03/07/2011 The Andrew Marr Show

Good morning. There has been a lot in the papers about a certain

prospective bride, and the scathing criticism she received by e-mail

from her prospective stepmother in law, who told her her behaviour was

staggering in its uncouthness and lack of grace, and that she had

behaved so badly, that she had left the family dog depressed and

anxious. But I'm slightly with Bomber, I have to say. The motto is

nec Habeo, nec careo, nec curo, which translates as, I have not, I

lack not, I care not. This story I suspect is not over yet. Joining me

today for our review of the papers is the Labour peer Helena Kennedy,

Chris Blackhurst and Rupert Gavin. Let's kick off today with the

editorial in the Sunday Telegraph which says this morning that the

quality of care dispensed in Britain to old people, who are no

longer able to live independently, is often abysmal. It goes on to

talk about the thousands of people taken to hospital every year

because of starvation or dehydration. This story of neglect

ought to worry almost every family in Britain. Today, we are joined by

the Health Secretary, Andrew Lansley. We have not heard a lot

from him since the U-turn on the health reforms. I will be talking

to him about the future of social care. Also today, the first major

television interview with the man who has been appointed to oversee

me - and everybody else working for the BBC. I will be asking the new

chairman of the BBC Trust, Chris Patten, what sort of BBC will

emerge after the most severe cuts in the history of the organisation.

And American Independence Day is being marked in London tomorrow

with the unveiling of a statue of Ronald Reagan, who would have been

100 this year. Barack Obama is now amongst those paying tribute to the

way that Ronald Reagan gave America herself confidence back. Today

William will be hearing from his chief speech writer, Peggy Noonan,

who gave him many of his best lines, including one in the aftermath of

the space shuttle explosion. As they prepared for their journey

and waved goodbye, and slipped the surly bonds off the earth to touch

Talks will be taking place on the publication of the Gill Nott

commission's report tomorrow, which will outline how much people should

pay towards their own care. Growing old may be virtually guaranteed,

but the level of care we could get is anything but. 20,000 people are

thought to have to sell their homes every year to pay for it. It is a

highly emotive political topic. Within 24 hours, this man will

publish his recommendations on how the ageing population should be

cared for in the future. He is expected to suggest a cap on

payments for personal care, somewhere between �30,000 and

somewhere between �30,000 and �50,000, with the idea being that

With that in mind, 26 charities are urging politicians to agree on a

con-trick timetable for reform. Among the requests, a plea to get

together for talks, regardless of politics. Last month, the Labour

leader offered to hold cross-party talks with David Cameron and Nick

Clegg on the issue. Experts suggest reform could lead to insurance

companies offering new schemes to cover care costs, but a cap may

force the Treasury to find an extra �2 billion a year. Previous

attempts to reform the system have not taken off. With 1.5 million

over-85s in the UK, and that figure expected to rise further, it is a

political issue which will get more and more prominent.

The Prime Minister has been warned by one of his government

departments that plans for benefits cuts could make 40,000 people

homeless and could even cost more money than it saves. The letter was

written by a senior civil servant at the Department for Communities

and Local Government, and has been leaked to a Sunday newspaper.

Downing Street says the letter is old.

Half-a-million children in England could be at risk of developing

life-threatening liver disease because they are overweight,

according to one of the Government's health advisers.

Professor Martin Lombard says thousands of four- to 14-year-olds

could already have the early stages of fatty liver disease. It

increases the risk of heart attack or stroke. David Haye has lost his

world heavyweight title fight to the Ukrainian Wladimir Klitschko.

They lasted 12 rounds, but the judges unanimously voted in favour

of Wladimir Klitschko. More than 40,000 people had gathered in

Hamburg to watch the fight. David Haye blamed the loss on his broken

Haye blamed the loss on his broken baby toe.

I genuinely believed I could win the fight. I have been having local

anaesthetic in my toe. The whole idea was, fight night, anaesthetise

it, the crowd, the adrenalin, the occasion, I will be able to ignore

it. The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge will continue their tour

of Canada today, in the province of Quebec. They were heckled by a

small group of anti-monarchists as they toured the Children's Hospital

in Montreal. Some chanted, French Quebec, others shouted, down with

the monarchy. After two days of being welcomed

like rock stars, this was a different but not surprising

reception in French-speaking Montreal, for Canada's future king

and Queen. This is a small, noisy demonstration by a radical group

who want an independent state of Quebec. Two years ago, when Prince

Charles was here, protesters fought with riot police.

The message is that clear - William, Clear off. The protesters were

vocal, but so, too, were those who had come to welcome to Royal Couple.

Inside the hospital, William and Kate were meeting some of the

children who were being treated here. The royals, who do not yet

have servants, then got stuck in at a catering college. Montreal is

known for its food. William's not known for his cooking skills.

Having dined on what they had helped to cook, they boarded a

frigate to sail to Quebec City, their next stop in a province which

endlessly debates whether or not it wants to sever its links with the

rest of Canada, and with the British crown.

That's all from me for now. I will be back with the headline just

before 10 o'clock. The front pages today... The

observer has got a story saying the leaked letter suggests 40,000

people might be made homeless by the welfare cuts. The Sunday

Telegraph has Ed Miliband offering a truce to the Conservatives and

Liberal Democrats in relation to care for the elderly. And Thorntons,

the high street chocolate company, are closing hundreds of shops. The

Sunday Times has a story about the Olympics boss being paid a secret

cache. The Independent on Sunday has a special report from the Horn

of Africa about the famine there, which it says has been and a

reported around the world. And the Mail on Sunday is having a go at

Prince Charles, saying that he has had nine meetings in 10 months with

senior ministers, and he is interfering too much. Thank you all

for joining us this morning. Let's start with you, Helena Kennedy.

the front of the observer, there is this story about the welfare cuts,

and the Ryzhkov 40,000 people being made homeless. It is an old letter,

but it is one of those things where you have a policy which has not

been thought through, and suddenly, the ministry starts realising what

the fall-out will be. This is about the Department of Eric Pickles

letting the Prime Minister know that actually, if you put a cap on

welfare benefits, you will end up with a whole number of people being

homeless. This is specifically housing costs? Absolutely. We

always knew this was going to be an issue in the south. Absolutely,

housing costs have gone through the roof. It is one of those things

where this raft of cuts, they all looked great in terms of telling

the public how we're going to deal with welfare scroungers and so on,

but many people will be feeling the impact of this. Local councils will

have to pick up the bill. It is going to be very costly, in terms

of the social fabric. And yet Labour are not yet cutting through

very clearly, even on the cuts issue. I think you have got a story

about Ed Miliband, Chris Blackhurst... I have just read this,

and it made me laugh, but then I thought, there is a really serious

point. He gives the same answer five times to five different

questions. You start laughing halfway through because you realise

he's talking like a robot. It is the same answer, the same phrases,

the same words, and you read it and you think, what is he doing? But

there is a serious point, the public want the Labour leader to

stand for something. If he gives the same answer five times, you

wonder what is going on. problem is the headline immediately

above... You have got Ed Miliband, presumably with advisers, telling

him, for God's sake don't sound as if you are too pro-trade unions.

You have to make sure the message is not separated out, and so he

feels he has to give this standard answer, which has got to keep

everybody happy, but keeps nobody happy. But the real thing is that

there are still people, the old Blairites, who insist he does not

do anything which is too supportive of the public sector, and they

really have designs on bringing somebody else in. You would not say

that things are going well at the moment? No, because I think Labour

should be absolutely clear about the way these cuts will affect the

fabric of our society. I think we keep talking about an ideologically

driven Conservative Party which is going to shrink what government can

do for all of us. It is not just the poorest, it is going to be

about the lives of everybody. I think Labour have something to say

on that, and they are not saying it clearly enough. Overture first

story, Rupert Gavin... Quebec, we have had some protests. We have the

Royal Family and Harry Potter as our key export industries. This was

the Kate and Wills brand going international. I must say, I think

it has gone phenomenally well, particularly for Kate. There is a

good contrast in the Sunday Times between when Charles and Princess

Di went there all those years ago, doing exactly the same thing,

planting a tree. You can see how the Royal Family has modernised

itself, because Kate, quite clearly, is better at handling a spade, and

looking very glamorous at the same time. This is part of the

phenomenal job being done to internationalise the Royal Family.

She's coming over as a kind of every woman. She is, and apart from

the boys, -- the poise, beauty and charm which she exudes, the fact is,

she represents the middle classes. This is the transition. Her name is

important. She is Middleton, and that is a critical clue. If

Upperton, I don't think the Canadians would have gone for it.

But Kate, and let's forget Catherine... I don't know why the

Palace wanted to call her Kaplan, because all five Queen Catherines

of this country have had a pretty troubled time. The other thing is,

they together seem to like each other. They talk to each other,

they have conversations. But even the Queen, you do not see how often

having a conversation with the Duke of Edinburgh. Let's turn to some of

the serious stuff, the economy. There's a story here, in the

observer, the demand to curb casino banking, which I'm in favour of

doing. But how it could split the coalition. We all remember that

Vince Cable was a big critic of the way in which the banks had been

working. He wanted to see a separation of retail and investment

banking, back to the old way of doing things. And how that is in

the interests of all of us, as taxpayers. Unfortunately, we have

got this thing that, no, they will all continue as before, but there

will be Chinese walls, the bankers themselves will regulate their own

behaviour - well, I think we have had too much of that already. But

this is likely to cause a real After what happened in the NHS, we

don't know who will win these battles. Chris, you have another

take on this story. Why all the banking system is still in crisis,

while Greece is going up in flames, I'm afraid there is a spread on the

Mail on Sunday and devoted to the Governor of the Bank of England

going to Wimbledon five times. What is fantastic about this piece is

that they have choreographed his pictures with all the moments in

the crisis. While the Greek parliament was meeting, he was

sitting in the royal box with Mike Atherton. There is one of them with

his eyes closed. It gives all of the food he has been eating, tiger

prawns, marinated ginger chilli sauce... To be fair to Mervyn, he

is a member of the All England Club, he is entitled to do this, so why

not? On the other hand, from a PR point of view... So more should

have had a word. Exactly, once is enough. To be photographed five

times in the same week while the world as in financial crisis, it is

not good. It does not look good. One banker or ex-banker who has had

a lucky escape I suspect, Dominique Strauss-Kahn. It is a fascinating

story. The few weeks ago, he seemed to be down and out, yesterday's man,

if one believes the reports that are being written, the case seems

to be collapsing and you start to speculate can he come back? He

couldn't possibly, could he? It is very challenging but I wouldn't be

surprised. The French will see this as an American set-up, and he

becomes the hero from being the anti-hero. If you drill down to

what was going on in the hotel room, we mustn't going to too many

details, but it was not pleasant. The case with Christine Keeler was

the archetypal political Stander, and Jack lied about it saying there

was no impropriety at all. Dominique Strauss-Kahn has not yet

lied, and the politicians have learned that. We don't know that

yet, do we? He has been very careful in not denying that some

form of sexual encounter took place. Don't say that means he will come

back, but I think she has learnt the obvious lesson. It would be a

sad day for women if he comes back. That is not to say he is guilty of

having raped or not, because the presumption of innocence when down

the Swanee at the beginning of this and the coverage, it tells us a lot

about avoiding doing what the Americans do, but for women, if he

get away with this and goes back into government, what does it say

to women? What it means is you can be a prostitute and still be raped,

you can still be a person telling lie about your asylum and still be

raped. Let's move on from the question of one person's

electability to another's. In this case, Michel Bachman who is,

according to the Sunday Times, scooting up the opinion polls in

the United States. There is almost a profile of her hear, and I hadn't

realised just... This is Sarah Palin book with knobs on. -- book

with knobs on. She is incredibly right wing. She says the whole

business of global warming is a hoax, she thinks having health care

for the poor is a crime against democracy, she thinks President

Obama is friendly with the terrorists. She is on the extreme

of the right wing, and yet apparently there is every chance

she might be up there. Scare me. Unbelievably scary. This is America.

Let's come home again and go to the high street. Chris, you have an

Independent on Sunday story. This is shocking. 300,000 shops have

closed, more to close. They publish a list of the chains under threat,

but what is going on here is not just recession, we have got the

whole change of online shopping, out-of-town shopping centres, and

all of this has happened at once. Really there is no solution to it.

One might be to somehow reduce the rent the shops are paying. At the

moment they can only pay up words of rent reviews. Other -- otherwise

town centres are going to change forever. It is a tough time for you

to be taking over a newspaper. Do you think national newspapers will

be with us in 20 years' time? because we are sitting here now and

we are riveted. All these stories have come from newspapers, not from

Google, not from Facebook. We love newspapers. You presumably have got

your own plans for the paper? How have got plans but I am not going

to tell you them now. Come back and reveal all in due course. I hope so.

You have chosen the Wimbledon story, but we need to touch on Harry

Potter. Goodness me, it is another Independent story. Quite grim

posters of Harry Potter looking scary. It is called deathly Hallows

so you are not going to have a knees-up in the poster, are you?

This talks about the number of children who have been encouraged

to read by this Harry Potter phenomenon but I can't recall where

we have seen child actors growing up. Now they are adults. We did the

first premier of the Harry Potter film in November 2001, and this

week we are doing the premiere of the final one. Here we are, 10

years in, inevitably the child actors have transformed into young

adults. And you have the longest red carpet anyone can remember in

London, is that right? Yes, we have the Guinness Book of Records status

for the longest red carpet. I hope it doesn't rain on your parade.

Tradition is it always rains on Harry Potter premiere nights.

you very much indeed. Glorious weather. Flaming June only

spluttered, but July has been golden, even if most of us only

glimpsed it on the telly through our fingers as we watched Andy

Murray fight his annual Culloden. It is nice and simple for you this

week, basically it is another fine summer's day, a bit like yesterday.

There will be a lot of sunshine around, and with light winds it

will feel pleasantly warm. There is some cloud floating through the

Midlands, that should break up a bit. A lot of sunshine to enjoy it

in the south-west of England this afternoon, real warmth in that

sunshine as well. And very sunny in Wales, more cloud developing in the

east of the country. More cloud coming into Northern Ireland, but

still bright this afternoon. Feeling pleasantly warm, the same

across most of Scotland. Might get a spot of rain, the rest of

Scotland enjoying sunshine into the afternoon. Notice the sunshine near

the coastal areas, that is the sea breeze coming in. The cloud

developing will be inland, especially in the Midlands. Perfect

weather for the tennis at Wimbledon today. Another really warm day on

Monday with a lot of sunshine around, but on Tuesday we get a

band of rain coming in from the West followed by sunshine and

So, how we are going to pay for better care for elderly people. We

are talking about basic things like help with washing, getting dressed,

eating, people in their own homes or care homes - almost everybody

seems to agree with the damning assessment by age UK that our

system is close to collapse. Not enough money is being spent, some

people are financed but many others fear they have to sell their houses

to pay for basic care. Tomorrow, a report will be published about this.

Right now, Andrew Lansley joins us from Cambridgeshire. Thank you for

joining us this morning. Can I start right away by asking whether

you also agree with Age UK that the system we have got at the moment to

care for elderly people in their homes or residential homes is

crumbling, close to collapse, and needs to be radically changed?

know we need change in order for it to be sustainable in the future,

and more to the point to deliver quality care. We knew last year

when we came into office that the system of supporting people with

care at home and in residential homes was in great difficulty. It

is why it in the spending review at the end of last year we made

substantial additional provision, a total of over �7 billion over four

years additionally through the grant to local authorities and

directed through the NHS. This year we are providing an extra �650

million through the NHS directly to support help at home, things like

home adaptations and so on. The point made his affair one - we will

not be able to give people the quality of care and support and the

sense of security that they need in the future unless we have changed,

which is why last July as a government we asked Andrew Dilnot

and his colleagues to consider these issues of how we fund care in

the future. This report says innocence that most people are

going to have to get out some kind of new insurance to pay for their

care. People with savings will have to pay through insurance. But the

big debate seems to be if the government will accept there should

be a cap on how much people have to pay for their own care, at around

�50,000. Can you help on that - will that happen? Of course Andrew

Dilnot and his colleagues will produce their report tomorrow and I

will of course first give the government's response to that of

Parliament tomorrow, but I think Andrew Dilnot has set out very

clearly some of the shape of what he will say and I think we are

going to give it a very positive response. We are going to treat it

as the basis for engagement but it is part of the overall question

that needs to be answered. Andrew Dilnot's commission themselves make

clear there are a range of issues within their report the need to be

resolved. Where are captured be said, how it is to be paid for,

issues of the thresholds for example, how means testing should

apply to people in the future so they can contribute to the cost of

their care, and people in residential homes, may raise the

extent to which they should pay for their accommodation costs. There is

a range of issues inside the report, and the big question of course,

questions beyond it of how we deliver quality care, how we give

people proper protection and of course how these issues are to be

paid for. Quite a lot of people watching might think that, if they

get into terrible trouble in their old age with very basic things like

cleaning and feeding and so on, somehow the state will provide. But

that is not the case and it can't be the case, can it? Simply because

of the cost to the taxpayer of doing an NHS style universal

service. You raise an important question because what Andrew

Dilnot's research for his commission has shown very clearly

is that people are very confused about what it is that is provided

through care and support. Of course for those who have no income or

assets of their own, the state does provide but increasingly with the

financial pressures we are seeing that it is not at moderate levels

of need, only when they have really substantial need. If we carry on as

we are, we will have increasingly large numbers of people who are not

supported to be independent and to live comfortably at home, and they

are tending to fall into greater need and more cost to the state

later on. I think it is important for people to remember, if one has

no assets, the state is currently providing. If one needs health care,

the state is providing. If people's primary need is a healthy lead,

there will continue to be health care support. Just on Friday, a

report was produced for me and my colleagues on palliative care, end

of life care, and one of their recommendations is that where

people are right at the end of life, in order to join up health and

social care better, the government should take responsibility for the

When it comes to the social care issues that we were talking about

before, where do you stand on essentially the moral question of,

where people have got assets, houses, generally speaking, having

to sell those houses to pay for their care, rather than pass the

value of the house down to their family? Well, of course, at the

moment, we're in a situation where it is a terrible lottery. A quarter

of people have effectively no substantial care costs, whereas

there is another quarter where the costs exceed �60,000, and for one

in 10, it is more than �100,000. So effectively it is a lottery.

Through chance, some people may happen to have dementia in old age,

and they end up losing everything they have worked for in life. If

people are very rich, they can afford to pay. So, the focus of the

question of paying for care and support in old age does come down

to people who have assets, not necessarily very large amounts of

assets, but things that they have worked for and saved four, and what

we want to do, which Andrew Dilnot makes clear, is to make it possible

for people to prepare for their contribution to costs in old age,

through a partnership between the state and individuals, and for that

preparation to mean that people do not have a catastrophic loss of

everything they have worked for. You're not going to tell us about

the cap today, so let me therefore pursue a bit further on exactly

what the timing will be, and how you will approach it politically.

People will be worried about whether they will have to pay more

in the short term, and they will also see that the Labour leader, Ed

Miliband, wants to work with you, on a cross-party consensus. The

Labour Party's ideas, you guys had a really tough go at before the

election. But it is this something which you can get round the table

on? The first thing to say is, it is important, the reason why I

cannot comment, I have not received Andrew Dilnot's report, and I will

tell Parliament how we will proceed tomorrow. But it is important to

recognise that there are issues in the report that the public and

political parties together have a responsibility to consider. There

is the wider decision on which Andrew Dilnot does not make

recommendations, about how the costs are to be met. And we need to

set it in a wider context. Last month, David Cameron made it clear

that we would work with other parties. It is not just political

parties, we have got the representatives of older people and

carers' organisations as well. Let's move on to the national

Health Service U-turn. Do you now think you got your original plans

wrong? I do not think we got them wrong necessarily or that there was

a U-turn. But what was absolutely clear in March and April was that

many people had concerns, some of them may have been misplaced, but

others were genuine concerns, and there were issues where people felt

very strongly that there was scope to improve what we we are setting

out to do in the NHS. -- what we were setting out to do. This

improvement has produced... Let me just put to you the case which was

being made in the House of Commons, which was that this improvement has

come at the cost of a vast increase in bureaucracy. Shadow

commissioning groups, authorised commissioning groups, NHS clusters,

Public Health England, and, according to the Royal College of

GPs, the number of statutory organisations and a your changes

will rise from 163 to 521 organisations. The latter points

simply is not true. I would invite you to explain how complicated the

current NHS system is, and, as part of what we are proposing to do, we

will be taking two Hall tears of management out. But in the process

we will be using many of the existing organisations. Cancer

networks currently exist, for example. Can you tell us how many

statutory organisations there will be in the NHS after your changes?

No, I can't, because the clinical commissioning groups which will be

established across England, the number will only be determined when

the local groups have come together in order to determine the best

geography for delivering services in their area. It could be 200, it

could be 250. The point is, they will determine that geography

themselves. But we're going to take whole tears of management out. We

need to cut administration in the NHS. We have reduced the number of

managers in the NHS by more than 4,000 and increased the number of

doctors by more than 2000. Let me ask knew about another story in the

news today, the government drive against obesity. We have seen some

fairly disgusting pictures of livers and other organs on our

television screens this morning. Do you think it is the government's

job to tell people what they should be eating? No, I think it is the

Government's job to help people to lead healthier lives. That's why in

the weeks ahead we will be going through a programme to support

people, not lecture them, to give families the opportunity with their

children to have a lot of additional physical activity during

the course of the summer. And it is national obesity week coming up,

and one important thing, which my colleagues are highlighting, is

that people may not realise the nature of the risks if children in

particular become seriously overweight. So, for example, people

think of fatty liver disease as something which is a consequence of

the abuse of alcohol, but actually, there are 60,010-year-olds who

could be at risk of developing fatty liver disease themselves if

they are too obese in the years to come. Thank you very much for

joining us. He was revered by many Americans,

reviled by some, but Ronald Reagan was certainly one of the most

charismatic leaders of the 20th century. He remains a powerful I

can for US Republicans, and even for President Obama. He has invited

Ronald Reagan's widow to the White House, and even drawn comparisons

between himself and Ronald Reagan. Joining me now, Ronald Reagan's

most influential speech writer, Peggy Noonan. Let's start with one

of the most memorable speeches the President ever made.

The crew of the space shuttle Challenger honoured us by the way

in which they lived their lives. We will never forget them, nor the

last time we saw them, this morning, as they prepared for their journey

and waved goodbye and slipped the surly bonds of earth to touch the

face of God. Thank you. That was one of the very, very many moments

when President Reagan was able to cut through and reach people

emotionally, and you work very closely with him. I know a speech

writer has to work with the politician he or she is given, but

tell us a bit about that relationship. I will tell you

something special about those who worked with Ronald Reagan - we

never felt we were working with what we had been given. We felt we

had gone to work for a man we thought authentically great. By the

end of the era, we used to say, no great men are good men. But we felt

there was one great exception in history, and that was Ronald Reagan,

he was a good man. That speech, I should add, the day the space

shuttle Challenger blew up, losing all on board, including a teacher,

which upset President Reagan very much, that was the first thing he

said, the President put it at the end of the speech, the beautiful

words of the poet about slipping the surly bonds of earth and

touching the face of God. That was quite a day in the White House but

we had many such days, it was a dramatic time in history.

Absolutely. There seemed to be something about Ronald Reagan's

innate optimism. He reacted emotionally and directly to the

politics around him, but it seems to have been that optimism which

Americans today are reminiscing about. Yes, I think you're right, I

think his optimism was a kind of faith. And I think his faith was in

the ability - this sounds corny but it is what he believed - in the

ability of the American people to turn the country around at a

difficult time, and to help it and to make it better, as long as the

fetters of regulation and burdens that had been given by Washington

were removed. And so, he, like Mrs Thatcher, devoted himself very much

to trying to remove the burdens on the American people that he felt

had been imposed by a government far away, in this case Washington.

It is quite interesting that President Obama clearly feels that

he wants to learn from Republicans of the Ronald Reagan era. In some

ways he is in the same position, the economy is in trouble, he has

been hammered in the bid terms, which happened to Ronald Reagan as

well. But what do you think Obama is hoping to pick up? That's a good

question. In a brutal, political way, if 40% of the American people

are conservative, and 40% are liberal, a President is always

going for the middle. President Reagan had the middle, and still

has the middle. He is remembered by a 60% of the American people as a

great President. So it is never a bad idea to associate yourself with

that. Of course, he's trying to draw parallels between Obama's

predicament, in economics, and the predicament faced by Ronald Reagan.

But the two of them are going at the predicament from different

directions, which makes the parallel difficult. Watching some

of those clips, I kept thinking of The West Wing, because this sense

of somebody who really feels it, and finds those extraordinary words

at the right moment. I know you were very involved in The West Wing

- can you explain to ask what you were doing exactly? It was

wonderful to work with the great Aaron Sorkin, who was the guiding

light behind that show. He would call me every now and then and

simply say, in a White House, if the President and press secretary

are having a disagreement about education policy, how might it play

out, what might be said? So, there were all sorts of things like that.

I sent him many ideas, I cannot claim he used a great number of

them. But it was a great show. me ask you about your party, the

Republicans, at the moment. There have been all sorts of questions

about who will run. So far, is there a Republican who can beat

President Obama? I happen to think, I will give you an opinion which is

a little apart from smart opinion... Smart opinion is that Obama will

win, for various reasons, including demographics etc. I do not think he

will. The way I look at it, is based is shaky, and the centre does

not love him. Love is an important word here. At the height of his

difficulties, George W Bush had people who would say, I cannot help

but love the guy. Bill Clinton had the same. One thing you never hear

about President Obama is, I cannot help but love the guy. For it is a

cold admiration. I'm not sure, cool observation would be more like it,

I think! One last question, about this statue - sadly Margaret

Thatcher will not be going, but lots of people will be going, but

it is only part of a Europe wide Yes, it has been fabulous.

Residents in Hungary, Czechoslovakia, in Poland, it has

been spoken of how Ronald Reagan and John Paul II all came together

at the same moment in history and work together brilliantly to do

things whose Majesty we actually forget. The Wall fell down, Soviet

communism was defeated. It was an epic moment in history and they

worked so well. Have a wonderful day tomorrow and thank you for

joining us. Can I just add that everybody is invited and welcome

tomorrow. It is at the US embassy in London and it would be great if

Americans visiting here and English men came.

Chris Patten, Lord Patten, was a cabinet minister under Margaret

Thatcher, Tory party chairman under John Major, the last governor of

Hong Kong, European Commissioner and Chancellor of Oxford. Now he

has just taken over as chairman of the BBC Trust. The BBC is not quite

as embattled an enclave of Britishness as Hong Kong was, nor

of course is Rupert Murdoch's empire anything like Communist

China. But with swingeing cuts, the largest in the Corporation's

history, and constant criticism from its foes, the BBC does feel

slightly besieged just now. Chris Patten, welcome. Your new job,

chairman of the trust, some people are confused about what it means,

whether you are first and foremost the cheerleader and spokesperson

for the BBC in the country, or first and foremost the stern

invigilator of BBC misbehaviour, people like myself. How would you

characterise the balance? Getting away from the anorak language, the

management goulash, I think my job as chairman of the trust is to

ensure that the BBC goes on producing fantastic radio and

television programmes, goes on justifying its reputation as not

just the best public service broadcaster in the world but

probably the best broadcaster in the world. You have only got to go

to any other country and turn on the radio and television to realise

how could the BBC is. Not perfect. The challenge for the BBC is what

is going on in the background, the digital will -- digital revolution

and the fact it has got to learn to live with a flat budget. It has got

to take out a lot of costs because for the first time in living memory

we have not had an increase in the licence fee. I am not grumbling

about that, I hope we can pull in our belts while producing high

quality programmes still. The BBC has had 17-20% cuts across the

board, the great debate seems to be about whether those cuts can be

salami sliced away, or whether part of the BBC empire has to be frankly

surrendered. The BBC has to give up a channel or two, whatever, and

pull back a bit. Where do you stand on that spectrum? There is nothing

wrong with salami slicing, provided you end up with the sausage you

wanted. What we are looking at at the moment is how much we can get

through greater efficiency, through greater productivity, and how much

will involve us stopping doing things which we would like to do

but are probably a extendable. We are quite far advanced in that

process at the moment. I would like ideally to be able to settle it

this month. I think it may be more realistic that we can't come to an

agreement with the executive until September but we will do it as soon

as we can, and then consult on the proposals. You got spoken to Jeremy

Hunt about speeding up the process by which the BBC could close a

channel, so the possibility of closing a Channel or getting rid of

something the BBC does now, perhaps online, that is a possibility?

have to look at everything, but the trouble is about this process that

the soon as you deal with specifics, either confirming that they are

fined or not confirming they are fine, you are appearing to make a

public decision about them so it is quite difficult. Looking at the

relationship between the main television channels, I think we can

see symmetries that we could perhaps organise rather better.

Things like people have talked about just putting News 24 on to

BBC Two during the day. We are filling large numbers of hours of

television time at the moment. at night as well. There are a lot

of ideas which have already been discussed about that, but at the

end of the day, as bishops say, I think we should be able to come off

with a very good public service broadcaster for 3.5 billion. One

has to remember it is given to us, we do not have to raise advertising

revenue. Do you think none the less there are some big things we are

doing at the moment, the money might be spent on sport, Formula

One, whatever it might be, in the end the BBC might not be doing?

There will be some things that are very difficult to do in the long

term, partly because of the walls cash from subscription television.

I don't grumble about competition, but if you look at America and

elsewhere, broadcasters, advertising revenue broadcaster's

or public service broadcasters are being driven out of big events

because of the large amount of cash subscription TV has. Talking about

large amounts of cash, what is your take on the storm of criticism

about BBC pay, presenters certainly but also BBC managers? I know there

have been a lot of cutbacks already, but do you think there are still

too many managers being paid too much? Yes, there are three aspects

- first of all the overall BBC pay, and it has been slightly behind the

public sector for the last three years. This year it is slightly

behind Channel 4, ITV. There is second day the question of talent

pay which is going down, partly for reasons that do not have reasons to

do with management, but we need to be more open about how much is

being paid to people overall. As I say, that is falling. The biggest

issue for the public is senior executive pay because what has

happened seems to fly in the face of public service ethos. There are

four aspects which we will be making announcements about in the

next few days. Firstly there is the pain level at the very top,

secondly the number of people who get more than 150,000, that leave a

number of people who are deemed to be senior managers, and falsely the

whole issue of fairness across the board with senior managers getting

some deals which do not apply to others. I think we can deal with

all that and if we do so, we will deal with one of the most toxic

reasons for the public's lack of sympathy for the BBC as an

institution. It sounds to me like you are thinking of something

pretty radical, in terms of the number of people paid more than the

Prime Minister, shall we say. and I have been looking very

closely at what will Hutton said about top pay in the public sector.

This is making sure nobody at the top is paid no more than 20 times

what the lowest person is paid? you look at the relationship

between top pay and medium pay, and I would like the BBC to be the

first organisation in the public sector which get into implementing

some of his ideas. Can I just ask you about - we have seen the green

light for News International to buy the rest of Skye. Sky has a much

bigger revenue now than the BBC. Do you think the BBC is inevitably on

a downward curve in terms of its influence and past dominance in

British broadcasting? No, I don't. You started off with an analogy on

hung Kong, perhaps I can reassure people I am not going to hand the

BBC to the Chinese in five years' time, but I don't think the BBC

should think of itself as under siege from the area and vandals. I

think it is a fantastic organisation and I wanted to be

more flexible, leaner, and I wanted to be self-confident and

challenging, and aware of the principles on which it was founded

and which are still relevant today. I think one of the amazing things

about the BBC for a public service organisation is that it is at the

cutting edge of technology. There is a tribute to John Birt among

others. Can I ask you about universality, which is the idea the

BBC has to offer something to everybody. A very successful

Controller of BBC for said in his speech recently that news and

current affairs were really the heart of the BBC, and that is

presumably something you would agree with, but what about the fact

the BBC should be doing game shows, should be doing pop-music, should

be doing soaps, something literally for everybody. First of all I agree

with Mark and it was a very good speech he gave at Oxford. I agree

with the importance of news and journalism. The BBC is the second-

largest employee of journalists after Chinese television in the

world, but we also have to reach as many of the licence fee payers as

possible. But reach them with programmes which are high quality,

and which do not only entertain but where we can inform and educate as

well. People have sometimes been very critical of BBC Three. I have

watched a couple of fantastic programmes in the last few weeks on

BBC Three, one on young offenders, and another on young Afghanistan.

Thank you for joining us. Now over to Louise for the news headlines.

Andrew Lansley has called for a partnership on the subject of

health care needs to avoid them suffering a catastrophic loss of

everything they have worked for in old age. He was speaking ahead of

the publication tomorrow of the report from the Dilnot Commission.

The next news is 1 at midday on BBC One.

Should the law lets you stab a burglar? Should we out more Sharia

courts? And our faith healers charlatans? In the studio, a former

burglar and a pastor who said his prayers helped raise a man from the

dead. That is it from us. Join us again

next week at the same time. We are going to leave you with a burst of

music from one of the great rock performers of the 20th century -