06/07/2014 The Andrew Marr Show

'That's it now. Let it all begin. This will blow it all apart.'

Words spoken more than 30 years ago, according to his son, by the former

Tory MP Geoffrey Dickens, when he had handed a huge dossier alleging

sex abuse by politicians to the then Home Secretary Leon Brittan - the

same man, according to today's papers, who has now been questioned

But the Labour MP Simon Danczuk warns this morning -

'I believe we're on the verge of a Savile-like scandal sweeping

If Dickens was right, this is going to be

a ghastly time for those of us who still revere the House of Commons.

Joining me today for our review of the Sunday newspapers -

sparring partners from the House of Lords - the Labour Peer,

Baroness Helena Kennedy, and the man who was proud to be called the

The other huge story of the week has been radical Islamism.

They have proclaimed a caliphate and potential terrorists are

Some British schools are apparently rife with highly

Michael Gove calls this the great conflict of our time.

Of all our leading politicians he is the one who has made fighting

He famously got embroiled in a bitter row with the

Home Secretary, Theresa May about it.

But Michael Gove is here this morning to talk

about the substance - how bad things are becoming, and what can be done.

Listening to him will be his opposite number,

the Shadow Education Secretary, Tristram Hunt, here to talk

about new Labour plans for schools and what he calls master teachers.

But we're not spending all our time on the theatre of politics:

Marianne Elliott is the star of the next generation of theatre directors

- she brought us War Horse, the light princess, and now

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time - which you may

recall literally brought the house down. She joins us too.

As does another of the great female stars of the age,

Martina Navratilova, the morning after Kvitova won

Oops, I haven't mentioned football yet. But don't worry:

with the World Cup drawing to its grand finale in Brazil, we have

the rhythm of carnival in the studio that fantastic samba

Fierce political arguments, drama, sport and music all crammed

into the next hour, but first the news from Stephanie McGovern.

It's emerged that 114 files, which are potentially significant to

a review into child abuse allegations at Westminster

The Home Office has said it will appoint a senior legal figure to

re-examine its review, to see if the original outcome was sound.

Our Political Correspondent, Robin Brant, reports.

Do you want a man to represent you or...

We know that well-known entertainers were involved in child abuse in the

1970s and '80s, but this politician was as well. It is claimed the late

Liberal MP Sir Cyril Smith went to boys' homes in Rochdale.

At the time, the Home Secretary, Leon, now Lord, Brittan, was passed

details said to include claims about other Westminster figures.

The parts of it considered relevant were handed to the proper

authorities but more than 100 documents have since

gone missing or been destroyed. Claims about a missing dossier were

investigated last year, but now the Prime Minister has ordered a fresh

look at that process. A senior independent legal figure

will assess whether the review's conclusions remain sound.

We have got to be completely transparent in this and the fact it

is getting nearer to Westminster and nearer to politics makes it all the

more imperative that no stone is left unturned.

But a review of the review with an as yet unnamed legal figure in

charge is not enough for Labour. They want a broader enquiry.

It's been revealed the 2013 review found no record of specific

allegations of child sex abuse by prominent public figures, but four

previously undisclosed bits of information have now been passed to

the police and with the backdrop of decades of abuse by Jimmy Savile

and this week's conviction of Rolf Harris, the Prime Minister is

sensitive to any suggestion of a cover-up at the heart of Westminster

three decades ago. Robin Brant, BBC News.

It's being reported that the former Conservative Home Secretary,

Leon Brittan, has been questioned about an allegation

The Independent on Sunday says Lord Brittan, as he now is,

was questioned under caution last month, but not arrested.

Ukrainian troops have regained control of the key eastern city

of Sloviansk from pro-Russian separatists.

The Government has hailed it as a turning point in the conflict.

The city had been a rebel stronghold since April.

Talks to try to end the fighting were supposed to begin by last

Thousands of people are again lining the route of the Tour de France,

as the cyclists face some of Britain's toughest climbs during the

Yesterday, crowds including the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge

descended on Yorkshire to get a fleeting glimpse

of the 198 racers passing through the county.

I'll be back with the headlines just before 10.00am.

The Tour de France, with the crash that has dashed British hopes for

the moment at least. Home Office loses 114 sex abuse files. A similar

take from the Sunday Telegraph, there are three members of the Royal

Family looking on aghast as the cycle crash takes place. Parliament

child sex scandal: 114 lost files. To the Observer, a lovely photograph

of the sun-lit Yorkshire Dales and the cyclists charging through them

at speed. I think the paper that had the Michelle Larcher the Michelle

Leon Brittan story first. A lot to talk about. Grim newspapers this

morning. Depressingly so. You have chosen the piece in the Mail on

Sunday. Yes. What I find we have to do is to remember the atmosphere of

the times. It is very easy to forget that things looked different in

those days. Dickens is attacked as a buffoon for raising this at the

time? Yes. Also, at that time, I think most people would have thought

that the establishment that the system was to be protected. If a few

things had gone wrong here and there, it was more important to

protect the system than to delve too far into them. That view I think was

wrong then. It is spectacularly shown to have been wrong because the

abuses have grown. Was there a big political cover-up at the time 30

years ago? There may well have been. It was almost unconscious, it was

the thing that people did at that time.

the thing that people did at that kind of things? You didn't talk

about those sort of things. It is not the sort of thing that people

did, not even if I may say so television journalists let alone the

politicians. A big public enquiry now, do you think? I think that Mr

Cameron is right initially to have looked for a distinguished judicial

figure. To have a look at it, to see what the dimensions of the problem

are, to report back fairly quickly, I hope, and then will arise the

question of what sort of further enquiry is needed into it. Helena

Kennedy, one of the papers says a Labour peer is involved as well?

Listen, sexual abuse exists in all parts of society. And it would be

surprising to imagine that parliamentarians are not going to be

amongst them. Powerful people? People who are powerful can use that

power to prevent their wrongdoing coming to light. I think Norman is

right. There was a way in which the establishment was able to protect

itself and it felt that to expose bad things was to undermine the

whole firmament. We have shifted to a time when people aren't going to

accept that anymore. There has to be openness and transparency, but going

back, this business that there were 114 sex abuse files... Disappearing

dossiers? It is not as though we don't - archiving is one of the

great things that has disclosed miscarriages of justice. This is

about a miscarriage of justice. It is about people who were making

complaints and bringing to light abuse and they weren't being

listened to and they were being written off as being fantasisers and

so on. It turns out that much of this has truth in it. It was about

not listening but it was also about men particularly in power being able

to actually use the system to cover up for themselves and that goes for

celebrities and so on. It is rather interesting that the attacks on the

BBC by parliamentarians are coming home to roost. Parliament has been

the seat of a whole lot of bad stuff that involves cover-ups, too. A grim

time for those of us who love Parliament but a necessary cleansing

coming as well. I think so. That is right. The next big story -

Islamism. You have got a Sunday Telegraph leader there? Yes, I think

that what we are now seeing is that a general acceptance of something

which I was saying 15 or 20 years ago and getting a lot of stick

about. You cannot have two cultures within one society. Rivalling each

other. Sooner or later one will become dominant. It is not a case of

being intolerant of other cultures. Lord knows we have worked a very

tolerant society for a long time with the Jewish minority

particularly so. But unless there is a dominance culture, there will be a

war between the cultures. And we are seeing it particularly in Birmingham

in the schools, where there is a war between an Islamic culture and

traditional British culture. I really - Norman, you know, I respect

that you are a forthright speaker on lots of things. I really do think

that is to exaggerate the very small numbers of people who are extremist

amongst the Islamic community. I don't believe that there are many

Muslims out there who want to challenge British culture. They have

come and settled here and they are absolutely happy to adopt and to

live in our society, but they want to be able to practice their own

religion. Of course. Helena, it is not about religion. Sharia Law.

But... Sharia Law, should it be allowed? Well, should there be

Jewish courts which are also recognising? Let's be clear... There

are not Jewish courts. There are. They cannot... Nobody is suggesting

there should be Sharia Law... No? Consenting partners in a business

situation, if they want to go before their own religious court, they are

able to do so and that decision would have to be recognised by

official courts. But the Jewish community do that... We will be

talking a lot more about this with Michael Gove later on, so maybe we

should return... Let's return to the papers. You have a snoopers charter

story? It picks up on something that Norman was looking to which is that

piece in the Telegraph that says no need for panic while also accepting

there is a terrorist threat. It is in the Times, that there is a story

that the Conservative Party has a secret plan for another erosion of

civil liberties to deal with terrorism. That is always the

response, to look to the law and to basically remove some of our civil

liberties to deal with terrorism. Usually, it is never necessary. It

is - it is one of those things, knee-jerk things that politicians do

and the last Government did it, and now we are going to see this

Government doing the same thing. You wouldn't like that either. We have

made common cause on protecting our civil liberties. Indeed we have. I

would continue to do so. Let's move to another new law where I don't

think you have quite such a warm agreement, which is the new law on

public sector strikes, which is clearly coming. The essence is, I

think, that you would have to have more than 15% of people voting

before a strike could happen. Well, way back when I was doing my reforms

of trade union law, which have stood up 30-odd years without amendment

despite Labour's pledges, it was often put to me that we should

stipulate that there must be a minimum poll in a strike vote.

the worst of our trade union leaders would seek to call a strike on a low

turnout and a marginal number of people voting for the strike. Sadly

we have now got some people in the public sector unions who don't take

that view. So you think the law should be changed in this regard? I

feel we will have to have some floor minimum poll. The problem with some

of these minimum floors is that some MPs are elected without the total

minimum vote. Indeed so it is not an easy thing to construct. It would

merely mean the strike were not protected in law so those who were

damaged by it could sue the union for their funds. I understand. Let's

move to another extraparliamentary be off of great power, Google. --

behemoth. Indeed, there is the story that is creating chaos for Google

because lots of people want to censor their own history, and in

fact they have had applications made from, for example, a former

government minister wanting the removal of criticism of his previous

policies, and a professional footballer wanting details of his

career to be brushed. It has gone away from this is true to... I don't

want people to know that. People's lives can be ruined by very ancient

convictions when they were young, they got into trouble, and it seems

we have to be protective of people's rights to rebuild their lives and

have a second chance, but this business about wanting to airbrush

your political history, you wouldn't to do that, Norman? It would be a

very dangerous thing if people are allowed to start doing that. It has

to stand there. It happened, and we should be grown up enough to know

whether it matters. Can we turn to the European story you have chosen?

I think again from the Sunday Telegraph. Yes, this is about the

proposal to put more restrictions on the freedom of movement within the

EU of people from the poorer countries. Let me make it plain that

I do not believe that, for example, Polish and Czech and Slovak

immigrants are a threat to us. We would have lost the Battle of

Britain without them and we have those debts of honour to each

other, but I think there are problems where we get people from

what I call the bottom right-hand of Europe coming in large numbers from

economies which are very much behind ours. What we must not do is let it

delude us into believing that our immigration problems are all about

Europe. Our biggest immigration problems are about other parts of

the world and we have and should have proper control over those. The

most shocking thing that has happened to me this morning is to

discover your softer side, Norman. You have written a slushy... Not

slushy, a sentimental story about a dog, it is called Ben's Story. Yes,

Ben is a dog who teams up with a boy who was a paraplegic. The dog has an

advanced ability to read what people are saying and reply to them in

their own brains. The boy and the dog together with a lady who you

might recognise, remarkably similar to Dame Parks, a sweet white-haired

old lady with nerves of steel, they nailed the villain. As they say, in

all good book shops now. Very briefly, pictures of the Tour de

France everywhere. Yes, this picture on the front of the Observer,

beautiful, gorgeous, these are the Dales of Yorkshire and people are

out in huge numbers on a sunny, glorious day. Let's be happy about

this sporting event! Thank you for that.

All eyes will be on Centre Court later, so where better to get

our weather forecast from this morning than Wimbledon,

at the end of a fortnight which has hardly seen any disruption by rain.

A miracle. Over to Sarah Keith-Lucas.

It has been a gloomy start of the day here but sunshine and showers is

the story across the UK today. The satellite image shows we have got a

lot of cloud around for central and eastern areas, more in the way of

sunshine though to the north and west. The heavy rain we have seen

across eastern areas will slowly fade away. For Northern Ireland and

Scotland, the showers could be quite heavy, slow moving, some and for the

Tour de France there could be some surface water flooding at times. But

some sunshine in between. Farther south of England, once the rain has

cleared away, some sunny conditions. More in the way of

showers across the south-west of England and for Wales too. Those

showers will tend to fizzle out so some drier weather tonight, and less

humid night than we have seen recently, especially the south-east.

Tomorrow we are looking at another day similar to today, so there are

heavy showers on the cards for some places today but hopefully here at

Wimbledon some sunny skies developing later on.

So, the weather is set fair for the men's finals at Wimbledon.

It's been an interesting fortnight - disappointment for Andy Murray

of course, but we're seeing some exciting new stars emerging

in the men's and women's games. Watching it all has been that

record-breaking champion, Martina Navratilova.

36 years after she won her first singles title there, Martina can

still be seen on court at Wimbledon. She's been playing in

the invitation doubles this year, as well as commentating for the BBC.

Good morning. What is it about you Czechs? That

must have been the shortest Wimbledon final I have seen in a

long time. Firstly, it is nice to see you back in your seat again.

Petra Kvitova has been see you back in your seat again.

Petra Kvitova has hitting the ball really square and hard and I knew

that Eugenie Bouchard would not be able to cope with it. It was an

extraordinary game. What is it about Czechs? It is a small country but it

seems to have a strong tennis tradition. It is in the water! I

think the whole setup of club tennis is what works. Most tennis players

are from tennis families, they go out and play little games, big

games, I didn't practice the way they practice now, I just played

sets. You learn to compete and we just absorbed the sport. You learn

to individualise yourself and that is what ultimately works. We have

got the men's finals of course, a rather traditional Roger Federer and

Novak Djokovic final, but we are seeing a changing of the guard at

the moment. Absolutely, the young guys and the women are knocking on

the door and breaking through in some instances. It could have been

Grigor Dimitrov and Raonic in the final. What is your take on the

Serena Williams moment? I think -- what is your take on Andy Murray?

You cannot make too many assumptions from that match, I think he will be

back. And Serena Williams, she has played such dominating tennis that I

think she might be burnt out but watch out, I think she will come

back. Age does catch up eventually, but not for you, how did you get on?

We lost in the finals but we had a good time, and played with a good

friend, and hopefully we will get to do it again. Are you playing tennis

very regularly? Not at all. We played during the Grand Slams but

during the year I do other things. If Andy Murray popped along and

said, would you fancy coaching me? He is in good hands, but yes, you

don't say no to someone like Andy Murray. There you go, a potential

story there. Thank you for coming in.

Good morning. Labour is gradually revealing some

of its ideas for government, and in the papers today, the Shadow

Education Secretary Tristram Hunt sets out plans for a new cadre of

highly-skilled 'master teachers'. Education reform has of course been

a very important part of the of the Coalition's work - new free

schools, hundreds more Academies, changes to the exam system -

would Labour reverse all that? Are we talking small tweaks,

or a more radical approach? Good morning.

Good morning. Let's start with your new idea of

the moment, master teachers. How are they different from the teachers we

have at the moment? To succeed as a nation we need to get a world class

teacher in every classroom and no education system can exceed the

quality of the teaching that goes on in the classroom. We have to many

young people leaving school not reading at the right level, they

have a growing gap between those kids on free school meals and not on

free school meals outside of London. We get these teachers that will

focus on the best research in the classroom, they will support other

teachers in collaboration, it will be based on merit and it is about

behaviour, it is about management. Where do you find them and how do

you rate them? They are all qualified teachers and we are

looking at the Singapore system. Once you have qualified as a

teacher, you have three pathways, you can become a head, a subject

specialists, or a master teacher, so it is about having a career pathway

for teachers. Does it mean extra training for the teachers?

Absolutely, and that has to be revalidated and qualified, because

at the Absolutely, and that has to be

revalidated and qualified, moment to many great teachers are

revalidated and qualified, moment to many great teachers moving out of

the classroom and becoming heads. Crucially, would you pay them all?

We now have a flexible system the classroom and becoming heads.

Crucially, would you pay them for Crucially, would you pay them all?

We now have a pay so heads have the capacity to pay their teachers in

different ways and we think that any ambitious head would want to have a

master teacher on their role. One per school, that kind of number?

Yes, I mean this is a difficult qualification to get, and we are

supporting a Royal College of teaching so we would want them to be

part of the conversation about how you credit master teacher status. At

the moment teachers are very upset about pay and hours

the moment teachers are very upset to see a strike. Would your message

be to stay in the classroom and teach? This is a political failure

and it is as a result of the incendiary language from the

Secretary of State. I want the kids in schools learning because we are

in a competitive environment. We are seeing countries like Poland where

they are really achieving in maths and literacy so we need as many

hours in the classroom as possible. Parents will be getting reports

about their kids this week... Lots of teachers will be watching this,

is your message, on Thursday, go to work? It is not for me to tell trade

unionists what to do. So you won't tell them to go to work? We didn't

have these kinds of strikes under a Labour government. I want all

teachers in schools teaching young people but we have independent trade

unions in this country and it is an important part of civil society. Do

you think they have a justified grievance? I think we have to much

bureaucracy in the system which is taking teachers away from the love

of their job, what they came in fourth. It is a difficult debate

because on the one hand we need data about the performance of young

people, and that was one of the successes of the London challenge

which turned around education in the capital, but if you are collecting

too much data, is that getting in the wake of what you came into the

profession to do? What I want to do is meet the trade unions, have a

conversation about that so they can do what they enjoy.

We have this sweet new tradition where Ministers and Shadow Ministers

communicate by letter and Michael Gove is asking you whether you will

guarantee the free schools if Labour win the election. Will they be safe

under Labour? I do think if Michael Gove spent less time spending me

letters and more time focussing on standards and teaching in our

schools, we would be in a better place. You can save yourself a piece

of writing paper by answering him now? We will not continue with the

current Government's free school programme from the free school in

Derby, to the Discovery New School in Crawley, we have seen a catalogue

of failures, of poor standards, of financial mismanagement. Our focus

is on the quality of the teaching in the classroom, across all different

types of schools... Will you close free schools that are open already?

We will keep the free schools that are open. We will keep free schools

in the pipeline. We want to focus new schools on areas of need. What

we see is lots of schools with growing numbers of primaries, with

kids over 30. Those parents watching today thinking "Why?" Are my kids

educated in classes of over 30, that is because the Government is taking

money for new schools to fund the free school programme. If they are

in the pipeline, they will happen under Labour? Your opening question

was about stability and change and what we think is we need a period of

stability in the education system. We have had too much top-down chop

and churn from this Government, edict after edict and what we want

is to allow heads and teachers to get on with their job. I am not

coming in to throw everything up in the air again and take the kind of

narrow partisan decisions. I'm concerned with the broader outcomes

for our young people. Free schools educate under 2% of kids. I'm more

focussed on the 98%. Let me ask you one non-teaching question. The big

child abuse stories in the papers today. Labour has called for an

inquiry, why? We have got too many bitty inquiries going on. We think

there are broader issues here and what we are focussing on is having

an inquiry led by a child protection expert. Our fear is whether it's

some of the allegations we are seeing this morning, or some of the

historic allegations, there isn't a cohesive approach to a serious

public policy issue. We want a quantity inspection. Do you agree

there is a Savile-like tsunami of filth about to hit the House of

Commons? Simon has done powerful work on this. His investigations of

Cyril Smith have led him to broader questions. We also need to be

careful about innuendo. We have to take this step by step and not throw

out allegations. We saw that in some of the previous concerns about this.

I would, in terms of politicians, in terms of the media, we have to be

ruthless about getting to the truth of this. We also have to be clear

about people's reputations and take this in a step by step manner. Thank

you very much for joining us this morning.

Of all the British theatre directors who've

made their mark in recent years, Marianne Elliott really stands out.

Her career has combined critical success with box office gold.

She's the woman who directed the juggernaut that is War Horse,

taking it from the National Theatre to the international stage.

Last year she directed Kim Cattrall to great acclaim

One of her signature successes has been The Curious Incident of the Dog

The play that made news headlines for all the wrong reasons last year.

Marianne joins me now along with Graham Butler,

You want to put more on to the theatre than has traditionally been

done. Is this because you are trying to bring in a generation who are

used to CGI effects from television and film? No, not necessarily. I

just like to do something that is exciting and I like to challenge

myself and I try and do something very different from the last show.

It is trying to push the envelope. Curious seems to have as much dance

in it as traditional acting. Is that part of the attempt to explain to

the audience what having Asperger's must feel like? It is. In the book,

what is tricky about the book is it's first person, so it is this

beautiful boy's voice. You imagine that you are Christopher when you

are reading the book. That was our biggest challenge when we put it on

the stage. I felt like you really needed to understand what he saw and

how he experienced things, so going into a very busy train station, I

wanted the audience to know that he felt very overwhelmed by all the

signs and all the people and very crowded... You had to make the

familiar world unfamiliar to the audience? Exactly. Graham, you have

had the chance having just taken over the role. How did you get into

the mindset of someone with his condition? Partly we have the

amazing blueprint of the book and the faithful script and it is very

sparse and Christopher, from that first person narrative, sees the

world in that very different way. He deals in facts and very little else.

On top of that, we had some incredibly generous people from

Southland School and the Tree House School and met a number of people

that were happy to help us. The roof fell in literally - I was in the

theatre when it happened. I can remember it very well. How are you

going to change - how is the new production different from the one

that Ruz rudely interrupted? -- that was rudely interrupted? We are in

the Gielgud now, a slightly bigger theatre. There are certain moments

when he does this journey to London. Christopher has never been outside

his street before on his own, but there is one moment in the piece

where he decides he's got to find somebody and he takes the journey

from Swindon to London. He does it on his own. That journey to London

is slightly more heightened I suppose than it has been before

because each time we do it, we try and polish and make it... You push

it harder. Yes. What about that extraordinary evening? You did

productions for the emergency services who came to rescue people?

We did. How did it feel? It was an amazing time. It was hugely

traumatic, the night that the roof fell in. But what the National

managed to do, which was extraordinary, was use all those

brilliant actors who were then out of work and we did a pop-up version

in Stratford Town Hall in daylight and we invited lots of kids from

local schools, some of which had never been to the theatre before, to

see the show free and then we went to a rehearsal room and did a pop-up

version for all the emergency services that were involved that

night. In Graham you have a great young British actor, taking the

stage. We seeing more and more more on the West End stage people coming

in from film and television. It seems can't do Shakespeare unless

you have a Hollywood or HBO star. You have worked with Kim Cattrall.

You worried about the lack of opportunities for the top emerging

British actors on the West End? Not necessarily. I am very lucky I at

the National Theatre which is subsidised and there less emphasis

there because it's a commercial to have. That means we can people who

are either experienced, or have been to really good schools. The one

worrying thing is that drama schools are expensive and it is difficult to

go there unless you have the financial means. It becomes a

narrower profession? Yes. You get back to the fact that almost all the

tough guys came from Eton! Yes. What about the great huge global success

of War Horse? The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time is a

tougher sell. Is that going to go global as well? Why do you think it

is a tougher sell? It is dark, it doesn't have the great big emotions

produced by the horses who make everybody cry. I don't know. I think

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time is as emotional

because Christopher, he can't articulate or tell us how he feels,

the physicality of the production should transmit his huge emotional

life. It is a wonderful show. Very good luck to both of you. Thank you

for coming in. Eight years ago, a Conservative MP

wrote a book arguing that the forces of militant Islamism were

determined to wage a war upon the West, which he described

as 'the conflict of our times'. He compared the Islamist threat with

that posed by communism and fascism, Well, the writer was Michael Gove -

now Education Secretary. And he may have felt vindicated last

week - hearing these chilling words, from an interview with one

of the hundreds of British jihadis, I don't want to come back to what I

left behind. There is nothing in Britain. It is pure evil. If and

when I come back to Britain, it will be when this Islamic State come to

conquer Britain and I come to raise the black flag of Islam over Downing

Street, over Buckingham Palace, over Tower Bridge and over Big Ben.

Well, the dispute between Michael Gove and Theresa May, over how to

tackle extremism, was the most serious Cabinet row to break out in

public, since this government took office.

But before we discuss all that, let's start with that very worrying

child abuse story that's swirling around Westminster.

There will be great public concern and unease about what has happened

at the top of politics? Understandable concern. The Prime

Minister and the Home Secretary have been clear we need to get to the

bottom of this. That is why they have instructed the Permanent

Secretary at the Home Office to get an independent lawyer to look at the

handling of these individual cases. It has also been the case that my

department and Jeremy Hunt's department have been looking at some

of the historic examples of child abuse and the need to improve child

protection. We are reviewing within the Department for Education what we

can do to keep children safe now. It is important both that we analyse

what has happened in the past but also it is really important that we

ensure that those who are keeping children safe now are supported.

Given the suspicion, the toxic idea that politicians have been hiding

this stuff up for a long time, there will have to be a public inquiry?

What will put people's minds at rest is making sure we investigate

properly what happened in the past. It is also important to draw a

distinction between... I must press you. With a public inquiry, so we

can hear the evidence? The most important thing that we need to do

is to make sure the work is proportionate and focussed and we

look at those allegations which cause real and genuine concern. We

need to accept as well that if people do have specific concerns

about individuals or about practices they should bring them to the

police. The most important thing that we need to do is to ensure that

the due process of law pursues those who may be guilty of individual

crimes. Indeed. We also learn lessons about what may or may not

have gone wrong in the past, but it is also important to emphasise that

many of the allegations that are being made are historic. What we do

now to keep children safer is better and stronger than was the case when

20 or 30 years ago. Without getting into a boring tit-for-tat, public

inquiry, "yes" or "no"? No. When you read all this stuff about Birmingham

schools, how much do you know has gone wrong in some of these schools?

How much of this is media speculation and overhyped? A lot of

the people from the schools blame the media, then the politicians and

say it is not as bad as we are told? We all have to be careful and wait.

Again, there is a lot of speculation in the media about what may or may

not have gone on in individual schools and in other cities. We have

asked Peter Clarke, who is one of our most senior officers, to

investigate some of these allegations. We know already from

what Ofsted said about what was happening in schools that there were

unacceptable practices with individuals who clearly had a

conservative religious agenda who were intimidating very good teachers

and head teachers and forcing them to comply with that agenda or to

leave. There are broader questions about the extent to which these

activities were coordinated and the extent to which those responsible

for these activities may have had a broader agenda. Peter is looking

into that. And about what Birmingham Council knew about this ten years

ago? That's true. There are questions for the local authority

and for my department, the Department for Education, about what

was known and what was done. It is important that we give Peter Clarke

the room and the space to do that. There was some criticism at the

beginning of this process when I appointed Peter. People felt it was

somehow too dramatic an authoritarian a step. If you have a

police officer of unimpeachable integrity to conduct these

investigations, if people are cleared, given a clean bill of

health, that is the most effective way of ensuring that public

confidence can be restored. This goes to the heart of the dilemma.

What is pre-terrorism, what has taken people on the path to jihad

and violence here at home and what is acceptable if unconventional

religious thinking. Can a police officer distinguish between those

two things? A police officer can. The Prime Minister has been clear

about how to draw that distinction. Should we draw the distinction? Yes.

If a school is teaching that infidels are to be despised, that

Western women are slags, and must be covered facially when they are going

around town, is that the acceptable message to be going out in any

British school? that could be said by somebody who

was a highly Conservative Muslim but had no interest in terrorism. It is

absolutely true we need to draw a distinction between deep religious

faith and extremism. In the book that I wrote and in the way the

Coalition government has operated since then, we do draw that

distinction. All schools should prepare children for life in modern

Britain. People can hold deeply religious Conservative views but

think that person might be an appropriate as a proprietor of the

school or it would be wrong to disseminate those views in the

classroom, but it is also possible that that individual with those

views, while we think it would be wrong for them to be a teacher or a

headteacher could hold those views and could not lead anyone on the

path to terror. It is also important to recognise that when we are

talking about this, it is critical we recognise that Islam is a great

faith which brings spiritual nourishment to millions, inspires

daily acts of generosity. Islamism is a perversion of Islam, in the

same way Communism is a perversion of socialism and fascism as a

perversion of nationalism. In your book, you say that some of these

highly Conservative views are bit like the nationalist views which

produced the brownshirts. You are making a parallel, it is only a

parallel but you do make the link between these Conservative views and

jihadists views. I think there is a difference between someone with

religious Conservative views and someone who wants to see those views

pushed onto others. When we talk about Islamism, that form of

extremism, the Prime Minister made it clear in the speech he gave at

the Munich Security conference in 2011 that there are thinkers, like

the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, who take traditional

Islamic doctrines and twist them into a political message which they

seek to impose and we have to draw that distinction fairly, because

unless we draw that distinction and deal with them by countering it and

saying that we believe in an open, modern and liberal democracy in

which it is perfectly legitimate to have private beliefs, but by mail --

no means should you attempt to impose them on others, and we

believe that if you are going to make a success of a multi ethnic,

multicultural society, we do it with respect for others' beliefs and

respect for our Parliamentary institutions. And the slight paradox

that we have to stumped down the message of tolerance. This is the

key insight that one of the great liberal thinkers put forward that in

order to safeguard intolerance, -- safeguard tolerance, we have to be

tolerant of others. This is what you call draining the swamp and we have

to root out people who hold those views from our society? We need to

challenge those views and we need to make sure that people who have views

who wish to choose institutions to push and agenda are not in a

position where they can use public money in order to push their views.

But they are at the moment, aren't they? I want to make sure we can

deal with this problem wherever it arises, and look for the evidence

and follow the evidence. We know that in the past there have been

people in this country, preachers of hate and others, who have attempted,

as we heard from the earlier piece of audio, who have attempted and

succeeded to poison young minds. How worried are you now about the

situation with people returning from what is now the caliphate? In your

book you said it would be a global disaster if Iraq fell, it now more

or less has. How concerned are you? I am concerned and the Prime

Minister, the Home Secretary and the Foreign Secretary are concerned. I

don't think any Home Secretary has been as vigilant dealing with the

caliphate as Theresa May and it is now the case that this region poses

a greater threat to our security than other regions in the past like

the Horn of Africa and the Afghanistan Pakistan border area. We

need to be clear that it is inappropriate for people, whatever

they feel about the tragedy going on there, to travel to that region

because they are entering an incubation zone which is incredibly

dangerous. Theresa May has been clear about that and it has also

been the case that a number of progressive and moderate Islamic

figures have made that clear during the course of this week and I think

that is very welcome and it is a feature of what has happened since

the Prime Minister in 2011... That more and more progressive figures

have been clear about this. Do we need more new laws? We always need

to keep the laws under review but it is important to use the laws that we

have energetically. What changes are going to see in the classroom as a

result of your involvement? One of the things that has been debated is

that... I think it is important that they make sure those who run schools

know their responsibility to prepare people for life in modern Britain.

It is critically important, we know that sometimes activities in schools

can sometimes take place and then when the inspector comes to court,

if the inspector gives notice those activities can be covered up. It has

been made clear that we will guarantee not just a stronger set of

tools to deal with some of these issues but we will also be better at

ensuring high quality teaching and good discipline if we have no notice

inspections. You have spoken about this as being a culture war between

the west and intolerance, has it been fought well? Yes, it is

striking that in the past there was an attempt to say that the only way

in which we could deal with this problem is if we dealt with

extremism when it became violent, and we waited too late. We have

meetings of all kinds popping up around the country, people are

saying the rhetoric is good but nothing has happened. An enormous

amount has changed, as a result of the leadership the Prime Minister

has shown and the work the task force has done. Theresa May has been

more vigorous in stopping hate preachers coming to this country

than any predecessor. I think she has done a very good job in this

area. It is also the case that if we look at the way in which the Prime

Minister has sought to focus particularly on dealing with

everything from supplementary schools to the radicalisation that

occurs in prison, I don't think there has been anyone in Number Ten

who has gripped this issue with the authority he has. Let's return to

education. I don't know if you heard Tristram Hunt replying to your

letter, were you happy with that reply? He is lukewarm on free

schools and we know that free schools are outperforming other

schools... We know that there are problems with free schools. There

are problems but free schools are outperforming other schools, they

are twice as likely to be outstanding schools operating under

the Ofsted framework outstanding schools operating under

clear about the need for teachers to be in the classroom and not striking

this Thursday. We need a clear consensus. It is our responsibility

to put consensus. It is our responsibility

why I think no teacher should be on strike. Tristram's heart is in the

right place... You disagree about that, but now he is talking about

of that? He is beginning to sound like Michael Gove light. I felt this

glow of warm like a tutor who sees a student at last when the penny drops

are accepting what he has been arguing for the last four or five

years! I hope in the next year or so that he will accept that all of our

changes are right. I doubt it. On that cheerfully condescending note,

we will finish the conversation and now the news headlines.

It has emerged that 114 files now the news headlines.

reviewing child abuse allegations in Westminster in the 1980s are

missing. The most senior civil servant at the Home Office said the

files, which cover a 20 year period, are presumed destroyed,

missing or not found. The Prime Minister has appointed an

independent lawyer to investigate what happened. Speaking on this

programme, the Education Secretary is ruled out a public enquiry into

allegations of sex abuse involving figures at Westminster. He said if

people have specific concerns they should take them to the police.

Labour 's education spokesman Tristram Hunt said politicians had a

duty to be ruthless in finding out the truth of what has happened, but

he said where people 's reputations were at stake it was important to

take a careful step-by-step approach. In the Tour de France it

has just been announced that top British cyclist Mark Cavendish has

pulled out of the race after sustaining an injury in the crash

yesterday. Thousands of people are again lining the route of the tour

as the cyclist face some of their toughest climbs. Yesterday crowds

including the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge descended on Yorkshire to

get a fleeting glimpse of the racers passing through the county. The next

news is on BBC One at one o'clock, back to you in a moment, Andrew, but

first let's look at what is coming the programme.

There are now so many medical experiments on dogs that we are

having to import them, do animals still belong in the laboratory?

Ahead of the British grand prix, Murray Walker chats to us about life

and death, and spills a secret too. Sad news about Mark Cavendish.

Good morning. That's all we have time

for this week. Thanks to all my guests.

Join me again at the same time next Sunday for

another packed programme including the Archbishop of Canterbury,

plus those splendid actors Bill Nighy and Carey Mulligan.

But for now, we leave you with the national

rhythm of Brazil - the samba. Courtesy of Brasil Brasileiro,

opening this week at Sadler's Wells Theatre in London.