20/10/2013 The Andrew Marr Show

Good morning and welcome. Last week, Weise and the programme toeing

through the nitty-gritty of domestic policies. Today, by contrast, we are

looking beyond Westminster, to the very future of Britain, to the

greatest threat to the world economy, and even challenges from

our entered a galactic enemies. Yes, this week is not a show for the

faint-hearted. Joining me to look at the papers, which are frankly all

over the place this morning, two fearless political and cultural

commentators. This week, the world held its breath, as the most

powerful men in Washington engaged in a dangerous stand-off over

America's budget. The entire world economy would have been rocked that

they failed to reach a deal. They did, but only at the last minute,

and only until January. Resident over Balmer's new ambassador to

London is here for his first big interview, so has the world's

greatest nation become politically dysfunctional? And yesterday

afternoon, in a rousing speech to his party conference in Perth,

Scotland's First Minister promised that Scots would wake up in

September next year as citizens of a new country. With the polls still

against him, can Alex Salmond deliver? Later, we will be speaking

to Sir Ben Kingsley about alien threats and his latest Hollywood

Rock buster. Are there hidden political messages in his new film?

And the Policing Minister tells us whether he fears police mole per

this at the highest level. Thus, we have a great band with us this

morning. They give us a taste of desert lose from the Sahara. But

first, a look at the news. Good morning. The Deputy Prime Minister,

Nick Clegg, is to distance himself from one of the Government's key

education policies right criticising the way the preschool system works.

In a speech, he will say that England's free schools have had too

many powers and should be made to follow the national curriculum. The

Deputy Prime Minister and the Education Secretary are becoming

unruly. They have got strong differences of opinion over schools

policy in England. The coalition set up free schools, state funded but

free from local authority control, in 2010. Some have not had such a

good report card. Inspectors found some of them to be inadequate. In

some cases, headteachers have resigned. In a speech this week,

Nick Clegg will say... This would mean that free schools

would have to to... The Conservatives say that would take

away their flexibility and freedom, and they will refuse to agree. So,

the Lib Dem leader will say that he will include them in his election

manifesto, emphasising the differences with his coalition

partners. He is likely to take the same approach to some other policies

before 2015 in an attempt to rally his own voters. The American

investment bank JP Morgan is set to pay a record ?8 billion fine to the

US Justice Department, to settle investigations into mortgage

products which were sold before the financial crisis. Australian

firefighters battling bushfires in New south Wales are preparing for

worsening conditions. The return of hot weather and strong winds is

expected to fan the flames. Around 200 homes have already been

destroyed. Some fires are still raging out of control. New South

Wales's worst fires in a decade showed no sign of relenting. The

fronts are stretching hundreds of kilometres. The authorities had been

trying to capitalise on the cooler weather, but that is now over, and

forecasters are now predicting temperatures back in the 30s,

dangerously high winds and little prospect of rain. I have been

briefed about forecasts in relation to the weather for the coming days,

and whilst it is true that the weather is never good at times like

this, it is also clear that the weather forecasts are suggesting

that the weather is not going to be as good as it had been anticipated.

In the Blue Mountains, to the west of Sydney, hundreds of people have

already lost their homes. Many more have been told to leave, leaving

everything behind. I am hoping it firefighters have done such a great

job. As the firefighting continues, investigators are looking at whether

any of the blazes were started deliberately. Two teenage girls have

already been charged with starting one small fire. Police say they are

monitoring dozens of people with a history of committing arson. The

fires have, and usually early in the season, following Australia's

hottest year on record. As the country faces a long and dangerous

summer, it has raised inevitable questions about the impact of

climate change. The Archbishop of Canterbury has

entered the debate about rising energy prices, urging companies to

behave with generosity, rather than just maximising profit. Justin

Welby, who took office earlier this year, said he could see why

consumers were angry about the latest wave of price hikes. He told

the Mail on Sunday that companies had to justify what they were doing.

The brother of a British man who was killed during a family holiday in

the Alps last year has denied arranging the murders. He has

accused French police of covering up the real target of the killings. He

remains on bail after being arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to

murder. Police trying to identify a young girl found at a Roma

settlement in Greece say they have received hundreds of calls. An

international search is under way to find the girl's parents. DNA tests

have shown that she is not related to the couple that she was living

with. That is all from me for now. And now to the papers. The front

pages, as usual. The Sunday Times has a sensational and quite scary

story for a lot of people. Up to about 20 retired British troops are

going to be arrested and charged with murder after the bloody Sunday

inquiry, they say. The Sunday Telegraph has devoted its entire

paper, almost, to the story about immigration, Europe, and the

question of spin. This is about the net effect of so-called benefit

tourists across the UK. It also accuses the BBC of being poor

reporters on this story. We will be speaking to Alex Salmond. The SNP

are pledging a higher minimum wage in Scotland if independence happens.

The only political story which really covers more than one paper,

the Independent on Sunday, about the coalition in crisis over free

schools. Nick Clegg turns on Michael Gove over his ideological school

reforms, says The Observer. Well, ideological is a word which

everybody associates with Michael Gove. It is a secret word that you

say when you are disagreeing. First of all, Nick Clegg, he has given an

interview to the Independent, and this speech is actually on Thursday.

He never actually makes a speech now without pre-briefing. He does not

actually need to give the speech is any more. But I think Michael Gove,

he is obviously very clever, but sometimes he is not very smart. I

think the idea that you could have schools with people teaching who

were not teachers was obviously headed for trouble. Surprise,

surprise, that is happening. I think this is a bandwagon, which Nick

Clegg jumped on. He and the Labour Party are in the bleak agreement, as

far as I can ascertain. It was only yesterday, as it were, at Nick Clegg

was assuring us that he and the Conservatives would be shoulder to

shoulder, all the way through to the election. That lasted about 12

hours. You mentioned the issue about qualified teachers, and there is a

story today in The Observer, which is about artificial intelligence in

society, raising questions like, if you have robot cars, and there is a

car crash, who will be liable as it is a very good story. It moves on to

the question of whether robot teachers in schools might work. This

lovely quote says, I can see a future where you have a couple of

robots sitting in the corner of a classroom. If you need a push or

want to be challenged, you get 20 minutes with a robot. Obviously,

computers are used in school all the time, they have done some

experiments with these particular robots. This discussion is now

taking place regarding so-called socio-bots. Moving on, this one was

mentioned in the headlines, the Archbishop of Canterbury damning

energy price hikes. On the front cover of the Daily Mail, this is

being framed in moral terms. The Archbishop has criticised the energy

companies for imposing huge price rises for struggling families, and

later in the paper, they talk about him as being the nation's chief

moralist. They have a quick though at the church for being a bit too

left-wing, but it is interesting, that we have now moved to appoint

where it is a moral issue, as opposed to political. He is a very

different kind of Archbishop to the last one, isn't he? I think he is

great, because he speaks his mind. He lives in the real world, he has

paid his own energy bills, which is something that many politicians do

not do. I have been shopping around, and I was actually wanting to wear a

big jump, with a reindeer on it, the whole jumper story is ridiculous! To

be fair, our parents and grandparents did exactly that. A lot

of people do put on jumpers, but when you have a 9% hike, it is

nothing to do with jumpers, seems to be to do with greed. I just think

energy prices are going to be the new bankers, I am sure they will be

up before a fusilier committees. Let's move onto another story, and

what is your next one? Alex Salmond, who we are going to see in

a minute. I am looking forward to seeing the new, slimmed down

version. He has been on the Independence diet! You start for

several days and then you can eat what you like? I think he has been

coming up with this, so he has had to starve every day he has been

working on it, because he has been working on it for so long. We are

going to have the Scottish Magna Carta, which is going to be unveiled

on November 26. All of the details will be there, yes! He gave a very

rousing speech yesterday. Yes, well, he is a rabble-rouser, and has

always been. And now, this is his moment, he is loving it. He is going

to love the fight, I have to say. Whenever you speak about Alex

Salmond, you get discussions about Braveheart. There is a story in the

Sunday Times mentioning Braveheart as one of the most historically

inaccurate films. Can this be true? It played fast and loose with the

truth, that is certainly true. This one basically says, they were given

$10,000 to go through the scripts of films to find out whether they were

historically accurate. This is because, as we come towards the

Oscar season, if you want to bad-mouth particular films, you can

say they are historically inaccurate. People will say, I

will, yes, the book was tarted up. Captain Phillips, and we are already

having stories about the crew having very different stories to the one

which was portrayed in the film. It is smearing within the film

industry. Yes, what is interesting is that now, saying something is

historically inaccurate is the new Best worst thing you can see in the

run-up to the Oscars. You have got qualified professors being employed

to check out the historical background of films. It is made even

more acute by the fact that people will watch a film, and they will

have a second screen at the same time, they will be looking at their

iPad or their phone and saying, hang on, did he actually say that? I

think a film should be removed from people before they go into cinemas.

You have just stepped into some big shoes as the film critic for The

Observer, is that daunting? Terrifying. Philip was and still is

the greatest film critic in the English-language. He does for me

what I think all great critics do, he is able to explain why he loves

something, and he writes with such beauty and elegance. So, no pressure

than? None at all! I think we have got a police story. A very good

piece of analysis in the Sunday Times. It is very good and a very

interesting topic. This has come up with plebgate, the Andrew Mitchell

story. How many times the police make things up, to put it bluntly.

And shockingly it does seem to be quite a bit. The model I took from

this is to take a tape recorder if you're ever interviewed by police.

If you ever go to a protest rally, protesters are filming the police

and we have come to this sorry state when we do not trust anything unless

we take it. They have an opinion poll showing that the public are

also starting to question the police much more. Andrew Mitchell's wife

had to persuade him to take that meeting. And she was right. As wives

so often are! Here in the Sunday Telegraph, can we still trust the

BBC? Apparently not! You may have read this story before. The question

about immigrants perhaps not being this terrible drain on us. And then

we have a couple of pictures. Kirsty Wark, left-leaning. And then

another, tending to the right. The argument begins on the front page

and runs right through. Thank you both very much. The weather now, and

it was dark and wet this morning when I got up. In the weather studio

is Nick Miller. It is a feast of weather today,

changing from one moment to the next. Feeling quite warm when the

sun makes an appearance but if you do catch a shower, you will

certainly know about it. It may well be into the afternoon, the far north

of Scotland avoiding most of those showers. Slow moving showers in

Northern Ireland and not much sunshine here. Some heavy downpours

in South East England. Torrential downpours with gusty wind possible.

But it is showers, not constant rain. Then we have another area of

low pressure feeding rain into southern parts of England and Wales

as the night goes on. That continues during Monday and Tuesday remains

very unsettled. For much of the week ahead we have spells of rain and

showers but staying on the mild side.

A year today, the country called Great Britain may have disappeared

forever. The man leading Scotland's independence campaign, Alex Salmond,

gave a barnstorming speech to the Scottish National Party yesterday.

But he hasn't convinced a majority of Scottish voters yet. He joins me

now. Welcome. Can I ask first, on the day after the referendum, if you

do get a yes vote, what happens? Do you have a team that goes to

Westminster to negotiate, perhaps another team going to the EU? The

answer is yes. There will be an eight team-mate period with Scotland

becoming an independent country. There will be negotiations both with

London and the European union. But just to take issue with your

introduction. The state we currently live in is not Great Britain but the

United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Great Britain will

not disappear as a geographical expression. What will happen is that

Scotland will be an independent country with the Queen as the head

of state. Both countries I hope, the country is actually called the

United Kingdom. You do not want to exclude Northern Ireland from your

analysis. But for most people Great Britain is a familiar entity and it

will go. That is the point I was making. I was making the point, you

do not changed geography by changing where power lies. England and

Scotland will still be close neighbours and the Queen will be the

head of state. This is a matter of identity, otherwise what is it

about. To return to the question of what happens in that negotiating

period. What happens if you have a disagreement over something such as

the deficit. The share of the national deficit. And you cannot

agree with London. Will there be some kind of Court of Appeal, some

kind of George Mitchell figure who will come in. Because I am sure

there will be endless disagreements in that period. There is plenty of

disagreements between London and Edinburgh at the moment. We have put

forward a fiscal commission, which includes Nobel laureate economists,

and exact formulation about how you do reconcile these things and

coordinate fiscal policy. But you speak as if this has never been done

before. Many countries have shared currency in recent years. And that

is possible to do. Scotland is in a stronger fiscal position just now

than the rest of the United Kingdom. But what happens over a period of

time will depend on our policies in terms of taxation and spending and

how we grow the economy. That is the opportunity resented by Scottish

independence. Yesterday your main message was that Scotland was

essentially a social democratic country and England essentially more

conservative. But would you be able to get most of what you want with

so-called Devo Max? So you get something close to full independence

anyway? It would be an interesting argument if evil Max as you call it

was on offer. But it is not on offer. Westminster actually refused

to have it on the ballot paper. So we have a choice to become an

independent country and govern ourselves in cooperation with our

friends and neighbours but by controlling our own finances.

Independent has a big advantage over Devo Max. Devo Max would not allow

any powers over the nuclear issue. Identity is important to people. It

is also a question of where best Scotland should be governed from. I

think the majority of people in Scotland trust the government in

Edinburgh to operate in Scottish interests. A very small minority

trust the UK government. We just have an opinion poll showing that in

dramatic fashion. And our task in the next year is to say that if it

is the Scottish government that is trusted, that is where power should

reside. What happens to the submarines at Faslane? Do you order

them to sail south and where would they sail to? They should be safely

removed. Once Scotland becomes independent, and after people have

elected their first government, if it were to be an SNP government then

we would ask the submarines to be moved from Scotland as soon as was

safely possible. The emphasis on safety. No one would want to

compromise that. But a country has the right to say if we do not want

to possess nuclear weapons. When you talk to defence ministers in London

they say, we might have some kind of leaseback arrangement. But as far as

you're concerned, that is for the birds? It is for the birds. The

Ministry of Defence quite recently briefed that they were going to

annex Faslane. But that ridiculous story just lasted overnight for

Downing Street dismissed it. The reality is that if Scotland becomes

an independent country and if they choose and SNP government, then we

would not to be a non-nuclear country. Part of NATO, certainly.

How soon could that happen? We have put forward a policy that as soon as

could be safely organised. There are estimates saying that that could be

done in a relatively short period of time. But we put forward the policy

in the way we did to allow that point of negotiation. Sticking with

defence, for instance the Royal Navy. Does HMS Glasgow and HMS

Edinburgh join a new Scottish navy? How does that division happen in

practical terms? And the same with regard to the RAF. The recent paper

for the Ministry of Defence that was released in the past week or so

conceded for the first time that there would be a proper negotiation

over defence assets. Scotland is entitled to a share of the asset of

the former state. But we also have to take into account the liabilities

of the former state as well. Scotland is a maritime nation but

there is no ship stationed anywhere close to Scotland at the present

moment. We have a lot of things that we do not need such as nuclear

weapons. But the major ships that we do need are stationed elsewhere.

Would you envisage a division of the Royal Navy and the Royal air force?

Or would you start again with a completely new defence Force? It is

likely that there would be assets that would be negotiated which would

go to the Scottish defence force. It does not mean that the Royal Navy

does not continue. It just means that some of the assets would go to

the Scottish defence force. We will be outlining detailed plans for that

shortly. To be clear, we would be talking about separate navies and

air forces? Scotland would have its own defence force. That would act in

corporation with friends and allies as part of the NATO alliance. One of

these friends and allies would be England. But when we come to

Scotland becoming independent, some of the assets of the current defence

forces would fall to the Scottish defence force. After the

extraordinary defence cuts off the path decade or so, Scotland has

planned only to have one air force base left in Scotland and one naval

base. So we are starting from a very low position in terms of assets at

the present moment. But the Scottish defence force will have forces were

put to a country of just over 5 million people as part of the NATO

alliance. As many other countries defend themselves properly and

adequately without weapons of mass destruction. If I was an RAF pilot

of Scottish origins, I would reasonably expect to go back to

Scotland. But this would split into two different air forces? I am sure

that you do know that people in the forces, I think they are from 23

nationalities at the present moment. Mostly Commonwealth countries. And

they serve in the armed forces. In the defence paper I think the point

was made that people would have the choice as to which force they wanted

to serve in. We will put forward a defence force appropriate for an

independent country with a non-nuclear bases. But it will be

adequate to protect Scotland and cooperate with friends and allies.

To touch on the currency question. In the end the monetary policy

committee of the bank of England, they would dictate for instance

inflation policy. The South of England is a very different economy

to Scotland so presumably you would have to put up with monetary policy

not necessarily in the interests of Scotland, at least for some time.

Well, that is what happens at the moment. There are no Scottish

representatives on the monetary policy committee. What we would have

is control of taxation and spending, which we do not have moment. I think

fiscal policy is the dominating issue in terms of making an economy

grow successfully. That is the control which we do not have at the

moment. Our approach to monetary policy would be what is in the best

interests of Scotland, and indeed in the best interests of England as

well, which is to share a currency. On a historical note, the Bank of

England was founded by a Scot, as you probably know, and sterling does

not belong to George Osborne, it is as much our currency, certainly, it

is more our currency than George Osborne's currency, but it is a

shared currency. One last question, if I might, a vexed one, will you

promise, yes or no, to debate at some point with Alistair Darling,

from the no campaign? I know you prefer to deal with David Cameron,

that if that is not available, will you debate with Alistair Darling? As

I said yesterday, the first debate should be Prime Minister to First

Minister. David Cameron is trying to dictate the terms of the debate

without actually debating himself, which is not acceptable. That sounds

a bit like a no. Rock star. After weeks of wrangling, America's

politicians have finally agreed, they will end the government shut

down and borrow billions more, raising the vast national debt still

further. President Obama said he hoped it meant the end of the

crisis. But the deal lasts only until January. The new US Ambassador

to the United Kingdom is here for his first major TV interview in this

country. Welcome. Thank you for having me. It looks like this deal

was done right at the last minute, and it is only until January, so

there is another crisis in February, and to a lot of the rest of the

world, it looks like the system is dysfunctional, and the world economy

is going to be affected by this? Andrew, there is no doubt that what

we saw over the 17 days of shut down, which was the first issue, and

then the second issue, as you mentioned, is the debt ceiling, was,

how do I put this diplomatically, not our finest hour? The president

himself put it quite bluntly. He said, it had encouraged our enemies,

emboldened our competitors and depressed our friends. He feels, and

I would reiterate, that this is not the way we should behave going

forward. That is not how our democracy works. One point of

clarification, and I have spoken to many friends here in the UK, who are

watching with great concern, is that gridlock, the words you used, is

built into our system, in some sense, which is a good thing. It is

different to your system, but it works for us. What you saw here in

these crises was not gridlock, it was something different. We saw

utter ideological confrontation really, between the Tea Party and

the President's group. Deep Party is pointing out that every day, the

government is spending millions of dollars more than it brings in. They

have got a point, haven't they? There are many legitimate points to

be made about how we get our fiscal house in order, and the president is

passionate about having that debate and that discussion but that not

what we saw in the shut down. That was taking an ideological position

about what is called Obamacare, and holding the government hostage over

that. I am hesitant to use metaphors like that, but in a way, that is

what was going on. And so the budget debate is a really important one,

one which I hope we will see Congress gets to buy the middle of

December. Let's have this discussion about both, jobs and long-term

fiscal responsibility - we can do that. Do you think we are seeing

what has been the world's greatest country during the 20th century

reaching a tipping point, with the Chinese, for instance, downgrading

America, and its borrowing status? I do not. America remains the bedrock

of the world economy, and we are a vibrant democracy, and one that I

hope in the coming months will be getting back to our previous form. A

further period of confrontation like this could knock the British

economic revival for six, as well as everybody else's, I guess. Which is

why, as I said, friends here in the UK have been watching with great

concern. This was a big deal, this was not our finest hour. But it is

behind us, in the end, Democrats and Republicans did come together,

albeit at the last minute, to sort it out. Can I come onto the

revelations from Edward Snowden - do you think the government has acted

wisely, making him a martyr, and it appears to a lot of people around

the world that you are using a huge stick to crush a rather small nut,

thus giving Edward Snowden credibility and support? I would not

characterise it that way. President Obama has been very clear, and it is

worth pointing out that he actually called for a vigorous domestic

debate about these issues before this stuff came out. Remember, in

his big defence speech, he covered drones and other important topics,

and he said, look, we have to balance the legitimate security

concerns not only of our citizens, but of our allies, and balance them

with the privacy concerns shared by all people. That is the balance that

he is seeking to protect. The Guardian newspaper here, like others

around the world, has come in for a lot of criticism from Secret Service

people for seriously compromising British and American security by

publicising these revelations - do you agree with that? I would focus

more, as I said, and I go back to what the president said, which is

the importance of having this debate about the trade-offs between

security and privacy, between transparency and secrecy. And also,

to do so in a way which protects whistle-blowers, which is different

by the way from the wholesale releasing of hundreds of thousands

of documents. President Obama put in specific measures to protect

whistle-blowers, if they see something illegal or unethical, but

that is an important part of the balance. And freedom of the press is

something which is important here, who surely important back home in

America, and to make sure that whatever we do does not have a

chilling effect on the press. That is an interesting phrase, a chilling

effect on the press - is America watching closely our own big debate

on press regulation and is there an unease about possible state

regulation on the press in the world's oldest democracy? We have

been watching the debate with great interest. We have been watching

quietly, and not commenting, it is an internal issue for the UK. But of

course, we watch, we are greatly interested. The UK is our closest

ally, and so we watch with great interest. Thank you very much ever

since his Oscar-winning performance as Gandhi Sir Ben Kingsley has been

one of Britain's most eminent screen actors. He was unforgettable in

Schindler's List, and he was endearing in Hugo. His career has

taken a slightly unexpected turn in the past couple of years, with him

emerging as the go to die for blockbuster action movies. He has

appeared in Iron Man 3, and in his new film, Ender's Game, he is a hero

in a futuristic world living under the threat of alien invasion. Sir

Ben Kingsley will be speaking about all of that in a moment, but first,

a tense scene from the film. What is the game where you get to read about

and start over? That cannot happen, do you understand? Do you? Because I

trained others, each one ultimately a failure. All right, he

understands. You are not the first, but you will be the last. Welcome.

It is a very spectacular film, and perhaps you would explain the basis

of it - it is an alien invasion, and you are an extraordinary, tattooed

elder statesman Commander, yes? The tattoos are Maori, and they tell of

the lineage of the Warrior and his warrior caste, so that by reading

the face, if you are able to decipher the tattoos, you can see

that he is a warrior, and his forebears have been warriors,

generation after generation after generation. Our wonderful writer

-director wanted to place an archetype close to the character, in

order for him to be something close to the pure form, which is very

close to me as an actor. So, I am playing a warrior, which is all he

is. And he is determined to train Asa's Carrick are basically to be a

weapon in the defence of our planet. -- character. To what extent do you

think these great big blockbuster films are a way of discussing

contemporary politics? It is a very good question. I think if a film

seeks to base itself in archetypes, rather than stereotypes, if you have

something in its pure form on a screen, rather than a copy of a copy

of a copy, then I think all sorts of people will relate to the film on

many levels. For me, I can relate it to a very simple myth, that once

upon a time, the gods looked down and found an adolescent and tried to

change him. My question is, is he changed at the end of the film,

worries his young soul manipulated and distorted out of all

recognition? That is the key to the film. You only have to look at it

for 30 seconds and you can see that it must be a very expensive film to

make. A lot of direct does these days say these films suck the oxygen

from the rest of the industry. The films have to make so much money

back on them that there is not enough space left for smaller

productions is that a fair criticism? One has to address

oneself to that as an individual film-maker. Out of the catalogue of

films that I have been involved in over the last 12 months, three of

them have been tiny, independent films, because that is the seedbed

of our craft. That is where we find the wonderful young directors and

writers and up-and-coming actors. So, I will give weeks of my time to

encourage this, and it is up to the individual. It need not be a

threat, if we place our energies, saying, this is important, let's

feed this, because it is that which feeds the rest of the industry. If

it is well enough written and acted and made, then it will find its

audience, you are saying? Of course. That is of huge importance.

I am always interested in turning points in people's lives, and

looking at your career, I guess everything changed with Gandhi would

that be fair? Definitely, I was at the Royal Shakespeare Company, but I

must say, Andrew, that without 15 years of classical theatre, Richard

Attenborough would not have heard the wherewithal to work with me,

because I did have a sense of epic destiny, of men isolated in an

extraordinary historical context. A huge weight of responsibility, to

play a character like that. Let me tell you one of Richard

Attenborough's finest moments, when we were losing the light one day,

and it was clear that the crew were rather stressed, that they may not

get the scene, and I was lying on the floor in the middle of a

terrible wired by workers, being charged by bosses, and I could see

the we were shrinking, a little pool of artificial light on the planet,

and Richard came up to me and said - we have all the time in the world.

That relaxed me, and he got the tape. Wonderful man. You have said

in the past that you had a slightly difficult childhood, a cold

childhood, in some respects, and you felt embraced and brought in at the

time of the knighthood, so can you tell us about that? It was

enormously important to you in motion the? If I can be candid, and

I think it is fair to others who have suffered the same weird level

of indifference, my mother actually found it extremely difficult to

accept my knighthood, so I was almost forced to stop people in the

street and tell them, don't listen to mum! It was an embrace from a

culture and a country and a language that I deeply love, and coming from

that kind of shadow, it meant an awful lot to me. She had been an

actress herself, so do you think she was jealous? She played small parts

in movies, and I think it is highly possible that that was part of her

attitude towards her children. That must have been very painful. It was

very difficult, yes. Thank you very much for joining us. Great pleasure,

thank you. Now, was Andrew Mitchell stitched up? That is the question

being asked at Westminster, with MPs of all parties concerned that Mr

Mitchell may have been the victim of a police conspiracy. The story has

taken some extraordinary twists and turns, but what does it say about

the force at large? In simple terms, can we trust our police? I'm joined

now by the Policing Minister, Amy and green. Do you believe there was

a conspiracy? The actual conspiracy is still being investigated by the

Crown persecution service, if there is one. We will see what they say.

What happened when those three Police Federation representatives

came out of this meeting in Sutton Coldfield and said things that do

not seem to be borne out by the transcript of the meeting, that is

disturbing and stop if Andrew Mitchell had not taken that meeting

he would still be hung out to dry. That is a worrying thing for a lot

of people. That is the key point. We all want to have confidence in the

police. Andrew Mitchell clearly can command the resources of the people

may not be able to to prove what individual police officers said

about him was not true. That is the key. We know that and we also seem

to know that their chief constables then changed the reports. There was

a cover-up of a cover-up. If so can they survive? Well we have not yet

heard their side of the story. We can all judge on what they say after

that meeting on Wednesday. If police officers behave badly then it is

serious for confidence in the police. But there is a very small

minority who do behave badly. I was at the Police Bravery Awards last

Thursday were you heard great stories. But there are some bad

apples. And if chief police officers are engaged in cover-ups, that is

serious. Do you think there is a crisis of confidence in the police?

This is one story. We have Ian Tomlinson, Hillsborough. Earlier in

the programme you pointed out an opinion poll showing that 66% of

people still do have trust in the police. That is lower than it used

to be. What needs to be done are practical measures to ensure that

the very small minority who do behave badly can be properly dealt

with. So there is a worry out there. Is there anything that you can do to

address that? There is and that is what we are doing. One of the key

changes we need to make is to stop the police investigating serious and

sensitive complaints against them. Clearly the Andrew Mitchell affair

would fall into this. We are increasing the powers of the

independent police complaints commission and the resources for

that so it can do much more work independently of the police. So you

feel it is not working properly at the moment? It needs more powers and

resources. We are giving them both. What about the culture, the

institutional culture -- culture in the police? It is not just a

question of following rules but of having a culture of honesty and

transparency. What we're doing there is introducing direct entry at

senior levels. Opening it up to anyone? To anyone. What we want is

people who have not had to start on the beat as a police constable and

work their way up for 25 years. Some people who do have the relevant

skills can enter at different levels. Former head teachers from

schools, army officers? Even journalists could come chief

executives? In all seriousness, people will bring a new attitude and

a new background and I think that will help the police service a lot.

It will open it up. And people will come in and ask, why do you do it

that way. And they will question things. What about looking again at

the police code of ethics? Well the new college of policing, which is

one of our reforms that does not get enough attention because it is a

very big change, the college is there to set standards and one of

the first things they are doing is consulting on a new code of ethics.

That will be announced in a few weeks time. That will set out

clearly how police officers should operate. One key change is that

every time they are promoted, they will have to show that it is still

ingrained in them. That is done in other organisations like the

military. People watching will simply say that if the police can

tell untruths about a senior politician and then hide what has

happened, distort the evidence, it could happen to anyone. My simple

message is that the vast majority of police are honest and decent people

doing a dangerous job well. And that we are improving the system so that

those few who break the rules will be much better controlled and

inspect did independently. That we are changing the culture inside the

police so it is much less inward looking. Is Andrew Mitchell going to

get an apology? I hope so. Let us start with the people who left his

office. And said things that were palpably untrue, if you read the

transcript. Absolutely they should apologise. And what about the guy

who kicked him out in the first place? David Cameron. Well he did

not because Andrew Mitchell resigned. He resigned. Let us do

this in order, find out what the facts are what the CPS say, whether

there was a criminal conspiracy. All those questions need to be answered

first. Thank you very much for joining us.

Now over to Naga for the news headlines. The deputy Prime

Minister, Nick Clegg is to distance himself from one of the government's

key education policies, by criticising the way the free schools

system works. In a speech this week, he will say that England's free

schools have too may powers and should be made to follow the

National Curriculum. The SNP will set out his vision for

an independent Scotland today. Alex Salmond told this programme that the

majority of Scots trusted the government in Edinburgh over

Westminster. He also confirmed that if Scotland became independent, it

would have its own defence force and UK nuclear submarines would be sent

south of Scottish waters as soon as is safely possible. That is all for

now. The next news on BBC One is at one o'clock. Coming up, is Miley

Cyrus part of the over sexualisation of pop music? And our godparents

still relevant? Joint us later. Damian Green is still here, and Ann

Treneman joins us once more. We're also joined by Ousmane from the

Malian band Tamikrest who are in the UK on tour at the moment and play in

East London this evening. They are based in North Africa and play and

record there when they're not performing in Europe. The album is

about women in Mali. Why is that? We have been fighting for independence

for 50 years and women play a particular role in our society. We

have great respect for them. Thank you very much. Ann Treneman, this

plebgate issue will be huge in Parliament next week. We will see

police coming before a select committee. I would like to see a few

more out there now talking about the problem. Because there is a problem.

Everyone feels that there are more than a few bad apples. Two thirds of

people still have confidence in the police which is surprising given

this spate of stories. But police chiefs to need to be out there. That

is why I'm pleased that the head of the College of policing, it is his

job to change a culture and he is out there talking about this. One

third of the electorate do not have confidence and that is a lot. More

than journalists! It is really important for people to have

confidence in the police. Police leaders need to be talking about

this. That is all that we have got time for this week. Thanks to all my

guests. Join us again next Sunday at nine when we'll be over on BBC Two.

For one week only, that's BBC Two at nine. On this channel you will get

motor racing live from India. With me on BBC Two, a host of informative

and entertaining folk, including the great musician Ronnie Wood. He's

giving a very rare performance away from the Rolling Stones at the

Albert Hall later this month. But next Sunday he's talking about his

music and his art and playing live right here in the studio. But to

play us out today, as promised, it's Tamikrest and a track from their new

album, Chatma. MUSIC.