31/10/2017 Newsnight

Oh, my God!

Eight dead and at least 12 injured

in Manhattan in what appears to be

an Islamist terrorist attack.

We'll have the latest from the scene

and ask whether America

will always be prey to terror.

Also tonight:

I was seriously sexually assaulted

at a Labour Party event by someone

who was more senior to me.

It was suggested to me

that I not report it.

I was told if I did

it might damage me.

I'll be talking to the Labour MP

John Mann about these allegations

by former NEC member Bex Bailey,

the consequences for her attacker

and how Labour should react.

And the Russians were all over

Facebook Google and Twitter

like a rash during the US

presidential campaign,

according to tonight's

Congressional hearings.

Can we trust the tech giants

to act responsibly?

I think you do enormous good. But

your power sometimes scares me.

Good evening.

The US authorities are treating

the striking of pedestrians

and cyclists in Lower Manhattan

as a terror attack.

A pick up truck, travelling the

wrong way on the West Side Highway,

driven by a 29-year-old man

who is now in custody,

ploughed through people at speed.

So far eight people are reported

dead and twelve injured.

President Trump tweeted that it

looks like an attack by a very

sick and deranged man.

The driver who was shot by police

got out of the van wielding

what were later described

as imitation guns.

The American immediate media is

reporting he is an Uzbek national.

The BBC's Michele Fleury

joins us from the scene.

What do we know about this?

I'm at

the edge of what we know is a terror

attack. A couple of hours ago behind

a school a vehicle drove up on to a

busy bike lane, crashing into

people. An officer was able to alert

people quickly, but not before the

drive emerged from the vehicle

shouting as we understand, and

wielding fake firearms, what we now

understand to be a pellet gun and a

paint Balogun. The individual was

shot by the police and taken into

custody. I'm standing a few blocks

from the site of the World Trade

Center, so New Yorkers are no

stranger to terror, he said, but

they know how to be resilient. The

police said you can expect an

increased presence on the streets

tonight, which is Hallowe'en.

Typically a festive time here.

Thank

you.

A little earlier New York Mayor Bill

de Dlasio gave an update

on what happened at a press

conference in the city -

he said New York would not be

cowed by the attack,

which happened just a few

blocks from Ground Zero.

It's a very painful day in our city.

A horrible tragedy on the West Side.

Let me be clear, based on the

information that we have at the

moment, this was an act of terror

and a particularly cowardly act of

terror aimed at innocent civilians,

aimed at people going about their

lives who had no idea

what was about to hit them.

I'm joined from New York

by Jerome Hauer -

he was the director of New York's

director Office of Emergency

Management and was involved

in handling the response to 9/11.

A horrible night, and obviously a

lot of confusion. The procedures

will be in place quickly to deal

with this, am I right?

Absolutely.

This was a lone actor at this point,

that is what it looks like. The

police department acted very

quickly, were able to subdue this

man before he did any more damage.

Unfortunately, these types of act

have become all too frequent,

because they're so easy. Cars, guns,

small bombs have an impact. It might

not kill or injure large numbers of

people, but they do have their

effect, sending a message by someone

who wants to execute this kind of

attack.

What we know is now the New

York media are talking about him

being a 29-year-old Uzbek who came

as a refugee in 2010. There are

concerns clearly around immigration

at the moment, that is not one of

countries affected by the ban. What

impact will that information have do

you think?

Just because it is not

impacted by the ban, doesn't mean

that he didn't start somewhere

that's impacted by the ban or in

some other country, where he got

trained and received the kind of

training or the kind of

radicalisation you see with these

kinds of folk and then he moved to

other countries. Which makes it

easier to move or get into the

United States.

This is a big night

in the New York calendar,

Hallowe'en, a lot more people on the

streets than normal on a Tuesday

night, in a sense a kind of a

perfect time for somebody who wants

to do damage to do it. Will there be

a lock down in Lower Manhattan?

The

area where the attack occurred is

locked down right now. It is a crime

scene. The FBI, the YYPD, are going

through everything to ensure nothing

is missed. The parade in Lower

Manhattan is many blocks away. But

can I assure you there will be an

increased presence at the parade

surrounding it.

Thank you for

joining us.

It is hard to imagine

that there might come a time

when every story of inappropriate

behaviour, harassment,

and sexually abusive activity

will be exposed and dealt with -

such is the avalanche of revelations

from here and from Hollywood.

Production was suspended today

on Kevin Spacey's House of Cards,

following his apology

for an allegedly predatory act

on a teenager which he conflated

with his announcement he was gay,

itself drawing huge ire.

In Westminster this morning,

there were claims that various lists

of MPs and ministers facing

harassment allegations

are circulating and then tonight

came the shocking revelation

from young former Labour NEC member

Bex Bailey that she was raped

at a Labour event in

2011 when she was 19.

She told the BBC's Carolyn Quinn

that when she approached an official

at Party HQ she was warned

of the consequences

of making an allegation.

Here's Nick Watt.

We don't know anything about the

pepper rater -- perpetrator. What

can you tell us about the attack?

What we know about the perpetrator

is he was senior to Bex Bailey. And

Bex Bailey approached a senior party

official and was told you shouldn't

report this, because this could

damage your career. The Labour Party

is to appoint an independent legal

expert to look essentially at this

allegation that the Labour Party was

allegedly involved in a cover up of

rape and this investigator will be

looking at how this party official

handled these allegations by Bex

Bailey.

There could of course be a

criminal investigation?

Indeed, but

what this will be looking at is

whether the proper procedures were

followed by the Labour Party. I have

been talking to friends and

colleagues of Bex Bailey about her

decision to speak out.

I was seriously sexually assaulted

at a Labour Party event by,

it wasn't an MP, but someone

who was more senior to me.

It took me a while to summon

up the courage to tell

anyone in the party,

but when I did I told a senior

member of staff who told me that,

or it was suggested to me that

I not report it.

I was told that if I did

it might damage me.

And it might be a genuine view,

it might be that that was the case,

in which case that shows

that we have a serious problem

in politics with this issue anyway.

Bex Bailey is a widely admired

Labour campaigner on women's

rights and equalities.

I first met her a few years ago

on the general election campaign

trail with her former boss,

Liz Kendall.

In recent days as attention focused

on the culture at Westminster,

Bex Bailey felt that it would be

right to speak out in the hope

of finally achieving a breakthrough

in her long campaign to change

the rules on the reporting of sexual

harassment and sexual assault.

Tonight I spoke to two

of Bex Bailey's closest friends

and colleagues in the Labour Party.

The main thing she is calling

for and others too is

that the Labour Party has

an independent third

party reporting system.

So that women can have

the confidence that if they speak

out there will be a real

and proper change.

Too often women are worried about

speaking out because the person

they may be reporting the assault,

abuse or harassment to may work

with the person they are accusing,

may be a friend or a political

ally of them.

And you know, understandably,

people within the party who work

for the party don't want to see

the party brought in to disrepute.

But really they should be focusing

on the women who have been subject

to harassment or assault

and that is why we need

this independent system.

She has been fighting for a better

procedure to help people coming

forward with complaints

for a number of years.

None of us knew her personal history

in this and I think today all of us

feel we have let her down.

The party has let her down,

things have to change.

She gives an incredible example

of why it is not good enough

to have a hotline staffed by staff.

You need an independent

third-party reporting system.

Bex is a strong, courageous,

highly principled woman.

She has always campaigned

for equality and fairness

in the party and in the country

and I am beyond proud

of her for having the strength

and courage to come forward.

She didn't want this

story to be about her,

she wanted it to be about women

everywhere and I hope that

as a result of her speaking out,

it will give courage to others

and it will give the Labour Party

and other political parties

the courage to change.

Nick Watt there.

The Labour Party issued a statement

tonight saying it took Bex Bailey's

allegations extremely seriously

and would support anyone who had

suffered sexual violence.

It added that the party

was launching an independent

investigation into the claims

and said it hoped the police

would investigate.

But is this enough?

The Labour MP John Mann has been

an outspoken critic of his party's

record on handling such complaints.

Helena Kennedy is a Labour peer

and campaigner on social justice.

You worked with Bex Bailey, did you

know she had been raped.

No, not

until tonight.

Presumably you were

shocked?

Of course, tremendous

shock. Horrible to happen to anyone,

but very courageous of her to speak

out and for young women who had any

kind of sexual assault, I think they

will be taking some comfort and

encouragement from the fact she has

spoken out in such a public way.

There is to be an investigation, do

you know the identity of her

attacker or the person she spoke to

later, two years later about

reporting it?

No, I don't, but what

it vital is she is in the control of

situation and she has taken control

of it and the Labour Party needs to

be listening, you know, Bex Bailey

was the person on the Labour Party

national Executive who proposed

systems for dealing with exactly

this kind of thing when she was on

the leadership under Ed Miliband and

the Labour Party didn't accept her

proposals. So the Labour Party's had

a chance in the past to get its

house in order, she knew what she

was talking about and the Labour

Party hasn't done so. Like all the

other political parties.

Is this the first time you have

heard about a rape at Westminster?

There are other allegations that I

am aware of. They're not public yet.

The allegations vary from rape to

molestation is to inappropriate

language. A wide variety. But lots

of allegations.

And people are

coming forward now. What do you make

of this now in the sense that there

must be feeling that women feel

safer about coming forward or

feeling so angry that now they are

prepared to come forward worse

before as Bex Bailey said, she was

told her career would suffer.

Careers did suffer as we know that

has been an inhibitor for women in

many different sectors and not just

politics. What is interesting to me,

I have been writing about this for

about 35 years. And the fact that it

has taken so long to get this taken

seriously as part of the problem

because it is dealt with as being,

there is add dismissiveness about

this. Today in Parliament I heard

already men saying this is going to

give rise to all kinds of false

allegations. That was the needed

think that the next step, rather

than saying this is disgraceful and

we must do something was immediately

to minimise it. The whole thing is

that the immediate response and you

get this coming from senior women as

well, you just slap someone on the

hand.

But it is all degrees, a hand

on me, whatever, it is that sense of

entitlement.

And it is about the

permissiveness that allows any of

this from the small amount which is

sometimes men saying what were you

doing last night with your boyfriend

and crossing boundaries.

In the case

of Bex Bailey to have faith and

investigation will change things and

perhaps even deal with the

perpetrator?

Something has happened,

we now have a generation of women

who are not going to take it any

more. Far more young women have gone

through universities, far more who

are saying enough is enough.

But are

the systems in place to deal with it

and do you have faith that the

leadership will sort this out?

This

systems are not in place at all the

danger is, people go for something

quick and let's get this behind us

and move on because we don't like

it. I sat during that statement when

Parliament last discussed it, a very

short discussion and it was all

backslapping. I want to thank, I

want to thank. The people who need

planking of those women who have

stood up and made complaints and

often when they have made complaints

they have not been listened to at

all.

In politics at Westminster are

other places that women can go and

talk?

This idea of safeguarding? You

have heard from a number of women

Members of Parliament talking about

the need for independent

professional systems in place to

report to the right person. For

example I know from other walks of

life because I've handled these

kinds of cases, very often people

are approached and have no training

whatsoever. The person in the Labour

Party that Bex Bailey went to, the

chances are they had no idea one way

or another how to handle such a

situation. And institutions like

Parliament or whatever, they always

want to protect their reputation of

the party, of the institution or

whatever rather than protect the

individual.

You have faith in the

Labour leadership to sort this out?

I can tell you they will be put

under the cosh.

And our political editor

Nick Watt is here.

The current swirl of allegations

which right across Westminster.

Well

we've had two ministers accused of

inappropriate behaviour or language,

so Michael Fallon and Mark Garnier

in the past 24 hours. And Theresa

May it is fair to say is appalled by

these reports. She has spent 20

years in Parliament trying to change

the culture by promoting more women.

In 2016 she was able to act when she

was strong, she appointed her

Cabinet, Stephen Crabb the Work and

Pensions Secretary, she thought

about reappointing him. He spent

some hours in Downing Street with

the Chief Whip and was unable to

give assurances about allegations of

sexually explicit texts and he was

no longer in his position. Now with

Mark Garnier Theresa May have

referred the matter to the Cabinet

Office, she has been told she needs

to buy time. She cannot afford it

and if one minister goes, the press

will be after the next one and on it

goes.

For months social media companies

including Facebook have been playing

down concerns over fake news -

and specifically about the role it

may have played in last

year's American election.

But earlier today Facebook

changed its tune -

releasing a statement saying

the company now believed Russians

working for a company

linked to the Kremlin,

the Internet Research Agency,

operatives posted roughly 80,000

pieces of divisive inflammatory

content between January 2015

and August 2017 that reached as many

as 126 million Americans.

That's almost half of all Americans

who are old enough to be

allowed a Facebook profile.

The Russian agents also uploaded

more than a thousand videos

of Google's Youtube service

and bombarded Twitter.

None of these companies has

ever revealed the extent

of Russian meddling before -

but tonight representatives

for the three companies

were being grilled by

a Congressional committee.

Here's John Sweeney.

Twitter, Facebook and Google

on the hook, on the hill.

Tonight three tech megaliths were

called to account in Washington, DC.

The charge against them,

that they don't do enough

to protect their platforms

from being used by those who might

want to warp American democracy.

I think you do enormous good.

But your power sometimes scares me.

Did China run ads in the last

election cycle to try

to impact our election?

Not that I'm aware of, Senator.

Not that you're aware of?

Did Turkmenistan?

No, Senator, not that I'm aware of.

How about North Korea?

The answer is,

Facebook doesn't know.

After Trump's victory,

Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg

rubbished the very idea that ads

on his site had snow on their boots,

as fake news and crazy.

That was then.

Now Facebook says that Russian

sources placed thousands of ads that

reached 126 million American users.

But fixing the problem needs humans,

and they don't come cheap.

At Facebook you have algorithms that

do the first run and humans that it

kicks to a set of humans

to look at it.

I understand that you have increased

the number of humans who to look

at these kind of things.

Can you explain

the process you have?

With respect to the sort

of what I will call

the particularised threat actors

that are typically associated

with nation states,

that is a highly manual process.

So we won't for example

have a threat indicator

that we are tracking and then

if we see activity, that is really

a highly intensive manual effort.

This is the moment when Facebook,

roughly worth $500 million,

Google 700 billion and Twitter

around 15 billion, face

much tougher scrutiny.

But why are the tech

giants in trouble?

I think if there is one great take

away already from the Russian

controversy in the US,

is that it has really shone

a light on the way social

media companies operate.

These sort of dark ads,

these sort of bots, accounts

who don't know who is behind them.

And finally all this is coming out.

The way the Russians seem to have

used Facebook and Twitter

during the US elections,

it doesn't seem to be a bug

in the system, it is the system.

We are finally understanding just

how frankly deeply manipulative

these companies are.

How they override all our ideas

of how democracy in public

space should function.

Did Russian agents buy this man's

ticket to the White House?

If so, is this hearing the start

of a necessary revolution,

bringing more scrutiny

to the internet?

Opinion is divided.

Companies do not give a lot

of intelligence directly to US

investigators on a general basis.

They have pledged to work more

closely together in the future.

But of course they don't want to set

a precedent that could apply to them

in other countries around the world,

with maybe harsher rules.

It is always going to be a dance

with these companies,

so much that their futures would be

a lot more complicated.

It is a huge change.

Finally Silicon Valley has had to

walk to the hill, to Capitol Hill.

This is a very big moment,

almost as if Silicon Valley

and all its ethics are on trial.

Again the public awareness that

will come out of this and is coming

out of this about the way these

platforms spread messages, influence

us, is massively important.

And will I hope have to change

the essence of how they function.

But today's hearing and yesterday's

charges against three men in team

Trump together harden the evidence

that President Trump's

election victory was,

in part, made in Moscow.

So where does all of this leave

the technology firms -

and could this increase calls

for them to be subjected

to more regulation?

Thomas Rid is Professor of security

studies in the department of war

at Kings College in London.

He himself gave evidence

earlier this year to a congressional

committee on Russian influence over

political campaigns.

He joins us from Washington.

Can we deal with Facebook first, are

you surprised by the scale of what

happened on Facebook and how much do

you think Facebook knew about what

was going on?

In a way I'm not

surprised by the scale of what we

have seen but I think we're past the

point where we can talk about these

companies in one sweep. Facebook and

Twitter, you're dealing with a

problem in different ways. The

market is pushing Twitter towards

hiding the problem, the market is

pushing Facebook towards fixing the

problem and I think that is

important to understand.

In that

case then is Twitter in more trouble

than Facebook is absolutely, I think

Twitter is in a lot more trouble

than Facebook but so far we have not

fully come to terms with how much

automated abuse activity was

happening on Twitter put up consider

the following question, how many of

the likes and retweet that the real

Donald Trump account received during

the election campaign where actually

human as opposed to machine

generated.

The answer is we do not

know. And the unpleasant truth is

even Twitter may not fully have the

answer to that question because they

do not keep data.

When you look at

the kind of material that this

intranet research agency was pushing

out there, stuff on race, religion,

gun rights, transgender issues, will

we ever really know the impact that

that had on voting intentions?

That

is a very difficult thing to come to

terms with. This question of what

was the actual impact. Let's focus

on what happened for a moment.

Facebook had a clear policy, one

face, one name and they want real

names on the platform. Twitter has a

different policy, it is OK to have

an anonymous account many accounts

at the same time. So in some ways

Twitter the perfect disinformation

that form. Ultimately think about

this, Twitter is affording the same

level of privacy protection to

Russian robot networks run by

foreign intelligence agencies Debbie

Ford a -year-old teenager writing

under their real name at home.

On

the question of Facebook and Mark

Zuckerberg denied this for so long

are we now have a situation where

they smoke and make sure that a lot

of the child molestation stuff does

not reach a lot of the, the more

violent stuff does not reach the

page. They say they're just a

conduit but they are a publisher and

is the publisher they accept that

they're moving in that direction and

they will have to clean up their act

to make sure all those fake stuff

does not actually go on the same

page as some of the real stuff or

else there will be a much more

trouble.

The publishing of

information, the problem cuts deeper

than that. Right now we're in a

situation where Facebook and even

more so publish information that

ships -- shapes the news, shaped

democracy, shapes history. Because

these companies take privacy

protection seriously, were also in a

situation where users including

intelligence agencies from foreign

countries, can remove content and

retrospectively edit the news and

added the way we perceive our

history. That is a deep

contradiction at the heart of an

open democracy and not just social

media.

Thank you very much for

joining us.

What London does not

need is more penthouses,

but more regular affordable houses -

that's Siddiq Kahn's plan.

He wants to quadruple

new affordable homes

from from 11,000 a year to 44,000,

but he has precious little power

to to make it happen -

even though he's the mayor

of the world's great capitals.

In fact almost half

a million families now share

with other families such

is the housing shortage.

But right across Britain

there are obstacles to building

affordable housing -

some put there by complex

planning regulations,

but others by developers themselves

- ones that allow them to wriggle

out of their obligations

to build affordable homes

on every new development.

Our policy editor

Chris Cook has this.

Where better to begin thinking

about homes than the most famous

publicly funded housing

in the country?

The cost of housing is one

of England's critical problems.

It's something the government

is very sorely aware of.

Affordable housing rules,

one of their key levers

for trying to mitigate it.

The thing about housing policy

is that, just like this

location, not everything

is as it first appears.

Affordable housing is a home

deliberately offered

at below market rates.

So it includes social

housing, but also stuff

like shared equity housing.

About half of the flow

of new affordable homes are built

by private developers,

who have to include them

in new developments.

So in London say, if you develop

a plot of more than ten homes,

it is expected that at least 35%

of them should be affordable homes.

And in some circumstances

and in some boroughs, half.

Sometimes you get a bit less housing

than you might expect.

Our affordable housing rules contain

a concept known as viability.

Developers are expected to make

a profit, usually about 20%

of the total sale value of the site.

And if they can't meet

that benchmark, then

they are allowed to cut

the amount of affordable housing

they are obliged to offer.

This is a process that Shelter,

the housing charity,

believe is undermining our

affordable housing policy.

The viability loophole is actually

enshrined in law and it means that

if a developer believes they cannot

make enough profit out

of a development they can

completely opt out of building

the affordable homes element.

No matter what the council policy

on affordable homes states.

And this was brought

in during the crash,

the financial crash,

because it was felt that

unless something was done to protect

profits, houses just

wouldn't be built.

But obviously, you know,

we're not in that situation now.

How big a deal is all of this?

Well there's a little

complication here.

Sometimes developers pay a sum

in lieu of providing

affordable housing on site.

But a viability assessment always

mean less investment

in affordable housing.

Let's take this example

from the Royal Borough

of Kensington and Chelsea.

Developers have permission

to turn the building

behind me into 25 homes.

And according to the local

affordable housing quotas,

half of them should be affordable.

In practice, because of the

viability loophole, none will be.

All the developers are going to do

is pay the council £200,000.

The thing is, the

house-builders have a point.

Some sites can't support

lots of affordable homes.

You can't have a rigid quota

for affordable housing

because all sites have different

costs associated with them.

Imagine redeveloping

an old gasworks.

You would have to clean up the land

before you could build houses on it.

And that would have a different cost

to it to where you didn't

have to do that work.

It would mean that some sites

were totally unviable

for development, which means that

you would end up with fewer

houses, when we need more.

But we should be looking at this

issue, because the net

effect is quite big.

In the last year alone, viability

was used to strike out the need

for 1000 affordable homes

from planning permissions

granted in Birmingham.

And the council got just

£5 million in lieu of that.

In Manchester it was used to strike

out the need for 472 affordable

homes and the council got no money.

In Bristol, viability claimed

196 affordable homes

and they got just £131,000.

Across 11 local authorities,

Shelter found 2500 affordable homes

struck out in one year.

Now let's suppose I'm a developer

who has decided to do a bit of work

on this rather undesirable bit

of Brownfield land

in central London.

And let's say I work out that I can

make a decent profit

and deliver affordable housing,

so long as I don't spend

more than £10 million

on this grotty little plot.

The thing is, I also know that

if I spent more than £10 million,

the council will tell me I don't

have to build as much

affordable housing.

So the viability assessment

process encourages me

to spend more money on land,

which fuels land price inflation

and it does so at the expense

of affordable housing.

Frankly, it's simply wrong

that in Britain in 2017,

where it is not exactly difficult

to make a profit out of building

homes, we are effectively

underwriting developers' profits

by sacrificing the affordable homes

that people desperately need.

Because we're in the grip

an acute housing crisis.

I think that we should be

questioning why we are dependent

on private sector cross subsidy

to provide over half

of the affordable housing

that we provide in this country.

There must be a better way.

What it does is it drives up

the cost of land and it drives

up the cost of houses.

This whole system exists to avoid

having the state raise

and spend money directly

on affordable housing.

But the consequences of this

are not good for anyone.

Chris Cook there.

Earlier today I spoke to the Mayor

of London, Sadiq Khan,

in the lush surroundings of City

Hall.

He fought his mayoral

campaign with housing

issues front and centre,

and I wanted to know what he meant

by the term "affordable housing".

I mean one of three things.

One is a home where

you pay a social rent -

think of it as a council property.

Two, it's a home where you pay

a London living rent.

That's a third of average local

earnings, or, three,

it's what I called shared ownership

- part-buy and part-rent.

But actually for too many

years now, the homes

that have been deemed affordable,

the few that have, aren't really

affordable.

I'm saying to developers,

I'm saying to local

authorities, my expectation

is if you want me to approve an

application, I want a certain

percentage to be affordable and by

affordable I mean how I define it,

rather than the previous dodgy

definition.

You want to go from 29,000

new homes in London to 66,000

and you want 65% of them to be

affordable, whereas just now it is

only 38%.

By when and by what measure?

So we have looked at London's

population, currently 8.7

million, by 2029,

2030 at 10 million.

So we have worked out what the needs

of our city are - both

annually, what percentage

should be affordable

and the expert advice is we will

need over the next period,

every year, 66,000 homes

over the next 20 years

and a

significant number of those

need to be affordable.

I can't deliver that

unless the Government steps in and

gives us the support we need.

So Kensington and Chelsea, the

development of 25 homes, half are

meant to be affordable,

none is and the developers simply

handed over £200,000 to the council.

How did they get away with that?

There are many examples I'm

afraid of local authorities

being hoodwinked by developers.

A number of things,

firstly, a developer will

come along during the course of

a construction being built and say,

"You know what?

It's no longer viable to build

this small numbers of

affordable homes we have agreed to,"

and the council, for a number of

reasons, firstly

because they may lack

the expertise to test

the

viability report, two,

because they're just soft

and they're happy to be rolled over,

will allow a

developer to reduce the number

of affordable homes.

Will you insist that people

release brownfield sites?

I'm lobbying the Government to get

more power of compulsory purchase.

I've set up a new scheme to allow

councils to borrow to

assemble land around

brownfield sites.

That can often free up

big pieces of land.

We saw one example last year,

but I want the power,

particularly relating to surplus

land, relating to to brownfield

sites to build the homes

we need as a city.

But the truth is without government

say so you have no power.

Absolutely, we're the most

centralised democracy

in the western world.

When I compare my powers

to the powers of

the mayor of New York,

the mayor of Tokyo, other

mayors of great cities,

I've got limited powers, but also

Londoners have far fewer

powers and far fewer say

than Parisians or New

Yorkers.

You're one of most, the most

powerful directly elected

politician in this

country, and you can't

persuade Jeremy Corbyn

of

either complete adherence to

the single market or indeed a second

referendum on a deal.

Well, two things.

Firstly, Jeremy Corbyn's made it

quite clear, nothing's off

the table and I welcome that

announcement from Jeremy Corbyn,

Keir Starmer and John McDonnell.

But, secondly, Jeremy

Corbyn's not the person

negotiating with the greatest

respect, much as I would

like him to, with Europe.

Theresa May and David Davis are.

You could put a bit of pressure

on, for goodness sake,

you're mayor of London.

And I'm and I meet

Theresa May and David

Davis regularly...

I mean pressure on Jeremy

Corbyn to come and say,

everything's on the table,

nothing's off the table,

but why can't you get him to commit

to staying within the

single market and a second

referendum on the deal?

Well, Jeremy Corbyn's been

quite clear during the

transitional deal, we want to stay

members of single market, stay

members of customs union, give

a cast iron guarantee to those who

live in our country that are EU

citizens are a huge asset to our

country.

But the reality is as much

as I would like and the country

would do better with Jeremy Corbyn

negotiating with Michel

Barnier and the European Union

than Theresa May and

David Davis and I meet

regularly with David Davis.

Actually it might not

make much difference

for you.

Oh, it absolutely would and I will

tell you why, because there

would be a cast iron

guarantee to those Londoners,

and there are one million who are EU

citizens and are

not sure about their future, 3.3

million across the country are not

sure about their future, they get

the cast iron guarantee today.

We would have more certainty in

relation to the transitional deal.

There wouldn't be a cliff edge fall

in March 2019 and also our party's

not divided and split

like the Tories.

So we would be united behind our

Prime Minister and negotiators,

Keir Starmer, to get a good

deal for our country.

How concerned are you

about the atmosphere at

Westminster?

We now know of course

that there is a list of MPs and so

forth, how do you react to that?

Well, I think the place where laws

are made in our country, you know

the mother of all Parliaments,

should be a beacon for how to behave

and conduct yourselves.

Whether you're a politician,

whether you're

a member of staff, whether you're

a lobby journalist, you should be

treated with dignity.

You probably heard Jess

Phillips, the MP, talking

about on the left, the Labour left,

being very prone and guilty of

misogyny.

I think the Labour Party

is probably as bad as other

political parties.

I think most institutions

are not great at

dealing with concerns people have

around all sorts of behaviours that

is unacceptable -

whether it is sexist,

whether it is racist,

whether it is homophobic.

We're in a situation

now where we have got a

government minister who doesn't deny

getting his assistant to buy

sex toys.

Should he be sacked?

Yes.

If he worked for me,

he would be sacked.

Sadiq Khan, thank you very much.

The times has a story which seems to

drag Damian Green into the

Westminster abuse scandal. In the

last few moments Downing Street said

they're referring Mr Green to the

cabinet Secretary.

That's it for tonight.

We leave you with news of the death

at the age of 90 of legendary

Trade Unionist Derek Robinson.

Dubbed Red Robbo by the capitalist

press, he became famous,

And infamous, as the shop steward

at the British Leyland Longbridge

site in the 1970s who led the car

workers out in a seemingly endless

series of strikes.

It made him a hero of the left,

but the bogey man of the right,

and immortalised the company

as the butt of endless

Saturday Night dad jokes on the BBC

by the Two Ronnies -

like this one.

Goodnight.

We've just heard that British

Leyland strikers have been fitting

silencers to motor horns -

and now the cars don't

give a hoot either.

That's all we've got time

for so it's good night from me...

And it's good night from him.

Good night.