16/06/2011 This Week

Tonight This Week goes to the races, as the Queen gets all dressed up

for the sport of Kings, the Prime Minister and the coalition dump

another pledge in the knackers' yard, nick Ferrari swaps Ascot for

a top tip. The Government's U-turn on bins shows us that the political

class really don't care about things that matter to us real

people. The going's been tough at

Westminster for Ed Miliband. How can he avoid being an also ran?

Assessing his form, Andrew rapbsly. I have been tapping my contacts to

find out whether there's a contract. And when the competition's fierce,

how do you keep your nose in front? Superstar rapper Tinchy Stryder

rides to our rescue. Only Only one way to reach the top. Think big and

be ambitious, that's why I am on This Week.

Saddle up, we are under starters Evening all. Welcome to This Week.

A thoroughbred stallion among the horses of the Westminster stables.

What a week for those of us bubbling with rage about the

Olympic ticketing shambles. After the sad news that a certain Mr

Michael Portillo had failed to secure tickets to the Greco-Roman

wrestling we thought things couldn't get any worse, then it was

reported that the Gaddafi regime, currently down in an underground

bunker dodging NATO bombs, is in line for hundreds of tickets to all

of'Mad Dog''s favourite events. The Government Strang into action, well,

sort of squeezed into action, denying we would be seeing the

dictators sat in the stands, with a Pepsi, hotdog and foam finger to

wave at Dave. According to Downing Street a travel ban would prevent

him from attending. Hang on, that implies they expect

him to still be in power come next summer. Looks like we won't be in

Tripoli next Christmas and Prince Harry will be flying his helicopter

over north Africa. No doubt Boujiis will be opening a nightclub in

Benghazi. Speaking of those who can't be trusted to get their story

straight. Michael, your moment? Labour leader, Ed Miliband, came

under a certain amount of pressure over last weekend, criticism and so

on and there weren't that many Labour people on television to

defend him. But I did notice there was one, and that was Diane Abbott.

This was striking to me because over the eight years she was object

on this programme you will remember how robustly she used to defend the

leadership of the Labour Party week after week, but she was defending.

I saw her on television. Apparently the reason is that the thing is a

put up job by the Blairites. reason is she's got a job. But it

also struck me that we had Alastair Campbell here last week and he is

now the biggest donor to the Labour Party. So the alumni of this

programme form the backbone of the Ed Miliband campaign. I hadn't

thought about it like that, but you could be right. Your moment of the

week? My moment was seeing in The Sun, not that I bought it, but

seeing what - honest! Seeing what Tony Blair came out and said to Ed

Miliband. He said two things, one of which was straightforward, which

is that if you are going to have electoral success you have to

dominate the centre ground, absolutely. The second was that he

was supporting David Cameron's reforms on health and education

that the parliamentary Labour Party are battling tooth and nail in the

Commons, in the Lords, against so I just thought, it actually made my

jaw drop a bit. Tony Blair has been so good at not being a back seat

driver and it struck me to choose this particular week and this

moment of all moments to come out. Smelling weakness, I suppose.

he has a book to sell. If you don't buy The Sun, how did you see it?

It's called the internet and it's caught on. It won't last, you know.

We will see. Now, some basic rights are worth

fighting for. The right to life, the right to liberty, the right to

freedom of expression, and, of course, the right to put a curry in

the bin and have it collected within seven days.

Excuse me? Yeah, that's according to Eric Pickles, the cuddly

Communities Secretary briefly said, it's a basic right for every

Englishman and woman to put the remanents of their chicken masala

in the bin without having to wait a fortnight for it to be collect. I

thought there will be many remanents in Mr Pickles household

in the bin. This week the Government rode over that plan.

Nick Ferrari thinks the political class just doesn't get what really

matters to the people who who elected them.

# Whistle while you work... This week the Government trashed

its pledge to bring back weekly bin collections because they say they

didn't have the money. But in the same week they found �280 million a

year to recommit to spending on aid to India. Whereas, stopping our

bins overflowing with rubbish will cost �100 million.

So, that's aid to a country that has its own space programme, its

own aid programme to Africa and three times more billionaires than

we have here in the UK. Look, I am not against helping out

the world's poor, but David Cameron is throwing away tonnes of our

money on policies people don't care about and scrapping things they do.

When politicians come on my radio show I love it. My listeners, their

voters phone in, and the politicians end up talking about

scrapped bus routes and unfilled pot holes. That's because these are

the things people really care about. They want their bins emptied. They

want their children seen in under Politicians don't really get what

people want because they don't live in the real world. Hardly any

modern day politician has ever done a real job.

They come straight out of university, get a job as a

researcher for an MP, then a special advisor, and end up as MPs

themselves. They become consumed and subsumed by all that's

political and politics and they forget the wishes of the people who

actually elected them. Politicians turn their noses up at

populist policies but what's so wrong with following simple popular

policies? Our elected leaders seem to think it's somehow beneath them

but we, the pop louse, put them there in the first place. They

should remember we could chuck them on the scrap heap. Nick looking

rather fetching in his yellow vest picking his way through the pins --

bins. Welcome to the programme. Good evening. Michael, do you think

that was a load of rubbish? didn't think the first half was

rubbish. I think Nick is absolutely right about collections. We

absolutely have the right to expect this of our councils. Luckily, I

live in a place, Westminster, where stparz -- as far as I know our rich

is collected -- our rubbish is collected frequently. That's

because you have a lot of rubbish. It's a middle-class district and

they produce a lot of rubbish. The idea you have to go two weeks with

rubbish is dreadful. I wasn't so much in agreement with Nick about

the overseas aid. I mean, a lot of the aid is misdirected, there are

problems with it, but it has been a noble ambition to take our country

up to a level of generosity and commitment to the rest of humankind.

There is something quite important in that and it's a big change for a

Conservative-dominated Government, as well. Do you think in general it

was a lot of rubbish. programme... Not the programme, his

film. I agree with David Cameron on this issue of aid, he said we

shouldn't actually make the poorest people in the world suffer as terms

of our deficit reduction programme. I don't see why you can't collect

your rubbish once a week. Move to Tower Hamlets, we are not a rich

borough. Once a week our rubbish is collected. We probably get the

plague if it wasn't, but it is done once a week. Maybe the problem with

the Government when it comes - it had promised to take the bin

collection, people want it, they promised we would get it, but it

was going to cost money and this Government ain't got the money.

hasn't got the money but that's one of the points in the film, it has

the money for vaccination programme. I hear what the two say. I think if

you were to get on the Clapham Omnibus or go to that Wandsworth

recycling centre, and ask where do you want money spent, on this aid

programme - they would say please look after us and that's my central

point. It's far more exciting to be on the world stage talking about

Obama and Bill Gates than clearing used curry cartons and that's what

I believe senior politicians fall for. You would think as a rich

nation - put aside the issue of a lot of foreign aid which Michael

says many people think is wasted, the specific aid of vaccination for

the poorest kids in the world surely shouldn't be in conflict

with us getting a rubbish collected once a week? They should not be...

One of the richest nations in the world. They're now saying the sums

can't add up. One of the great benefits or the way Mr Cameron sold

the aid programme is that it's cheaper than wars. Yet, we seem to

be in two wars anyway, which seems to be expensive. So he's almost

arguing against himself there. I would say perhaps come home and

worry about the domestic side. There is a populism that works and

one that doesn't. Think of Mrs Thatcher's sale of council houses,

that was a popular measure, it worked, Labour adopted the policy.

Fox hunting for Mr Blair's Government, which seemed to be

popular with some people, and in the end just maybe wasn't worth a

candle? Indeed. If you look at the overseas aid thing, it isn't the

case that nobody was asking for it. MPs were under a lot of pressure

from religious groups, and these people were active in campaigns, so

actually I would say a lot of this is due to politicians having

listened. In the case of the Conservative Party it was a bid to

change the image of the Conservative Party to make people

believe the party was no longer long self -- no longer selfish.

It's a mute point as to what the cost has been of buying that

limited change of image. The other thing is that when we talk about

helping the very poorest people, people in the Labour Party that's

what we believe, and we believe you should help the poorest people. It

becomes complicated in this modern world where the poorest people

don't live in the very poorest states. And that's the point.

come back to how Andrew introduced it, it's a broken promise. I am

sure you remember it and you know when you are out on the stump, the

thing you are accused of you don't honour your promises and it's

happened again. Eric Pickles, he is like the Daily Mail talisman and he

promised that and all the time attacking Labour for broken

promises and has just done... think nearly everybody expected the

Government to break its promise on overseas aid which is a big promise

and to our amaizement through thick and thin they're sticking with it.

Politicians like political programmes, we spend most of our

time talking about the economy, about debt, the deficit, wars and

so on. Don't all politicians need a few populist arrows in their

quiver? Absolutely. I remember in the 2005 campaign my office kept

saying you have got to say cross rail is rubbish. Nobody wants it

here because they're going to build in the area I was like, but it's

not rubbish and they were like do you want to get elected or not.

Every politician has to be populist to a degree or they will not win a

election. The state the country is in at the moment is an accumulation

of these populist gestures. The reason we spend more money than we

take in in in taxes is we have bowed to pressures. It amuses me

when people like the Archbishop of Canterbury attacks. You have to be

careful if you want to be populist. Look at the Lib Dems and tuition

fees. They thought that was populist going around every

university, getting their photograph taken, signing it. That

was classic populism and then they What were the odds of that? Most of

the polls said there would abhung Parliament. Whoever had that idea?

They must have been barking mad to allow that.

There is a wider point on populist issues, issues that are genuinely

popular with the public, the political elite on the left and the

right can't afford to get too far away, be seen to be entirely out of

sympathy with certain things that are populist? No. What Nick said in

his film does reflect a genuine feeling in the country. Take the

old chestnut of capital punishment. We know that the majority of the

public wants capital punishment, but Parliament will never give them

that, but capital punishment is the obvious thing. I'm not saying give

them everything, but you can't afford to deny them everything?

There is a gap between what the MPs are prepared to legislate and what

the public would like them to legislate.

So, is there a populist bone in Ed Miliband's body? I think there is.

Look at what he said on Monday about council housing allocation.

Not as populist as Ed Balls cutting VAT? That is more populist?

Absolutely it is tax cuts coming from the Labour Shadow Chancellor.

The populist Ed? That is not a bad thing.

Give me a populist policy you would like to introduce Michael? I can't

think of one at the moment. You see, you are so far removed!

am in the clouds! It would be a council allocation, but actually

saying that council housing is available to 20,000 people on the

Tower Hamlets waiting list. That would be populist.

That would be popular. What about you, Nick? David Cameron

to deliver on his pledge of a British Bill of Rights.

That would be fantastic. I love it when the politicians meet the

public and he got shouted at by a hospital consultant. It always

happens. They either have eggs happen -- thrown at them. I quite

welcome that. Thank you very much, Nick Ferrari.

Now, do you suffer from Fear Of Missing Out? FOMO? Do you wish you

didn't, do you even know what the hell I'm talking about? I hope so,

I don't. For those of you who decided enough to care it is the

latest in idiot speak. Basically, it is Fear Of Missing Out.

The looming dread that everyone is everywhere, having the time of

their lives and you are not! But worry not, coming up, putting all

of your FOMO at rest, starring in the This Week Hood, the one and

only Tinchy Stryder. If you really want to talk fear, loathing and

bitterness and bile as well, you will feel at home on the viewers'

comments on the internet. Which Oona says will be the view of the

future. And there is always the stream of

conscious drivel, otherwise known as Twitter.

After all, you have a lot of time on your hands. Earlier we had a

request from the Labour Party. It was more of a plea. Ed Miliband

asked us to please, please, please, please, please stop treating his

life like some kind of soap opera. To end the creaseless tittle-tattle

surrounding him and brother Dave. So, title tat al? That's all we do

on this programme! Any way, we can be serious. Here at the BBC we take

these complaints seriously. So instead of Ed Miliband, the soap

opera, tonight, Andrew Rawnsley presents, Ed Miliband The Mobile

phoney Part Deux! -- Ed Miliband The Movie Part Deux! Are you

tempted to think, it would have been easier if my brother had won?

I never thing that. Being the head of a political

family, Ed Miliband is discovering just what a lonely job that is.

He was ruthless enough to whack his older brother to become Labour boss

of all of the bosses, but as some of us warned at the time, that was

actually, the easy bit. His personal poll ratings are poor.

Labour's recent election performances have been

disappointing in southern England and disastrous in Scotland. Many of

the Shadow Cabinet appear to have sworn the code of silence, at any

rate, they never have anything interesting to say. So lately the

foot soldiers have begun to rumble, as Don Ed Miliband got the stones

to take down the coalition, would Labour be letter led with the

brother that he sent to sleep with the fishes.

David supports my leadership. He made a decision, when I was elected

last year, to say he was not to serve for the moment in the Shadow

Cabinet. Well, of course, the troubled Don

wants to ice all of this beefing about his leadership and he is not

wrong to say that voters will ultimately judge him by whether he

has inspirational vision and plausible policies, but part of

Labour's problem is that they have neither. That leaves the vacuum for

thewise guys of the media to bring up the brothers fractured past.

Actually, I exaggerate a bit, David is not dead.

I am making my position clear. I am taking my kids to school.

That speech was about respect. He said that Labour had lost it by

being seen as the friend of benefit cheats and wreck last bankers.

Don Eduardo was trying to convince us he has what it takes to confront

hard trus. Respect, you got to give me more

respect! Labour a party founded by hard-working people, for hard-

working people was seen, however unfairly as the party of those

ripping off our society. So my party must change.

He wasn't the only one trying to seize a piece of the bank action.

The money man of a rival outfit was also trying to get some juice.

I can announce tonight on behalf of you, the British taxpayer, I have

decided to put Northern Rock up for sale. Images of the queues outside

of Northern Rock branches were a symbol of all that went wrong. Its

collapse did great damage to Great Britain's international reputation.

We will see if the Chancellor has the mus toll do a proper bank job.

So far, the banks have been more successful as squeezing the rest of

us. Back to Don Eduardo, who did win back some respect with an

improved performance at Prime Minister's Questions.

I'm amazed that the Prime Minister does not know about the arguments?

Why not. The House of Commons is voting on the bill tonight. He

should know about the arguments. Will he now admit that 7,000 cancer

patients are losing up to ds -- losing up to �94 are a week. There

are proper med kaing tests. -- medical tests. We ensure that those

who can work have to go out to work so that we don't award bad

behaviour. What a disgrace. To describe

talking about cancer patients in this country as a smoke screen.

Health has caused months of grief for the boss of the Blue Mob. Turf

warfare with the yellow mob. Tory MPs feeling they have been ratted

out. Worst of all for Cappo Cameron it

added suspicion that the Tories want to shake down the NHS to the

benefit of their cronies in the private sector. So he rushed to

hospital and claimed that the revised plan had the professionals

back on side. You wanted us to make clear that competition is not there

for its own sake, but to make life better for patients. Done. You

wanted us to get specialists and nurses, not just GPs, on to the

commissioning groups. Done. Excuse me I'm the senior consult

ant in this department. Why are you here like this? I agree. We have

taken our ties off. I'm not having Didn't you just love the look of

shock and fear on their faces when that surgeon ruined their photo

opportunity. That's what it's like at the top,

you just never know who's going to whack you next.

Let's go. Oh, scary! But not as scary as that

consultant, he was clearly anxious to have his 15 minutes of fame. Any

way, Ed Miliband's owe bit wares have been written last week and

over the weekend, but then he had a comeback at Prime Minister's

Questions? He did do. This is not the first Prime Minister not to

know a detail and to have to filibuster, but Ed Miliband's

fundamental problem is the split in the Labour Party. It is the age-old

war between the brownites and the Blairites. There are -- the

Brownites and the Blairites. There are too many people in the Labour

Party, who don't want him to succeed.

Now, Oona, you voted for him, but you must say that he has to up his

game? Over the lifetime of a Parliament, five years, you can

have consistent victories at PMQs and it means nothing at all at the

general election. As William Hague found to his cost.

But William Hague was never to win the next election. He was up

against 165 -seat labour majority. But Labour is in striking distance

of winning the next election. Absolutely.

That is why we think we shall win it, but what Ed showed today is

that he used PMQs to do what he needed to do. Heather to dig a hole,

which is what he did last week, or to do what he did today and draw a

line. They love that. It keeps the sharks at bay. It was like a scene

out of Jaws. What he did yesterday was to get back in the boat. His

feet are out of the water and he is aif, absolutely safe for now for --

and he is safe, absolutely safe for now for seven days.

He did get back in the boat, but he looks lonely. Does he have solid

support in the Shadow Cabinet? Does he have a strong kitchen Cabinet

around him? Well, I know various people that work in his office. I

know that many of the Shadow Cabinet team that are there feel

that we are in a good position because we feel we could have been

in such, in a much worse position. That's the feeling that we have. We

think that we can, we are going to be in a position to inflict damage,

but you are right, there should be consistency there. It was a really,

really huge warning shock last week as it was followed up by a series

of events. When you get that flow of events going against you, it was

that. But has he got the right people

around you? You are asking me if I have confidence in the Shadow

Cabinet. Are they rubbish or pretty good. I think that they are pretty

good. People like Douglas Alexander. Ed Balls.

In a sense, he can't choose that in the Labour Party, the way that a

Tory opposition would. I was thinking of having the right people

around him. The pret otherian guard that's around him. Some of whom may

be the Shadow Cabinet, but others, the Alistair Campbells and the

Peter Mandelson's of the Blair era has he that kind of quality around

him? Some of them, Around him. But they are there in the mental

capacity? He has excellent people working for him, who I have worked

for before, who I have ever confidence in. The stuff he did.

The speech he did on Monday, the people that helped him that was a

skilfully crafted, political... should get the credit for that?

not starting to name names here. Why not? I wouldn't, why? Also,

there are three people in particular that I know were

involved, I have no idea who else was in was involved but what is

important is the substance of it, not who wrote which bits. Ed had

his hallmark firmly over it. It is about balance. What he is saying

about New Labour it got out of balance. We were seen as caring

about the people on the bottom, not taking notice of what was happening

to the people, the wages at the top end. This speech is about putting

How should he deal with the David Miliband problem? Very, very

difficult, because as I said a moment ago, I think he's got a lot

of people in the Labour Party who don't really want him to succeed

and even if David... You really think there's still so embittered

by David not getting it they don't want Labour to succeed? I think

it's not just about David not getting it, it's also that he is

leading the Labour Party to the left, whereas the Blairites believe

their fundamental achievement was to move to the Labour Party to the

centre ground where it could win elections and as Oona said earlier

on the criticism that's coming actually out of Blair's mouth

himself, is that what Ed Miliband is now embarked upon is a losing

strategy and a losing strategy that destroys, that tears up the

achievements of the previous 20 years. The reason I think it's

interesting what he is doing is he is trying to move the centre ground

to what he was talking about on Monday and that's what a leader has

to do. He's got to lead people to change where the centre ground is

and that's what Tony Blair did after Margaret Thatcher. Would it

be better for Ed and for the Labour Party, in general, if David was

back in the shadow cabinet or just get out of politics altogether?

definitely don't want to see David get out of politics. I think he is

an extraordinary talent. Should he be back in the shadow cabinet?

Being completely honest... That would be useful on this sofa!

Doesn't happen very often. It will be incredibly difficult for David

to be sitting around the table because every time he sneezes

there'll be saying Ed has flu. can see that. I would like to see

him come back as Prime Minister after, you know. This new biography

of Ed Miliband by the two Labour supporting journalists, one of the

things they seem to concentrate on, he - it would have been better if

he had a more colourful youth, more like the rest of us had. You were

at school with him, I mean, he probably be a more vibrant leader

if you just led him astray at school. We didn't hang out that

much. You were the cool kids. look, he is the one that's going to

end up running the country. I say to all kids out there, don't be

cool. Be clever. Become Prime Minister. You don't feel some

responsibility for this image he has? Not yet, no. You could have

saved the day early on. Early intervention. Last time you were on

this programme you believed in early intervention. I do believe in

early intervention and... I am only teasing you. Monumental climbdown?

Yeah, I read the article this morning about Alan Milburn. Former

Health Secretary. It wasn't the car crash bit that struck me, it was

where he said that the group called Monday store, -- Monitor which is

going to drive the direction of the health service now is being told

not to look for competition but look for integration and he makes

the point, he says in the health service words really matter and

what this means now is all the vested interest, all the public

sector organisations are going to be defended tooth and nail against

incursions by the private sector. I fear that's a correct analysis and,

of course, the Government hasn't avoided the National Health Service

problem, it's created a different one. The Government is looking to

save, as the previous Government was, �20 billion from the health

service, you are not going to save it without reform and if you don't

save it because you haven't reformed, then you are going to

have to find it somewhere else. Thank you.

We need to move on. We lack many things here on This Week, as you

probably realised, a Blue Nun sew tka syphon, soft loo paper in the

men's room, the list is scarrily endless. The one thing we do not

lack is a sense of ambition. After all, who else unless they were a

few fries short of a happy meal, would allow Michael Portillo to

parade his dubious taste in politics and satin shirts live on

BBC1 every week? Not many, I would would wager. With this act of

charity and indulgence in mind, and with the aid of superstar rapper

Tinchy Stryder, we decided to put ambition in This Week's Spotlight.

This is Tinchy Stryder, a man who made it big by following his

ambition to be a rap star. While some reach for the stars, others

fail even to reach for their books. Michael Gove thinks pupils need to

have ambitions to achieve academically, as not everyone can

be famous. Some people become well known for all the wrong reasons.

This Congressman had to resign after revelations in his personal

life thawarted his ambitions. For others, aspirations doesn't stop

when you achieve success in your chosen field. Bill Gates has turned

his attention from computers to saving the world. Sadly, some

people's dreams stretch no further than going on This Week.

These graphics, I bet Dreamworks is eating its heart out, or Pixar!

Welcome to the show, Tinchy Stryder. Are you ambitious. Yeah, I'd say.

Was it in you from the start or were you taught to have it? It was

in me, at the same time I was taught in a way but when I started

I felt I want to do this, I need this. Those different things to

drive me but I think ambition comes from the heart and me personally it

came from the heart. And did you inherit it? Do you think it came

from your parents or was it just in you? I think partly from my parents

and people around me, family, friends. But I say it really came

from within me. I felt there's things I wanted to achieve and do

in life and day by day I always see things that keep me driven. I guess

coming up from a good family, a good home there's always people

around me feel like you can do this, man so that was driving me. There

weren't family or friends or people in the neighbourhood or the

teachers saying, no, you can't do that? You are too ambition. In a

way say things I wanted to do, people were like maybe that ain't

for you, do this or that. I was like this is what I want to do. I

guess like you are saying in my area, where I grew up that was like

a drive in itself, we didn't have nothing good around us and I wanted

to turn it into a positive. The neighbour helped me grow. And it

worked. It definitely worked. you ambitious? Sort of, but I would

give a different answer. In my case, I think most of my ambition was

external. It was really important when I got to school and people

were saying you are clever, you can get into a grammar school, you can

get into Cambridge University. I don't think I would have - I don't

think I would have necessarily assumed those things for myself. I

feel sorry for kids who are discouraged from attainment, who

are led to believe - who reduced expectations. Are you ambitious?

used to be incredibly ambitious as a teenager. But it just got beaten

out of me. A decade in parliament definitely did for that. I love

where you come from, mainly because I live there now. It's easier now,

it's a bit easier but there's... What do you mean? It's become a

more prosperous area? In some areas the standard of education -

education is a route out for a lot of people, sport is, music is.

everybody can be a rap star or a football player or whatever. How do

you instill ambition in young people, from the area you were

brought up, to think they could be a school teacher, they could be a

doctor, they could be a lawyer, they could be in the media? I think

personally, from where I have come from, when there's people around

you, for example, if you look at me and I grew up and he was doing the

same thing we are doing and he is making it. That is a drive to be

ambitious. You might want to be a a teacher, a footballer, whatever it

is there's always someone you look up to and I guess if you can relate

to them more. My example, people think yeah he used to be around

here and he is doing this. When you were growing up were the other kids

in your area ambitious or were you different in being ambitious?

group of friends was all ambitious and we are still tight now. We were

friends before music. It feels like that's where the drive is from,

everyone is positive around me. They're like you can do this, don't

be narrow-minded. Open up and from young I have always had that.

you know how ambitious he is, he got a single and named his single

Number One before it even entered the charts and it went in as Number

One, that's ambitious. He is the first UK artist... New York, New

York, that was how it worked. That's a good point about a group

of friends. That's played a big part in my life. I have just read

Keith Richards autobiography and it's clear that group of Jagger and

he and the others together, it's that group dynamic. Peer pressure

the other way, especially in Bow, you know, it can be really bad and

even today it can be really bad. I speak to young kids, they're in

gangs, they're dealing with drugs problems. There are huge issues.

They need support and role models and if you can bring that together

with a good education system they can get out. You said you used -

unlike Tinchy Stryder and myself you two are getting on a bit, does

it change with age? I think it depends what you do with your

career. For me personally I think I failed in some areas. I think I did

OK in others. I realised that I wanted kids, like a lot of women,

that was more important to me at the end of the day than spending

every hour with someone like you. I am not sure if that's good or

bad! It does change with age, doesn't it? You lose an ambitious

edge in most things. Yes. entirely. You are so different. You

are not the man that I grew up with. That's character. He was ambitious

before, he was going to be Prime Minister. Can I have a word on this

subject! I don't think so. We are bored with you already.

Right, - we will take it that it does change with age. What's your

ambition now? Right now I have loads of things. A new album out.

have a new album out, my single is out. If I like to think wider now,

I like to sell out a world tour. I have had a tour in the UK but to

have a world tour that's massive success. Jeremy Paxman asked me to

ask you how is your friend Mr Ras kal. He is cool. He is someone

growing up, someone that used to inspire me. We were in the same

area, he done so much and he is focused. He is cool. Tell

everyone... Stop this. What's your ambition now? To sleep through the

night without being woken up by my kids and to get Britain to really

adopt early intervention, seriously. That's for the country, not for

yourself. What's your ambition? go on working and enjoying myself

for as far as I can see into the future. You might achieve that. Now,

the world is politics is no different from the world of rap

music. There are - there are players, see we are soul mates, and

there are haters and there are player-haters, I think. Old school

rockers such as myself we have always been fans of political rap

music and Tinchy Stryder is with us, so don't hate the player, hate the

game. With a This Week rap quiz, hit it.

OK. Are these rap lyrics genuine or not?

Got a bum education, I can't take the train to the station, there's a

trick at the station. Not. It's true. Grandmaster Flash. See what I

have to live with. He used to be an MP, now he is chilling on This Week,

he loves wearing speedoes, along with his libido? Not genuine.

That's false. It's definitely false. I wrote these words. OK, what about

this? Andrew Lansley tosser, the NHS is not for sale... That's true,

I have seen that on YouTube. It's the internet again, that thing.

think if that's true, there's a problem. You are right. It's true.

He is the man. That's your lot for tonight. But not for us, we have