19/07/2012 This Week

MUSIC: London's Calling. With just a week to go before the Olympics

the eyes of the world turn to London. Security firm G4S and the

Government are caught in the spotlight as the omni sham Knowles

-- is the omni channels becoming an omni farce. Former gymnast Anne

McEvoy is warming up. Government has been on the back

foot, but can it get back on medal- winning form. The Prime Minister

claims the London Olympics will give a �13 billion boost to the

economy. The commentator Simon Jenkins thinks the coalition is

living in La-La Land. This week, the Government announced it was

giving �50 billion to businesses for lending. I just do not know

where they have gone, I just do not know if they exist at all. And the

Greatest Show on Earth in one of the greatest city on earth. Two

Londoners, Larry Lamb and film- maker Julien Temple, share their

tales of the city. Maybe it is because I am a Londoner. That I

love London so. Calling to the faraway towns.

Evening, all. Welcome to programme a -- This Week, desperately in need

of early intervention. The Olympic family are facing all sorts of

challenging circumstances, not least having to listen to the

highly respected Culture Secretary. It is still Jeremy Hunt claiming it

is, quote, completely normal for the private sector to fail in his

contractual obligations to provide security for the Games. Or the

equally respected Olympics Minister Hugh Robertson. He says, there is a

scale from mild embarrassment to complete disaster and this is not

significantly embarrassing. I am guessing he is not an easy guy to

embarrass. What were the minister's thoughts on the shambolic four hour

coach journey transporting athletes from the airport to the Olympic

Village? It is known as the omnibus trip forever. He says people have

been on buses and it is regrettable and I am extremely sorry and

clearly the drivers need to know where they are going. What will

ministers think of next? Drivers that know where they are going, it

will never catch on. Speaking of those who are paid to state the

obvious and two are in no danger of being promoted, I am joined tonight

by two former politicians to consistently failed to win gold. It

is Oona King and Michael Portillo. One is #bowbelle Oona "pearly" King

and #sad man on a train Michael "choo-choo" Portillo. Welcome to

you both. Your moment of the week. When Det HSBC compliance officer

resigned after money laundering had been revealed in his bank on a

fantastic scale. The Charltons to have been running some of our banks

have produced a situation where the reputation of the City of London

hangs by a thread. I do not think it has been helped by the

regulators. Mervyn King, or Paul Tucker who was sending e-mails to

Bob Diamond saying, you are a brick. I hope he spelt the world -- word

correctly. I think a whole generation of bankers need to be

culled and the Bank of England will need someone brought in from a

foreign country to manage it. HSBC in America took in $4.7

billion from Mexico, never once crossing their minds it had

something to do with Mexican drug cartels. If we want to send 200

euros abroad, we have to fill in forms that long, but as long as you

are sending it from Mexico, you are fine. A but it is the Americans

doing the cleaning. Your memory. moment was on BBC One today showing

a trailer for the Paralympics. Everybody is talking about the

Olympics, but this trailer is only 90 seconds, but I think it will

change the way Britain thinks about his ability. It will fast forward

as about three decades into the 21st century. We all know how long

it takes to affect social change. If you have not seen it, look at it,

it is amazing. Here in the UK, certainly in the studio, which are

feeling the Olympic party spared, but the IMF has missed the memo.

They downgraded the UK's growth forecast to an almost non-existent

0.2%. They have no idea if it will grow like that or not. It makes you

wonder how we can afford to pay G4S their management fee. Is the

coalition's austerity programme hurting rather than working? We

turned to colonist Simon Jenkins and this is his take of the week.

Britain is in the grip of a recession. Two years ago, David

Cameron announced he was going to bring as out of recession and he

had planned for growth. It has failed and we are in a double-dip

recession. There are two ways you can approach this. You can say

austerity is good for us and it is the right way of balancing the

budget. The shortage of liquidity in the economy does not matter. But

that is not what the Government says. It says it wants to pump

large amounts of money into the economy. The sum of money is �325

billion, more than the total take of taxation in a year. They are

going to put another 50 billion interbank lending to businesses

which does not exist. It is a fraud, it is a scam, it is a lie. This

economy at the moment is in a liquidity trap. People have money

but are not spending it, the money is not in circulation. It is

sitting in corporate and company bank accounts. This means it is the

equivalent of a patient lying in the road bleeding to death. It

needs money, it needs blood. It is like the Black Death, it is the

curse on the economy at the moment and nothing is being done about it.

My proposal, which is a keen Xian proposal, is that the money should

be given to people. Put it into their bank accounts. Give them �500

or �1,000 as a Christmas bonus. You can do this, it just has not

happened. The answer to why bite -- they do not do things like this is

very curious. I have asked plenty of bankers and economists. The

reason they think such things are rather vulgar is it sounds like

giving people money for nothing. You are listening the straps of

discipline that you are imposing on the economy. You do not just give

people money who have not deserved it. Why not give it to the banks?

Simon Jenkins, welcome. Good to see you. Let's get this clear. Are you

saying what we now call Plan A, cutting the deficit, is not working,

it is making things worse? Yes. Because? Yes because we are in a

double-dip recession. They said they were going to rescue us from

recession and engineer growth and they were going to pump money into

the economy. They were not advocating austerity, they were

advocating balancing the budget and pumping money into the economy.

That is what they said. The money never existed. I asked the simple

questions of people, where did �325 billion a go? Where is it? What

happened to this a vast sum of money? It is a simple fraud on the

public. You say they are giving the banks the money, but they are not,

they are swapping it for bonds. They previously had cash. The Bank

of England have taken the bonds and put them on their balance sheet and

put money in instead and the difference is infinitesimal. Yes,

the money does not exist. No money has been pumped into the economy.

They used the phrase over and over again, the Government is pumping

another 50 billion into the economy. Not this part of the BBC. I said

the news. It is a phrase that never should be used. What do you say?

say he has got a good point, we need liquidity. But the fact that

policy is not working does not mean that an opposite or changing policy

would be an improvement. For example, if we adopt the policy of

giving money to people, if that led to an increase in the deficit, that

would make things worse. The reason is the markets would take that and

the markets would charge the Government more for its borrowing.

Because the Government is spending more than it is receiving, the

impact would be catastrophic. I think we are stuck with a policy,

which I agree is damaging, but we are stuck with it because the

alternative would be more damaging still. Would you add to the

deficit? Know. If you printed the money and gave it to people, it

would add to the deficit. We are worried about what other bankers

might think. It is about how the markets would react. At the moment

the markets are reacting negatively. Not in what they are charging the

Government to borrow. No, the Government's credit is high, but

would it be damaged by a one off printing of money? The question is

how you define the deficit. I agree with what you say. We should give

money to people. That is one of the Labour Party's policies, which is

to reverse the VAT cut which would give an average family �450. But

our point is we should actually be investing in growth for jobs. For

instance you have a tax on bankers' bonuses and you put it into getting

every young, unemployed person into work. He is not saying the

politicians mess around, or he is saying give the money to the people.

I am saying I agree, but do it through investing in growth. It has

a great disadvantage of falling into Michael's trap. I am proposing

to reinflate the economy. This is a classic liquidity trap. It is about

the amount of money circulating. At the moment I honestly think George

Osborne's strategy is sufficient for the IMF to say, thank God

somebody is doing something constructive and printing billions

worth of money and putting it into bank accounts... If you look after

the unemployment, you look after the economy. That is not what we

have done. Forget investment and Government project, just give

people the money. Politicians hate the idea of giving people money.

You cannot do that because of the deficit. When you do quantitative

easing, the Government ends up with a whole lot of Bonn's that it did

not have before. If you give the money to people, that has to appear

on the Government's books as an expenditure. No, you printed it. It

is not spending. It is spending because you have not got a pile of

Bonn's as you did when you put it into banks. Forget the bombs. Print

the bloody money. If you are going to give people all this money, you

must assume there is a lot of spare capacity and no-one else does.

Mainstream economists do not think so. You could end up with a huge

inflation and interest rates would then saw and imports would be

sucked in. What was pumping the money into the economy meaning in

that case? What did they mean? I want to do what the Government says

it wants to do. What they meant was by taking the bonds of the banks,

they thought the banks which lent to businesses. That may not have

happened, but that was the logical guess. That is lending to

businesses who do not want to borrow. There is no demand. But you

can stimulate demand by having a tax him -- tax-break on home

improvements. Labour thinks you should invest in growth and jobs.

It is interesting that you want to give people money and micro-manage

in ways that you approve of, like home improvements, a cut in VAT.

What is wrong with Simon's approach? Just give people the

money. Because it is not the real world. Being completely honest,

let's talk politics. Would it be credible for the Labour Party to

get up and say, let's give away money. That is their problem, not

mine. The Government gives money to people every day, for example

winter fuel. It gives money to The-art raged proposal is that when

we give people money, we should not add it to do deficit. -- the

outrageous proposal. With the first Budget in 2010, he said give me

five years. In the Pre-Budget Report, he said give me seven years,

and now the Prime Minister is saying, give me 10 years. How can

you go on like this? What fascinates me is the terminology.

This week, George Osborne said, I'm giving �50 billion in guaranteed

loans to businesses. This time the banks cannot quarrel with it. I am

giving the money to businesses. Why is it different? This is nothing to

do with the deficit. That was dishonest in a different way. The

dishonesty was that it was for projects that were absolutely ready

to go and were sound. So why would projects that were ready to go and

sound, why would they not take care of themselves? Why not give the

same money to people? The Government does not trust people.

They trust bankers. Yes, but not people. I have discussed this with

people who know and it is intellectually robust. Politicians

cannot bring themselves to do something like this. It is tacky.

am happy with your scheme as long as we have expenditure cuts that

are equivalent. Why? Because it would be economically neutral.

want to persecute the poor. At the moment, we have seen the Government

prioritising those that can afford to take a hit, but not giving them

that hit. Things like the Social Fund, we have cut the social fund

which people could get a Eacott from if they did not know of one.

It is outrageous. Give them the money. We will see if anybody takes

notice. If anybody knows where the 325 billion, about to be topped up

by another 50 billion has gone, please write to us. Because we

would like some of it! Now, fear not Oona, it may be past the

watershed, which means it's way past your bedtime, and despite

Michael wearing his favourite cherry-flavoured lip gloss, we

won't be inflicting our This Week Kiss Cam on you just yet. We're

saving that treat for Alan. You'll just have to make do with a cuddle

from actor Larry Lamb and film- maker Julien Temple, talking about

their love of London town. And as it's our final show before the

summer break, it's your last chance until September to have your tweets

and emails ignored by us on the Twitter, the Fleecebook, and the

Interweb. Now, with just days to go to the

opening ceremony even I have turned my attention to feats of Olympic

proportions. Three bottles of Blue Nun already tonight, and we're

still on air. It's a new programme record! But I know others are

taking things a little more seriously, like The Economist's

Anne McElvoy, who's donned a leotard and leggings to give us her

Believe it or not, I used to be a gymnast. That was back in the days

of Soviet might and East German judges. But I can still dream of

back flips and somersaults, as I wait for the call to join Team GB

and Hoover up the gymnastics medals. So I might as well keep on training,

If I do get the call, I am a bit worried about who is going to

protect me and my team-mates. G4S was contracted by the Government to

provide security for the games and then discovered it could not rustle

up and up bodies. So Nick Buckles was stretched on the rack by some

unforgiving MPs. Mr Buckles, it's the humiliating shambles, isn't it?

It is not where we would want to be, that is certain. It is a

humiliating shambles, yes or no? cannot disagree with you.

million is your fee and you think you ought to claim it? Yes. Even

after what has happened? We expect to deliver a significant number of

staff for the Olympics. Astonishing. The question is whether the

humiliating shambles rubs off on the Government. Jeremy Hunt, the

Culture Secretary, used inverted logic to insist that big contracts

always go wrong anyway. Mr Cameron has made noises about G4S's rewards,

but can the Government get away with laying blame at that door when

outsourcing is one of its key The thing about gymnastics is that

it is about momentum and balance, both at the same time. That is

something David Cameron seems to have lost in these tricky last few

weeks. He is clinging to the Paul Moore Horse of power, but not as

elegantly as Britain's best medal hope. He drags the entire Cabinet

and the Westminster press pack to a train depot in Birmingham to show

that teamwork was intact and neither he nor Mr Clegg were in

danger of a prima donna moment. am even more committed to coalition

government, to making this coalition government today than I

was in May of 2010 when Nick Clegg and I formed this Government.

tough to be in Government at difficult times. It is not always a

walk in the park, or the Rose Garden. Asked about the chances of

this delicate balancing act lasting until 2015, a change of emphasis.

am not a big betting man but I would not bet against it. I would

put a considerable amount of money on us seeing through until 2015,

because that is for we are committed to doing and what we will

do. Underline how strong the coalition are, Georgia and Dani

headed for the nearest black hole, where they started digging. --

But will they still be birdies in 2015? The coalition was intended to

last, but a great number of Tories have different ideas. They want to

see more individual flair from their protege, and they think Mr

Cameron has been held back by a wobbly Mr Clegg. In the Westminster

tournament, that is good news for Ed Miliband, who is beginning to

look like one of the contestants who fluffs the qualifying rounds

but might just make it into the Meanwhile, we heard more about

Barclays Olympian attempts to manipulate the LIBOR rate. Everyone

has agreed it is someone else's fault. Among bankers, Sorry Seems

To Be the hardest word. Barclays former number two said he thought

the Bank of England had told him, via Bob Diamond, to dip the LIBOR

rate. Did you regard it as an instruction from the Bank of

England, or from the public authorities generally in England?

From the Bank of England. This was disputed by the Governor of the

Bank of England, who said he knew nothing about it. The first I knew

of any alleged wrongdoing was when the reports came out two weeks ago.

By the time this is sorted out the coalition's fate will be sealed and

I suspect Wall Street as well as the City will feel the strain. Like

many forms of financial wrongdoing, it just came to be seen as the norm,

and a lot of powerful people look to the other way. -- they look to

the other way. I have always dreamed of being in the Olympics.

And you never know, I might still get the call up.

That was actually the bank manager on the phone. Pune macro, is the

public sector union right to go on strike on the eve of the Olympics?

I don't think so. I don't think it is helpful when all the eyes of the

world are on London. But obviously you need to have a negotiated

settlement, you need people sitting down and actually negotiating. I do

not think the Government has done that with any real intent. But is

it right that a union should go on strike when only 11% of members

voted for the strike? I think it is very unfortunate and unhelpful for

London, unhelpful for the workers and I do not think it is helpful to

get an agreement. But I understand there is a lot of ill feeling

because they have been treated badly. I think the Government

should have done more. The Government needs to treat it with

more urgency and do some proper negotiating instead of posturing.

Maybe if they go on strike, the Government will fire them. Well,

since Boris caved in and paid the bus drivers, train drivers, the DLR

drivers and everybody else who demanded another 500 quid, what can

you expect? The military are not going to get paid more and they are

doing all of the work. If you give in to one lot, you will have all of

the snouts in the trough. I just think the Government has been

entirely lacklustre in having any consistent policy on it. And I do

not think they have fairly negotiated. Whose fault is the

strike, the Government, or the hard-left union leadership? There

is an issue around how many members have been consulted. Whose fault is

it? I will not apportion blame because I do not know who has been

responsible for what. There has been so much mud-slinging. If it

were a huge issue, more than 11% of members would have voted for strike

action. If they have been so badly treated, why did only 11% of the

members should vote for strike? That is why I am saying I have a

problem for it -- with it. We were hearing today in the House of Lords

that 95% of women police stay in their job and yet at the same time

they are very unhappy. I think that two can be simultaneously true.

What do we make of all of these glitches, which is probably an

understatement, with the G4S business, the potential strike, bus

drivers holding the mayor to ransom and him giving Ian, the bus getting

lost? Is it just us picking on the bad bits and it will all be all

right on the night, or are we heading for a potential disaster?

It will all be all right. I wanted to ask him but I will come back to

you. Well, I think this is an event run by a committee. I do not think

there is anybody in charge. Come on, that is unfair. The leadership is

diffuse and the leadership of security seems very diffuse. I

think it has been brilliantly contrived to go wrong. I disagree.

I think it will be a fantastic success. I think the huge issue is

G4S. That is a much wider discussion over when we contract

out the role of private sector... Well, the G4S was a company that

your government made rich. Yes, the Labour Party started down the road

of saying, in principle we will not save the private sector is rubbish

up everything, in principle we should have private-public

partnerships. I agree with that but there are some things the private

sector should not be doing. The key point is oversight. Where was the

Government's oversight. If this had happened in the public sector we

might never have learned about it. G4S will pay big price for this. I

am not sure Mr Buckle will be with us for much longer. If the

Government has any guts, it will be demanding huge penalty payments

from this company. But at the moment it looks as though they will

get a �57 million management fee. If he gets that, he will not have

elixir stand on. He would not have a leg to stand on. But when

governments threaten how they will do this or that a private sector

contractors, you often find that at the end of the day they do not.

Given that when Labour left Power, �80 billion of public sector

services were out sourced to the private sector, it is hard for

Labour now to turn on the principle of outsourcing. We are not. We are

saying there are some things the private sector does really well.

There are some good IT contracts that it makes sense to give to the

private sector. Outsourcing things like some HR management, back room

staff, you can do that. Prisons? Exactly. When the state has its

hands on you, like you are being escorted to jail, I do not agree

with that. I am saying that we need to redraw who, what is outsourced

to whom. That is what the discussion should be about. They

used to meet in the Rose Garden, now in a factory, Mr Clegg and Mr

Cameron. Is there any point to these staged opportunities for the

rest of the country? Well, there would be more. If they got the

script right. I had not seen that clip until just now. It was

extraordinary that David Cameron started talking about, I would not

bet against the coalition lasting. Surely the official answer, given

by Nick Clegg, is that there is an agreement and the coalition will

last until 2015. If that was said repeatedly with conviction there

would be some point to it. Nick Clegg and the Lib Dems keep on

giving the official answer and it is the Tories that are just not

toeing the line. With the Lords reform, that was ridiculous. His

party, Cameron's party, is out of control and the Lib Dems have been

Another way of looking at it is Parliament has finally got some

stuff about it. The one thing it seems to have done by virtue of

being a coalition is it has given Parliament and you lease of life.

Look at the select committee investigations and the grilling of

people from Rupert Murdoch to Bob Diamond. Do you not feel there is a

bit of a spring in the parliament step? Yes, I absolutely do and I am

on a select committee myself. But that is a separate issue to the

coalition. I said that, but do you agree with me? I agree with you.

Yes, I do it and it brings up the quality of whatever the Government

brings forward. The Lords Bill was not even half-baked, it had not

been near the oven at top. If cover it brings legislation of such poor

quality, it will get torn apart. You know they say when a woman is

tired of This Week, she is tired of life, which explains why Diane

Abbott is currently less than busy pushing up political daisies in the

shadow public health team. But they also say that when a man is tired

of London, he is tired of life. So with the world swotting up on their

Cockney rhyming slang, Jackie Brambles, omni shambles, we have

decided to put London in this week's spotlight with an exclusive

preview of Julien Temple's latest hymn to the greatest city in the

Apology for the loss of subtitles for 106 seconds

stuff. Welcome to This Week. Hundreds of thousands of people

coming to the London Olympic Games, what kind of city will they find?

Do you want to go first? Certainly a different city from where we

ended up at the end of that clip. The film I made is a time travel

piece that begins with London on film for the first time in the 18

90s and brings us through to today. The changes are extraordinary, but

I think despite her totally different the city is physically,

mentally, there is still a spirit of London that affects whoever

comes here. They come here and become Londoners and continue this

core aspect of our city it. Larry? I grew up in the suburbs on the

outer edges, on the northern side. Until I came back to London as an

actor aged 30, I was not to up with what went on in the middle. All of

a sudden, it became relevant to me, living in the centre of the capital.

I remember in 1977 when it was just beginning to buzz around Notting

Hill and places coming up and you would go and have a hamburger in a

special place. Subsequently it has turned into this extraordinary, a

magnificent city. It is really to me the greatest city in the world.

The biggest change in London has been that up until the mid-70s it

was the capital of the United Kingdom. Today it is an

international city state. That is the difference. Immigration has

made a huge difference. It is unique in the history of the world.

There are more languages spoken here than anywhere in the history

of the whole planet. I came to London out of university in 1971

and even then London seemed to be in decline. It was not in the same

league as New York, Paris was more beautiful and vibrant. Today the

only city that rivals London is New York. But in the same way I think

whilst it has come on in leaps and bounds and it is fascinating and

there are amazing things you can do, what has happened is I feel

children somehow or another have lost out in this extraordinary

march forward. Kids do not get as good a live now, at least 30 years

on in my experience. A lot of them have lost facilities that I would

have taken for granted. If you look at the archive film, the kids are

in the streets. They are a community. Local swimming pools,

public libraries. You are an East under -- East Ender, what do you

think? Although London and New York both had loads of different groups

living together, the depth of those relationships in London is more

integrated. I have spent time in New York and I feel we are a more

mixed. If you scratch the surface. In New York you had the Polish

sector and all the rest of it and they very rarely interact. My kids

go to a school which has incredibly high levels of poverty, but they

have amazing opportunities. Yesterday they went to Kew Gardens.

Last week they went to the Olympics site. I dropped my son off and I

was looking at the Olympic Stadium. There are amazing opportunities

coming through. A new swimming pool in Tower Hamlets. But what about

education? If you happen to live in an area where the school is not so

good, if you happen to live in an area where the facilities are not

so good, there are places in London where kids have a real problem.

Historically we have had a history of having the worst education, but

that has been transformed over the last 10 years. Let me stepping. I

would suggest, Michael, that London is both Britain's biggest asset and

its biggest problem. The reason is it is the biggest asset is obvious.

But there is a big problem because London now has some less in common

with the rest of the country than it has ever had before. I am not

sure I see that as such a problem. You should speak to people in

Manchester when you are on your trains. Let me answer the point

rather than just huffing about it. I think it is a very diverse city

and Oona has just remarked it is a city of riches and poverty and I do

not think there is a problem with it. I want to go back to your first

problem, you said what will people going to the Olympics learnt about

London? Nothing at all. London has already got a reputation and most

people know about it. Kids know the night live in London is comparable

with anywhere else in the world. At the Olympics is a complete waste of

time and money. But what about the East End? It Olympics site is

extraordinary. Have you been around it? The focus that has been made in

the East End, badly developed, under used and misused, it is

fascinating and it is a wonderful thing to have done, but there are

bits and pieces outside that have not been touched at all. If they

had decided to take one of the major events places and stick it

between Manchester and Leeds and boost the infrastructure with high-

speed trains, so that people start moving around... The Olympics has

not come to Britain, it has come to London. But we are supporting Team

GB, not team at London. unemployment rate in Newham... The

unemployment rate in Newham is exactly the same as it was before

we spent �9 billion on the Olympics. Yes. How do we stay the greatest

city in the world? I think we have to invest in the people who have

come here and believe we are a new kind of city and stop pushing them

out. One of the big problems is that there is rich and poor again

in London. It was when I began my film, but it has come back. We have

run out of time. That is your lot, folks, but not

for us. It is our end of term Prom at Annabel's tonight. Michael has

given Oona a lovely corsage. She has given him a restraining order

again. We returned in September for the traditional festival of paint