11/01/2018 Question Time

Tonight, we are in Islington,

and welcome to Question Time.

And with us tonight,

the new Housing Minister,

appointed this week,

passionate Brexiteer, Dominic Raab.

Labour's Shadow Secretary for Women

and Equalities, Dawn Butler.

The businesswoman who took

the government to the Supreme Court

to get Parliament to vote on Article

50 and won, Gina Miller.

Stand-up comic, radio presenter

and writer Nish Kumar.

And scourge of so-called

political correctness,

friend of Donald Trump,

journalist and broadcaster

Piers Morgan.

Just before we take the first

question, you can, of course,

as always, argue from home

about the issues that

are raised here.

No longer, I am told, on text.

But hashtag BBCQT on Twitter,

Facebook and on Instagram.

Our first question is from

Kerry Buckingham, please.

When are ridiculous suggestions

of a second EU vote going to stop?

Let's give the voters who spoke

first time what they voted for,

and let's just hurry

up and leave.

APPLAUSE

Well, this must be in the light

of what Nigel Farage has said today

about how he was coming around

to the idea, that is what you are

on about, that there might be

a second referendum.

Gina Miller, you've got Nigel Farage

going for a second referendum.

Are you in favour?

I don't think it's

a second referendum.

It's a vote on the deal,

whatever that is.

But I want to say that none of this

is helpful to anybody,

this whole "Leave, Remain,

you're right, we're wrong".

We've actually got six months,

from April to October,

for this government to show some

competence, to go out there and get

the best possible deal they can.

And then at that point,

I think the people should have a say

on whatever that deal

and the other options are.

Because I've invested a lot of time,

energy, my safety to give

Parliament a voice.

And it was a weak,

dishonest one, in my view.

And so I don't trust

Parliament any more.

I think it's got to be the people's

vote, and a people's vote

on the options at the end

of September, October this year.

A people's vote, not

a parliament vote?

Yes.

APPLAUSE

OK, so Dominic Raab,

what do you make of Farage saying

"Maybe I'm reaching the point

of thinking we should

have a second referendum"?

Are you beginning

to think that, too?

No.

I think it's interesting, though,

that on the two fringes,

whether it's the Lib Dems

who are in favour of a second

referendum, or Ukip,

neither of those were originally.

I mean, Vince Cable,

now the leader of the Lib Dems,

in 2016 at their conference said he

thought it was wrong in principle,

counter-productive in practice.

NIgel Farage wasn't in favour

of an original referendum.

He said vote for Ukip,

we'll just take you straight out.

So I don't think what they are doing

is a matter of democratic principle.

It's raw political expedience.

Now, from my point of view,

not only is it wrong in principle -

we have the vote, let's get

on and deliver a successful Brexit -

but actually if we did have a second

referendum, the message

we would send to the EU at this

crucial time in negotiations is that

if they offer us the worst terms,

actually we may come crawling back.

I think what we should do right now

is show some political ambition,

should have some economic self

confidence, go into 2018

proving the doubters wrong.

We need to get the best deal

for the whole of this country...

Well, why isn't the

government doing that?

Well, you keep...

You're not negotiating anything.

The incompetence has

been extraordinary.

Really?

APPLAUSE

All right.

You said Parliament

should have its say.

We passed the Article

50 legislation.

Absolutely.

We've passed through the Commons

stage the EU Withdrawal bill.

We won 42 out of 43 votes.

Now you're shifting

the goalposts yet again.

You said we haven't

made any negotiations.

I haven't shifted any goalposts.

Hold on, hold on.

We got the first phase agreement.

We dealt with that crucial issue

of EU nationals, UK expats.

We've moved on to trade talks.

Stop shifting the

Democratic goalposts.

Let me just ask you a question.

You say you're against

the second referendum.

If it had gone the way, you said...

No, I didn't.

Well, let me finish.

He knows what's coming.

I know what's coming.

Well I'll read you what's coming.

"If the verdict is to stay

in the EU", you said,

"and it's close, I think those that

don't want to revisit it

"should pause for a few

years and then, at 2020,

"have a second vote".

No.

What I said...

That's wrong.

Well, it's from the House magazine,

the 9th of June 2016.

I'll tell you exactly what I said.

Did you sue the House magazine?

No, I didn't, but I did correct it

at the time and I'll

correct you as well,

David.

What I said was, when asked

whether this would put to bed

the EU issue forever,

I said you'll never put

down that issue forever,

not least because in legislation

there is an EU lock which would

enable us to have a second

referendum and it would obviously

come up in a future

leadership contest.

But what I did say is actually

we should hold the EU to its word

and give them a chance to deliver

the deal, and then we should judge

it according to whether it's

delivered on the deal.

And I very clearly said...

"Revisit".

Did you use the word "revisit"?

I was asked...

Did you use the word "revisit"?

I was asked whether under any

circumstances we would revisit

and I said, "Of course,

you're not going to stop

"people debating the EU".

So why shouldn't she

revisit, in that case?

Well, she can, and she can

make the case for it.

But let's leave the EU first,

finish these negotiations,

get a better deal for the country...

I think Dominic is frightened of

the will of the people on that vote.

APPLAUSE

I'll come back to you.

Dawn Butler.

It was painful, the first phase

of the negotiations,

absolutely painful.

The Prime Minister struggled

to get an agreement.

And the thing is this,

we have to look after jobs,

trade and investment.

And all those things have

to be considered before

we could even leave the EU.

So do I agree on a

second referendum?

I think that's Nigel Farage

looking for attention.

And I don't think we should

give him any more attention

than he already gets,

because I think he gets enough.

I think that the government has

fought every single step

of the way when we say

we want to have a meaningful

vote in Parliament.

We put forward an Opposition Day

debate and Parliament made it clear

that we wanted to have a meaningful

vote on the deal.

And then we had to have another

vote that the government

was trying to derail.

And then we beat the government.

Come on!

We beat the government on that.

And now that we will have

a meaningful vote on the deal,

and I think that's important.

What do you make of 78% of Labour

voters saying there should be

a referendum on the deal?

There's a mixture of views

all around, which is fine.

78% of Labour voters.

That's fine.

Your own constituency

are all pro-Remain.

That's fine.

Everybody can have a view.

I mean, I voted to remain.

I was really disappointed

with the result, but the end

result is the result.

We have to wait while we go

through this painful process

of the second phase,

and then we'll see

what the end deal is.

And then we have a vote

in Parliament.

I'll come to members

of the audience in a moment.

Nish Kumar.

First of all, of course Nigel Farage

wants a second referendum

because at the moment I literally

don't know how he's filling his

days, between sort of campaigning

for alleged sex predators in Alabama

and accepting far right

invitations in Germany,

I really don't know.

I mean he maybe just

needs to take up a hobby.

But my concern is, when we talk

about the best possible deal

and we talk about the fact

that the country has spoken,

I don't really understand

what either of those two

things looks like.

Because what we said

in the referendum is that we wanted

to leave, but did that mean remain

part of the single market?

If so, if we're leaving the single

market, how does that

translate in Ireland?

How does that work with

the hard or soft border?

There's a lot of questions that need

to be answered and it's a much more,

complication question

than we were originally asked.

So I don't really see

the problem with having been

asked the first time.

Why can't we be asked a second

time once we actually

know what we're being

asked to do?

OK.

Man in the fourth row.

Yes.

If we actually go back to the vote

in 2016 we were told exactly

what we were being asked to do.

A leaflet was sent out

by the British government to every

household in the country that said,

"This is your decision,

"the government will implement

what you decide".

And it was clearly stated that

leaving the European Union meant

leaving the single market.

David Cameron said that,

George Osborne said that,

the whole Remain campaign said that.

So it's about time that

the Remainers at the moment stop

with these delaying tactics,

stop asking for more and more votes

until you get the result you wanted

and just accept the biggest

political turnout in British voter

history, accepted the result and got

on with what the people said.

I'm really sorry.

I have to ask again.

I hate to keep bringing

it back to this one

incredibly important issue.

How does that translate

with the soft or hard border

between northern and southern

Ireland?

How does us leaving the single

market work when Ireland is an EU

member state that is part

of the single market

and shares a border?

Is this a sort of covert ploy

by Leave voters to reunite Ireland?

Because if it is, that is a real

surprise to everyone.

I'm actually part Irish

and I support a united Ireland,

so I'd be quite happy with that.

But I'm pretty sure that wasn't

the point of the referendum

or the Conservative Party.

The woman in the third

row from the back.

I just want to go back

to the current government

and Dominic, your statement.

How do you expect us

to trust your party when just then

a quote that came out of your mouth

you will not be held

accountable for?

That's the point.

A quote that came out of your mouth

and then there was still avoidance.

Can answer your question?

I want to.

That was taken in the referendum.

There was a selective quote taken

by the House magazine.

I was asked about it at the time

and I came straight out and said

all I'm saying is that you can't say

permanently debate will be

locked down forever.

But what we need to do is implement

the referendum and that

means leaving the EU.

If people wanted to make

the argument that is being made

for a second referendum,

when we had the original

legislation back in 2015 and decided

on it, that argument should

have been made then.

No one argued then that we

should have a referendum

on the outcome of the deal.

It is just shifting the Democratic

goalposts and that's not on.

Piers Morgan.

We are in Islington here,

which is the heart of

Arsenal Football Club.

My team.

And we recently got dumped out

of the FA Cup in the third

round for the first time

in over 20 years.

And I would like to

play that game again.

I don't like the result.

I would like us to have

won and I would like to

have a rematch next Sunday.

Yeah, I'd like to have

a rematch because...

But, Piers, in 2014, you said,

in an interview with Giselle,

that it was too complicated

and that none of us knew

what it was all about.

Everyone's had their say.

If I could just finish my point.

Can we leave the Arsenal analogy now

for the rest of the country

who may not be so involved?

The analogy is bleedingly obvious,

which is this, you don't get

to replay a football match

and if you get the result

you don't like.

And you don't get to replay

a referendum when you don't get

the result you like.

APPLAUSE

Now, I speak

as somebody who voted Remain.

I wasn't entirely sure,

and I'll tell you why.

When I was editor of

the Daily Mirror for ten years,

at the start of the 2000s,

we had a big question

about whether to enter the euro,

the single currency.

And I had Tony Blair and Gordon

Brown and Peter Mandelson,

Alastair Campbell, a lot of business

people who you are now seeing

popping up telling us

about the horrors of leaving Europe,

all of them were telling me

if we did not enter

the single currency,

the euro, this country

was dead, financially dead.

Well, guess what, we didn't.

Gordon Brown stopped that.

Let me finish.

Hashtag just saying!

I was there at the time,

talking to them on a daily basis.

I know what they were

all saying at the time.

I know how it then played out.

The point is that we didn't

enter the euro, actually

it was the best thing we ever did,

to not enter the euro.

So I take a lot of what these

experts say with a pinch of salt.

But on the point of

the question, no, we can't

have another referendum.

It doesn't matter who is asking

for it, whether it is Gina,

whether it is Nigel Farage.

I'm not asking for a referendum.

The people had their say.

And the man made a very good point

there, the gentleman there,

about what we were told this

vote was about.

June 12, 2016, David

Cameron on Andrew Marr's

programme on the BBC.

"What the British public will be

voting for is to leave the EU

"and leave the single market".

No ambiguity.

So this idea that we were all too

stupid, nobody knew...

They also said there would be

£350 million a week for the NHS.

What happened to that?

APPLAUSE

Let me go to the woman over there.

We need to bring more

members of the audience in.

The woman on the very left.

Yes, you.

Dominic Raab and many others keep

talking about the best deal

for Britain, and that we will now

proceed to get the best deal.

If you're so confident that this

is going to be the best deal, why

not put it to another referendum?

Because I think fundamentally

if we told the EU now that

if they offered us the worst deal

we might come back in,

that would virtually guarantee,

as a matter of common sense

diplomacy that they would.

So I think that would totally

undermine our negotiating position.

But when I talk about the best deal,

I want to give effect

to the referendum, take back control

of our money, our laws

and our borders.

But I also want to continue the good

things about the EU,

the co-operation on trade,

on security and all

sorts of other areas.

My father was Czech.

We are leaving the EU.

I will feel no less European

on my side of the family after that.

I just want to get away

from the undemocratic club,

take back control of our own laws,

and that we're going to do.

The man up there.

You, sir.

The problem with the referendum

is it's too simple a question

and too complex an issue.

And how we leave Europe

is absolutely crucial.

I run my own small business.

If we leave Europe with no trade

deal it would be disastrous

for my business and the people

I employ.

So it's absolutely crucial.

I don't have a problem

with a second referendum.

I mean, Parliament weren't

even going to get a vote

on it at one stage.

But there's another way

of dealing with this.

The Labour Party are

a shambles on Europe.

Why don't you have the guts to make

the general election a referendum

on Europe and clarify your stance

versus what the Conservatives

come back with in a deal

from leaving Europe?

Why don't you have the guts

to clarify your stance and make

the next general election

about Europe and play out in a full

general election campaign

where everybody can be informed

about the true issues behind

whether to stay or leave Europe?

We'll put it to Dawn,

but what do you have

the Labour Party campaign say?

Well, I would have the Labour Party

with 78% of their supporters wanting

to stay within Europe.

Why don't you come off the fence,

believe we should at least stay

within the single market,

and make that the issue you campaign

in the general election.

Dawn?

You raise a couple of issues

there in regards to your business,

and I think that's the reality

of the situation, and that's

what has to be considered in regards

to negotiating the deal.

I mean, I hope there's a general

election this year and,

if there is one, then you will be

clear on our manifesto.

The Labour Party has been very clear

in regards to the single market

and the customs union.

You haven't been

remotely clear about it.

What is the position of the party?

On the single market,

what we are saying is

that we are looking at goods,

services and immigration.

Are we staying or are we leaving?

Are we staying or leaving?

It has to be negotiated.

Do we stay in the single

market or do we leave?

Piers, you have already...

It's a simple question.

Yeah, it's a simple question,

but it's a complex situation,

as the gentleman said.

What's the answer?

Do you want me to speak, Piers,

or do you want to keep interrupting?

Yes or no to these

fundamental questions.

Piers, do you want me to respond,

or do you just want to keep it -

because, if it's your

show, carry on.

I honestly have no idea

what Labour's position is.

You've made the point.

Dawn.

You're not allowing me to speak.

No, but he will now

allow you to speak.

You speak and then we'll go

to this gentleman here.

So, in the customs union,

we are saying that,

at the end of the day,

we can be in something that

will look very similar

to the customs union.

That is what the Labour

Party position is.

But it's all about negotiation.

On the single market, we want to

negotiate access to the single

market. The best deal for businesses

and people and jobs. We need to have

that negotiated. That is Labour's

position. You can't just stay in.

Stop, stop.

I think we'd have to ask

ourselves, if we went into Europe,

what ye are we returning to? They've

made it clear that they want to have

a European army and things that

everyone, when we were in the EU, we

voted against. This is what we would

be returning to, fighting the same

battles over battles over and over

again and, no matter how much we

fight them, the ideas would come

back.

And you, in the front row for

the

Just to go on to what Dominic Raab

said earlier, he said that they had

that they had a really

successful year where they sorted

out the rights of EU nationals

living inside the UK and the rights

of EU nationals living here

and British nationals living abroad,

but that's a pretty simple issue.

That's something which can be sorted

out within a couple weeks.

You say that the rights of the EU

nationals here will be protected

and the rights of British nationals

abroad will be protected.

And then you say, a good

tone for negotiations,

and you can move on.

But it took the Government

a year to sort it out,

and I think Gina made a very

valid point, saying,

how can we trust the Government

to deliver a good deal

if it took them so long

to deliver on something like this?

Do you want briefly

to answer that point.

It didn't take a full year.

We started negotiations

in April and we got to that

position in December.

But it was a much thornier

technical issue, because it

wasn't just the status,

it was things like health insurance,

things like pensions.

It was tricky, and the reason it

took so long, we said,

the Government said,

even before we start

the formal negotiations,

let's resolve this issue,

because real people's lives

are at stake.

The EU took a rather

dogmatic line and said, no,

we're not going to do that.

But, in any event, the fact is a lot

of people were saying we wouldn't

get to that first phase deal.

We did.

I think there's a much stronger

spirit of cooperation.

Let's look for the win-win deal.

It's not a zero-sum game.

A deal that works for Britain,

that works for the EU,

and actually, you know,

Dawn has just articulated a position

that is rather similar

to the Government position,

which is that we want to get

the best out of the relationship,

on trade, on security.

This is what we said

at the beginning.

We said we needed

a transitional deal.

I didn't interrupt you.

We said it from the beginning.

The Tories were saying

there would be no transitional deal.

Now you're saying there will be.

I didn't interrupt you, Dawn,

but the answer to the question that

Piers and others asked is,

of course we have to leave

the customs union, of course we have

to leave the single market.

Jeremy Corbyn told Labour MPs

on Monday night that

that was the position,

whereas Keir Starmer said we should

leave the position open.

So it is a total shambles.

We are in government,

we've got to lead.

There is no real choice here.

You can't stay in the single

market and leave the EU.

But there are all sorts of other

ways, through trade deals,

through security cooperation,

that we can have a strong

relationship going forward.

Before we take another question,

Hereford is we're going to be next

Thursday, and Dumfries

the week after that.

On the screen are the details of how

to apply, and I'll give

them in full at the end.

I'll take a question

from Josh Anthony, please.

Josh Anthony.

With the resignation of Toby Young,

are we giving in to mob rule

by a snowflake generation?

Yes, Toby Young's resignation

after a very brief, a day or two

only, I think, in post.

Piers Morgan.

Look, he said some

distasteful things.

No one is questioning that.

They were things he said

in the past, and Dawn

and Angela Rayner, amongst others

on the Labour side, led

a charge to get him sacked.

And he eventually quit

before, I suspect,

he was about to be sacked.

So they got their scalp.

Toby Young is off this little quango

that nobody had really heard about

anyway.

Nobody had really heard

about Toby Young before

this week, probably.

And he's now gone.

What it raises to me is the question

of hypocrisy and double

standards and consistency.

Because there is a Labour MP called

Jared O'Mara, who is still

a Labour MP.

He hasn't been sacked.

He posted far worse stuff.

He is suspended, I think.

He's suspended, but he's not sacked.

He posted far worse stuff and,

when it all came out and a lot

of the stuff was presented

to the world, Angela Rayner...

Hang on.

Jared's posted worse

stuff than Toby Young?

Yes, absolutely.

Are you kidding me?!

You'll get a chance

to respond in a moment.

I'll finish my point.

You can go and see what

Jared O'Mara posted.

You can make your own mind up.

Everyone who's seen them will know

what I'm talking about.

Angela Rayner, who led

the charge against Toby Young,

she stood up next to him and said,

I stand by this guy,

this is in the past,

he said sorry, we need to move on.

So he is still a Labour MP.

So he is not, apparently,

as bad as Toby Young.

Let me come to John McDonnell,

number two in the Labour Party.

He said in 2010, on Any Questions,

he wanted to assassinate

Margaret Thatcher.

He then repeated this story

gleefully at a Labour meeting

with the same Angela Rayner sitting

next to him, who was

laughing and nodding

as he recounted the story.

Second story involving

John McDonnell.

OK, that's enough, thank you.

No, Piers, you've made two points.

Dawn Butler.

I'll come back to you if necessary.

Let me finish my point.

In a sentence, please.

The finish of the point is this.

He then also repeated

a story about Esther McVey,

who someone had said

should be lynched.

My point is this, what is actually

worse, what Toby Young may have

said a few years ago,

in clumsy, stupid

and offensive posts

on Twitter...?

45,000 tweets, he deleted.

You'll get a chance

to respond in a minute.

Piers, Piers.

Piers...

I do not want a monologue.

Wait, Dawn.

My point is simply...

The question is, are we giving in to

mob rule by a snowflake generation?

Yes or no.

My point is I think we are,

and the mob rule does not apply

the same standards to people

on the Labour side as it applies

to someone like Toby Young,

who coincidentally happens

to be a Tory.

OK, Dawn Butler.

APPLAUSE.

This is typical.

The guy deleted 45,000 tweets.

I don't know how many

people are prolific

tweeters in the audience.

To have to delete 45,000...

It's a day's work for me.

Piers, can you keep quiet

while she's speaking, please?

Thank you.

She asked a question.

You've deleted 45,000 tweets?

You are not in the audience.

She asked the audience, not you.

Go on, Dawn.

Come on, let's stop this nonsense.

So, the issue is...

It's not nonsense.

I swear he thinks this is his show.

I mean...

Well, it might be one day.

LAUGHTER.

That's unacceptable.

he deleted 45,000 tweets, and the

reason nobody has heard of this new

government body was because it

starts on April this year, so it

hasn't actually been started. The

announcement of Toby Young was

announced at one minute past

midnight, so they were trying to

sneak this announcement out. Now,

there is an issue with suitability.

There is an issue with process. Was

full process carried out when he was

appointed to this position? Was he

suitable for this position or did he

get the position on merit or because

of privilege and being mates with

certain people? Those are three main

issues that have to be addressed. I

am not in favour of appointing

somebody who talks about dressing up

as a woman and going to gay clubs

and molesting lesbians, and writing

about it. That's an acceptable.

Or laughing about anal rape

of women, or talking about eugenics

and weeding out disabled people,

or complaining that schools have

ramps so that disabled people

can get an education.

That is not suitable criteria

for somebody to be appointed

to a government body.

APPLAUSE.

The woman up there.

I'd just like to point out that

a lot of this stuff that Toby Young

said was directed towards women,

and I don't understand why

as a society, or certain

establishments within society,

continue to give a platform to men

who are disrespectful and downright

awful about women.

With the Jared O'Mara situation,

he was suspended, so that...

He's not been sacked.

That's not my point.

I haven't heard Dawn calling

for him to be sacked.

Can I just finish?

My point actually is that

Toby Young resigned,

so then took that agency

to resign himself.

Jared O'Mara was suspended

by somebody else.

He still wasn't given the privilege

or the opportunity to resign.

The woman on the gangway.

I'm a student and, frankly,

what Toby Young says

is just disgusting.

He talks about social mobility

and he talks about how you can

encourage people on lower incomes

by giving them, you know, eugenic

treatment and allowing them to rise

up and improve their intelligence.

How can a man like that stand up

for students' interests?

It's frankly despicable

that he was even put

forward for this position.

Dominic Raab.

Well, I certainly agree

that the nature of these comments

came back to haunt him to such

an extent where it became inevitable

that he would have to resign,

and I agree that those in public

office should be held

to higher standards,

but I want to say this in relation

to there being two

sides to this story.

This is also a guy who put heart

and soul into setting up free

schools, so kids from disadvantaged

backgrounds could have

a strong education.

The problem is all the focus comes

off that if the story

is all about your track record

of being an edgy commentator

and taking things too far.

I just wish Dawn would

apply the same standards

to the Shadow Chancellor,

John McDonnell, who talked and joked

about lynching the bastard,

his words, in relation to Esther

McVey.

If actually the bar is set here,

shouldn't he resign?

Will you condemn that, Dawn?

Will you condemn the language John

McDonnell used about Esther McVey?

Just as your colleague,

Jess Phillips, one of

the most formidable Labour

equalities campaigners, did.

Do you agree that it was outrageous?

I condemn all abuse against women.

I get a lot of abuse...

That's a Jeremy Corbyn line.

I get a lot of abuse myself.

Now, listen...

I would stand foursquare

with you against that,

because it's outrageous.

A lot of abuse.

I get a lot of abuse myself.

So I'm against abuse

against all women all of the time.

But let me tell you something,

you keep talking about it

as though it is historic.

Just over 12 months ago,

somebody put on Toby Young's desk

a sexual health harassment policy.

Somebody was brave enough

to put it on his desk

and underline bits in red.

And he responded by hiring

a strippergram to go

to the workplace on the day

of Take Your Daughter To Work Day.

That shows what he's like.

Nish Kumar.

I want to get back to the question

that you originally posed.

I'm a stand-up comedian.

I exercise my free speech regularly,

and I've said things that are truly,

objectively reprehensible, right?

I've said things about

members of the panel.

I described one member of the panel,

I won't tell you who it is,

as what would happen if someone

injected a gammon steak

with white privilege.

LAUGHTER.

APPLAUSE.

Not wishing to give anything away,

if I could go back in time,

I would high-five myself,

because it's a funny line.

Now, do I consider that

an absolute privilege

which I utilise constantly?

Absolutely, I do.

Do I also realise that that free

speech that I've exercised may

preclude me from certain jobs,

for example co-hosting

Good Morning Britain?

Absolutely.

There is consequences

to the things that you say.

And it's not...

You can't castigate a generation

as being oversensitive,

or this terrible term snowflake

that's constantly bandied around

without any real context or meaning.

You can't castigate a whole

generation for taking appropriate

measures when you look at someone

who's going to be involved

in tertiary education.

If I wake up tomorrow

and suddenly decide that

I want to run a university,

most of my tweets will probably

come back to haunt me.

That's not how things work.

And also, I just want to quickly

add, we're talking a lot

about Toby Young and the things

that he said.

What about the things

that he's done?

What about news today

that he attended, at UCL,

a eugenics conference?

That is some dark, Nazi stuff, man.

And it's not acceptable

in modern education.

APPLAUSE

OK, wait, Piers.

Before we get trouble

from the lawyers...

You can't call him a Nazi.

I didn't call him a Nazi.

I described the practice of eugenics

as having its history

in ancestral fascism.

Let's just explain two things.

He says he attended it,

sat at the back and listened

because he was writing an article,

didn't take part in it

and wasn't on the panel.

And McDonnell, to you,

didn't actually himself say that.

He was quoting.

He may wrong to have quoted it.

But he made a joke of it, David.

Those aren't the same things.

He didn't himself say it.

He did, he repeated it.

He said, "Some people say to me,

not just she should be sacked,

but lynch the bastard",

to ripples of laughter.

I've now satisfied the lawyers

and I clearly haven't

satisfied either of you,

but that doesn't matter.

You, with the spectacles.

Labour and the Tories can trade

barbs with each other

all they want on who said what.

Everyone's got as much

ammunition as they want.

But the hypocrisy of the Labour

Party when they come back and say

Jared O'Mara is just suspended

but Toby Young should be sacked.

There are people in Sheffield now

who don't have a voice in Parliament

because the Labour Party just

won't do anything.

They need to take action and be

consistent in dealing

out their outrage, equally

amongst anyone who...

It's being dealt with.

APPLAUSE

Gina Miller.

Can I say that I actually do.

I think the scoring of political

points has got to stop.

We have got to find a way of having

adult conversations when it comes

to really important matters.

Because the lessons we're leaving

for our children is, you know,

you can behave whichever

way you want.

There is no consequence.

You can lie, you can cheat.

This is serious.

You cannot have somebody in public

office that's behaving like this,

and I don't know how incompetent

the screening process must have

been to actually let him

get into that position.

Because it's going to be a position

where you are actually influencing

the future generations.

And to have someone there thinking

it's a joke, or laughing,

or thinking it's funny,

or his friends who supported him

have said, don't be so soft.

This is not just about women.

This is about anyone.

You have no right to

degrade another person.

I'm sorry, but you don't.

APPLAUSE

Yes, you, sir.

So Toby Young has said some awful

things and has since been

removed from government.

Piers' mate, Donald Trump,

has said some awful things too,

and is still the President

of the United States.

OK, I'm not coming to Trump.

We might come to Trump

later, but we'll see.

The man there in the blue jacket.

Isn't it to do with Theresa May's

judgment, basically?

She was the one who

appointed this guy.

People close to her would have had

obviously stuff on Toby Young,

looked into his past,

you would have hoped.

And yet he slips through the net

and he's there and she gets another

crisis she's dealing with now.

Because, yeah, she didn't deal

with it at the beginning.

Dominic Raab, can

you answer this point?

Why did he slip through the net?

Why did Jo Johnson let him

get through the net?

Why did Theresa May say

as long as he doesn't do it

again it will be OK?

Well, look, first of

all he was appointed

because of the positive

things he'd done.

But in the end you may be right.

But look, social media

going back years, it's

difficult to screen that.

How many man-hours do you want

the government to put into that?

But look, it should have

obviously been done better,

and we learn the lesson.

The Tories have not been very good

on social media anyway

in campaigns as well,

so maybe that's what it is.

Piers found my tweet

in five minutes.

Maybe we should get him involved.

But I'm not sure he'd come

and work for the Tories.

The point is this.

To describe it as a crisis,

I think most people looked

at that and thought,

people care about real things,

the state of the economy,

whether you voted Leave or Remain,

making a success of Brexit.

You're right to say that we should

be held to higher standard.

I just wish Labour would apply some

consistency and we wouldn't get

the rank double standards we see

at the moment.

APPLAUSE

A brief word because we must move

onto something else.

There's a fundamental issue

here with regards to the process.

There's a fundamental issue to how

these public appointments are made,

because I would like other people

who are interested in higher

education to get an opportunity

to be part of a quango

and a government body.

And the gentleman in the audience

is absolutely right,

it does throw into question

the judgment of the Prime Minister,

and also the power that she has.

Because on Sunday she defended him.

In Parliament I had

to stand up for an hour.

Jo Johnson defended him,

only the next day for him to resign

because it was untenable.

You can come in.

Let me just bring in Nish Kumar.

I just want to say, again I'll bring

you back to this question.

I'm so sick...

Don't say the same thing again.

I'm profoundly sick of people

like Toby Young, who described

himself as a journalistic

provocateur, who professionally

are essentially unpleasant people.

And that's what they do,

they do things to get a reaction.

And then when they get

a reaction, they throw

their toys out of the pram.

Grow up.

APPLAUSE

Gina, briefly.

I spoke to someone very senior

in the university circle last night,

and it's a small circle.

And they said to Dawn's point

that they are not aware of anybody

who was allowed the opportunity

to stand up and be

interviewed for that post.

And it's a very small community.

That is extremely

worrying and very opaque.

And we've got to have more

transparency in these appointments.

OK, we'll move on to

another question now.

Daniela, please.

Missed targets, failed pledges,

patients dying in hospitals.

Isn't it high time that

Jeremy Hunt is sacked,

rather than acquiring additional

responsibilities?

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Missed targets, failed pledges,

patients dying in hospital,

all while Hunt is Health Secretary.

Isn't it time he was sacked

instead of acquiring,

as he did this week,

more responsibility?

Dominic Raab.

Well, look, there's definitely

challenges in the NHS at the moment

and when you see some

of the reporting, of course I think

that the job of the GPs

and the nurses on the front

line is heroic.

But I also think we need

to have some measure

of the big picture here.

And the Commonwealth Fund

in 2017 looked at health

services around the world,

from New Zealand to Norway,

and found the NHS to be the safest

and the best in the world.

We've put more money than ever,

12 billion more than in 2010

when the last government

were in charge.

We promised another 6 billion.

We've also got to do

things differently,

and we've started to do that.

We've got more beds,

more doctors, more flu vaccines

available than ever before.

But I do think that it

requires a long-term view.

We need to also change the way we're

doing things in the NHS.

One of the big things in

the reshuffle is integrating social

care with the NHS.

You haven't used

the word Hunt so far.

Well, look, I think anyone

doing that job has got

a hell of a task in hand.

But if you look at these problems

we're facing in the winter,

they are across the UK and we've had

them for years.

They are true in Scotland, where

the SNP are in charge of the NHS.

They are true in Wales,

where Labour are in charge.

You have them in

France, in Australia.

And it's very difficult

to deal with these spikes

in demand and pressures

on the NHS at wintertime.

But we are better

prepared than ever.

Don't take that from me.

That comes from Professor Keith

Willits, who is in charge of A&E

units up and down the country.

Daniela.

That's not what I asked so I'm going

to reiterate that really simply.

We have an incompetent

Prime Minister.

She remains in office

yet lacks power.

And thus this enables ministers

to bully her to acquire additional

ministerial responsibilities.

The NHS is a vital

service for our nation.

It's not a playground

for career hungry politicians.

APPLAUSE

Gina Miller.

This idea that it's a winter crisis,

every year it's a winter crisis.

It's just diverting attention

from the fact that the NHS has been

in crisis for eight years.

And when you've got people

like the King's Fund,

the Nuffield Trust,

how many more experts,

the BMA chair in London,

all saying the NHS is underfunded.

It needs, urgently,

about 4 billion year.

It's getting 1.6 and

that's set to go down.

Dominic comes out with figures.

Actually listen to the figures

that the profession

itself is saying.

We have the lowest spend of any

OECD country when it

comes to beds per 1000.

2.6.

Look at Germany, look

at our staffing levels.

It's a disgrace.

But the only way the problems

of the NHS, in my view,

will be actually addressed

is to have a full audit of the NHS

that looks at everything

from staffing to procurement,

to administration, and actually asks

the people who work in the NHS

what is it that they need,

and have a joined up

cross-party solution to this.

It's too important to leave

to one political party.

APPLAUSE

Piers Morgan.

Jeremy Hunt is the Arsene Wenger,

isn't he, of this government?

He just won't go.

And it doesn't matter how badly

he and his team perform.

He just won't leave.

In fact, eventually,

after five years of this,

ending in this absolute nadir

of what we've now got on our hands

over this winter, the worst ever,

he gets called in by his boss

who says, I'm moving you on.

He says, I'd rather

stay if you don't mind.

Righto, stay then, carry on.

It's complete and utter

farce, isn't it?

The NHS problem is not actually just

about the Tories, not about Labour.

They've all cocked

it up for decades.

The reason is they've been unable

to respond to the harsh reality

of what has happened

to this country.

The NHS was started

in 1948, 70 years ago.

By Labour.

By Labour.

It was a brilliant idea.

We all agree we love the NHS.

I had to use it a few times

in the last two years,

various injuries, fallen

over, broken ribs.

My wife fell over.

We all fall over in our house.

My little daughter had a fit one

night and we took her in.

Amazing, amazing treatment every

time by the brilliant

staff in the NHS.

But they are overworked,

they are underpaid and

under resourced.

And the point I was going to make

was that the population has grown

by a third since the start

of the NHS, and is projected

to grow to 74 million,

another 10 million by 2039.

This population is also

living a lot longer,

so we have a massively larger number

of people living a lot longer,

putting a huge new strain

on a system that simply wasn't

devised to tolerate this

number of people using it.

We've got to have big thinking,

and all this lot have to come

together, stop the petty

point-scoring, get in a room

and work out big solutions

to try and save the NHS.

APPLAUSE

Let me, so we don't go

round and round on the same point,

throw in a question

from George Sweet here

on exactly the same topic.

George.

Do you support a new tax

specifically to fund health care?

Does the panel support a new tax

specifically to fund health care,

which was put forward today,

or the other day, and which would

mean that National Insurance became

national health insurance.

What do you think?

Yeah, I absolutely agree with that.

The reality is that if we want

this incredible service,

which isn't just something that

provides free at the point

of delivery health care,

it also is more economically

efficient than a huge number

of the part or fully privatised

health systems that exist around

the world, we've got to pay for it.

And what we need is a politician

who has the guts to look

at the British public and say,

listen, if you want this incredible

service then you have to pay for it.

But that has not been helped

since 2010 by a string of cuts

to various different

levels of taxation.

And also a string of cuts

imposed by this government,

not just on the health care service

but on social care.

The cuts to social care have

increased the pressure

on the National Health Service.

This is a very simple thing.

I'm sick of every time I turn

on my television and there's

a politician talking about the NHS,

they all say the same thing,

exactly what you said, Dominic.

They do incredible work.

We admire them so much, but we're

not going to give them any money.

It's a simple solution.

We've got to cough up

and we need politicians

to have the guts to say that.

Why don't we ask the audience?

No.

No.

You will not, Piers,

we will not have a show of hands.

We do not do show of...

I don't know what

you do on your show.

We do show of hands.

Fine, go back to your show,

you're not sharing this one.

Dawn Butler.

Before you start, Dominic Raab said,

and the Prime Minister said

in the House of Commons this week,

that it is said that the British

National Health Service is the best

health service in the entire world.

He went through a whole

string of countries.

The best in the world.

Do you agree with that?

Yes, so why don't they pay

the doctors and the nurses?

Do you agree with that,

that it is the best?

I think it is the best.

I think that there's other countries

that are looking to...

Other countries that

have worse problems?

Other countries looking

to emulate our NHS.

Do you mean that other

countries have worse

problems than Britain,

that as far as the National

Health Service goes,

we have the top quality,

cream of the cream?

We have a great NHS.

At the moment it's

starved of resources.

It is starved of cash.

It's low on doctors.

There's thousands of

vacancies for nurses.

And that is because this government

stopped nurses' bursaries.

You know, they're doing one thing

on one hand and then they say

everything is great.

You have to have some

joined up thinking.

You can't keep

compartmentalising things.

And this government,

it just drives me crazy

because you're just so out of touch.

I mean, they're giving

the NHS just 1% every year.

Under Labour it was 4% every year.

It needs more money, not less money.

We're putting 12 billion more

per year than under Labour.

You keep saying all of this.

You are putting in less

than under Labour.

I listened to you.

In Wales, where Labour

are in charge...

You have to stop lying!

Nobody believes it.

Nobody believes it,

because they feel it.

People use the NHS.

They know what it feels

like when you have to wait.

TALKING OVER EACH OTHER.

Dawn, you are talking about it

as though it was in a state

of collapse, and yet you agree that

it's the best in the world.

It's a Tory claim,

you agree with them?

APPLAUSE.

Listen, the NHS in how it's created,

is in fact, in theory,

the best in the world,

if it had the resources and money

to carry out what it needs to do.

That's like your answer to Brexit.

There are nurses who are spending

their entire shifts in the car park

of a hospital because ambulances

are parked up and can't

get into the hospital.

And what do you think

of George Sweet's proposal,

that we should have a special tax

for the NHS called

national health insurance?

Do you think it's a good idea,

one you'd consider?

The Labour Party's manifesto,

the plan was to raise

taxes for the top 5%,

so that we could give the NHS

the funding it needs,

and that was in the Labour Party

manifesto.

Also, if we get all the corporation

tax, 70 billion by 2020,

that money could also go

into the NHS.

You haven't answered my question.

The woman at the very back.

Yes, you.

Like Piers says, the NHS is far

from a Tory problem,

but they've certainly not helped it.

Instead of engaging,

admitting a problem and engaging

in some useful discussion

as to what can actually be done

to sort it, they seem to be

operating in a system of complete

denial and trotting out a survey

which clearly doesn't reflect

the day-to-day experiences

that our front line NHS

staff are telling us

they are experiencing.

OK.

The woman in red.

I think it's really easy to just

think this is a problem...

I mean, Theresa May,

she's sitting in her office,

looking at paperwork saying,

cuts here, cuts there, but she's not

going to be affected by this,

because the people making

the decisions can afford

private health care.

They are not going to be affected

by not enough hospital beds.

People in this country

need the NHS to survive.

Gina Miller.

There was a Sky report saying that

68% of people would agree

to a 1% tax increase,

if they could guarantee it would go

to the NHS but, as Dawn said,

I actually think we should be

cracking down on all of those

companies who are not paying

tax in this country,

and they are the ones,

like Google and Amazon,

and that money should be

going to the NHS.

APPLAUSE.

The other thing is, one

of the suggestions has

been a royal commission,

which I think is a complete

waste of time and money

and will take too long.

Actually, there are already

good reports out there.

There's the Berkeley report,

there is a House of Lords

report just last year.

Why do you not just use what's

already there and get on and make

some changes cross-party?

OK, and you in the second row.

I recently had a family member have

to go into hospital for several

months, and night after night

there was one nurse

for the whole ward.

The staff shortage

on the wards is stark.

What is the Government going to do

to get more nurses on the ground?