28/10/2012 Sunday Politics London

shortly after 7am. He was taken to a police station in the capital.

Gary Glitter was brought out of his home in central London and taken

into custody early this morning. He was arrested as part of Operation

Yewtree, the police investigation into the stream of their

allegations. The former pop star, real name Paul Gadd, has already

served prison offences for child abuse in Britain and Vietnam. His

name has been mentioned in connection with Jimmy Savile. Lord

Patten told a Sunday newspaper the scandal has put the BBC's

reputation on the line. He said the corporation was dedicated to

finding out the truth. Labour say the investigations the BBC has set

up are not enough. We need an overarching enquiry, not two

inquiries at the BBC and many others. It should be independent

because there are big lessons to be learned here, not just for the BBC,

although the epicentre was there, but elsewhere. The police

investigation into child sexual exploitation by Jimmy Savile and

others has produced over 300 alleged victims. In the days ahead,

police are expected to make several more as a rest -- several more

arrests. An independent think-tank is suggesting that a crackdown in

gang culture may have backfired. The Centre for Social Justice

claims in some cases arrest actually read to more violence. --

let him more. A BBC investigation has found some care homes in

England that were awarded five star ratings are failing to meet the

standard regulations. The Care Quality Commission says it does not

endorse the ratings and advises people to visit the homes before

making a decision about care. In the United States, President Obama

has held a conference call with emergency cheese to discuss

preparations for the arrival of one of the bigger storms to hit the

eastern seaboard for many years. Hurricane Sandy is already more

than 1000 kilometres wide and is likely to collide with a winter

storm from the West. A state of emergency is in place across the

east coast. The authorities are warning of heavy flooding and power

outages. That is the news for an hour. There will be more work at

There is a plan for growth and a parliamentary seat for Boris

The head-to-head that we did on cutting child benefit, there has

been a Stormont Twitter. It has grabbed the attention. It is

provocative, but the Government likes picking fights on welfare.

They look at the focus groups and the Poles and they have concluded

that public opinion is in their favour. In the words of one adviser,

it is impossible to avoid flak the British public on the right on two

issues, crime and welfare. I suspect by the time of the next

election, Labour will acknowledge the same thing and move towards

that position. This is interesting, because what you say is spot on,

but it seems the Conservatives have already won this battle. They are

always going to be the party that is toughest on claimants. If they

want to win the election, it is not the battle of strength they need to

win, it is compassion. On that front they are not doing so well.

The point is about sending out a message, it is not saving money, it

is sending out a message. It is saying if you cannot afford to

support your children yourself, you should not have a big family. You

need to take responsibility for your own children. That makes

complete sense apart from the fact that the policy get away and number

of anomalies, urine work with three children and you lose your job, you

on benefits and the supply have triplets. Lots of these stories

will have human resonance with the public, and they will carry on that

image of the Conservatives been the nasty party. You can only take

welfare benefits away from people down when you attack people at Top

End. They are doing a little bit with child benefit. You raise the.

Earlier on, they are not attacking well-off pensioners. This policy

has been a long time in coming, the better of currently get child

benefit and are going to lose it. Over �50,000 per year will be

tapered. There will be none if you're over �60,000. It is popular

with the public at large but maybe not with Conservative supporters.

The big concerns many Conservatives had about it is that it is attacks

against aspiration. If you aspire to earn more, you will be losing

benefits. The margins are often about 65%. So that Tory supporters

are not happy with this. It is one of these policies that is popular

with the country. I do not agree with Mark fields. I think many of

the people affected by this policy, I am one of them, I will lose money

under this, but I think it is right. I do not think if you're a high

earner you married been given child benefit. There was a lot of merit

in the proposals to make the tax system clearer and make sure work

pays. Those are good principles, but what they are planning with

child benefit is the exact opposite of those principles. There will be

a lot of confusion about what happens, and an issue of unfairness.

If one family is earning �50,000 but all of them work they will not

lose it, but others will lose it. Those anomalies strike home with

people, especially when you are selling at home on increased

fairness. That anomaly came apart when George Osborne announced that.

David Cameron the next we ran away from it, they have never been able

to get around this anomaly, and 500,000 people may need to do self-

assessment. There is yet more pages to a tax guide that has trebled in

size over the past 10 years. Even the taper is a concession the made

after announcing it because initially it was a sharp Cup. I

agree that the interesting thing about this is usually austerity is

an attack from the left. This is austerity were the critics are from

the right. It is an example of the idea that austerity is supported in

the abstract by Conservatives but any specific interest that attacked

their people goes down badly. Labour can hardly be seen to be

defending child benefit for people on �60,000 per year. They cannot,

and the truth is there will always be hard-luck cases, and the trouble

is in the Times of austerity we need to make tough decisions. The

difficulty for the coalition comes when we speak about winter fuel

allowance for the well-off, like that. If they were radical, they

would increase the threshold when 40% clicks into 50,000, then at

50,000 you would lose your child benefit. Simple policy, do not add

to the Tax Guide, end of story, but it is not a radical Tory government.

The number of people track into that tax band is huge. That's my

point. Speaking of radical Tories, Michael Heseltine is coming out

with a report on getting more investment and jobs in regions. It

seems like the Liberal Democrats will enjoy this. Michael Heseltine

is a fascinating figure. I think his report will recommend lots of

things. The Tories would prefer tax incentives, local bureaucracy cuts.

The Liberal Democrats will be attracted to resurrection of

regional development agencies. cannot do that, they just got rid

of them. Exactly. What is curious about this is not so long ago

another person dead a review, his report was largely ignored. It

seems this time there has been a bit more co-operation between the

Tories and Lib Dems to get something they can agree on, but I

would not hold out much expectation. Michael Heseltine, I do not know

why he took so long. It is exactly what you'd expect. No surprise. Why

didn't they know that when they asked him? They wanted to bring on

the old guard, look credible. Regardless of how this place in

Westminster, it will play well with the public. This week we had jobs

lost through a local factory closing. The other thing that is

interesting is you're seeing a shift in opinion from the

Conservatives, and from civil servants, about the nature of

pursuing austerity. It seems to be a difference between this and

George Osborne's opinion. depends whether this is the start

of things to come or not. If it is, will anybody do it? No, I want to

come onto Boris Johnson. There is a rumour that the sitting MP for

Croydon South will not stand in the next election, I want to remind

people that Boris Johnson has given his word he would not do anything

like that. He said he will stay mayor until 2016. This is what he

told me on the Daily Politics. If a Tory constituency approaches you

between now and 2016, a standard be their candidate -- to stand and be

their candidate, your answer is a categorical no question mac it is.

Do you believe them? Of course not. You remember when he was faced with

a lurid allegations about his private life? He said it was not

true, it turned out to be true. I would ignore what he says about not

wanting a seat. Having said that, I don't think he will make his

intentions clear until the last minute. He has two problems,

unwinding from the commitment, but also, is there a way of leaving

City Hall and looking for a seat in Parliament without nakedly

telegraphing your interest in deposing the leader of the

Conservative Party? It is too obvious. I don't think he will need

to look hard, icy will be found. Even to take it and accept the

offer of a Sikh, it will be obvious. Could he be bold? I'll was Bob Ken

Livingstone had a transition period. -- I always thought. When Conrad

Black made him Spectator editor, he promised not to take a seat in

Parliament, four months later, he was the candidate for Henley.

think he will, but not yet. I don't think he can do it without

precipitating a leading crisis. -- leadership. Every time he opens his

mouth in Parliament, it will be interesting what David Cameron says.

More importantly, and I saw them at the Conservative Party conference,

there is an issue about how he plays outside London. This is not

the man leading the equivalent in America up of the street party

movement. -- Tea Party. That movement is too vulgar for Boris.

He has work to do for himself before he can win. I think when the

time changes, he will say the facts of change and his country needs him.

Conrad Black said to him, you cannot have your cake and eat it,

Boris Johnson said that is our policy. What is the point of cake

if you cannot eat it? Exactly. We must hold something will happen

because it will add to the gaiety of the nation. That is all for

today. I'll be back next week. Remember, if it is Sunday, it is

Apology for the loss of subtitles for 156 seconds

Good afternoon. I thought we'd start off with a quick look at

Hurricane Sandy first of all which has caused floogd and damage across

the Caribbean. It's now barrelling in towards the eastern side of the

United States -- flooding and damage.

It could cost considerable problems over the next few days. We are

looking at hurricane force winds on the eastern part of the United

States but also the potential of 200 millimetres of rain. This rain

combined with a strm sturge and high tides could cause flooding

problems in places -- this storm surge.

For us, we've lost yaesd sunshine and replaced it with grey and

cloudy skies. -- we've lost yesterday's sunshine. For the hills

of Cumbria and north-west Wales we could see 3 millimetres of rain. If

we look at the forecast this afternoon, in central and eastern

areas and eastern Scotland, cloudy and cool. No great rainfall amounts

forecast. Overnight our band of rain will continue to slide its way

southwards, where it'll linger across England and Wales. Given the

cloud, the breeze and further outbreaks of rain, temperatures

will barely shift a degree from what we have by day. Further north

and west with broken cloud temperatures will fall to four or

Will or five. There could be the odd fog patch on Monday morning.

Monday will start off on a wet note. Around the coast of south-east

England the potential for hefry and thundery rain. That front reluctant

to clear away. -- heavy. More rain working into the north-west of

Scotland. Temperatures no great shakes. Cool for this stage of

October. Tuesday's weather forecast a bright and breezy day but it

looks like we'll see low pressure to the north-west bringing

outbreaks of rain. Through the day it'll include over in Northern

Ireland and across northern England and Wales. That's the fist part of

the week. A relatively quiet spell. From Wednesday onwards the weather

is much windier and wetter and temperatures are going to continue

to disappoint. Low pressure in charge for Wednesday's weather

forecast this. Weather front is slow-moving bringing heavy

outbreaks of rain. Across Dumfries and Galloway the hills of come

briey and north-west Wales, we could see as much as 30 to 40

millimetres of rain which could cause problems given the wet spell

we are looking at over the next 24 hours. Elsewhere, gales developing

around the Irish Sea coast. Wednesday night sees that weather

front swing across the country bringing rain further east. The

weather front will be prone to be slow-moving in eastern areas of

England and east of Scotland so there could be rain on Thursday but

elsewhere the winds will fall lighter. There will be dry and

bright weather to come but further rain expected across the north and

west. As we end the week, the weather forecast becomes

complicated. Our area of low pressure develops two centres of

low pressure. We are certain we'll have an increased wind across the

north and west of Scotland will gales returning across the north-

west of the British Isles and outbreaks of rain. Showers or

longer spells elsewhere but there is a weather scenario that calls

for an area of will he pressure to scoot across England and Wales.