Browse content similar to 25/10/2015. Check below for episodes and series from the same categories and more!
Line | From | To | |
---|---|---|---|
Is Chancellor Osborne right to stick to his guns over tax credit cuts? | :00:35. | :00:43. | |
The Treasury insists there will be no U-turn. | :00:44. | :00:45. | |
But rumblings of discontent have spread from the Tory back-benches to | :00:46. | :00:49. | |
the cabinet, with growing calls for the Chancellor to soften | :00:50. | :00:52. | |
Tomorrow, the Lords have their say on the issue. | :00:53. | :00:58. | |
They might well reject the policy, which could provoke | :00:59. | :01:00. | |
We'll be talking to former Chancellor Ken Clarke and | :01:01. | :01:05. | |
Could moderate Labour MPs face the chop | :01:06. | :01:12. | |
The left is said to be plotting to swing Labour | :01:13. | :01:16. | |
They could be helped by changes to constituency boundaries. | :01:17. | :01:20. | |
Labour left-winger and former London Mayor, Ken Livingstone joins us | :01:21. | :01:25. | |
In London, part of the government's anti-terrorism strategy is | :01:26. | :01:27. | |
under fire from a Labour council for damaging community cohesion | :01:28. | :01:31. | |
And with me - as always - the best dressed, the most | :01:32. | :01:43. | |
intelligent and the most fun political panel in the business | :01:44. | :01:47. | |
At least, that's what it says on autocue. | :01:48. | :01:51. | |
Regard their talk-talk as about reliable as the TalkTalk website. | :01:52. | :01:56. | |
I speak of course, of Nick Watt Polly Toynbee and Janan Ganesh, | :01:57. | :01:59. | |
who'll be tweeting throughout the programme. | :02:00. | :02:02. | |
Now, first this morning, let's talk about the Labour Shadow Chancellor, | :02:03. | :02:05. | |
John McDonnell, who appeared on the Andrew Marr Show a little earlier. | :02:06. | :02:08. | |
He revealed he's written to the Chancellor urging him | :02:09. | :02:10. | |
to reverse the Government's proposed changes to tax credits. | :02:11. | :02:14. | |
I know what a U-turn looks like and how it can damage you, | :02:15. | :02:20. | |
I have said to him, look, if you can change your mind on this, we will | :02:21. | :02:26. | |
not make any political capital out of this, so if the Lords do throw | :02:27. | :02:30. | |
this out tomorrow and put it back to the government, I have said to him, | :02:31. | :02:34. | |
if you change your mind, bring back a policy in which people | :02:35. | :02:37. | |
are protected, not a political stunt, but a real protection, | :02:38. | :02:39. | |
we will not in any way attack you for that, | :02:40. | :02:41. | |
We are going to talk about the substance of the tax credits later | :02:42. | :02:57. | |
in the programme but what do you make of this more reasonable John | :02:58. | :03:03. | |
McDonnell? He was very bruised by the fiscal charter and this is | :03:04. | :03:06. | |
somebody who said he would wade through vomit to oppose these cuts. | :03:07. | :03:11. | |
He is now being reasonable and he said if you give us a U-turn, I will | :03:12. | :03:15. | |
be nice to you, George Osborne. He will not get a U-turn that what he | :03:16. | :03:19. | |
will get from the Chancellor is a change of tack. There was a big | :03:20. | :03:23. | |
expectation that once we have the votes in the House of Lords out of | :03:24. | :03:26. | |
the way tomorrow, George Osborne will indicate in his Autumn | :03:27. | :03:38. | |
Statement, he will soften the impact of the cuts. He will not change the | :03:39. | :03:41. | |
specific Wallasey but he will tinker around the edges. In order to | :03:42. | :03:44. | |
achieve that, the House of Lords cannot vote for this fateful motion. | :03:45. | :03:46. | |
Equally, they cannot vote for Patricia Hollis's motion. They can | :03:47. | :03:50. | |
vote for the bishops' motion and then the Chancellor will indicate he | :03:51. | :03:55. | |
will soften the impact. He will have to do more than just tweaking if he | :03:56. | :04:00. | |
is going to soften the blow in any meaningful way, I would suggest | :04:01. | :04:05. | |
Tweaking is not enough when you look at the losses lower paid families | :04:06. | :04:09. | |
will be hit by. It is interesting how many people who are plainly | :04:10. | :04:13. | |
clueless about the technicalities of this say let him tweak a bit here | :04:14. | :04:18. | |
and there. You understand these things. If you don't understand | :04:19. | :04:20. | |
this, all you need to do is hold onto one thing. He is going to cut | :04:21. | :04:26. | |
4.5 billion from the very lowest paid hard-working people. All you | :04:27. | :04:30. | |
need to know about his tweak is how much will he give back of that? My | :04:31. | :04:37. | |
guess is, it will be very little. Those same people will still be hit | :04:38. | :04:41. | |
absolutely massively. Don't worry about whether they are calling it | :04:42. | :04:45. | |
child-care credits or slightly changing National Insurance which I | :04:46. | :04:49. | |
don't think they will do because it is very expensive, just look at the | :04:50. | :04:54. | |
money. Follow the money. We will look more about the actual | :04:55. | :04:58. | |
substances Polly was talking about. What do you make of the demeanour of | :04:59. | :05:03. | |
John McDonnell? Do you buy it? The most interesting thing I have seen | :05:04. | :05:07. | |
from any Labour politician since Jeremy Corbyn was elected in | :05:08. | :05:12. | |
September, was that performance It was delivered more in sorrow than | :05:13. | :05:18. | |
anger. If you were deciding whether to support tax credits, had John | :05:19. | :05:24. | |
McDonnell waded in and shouted at the government on a moral angle you | :05:25. | :05:28. | |
would have done the natural thing and regressed towards supporting | :05:29. | :05:31. | |
your own government. Instead, he made it as easy as possible by | :05:32. | :05:35. | |
behaving as magnanimously as possible to corral Conservatives and | :05:36. | :05:41. | |
people on the Labour side against the tax credit policies. I wonder if | :05:42. | :05:45. | |
that is something to look out for, and element of vertical deftness and | :05:46. | :05:52. | |
subtle touch which we might not have expected from an I do logically | :05:53. | :05:59. | |
committed Chancellor. I thought it was embarrassing. If you make a bad | :06:00. | :06:07. | |
mistake you're better off apologising than doing a U-turn | :06:08. | :06:11. | |
Refusing to do a U-turn gets you into more trouble in the long term. | :06:12. | :06:16. | |
Perhaps the Chancellor is about to find that out! We will return to | :06:17. | :06:18. | |
Labour. Jeremy Corbyn yesterday with | :06:19. | :06:20. | |
Momentum, the new Labour grassroots organisation set up in the wake | :06:21. | :06:22. | |
of his victory It's claimed one aim, | :06:23. | :06:24. | |
already being plotted, is to de-select moderate Labour MPs | :06:25. | :06:27. | |
and Momentum could be helped by major changes to constituency | :06:28. | :06:30. | |
boundaries. He is a member | :06:31. | :06:32. | |
of the strange organisation that That is almost exactly what some | :06:33. | :06:41. | |
Labour MPs are worried about. New lines on electoral maps | :06:42. | :06:46. | |
and plotting. Fears of a purge and a surge to | :06:47. | :06:50. | |
the left were hardly soothed by comments from Jeremy Corbyn's | :06:51. | :06:54. | |
newly appointed director of strategy and communications just a few weeks | :06:55. | :06:57. | |
before he took on the job. The Tories are planning to bring | :06:58. | :07:05. | |
in new boundaries for constituencies around the country | :07:06. | :07:07. | |
and that will mean there will have to be re-selections, new selection | :07:08. | :07:10. | |
procedures to pick Labour candidates for those constituencies, because at | :07:11. | :07:12. | |
the moment, the Parliamentary Labour Party is | :07:13. | :07:15. | |
not only far to the right but it is to the right of public | :07:16. | :07:18. | |
opinion on lots of key issues, although they talk about | :07:19. | :07:23. | |
electability all the time, so there needs to be some | :07:24. | :07:26. | |
recalibration of that. We're | :07:27. | :07:30. | |
at a point where there are several Labour MPs in the seats around the | :07:31. | :07:35. | |
Common whose boundaries are going to Among them, | :07:36. | :07:38. | |
the decidedly non-Corbynite Chuka Umunna, who, according to one | :07:39. | :07:41. | |
expert on these things, could find himself forced to seek | :07:42. | :07:44. | |
reselection at the next election. In areas such as a lot | :07:45. | :07:50. | |
of metropolitan England and London, where the boundary changes are most | :07:51. | :07:53. | |
radical, there is more scope The new boundaries could look very | :07:54. | :07:58. | |
different again by the time they are published in | :07:59. | :08:02. | |
2018 because of the reduction in the Analysis for this programme, | :08:03. | :08:05. | |
based on the latest boundary proposals of 2012, suggest that MPs | :08:06. | :08:11. | |
like Liam Byrne, Chris Leslie and Tristram Hunt could face significant | :08:12. | :08:16. | |
changes to their current seats. Just looking at England, of | :08:17. | :08:22. | |
the 206 seats Labour currently hold, 54 constituencies are likely | :08:23. | :08:25. | |
to change by more than 40%. That is more than double the | :08:26. | :08:33. | |
proportion of Tory seats affected. There are some in the Parliamentary | :08:34. | :08:37. | |
Labour Party who are worried. The Sunday Politics has spoken to | :08:38. | :08:40. | |
a number of MPs, including a former minister, who say this | :08:41. | :08:42. | |
could lead to mandatory reselection by the back door, a means of getting | :08:43. | :08:45. | |
rid of the faces that do not fit. I think my colleagues are | :08:46. | :08:51. | |
right to worry about this. We have had an influx | :08:52. | :08:54. | |
of people joining the party, some of them probably were expelled | :08:55. | :08:57. | |
in years gone by, in actual fact. Many of them will certainly be | :08:58. | :09:02. | |
on the far left of the party. They will be Jeremy Corbyn | :09:03. | :09:06. | |
supporters and they will be making a decision, because of boundary | :09:07. | :09:09. | |
stages, they will be making a decision on who should be their | :09:10. | :09:11. | |
Labour parliamentary candidate. It is fair to say they might not | :09:12. | :09:15. | |
pick more moderate MPs Frank Field arrived back in | :09:16. | :09:18. | |
Merseyside confident he can survive Another veteran Labour MP agrees | :09:19. | :09:24. | |
that boundary changes are bringing back old memories when members of | :09:25. | :09:29. | |
his own party tried to replace him He says MPs this time | :09:30. | :09:34. | |
should be prepared. There will be a large group, I would | :09:35. | :09:40. | |
hope, in Parliament, of MPs, who will, if colleagues are unfairly | :09:41. | :09:43. | |
treated, encourage their colleagues to stand in by-elections, to stand | :09:44. | :09:48. | |
as independent Labour candidates, and a large number of us, | :09:49. | :09:53. | |
including myself, would go It is a capital offence, to campaign | :09:54. | :10:00. | |
for somebody standing against an official Labour candidate, but if | :10:01. | :10:06. | |
enough of us go, they cannot pick The current Labour rules, introduced | :10:07. | :10:09. | |
in 2013, state that an MP with a substantial territorial interest | :10:10. | :10:14. | |
in a new constituency may seek A substantial territorial interest | :10:15. | :10:17. | |
is defined as 40% or more These rules will be updated after | :10:18. | :10:24. | |
the next boundary review but I've been told by members of Labour's | :10:25. | :10:31. | |
National Executive Committee that there are categorically no moves to | :10:32. | :10:34. | |
change them. Local party members will decide | :10:35. | :10:38. | |
whether they want to stick within existing Labour MPs, | :10:39. | :10:42. | |
and I think they pretty much will do in nearly every case, probably every | :10:43. | :10:46. | |
single case, I would have thought. So essentially people | :10:47. | :10:49. | |
are just overreacting? People are nervous because we're | :10:50. | :10:52. | |
going to have MP up against MP It will be the same in the Tory | :10:53. | :10:55. | |
party as well. The Tory party are going to have MP | :10:56. | :10:59. | |
up against MP, so you can understand why people are going to feel nervous | :11:00. | :11:03. | |
and unsure about that, but people shouldn't feel nervous about | :11:04. | :11:06. | |
whether the rules are changing. For some MPs, the more pressing | :11:07. | :11:10. | |
concern is what they perceive as Tory gerrymandering, which is what | :11:11. | :11:13. | |
this rally yesterday was about. The first nationally coordinated set | :11:14. | :11:17. | |
of events organised by Momentum Following the death of | :11:18. | :11:25. | |
Michael Meacher MP, there will be a by-election within | :11:26. | :11:28. | |
the next few months. It will be a gauge of Mr Corbyn s | :11:29. | :11:31. | |
leadership, and of whether these new members | :11:32. | :11:35. | |
really can and will influence what And with me now former Mayor of | :11:36. | :11:38. | |
London, Labour's Ken Livingstone. Our moderate Labour MPs under threat | :11:39. | :11:53. | |
in the new Corbyn Labour Party? I don't think so. Jeremy is very | :11:54. | :11:59. | |
inclusive. He has said they will not bring back automatic reselection. I | :12:00. | :12:02. | |
was challenged by the right-winger in my constituency and I think they | :12:03. | :12:08. | |
had a right to do that. That there may be mandatory reselection with | :12:09. | :12:11. | |
these boundary changes because they will require a large number of | :12:12. | :12:16. | |
Labour MPs to seek re-election or even new seats. Should that be seen | :12:17. | :12:20. | |
as an opportunity to shape Labour more in Mr Corbyn's image? I think | :12:21. | :12:25. | |
we should see a party or Mr Corbyn's image, because under Blair | :12:26. | :12:29. | |
and Brown, parties were not allowed to select whoever they had wanted | :12:30. | :12:33. | |
which had been the case for the 90 years before. You had to choose from | :12:34. | :12:40. | |
an approved list. Therefore, the Parliamentary Labour Party was | :12:41. | :12:42. | |
significantly to the right of the rank-and-file and leadership. I | :12:43. | :12:44. | |
think most MPs will engage with new members. They will moderate their | :12:45. | :12:48. | |
criticisms of Jeremy Corbyn if he is seen to be doing quite well. You | :12:49. | :12:52. | |
just had Simon Danczuk on there and he said it is all very threatening. | :12:53. | :12:56. | |
He has already announced he might stand against Jeremy Corbyn next | :12:57. | :13:02. | |
year. He has a right to do so, that is policy. Would you encourage | :13:03. | :13:06. | |
constituencies to choose more left-wing candidates? If your local | :13:07. | :13:10. | |
MP is undermined in Jeremy Corbyn, opposing the policies, the | :13:11. | :13:17. | |
anti-austerities measures, people should have a right to say, I would | :13:18. | :13:21. | |
like to have an MP who reflects my views. It should not be a job for | :13:22. | :13:28. | |
life. So you agree with Momentum, this new campaign? I have joined it. | :13:29. | :13:32. | |
That MPs who regularly do finally Corbyn whip should face deselection | :13:33. | :13:39. | |
procedures? Yes, if you have 10 0 new members joined your local party | :13:40. | :13:43. | |
because they supported Jeremy Corbyn's policies, you have got an | :13:44. | :13:47. | |
MP completely undermining, that is right that they should have the | :13:48. | :13:51. | |
right to challenge that. It does not necessarily mean they should win. I | :13:52. | :13:54. | |
was challenged because people thought I was too left wing. They | :13:55. | :13:59. | |
had the right to do that. According to a memo leaked to the Evening | :14:00. | :14:04. | |
Standard, MPs like Harriet Harman, Chuka Umunna and Stella Creasy said | :14:05. | :14:10. | |
they could be ousted after a surge in new activists joined their | :14:11. | :14:15. | |
party. Should they be worried? If you are prepared to reach out and | :14:16. | :14:19. | |
accept that this huge doubling of our mothership has changed the | :14:20. | :14:22. | |
nature of the Labour Party then that is fine. I remember during the Blair | :14:23. | :14:26. | |
years, over half of Labour Party members left because you could not | :14:27. | :14:30. | |
select the. You have no real say. What we have got now is a genuinely | :14:31. | :14:35. | |
democratic party open to debate Jeremy has not been an autocrat He | :14:36. | :14:39. | |
is not expelling people or kicking them out of the shadow cabinet | :14:40. | :14:51. | |
because they disagree with him. People are shocked by this. But this | :14:52. | :14:54. | |
is how politics should be. Sitting members who are on the centre or the | :14:55. | :14:57. | |
right of the Labour Party, they should move left to reflect the | :14:58. | :14:59. | |
views of the new activists who are joining or face deselection? And why | :15:00. | :15:02. | |
not? That is inevitable. If you have had a doubling of the Labour Party | :15:03. | :15:05. | |
membership because people see there is a real chance of change, and if | :15:06. | :15:13. | |
Jeremy Corbyn looks like he's doing a good job, you would not expect, | :15:14. | :15:16. | |
everyday I see my MP undermining the Labour leadership, opposing the | :15:17. | :15:18. | |
policies that we came into politics for, people must have the right to | :15:19. | :15:23. | |
have an influence over these things. You began by saying Mr Corbyn has | :15:24. | :15:29. | |
been very inclusive and it a broad church still... He is much nicer | :15:30. | :15:34. | |
than I am! Well people will judge that. If that is the case, was wise | :15:35. | :15:39. | |
of Mr Corbyn to appoint Seamus Milne, an admirer of Stalinist | :15:40. | :15:44. | |
Russia and a long-standing critic of the West as his new director of | :15:45. | :15:45. | |
communication? Kid will do a very good job. I do | :15:46. | :15:56. | |
not think you can describe him as a Stalinist. I chose my words, an | :15:57. | :16:04. | |
admirer of Josef Stalin's Russia. There are plenty of courts to show | :16:05. | :16:10. | |
that. For all its brutalities and failures, it delivered job security, | :16:11. | :16:13. | |
huge advances in social and gender equality. That happens to be true. | :16:14. | :16:20. | |
Is it wise to appoint an? Yes. There is no mention in that article of the | :16:21. | :16:25. | |
25 million people who died under Stalin. He does not need to, because | :16:26. | :16:30. | |
we all now about that. Most people do not know that in the 1930s, the | :16:31. | :16:35. | |
communist economy grew more than any other in history. It was wise to | :16:36. | :16:41. | |
appointing? Absolutely. Was it wise of Mr Corbyn to appoint Andrew | :16:42. | :16:46. | |
Fisher rises policy adviser, who has called leading Labour moderates scum | :16:47. | :16:50. | |
bags? He may have to moderate that now that he is in the job using | :16:51. | :16:57. | |
People have strong views. A Labour web once threatened to push me up | :16:58. | :17:00. | |
against a wall and smacked me in the face if I voted against the party | :17:01. | :17:07. | |
line. People get very tense. In what sense are the appointments that I | :17:08. | :17:10. | |
have spoken about evidence that Mr Corbyn wants to reach out to the | :17:11. | :17:16. | |
centre and other parts of the party? He has done that in terms of | :17:17. | :17:22. | |
the Shadow Cabinet keep it together. According to Mr Milne, that is just | :17:23. | :17:27. | |
a stabilisation Cabinet. Changes are coming. There are was changes. If | :17:28. | :17:31. | |
people like Yvette Cooper change their mind and want to come back in, | :17:32. | :17:35. | |
I am sure that Jeremy will bring them back. When I was leader of the | :17:36. | :17:40. | |
GLC, all the leading right-wingers, we tried to get them involved, to do | :17:41. | :17:48. | |
good work. You never have so much talent in a political party you can | :17:49. | :17:50. | |
afford to avoid talented people because you have a disagreement with | :17:51. | :17:56. | |
them. Andrew Fisher will be a key player in the Corbyn Cabinet. Hilary | :17:57. | :18:03. | |
Benn, who fought a Croydon constituency, Andrew Fisher tweeted | :18:04. | :18:06. | |
that people should not fought for her, they should vote for the torque | :18:07. | :18:18. | |
steer a candidate from class war. He should not have said that. If you | :18:19. | :18:22. | |
want to kick people out, there are lots of Labour Party members who did | :18:23. | :18:27. | |
not fought Mike for me because they disagreed with me. That is the | :18:28. | :18:31. | |
reality. I thought if you were a member of the Labour Party, you | :18:32. | :18:36. | |
cannot be seen to support a member in an election against another | :18:37. | :18:41. | |
party. He clearly did. He will do that, right down the line. He has | :18:42. | :18:46. | |
not withdrawn it. I have supported people I completely disagree with | :18:47. | :18:49. | |
because however much I disagree with the right wing Labour MP, he will | :18:50. | :18:56. | |
still be better than a Tory. What it wise of Mr Corbyn to appoint John | :18:57. | :19:00. | |
McDonnell the Shadow Chancellor Was he not too much of a left-wing | :19:01. | :19:04. | |
troublemaker even for you at the GLC? He was my chair of finance no. | :19:05. | :19:12. | |
We had a falling out over the Thatcher capping thing. Every year | :19:13. | :19:18. | |
he produced a balanced budget. He never had a penny of borrowing to | :19:19. | :19:24. | |
cover revenue spending. Most people in -- most people think everyone on | :19:25. | :19:28. | |
the left spends and borrows and all that. But our background in | :19:29. | :19:32. | |
government, we used to balance budgets. I think he understands | :19:33. | :19:36. | |
budget is much more than any other Shadow Chancellor we have had. The | :19:37. | :19:41. | |
death of Michael Meacher means the first by-election of the Corbyn | :19:42. | :19:46. | |
either. It is a safe Labour seat, but in by-elections, there is | :19:47. | :19:51. | |
probably no such thing. Should Labour now pick someone to fly the | :19:52. | :19:55. | |
Jeremy Corbyn flag in this by-election? No, the local party | :19:56. | :20:00. | |
should be free to choose whoever they want. I oppose Tony Blair | :20:01. | :20:06. | |
imposing people on local parties. If they want to pick someone who is a | :20:07. | :20:09. | |
critic of Jeremy Corbyn, they should be free to do so. Or a supporter. It | :20:10. | :20:17. | |
has been reported to date and in the Sunday Times, in both the Scottish | :20:18. | :20:22. | |
and London edition, that the Scottish Labour Party could well now | :20:23. | :20:26. | |
be allowed to go its own way. We get the impression that a decision has | :20:27. | :20:30. | |
been taken to do that, that it could have its own policy, it will run its | :20:31. | :20:36. | |
own affairs, it may need money from London, what policies could be | :20:37. | :20:39. | |
different on Trident and welfare from the English Labour Party. Would | :20:40. | :20:44. | |
you support that? Absolutely. That is the Labour Party we had before | :20:45. | :20:50. | |
Tony Blair. I was on the executive. The National party had no say in the | :20:51. | :20:56. | |
GLC policies. The Scottish Labour Party did not have different | :20:57. | :20:59. | |
policies. They should have the freedom to do so and reflect local | :21:00. | :21:04. | |
views. We do not want this to be like North Korea when everything is | :21:05. | :21:09. | |
run from the centre. If people in Scotland have a slightly different | :21:10. | :21:13. | |
approach to people in London or East Anglia, let them do that. You would | :21:14. | :21:18. | |
welcome that? Yes. Ken Livingstone, always good to talk to you. Thank | :21:19. | :21:20. | |
you. Now, | :21:21. | :21:22. | |
it's been compared to the poll tax But, so far, the Chancellor is not | :21:23. | :21:24. | |
for turning on his plans to cut tax credits, which is likely to cause | :21:25. | :21:29. | |
problems for millions of working poor, despite the growing chorus | :21:30. | :21:31. | |
of disapproval from his own side. Mr Osborne says the reforms, | :21:32. | :21:35. | |
which could see 3.3 million families lose an average of ?1,300 from next | :21:36. | :21:44. | |
April are a key component of his The current system of working and | :21:45. | :21:58. | |
child tax credits was introduced by the then Labour Chancellor Gordon | :21:59. | :22:02. | |
Brown in 2003 as a means of redistributing income high paying | :22:03. | :22:08. | |
money to families with children or working people on lolling comes | :22:09. | :22:11. | |
About 4.5 million people claimed them with current estimates showing | :22:12. | :22:17. | |
that around ?30 billion a year are spent on tax credits. That is 1 % of | :22:18. | :22:23. | |
the total welfare budget. Before the election the Conservatives promised | :22:24. | :22:26. | |
to find ?12 billion of welfare cuts and a month after polling day, try | :22:27. | :22:31. | |
minister David Cameron said he would end the ridiculous merry-go-round of | :22:32. | :22:34. | |
taxing low earners then paying them back in benefits. Chancellor George | :22:35. | :22:41. | |
Osborne used a summer budget in July to announce plans to reduce the | :22:42. | :22:48. | |
income threshold and tax credits from ?6,420 to ?3850. The government | :22:49. | :22:53. | |
will also increase the proportion of credits it takes away above this | :22:54. | :22:57. | |
threshold, a mechanism called the tape parade, from 41% to 48%. In | :22:58. | :23:06. | |
September, MPs backed the chancellors plan voting to bring in | :23:07. | :23:13. | |
the tax credit cuts next April. On Monday, the House of Lords gets its | :23:14. | :23:16. | |
turn to vote on the matter. Convention dictates that peers | :23:17. | :23:23. | |
cannot reject bills that appeared in a government manifesto or financial | :23:24. | :23:27. | |
in content, but one tier has tabled what is known as a fatal motion | :23:28. | :23:33. | |
which, if back, we'd see the tax credit changes rejected. With 2 9 | :23:34. | :23:41. | |
Conservatives coming up against 212 Labour and 176 cross bench, the | :23:42. | :23:45. | |
government falls well short of the majority it needs in the upper house | :23:46. | :23:48. | |
to defeat a united opposition. And joining me now | :23:49. | :23:51. | |
from Kendall is the Liberal Democrat leader, Tim Farron, and from | :23:52. | :23:53. | |
Nottingham, the former Conservative Welcome to both of you. Ken Clarke, | :23:54. | :24:02. | |
let me come to you first. Are people on tax credits drivers or shirkers? | :24:03. | :24:07. | |
They are strivers, of course they are, but you've got to have a | :24:08. | :24:11. | |
sensible way of alleviating poverty among them. They hope I'd have a | :24:12. | :24:15. | |
budget and the welfare state is to alleviate poverty but when you have | :24:16. | :24:24. | |
got to reform it, and when you're trying to take ?12 billion of it | :24:25. | :24:31. | |
because of the national economy it is time for common-sense. We were | :24:32. | :24:38. | |
subsidising low pay economy, and we have got to move away from that In | :24:39. | :24:42. | |
what were you alleviating poverty among some of the lowest paid people | :24:43. | :24:48. | |
in the country by making them, a single earner, a couple, or lone | :24:49. | :24:55. | |
parent with two kids, by making them ?1500 worse off? We're increasing | :24:56. | :25:00. | |
the support for childcare, as the Chancellor says. We are introducing | :25:01. | :25:04. | |
a living wage. That is taken into account in those figures. What is | :25:05. | :25:09. | |
not calculable is how far the present strong labour market will | :25:10. | :25:13. | |
lead wages to continue to go up The idea that in top of your employer's | :25:14. | :25:19. | |
pay, you get government pay on top, and it was introduced so you would | :25:20. | :25:25. | |
say, thank you Mr Brown, I will vote Labour. He put it up again before | :25:26. | :25:30. | |
the 2010 election as well. This is not a valuable feature of the | :25:31. | :25:36. | |
system. George has included other features in the system. There has | :25:37. | :25:40. | |
never been a better time to do it because real incomes are going up by | :25:41. | :25:44. | |
3% a year, employment is high and you can only tackle this difficult | :25:45. | :25:48. | |
question when you have a strong labour market. I need to bring in | :25:49. | :25:55. | |
Tim Farron. Tax credits cost 30,000,000,000-a-year. It is almost | :25:56. | :25:58. | |
15% of the total welfare budget more than that if you take pensions | :25:59. | :26:02. | |
out of the welfare budget. Is that too much and would you cut it in a | :26:03. | :26:07. | |
different way? I think Ken Clarke is right to say we need to balance the | :26:08. | :26:12. | |
budget, we agree on that definitely. The question is how do you do it. | :26:13. | :26:17. | |
The tax credit cuts will hit 4. million children, 3 million families | :26:18. | :26:23. | |
in this country, an average of 1300 a year they cannot afford. They will | :26:24. | :26:27. | |
save the taxpayer or the Exchequer net savings of about 4.5 billion. | :26:28. | :26:32. | |
This is about choices because there are other ways you could have found | :26:33. | :26:36. | |
that money. The government did have decided not to give away ?1 billion | :26:37. | :26:42. | |
of inheritance tax cuts. Or give away ?2.5 billion of Corporation tax | :26:43. | :26:47. | |
cuts to big companies. You could have chosen the Liberal Democrat | :26:48. | :26:51. | |
policy of taxing high-value wealth in terms of expensive properties. | :26:52. | :26:55. | |
That would have managed the 4.5 billion they were going to save You | :26:56. | :27:01. | |
are committed. You said in your speech as Liberal Democrat leader to | :27:02. | :27:05. | |
the conference, that you're committed to balancing the current | :27:06. | :27:10. | |
budget, which is the same as abolishing the structural deficit. | :27:11. | :27:14. | |
How do you do that without 12 billion welfare cuts? What you have | :27:15. | :27:19. | |
said gets you there, but it gets you nowhere near 12 billion. I have just | :27:20. | :27:25. | |
explain some of the ways we would have done it. The Tory party chose | :27:26. | :27:31. | |
to commit to ?12 billion worth of welfare savings. It did not need to | :27:32. | :27:36. | |
do so. Remember, not a single tax rise in the Conservative's plans | :27:37. | :27:41. | |
affect the wealthy. What we are talking about is effectively a tax | :27:42. | :27:44. | |
rise targeted on the poorest people in this country. The phrase | :27:45. | :27:49. | |
hard-working families is bandied about by politicians but people who | :27:50. | :27:52. | |
worked almost every are a god sends in order to put food on the table | :27:53. | :27:57. | |
for their kids and exist just above the breadline or the definition of | :27:58. | :28:02. | |
hard-working families. We are committed that we should be | :28:03. | :28:05. | |
supporting those people and we should block those cut. The | :28:06. | :28:09. | |
Resolution Foundation is headed by a former Cabinet colleague of yours. | :28:10. | :28:13. | |
It says that more than 1 million households will face an average loss | :28:14. | :28:18. | |
of more than ?1300. Boris Johnson has warned of a political disaster | :28:19. | :28:22. | |
if you carry on the way you're going. The Sun newspaper says you're | :28:23. | :28:26. | |
hammering those who work hard and are paid little. Why do your natural | :28:27. | :28:33. | |
allies not even support you? We live in the day and age of short-term, | :28:34. | :28:38. | |
populist politics. It is unfortunately the case that | :28:39. | :28:41. | |
chancellors cannot do anything without it being immediately | :28:42. | :28:46. | |
unpopular and lobbied against. None of those people or in any way | :28:47. | :28:50. | |
indicating anything they would cut in the welfare area that would | :28:51. | :28:53. | |
contribute to the very serious problem we still have, which | :28:54. | :28:57. | |
threatens our economic future if we do not tackle it, of just running a | :28:58. | :29:04. | |
deficit all the time. What you must not do is support employers who are | :29:05. | :29:10. | |
paying low pay, therefore not improving their productivity, we are | :29:11. | :29:13. | |
beginning to move into a more sensible economy where employers pay | :29:14. | :29:20. | |
pay and we are steadily the labour market is strengthening and pay is | :29:21. | :29:26. | |
going up. If you're going to reform, you have got to take the tough | :29:27. | :29:33. | |
decisions. Do you have to do it as brutally as many people think you | :29:34. | :29:37. | |
are? After all, you're raising the inheritance tax threshold. That will | :29:38. | :29:43. | |
go to the richest 5% in the country. You have cut the top rate of tax, | :29:44. | :29:48. | |
which goes to the highest earners. You're taking a massive chunk of | :29:49. | :29:52. | |
income out of the lowest paid. Why do you not postpone some of that? At | :29:53. | :30:01. | |
least make the change more gentle. I quite understand. The instinct of | :30:02. | :30:04. | |
most people is do not take money away from them, do not make me pay | :30:05. | :30:10. | |
for it, they are rich people, particularly rich foreigners. Take | :30:11. | :30:14. | |
the money from the big companies. If it was as easy as that, every | :30:15. | :30:20. | |
Chancellor would do that. If you're Chancellor, you have to balance what | :30:21. | :30:22. | |
you're doing to get that healthy economy that will give a good living | :30:23. | :30:28. | |
to our children and grandchildren. Nowadays, everybody expects the | :30:29. | :30:31. | |
budget to be full unpopular measures. In my day, people were | :30:32. | :30:36. | |
more used to the Chancellor having to do the difficult things, and the | :30:37. | :30:40. | |
judge you, not by the headlines after you have managed to get it | :30:41. | :30:46. | |
through, the judge you by whether it looks as though it is working in | :30:47. | :30:49. | |
three years' time. Tim Farron, what is your response? | :30:50. | :30:57. | |
This is about choices. Ken Clarke and I agree with each other in a way | :30:58. | :31:03. | |
that people leading the Labour Party don't agree, that you need to | :31:04. | :31:08. | |
balance the books. You don't clear the deficit. At the moment, what we | :31:09. | :31:12. | |
are asking the poorest paid people in our country to do is to pay the | :31:13. | :31:16. | |
price that the Conservative government is choosing not to ask | :31:17. | :31:20. | |
wealthy people to do. Absolutely balance the books and clear the | :31:21. | :31:23. | |
deficit, but don't do it by taking way from the poorest paid hardest | :31:24. | :31:28. | |
working families in this country which will cripple them, and at the | :31:29. | :31:33. | |
same time, Andrew, as you have just said, you give an inheritance tax | :31:34. | :31:38. | |
cut which benefits the 5% of the most wealthy. This is about choices | :31:39. | :31:43. | |
and it is about poor choices. David Cameron one week before the election | :31:44. | :31:46. | |
promised he would not be touching tax credits then he did. He has | :31:47. | :31:52. | |
backed that mandate as a consequence. Many of his own | :31:53. | :31:56. | |
backbenchers, Heidi Allen, I don't want to embarrass her with her | :31:57. | :31:59. | |
stunning speech about the poorest paid people, and we are well within | :32:00. | :32:05. | |
our rights to block this move. This brings beyond the House of Lords. | :32:06. | :32:08. | |
They may block it in some form tomorrow. You are encouraging your | :32:09. | :32:12. | |
Lib Dem peers to do just that and you have 111 of them which is about | :32:13. | :32:18. | |
12 times more than you have MPs You described the Lords as a system | :32:19. | :32:25. | |
which is rotten to the core and allows unelected unaccountable | :32:26. | :32:28. | |
people to think they are above the law. Why would you use that | :32:29. | :32:35. | |
institution to thwart the policy of the democratically elected | :32:36. | :32:40. | |
government? First of all, I am the one party leader whose party in the | :32:41. | :32:44. | |
last parliament did everything in our power to reform and | :32:45. | :32:49. | |
democratisation of the. Labour and Conservatives thwarted us. In this | :32:50. | :32:53. | |
Parliament, we have what we have. Rotten to the core, you said. | :32:54. | :32:59. | |
Indeed. You're asking me to make a choice now about whether I should | :33:00. | :33:03. | |
bout a convention or whether I stand up for 3 million low-paid families | :33:04. | :33:06. | |
in this country, I back the low paid families. We have a set of | :33:07. | :33:09. | |
mechanisms in Parliament available to us and it is right that we should | :33:10. | :33:13. | |
make use of all of them to prevent the government from doing something | :33:14. | :33:17. | |
which they did not put in their manifesto and will impoverish 3 | :33:18. | :33:20. | |
million very hard-working, just above the bread line or just below | :33:21. | :33:24. | |
the breadline families in this country. I make no apologies for | :33:25. | :33:27. | |
using whatever mechanisms are available to do that. Mr Clarke | :33:28. | :33:33. | |
hasn't your government got yourself into a right mess? You are styling | :33:34. | :33:38. | |
yourselves as the workers party that here it is, unelected Lords having | :33:39. | :33:43. | |
to come to the rescue of some of the lowest paid workers in the country. | :33:44. | :33:49. | |
It does not look good, does it? We won the election because working | :33:50. | :33:52. | |
people of this country could see we were getting steadily better off. | :33:53. | :33:56. | |
You did not tell them you would cut their tax credits. We said we would | :33:57. | :34:01. | |
take ?12 million out of welfare .. You did not tell them you were going | :34:02. | :34:05. | |
to cut their tax credits. It was not in the manifesto. I totally agree | :34:06. | :34:12. | |
with Tim, we should have a reformed elected House of Lords. I voted with | :34:13. | :34:16. | |
him in the last Parliament. It was backbenchers who wrecked it. It was | :34:17. | :34:22. | |
a great pity. I have to say, if the Labour and Liberal peers decide to | :34:23. | :34:26. | |
start casting party political votes when they see the government is | :34:27. | :34:34. | |
having a bit of difficulty, in order to knock out ?4 billion worth of | :34:35. | :34:38. | |
public expenditure savings, it is the end. We really will have to | :34:39. | :34:42. | |
reform and do something about it. The Italians have just cut back the | :34:43. | :34:46. | |
power of their Senate because they had chaotic arrangements before The | :34:47. | :34:51. | |
Americans cannot govern the country because Congress stops the president | :34:52. | :34:55. | |
from doing anything. We cannot have a huge number of peers we have. . | :34:56. | :35:02. | |
Let me just dropped this and ask you, if the Lords does thwart the | :35:03. | :35:06. | |
elected government tomorrow, should Mr Cameron create a more of new | :35:07. | :35:13. | |
peers? That is what Lloyd George threatened to do. I know that. There | :35:14. | :35:18. | |
are ridiculously too many member is already so it would make it even | :35:19. | :35:22. | |
more ridiculous. Personally, I would table the bill we had in the last | :35:23. | :35:26. | |
Parliament and tried to explain to our backbenchers that Britain is | :35:27. | :35:31. | |
ready for parliamentary democracy of the sensible kind. Actually, I think | :35:32. | :35:34. | |
there are a lot of Labour and Liberal peers who would agree with | :35:35. | :35:38. | |
me. I think a lot of people would try to stop the peers from casting | :35:39. | :35:43. | |
silly votes in this debate tomorrow. Mr Farren, a final | :35:44. | :35:47. | |
question to you, it is the first time we have had a chance to talk to | :35:48. | :35:51. | |
you since becoming Lib Dems leader, it is early days but Mark your own | :35:52. | :35:57. | |
card, how is it going so far? We are 20,000 members are up since the | :35:58. | :36:04. | |
election. I thought your membership was down from June? It peaked in | :36:05. | :36:13. | |
June and it is now lower in October. No, it is still going up. The | :36:14. | :36:18. | |
reality is it is still early days. We are in opposition with a much | :36:19. | :36:22. | |
smaller of them -- smaller number of MPs. We have to stand up for the | :36:23. | :36:27. | |
real liberal heart in British politics. We have seen the Labour | :36:28. | :36:30. | |
Party making an interesting choice, shall we say, that they are entitled | :36:31. | :36:35. | |
to make. That creates a vast space on the progressively competent | :36:36. | :36:45. | |
progressive sphere in politics. We understand what really matters over | :36:46. | :36:48. | |
the tax credit issue are the people who will suffer. I am bothered about | :36:49. | :36:52. | |
people in my patch across the country on 12 or 13 grand a year who | :36:53. | :36:56. | |
do not know how they will feed their kids. The way back for the liberal | :36:57. | :37:00. | |
Democrats is to focus on the people, stand up to the outsiders and | :37:01. | :37:05. | |
challenge the government. You will finally get some questions at PMQs | :37:06. | :37:09. | |
because you lost that role to the Scottish Nationalists. Are you going | :37:10. | :37:15. | |
to crowd source your questions? Are -- would you like us to e-mail some? | :37:16. | :37:19. | |
Via macro I have been writing to Jeremy and he has not asked any of | :37:20. | :37:23. | |
mine yet so I will have to use my own on Wednesday. I have some | :37:24. | :37:29. | |
thoughts in mind. The other thing to remember is PMQs is not the most | :37:30. | :37:32. | |
important thing in the world. There are other ways of getting your | :37:33. | :37:36. | |
message across and that is why I am going to Lesbos tomorrow to | :37:37. | :37:38. | |
highlight the refugee crisis and try and get the government to human | :37:39. | :37:44. | |
player in stance on that position as well -- humanitarian stance. It may | :37:45. | :37:48. | |
not be the most important but it is live on BBC Two on the Daily | :37:49. | :37:52. | |
Politics every Wednesday. I hope our viewers will join us and see you in | :37:53. | :37:55. | |
action. Thank you both. It's just gone 11.35, you're | :37:56. | :37:57. | |
watching the Sunday Politics. We say goodbye to viewers | :37:58. | :38:00. | |
in Scotland who leave us now Coming up here in 20 minutes, | :38:01. | :38:02. | |
the Week Ahead. First though, | :38:03. | :38:05. | |
the Sunday Politics where you are. Hello and welcome to | :38:06. | :38:14. | |
the London part of the show. Coming up later, part of the | :38:15. | :38:18. | |
government's anti-terrorism strategy is under fire from a Labour council | :38:19. | :38:20. | |
for damaging community cohesion Well, I'm joined for the duration | :38:21. | :38:24. | |
of the show by Mike Gapes, Labour MP for Ilford South, and just | :38:25. | :38:30. | |
up the road, Andrew Rosindell, Now first up, a new report out this | :38:31. | :38:33. | |
week claims that the number of London's working poor has increased | :38:34. | :38:40. | |
by 70% in the last ten years, and that the cuts in working tax credits | :38:41. | :38:44. | |
to families next April could make That is a massive number | :38:45. | :38:49. | |
of children that are going to be worse off as a result of those tax | :38:50. | :38:56. | |
credit cuts, Andrew Rosindell? The reality is that we want to move | :38:57. | :38:59. | |
to a different type of economy, so that we pay less tax, | :39:00. | :39:03. | |
but earn more in wages. That is what | :39:04. | :39:06. | |
the government is trying to do. The problem is tax credits | :39:07. | :39:11. | |
are getting out of control. They have effectively almost become | :39:12. | :39:16. | |
like another way We have to be realistic | :39:17. | :39:18. | |
about this and think long-term. What is best for the country is to | :39:19. | :39:22. | |
get the country back to work, George Osborne | :39:23. | :39:28. | |
and his supporters like you have Do you think there should be | :39:29. | :39:32. | |
a longer transitional period or do you think there should be more cash | :39:33. | :39:36. | |
put in to mitigate some of those I believe that | :39:37. | :39:39. | |
the principle is right but it is how you apply the policy, and certainly | :39:40. | :39:44. | |
if there are people who are going to be in real difficulties as a result, | :39:45. | :39:48. | |
the government needs to look I suspect the government are looking | :39:49. | :39:51. | |
at how they can mitigate I think he will do something | :39:52. | :39:55. | |
but what he will do at this stage, One | :39:56. | :40:02. | |
of the biggest problems is housing. That has been a long-term issue | :40:03. | :40:07. | |
over the last ten years. It is too expensive to live | :40:08. | :40:11. | |
in London for a lot I have got massive problems | :40:12. | :40:14. | |
in my constituency, private rents are going up, and the cost | :40:15. | :40:24. | |
of housing benefit is a massive way in which the state is subsidising | :40:25. | :40:29. | |
private landlords, as opposed to Do you think there should be more | :40:30. | :40:32. | |
social housing or do you think something needs to be done to bring | :40:33. | :40:37. | |
down the rents I think we need both a landlord | :40:38. | :40:40. | |
registration scheme, which some local authorities have already done | :40:41. | :40:47. | |
on their own, for the quality of the properties, but we also need to make | :40:48. | :40:50. | |
sure that there is far more social housing, and local authorities are | :40:51. | :40:55. | |
beginning to build properties again, as my borough Redbridge is | :40:56. | :41:00. | |
beginning to do. Why is the government focusing | :41:01. | :41:02. | |
so much on home ownership when it is clear that when you look | :41:03. | :41:05. | |
at the poverty figures, and the in-work poverty figures of people | :41:06. | :41:09. | |
living in London, housing makes up Would it not be better to | :41:10. | :41:13. | |
build more social housing? There is a culture | :41:14. | :41:20. | |
in this country that people want to People aspire to be homeowners | :41:21. | :41:25. | |
and that is a good thing. It is right that we should also | :41:26. | :41:30. | |
ensure that people who are not able to buy their own home, there is | :41:31. | :41:33. | |
adequate social housing available. Is there adequate social | :41:34. | :41:36. | |
housing available? Well, Mike is saying that Redbridge | :41:37. | :41:38. | |
is doing it. We have the lowest amount | :41:39. | :41:41. | |
of social housing of any borough. We only had a Labour council | :41:42. | :41:46. | |
since last year. We have a massive problem | :41:47. | :41:49. | |
in Redbridge, a large number of people living in poor quality | :41:50. | :41:52. | |
private rented accommodation. Haverinng is different | :41:53. | :41:56. | |
but nevertheless we are starting to A key part of the government's | :41:57. | :41:58. | |
anti-terrorism strategy has been criticised by a Labour council | :41:59. | :42:04. | |
for damaging community cohesion So, does the Conservative attempt to | :42:05. | :42:07. | |
combat terrorism really risk making us more likely to be victims | :42:08. | :42:14. | |
of another attack? The attacks of 7th July 2005 | :42:15. | :42:17. | |
prompted a change in the UK's In their aftermath, the government | :42:18. | :42:25. | |
launched a programme called Prevent which aimed at stopping more people | :42:26. | :42:30. | |
turning to violence through Nowhere lost more people in 7/7 than | :42:31. | :42:32. | |
the London borough of Islington but last week the local council passed | :42:33. | :42:39. | |
a motion which criticised Prevent and pledged to lobby the government | :42:40. | :42:42. | |
for changes, promising... The motion was proposed | :42:43. | :42:56. | |
by the sole Green councillor in this Labour-controlled authority, | :42:57. | :42:58. | |
who says she was moved to act after I understand a child was talking | :42:59. | :43:01. | |
about eco-terrorism in a French class, and rather than being praised | :43:02. | :43:07. | |
for his excellent use of vocabulary, he found himself a couple | :43:08. | :43:13. | |
of days later being questioned Parents I have been speaking to | :43:14. | :43:15. | |
throughout my ward since this incident, whether they are parents | :43:16. | :43:23. | |
of young children of primary age or older children, they are frightened, | :43:24. | :43:27. | |
worried that their children are going to be reported for saying | :43:28. | :43:31. | |
something taken out of context. Instead, the council say they | :43:32. | :43:35. | |
favour a strategy of what they As an example, | :43:36. | :43:38. | |
they pointed us in the direction Once the home of Abu Hamza, | :43:39. | :43:42. | |
now serving a life sentence A decade ago, the police, | :43:43. | :43:46. | |
the local council and the then Labour government asked a new group | :43:47. | :43:52. | |
to take over running the mosque They told me they turned it | :43:53. | :43:56. | |
from an empty hub of extremism with just 50 worshippers to a thriving | :43:57. | :43:59. | |
and open community centre. However, the mosque leadership feel | :44:00. | :44:05. | |
that under the current government, the support they used to enjoy has | :44:06. | :44:07. | |
gone. We, here in Finsbury Park, | :44:08. | :44:12. | |
have been labelled as extremists. We have been before | :44:13. | :44:16. | |
in that situation This puts off young people from | :44:17. | :44:19. | |
talking and engaging and discussing This puts off imams of mosques, | :44:20. | :44:25. | |
to speak out and to engage with these young people, to try and teach | :44:26. | :44:32. | |
them what Islam is about, away from extremism and radicalisation, | :44:33. | :44:38. | |
away from what they hear and watch While the mosque wins plaudits from | :44:39. | :44:41. | |
the council and the local MP, Jeremy Corbyn, who has even held surgeries | :44:42. | :44:51. | |
here, it is not without controversy. Just this week, the Sun newspaper | :44:52. | :44:54. | |
ran this piece about Just this week, the Sun newspaper | :44:55. | :44:57. | |
ran this piece about According to Rashad Ali, | :44:58. | :45:05. | |
who has worked in the government's Prevent programme, the experience of | :45:06. | :45:09. | |
the Finsbury Park mosque reflects a broader trend of how the coalition | :45:10. | :45:11. | |
and Conservative governments take a fundamentally different approach | :45:12. | :45:14. | |
to their Labour predecessors. There are other organisations | :45:15. | :45:17. | |
which had the ear of government and were very influential and are now | :45:18. | :45:27. | |
seen as not just influential any more, but they are seen as people | :45:28. | :45:30. | |
almost who the government cannot be I think to | :45:31. | :45:33. | |
a large extent organisations like that have been taken outside | :45:34. | :45:39. | |
of the political space. A decade on from 7/7, the UK is yet | :45:40. | :45:44. | |
to see a repeat of terrorist attacks on the same scale, but both Labour | :45:45. | :45:48. | |
and the Conservatives are accused of having had an anti-terror policy | :45:49. | :45:51. | |
that potentially increases Joining us, Miqdaad Versi, | :45:52. | :45:53. | |
Assistant Secretary General Have you been frozen out by | :45:54. | :45:59. | |
the government as an organisation? I think that Muslim organisations | :46:00. | :46:05. | |
across the UK, including the Muslim Council of Britain, have not | :46:06. | :46:09. | |
really been engaged with by this government, in spite of us trying | :46:10. | :46:12. | |
and providing attempts to solve the problems of terrorism, we have | :46:13. | :46:20. | |
not been engaged with at all. Do you think that is | :46:21. | :46:22. | |
because the government has felt that perhaps some extremist groups | :46:23. | :46:26. | |
and some extremist preachers have not been confronted enough | :46:27. | :46:28. | |
by organisations like you, and If we want to confront extremism | :46:29. | :46:31. | |
and terrorism within any community, the first thing that needs to | :46:32. | :46:38. | |
happen is to engage with the broad spectrum of those communities to | :46:39. | :46:41. | |
understand what is going on. The Muslim Council of Britain is | :46:42. | :46:44. | |
the largest umbrella body in the UK You would say you're very | :46:45. | :46:48. | |
representative of the Muslim We are a representative | :46:49. | :46:52. | |
of the Muslim committee. We cannot say we are the only one | :46:53. | :46:57. | |
but we are the largest of this kind. It is unusual the government has | :46:58. | :47:04. | |
chosen not to work with broad Muslim mainstream groups, but those that | :47:05. | :47:08. | |
say yes to what it wants to hear. The government and David Cameron | :47:09. | :47:11. | |
have made much of wanting to engage with groups that uphold British | :47:12. | :47:15. | |
values, rightly or wrongly. Would you not blame the government | :47:16. | :47:21. | |
for not wanting to engage with the Muslim Council of Britain, who | :47:22. | :47:24. | |
refuse to attend Holocaust Memorial Day, and who have described | :47:25. | :47:27. | |
homosexuality as unacceptable, as a group that does not uphold | :47:28. | :47:32. | |
the same British values the We have to be careful | :47:33. | :47:34. | |
about how we use these terms. The Education Secretary voted | :47:35. | :47:39. | |
against same-sex marriage We are in a situation where there | :47:40. | :47:41. | |
seems to be different targets The Muslim Council of Britain does | :47:42. | :47:49. | |
attend Holocaust Memorial Day. There were different questions | :47:50. | :47:54. | |
behind the scenes about how that should reflect a broader range | :47:55. | :47:59. | |
of genocides, but that is not the point, the Muslim Council of | :48:00. | :48:02. | |
Britain does do these things, as do If we want to confront terrorism, | :48:03. | :48:05. | |
we should do so by engaging those Andrew Rosindell, it is surely | :48:06. | :48:10. | |
counter-productive not to be fully engaged with an organisation like | :48:11. | :48:14. | |
the Muslim Council of Great Britain? I agree with what you have | :48:15. | :48:18. | |
just said, actually. We should engage with everyone | :48:19. | :48:20. | |
across civil society. You cannot solve problems as deep | :48:21. | :48:24. | |
as this without engaging with everyone, however, | :48:25. | :48:29. | |
there is a strong feeling that we in this country have a responsibility | :48:30. | :48:31. | |
to uphold British values, and that What in your mind | :48:32. | :48:37. | |
constitutes British values? Tolerance for a start, | :48:38. | :48:44. | |
respect for people of all religions and backgrounds, and respect | :48:45. | :48:46. | |
for national traditions. Christian faith is the established | :48:47. | :48:51. | |
faith of this country and our laws and traditions are based on that, | :48:52. | :48:55. | |
all religions and denominations are equal under the law in this country, | :48:56. | :48:58. | |
and rightly so, but there is a feeling that there are some sections | :48:59. | :49:02. | |
of the Muslim community that are not standing strongly enough | :49:03. | :49:06. | |
against some of the extremists that Was it right | :49:07. | :49:09. | |
for the government to cut ties with It is not | :49:10. | :49:15. | |
my decision to have done that. I am personally bemused | :49:16. | :49:18. | |
by why that has happened. There needs to be | :49:19. | :49:22. | |
a dialogue with everybody. This fear | :49:23. | :49:30. | |
of climate that people are worried about being generated in some parts | :49:31. | :49:32. | |
of the country and in London, a young child being questioned | :49:33. | :49:34. | |
for talking about eco-terrorism Yes, | :49:35. | :49:37. | |
it seems like someone has completely A young man | :49:38. | :49:40. | |
in Blackburn was recently sentenced for being involved | :49:41. | :49:52. | |
in a terrorist plot in Australia. The fact is, we do have | :49:53. | :49:54. | |
radicalisation of young people, men and women, boys and girls, and that | :49:55. | :49:57. | |
is an issue for the whole community. We have to be very careful that we | :49:58. | :50:02. | |
do not say, it is the Muslim community who has to deal with | :50:03. | :50:05. | |
the problems of grooming young people, radicalisation, | :50:06. | :50:08. | |
going to Syria or whatever. It is a responsibility for all | :50:09. | :50:10. | |
of us, One of those values is | :50:11. | :50:12. | |
the equality of men and women, opposition to homophobia, | :50:13. | :50:19. | |
anti-Semitism, Islamophobia Do you think the Muslim Council | :50:20. | :50:22. | |
of Britain foreshortened those? Over the years I have had a mixed | :50:23. | :50:30. | |
relationship with some of the groups It is an umbrella organisation | :50:31. | :50:33. | |
and overall I think they should be engaged with but clearly | :50:34. | :50:40. | |
in any umbrella organisation, you have people who are more radical | :50:41. | :50:42. | |
and more moderate. Is Prevent counter-productive | :50:43. | :50:44. | |
in your mind? You have to realise that | :50:45. | :50:46. | |
when you have a strategy that tries to counter-extremism without | :50:47. | :50:53. | |
defining it properly, it results in a conflation of extremism | :50:54. | :50:57. | |
and terrorism, we have a problem. Young children were mentioned | :50:58. | :51:00. | |
in the report, but throughout the country, young | :51:01. | :51:05. | |
children are suddenly being told Young people who are asking | :51:06. | :51:07. | |
questions in physics classes, which happen to be | :51:08. | :51:14. | |
about nuclear fission, are suddenly Even three-year-old toddlers | :51:15. | :51:18. | |
are going down this route. More and more | :51:19. | :51:23. | |
of this is taking place across the It leads to communities finding | :51:24. | :51:28. | |
themselves as separate, being looked If you want equality, | :51:29. | :51:34. | |
I would have thought that would be something that everybody would be | :51:35. | :51:39. | |
able to adhere to and support. Would you describe the Labour | :51:40. | :51:42. | |
leader, Jeremy Corbyn, as a mainstream politician or | :51:43. | :51:44. | |
someone on the extreme? Everybody who is a leader of a | :51:45. | :51:47. | |
mainstream political party in this But there are of course views within | :51:48. | :51:50. | |
political parties, and my position is well known, I do | :51:51. | :51:55. | |
not agree with Jeremy on everything, but nevertheless, I wouldn't say | :51:56. | :51:58. | |
he's an extremist, absolutely not. It is estimated 35% | :51:59. | :52:03. | |
of live music venues in London have London mayor Boris Johnson set up | :52:04. | :52:07. | |
a task force to look at how smaller The task force has | :52:08. | :52:15. | |
now reported back. In recent years, | :52:16. | :52:17. | |
the number of London grassroots live Between 2007-2015, over 50 clubs | :52:18. | :52:23. | |
closed their doors, meaning that the capital now has just 88 | :52:24. | :52:33. | |
grassroots venues still operating. This trend has sparked concern | :52:34. | :52:36. | |
among musicians. You play the small places on the way | :52:37. | :52:38. | |
up, but it seems to be a problem nowadays that there is only really | :52:39. | :52:47. | |
tiny pubs or huge arenas to play. This week, the mayor's music | :52:48. | :52:59. | |
venues task force released this Amongst its recommendations is | :53:00. | :53:02. | |
the creation of a so-called night mayor and | :53:03. | :53:15. | |
putting the onus on developers to for soundproofing if developments | :53:16. | :53:18. | |
are built next to a music venue Will this report help save London's | :53:19. | :53:21. | |
grassroots music industry, And we're joined by Auro Foxcroft, | :53:22. | :53:23. | |
owner of the music club Village Underground, who is on the | :53:24. | :53:31. | |
mayor's music venues task force Why are so many grassroots | :53:32. | :53:35. | |
music venues closing? There are lots of reasons why venues | :53:36. | :53:38. | |
close down, some of them are legislative issues, some to do with | :53:39. | :53:43. | |
development, some to do with rising rents and rates, some around | :53:44. | :53:46. | |
the lack of reinvestment into that grassroots sector | :53:47. | :53:50. | |
of the music industry, but the important thing is that | :53:51. | :53:55. | |
the solution is not complicated and the report that we have generated | :53:56. | :53:58. | |
lays out a suite of recommendations How culturally important are | :53:59. | :54:02. | |
they to a city like London? They are fantastically important | :54:03. | :54:08. | |
from a cultural and social point of view, from the point of view | :54:09. | :54:13. | |
of people's own lives and enjoyment of music, and also, London is the | :54:14. | :54:16. | |
most visited city, or place in the I think music tourism | :54:17. | :54:22. | |
in London is something around 6 0 million this year, and all | :54:23. | :54:29. | |
of this work contributes a lot to It generates a lot of money, | :54:30. | :54:32. | |
but on the other hand, they are Is it a case of charging people more | :54:33. | :54:46. | |
to come in and enjoy these venues or We are talking specifically about | :54:47. | :54:54. | |
the grassroots end of the music industry that generates the talent | :54:55. | :54:58. | |
pipeline that goes through and At that grassroots level, increasing | :54:59. | :55:00. | |
the cost is very difficult, young people going to venues, they do not | :55:01. | :55:09. | |
have a lot of disposable income especially at the moment, so that | :55:10. | :55:12. | |
is hard, but modest decreases in business rates and other support | :55:13. | :55:15. | |
from the government would be very What about a mayor | :55:16. | :55:17. | |
for night-time London? That is a great idea, | :55:18. | :55:24. | |
this so-called night mayor. It is an interesting proposition | :55:25. | :55:26. | |
and one that has been borrowed from the Netherlands who have night | :55:27. | :55:34. | |
mayors in most of their major cities who help to balance out the needs | :55:35. | :55:41. | |
of the night-time economy. Is this something that | :55:42. | :55:44. | |
must be maintained? Michael Dugher, who is | :55:45. | :55:49. | |
the shadow Secretary of State, the new one, was part of the support | :55:50. | :55:55. | |
and launch, I understand it. As a jazz fan and a member | :55:56. | :55:59. | |
of the all-party Parliamentary jazz group, I was at live jazz last night | :56:00. | :56:03. | |
in my constituency, in a very small venue, the Royal Air | :56:04. | :56:07. | |
Force Association Club, which does As far as I'm concerned, | :56:08. | :56:10. | |
it is great. When did you last go to a gig, | :56:11. | :56:13. | |
Andrew? You can leave Romford every | :56:14. | :56:16. | |
so often. This is part of our culture, | :56:17. | :56:25. | |
our national heritage. The music industry is really | :56:26. | :56:29. | |
important, it has been for We have to try and find ways to help | :56:30. | :56:32. | |
them continue to survive, Would you be prepared to put | :56:33. | :56:42. | |
your money where your mouth is as far as this is concerned, and | :56:43. | :56:48. | |
these are grassroots music venues? The whole issue | :56:49. | :56:51. | |
of business rates needs looking at. There are lots of businesses | :56:52. | :56:53. | |
that are struggling and do not Where you have got certain niche | :56:54. | :56:56. | |
areas that could benefit from a review of business rates | :56:57. | :57:02. | |
perhaps a lower rate or to be exempt for a short period, if we can | :57:03. | :57:06. | |
help businesses such as the music industry in that way, | :57:07. | :57:10. | |
we should not rule that out, Ideas for night mayor, | :57:11. | :57:12. | |
the night-time mayor? I hope that Sadiq Khan will be able | :57:13. | :57:15. | |
to do it as part of his overall job, Time for the rest of | :57:16. | :57:21. | |
the political news in 60 Seconds. Protesters against the proposed | :57:22. | :57:39. | |
third runway demonstrated in Whitehall against the Cabinet | :57:40. | :57:43. | |
Secretary, Sir Jeremy Heywood, who had written to senior politicians | :57:44. | :57:46. | |
asking them not to speak out against Heathrow expansion | :57:47. | :57:49. | |
in case it sparked legal challenges According to the Independent | :57:50. | :57:51. | |
Police Complaints Commission, body cameras worn by armed Met police | :57:52. | :57:59. | |
officers are unfit for purpose. It said the position of the cameras | :58:00. | :58:03. | |
on officers' bodies obscured and The Olympic Park Orbit Tower lost | :58:04. | :58:06. | |
half a million in the last 12 months, according to the London | :58:07. | :58:13. | |
Legacy Development Corporation. Labour leader of the | :58:14. | :58:15. | |
London Assembly, Len Duvall, called it a pointless monument | :58:16. | :58:18. | |
at vast taxpayer expense. Statistics from the Department | :58:19. | :58:22. | |
of the Environment show that London councils dominate the table | :58:23. | :58:24. | |
for the highest number Newham had more than 70,000 | :58:25. | :58:26. | |
incidents in 2014-15, followed by Let's pick up on a couple | :58:27. | :58:33. | |
of those issues. The monument at Olympic Park, | :58:34. | :58:45. | |
what is your view? From next season, as a season ticket | :58:46. | :58:48. | |
holder at West Ham, I will be I do not know if it is | :58:49. | :58:51. | |
a white elephant, but even if it is not in operation in terms of paid | :58:52. | :58:59. | |
visitors, it would still be a I do not particularly like it, I | :59:00. | :59:02. | |
drive past it, but it is a landmark Len Duvall says it is | :59:03. | :59:16. | |
a vanity project. It probably was, but nevertheless, | :59:17. | :59:21. | |
it will cost money to take it down, Let's move onto one | :59:22. | :59:24. | |
of the other issues, Heathrow. The Cabinet Secretary had warned | :59:25. | :59:30. | |
ministers not to discuss options That was around conference season, | :59:31. | :59:33. | |
probably because of fear What is your view | :59:34. | :59:39. | |
about the third runway? Clearly ministers have to take legal | :59:40. | :59:44. | |
advice about what they say We can speak out | :59:45. | :59:46. | |
and express our views. I think that Heathrow, to expand it, | :59:47. | :59:54. | |
probably that is what will happen at the end of the day, | :59:55. | :00:01. | |
but I think Boris's idea of thinking long-term and having | :00:02. | :00:06. | |
a brand-new airport long-term, is Heathrow in the short term is | :00:07. | :00:08. | |
probably the best way forward. Crossrail is going to go through | :00:09. | :00:13. | |
my constituency and Andrew's. We're in | :00:14. | :00:16. | |
the position that journey times will be halved from north-east London | :00:17. | :00:19. | |
and Essex into Heathrow airport For my point of view, | :00:20. | :00:21. | |
I support Heathrow rather than going to a remote Gatwick which will take | :00:22. | :00:28. | |
an hour and three quarters. Stanstead I'm not sure about | :00:29. | :00:31. | |
but the priority is to get this decision on Heathrow at last, | :00:32. | :00:37. | |
because frankly, the hours that you spend stacking to go into Heathrow, | :00:38. | :00:42. | |
it is full to capacity now. Do you think they might fudge it | :00:43. | :00:52. | |
because it is We should not, | :00:53. | :00:54. | |
we should get on with the job, We've been elected to government, | :00:55. | :00:57. | |
it is our power to make that choice now and we've got to do what is | :00:58. | :01:02. | |
right for London and the quicker we get on with the | :01:03. | :01:04. | |
job, the better I think it will be. Thank you to both of you | :01:05. | :01:08. | |
for being my guests today, Andrew Rosindell and Mike Gapes, and with | :01:09. | :01:11. | |
that, it is back to you, Andrew So a constitutional crisis | :01:12. | :01:17. | |
looming over tax credits. A non-apology | :01:18. | :01:19. | |
from Tony Blair over Iraq and more talk about the direction | :01:20. | :01:21. | |
of Jeremy Corbyn's Labour Party Before we do that, an apology. I | :01:22. | :01:36. | |
said Andrew Fisher, the new policy adviser to Jeremy Corbyn had urged | :01:37. | :01:42. | |
people to vote for what I've described as the Trotskyite | :01:43. | :01:46. | |
candidate. It has been pointed out to me that Class cat macro war is | :01:47. | :01:56. | |
not Trotskyite, it is anarchist Either way, he got 65 votes so not | :01:57. | :02:08. | |
that influential. What do you make of it all? Ken Livingstone said we | :02:09. | :02:17. | |
should not go after moderate MPs that then he said we could. The | :02:18. | :02:28. | |
person he cited was Simon Danczuk. There is this incredible gift that | :02:29. | :02:31. | |
George Osborne has handed to those who would like to reselect Labour | :02:32. | :02:36. | |
MPs which is the boundary review. It was meant to happen in the last | :02:37. | :02:38. | |
Parliament, it will now happen in this Parliament. The night wing say | :02:39. | :02:51. | |
they need to have reselection. John McDonnell said they will not do what | :02:52. | :02:57. | |
was done in the 1980s but the Momentum group have been handed this | :02:58. | :03:04. | |
gift. So they do not need boundaries election because so many seats will | :03:05. | :03:09. | |
be thrown up in the air because of the cutting of MPs. It should not be | :03:10. | :03:14. | |
surprising that someone who has won the Labour leadership by a huge | :03:15. | :03:17. | |
majority and attracted new people into it, would want these new people | :03:18. | :03:23. | |
to have an influence in his party and who his MPs are? The problem is | :03:24. | :03:28. | |
it does not take a plot for the moderates to find themselves in | :03:29. | :03:32. | |
trouble. The party has expanded so hugely and they are not all the old | :03:33. | :03:38. | |
trots and militant tendencies. There are lots of new, young and indeed | :03:39. | :03:44. | |
old, people who got alienated from Labour before, are on the left and | :03:45. | :03:47. | |
are often quite politically naive, and if they are going to be making | :03:48. | :03:52. | |
the selection, they may just instinctively go for a new left wing | :03:53. | :03:57. | |
-- a more left-wing candidate, without anybody having to organise | :03:58. | :04:02. | |
in the old Militant way. Some of the parties are three times the size | :04:03. | :04:06. | |
they were before. These people will not necessarily know the sitting MP, | :04:07. | :04:10. | |
they will not be the people who have been out wet Thursday nights with | :04:11. | :04:12. | |
the clipboard doing the work, but they will be the people who come in | :04:13. | :04:17. | |
when it comes selection time and make the vote. I think that does put | :04:18. | :04:21. | |
a lot of these MPs at serious perils. | :04:22. | :04:29. | |
Under Mr Livingstone's demeanour, he fundamentally said, if you are a | :04:30. | :04:33. | |
sitting centrist Labour MP that either go with the flow, become a | :04:34. | :04:38. | |
bit more left yourself, a bit more in tune with what Mr Corbyn and the | :04:39. | :04:43. | |
activists want, or you could well face reselection. And I think what | :04:44. | :04:47. | |
Ken Livingstone has noticed is that the right of the party, the | :04:48. | :04:51. | |
moderates, have been incredibly pathetic at fighting back, not just | :04:52. | :04:55. | |
against Corbyn is but over the last five years. We talk about the | :04:56. | :04:59. | |
left-wing takeover of the party since May, you look at the candidate | :05:00. | :05:04. | |
selection, the direction of the National policy Forum, the direction | :05:05. | :05:07. | |
of the National executive committee, they have all taken a left-wing tilt | :05:08. | :05:12. | |
post 2010. This is a slightly more extreme version of something which | :05:13. | :05:17. | |
has been going on for half a decade. The right of the party have not | :05:18. | :05:21. | |
fought back which is why I find it interesting that Frank Field has | :05:22. | :05:24. | |
said we need to intensify our efforts and he is pro-those | :05:25. | :05:30. | |
proposing the idea of provoking elections and having moderate | :05:31. | :05:49. | |
candidates stand as elections. If you cause that amount of fuss, there | :05:50. | :05:52. | |
is a limit to how far it can go Frank Field who nominated Jeremy | :05:53. | :05:54. | |
Corbyn as leader of the Labour Party. I would suggest to you, Nick, | :05:55. | :05:57. | |
if things can continue in the direction they are going, come the | :05:58. | :06:00. | |
next Labour Party conference in the autumn of 2016, this will be from | :06:01. | :06:04. | |
the NDC to the policy Forum, to the people of the conference, a very | :06:05. | :06:11. | |
different Labour Party. The power of the Labour Party does not rest in | :06:12. | :06:15. | |
the Parliamentary Labour Party. The power of the Labour Party rests in | :06:16. | :06:21. | |
the membership. 59.7% of whom are elected Jeremy Corbyn. Some of the | :06:22. | :06:25. | |
anti-Corbyn faction were delighted with themselves because they have | :06:26. | :06:29. | |
managed to get some non-Corbyn people on the executive of the | :06:30. | :06:33. | |
Labour Party, haven't we done well? To which you say, well done, guys, | :06:34. | :06:37. | |
but you ain't got the power. The power is outside now. Let's move on | :06:38. | :06:43. | |
to what the Lords will be doing tomorrow. The education secretary | :06:44. | :06:47. | |
Nicky Morgan was on the Andrew Marr Show earlier this morning talking | :06:48. | :06:50. | |
about that. This is what she had to say. | :06:51. | :06:52. | |
I think the House of Lords, they should be very clear, | :06:53. | :06:55. | |
Often they do make good points, but they are striking down 70% | :06:56. | :06:59. | |
They have already made it more difficult for us on child care, | :07:00. | :07:03. | |
for example, where they are going to slow down things. | :07:04. | :07:06. | |
Child care is one of those things that people really | :07:07. | :07:08. | |
Without going into specifics, what you're saying to the House | :07:09. | :07:14. | |
of Lords is, be very, very careful before you do that, think | :07:15. | :07:17. | |
I think they should be mindful of what they are doing. | :07:18. | :07:21. | |
It is constitutionally unprecedented to strike | :07:22. | :07:22. | |
down a statutory instrument on a taxation and spending matter. | :07:23. | :07:26. | |
Well, of course, Polly, we live for constitutional crises, don't we I | :07:27. | :07:35. | |
fear we may be disappointed? I think we may be but I wish they would blow | :07:36. | :07:39. | |
the whole thing apart. If you have a government which has no intention of | :07:40. | :07:42. | |
reforming the House of Lords whatsoever, 800 people in there I | :07:43. | :07:47. | |
think that the Liberal Democrats, the Labour Party and anyone with any | :07:48. | :07:50. | |
common sense in the House of Lords is entirely free to say, to hell | :07:51. | :07:56. | |
with convention, we will vote as we feel. You can abolish us if you like | :07:57. | :08:01. | |
and it would be a dam good thing if you did, but of course, because they | :08:02. | :08:05. | |
love being there. Let's have another 200 because then | :08:06. | :08:09. | |
we would overtake the Communist Party's then a recession in China. | :08:10. | :08:19. | |
It would make Cameron look absurd. Maybe that would push us towards | :08:20. | :08:22. | |
reform. Maybe people would say we cannot tolerate this. It looks as if | :08:23. | :08:27. | |
he bishops are the ones who will come to the rescue. They say no | :08:28. | :08:36. | |
fatal motions, let's just regret. They regret but they should rebel. | :08:37. | :08:45. | |
If we did appoint as a nation even more unelected members of the upper | :08:46. | :08:50. | |
chamber, I guess there is a possibility it really would seem | :08:51. | :08:54. | |
more ludicrous to more people? And there is a rich British tradition of | :08:55. | :08:59. | |
stuffing the Lords for political self interest which did not end well | :09:00. | :09:04. | |
last time. I think there were a constitutional crisis, perversely it | :09:05. | :09:06. | |
would suit the government in the short term, because it would muddy | :09:07. | :09:12. | |
the issue of tax credits. It takes the attention of tax credits. They | :09:13. | :09:18. | |
are the faster on a wicket with the issue of the Lords than tax credits. | :09:19. | :09:25. | |
You are an unelected chamber of 10 billion people, I think we are the | :09:26. | :09:27. | |
only four people in London not in the Lords and it is only a matter of | :09:28. | :09:32. | |
time for you, Andrew! How do you know I have not been offered | :09:33. | :09:36. | |
already? Lloyd George, there were the Conservative Lords being against | :09:37. | :09:41. | |
the people's budget. This time the Lords should be rebelling on behalf | :09:42. | :09:44. | |
of the people because they would be in favour... A progressive force. | :09:45. | :09:52. | |
What is interesting is how close close we did come to constitutional | :09:53. | :10:00. | |
crisis. Molly Meacher tabled a motion which would have killed them | :10:01. | :10:07. | |
stone dead. A cross-party group said you cannot do this, we are not a | :10:08. | :10:12. | |
vertical grip. I want to call this to a halt because I just see a clip | :10:13. | :10:17. | |
of Mr Tony Blair who was on CNN this morning talking about the Iraq war. | :10:18. | :10:23. | |
Whenever I am asked this, I can say that I apologise | :10:24. | :10:26. | |
for the fact that the intelligence we received was wrong. | :10:27. | :10:28. | |
Because even though he had used chemical weapons | :10:29. | :10:30. | |
extensively against his own people, against others, the programme in the | :10:31. | :10:33. | |
form that we thought it was did not exist in the way that we thought. | :10:34. | :10:37. | |
I can apologise for that, I can also apologise, by the way, | :10:38. | :10:42. | |
for some of the mistakes in planning, and certainly our mistake | :10:43. | :10:46. | |
in our understanding of what would happen once you removed the regime. | :10:47. | :10:51. | |
But I find it hard to apologise for removing Saddam. | :10:52. | :10:55. | |
Even today, in 2015, it is better that he's not there | :10:56. | :10:59. | |
We have only got a minute left. Polly, didn't we know all that? We | :11:00. | :11:14. | |
knew that. Nothing new there. He will never apologise for conducting | :11:15. | :11:18. | |
a war which killed a lot of people, including our own people. I don t | :11:19. | :11:22. | |
think any leader can ever do that. I suppose a bit more straightforward | :11:23. | :11:26. | |
than I apologise directly, but maybe a bit more straight? I think he | :11:27. | :11:30. | |
might have trained as a barrister! I think he is preparing the ground for | :11:31. | :11:34. | |
Wendy Chilcot report comes out. He knows where he will be criticised so | :11:35. | :11:45. | |
he is neutralising that territory. -- when the Chilcot report comes | :11:46. | :11:48. | |
out. For macro he will know what they say about you in advance by | :11:49. | :11:52. | |
this bizarre process. He will know so is he preparing the ground? He | :11:53. | :11:58. | |
apologised for the quality of the intelligence, not for an pin-up the | :11:59. | :12:01. | |
intelligence he received. I wonder whether Chilcot will say bad | :12:02. | :12:08. | |
intelligence is understandable but you chose to play up what | :12:09. | :12:12. | |
intelligence you did receive and that is not quite what he said sorry | :12:13. | :12:17. | |
for. And we know what Chilcot thinks about the intelligence because he | :12:18. | :12:23. | |
was a member of the Butler enquiry who made the precise point, you | :12:24. | :12:31. | |
stripped out the caveats. Being misled by bad intelligence is one | :12:32. | :12:33. | |
thing and you could take that at face value if you are so inclined, | :12:34. | :12:38. | |
knowing the intelligence was not as robust as you claimed it to be as a | :12:39. | :12:44. | |
basis for war is entirely another? Never underestimate Tony Blair's | :12:45. | :12:48. | |
ability to deceive himself. He wanted to believe it, he needed to | :12:49. | :12:52. | |
believe it and he probably did believe it. That is why Lord Butler | :12:53. | :12:56. | |
said after the publication of his report, he was astonished that no | :12:57. | :13:01. | |
journalist said to him, and what do you think the Prime Minister should | :13:02. | :13:05. | |
do now? Because he was pretty seriously critical of that stripping | :13:06. | :13:10. | |
out of the caveats. A pity he did not say so at the time because we | :13:11. | :13:14. | |
could have asked him. We can not get everything right. | :13:15. | :13:16. | |
The Daily Politics is on at lunch time every weekday over | :13:17. | :13:20. | |
on BBC Two and I'll be back here next week, same time, same place. | :13:21. | :13:23. | |
Remember, if it's Sunday, it's the Sunday Politics. | :13:24. | :13:25. | |
Eight anglers are thrown in the deep end. Argh! | :13:26. | :14:19. | |
They'll compete in some of the most extreme places around the world | :14:20. | :14:24. |