19/01/2017 Question Time

Welcome to Question Time. Tonight we're in Peterbrough.

The Conservative Transport Secretary, Chris Grayling.

The Shadow Foreign Secretary, Labour's Emily Thornberry.

For the Liberal Democrats, Alistair Carmichael,

former Scottish Secretary in the coalition government.

The TV presenter and Celebrity Apprentice

friend of Donald Trump, Piers Morgan.

And the novelist, author of, among other books,

'We Need To talk About Kevin', Lionel Shriver.

As ever, you can join the debate on Facebook,

We had the Prime Minister's speech two days ago about Brexit, and we

have had a reaction from Europe, which leads to how a first question

from Lynn Walker. If the referendum was rerun tomorrow, what do you

think the outcome would be? Alistair Carmichael. Well, we did not make a

particularly good job of predicting the outcome last time, so forgive me

if we don't predict it this time. First of all, it is not going to be

run again tomorrow. But I think there is an issue here, which is

that of those people who voted to leave, or to remain, there was a

great deal, a great lack of clarity about what was on offer. I think on

Tuesday this week it suddenly became a great deal clearer what was on

offer. Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour Party, remarkably, say it is not a

hard Brexit. If leaving the single market, leaving the customs union,

is not a hard Brexit, if walking away from that without a deal is not

a hard Brexit, then I don't really know what does. You are not asked to

be an expert but in the light of what has happened since, will people

be thinking again? What needs to happen if we need to bring back the

52 and the 40 together and bring a degree of unity back to our country,

once we know actually what the shape of the deal with the European Union,

an enormously important trading market, is going to be, at that

point, this being a process that started with the will of the people

in a referendum, should be concluded with the will of the people in a

referendum, once we know what it's going to be. Piers Morgan. I voted

Remainer, cards on the table, so I'm not particularly happy that we are

where we are, but we are where we are. And the whole point of

democracy in a freezer Sidey like ours is that when you go and vote,

it really matters, it's incredibly important how you vote in elections

and referendums. -- in a free society like ours. The point about a

second referendum, this was the second referendum. We have the first

in the mid-70s and voted to go into Europe. We have now had another one

to leave Europe. I don't agree with it but we are where we are. So the

answer to your question should be, don't ask the question. We're not

going to have another referendum. I say that with great respect, I have

so many people I know, like with Trump and America, which we will

come to, this gnashing and wailing and weeping and demands to have

another election in America, another referendum here because we didn't

get the result we wanted, is frankly pathetic. We've all got to grow up.

APPLAUSE Lynn Walker, you asked the question.

Is it your view that we should grow up, or that people would vote

differently? I voted Remainer. I am not so much asking for a second

referendum, more thinking that I think a lot of people voted on one

issue. If they actually looked now at the whole picture and what they

have been told since, some people might have voted differently. What

one issue? Immigration. According to the Prime Minister there were loads

of issues, when she spoke on Tuesday, she said people voted for a

different kind of Britain, this, that and the other. In this area

that was the major issue. Chris Grayling. It wasn't purely about

immigration, it was about the ability to take our own decisions. I

campaigned for Brexit, I believed we should leave. The overwhelming

response from people was that we want to be able to take our own

decisions. Immigration was a big area where that was the case. There

is a broad sense in this country that immigration levels were too

high, people want to manage the number of people who come in the

future. Not to become a closed door nation, but have some degree of

control, to limit and set limits on the number of people who come and

live and work here. But it was also about the ability to take our own

decisions. As an elected representative, standing on your

doorstep, saying, please vote for my party, and you say that you don't

think immigration is under control, what am I going to do about it, if

my response is, I have no power to restrict it because as part of the

European Union we have to accept full freedom of movement, you will

say, that is not good enough. I want you, as my elected representative,

to do what I want. We couldn't, and people wanted that control back.

APPLAUSE Labour seems to be in some doubt

about whether it is even going to vote for Article 50.

Where do you stand on that? You're Business Secretary said he will not

vote for Article 50. You are falling apart. Let's take this in stages.

First, the government has had to be brought to court to ensure that

Parliament has a vote on Article 50. So we are waiting for the court

decision. If the government loses it, the government will put

legislation before Parliament, and then Parliament will need to decide.

Personally, my constituency voted overwhelmingly to remain, as did I.

But I am a national politician, Shadow Foreign Secretary, and it is

my duty to do as instructed by the British public. The public have said

we want to leave the European Union and my job is to make sure we get as

good a deal as possible for Britain. That means looking after our economy

and our jobs first. What about your Business Secretary saying he won't

vote for it? I haven't spoken for him so I don't know. I can

understand why some people feel... It fits very different and the --

difficult league, because we have this representative democracy and

many people have constituencies which overwhelmingly voted to

remain, and yet the result of the referendum is to leave. Many people

will find it difficult to decide who are they representing, their

immediate constituencies, or the nation? Remember, there was a Tory

MP who voted to leave, and he said he did not like the way in which the

Tory party were going ahead with leaving the European Union, so he

stood down and caused a by-election. This is an issue for MPs to wrestle

with, but the Labour Party will not be getting in the way of Brexit. We

will vote for Brexit to be triggered, and that is how it is

going to be, but we need to make sure we get a good deal. In the

fourth row. Interesting to hear a couple of the comments, especially

the second referendum suggestion. I don't think people were particularly

unsure what we were voting for. I remember the issue of the single

market being brought up clearly by a number of people, including Cameron,

Osborne... All the time. And then they pretend we have never brought

it up before. It was clear. Piers Morgan, you are incorrect, we never

voted to join the EC. We were put into it without a vote. Leaving that

aside, do you think the outcome would be different if it was rerun?

No, I don't think so. I think the people who voted to leave are

comfortable with their decision. I entirely agree with you. I am fairly

confident that it would end up being 52 - 48 again. I have yet to speak

to any Brit who voted in the referendum who would have changed

their mind. The population is simply entrenched. It has become very

bitter, I am afraid. But nobody has changed anybody's mind. I think one

of the reasons, the woman over here said there was always one reason

that people voted one way or the other, but they were different. I

think they were all the same. I think that it had to do with a gut

feeling about the EU that was emotional and did not have to do

with statistics, or the single market. It was a matter of whether

the EU made you feel larger and more important and connected, or it made

you feel oppressed and smaller and Di looted in your identity. --

dilute it. We had to reason may after a lot of time saying what she

really wanted, her speech on Tuesday. What Jude you think of

that? Are you confident? This week has been pivotal in terms of what

Theresa May has presented. I was a borderline Remainer, probably

because I couldn't see a clear plan, could not understand what and how,

so I wanted more of a safety net to remain and use negotiation to better

what was a far from perfect European Union. But for me, this week has

been pivotal in getting some belief and confidence behind the plans we

have. I think the 52-48 would go to much more than 52 now. The decision

has been made and we need to get on with it. Piers Morgan, did she make

a good fist of it on Tuesday? Yes, that is a really good point. After

her speech, more people would feel more confident about the direction

the country is taking. One of the problems I have with the Labour

Party is the completely mixed messages from senior members of the

party. I am really not sure even now whether the Labour Party, perhaps

you can clear it up, whether you believe free movement of people

around Europe can apply in this country, and we still get some form

of access to the single market, because nobody in your party at the

moment seems to be prepared to put their head over the parapet and

Sayeeda Warsi. And these things are really important. I would dispute

with Lionel, I think immigration is a massive part of this referendum.

Immigration was part of that equation. I think it was key. Many

people are genuinely worried about the number of people coming here,

they felt it was out of control, they felt social cohesion was

breaking up and they voted accordingly. I say to the Labour

Party and the Conservatives, what are you going to do about it,

because we never get the answers? Emily Thornberry, in principle, is

the Labour Party in favour of immigration, or in favour of

controlling immigration? We are in favour of immigration, but fair

rules and managed migration, and we always have been. We are not in

favour of putting arbitrary limits, not in favour of saying, we should

have this number of migrants, because that is a load of nonsense.

But are there too many people coming from the EU to this country? That is

the question no one wants to answer. It is clear to all of us that

migration needs to come down and there are a number of reasons for

that. Let's have a grown-up conversation about it. The reason

there are too many people coming in is because we have a skills gap.

Whether it as plumbers, nurses, we have been getting people from Europe

to fill the jobs because we have not been training enough people

ourselves. APPLAUSE

We have also had a lot of employers taking advantage of people.

When I was last in Peterborough, there were family houses with ten

people living in them. There was this hot bedding going on, which is

not as exciting as it sounds. It was people being paid very little money,

and came over to Britain, were living on very low wages and were

undercutting the local markets. Do you get a clear message from Labour

of their view on this? No, because what MLE is describing is a system

of managed migration, which we need. If we need to recruit skills

internationally, we should do so. But we should be able to decide what

number we recruit, how, when and where. When Jeremy Corbyn came here

about two weeks ago to make his speech, on the day before, the

Labour Party was briefing that it did not support freedom of movement.

On the day, he gave the impression he did support freedom of movement.

If we remain in the single market, as many Labour politicians arguing,

we have to accept unfettered free movement of people within Europe.

Emily cannot sit there and say that she is going to have an adult

conversation and in the next breath say that the Labour Party will not

stand in the way of Brexit. It is the job of the official opposition

in parliament to scrutinise government. We know what the

Conservatives want to do. We know they want to take us out of the

single market and out of the customs union. We heard from Phillip Hammond

that they want to make ask Singapore without the sunshine. We will be a

low tax, low regulation economy. This is going to open the door to

that. The difficulty is Labour are not in

power, the Conservatives are. You are not even in opposition. What we

should be looking at as the opposition is what Theresa May has

said. I wish her the best of luck and hope she gets everything she

promises she's going to get that she promised in that speech. She said

we'd get free access to the single market, we wouldn't be paying

tariffs, there wouldn't be any red tape, we'd trade freely.

People have said this is her plan and if that is her plan, she had a

piece of paper, it had "plan" written on the top of it but it was

a series of aspirations, there was no plan there, it was contradictory.

Thank you very much. You didn't answer the question. A question for

you, Chris Grayling. One of the things that's been reported is that

the EU wants before they naught on a trade deal, us to pay ?60 billion

max, something like that to the EU before talks start. Is the

Government going to negotiate the money we owe to the EU before they

sit down and have talks? As far as I can see, there is lots of rhetoric

around, people saying things about what is going to happen, about

what's not going to happen. We haven't triggered article 50 yet so

I suggest we wait to see what happens. You have read what the EU

leaders have said, before we start talks with you, you have got to

stump up the money you owe to the club? Shall we see what actually

happens when we trigger article 50. A lot of things are being said by

people in Brussels and elsewhere. It depends what happens after we

trigger article 50. Do you think it will happen? I think we wait and

see. You have already said that. Is there a bill to pay before we start

negotiating? I'm not expecting it. Theresa May said we weren't going to

carry on contributing. Let's leave the discussions until the point they

start and we've triggered article 50: Doesn't this show the

foolishness of the threatening tone Theresa May struck on Tuesday? It's

the worst possible way to get into a negotiation... No, no, no, let me

challenge you on that. If you want to start a decent negotiation, you

should be going about it showing that we are going to have

negotiations between the parting teams. I don't agree with this. The

reason I don't think that's right. David Cameron went over there - I

was in Marrakech in Morocco at New Year on holiday. Let me finish. You

go into the markets there, it's fan, 1500 years old, you start bartering,

Israil-Lebanoning the kind of guy that goes in the first shop and says

I love all your carpets and by the way I'm not leaving here until you

screw me over -- he's the kind of guy. Theresa May said to the first

guy, I quite like your carpets but I've got a really great offer on

carpets from this guy called Donald in America and if you don't do me a

great deal, I'm just going to walk out of your shop and go to Donald

and do a deal. We get the point. I think that is a great negotiating

tactic. The woman in the third row there?

There seems to be lots of talk about plans and aspirations and

negotiations. The truth of the matter is, until we are two years

after triggering article 50, we don't know the kind of country that

we are going to end up being at the end of this process. There is talk

about low tax, you know, haven for business, there's the potential that

by the time we get to that process we could be damaging our union with

Scotland. There's potential that we are undermining some progress that's

been made in the peace process between Northern Ireland. So you are

uneasy about the two years, are you? So my request is not that we have a

second referendum, but it's about the fact that the Government comes

back to consult us again because any of those types of changes to our

country are fundamental and they deserve a referendum in their own

right. So do you want a referendum after the deal has been done, do

you? I want to know what the options really, really are, because

everybody can say, I knew what I was voting for one way or the other. But

whatever I ticked last year, I wasn't voting for a low tax haven

country, I wasn't voting for Scotland to leave the union. All

right. But what would you want, an election, referendum? What would

satisfy you in terms of the democratic responsibility you feel

you have? I would love a referendum and, as a Remainor myself, that

would help me if we did then leave, I would feel OK I can go along with

this process, we've had two years an I can buy into this now. You, there?

We ought to adopt the Scottish way of doing a referendum, keep going

until Nicola Sturgeon gets her own way.

APPLAUSE. You, Sir? I was the vote Leave

coordinator for Peterborough and I never thought I would say this but I

completely agree with Piers. Thank you. Thank you very much! With

regards to imGration, to say that wasn't one of the main things people

were concerned about is ridiculous. The fact that Labour and Liberal

Democrats are calling for second referendums or ignoring the fact of

immigration mainly because they are worried about losing left-wing

supporters is absolutely ridiculous. They are democracy deniers, to be

honest. One other question still on the Brexit issue from Elizabeth

Damazer, please? Is Boris Johnson a liability or is he brave enough to

say what the rest of us are thinking?

Emily Thornberry? I think it's very unfortunate that

the Foreign Office is led by Boris Johnson. I think that we should have

somebody who is a diplomat and, if we need to be doing negotiations

with friends and allies, we should be doing it in a way which is

diplomatic and not contrary to our interests. I think the whole Brexit

negotiations will be complicated. I think that Theresa May put forward a

whole lot of promises, you know, before the public, but actually, it

will be a compromise. I don't think it's like buying a carpet. I think

it's a bit more like a divorce. I think that you have to keep your

head and I think you have to continue to talk to one another and

you have to be prepared to do a trade-off. I think that if Theresa

May is going to go to Europe and speak on behalf of the whole of the

British public, she should be prepared to have a proper debate. I

look back to what happened... We are talking about Boris Johnson. I

thought we were. I thought we were. I now want to talk about David

Cameron. He came back... No, no, we are talking about Boris Johnson.

He's dead and buried, David Cameron, he's gone!

APPLAUSE. I don't know whether you noticed. We

did not have a plan until now. David Cameron specifically told the Civil

Service not to look. I'll cut you off because we've got to keep

moving. Lionel Shriver. Boris Johnson? I find him rather charming,

I confess. APPLAUSE.

I'm not sure he's in the right job, partly because people in the UK

don't have a sense of humour. Do you think he should be Prime

Minister? I would send him over to the US. He's one of the only British

politicians that Americans recognise. As ambassador? Or just

send him? Unlike some Americans, I'm not going to tell the British who to

appoint as ambassador. Piers Morgan? I love Boris. He's a character, he's

bright, much brighter than he suggests by some things he says. He

made a joke about the valed threats coming out of the European Union

about how they were going to punish us. It was immediately, as all jokes

are in this PC-crazed world that we now have to endure, it immediately

became a sickening Nazi taunt at Europe which, of course, the

Europeans couldn't believe their luck. This is fantastic, we can now

take the moral high ground about Nazis. Weirs, it was fraudulent, it

was fake offendedness -- Piers. Of course. Nobody actually was wounded

by this joke. APPLAUSE.

. Here is what I think about Boris and what I thought about Theresa May

this week as well. What they did was a bed of much-needed chest-beating

for this country, much-needed belief in Britain again as a country that

matters in the world and by contrast, I'm sorry Emily, you are

sitting next to me and it feels ungentlemanly but I'll read what you

said this week, you warned was now such a small player, it could be

swallowed up in trade talks. That kind of defeatest talk, I'm sorry.

OK... Let me finish. That doesn't do us any favours at all.

APPLAUSE. Boris Johnson... We are not going to

go on to that. It's not all about you Emily. He keeps having a go at

me! I know. You deserved it. You, there? Sbj a great chap and can take

this country forward. He says what a lot of us are thinking and he's got

the, can I say the word? What is it? To do it! He can do this country

proud and let's put the Great back into Great Britain.

And you? Just reflecting on some of the things people have been saying,

I think a lot of it is about personal integrity. Some on the

panel have said, I voted one way but now because my constituency this, I

represent my constituents so now I've given up my beliefs. Now I'm

going along with this. It sounds like a populist... So... Do we elect

people on personal integrity. Boris is someone whose personal integrity

we believe is genuine. And to have people who're genuine and bright -

there was a thing against experts being bright and working things out

- there is a whole piece there surely about the personal integrity

of those who represent us. Otherwise you go down a mob rule route.

Alistair Carmichael, does Boris have personal integrity? There may have

been an element of synthetic outreach. Like Lionel said, yes.

Yes. But it would be fine, ex-politicible if it was a one-off,

if this was the first time it ever happened -- inexplicable. The thing

that really worried me about this was the lack of outrage that there

was genuinely coming from the continent because I think they've

stopped being outraged by Boris by laughing at him. At a time when what

we really need is a good team pursuing Britain's best interests,

he's a distraction. Chris Grayling? Anybody that hopes Boris is going to

turn to the grey man spouting official speak is going to be sadly

disappointed. He's a great character, very popular figure, but

you have to remember something else about Boris. He's a smart guy,

speaks multiple languages, he's well versed in International Affairs and

I suspect that the overriding sense of Foreign Ministers in other

country who is've dealt with him over the last few months, finding

out what a sophisticated knowledge he has about the affairs of the

world and the knowledge. He's proving really good for us. I will

deal with him around the table. Emily Thornberry, I cut you off on

your attack. Do you want to have a brief last word? You can take quotes

out of context, Piers and you can twist them, but the trues is... What

did I... Let her have her say. You have accused me of misquoting. That

is not the worst thing in the world. Aboutly Gration -- abrigation of my

journalistic integrity. Go on Emily? There were concerns about the effect

on privatisation of the National Health Service and people were

against it, Trump says he'll have a trade deal with us within weeks.

Trade deals don't take weeks and if we are going to get bounced into a

trade deal with the US, we have be very careful to make sure that we

don't get ourselves bounced into a deal that will not do us any good.

If we were having a deal with the United States as part of Europe that

wasn't necessary to our advantage... Where were you misquoted in this,

I'm lost now. I put nit that context. Did you say we were a small

player we'd get swallowed up. Did you say that? We are a small player.

We have to be very careful not to get swallowed up. Just to clarify,

Emily, you did say what I said you said. Get over your ego and listen

to some things I'm saying. It's not about ego. I'm making an important

point. It's a really important point. We'll be dog this with trade

deals around the world. We need to be conscious of that and we need to

make sure, because once a trade deal has been signed, private companies

will be going to the British courts and saying there is a trade deal, we

demand access to your markets on these terms because that's what's

been agreed. We immediate to be careful and these things can't be

answered in half a sentence misquotes. I'll leave that and take

a point from the woman in the third row from the back, please? I was the

person that asked the question about Boris and I don't quite understand

what Emily has been saying because it didn't seem to have any relevance

to my question. What is your view? I think my view... The question is, is

he saying what we are thinking? I think he's very intelligent. My

concern is, in the position of Foreign Secretary, should he be

making the sort of inflammatory remark that that perhaps was. Your

answer to that is what? He shouldn't. I'm inclined to support

him anyway. I see, so you want him to stay. Thank you very much.

That's clear as mud, your position. But thank you very much.

We're in London next week and the week after

Another question from Kassim Jaffer, please. Will the world be a more

dangerous place from tomorrow when Donald Trump is sworn in as the 45th

President? It will certainly be more interesting! And... Yes, probably. I

am less worried about what trumpeters domestic league, because

that can often be redressed in another administration. -- what

Donald Trump does on a domestic basis. I am most worried about his

foreign policy. I think he is poorly educated about the world and he is

not calculating enough. People are always making so much about his

business experience and he is a great negotiator, but I don't see

that so far in what he has said in relation to other countries, that

kind of calculation. The one China policy is a good example. It is a

dumb policy. Tie one is a separate country, a democracy. Don't tell the

Chinese. And China does not control it, and the US supports it with a

lot of arms. That is the reality, but the US goes along with the

Chinese delusion that it is still part of China. Well, you know what,

going along with that delusion doesn't cost us anything. So OK,

it's a little annoying to have two defy reality like that and to pander

to someone's vanity. But if you're going to stand up and say, I don't

know, we are going to call your bluff, there actually are two

chinas, you have to get something out of it. And the only thing that

the United States would get out of it was trouble, so you keep your

mouth shut and you go along with it. And that's the kind of calculation

that the President needs to make, and I'm worried he's not capable of

it. And stuff with China, this is not funny. You don't want to offend

their pride. I want to put to you a slightly different point which was

that you read the Michael Gove interview with Donald Trump, in

which he said Nato was obsolete and he would certainly look at getting

rid of the allowance. Can we come to that? My immediate reaction to

Lionel is that one of the reasons that Thommo Trump got elected is

because he will stand up to China and say, I don't agree with you. He

is going to reinforce American power, which is why a lot of

Americans like him and voted for him. In relation to Nato, he said

the structure of Nato was obsolete. Why? Because he looked at the maths.

72% of all the spending of Nato is consumed by the Americans. Of the

other 27 members of Nato, only four countries pay their 2% of GDP

towards Nato. We are one of them. That means 23 other countries do not

pay what they should pay. And Donald Trump is a business guy. He is

going, hang on, why are we paying all the money? Where is the

contribution from all these people who the moment they have any trouble

they come to the Americans and asked us to help. He is looking at it as

an obsolete structure that needs to be dragged kicking and screaming

into a better deal for America. Frankly, I think he's right about

that. Will the world be a more dangerous place? I don't think so. I

come back to what he is at his heart. I have known him for ten

years and I keep being told I have to call him a monster, because that

is what the lemmings have agreed. He is not a monster. He is not an

angel, but he is not a monster. He is a very smart business guy who has

consistently proven people wrong. At the early stage of his campaign,

then he won the nomination when nobody said he could, then he beat

Hillary Clinton. We underestimate him at his peril -- at our peril. He

will not look on warfare as a good deal but as a massive drain on

American resources. He knows that all he has to do to go down as a

great, successful President, and very popular if people is this off,

is to get American jobs back to Americans from outside America, from

the outsourcing that has wrecked the rust belt states. He has to keep

America safe, tighten up on immigration and deliver on the

things that were the core messages that propelled him to the White

House. If he can do that, and I don't think he will be declaring war

in the way that Hillary Clinton might have done, one of the great

hawks of modern times in America... I say to people about Trump, this,

give him a chance. You don't have to like him. He shoots from the hip,

says what he is thinking, sometimes goes over the top, but give the guy

a chance and judge him on his actions and you might be pleasantly

surprised. APPLAUSE

I hear what Piers says and I hope he is right.

I hope that what Donald Trump has said is not necessarily the person

that he is. I think that if it is right that he does not mean he will

trample all over the Paris climate change agreement, I am pleased. If

he is not going to move the American Embassy to Jerusalem and wrecked the

two state solution, I will be very happy. If he is not going to try and

undermine the Iranians nuclear deal, again I would be very encouraged and

I will judge him by his actions. The difficulty is, if you look at the

people he has appointed, that kind of scenes to underline the sort of

things that he has been saying. Not to criticise Piers, which is not my

job, but when he talks about his journalistic integrity, Donald Trump

did not say that Nato had an obsolete structure, he said it was

obsolete. Now, our defence is based on Nato and our agreements with

America and the other states of Europe. And we need to have Nato and

we need to have an American President... Donald Trump wants to

continue with Nato, he just does not want America to continue paying an

irrationally high amount of money to support everybody else. What we have

to do, as Britain, we are America's closest and longest standing friend.

We are in a position of some power, authority and influence, and I think

we need a Prime Minister who is prepared to say, when necessary, no,

Mr President, that is wrong. Donald Trump is half British. His mum was

born and raised in Scotland until she was 18. He loves this country.

His mother absolutely loved the Queen. If I am Britain, coming out

of the European Union, and our biggest purchaser of our exports in

the world after the EU is America, and we have Donald Trump saying, I

am half British, the most powerful man in the world, I want a deal, we

should be tearing the roof down to get it. All right. Listen, the two

of you, you've done well, made a big contributions. You've taken up too

much time compared with the three people here and the audience. What

do your Muslim friends think of your staunch defence of Trump? We don't

want any more from Piers. When you butter him up by, please, just be a

little nicer, it's not an attack, it's a little love letter to say,

you have been a little naughty. Actually I said the Muslim ban was

an outrage and he had to withdraw it. Guess what, he has done and now

says he wants tighter controls on people coming from terror countries.

I agree that you have to judge people by what they do in office.

The United States is our closest, most important ally. We have

long-standing ties and we should continue to do so and we will work

with the Trump administration. Theresa May will go to meet Donald

Trump shortly. There are already changes taking place to deal with

the incoming administration. If you look at the broad appointments,

there is a range of people with different experiences. Some past

Cabinet ministers reappointed. We should be optimistic, should engage

with the new administration. I don't think the world is more dangerous

because of Donald Trump becoming President of the United States. The

world is a dangerous place anyway and the trouble will not come from a

new administration in the United States, but from appalling things in

the Middle East with Isil, for example. We need to work closely

with the United States to combat those threats, where the real danger

is coming from. I think I can agree with Piers to this extent, and it is

that Donald Trump, tomorrow, is inaugurated into an office that is

just too important for us and our people not to give him the benefit

of the doubt. So we do have to give him the opportunity to show how he

governs, regardless of how he campaigned. But he might not be a

monster, but Piers, this is a man who thinks it is OK to mock disabled

people, OK to marginalise ethnic minorities, he thinks it is OK to

talk about women in a way that, frankly, should never have been

allowed to happen. We have been through that a lot during the

campaign. The question is really what does it mean for this country?

The question was for the world, is it a more dangerous place? It is a

more worrying place at least. From our point of view, the thing that

concerns me is that I think the government's noses out of joint

because Nigel Farage has been in their and they have some catching up

to do. Donald Trump has said he is going to reinstate American torture

programme. We, in this country, have historically shared intelligence

with America. We do not share intelligence with countries that use

torture. I think his Attorney General said he would not allow that

to happen. You have to hope so. It is on the record the people he has

appointed have said they will not do it. In the Supreme Court, we had a

judgment where MI5 agents in this case were complicit with American

rendition of dissidents to Libya. That is the sort of thing that can

happen when the special relationship goes wrong. Have you been listening

to the hearings? I have not. I saw the woman who has been appointed as

the Education Secretary. If you listen to the hearings, you will

hear these points are dressed. You may not believe what they say. We

have been here before, David, that is the point. I just heard Piers

describe Donald Trump as a smart businessman. Let's hear your view.

We have seen in this country a smart businessman who is now out on his

yacht, leaving BHS workers without a job or a pension. So sometimes smart

businessmen can leave a trail of destruction.

APPLAUSE You, sir, with the white hair and

the spectacles. It's a bit like the referendum. The

Americans have voted for Trump, he should be given his chance and he

might surprise people. I think he is good for the country. I'm going to

move on because we will have plenty of time to talk about Donald Trump

as the presidency unfolds. Samantha Hemraj, please. Should the council

be allowed to raise tax by 15% for social care? Shouldn't this be

coming out of central government budgets? Surrey County Council's

leader and Chris Grayling's constituency is in Surrey, said he

wanted to raise council tax by 15%, for which he has to have a

referendum. He is proposing a referendum because he cannot afford

to pay for social care. Are you in favour of this? He should certainly

be able to ask the question and it is for the people of Surrey to

decide whether he should do it. How would you advise him? There is a

question about where responsibility lies in terms of payments. I think

the solution for health and social is greater integration between the

two. On a micro level it is happening in my constituency. He

says he has run out of money and they can't do it unless they raise

15%. I think the solution is local integration and local control of

budgets. If you centralise everything, you don't get the

integration that creates both savings and a better service. As to

whether Surrey is doing the right thing, David will have to get up and

defend what he is doing. He will have to make the case that he needs

to do this rather than bring efficiencies elsewhere and the

people of Surrey will decide. What is he meant to do when you have cut

170 million of his budget? It is a challenging time for local

government and central government. In order to make the books balance

and deliver good services and make sure we don't put up your taxes, we

have had to take tough, challenging decisions. That is the same with

national and local government. David's challenge as leader of

Surrey County Council is to explain why it is necessary to do this and

let the people of Surrey decide. This is the first council to go to a

referendum to put up its tax state, because it says central government

is not funding it properly. Are they right?

It's a national problem and the Government is totally in denial

about this at the moment. APPLAUSE.

I was in the chamber of the House of Commons and I heard Theresa May say

that the problems with the NHS are "a small number of incidents where

unacceptable practices have taken place". I think she needs to get out

more. I think she actually needs to see what's going on. The difficulty

is, the crisis in social care is what social care and the NHS, you

are right to this extent, absolutely go hand in hand together. If you

don't look after elderly people in their homes, if nobody comes round

to see them until lunch time to get them up or there's nobody there if

they fall over, they are going to end up in A which means they'll

end up in hospital, then they won't be able to get out because they

won't be able to get out again. Of course this is one of the reasons,

there are others, as to why it is we are having a crisis in the NHS. For

local authorities to have all this money cut away from them and then

for the Government to say it's all right, it's all your fault, it's all

your responsibility, you can raise council tax and make it up - you

can't. The amount of money that's been taken out of social care cannot

be made up by raising council tax locally but actually this is a

national issue, it's a national crisis and it's about time the

Government woke up to it. What would you do where would you find the

money? I would never have as my priority when every budget comes

forward to keep cutting corporation tax for a start. I do not believe we

are a country that cannot afford to have sufficient for resources. You

have a child sleeping on two chairs whilst waiting for hours to be seen

at A I don't believe we are a country that actually is about that.

You are saying corporation tax? Yes. That is a small proportion of tax

isn't it? It depends. If we leave the European Union in the way

Theresa May is saying we might have to, she's going to cup corporation

tax, I think it's ?120 billion over five years. How much would you put

it up? I would look again at how it is we can make sure that social care

works with health and yes, it has to be that the two are to be integrated

and yes, there can be savings made, but I would make sure that we

introduced again - I mean do you remember NHS Direct? We used to be

able to ring up an expert to speak to for proper advice. I've rung up

the alternative, they tell me to go to A, when I get there I say I'm

sorry, but I rang the number and was told to get to A immediately. Of

course the A are full. You should go to a GP. Yes, and that would be

good wouldn't it, but look at the difficulty people have in getting

appointments at GPs, that's why they go to A as well. The man in

spectacles in grey? Why are we so averse all the time to not raise

income tax when our sfruct screaming out for money?

APPLAUSE. Alistair Carmichael? Well you think

it's bad now, wait until Philip Hammond gets his own way and we are

a low tax low regulation country out of the single market. We were going

to get ?350 million a week for the NHS, that doesn't seem to be coming

any time soon. That's because we haven't left the European Union yet.

Oh, hold on, hold on! So is it going to come? Hold on, you said it's

because we haven't left yet, is it going to happen? The Government will

take decisions about public spending when we have left the European

Union. But hang on, you are teasing us. You sat here before the

referendum and said it would be ?350 million into the NHS, now you are

saying what? What I said at the time, that the Government would be

able to take decisions about its priorities when we have left the

European Union. That's a fat lot of good. If back pedalling ever becomes

an Olympic sport, you have seen a gold-winning performance there.

We need a serious conversation about this. I would like to get all the

parties together into an Independent Commission, trying to take some of

the political heat out of this because frankly, every year it's

another year, another crisis. GPs, A, it's going to be mental health

the year after that. All we do is shift money around to patch it up,

we need to have a sustainable long-term solution.

Lionel Shriver? I think we do need to address the issue of corporation

tax because there seems to be some economic confusion. I know that it

seems sensible that if you take more money then you get more money, with

corporation tax that's not the way it works. Ireland lowered their tax,

they made money. That's the why we make money. You bring in inward

investment. There are more employees, they pay more income tax.

That's the why you get money. APPLAUSE.

Piers Morgan? In 1948 when the NHS was launched by Labour - I'm going

to agree with a lot of what you said Emily - a population of 50 million

people, the average life expectancy 66 for men, 71 for women. Today, 63

million population, up by 13 million, men are living to 77, 11

years longer on average, women to 81, ten years longer. There's the

problem. We are living a lot longer. It's a problem if you can't cope

with it. The system cannot cope with the extra volume of people coming

in. The social care system, which is supposed to mean that people can go

in and then be taken care of, is collapsing. The funding for it is

being withdrawn. We have a Tory-led council taking on its own Government

where its own ministers live and having to humiliate them. We've got

front-page pictures of grandmothers on trolleys for 24-36 hours, a

four-year-old kid lying on the floor in our hospitals and a Prime

Minister saying, crisis, what crisis? It's not good enough. What

is the solution? The other part of the equation is, we also have to be

accountable. Yes we can beat up the politicians but we have to be

accountable. I've been in A on a Friday night, it's like the Wild

West in there. We are putting so much extra pressure on the hospitals

with a lot of meaningless irrelevant injuries that don't need the

treatment, so we have to look at that. I personally would have GP

surgeries in every A and I would get the Government to pay for it.

Secondly, this is a national issue, not a council, it should be dealt

with by the Government, they have got to put more money in. We have to

contribute too, through taxation or national insurance. But the National

Health Service, go and live in America for a bit like I have and

you will see how brilliant the National Health Service actually is.

And we need to support it and we need to help it.

APPLAUSE. All right, look, a lot of people

have hair hands up. I'll come to you but I want to add in this element, a

question from Dusan Obradovic, please? Why are we giving away so

much money to foreign aid when we are cutting back on vital services

at home? We are giving 0.7% of our GDP which is ?12 billion. Chris

Grayling briefly, please, then I want to hear from the audience? We

have heard about immigration, we have seen the refugee crisis in

Europe over the last 12-18 months. If we want to create a world where

thousands of people don't cross borders to try to come to Europe, we

have to help those countries develop. One of the great successes,

understated, is that we are seeing poverty fall in the developing

world, literacy rise. The money we spend is all about helping the

processes continue and easing the pressures of people coming across

borders to get here. Dusan? I agree with Chris what he's saying there.

At the end of the day, the money we give out is all coming out of

taxpayers' money, I'm sure it is, the people are contributing. At the

end of the day, I can understand, but when over the years I've seen,

as a young guy brought up here, and see places shut for special needs

people and kids, the youth of today haven't got the vital services, the

old people as well are being cut back, at the end of the day it's all

gone pear-shaped. You think we should cut back on what we do

overseas? I've not really gone into the statisticical side, but from

what I gather, we've given away ?50 billion in five years in foreign aid

and at the end of the day, we talk about the national wealth, the old

people. At the same time, you guys are the ones who make these

decisions. Don't look at me! The woman at the front? I'm a retired

social worker who worked with older people in my last job. I was retired

on ill health grounds after years and years and years of excessive

stress. I can tell you that the Government's cuts to social care are

not funny. What is your remedy? Did you believe the council should raise

the money? No, I don't. Absolutely not. Do you think we should cut

foreign aid? Absolutely not. For starters, I think there is money

there, but I think the Government makes choices about what they do

with it. They make choices about whether they change the top rate of

tax, for example. We have very, very wealthy - we are a very wealthy

country and to suggest we can't look after our people. Food banks created

over the years... He's saying... Hang on, say it again because we

missed you? Over these years I've seen food banks and you are saying,

we give away all our money, why have we got food banks? We haven't given

away all our money. Why not have a separate tax system for your people,

you pay for all of this, and people who don't want to contribute don't.

I may be retired but I still pay my taxes, I can assure you. We are all

the same people, people. Let me finish, please. Homelessness in this

country, the like of which we have never seen in our lifetimes before,

we are seeing that now. Old people who can't get out of hospital, that

is one of the problems in the NHS, and I'm sick to death of listening

to the Tory party saying, oh, we are doing this and we are giving them

extra money - they are not. Chris Grayling, do you want to answer that

briefly? All I can say the health care budget is rising year after

year after year and the challenge we have with an ageing population, new

treatments almost every week, keeping up is a real challenge. You

cut 40% from our older social care budget. We are coming towards the

end. You, Sir? The debate is shaped wrong, we are here saying we have to

cut here and there to get the deficit down and we are not asking

those at the top to pay more? ! It's a really important point. We don't

sit there saying, how can we afford the tax cuts, but we sit there

saying how we can afford paying to just keep people fed and housed. The

important point on this is that the amount of tax paid by the wealthiest

in our society has risen and Riz none the last few years. The most

recent figures on inequality show that inequality in this country, the

gap between the richest and poorest is at its lowest levels... Depends

how you measure it. Do you hear often the argument that we should

cut foreign aid in order to pay for domestic aid, the National Health

Service, welfare? Yes, the Daily Mail's been running a campaign about

this for some time. I think that we pay 0.7% of our income as a country

to develop the developing world because it's the right thing to do.

Yes. Place plawz Because it's the right thing to do. And because we

are an inter-connectled world. We are an island but we are not an

island. But Emily, it's also about choices. Yes. And about doing the

right thing. I agree. Some of the stories that anger people about

foreign aid, there was a story in the Daily Mail about an Ethiopian

pop girl all-girl band backed by ?5 million of UK taxpayers money. That

is the kind of figure for that kind of project when people look at

grannies on trolleys in our hospitals for two days and they go,

this isn't right. That is where I think we have to look at this. You

have 30 seconds, Alistair? So you cut it, believe me, there'll still

be food banks and people on trolleys. The reason we pay that,

it's an international obligation and it goes to help people in other

parts of the world who frankly would love to have the problems that we

are complaining about today. I don't diminish any of them, but frankly

you've got to put this in some sort of context. I would love to have the

time to bring more of you in, but our hour is up, I'm afraid.

Apologies to those with your hands up.

We're in London next week, with among others, the Shadow Home

To come and take part in our audience in London

or Wallasey, go to our website, or call 0330 123 99 88.

If you are listening tonight on Radio 5 live, the debate goes

Thank you to our panel and to the audience here tonight.

Einstein replaced Newton's theory of universal gravitation

with a more accurate theory - general relativity.

So, why's my apple falling? Well, it's not.