.two-year high but way below the government target of 2%. The
:03:33. > :03:35.projections suggest inflation might be hitting 3% or even more in the
:03:36. > :03:39.year. Typically you would expect the Bank of England to be thinking now
:03:40. > :03:43.about backing up interest rates to control the economy. But a majority
:03:44. > :03:51.of economists actually think the next move will be a cut in interest
:03:52. > :03:54.rates and city traders are pricing in no movement at all. Almost as if
:03:55. > :04:00.no one is quite sure what is going on in this post Brexit referendum
:04:01. > :04:04.economy. If anyone knows it is probably him, the Bank of England
:04:05. > :04:10.Governor Mark Carney has a clear remit from government to keep the
:04:11. > :04:16.economy stable and target inflation of 2%. The bank has been plenty of
:04:17. > :04:18.new fibre nodes but also spent hundreds of billions on a bond
:04:19. > :04:25.buying spree, known as quantitative easing. It has either boosted the
:04:26. > :04:28.economy or promoted inequality almost most likely done both. They
:04:29. > :04:33.have been the only adult in the room, the economy had this Brexit
:04:34. > :04:38.shock and members of the MPC and Mark Carney did all they needed to
:04:39. > :04:41.do. The cut rates, did quantitative easing, said they would do
:04:42. > :04:47.everything necessary and have been extremely impressive, fighting
:04:48. > :04:48.against comments by the Theresa May government and senior Tories trying
:04:49. > :04:51.to do them down. Central bankers do
:04:52. > :04:52.form an elite group. The Bank of England,
:04:53. > :04:54.the Bank of Japan, the American Federal Reserve
:04:55. > :04:57.and European Central Bank. Their low interest rates
:04:58. > :05:12.have shaped the world In 1997 Gordon Brown gave the bank
:05:13. > :05:15.the task of setting interest rates and targeting inflation, jobs that
:05:16. > :05:19.it still retains. But that independence has come under attack.
:05:20. > :05:23.William Hague today wrote that central banks had lost the plot. By
:05:24. > :05:28.allowing very low interest rates to go on for so long, hurting savers,
:05:29. > :05:32.rising house prices, damaging productivity. While in her
:05:33. > :05:36.conference speech the Prime Minister's attack on the QT
:05:37. > :05:41.programme looks like a rather hostile warning shot. While monetary
:05:42. > :06:08.policy with superlow interest rates and quantitative easing
:06:09. > :06:11.provided the necessary emergency medicine after the financial crash,
:06:12. > :06:14.we have to acknowledge there have been some bad side-effects. People
:06:15. > :06:15.with assets have got richer, people without them have suffered. People
:06:16. > :06:17.with mortgages have found their debts cheaper, people with savings
:06:18. > :06:20.have found themselves poorer. A change has got to come. We are going
:06:21. > :06:23.to deliver it. Ignorance teaches us you want a central bank that is
:06:24. > :06:25.independent and do not want things like the column written by William
:06:26. > :06:28.Hague in the Telegraph saying, keep your independence, it is in peril,
:06:29. > :06:30.the point is to prevent people saying ridiculous things like that
:06:31. > :06:32.and Theresa May said the same kind of thing, threatening the
:06:33. > :06:34.independence of the Bank of England which had an impact on cost of
:06:35. > :06:36.borrowing for the UK. Those within the Bank of England
:06:37. > :06:39.highlight the comparison between what they can do and what is open to
:06:40. > :06:42.government. The bank just has one Giant lever, monetary policy based
:06:43. > :06:47.around the interest rate. On the other hand they said the government
:06:48. > :06:52.can change policy around the economy or housing benefits or investment in
:06:53. > :06:55.infrastructure. And that has a much bigger potential to change the
:06:56. > :07:02.nation. But there are those who think the banker -- the bank has
:07:03. > :07:05.long been susceptible to government influence especially when it comes
:07:06. > :07:11.to that bond buying programme. It was instructed by government to
:07:12. > :07:16.undertake asset boosts using printed money to put it crudely. What assets
:07:17. > :07:19.is its purchasing, government bonds. How many, more or less the same
:07:20. > :07:24.amount as the government has borrowed from the market over that
:07:25. > :07:28.period. Government borrowed eczema, the Bank of England printed the same
:07:29. > :07:33.amount and used it to buy government bonds. The bank is not independent
:07:34. > :07:41.while that is going on. That is the case in the UK, the US and Europe.
:07:42. > :07:44.The world central banks have been delivering their brand of emergency
:07:45. > :07:47.treatment for eight years now, putting the frighteners on some
:07:48. > :07:51.comment making others very rich and we're still not sure if the medicine
:07:52. > :07:53.is working. This may be a scary movie, but not when knows how it
:07:54. > :07:58.ends. -- nobody knows how it ends. Well, we did ask the Bank of England
:07:59. > :08:01.to address these issues but they were not able
:08:02. > :08:03.to offer anyone. But I'm joined now
:08:04. > :08:04.by Baroness Altmann, the former Pensions Minister,
:08:05. > :08:07.and in Washington by Adam Posen, who was a member of the Bank of
:08:08. > :08:10.England's Monetary Policy Committee and is now President
:08:11. > :08:23.of the Peterson institute You're not a central banker, not a
:08:24. > :08:28.technocrat, but you feel annoyed with everything that has been going
:08:29. > :08:34.on in monetary policy? I do feel that this policy of continually
:08:35. > :08:40.pushing interest rates down, printing new money to buy government
:08:41. > :08:45.bonds, has ignored very damaging side-effects that that policy itself
:08:46. > :08:49.has. It is one thing to introduce an emergency experiment when we were
:08:50. > :08:53.facing some kind of depression, as we possibly seem to be around 2008.
:08:54. > :08:59.But this policy is still going on now when we have record employment,
:09:00. > :09:04.record jobs, we do have growth. And therefore you have to ask is this
:09:05. > :09:12.really the right way to be running policy especially when much of what
:09:13. > :09:16.the impact is now facing significant groups in the economy. You mean
:09:17. > :09:21.elderly people who may rely on savings. And also pension funds,
:09:22. > :09:25.anyone who has been buying an annuity, who will be poorer for the
:09:26. > :09:29.rest of their life as a result of this exceptional level of low
:09:30. > :09:33.interest rates. It is not the fault of central bank that the economy is
:09:34. > :09:37.flat on its back and there is a glut of savings in the world. And they
:09:38. > :09:40.somehow have got to keep the economy going against that backdrop. It is
:09:41. > :09:46.not clear that pushing down interest rates from already exceptionally low
:09:47. > :09:50.levels is actually keeping the economy going while boosting the
:09:51. > :09:56.economy. In fact low rates have deflationary impact. The expectation
:09:57. > :10:00.in theory that continually push rates down are bound to be
:10:01. > :10:06.expansionary. In some ways they are offset in the real world by the
:10:07. > :10:13.practical realities of pushing rates down. Because for example, one of
:10:14. > :10:17.the intentions of QT is to push up asset prices including housing. But
:10:18. > :10:20.housing wealth is unevenly distributed and so young people
:10:21. > :10:26.cannot get on the housing ladder, if you do not own a home it costs more
:10:27. > :10:33.to rent. I want to put all this to add. This stuff that you are from
:10:34. > :10:36.people who now knock Central bankers quite a bit. This argument that
:10:37. > :10:42.you're making the rich richer and the poor poorer. Is there credence
:10:43. > :10:46.to that. No, it has nothing to do with whether or not it is the
:10:47. > :10:53.central bank or some other technocrats. The fact is it is not a
:10:54. > :10:56.choice between the Bank of England pushing down interest rates and
:10:57. > :11:01.therefore rewarding speculators and punishing small savers. It is a
:11:02. > :11:06.choice, given the fact as you indicated, that the performance of
:11:07. > :11:09.all the rich countries in terms of productivity and risk-taking, has
:11:10. > :11:13.been lousy for almost ten years. The UK has been the worst on
:11:14. > :11:18.productivity. No one is going to get any returns on their investments and
:11:19. > :11:23.no corporation is going to want to invest in that kind of environment.
:11:24. > :11:27.So the Bank of England has, facing a world of slow growth and low
:11:28. > :11:31.opportunities, and if they put up interest rates in that kind of
:11:32. > :11:36.world, what happens is young people become unemployed, small businesses
:11:37. > :11:40.get cut off from credit, the pound goes up instead of down at a time
:11:41. > :11:43.when that will hurt exports. All kinds of knots are good things
:11:44. > :11:48.happen and talking about practicality in the real world, if
:11:49. > :11:52.you look at data instead of just reading the whingeing letters of
:11:53. > :11:56.certain constituents, that is the real world. We saw that in Europe
:11:57. > :11:59.because when the ECB fail to cut rates for the first couple of years
:12:00. > :12:03.of the crisis while the Bank of England and Federal Reserve did, we
:12:04. > :12:10.saw unemployment go up in Spain and Greece. It is not a crisis. You put
:12:11. > :12:14.the point very strongly and physically. Do you concede that the
:12:15. > :12:18.drugs do not seem to be working as well as they used to, you do not
:12:19. > :12:22.have to be William Hague or a politician to say hang on, we have
:12:23. > :12:26.now gone down to negative interest rates, something is wrong. Maybe we
:12:27. > :12:32.need to step back and think about how monetary policy works and maybe
:12:33. > :12:39.have other alternatives. That argument has some credence I think.
:12:40. > :12:42.I think the observation that central banks and monetary policy is less
:12:43. > :12:48.effective now than in the midst of the crisis has credence. Central
:12:49. > :12:51.bankers themselves say that and that is very practical. As I said to the
:12:52. > :12:57.Treasury subcommittee five years ago. In the midst of a crisis of
:12:58. > :13:01.course liquidity policy has more of an effect in stopping a panic. Not
:13:02. > :13:06.in the midst of a crisis, the effect is diminished. I would like to take
:13:07. > :13:10.William Hague's largely ridiculous essay and turned the title on its
:13:11. > :13:19.head. It is not that central banks have lost the plot, but we have
:13:20. > :13:21.moved from Henry IV to Henry V. There is supposed to be a new
:13:22. > :13:25.leading character with central banks now in a supporting role, that is
:13:26. > :13:27.fiscal policy. As Mark Carney said, all the different things the
:13:28. > :13:33.government could do instead of blaming central bank. Putting aside
:13:34. > :13:38.the technical arguments, there is some measure of agreement between
:13:39. > :13:43.you, is it healthy when politicians criticised central bank. It does not
:13:44. > :13:47.end well? I do not know, the point is this is a massive monetary
:13:48. > :13:51.experiment and no one knows what the outcome is. The transmission
:13:52. > :13:55.mechanism is indirect. Just trying to rely on people borrowing more to
:13:56. > :14:00.stimulate the economy when in fact in many ways this supposedly
:14:01. > :14:05.expansionary monetary policy is acting rather like a tightening of
:14:06. > :14:08.fiscal policy. If the government itself was trying to change tax
:14:09. > :14:13.policies to give more money to rich people, there would be outrage. In
:14:14. > :14:15.fact that is what the Bank of England policies have effectively
:14:16. > :14:24.been doing in the hope of stabilising the economy.
:14:25. > :14:30.How we given a central bankers too much deference? It started with Alan
:14:31. > :14:40.Greenspan. Mark Carney was walking on water. I have spent time with all
:14:41. > :14:48.of them. They definitely are just human. I agree. That is a place
:14:49. > :14:52.where we went wrong. We had the ridiculous state of affairs in the
:14:53. > :14:58.late 90s when we had a senators talking about weekend at Bernie 's.
:14:59. > :15:02.If someone died, you would prop the mob just to make sure there was no
:15:03. > :15:07.panic in the market. The inflationary targeting regime the
:15:08. > :15:12.Bank of England has now is to constrain the discretion of central
:15:13. > :15:15.bankers, be they Governor Cani, Chairman Greenspan or whoever, and
:15:16. > :15:21.make them accountable to the government. The cultural of
:15:22. > :15:25.deference to central banks is excessive. Nobody should fear, not
:15:26. > :15:31.even the governor of the Bank of England, should fear saying that.
:15:32. > :15:35.They can say what they want. The central bank should listen and think
:15:36. > :15:40.about it. There is no need for a deference. But there is a need for
:15:41. > :15:44.independence. If the government wants the bank to do something else,
:15:45. > :15:50.let them pass legislation or redefine the target. Do not let them
:15:51. > :15:55.back-seat drive. Thank you. You were Pensions Minister. The government
:15:56. > :16:00.made an important announcement today. You will not be able to cash
:16:01. > :16:05.in your annuity. Good thing, bad thing, sensible, stupid? It is
:16:06. > :16:08.understandable that if we do not have the consumer protection in
:16:09. > :16:13.place, we will now not be able to go ahead. It will be very disappointing
:16:14. > :16:17.to tens of thousands of people who have bought an annuity that they
:16:18. > :16:22.didn't want, didn't need, because they were forced to. Thought they
:16:23. > :16:26.would be able to get some money back for themselves. That opportunity
:16:27. > :16:32.seems to be gone. The Daily Mail leading on that story. The
:16:33. > :16:33.government thought they were going to be ripped off again, according to
:16:34. > :16:35.the paper. More information has come out today
:16:36. > :16:38.about the troubled inquiry We had the chair of the inquiry,
:16:39. > :16:42.some of her colleagues on the inquiry and the permanent
:16:43. > :16:45.secretary of the Home Office giving If you were with us last night,
:16:46. > :16:49.you'll remember the story so far, that the Home Office is accused
:16:50. > :16:52.of trying to bury news - the news that there had been doubts
:16:53. > :16:55.over the former chair of the inquiry Lowell Goddard before
:16:56. > :16:57.she stepped aside. Our policy editor
:16:58. > :17:10.Chris Cook is with me. Just bring us up-to-date on the
:17:11. > :17:15.story. What do we know until today? The most recent chapter of the story
:17:16. > :17:19.starts in August, when Lowell Goddard, the New Zealand judge,
:17:20. > :17:25.appointed by Theresa May, the third chair of the enquiry, resigned. In
:17:26. > :17:28.September, Amber Rudd was called to the Home Affairs Select Committee to
:17:29. > :17:33.discuss this. She said the reason she thought Justice Goddard had
:17:34. > :17:37.resigned was the reason she alluded to in a letter, that she was lonely,
:17:38. > :17:42.that she was homesick, she wanted to go back. MPs pushed her on this
:17:43. > :17:49.fact. Amber Rudd said she knew nothing more. Well, we now know,
:17:50. > :17:54.thanks to the Times reporting, that there were concerns about Lowell
:17:55. > :17:57.Goddard's capacity to run this big enquiry under English law, raised
:17:58. > :18:00.with the Home Office and the Prime Minister prior to her resignation.
:18:01. > :18:07.It is quite sticky for the Home Secretary. What did we learn today?
:18:08. > :18:11.The permanent Secretary of the Home Office was there. He was asked about
:18:12. > :18:19.why it was that the Home Secretary had volunteered this information.
:18:20. > :18:25.You can have a look at the answer. All I'm saying to you is that the
:18:26. > :18:33.Home Secretary answered the questions put to her accurately.
:18:34. > :18:40.That is our obligation. She said, I only have the information that you
:18:41. > :18:45.have. That is not accurate, is it? That went quite badly. He was not
:18:46. > :18:50.able to defend the Home Secretary. Lowell Goddard was given ?80,000
:18:51. > :18:53.severance when she left, even though she was apparently resigning because
:18:54. > :18:58.she was homesick. There are some issues around that. Where does that
:18:59. > :19:05.leave the enquiry? There was a little incident today. The leader of
:19:06. > :19:09.one of the core participants in the enquiry, he was basically thrown out
:19:10. > :19:14.of the hearing because he got basically annoyed with the town,
:19:15. > :19:18.with what he felt were the -- was the glibness with which things were
:19:19. > :19:22.discussed. It is critical for the public confidence in the enquiry,
:19:23. > :19:27.and for the evidence, that the big victim groups still support the
:19:28. > :19:31.enquiry. His concern, his anger, and he is someone who has been quite
:19:32. > :19:35.supportive of this enquiry at times, is quite a visceral reminder that
:19:36. > :19:37.that cannot be taken for granted. Thank you.
:19:38. > :19:40.Next month will mark 50 years since the BBC aired a television
:19:41. > :19:43.play that probably had more impact than any other programme in the
:19:44. > :19:50.You've got a place in a month's time?
:19:51. > :19:58.I'm told you lost your place on the list long ago,
:19:59. > :20:03.But we was meant to be one of those families!
:20:04. > :20:16.Haven't you got a room in one of your houses?!
:20:17. > :20:20.Haven't you got flats that are empty half the night?
:20:21. > :20:26.It was famously described as "an ice-pick in the brain
:20:27. > :20:35.Well, to mark 50 years, BBC Two is tomorrow airing a programme
:20:36. > :20:37.about homelessness in the 21st century, another one to make
:20:38. > :20:39.the comfortable classes sit uncomfortably as they watch.
:20:40. > :20:42.It goes behind the scenes at the housing department of Barking
:20:43. > :20:46.We see the staff barely cope with desperate people who have been
:20:47. > :20:49.evicted from their home, or can't afford their rent,
:20:50. > :20:52.and the team have to make tragic choices as to which people get
:20:53. > :20:56.emergency shelter and long term housing, and which don't.
:20:57. > :21:00.Have a look at this and you can see what part of the problem is.
:21:01. > :21:07.The amount of social housing built in the UK peaked at 207,000 in 1954.
:21:08. > :21:09.The year that Cathy Come Home was released, numbers
:21:10. > :21:15.By 1967, a year later, when the homeless charity
:21:16. > :21:19.Crisis was founded - numbers increased a little.
:21:20. > :21:22.Now, 50 years on, you can see the number of social houses built
:21:23. > :21:29.Today, social housing is a last resort, rather than an expectation
:21:30. > :21:35.In this clip, we see one man told he has to leave his mother's council
:21:36. > :22:05.And they're going to serve me notice.
:22:06. > :22:13.I'm not being horrible, this is where I end up thinking
:22:14. > :22:31.I'm 40 next week, and I've got no future at all.
:22:32. > :22:53.There is nothing that says he must have this house,
:22:54. > :22:59.You know, we have to be very, very careful and satisfied
:23:00. > :23:02.that we are making the right decision when we give
:23:03. > :23:11.We cannot be sentimental about it at all.
:23:12. > :23:13.That is just a taste of the programme.
:23:14. > :23:16.We are joined now by the writer and activist Poppy Noor,
:23:17. > :23:18.Conservative MP and chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group
:23:19. > :23:20.for Housing and Planning, James Cartlidge and Jon Sparkes -
:23:21. > :23:26.the Chief Executive of the Homeless charity, Crisis.
:23:27. > :23:33.Poppy, you have some familiarity with these difficult decisions being
:23:34. > :23:38.made in housing offices. Tell us about the kind of thing you have
:23:39. > :23:42.seen? I went through the system myself when I was 16 years old, when
:23:43. > :23:46.there was more provision in terms of benefits that people were afforded
:23:47. > :23:52.and in terms of the rhetoric as well around homelessness. And then it was
:23:53. > :23:56.incredibly difficult, even back then. The first council I went to, I
:23:57. > :24:03.was sent away for not looking harmless enough. You watch that
:24:04. > :24:06.scene and it's incredibly sad. But ultimately what it is getting at is
:24:07. > :24:11.the fact we no longer see housing as a basic human rights. Is that
:24:12. > :24:19.acceptable in one of the richest economies in the world? Were they
:24:20. > :24:23.judging you, where they judging what your need was? Or were they thinking
:24:24. > :24:31.about how much they thought you were responsible for your plight? The
:24:32. > :24:35.thing is, these things do not happen in a vacuum, right? Local councils
:24:36. > :24:39.have cuts to their budget. Automatically, when you walk into a
:24:40. > :24:44.council, they are thinking, especially if there isn't enough
:24:45. > :24:48.housing, how can they get you out of here as quickly as possible? This
:24:49. > :24:55.comes across in the programme. It is incredibly easy to do that when you
:24:56. > :24:58.have got a rhetoric that says people who own houses own houses because
:24:59. > :25:03.they have worked really hard, and people who are homeless haven't
:25:04. > :25:09.worked hard enough. James, what you are seeing in the programme is
:25:10. > :25:13.people, who live there in the housing market sector, RTD not going
:25:14. > :25:18.to get a home. They will not be able to afford one. I just wonder whether
:25:19. > :25:22.the most basically obvious fact, and whether it is an accepted now, is
:25:23. > :25:27.whether we do not have enough of the social homes, where they are
:25:28. > :25:32.allocated by other factors than how much money you can afford to pay?
:25:33. > :25:37.Sure. There is a lack of housing of all kinds of options. If I was to
:25:38. > :25:43.summarise the housing crisis, the challenge faces -- the challenges we
:25:44. > :25:47.face today, a huge number of people have no palatable option on housing.
:25:48. > :25:53.The only long-term answer to that is greater supply. That is a huge
:25:54. > :25:57.challenge. We are doing what we can. Greater supply at existing prices is
:25:58. > :26:03.not going to help the small numbers of millions of people who cannot
:26:04. > :26:07.afford the current prices. Housing benefit will help a lot of those
:26:08. > :26:12.people. I just wonder again whether you think we went too far in getting
:26:13. > :26:16.rid of the houses that we can allocate because this person needs a
:26:17. > :26:22.place to live, and we have got one to give them? We have built 300,000
:26:23. > :26:29.affordable homes since 2010. Before I was an MP, I ran a business in
:26:30. > :26:34.shared Ownership. I was a volunteer for a London homeless charity. We
:26:35. > :26:38.used to sit with homeless clients trying to get them to get on their
:26:39. > :26:44.feet. We award of them grants. The thing that always struck me in those
:26:45. > :26:48.cases, the most severe cases, is how complex and different each case was.
:26:49. > :26:52.I don't think you can talk structurally about each and every
:26:53. > :26:55.case affected. Have we got enough housing that we can allocate to
:26:56. > :27:00.people who do not have enough money to buy them? We clearly haven't.
:27:01. > :27:03.This is the very sharp end of the housing crisis. Homelessness is on
:27:04. > :27:07.the rise in England. Whatever measure you put on it. 73,000
:27:08. > :27:15.households in temporary accommodation tonight. 3500 people
:27:16. > :27:17.sleeping on the streets on average night. We clearly haven't got it
:27:18. > :27:23.right in terms of affordable housing. There are two ways to house
:27:24. > :27:28.people on low incomes. One is investing in social housing, another
:27:29. > :27:32.is providing Social Security to bridge the gap between what people
:27:33. > :27:37.can afford and social housing. Both of those things are under pressure.
:27:38. > :27:41.Contrast that with Poppy's experience and the experience of the
:27:42. > :27:45.programme with hard-working housing officers with a system which drives
:27:46. > :27:51.them to the crisis point, rather than a system that deals with
:27:52. > :27:55.prevention. They have to sometimes say to people, we have nowhere for
:27:56. > :27:59.you, you have to sleep on the street. They operate within the
:28:00. > :28:04.legal system which says some people are priority need, some people are
:28:05. > :28:10.not. You always have to love and allocation system of some kind. It
:28:11. > :28:13.is a difficult job. Under any government in any circumstance, you
:28:14. > :28:19.have to make rational decisions and prioritise. Poppy, even in the
:28:20. > :28:25.1960s, that is the point of Cathy Come Home, we were building Council
:28:26. > :28:30.houses and still finding that you had to make difficult choices. Cathy
:28:31. > :28:36.was the subject of that. Yeah, I suppose my issue with it is that it
:28:37. > :28:40.is completely reasonable to suggest that we should have readily
:28:41. > :28:49.available social housing for people in one of the richest countries in
:28:50. > :28:54.the world. This discussion about... OK, if I can put the question back
:28:55. > :29:00.to the Tory minister. Is housing a basic human rights? I am not a
:29:01. > :29:06.minister. I'm chairman of an all-party group. Sorry. Every
:29:07. > :29:08.family, every person out there as an aspiration to live in a home they
:29:09. > :29:16.can afford, whether owning our renting. One thing I would say is
:29:17. > :29:20.there is more than an acknowledgement that we have done
:29:21. > :29:23.important things in terms of encouraging homeownership, but we
:29:24. > :29:28.have two have a housing policy that everybody, including those who rent,
:29:29. > :29:29.in other words, those who will probably not be able to afford to
:29:30. > :29:41.buy. Would it be reasonable to say to
:29:42. > :29:45.people, we can get you a home but it will not be in Barking and Dagenham,
:29:46. > :29:50.we will put you somewhere else and if you do not have a job or are not
:29:51. > :29:56.a student here, you could live somewhere else. Someone who is
:29:57. > :30:00.vulnerable, who is homeless, the very best solution for them is to be
:30:01. > :30:03.in their community with positive support systems. With the people
:30:04. > :30:08.they know, schools where their kids can go to school, not someplace, not
:30:09. > :30:13.be shunted somewhere else in the country. That says, if you look at
:30:14. > :30:18.the housing market in London, you can see why there is a tendency to
:30:19. > :30:21.do that. The other thing is that although a huge part of this is
:30:22. > :30:26.about housing and provision of housing, it does not have to be the
:30:27. > :30:30.way that is described in terms of allocations. The system at the
:30:31. > :30:35.moment drives the housing officer to only deal with the person in crisis,
:30:36. > :30:39.it does not put a duty on them to try to prevent homelessness in the
:30:40. > :30:45.first place. Recent legislation in Wales has shown you can reduce the
:30:46. > :30:49.number of people owed a housing duty by getting prevention activity
:30:50. > :30:53.right. And the private members Bill is exactly about that. One other
:30:54. > :30:57.thing that comes out of the documentary, there was not enough
:30:58. > :31:02.emergency shelter, there are people sleeping on the streets because we
:31:03. > :31:10.cannot find a mattress and a whole. Within a year surely we could have
:31:11. > :31:13.also mattresses, better than the church hall you seen the film, and a
:31:14. > :31:18.decent bed for people who are literally on the street.
:31:19. > :31:23.Homelessness has been around for a long time, no one has ever come up
:31:24. > :31:27.with a magic solution. Government is providing support as far as
:31:28. > :31:31.possible, ?40 million this week and of course working with the
:31:32. > :31:34.charitable sector, with voluntary groups and the local authorities
:31:35. > :31:39.judge, with innovative ways to deal with that. There is no magic answer
:31:40. > :31:44.but do not forget a lot of those individual cases come from complex
:31:45. > :31:47.circumstances. No easy general answer to this.
:31:48. > :31:49.If you like dystopian visions of the future,
:31:50. > :31:52.showing how technology will come to manipulate us, you probably
:31:53. > :31:57.There have been two series on Channel 4 and, later this week,
:31:58. > :32:01.it is coming back for a third, but this time on Netflix.
:32:02. > :32:02.It's been compared to the Twilight Zone -
:32:03. > :32:05.each episode is a self-contained story with its own characters
:32:06. > :32:08.and plot twist, but they all share a mix of satire
:32:09. > :32:16.Here is a clip of the first episode - in a world rather like ours,
:32:17. > :32:18.where everybody is always rating each other and keen
:32:19. > :32:24.If we drill down into the numbers, you have got a solid
:32:25. > :32:31.Let's just look at the last 24 hours.
:32:32. > :32:34.You see, even, what's that, 8:40am, you're working hard on your socials.
:32:35. > :32:46.Let's check on your sphere of influence.
:32:47. > :32:55.Healthy inner circle, that's good.
:32:56. > :33:02.Well, the series was created by Charlie Brooker who is with me.
:33:03. > :33:13.Good evening. Do you worry about technology, smartphones and all that
:33:14. > :33:19.kind of stuff. I worry about everything! I am a 360 degrees
:33:20. > :33:24.worrier. Technology is one thing I worry about. Not technology per se
:33:25. > :33:31.so much as our inability to control these new superpowers that it is
:33:32. > :33:37.granting us. But the Black Mirror of the title is the Black front of a
:33:38. > :33:42.mobile phone. Pretty much any screen that is off and just reflects you.
:33:43. > :33:46.We have always tended to worry too much about things, Griggs said the
:33:47. > :33:50.books would be the death of us. I was not around, I dare say they did!
:33:51. > :34:00.People worried about the printing press. The computer in 2001. I am
:34:01. > :34:06.quite a geek, I love technology, I am an early adopter of lots of it. I
:34:07. > :34:10.suppose I tend to worry out loud about the potential worst-case
:34:11. > :34:16.scenario. It is people you worry about rather than the device. Not
:34:17. > :34:21.the computer coming to take us over so much as is not understanding how
:34:22. > :34:28.to use this thing. Yes and certainly in that particular story, it is kind
:34:29. > :34:35.of about the inauthentic nature of our online selves. Which makes it
:34:36. > :34:44.sound like a barrel of laughs! It is better than you make it sound! Good!
:34:45. > :34:50.Personally, if you dropped out of social media, if you drop out of
:34:51. > :34:58.readers comments on your articles... I did not do that. I got fed up with
:34:59. > :35:05.writing columns generally, just because I started feeling like there
:35:06. > :35:11.is so much extraneous communication in the world. I did not want to keep
:35:12. > :35:14.on adding to it. There is a cacophony, technology going back to
:35:15. > :35:19.the printed press has made that possible, basically. It is too easy
:35:20. > :35:24.to say stuff. That is not a negative, though. Just a lot of
:35:25. > :35:28.people shouting and how many columnists are there. Too many, does
:35:29. > :35:37.not like there's a shortage of columnists. So you withdrew a bit. I
:35:38. > :35:42.did a bit because I felt... Is not a good mindset for a columnist to be
:35:43. > :35:46.in, what is the point of saying, of me saying anything, I have said
:35:47. > :35:53.enough. It is great to hear you say that! You were fed up with me
:35:54. > :35:59.talking! No, no. You're also a satirist. I hate that word. Everyday
:36:00. > :36:04.I have people saying satire is dead, at what Donald Trump is said or
:36:05. > :36:10.something like that. Is politics now so ridiculous that you cannot be
:36:11. > :36:17.funny any more? It is difficult to get a foothold on, I think, it is so
:36:18. > :36:22.slippery and ridiculous, you would never create a character like Donald
:36:23. > :36:27.Trump because no one would find it plausible. So it is difficult but I
:36:28. > :36:33.do not know, I do not think of myself as a satirist. It is the word
:36:34. > :36:37.I'm slightly allergic to. You write about politics, you are a funny guy.
:36:38. > :36:44.I do not write about politics so much as, the shows I do, in my head
:36:45. > :36:49.I am reviewing the news as though it is just another entertainment show
:36:50. > :36:55.and I am being appalled by this grotesque soap opera I'm watching. I
:36:56. > :37:02.wonder, I love satire and I am in favour of it, have we if you liked
:37:03. > :37:05.being debasing our political culture by mocking these people who have to
:37:06. > :37:09.make difficult decisions that we cannot talk about honours programme.
:37:10. > :37:16.We make it difficult for them, that is our job, you make it difficult
:37:17. > :37:23.for them. Other programmes make us laugh at them and we come to think
:37:24. > :37:27.of them as being nincompoops. I'm trying to feel some pity! I wondered
:37:28. > :37:34.then if you end up with politicians who claim the fact that... We did an
:37:35. > :37:39.episode of Black Mirror about the comedian who controls a cartoon Bear
:37:40. > :37:43.that runs for office after becoming an anti-politics celebrity. That was
:37:44. > :37:47.loosely based on Boris Johnson and away because he became a sort of
:37:48. > :37:57.figure through appearing on TV should comedy shows, appearing like
:37:58. > :38:04.a kind of buffoon. So it is kind of like inoculating yourself to
:38:05. > :38:09.Mochrie, to become beyond mockery by openly sort of behaving like an oaf.
:38:10. > :38:16.I do not think that is necessarily the fault of comedians. Not the
:38:17. > :38:22.fault of comedy. Do we take offense to easily, people do take offense
:38:23. > :38:27.quite a lot. They take offense quite a lot or they profess to. I do not
:38:28. > :38:35.know how much about this genuine. I think a lot of it is performance.
:38:36. > :38:40.But generally speaking I am in favour of bearing people
:38:41. > :38:46.sensitivities in mind to a degree. It was on Channel 4 and now it's on
:38:47. > :38:52.Netflix, what happened? They said to us go out and get some co-funding
:38:53. > :38:58.because we cannot afford to go on making the show. Then they could not
:38:59. > :39:03.agree, there was a creative disagreement over how we were going
:39:04. > :39:12.about making it. And they needed the money for a tent! Instant Karma!
:39:13. > :39:18.They were saving for that big empty tent with gales of despair blowing
:39:19. > :39:21.through it! You have no beef with Channel 4? No, I'm not furiously
:39:22. > :39:23.angry with them. Thank you very much.
:39:24. > :39:30.We end with news that following the success of Oldstock
:39:31. > :39:33.at the weekend, Chuck Berry, who's alive and well at 90,
:39:34. > :39:36.is upping the ante and releasing his first album in four decades.
:39:37. > :39:38.In case you've forgotten what he looks like,
:39:39. > :39:45.here he is performing in some remarkably fresh looking footage
:39:46. > :39:47.filmed at the Newport Jazz Festival, a mere 58 years ago.
:39:48. > :39:50.And if you look closely in the audience you can just make
:39:51. > :41:02.Good evening. Clear and cool might for many, some showers around
:41:03. > :41:03.coastal districts