17/11/2013 The Andrew Marr Show

Good morning. It's been an increasingly chilly

week and it's a difficult time to be a BBC presenter. Searching for

youth, Jeremy Paxman has had to grow a trendy beard, and David Dimbleby

has been tattooed with a scorpion - something which has a particular

resonance, apparently, in the gay community. A nasty glint has come

into my editor's eye of late: body piercings? Leather trousers?

Branding? Lord know what's coming - I'll keep in touch.

And joining me today for our review of the Sunday newspapers - the

Labour former Cabinet minister Tessa Jowell, Tim Montgomerie, comment

editor of The Times, and after the week of the terrible Philippines

typhoon, the head of Save the Children, Justin Forsyth.

The Prime Minister was hailed as a god when he met refugees in northern

Sri Lanka - victims of the country's long and brutal civil war. How far

does a chap have to go to get some proper recognition? He'll be back to

earth this week, though, and what faces him? What looks like an

increasingly scratchy relationship with his coalition partners, the Lib

Dems. There are differences over green taxes, free schools, how to

manage the economy. We'll hear from the Deputy Prime Minister, Nick

Clegg. Do his party and the Conservatives have a future

together? Also this morning: we'll hear from

that great, British sporting hero Andy Murray, about his victory at

Wimbledon this year, why he was proud to play for Team GB at the

Olypmics but also, what role he might play in the debate about

Scotland's future. I've been talking to the actor

Richard E Grant - whose brilliant turn in Withnail I made that film

an instant, and much-quoted, classic. He's revelling in his

latest role in a new gangster caper, Dom Hemingway.

So, there you go - a show full of some of the great male pin-ups of

the age: Andy Murray, Richard E Grant and yes, of course, Nick

Clegg. And finally, some virtuoso violining

- Janine Jansen and friends play Bach.

All that's coming up, but first the news from Naga Munchetty.

Good morning. There are calls for more to be done to tackle climate

change after the devastation caused by Typhoon Haiyan. The UK Disasters

Emergency Committee says the storm should be a wake-up call for United

Nations delegates who are meeting this week. The 14 aid agencies say

the typhoon has offered a glimpse of the extreme weather events which

could become more common if action isn't taken. Tens of thousands are

receiving emergency supplies as the aid effort gets underway.

The vast US aircraft carrier George Washington is now busy shovelling

food and water to those who need it. It's 21 helicopters are visiting

remote areas where help has been slow to come. They don't land for

fear of being mobbed. They fly over a countryside devastated by what may

have been the most powerful storm ever to hit land. Some fear that

storms like this will become more common and more damaging if climate

change continues. At the start of the United Nations climate talks in

Warsaw, delegates stood in silence for three minutes as a tribute to

those killed by the typhoon. Outside yesterday, a group of international

demonstrators called for governments around the world to take more

action, more quickly. That is the view shared by the Disasters

Emergency Committee, the 14 British charities who have come together to

launch a joint appeal for the Philippines. The charity said the

generosity of the public in donating money for aid needs to be matched by

a real determination to stop climate change. Whatever the delegates in

Warsaw decide when to help the people of the Philippines in their

current need. But some hope it might stop others elsewhere suffering in

the future. The Prime Minister has rejected a

call from a leading expert on public health to lower the age of consent

to 15. Professor John Ashton of the Faculty of Public Health says

society needs to take stock of the fact that around a third of all boys

and girls are having sex while aged 14 or 15.

The Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg says he wants to make the coalition

to make another increase in the amount people are able to earn

before paying income tax. He is calling for the personal income tax

allowance to be increased from ?10,000, to ?10,500, just before the

general election in 2015. Police are trying to establish

whether a body recovered from a well at a house in Surrey is male or

female. A postmortem examination will be held later. The body was

discovered by workmen who were clearing the garden at the house in

warning. Seven men are being held -- That's all from me, for now.

Downing Street says the review will be headed by a leading QC and will

consider allegations of intimidation and the cause of several industrial

disputes. Quantities of food and medicine are

starting to reach the people of the Philippines who were hit by the

terrible typhoon eight days ago. Our correspondent is intact the band,

the worst affected area. This is an area where there are a lot of

fishermen whose boats have been destroyed and a lot of people

harvesting coconuts, and trees torn up. You expect a major migration

once the aid has reached people and the first part of the operation has

been successful? Certainly what we are seeing already is that people

are leaving town in large numbers. The roads are open, they are taking

to vehicles. Before they were on foot, but they want to get out of

town. This town doesn't really function at all. Flying over it a

couple of days ago, it looked like there was not a single building that

was left undamaged. The parts of the town that are probably the poorer

parts of the town, much closer to the waterfront, all the buildings

made of wood, just decimated. It just looks like a pile of wood.

People's homes and livelihoods have been destroyed. That is going to be

something they need to think about further down the road. Right now,

there is still an urgent need for food, clean water, shelter. And to

get the power back on. So that this city can start functioning properly

again. We started to see a bit of life returning. It felt like for one

week the city was in shock, now it is staring again. Because the roads

are cleared there is more activity. People are starting to go about

their business and they are clearing up whatever they can, their own

homes, the remains of their own homes, and they are also trying to

salvage what they can from the debris. It is starting to stir

again. There are very short-term concerns and then there will be

those long term concerns about how people build up their lives again.

If I can ask you about the short-term, what about the outlying

villages and communities? Is the aid starting to get through? It is. What

we have seen is that because the roads are clear, trucks have been

getting through and getting out of town, carrying some aid to the

outlying provinces and the other villages. I think on the islands

there are 40 villages and we are told that most of those have been

reached. We saw 200 tonnes of aid being off-loaded, some of it was

going on small boats to villages that can only be reached by the sea.

It is starting to trickle out but there has been criticism of the

Philippines government for what many think has been a slow response.

You heard the story about the call to drop the legal age for sex to

15, that makes a splash in the Times, plus a picture of the Pope.

It says that people are flocking back to Catholic churches because of

his popularity. The Sunday Telegraph, a very different story. A

lot of health stories and NHS stories in the papers. There is the

Prince of Wales, on the front page of most papers this week. We have

the Observer with Lily Allen, her new video is using the -- causing

upset and amusement in equal measure. And the story about climate

change. One of the big stories we have talked about is whether climate

change is behind what happened in the Philippines, should we be

changing our policies or is it just hot air? We will be talking about

that. The Mail on Sunday, a story about a crystal meth shame of a bank

leader, the head of the Co-op bank who has been caught in a terrible

sting operation. We won't be talking about that, I suspect. Justin

Forsyth from Save the Children, you have chosen the typhoon story and by

far the best spread in the Sunday Times. Yes, this is a very good one

in the Sunday Times and it sets up the scale of the disaster and what

has been done in response. And some of those wider issues like climate

change. This has been tough organisations like Save the Children

and other members of the Disasters Emergency Committee. We flew a team

in before the storm hit and we then had to rescue them. A six person

team. I spoke to our team in Tacloban but they are living in a

house which doesn't have electricity, the roof is off, they

are having to work by torchlight, we don't have fuel. We are distributing

aid on foot with some trucks that have come from Manila. The Americans

piled in in a huge way, Roger Mentz and -- Raj I'll be back with the

headlines just before 10:00am. All countries struggle with an

emergency. We saw that America struggled for weeks to be able to

get aid to people. After hurricane Katrina. We have actually got a

medical team on HMS daring which has been deployed to some of those

outlying islands. Tim, you have the same story in the Independent. Yes,

it horrible picture of bodies being dumped in a trench, simply because

of the need to contain the problem of the spread of disease, which

gives an indication of the scale of the tragedy. The news report at the

top of the programme mentioned the George Washington aircraft carrier

that had come from America. America gets saved bad press for its

footprint but this is a case where the supreme power is at its best. --

gets a bad press. The good word for America for once. Let's talk about

the climate change aspect of it. The BBC has been attacked by the Mail on

Sunday for upping the possibility that this is connected with climate

change. There is a good piece in the Sunday Times trying to weigh up the

balances. We have to be guided by the science. This is regarded as an

unprecedented storm, which combined the most severe typhoon and a

tsunami, the most severe ever recorded. I think there haven't been

very many particularly severe storms over the last ten years. I think the

point is this. Tim and Justin have touched on it. This can't be a hit

and run operation by the international community. The

international community is going to have to be there in the Philippines,

assisting a reconstruction for months, in two years. Also -- into

years. The long-term agenda is set by the climate change talks and this

is the focus of the piece on the front page of the Observer. The

climate change talks in Warsaw this week, where the rich countries are

being attacked by the poorer nations for backtracking on their

commitments. The big U-turn has been Japan. I think this is a very

significant development. We have had 20 years since the Kyoto treaty,

richer nations keep ROMs into cut carbon emissions. In Warsaw -- keep

promising to cut carbon emissions. Japan is not giving up on tackling

climate change but rather than using immature technologies, like the kind

of wind farms that we are covering Britain with, they are saying, let's

invest with green technologies. Don't try to cut emissions with

unsustainable, inefficient, an economic technologies. -- an

economic Back to you, Andrew. Canada, Australia and Japan are

moving in a direction that Britain needs to move in. We have high

energy costs but actually are not dealing with the climate change

problem. Something radical has to change in the way we tackle this big

problem. I think it is right to say, and the scientists say it, that

there is not a direct connection between this typhoon and climate

change, people cannot prove that. It is not how many happen but the

intensity that is the issue. Also in other parts of the world, we have

seen an increase in drought. In Africa, West Africa, you would talk

to old men in the moat areas and they would say they're used to be a

drought every 12 years and now it is every two. There is a big change

happening. Part of it is overpopulation. There are complex

factors. Let's turn to another story, about lowering the age of

consent to 15 from 16, coming from the man in charge of public health

in Britain this is John Ashton who has called for a national

conversation about dropping the age of legal consent to 15. He makes a

lot of very important points about adolescent health, about adolescent

sex and I agree with many of them but I don't think this is

necessarily the answer, to drop down to 15 when children, in effect, can

have sex. Basically the cases that a lot of 15-year-olds are having sex

and we should accept that. Exactly, and if they are having sex they

should have access to contraception. I'm not sure reducing

to 15... It is a moral retreat, pulling the line back to 15. Yes,

then what about 14-year-olds and the line keeps moving. There is one

third of children who might be having sex and there are two thirds

of children who are not and we don't want to put pressure on them to have

sex before they are ready. This is in the context of increased

sexualisation of culture. There has been a lot in the newspapers about

Lily Allen and Miley Cyrus. Yes, and there is a good spread in the

Observer taking the Miley Cyrus issues back to teenage girls. Miley

Cyrus Is's twerking a betrayal of feminism, and actually what is so

great about the response of these young women, all of whom are at

Brighton College, is there very good sense and their ability to form

independent judgements, that the sexualisation of women around... And

the momentum needed for equality. Many people are using the Miley

Cyrus video as satirise a shame. I haven't seen it. You might be

shocked! I doubted! What about this story, the same? It is the saying

topic, the sexualisation that every parent in the country is worried

about. The importance of keeping the age of consent where it is is that

many young girls feel under pressure to have sex and the law is a

protection for them. It means they can say no without the extra

authority and protection. I think Tim is right about that but it is

also very important that if girls are having sex, that they don't get

sexually transmitted diseases and every help is given to them for

contraception not to get pregnant. That is part of the bigger issue

about who they can talk to. Another huge story this week is the Roma

story. Roma are related to travellers, not Romanian, which is

very different. The Observer have done a profile of these people in

Sheffield. It talks in the Sun about race row boiling in borderless

Britain, and it is clear that crime has not gone up in these areas. It

is clear there were community tensions before David Blunkett waded

into this row. Talking to community leaders and the police, they could

not identify one person who had been arrested. We have to be careful not

to sensationalise this and fuel racism. We need to get to grips with

what the issue is and we need leaders to step forward because it

is through dialogue that we will resolve these issues. We will be

talking to Nick Clegg about that, and also into the inquiry into

Falkirk. For weeks the Prime Minister has been trying to get Ed

Miliband to publish his inquiry and now he is doing it himself. I think

his focus will be more Grangemouth then Falkirk. Firstly, for the

people of Falkirk, who need to be properly represented, the important

thing is that new Labour candidate is selected, which will happen in

December. Nu Labour candidate? Nu candidate who will take forward the

one Labour message. The first thing is to normalise the situation in

Falkirk. I think on this inquiry that David Cameron has announced, of

course any kind of intimidation of bullying by either side, the bosses

or trade unions, is completely unacceptable so when he sets out

more detail, this may be a crisis announcement but when he sets out

more detail, I'm sure that we will want to incorporate with it. Again,

we will talk to Nick Clegg about that, and also his announcement that

he will raise the bar for taxation and take more people out of income

tax. The cost of living crisis is a big issue at the moment, and the

response from the Coalition has been to keep lifting people out of the

income tax system. Nick Clegg is making his pitch that this is what

the Liberal Democrats want to own. If this is the policy that is

pursued, the 5 million poorest paid people in Britain will not benefit

because they don't pay income tax. If you do want to help the people

who are suffering most from the squeeze, you need to look at things

like national insurance and VAT to help the poor. We are getting into

the area of cutting taxes but is this now the best way to help people

who are being squeezed? We will find out shortly. Prince Charles has been

kind of rebranded this week as useful future king. I think he is

extremely useful Prince of Wales and future King. The story is about a

collaboration with Jimmy Mison's parents, Jimmy was murdered. They

are working on a campaign to create safe havens for young people who

feel in danger. Very cheap but very easy to do and they are the driving

force behind that. Thank you. We have had some beautiful, clear,

crisp days in London recently but the first wintry blasts have

arrived, including snow. Some people have got to wait longer

before we see the wintry blast. Today, and much more clement day,

mostly dry across the south with the odd flecks of rain from this thick

cloud. This weather front is what brings it. This weather front will

move ever forwards towards the north. Another one joins it, and the

gap in between brings the opportunity for some frost under

torture -- touch of fog. Next week, it will be turning much colder, but

before that happens we have another front turning more showery as it

makes its journey further south, and then we will see the more wintry is

due to the weather, coming into Scotland initially, but by Tuesday

across all parts of the British Isles.

It took 77 years but in July Andy Murray became the first British man

since Fred Perry to win Wimbledon. Since teaming up with Ivan Lendl,

his career has gone from strength to strength. Once he was spat at in the

street, now he is a national hero. Currently on a break from the game

as he recovers from surgery on his back, Andy Murray is using the time

to release a book, Seventy-Seven: My Road to Wimbledon Glory, a

reflection on his career so far. I caught up with him at the all

England, -- All England Club. I didn't deal with my losses very

well, it took me sometimes months to start playing well again, whereas a

good example is at Wimbledon last year it was the first time I had

come off the court, I was unbelievably emotional and upset

afterwards, but it is the first time I responded well to it. What does

that mean, because you were crying and so forth for a while. I am going

to try this and it will not be easy. In the days afterwards, I started to

feel much better. Normally after losing those matches, I have found

practising and training very tough and I struggled to find motivation

but that is the first time I used it in the right way and it motivated me

to get much better. In your new book you go through this Wimbledon's

final almost ball by ball, it is fascinating account. You talked

about your arm shaking, you appear to think you were losing it. Talk

about that. I was 40-0 up, and at that moment I was thinking I was

about to win Wimbledon, then three points later I had just lost three

championship points, and suddenly I am two points away from winning,

rather than one. I remember going to the back of the court to get my

towel, and I looked down and my arm was shaking and that is when I

realised this could get quite ugly very quickly. Thankfully I managed

to save some break points away from winning, rather than one. I remember

going to the back of the court to get my towel, and I looked down and

my arm was shaking and that is when I realised this could get quite ugly

very quickly. Thankfully I managed to save some break points and finish

the game. Any point will do. APPLAUSE

Clearly, Ivan Lendl has had a huge effect on you. Tell you -- me about

that relationship. He has also lost Wimbledon finals but went on to be

the best tennis player so have talking to him about that has

helped. He is very different away from the tennis court and the

cameras, he jokes around all the time, but when he is there as a

coach and when he was there playing himself, I mean he has spent years

working on not showing emotion and giving nothing away. It was nice for

me the reason he was getting into the sport again was because he

believed in me, but also he didn't need to do it either so he showed

confidence in me. I need -- needed that. You have set up your own

management company now, you have a Patel in Dunblane, are you starting

to think about how to use your wealth? I have started to think

about it more over the last year or two. I was not concentrating on it

so much before. I am 26 now. I will maybe play for five or six more

years. You start to think about what comes after that. We might see Brand

Murray, like Brand Beckham? I would not say to the same extent as that.

You will not be wearing a sari? I don't think you will see that! You

always have to look at different things to do, things away from the

courts to keep you interested. When I lose tennis, when I stop playing,

I don't have much to fall back on. I need to find other things to do when

I finish playing. Like it or not, you are going to be used by the two

contending political sides in the Scottish debate. Alex Salmond was

waiting at Seoul tire after your victory -- waving a saltire. Are you

going to say anything about it? As it gets closer to the time, I think.

You need to do what is best for the country and Scotland. What is best?

Nearer the time I think we will start to see in more detail, what is

going to be the best decision. And then I will make my decision based

on that. Do you see yourself taking part in the campaign for one side or

another? People will want to grab you and wave you around. I don't

think so. I am not massively into politics that much. I can't see

myself getting involved in the campaign. You seem like a patriotic

Brit, when it came to Team GB, but also fiercely patriotic Scot as

well. It is an interesting question. Dunblane means a lot to me, a lot of

my family still live there. With tennis, since I have been 12, I have

competed for my whole life under Great Britain, since I was a young

kid, since the under 12 level and now into the seniors. And obviously

at the Olympics. I am proud of being Scottish, I love competing for Great

Britain as well and it is something I have done since being a kid.

Bizarrely, it is only a few weeks from the season starting again, you

have your back injury to get over. Thank you very much for joining us.

Men of a certain age who don't dream of being Andy Murray often find

themselves dreaming of being Withnail, the cool, alcoholic, witty

drifter of the film Withnail I. Richard E Grant's film career has

seen him do a fine line in slightly disconcerting rogues. His last --

his latest suave but shady character is in the gangster film Dom

Hemingway. It is a film of fillers and villains -- violence, villains

and villas. Afternoon... Don't think what you are thinking,

that is Mr Fontaine's property. Property is a relative term. I am

just looking. Much of the action happens on the Cote d'Azur which is

a part of the world that Richard E Grant knows and loves. His recent TV

series on the modern artists of the area saw him touring the Riviera in

sunnier mood. We started by discussing the new film. Dom

Hemingway is a completely volcanic character that has been incarcerated

in jail for 12 years and is released, and immediately goes on a

crime revenge brief. And I am his older, posher, best friend --

revenge spree. The sort of straight man to his comedy and dramatic

volcanics. Stop stating what you are stating. I will state what I want to

state. State it again and I will knock your teeth out. This is Jude

Law with ridiculous facial hair and a certain amount of extra weight,

looking like he has not seen before. He put on ?30 and he was still they

love God, which was infuriating. He grew these warring sideburns but

Marco Wolverine sideburns. He plays the character with such

undie looted ferocity -- undiluted ferocity. It carries on all the way

through the film, I have never watched a gangster film with so many

words in it. It is very wordy and that is ameliorated by the fact that

there is a lot of action as well. It is a great come from and to Jude Law

that people sit off with such utter conviction. You can't go halfway

playing Dom Hemingway. Not many of the words will appear on a Sunday

morning. His first monologue is a monologue to his manhood in prison

which is very funny. As it were. You have the most appalling safari

jacket and strange blue shades, it is a very 1980s feel. It is earlier

than that. I hate to tell you this. Julien Day and Richard Shepard

decided they wanted these Hunter S Thompson glasses, that was the

signature of the character and I had to wear 70s retro clothing. There

are some people who have the prime of their lives at a certain period

in time, with a haircut and their clothing, and they stick with it,

they hang on. They don't move on, he is one of those people. You hang on

to almost everything but not your left hand in this film. Yes, it has

been blown off in a shoot out. I have a wooden hand covered in

leather glove. The other thing, there is a huge amount of smoking

and drinking, as with Withnail. Not heavy drinker smoker? I have never

smoked and I am completely allergic to alcohol. They give you highly

rose, nicotine-free cigarettes and apple juice -- honeyrose. The

character that you play, I am not the first person to say this is

Withnail 25 years on. He has gone down in life, taken some wrong path

is made some bad choices and ended up as your character. It is not an

tire -- entirely an -- untrue to see it like that. The director rendered

a copy of Withnail I out of Tower Records in Sunset Boulevard, after

the last -- with the last money that he had, and he did not return it and

owed them a huge amount. There is a famous story about Withnail where

the director of future with alcohol so you could see what it was like

and passed out, is that request Mark -- fuels you with alcohol. Is that

true? It is true. On the last day of rehearsal, he said, you have to get

absolutely plonkered, so he gave me a bottle of Sam -- champagne and

said, try to drink this through the night, so I did manage to in between

throwing up and all the rest. . Preceded by a Persian carpet

coming out of my mouth. Nicely put. Dom Hemingway is set in a dark, wet,

dangerous Riviera. Your art films are set in a sunnier, brighter

Riviera. You have a deep knowledge of the painters of the region. I

have a great love for them. In order to do a programme like that you have

to have that invested in it, otherwise people will sniff out your

inauthenticity immediately. The dazzling light of the as you see

have attracted some of the most dazzling artists who have picked up

a brush. From the moment the Impressionists

first discovered this coast, it was artists who shaped the Riviera in

our cultural imagination. So that was a very tough gig! Bright shirts,

open top car and the Mediterranean for as long as you like. And having

access to all of these museums and art work and being the only person

in the room am surrounded by Picassos was very tough! I know that

Matisse is your top man. I think that... I would take Pierre Ott --

the PO at that Picasso painted -- the

you have seen through my psychological curtain! Thank you for

joining us. The political marriage in Downing

Street has seemed prickly this week, with the prime minister musing

wistfully about the clarity of single party government, while Nick

Clegg insists that compromise in politics can be good for everybody.

Are there real differences on the economy which will make it difficult

for them to work together? Nick Clegg is with me now. Good morning.

You have this new plan in the papers to raise the income tax threshold,

and what you call a Lib Dem workers tax bonus. Has this been agreed with

the prime minister? It is certainly no secret, I have been going on

about this for years and years. I insisted it was our number one

priority as a party before the last general election, I insisted it went

into the coalition agreement. We are delivering this huge income rate

cut, where the amount of money you can earn before income tax goes up

to ?10,000. My view having achieved that great threshold is that we need

to go further, because as the recovery is finally taking hold, as

Mark Carney said, it is very important that as many people as

possible feel they are benefiting from it. That is why I call it a

workers bonus, because if you can raise it by a further ?500, it is

worth dwelling what that means. It would be an extra ?100 in every body

's pockets and take an additional 500,000 people out of paying income

tax. You haven't quite answered my question, have you agreed this with

the Prime Minister? Is not agreed yet, I would like to deliver it in

the Budget. I have had to argue for each step in the increase in the

allowance. The Conservatives felt it was not an affordable policy, I have

assisted all along that it is affordable because I think it is a

fair thing to do. -- I have insisted. We will see it in the

Autumn Statement? Not in the Autumn Statement, that is more about

delivering many of the commitments we have made in the past few months,

for instance free school meals to all young children in primary

schools. I think the Budget is an important moment. I need to

persuade, that is normal in a coalition government. The

Conservatives have tended to have a different set of tax priorities,

first inheritance tax cuts for very rich people, then eight cut on the

upper rate and then the marriage break -- then a cut on the operate.

I think the number of breaks should begin to concede -- continue to be

given to people who are struggling to make ends meet. He wants to build

up a surplus and therefore austerity is going to be here for a long

time, the Prime Minister has said the long thing. Is that the next big

argument? I would urge the Conservative and Labour party that

it is too important for our country to have parties lurching to the

right or left on this. You appear to have this view from the right that

taxes should never go up and in a sense you should be shrinking the

state to another smaller size in a slightly ideological way. I am not

ideological about the size of the state. I think the left are making a

mistake in thinking you can repeat the mistakes of the past and borrow

and spend more and more. I don't think we should be ideological. It

is your code for Conservative Party? No, I think there is an

ideology on right and left. On the right the ideology says cut, cut,

cut, on the left it says bloat, bloat, bloat. You're not in favour

of an ever shrinking state in the next parliament and that is going to

be an argument... I am an old-fashioned liberal, I don't want

to see the state any bigger than it needs to be and I believe in a more

decentralised state. We can strike the right balance in the is to come,

whoever is in power and beyond, in bringing down the debt burden as a

proportion of the country's wealth, the burden would otherwise rest on

the shoulders of our children and grandchildren. Also funding decent

public services in a way which millions of people depend upon. This

remains a difficult balance to achieve. Your new idea about the tax

threshold, another very expensive policy, how will you pay for that?

It would cost about ?1 billion, I would ask the people at the very

top, perhaps through Munchen tax, to raise that money. Nobody talks about

income tax, and that is perhaps the fastest way to raise money, is that

at Brunel? This is the biggest change we have seen in a generation

in order to provide extra income. There is a lot we can do on tax

avoidance. We can ask the super wealthy to pay a little bit extra,

not to go after them in a recruit in a tree way, but that is the way I

would pay for this tax cut. The Conservatives have said they don't

want to ask the wealthiest. We will find other ways, I hope. You have

been accused by one Conservative MP of ambushing the Prime Minister on

this one. No, I was talking to David Cameron and George Osborne about

this some time ago. Your office has 17 parameters to measure social

mobility in this country and they all show that overall the situation

is very grim, and the Prime Minister agrees with you, so my question is

what are you going to do about it? Let's not talk about what happened

in the past. It is fair to point out you cannot reverse such a long-term

trend in social immobility overnight. I don't think it can be

done in one Parliament. The evidence shows, and Alan Milburn who are

appointed to deal with this because I am keen to get the right emphasis

on this over several parliaments, he agreed that you have to start early.

What about breaking down some of the barriers at university level in a

judiciary, getting people from poorer backgrounds up the tree? The

best thing we can do is to provide more support for two-year-olds from

the most deprived incomes. Surestart, what about that? It has

started to wind around the country. No, for the 20%, the lowest income

families in this country, toddlers will get 15 hours of preschool

support. The report you allude to shows the people premium, 2.5

billion pounds of extra money to schools, it is making a difference

and closing the gap. So there are no new proposals beyond what you have

said? It is a journey and it is important we challenge all of the

professions and politics and media and judiciary to open more doors. I

would like to see a difference in the way internships are awarded

because it should be about what you know, not who you know. We have seen

an increase in people from disadvantaged backgrounds going to

university. Subsequent governments must keep up the momentum. Let's

move on to the Roma controversy on the streets of Sheffield. Clearly

there are problems on the streets, shouldn't we be doing more to

encourage Roma families when they come into this country to learn

about how people live, putting out the dustbins, how they treat their

children in the streets, basic stuff. Yes, but that is best done by

the communities themselves with the assistance of local authorities and

local politicians, but my simple view is that we cannot go back to

the bad old days when one community or another is vilified across the

country, but equally when communities live side-by-side as is

the case in Sheffield, what might seem an -- ordinary behaviour to one

community might be very unsettling to another. It is an old-fashioned

idea of civility where people are sensitive to the effects of their

actions. There was a huge migration wave about to happen at the end of

this year, and there have been calls for special new emergency

legislation in the House of Commons to stop it. The Labour MP Frank

Field is said something needs to be done to stop this and there is

something approaching hysteria in parts of the Conservative party -

can't you do anything at all? We are lifting the barrier at the same time

as many other countries in the EU, can I explain why that is important?

Every time this comes up, politicians say, it's OK, not that

many people will come, and every time they have been wrong. Last time

the Labour Government lifted those restrictions in a way Jack Straw and

others now say is a mistake, and the only other countries people could go

to... It is different this time. Hundreds of thousands of British

people benefit by working and living abroad, it is a two-way thing. We

are not making wild predictions about what will happen but I want to

point out it is different, the circumstances are different to last

time. Do you approve of what the Prime Minister has done in the

Grangemouth issue, setting up a new inquiry even though many see this as

an anti trade union bashing move ahead of the election? This is an

independent inquiry looking at their behaviour of trade unions and

businesses. Many responsible trade unions have maintained industrial

relations during recent years but there are some are responsible trade

unions, and clearly something untoward happened in Grangemouth,

and this inquiry, run independently, we'll look at it. Hopping from

subject to subject, one last one, the age of consent moved to 15, or

what is your reaction? I am not in favour of that. It has been as it is

for generations in order to protect children. We do have far to high

levels of teenage pregnancy. I am worried about the sexualisation of

culture, which is why I do want to see action, for instance I am

constantly urging Michael Gove to update and modernise sex education

in schools which has not kept up with this. There is a debate but

this is not the answer. What about putting certificates on a lot of the

pop videos, like the Miley Cyrus stuff? It has become more like

pornography and entertainment. The problem is that many videos are

downloaded directly which is why we need to do more to make sure that in

the classroom, young kids are equipped with the knowledge they

need to deal with an Internet age that their parents and certainly

their grandparents were not confronted with. Thank you, and now

the news headlines. The deputy prime minister has said he wants to

increase the amount people can earn before they start paying income

tax. The threshold is due to go up to ?10,000 in April next year, and

Nick Clegg said he wanted to put it up by a further ?500 but admitted

the policy has not yet been agreed with his coalition partners.

The next BBC News is at one o'clock but first here is a brief look at

what is coming up after the programme. Simon Weston will be

giving his verdict on the Marine found guilty of murder. Ann

Widdecombe attacks the me generation, and Prince Charles

suggests we are neglecting the countryside. Join me at ten o'clock.

In a moment we will be hearing some music from the violinist Janine

Jansen, but first we will mark the death last week of the much loved

composer, Sir John Tavener. I spoke to him recently but I last

interviewed him for this programme six years ago. We were broadcasting

that morning from the Labour Party conference in Bournemouth, perhaps

an unlikely setting for a conversation about music and

spirituality. It is important for a composer that he communicates and

the larger the audience the better, because people need something

spiritual. Do you think we live in an ugly world? I don't think it is

an ugly world but I think it appears as one because man is so obsessed

with his existence but he doesn't think about other moments of being.

You have written a song which is about the feminine principle. I

think it is very important because it contains within it, passion,

mercy, love, understanding beauty and truth which this world has

forgotten. I don't know what we are doing at a party conference!

Truth, beauty and the spirit. There is a bit more of that before we

finish because the Dutch violinist Janine Jansen has built a following

around the world with the sophistication and intelligence of

her playing. She likes to perform in small ensembles and her latest album

is of Bach sonatas and concertos. You are playing on an original

Stradivarius but you have modernised it, have you? It is from 1727, but

it is a modern setup. I am playing on a steel east E string. And you

have a harpsichord as well. Thank you for joining us. That is all we

have time for this morning. Lots more politics and culture lined up

for next week, including the actor Martin Sheen. Join me if you can.

But now we leave you with Bach's Badinerie and Janine Jansen.