31/07/2011 The Andrew Marr Show

Good morning. The holiday season is upon us, Andrew is on the other

side of the world, the politicians have abandoned Westminster and,

amazingly, the sun is actually out. Good news for the second Royal

Wedding of the year yesterday when the Queen's granddaughter married

the rugby star Mike Tindall in Edinburgh. Unlike Kate and

William's wedding, it was a low-key affair and not even the Chancellor

will be able to blame poor economic growth figures on these nuptials.

Plenty of coverage of their wedding in the papers today and joining me

to review them, Dame Barbara Stocking Chief Executive of Oxfam

and George Pascoe-Watson, former Political Editor of the Sun. The

Government's been talking up the economic figures but most agree

they are deeply disappointing. The Chief Secretary to the Treasury,

Danny Alexander, will be here later to give us his view. What course

will the Treasury take if the economy doesn't show signs of

better and faster groth soon is there a Plan B? Tax cuts to

stimulate the economy. Ed Miliband has won plaudits inside and outside

the Labour Party for his vigorous attack on News International over

the phone hacking saga. With David Cameron ahead on personal ratings,

we'll ask Labour's Deputy leader how much more her party needs to do

to become a credible Government in waiting. I'll ask her Shadow

Development Secretary about the famine in Somalia.

I've been talking to one of the most prolific music makers, Dave

Stewart will tell me about his new West End production and how

musicals of the 50s like South Pacific helped inspire his time as

one half of the Eurythmics. And we'll have something truly tongue

twisting from the golden era of Gilbert and Sullivan. I'm the very

model of a Major General... annual Gilbert and Sullivan

festival begins this weekend in Derbyshire, 100 years after they

died. Why is their music so endure something all that and more coming

up after the news with Naga. Efforts to prevent the United

States defaulting on its debts look set to go to the wire with just two

days left before the deadline for reaching agreement expires.

President Obama's held more talks with democrat and republican

leaders in congress. The democrat controlled Senate has postponed

another vote on the issue until later today to give negotiators

more time. America's top military officer

thanks US troops serving in southern Afghanistan. In recent

weeks, there's been an increase in violence there, but many of these

troops were thinking of one issue alone. Will they get paid next

month? There was no guarantee. I honestly can't answer that

question. I mean, in its simplest form, if we are not allowed to...

If the debt ceiling doesn't get raised, we won't have enough money

to pay our bills and there are a lot of them. Democrats and

Republicans simply can't agree on how to tackle America's spending

habit. Their rival plans share common goals, but the democrats

favour one that bankrolls America until 2013. There are some signs

that compromise may be on the cards. Glad to see this moving towards

cooperation and compromise. I hope it bears fruit. I'm confident that

a final agreement that will adopt the Senate's long-term approach,

rather than the short-term Band Aid proposed by the House of

Representatives will move forward. That's been the sticking point. The

house wants to see a smaller rise in the debt, a plan that would

require congress to address the same issue again in six months'

time. Both parties accuse each other of failing to compromise.

After another week of this political soap opera, Republicans

and democrats are still deadlocked, both sides are now turning to

President Obama in the hope he can find a solution before the US

Treasury runs out of cash. A political row has broken out over

NHS funding in England. Labour says that poorer areas, largely in the

north, are losing out, while richer southern counties are gaining. The

Government accuses the party of misleading the public.

Andrew Lansley must be getting a bit sick of all the criticism under

pressure from the Lib Dems, health professionals, the opposition and

even a few of his Conservative colleagues, he's had to rethink

some of his NHS reforms. Labour are accusing him of harming

the poor to help the rich. Using figures calculated by public health

bodies in Manchester, Labour say poorer parts of England, forgot

just Manchester, but Liverpool and Tower Hamlets in East London, will

lose out when health spending is allocated, while richer areas such

as Surrey and Hampshire, will benefit. But the Government say the

opposition are raising the temperature of the debate by using

misleading figures. Health spending across England will rise, a policy

which Labour hasn't endorsed. And in fact, the NHS PCT in less well

off Tower Hamlets will see an increase in its funding very

similar to the rise in Bert off Surrey this year.

-- better off Surrey. The NHS will face bigger changes in the future,

the Government says a greater emphasis on preventing illness will

help people living in some of the poorer parts of England. But Labour

believe the Government are vulnerable on the NHS and they'll

do what they can to prevent Andrew Lansley from staging a political

recovery. In Syria, government tanks and

soldiers have entered the city of Hama with some reports saying more

than 40 people have been killed. The city to north of the capital

Damascus, has been a sen orof opposition to the Government of

President Bashar Assad and has seen some of the biggest protests

against his rule. Labour is calling on the Prime Minister and his

senior colleagues to come clean over their dealings with Rupert

Murdoch and his son James. The party has sent letters to Cabinet

Ministers with more than 50 questions it claims haven't been

addressed in the wake of the phone hacking scandal. They ask what

discussions ministers had with the Murdochs about their attempt to

take full control of BSkyB. That bid collapsed after intense

pressure from hacking revelations. Drivers will have to state whether

or not they want to be an organ doe more when they apply for a new or

replacement driving licence online. The DVLA already asks if applicants

want to be donors, but from tomorrow the online form will

require an answer. Ministers hope it will improve organ donation

rates. That is all from me for now. More just before 10 with the

headlines. Now back to Sophie. We'll have the paper review in a

moment, but first, the international military action over

Libya's now been going on for four months. Even with the help of NATO

airstrikes, the rebels have been unable to Turn The Tide decisively

against the forces loyal to Colonel Gaddafi and now there are signs of

disunity among the rebel factions with the murder last week of their

military leader apparently by an Islamist group. What is really

going on, and is there any sign of an end to the stalemate? I'm joined

from Tripoli by our correspondent, James Reynolds. Do we know now for

sure who killed the rebel leader? It's pretty tricky to say that

because we are still getting conflicting reports from the rebels

in Benghazi and we are not sure if the sequence of events, we were

told at one stage he'd been summoned to being questioned and

now we have been told he was killed and now we are told he was

questioned first then killed. The suggestion from the Government in

Tripoli is that he was killed by Al-Qaeda, by an Al-Qaeda element

within the rebel leadership and that's been denied by the rebels in

Benghazi. Whoever killed him, this is definitely damaging isn't it to

the rebel cause? It's hugely damaging. He was the

rebel military commander, he was killed by fellow rebels inside

rebel territory. That I think is an extremely damaging series of events.

How awkward does it make it now given that Britain's recognised the

rebels as the legitimate Government?

I think it's probably a fairly tricky moment. I think certainly

politically Britain, France and Italy and I think the US as well,

including Portugal, they signed up to the National Transitional

Council, the rebel leadership in Benghazi. They put all their hopes

in that rebel leadership. Of course, as we have seen in the last few

days, the murder of the General proves there is significant

military and political difficulties within that movement and we haven't

seen any particular military advances by the rebels towards

either here in Tripoli or other areas for some time. Whilst this is

going on, we saw Colonel Gaddafi, he popped up on television yet

again yesterday, doesn't look like he's going anywhere, looks like

he's in it for the long haul really? Yes, he was certainly very

defiant in his speech, but then again, he always is. He appeared on

TV to say he was with the people of Libya, that they would win, that

NATO was about to give up, that no- one should give up hope in Libya

because he was still in charge and he'd be with them in their hearts

frofr. What about the rebel side? We know it's made up of different

factions, but how big a faction is the Islamic side?

It's a really good question, very difficult to answer from here

because we are on Colonel Gaddafi's side, certainly the accusation here

is that Al-Qaeda place a huge -- plays a huge role with the rebels.

The rebels say that is not true and say that Al-Qaeda has no place in

Libya and that they are essentially an indigenous movement fighting

Colonel Gaddafi. Of course, standing here, in Tripoli on

Colonel Gaddafi's side of the conflict, is very difficult just to

go and be able to ask people in Benghazi which side they're on and

whether they support Al-Qaeda and have Islamist tendencies and so on.

Thank you very much. Let's go straight to the papers now.

On the front-pages, we can start with the Observer running with the

story. And the first front-page to show Zara Phillips there who got

married to Mike Tindall yesterday in Edinburgh and there is an

enormous amount of coverage of the second Royal Wedding of the year in

all the papers today. Every single front-page, the Sunday Telegraph

there, Zara weds her rugby star. British suppliers provided key

equipment which helped Anders Breivik build his arsenal of

weaponry and explosives, it's alleged there. Zara on the front of

the Sunday Mir plir and a story about Amy Winehouse. -- Sunday

Mirror. Mike and Zara's not so Royal

Wedding in the Sunday Times. They are emerge thrg from the church. A

story about cutting fees for top students at university. Chilcot to

damn Blair on Iraq. They say they have been told this is what is

going to happen when it's published in the autumn. More on Zara and

finally, the Independent on Sunday, a lot of coverage about the

terrible famine in the Horn of Africa, a terrible new front in

Africa's famine and they say particularly badly hit is Kenya in

which 3.5 million people are at risk of famine there as well.

Thousands of people crossing over the border into Kenya from Somalia

every day. With me to review the papers are Dame Barbara Stocking

and also George Pascoe-Watson. Good morning to you both. Let's start

with this story on the front-page of the Independent. It's really a

terrible, terrible situation that's goping there?. Yes, we know that

both Kenya and in fact Ethiopia are also hit very badly by the drought

and in fact the numbers are huge. They are up to ten million across

the whole set of countries. The Independent does a good piece on

the story on the cover and the inside. It describes what is

happening among the postralists who have no water for their animals and

are having to trek to find water. It doesn't, sadly, explain more

about why we've come to this again. Most of the British public are

saying, we've been here before, why is this happening again and we know

why it is, largely it's because of lack of investment in small hold or

agriculture, including the pastoralists who could produce a

lot, but the world hasn't been too great in putting in money for the

long-term, we can get money for crises, but hard to get it long-

term. So it's man-made? The drought precipitates it and that's very

serious, but we could have done better. Where money's gone in Kenya

and Ethiopia into social security systems, they're called hunger

safety nets, those people are OK, six million people. So why is the

money not going in then? The usual that the Government make pledges,

they were made in 2008, a quarter is all that's arrived on the ground,

that's not true to the UK, to be fair, our Government has always

been very good at the money flowing through. Also the British public

has been very good at donating money? Yes. Is there an issue when

people donate money to something like, this obviously we know there

is fighting going on, Islamist insurgents in Somalia, is there a

danger that people are put off from giving money because they are not

sure where the money is going to? The British public continue to be

generous, you have to keep explaining to them how we are

managing to handle money that comes through at least on the charity

side. For us, we've been working in Somalia for a long time and work

through local partners and we go there to monitor, because that's

all we can do. When you get the crisis, you get more money and have

to be even more careful. It's be even more difficult in Somalia. We

see no evidence that any serious amount of money or the work we do

on water and sanitation, none of that is being diverted. This is the

worst drought for decades we are seeing now, George, terrible

pictures on the TV screens, yet there isn't that much coverage is

No, one report says that there is a danger that students going on their

gap year could be seen as a new colonialism from the rich West. The

idea that teenagers go off and lend a hand. It is up to �4,500 a month

for this kind of thing but the report says they are not doing much

to help. They are -- there is a danger it is giving a bad

impression of Britain across the world. It is a dilemma because you

want young people to go off and see the world and see other people live

in different ways. At the same time, you can -- you only one of them

there if they can contribute. In a humanitarian crisis, I would not

suggest anybody does. It is a professional job and it can be very

traumatic. It is not a playground. Absolutely not an people do get in

the way. I met an American admiral who called them "spontaneous and

invited the volunteers". But I wouldn't put people off going into

other situations as a junior teaching assistants and so on.

Moving on. This is an extraordinary situation in America. Yes, the

great decision making about the debt. He we are in the Sunday Times,

I think, talking about the tea party Taliban. I guess the issue is,

can they get on my get it sorted immediately? It seems quite

outrageous that they are in an almost debt but they will be able

to get out of it without putting up taxes or reducing social welfare.

That doesn't add up. What is phenomenally interesting is that

this story does not appear on the front story of any national

newspaper. If they don't make an agreement... By Tuesday, they have

to solve it. The chaos is that our businesses, our industries will be

affected by the fall-out if Washington does not get its act

together. Barbara's Oxfam and other organisations depend on consumer

confidence. This has to be sorted out. There are further votes today

in the Senate. Why is it not on the front pages, do you think? There is

a silly-season in the UK but it cannot just be down to that. People

find it enormously difficult to get excited about something happening

on the far side of the world and the same question is two of why

there isn't more coverage of the famine in East Africa. There is a

sense of, unless it is on our doorstep,... The Sunday Telegraph

has something on our doorstep and it is immediate. The former

chancellor, Norman Lamont, says to scrap the 50 p top tax rate because

it is fast becoming a debate in the Conservative Party. A lot of big

beasts in the Conservative Party are beginning to say to George

Osborne, it is time to cut the top layer of tax from 50p. We have both

figures in the week which are pretty miserable. The problem for

David Cameron and George Osborne is there may well be a dividend but

what do they do with the extra money they gain? If they give it to

be 50 p tax rate band, that is basically the wealthy people in the

country and there is a big political problem with doing that.

It is about stimulating business there, isn't it? It is a really

important thing because the very high earners are the very often the

people who create jobs for others but it is a -- and acute and

growing difficult political problem. We are talking to dally Alexander

about that later. Your next story? This was an interesting piece in

the Independent about people who have resigned, when they did it and

why a they did it. It is an interesting question about who

resigns and what responsibilities they take. Paul Stephenson was

interesting in the sense that he said he did nothing wrong but was

head of the Met and was responsible. There is a question about how much

top leaders are expected to take responsibility and to know what is

going on in their organisations, which slips over into the Murdoch

story and of whether it was appropriate for him to say that he

didn't know what was going on in his organisation. In the Sunday

Telegraph, the latest in the hacking saga, it reflects a

fatigued with this story, perhaps. American lawyers and the Murdoch

employees - what is interesting about this debate is that the

Labour Party are trying to embarrass the Conservatives with

the amount of contact they have had with publishers and editors. Of

course, in my former guise as a political editor i know that they

are all playing the same game. It is an important thing to remember

that politicians do need to have relationships with journalists and

editors. It is now transparent and they published during the week the

number of meetings with politicians that editors have. You work for

News International four years. As this unravels, are you surprised

that the extent of hacking? I am very surprised and shocked and

repulsed by the whole thing, as, I may say, are all the journalists

like me who put in professionalism four years. Absolutely no inkling

about it whatsoever. It is a very sad thing for journalism in general.

Very professional journalists had no idea that this was going on and

had no ideas about it themselves and are now out of jobs. Private

investigators... It that is a sad state of affairs. It is hitting the

Murdoch empire hard, isn't it? has many months and perhaps used to

go this affair and nobody knows where it will go next. Let's just

have a bit of transparency, that is what I expect. This article in the

Sunday Times says men are now spending 60 minutes more a day in

doing household chores than they were in the 1970s but it points out

they do absolutely no laundry whatsoever. Do you do laundry,

George? Always. It is interesting because it is followed by an

article about a woman coming onto the Dragon's den saying it women

can't have it all, always, only men. I'm glad to see they are doing more

work there. George. This is the Sunday Express. There are pictures

in every national newspaper and they are fantastic. Zara Phillips

and Mike Tindall in a really fantastic day. The royal family has

had a fantastic view with the Royal Wedding, a fantastically successful

tour of North America by William and Kate. It is a sort of rebirth

of the royals coming through in a new generation and I think it is a

happy thing. There has been a huge outpouring of popularity and

support by the British people who clearly enjoy this sort of thing.

I'm not one of those people who think this is terribly old Falkland

-- old fashioned. With famine and economic crisis, it is quite nice

to have some good news. And nice hat to! We now know that men do the

chores, come on... We now know that it is and Eugenie covered

themselves with a bit of glory yesterday. I'm not a fashion expert

though. This is so fascinating about tweeting. MPs spend about

�1,000 a year tweeting. It can take up a lot of time, can't it? When it

gets boring on the backbenches, do they treat? You can get a lot of

responses you have to do something with. You can get into deep water,

can't you? Is it dangers for MPs? If they say the wrong thing at the

wrong time. And it is a permanent record. So Jeremy Hull, the Culture

Secretary, -- Jeremy Hunt, a lot of his tweeds were apparently wiped.

It is a modern way of communicating with constituents and we can't

complain about that because that is what we want them to do. Football

now. There is very good sports news around. If you are an England fan,

that 2014 World Cup draw is down and it is the easiest group they

can possibly be. Mall Dover, and for me as a Scot and if you are a

Welsh passion, there is a tricky group there but what is great is

that the whole World Cup thing will go through and England will be

there. Great sporting use which I haven't got here but a big hand for

Stuart Broad he got a hat-trick yesterday at the Test against India.

It is so rare to have a Test hat- trick that it is a great day. I

think England and cricket we are doing really well. And Rebecca

Adlington as well? Yes and she treats as well. Where does she do

her treating? An underwater phone! Thank you both very much. Let us

look at the weather now it. It was glorious when I arrived here this

morning. What are the prospects for more blue skies and decent

Thanks a lot. Some of us was the a welcome some a comeback. 25 degrees

Celsius in the capital and 29 degrees Celsius by Saturday. Bright

enough today for most parts and hazy spells of sunshine. Some

western coasts will struggle with more in the way of cloud and one or

two light showers. Rain clears Northern Ireland but it posters

western Scotland. Best of the temperatures towards South East

England. Overnight, turning cloudy and grey and misty weather around

western coasts where they could be the odd spot of drizzle. Overnight

temperatures may make it to warm for some of us. A cloudy start on

Monday but it will Brighton quickly with hazy sunshine developing quite

widely. A warm-up day. We will be into the Eighties Fahrenheit. Not

quite as warm further north. A few showers across northern England and

southern Scotland. But summery It is generally agreed that the

Labour Party leader has had a better time of it by taking the

lead on the phone hacking scandal and bringing the Prime Minister to

book on his closeness to News International. The bouncy has been

enjoying, with Labour being neck and neck with that there Tories,

but do some in the party still wonder whether they chose the wrong

Brother? Deputy Leader Harriet Harman joins me and she is also at

Shadow International Development Secretary. Let us start with the

terrible situation in the Horn of Africa. Do thing we could be doing

more? The government is carrying on with the commitment we established

of increasing the amount of national wealth given in

development aid and we can see how important that is. What they should

do more of his making sure that other countries around the world

play their part. It is a desperate situation there. Every time you see

a picture of a huge skull with its horns of a cow and you see dusty

land, you know the farmers there have had to leave their land and

fully with their families to a refugee camp which is terrible

suffering for them and millions are threatened with death from famine.

But it means instability and ongoing poverty. So the government

is right to keep up with the development aid but we have to do

more to make sure other countries play their part. So, you wouldn't

do anything differently? No, and it is much to their credit. What about

public donations? There is concern that people all over the world

start are suffering from famine fatigue, an awful title that is

given. But you think they are put off by not really been sure whether

money is giving? The Disaster Emergency Committee appeal has had

a dramatic response from people in this country. People give to Oxfam,

a Islamic Relief and they can see it is saving lives so people have

been very generous. We have a big de-iced aura of people who have

come from Africa and they live in A terrible situation for those

people, 1500 a day crossing the border into Kenya arriving in the

camps and there are people who've lived there for decades already in

the camps? You are absolutely right, it's a longer term problem. That's

why it's worrying to see, in the longer term, well obviously we have

to be stepping up our action on climate change which is very much

in the background on this, but also commodity speculation, people who

actually want to make money, speculating on food prices and that

is something which I think internationally we have the take

action on. Internationally, taking action also on people who're

speculating on land prices so they buy up land, don't farm it, hope to

make a profit on selling it, meanwhile, that deprives the local

people of the ability to farm. There are longer term things that

need action on them as well. Making money out of Africa is something

that you have been very much interested in because you went to

Sierra Leone. You are calling for bigger companies to be more

transparent about what they get out of those countries? Across Africa,

there's massive mineral wealth, including in Sudan as well, whether

it's in diamonds, oil, gold, they have massive natural resources and

what's important is not only that the investment goes in to extract

the natural resources but also the companies toing that pay their fair

share of taxs sothose countries can benefit in the longer term. I want

to talk about Ed Miliband at the moment, but first of all, the story

today about health in the news. You are accusing the Government of

harming the poor to help the rich. That's not true, is it? Well, I

think the Government are breaking their promises on the health

service and it's a really worrying situation. We have seen for the

first time since 1997, spending on the health service fall. In my own

area, I was talking to Kings College Hospital last week and they

are having to cut their spending by �50 million. We have seen reports

around the country of them making people wait longer when they need

an operation for a hip replacement or a knee replacement or cataract,

you've got to wait longer in order to help them save money. This is

not what should be happenings. It's breaking a promise. You are saying

the Government's moving funds around, so poor areas like Tower

Hamlets are getting less money than areas like Surrey, based on figures

that have been drawn from Manchester, extrapolated from that,

the Government says it's nonsense. Isn't the truth that you are just

trying to hone in on a weak point that you think that the Government

might have? No, these are national figures and show for every Health

Authority three things are happening, firstly they are cutting

the money going to the National Health Service overall for the

first time, secondly, they're shifting resources away from the

poor areas which are more needy in health terms and thirdly, they're

wasting money on reorganisation so they're spending more money on

administration and, as a result, the Health Service will suffer, no

doubt about that. People shouldn't have to be waiting longer and it's

a broken promise. So we are going to keep on arguing about this. It's

worrying. Very difficult to know who to believe because the

Government is insists it's increasing spending. These are from

the Treasury figures and it's something like �76 6 million less

compared to what was in the figures for what we were going to spend and

it's in real terms, these are the Treasury's own figures, you can ask

Danny Alexander about them, I'm sure you will, but these are the

Treasury's own figures and it's very worrying. As I say, you can

see it area by area in Kings College Hospital they are having to

cut �50 million. They'll do their very best and the Health Service

has been really improving with death rates falling and patient

satisfaction increasing and we saw the end of those terrible waiting

lists that there were before we came into Government, but now it's

starting to creep back up again. Let's talk about Ed Miliband. In

September, it will be a year since he became leader of the party. He's

been given some bounce, he's been widely recognised as having done

well during the whole phone hacking scandal. How is he going to keep

that going? Can he keep it going? wouldn't say it's so much that he's

been given some bounce, he basically took a very bold step,

just saying that all of this phone hacking is absolutely terrible, the

idea that the Government was days away of handing over to Rupert

Murdoch the whole of BSkyB and he stepped in and said, this has got

to stop. I think that that was very important in terms of not having a

huge monopoly ownership of the press, ensuring there was proper

investigation on hacking, but it's also given a sense of confidence

that even faced with a global multibillionaire that actually, the

public interest and people's voices have to be listened to. So I think

he's really spoken up for... It's it's one issue isn't it But it's

symbolic, you see. But is it an election-winning thing, is it

something that will make him the next Prime Minister. There's a poll

out today that says 47% of people think he'll still be Labour Leader

by 2015, doesn't reaifrshire you, does it? -- reassure you? I think

what is reassuring is that people can see, normally you would think

well Murdoch, global multibillionaire, nothing that can

be done about it, and actually, Ed Miliband stepped forward.

there's got to be something else than phone hacking, isn't there?

He's got bounce but if you look at last month, the headlines were

about weak leadership, he had to defend himself on having no

dynamism. He's won the right to be heard, now we know what he's going

to say? My point is that if you can actually make the public interest

override the decisions of a billionaire, then perhaps the

energy companies, it's the same, and actually where there are vested

interests that are too powerful and harming in public interest,ed

Miliband's shown that he's prepared to step forward and speak up for

that and really make a difference. Without what he did, not only would

they have oned the Times, the News of the World, the Sunday Times and

the Sun but also the whole of the BSkyB and no doubt all of those

abuses would have carried on unabated so I think it's very

important even as loplgs, he's made a huge difference -- Leader of the

Opposition. One bold move he's made is giving himself the ability to

choose the top team. Will we know who the team is before party season

in September, before the conferences? It's for him to decide

who is going to be in his top team and when he makes that decision.

Have you having those discussions with him? Is he openly talking

about it now? Obviously that's entirely a matter for him and we

all have to play our part in that but I think that the worry about

the economy, the worry about the Health Service, is really key

things that we'll focus on, keeping on asking those questions about

what the Murdoch empire have been up to and making sure that those

who have been wrongdoing are held to account but also those very

important issues about jobs and the Health Service too.

Harriet Harman, thank you very much. Dave Stewart may be best known for

his years in the Eurythmics are Annie Lennox, but he's also a

prolific producer who's worked magic with the likes of Tom Petty,

Sinead O'Connor and his good friend Bob Dylan. He's just recorded his

first album in almost 15 years, composed the music for the new West

End musical Ghost based on the film and there's SuperHeavy, the group

which started with Mick Jagger and Joss Stone. The video is released

next month. He explained how his new album, the Blackbird Diaries

came about in Tennessee. When I arrived in Nashville, it was like

this weird going home feeling. I was really enamoured by it and I

said I was going to come back and make a record and they thought I

meant next year and I was back straightaway. I wrote and recorded

an album in five days. The thing is, I hadn't made an album for 13 years

so I obviously had a lot of things brewing. I didn't know exactly what

but it just came out like that! # The night was hot and dangerous

# Like a raging fire # Later on we all hung out and van

Gogh's cafe # Well, we drank until there was

no-one left # Just the gypsy girl and me... #

So different to the music that we all remember you for, the

Eurythmics? Yes. Funny thing is, I was always a guitar player and I

learned guitar by learning blues from old records, my cousin was

from Memphis. For me, it was more like a going home. For a lot of

people who've seen me a lot of the time behind other singers or

artists and all tifrpbt kinds of music, it might be a new revelation

that I'm a guitar player but actually that's what I've always

done -- all different kinds of things. Does the music that you

were known for tip over into what you are doing now, for example in

the West End in Ghost? Annie and I made lots of albums so I was used

to working fast. Back then we'd make an album in three weeks and

covered so many styles from electronic threw to huge

orchestrals like Here Comes the Rain. # Here comes the rain again

# Falling on my head like a memory... # I had a lot of

experience to bring to, for instance, writing a musical score.

The songs, yes, sometimes they wander in and out of Eurythmics-

type feeling but I wrote it with my partner, so it's a merge of all of

us. Also a brilliant director, Matthew. The thing about Ghost, the

audience are spell bound by what's happening on stage because it's

full of inceebl magic and illusions because there is a Ghost --

incredible magic. The music turns everything into that. Sharon Clarke

plays the whoopy Goldberg character and she takes over the stage with

these belters, as a crazy fake psychic.

# Making my transition right here # Crystal tears

# Permanent vacation... # A lot of people would never have thought of

you about writing the music for a musical, but you were brought up on

that, weren't you? My father, when I was about four or five, he put on

everything from the South Pacific to the King and I to the Sound of

Music every day, but they'd fill the house up. For me it was amazing

but all the mau zick he played was musicals. -- music. I didn't think

about this much but I realised that I can sing you probably most of the

musicals from the '50s, not that you would enjoy it! You never know!

But that was your introduction to music. You look at the opposite

extreme it led you to because you have this extraordinary group that

you set up, that you launched your album, SuperHeavy, tell us about

that? Again, it's a whole fusion of different styles because Damien

Marley is Jamaicans, AR Roman is Indian and Mick's, you know...

Jagger? Yes, he's from England, so am I and Joss is from Devon. Joss

Stone, yes. Some of the first songs were an hour long, we had to edit

them down, wrote 30 songs, then brought it down to 16 which is an

album coming out in September. You've got this great power, you

are known for your power to draw these people together, people like

Mick Jagger exyou've got them there, Bob Dylan as well? # Everybody's

got somebody to lean on # I've done lots of different

things with different artists and I met Bob all the time and of course,

the the Travelling Willbury's recorded their music in my house

and garden. Hearing Roy Orbison singing in your back garden is

pretty mind-blowing... # I'm still feeling tired and lonely

# I still have some love to give... # You are busier than ever now,

aren't you? It's nuts, people say I'm a work ahol lick, but every day

at about 7.30 or 8, I stop work and have a very strong vodka Martini

which is like a mallet on the back of your head as you know. You are

drinking lots of those in the videos you shot actually? But they

were all shots after 7.30. course. I was on the radio this

other day, explaining my love for vodka Martini, I'm not a drunk or

anything, never drink in the day, and I said, the thing is, Martinis

are like breasts because one's not enough and three's too many.

think we are going to leave it on that note. Dave Stewart, thank you

very much. Dave Stewart there with a whole new

take on vodka Martinis. To a different subject now, we heard

that the British economy grew by less than 0.25% in the last quarter.

Labour says the Government should act now and pump money into the

economy while many on the right believe that the answer lies in tax

cuts. There's a big lobby to dump the 50p top rate of tax. I'm joined

by the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Danny Alexander. Good

morning. Morning. 0.2% in the second quarter, the Chancellor says

it's positive, but the only positive thing about it is that it

could have been worse? It's good news that the economy's moving in

the right direction, but we always said that recovering from the

deepest recession that we've had for many decades, with the largest

budget deficit we have seen for a very long time, was going to be

choppy and I think probably the waters have been choppier than

anyone expected and we have seen big head winds in the global

economy, rising oil and commodity prices, they have an impact on the

economy. You were hoping for a growth of 0.8, it might be moving

in the right direction but it's falling short of what you were

But we have rising oil prices which affects everybody. The most

important thing we can do is stick to the plan be set out - the

credibility we set out for this country when the two parties came

together in a Coalition to make a plan to ensure there was confidence

in the UK's ability to pay its way and that delivers significant

monetary stimulus because by having a credible monetary policy it keeps

interests -- interest rates low and throwing credibility out of the

window would see interest rates rise. On a basic level, are you

worried about if growth figures? The chancellor says you are

sticking to the plan but are you worried? Of course we must every --

do everything we can... But are you worried? We had huge economic

problems we inherited. It is also to do with the fact that the

economy weak to Cover was unbalanced with the focus on

banking and the City of London and not enough on growth in other parts

of the country. As well as dealing with the deficit, we have to take

decisions to rebalance the economy to get growth elsewhere.

intrigued to to know why I asked a simple question, are you worried,

and you are not giving me a yes or no answer. Of course we are

concerned about the situation in the economy. That is what we spend

every hour of every day working on but we face big and long term

problems with no easy or quick fix which the Labour Party might have

you believe. We inherited a in -- an enormous deficit and there are

problems with growth where we have to free at businesses to lead the

economic recovery. Apprenticeships and skills and training - skeps we

are taking to make the banks lend more -- steps. The idea is that

there is an easy way out is not right. What people want to know and

you say you are concerned, so when people are concerned, they often

have alternatives. Is there one? You must be thinking about other

ways because, if this keeps going with figures like this, you must

then have to do something different? You have to look at what

the consequences will be of what some people are advising us to do -

to step back from the fiscal credibility week established when

we came into office. From other parts of Europe and what is going

on in the US, when the country is unable to pay its way there are

serious problems so the credibility is hard won and we have to stick

with it. It is delivering benefits in terms of low interest rates. But

you are right to say we have to do more to encourage and support

businesses to grow. Going after the banks and encouraging them to lend

more. That will make a real difference. I reject the argument

that by changing our stance we will make the economy better. It makes

things difficult for you if the figures continue to be as low as

they are. It makes it difficult to deliver on deficit reduction

because you are basing them on growth forecasts of 0.7% for the

year but what happens if you don't get that? We are dealing with the

structural deficit which needs spending cuts or tax rises to deal

with. If growth is different, that causes fluctuations in benefit

payments and the so-called automatic stabilisers which will

continue to operate. Fundamentally, we have won an important prize for

this country and that is eight credibility internationally

supported by the IMF and the G20. It is a country that can pay its

way in the world and deal with economic problems and that delivers

benefits to businesses and households in terms of lower

interest rates and that will be at threat if we step away from our

plan and adopted an alternative strategy. There are real bonuses

then -- benefits here. A 50 p tax rate. Were you do it? We, as

Liberal Democrats, pushed hard that eight Government's first priority

would be for tax reductions for people on low on middle incomes.

Anyone who things we will shift a priority and reduce the tax burden

for the wealthiest has another thing coming. It cannot be the

right priority for a country at this time going through different -

- difficult circumstances and we will stick to our priority that

says tax reductions we can push through will be aimed at the low

and middle incomes. Vat for example? We have already increased

that. We will lift the income tax threshold to �10,000 which was a

major Liberal Democrat commitment. It was our first income tax

priority and we have to stick to it. The idea we will shift of focus to

the wealthiest when everyone is under pressure is in cloud cuckoo

land if people think that. If the Americans do not reach an agreement

in the next 48 hours, they could be chaos and we could be tipped back

into recession let alone other economies around the world.

American politicians have shown an enormous capacity for leadership

over the decades and that is what they have to show now. If two

parties bury their political differences and do the right thing,

not just for America and the whole world, the whole world is watching.

If they get it wrong and there is a default, but we do not expect that,

but if it were to happen, it will have consequences for every family

and business in this country and across the world. What would happen

to Britain if they didn't sort it out? We would see some deeply

damaging consequences. It would depend how things unfold under

stress I do not think it will happen. Politicians on Capitol Hill

can see the implications of what they are looking at - a precipice

and they will step back from it. It will have a big effect on the

global financial system and the US is one of our major trading

partners. It could have big implications for us. Let us talk

about the Lib Dems and the poll in the papers this morning in the

Sunday Times. It doesn't look good for Nick Clegg with any 35% of

people thinking he will be the Lib Dem leader by 2015. Do you agree?

No. The Lib Dems have borne the brunt of the Coalition and we have

lost some very hard-working councillors and campaigners over

the last year but we are a resilient party. We are used to

marching to the sound of gunfire, if you like, and we are very proud

of what we are achieving in government. Not just the tax cuts

for low and as I was talking about, shifting pension is with a --

pensions into a triple lock guarantee, expanding renewable

energy. But you have a lot to turn around here. If you look at the

polls and the figures and if you look at the economy, if you don't

sort out that, the Lib Dems will be in big trouble at the next election,

won't you? We all have to sort it out but we will enter the next

election on a strong record where people were see we have done the

right things for the right reasons. I think we will do even better at

the next election. Thank you. Now for the news

headlines. Thank you. Efforts to prevent the

United States defaulting on its debts look set to go to the wire.

President Obama has been meeting Republican and Democrat leaders to

break the deadlock. With today's to go before deadline for an agreement,

Senate has postponed another vote on the issue until later today. A

default would have serious consequences for President Obama

and the world economy. The Chief Secretary to the Treasury

has acknowledged that the government is concerned about last

week's figures showing a reduction in the rate at which the economy is

recovering. But he insisted the government would not scrap the 50p

tax rate which some people would argue would stimulate growth. He

said that anyone who thought the Government's priority should be tax

cuts for the highest paid was living in cloud-cuckoo-land. That

is all. The next news is that make day. Back to Sophie but first a

look at what is coming up after this programme.

Is the law right to insist immigrants coming here should speak

English before they arrive? You see a crime in the street, what should

you do? Somebody said you should all comply and we talk to a woman

he says she gave her entire inheritance to the RSPCA.

Sophie. A century after their deaths,

Gilbert and Sullivan's operas continue to be hugely popular. A

major festival dedicated to their work takes place in Derbyshire

every summer, and attracts thousands of enthusiasts from

around the world. This year's extravaganza began yesterday and

runs until 20th August. Earlier, I spoke to one of the Festival's

Trustees, Bernard Lockett, and the singer Simon Buttriss and began by

asking them how they overcome the suspicion of some people that

Gilbert and Sullivan is really the territory of amateur dramatics.

People have said that but it is not so. When they hear it, they see it

essences they would like to see in musical theatre. Simon, the people

who listen to you know the music and lyrics so well. You miss out to

work and you are in trouble! Yes, people turn at that stage doors and

say I haven't turned up to here "and" instead of "but". You hear

the laughter of familiarity but people who hear it for the first

time laughing in a slightly different way. It is the great

place for combining the old audience and the new, young blood

to adore it. In the Festival Club, you will see little old ladies in

hot debate with teenage boys. In the best possible way! What will

you play for us? The major General song. Perfect. Before we enjoy

their merry tunes, there's just enough time to thank all my guests

this morning. Mariella Frostrup will be here next week, standing in

for Andrew. So, join her at the usual time of nine o'clock. Until

then, we leave you with a timeless # I am the very model of a modern

Major-General, # I've information vegetable,

animal, and mineral, # I know the kings of England, I

quote the fights historical # From Marathon to Waterloo, in

order categorical. # I'm very well acquainted, too,

with matters mathematical, # I understand equations, both the

simple and quadratical, # About binomial theorem I'm

teeming with a lot o' news, # With many cheerful facts about

the square of the hypotenuse. # I'm very good at integral and

differential calculus. # I know the scientific names of

beings animalculous: # In short, in matters vegetable,

animal, and mineral, # I am the very model of a modern

Major-General. # I know our mythic history, King

Arthur's and Sir Caradoc's, # I answer hard acrostics, I've a

pretty taste for paradox, # I quote in elegiacs all the

crimes of Heliogabalus, # In conics I can floor

peculiarities parabolous, # I can tell undoubted Raphaels

from Dows and Zoffanies, # I know the croaking chorus from

The Frogs of Aristophanes! # Then I can hum a fugue of which

I've heard the music's din afore, # And whistle all the airs from

that infernal nonsense Pinafore. # Then I can write a washing bill

in Babylonic cuneiform, # And tell you ev'ry detail of

Caractacus's uniform: # In short, in matters vegetable,

animal, and mineral, # I am the very model of a modern

Major-General. # In fact, when I know what is

meant by "mamelon" and "ravelin", # When I can tell at sight a Mauser

rifle from a javelin, # When such affairs as sorties and

surprises I'm more wary at, # And when I know precisely what is

meant by "commissariat", # When I have learnt what progress

has been made in modern gunnery, # When I know more of tactics than

a novice in a nunnery, # In short, when I've a smattering

of elemental strategy # You'll say a better Major-General

has never sat a-gee. # For my military knowledge, though

I'm plucky and adventury, # Has only been brought down to the