28/06/2013 This Week

accused of trying to smear family and supporters of murdered black

teenager Stephen Lawrence. Government advisor Sean Bailey

senior you are, the more protected you are, and it has to stop.

A Chancellor slashing spending is caught red-handed on CCTV - we hear

from economic eye-witness, Aditya Chakrabortty. A series of brutal

cuts by the Chancellor, so why is Labour going along with them?

And as fugitive whistleblower Ed Snowden goes on the run, with the

help of WikiLeaks, Oscar-winning director Alex Gibney reveals the

truth behind the people who steal secrets. In cyberspace, nobody can

Evenin' all. Welcome to This Week, the BBC's regular Blue Nun-fuelled

tightrope walk across the Grand Westminster Canyon, where we're

rejoicing that an obsession with social class no longer sullies this

fair land. Where a posh Chancellor doesn't have to be pictured by his

spin doctor tucking into a hamburger and chips at his desk of a night,

just to prove he's at one with ordinary, hard-working people who

play by the rules. Where the media don't have a go at him because said

hamburger is a cut above the ordinary, with marginally more meat

and less cholesterol than the heart-stopping stuff you can get at

Mickey D's. And where, in a country whose economy has just recently

tanked by more than it did after the Wall Street Crash in 1929, where

there's been almost no growth since then but endless cuts to public

services and the most savage squeeze on living standards in living

memory, we know we have frankly more to worry about than such

trivialities as a Chancellor and his choice of hamburger. Yes we've come

a long way from being a class-ridden country with the wrong priorities.

Not! Speaking of the trivial, I'm joined on the sofa tonight by two

people who are nobody's priority. Think of them as the Silvio

Berlusconi and Ruby the Heart Stealer of late night political

chat. I speak, of course, of #iffysmithy Jacqui Smith, and

#sadmanonatrain, the legend of the 1608 trundler from Auchenshuggle,

somewhat more than a year ago, and is trading, Trenton Oldfield, set

out to swim while the boat race was going on in the Thames. -- and

Australian. He disrupted it quite badly and was arrested and sent to

prison. And now he has had a letter saying that his Visa is no longer

valid and he has to go back to Australia. And he is up in arms. He

thinks this is extraordinary, particularly as his British wife is

pregnant. Well, I have news for him. When you commit a crime in this

country, you should expect, I think to be deported when you have served

your sentence. The European Court of human rights will never let it

happen. He will appeal under the right to family life, and he will

win. I think he has decided that his family life is going to be in

Australia. As far as I know, you can live a decent life in Australia.

will be picking up his pension and swimming in the Thames for the rest

of his life. There will be more outrageous that happens. I know

politics is brutal, but I have watched as the woman who lived by

the sword died by the sword in a strange year this week Tom with

Kevin Rudd, who was ousted by the strain the Prime Minister, Julia

Gillard, came back into the prime position by ousting her. It raised

questions about the extent to which it may or may not have ever happened

in the UK, although I noted that in Australia it is possible to create a

new leader for the Australian Labour Party with no involvement of the

rest of the party. Something which could not have happened in the UK.

They are 16 points behind in the polls, and desperate.

Now, the murder of black teenager Stephen Lawrence by a gang of white

youths in 1993 shook the nation, and its tremors can still be felt today.

A public inquiry accused the Metropolitan Police of institutional

racism and incompetence in the way it reacted. Now a former undercover

police officer claims he posed as an anti-racism campaigner after the

murder, tasked with finding dirt on the family and its supporters. So

where do these new allegations leave trust in the police? We turned to

the Government's Community and Youth Engagement Champion, Shaun Bailey.

has advised the Prime Minister about youth and crime, I want to believe

in the police, but this has become harder this week. The allegations

that an undercover officer was ordered to infiltrate Stephen

Lawrence's friends and family and undermined their case, we can all

agree were shocking and appalling. Stephen Lawrence was the victim of a

racist murder and his family were struggling to come to terms with

that. The fact that the people meant to be delivering justice were

concentrating on the victims, not the perpetrators, says a lot for

their priorities at the time. Through community work, I know that

if a black boy commits a crime, profiling techniques put entire

communities under pressure. Now the police are accused of wrongdoing,

should we all assess police behaviour differently, should we

profile them in a way that makes us this trustful of them? I hope not. A

police force that can be trusted cannot with consent. We must know

that our police stand for the right things all of the time. This is an

opportunity for senior policemen to deliver the leadership that is

needed. We need guidelines about undercover operations and any type

of operations police use in this country. The buck stops with them.

The sad thing is over the last 20 years, police community relations

have been improving and allegations like this could set that back. I

believe the police should open themselves up to a judge leading

choir in order not to lose the improvement in relations. A police

force that releases through consensus must open to scrutiny.

Trust in the police is too important to mess with. The London riots were

an example of what can happen if trust breaks down. 20 years after

the murder of Stephen Lawrence, his family are still searching for

justice, and the police should use this as an opportunity to deliver

that justice. And from the Royal Courts of Justice

to our own little court here in the heart of Westminster, Shaun Bailey

joins us. The Stephen Lawrence case has

probably done more reputational damage to the Metropolitan police

than any other modern event, I would suggest. And just as you think it is

fading into history, something happens, and it never goes away.

That is true. It has been shocking. The police need to use this as an

opportunity to end that. The details of this case have been horrific, now

and when it started 20 years ago. For many communities up and down the

country, it has compounded their feelings about the police, which is

not useful to anybody. Will it bring back feelings of the police,

particularly in the black community, which might have been fading as the

police tried to learn the lessons of Stephen Lawrence? That is one of the

biggest reeks. For a junior bobby on the beat, this will make your job

harder. You did not join up to be viewed as racist, but these

revelations will make it harder to connect to the community because

they will say, we told you that you were unworthy of our trust. We are

sure that the whistleblower is a reliable with us? In one sense, that

remains to be proven. There are two enquiries running and people are

asking for a third. We still have two enquiries after all this time?

One on the undercover police and one on the Stephen Lawrence case. People

are asking for a judicial enquiry into this incident. But the real

thing is that people will believe it. This has ended the folklore of

the police. An enquiry, if not delivered smartly, because the

current enquiries are too far-away, it would enter the lexicon of how

people believe the police behave. What do you make of this? I think

Shaun Bailey is right that this is undermined in confidence. The

problem for the police is that they cannot police on their own. They

need the confidence of communities to report crime to act as witnesses.

If people do is that confidence, which has been growing, that makes

it more difficult. Is it credible that in the aftermath of a hugely

publicised murder, of which there was national outrage at what

happened to this young man, that the Metropolitan police, at what must

have been a reasonably senior level, appointed an undercover group, not

to find out the people who did this, but to get bad stuff on the family

or supporters of Mr Lawrence? Macpherson Inquiry found there was

institutional racism in the police at that point, which at the time was

greeted as controversial. Some people thought that had gone too

far. To a certain extent, this is proof of that. You find it credible

that that could have happened. but there is a very important role

for undercover policing. Undercover policing is meant to get the bad

guys, not the good guys, the people who have suffered this terrible

crime. It is not about undercover policing, but about community

relations. It has come to light through the Stephen Lawrence

campaign, through black communities, but this is a problem for everybody.

A police force that is not trusted is of no use to anybody. The London

riots are an example of that. You have people in Liverpool with the

Hillsborough example who feel the same. I feel pessimistic about how

this will be resolved. You have just said the enquiries will take too

long but I suspect a judicial enquiry would take longer. We have

had too many. And although they are meant to get to the truth, they get

to the truth very late. And they are, for the people responsible for

the Metropolitan police today, a way of postponing the issue for a couple

of years down the road. We really need a response from the

Metropolitan Police that ensures that under the present leadership

such misdemeanours are absolutely impossible. But the knee jerk

reaction of the police is always to say it is being taken very

seriously, and to kick it into the long grass. We need an affirmation

that such activities would now be absolutely impossible. The problem

with the enquiries is not the length of time but their scope. You have

one which is looking broadly at undercover policing, including

police officers taking the identities of dead Abies, etc. That

is almost too broad to cover this issue. And you have the other

enquiry that is a barrister considering whether or not the

original investigation was effectively carried out. So there is

a gap, and I tend to agree with Michael but I think it might be

possible to have something that is very focused and deep, because the

totemic nature of the Stephen Lawrence case, never mind the

terrible impact on the family, I think means that this specific issue

needs to be cleared up sooner rather than later. The police need to show

that they want to be involved. I believe Bernard Hogan-Howe and his

new bunch are up to the task, but they need to act. The one thing that

a judge -led enquiry has is the smell of an outsider doing it. The

police investigating the police, there is a worry they will be nice

to each other. Apart from anything, we must be running out of judges. We

have had so many of these enquiries, and they are so expensive and last

so long. Justice postponed is justice denied. This case has run 20

years already, and to consider it might have more years before we

reach an opinion on this, I think it is too much. We are at an historic

point in Britain's development. We have moved from the place where

public servants are blameless. We had revelations in the NHS, all

manner of things. Somebody needs to say things are going to change,

because it now feels the state is acting against individuals. Do you

think things have changed since the Macpherson Inquiry? For the police,

undoubtedly. There was a definite effort on their part. There are not

enough black police, and I hope we can address that. Are there fewer

stop and searches for black people? They are significantly better, and

we are on a journey. And this could set that journey back badly. Some of

the police retire at a ridiculously young age. Some senior officers, if

there are senior officers behind this, they are long gone. They are

not in the Met any more, are they? Not necessarily. They may be long

gone, but I don't know whether that necessarily means there shouldn't be

the ability to carry out this investigation. I ups that.Necessary

to refer that for further investigation and that's one of the

other problems with the inquiries, that they don't at the moment have

the ability necessarily - it could be that these are criminal

investigations. It could be if you send an undercover officer to the

family for no other reason than to get the dirt. Which ought thought

there was an element of the Met that wanted to get this crime solved? Is

that right? I guess it's a real surprise that not only did they

think that, they actively tried to get dirt on the family when they'd

suffered the most? In the words of the Prime Minister, "shocking and

appalled requestings", but this is about the future, the relationship

of vulnerable communities, black-and-white, with the police in

the future. If we don't solve this now, we'll forever have a smell in

this country that if you are from the wrong place, the police are not

for you and that has to be addressed. Let me ask you this, not

many people from your background with your experience have access to

the corridors of power in Downing Street. Do they get it? Do our

political leaders get the significance of this? I would like

to believe they do. I've had words with people I think are important in

this and they get it. That's why, for instance, if you heard the Home

Secretary, she said everything is still on the table because she's

aware of her very important role she has to advocate for the police but

also has to maybe throw the book at the police and it's a very thin rope

to walk. The bottom line is this, somebody needs to do something to

encourage communities black-and-white that the police are

for us all. It's wider than that. You have it with the NHS and

Hillsborough as well, and there is a real smell in this country that if

you are from the wrong place and background, public service is

against you and we have to solve that. The public pay for that. We

want to believe in our services. Vulnerable communities spend more

time with their police than anybody else. My guess is the Home Secretary

will concede to an inquiry. Are you worried about the time it will take?

Yes, but Mrs Norris has come out for it and others have come out for it.

I hope we do it because we want it, not because people are pandering

towards it. Thank you. It's late, so late that

even the Spooks NSA Operation Prism have probably given up monitoring

us. So Edward Snowden's lost interest in us. He's in the transit

lounge in Moscow Airport. We knew we could depend on you to stick with

us, you sad, sad inekeryiated souls. Anyway, top up that mug of Blue Nun

because Alex Gibbny is here to talk about his new film, We Steal Secrets

-- inebriated. For those who hide nothing as you hide behind your

anonymity, remember there's the twit Twitter, Fleecebook and interweb. --

Alex Gibney. Jeffrey hope he'd be singing to a

different tune, but things haven't gone to plan so he's still singing

from the austerity song book. The first cut is the deepest, the first

song, turns out to have been economical with the truth. He was

back this week. The latest number, Death By A Thousand Cuts is already

rocking up the charts. We sent Aditya Chakrabortty up the charts to

experience some cuts of his own. This is the round-up.

When all the talk of cuts, cuts, cuts, where else is there a

late-night low-budget political discussion? The barbers. A classy

joint like this doesn't do just any old chop. No, here they cut with a

deft hand and a keen eye on image, rather a like the Chancellor.

Hm. Rugged but perhaps a bit too much. Too much fringe going on for

me. Tell you what, I'll have the But wait. Just like our Jeffrey,

before I do anything really important, I like to eat an

overpriced burger and Tweet the What we have got this week was a

close-up of what austerity Britain will look like come spring 2016

jurks how starved the Public Services would be, just how mean our

welfare system would be. Of course, the Chancellor wants to play it off

as just a regular trim -- just how starved the Public Services would

be. We have brought the deficit down by a third, helped a record number

of people into work and taken our economy back from the brink of

bankruptcy. But then came the cut throat stuff.

Local council budgets to be slashed by 10% on top of the third that's

already been taken off. Woe be tide anyone made redundant in Osborne's

Britain. A seven day wait just to sign on and you'd better turn up at

the Jobcentre with a polished CV and perfect English. Help to work,

incentives to work and an expectation that people should do

everything they can to find work. That's fair for people out of work

and it's fair for those in work who You have to hand to it the

Chancellor. He knows how to turn the fiscal equivalent of a pudding bowl

into a quiff. Never forget that those cuts were weren't part of plan

A, he was meant to have done with his austerity by the next general

election. Now they'll stretch all the way to 2018, possibly beyond.

But given that, the Chancellor was automobile to present these cuts as

some kind of coherent economic strategy. Even using them to draw

battlelines ahead of the next election, boxing Labour in along the

way. Does he recall what he said to this House two years ago? He said

"we have already asked the British people for what is needed and we do

not need to ask for more". "We do not need to ask for more". Isn't his

economic failure the reason why he's back here asking for more today?

Quite right, Ed. But if austerity's such a load of well, Balls, why have

you and Professor Miliband just signed up to it? In the looking

glass world of British politics, Labour's had to prove its economic

competence by signing up to an incompetent economic strategy. The

two Eds were both distinctive and correct when they opposed austerity

and the Shadow Chancellor knows it because there's nothing he likes

better than to say "I told you so". He promised to balance the books and

that promise is in tatters. Failed tests, broken promises. His friends

call him George, the President calls him Jeffrey, but to everyone else,

You would struggle to get a Jane Austen tenor between the three main

parties who agree on the economic strategy famed to kick start growth

or to bring down borrowing. Oh, and the Bank of England will soon be run

by a man who looks like Don Draper. Mark Karni is coming to take over

from Mervyn King. Professor Mervyn King only has a couple of days left

to fill the packing boxes. It would be wrong for me to claim that Jane

Austen will be the figure on the �10 note. That has to be a matter for my

successor. It would be unlikely when we find ourselves in the situation

where there will be no historical women on bank notes or where Jane

Austen is waiting quietly in the New hair cut, new man. Even after

all of Osborne's cuts, the Britain of 2016 will look a lot like the

Britain of 2006, only slightly less fun. Overall in the banks, forget

about it, rebalancing the economy, not a chance. Any growth that we do

get will come surely from personal debt and the housing market. Does

any of that sound familiar? What do you reckon, Michael?

He's behind you! That was Aditya Chakrabortty at the

Pall Mall Barbers in London. We are joined by Miranda Green, good to see

you back again. Let me come straight to you, Jacqui on this point. If the

Labour Party is right that this is an incompetent economic strategy,

why are you adopting this incompetent economic strategy?

Because you have to start from what you are now, caused by the in come

incompetent strategy that's been in existence over the last three years.

I think Ed Balls rightly, as he said a couple of weeks ago, understands

that in order for us to have economic credibility, we need to

recognise the situation that the bad policies of the Government have got

us into now. You can't really borrow any more? Well, no, because the

other important point I think is to make a distinction, as Ed has done,

between current spending where it would be wrong to borrow to finance

that and capital spending where part of the critique is, despite Danny

Alexander's grandiose statement today, in actual fact, that capital

spending isn't starting for far too long. Bringing forward some of that

capital spending to this year and next would help boost growth.

how much and when? Well, what Ed has said I think rightly is, there

should have been more emphasis on bringing forward... But how much and

when? We are not in Government at the moment Michael, but that's not

to say there shouldn't have been more thinking about bringing forward

some of that spending. One way of looking at the commit is what

Labour's plans were for the last three years where capital spending

would have been higher. The evidence is that had we been in Government,

we would have emphasised capital spending more than has been the case

with George Osborne and therefore there would have been growth.

Alistair Darling plan involved a halving of the capital spending. It

went from �50 billion to �25 billion under Alistair Darling and that's

largely what the coalition's done as well? I think first of all, let's

return to this distinction between current and capital. Capital

spending? The plan showed that for the three-year period after the

general election, capital spending under a Labour Government would have

been higher than capital spending has been under this Government and

George Osborne himself... But it's only by a billion or two, Jacqui. If

you talk the Darling plan, it's pretty much what the - I mean the

coalition now regrets - if you speak to Nick Clegg or Danny Alexander at

times, they rather regret they went ahead with the Darling plan to cut

capital spending but it was your plan. You are right. In the Autumn

Statement, George Osborne said that the Government had cut capital

spending too far, so why did we have an announcement today that was a lot

of hype but that actually was reduced capital spending by 2015-16

over the current situation and didn't bring forward any capital

spending now? Capital spending by 2015-16 will be back up to where it

was when they came into power. It's going to grow, but not by much. You

are talking about one or two at most. In a sense, when you look at

the coalition policy, they are all over the place. They slashed capital

spending when they came to power, they barely touched current spending

at all, still haven't, and they pile all the pain, all the cuts, they

ringfence about 60% of Government spending so all the pain falls in

the 40% that's not covered. It's not being very sensible? It's been

pretty brave because ringfencing the National Health Service, keeping it

at 0% increase each year, is a vast change on what is situation was

before when national health spending was rising very steeply indeed. Some

of public spending inevitably goes up because the debt interest is

going up, because the deficit is going up and national debt is going

up and there are more people claiming benefits so all of that

goes up. So what does the Government do if it's going to keep control of

public spending? It has to cut everything else. That is the

reality. The cuts being made to the rest of it are deeply impressive.

Taking a third out of the budget of some departments I think is deeply

impressive. But, I'll tell you why Ed Balls has accepted the position.

It isn't anything to do with reality, it's about oppositions have

no credibility and Governments have automatic credibility and the

opposition would waste a lot of time between now and the election arguing

about two or three billion here or there and how it was going to find

the money and what it would do differently. In the process, it

would simply lose more credibility because the media wouldn't be

prepared to believe it. What the Labour Party's done is to say, look,

in order to shore up our credibility, we'll adopt the same

baseline. If there was any tar diness, it was the tar diness of the

Labour Party realising the inevitable that you have to accept

the Government's take on this. do you think? ? I agree with Michael

but it's not so much about how the media portray the position, it's the

fact that if you look at the polling, more people support the

austerity drive now than a year ago. That is remarkable. Extraordinary

really. This has been a week of extreme - the Government trying

to... Talking about it again and again and the public say, all right,

we'll go along with it. Totally paradoxically, the more the economic

situation looks uncertain, because it was a very brave and risky thing

for George Osborne over the weekend and this week to say we are now out

of intensive care and into recovery - that's a big risk to say that

categorically, but docksically, that again works to the Government's

advance. If you think it's risky, you are not going to vote for

somebody who might borrow more to spend more so it's very difficult.

But you have the following sills of this country dominated by the plucks

of austerity, as it's call and the endless mantra of cuts and they say

that's enough cuts and next year he's back for more, �11. 5 billion

this year. You stand back, look at public spending in 2010 and what is

projected for 2017 and you see that in the seven-year period, it's

projected to fall by 2. 7%, that's it. Yes.Over seven years in real

term. So hajj how much worse it would be in the Government weren't

making the cuts. Denis Healey made more than 2. 7% of cuts in one year

cuts in public spending. It seems that way because it is

concentrated. We know that interest is going up, -- debt is going up, so

we should be looking at the primary situation before debt interest. The

fact that debt interest and welfare payments are going up drives up

public spending. That means what the government is doing in the rest of

public spending is the tea Dam heroic. I am not convinced. I'm not

convinced that ring-fencing the NHS, or schools, is the right thing to

do. I think it would be more interesting and braver actually to

start making some of the arguments about whether or not, if you

ring-fenced the NHS that bring about swingeing cuts in local councils,

you are not creating a social care crisis which reflects back on the

NHS. If you really believe in children getting on in life,

investing in early years, which has seen substantial cuts, might be

better than ring-fencing schools. What about welfare? We were assured

by Douglas Alexander that -- Danny Alexander that welfare cuts were of

the table, and the Chancellor has sneaked in welfare cuts. How did

that happen? They stuck to the limits they agreed when the welfare

row happened around the time of the budget. There was a huge set to at

that time and this has come out as a result. Are the Lib Dems happy with

the cap? Welfare was really difficult for the Lib Dems, because

Lib Dem voters do not feel the same way about welfare that Labour voters

did. It turns out that Labour voters are not in favour of splurging on

welfare, but Lib Dem voters do not like anything that smacks of lack of

compassion. If you set a cap, you either have to be willing to cut

rates in order to meet the cap, all you have to be willing to exclude

groups of people to meet the cap. were told that all that would happen

is that it is like the governor failing to meet the interest target

at the Bank of England, he will have to explain himself and write a

letter. The governor writes a letter every month these days. To an

extent, Michael is right. If you only set the cap, you do not achieve

what you need. That is why Ed Balls' speech was important because

he said we will accept the cap but will also take action to help us

meet that. What other costs likely to breach the cap? Housing benefit,

so we need to build more houses. Tax credit, so we need to find ways to

raise wages in a way that limit the tax credit. We have two leave it

there and we did not even get round to the more important international

development, more important than any announcement by George Osborne,

which is that the era of easy and cheap money is coming to an end and

borrowing costs are rising, which has implications for everybody's

mortgage, for businesses in debt and for the government, whose borrowing

rates are already rising. But the fear of that is what has been

underlying government policy since 2010. I did say we did not have time

for that. Thank you. Now, every week we get some poor, demented soul

asking us where we've hidden Diane. Her profile has certainly collapsed

since she left our sofa. Now and then there are unconfirmed reports

that she's now a front bench Labour politician. But nobody has ever seen

her in that role. Of course, even if we knew, we couldn't explain her

absence, because we've signed an infamous BBC gagging clause, which

means all mention of the well-oiled limbo dancer and his six-foot pole

have been redacted from her file. Whoops-a-daisy! Never mind. It's no

secret we miss her, so that's why we've decided to put whistleblowers

and stays one step bed of the chasing authorities, the dramatic

game of international cat and mouse sounds like a script dreamt up in

Hollywood, which it probably will be soon, with the rise of wiki leaks

and its founder already turned into a big-screen tale of secrets and

intrigue. We hope you get the truth out. If you get this material, give

it to us. What motivates someone to sacrifice their life in the name of

disclosure, and will Edward Snowden and Bradley Manning come to regret

their actions? Care Quality Commission whistleblower certainly

regrets the actions -- the impact her actions had on her life and

professional standing. I have been subjected to the most appalling

treatment. I want to say more, but that in itself should shame the

organisation. But with claims by a former policeman shining a light

into the actions of the undercover state, perhaps we should be grateful

to those who reveal all in the name of public interest.

We are joined by Alex Gibney. Welcome to this week. Edward Snowden

does a dramatic escape. He has a pole dancing girlfriend in Hawaii.

You have to make a movie about that. There is always something. He has

been assisted I wiki leaks. Both wiki leaks and Edward Snowden, they

seem to cause doctor the American government looks impotent in terms

of what it can do. There is a certain incompetence the American

government seems to be showing at the moment. And also, their

behaviour, in its larger context, also looks very dissembling and

mendacious as well. Are people like Edward Snowden, Julian Assange,

Bradley Manning, are they good guys or bad guys? Let's separate out

Julian Assange, because Bradley Manning and Edward Snowden are more

alike. They are leakers. In his initial incarnation, I would call

Julian Assange a publisher. But Bradley Manning and Edward Snowden

are leakers. I would go as far as to say whistleblowers. In a fundamental

sense, they are the good guys, in the sense that they are telling us,

honestly, about lies that the government is telling citizens. In

some fundamental way, they are having a positive impact. Why is it

that the people who do this seemed to end up, if they are trying to

make existing democracies more aquatic and governments more

accountable for what they tell us, why do they usually end up in the

arms of some of the nasty as governments in the world gesture and

Mark you are talking about Edward Snowden. Julian Assange is in the

Embassy of Ecuador. Let's separate him out from the others. Bradley

Manning has pled guilty to leaking. In a way, Bradley Manning at the

moment seems the most forthright. He said, I broke the military oath. I

am pleading guilty to leaking secrets and I am willing to be held

to account for that. But I am not willing to be held to account for

being a spy, for being accused of espionage. That is where the Balmer

administration has gone astray. -- the Barack Obama administration. It

is clear that they are not spies, leaking material to another power.

They are letting everybody see the information they have. The way the

administration handled this investigation, we then learned that

they were taking all of the Verizon telephone records. I am a

subscriber. And then we have the operation revealed by Edward

Snowden. You would expect that to happen under the evil George Bush,

but isn't Barack Obama president now? Indeed. I think this is

shocking. In terms of national security, I think we will end up

seeing Barack Obama as being a continuation, in many ways, of what

the George Bush administration did. And he has not closed Guantanamo,

either. What do you make of this? the film suggested, part of the

problem is that you have some areas where people are keeping secret

information that should be in the public domain, the CQC, the NHS

whistleblowers who were gagged. That is information that, for

everybody's good, should be out there, about the quality of health

services. But I slightly disagree. There is other information which is

about keeping us secure, which, not in every case of the information

Bradley Manning leaked, but in some cases, one makes us less secure and

two at injury puts people at danger because of its release into the

public domain. I think there are ways in which we should make a

stronger case for secrecy and argue why it is important that information

remains secret. I agree with most of that. At the simplest level, two

conspirators planning a bomb attack may have been corresponding on

Twitter, Facebook or whatever, believing they were secure, because

quite a lot of misinformation has been put out that the security

forces were having difficulty penetrating Twitter and Facebook. I

am put a sure that was misinformation. So information

security forces might have been able to collect, information might now

not exist cause conspirators will know their communications are being

collected. How do you respond? think this is a false flag. This is

the argument they used with water boarding. We cannot let terrorists

know that Americans are doing water boarding because then they will be

prepared to resist and it will not work. Any self-respecting terrorist

has to know they are at risk of being listened to by the CIA or the

NSA at all times. I think this is about, part of the problem in the

United States is that even the very laws that regulate how these secrets

are being taken and used our secret. So we do not even know how the laws

are being applied to the new technology. Do you accept there is

any case for secrecy in intelligence gathering absolutely. Governments

need secrets. But we are at a point now where the de facto action of our

government is to keep everything secret. If you look at the number of

secrets, I think there are almost 4 million people in America... We have

run out of time. That's your lot for tonight, folks.

But not for us, because we're giving Annabel's a miss tonight and heading

over to the Ecuadorian Embassy. Apparently Julian Assange is having

a sleepover, and over, and over, and over. But we leave you tonight with