:00:29. > :00:34.Africa - the world's greatest wilderness. As David Attenborough's
:00:34. > :00:39.landmark series on Africa comes to an end, This Week studies the
:00:39. > :00:43.animals on the political landscape. The only place on Earth to see the
:00:43. > :00:50.full maggesty of nature. Westminster is the place to witness
:00:50. > :00:54.the full majesty of political battle. Pushing, they size each
:00:54. > :00:59.other up. A bruising battle, as David Cameron and his backbenchers
:00:59. > :01:04.fight over gay marriage and the future of the Tory Party. Our very
:01:04. > :01:10.own Michael Portillo assesses who will be left standing. The big
:01:10. > :01:15.beasts are fighting tooth and nail. For David Cameron's party, it is a
:01:15. > :01:19.struggle for survival. Springboks jumping for joy on the plains of
:01:19. > :01:25.South Africa. Back home, Michael Gove has had to change direction
:01:25. > :01:30.over plans to reform GCSEs. Journalist Sarah Smith tries to
:01:30. > :01:36.interpret the different moves. Michael Gove has had to backtrack
:01:36. > :01:43.on his EBacc this week. He is one who will not get full marks. Hidden
:01:43. > :01:48.amongst this maze of water ways is a creature like no other. And Chris
:01:48. > :01:54.Huhne - a very strange political beast, resigns and faces the
:01:54. > :02:00.prospect of prison. David Baddiel looks at the personality of those
:02:00. > :02:09.who live in the spotlight. Being in the public eye, everyone becomes a
:02:09. > :02:15.kind of cartoon. We all know what's happened to you, Andrew!
:02:15. > :02:19.Some enchanting animals in the continent of Africa. Some less
:02:19. > :02:24.enchanting creatures in the Westminster village!
:02:24. > :02:33.Evening all. Welcome to This Week. You find us not angry, not fuming,
:02:33. > :02:39.but in the words of that great statesman Nick Integrity Clegg,
:02:39. > :02:44.shocked and saddened, following the revolution that Chris Huhne no
:02:44. > :02:48.longer has a future in British politics. He has, after years of
:02:48. > :02:55.family trauma, outright denials and expensive attempts to get his case
:02:55. > :03:00.dismissed, finally faced up to the grim truth and the equally grim
:03:00. > :03:05.court of public opinion, confirming they are lies, damn lies and a
:03:05. > :03:10.politician who finally has to stop digging. Mr Huhne claims to have
:03:10. > :03:17.taken responsible. Quickly adding, it was "for something that happened
:03:17. > :03:27.ten years ago.". - it suggests he is still in denial, thinking it was
:03:27. > :03:32.
:03:32. > :03:39.on out-of-body experience, for an out of body politician. Those of us
:03:39. > :03:45.who have never, ever told a Huhne- like lie are rightly joining the
:03:45. > :03:50.chorus of contem nation against him. That surprises me -- - condemnation
:03:50. > :03:55.against him. That surprises me, I never knew we were all so honest.
:03:55. > :04:02.Let's turn to two who are always sharing points. I am joined on the
:04:02. > :04:09.sofa by two political skeletons, we accidentally dug up and put on
:04:09. > :04:13.display, the bone idle and the Boney M of late-night chat. I speak
:04:13. > :04:18.of #manontheleft Alan 'AJ' Johnson and #sadmanonatrain Michael 'Choo
:04:18. > :04:21.Choo' Portillo. Your moment of the week, Michael? The report into the
:04:21. > :04:25.shocking event at the Staffordshire hospital. I was so disappointed
:04:25. > :04:30.that this report is written in kind of abstract nouns - it's about a
:04:30. > :04:34.culture of bullying and a failure of leadership, and so on. It's not
:04:34. > :04:37.about people. I think it is people who have to be put back into the
:04:37. > :04:42.equation. I was surprised the Prime Minister missed the opportunity to
:04:42. > :04:47.say, what we need are matrons, what we need are people in authority,
:04:47. > :04:54.who show leadership, who are on the wards to know what is going on. He
:04:54. > :04:58.recommended another inspector. That ain't going to do any good.
:04:58. > :05:04.Arab Spring started in Tunisia. It was making the most successful
:05:04. > :05:07.transition to a functioning democracy. The assassination of the
:05:07. > :05:12.opposition politician this week has jeopardised what they call the
:05:12. > :05:21.Jasmine Revolution - that is a terrible shame. Riots I see again
:05:21. > :05:28.on the news. We all love a good knees-up, plenty of pink pounds
:05:28. > :05:35.were spent on Blue Nun. Not every Tory was hosting the happy couples.
:05:35. > :05:40.Some MPs got hot under the colour, some hot under the dog collar. How
:05:40. > :05:44.out of touch is today's Tory Party with public opinion? Who better to
:05:44. > :05:50.ask than a man in touch with his better self-and his public - all
:05:50. > :06:00.three of them, yes it is our own choo choo, here's Michael Portillo
:06:00. > :06:16.
:06:16. > :06:19.Creatures that cannot adapt die off. If, as conditions around them alter,
:06:19. > :06:23.they cannot evolve, they perish. If a party is called Conservative,
:06:23. > :06:29.that implies it wants to keep things the bay they are, or indeed
:06:29. > :06:38.go back to the way things used to be. That is not a good recipe for
:06:38. > :06:43.survival, because the social climate is always changing.
:06:43. > :06:48.Nonetheless, the party has been the great survivor in the political
:06:48. > :06:54.ecology. How have the Conservatives lived on? The key to this
:06:54. > :07:04.fascinating creature is the ability of the head to develop fast, while
:07:04. > :07:07.
:07:07. > :07:14.the body goes first into spas um Time and again, highly intelligent
:07:14. > :07:19.Conservative lead evers or Homo sapiens have recognised the need
:07:19. > :07:24.for the party to adapt, while their backbenchers or Neanderthals have
:07:24. > :07:29.taken up their clubs and fought for a vanished world. Sir Robert Peel
:07:29. > :07:39.accepted there was no point in the party banging its head against
:07:39. > :07:42.
:07:42. > :07:47.reforms that were unavoidable. It's not exactly -- they do not
:07:47. > :07:51.survival from tiny adaptations from millennium to millennium, but to
:07:51. > :07:59.sudden leaps forward. Where the head goes forward, the body doesn't
:07:59. > :08:04.follow, or not for a long time, any way.
:08:04. > :08:11.David Cameron is a big-brained home sap piyan, who knows that gay
:08:11. > :08:21.marriage will soon exist. He had only to choose whether to be
:08:21. > :08:24.
:08:24. > :08:28.reactiontionry or acceptable in its face. When Robert Peel could only
:08:28. > :08:32.pass reforms with the votes of opposition parties, as happened to
:08:32. > :08:37.David Cameron this week, his backbenchers turned on him and the
:08:37. > :08:43.Conservatives became unfit to win a Commons majority for nearly 30
:08:43. > :08:48.years. David Cameron's electoral prospects seem similarly grim.
:08:48. > :08:52.Peel's party hated them. Now he is recognised at the founder of the
:08:52. > :09:02.new Conservatives. Looking back across geological time, David
:09:02. > :09:02.
:09:02. > :09:12.Cameron may win the same D Mike frl the Grant Museum of
:09:12. > :09:18.
:09:18. > :09:25.Zoology, London. -- Michael from Tonight we will to the interview in
:09:25. > :09:30.ancient Greek. Welcome. Did you vote against gay marriage? I did.
:09:30. > :09:38.It would have been a disappointed if you said you hadn't, so we have
:09:38. > :09:45.the right person. Do you see yourself as that... I want to
:09:45. > :09:54.challenge the thesis on P erk el. He opposes -- Peel, he opposes
:09:54. > :09:59.crucial reforms until the last minute. He is opposing Catholic
:09:59. > :10:04.announcation. 1841, he gets elected on a manifesto to defend the corn
:10:04. > :10:07.laws and then changed his mind. What you see, I think, is that the
:10:07. > :10:12.Conservative Party has always been rather good at ultimately changing
:10:12. > :10:15.its mind if events overtake it. As it happens, I don't think that is
:10:15. > :10:18.the case in the current circumstances. If it is, the
:10:18. > :10:28.Conservative Party will be perfectly capable of adapting to it,
:10:28. > :10:33.as Robert Peel was able to do in the 1830s and 1840s. You are not on
:10:33. > :10:38.that Bragg show. You are on This Week. Can I get back to the
:10:38. > :10:42.question. Are you a Neanderthal backbencher dieing in the ditch?
:10:43. > :10:48.Tories never die in the ditch. We say we will and we never do. Go
:10:48. > :10:52.back to Peel and the Duke of Wellington. Always saying he be
:10:52. > :10:56.carry on... Do you think David Cameron is in tune with the country
:10:56. > :11:02.and that you backbenchers and the grass roots of the country are out
:11:02. > :11:06.of tune? You are longing for a vanished world, says Michael.
:11:06. > :11:11.think Conservatives do have a nostalgic feel. That represents a
:11:11. > :11:15.view of a lot of people in the country. I don't think that is an
:11:15. > :11:20.unattractive part of Conservatism, to look back at our history and see
:11:20. > :11:23.what a great nation we have been and we can be again. There is a lot
:11:24. > :11:26.you can learn from the past and from your history. You have to
:11:26. > :11:30.adapt Conservative principals to what is happening in the modern age.
:11:30. > :11:35.I agree with them that the Conservative Party has in fact been
:11:35. > :11:39.very good at evolving and sometimes its leaders have taken bold
:11:39. > :11:43.decisions which have helped it evolve. Sometimes they have taken
:11:43. > :11:51.decisions which the party hasn't liked and then the leader has found
:11:51. > :11:54.uncomfortable. Will you response on the condition you don't mention
:11:54. > :11:59.Robert Peel or the Duke of Wellington. I am worried about the
:11:59. > :12:03.Conservative Party at the moment. It has not won an election since
:12:03. > :12:07.1992. Given it got 37% at the last election and parties don't increase
:12:08. > :12:11.their share of the vote while in office, I don't see much prospect
:12:11. > :12:14.of them wining the next election, then there'll be a five-year
:12:14. > :12:18.Parliament. That means over a period of 30 years, the
:12:18. > :12:23.Conservatives will not have won an election. This is beginning to
:12:23. > :12:29.approach the record. I said that - won't mention the name of the Prime
:12:29. > :12:33.Minister - I mentioned... You are allowed once. After Robert Peel we
:12:33. > :12:38.didn't get a majority for nearly 30 years. We are about to approach
:12:38. > :12:44.that situation, or so it seems to me. I think Jacob is a little too
:12:44. > :12:49.relaxed. I don't think you can say, the Tories all get there in the end.
:12:49. > :12:52.With modern media and so on, the speed of response has changed.
:12:52. > :12:57.Unless the Tories adapt quickly to the world which is changing around
:12:57. > :13:01.them, they'll be in trouble. Your modernising agenda has its chance.
:13:01. > :13:05.You are part of the problem, not the solution. You fought the 2010
:13:05. > :13:14.election on having very little to say about immigration, very little
:13:14. > :13:19.to say about crime. You came out against grammar schools, hug a hody,
:13:20. > :13:25.hug a Husky, huge increases in international aid. Despite all that
:13:25. > :13:31.modernising agenda you could not beat the most unpopular Prime
:13:31. > :13:41.Minister, after being in power for how many years - 13 years. You
:13:41. > :13:46.
:13:46. > :13:52.$:/STARTFEED. You call it right- wing, maybe having snog say to the
:13:52. > :13:57.C1s and C2s, the aspiring lower and middle class of this country who
:13:57. > :14:02.elect the Governments? One proof we could offer is that we, under
:14:02. > :14:05.Michael Howard and William Hague in 200 1 and 2005, we tried to
:14:05. > :14:10.alternative strategy. That was the Blairite ascendancy. No matter what
:14:10. > :14:16.happened you were going to lose? course we were, but look how badly
:14:16. > :14:20.we lost, savagely. We made no improvement from our position in
:14:20. > :14:26.1997. You always end up on social matters, isn't that your problem?
:14:26. > :14:33.Yound up on the wrong side of history. Not you yourself because
:14:33. > :14:37.you are Catholic, but the huge rump oppose emancipation, the end of
:14:37. > :14:41.hanging and making homosexuality legal in the 1950s. You always end
:14:41. > :14:47.up on the wrong side of an argument which, when you look back at, you
:14:47. > :14:52.think, how did we ever think that? We are worrying about the wrong
:14:52. > :14:56.split actually. I don't think it was Catholic emancipation, it was
:14:57. > :15:01.the corn laws and the split that's got us into trouble is Europe. I
:15:01. > :15:07.don't particularly disagree with the long period of difficulties
:15:07. > :15:14.following a deep split on a major, but not social issue, so we win
:15:14. > :15:19.election in 1841, the next one we win outright is 1874. The corn
:15:19. > :15:26.wars? After splitting over the corn wars. Europe is potentially
:15:26. > :15:32.similar... Potentially was, because the 92-97 period, the party tore
:15:32. > :15:36.itself apart over Maastricht. That led to us being unelectable in 97,
:15:36. > :15:40.going down to a rump party. I think if we look at that now, the Prime
:15:40. > :15:45.Minister's recent European speech has reunited us on Europe for the
:15:45. > :15:52.first time probably since Margaret Thatcher was in charge. That's
:15:52. > :15:59.quite important. Polite enough not to intrude into private grief.
:15:59. > :16:04.I would suggest to you that David Cameron, whether you are on
:16:04. > :16:09.Michael's side or Jacob's side, is Prime Ministerial, the Tories will
:16:09. > :16:14.fight the next election President- style and the Prime Minister goes
:16:14. > :16:20.in as the single biggest asset of the Tories? I'm on Michael's side.
:16:20. > :16:25.It was four years ago when a reactionary Conservative said to me
:16:25. > :16:30.Cameron is trying to change the party to a party of proud
:16:30. > :16:34.homosexuals and proud Etonians. Cameron is the best thing they've
:16:34. > :16:39.got. If he can't change the party and Michael might have done it a
:16:39. > :16:45.bit earlier if he'd been elected as leader. Cameron looks the part but
:16:45. > :16:49.also Cameron actually believes in these things. He's not doing it, I
:16:49. > :16:51.don't believe. There is a change of tack on the NHS, sticking with
:16:51. > :16:55.international development, saying that the minimum wage was the right
:16:55. > :17:00.thing to do, all the things they used to oppose, a party that
:17:00. > :17:07.introduced Clause 28 in terms of the gay community and now promoting
:17:07. > :17:14.gay marriage. He does believe it. If he can't change the party, I
:17:14. > :17:21.feel... No-one else around to do it. Let me put this point to you,
:17:21. > :17:28.Jacob.N't win the election with an overall majority -- if you couldn't
:17:28. > :17:34.win the election with an overall majority,, how could you hope to
:17:35. > :17:39.win an overall majority in 2015? Why did we lose in 2010? First of
:17:39. > :17:44.all, the number of seats we needed to win was gigantic. We were
:17:44. > :17:48.starting with only about 200 seats and needed to get up to 125. That
:17:48. > :17:51.would have been the biggest swing in seats since Baldwin. So that was
:17:51. > :17:55.always unlikely, it's very difficult to do. Second thing is
:17:55. > :17:59.that when a party's going out of Government, there's always the fear
:17:59. > :18:05.factor that there'll be this new party coming in. Labour campaigned
:18:05. > :18:11.on this very effectively in Inner London. In Hammersmith, they said
:18:11. > :18:16.if the Tories get in, you will lose your council flat. A lot of people
:18:16. > :18:22.voted Labour then and for the Liberal Democrats to keep the
:18:22. > :18:28.Tories out. You can win overall majorities in 2015? If we are not
:18:28. > :18:32.losing votes to UKIP because we have settled the European issue, if
:18:32. > :18:37.people aren't voting tactically, we are in a much stronger position to
:18:37. > :18:41.win in 2015 than most people currently say. I'm amazed you say
:18:41. > :18:47.that. You shouldn't be. Whether you are right or wrong one way or the
:18:47. > :18:52.other, thank you. It's way past Jacob's usual bedtime.
:18:52. > :18:57.He's coming home soon, he'll be on his way in time to get the Horlicks
:18:57. > :19:04.on, lay out his favourite silk pajamas and you could sing him to
:19:04. > :19:11.sleep with his favourite lullaby. A quick verse of it later! We have a
:19:11. > :19:17.more than adequate replacement waiting in the wings. David Baddiel
:19:17. > :19:22.is here to explain how having Chris Huhne in the spotlight affects your
:19:22. > :19:28.personality. You can big yourself up on that Twitter, Fleecebook or
:19:28. > :19:33.that vanilla-flavoured interweb. No-one else is going to do it! We
:19:33. > :19:38.know you are an ill-educated lot so we will take it upon ourselves to
:19:39. > :19:44.teach you history. Education Gove would be pleased with us. We have
:19:44. > :19:52.been planning to sit our new Ebaccs. What's that, been cancelled. Oh,
:19:52. > :19:56.well, back to GCSE basket-weaving and disco management. I digress, as
:19:56. > :20:00.archaeologists found King Richard III buried under a car park in
:20:00. > :20:03.Leicester, his unpaid parking tickets are bigger than the
:20:03. > :20:08.national debt. What better time than to revisit this story,
:20:08. > :20:16.Shakespeare the saint, let's say it's the This Week version with
:20:16. > :20:24.Sarah Smith, Channel 4 News starring centre stage. This is a --
:20:24. > :20:31.her round-up of the week. Since 1483, the King of England had
:20:31. > :20:36.been Richard III. He was not a very nice man at all. Richard III buzz a
:20:36. > :20:46.villain. He had one shoulder higher than the other. A withered arm.
:20:46. > :20:47.
:20:47. > :20:50.limped. And murdered his way to the throne. Everyone has their own take
:20:50. > :20:55.on Richard's story. Shakespeares is the one we know the best and there
:20:55. > :20:59.are always lessons to be learned from the bard. Chris Huhne, for
:20:59. > :21:04.instance, should have known hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.
:21:04. > :21:10.I've pleaded guilty today. I'm unable to say more while there is
:21:10. > :21:14.an outstanding trial. All the world's a stage and all the men and
:21:14. > :21:17.women merely players. They have their entrances and exits. Well,
:21:17. > :21:22.Chris Huhne's exit will create a whole new drama now as the Tories
:21:22. > :21:28.and the Lib Dems have to fight each other in a by-election in Eastleigh.
:21:28. > :21:33.Can Cameron and Clegg's relaceship survive a battle Royal? Just a
:21:33. > :21:37.minute, there's no proof that Richard killed those princes.
:21:37. > :21:42.had them arrested at a young age. And locked them in the Tower of
:21:42. > :21:45.London and they were never seen again. True. This horrible history
:21:45. > :21:48.play teaches the children about the past, even if the Education
:21:48. > :21:57.Secretary, Michael Gove, might not approve. Well, he can't have
:21:57. > :22:02.everything his own way, as he found out this week and he was forced to
:22:02. > :22:09.revert to an Ebacc. The proposals I put forward were a bridge too far.
:22:09. > :22:15.My idea that we end the competition to end GCSEs in core qualifications
:22:15. > :22:18.and have one exam in each subject was one reform too many at this
:22:18. > :22:22.time. This is a humiliating climb- down. The trouble with this
:22:22. > :22:32.Secretary of State is that he thinks he knows the answer to
:22:32. > :22:33.
:22:33. > :22:40.everything. So he digs out the fag packets and comes out with the
:22:40. > :22:46.latest weez. What you might call an Ebacc-track. Get it?! Any more U-
:22:46. > :22:50.turns and this place will be a laughing stock.
:22:50. > :22:54.There is a Shakespeare quote for every story, it seems. You could
:22:54. > :22:58.almost have been thinking about the Mid-Staffordshire NHS Trust when
:22:58. > :23:01.they wrote a measure for measure, the miserable have no other
:23:01. > :23:05.medicine but only hope. A solemn David Cameron this week admitted
:23:05. > :23:09.they'd been deprived of hope as well. There were patients so
:23:09. > :23:13.desperate for water that they were drinking from dirty flower vases.
:23:13. > :23:17.Many were given the wrong medication, treated roughly or left
:23:17. > :23:24.to wet themselves and then lie in urine for days. On behalf of the
:23:24. > :23:28.Government, and indeed our country, I am truly sorry.
:23:28. > :23:32.David Cameron can't be blamed for NHS failures under a Labour
:23:32. > :23:37.Government, but he does have to make sure that voters trust him to
:23:37. > :23:43.look at the NHS in this age of austerity. Charge, charge, charge...
:23:43. > :23:49.The Army threw themselves at the spike heads of steel. Stop, stop,
:23:49. > :23:54.stop! Nobody uses a hedge of steel any more. We need a thoroughly
:23:54. > :23:59.modern ringfence, just to show we are really serious we'll make it
:23:59. > :24:03.electric. The Chancellor's threat this week to electrify the fence
:24:03. > :24:08.between the investment arms and retail functions of British banks,
:24:08. > :24:13.he tells the voters he's prepared to get tough with the much-hated
:24:13. > :24:19.bankers. Mom rewards for failure, no more too big to fail, no more
:24:19. > :24:26.taxpayers forking out for the mistakes of others. Richard had an
:24:26. > :24:29.ugly face, a hunch upon his back... Forced the poor Elizabeth to marry
:24:29. > :24:34.him alas... In Elizabethan times, no women like me were allowed on
:24:34. > :24:37.stage. Wedding scenes were played out with two men getting married.
:24:37. > :24:42.Repugnant presumably to the majority of today's Tory MPs as
:24:42. > :24:47.more than half of them voted against gay marriage amid scenes of
:24:48. > :24:53.high drama in the Commons. Marriage is the union between a man and a
:24:53. > :24:58.woman, has been historically, remains so. It is Alice in
:24:58. > :25:02.Wonderland territory, Orwellian almost for any Government of any
:25:02. > :25:05.political persuasion to seek to come along and seek to rewrite the
:25:05. > :25:09.lexicon. Are the marriages of millions of straight people about
:25:09. > :25:13.to be threatened because a few thousand gay people are permitted
:25:13. > :25:18.to join? What will they say, darling, our marriage is over, Sir
:25:18. > :25:22.Elton John has just get engaged to David Furnish? I hop opponents will
:25:22. > :25:28.look back in ten years and won't be able to remember what the fuss was
:25:28. > :25:32.about -- I hope. Richard III might not be everybody's political role
:25:32. > :25:36.model but at least he led from the front riding into the Battle of
:25:36. > :25:41.Bosworth. David Cameron championed gay marriage but he was nowhere to
:25:41. > :25:45.be seen during the debate on the frontbench. It's the little things
:25:45. > :25:51.that can lose a crown and lose elections too. Argh... What will
:25:51. > :25:55.David Cameron regret the most in 2015? The split in the party over
:25:55. > :26:04.gay marriage, U-turns and poll say backtracks or the bitter by-
:26:04. > :26:14.election against his Lib Dem colleagues in Eastleigh? The King
:26:14. > :26:16.
:26:16. > :26:22.is dead. Long live the King. Don't worry, she's still alive. Sarah
:26:22. > :26:26.Smith with the cast of Horrible Histories. Miranda Green joins us
:26:26. > :26:29.again, good to have you on the sofa. Who was responsible for the deaths
:26:29. > :26:32.of all these people in the Mid Staffs Hospital? The Chief
:26:32. > :26:36.Executive, the Chairman and the board and the Trust. This was a
:26:36. > :26:42.hospital where they had a receptionist with no medical
:26:42. > :26:47.training making clinical decisions in A&E. They put half the number of
:26:47. > :26:50.staff on the A&E. This was a time when more money than ever before
:26:50. > :26:55.was being put into the NHS. There was a Chief Executive there who
:26:55. > :27:01.decided the way to get Foundation Trust status was to cut the staff.
:27:01. > :27:06.The mystery was why it went on so long and why nobody realised what
:27:06. > :27:09.was happening. Were any of these people summarily fired? Not as
:27:09. > :27:16.summarily as I would have liked. The Chief Executive left with a
:27:16. > :27:20.minute munl of six months pay and now runs a health charity. --
:27:20. > :27:28.minimum. Were any disciplined? There is a process going through.
:27:28. > :27:34.No-one's yet been struck off? yet, although there's one case.
:27:34. > :27:40.happened in 2005-2008. Noib's been struck off, no-one was fired and
:27:40. > :27:45.why no criminal charges against those running a hospital
:27:45. > :27:52.responsible for killing between 400 and 1,200 people? Well, you have to
:27:52. > :27:57.look at this in the sense that we are talking about a hospital here
:27:57. > :28:00.where their standard mortality ratios every hospital has showed a
:28:00. > :28:04.high level that sent the Healthcare Commission in. Now, I was Secretary
:28:04. > :28:09.of State at the time and asked for an independent inquiry of the case
:28:09. > :28:13.notes of every single death. That is the only way to establish if any
:28:13. > :28:20.of those patients died as a result of the fact that they didn't have
:28:20. > :28:24.enough staff and they weren't... The awful things that went on, I
:28:24. > :28:28.guess the police and CPS would have to have that proved before they
:28:28. > :28:34.could take a case. Is it not the case that people are appalled, not
:28:34. > :28:38.simply because these things happened, but that no-one's seen to
:28:38. > :28:44.pay a penalty for them? Well, this was the public inquiry that the
:28:44. > :28:47.families really wanted. It was a very thorough public inquiry, three
:28:48. > :28:51.volumes. Francis himself said that you cannot lay the blame at
:28:51. > :28:56.anyone's door other than the Trust. That was the point Michael made in
:28:56. > :28:59.his moment of the week? That was his report and actually, I said to
:28:59. > :29:01.Michael, the Prime Minister dealt with this, I thought, in a very
:29:01. > :29:07.mature way. He didn't try and pretend that the report said
:29:07. > :29:11.something it didn't. So if you have a public inquiry, you pay for a
:29:11. > :29:21.public inquiry, it takes that time and produces such a volume, you
:29:21. > :29:26.
:29:26. > :29:32.can't pretend something's in it Why to you think... The man who was
:29:32. > :29:37.part of the �13 billion IT investment into the NHS. It got
:29:37. > :29:44.nowhere. It didn't cost... That was the problem they only spent �2
:29:44. > :29:48.billion because they could not get it working. Why did Cameron keep
:29:48. > :29:53.him on? Nobody gets fired. It is not about firing him. David Nichol
:29:53. > :30:00.son is a very good leader in the NHS. Didn't seem to be that good
:30:00. > :30:04.when it came to the Mid Staffs hospital. He was called to the
:30:04. > :30:11.inquiry. Francis was clear that David Nichol son should not. Do you
:30:11. > :30:16.still think the NHS is the envy of the world? Yes. That is because you
:30:16. > :30:22.are equating Stafford as if it is the whole of the NHS. Tonight we
:30:22. > :30:29.have learnt there are four other trusts who are being investigated.
:30:29. > :30:35.When the rash Schumachers... Doesn't show how bad it is. No-one
:30:35. > :30:40.is saying Mid Staffs is typical. It is not unique. I think it is unique.
:30:40. > :30:48.Nobody else was cutting staff, nobody else was putting
:30:48. > :30:55.We will find out when we get the other investigations. If you get
:30:55. > :30:59.the standardised mortally rash shows up depending whether it is an
:30:59. > :31:05.elderly population - it does not say that those hospitals are
:31:05. > :31:10.anything like Stafford. There was no hospital, in anyone's experience,
:31:10. > :31:14.that was like Stafford. OK, we stall see. The Eastleigh by-
:31:14. > :31:17.election - what is the significance of this? It is difficult to
:31:18. > :31:22.overstate it, I think. You've got a Liberal Democrats party that needs
:31:22. > :31:26.to prove it's not being destroyed by its coalition relationship with
:31:26. > :31:29.the Conservative Party. You have a Conservative Party which mid-term
:31:29. > :31:36.is extremely worried about its prospects at the next election and
:31:36. > :31:40.whether it is just on a path of decline. You have presumably got a
:31:40. > :31:45.Labour Party which would quite like an historic turn around for that
:31:45. > :31:49.part of the world, for Hampshire - you have these two coalition
:31:50. > :31:55.parties who are presumably going to be unpleasant to each other on the
:31:55. > :32:01.ground and the door step. The leaflets, I dread to think what
:32:01. > :32:07.will be in the leaflets! The first poll shows the Tories three points
:32:07. > :32:11.ahead. Does that surprise you? is what one would expect. The Lib
:32:11. > :32:16.Dems are confident because they are strong locally. They have every
:32:16. > :32:21.single seat on the local council. You win a by-election, you get in
:32:22. > :32:28.there like bindweed and try and hng on so nobody can ever -- hang on so
:32:28. > :32:32.nobody can ever dig you out. The I think there's an added pressure on
:32:32. > :32:39.the Lib Dems because people expect Lib Dems to win by-elections. If
:32:39. > :32:44.they lose it looks worse. What's the thinking behind calling it so
:32:45. > :32:50.quickly? It is February 28th - and it is the Lib Dems who have called
:32:50. > :32:57.it. I think it's, as I mentioned, it is the idea that locally they
:32:57. > :33:03.are very strong. And a longer campaign would mean attrition on
:33:03. > :33:07.that. What is the significance of Eastleigh is that, Tory
:33:07. > :33:11.backbenchers, the dissidents are saying, if you cannot win Eastleigh
:33:11. > :33:15.in these circumstances, you cannot win. I don't think you can reach
:33:15. > :33:19.any such conclusion. It would be extraordinary if the Liberal
:33:19. > :33:23.Democrats were to win given the Chris Huhne situation and their
:33:23. > :33:27.overall level of unpopularity. It would be extraordinary if the
:33:27. > :33:30.Conservatives were to win given they are the Governing party. I
:33:30. > :33:36.don't know where that leaves us. You need Labour votes to go to the
:33:36. > :33:41.Lib Dems, don't you? We have about 8% of the vote in Eastleigh. I
:33:41. > :33:47.don't want the votes to go to UKIP. I am not sure where we want them to
:33:47. > :33:53.go. What is better for you the Lib Dems winning or the Tories winning?
:33:53. > :33:58.I don't know. Pass. This Michael Gove U-turn - is that a victory for
:33:58. > :34:01.the Lib Dems, do you think? It is interesting. I used to cover the
:34:01. > :34:06.Department for Education when Alan was one of the ministers in there.
:34:06. > :34:10.I think this is a classic case of the Conservative Government miss
:34:10. > :34:15.reading the Blair years and taking the wrong lessons - this idea you
:34:15. > :34:20.have to be tough, you have to fight the unions, fight everyone. They
:34:20. > :34:24.have made so many enemies, this group of ministers - and finally
:34:24. > :34:28.they've had to listen on something, not just the Lib Dems, but if you
:34:28. > :34:32.have Ofqual saying it will be a disaster and the Select Committee
:34:32. > :34:37.saying it will be... You know if your coalition partners say they
:34:38. > :34:41.will not back it - there are not any friends to back them up. It is
:34:41. > :34:47.a Conservative-led Select Committee. There is no option but to make an
:34:47. > :34:52.enemy of the NUT, because otherwise there would be no progress at all.
:34:52. > :34:57.New Labour did di void and rule. They pushed the NUT out. They did
:34:57. > :35:02.not get very far. They did. They made enormous strides.
:35:02. > :35:12.Come over to the black board.Ly show you in a moment. I told you
:35:12. > :35:18.we're not on the Mervyn Bragg show. Someone was missing, namely
:35:18. > :35:24.#mollythedog. After last week's performance she told her agent she
:35:24. > :35:27.thinks This Week is down market for her. There is a rumour she is going
:35:27. > :35:34.to prevent Newsnight or Question Time. I would not want to alarm
:35:34. > :35:39.anyone doing these jobs, oh, no, not me. Miranda comes cheaper. Alan
:35:39. > :35:45.is better behaved. Michael doesn't make a mess on the studio floor...
:35:45. > :35:52.At least, not any more. Has fame gone to Molly's head. How does
:35:52. > :36:01.being a public figure affect the changes you make. How does being in
:36:01. > :36:05.the spotlight put you in this week's spotlight?
:36:05. > :36:11.I'm innocent of these charges. I intend to fight this in the courts.
:36:11. > :36:17.I am confident that a jury will agree. Being in the spotlight -
:36:17. > :36:20.does it affect a person's personality, or the stories they
:36:20. > :36:24.tell us? Having taken responsibility for something that
:36:24. > :36:30.happened ten years ago, the only proper course of action for me is
:36:30. > :36:33.now to resign my Eastleigh seat in Parliament. As the pressure of
:36:33. > :36:39.expectation drives people to take dangerous risks - their family,
:36:39. > :36:44.their career and ultimately reputation. What does the tail of
:36:44. > :36:47.Chris Huhne -- - tale of Chris Huhne tell us - a family calamity
:36:47. > :36:52.played out in the press and the courts.
:36:52. > :36:57.Even a much-loved Olympian struggles to understand why being
:36:57. > :37:02.one of life winners often means losing so much privacy and control.
:37:02. > :37:07.People weren't judging me on my swimming - they were judging me on
:37:07. > :37:12.the way I look. It is something bizarre. I was like, why? I get in
:37:13. > :37:15.the pool. What does it matter what I look like? How difficult is it to
:37:15. > :37:22.tackle demons to deal with humiliation and failure when it is
:37:22. > :37:27.played out for all to see? So, to those who seek power or revel in
:37:27. > :37:31.the limelight deserve no sympathy when it goes wrong? Should we all
:37:31. > :37:37.accept some responsibility for building up the public characters
:37:37. > :37:43.that will always be privately flawed?
:37:43. > :37:47.I say "guilty." David Baddiel is with us. Definitely guilty. When
:37:47. > :37:50.you are in the public eye and something happens to you, it is
:37:50. > :37:55.different from if you were simply an obscure member of the public.
:37:55. > :37:58.Something like this - you mean something like Chris Huhne? Well
:37:58. > :38:04.nothing like Chris Huhne has happened to me, thankfully! I'm
:38:04. > :38:09.doing this stand-up show next week. The stand-up show is to some extent
:38:09. > :38:12.about the way you are rendered by fans, about the way people
:38:12. > :38:16.understand who you are. My belief is the truth of personality is
:38:16. > :38:22.complex. Everyone is complex. It is very hard for that to stay when
:38:22. > :38:28.you're on TV or in the papers all the time. I am as guilty of
:38:28. > :38:33.thinking that as anyone else. Like most people, you pick him as a liar
:38:33. > :38:38.and a cheat. That is what I thought. To some extent it is true. It is
:38:38. > :38:43.not the whole truth. Those texts between him and his son, they
:38:43. > :38:48.provided a weird empathy for him just as a parent. They were heart-
:38:48. > :38:52.breaking. Suddenly I see this guy and his wider tragedy and wider
:38:52. > :38:56.family experience. Something else - I thought, well, clearly he has
:38:56. > :39:01.created this situation with his son, but the way he's dealing with it is
:39:01. > :39:05.impeccable. He is saying, I love you, maybe one day we can talk
:39:05. > :39:15.about it. It was deeply appropriate parenting. I thought he's not just
:39:15. > :39:17.
:39:17. > :39:23.a liar and a cheat. It's not -- it's that "not just thing." Do we
:39:23. > :39:29.tend, as a nation, to treat these people more harshly. If you were
:39:29. > :39:35.sitting in the pub and a mate comes up and says "I got done for
:39:35. > :39:42.speeding and I slipped the points to the wife. She's got a clean
:39:42. > :39:47.licence 789" would you think that is -- licence." Would you think
:39:47. > :39:51.that is quite lever of you? could say the Queen, for example,
:39:52. > :39:58.is seen as simply good. It doesn't make her not a complex person. What
:39:58. > :40:02.tend to happen with Twitter and all media now is a rush to judge.
:40:02. > :40:06.Twitter has made it worse. It is great in many ways, but it has
:40:06. > :40:11.created a thing in which people feel they can get their own
:40:11. > :40:15.identity on making judgments on others. That gets away from a
:40:15. > :40:19.deeper truth, I think. Do you think that also there are some people
:40:19. > :40:24.being in the public eye constantly - does it change their personality
:40:24. > :40:31.too? It can do. I was interested. I have been in and out of the public
:40:31. > :40:38.eye for 25 years. I think I have an obsessive, compulsive thing about
:40:38. > :40:42.myself. I feel I have a rock-solid personality. My show is about
:40:42. > :40:45.seeing another version of myself. There are other people who rather
:40:45. > :40:51.begin to chase that personality. Who, when they went into it,
:40:51. > :40:56.thought they didn't know who they were and find themselves in toxic
:40:56. > :41:00.and dysfunctional ways in whatever the public thinks they are. Chris
:41:00. > :41:04.Huhne has payed the price for being in the public eye, isn't he? In the
:41:04. > :41:08.sense this would not have happened to somebody not in the public eye.
:41:08. > :41:12.We have been discussing a lot of people who are not going to prison.
:41:12. > :41:18.People who work for the National Health Service, bankers. Traders
:41:18. > :41:23.who are fiddling Libor. There's no hint these people will even be
:41:23. > :41:29.prosecuted. You could say he's paid the price for being a politician.
:41:29. > :41:34.Politicians are more than ever, they are created - they are
:41:34. > :41:36.literally cartoons about them all the time. To be a complex
:41:36. > :41:40.personality and a politician is difficult.
:41:40. > :41:48.He is a politician and he's a politician who won the last
:41:48. > :41:54.election with a lot of emphasis on happy families and all of that. If
:41:54. > :41:59.you a politician, he was an MEP at the time, but if you are
:41:59. > :42:07.representing people, he had a kind of obligation to at least be honest.
:42:07. > :42:11.Could you recover from this? Very different circumstances there was
:42:11. > :42:16.the famous pru few mo scandal, that involved lieing to the House of
:42:16. > :42:26.Commons. His solution was to disappear entirely and do good work
:42:26. > :42:31.in the East end of London. He never became a public figure again.
:42:31. > :42:37.on for so long over what is three points on a licence. A man rich
:42:37. > :42:41.enough to have a shau fer. And who lost his licence because he was
:42:41. > :42:45.caught speaking on a mobile the following week. He was banned. I
:42:46. > :42:51.didn't realise until I read it this morning. After this all he lost his
:42:51. > :42:56.licence any way. A tragedy on one hand and a comedy on the other. He
:42:56. > :43:03.is rushing to get on to a Ryanair flight. It feels small, but at the
:43:03. > :43:09.same time it is grim and extreme. I presume he'll go to prison. After
:43:09. > :43:19.that he may do that thing of going into... At least for a while.
:43:19. > :43:23.
:43:23. > :43:28.while. Both every -- both Jeffery Archer and... You may see him on
:43:29. > :43:33.the This Week sofa. Who knows! doing my show at the Soho theatre
:43:33. > :43:39.all week. Do you take it through the country? It is a work-in-
:43:39. > :43:46.progress show. If it is good I will do it around Edinburgh and around
:43:46. > :43:50.the country. That is your lot from us. We're off to Annabelles - it's
:43:50. > :43:54.charity auction night. After Justin Bieber was auctioned off to the
:43:54. > :44:00.highest bidder, we thought we would do the same with access to Diane
:44:00. > :44:10.Abbott. The reserve is �2.50. We are not sure whether we'll reach
:44:10. > :44:10.
:44:10. > :44:15.it! We leave you with the soap drama Eastleigh-enders.
:44:16. > :44:20.Nighty-night. Can you explain to me who told them
:44:20. > :44:29.this? If anybody has any idea. thought I would go to the press and