:00:12. > :00:14.accused of trying to smear family and supporters of murdered black
:00:14. > :00:24.teenager Stephen Lawrence. Government advisor Sean Bailey
:00:24. > :00:29.
:00:29. > :00:32.senior you are, the more protected you are, and it has to stop.
:00:32. > :00:37.A Chancellor slashing spending is caught red-handed on CCTV - we hear
:00:37. > :00:40.from economic eye-witness, Aditya Chakrabortty. A series of brutal
:00:40. > :00:43.cuts by the Chancellor, so why is Labour going along with them?
:00:43. > :00:45.And as fugitive whistleblower Ed Snowden goes on the run, with the
:00:45. > :00:53.help of WikiLeaks, Oscar-winning director Alex Gibney reveals the
:00:53. > :01:03.truth behind the people who steal secrets. In cyberspace, nobody can
:01:03. > :01:15.
:01:15. > :01:17.Evenin' all. Welcome to This Week, the BBC's regular Blue Nun-fuelled
:01:17. > :01:20.tightrope walk across the Grand Westminster Canyon, where we're
:01:20. > :01:29.rejoicing that an obsession with social class no longer sullies this
:01:29. > :01:32.fair land. Where a posh Chancellor doesn't have to be pictured by his
:01:32. > :01:35.spin doctor tucking into a hamburger and chips at his desk of a night,
:01:35. > :01:42.just to prove he's at one with ordinary, hard-working people who
:01:42. > :01:45.play by the rules. Where the media don't have a go at him because said
:01:45. > :01:48.hamburger is a cut above the ordinary, with marginally more meat
:01:48. > :01:52.and less cholesterol than the heart-stopping stuff you can get at
:01:52. > :01:56.Mickey D's. And where, in a country whose economy has just recently
:01:56. > :01:59.tanked by more than it did after the Wall Street Crash in 1929, where
:01:59. > :02:01.there's been almost no growth since then but endless cuts to public
:02:01. > :02:04.services and the most savage squeeze on living standards in living
:02:04. > :02:13.memory, we know we have frankly more to worry about than such
:02:13. > :02:16.trivialities as a Chancellor and his choice of hamburger. Yes we've come
:02:16. > :02:21.a long way from being a class-ridden country with the wrong priorities.
:02:21. > :02:24.Not! Speaking of the trivial, I'm joined on the sofa tonight by two
:02:24. > :02:27.people who are nobody's priority. Think of them as the Silvio
:02:27. > :02:32.Berlusconi and Ruby the Heart Stealer of late night political
:02:32. > :02:34.chat. I speak, of course, of #iffysmithy Jacqui Smith, and
:02:34. > :02:44.#sadmanonatrain, the legend of the 1608 trundler from Auchenshuggle,
:02:44. > :03:00.
:03:00. > :03:07.somewhat more than a year ago, and is trading, Trenton Oldfield, set
:03:07. > :03:10.out to swim while the boat race was going on in the Thames. -- and
:03:10. > :03:14.Australian. He disrupted it quite badly and was arrested and sent to
:03:14. > :03:20.prison. And now he has had a letter saying that his Visa is no longer
:03:20. > :03:23.valid and he has to go back to Australia. And he is up in arms. He
:03:23. > :03:28.thinks this is extraordinary, particularly as his British wife is
:03:28. > :03:32.pregnant. Well, I have news for him. When you commit a crime in this
:03:32. > :03:38.country, you should expect, I think to be deported when you have served
:03:38. > :03:41.your sentence. The European Court of human rights will never let it
:03:41. > :03:47.happen. He will appeal under the right to family life, and he will
:03:47. > :03:53.win. I think he has decided that his family life is going to be in
:03:53. > :03:56.Australia. As far as I know, you can live a decent life in Australia.
:03:56. > :04:03.will be picking up his pension and swimming in the Thames for the rest
:04:03. > :04:08.of his life. There will be more outrageous that happens. I know
:04:08. > :04:12.politics is brutal, but I have watched as the woman who lived by
:04:12. > :04:15.the sword died by the sword in a strange year this week Tom with
:04:15. > :04:23.Kevin Rudd, who was ousted by the strain the Prime Minister, Julia
:04:23. > :04:26.Gillard, came back into the prime position by ousting her. It raised
:04:27. > :04:33.questions about the extent to which it may or may not have ever happened
:04:33. > :04:36.in the UK, although I noted that in Australia it is possible to create a
:04:36. > :04:42.new leader for the Australian Labour Party with no involvement of the
:04:42. > :04:45.rest of the party. Something which could not have happened in the UK.
:04:45. > :04:48.They are 16 points behind in the polls, and desperate.
:04:48. > :04:51.Now, the murder of black teenager Stephen Lawrence by a gang of white
:04:51. > :04:54.youths in 1993 shook the nation, and its tremors can still be felt today.
:04:54. > :04:58.A public inquiry accused the Metropolitan Police of institutional
:04:58. > :05:01.racism and incompetence in the way it reacted. Now a former undercover
:05:01. > :05:09.police officer claims he posed as an anti-racism campaigner after the
:05:09. > :05:14.murder, tasked with finding dirt on the family and its supporters. So
:05:14. > :05:16.where do these new allegations leave trust in the police? We turned to
:05:16. > :05:26.the Government's Community and Youth Engagement Champion, Shaun Bailey.
:05:26. > :05:40.
:05:40. > :05:45.has advised the Prime Minister about youth and crime, I want to believe
:05:45. > :05:47.in the police, but this has become harder this week. The allegations
:05:47. > :05:51.that an undercover officer was ordered to infiltrate Stephen
:05:51. > :05:56.Lawrence's friends and family and undermined their case, we can all
:05:56. > :05:59.agree were shocking and appalling. Stephen Lawrence was the victim of a
:05:59. > :06:04.racist murder and his family were struggling to come to terms with
:06:04. > :06:08.that. The fact that the people meant to be delivering justice were
:06:08. > :06:12.concentrating on the victims, not the perpetrators, says a lot for
:06:12. > :06:17.their priorities at the time. Through community work, I know that
:06:17. > :06:21.if a black boy commits a crime, profiling techniques put entire
:06:21. > :06:24.communities under pressure. Now the police are accused of wrongdoing,
:06:24. > :06:29.should we all assess police behaviour differently, should we
:06:29. > :06:35.profile them in a way that makes us this trustful of them? I hope not. A
:06:35. > :06:41.police force that can be trusted cannot with consent. We must know
:06:41. > :06:44.that our police stand for the right things all of the time. This is an
:06:44. > :06:48.opportunity for senior policemen to deliver the leadership that is
:06:48. > :06:56.needed. We need guidelines about undercover operations and any type
:06:56. > :07:00.of operations police use in this country. The buck stops with them.
:07:00. > :07:04.The sad thing is over the last 20 years, police community relations
:07:04. > :07:07.have been improving and allegations like this could set that back. I
:07:07. > :07:11.believe the police should open themselves up to a judge leading
:07:11. > :07:18.choir in order not to lose the improvement in relations. A police
:07:18. > :07:22.force that releases through consensus must open to scrutiny.
:07:22. > :07:27.Trust in the police is too important to mess with. The London riots were
:07:27. > :07:31.an example of what can happen if trust breaks down. 20 years after
:07:31. > :07:33.the murder of Stephen Lawrence, his family are still searching for
:07:34. > :07:37.justice, and the police should use this as an opportunity to deliver
:07:37. > :07:40.that justice. And from the Royal Courts of Justice
:07:40. > :07:49.to our own little court here in the heart of Westminster, Shaun Bailey
:07:49. > :07:52.joins us. The Stephen Lawrence case has
:07:52. > :07:59.probably done more reputational damage to the Metropolitan police
:07:59. > :08:05.than any other modern event, I would suggest. And just as you think it is
:08:05. > :08:10.fading into history, something happens, and it never goes away.
:08:10. > :08:16.That is true. It has been shocking. The police need to use this as an
:08:16. > :08:19.opportunity to end that. The details of this case have been horrific, now
:08:20. > :08:24.and when it started 20 years ago. For many communities up and down the
:08:24. > :08:31.country, it has compounded their feelings about the police, which is
:08:31. > :08:34.not useful to anybody. Will it bring back feelings of the police,
:08:34. > :08:40.particularly in the black community, which might have been fading as the
:08:40. > :08:44.police tried to learn the lessons of Stephen Lawrence? That is one of the
:08:44. > :08:48.biggest reeks. For a junior bobby on the beat, this will make your job
:08:48. > :08:51.harder. You did not join up to be viewed as racist, but these
:08:51. > :08:58.revelations will make it harder to connect to the community because
:08:58. > :09:03.they will say, we told you that you were unworthy of our trust. We are
:09:03. > :09:09.sure that the whistleblower is a reliable with us? In one sense, that
:09:09. > :09:17.remains to be proven. There are two enquiries running and people are
:09:17. > :09:21.asking for a third. We still have two enquiries after all this time?
:09:21. > :09:25.One on the undercover police and one on the Stephen Lawrence case. People
:09:25. > :09:29.are asking for a judicial enquiry into this incident. But the real
:09:29. > :09:35.thing is that people will believe it. This has ended the folklore of
:09:36. > :09:39.the police. An enquiry, if not delivered smartly, because the
:09:39. > :09:46.current enquiries are too far-away, it would enter the lexicon of how
:09:46. > :09:50.people believe the police behave. What do you make of this? I think
:09:50. > :09:55.Shaun Bailey is right that this is undermined in confidence. The
:09:55. > :10:00.problem for the police is that they cannot police on their own. They
:10:00. > :10:03.need the confidence of communities to report crime to act as witnesses.
:10:03. > :10:10.If people do is that confidence, which has been growing, that makes
:10:10. > :10:16.it more difficult. Is it credible that in the aftermath of a hugely
:10:16. > :10:21.publicised murder, of which there was national outrage at what
:10:21. > :10:25.happened to this young man, that the Metropolitan police, at what must
:10:25. > :10:30.have been a reasonably senior level, appointed an undercover group, not
:10:30. > :10:39.to find out the people who did this, but to get bad stuff on the family
:10:39. > :10:42.or supporters of Mr Lawrence? Macpherson Inquiry found there was
:10:42. > :10:47.institutional racism in the police at that point, which at the time was
:10:47. > :10:52.greeted as controversial. Some people thought that had gone too
:10:52. > :10:58.far. To a certain extent, this is proof of that. You find it credible
:10:58. > :11:05.that that could have happened. but there is a very important role
:11:05. > :11:08.for undercover policing. Undercover policing is meant to get the bad
:11:08. > :11:16.guys, not the good guys, the people who have suffered this terrible
:11:16. > :11:19.crime. It is not about undercover policing, but about community
:11:19. > :11:23.relations. It has come to light through the Stephen Lawrence
:11:24. > :11:29.campaign, through black communities, but this is a problem for everybody.
:11:29. > :11:33.A police force that is not trusted is of no use to anybody. The London
:11:33. > :11:38.riots are an example of that. You have people in Liverpool with the
:11:38. > :11:44.Hillsborough example who feel the same. I feel pessimistic about how
:11:44. > :11:47.this will be resolved. You have just said the enquiries will take too
:11:47. > :11:52.long but I suspect a judicial enquiry would take longer. We have
:11:52. > :11:59.had too many. And although they are meant to get to the truth, they get
:11:59. > :12:02.to the truth very late. And they are, for the people responsible for
:12:02. > :12:07.the Metropolitan police today, a way of postponing the issue for a couple
:12:07. > :12:11.of years down the road. We really need a response from the
:12:11. > :12:15.Metropolitan Police that ensures that under the present leadership
:12:15. > :12:19.such misdemeanours are absolutely impossible. But the knee jerk
:12:19. > :12:23.reaction of the police is always to say it is being taken very
:12:23. > :12:29.seriously, and to kick it into the long grass. We need an affirmation
:12:29. > :12:34.that such activities would now be absolutely impossible. The problem
:12:34. > :12:37.with the enquiries is not the length of time but their scope. You have
:12:37. > :12:42.one which is looking broadly at undercover policing, including
:12:42. > :12:47.police officers taking the identities of dead Abies, etc. That
:12:47. > :12:51.is almost too broad to cover this issue. And you have the other
:12:51. > :12:55.enquiry that is a barrister considering whether or not the
:12:55. > :13:01.original investigation was effectively carried out. So there is
:13:01. > :13:05.a gap, and I tend to agree with Michael but I think it might be
:13:05. > :13:09.possible to have something that is very focused and deep, because the
:13:09. > :13:13.totemic nature of the Stephen Lawrence case, never mind the
:13:13. > :13:19.terrible impact on the family, I think means that this specific issue
:13:19. > :13:24.needs to be cleared up sooner rather than later. The police need to show
:13:24. > :13:29.that they want to be involved. I believe Bernard Hogan-Howe and his
:13:29. > :13:35.new bunch are up to the task, but they need to act. The one thing that
:13:35. > :13:38.a judge -led enquiry has is the smell of an outsider doing it. The
:13:38. > :13:44.police investigating the police, there is a worry they will be nice
:13:44. > :13:47.to each other. Apart from anything, we must be running out of judges. We
:13:48. > :13:54.have had so many of these enquiries, and they are so expensive and last
:13:54. > :13:59.so long. Justice postponed is justice denied. This case has run 20
:13:59. > :14:05.years already, and to consider it might have more years before we
:14:05. > :14:09.reach an opinion on this, I think it is too much. We are at an historic
:14:09. > :14:13.point in Britain's development. We have moved from the place where
:14:13. > :14:16.public servants are blameless. We had revelations in the NHS, all
:14:16. > :14:24.manner of things. Somebody needs to say things are going to change,
:14:24. > :14:27.because it now feels the state is acting against individuals. Do you
:14:27. > :14:33.think things have changed since the Macpherson Inquiry? For the police,
:14:33. > :14:37.undoubtedly. There was a definite effort on their part. There are not
:14:38. > :14:43.enough black police, and I hope we can address that. Are there fewer
:14:43. > :14:51.stop and searches for black people? They are significantly better, and
:14:51. > :14:56.we are on a journey. And this could set that journey back badly. Some of
:14:56. > :15:06.the police retire at a ridiculously young age. Some senior officers, if
:15:06. > :15:10.there are senior officers behind this, they are long gone. They are
:15:10. > :15:13.not in the Met any more, are they? Not necessarily. They may be long
:15:13. > :15:17.gone, but I don't know whether that necessarily means there shouldn't be
:15:17. > :15:19.the ability to carry out this investigation. I ups that.Necessary
:15:19. > :15:23.to refer that for further investigation and that's one of the
:15:23. > :15:27.other problems with the inquiries, that they don't at the moment have
:15:27. > :15:32.the ability necessarily - it could be that these are criminal
:15:32. > :15:37.investigations. It could be if you send an undercover officer to the
:15:37. > :15:43.family for no other reason than to get the dirt. Which ought thought
:15:43. > :15:46.there was an element of the Met that wanted to get this crime solved? Is
:15:47. > :15:50.that right? I guess it's a real surprise that not only did they
:15:50. > :15:54.think that, they actively tried to get dirt on the family when they'd
:15:54. > :15:58.suffered the most? In the words of the Prime Minister, "shocking and
:15:58. > :16:00.appalled requestings", but this is about the future, the relationship
:16:00. > :16:04.of vulnerable communities, black-and-white, with the police in
:16:04. > :16:08.the future. If we don't solve this now, we'll forever have a smell in
:16:08. > :16:12.this country that if you are from the wrong place, the police are not
:16:12. > :16:16.for you and that has to be addressed. Let me ask you this, not
:16:16. > :16:20.many people from your background with your experience have access to
:16:20. > :16:22.the corridors of power in Downing Street. Do they get it? Do our
:16:22. > :16:25.political leaders get the significance of this? I would like
:16:25. > :16:28.to believe they do. I've had words with people I think are important in
:16:28. > :16:32.this and they get it. That's why, for instance, if you heard the Home
:16:32. > :16:36.Secretary, she said everything is still on the table because she's
:16:36. > :16:40.aware of her very important role she has to advocate for the police but
:16:40. > :16:44.also has to maybe throw the book at the police and it's a very thin rope
:16:44. > :16:46.to walk. The bottom line is this, somebody needs to do something to
:16:46. > :16:50.encourage communities black-and-white that the police are
:16:50. > :16:55.for us all. It's wider than that. You have it with the NHS and
:16:55. > :16:59.Hillsborough as well, and there is a real smell in this country that if
:16:59. > :17:03.you are from the wrong place and background, public service is
:17:03. > :17:07.against you and we have to solve that. The public pay for that. We
:17:07. > :17:11.want to believe in our services. Vulnerable communities spend more
:17:11. > :17:17.time with their police than anybody else. My guess is the Home Secretary
:17:17. > :17:25.will concede to an inquiry. Are you worried about the time it will take?
:17:25. > :17:31.Yes, but Mrs Norris has come out for it and others have come out for it.
:17:31. > :17:34.I hope we do it because we want it, not because people are pandering
:17:34. > :17:41.towards it. Thank you. It's late, so late that
:17:41. > :17:47.even the Spooks NSA Operation Prism have probably given up monitoring
:17:47. > :17:51.us. So Edward Snowden's lost interest in us. He's in the transit
:17:51. > :18:00.lounge in Moscow Airport. We knew we could depend on you to stick with
:18:00. > :18:10.us, you sad, sad inekeryiated souls. Anyway, top up that mug of Blue Nun
:18:10. > :18:10.
:18:10. > :18:16.because Alex Gibbny is here to talk about his new film, We Steal Secrets
:18:16. > :18:24.-- inebriated. For those who hide nothing as you hide behind your
:18:24. > :18:28.anonymity, remember there's the twit Twitter, Fleecebook and interweb. --
:18:28. > :18:32.Alex Gibney. Jeffrey hope he'd be singing to a
:18:32. > :18:36.different tune, but things haven't gone to plan so he's still singing
:18:36. > :18:39.from the austerity song book. The first cut is the deepest, the first
:18:39. > :18:47.song, turns out to have been economical with the truth. He was
:18:47. > :18:53.back this week. The latest number, Death By A Thousand Cuts is already
:18:53. > :18:57.rocking up the charts. We sent Aditya Chakrabortty up the charts to
:18:57. > :19:04.experience some cuts of his own. This is the round-up.
:19:04. > :19:07.When all the talk of cuts, cuts, cuts, where else is there a
:19:08. > :19:13.late-night low-budget political discussion? The barbers. A classy
:19:13. > :19:18.joint like this doesn't do just any old chop. No, here they cut with a
:19:19. > :19:23.deft hand and a keen eye on image, rather a like the Chancellor.
:19:23. > :19:33.Hm. Rugged but perhaps a bit too much. Too much fringe going on for
:19:33. > :19:46.
:19:46. > :19:52.me. Tell you what, I'll have the But wait. Just like our Jeffrey,
:19:52. > :20:02.before I do anything really important, I like to eat an
:20:02. > :20:03.
:20:03. > :20:08.overpriced burger and Tweet the What we have got this week was a
:20:08. > :20:11.close-up of what austerity Britain will look like come spring 2016
:20:11. > :20:14.jurks how starved the Public Services would be, just how mean our
:20:14. > :20:19.welfare system would be. Of course, the Chancellor wants to play it off
:20:19. > :20:24.as just a regular trim -- just how starved the Public Services would
:20:24. > :20:28.be. We have brought the deficit down by a third, helped a record number
:20:28. > :20:33.of people into work and taken our economy back from the brink of
:20:33. > :20:37.bankruptcy. But then came the cut throat stuff.
:20:37. > :20:41.Local council budgets to be slashed by 10% on top of the third that's
:20:41. > :20:45.already been taken off. Woe be tide anyone made redundant in Osborne's
:20:45. > :20:51.Britain. A seven day wait just to sign on and you'd better turn up at
:20:51. > :20:54.the Jobcentre with a polished CV and perfect English. Help to work,
:20:54. > :20:59.incentives to work and an expectation that people should do
:20:59. > :21:09.everything they can to find work. That's fair for people out of work
:21:09. > :21:15.
:21:15. > :21:21.and it's fair for those in work who You have to hand to it the
:21:21. > :21:25.Chancellor. He knows how to turn the fiscal equivalent of a pudding bowl
:21:25. > :21:28.into a quiff. Never forget that those cuts were weren't part of plan
:21:29. > :21:33.A, he was meant to have done with his austerity by the next general
:21:33. > :21:36.election. Now they'll stretch all the way to 2018, possibly beyond.
:21:36. > :21:42.But given that, the Chancellor was automobile to present these cuts as
:21:42. > :21:45.some kind of coherent economic strategy. Even using them to draw
:21:45. > :21:51.battlelines ahead of the next election, boxing Labour in along the
:21:51. > :21:56.way. Does he recall what he said to this House two years ago? He said
:21:56. > :22:03."we have already asked the British people for what is needed and we do
:22:03. > :22:08.not need to ask for more". "We do not need to ask for more". Isn't his
:22:08. > :22:13.economic failure the reason why he's back here asking for more today?
:22:13. > :22:16.Quite right, Ed. But if austerity's such a load of well, Balls, why have
:22:16. > :22:20.you and Professor Miliband just signed up to it? In the looking
:22:20. > :22:25.glass world of British politics, Labour's had to prove its economic
:22:25. > :22:29.competence by signing up to an incompetent economic strategy. The
:22:29. > :22:33.two Eds were both distinctive and correct when they opposed austerity
:22:33. > :22:38.and the Shadow Chancellor knows it because there's nothing he likes
:22:38. > :22:45.better than to say "I told you so". He promised to balance the books and
:22:45. > :22:52.that promise is in tatters. Failed tests, broken promises. His friends
:22:52. > :23:02.call him George, the President calls him Jeffrey, but to everyone else,
:23:02. > :23:06.
:23:06. > :23:09.You would struggle to get a Jane Austen tenor between the three main
:23:10. > :23:13.parties who agree on the economic strategy famed to kick start growth
:23:14. > :23:23.or to bring down borrowing. Oh, and the Bank of England will soon be run
:23:23. > :23:29.by a man who looks like Don Draper. Mark Karni is coming to take over
:23:29. > :23:33.from Mervyn King. Professor Mervyn King only has a couple of days left
:23:34. > :23:38.to fill the packing boxes. It would be wrong for me to claim that Jane
:23:38. > :23:42.Austen will be the figure on the �10 note. That has to be a matter for my
:23:42. > :23:49.successor. It would be unlikely when we find ourselves in the situation
:23:49. > :23:59.where there will be no historical women on bank notes or where Jane
:23:59. > :24:03.
:24:03. > :24:07.Austen is waiting quietly in the New hair cut, new man. Even after
:24:07. > :24:12.all of Osborne's cuts, the Britain of 2016 will look a lot like the
:24:12. > :24:17.Britain of 2006, only slightly less fun. Overall in the banks, forget
:24:17. > :24:21.about it, rebalancing the economy, not a chance. Any growth that we do
:24:21. > :24:31.get will come surely from personal debt and the housing market. Does
:24:31. > :24:32.
:24:32. > :24:37.any of that sound familiar? What do you reckon, Michael?
:24:37. > :24:41.He's behind you! That was Aditya Chakrabortty at the
:24:41. > :24:46.Pall Mall Barbers in London. We are joined by Miranda Green, good to see
:24:46. > :24:52.you back again. Let me come straight to you, Jacqui on this point. If the
:24:52. > :24:55.Labour Party is right that this is an incompetent economic strategy,
:24:55. > :25:00.why are you adopting this incompetent economic strategy?
:25:00. > :25:05.Because you have to start from what you are now, caused by the in come
:25:05. > :25:10.incompetent strategy that's been in existence over the last three years.
:25:10. > :25:14.I think Ed Balls rightly, as he said a couple of weeks ago, understands
:25:14. > :25:18.that in order for us to have economic credibility, we need to
:25:18. > :25:23.recognise the situation that the bad policies of the Government have got
:25:23. > :25:28.us into now. You can't really borrow any more? Well, no, because the
:25:28. > :25:31.other important point I think is to make a distinction, as Ed has done,
:25:31. > :25:39.between current spending where it would be wrong to borrow to finance
:25:39. > :25:44.that and capital spending where part of the critique is, despite Danny
:25:44. > :25:47.Alexander's grandiose statement today, in actual fact, that capital
:25:47. > :25:52.spending isn't starting for far too long. Bringing forward some of that
:25:52. > :25:58.capital spending to this year and next would help boost growth.
:25:58. > :26:01.how much and when? Well, what Ed has said I think rightly is, there
:26:01. > :26:05.should have been more emphasis on bringing forward... But how much and
:26:05. > :26:08.when? We are not in Government at the moment Michael, but that's not
:26:08. > :26:12.to say there shouldn't have been more thinking about bringing forward
:26:12. > :26:15.some of that spending. One way of looking at the commit is what
:26:16. > :26:21.Labour's plans were for the last three years where capital spending
:26:21. > :26:25.would have been higher. The evidence is that had we been in Government,
:26:26. > :26:29.we would have emphasised capital spending more than has been the case
:26:29. > :26:33.with George Osborne and therefore there would have been growth.
:26:33. > :26:37.Alistair Darling plan involved a halving of the capital spending. It
:26:37. > :26:42.went from �50 billion to �25 billion under Alistair Darling and that's
:26:42. > :26:47.largely what the coalition's done as well? I think first of all, let's
:26:47. > :26:51.return to this distinction between current and capital. Capital
:26:52. > :26:54.spending? The plan showed that for the three-year period after the
:26:54. > :26:58.general election, capital spending under a Labour Government would have
:26:58. > :27:02.been higher than capital spending has been under this Government and
:27:02. > :27:07.George Osborne himself... But it's only by a billion or two, Jacqui. If
:27:07. > :27:14.you talk the Darling plan, it's pretty much what the - I mean the
:27:14. > :27:19.coalition now regrets - if you speak to Nick Clegg or Danny Alexander at
:27:19. > :27:22.times, they rather regret they went ahead with the Darling plan to cut
:27:22. > :27:25.capital spending but it was your plan. You are right. In the Autumn
:27:25. > :27:28.Statement, George Osborne said that the Government had cut capital
:27:28. > :27:34.spending too far, so why did we have an announcement today that was a lot
:27:34. > :27:36.of hype but that actually was reduced capital spending by 2015-16
:27:37. > :27:44.over the current situation and didn't bring forward any capital
:27:44. > :27:48.spending now? Capital spending by 2015-16 will be back up to where it
:27:48. > :27:53.was when they came into power. It's going to grow, but not by much. You
:27:53. > :27:57.are talking about one or two at most. In a sense, when you look at
:27:57. > :28:02.the coalition policy, they are all over the place. They slashed capital
:28:02. > :28:07.spending when they came to power, they barely touched current spending
:28:07. > :28:11.at all, still haven't, and they pile all the pain, all the cuts, they
:28:11. > :28:16.ringfence about 60% of Government spending so all the pain falls in
:28:16. > :28:26.the 40% that's not covered. It's not being very sensible? It's been
:28:26. > :28:31.pretty brave because ringfencing the National Health Service, keeping it
:28:31. > :28:35.at 0% increase each year, is a vast change on what is situation was
:28:35. > :28:38.before when national health spending was rising very steeply indeed. Some
:28:38. > :28:41.of public spending inevitably goes up because the debt interest is
:28:41. > :28:44.going up, because the deficit is going up and national debt is going
:28:44. > :28:49.up and there are more people claiming benefits so all of that
:28:49. > :28:52.goes up. So what does the Government do if it's going to keep control of
:28:52. > :28:58.public spending? It has to cut everything else. That is the
:28:58. > :29:03.reality. The cuts being made to the rest of it are deeply impressive.
:29:03. > :29:09.Taking a third out of the budget of some departments I think is deeply
:29:09. > :29:12.impressive. But, I'll tell you why Ed Balls has accepted the position.
:29:12. > :29:16.It isn't anything to do with reality, it's about oppositions have
:29:16. > :29:20.no credibility and Governments have automatic credibility and the
:29:20. > :29:23.opposition would waste a lot of time between now and the election arguing
:29:23. > :29:27.about two or three billion here or there and how it was going to find
:29:27. > :29:30.the money and what it would do differently. In the process, it
:29:30. > :29:35.would simply lose more credibility because the media wouldn't be
:29:35. > :29:40.prepared to believe it. What the Labour Party's done is to say, look,
:29:40. > :29:46.in order to shore up our credibility, we'll adopt the same
:29:46. > :29:48.baseline. If there was any tar diness, it was the tar diness of the
:29:48. > :29:54.Labour Party realising the inevitable that you have to accept
:29:54. > :29:58.the Government's take on this. do you think? ? I agree with Michael
:29:58. > :30:01.but it's not so much about how the media portray the position, it's the
:30:01. > :30:07.fact that if you look at the polling, more people support the
:30:07. > :30:17.austerity drive now than a year ago. That is remarkable. Extraordinary
:30:17. > :30:18.
:30:18. > :30:22.really. This has been a week of extreme - the Government trying
:30:22. > :30:27.to... Talking about it again and again and the public say, all right,
:30:27. > :30:30.we'll go along with it. Totally paradoxically, the more the economic
:30:30. > :30:33.situation looks uncertain, because it was a very brave and risky thing
:30:33. > :30:38.for George Osborne over the weekend and this week to say we are now out
:30:38. > :30:41.of intensive care and into recovery - that's a big risk to say that
:30:41. > :30:44.categorically, but docksically, that again works to the Government's
:30:44. > :30:49.advance. If you think it's risky, you are not going to vote for
:30:49. > :30:52.somebody who might borrow more to spend more so it's very difficult.
:30:52. > :30:58.But you have the following sills of this country dominated by the plucks
:30:58. > :31:02.of austerity, as it's call and the endless mantra of cuts and they say
:31:02. > :31:07.that's enough cuts and next year he's back for more, �11. 5 billion
:31:07. > :31:11.this year. You stand back, look at public spending in 2010 and what is
:31:11. > :31:17.projected for 2017 and you see that in the seven-year period, it's
:31:17. > :31:21.projected to fall by 2. 7%, that's it. Yes.Over seven years in real
:31:21. > :31:27.term. So hajj how much worse it would be in the Government weren't
:31:27. > :31:37.making the cuts. Denis Healey made more than 2. 7% of cuts in one year
:31:37. > :31:40.
:31:40. > :31:47.cuts in public spending. It seems that way because it is
:31:47. > :31:51.concentrated. We know that interest is going up, -- debt is going up, so
:31:51. > :31:55.we should be looking at the primary situation before debt interest. The
:31:55. > :31:59.fact that debt interest and welfare payments are going up drives up
:31:59. > :32:07.public spending. That means what the government is doing in the rest of
:32:07. > :32:10.public spending is the tea Dam heroic. I am not convinced. I'm not
:32:10. > :32:15.convinced that ring-fencing the NHS, or schools, is the right thing to
:32:15. > :32:19.do. I think it would be more interesting and braver actually to
:32:19. > :32:25.start making some of the arguments about whether or not, if you
:32:25. > :32:29.ring-fenced the NHS that bring about swingeing cuts in local councils,
:32:29. > :32:34.you are not creating a social care crisis which reflects back on the
:32:34. > :32:37.NHS. If you really believe in children getting on in life,
:32:37. > :32:43.investing in early years, which has seen substantial cuts, might be
:32:43. > :32:49.better than ring-fencing schools. What about welfare? We were assured
:32:49. > :32:56.by Douglas Alexander that -- Danny Alexander that welfare cuts were of
:32:56. > :33:00.the table, and the Chancellor has sneaked in welfare cuts. How did
:33:00. > :33:05.that happen? They stuck to the limits they agreed when the welfare
:33:05. > :33:12.row happened around the time of the budget. There was a huge set to at
:33:12. > :33:16.that time and this has come out as a result. Are the Lib Dems happy with
:33:16. > :33:19.the cap? Welfare was really difficult for the Lib Dems, because
:33:19. > :33:26.Lib Dem voters do not feel the same way about welfare that Labour voters
:33:26. > :33:29.did. It turns out that Labour voters are not in favour of splurging on
:33:29. > :33:36.welfare, but Lib Dem voters do not like anything that smacks of lack of
:33:36. > :33:39.compassion. If you set a cap, you either have to be willing to cut
:33:39. > :33:45.rates in order to meet the cap, all you have to be willing to exclude
:33:45. > :33:48.groups of people to meet the cap. were told that all that would happen
:33:48. > :33:52.is that it is like the governor failing to meet the interest target
:33:52. > :34:00.at the Bank of England, he will have to explain himself and write a
:34:00. > :34:04.letter. The governor writes a letter every month these days. To an
:34:04. > :34:09.extent, Michael is right. If you only set the cap, you do not achieve
:34:09. > :34:13.what you need. That is why Ed Balls' speech was important because
:34:13. > :34:18.he said we will accept the cap but will also take action to help us
:34:18. > :34:24.meet that. What other costs likely to breach the cap? Housing benefit,
:34:24. > :34:29.so we need to build more houses. Tax credit, so we need to find ways to
:34:29. > :34:33.raise wages in a way that limit the tax credit. We have two leave it
:34:33. > :34:37.there and we did not even get round to the more important international
:34:37. > :34:41.development, more important than any announcement by George Osborne,
:34:41. > :34:45.which is that the era of easy and cheap money is coming to an end and
:34:45. > :34:51.borrowing costs are rising, which has implications for everybody's
:34:51. > :34:59.mortgage, for businesses in debt and for the government, whose borrowing
:34:59. > :35:04.rates are already rising. But the fear of that is what has been
:35:04. > :35:09.underlying government policy since 2010. I did say we did not have time
:35:09. > :35:12.for that. Thank you. Now, every week we get some poor, demented soul
:35:12. > :35:15.asking us where we've hidden Diane. Her profile has certainly collapsed
:35:15. > :35:19.since she left our sofa. Now and then there are unconfirmed reports
:35:19. > :35:23.that she's now a front bench Labour politician. But nobody has ever seen
:35:23. > :35:25.her in that role. Of course, even if we knew, we couldn't explain her
:35:25. > :35:28.absence, because we've signed an infamous BBC gagging clause, which
:35:28. > :35:37.means all mention of the well-oiled limbo dancer and his six-foot pole
:35:37. > :35:40.have been redacted from her file. Whoops-a-daisy! Never mind. It's no
:35:40. > :35:50.secret we miss her, so that's why we've decided to put whistleblowers
:35:50. > :35:59.
:35:59. > :36:03.and stays one step bed of the chasing authorities, the dramatic
:36:03. > :36:12.game of international cat and mouse sounds like a script dreamt up in
:36:12. > :36:15.Hollywood, which it probably will be soon, with the rise of wiki leaks
:36:15. > :36:21.and its founder already turned into a big-screen tale of secrets and
:36:21. > :36:27.intrigue. We hope you get the truth out. If you get this material, give
:36:27. > :36:32.it to us. What motivates someone to sacrifice their life in the name of
:36:32. > :36:38.disclosure, and will Edward Snowden and Bradley Manning come to regret
:36:38. > :36:44.their actions? Care Quality Commission whistleblower certainly
:36:44. > :36:48.regrets the actions -- the impact her actions had on her life and
:36:48. > :36:54.professional standing. I have been subjected to the most appalling
:36:54. > :36:59.treatment. I want to say more, but that in itself should shame the
:36:59. > :37:03.organisation. But with claims by a former policeman shining a light
:37:03. > :37:10.into the actions of the undercover state, perhaps we should be grateful
:37:10. > :37:17.to those who reveal all in the name of public interest.
:37:17. > :37:22.We are joined by Alex Gibney. Welcome to this week. Edward Snowden
:37:22. > :37:29.does a dramatic escape. He has a pole dancing girlfriend in Hawaii.
:37:29. > :37:35.You have to make a movie about that. There is always something. He has
:37:35. > :37:42.been assisted I wiki leaks. Both wiki leaks and Edward Snowden, they
:37:42. > :37:49.seem to cause doctor the American government looks impotent in terms
:37:49. > :37:54.of what it can do. There is a certain incompetence the American
:37:54. > :37:59.government seems to be showing at the moment. And also, their
:37:59. > :38:05.behaviour, in its larger context, also looks very dissembling and
:38:06. > :38:11.mendacious as well. Are people like Edward Snowden, Julian Assange,
:38:11. > :38:16.Bradley Manning, are they good guys or bad guys? Let's separate out
:38:17. > :38:23.Julian Assange, because Bradley Manning and Edward Snowden are more
:38:23. > :38:27.alike. They are leakers. In his initial incarnation, I would call
:38:27. > :38:32.Julian Assange a publisher. But Bradley Manning and Edward Snowden
:38:32. > :38:37.are leakers. I would go as far as to say whistleblowers. In a fundamental
:38:37. > :38:42.sense, they are the good guys, in the sense that they are telling us,
:38:42. > :38:46.honestly, about lies that the government is telling citizens. In
:38:46. > :38:54.some fundamental way, they are having a positive impact. Why is it
:38:54. > :38:58.that the people who do this seemed to end up, if they are trying to
:38:58. > :39:02.make existing democracies more aquatic and governments more
:39:02. > :39:05.accountable for what they tell us, why do they usually end up in the
:39:05. > :39:13.arms of some of the nasty as governments in the world gesture and
:39:13. > :39:18.Mark you are talking about Edward Snowden. Julian Assange is in the
:39:18. > :39:23.Embassy of Ecuador. Let's separate him out from the others. Bradley
:39:23. > :39:30.Manning has pled guilty to leaking. In a way, Bradley Manning at the
:39:30. > :39:35.moment seems the most forthright. He said, I broke the military oath. I
:39:35. > :39:39.am pleading guilty to leaking secrets and I am willing to be held
:39:39. > :39:46.to account for that. But I am not willing to be held to account for
:39:46. > :39:53.being a spy, for being accused of espionage. That is where the Balmer
:39:53. > :39:58.administration has gone astray. -- the Barack Obama administration. It
:39:58. > :40:05.is clear that they are not spies, leaking material to another power.
:40:05. > :40:08.They are letting everybody see the information they have. The way the
:40:08. > :40:14.administration handled this investigation, we then learned that
:40:14. > :40:22.they were taking all of the Verizon telephone records. I am a
:40:22. > :40:25.subscriber. And then we have the operation revealed by Edward
:40:25. > :40:33.Snowden. You would expect that to happen under the evil George Bush,
:40:33. > :40:37.but isn't Barack Obama president now? Indeed. I think this is
:40:38. > :40:41.shocking. In terms of national security, I think we will end up
:40:41. > :40:46.seeing Barack Obama as being a continuation, in many ways, of what
:40:46. > :40:54.the George Bush administration did. And he has not closed Guantanamo,
:40:54. > :40:57.either. What do you make of this? the film suggested, part of the
:40:57. > :41:03.problem is that you have some areas where people are keeping secret
:41:03. > :41:07.information that should be in the public domain, the CQC, the NHS
:41:07. > :41:10.whistleblowers who were gagged. That is information that, for
:41:10. > :41:16.everybody's good, should be out there, about the quality of health
:41:16. > :41:22.services. But I slightly disagree. There is other information which is
:41:22. > :41:28.about keeping us secure, which, not in every case of the information
:41:28. > :41:31.Bradley Manning leaked, but in some cases, one makes us less secure and
:41:31. > :41:38.two at injury puts people at danger because of its release into the
:41:38. > :41:42.public domain. I think there are ways in which we should make a
:41:42. > :41:48.stronger case for secrecy and argue why it is important that information
:41:48. > :41:52.remains secret. I agree with most of that. At the simplest level, two
:41:52. > :41:56.conspirators planning a bomb attack may have been corresponding on
:41:56. > :42:00.Twitter, Facebook or whatever, believing they were secure, because
:42:00. > :42:04.quite a lot of misinformation has been put out that the security
:42:04. > :42:10.forces were having difficulty penetrating Twitter and Facebook. I
:42:10. > :42:13.am put a sure that was misinformation. So information
:42:13. > :42:18.security forces might have been able to collect, information might now
:42:18. > :42:26.not exist cause conspirators will know their communications are being
:42:26. > :42:29.collected. How do you respond? think this is a false flag. This is
:42:29. > :42:32.the argument they used with water boarding. We cannot let terrorists
:42:32. > :42:36.know that Americans are doing water boarding because then they will be
:42:36. > :42:41.prepared to resist and it will not work. Any self-respecting terrorist
:42:41. > :42:48.has to know they are at risk of being listened to by the CIA or the
:42:48. > :42:51.NSA at all times. I think this is about, part of the problem in the
:42:51. > :42:59.United States is that even the very laws that regulate how these secrets
:42:59. > :43:04.are being taken and used our secret. So we do not even know how the laws
:43:04. > :43:10.are being applied to the new technology. Do you accept there is
:43:10. > :43:17.any case for secrecy in intelligence gathering absolutely. Governments
:43:17. > :43:20.need secrets. But we are at a point now where the de facto action of our
:43:20. > :43:30.government is to keep everything secret. If you look at the number of
:43:30. > :43:33.
:43:33. > :43:37.secrets, I think there are almost 4 million people in America... We have
:43:38. > :43:41.run out of time. That's your lot for tonight, folks.
:43:41. > :43:43.But not for us, because we're giving Annabel's a miss tonight and heading
:43:43. > :43:47.over to the Ecuadorian Embassy. Apparently Julian Assange is having
:43:47. > :43:49.a sleepover, and over, and over, and over. But we leave you tonight with