28/06/2017 Newsnight

She thinks she can remain PM for two years.

Some senior Tories think she should be gone in two days.

What future is there for Theresa May?

The Government is not exactly falling apart,

but it is looking worn at the edges, with disparate views

Bad news for the PM - the Tories will make party

We need to have a new leader in place by the time

that the Conservative Party goes into the next election.

It's possible to imagine Theresa May being Prime Minister

What we need at the moment is somebody who is resolute

and carries on, has an element of stubbornness within her.

That seems to me to be the leader that we've got.

We'll ask the Brexit Minister, who was dropped from Government two

Also tonight, 28 years on, there are criminal charges

In the aftermath of Grenfell, have we now tested enough insulation

and cladding to know we need to rip it all off?

We ask the Chairman of the National Housing Federation

if waiting for test results is now just an obstacle to

"You're a very small bear," said Mrs Brown.

"I'm not really supposed to be here at all.

We bid farewell to the creator of Paddington, Michael Bond.

The Government won an important vote in the Commons tonight,

defeating a Labour amendment to the Queen's Speech.

It should also win the final vote on that Queen's Speech tomorrow.

So it will then have shown it can survive.

In the last 24 hours or so, we've seen raggedness of thought

We thought the goals for this government were to deliver Brexit

and reduce the deficit, but unity on both those looks

Chancellor Philip Hammond made a thinly-veiled joke at the expense

of Boris Johnson last night, and appeared at odds

with David Davis over transitional Brexit arrangements.

And more confusion today on austerity.

There were hints that the public sector pay cap would be dropped,

and then those hints were played down later on.

When a teacher loses control of a class, it's

Is that where Mrs May finds herself at the dawn of this parliament?

Well, Nick Watt, our political editor, is with me.

First, there is public sector pay staff and the morning story was one

thing, it changed this afternoon, what was going on behind-the-scenes?

It is welcome to our new minority government and newly assertive

Chancellor of the etched so we can watch Cabinet rows in technicolour!

We had Michael Fallon, Jeremy Hunt and Chris Grayling say the

Government is listening to the electorate and the time has come to

take a look at the public sector 1% pay cap imposed in 2012. Downing

Street backed them until Philip Hammond insisted there was no change

and the cap would last until 2020. I understand Philip Hammond has said

the colleagues if there is a fiscal announcement, that is my job. And a

?4.1 billion commitments to increase public sector pay in line with

inflation, that would need a funding stream. These three Cabinet

ministers do not have a history of freelancing and I understand they

are saying to the Chancellor, we thought we were echoing your

comments when you said a couple of weeks ago you were not deaf to

concerns about austerity. That is one argument. Where does this leave

the Government, or more specifically, we are at the

beginning of this Parliament, where does it leave Theresa May and her

government? As you said, we have had senior ministers at odds on two

consecutive days, and two defining issues of this government, fiscal

policy and Brexit. The diplomatic way to look at this is, as one

Westminster figure said, this is reflective of a government finding

its way. But can a wounded Prime Minister assert her authority over

Cabinet, or will she be buffeted around as her weakness means

traditional Cabinet squabbles play out in the Open? Downing Street

hopes its likely success in the main Queen's Speech vote tomorrow will

put this government and Theresa May on a firm footing. So I had been

looking to see whether that's Number 10 calculation really will play out.

Enfeebled by her surprise electoral setback, the Prime Minister has lost

that most precious political weapon - control of timing.

In the three weeks since polling day, Theresa May has watched

as a mere spectator while the clock has ticked down on her premiership.

The likely passage of the Queen's Speech tomorrow will give

Theresa May her first opportunity since the election to resume some

Allies have told Newsnight that, having secured the Tory grip

on Number 10, the Prime Minister will seek to remain in Downing

Street for at least two years, the duration of the Brexit talks.

But one former Cabinet minister believes Theresa May should stand

down by the time of the next election, if not before.

It is widely accepted, as I say, across the Conservative Party,

that we need to have a new leader in place by the time

that the Conservative Party goes into the next election.

A leading Brexit supporter believes Theresa May could yet

Being Prime Minister, in tenancy terms, is an assured shorthold,

Some Prime Mnisters who look incredibly strong

and will go on forever are gone quite quickly.

If you take David Cameron in August 2015, you thought he could be

there for years and he is gone within 12 months.

If you take Margaret Thatcher in 1981, everyone is conspiring

to get rid of her and then the Falklands comes along and she's

With Mrs May, it's very hard to tell, but she could be

there longer than people are currently speculating.

With the DUP, there is the basis of a parliamentary majority.

Tory MPs don't want an election, the DUP doesn't want an election,

a lot of backbench Labour MPs don't much want an election either.

In private, Cabinet Ministers agree with the Prime Minister that she has

the right to see the Brexit talks through, though they wonder

whether she has the stomach for a relentless fight in Parliament.

Other Tories say that the successful passage of the Queen's Speech

will allow them to ask difficult questions about her future

They say that the length of her tenure in Downing Street

will depend on the answers to three questions.

In the first place, does she have the authority to see

Secondly, is there a credible alternative?

And the final question is, can she rise again like a phoenix?

Nicky Morgan believes the Brexit timetable points to a natural

handover of power around the autumn of next year.

Once that shape of Brexit is concluded, once those deals

are very much on the table, the Conservative Party must not

miss the opportunity at that stage to think

about who we want to be our future leader.

That's interesting because essentially, the position is,

the Barnier position is that the deal should be

on the table by basically October 2018, so you can allow for that

So it could well be around that stage,

towards the end of 2018, that the Conservative Party

needs to think about who its leader should be.

I think that's probably right, that's certainly one timetable.

Of course, I think one of the things that the last couple of years have

shown is that making predictions about British politics,

or international politics, is incredibly difficult

But I think the point is that the Conservative Party,

having started on the Brexit road, really is going to own

the negotiations, is going to own the shape

of Brexit, and that's clearly going to be something that will,

if not be the issue of the next election, will be something that

we'll be standing on that record in terms of the party

One Tory, who was a surprise loser in the election,

thinks Theresa May will need to change her ways to survive.

We will need a leader who can articulate a vision

about where Britain is and where it needs to be in the next ten years.

And I think Theresa is an excellent operator in many, many ways,

but she has got to change her style in terms of setting out an agenda,

talking about a vision and connecting with people.

If she does not do that, I think there may well

One Tory grandee told me simply, Theresa May is finished

She has no authority to conduct the Brexit negotiations

and she should announce immediately after the passage of the Queen's

Speech tomorrow night that she is allowing for an orderly

But one Cabinet Minister who is aware of the Prime Minister's

flaws says that she is slowly building up her credibility around

Theresa May is helped by strong backing from Brexiteers.

One leading figure insists he supports her on merit.

Very often, our strengths and our weaknesses are two

Theresa May is strong and stable, or she is a rude

And if you are looking at her strengths, she is strong and stable,

if you are an opponent, she is, expletive, difficult woman.

And that is exactly the same personality type.

What we need at the moment is somebody who is resolute

and carries on, has an element of stubbornness within her.

That seems to me to be the leader that we've got.

Jacob Rees-Mogg believes the talk of an early leadership

I don't think anything is actually happening.

None of these figures has tapped me on the shoulder,

nor have their agents, and said, why don't you back

so and so, Snodgrass Minor, for the leadership?

A beneficiary of the troubled Tory campaign offers some advice

She won't last as Prime Minister if she cannot build agreement

She won't, because people are very clear from what they heard

from their constituents, that a change in approach is needed.

And she really does need to understand what happened

during the election, drop those slogans, focus

on the same Brexit, and build across party divides.

By tomorrow night, Theresa May will have consolidated her hold

over Downing Street, giving her greater control over

But a sense that the countdown to her own exit has slowed may,

ironically, embolden Tory critics to speak out.

I'm joined now by Conservative MP David Jones, who was,

until very recently, the Minister of State

Good evening. How long do you give Theresa May? Well, I think we have

to acknowledge that it was a difficult election campaign, we did

not do as well as we wanted. But I think most MPs were very impressed

by what she did immediately after, she came to the 1922 committee and

she acknowledged there had been mistakes, she put her hands up to

it, and she got a great deal of support from everybody present in

the room. And I think that slowly but surely, she is building up her

credibility with the party and she has got quite a long time ahead of

her. You say building up the credibility but today, the first

vote in Parliament, a vote on a Labour amendment to get rid of the

public sector 1% pay cap. You voted against the Labour amendment and the

morning briefing was you would get rid of the cap and this afternoon,

it you retreated on the change on policy. It was like complete

confusion. Can the next days of this Parliament carry on like that? I

have to acknowledge today was not one of the best days. Looking at

what has happened over the last two weeks, I have seen Theresa May

stabilising the ship. Sorry, stabilising the ship? Since the

election, which was a disaster, Grenfell Tower, she had to apologise

to the nation for the reaction to that. And today, complete confusion

over policy. It has been a very difficult time, I do not do neither.

You said she is building up her credibility. Yes, at the end of the

election campaign, that credibility was very low and the entire party's

credibility was low. I do not detect an appetite within the party to see

her go. Would you describe your oldest department, the department

you were dropped from, would you describe that as chaos? No, I would

not. I would say it is an extremely flexible Department and it has an

extremely strong team of officials prepared for the negotiations. He

were dropped and another resigned five days before the negotiations

started, that is madness! I'm not second-guessing the Prime Minister.

I just said, I am not second-guessing why the Prime

Minister decided to dispense of my services. Any politician who takes

an admin is the aerial role when he is appointed he has that much closer

to leaving -- who takes up an ad ministerial role. We lost two people

who would be negotiating and has the brink in people who had five days

notice to meet Michel Barnier. Two competent people who will do and

extremely good job, backed up by a strong team of officials and led by

the very competent state with Davis. Do you think David Davis and Philip

Hammond can both stay in post for the next two years and agree

something? Yes, and quite contrary to reports in the day's newspapers,

they work very closely indeed and have regular meetings and

discussions. The reports today have been overblown and it is a

difference of emphasis. And I think they are working extremely closely

and very effectively together. What is the difference of emphasis? This

morning, there was a suggestion that Hammond wanted us to remain in the

customs union and David Davis saying not. An emphasis! It is, they both

agree we will have to be out of the customs union and the single market

by the end of this Parliament, in five years' time.

Even though you were dropped from the government, you are behaving on

and being rude to them in a very loyal way and you clearly think

Theresa May should stick it out for quite a while, you're basically with

the party on of this. In a way it seems like the leadership issue has

become a proxy for the Brexit issue. Listening to Nicky Morgan thinking

that the clock is ticking on Theresa May and Jacob Rees-Mogg saying she

is the right person but is it not the case that Brexiteers are putting

their faith in Theresa May, soft Brexiteers or Remainers are saying

we might need to get rid of her. I think there is no doubt that Brexit

is going to be the defining issue of this Parliament and we only have a

very limited timetable to work through, one year and nine months.

What we cannot afford if the indulgence of talking about

alternative leaders come in place somebody else for someone who I

think we'll do a very good job and will lead the country to these

negotiations effectively. You're making my point, the Brexiteers

clearly have more faith in her than any one else. You say this is no

time for indulgence but it is surely the time for people to discuss and

express their concern over the Theresa May plan for Brexit which

Clooney did not grab the population in the election. I don't think it

was that. -- clearly did not grab. I think the big issues were non-Brexit

issues, most clearly social care but others as well. As far as Brexit is

concerned we are now in a position where 80% of the electorate of this

country voted for parties who want to take Britain out of the EU. What

planet are you on? Loads of swing voters who might have voted Tory

voted for Jeremy Corbyn's Labour Party because they so detested the

Theresa May version of Brexit. I don't see how you can possibly read

that into the election result. The polls show, and I know we don't put

a huge amount of weight on them, but that more people did not like her

version of Brexit than did. You can't say that anybody who voted

Labour was endorsing her version of Brexit. We have already set

ourselves on the course for leaving the European Union. You were saying

that if somebody voted Labour they were effectively endorsing Theresa

May's Brexit and that is completely untrue, it was a protest against her

Brexit. I don't see how you can read that into it. They put they would

get a softer Brexit from Labour and stay in the customs union

potentially because they thought it was bonkers to leave. I think that

is a complete misreading of the election. Do you accept polls that

show more people believe that Theresa May's Brexit should be

amended than support it? Her Brexit is clear and that is to leave the EU

but to seek the best possible relationship with it in terms of

free trade agreement and access to the single market. All those MPs

have been honest about their views on the situation, let the MPs vote

on which Brexit they want. Forgive me but we have already agreed and

decided to leave the European Union. There are multiple ways of leaving,

it doesn't have to be the way you want. The weight of leaving are

specified in Article 50 of that is the process we are going through --

the ways of leaving. Are you saying there is literally only one way of

leaving the EU, there are no choices in that at all? The choice has been

made, we have served the notice under Article 50 and we are on our

way out of the European Union. What we're doing is attempting to seek

the best possible relationship with the European Union after we have

left. And I think that is something that is shared by members of parties

on both sides of the house. David Jones, thank you very much.

The police today admitted that the final death toll

from the Grenfell Tower fire will not be known until at least

80 people are so far known or presumed to have

Now, of course, as a response to that horror, the authorities have

been testing the cladding on many buildings similar to Grenfell.

The important finding is that all have been found unfit.

Given that, is it time to stop testing and just get

on with the removal of cladding from buildings at risk?

That is the view of the National Housing Federation, which represents

Social housing has been particularly badly affected.

David Orr is the Chief Executive of the federation.

Good evening. What would be the case. In the testing programme now?

Our first priority is to ensure that people feel safe and secure at home.

Many people don't feel that and, having had 120 different tests from

different samples from different buildings in different parts of the

country, I think we can now say that, according to the tests that

the government is carrying out, this cladding is not fit for purpose. We

don't need to test any more of it and frankly nobody living in a

property that has this cladding is going to feel comfortable because of

these results. There is a lot of time and energy going into moving

kit and equipment around the country to do the tests but let's not do

that, let's take a step back and prioritise exactly what we do to

make people safe and secure at home. Is it necessarily the case that the

building that has that cladding on it is unsafe or is it possible that

the cladding can be constructive in a way that is safer or the building

can be fire safe in other ways despite it? It is possible for

buildings to be safe even with that cladding in certain circumstances

but in a way that is no longer the point. The point is that government

had initiated this testing regime, every single sample has failed,

so... We're not learning anything. No and this cladding is no longer

the answer. So your priority might be buildings that might have one

staircase and no sprinklers and you would start with those, get the

cladding off and down the line... In a way this is not an issue about

housing it is about cladding and how people feel about it. We have

cladding on all kinds of places, hospitals, prisons, schools, student

housing private sector, social housing, across-the-board, and

people need to feel reassured. At the moment activity is happening

immediately following a test that we need to take a step back. This is a

major systemic failure. All of the claddings had been fitted according

to the ruled that were in place at the time, according to the regime

presided over by government. We now have government saying, according to

these tests its not safe so we had to prioritise which are the least

safe, where we take action and the government has too paid for it. That

is a very important thing. -- has Depay for it. -- has to pay for it.

You are pointing the finger back at government. Are you clear in your

head whether this cladding was specified by engineers in breach of

regulations, whether it was allowed by regulations, or whether it was

not specified by engineers but was simply put a bike contractors saving

a bob or two. But I'm clear about is that anybody who is commissioning a

new building or these kinds of regeneration projects have to go

through a whole process of safety, through planning, building control,

and there are experts at each stage, architects in the design of the

design, designers and by people who have to say it is safe, building

control that has to give its consent. At some point a pass mark

has been stamped to allow these buildings to be fitted with this

cladding. If that regime is no longer fit for purpose, there is an

urgent necessity for us to know what in future we will regard as being

safe so that we can equip all of these buildings and make them safe.

And in terms of cost, the government is talking about 600 buildings,

assuming they all need doing, it is a couple of million pounds to put

the cladding on Grenfell and you're talking about a billion or... A very

substantial sum of money which should not have to be paid by the

remaining residents. Thank you very much. On the subject of Grenfell,

the Times is reporting tonight that the Prime Minister has found a

person to chair the public enquiry into the Grenfell fire. You have

been checking this story out. That's right, an important story and I have

had it confirmed that we will have a written ministerial statement

tomorrow that a recently retired Lord Chief Justice of Appeal will be

appointed as chairman of the Grenfell Tower inquiry. The Times is

reporting he is an immensely responded figure in legal circles

but it suggest there has been a hold-up in the appointment because

of concerns of a rolling when he upheld in favour of Westminster City

Council in dispute with a single mother of five who refused to be

rehoused in Milton Keynes and this woman's lawyers said the ruling set

a terrible precedent for local authorities to engage in social

cleansing of the poor on a mass scale. It would not surprise me if

tomorrow we hear ministers saying that this appointment was made on

the recommendation of the Lord Chief Justice because of course Theresa

May as Home Secretary had experience of setting up an enquiry into child

abuse, when the chair do not command the confidence of victims. Thank

you. 28 years after it happened,

criminal charges have been levelled against six people in relation

to the disaster at the Hillsborough The charges relate both

to the causes of the disaster itself, and also to conduct

of various of the accused Peter Marshall was at

Hillsborough that day in 1989. He was working for Newsnight

at the time and has made award-winning documentaries

on the disaster since. This is a very important day for the

families. It is and I have been checking on my cutlet and it is

10,300 days since the horrors of Hillsborough for those families and

the traumatised survivors -- I have been checking on my calculator. At

last they have some individuals charged so this is a big day. There

is some measure of satisfaction but this abutment that the charges do

not go further and there are not more senior, Junior officers and

civilians judge but the CBS have pointed out they are hamstrung

because you can't charge organisations like Sheffield

Wednesday football club or the South Yorkshire Ambulance Service, because

they have been entirely reconstituted and different

organisations now to what they were then so there is no legal line of

responsible the remaining. Hillsborough was a long time ago,

three decades of tortuous struggle to get here.

56,000 people are at Hillsborough, Sheffield, for a FA Cup semifinal.

Even now on the terrace behind the goal, packed

with Liverpool fans, people are dying.

With fans spilling onto the pitch to escape the crush,

The match commander, South Yorkshire Chief

Superintendent David Duckenfield, had ordered a gate outside

the ground to be opened, allowing fans crammed outside

onto the already overcrowded terrace.

Duckenfield will face charges of gross negligence manslaughter.

The Crown Prosecution Service will allege Duckenfield's failure

to discharge his responsibility at Hillsborough was

Sir Norman Bettison faces four charges of

Sir Norman, who later became Chief Constable of Merseyside

and later still West Yorkshire - an apparently glittering career -

was a South Yorkshire superintendent at the time of Hillsborough.

The CPS allege he told lies about his involvement

in the aftermath of the disaster and the culpability of the fans.

He maintained today he was innocent and would contest the charges.

Peter Metcalf, the solicitor for South Yorkshire Police

during the original inquiry and the first, discredited,

inquests, is accused of perverting the course of justice.

Metcalf reviewed accounts provided by officers and,

according to the prosecutor, made suggestions for alterations,

deletions and amendments for which there appears

Former South Yorkshire Chief Superintendent Don Denton and former

Deputy Chief Inspector Alan Foster are also charged with

Both are said to be involved in the statement amendment process.

The sixth man to be charged is Graham Mackrell.

He was company secretary for Sheffield Wednesday,

As safety officer at Hillsborough, he faces two charges alleging

he failed to carry out his duties as required by law.

For the bereaved families who have campaigned for nearly 30 years,

this is a stage towards justice that for decades looked impossible.

The announcement of charges was met with their applause.

We've got today everything we could have asked for.

The decisions by the CPS in my opinion were

And we look forward to the due process through the courts of law.

I'll give you a personal response if I may.

A mixed bag, a couple of names we didn't expect and a few

Today's announcement is the outcome of four years of investigations

by the police's Operation Resolve and the Independent Police

And the CPS's deliberations over who may or may not be charged

Files on West Midlands Police, the force which investigated

South Yorkshire immediately after the disaster,

giving them what amounted to a clean bill of health,

The prosecutor says investigations are continuing.

Prosecutors had been considering charging 23 individuals.

Circumstances may have restricted their options.

That situation in law is complex because they have to be very careful

that they are taking a case, and they take major legal advice

on this, they are taking a case not on the balance of probabilities

And what that means is they have to be more than 50% sure

that they will get a conviction before they set out.

Otherwise the case will be dismissed before it starts.

But six more than yesterday and certainly six more than a few

years ago when we couldn't have even dreamt of this.

It is not easy for Western journalists to get much access

The group has killed journalists, taken them hostage, and indeed,

But one journalist, Souad Mekhennet, has gone behind the lines of jihad.

A Muslim woman, born in Germany, she was one of those

who used her contacts to identify Jihadi John as Mohammed Emwazi.

She's written her experiences into a new book called

"I Was Told To Come Alone", and she is with me now.

Good evening. It takes courage to leave your phone and everybody

behind and going to a strange place, with people who you know have been

holding journalists, yet that is what you did in order to meet them.

Tell us about your meeting with The Boss of Jihadi John. Well, it was

during a time when we did not know what is Isis, a couple of weeks

after the so-called caliphate was declared. Like other journalists, we

were very curious to understand what the objectives of this caliphate?

What do they want? How does it function? So I tried to negotiate

with people within Isis, to meet with somebody, somebody who had

something to say, not just a foot soldier. At the beginning, they had

the idea I should go into the caliphate, which my boss refused. So

we found this middle ground where we decided to meet alongside the border

region. Things changed constantly. We were supposed to meet during the

day, then they pushed it further into the night. And by the end of

the day, they decided I had to come alone, which is one reason the book

is told I Was Told To Come Alone. They asked me to leave behind ID and

phones. As a journalist, we have to sometimes make a decision in terms

of, is the story worth it? It was a period where we had so many

questions and I thought that we have to talk to them and know what they

say, who they are, and figure out who they are in order to understand

how this caliphate functions. What were they like? In human terms, this

guy, you meet him in the desert and he drives you into the desert, some

remote part. Is he demonic? Is he perfectly ordinary and civil? This

is the thing. A lot of people do not understand, some of those guys,

especially this guy, turned out he grew up in Europe. He had a similar

background. I was able to figure out also where he grew up. I learned who

he was true identity. And he did not come from a deprived family. He was

highly educated and he spoke several languages. He did study. And he

talked to me over politics, like most of the guys. When I meet them,

whether it is Isis or the Taliban, they talk to me and they discuss

current policy mainly and religion comes later. And I believe that a

lot of people do not understand they see it very often as a war of Islam

against the West, but it is not that. Those guys discuss with you on

foreign policy issues mainly. One of the striking things, a lot of us

view them and think, how can you talk to Isis? There are other

terrorist groups around the world you can have a conversation with,

they have a cause and a set of objectives and you can possibly

negotiate over those things. We are not going to negotiate with people

over their desire to impose a caliphate over the entire world, or

whatever it is. Did you have a sensible conversation, to put it

bluntly? Sensible is a difficult word to use here. Because you can

see in the book the debate we had turned into a heated discussion at

some stage because I challenged them, and I challenge any person a

interview. It is not like I sit and listen, no, I challenged the

ideology and I asked, how can you, this is not Syria or Iraq, there was

not your countries, how can you come here and basically just a choir

caliphate? It is the other thing people do not understand very often.

Dashed just declare a caliphate. It is not Isis against the West, Isis

is going against any person if they do not stand up for the ideology. A

lot of enemies. In the book, you make an enormous efforts to

understand what motivates and animates courses like this, how

difficult is it to avoid getting into, from understanding two -- to

apologising for and explaining away? Sorry for interrupting, this is not

a book that apologises and that is an excuse for terrorism, absolutely

not. I believe it is very important if people really wants to find we

have to understand that radicalisation starts in our

societies. Those people, Jihadi John and Mohammed Emwazi and many like

him, they grew up in the West and they got radicalised in the West,

and there is a reason why. I believe if people want to find solutions,

they have to start much earlier, before they get radicalised. The

book is called, I Was Told To Come Alone. Thank you very much, Souad

Mekhennet. It's hard to pin down exactly why

some cuddly animal characters that are devised for children turn out

to have quite such massive appeal, but among those that has captured

the imagination more than most His creator, Michael Bond,

died today, at the age of 91. His daughter, Karen Jankel,

said of him that... "You can tell just by reading his

books what a lovely person he was". And indeed, that was

the impression that many of us Stephen Smith looks at the life

and work of Michael Bond. "Mr and Mrs Brown first met

Paddington on a railway station, which was how he came to have such

an unusual name for a bear. They were waiting for

their daughter, Judy, when Mr Brown caught sight of him

sitting on an old suitcase, As they drew near, he stood up

and politely raised his hat." It's one of the great

entrances in literature - a bear on Paddington Station,

in hat and duffle coat, with the luggage label he'd

worn all the way from... "I'm not really supposed to be

here at all, I'm a stowaway." Well, it's one of these

chance encounters that one You meet somebody or turn a corner

and it changes your whole life. And I happened to miss a bus one

Christmas evening and went into a big London store and saw this

toy bear sitting on the counter So I couldn't resist it

and took it home to my wife, and we lived near Paddington,

so we decided to call it Paddington. And one day, I was sitting

with a blank sheet of paper and a typewriter, knowing that

nobody else was going to put any words on unless I did something,

and started to write a story about it, and that was

the beginning of a book. Michael Bond's story was first

realised in the pen-and-ink sketches of illustrator Peggy Fortnum,

who herself only passed away last As a child, you feel like he's

on your side because he's going through all those same

experiences that you go through when And if he had any complaints at all,

it was that her dumplings Paddington decided that

his dumplings would be I think basically, it's the small

man up against life's problems. In many ways, he's what I would

like to be in life. I mean, he has a strong sense

of right and wrong, which I may have, but whereas he does the right

thing, I don't always do that. He's got his feet - or his paws -

very firmly on the ground. Yes, I think he's

what I'd like to be. Paddington is partly a story

of fathers and sons. The bear's rescued by the father

figure, Mr Brown, and Michael Bond himself took inspiration

from his own dad. My father was a very polite man

and always wore a hat, in case he met somebody,

and had to have something to raise. And Paddington's got

a lot of him in him. Paddington's creator didn't really

enjoy writing, he admitted, but in rainy old London,

he dreamt up a classic children's story and an international

bestseller, in the twinkling # The sun's in my heart

and I'm ready for love... I didn't intend to

write a book at all. I wrote it to please myself,

and I wrote it very quickly. And I put in things like a duffle

coat that I was wearing at the time, In ten days, I had what turned out

to be a book on my hands. Michael Bond never

wanted for the price And when they made the Paddington

movie, he even had a cameo, And he's right up there in the great

pantheon of bears, isn't he? I mean, you only have to go

to Paddington Station and now there's a statue and there's

the pop-up shop, because people love So, yeah, I don't think

he's going to go away. I love writing about Paddington

because the nice thing about writing his books is,

he makes me laugh sometimes when I'm doing a chapter

because he's so optimistic. # I'm dancing and

singing in the rain #. I shall carry on writing

the books as long as I can. And I think one of the nice things

about being a writer is that, I will be back tomorrow, until then,