07/02/2013 This Week

Africa - the world's greatest wilderness. As David Attenborough's

landmark series on Africa comes to an end, This Week studies the

animals on the political landscape. The only place on Earth to see the

full maggesty of nature. Westminster is the place to witness

the full majesty of political battle. Pushing, they size each

other up. A bruising battle, as David Cameron and his backbenchers

fight over gay marriage and the future of the Tory Party. Our very

own Michael Portillo assesses who will be left standing. The big

beasts are fighting tooth and nail. For David Cameron's party, it is a

struggle for survival. Springboks jumping for joy on the plains of

South Africa. Back home, Michael Gove has had to change direction

over plans to reform GCSEs. Journalist Sarah Smith tries to

interpret the different moves. Michael Gove has had to backtrack

on his EBacc this week. He is one who will not get full marks. Hidden

amongst this maze of water ways is a creature like no other. And Chris

Huhne - a very strange political beast, resigns and faces the

prospect of prison. David Baddiel looks at the personality of those

who live in the spotlight. Being in the public eye, everyone becomes a

kind of cartoon. We all know what's happened to you, Andrew!

Some enchanting animals in the continent of Africa. Some less

enchanting creatures in the Westminster village!

Evening all. Welcome to This Week. You find us not angry, not fuming,

but in the words of that great statesman Nick Integrity Clegg,

shocked and saddened, following the revolution that Chris Huhne no

longer has a future in British politics. He has, after years of

family trauma, outright denials and expensive attempts to get his case

dismissed, finally faced up to the grim truth and the equally grim

court of public opinion, confirming they are lies, damn lies and a

politician who finally has to stop digging. Mr Huhne claims to have

taken responsible. Quickly adding, it was "for something that happened

ten years ago.". - it suggests he is still in denial, thinking it was

on out-of-body experience, for an out of body politician. Those of us

who have never, ever told a Huhne- like lie are rightly joining the

chorus of contem nation against him. That surprises me -- - condemnation

against him. That surprises me, I never knew we were all so honest.

Let's turn to two who are always sharing points. I am joined on the

sofa by two political skeletons, we accidentally dug up and put on

display, the bone idle and the Boney M of late-night chat. I speak

of #manontheleft Alan 'AJ' Johnson and #sadmanonatrain Michael 'Choo

Choo' Portillo. Your moment of the week, Michael? The report into the

shocking event at the Staffordshire hospital. I was so disappointed

that this report is written in kind of abstract nouns - it's about a

culture of bullying and a failure of leadership, and so on. It's not

about people. I think it is people who have to be put back into the

equation. I was surprised the Prime Minister missed the opportunity to

say, what we need are matrons, what we need are people in authority,

who show leadership, who are on the wards to know what is going on. He

recommended another inspector. That ain't going to do any good.

Arab Spring started in Tunisia. It was making the most successful

transition to a functioning democracy. The assassination of the

opposition politician this week has jeopardised what they call the

Jasmine Revolution - that is a terrible shame. Riots I see again

on the news. We all love a good knees-up, plenty of pink pounds

were spent on Blue Nun. Not every Tory was hosting the happy couples.

Some MPs got hot under the colour, some hot under the dog collar. How

out of touch is today's Tory Party with public opinion? Who better to

ask than a man in touch with his better self-and his public - all

three of them, yes it is our own choo choo, here's Michael Portillo

Creatures that cannot adapt die off. If, as conditions around them alter,

they cannot evolve, they perish. If a party is called Conservative,

that implies it wants to keep things the bay they are, or indeed

go back to the way things used to be. That is not a good recipe for

survival, because the social climate is always changing.

Nonetheless, the party has been the great survivor in the political

ecology. How have the Conservatives lived on? The key to this

fascinating creature is the ability of the head to develop fast, while

the body goes first into spas um Time and again, highly intelligent

Conservative lead evers or Homo sapiens have recognised the need

for the party to adapt, while their backbenchers or Neanderthals have

taken up their clubs and fought for a vanished world. Sir Robert Peel

accepted there was no point in the party banging its head against

reforms that were unavoidable. It's not exactly -- they do not

survival from tiny adaptations from millennium to millennium, but to

sudden leaps forward. Where the head goes forward, the body doesn't

follow, or not for a long time, any way.

David Cameron is a big-brained home sap piyan, who knows that gay

marriage will soon exist. He had only to choose whether to be

reactiontionry or acceptable in its face. When Robert Peel could only

pass reforms with the votes of opposition parties, as happened to

David Cameron this week, his backbenchers turned on him and the

Conservatives became unfit to win a Commons majority for nearly 30

years. David Cameron's electoral prospects seem similarly grim.

Peel's party hated them. Now he is recognised at the founder of the

new Conservatives. Looking back across geological time, David

Cameron may win the same D Mike frl the Grant Museum of

Zoology, London. -- Michael from Tonight we will to the interview in

ancient Greek. Welcome. Did you vote against gay marriage? I did.

It would have been a disappointed if you said you hadn't, so we have

the right person. Do you see yourself as that... I want to

challenge the thesis on P erk el. He opposes -- Peel, he opposes

crucial reforms until the last minute. He is opposing Catholic

announcation. 1841, he gets elected on a manifesto to defend the corn

laws and then changed his mind. What you see, I think, is that the

Conservative Party has always been rather good at ultimately changing

its mind if events overtake it. As it happens, I don't think that is

the case in the current circumstances. If it is, the

Conservative Party will be perfectly capable of adapting to it,

as Robert Peel was able to do in the 1830s and 1840s. You are not on

that Bragg show. You are on This Week. Can I get back to the

question. Are you a Neanderthal backbencher dieing in the ditch?

Tories never die in the ditch. We say we will and we never do. Go

back to Peel and the Duke of Wellington. Always saying he be

carry on... Do you think David Cameron is in tune with the country

and that you backbenchers and the grass roots of the country are out

of tune? You are longing for a vanished world, says Michael.

think Conservatives do have a nostalgic feel. That represents a

view of a lot of people in the country. I don't think that is an

unattractive part of Conservatism, to look back at our history and see

what a great nation we have been and we can be again. There is a lot

you can learn from the past and from your history. You have to

adapt Conservative principals to what is happening in the modern age.

I agree with them that the Conservative Party has in fact been

very good at evolving and sometimes its leaders have taken bold

decisions which have helped it evolve. Sometimes they have taken

decisions which the party hasn't liked and then the leader has found

uncomfortable. Will you response on the condition you don't mention

Robert Peel or the Duke of Wellington. I am worried about the

Conservative Party at the moment. It has not won an election since

1992. Given it got 37% at the last election and parties don't increase

their share of the vote while in office, I don't see much prospect

of them wining the next election, then there'll be a five-year

Parliament. That means over a period of 30 years, the

Conservatives will not have won an election. This is beginning to

approach the record. I said that - won't mention the name of the Prime

Minister - I mentioned... You are allowed once. After Robert Peel we

didn't get a majority for nearly 30 years. We are about to approach

that situation, or so it seems to me. I think Jacob is a little too

relaxed. I don't think you can say, the Tories all get there in the end.

With modern media and so on, the speed of response has changed.

Unless the Tories adapt quickly to the world which is changing around

them, they'll be in trouble. Your modernising agenda has its chance.

You are part of the problem, not the solution. You fought the 2010

election on having very little to say about immigration, very little

to say about crime. You came out against grammar schools, hug a hody,

hug a Husky, huge increases in international aid. Despite all that

modernising agenda you could not beat the most unpopular Prime

Minister, after being in power for how many years - 13 years. You

$:/STARTFEED. You call it right- wing, maybe having snog say to the

C1s and C2s, the aspiring lower and middle class of this country who

elect the Governments? One proof we could offer is that we, under

Michael Howard and William Hague in 200 1 and 2005, we tried to

alternative strategy. That was the Blairite ascendancy. No matter what

happened you were going to lose? course we were, but look how badly

we lost, savagely. We made no improvement from our position in

1997. You always end up on social matters, isn't that your problem?

Yound up on the wrong side of history. Not you yourself because

you are Catholic, but the huge rump oppose emancipation, the end of

hanging and making homosexuality legal in the 1950s. You always end

up on the wrong side of an argument which, when you look back at, you

think, how did we ever think that? We are worrying about the wrong

split actually. I don't think it was Catholic emancipation, it was

the corn laws and the split that's got us into trouble is Europe. I

don't particularly disagree with the long period of difficulties

following a deep split on a major, but not social issue, so we win

election in 1841, the next one we win outright is 1874. The corn

wars? After splitting over the corn wars. Europe is potentially

similar... Potentially was, because the 92-97 period, the party tore

itself apart over Maastricht. That led to us being unelectable in 97,

going down to a rump party. I think if we look at that now, the Prime

Minister's recent European speech has reunited us on Europe for the

first time probably since Margaret Thatcher was in charge. That's

quite important. Polite enough not to intrude into private grief.

I would suggest to you that David Cameron, whether you are on

Michael's side or Jacob's side, is Prime Ministerial, the Tories will

fight the next election President- style and the Prime Minister goes

in as the single biggest asset of the Tories? I'm on Michael's side.

It was four years ago when a reactionary Conservative said to me

Cameron is trying to change the party to a party of proud

homosexuals and proud Etonians. Cameron is the best thing they've

got. If he can't change the party and Michael might have done it a

bit earlier if he'd been elected as leader. Cameron looks the part but

also Cameron actually believes in these things. He's not doing it, I

don't believe. There is a change of tack on the NHS, sticking with

international development, saying that the minimum wage was the right

thing to do, all the things they used to oppose, a party that

introduced Clause 28 in terms of the gay community and now promoting

gay marriage. He does believe it. If he can't change the party, I

feel... No-one else around to do it. Let me put this point to you,

Jacob.N't win the election with an overall majority -- if you couldn't

win the election with an overall majority,, how could you hope to

win an overall majority in 2015? Why did we lose in 2010? First of

all, the number of seats we needed to win was gigantic. We were

starting with only about 200 seats and needed to get up to 125. That

would have been the biggest swing in seats since Baldwin. So that was

always unlikely, it's very difficult to do. Second thing is

that when a party's going out of Government, there's always the fear

factor that there'll be this new party coming in. Labour campaigned

on this very effectively in Inner London. In Hammersmith, they said

if the Tories get in, you will lose your council flat. A lot of people

voted Labour then and for the Liberal Democrats to keep the

Tories out. You can win overall majorities in 2015? If we are not

losing votes to UKIP because we have settled the European issue, if

people aren't voting tactically, we are in a much stronger position to

win in 2015 than most people currently say. I'm amazed you say

that. You shouldn't be. Whether you are right or wrong one way or the

other, thank you. It's way past Jacob's usual bedtime.

He's coming home soon, he'll be on his way in time to get the Horlicks

on, lay out his favourite silk pajamas and you could sing him to

sleep with his favourite lullaby. A quick verse of it later! We have a

more than adequate replacement waiting in the wings. David Baddiel

is here to explain how having Chris Huhne in the spotlight affects your

personality. You can big yourself up on that Twitter, Fleecebook or

that vanilla-flavoured interweb. No-one else is going to do it! We

know you are an ill-educated lot so we will take it upon ourselves to

teach you history. Education Gove would be pleased with us. We have

been planning to sit our new Ebaccs. What's that, been cancelled. Oh,

well, back to GCSE basket-weaving and disco management. I digress, as

archaeologists found King Richard III buried under a car park in

Leicester, his unpaid parking tickets are bigger than the

national debt. What better time than to revisit this story,

Shakespeare the saint, let's say it's the This Week version with

Sarah Smith, Channel 4 News starring centre stage. This is a --

her round-up of the week. Since 1483, the King of England had

been Richard III. He was not a very nice man at all. Richard III buzz a

villain. He had one shoulder higher than the other. A withered arm.

limped. And murdered his way to the throne. Everyone has their own take

on Richard's story. Shakespeares is the one we know the best and there

are always lessons to be learned from the bard. Chris Huhne, for

instance, should have known hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.

I've pleaded guilty today. I'm unable to say more while there is

an outstanding trial. All the world's a stage and all the men and

women merely players. They have their entrances and exits. Well,

Chris Huhne's exit will create a whole new drama now as the Tories

and the Lib Dems have to fight each other in a by-election in Eastleigh.

Can Cameron and Clegg's relaceship survive a battle Royal? Just a

minute, there's no proof that Richard killed those princes.

had them arrested at a young age. And locked them in the Tower of

London and they were never seen again. True. This horrible history

play teaches the children about the past, even if the Education

Secretary, Michael Gove, might not approve. Well, he can't have

everything his own way, as he found out this week and he was forced to

revert to an Ebacc. The proposals I put forward were a bridge too far.

My idea that we end the competition to end GCSEs in core qualifications

and have one exam in each subject was one reform too many at this

time. This is a humiliating climb- down. The trouble with this

Secretary of State is that he thinks he knows the answer to

everything. So he digs out the fag packets and comes out with the

latest weez. What you might call an Ebacc-track. Get it?! Any more U-

turns and this place will be a laughing stock.

There is a Shakespeare quote for every story, it seems. You could

almost have been thinking about the Mid-Staffordshire NHS Trust when

they wrote a measure for measure, the miserable have no other

medicine but only hope. A solemn David Cameron this week admitted

they'd been deprived of hope as well. There were patients so

desperate for water that they were drinking from dirty flower vases.

Many were given the wrong medication, treated roughly or left

to wet themselves and then lie in urine for days. On behalf of the

Government, and indeed our country, I am truly sorry.

David Cameron can't be blamed for NHS failures under a Labour

Government, but he does have to make sure that voters trust him to

look at the NHS in this age of austerity. Charge, charge, charge...

The Army threw themselves at the spike heads of steel. Stop, stop,

stop! Nobody uses a hedge of steel any more. We need a thoroughly

modern ringfence, just to show we are really serious we'll make it

electric. The Chancellor's threat this week to electrify the fence

between the investment arms and retail functions of British banks,

he tells the voters he's prepared to get tough with the much-hated

bankers. Mom rewards for failure, no more too big to fail, no more

taxpayers forking out for the mistakes of others. Richard had an

ugly face, a hunch upon his back... Forced the poor Elizabeth to marry

him alas... In Elizabethan times, no women like me were allowed on

stage. Wedding scenes were played out with two men getting married.

Repugnant presumably to the majority of today's Tory MPs as

more than half of them voted against gay marriage amid scenes of

high drama in the Commons. Marriage is the union between a man and a

woman, has been historically, remains so. It is Alice in

Wonderland territory, Orwellian almost for any Government of any

political persuasion to seek to come along and seek to rewrite the

lexicon. Are the marriages of millions of straight people about

to be threatened because a few thousand gay people are permitted

to join? What will they say, darling, our marriage is over, Sir

Elton John has just get engaged to David Furnish? I hop opponents will

look back in ten years and won't be able to remember what the fuss was

about -- I hope. Richard III might not be everybody's political role

model but at least he led from the front riding into the Battle of

Bosworth. David Cameron championed gay marriage but he was nowhere to

be seen during the debate on the frontbench. It's the little things

that can lose a crown and lose elections too. Argh... What will

David Cameron regret the most in 2015? The split in the party over

gay marriage, U-turns and poll say backtracks or the bitter by-

election against his Lib Dem colleagues in Eastleigh? The King

is dead. Long live the King. Don't worry, she's still alive. Sarah

Smith with the cast of Horrible Histories. Miranda Green joins us

again, good to have you on the sofa. Who was responsible for the deaths

of all these people in the Mid Staffs Hospital? The Chief

Executive, the Chairman and the board and the Trust. This was a

hospital where they had a receptionist with no medical

training making clinical decisions in A&E. They put half the number of

staff on the A&E. This was a time when more money than ever before

was being put into the NHS. There was a Chief Executive there who

decided the way to get Foundation Trust status was to cut the staff.

The mystery was why it went on so long and why nobody realised what

was happening. Were any of these people summarily fired? Not as

summarily as I would have liked. The Chief Executive left with a

minute munl of six months pay and now runs a health charity. --

minimum. Were any disciplined? There is a process going through.

No-one's yet been struck off? yet, although there's one case.

happened in 2005-2008. Noib's been struck off, no-one was fired and

why no criminal charges against those running a hospital

responsible for killing between 400 and 1,200 people? Well, you have to

look at this in the sense that we are talking about a hospital here

where their standard mortality ratios every hospital has showed a

high level that sent the Healthcare Commission in. Now, I was Secretary

of State at the time and asked for an independent inquiry of the case

notes of every single death. That is the only way to establish if any

of those patients died as a result of the fact that they didn't have

enough staff and they weren't... The awful things that went on, I

guess the police and CPS would have to have that proved before they

could take a case. Is it not the case that people are appalled, not

simply because these things happened, but that no-one's seen to

pay a penalty for them? Well, this was the public inquiry that the

families really wanted. It was a very thorough public inquiry, three

volumes. Francis himself said that you cannot lay the blame at

anyone's door other than the Trust. That was the point Michael made in

his moment of the week? That was his report and actually, I said to

Michael, the Prime Minister dealt with this, I thought, in a very

mature way. He didn't try and pretend that the report said

something it didn't. So if you have a public inquiry, you pay for a

public inquiry, it takes that time and produces such a volume, you

can't pretend something's in it Why to you think... The man who was

part of the �13 billion IT investment into the NHS. It got

nowhere. It didn't cost... That was the problem they only spent �2

billion because they could not get it working. Why did Cameron keep

him on? Nobody gets fired. It is not about firing him. David Nichol

son is a very good leader in the NHS. Didn't seem to be that good

when it came to the Mid Staffs hospital. He was called to the

inquiry. Francis was clear that David Nichol son should not. Do you

still think the NHS is the envy of the world? Yes. That is because you

are equating Stafford as if it is the whole of the NHS. Tonight we

have learnt there are four other trusts who are being investigated.

When the rash Schumachers... Doesn't show how bad it is. No-one

is saying Mid Staffs is typical. It is not unique. I think it is unique.

Nobody else was cutting staff, nobody else was putting

We will find out when we get the other investigations. If you get

the standardised mortally rash shows up depending whether it is an

elderly population - it does not say that those hospitals are

anything like Stafford. There was no hospital, in anyone's experience,

that was like Stafford. OK, we stall see. The Eastleigh by-

election - what is the significance of this? It is difficult to

overstate it, I think. You've got a Liberal Democrats party that needs

to prove it's not being destroyed by its coalition relationship with

the Conservative Party. You have a Conservative Party which mid-term

is extremely worried about its prospects at the next election and

whether it is just on a path of decline. You have presumably got a

Labour Party which would quite like an historic turn around for that

part of the world, for Hampshire - you have these two coalition

parties who are presumably going to be unpleasant to each other on the

ground and the door step. The leaflets, I dread to think what

will be in the leaflets! The first poll shows the Tories three points

ahead. Does that surprise you? is what one would expect. The Lib

Dems are confident because they are strong locally. They have every

single seat on the local council. You win a by-election, you get in

there like bindweed and try and hng on so nobody can ever -- hang on so

nobody can ever dig you out. The I think there's an added pressure on

the Lib Dems because people expect Lib Dems to win by-elections. If

they lose it looks worse. What's the thinking behind calling it so

quickly? It is February 28th - and it is the Lib Dems who have called

it. I think it's, as I mentioned, it is the idea that locally they

are very strong. And a longer campaign would mean attrition on

that. What is the significance of Eastleigh is that, Tory

backbenchers, the dissidents are saying, if you cannot win Eastleigh

in these circumstances, you cannot win. I don't think you can reach

any such conclusion. It would be extraordinary if the Liberal

Democrats were to win given the Chris Huhne situation and their

overall level of unpopularity. It would be extraordinary if the

Conservatives were to win given they are the Governing party. I

don't know where that leaves us. You need Labour votes to go to the

Lib Dems, don't you? We have about 8% of the vote in Eastleigh. I

don't want the votes to go to UKIP. I am not sure where we want them to

go. What is better for you the Lib Dems winning or the Tories winning?

I don't know. Pass. This Michael Gove U-turn - is that a victory for

the Lib Dems, do you think? It is interesting. I used to cover the

Department for Education when Alan was one of the ministers in there.

I think this is a classic case of the Conservative Government miss

reading the Blair years and taking the wrong lessons - this idea you

have to be tough, you have to fight the unions, fight everyone. They

have made so many enemies, this group of ministers - and finally

they've had to listen on something, not just the Lib Dems, but if you

have Ofqual saying it will be a disaster and the Select Committee

saying it will be... You know if your coalition partners say they

will not back it - there are not any friends to back them up. It is

a Conservative-led Select Committee. There is no option but to make an

enemy of the NUT, because otherwise there would be no progress at all.

New Labour did di void and rule. They pushed the NUT out. They did

not get very far. They did. They made enormous strides.

Come over to the black board.Ly show you in a moment. I told you

we're not on the Mervyn Bragg show. Someone was missing, namely

#mollythedog. After last week's performance she told her agent she

thinks This Week is down market for her. There is a rumour she is going

to prevent Newsnight or Question Time. I would not want to alarm

anyone doing these jobs, oh, no, not me. Miranda comes cheaper. Alan

is better behaved. Michael doesn't make a mess on the studio floor...

At least, not any more. Has fame gone to Molly's head. How does

being a public figure affect the changes you make. How does being in

the spotlight put you in this week's spotlight?

I'm innocent of these charges. I intend to fight this in the courts.

I am confident that a jury will agree. Being in the spotlight -

does it affect a person's personality, or the stories they

tell us? Having taken responsibility for something that

happened ten years ago, the only proper course of action for me is

now to resign my Eastleigh seat in Parliament. As the pressure of

expectation drives people to take dangerous risks - their family,

their career and ultimately reputation. What does the tail of

Chris Huhne -- - tale of Chris Huhne tell us - a family calamity

played out in the press and the courts.

Even a much-loved Olympian struggles to understand why being

one of life winners often means losing so much privacy and control.

People weren't judging me on my swimming - they were judging me on

the way I look. It is something bizarre. I was like, why? I get in

the pool. What does it matter what I look like? How difficult is it to

tackle demons to deal with humiliation and failure when it is

played out for all to see? So, to those who seek power or revel in

the limelight deserve no sympathy when it goes wrong? Should we all

accept some responsibility for building up the public characters

that will always be privately flawed?

I say "guilty." David Baddiel is with us. Definitely guilty. When

you are in the public eye and something happens to you, it is

different from if you were simply an obscure member of the public.

Something like this - you mean something like Chris Huhne? Well

nothing like Chris Huhne has happened to me, thankfully! I'm

doing this stand-up show next week. The stand-up show is to some extent

about the way you are rendered by fans, about the way people

understand who you are. My belief is the truth of personality is

complex. Everyone is complex. It is very hard for that to stay when

you're on TV or in the papers all the time. I am as guilty of

thinking that as anyone else. Like most people, you pick him as a liar

and a cheat. That is what I thought. To some extent it is true. It is

not the whole truth. Those texts between him and his son, they

provided a weird empathy for him just as a parent. They were heart-

breaking. Suddenly I see this guy and his wider tragedy and wider

family experience. Something else - I thought, well, clearly he has

created this situation with his son, but the way he's dealing with it is

impeccable. He is saying, I love you, maybe one day we can talk

about it. It was deeply appropriate parenting. I thought he's not just

a liar and a cheat. It's not -- it's that "not just thing." Do we

tend, as a nation, to treat these people more harshly. If you were

sitting in the pub and a mate comes up and says "I got done for

speeding and I slipped the points to the wife. She's got a clean

licence 789" would you think that is -- licence." Would you think

that is quite lever of you? could say the Queen, for example,

is seen as simply good. It doesn't make her not a complex person. What

tend to happen with Twitter and all media now is a rush to judge.

Twitter has made it worse. It is great in many ways, but it has

created a thing in which people feel they can get their own

identity on making judgments on others. That gets away from a

deeper truth, I think. Do you think that also there are some people

being in the public eye constantly - does it change their personality

too? It can do. I was interested. I have been in and out of the public

eye for 25 years. I think I have an obsessive, compulsive thing about

myself. I feel I have a rock-solid personality. My show is about

seeing another version of myself. There are other people who rather

begin to chase that personality. Who, when they went into it,

thought they didn't know who they were and find themselves in toxic

and dysfunctional ways in whatever the public thinks they are. Chris

Huhne has payed the price for being in the public eye, isn't he? In the

sense this would not have happened to somebody not in the public eye.

We have been discussing a lot of people who are not going to prison.

People who work for the National Health Service, bankers. Traders

who are fiddling Libor. There's no hint these people will even be

prosecuted. You could say he's paid the price for being a politician.

Politicians are more than ever, they are created - they are

literally cartoons about them all the time. To be a complex

personality and a politician is difficult.

He is a politician and he's a politician who won the last

election with a lot of emphasis on happy families and all of that. If

you a politician, he was an MEP at the time, but if you are

representing people, he had a kind of obligation to at least be honest.

Could you recover from this? Very different circumstances there was

the famous pru few mo scandal, that involved lieing to the House of

Commons. His solution was to disappear entirely and do good work

in the East end of London. He never became a public figure again.

on for so long over what is three points on a licence. A man rich

enough to have a shau fer. And who lost his licence because he was

caught speaking on a mobile the following week. He was banned. I

didn't realise until I read it this morning. After this all he lost his

licence any way. A tragedy on one hand and a comedy on the other. He

is rushing to get on to a Ryanair flight. It feels small, but at the

same time it is grim and extreme. I presume he'll go to prison. After

that he may do that thing of going into... At least for a while.

while. Both every -- both Jeffery Archer and... You may see him on

the This Week sofa. Who knows! doing my show at the Soho theatre

all week. Do you take it through the country? It is a work-in-

progress show. If it is good I will do it around Edinburgh and around

the country. That is your lot from us. We're off to Annabelles - it's

charity auction night. After Justin Bieber was auctioned off to the

highest bidder, we thought we would do the same with access to Diane

Abbott. The reserve is �2.50. We are not sure whether we'll reach

it! We leave you with the soap drama Eastleigh-enders.

Nighty-night. Can you explain to me who told them

this? If anybody has any idea. thought I would go to the press and