01/12/2011 This Week

Tonight we're deep in the political jungle. And with scary economic

news all around, should we all be saying, "Get me out of here"? The

big political beasts have been prowling the House of Commons but

can Cameron and Osborne keep the public voting for them? The BBC's

James Landale has been doing a hairy bushtucker trial.

In a week of tumultuous economic news, I will be looking at just how

hairy it is getting for the big beasts in the political jungle.

Unrest in the undergrowth as public sector workers strike over pensions.

King of the swingers, jungle VIP Billy Bragg, strums the strikers

tune. The strikes this week reminded everyone of the 1980s, but

now the haircuts are different, and so are the policies.

And colourful plumage in the jungle environment. As the outrageous

filmmaker Ken Russell dies, is flamboyance going out of fashion?

Original extrovert Jodie Marsh is queen of the This Week jungle.

is important to be out there, and I have always been prepared to go all

the way. I'm a TV presenter, get me out of

here! Evenin' all. Welcome to This Week,

the show with viewers and friends in low places. Just like Prime

Ministers, in fact, who've often surrounded themselves with dubious

confidants and advisers. After all, the Former Great Leader had Damien

McPoison. Toblerone had Mandy. Maggie claimed she couldn't do

without her Willie. And now Call- me-Dave has his own dangling

appendage, otherwise known as Jeremy Clarkson. The week started

well for the PM's petrol-head pal with the scrapping of a planned 3p

increase in fuel duty. Chancellor Boy George claimed this would

"save" Clarkson �144 a year. According to that logic, if Gidders

had announced a �1 increase and then scrapped it before it came in,

he'd have saved Jezza nearly five grand! And made him split his tight

blue jeans in delight! But the week's not ending well for the

beating heart of the Chipping Norton Set, with the Top Gear

presenter forced into a Top Grovel apology after advising his chum

Dave to shoot striking public sector workers in front of their

families. At least he didn't say they should be tortured first. But,

at PMQ's, the Bagpuss-bothering MP Jacob Rees-Mogg urged Call-me-Dave

to sack all the strikers first. And the PM refused to rule it out.

Don't say he's not prepared to take tough decisions. Although

recruiting the now-arrested My Tram Experience girl as the new head of

the UK Border Agency might be a step too far even for the Tories.

Speaking of those whose judgement can't be trusted, I'm joined on the

sofa tonight by the Judge Judy and Judge Dredd of late night political

chat. I speak, of course, of Michael Portillo and Gisela Stewart.

Michael, you're moment? storming of the British Embassy in

Iran and the subsequent events, the closing of the embassy and the

expulsion of Iranian diplomats. But to put it into context, there was

an international Energy Authority report which said that Iran was

making progress with its nuclear weapons. Since then there have been

two sets of explosions in Iran. One of them we have seen was absolutely

devastating, at a military base, with 17 people killed and buildings

eradicated. And a series of more recent explosions about which we

know less. It looks to me like somebody is blowing up a military

facilities in Iran and it is not Iranians doing it. So it is not

accidents? I think there must be a connection between a titan of this

group in military terms on Iran and the actions of the crowds in Thuram

storming the British Embassy. While attention is on the Euro and

economy and so on, something interesting is going on in our

relationship with Iran. Interesting, particularly the explosions, which

I had missed because I'm absorbed with the eurozone. For me, it is

what Mervyn King has been saying, particularly today. It is becoming

clear that the thing that it has not been possible to save for

months, even though people have noted, that there is a real

possibility of the eurozone breaking up, is now becoming

something people, are beginning to whisper, which is for a significant.

Not just here, but also on the Continent. I have never heard a

central banker speak like that. Now, we've decided to announce a

new award here on This Week, for Employee Creep of the Week. Don't

worry, Michael, it's not going to you, this time. It's going instead

to Call-Me-Dave's press aide, Gaby Bertin, who wasted no time in

rushing up to Heathrow to cross a flying picket line, and help man

our porous borders. Cameron must have been very proud. A home-grown

strike breaker! So we've asked our own strike supporter, musician

Billy Bragg, for his take of this # There is power in a factory,

power in the land # Power in the hand of the worker

# But it all amounts to nothing if together we don't stand

# There is power in a union. # Yesterday saw the biggest strikes

in a generation and already people are comparing it to the miners'

strike, but I think it is different. That was in one industry in

different parts of the country. What we saw yesterday was teachers,

nurses, dinner ladies, border guards, all coming together for one

big cause, to say to the Government, enough, enough of making us work

longer and pay more to get less, enough of not appreciating the hard

work that we do, enough of making public sector workers pay off the

debts accrued by the bankers and the financial sector. The

Government of the is the thing that public sector workers are soft

touch, and some ministers seem to be hoping for a re-run of the 1980s

when Margaret Thatcher won successive elections by defeating

the industrial unions. There is even talk of the strikers walking

into a Tory trap. But I think this time it is different. Back then,

most people saw the unions as over- powerful. Now, they are seen to be

the only people willing to stand up for fairness in the workplace.

Although the miners' strike was a titanic struggle, it was local. The

crisis we face now is international. Our economic prospects are tied to

those of Europe and the United States.

# With our brothers and our sisters, together we will stand

# There is power in our union. # Crucially, Margaret Thatcher never

had any Liberal Democrats in her Cabinet. If the junior coalition

partners want to avoid the anger that awaits them at the next

election, they need to pressure the Tories into doing more, like making

sure no more freshly printed money is squandered on bankers and is

instead targeted at those who need it. Instead of the Iron Lady, this

time the unions face the cardboard coalition, flimsily held together

by George Osborne's determination not to lose face. If the economic

storms continued to strengthen and the Labour Party stays shamefully

on the fence, the unions could yet play an important part in sweeping

Billy Bragg has left his Music Shop to join our little studio. Welcome

back to the programme. Let me put something to you. The economy is in

a mess, there is no growth, we are drowning in debt, even this

Government is adding 111 billion more in debt. There has never been

a more grim economic scenario in modern times. The public sector

cannot be immune. To I do not think in needs to be immune, but the

pension situation needs to be sorted out fairly. Public sector

workers feel angry because they are having their pay freeze, they are

having only a 1% rise when the freeze is over. The Government have

acted unilaterally by saying, take it or leave it. There is a feeling

they have tried to anger the unions into this action. Most people who

were inconvenienced by the strike have pensions that are not nearly

as good on average as the ones that the public sector have. And public

sector pay, on average, is now higher than the private sector.

That is true. But ultimately, when these people in the private sector

who do not have any pensions, when they get into their mid- 80s, if

they live longer, who is going to look after them? They are going to

fall back on the state as well. At least the public sector workers

will have paid into the pension scheme from which they benefit. We

are either going to have to bail out those without pensions, or

return to the poor house. That is not practical. But Government is

not really asking public sector workers to do anything out of

proportion to what it is asking the rest of the country to do. I know

there are a few mega rich at the top, but nearly everybody's living

standard has been squeezed at the moment. In the private sector,

nobody is getting a pay rise either. It is grim out there. It is. But it

is not as if there is no choice. The public sector pension scheme is

going to go down, the cost of it is going to go down over the next

decade. This is a choice we are making as a country and many of us

believe it is the wrong choice. That assumes the economy is growing

but the Chancellor told us there is not much sign of that. Are the

Conservatives spoiling for a fight, Michael? I doubt it. But I think

that they do think that yesterday's striker has played into the

Government's hands, because it gives an opportunity to make a lot

of the arguments about the comparison between the public and

private sector. A teacher and earns �37,000 at the end of their career,

if you are in the private sector, you need to have invested �700,000.

Which nobody has done, in order to get a pension of that size. Billy

Bragg is interested in fairness and I do not disagree with all of his

remarks. But there is an unfairness between the public and private

sector which is bad for the economy. If you are enticing people who come

out of university, out-of-school, to go into the public sector

because it is better paid than the private sector, you end up with an

unbalanced economy. The other thing is that there has been a benefit

for all of us which is difficult to recognise, which is that we are

living 10 years longer than we expected when we were 20 years old.

That is a benefit to us. It is hard for us to recognise, but it has to

get paid for by somebody. The most obvious person to pay for that is

the person himself, or herself. do not think public sector workers

mind paying for their pensions. But they want to feel they are not

pushed into it, not squeezed into it. I think everybody should have a

proper pension, employers should contribute to pensions, because

ultimately somebody will have to pay for the care of the people who

live longer. But the issue is, what is the effect on the Conservative

Party? David Cameron tried to act as a compassionate Conservative at

the last election. Even when he was being compassionate, he could not

win a majority. Now he is starting to be nasty again, think it will

cost him at the next general election. Did you follow the Labour

Party line, we are not backing the strike but we will not condemn it?

I think Cameron is spoiling for a fight. The last Prime Minister's

Question Time was the nastiest I have been in and I have been in the

house for 14 years. It was like old times for me. You have said it, I

think Cameron wanted it to be like old times. He wanted to say, Ed

Miliband is in the hands of the trade unions. There were jokes

about the Labour benches not just speaking in unison but speaking for

UNISON. For me, it outlined the fact that these terms, public

sector, do not define the sector. 20 years ago, the deal was that you

worked in the public sector and had comparatively low wages compared to

the PUP -- private sector but you had job security and pensions. And

now you have this huge range in the public sector from the dinner lady

to the chief executive of big city councils, who earns twice as much

as the Prime Minister. I think Billy is right that it does hit

disproportionately those low incomes, and some of the high

incomes, who get private sector benefits and the public sector

benefits as well. But what is the answer to the question that I

asked? Did you take the Labour line that we are not backing the strike

but we do not condemn it? I can understand why they came out. I

will tell you why I thought they were angry. Did you supported, or

not? I think both sides should not have let it get to it. I went and

talked to the pickets and I understood the people in the House

of Commons. I wish they were not there. This is part of the problem.

Normally, we should rely on the Labour Party. The unions have tried

everything. There were unions on strike this week that have never

been on strike before. If you compare it to the 1980s, the

support for this action is so much broader. It is not complex, it is

very simple. It is not even left and right like it used to be. It is

about the people against unaccountable corporate power.

Whether you are on the side of the people or on the side of the

corporate power, that is what it is about. You cannot even get the

Labour Party to understand that and to back you, so what hope do you

have of winning? The leadership of the Labour Party. There are a lot

of members who are sympathetic to public service workers. Another

hole in your argument is that this is a row with a coalition

government. You have tried to painted as a row with the

Conservatives. But actually it is a coalition Government. You said it

was unrepresentative. Actually, the Government represents 60% of the

people who voted at the last election. I do not think your

strikes were as solid as you are saying. It is not unusual for

teachers to go on strike. The destruction of the airports did not

help -- it did not happen. Thatcher had a thumping majority when she

took on the unions and people were behind her. People perhaps did not

care where there: their cars came from, but they certainly care about

the quality of the teaching for their children. I think you are

indulging in nostalgia. I thought I think it is much more political

now. I think the opportunity for real change is much greater.

Tory leadership, they're going to think, Billy Bragg, he's strumming

his guitar, he thinks it is the 1980s, he's walking into the trap,

he's useful for us. That is the danger for you. No, ultimately, if

you want to change anything in this country, ultimately, even if you

set up a camp down at St or can it -- down at St Paul's, fundamentally,

you have got organised. For a long time, I have felt the best way to

approach politics is not New Labour or Old Labour, it is organised

labour. But it has got to be more than a one-day strike, one-day

strikes to not achieve anything. You have got to stop the country.

disagree. You're not talking about miners and power workers who want

to bring the country to a halt. You're talking about people who

work in caring professions. They do not want to go on strike, they're

not getting any way from this government. This government was not

able to win a mandate, they scored an open goal by acting as they did

in the time of Margaret Thatcher. When it comes to the next general

election, people are going to be looking for leadership on this

issue from the Labour Party, and I hope it is forthcoming. You have

had the last word, thank you for being with us. The editors of lads

magazines may not have had the cojones to put a woman up for

Sports Personality of the Year. But Jodie Marsh will be defending

flamboyance for us tonight. You can check us out on the interweb, or as

always, on Facebook. Did you know that shaving with stone raisers was

technologically possible from neolithic times? Did you? Cambridge

education, useless. And that the oldest portrait showing a shaved

man with a moustache visit in -- is of an ancient Iranian horsemen from

300 BC? Such information may seem a tad frivolous to viewers of the

serious political programme, such as this one, but with austerity all

round, and only nine days left to save the euro, we're in need of a

little light diversion. James Landale has been disappointing

ladies everywhere for the past month by growing a moustache for

charity. Here's his round-up of the Like the Chancellor of the

Exchequer, George Osborne, I have spent much of the last month

looking for growth, a little facial hair, to raise money for the

Movember Cancer Campaign. But in the House of Commons this week, the

only growth to be felt was on the faces of MPs. Can I first of all

congratulate him and the other 37 members who have opted to grow

additional facial hair in this month of Movember. This government

was forced to admit that the economy was in serious trouble, the

deficit will not be cut by the next election, spending will have to be

trimmed for the next two years, and the next election will not be about

who is going to cut taxes the most, but about who we trust to finish

the job of fixing the economy. central forecast we published today

from the Independent Office for Budget Responsibility does not

predict a recession here in Britain. But they have, unsurprisingly,

revised down their short-term growth prospects for our country,

for Europe and for the world. and on went the grim numbers, but

even these, it emerged, were on the optimistic side. All this gloom was

based on the extraordinary assumption that all is well in Euro

land, just as the Fed propped up European banks with a fistful of

Dollars. But if the rest of Europe heads into recession, it may prove

hard to avoid one here in the UK. The Shadow Chancellor may be a shop

chap, he has had a lot of trouble pointing out the flatline economy.

He thinks he has been proved right, but he's struggling to convince

voters that Labour's plan BHA is better than the Tory Plan A. Growth

flat lining this year, next year and the hereafter, unemployment

rising, more borrowing than the plan which the Chancellor inherited

at the last general election, the verdict is in, Plan A has failed,

# Here I go, singing low, Bye-bye, blackbird. But what of the

coalition? The truth is that the economic gloom is binding the

Tories and the Lib Dems closer together. They are already talking

about what they're going to do after the next election. MPs on

both sides are getting nervous. Clearly it is going to be a hairy

ride. So, you're going into the next election promising further

billions of pounds in cuts in public spending, that is what

you're going to say in your manifesto? I'm afraid so, yes.

thought your promise was that in the last year of this government,

we would not necessarily be giving unequivocal endorsement to every

government policy. Because economic circumstances have deteriorated, we

have had to make this commitment, to set out plans for those

following tingly years. Amid all of this, the public sector was on --

was in a lather, and went on strike. Michael Gove reminded us that he,

too, had once been on strike. believe that people should have the

choice to be members of the union. But he has changed his tune now.

Among those union leaders are people who fight hard for the

members, and whom I respect. But there are also hardliners,

militants, itching for a fight. David Cameron and Ed Miliband, the

strikes were a battle for public opinion. What the voters blame the

Prime Minister or the unions? What did they make of the Labour

leader's refusal to condemn or support the action? In the House of

Commons, the knives were out. has the Prime Minister gone round

saying to people? He has gone round saying he's privately delighted the

unions have walked into a trap. That is the reality, he has been

spoiling for this fight. Let me repeat again what he said in June -

it is wrong to strike when negotiations are going on. And yet

today he backs the strikes. Why? Because he's irresponsible, left

wing and weak. Unlike him, I'm not going to demonise the dinner lady,

the cleaner, the nurse. People who are earn in a week what the

Chancellor pays for his annual skiing holiday. And so, the

strikers struck, but did it change anything? Yes, the public sector

are let off steam, but did it make a deal more or less likely? It

depends who's spin you believe. And there was some of that over at the

Leveson inquiry this week, where Andy Coulson was part of the

evidence. There were some sharp exchanges. Did your editor's know

that voice mails were being intercepted? Yes. In that we did

all these things for our editors, for Rebekah Brooks and Andy Coulson.

They were the scum of journalism for trying to drop me and my

colleagues in it. At the moment I think we have a press which has

become frankly putrid in many of its elements. Let me emphasise, not

all journalists and not all titles. So, the mood music from Westminster

this week was dire. No more growth, no more pampering - thank you,

Adrian - just cuts, cuts, and more cuts. The only answer, perhaps, a

stiff upper lip, and for now, not a hairy one. This is one cut that

The BBC's James Landale having a close shave with the Pall Mall

barbers in central London. Michael, the Chancellor's Autumn Statement,

really a budget in all but name, it was very grim, but I suggest to you,

if the eurozone goes belly-up, which it might, it will turn out to

have been actually optimistic. Absolutely, this is the most

optimistic scenario. It could be a lot worse. There's the eurozone,

there's also the banking problem which has not been resolved,

because no proper changes have been made. Also, it could be that we are

in a moment of history where the leadership of the world is moving

from the west to the east, where the West is now a competitive in

its labour practices, in its education, in the people coming out

with degrees, in the size of the welfare state. There may be big

changes afoot. People are talking about a lost decade in Britain. It

may be more than that, it may be that we have to make enormous

changes if we are ever to compete with the new world that we are in.

Gisela Stuart, would you say if or when the eurozone collapses?

think it is a question of when. The only way of holding this together

is by the German economy picking up a bill which ultimately it will not

be able to, because it will make itself uncompetitive. It will

simply delay the evil day. Going back to the Autumn Statement, at

the moment we're talking about public sector pensions and all of

those things. Important as they are, we also have to look at what is

happening in the next generation. A third of people in Birmingham are

under the age of 24. Probably a third of those are not currently in

jobs. We need to have a sense of where those future jobs are going

to come from. But that is a Europe- wide problem. There are main just

16 million people unemployed just in the eurozone alone. And the

unemployment rates among the young are astronomical. In Spain it is

40%, in Italy, 30%. And we are now heading in the same way. There is

something quite fundamentally wrong with our economies. It is the

structural competitiveness. If we do not regain that... It goes back

to what we teach in school, and it flows from having a sense of where

the jobs come from, and we still have not have that debate. With our

level of debt, we are extraordinarily vulnerable. Every

year, some of the debt matures, and you have to renew it, you have to

sell new gilts. Selling it at 2%, we're fine. But if the market loses

confidence, and we have to start paying 6%, that is win. It means

that more and more of your economy each year is devoted to simply

paying the debt. We're better off than those European countries, but

you cannot ban combat. At any market, the markets could turn

against us, we are very, very vulnerable. -- you cannot bank on

it. Is this the end of a society which thought it could do

everything on debt. The government, individuals... We took out �300

billion in equity withdrawal from our homes between 2007 -- between

2000 and 2007. Corporations borrowed, too. We financed

socialism with debt, or we fjord capitalism with debt. And the party

is over, and the hangover is long and painful. And that's why some of

those reforms which need to come actually have to be far more

meaningful than what is happening at the moment. If we look at the

NHS reforms, huge amounts of money being chucked at the system which,

quite frankly, I cannot work out what is meant to achieve, other

than it is a kind of anarchy. What I thought was good in the Autumn

Statement was the infrastructure investment, I think it was good to

get investment back into schools. And I think they need to do fewer

things, and much more focused on creating jobs for the next

generation. That is the key. If we do not do that, all the rest of it

will be used us. Are we not scaremongering too much? We always

seem to be 10 days away from the crisis. It is like in the days of

Arthur Scargill, it was always six weeks left. It is perfectly true

that you and I have been predicting disaster for some time. But I do

think things are progressively getting worse. There was the

warning this week that the bond markets had pretty much seized up,

governments were finding it very, very hoard to borrow, and banks

were very reluctant to lend to other banks overnight. We had this

huge initiative by the US Federal Reserve. I'm afraid there is hard

evidence that the situation is deteriorating. Tell us, you're

originally from Germany, what will Angela Merkel do, if we wake up one

morning, and Italy cannot get its debt away, the banking system has

frozen up, does she give in to the French, does the European Central

Bank become the lender of last She is caught between a rock and a

hard place. She knows that the ECB cannot be the lender of last resort

if the problem is insolvency. Her bank is only a lender of last

resort if liquidity is the problem. If you are going bust, even the

Bank cannot bail you out. But President Sarkozy is pushing her

that way because he does not want to lose the credit rating for

France. Politically, for the Germans, it is almost impossible to

be the ones who say, this project has run up against the buffers. I

do not know what she is going to do but whichever way, she will be

blamed for having done it wrong. The Autumn Statement, Michael, we

covered it live on the day the politics. -- the daily politics. It

dawned on me that it was quite a watershed, because we were suddenly

talking about an economy that was not growing, that is a shrunken

economy, much smaller than in 2007, and that living standards were

going to be squeezed hard and for up to 14 years. This is a whole new

economic scenario. And it is a whole new political scenario. All

of the politics that we can remember has been about politicians

promising better times. And fuelling expectations. We could be

into a new politics, for which we are very poorly suited, where we

have to lead people to expect less and less on a yearly basis. The

answer we just sort of Danny Alexander talking to Jeremy Paxman

was interesting. Will you go into the next election promising cuts?

Yes. No politician has said that in our lifetimes. I am less gloomy, in

that the British political system is better suited to deal with tough

times and for leaders to emerge in tough times, because we are not so

tied to the continuous consensus seeking which fudges difficult

decisions. It is proving hard for Labour, as the Conservatives did

after Black Friday in the 1990s, it took them a long time to regain

their economic credibility. And Labour has lost its economic

credibility. Therefore, how can Mr Miliband and Mr Balls get that

economic credibility? I would not agree with you that we have lost

economic credibility, but I think what you have, and Michael knows

this better than I do, it actually takes governments, once you become

opposition, quite some time to get over the idea of still being the

government and you become the opposition which opposes, because

that is our job and comes up with alternatives. I think it is too

early at this stage. It is easily lost and hard-won, Economic

reputation. I have been quite surprised, as a Conservative

supporter, quite heartened that Ed Balls, who has the easier argument,

has not prevailed. The easy argument is to say the markets are

lending at 2% and Yuri falter not borrow more and make life easier

for yourself. -- you are a fool to not to it. At the moment, that

argument, tempting and plausible, is not getting any attention.

Ed Balls has been very interesting. If you look at the way he has new

ones to his argument, he is genuinely rethinking positions.

is saying, borrow more. Because, in a sense, in some areas I think we

will have to put more infrastructure investment in.

borrowing was the solution, we would not be in the mess. That is

where the new ones is. There are two schools of thought. There are

those same, help yourself to more and make things easier and go for

growth. I think it is significant that the coalition is holding

together. I think in the first 72 hours after the last general

election they were so scared by what the civil servants told them

about how terrible things were going to be if they did not form a

government and have an austerity programme, and that has stuck with

them. Now, it's said that to get the very

best from This Week you need a healthy disregard for the BBC's

taste and decency guidelines, no communication with the BBC

Compliance Department and an unhealthy interest in Sally

Bercow's battery-powered "little helper". And, of course, where

would any of us be without a trusty pair of Blue Nun beer goggles? But

for many of you, it seems those beer goggles now need to be tinted,

following the latest "shirt watch" faux pas from a certain Mr Michael

Portillo. And so with politics better known for its men in grey

suits, than its men in Kermit the Frog green shirts, we decided to

let it all hang out and put flamboyance in this week's

The wild man of cinema, Ken Russell, will not only be remembered for his

movie masterpieces but for his colourful character, which added to

his creativity. But is there room in politics for firm --

flamboyance? Speaker John Bercow is not afraid of being out there, with

a coat of arms adorned with pink triangles and a rainbow pride flag.

Sometimes live personalities can cause offence. With Jeremy

Clarkson's criticism of public sector strikers causing a media

frenzy. Frankly, I would have them or shot. I would take them outside

and execute them in front of their families. How dare they go on

strike? Some people become controversial targets just because

of the way they look. Christopher Jefferies told Lord Leveson about

the risks of being too different. had a distinctive appearance and it

was as a result of the entire world, apparently, knowing what I looked

like that it was suggested to me that really I ought to change my

appearance. Maybe the British but - - prefers elegance to

outrageousness. The British fashion Awards winners were suitably demure

We are joined by Jody Marsh. Welcome back. Thanks. Do you see

yourself as flamboyant? Yes, of course. That was easy! Do you think

it is going out of fashion in these grim times? I think that we, as a

nation, are quite reserved. And I think we are quite boring in some

ways. You may be flamboyant but I guess the Brits are not really.

That is what I am saying. We just saw fashion Week and they looked

lovely and very classy and elegant, but for me there is no excitement.

I think that is why people like Lady Gaga become so incredibly huge,

because there is nobody else doing it like that. She is so interesting

to look at, visually. Whether you like her or not, you look at her

and you go, what? If a singer appears on the X Factor with a

torso strapped to her left shoulder with no head on it, it is hard not

to look at it. We were trying to work out if it was Simon Cowell's

body! You think we should have more flamboyance in this country. Yes, I

think it is a good thing. brightens it up. Exactly. Being

different, being individual and not conforming to what people think is

the norm. I have grown out of my a really flamboyant days. I am

through it. I am officially an adult. It is not good to grow up.

thought when I bought a house that it would make me an adult but it is

actually when you stop wearing skimpy outfits. Is there room for

flamboyance in politics any more? think there is a huge appetite for

flamboyance generally. You have mentioned Lady Gaga, you can think

of Elton John and Freddie Mercury, hugely flamboyant. I would say

Margaret factor, in a funny way, was flamboyant. She stomped around

and wore bright colours and she was exceptional. Obviously, she was

pretty successful. You had to leave politics to become flamboyant. You

would never have worn these shirts if you still had political ambition.

I once wore a flowery tie as Secretary of State for Defence and

Nicholas Soames, the minister of state and church will's grandson

took me aside and said, the Secretary of State for Defence does

not wear a tie like that. -- Winston Churchill's grandson.

you think there is room for flamboyance? Who is flamboyant?

They are a number of them on the Tory... Rees-Mogg is incredibly

defined and nobody could overlook him or forget him. In politics,

people want to know what you stand for. If you compare to going on the

street in mainland Europe, the Brits are far more diverse. In

mainland Europe, you know which season it is because everyone wears

the same shoes and a new coat. In Britain, it is fantastic. That is

not flamboyant but scruffy. There are not many flamboyant Germans,

you know. Angela Merkel is not flamboyant, although Nicolas

Sarkozy might be. I wonder whether in these lean times people will be

dissuaded from being flamboyant, or whether they will like the

entertainment value because it will make us feel less miserable.

think, thanks to people like Lady Gaga, it is becoming slightly more

acceptable to dress a little bit more outrageously, to be a bit

different. But I do think, with being flamboyant, there does come a

negative backlash, Hoffen. Because when you dare to be different and

when you stand out from the crowd, that is when other people can be

jealous, nasty, critical, often for no reason other than that they do

not understand it. And we do like to put people down? Exactly. I

certainly had it for years in the early days of my career. And on a

serious note, I am very flamboyant, but all of the times that I went

out wearing skimpy outfits, I did it for my career, because I knew I

would make front pages and that meant more jobs and more money and

a longer career. There was a method to it. I was not just doing it to

get attention, it was to get on the front pages. The only flamboyant

politician I can think of is Boris Johnson. Absolutely. He is not

really his friend. He does not like him! It has taken Boris to the high

position he prison the holds. That's your lot for tonight, folks.

But not for us. Oh, no! Michael and I are treating Gisela and Jodie to

a posh night out at Kebabylon on the Holloway Road. No expense

spared. Apparently their oyster shawarmas with extra norovirus are

going down a storm, and coming back up a treat! But we leave you with

the most damning evidence yet heard at the Leveson Inquiry's

investigation into the so-called feral media. Nighty-night, don't

let our inflated sense of self- There is still excellent journalism

in broadcasting, in TV and radio. The cat Panorama, or 24 hours, or