05/11/2015 Scotland 2015

On tonight's programme we're talking Lockerbie, privacy and fruit.

Balancing our right to privacy with the need for security

Can we trust politicians to get it right?

A daily dose of free fruit for primary kids is just what

But are we asking too much of our schools?

We learned today that there will not be a fresh appeal against the

The Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission has decided not to refer

It believes members of the family of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, the only

man convicted of the 1988 atrocity, are not actively pursuing the case.

The High Court in Edinburgh had earlier rejected a request by UK

In a judgment in July 2015, it ruled they could not trigger a

In a statement issued today The Scottish Criminal Cases Review

I'm joined now from Brighton by John Ashton who wrote a book

about Megrahi, The Lockerbie Bomber, and interviewed him in person.

What is actually going on here? Is the family of Megrahi actively

pursuing this case? It depends what you mean by actively. They don't

live in Scotland, they don't have legal representation, formally, as I

understand. Anybody who lives in Libya is just trying to survive. I'm

don't see how they collectively pursue an appeal. What about the

defence papers, why have they not been forthcoming? This is critical.

One of the reasons they are not going to proceed with this is

because it says it is not able to get to the bottom of why Mr Megrahi

abandoned his last appeal. We could easily do that by asking me for the

papers. I have, for instance, because Megrahi gave them to me. Why

would they ask you for them? They have asked the family's solicitor.

They have asked him, and in principle he is prepared to provide

them. But he has asked them what their legal basis is for asking

them. He cannot just hand over papers in that way. He is keen to

help them, but they did not provide him with information about the legal

basis for which they were asking. Moreover... Is your view then that

it has been too hasty of the commission to come to this

decision? It is hasty and incompetent. They could have got

these papers quite easily by approaching me. If they wanted to

get to the bottom of why Mr Megrahi abandoned his appeal because of

interviewed his previous solicitor, they could've interviewed me. Have

an affidavit from me, they have paperwork that indicates I had

interviewed Mr Megrahi and got his side of the story. I am a witness in

this case and they have not bothered to contact me. Tony Kelly is a

witness and they have not contacted him. Will you give these papers to

the commission now? Gladly, but it seems it is a bit too late. Because

could have approached me well over a year ago for these but they failed.

John Ashton, thank you for joining me.

We want the police and secret agencies to monitor and prosecute

But how do they know who is suspicious

The Government's draft bill on the interception

of communications aims to lay out the powers of the spies, and the

Whether it is smart CCTV systems like the one reported to be coming

to Glasgow... You can run the search across a vast number of cameras and

locations to find a person of interest within minutes. Plans to

hold everyone's Internet activity on file for a year, or are leaving

security services to hack computers anywhere in the world to protect

national security, the justification is always that the powers are needed

to keep us safe from a growing threat. Mr Speaker, the legislation

we are proposing today is unprecedented. It will provide

unparalleled openness and transparency about our investigatory

Powers, it will provide the strongest safeguards and world

leading oversight regulations, and give the men and women of our

security and intelligence agencies and law-enforcement agencies, who do

so much to keep us safe and secure, the powers they need to protect our

country. This is MI5 headquarters. For the past ten years spooks year

have been receiving bulk records of all domestic phone calls. Not what

was all domestic phone calls. Not what

years, following act of Parliament so vague that most anything could be

done under it. It was not illegal, it is just that the law was so broad

as the information was so slight that nobody knew it was happening.

It seems to me that was anti-democratic. Surely government

plans today to set out the powers of intelligence agencies in a new bill

are welcome. We are really concerned there are no basic safeguards in

there whatsoever. We heard rumours there are no basic safeguards in

the safeguards that to reason me is proposing in the new draft Bill? --

Theresa May. Yell might not get. This is an advance on what the

Liberal Democrats and blocked. That was termed the snooper's charter and

would have been an egregious reduction of civil liberties across

the country. We were proud that we did do that because the case had not

been made. The case is not fully been made on these proposals, and I

think they will want very considerable scrutiny, and certainly

Liberal Democrat MPs and peers will be Hawks in making sure this is

scrutinised to the best of our ability. Is something you think the

general public is concerned about? It must be a good thing if we can

stop terrorists, and there is some evidence that surveillance measures

are stopping attacks from taking place. In many respects the public

are often only aware of these when have been abuses of our liberties

and our freedoms, when there have been law-enforcement agencies that

have gone well beyond their powers, weather has been exploitation of the

drafting of legislation, and often it is after the event that we find

out about it. Our rulers parliamentarians is to make sure

there is full scrutiny. We have had too many cases over recent months

and years, including the peace in your package about the reports that

Police Scotland are using inappropriate powers, I think those

examples should give us pause to make sure that the presumption

should always be the freedom and liberty of our activities, of what

we do, whether it is online or in conversations with other people.

There is the balance of law and order and security, but the

presumption should all would-be first that it is freedom and liberty

for ourselves, and then the appropriate powers with absolute

oversight and accountability, not the other way around. We have only

just found out that MI5 secretly collected all this data for over a

decade on UK phone calls. It sounds alarming, but the New Year that the

data was used to track terrorists and save lives. We have to take the

word of our student services, but we should scrutinise them also. We have

moved beyond 20 years ago when we barely recognise the existence and

to get on trust. We should have much stronger legislative regulation of

it. The example of Police Scotland is a very good one. When I was a

member of the Scottish Parliament, myself and others negotiated with

their First Minister and others about DNA retention. They said we

should detain all DNA samples from those who had been arrested not

prosecuted because that would prevent crime. We blocked that, did

not happen, and has not been a big ballooning of crime, and civil

liberties have been protected. Liberal Democrats will always have

as our priority. Thank you, we must leave it there.

Would an apple a day - or perhaps a carrot - have any impact

Doctors are calling for all primary school children to

be given a free portion of fruit or vegetables every day.

The British Medical Association in Scotland has made

the proposal in its manifesto for the Scottish Parliament

Good morning, this is fruit Thursday. In Inverclyde primary

skill children get fruit snack time, and it is free. Children their first

three years of primary school get free school meals, ironically, that

means many schools have cut back on providing free fruit and vegetables

during snack times. There are 32 councils in Scotland. Last year

Inverclyde was one of 16 providing free fruit. By this year it was one

of just 11 still offering it. I like apples and bananas and grapes. It is

healthy. And they make you strong. And big. And gives you strength. The

largest organisation representing doctors in Scotland is as old

primary school children should get free fruit, and they want

politicians to make that pledge for next May's Scottish parliament

elections. It is potentially a very important intervention because

you're forming dietary habits in childhood. And we can help people to

eat fruit and vegetables rather than unhealthy snacks, which of course

are extremely widely available in and around schools, then we can lay

down habits for the future and make a difference in the long-term to a

person's health. Some children here had never tried some of the fruit

before coming to school, but now they all take a piece, and they all

told me... I love it! I'm joined now by Iain Ellis Chair

of the National Parents Forum of Scotland and in London is

Tam Fry, Spokesperson People are saying parents should

give their fruit from year one, but so many do not, and when they arrive

at school the taste fruit for the first time, and you can see the joy

in their voices. Is this really the responsibility of schools? What

about parents? Everybody would probably agree it is a good thing to

do it, but is it the main thing that education should be used for was mac

iPhone it quite exceptional that everything -- I found it quite

exceptional that everything is being put on education. And for the BMA to

say that, what are they actually doing? We already in Scotland have

free school meals for kids in primary one after primary three. Is

that not enough? Is that not more meaningful initiative? It is a very

good initiative, and you can give them free food at the time of the

school meal, but there are snack occasions, and certainly young

children need snacks. They do not need the snacks they have been

perhaps chewing on optional mode which are full of sugar and things

like that. Much better they should have fruit at snack time, this would

be ideal opportunity to introduce them to the fruit. I guess nobody is

disputing that it is good for them to need food, but there is a

question of affordability. At the moment you out of 32 councils are

providing free fruit, that is down on what it used to be. Perhaps they

can afford it. My own authority used to do it, and it was five days a

week and emotive wastage was unbelievable. Should we be supplying

it? A couple of days a week, yes, but we have got to look at the

bigger picture, financial and arriving. The key part that schools

have to play is that they need to bring in the education and educate

the children. And the parents. Parents need to take it on the

shoulder as well and say, this is an issue not just for school to deal

with, because at the end of the day we as parents have children more

than anybody else. And I'm wondering, if there is money needing

to be spent on bigger issues like the attainment gap, which is in the

headlines so much at the moment, is this a priority? Is there actually

evidence that an initiative like this makes an impact? Certainly

south of the border we have evidence, we have been giving

children free fruit for a long time, and the actual value of that has

been charted and the literature has been written. It has been found to

be successful and it continues. I would say that the purchase of a few

pieces of fruit as a percentage of the price of the school meal is very

small. You will have some wastage, that is fresher, that is

regrettable. But in the end you will find that you have less and less

wastage as the children take on the benefits of having fruit. We must

leave it there for this evening. Thanks to you both.

A major new exhibition celebrating the work of Scotland's women artists

It's the first time an exhibition entirely devoted to

women has been staged with work by 45 artists over 80 years.

The show underlines the peculiar challenges women faced

in making work, as our Arts Correspondent reports.

Being an artist isn't easy, and for women there was the added challenge

of having no access to art education until the middle of the 19th

century. Even those whose husbands and fathers were artists as well had

to consider their at a hobby, or use only their surname to be taken

seriously. Being Royal did not make it any easier. Princess Louise was

Queen Victoria's. , and the first member of the Royal Family to go to

art college. Like all women, she discovered that art education had

its limitations. Women were unable to attend life drawing classes until

the 1900, and even then they were shy segregated and chaperoned. And

that breakthrough did not change the culture which still assumed that

women should only tackle certain subjects, as the artist Joan Edley

discovered in the 1950s with a nude painting of a male friend. The fact

that she had painted a man, a friend, lying naked on a bed, they

just thought it was the most terrible thing. Hadn't been a man

painting a woman, there would have been nothing done about it. But

unfortunately the mail at critics of the time just took it apart. Not

because it wasn't a good painting, because it is fabulous, but because

it was a woman doing it. Joan didn't paint another note, but others did.

Like the men around them, no subject was ruled out. It was radical for a

woman to be working unchaperoned in the 1880s. You have stylish

portraits, you have paintings of the concentration camp when it was

liberated. It was painted with great bravery. Also paintings of sheer

abstraction. And sheer beauty. Today's women artists have equal

access to education facilities, but they still face many of the same

challenges as those early pioneers. At times, family had to come first.

Nowadays it is a lot easier. I think women artists have always struggled

to get the time and recognition and just be able to work on equal terms.

Each artwork tells a different story, many untold until now. This

was the first woman appointed rector of Glasgow School of Art, but died

before she could take up the post. This sculptor studied under Auguste

Rodin. There are issues that women have had to suffer as a result of

their gender. By looking at those issues, we can approach and

otherwise familiar chapter of our history in a new and hopefully

inspiring way. Joining me now to discuss

the rest of the day's news are Observer columnist Kevin McKenna and

author and journalist Katie Grant. Welcome to you both. Let's start

with the story from earlier, free fruit for primary school children.

That is the proposal. To you think this is something else schools

should be doing? Think it is nice that Freuchie be part of the school

day, but in some ways it might be more useful to give them fruit than

endless computers. I hope they won't give them fruit and expect that to

be yet. It looked as though the primary school in the package were

cutting it up and making it look nice, I think it would be nice if

they had a graph to show you what chips do you do to you and what

fruit do to you. That would be real education. My own children are

supposed to have healthy free school meals, but often he comes home and

tells me he has had pizza and strawberry milk. I wonder what will

happen after the novelty disappears. I know several people who have

children at various schools and there doesn't seem to be any

uniformity or at evens to lay down minimum of nutrients and balance you

will have in your annual. That is because the deliveries are the

responsibility of each local authority. The matter what the

national government does, local authorities will make spending

cuts. They will choose what the priorities are. It is all very well

to say, yes, we will give them all fruit, but there are lots of

households and local authorities with higher than average numbers of

per household is. I would be more concerned about young children

coming to school without having had anything to eat, perhaps not going

to eat for another day or so, and just make sure they have something.

Unfortunately a lot of those children will turn their nose up at

fruit and veg in favour of a hamburger and chips. I would prepare

cash preferred they had that than nothing at all. I accept that

children need more than fruit, but there is lots of imaginative stuff

you can do. You can teach them about the seasons. You don't need exotic

fruitful stop make it part of an educational lesson. It doesn't have

to be this thing you give to children because it is good for

them. If you give it to children like that, they are likely to turn

their nose up. It will just be something else you get at school,

really. Let's move on. The war of words moved on regarding tax credit

cuts. At First Minister's Questions today,

Kezia Dugdale pressed Nicola Sturgeon to say

whether she would pledge to restore Under the Scottish Government's

proposal, will every single family receive the same entitlement from

the government as they do now? And not quite sure what it is that is

difficult to understand. I don't accept these cuts will take place.

There is pressure building on George Osborne to reverse them. Right now,

that is where we should be united in making sure the pressure stays on

the Tories. If George Osborne does the wrong thing, we will come

forward with credible proposals to protect low-income families. ,

people around this country who are worried about about their tax

credits deserve more than slogans. They deserve detail from a

government that they now can deliver.

But last night on this programme, the SNP's Social Justice Secretary

We will ensure that their income does not fall as a result of any

changes to the tax credit along the line already proposed by the Tories.

What do you take from that? Last night, Alex Neil appeared to be

saying that he agreed with Labour. Alex Neil was coming up with the

detail that Nicola Sturgeon was accusing Labour of not possessing.

Scottish Labour has said that in order to fund this they would first

of all the cat claiming it from air passenger duty and taxing higher

earners. The SNP are saying we will wait and see. If you are a cynic,

you would say that is a delaying tactic. We don't know when the

Chancellor will deliver because for two weeks in a row, David Cameron

has answered the same question in the House of Commons and said wait

and see to all and sundry. Do you think the SNP or on the back foot

year? Watching that for the second time, I thought Nicola Sturgeon did

look a bit on the back foot. For the Labour Party and the SNP, this is

pure politics. It has sort of moved beyond tax credits. All the

interested in doing now is discrediting the Tories and each

other. It has become a purely political thing. We don't robot

either will actually do. Haven't the Scottish Conservatives been left off

the hook year? I think that is what Katie was getting at. It suggests

the curious image of three bald men fighting over a comb. We have two

left of centre parties in Scotland is destined to be ruled by them.

They are in broad agreement that the rim opposition to the concept of the

Conservatives. Listening to that debate and listing the other week,

people who are looking for clarity, those who will be most affected,

will not find it in those debates in Hollywood. Scotland is expected to

take about a third of the 1000 Syrian refugees due to arrive in the

UK before Christmas. Is this a good thing? It is only 350 people. It is

not a lot. I think Scotland will cope pretty well. The bit of the

rhetoric at don't like is when Scotland is Kenneth held up as being

much nicer than the rest of the world. 350 people does not turn us

into some huge charity. I hope the Syrians will be welcomed here and

we'll find a good life here. I am afraid that is where we have to

leave at this evening. Thank you for coming in.

That's all from us for this week. Thanks for watching.

I'll be back same time on Monday night.

Do please join me then. Goodbye.

DRUMBEAT INTRO One, two, three, four!

Battery life on smartphones is the best thing about them,

cos when the battery runs out, then I'll interact with my kids.

We're down the park, I'm like, "Well, that's run out.

"Better find out where they're going with those old men."