09/07/2017 The Andrew Marr Show

Heat rising and the politicians, frankly exhausted, desperate

On the surface, everyone's trying to radiate confidence.

Theresa May assures the G20 she's staying on.

Jeremy Corbyn's greeted as a conquering hero

But behind the smiles, endless intrigue, endless plotting,

and its all dripping into this morning's press.

At Westminster there's nothing more lethal than a summer party.

The new Justice Secretary, David Lidington, isn't,

so far as one can tell, plotting to be leader

But he's here to answer some big questions on Brexit,

On the Labour side, I'm joined by key Corbyn ally

and fast-rising star, Angela Rayner.

You'd think the Labour family, at least, is warm and united.

And from the Lib Dems, as they head towards a leadership coronation,

the man who will be king, Vince Cable, on what on earth

And reviewing the news, one of the shrewdest analysts

of the British Left, Stephen Bush, from the

New Statesman, who predicted the Corbyn phenomenon before it

happened, the deputy editor of the Sunday Times, Sarah Baxter,

and the Conservative commentator, editor of Reaction, Iain Martin.

And from The West Wing to the West End.

Stockard Channing on her angry return to the London stage.

The Lumineers will be lighting up the studio later.

# You've been on my mind girl # Oh This Is Us Fehily I#

Iraqi government forces say they're within hours of recapturing

the Iraqi city of Mosul from Islamic State militants.

Soldiers have been celebrating in the streets of the Old City

and civilians have been emerging from the rubble

Sporadic fighting has continued, but a final declaration

The number of mobile phones and drugs smuggled

into prisons is unacceptable, according to the Government.

More than 20,000 phones and SIM cards and over 200 kilograms

of narcotics were found in jails in England and Wales last year.

The seizures follow a ?2 million investment in technology

The Government has promised to recruit more prison officers

The parents of Charlie Gard have said the fight is not over ahead

of a new court battle over his treatment.

Connie Yates and Chris Gard want to take 11-month-old Charlie,

who's terminally ill, to America for

The couple are expected to join supporters in delivering a petition

with more than 350,000 signatures to Great Ormond Street

A state of emergency has been declared in the Canadian province

of British Columbia, where the authorities are battling

Thousands of homes have been evacuated and some destroyed.

Most of the blazes started after lightning strikes

A wealthy businessman has submitted alternative plans

for a third runway at Heathrow, which he says would save

The hotel tycoon, Surinder Arora, suggests changing the design

of terminal buildings and reducing the amount of land built on.

A spokesperson for the airport said they would welcome views

on the plans during a public consultation later this year.

The next news on BBC One is at One o'clock.

Now the front pages are quite good for Theresa May today. There's the

Sunday Telegraph - Brexit, May plays the Trump card, that's about a

promise of a big, fast deal. Again there's the Sunday Times, similar

thing - Trump throws May a life line with trade deal. Sunday Express -

May dealt Trump card on Brexit. Same headline there, obvious pun. The

Observer a more pessimistic view with a stark warning from German

industry that Britain is not going to get the easy deal, easy access

into the single market that it thinks. Finally, I talked about the

poison dripping into the Sunday papers, May must quit now says chief

Davis ally. That's Andrew Mitchell and he doesn't deny saying she was

in trouble and has to stand aside. Whether that is really a plot or

not, we will discuss that later. We start with the G20, Sarah.

Yes, Mrs May has come back with a spring in her step because the world

leaders were very nice to her. Particularly Donald Trump, who

promised her a very big deal, a very powerful, a huge deal, we're not

sure what it involves. It's going to be huge! We know that. As you say,

China, Japan, India, she's coming back with something that could be

good for Brexit Britain. But we're only calling it a life line. She's

still on the ropes. Everything that she does is now seen within the

context of internal battles in the Tory Party. It's seen as a rebuke to

her Chancellor who had been saying that we have to stay as closely as

we possibly can to the EU in our deals. And there's plenty of

plotting going on. In-fighting is all over the place in the papers.

Meanwhile, we enjoy the G20 as a spectacle on many, in many ways,

including Ivana Trump between the Chinese president and Angela Merkel.

This is a fuzzy shot, but it's wonderful. We have here President

Xi, Angela Merkel, Theresa May, we have President Erdogan, hang on, not

elected first daughter Ivanka. I'm afraid it's not a very good look for

America. I speak as someone who is half American. It's not a good look

for the world's biggest democracy. Nor necessarily are the protests in

Hamburg a good look for Germany? Yeah, it's interesting the way in

which these summits now happen in that there's a bubble inside, where

all of that goes on, all of this. Then outside you have probably the

worst demonstrations and riots if you will actually since Genoa in

2001. There's a brilliant piece in Hamburg which explains just how

serious it was. Hundreds of injured police. What troubles me about it,

what people should be concerned about is that the atmosphere is so

febrile internationally at the moment. The global economy is not

quite as strong as everyone thinks it is. We're moving into an era of

protest and a rise of a resurgent hard left - These are people who

feel let down by the world economy. Precisely. The ingredients are there

as interest rates rise and we get in difficult economic decisions. Things

could be bumpier. Single most interesting piece I thought in

today's papers was the former Brexit minister, David Jones, who has left

the Government, writing really quite an angry and outspoken piece in the

Mail on Sunday. Yes, talking about the fact that there are people in

Whitehall who he says are trying to block Brexit or at least have a form

of Brexit which is so close to staying in we might as well have

never left. He references Hotel California. It comes back to the

Government's weakness. The problem for Theresa May, while she is mostly

the candidate of hard Brexit, as it were, one of the reasons why she

might be more secure than we think, the issue of money is the one trump

card she has kept. She hasn't ruled out continuing to pay into the EU to

get the standard of access. He's coming out explicitly against that.

The difficulty for the Government, it's hard to see any deal really

that commands majority support in the Conservative Party, let alone in

the House of Commons as a whole. It will get naturally quickly -- gnarly

quickly. There's a piece in the Sunday Times talking about how angry

the Remainers are with Theresa May. She's not making anybody happy at

the moment. In that piece, David Jones talks about treason and he

says there are four things that are going to happen if we're not

careful. We're going to stay in the single market, we're going to stay

in the customs union, we will stay under the European Court of Justice

and carry on paying money. That is not Brexit. That is not leaving.

There's an extraordinary quote in the same paper about a pro-Brexit MP

speaking anonymously saying, well, if it's a question of threatening

Brexit, if Theresa May's weakness means we're going to not get a

proper Brexit, we'd rather have a Labour Government for a while. I'd

rather bring the House down. What could possibly go wrong (! ) It

illustrates that Brexiteers and ultra-remainers need a holiday. They

need to go to the south of France and Spain and lie down for a while.

Having said that, there's this extraordinary difficulty that the

Tory Party has in that it's clear to everyone else that there needs to be

some form of xrmise or certain concessions -- compromise or

concessions delivered. A substantial part of the Parliamentary party

isn't going to want that. Wants no concession. There is a kamikaze

wing, for sure of the Tory Party which would rather lose power than

see their precious very hard Brexit be delivered. It's absolutely mad.

It wouldn't be the first time that Jeremy Corbyn has been

underestimated. You remember all the Labour moderates who thought oh,

we'll put him on the ballot what could possibly go wrong... It's a

small group, but so is the Government. This is interesting,

Jeremy Corbyn has been taking a hard line Brexit position and we were

teasing Labour last week with the Nigel Farage tweet, you know, Jeremy

Corbyn's almost a proper chap, he said. Actually the bigger question,

can Jeremy Corbyn use Theresa May's problems over things like the great

repeal Bill to force a Commons defeat which brings on the Autumn

election he wants? Yes, all he needs is an issue on which serve

Conservative MPs agree with the majority Labour view. This is an

issue where there is a majority consensus around the Labour view.

The great repeal bill next week will be uncomfortable for the Government

for precisely this reason, particularly around the issue of the

role of the ECJ. Most people recognise you have to have some kind

of xrmise. That's the view of the -- compromise. That's the view of the

Labour Party. Jeremy's personal politics are not that into the

European Court of Justice. He doesn't have religion on the EU.

He's a Euro-sceptic, but not a kamikaze Euro-sceptic. He's willing

to use this issue as a wedge. Fundamentally I think Labour thinks

they have the Remainor vote in the bag or substantial majority of it.

It reminds me a lot of what John Smith did over Maastricht Treaty,

where he agreed with the Government but when you're attempting to bring

down the Government it doesn't matter. It's about the numbers and

tactics. I mentioned Andrew Mitchell, who is alleged to be a key

ally of David Davis, you never know whether these things are true or

not, saying that Theresa May is in deep trouble and there needs to be a

leadership change. David Davis, if I were him, I wouldn't be happy with

the coverage because he's all over the papers. He is the obvious unity

candidate for the Tory Party in due course. He is the guy who could hold

things together. You can't do that if people think that you're

launching this as well. Yes Andrew Mitchell shouldn't be forgotten ran

David Davis' campaign in 2005, where Davis lost to David Cameron. I

think, yes there is a lot of plotting going on. A lot of

conversations going on. Andrew Mitchell says, this was a private

conversation, don't entirely recognise the words. No such thing

at the moment! Certainly in front of Tory MPs. Yes in our paper he's

quoted as saying people who think that should have a quiet lie down. I

think he's playing both ends on this game. The question really for

Theresa May is - and the difficulty and the reason she might be replaced

sooner than people think - is that a lot of this is going to come down to

authority. You talk about in the Mail it says the PM has lost all

authority. When you get to the next stage of doing a deal with the

European Union, a lot of it will come down to the personalities, can

the Prime Minister sit down with Macron and Merkel and make a

breakthrough? She has to come back next week and knock heads together

and reassert herself in a big way doesn't she? I'm sure she will

attempt that. How many Prime Ministerial relaunches have we lived

through? They tend not to work. If there's one issue where the

Conservatives have been on the back foot in some disarray, I guess, it's

tuition fees after that big offer from Jeremy Corbyn during the

election campaign. More news on that this morning. # Yes, this is an

issue I've been following closely because I have a daughter at

university. I definitely think the Tories have got themselves into a

big hole over this. Tuition fees have been a much bigger issue than

they ever dreamt of. What they're particularly embased about now is

the spotlight on the punitive interest rates that are going to be

charged on tuition fees. We're in a very low interest rate period. Kids

are running up debts of ?40,000, ?50,000 and are expected to pay 6%

interest on them coming this Autumn and the Government know that Jeremy

Corbyn will continue to win this issue hands down and maybe he will

any way, but I think we're saying, we're quoting sources close to the

Education Secretary this morning saying that they're going to review

those interest rates. We're calling for it in our leader. I'm sure those

interest rates are going to come down. It's inflation plus 3% is the

measure that. Happened under George Osborne. Maybe we can expect an

investigation by the Evening Standard. I'm not paying that on my

mortgage. Why should students pay it? If you don't pay your mortgage

for three years you lose the house. Whereas when I didn't pay my tuition

fees no-one repossessed anything. You are live on television. I think

the difficulty with tuition fees is it's actually a clever way the

treasure found of raising income tax on a group of people who didn't

vote. Jeremy Corbyn has politicised those people. Now it's an income tax

rise. We know how unpopular and short lived rises on income tax are.

On the Labour side a deselection row going on. Calls for mandatory

reselection of MPs which could threaten lots of Blairite or

centrist Labour MPs. Some of them are saying, if that happens we'll

cause by-elections. Yes, there is a good story by

Caroline Wheeler on it. Until we have a name it doesn't feel

plausible, not least because I actually think the deselections are

less likely to happen than people think. The average person voting for

Jeremy Corbyn is not someone on Twitter with a hammer and sickle, it

is someone who is worried about public services and the European

Union. The Labour Party is more in the country than people think. There

has been a huge malicious war against Luciano verger, hasn't

there, on Merseyside which has real echoes of the old militants. That's

when militants were strong in the past. Actually few MPs were

deselected. One was deselected because he was lazy. Actually the

Labour Party was less fractured than people believe. The average Labour

member is more disposed to their own MPs in people actually think. The

Labour Party is behind the scenes at war in its own way and I think the

moderates have got to work out how on earth they respond. And if

everybody was being well-behaved, disciplined, quiet and sticking on

the mineral water, we would have nothing to talk about so thanks to

all MPs from all sides and thanks to you for the paper review.

Fascinating. And if we're talking chillis,

then on the Scoville Scale, It's been hotter than scotch

bonnets, hotter than the habanero. It's been up there

with the Dragons Breath I love that comparison, and we have

got a mixed bag across the country today. It's not plain sailing for

everyone. We have more cloud today and it is rain bearing cloud with

plenty of sunshine further south but we have atmospheric pictures sent in

this morning. An hour or so ago this was in the south-west, in Scotland

we have the rain as I mentioned and it will continue to move across

Northern Ireland and central southern Scotland for the rest of

the day. We have a weather front here and another bump on that

weather front will pep up the rain this afternoon. Either side of it it

is drier, brighter and warmer than yesterday and we will see the mist

and low cloud lifting across Wales. Another very warm day, we could hit

28, 29, and if we do that could trigger under showers across the

Midlands into the south-east and East Anglia. Obviously those to

watch out for if you are travelling. Overnight fresh air to the north,

still in my old, muggy night across England and Wales. Some downpours

potentially tomorrow, a much more showery picture, and we are starting

to cool down although we have the heat hanging on in the south-east so

it looks a little more tricky for Wimbledon next week.

Oh dear. Sir Vince Cable has a reputation

as a somewhat pessimistic if often But now he's almost certain to be

the new Lib Dem Leader. I don't want to be rude but,

Sir Vince, it's almost There's no competition at the

moment, but I'm happy to take the job if that's what comes along. So

Gordon Brown Coronation, Theresa May Coronation, Sir Vince Cable... Is

there a lesson of history here? I think the last the Dem who got in on

a Coronation was Joe Grimond, a great role model, but I don't think

that's is terribly relevant. I am optimistic about what I and a good

team of colleagues can achieve. I think on the big issues of the day

like Brexit we are in exactly the right position, a long-standing

principle position that will be coming increasingly in line with the

mood of the country as the economy deteriorates so I am optimistic

about what we can do. With a leadership contest party has a

chance to look itself in the mirror, take some hard decisions and a clear

change of direction, for instance are you going to have your own

leadership manifesto? Will we see that before you come leader? Yes you

will, and I am working on it at the moment. We have a process in the

part of it comes to a conclusion in about 12 days, and I will have a

manifesto and it will set out what I and my colleagues will be able to

achieve. Are you going to lead the Liberal Democrats in a different

direction to Tim Farron? Tim did a good job, but the situation has

moved on. I think in two fundamentally different ways from

where we were two years ago. The first is the whole Brexit debate now

dominate the national agenda. I will have to approach that consistently

with where we were before but in a different parliament, and I think

the other thing which is different from a couple of years ago is that

the two major parties competing were in a fragile state. The division in

the Tory party is palpable, the Labour Party is already talking

about expelling 50 of its MPs for ideological deviation. This is a

very different world from the one Tim inherited. That was just a

Facebook page really, wasn't it. There's no real suggestion of that.

We have a generous policy to refugees and if they come they will

get food and accommodation. I don't know what will happen but it's a

symptom of very deep division on a fundamental point because Jeremy

Corbyn had a good election, but there is an element of a bubble

about it. He attracted large numbers of people on the basis he was

leading opposition to Brexit. Actually he is very pro-Brexit and

hard Brexit and I think when that becomes apparent the divisions in

the Labour Party will become more real and the opportunity for us to

move into that space will become more substantial. One of the things

Jeremy Corbyn did was he infused young voters partly by attacking the

tuition fees policy. You were the man who raised tuition fees to

?9,000, is your policy to keep it there, reduce or abolish them? It is

not to abolish them because the system has kept universities

properly funded, but there are clearly problems with the system.

The universities operate as a form of cartel so I am certainly up for

having a fresh look... Are you happy with a situation where people from

quite humble backgrounds can leave university with a debt of ?57,000

and high interest rates, is that fair? What is fair, and let's

remember this is not a system might party created, it was created by a

Labour government who promised not to introduce it and did, promised

not to increase it and did, supported by the Conservatives. I

substantially raised the threshold... You triple it to

?9,000. Yes, so it effectively operate as a form of graduate tax,

and increased the generosity of grants for maintenance. The

Conservative government then abolished that so there are

certainly things that need looking at. The one thing I would stress is

there are 60% of young people who don't go to university, they don't

get access to the student loans scheme. I have been working

specifically at further education over the last year so if we review

the system, and I am certainly up for being open-minded and pragmatic

about it, we have got to look at young people as a whole and not just

those who go to university. Should taxes overall grow up? Yes, I've

think there should be a shift in the balance. Comfortable bed in the

manifesto? Yes, some of the tax cuts in the capital side the Tories

introduced in 2015 we would end them so I am all in favour of fiscal

discipline, we have got to reduce the deficit on current spending so I

am in favour of fiscal discipline but I want to shift the balance away

from extreme cuts on public services which are particularly harsh on

local government and bit more tax to balance it and more financing of

capital investment for housing. On Brexit do you want Britain to fail

economically? No, I don't think the public voted to have cuts in their

standard of living and that's why... There are two objectives... The

reason I ask is because you said we would have to hang on while the

economy deteriorates and the mood changes, which makes it sound like

waiting for a disaster to happen and your moment. We need to see whether

the Government pursues the hard Brexit. We have got to work with

other people, as we did last week to try to head off the disastrous

outcome but it may well be that with the situation deteriorating in the

economy, as I think it will, people will realise well we didn't vote to

be poorer and I think the whole question of continued membership

will once again arise. Let me ask about this parliament because in the

end about 100 MPs voted for that motion, 16, which suggests the

single market issue is now dead for this parliament but you talked about

making alliances across parties. Do you begin to see an alliance

sufficiently deep into the Labour and Tory family as well of pro-EU

politicians which is big enough to frustrate Theresa May's ideas on

Brexit? Yes, I think a lot of people are keeping their heads down. We

will see what happens in the autumn when people come back. I'm beginning

to think Brexit may never happen. I think the problems are so enormous,

the divisions within the two major parties are so enormous, I can see a

scenario in which this doesn't happen. And certainly a policy of

having a second referendum, which didn't really cut threw in the

general election, is designed to give away out when it becomes clear

Brexit is potentially disastrous. One thing the party may be getting

if they take you as their new leader is experience and wisdom, and yet

the last week you compared Theresa May to Hitler. Now, I didn't at all.

I got my literary reference wrong, I think it was Stalin who talked about

rumours cosmopolitans. Citizens of nowhere phrase was quite evil, it

could have been taken out of Mein Kampf. That was a silly thing to say

come wasn't it? The next sentence said out of character. Thank you for

talking to us. Now, coming up later this morning,

Andrew Neil will be asking if Remainers are taking advantage

of Theresa May's weakness to scupper Brexit, and has debate

about the Grenfell Tower fire That's the Sunday Politics

at 11am here on BBC One. The Angela Rayner story

is a pretty remarkable one. She left school at 16 with few

qualifications and little She only came into the House

of Commons two years ago in 2015, but she's risen like a rocket

and is now in charge of Labour's The Shadow Education

Secretary joins me now. Thanks for coming in. Can I ask

first of all about access to education, is it true that fewer

working class kids are getting into university education as a result of

tuition fees? I don't believe that the case but I do believe many

working class and part-time and older mature students are leaving

university, and there's three things the coalition government helped with

the Conservatives that they have done that led to the disastrous

situation we are in today. Of course you mentioned the hike in tuition

fees but there was the removal of the maintenance grants, the

increasing percentage of the loans so they couldn't use the base rate

of the Bank of England, and they increased the percentage people paid

which I believe directly impacted, and of course the threshold of

income which meant more students would pay back more from the

beginning as well. Nevertheless the Labour policy is predicated on

something Jeremy Corbyn said, he said fewer working class people are

applying to university, that's not true, is it? Actually more people

are coming out of university, five times more are coming out of

university and not able to finish their degrees and I think that's a

direct impact of some of the Government changes. One mother, is

it true that fewer working class young people are applying to

university? The last Labour government had huge amount to

encourage aspirations to get more working class people into university

and we have record levels of people applying for university 's... I am

reading out something Jeremy Corbyn said that isn't true, and I'm asking

if it is true and you are giving answers to other things. I'm

clarifying, it is true but there are record amounts leaving and I think

that is because of the policies of the Government. They have done away

with maintenance grants, increased percentages of loans and lowered the

threshold for incomes that people are paying more early on. Because

it's not a marginal point. 73% more people from working-class background

have gone to university since the tuition fees were introduced, it has

gone up enormously. And the amount of people leaving

before they have their qualifications has gone up as well.

50% leave their courses before they've completed them. That is

directly as a result of the current policies of this Government. I'm not

defendening the current policy, I'm suggesting, for instance, 22% of

children who were eligible for free school meals now go to university.

Before this policy, it was 3% or 4%, it's a huge increase. Yes, some

people will fall out of the other end and get into financial trouble,

but many more people are going in the first place. It's great that

many are going. One of the things happening as well, many people are

leaving university and unfortunately are having to go to jobs where

they're not able to utilise their degrees as well. That's a real

scandal. That's why we've had a policy of looking at the further

education college and technical education. It's about lifelong

learning for everybody. My point to you is your spending as a party

about ?11 billion ending this tuition fee policy. Much of that

money will go to relatively affluent, middle-class and upper

middle class families and children. Would it not be better to spend that

kind of money on replacing some of the tax breaks taken away by the

Tories and spending it at the bottom end of society, because the Fabian

Society say you'd make poorer families worse off compared to

better off families. It's 9. 5 billion the amount we'll take for

the Student Loans Company to reverse the tuition fees. I make no

apologies for actually a huge amount of our manifesto was about national

education. We talked about early years. We talked about Sure Start

centres, which was the last Labour Government that introduced them.

We've lost a tremendous amount of our early years centres under the

coalition and the Conservatives. We talked about a package arranged from

the early years, cradle to grave, a national education service about

making sure that everyone has access to education. We know that's how you

make social progress. Absolutely right. That's how people can get on

in life. Right at the end of the campaign, seven days before polling,

Jeremy Corbyn said that he wanted to think about wiping out the current

student debt, which is a vast amount of money. He says you would be

working on that policy. That's not funded at the moment. Have you been

working on that policy? Do you have numbers about how much that will

cost? It's a big abacus I'm working on with that. It's a huge amount,

100 billion, which they estimate currently. 100 billion! It's a huge

amount of money. We also know that a third of that is never repaid. It's

a treasure trick. Were you surprised to be handed the abacus at the last

minute. I like a challenge. We have to deal with the debt crisis that

we're foisting on our young people. It's not acceptable. They're leaving

university with ?57,000 worth of debt. It's completely unsustainable.

We've got to start tackling that. Three things I call on the good of

the to do, that they can do immediately - reverse the

maintenance grants abolishing that. That will help the most

disadvantaged students. They can reduce the percentage rate that

students have to pay on their loans and they can ensure that the amount

that they repay, the income threshold goes up in line with

average earnings. They are things they can do before September to help

students out. Aren't you simply spraying around huge spending

promises too recklessly? Another ?100 billion on tuition fees is some

sofa you have to find. Jeremy said it's an ambition. It's something

he'd like to do. It's something we will not announce we're doing unless

we can afford it. You were at the Durham miners' gallament a picture

with Jeremy Corbyn, doing a selfie. They were chanting your name. A big

part of the current Labour leadership group. Can I ask you what

you feel about the fact that so many of your colleagues were disinvited

to that event. They were told they weren't supportive enough of Jeremy

Corbyn and they weren't going to be given hospitality by the Durham

miners? I don't like anything in the Labour family that disenfranchises

our movement. We are a big movement. We're all the better for it. At the

moment we should concentrate on making sure we're next for the next

general election. That manifesto, I believe, was the best manifesto

Labour had done since the 1945 Labour manifesto. I think it offers

hope. If we're divided and we're fighting each other, we're not going

to be able to implement that. After the Luciana Berger row, one thing

was obvious, almost the complete silence from colleagues speaking in

her support. Can you say something in her support? I work with her on

campaign for mental health. I personally have been affected by

that with my mum, since I was about the age of ten. I know how it

affects families. She's done a tremendous amount of work. She's a

valued member of the team. Anyone that talks of deselecting any of my

colleagues, quite frankly, they need to think about actually who are the

real enemy here? Who are making the problems for our communities? Who

have made those disastrous policies that are hurting the people that

need us the most? It doesn't help them if we're fighting each other.

What about the those people who say we're too broad a church in the

Labour Party, we ought to be narrower? I love the church that I'm

in in the Labour Party. It's my religion. I've been born and raised

in the Labour movement. I will be happy that it's as vibrant and

democratic as it is. Great talking to you. Thank you very much indeed.

Ever since she stole the show as Rizzo in Grease,

Stockard Channing has been a constant star of stage and screen

Her new London stage role in the play, Apologia,

sees her playing a radical left feminist with major family issues -

a flinty, abrasive woman as evidenced by this

He was dashing and angry and had the biggest hands you've ever seen.

He built furniture and wrote dark poems, and I fell in love with him.

He was also eracible, moody, manipulative -

mentally cruel, emotionally stunted and chauvinistic

He suffered a massive stroke and died in exactly 36 seconds.

Much to my disappointment, he was denied the joys

of self-reflection on the death bed and if that isn't lucky,

It portrays her nearly as a kind of monster

and an emblem of that old cliche, the left love humanity,

they don't really like individual human beings or the people

Well, I don't know if that's quite true.

She has two sons, one in early 40s, the other late 30s.

The elder of whom is a captain of industry, if you will,

They were taken away from her when they were about,

So their feelings about that separation and life

And the terrible thing from their point of view

that she has done recently, she's written a memoir in

No, because she's a pretty intelligent woman.

I think in ways, she was pretty much aware if she did mention them it

As she puts it, she didn't want to air her dirty laundry,

which in her mind is her own emotional response to certain events

happening in her life - especially her children being taken

She is an extremely private person, which also makes her a bit at odds

in the world we live in when people are writing these memoirs

She's a completely private human being.

But there is a good example, one thing has really changed

from your character's point of view absolutely for the better,

Yes, I think now we're giving feminism a bad name.

Obviously we still haven't got the equal pay thing.

It's cliche, but it's true, a lot of young women take for granted.

There's certain ways of living one's life,

When I was in college, I remember that kitchen table stuff.

It was really very scary, life threatening.

That's something that a lot of people seem to take for granted,

Having said that, I do think that the sort of militant feminism

stuff has left its mark in a cliched way, whereas the real thrust of it,

Your character in this reminds very slightly of the president's

In a sense the same generation and the First Lady there is herself

a bit of a feminist, she's a strong woman and so forth.

She has a private life which she likes to keep

That was an enormously popular series, here as well as in America.

I wonder if it's because of the essential optimism of The West Wing.

The underlying theme was that people go into politics

for the right reasons, they're basically good people.

Do you think it's a little bit too sugary?

I think it's something to bear in mind in the world we're living

in, that as we go through these swirling waters that we're

in right now and the rapids, I think it's kind of good to keep

That thing of people standing around the water cooler,

The West Wing was that kind of TV show.

Rizzo from Grease, that was your huge breakthrough role,

That's the indication that the world has changed.

The fact it was so popular, it was basically about a bunch

of teenagers was sort of frowned upon in those days.

Everybody thought they should be making wonderful,

interesting movies as opposed to this gangbuster.

# That's the worst thing I could do #.

Who knows why it continued to be so popular over the years.

But at the time, it was kind of dismissed.

I was kind of dismissed along with it for a while.

Then everything seemed to turn out OK.

Stockard Channing, lovely to talk to you.

Thank you very much, it's a pleasure.

And Apologia, directed by Jamie Lloyd, opens

at the Trafalgar Studios in London on July 29.

During the Brexit referendum, my next guest was one of the most

outspoken supporters of the European Union.

Now the new Justice Secretary, David Lidington, has problems closer

to home on his plate - the still-burning row over

the Grenfell Tower inquiry and the state of Britain's prisons.

Can I start with the Grenfell Tower inquiry, do you have absolute

confidence in Sir David Morbeck as the chairman of the inquiry? Yes,

the way it worked when the Prime Minister wanted a full scale public

inquiry, I called the Lord Chief Justice and said please find us a

judge with the right background, seniority to get to the truth. He

came up with Sir Martin, somebody held in huge respect by other

judges. He's somebody with no interest in this other to get to the

truth and see justice done. What the residents and others living in the

area seem to fear is that the remit will be too narrow, who actually

sets the remit for the inquiry? Under the law, the 2005 act, the the

terms of reference are ultimately set by the chair of the inquiry in

conjunction with the department commissioning it. So you are

involved? No, the department commissioning this will be the

Cabinet Office and Number Ten. I play the role of asking the

judiciary to find the judge to do the job there. What Sir Martin is

doing as was promise issed to consult the residents, trying to

make sure that their expectations are taken into account. So the

Government could say to Sir Martin - can we have a broader remit than

you've suggested? We've got to be careful about one thing, this has

come up in the debate about the scope of the inquiry, the inquiry

doesn't look into criminal guilt or innocence. There's a separate police

inquiry going on into that matter already. What a lot of the residents

seem to be worried about is that part of the story of the terrible

thing that happened there was about years and years and years of

underfunding in local government is essentially a political story.

Therefore the inquiry is being narrowed to avoid that. When we look

at what's come out in the last few weeks since the tragedy, with tower

blocks in authorities of all political colours failing the

combustibility test, fire regulations, if we want to start

pointing fingers, you know brought in under the Blair Government - all

political parties need to do soul searching about this. I'm confident

we will get terms of reference that will get to the truth about what

happened, not just in terms of, you know, what happened on that

particular day. The bigger story. But the regulatory decisions and

responsibilities that led up to that. If regulatory failures and

frankly spending cuts were partly to blame for the story, that will come

out from the inquiry? Well, it's up to Sir Martin to determine exactly

how the inquiry goes. Of course, he can compel any witness to attend

under pain of a criminal offence and he can compel witnesses to give

evidence under oath as well and evidence in his inquiry can, if the

police and Crown Prosecution Service think it justifies it, later be used

for criminal prosecution as well. I think he is very, very determined to

get to the full truth about this. Are you content with the state of

Britain's prisons under your Government? No. I'm not content with

the state of prisons, frankly, this is a state of affairs that has gone

back under successive governments. What I'm determined to do is to try

to bring about improvements, build on what my predecessor did in

getting extra prison officers, in putting in place effective measures

to detect more accurately the problem we have with drugs, the new

challenge we have with drones and mobile phones in prison, so they're

more secure places. Also want to see us get better as a country at using

the time during which we have people in custody to get them better

educated, get them better trained, more employable, so there's a

stronger chance to lead a law abiding life when they get out.

Since 2010 attacks on prison staff has gone up by 81%, sorry up by 140%

and prison assaults up by 81% - why? I think it's a number of things. But

I think one reason is that, certainly in recent years, that

we've had this new problem of what used to be called legal highs,

psychoactive substances coming into prisons in a big way. The prison

population shifted in character over that period of time. We've got more

gangsters. We've got a higher proportion of prison population that

are sexual and violent offenders. It's not just a youngburgler. You

need more people to look after them. You cut 7,000 frontline prison

staff. I know you're hiring a few more thousand now, but you're still

way down on 2010. That is also surely part of the story.

What happened in 2010, as is the case with my ministry and every

other ministry, in the face of the deficit tough decisions have to be

taken. Since then, as we have managed to bring the deficit down,

have restraint on public sector pay, it has bought us the breathing space

to hire extra staff in prisons where we need to deploy them. We have 2500

additional prison officers coming in, about 1000 of those have been

deployed already. The chief inspector of prisons says prisons

have become unacceptably violent and dangerous places and that is in part

because of the cuts made to the present staff. I don't descend from

the view that this is an unacceptable state of affairs.

There's also too much self harm in prison which means we need to

deliver better mental health assessments and mental healthcare

than we are doing at the moment. Do you accept this is partly due to

prison officer numbers? Let me read you what the just select committee

said. It is not possible to avoid the conclusion that efficiency

savings, staffing shortages and other factors have made a

significant contribution to the deterioration in safety. Are they

right? We need to get numbers up, but we need to do other things too -

improving regimes, get better at detecting illegal drugs and mobile

phones in prisons, and moving capital programme, about ?1.5

million, to close some of these antiquated Victorian prisons and

have new prisons that are easier for staff to manage effectively. I'm not

quite going to let the stuffing thing go yet because the Chief

inspector himself said you need another 8000 staff in prisons. I put

it to you that every single red warning light around your desk from

all of the committees, the reports and statistics is flashing red at

the moment and so as the new Justice Secretary you need an urgent review

of British prisons. I think we have a good strategy for the improvement

of security regimes that was published earlier this year, a

strategy I'm determined to follow through, but one thing... In the

past year alone, assault on staff have risen by 38%. One of the key

objectives is to bring down the level of violence and self harm in

prisons, and a number of policies have been set out to secure that.

Even in just four weeks of doing this job, what struck me is that I

have looked at a lot of reports across my desk and it seems a lot of

recommendations in the past have not been implemented. The actual

situation in prisons is pretty horrific, there was a case in

Norwich last week of a guard being stabbed in the neck and one of the

prisoners said there are so few staff that the prisoners are

safeguarding the staff and not the other way round. I put it to you

that you should say we need to spend more money and fast. I agree the

levels of violence in prisons are unacceptable, around the Cabinet

table we will be discussing these issues about different priorities,

in the context also in the need to be aware we have to find the funding

of any public spending we agree. Let me turn to Brexit. As I said at the

beginning you were a very fierce supporter of the European Union

during the referendum campaign and we are not told we can have all of

the benefits of single market access without being inside the EU. Can I

tell you what Michel Barnier said about this this week.

I have heard some people in the UK argue that one can leave the single

I have heard some people in the UK argue that one

can leave the single market and build a custom union to achieve

And that is the truth, is it not, but we face a really tough choice

between having the free access to the single market, all of those

advantages, and effectively staying inside the EU despite the referendum

or getting out completely and not having those advantages. I don't

think that what Michel Barnier said in that clip was terribly different

from what the Prime Minister acknowledged the day Article 50 was

triggered in her letter to Donald Tusk, she said we accept we cannot

have some but not accept all of them. David Davis talked about it

being the exact same benefits after leaving and Michel Barnier is making

it clear that can not be the case. We need to try to get the best

possible access for our businesses to Europe and freedom to operate

within the European market and for businesses to do so here, but what

the Government faced was basically a choice. There were two models once

people have taken the decision to leave the EU. One is being in the

economic area like Norway, which means you have to accept freedom of

movement and you must also accept... You pay in. You pay in and all of

the rules you have to implement although you have no seat at the

table when the decisions are taken. It has been called government by

fax. The other model which the Government has decided to go for is

a very ambitious trade and cooperation agreement, along the

lines of a country like Canada has got, because we are already bringing

in things like security and judicial police counterterrorism operation

too that enables us to be outside the jurisdiction of the European

Union. We will have left but we will continue to build this new deep and

special partnership with our EU colleagues. Is it possible for

British business to have as good access to the single market as it

does now once we have left the EU? That will depend not just on us but

the European 27. The repeal Bill will repeal the European Communities

Act in the jurisdiction of the EU in this country but at the same time

put all current EU legal obligations and regulatory obligations and

standards onto a British legal basis. If the EU decides to

introduce more restrictive and protectionist measures in the

future, clearly we would not be in compliance with those but it seems

to me it is in the mutual interests of everybody to try to make sure

that our businesses all prosper from having access to each other's

markets. You thought during the referendum campaign that leaving the

EU would be a catastrophe for British business and prosperity.

Looking now from where you are, and looking at what Donald Trump and

others have said at the G20, do you regret what you said then? No, and I

took a very firm view in that campaign and before that I thought

British interests were best served by staying in the EU but the people

took a different decision as they were democratically entitled to do.

I don't think we should set that aside and ignore it, it would do

immense harm to public confidence and democracy. Do you think of new

trade deal with Trump's America could make up most of the damage

done in the EU? Not entirely but it would be a good thing to have, as it

would with Asia and Latin America. Some of the frustrations sometimes

about being part of the EU is that while the mass of the EU gives it

some leverage in international trade, it moves at a taught us like

pace because all the member states have to agree, negotiating positions

so it gives us opportunities. You have seen all of the papers, you

have seen the extraordinary stories coming out from your colleagues

saying the Prime Minister has lost so much authority she can no longer

be in charge of this process and has to make way, possibly for David

Davis or somebody else. What is your message for your colleagues? I have

been in Parliament 25 years and almost every July a combination of

too much sun and too much alcohol leads to gossip stories in the

media. The key thing is the public has had an election, I think they

want the politicians to go away and deal with the real problem is that

people of this country are facing. Social care, digital technology. I

will leave you to deal with those problems shortly but time is running

out, and now look at what's coming off after this programme.

Should the Church be more welcoming to transgender people? Lord Grade

gets tough with pest calls from charities. And Jerry Springer

reveals why you would be tempting to run against Donald Trump. Join us at

ten o'clock. Join me again at the same

time next Sunday. For now, we leave you

with The Lumineers. They've topped the US and UK

album charts recently. They've been supporting

U2, no less, on tour. Great to have them here

in the studio today # And you can't see

past my blindness # You've been on my mind,

girl, since the flood # Heaven help the fool

who falls in love # You got big plans

and you gotta move # You've been on my mind,

girl, like a drug # Heaven help the fool

who falls in love # You've been on my mind,

girl, since the flood # Heaven help the fool

who falls in love # You've been on my mind,

girl, like a drug # Heaven help the fool

who falls in love For all the latest

political news and debate, tune in

to the Sunday Politics at 11, where we'll be analysing

the week's big stories and talking to the politicians

and commentators who count.