:00:09. > :00:12.Forget the footie highlights tonight - This Week brings you the
:00:12. > :00:15.political highlights from a week in Westminster.
:00:15. > :00:19.As the boots fly in Poland and Ukraine, back home there's disquiet
:00:19. > :00:28.in the dressing room between coalition team-mates. The BBC's top
:00:28. > :00:31.striker, Eddie Mair, hangs out in the political goal mouth. This was
:00:31. > :00:36.the week in which Jeremy Hunt saved himself, but without the support of
:00:36. > :00:39.many of his own team-mates. As England prepare for their second
:00:39. > :00:41.match, the Government announces tough new transfer rules for
:00:41. > :00:48.immigrants. Play-maker and author Sarfraz
:00:48. > :00:51.Manzoor thinks the plans should be kicked into touch. Theresa May may
:00:52. > :00:55.think she's hit the back of the net, but I think her plans should be
:00:55. > :00:58.given the red card. And as age-old grudges come to the
:00:58. > :01:02.surface in Warsaw between Russians and Poles, is it really possible to
:01:02. > :01:10.divorce sport from politics? Football fanatic, author and
:01:10. > :01:14.comedian David Baddiel gives us a pitch-side view. No. Someone in
:01:14. > :01:20.Spain will have considered those four goals tonight revenge for the
:01:20. > :01:22.wrecking of the armad ta on the southern province of Ireland in
:01:22. > :01:32.1588. They think This Week is all over
:01:32. > :01:35.
:01:35. > :01:42.the place - it is now! Evenin' all, welcome to the Open University.
:01:42. > :01:45.Sorry, This Week. And a very special wakey-wakey welcome to all
:01:45. > :01:49.those viewers who made it through to the bitter end of Snoozenight -
:01:49. > :01:52.all three dozen of you. Let me explain why we're here. Following
:01:52. > :01:54.the BBC's Diamond Jubilee One Show River Pageant two weeks ago, BBC
:01:55. > :01:56.bosses - known collectively as "Yentobs" - have decided to risk
:01:57. > :01:59.yet another avalanche of viewer complaints and unfavourable
:02:00. > :02:09.headlines by shunting the This Week ratings juggernaut off BBC One and
:02:10. > :02:13.
:02:13. > :02:16.on to BBC Two. Just because some overpaid middle manager Tristram
:02:16. > :02:21.wants to show that, even though he played rugger at Eton, he's really
:02:21. > :02:25.down with the peeps and thinks football matters more than we do!
:02:25. > :02:29.Not that we're bothered about our viewing figures. "Build it and they
:02:29. > :02:32.will come" has always been our motto. A bit like Michael's quiff.
:02:32. > :02:35.But not like Leveson, the never- ending media studies seminar that's
:02:35. > :02:38.run longer than the Mousetrap, and whose ratings are so low they've
:02:38. > :02:45.stooped to inviting every ex-Prime Minister with a grudge to parade
:02:45. > :02:48.their prejudices before it. Today it was the turn of Call-Me-Dave
:02:48. > :02:50.himself, where everything was going swimmingly, until he had to explain
:02:50. > :03:00.what Read-Me-My-Rights-Rebekah was doing sending him overly cosy texts,
:03:00. > :03:03.
:03:03. > :03:05.assuring Dave that "professionally, we're definitely in this together."
:03:05. > :03:08.Oh, dear. Speaking of deeply inappropriate
:03:08. > :03:11.relationships, I'm joined on the sofa tonight by two people who know
:03:11. > :03:14.it's wrong but just can't help themselves. The Woody Allen and
:03:14. > :03:16.Soon-Yi Previn of late-night political chat. I speak, of course,
:03:16. > :03:26.of #jacquiam, Jacqui Smith, and #sadmanonatrain, Michael "choo-
:03:26. > :03:33.
:03:33. > :03:38.choo" Portillo. Your moment. Right, well, bear with me on this one.
:03:38. > :03:44.is not going to be long is it? deficit of private pension funds in
:03:44. > :03:49.this country has reached �312 billion. It is four times as much
:03:49. > :03:57.as was used to bail out Spain this week. It has gone up from �25
:03:57. > :04:02.billion a year ago to �312 billion. By more in a month... Private or
:04:02. > :04:06.state? Private pension funds. Why is this happening? Mainly because
:04:06. > :04:11.the Bank of England is printing money. As it prints money the value
:04:11. > :04:15.of gilts decrease in value. A deficit in a pension fund is the
:04:15. > :04:19.gap between what the pension fund needs to pay pension and what it
:04:19. > :04:24.has. This is a massive problem and it's brought about by Government
:04:24. > :04:29.policy. And the bank have announced the commercial banks can borrow
:04:29. > :04:37.another �80 billion for the first time. Money, money, everywhere.
:04:37. > :04:42.That almost was like an Open University speech. Three dozen
:04:42. > :04:47.people have fallen asleep. moment was the appointment by
:04:47. > :04:51.Theresa May of Tom Winsor as the Chief Inspector of policing.
:04:51. > :04:56.Strategically the right thing to do, to bring someone from the outside
:04:56. > :05:01.in for the first time to inspect the police. Tactically the wrong
:05:01. > :05:05.thing to do to appoint Tom Winsor. There was a certain feel that if we
:05:05. > :05:08.look back to the Blair years, if you are really irritating the
:05:08. > :05:13.profession you must be doing something right in terms of public
:05:13. > :05:20.sector reform. I'm afraid this was a time when it wasn't sufficient to
:05:20. > :05:24.irritate the police to make it a good idea to appoint Tom Winsor.
:05:24. > :05:29.There are other things you can do to reform. Simply irritating the
:05:29. > :05:32.police isn't enough to reform them. And they are irritated.
:05:32. > :05:35.Now, just when you thought the Government had run out of U-turns,
:05:35. > :05:37.along comes the biggest of all, when the Prime Minister abandoned
:05:38. > :05:41.his "no child left behind" approach to education by leaving his
:05:41. > :05:44.daughter in a pub. But one Cabinet Minister who's not for turning is
:05:44. > :05:50.Home Secretary Theresa May, who told the House of Commons that she
:05:50. > :05:52.still planned to reduce net thousands by the next election. And
:05:52. > :05:55.to this end, the Home Secretary announced further curbs on so-
:05:55. > :05:59.called "family migration". We asked author and journalist Sarfraz
:05:59. > :06:09.Manzoor to pay a visit to Britain's Museum of Immigration for his take
:06:09. > :06:30.
:06:30. > :06:34.I'm the son of an immigrant. My late father came to Britain from
:06:34. > :06:39.1963 from Pakistan. He wasn't rich. He just believed in hard work and
:06:39. > :06:49.dreamed of a better life. I was joined in Pakistan and my mum and I
:06:49. > :06:53.
:06:53. > :06:56.joined him in 1974. This week new controls on family migration were
:06:56. > :07:00.announced. In the future if you want to bring a husband or a wife
:07:00. > :07:06.from outside the EU to the UK you will have to be able to prove thaw
:07:06. > :07:10.earn more than �18,600 per year and an extra �2,400 per child. Theresa
:07:10. > :07:13.May claimed it is only by excluding the spouses of the low paid that
:07:13. > :07:17.the burden on the state is going to be reduced. It is all part of this
:07:17. > :07:21.campaign to try and bring net migration down to the tens of
:07:21. > :07:26.thousands. But I find it incredibly frightening, because under these
:07:26. > :07:30.rules my mum and I would never even have been allowed into this country.
:07:30. > :07:34.I think this is naked populism and there is something rather sickening
:07:34. > :07:39.about this Cabinet of millionaires punishing the poor. In one fell
:07:39. > :07:44.swoop they are penalising every poor citizen who happens to fall in
:07:44. > :07:48.love with somebody from outside the EU. Never mind the unfairness, why
:07:48. > :07:58.are we judging someone's worth by what they earn? Are earnings the
:07:58. > :08:13.
:08:13. > :08:17.only way we measure a person's I think immigrants are heroes, far
:08:17. > :08:21.from being scroungers they are much less likely to be claiming state
:08:21. > :08:25.benefits than people born here. Many arrive here with not much more
:08:25. > :08:30.than a suitcase. They work hard because they have to. They
:08:30. > :08:38.shouldn't be penalised, they should be celebrated. And we need the
:08:38. > :08:41.energy that they bring. Don't get me wrong. I'm in favour
:08:41. > :08:45.of open borders with no controls. I think if you come to this country
:08:45. > :08:49.shoe be able to speak English and play a full part in big British. I
:08:50. > :08:54.also think that on the whole it is probably a good idea to marry
:08:54. > :08:58.somebody who is already in the country. But why should marrying a
:08:58. > :09:03.Pole be easier than marrying a Pakistani? Is it to do with race or
:09:03. > :09:06.religion? I hope not. The masty party lives on.
:09:06. > :09:12.Sarfraz Manzoor joins us from Britain's Museum of Immigration to
:09:12. > :09:19.our little museum of immigration. Welcome to the programme. Are you
:09:19. > :09:23.saying that financial circumstances should never be taken into account
:09:23. > :09:28.when determining who can come here? I think it is quite an arbitrary
:09:28. > :09:32.decision in that sense. Thing the idea of choosing this figure,
:09:32. > :09:36.�18,600, how do you, what happens if you lost your job the week
:09:36. > :09:40.before you lost the application? What happens if you are a self-
:09:40. > :09:44.employed person. It seems like marriage is turned into a mortgage,
:09:44. > :09:48.where you have to provide tax statements for the last three years
:09:48. > :09:52.and declare your earnings. It is not just what you are earning at
:09:52. > :09:57.this point. I think immigrants have the energy, so they don't have
:09:57. > :10:00.anything at the beginning. It is what they bring in the future.
:10:00. > :10:03.the British taxpayers have a right to expect that we should give
:10:03. > :10:08.priority to those that we think will have most to contribute if
:10:08. > :10:11.they come here? Absolutely, but I don't think this calculus is the
:10:11. > :10:15.right way of doing that. For example when my dad came here he
:10:15. > :10:20.worked in a factory. When my mum was brought over, she had
:10:20. > :10:23.absolutely no money, but the values they brought, of hard work, which a
:10:23. > :10:26.lot of people in this country haven't got, and the immigrants,
:10:26. > :10:30.because they don't have the safety nets, and a lot of the connections
:10:30. > :10:33.that the political class have. What I find really offence sieve that
:10:33. > :10:37.the people making these decisions didn't necessarily get there
:10:37. > :10:43.through pure hard work, but because they had the right connections.
:10:43. > :10:47.Immigrants don't have them and they are punishing them. If their
:10:47. > :10:51.motivation is they want a better life, to work hard, to get on, even
:10:51. > :10:54.if they come for a low salary, their aim is to get much better,
:10:55. > :11:01.should they therefore from the moment they come here have a right
:11:01. > :11:05.to welfare? I actually think that if you have come 6,000 or ,000
:11:05. > :11:09.miles and you have come that far to come here, I don't think you're the
:11:09. > :11:13.sort of person who is going to be happy with just welfare. I agree
:11:13. > :11:17.with that, but should they have the right to a welfare that they've not
:11:17. > :11:23.contributed to? I would rather they will the right to work, regardless
:11:23. > :11:26.of how they got here, than the right to welfare. So if you were an
:11:26. > :11:31.asylum seeker I would rather you used the resources you had to
:11:31. > :11:36.work... But they would have the right to welfare, as we brought
:11:36. > :11:42.them in, they are not immigrants. If you are here just because you
:11:42. > :11:46.want welfare, you are not the right type either. That last point is
:11:46. > :11:49.what the Government is on to. This suffers from generalisations. It
:11:49. > :11:53.may be generally true that immigrants want to come here and
:11:53. > :11:58.work hard but it is not true of everyone. The Government is trying
:11:58. > :12:02.to get at a minority of people who come here and live off welfare.
:12:02. > :12:06.They are not trying to separate families. If you are on low pay you
:12:06. > :12:10.have the choice to go back to wherever you came from and marry
:12:10. > :12:13.whoever you choose, but the British public has the right to say you are
:12:13. > :12:16.not going to come here with your family as well when you are not the
:12:16. > :12:20.sort of person who is able to support that family in this country.
:12:20. > :12:26.What do you say about the argument that why should one sort of
:12:26. > :12:31.relationship or love be personed as opposed to another one? Why if you
:12:31. > :12:36.fall in love with someone from Poland you are not the same as if
:12:36. > :12:42.you fall in love with someone from Pakistan? It is because Poland is
:12:42. > :12:46.in the European Union. But that isn't true of Pakistan. Yaki?
:12:46. > :12:50.is some argument to expect people to be able to support their family
:12:50. > :12:54.if they are bringing their family. Although you make the very
:12:54. > :12:58.important point about the rather crude measure that's being used and
:12:58. > :13:02.the fact that somebody could lose the job the day after somebody's
:13:02. > :13:06.come over, or they might be working hard and making a big contribution
:13:06. > :13:11.to the economy. The problem here is the Government has made a rod for
:13:11. > :13:21.their own back through an extremely crude emphasis on reducing net
:13:21. > :13:25.migration to tens of thousands. The only way, they should be be held to
:13:25. > :13:29.account for not achieving it, but the only way they can achieve it is
:13:29. > :13:39.by being tough on family union, overseas students, which will also
:13:39. > :13:39.
:13:39. > :13:44.be detrimental to this country, to I read somewhere that 17% here are
:13:44. > :13:47.foreign born but only something like 6.4% claim benefits so the
:13:47. > :13:51.idea that they are sucking money from the state isn't true.
:13:51. > :13:56.Government doesn't claim that. It's dealing with those cases where they
:13:56. > :14:02.are. But isn't this a case then of a sledgehammer being used to crack
:14:02. > :14:08.a small nut? No, a nutcracker being used to crack a nut. What kind of
:14:09. > :14:13.numbers then? It's something like 54,000. But this isn't only about
:14:13. > :14:17.benefit claimants, it's about this total number of net migration which
:14:17. > :14:20.is 250,000 and incidentally has remained at about that since the
:14:20. > :14:26.Governments came into Government setting this cap. The problem with
:14:26. > :14:31.that cap is that it's crude. It doesn't recognise... What should
:14:31. > :14:33.the cap be? I don't believe there should be a numerical cap that
:14:34. > :14:37.attempts to cover migration like that. There is a strong argument
:14:37. > :14:41.for taking students out of that cap, for example. On the whole they
:14:41. > :14:44.don't tend to stay here for very long but they do massively earn
:14:44. > :14:49.money for us and they're very important in terms of our approach
:14:49. > :14:55.in the world. You paint a picture of thwarted love, but you also know
:14:55. > :15:04.that some communities here use marriage to get round the rules?
:15:04. > :15:06.totally agree. I married somebody from this country and I think for
:15:06. > :15:10.reasons, that's a better thing. To be honest, it's the same with
:15:10. > :15:13.education, there will be loopholes that people try to go to work on. I
:15:13. > :15:17.agree with that, but I think ultimately there's something which
:15:17. > :15:21.I find distasteful, the idea that if you are rich, things are
:15:21. > :15:25.different than if you are poor, when actually it could be the poor
:15:25. > :15:31.people that could be the next generation of the wealthy creators.
:15:31. > :15:37.Whoo they are trying to deaf Rennes -- what they are trying to deaf
:15:37. > :15:43.Rennes shait between is not between the rich and poor, but those who
:15:43. > :15:52.are making a difference. -- difference between the rich and the
:15:52. > :15:56.poor. You are likely to work hard, but if you don't, you won't get
:15:56. > :16:00.welfare. Should we do that here or not? This country on the whole you
:16:00. > :16:03.are not eligible for welfare either. Explain that, because that's
:16:03. > :16:06.interesting? You can't come if you are going to need what they call
:16:06. > :16:10.recourse to public funds, you can't come if you are an unskilled worker
:16:10. > :16:15.from outside the EU now. If you,from within the EU, it's
:16:15. > :16:20.because you are going to be working and if you are a student, you are
:16:20. > :16:25.not gaining benefits either. If all those things are in place, and they
:16:25. > :16:31.are, all the Government is doing is doing a proxy for another part of
:16:31. > :16:34.the case where people already settled here seem to bring in an
:16:34. > :16:40.established point which is already established in immigration law that
:16:40. > :16:44.you have to pass certain hurdles. Or is it a proxy for simply
:16:44. > :16:47.reducing immigration. That's exactly what I was going to say. If
:16:47. > :16:51.you want to achieve your target, this crude cap they've set, the
:16:51. > :16:56.only way you can do that is by massively reducing the number of
:16:56. > :17:00.people coming in. The point you made about the subcontinent, call a
:17:00. > :17:04.spade a spade. Be honest about it. My siblings married people who
:17:04. > :17:08.would not have been allowed into this country under the rules and
:17:08. > :17:13.they are both successful and contributing members of society.
:17:13. > :17:18.Doesn't seem right that my marriage is valued more than theirs. When it
:17:18. > :17:21.comes to numbers, net migration is still runs at 250,000 a year,
:17:21. > :17:25.roughly the same figure you inherited and had been under Labour
:17:25. > :17:29.for a long while. Even if this change is fully implemented, it
:17:29. > :17:37.isn't going to get immigration down to the tens of thousands that the
:17:37. > :17:40.Government claims. That may well be right. It is right. But it's
:17:40. > :17:44.pointless bashing the Government every time it takes a step towards
:17:44. > :17:47.trying to achieve this ambition. The ambition would be broadly
:17:47. > :17:52.welcomed by the British public and for the Government to be attacked
:17:52. > :17:56.every time it comes up with an idea... It's legitimate to attack a
:17:56. > :18:00.Government for setting a cap that either they knew they weren't going
:18:00. > :18:04.to be able to reach, in which ways they were lying to the electorate,
:18:04. > :18:10.or they believed that they were going to be able to reach, in which
:18:10. > :18:16.case they are ridiculously disingenuous. For both those
:18:16. > :18:21.reasons, it's perfectly legitimate. The final say? This smacks of the
:18:21. > :18:25.political coward es from the whole political class in not being able
:18:25. > :18:35.to make a more positive case for immigration. Thank you for being
:18:35. > :18:44.
:18:44. > :18:54.with us. Is it no good to have too much jubilympics? Or too much Will
:18:54. > :19:02.
:19:02. > :19:07.Iam? David Badeel joins us. You can give us your thoughts on the
:19:07. > :19:11.programme on Twitter on the website. Twock This Week. Please can we come
:19:11. > :19:15.home Mr BBC One controller? We'll be good, we are versatile, we can
:19:15. > :19:20.do the football highlights if you want. To prove it, we have asked
:19:20. > :19:29.Radio Four presenter to round up a week of political football at
:19:30. > :19:36.Westminster. Come on! Come on! Come on! Yes!
:19:36. > :19:42.Yes! Can you think of anything where
:19:42. > :19:46.tribalism matters more than in football? Where the team you
:19:46. > :19:50.support can be in the blood, in the family for generations, where the
:19:50. > :19:54.passion it arouses can seem to others to be out of kilter? Of
:19:54. > :19:57.course you can that,'s why you are watching This Week and not the
:19:57. > :20:07.footie highlights. You love the political football and, as chance
:20:07. > :20:07.
:20:07. > :20:11.would have it, I have that football here. Spain's bankers did better
:20:11. > :20:15.than Spain's footballers this week in that at least they got a result.
:20:15. > :20:19.George Osborne is still worried about the effect playing in Europe
:20:19. > :20:24.is having on the domestic leagues. The challenge that's made to our
:20:24. > :20:29.economic strategy rests its case on the low growth over the last 18
:20:29. > :20:35.months and there is no-one in Britain who would like to see
:20:35. > :20:44.stronger growth more than me. It's not so long ago that the
:20:44. > :20:49.Captain of the Reds, EdwardoMillibando was treated on
:20:49. > :20:53.the bench like those in Poland are treated. He's had a few weeks to
:20:53. > :21:00.make Jeremy Hunt pay the penalty for his pre-match huddle with Sky.
:21:00. > :21:06.The thing about Ed Miliband is, he's a very proud Leeds supporter.
:21:06. > :21:11.In fact, Ed's proud of a lot of things. I'm proud to represent the
:21:11. > :21:15.people of Doncaster, I'm proud to be Jewish, I'm proud to be
:21:15. > :21:18.English... Bewhat about being proud to be British? And I'm proud to be
:21:18. > :21:25.British as well. Anything else, Ed? Somebody who
:21:25. > :21:29.people say looks a bit like Wallace from Wallace and Gromit.
:21:29. > :21:35.Wednesday's grudge match was shaping up to be a classic fight
:21:35. > :21:41.between red and Blue, but before an Ed Balls could be kicked, the team
:21:41. > :21:44.in yellow pulled out citing illness, citing all the deals with Murdoch
:21:44. > :21:50.made them physically sick so Nick Clegg did the decent thing and none
:21:50. > :21:53.of his team played in any position. So, the Prime Minister went into
:21:53. > :21:58.this game with several men down. Yes, I'm going to torture this
:21:58. > :22:03.metaphor until we get a phone call from The Hague begging me to stop.
:22:03. > :22:07.Red Ed started by trying to dribble slowly, very slowly around his
:22:07. > :22:10.opponent, before finally he made his first shot on goal. If the case
:22:10. > :22:15.is so strong of the Prime Minister, high is his deputy not supporting
:22:15. > :22:22.him? The Prime Minister appeared to have left his best arguments in the
:22:22. > :22:24.dressing room. Or the pub... What What we are talking about here is
:22:24. > :22:28.the relationships that Conservative politicians and Labour politicians
:22:28. > :22:32.have had over the last 20 years with News Corp, News International
:22:32. > :22:36.and all the rest of it. To be fair to the Liberal Democrats, they
:22:36. > :22:43.didn't have that relationship and their abstention tonight is to make
:22:43. > :22:47.that point and I understand that, it's politics. Ed Miliband failed
:22:47. > :22:50.to capitalise on that open goal so a midfielder stepped in. There is
:22:50. > :22:54.absolutely no dishonour in correcting the record. However,
:22:54. > :22:58.what the minister just referred to was his rely on 7th September when
:22:58. > :23:03.he said it was for reasons of cost that he wasn't able to provide
:23:03. > :23:07.anything more. He's lied to Parliament! I wish to draw the
:23:07. > :23:12.House's attention to the very important distinction between
:23:12. > :23:15.inadvertently misleading this House and lying. The truth is, he only
:23:15. > :23:22.remains on the team thanks to the manager who himself had to deal
:23:22. > :23:26.with some indirect free kicks at Leveson. Mrs Brookes you made clear
:23:26. > :23:34.from your statement was a friend. When you were at your constituency
:23:34. > :23:42.at weekends, did you see her every weekend or most weekends in the
:23:42. > :23:46.period 2008-009? Not every weekend. But most weekends? Mrs Cameron
:23:46. > :23:50.keeps a better weekend diary record than I do and she reckons we
:23:50. > :24:00.probably didn't see them more than on average once every six weeks, so
:24:00. > :24:08.
:24:08. > :24:15.that is a better answer than what I Old football managers end up buying
:24:15. > :24:21.pubs or are on TV pundit panels. Old politicians end up at the
:24:21. > :24:26.liefrplt let's hear it for renowned team player Gordon Brown -- at the
:24:26. > :24:32.Leveson Inquiry. Did you authorise your aides to
:24:32. > :24:37.brief against Mr Blair? No. Do you think they may have done so without
:24:37. > :24:45.your exples sit approval or even with your knowledge? If they did so,
:24:45. > :24:52.it was without my authorisation -- explicit. Fantasy football, they
:24:52. > :24:55.tried from the terraces. Euro 2012 will be long gone by the Time Lord
:24:55. > :25:05.justice Leveson delivers his match report. Will it be back of the net
:25:05. > :25:06.
:25:06. > :25:10.for David Cameron or a giant own goal? The football pitch in West
:25:10. > :25:16.London. Michael, a bit odd to see a Prime Minister in the dock even the
:25:16. > :25:23.dock of his own creation? It is unusual, but Leveson never skewers
:25:23. > :25:25.anybody, does it? None of them has really had much of a difficulty.
:25:25. > :25:29.George Osborne, Gordon Brown, Rupert Murdoch. You wouldn't call
:25:29. > :25:33.it a grilling would you? It would not. Be interesting to see what
:25:33. > :25:38.comes out in the report but it would seem to me that the skills of
:25:38. > :25:41.the judge and of the barrister, the counsel, do not compare with the
:25:41. > :25:43.skills of the politician who is face them, or even the business
:25:43. > :25:46.people. There is something different though isn't there about
:25:46. > :25:51.seeing a serving Prime Minister in front of this inquiry as opposed to
:25:51. > :25:54.all the ones that were Prime Ministers? Yes and I suppose what
:25:54. > :25:56.was disappointing about seeing him there today is that he is the
:25:56. > :26:03.serving Prime Minister and he's responsible for the future, he's
:26:03. > :26:07.the person who set up the inquiry and yet he seemed to be rather
:26:07. > :26:11.diffident in actually putting forward some future forward-looking
:26:11. > :26:15.proposals. I was quite surprised because I presumed that what he'd
:26:15. > :26:20.do, as well as answer the obvious questions about his relationship
:26:20. > :26:23.with Rebekah Brooks, was to try to frame who he hoped would come from
:26:23. > :26:28.the inquiry and there wasn't much of that at all. There was no
:26:28. > :26:34.smoking gun but it was in a way damaging at times, there was a lot
:26:34. > :26:38.of this, I don't recall or I don't recollect or not to the bes of my
:26:38. > :26:43.recollection and the one Tessst text message from Rebekah Brooks
:26:43. > :26:49.was pretty damaging? The whole process is a cancerous procedure as
:26:49. > :26:52.far as the Government's concerned. I mean it's sustained damage. I
:26:52. > :26:56.dare say if the Prime Minister could have his life again, this
:26:56. > :26:59.commission would not have been established. So although it isn't
:26:59. > :27:02.skewering people and we don't know whether the report will be
:27:03. > :27:06.interesting or important, nonetheless, the long, drawn-out
:27:06. > :27:11.business of feeling that something isn't right, that there's something
:27:11. > :27:14.nasty in the wood shed is damaging to the Government. All leading
:27:14. > :27:19.politicians have relationships with the press or senior editors, which
:27:19. > :27:24.has happened down the ages, but Mr Blair and Mr Brown and now Mr
:27:24. > :27:27.Cameron have taken it to a new level. Difficult for me to judge
:27:27. > :27:32.that because I don't really know what things were like between Lloyd
:27:32. > :27:38.George and the press barons. Could you imagine Rebekah Brooks having
:27:38. > :27:43.become Margaret Thatcher's best friend? No, but Margaret Thatcher
:27:43. > :27:50.is the keepion to the rule. If you go back to Churchill and beaver
:27:50. > :27:53.brook, we might have been in the same world. He sat very hard on the
:27:53. > :27:56.accusation that would damage the Government or the Conservatives
:27:56. > :27:59.specifically. That is the accusation that they traded the
:27:59. > :28:03.support of News Corp before the election for support for News
:28:03. > :28:06.Corp's bid or News International's bid for BSkyB. Of which we have no
:28:07. > :28:10.evidence? And George Osborne sat there and said it was complete
:28:10. > :28:15.nonsense. That's the danger to the Government and that's what Osborne
:28:15. > :28:19.tried to crush. What did you make of Gordon Brown's performance?
:28:19. > :28:22.was clearly very... Some of that was being very angry about the way
:28:22. > :28:27.that he had been treated, his family had been treated in terms of
:28:27. > :28:31.the revelations about his son's medical condition. He was very
:28:31. > :28:35.angry about the suggestion that he'd had this threatening phone
:28:35. > :28:39.call with Rupert Murdoch and in actual fact, the fact he denied it
:28:39. > :28:44.and Rupert Murdoch said it under oath means... Somebody's lying?
:28:44. > :28:54.Did you believe Mr Brown when he said he'd never unleashed his
:28:54. > :28:55.
:28:55. > :28:59.special advisers to brief against I'm not sure that was the most
:28:59. > :29:03.convincing part of his testimony. Shall I take that as a diplomatic
:29:03. > :29:06.no? It depends how the question was put to him. Wasn't he asked whether
:29:06. > :29:10.or not he asked them to do it or something like that? No, he denied
:29:10. > :29:14.every part of it. He said they would have done it without his
:29:14. > :29:18.authorisation. On this point, let me say that there are very few
:29:18. > :29:21.exceptions. I know perfectly well that one Prime Minister after
:29:21. > :29:27.another asked press secretaries to brief against colleagues. Indeed
:29:27. > :29:32.and even Mrs Thatcher's press secretary. Even then. But it seemed
:29:32. > :29:37.to reach an industrial scale between Mr Blair and Mr Brown.
:29:37. > :29:41.Think -- I think you're probably right. I think where Gordon Brown
:29:41. > :29:46.seemed weaker, people watching obviously felt that he was right to
:29:46. > :29:52.be angry with what the Sun tried to do with his son. I believed him
:29:52. > :29:56.when in effect the Sun put a gun to his head, hoping if they went along
:29:56. > :30:00.with it, it would give them a bit of control over how it was
:30:00. > :30:03.presented. If someone had done that to me, I wouldn't go to their
:30:03. > :30:08.wedding. I wouldn't stay best friends with them. I'd do it and
:30:08. > :30:12.get over with it. That's where his testimony then fell down. I suppose
:30:12. > :30:15.the argument is but he then continued to be Prime Minister
:30:15. > :30:20.afterwards. You have to go to somebody's wed figure you're Prime
:30:20. > :30:25.Minister. Gordon Brown is a man who famously bore no grudges. He's a
:30:25. > :30:29.cheery fellow who shrugged off every offence and turned over a new
:30:29. > :30:33.leaf each day. It's been open season on Mr Hunt, the enemies
:30:33. > :30:39.don't seem to be getting anywhere. It shows that if the Prime Minister
:30:39. > :30:42.sticks with you, you can't get him. Surprisingly, I can't understand
:30:43. > :30:47.the Prime Minister's justification for sticking with him, you're
:30:47. > :30:51.right... I think to protect himself. Exactly. But he is and it does
:30:51. > :30:55.appear that you know, despite a pretty robust approach on Wednesday
:30:55. > :31:00.in that debate, with it seemed to me all of the arguments on the side
:31:00. > :31:03.of those saying, but surely there are questions that at least should
:31:03. > :31:06.be asked about whether or not he breached the ministerial code,
:31:07. > :31:10.whether or not he breached it in terms of the way that he gave
:31:10. > :31:14.information to Parliament, whether or not he breached it in terms of
:31:15. > :31:19.his relationship with his special advisor. There are questions toance.
:31:19. > :31:23.Yes, that is what they're there to do. Though the Lib Dems their
:31:23. > :31:28.abstention at the vote on Mr Hunt that Labour put down, in the grand
:31:28. > :31:35.scheme of things may not matter much. My goodness it's alloweder to
:31:35. > :31:38.MPs to burnish their ire against the Lib Dems. Yes, I think
:31:38. > :31:42.completely unjustifiabley. The Lib Dems have given terrific support to
:31:42. > :31:47.the basic strategy on reducing the deficit. They've never waivered on
:31:47. > :31:52.that. You think they're wrong to bear a grudge. They are. Let's come
:31:52. > :31:57.onto the big issue, over shadowing everything on Europe. Where are we
:31:58. > :32:03.on the Portillo Richter scale of world coming to an end. I can't
:32:03. > :32:07.remember how the scale works. If you say naught to ten, where we're
:32:08. > :32:15.about 7.5. We still have quite a long way to go. I was talking to
:32:15. > :32:19.someone the other day who said we're in 1913. They said people in
:32:19. > :32:23.1913 didn't know what was going to happen in 1914. We're on the edge
:32:23. > :32:33.of something very good. At the weekend, Spain through the
:32:33. > :32:40.governments, get this 147brl -- 100 billion euro bail out. That bought
:32:40. > :32:44.them only a few hours. Tell us what you think. I think the euro has
:32:44. > :32:47.fundamental problems. It's perfectly clear. For 30 years we've
:32:47. > :32:51.been telling countries that get into difficulty, what you have to
:32:51. > :32:55.do is control your deficit, control inflation, make sure public
:32:55. > :32:59.spending is right and so on and devalue to make yourself
:32:59. > :33:01.competitive. Inside the euro you can do the first three, but you
:33:01. > :33:09.can't devalue. Neither can you prifpbt money or change your
:33:09. > :33:13.interest rates. This is such a basic, glaringly obvious point,
:33:13. > :33:16.which is why the countries don't recover because they can't make
:33:16. > :33:21.themselves more competitive. They can only drive their economies into
:33:21. > :33:25.a spiral of decline. It also surely it's because you have the eurozone
:33:25. > :33:29.without the necessary whilst you've got a monetary union, you don't
:33:30. > :33:34.have a banking union. You don't have a fiscal union. You don't have
:33:34. > :33:38.the political will. At the time people said that was the reason why
:33:38. > :33:42.a lot of people opposed the eurozone, including Michael, they
:33:42. > :33:47.said all that. We were told, I remember it well, we were told at
:33:47. > :33:50.the time, no, no, the single currency doesn't need all that.
:33:50. > :33:55.I now cannot quite understand and it's worrying I think for politics
:33:55. > :34:01.as a whole, that you have a set of senior politicians who don't seem
:34:02. > :34:05.to be willing to take those steps and you know financial people.
:34:06. > :34:11.That's because they have lect rats. If we in the position of Germany
:34:11. > :34:15.and we were trying to convince the electorate to take all our hard
:34:15. > :34:19.earned money and hand it over to the Greeks or the Spaniards, you
:34:19. > :34:24.try to get your electorate to do that. We know we will come back to
:34:24. > :34:28.that next week. The English are pathetically satisfied with not
:34:28. > :34:33.getting beaten by the French. The Spanish is about clinging on for
:34:33. > :34:37.dear life and the Greeks are headed for the Grexit and the Germans look
:34:37. > :34:44.like winning, again. Yes it's the beautiful political game with
:34:44. > :34:48.nightly riots thrown in for free, euro Zone 2012, a display of inept
:34:48. > :34:55.tactics, non-existent economic strategy and widespread national
:34:55. > :34:59.delusion. Enough of of euro crisis, what about the footy ball I hear
:34:59. > :35:02.you cry? This is why we decided to give into the inevitable, note this
:35:02. > :35:12.controller of BBC One, we put the politics of sport, into the
:35:12. > :35:20.
:35:20. > :35:24.Euro 2012 has certainly kicked off both on and off the pitch. The
:35:25. > :35:28.choice of Poland and the Ukraine as hosts paent come without
:35:28. > :35:31.controversy. The British government refusing to attend matchs in the
:35:31. > :35:35.Ukraine at the protest of the arrest and jailing of the country's
:35:35. > :35:39.former Prime Minister. I hope for our team, it's a great sporting
:35:39. > :35:44.event. But of course, it's, we don't want people to understand
:35:44. > :35:48.that as giving political support to some things that have been
:35:48. > :35:53.happening in Ukraine that we don't agree with.
:35:53. > :35:56.And as pan ramma revealed it's not always fun and games in the stadium
:35:56. > :36:02.either, with violence and racism still very much a problem in the
:36:02. > :36:06.old Eastern Bloc. The clashes between Russian and
:36:06. > :36:10.Polish fans prove that historic grudges are still very much a
:36:10. > :36:16.reality in modern football. Meanwhile the FA knows the
:36:16. > :36:19.importance of sending a message, but David Hodges's men skriping
:36:19. > :36:24.training in favour of a sobering visit to Auschwitz, a tactical
:36:24. > :36:31.change of pace for the players. Soon all eyes will be turning to
:36:31. > :36:34.London, as Danny Boyle gives us a glimpse of his idyllic vision of
:36:34. > :36:38.the opening ceremony. Everybody from the Prime Minister and the
:36:38. > :36:43.mayor, all the people involved in the different stages in pulling
:36:43. > :36:46.this remarkable things together, you kind of put it into the mix.
:36:46. > :36:51.Can any high profile sporting event really divorce itself from
:36:51. > :36:58.politics? Or is it the price we pay for hosting the world amid all its
:36:58. > :37:02.worries? We're joined by David Baddiel.
:37:02. > :37:08.Welcome back to This Week. How are you? David, the idea that football
:37:08. > :37:16.is only a game could not be further from the truth. Well, it is a game.
:37:16. > :37:20.But it's a game that's connected with history. And nationalism.
:37:20. > :37:25.example, Holland Germany played each other this week in Euro 2012,
:37:25. > :37:29.and that game, you cannot see it without seeing the international
:37:30. > :37:33.relation. It is a metaphor for the history between those two countries.
:37:34. > :37:37.In 1974 when Germany beat Holland in the final, there was a player
:37:37. > :37:41.who was playing midfield whose family was murdered by the Nazis
:37:41. > :37:45.and who said before the game, I don't care what happens, I just
:37:45. > :37:49.want to humiliate the Germans. When the Dutch lost, it was a massive
:37:49. > :37:53.issue, they felt it was their chance in some ways to revenge
:37:54. > :37:58.themselves. They didn't manage to do it until euro '88. When they did
:37:58. > :38:02.it, a banner was unfurled which said grandma we got your bicycle
:38:02. > :38:06.back in Amsterdam, which was a reference to the fact that the
:38:06. > :38:10.bicycles were confiscated by the Nazis. Our tabloids still take
:38:10. > :38:15.playing Germany as a rerun of the Second World War too. Yeah, they do.
:38:15. > :38:20.I wonder if it heals. There is a sense that the game played between
:38:20. > :38:24.Holland and Germany actually is that there was less acrimony than
:38:24. > :38:29.in 1974. The fact that that generation that suffered straight
:38:29. > :38:33.away after the war... Has gone. gone and that football itself may,
:38:33. > :38:37.and I'm being positive here, I'm not talking about the riots so much,
:38:37. > :38:42.it's possible through football you can sort some of this out. If it's
:38:42. > :38:46.a metaphor for war... Never quite worked in Glasgow, does it?
:38:46. > :38:51.doesn't always work out. That's only 150 years. Even the decision
:38:51. > :38:54.to hold this tournament in Poland and the Ukraine is a political
:38:54. > :38:58.decision? It's certainly a political decision by FIFA. It's
:38:58. > :39:03.always a political decision by feefya. They're always looking to
:39:04. > :39:09.expand the game for fiscal reasons where they can make more money.
:39:09. > :39:14.This is the point where I come on the programme to say this shouldn't
:39:14. > :39:18.take place in Poland and Ukraine because of the human rights issue.
:39:18. > :39:23.Some bad things are going on in Ukraine. I can't make a judgment on
:39:23. > :39:31.that, like I can that it was bad for the England team to go to
:39:31. > :39:36.Berlin in 1938 and do a Hitler salute. Did that happen? Yes.
:39:36. > :39:40.team did a Hitler salute in 1938? I'd love to bring it up now.
:39:41. > :39:44.years after the Berlin Olympics. When we had seen the Nazis...
:39:44. > :39:48.after the Nuremberg laws. I never knew that. That's interesting
:39:48. > :39:51.because the England team get there. No doubt the players had no idea of
:39:51. > :39:55.the significance of it. They're asked to do the salute. Someone in
:39:55. > :39:58.these positions needs to be in control and understanding the wider
:39:58. > :40:03.context. When we're told, you're not telling us tonight, many people
:40:03. > :40:08.do the sport in general, football, brings people together and so on,
:40:08. > :40:11.then you watch the Russians, a thousand of them march through
:40:12. > :40:17.Warsaw this week, you begin to think that ain't going to happen.
:40:17. > :40:21.No, well, you know Russia is a good example. When Russia first played
:40:21. > :40:25.Poland, they unfurled a banner saying "this is Russia." which it
:40:25. > :40:30.had been for a long time. Those things are always going to come up
:40:30. > :40:35.as well. I'm going to be positive. There was a goal scored by the
:40:35. > :40:40.Polish captain. He had a very terrible personal history. He saw
:40:40. > :40:44.his mother being killed by his father when he was 11. He overcame
:40:44. > :40:49.that trauma and the scoring of that goal and he looks to the heavens
:40:49. > :40:54.after, is for him, a way of finding immense redemption through becoming
:40:54. > :40:57.a national hero. I think it's possible that if people aren't
:40:57. > :41:01.actually fighting outside the grounds and aren't deliberately
:41:01. > :41:06.bringing up the history in order to create trouble, there's a way
:41:06. > :41:09.through the kathars is of football to get this stuff sorted. Both with
:41:09. > :41:12.the European Union and with something like the European
:41:12. > :41:16.football tournament, the idea is that they bring us together. We
:41:16. > :41:21.think of a continent. We think that we're European as well as British.
:41:21. > :41:25.It isn't happening, is it? If anything, the eurozone and now the
:41:25. > :41:29.European football tournament, it's making us emphasise our nationalism,
:41:29. > :41:33.our differences. Some of these scenes from the streets have been
:41:33. > :41:38.horrendous. I think you're slightly torturing the analogy to make the
:41:38. > :41:43.eurozone the same as the football. There are a few tortured analogies
:41:43. > :41:48.tonight. That is our subtitle. don't think an international
:41:48. > :41:52.football competition is actually about bringing nations together,
:41:52. > :41:59.bringing individual nations together in that way. It's a
:41:59. > :42:02.competition. It is going to amplify some of the feelings of tribalism
:42:02. > :42:07.and competition you feel. Earlier this week, even my son, who has
:42:07. > :42:14.been brought up to be, you know, very international says "England v
:42:14. > :42:16.France, the time when we forget that football is or that our
:42:16. > :42:21.international relations because really we just want to beat them."
:42:21. > :42:26.That's the feeling that you get. It's not necessarily wrong if it
:42:26. > :42:30.doesn't then go over into other more unpleasant battles. You, I
:42:30. > :42:35.think, care about football even less than I do. Is that possible,
:42:35. > :42:40.yes. Tell us the significance of Spain's defeat of Ireland tonight
:42:40. > :42:45.and the overall eurozone crisis. Ireland is the small and weak
:42:45. > :42:49.country. Spain is quite a large and weak country. Not if footballing
:42:49. > :42:53.terms. You know, there are three million Irish and 40 million
:42:53. > :42:57.Spaniards. They should have a better team. If a country is going
:42:57. > :43:01.to the wall, like Spain appears to, whether or not the fact that they
:43:01. > :43:04.might win this competition, they won the World Cup an the European
:43:04. > :43:09.Championship, does that save them? Does that mean a Government going
:43:09. > :43:15.to pieces can still win an election. Apparently it can. They've only
:43:15. > :43:20.just had an election. I don't think anybody wants to run it. The sports
:43:20. > :43:23.authorities do end up having lots of power, so much so that
:43:23. > :43:29.governments put missiles on high rise blocks in the East End. I
:43:29. > :43:37.think we're having lanes for the athletes. You have written a book.
:43:37. > :43:41.Yes the Death of Ely Gould. To some extent it's about the death of the
:43:41. > :43:47.idea of the great man, greatness and masculinity. I was thinking in
:43:47. > :43:57.terms of sport. Sport might be the only arena left where you can have
:43:57. > :43:58.
:43:58. > :44:05.a type of greatness. If you are great of sport, it's unarguable.
:44:05. > :44:10.agree with you. The name again? death of Ely Gould. That's all
:44:10. > :44:15.tonight. Not for us. We're off to the Plough Inn, near Cheggers.
:44:15. > :44:18.Apparently Nancy Cameron is sourcing another of her famous all-
:44:18. > :44:25.night lockins. With Blue Nun milk shakes and feckless fathers all
:44:25. > :44:28.round. When Nick Clegg went to dinner by Rupert Murdoch he was
:44:28. > :44:33.snubbed by the mogul and sat the end of the table, where the
:44:33. > :44:38.children sit, he said. We leave you with the exclusive footage of that
:44:38. > :44:48.event. Nightie-night, Deputy Prime Minister. Don't let the children
:44:48. > :44:49.