18/07/2013 This Week

More drama in the NHS, as politicians clash over who's to

blame for failing hospitals. Paediatrician and CBeebies doctor

Ranj Singh gives us his diagnosis. No recent government has a clean

bill of health when it comes to interfering with the NHS. It is time

to put patients before politics. With public health U-turns on

tobacco and alcohol, The Economist's Anne McElvoy asks whether the nanny

state always knows best. They have been squabbling like toddlers at the

dispatch 's, but it is not about the policy. All that any mum wants to

say is, it is his fault. And with the sport of athletics on

life support following yet more drug-taking, Uri Geller talks about

the power of reputation. reputation is being a mind-reader,

but there is much more to it than meets the eye.

Shall we turn off the life support machine and go on holiday? Matron, I

Evenin' all. Welcome to This Week. And thank the Lord - Patten - for

his merciful ways. We come to the final show of the series. I suspect,

dear viewer, this is as much a relief to you as it is to us. But at

least we get paid, even if it is only a pittance, the small change

left down the sofa by the latest BBC executive to trouser a massive pay

off. But you deserve more, a princely sum, for having to sit

through the usual self-serving drivel from the worst shirts in

showbusiness. But I digress. It's often said, mostly by us when we

can't think of anything else to say, that the problem with today's

politicians is they don't actually believe in anything. Remember the

good old days, we drone, when Labour believed in representing the

interests of the plebs while the Tories looked after the maters and

paters of the thick poshos on Made in Chelsea, and the Lib Dems

believed in representing the interests of dope-smoking stoners

with a kinky interest in proportional representation? But

this week there stepped forward a politician who does believe in

something, faith-based Work and Pensions Secretary, Iain Duncan

Smith, who, when challenged to provide evidence to show his

benefits cap would work, dismissed the need for anything so grubby and

empirical. "I have a belief I am right," he exclaimed. Of course, he

couldn't actually prove it was working but no-one could disprove it

wasn't either, which sort of puts the benefit cap on a par with God.

Or the Loch Ness monster. Or both. Speaking of those who make it up as

they go along, I'm joined on the sofa tonight by two mini heat waves.

Think of them as the hot flush and hot lips of late night political

chat. I speak, of course, of #manontheleft Alan "AJ" Johnson, and

#sadmanonatrain Michael "Choo Choo" Portillo.

Michael, your moment of the week. Molly the dog has woken up to hear

it. I bumped into a field marshal, a former chief of the defence staff,

who agrees with me that we do not need an independent nuclear

deterrent. He asked me how we get politicians off the hook. It

occurred to me this week that the way is what the Liberal Democrats

are proposing. The Liberal Democrats, like all politicians,

will not go the whole hog and say, let's get rid of nuclear weapons.

But they are saying, let's save half the cost and only have nuclear

weapons deployed at sea for half the time, when we think the threat is

rising. And I think, over a period of time, this would get the

politicians of the hook. They would save half the cost. I am glad the

field marshal agrees with you, unlike the secretaries of State for

defence who do not agree with you. Among secretaries of state, I am in

a minority. Among Field marshals, I am not sure. Field marshals do not

have the deterrent. It is the Navy. Well spotted. The acquittal of

George Zimmerman. In the United States. Here is a young black kid

walking back from a store, completely innocent, gets attacked

by a guy with a gun, virtually every June anti-. He has nothing. It takes

the police 44 days to charge him, because they say that self

protection law did not allow them to prosecute, and then he is acquitted

of murder and of manslaughter as well. America has not just got its

first lack resident in Obama, but its first black Attorney General,

and there are many who feel it is still back in the 1950s, when that

kind of thing could happen. I would have thought the reaction would be

much worse. So would I. We grew up looking at black-and-white film of

all kinds of things happening. just that. But Rodney King provoked

several days of riots. It is great that has not happened, but it is

still in competence of or how they could reach that decision. It is

amazing. Now, what's the closest thing we

have to a national religion? Other than women's football. The NHS, of

course. Politically, it's been untouchable, impossible to

criticise. Has that all changed this week? Labour and Tory front benches

lashed out, following a report into failing hospitals this week, trying

to blame each other. But is it not the role of a candid friend to be

critical? And what do the medical profession think? We turned to NHS

doctor and CBeebies presenter Ranj the opening ceremony of the

Olympics. The National Health Service was celebrated as a national

treasure. There were scenes of children jumping on beds with nurses

dancing around them, almost like a scene from my TV show. One year on,

the rose tinted picture of the NHS is shattered. This week the

government announced it was placing 11 hospital trust is into special

measures because of major failings, such as staffing problems, poor care

and weak leadership. As a doctor who worked in one of those trusts, I

must say I am not surprised. Despite high levels of dedication and

determination, staff are overstretched, some too exhausted

and too scared to speak up. Others have fallen into the comfort of

complacency. More and more money is sucked up by managers, bureaucracy

and consultants, and leaders appear complacent, or even careless. This

is not limited to a small number of hospitals. It is happening up and

down the country. Watching political parties clash over who is to blame

for failing hospitals is a depressing sight, but politicians

have never been able to leave the NHS alone. Labour brought in endless

targets which meant some hospitals rushed patients through to meet

them. And they set up the Care Quality Commission, which in itself

seems unfit for purpose. Despite promising no more top-down

reorganisation of the NHS, the current government is doing just

that. That is the diagnosis, but what would I prescribe? Changes to

the NHS do need to be made but they should be dictated by the needs of

patients, not politicians. Anyone who has worked in the NHS will know

there is a great deal of wastage and efficiencies can be made. It drives

me mad to see nurses filling in endless reports and forms and not

having time to do their job. It is not about nurses being too clever to

care, but about not having enough time. We also need to think about

our expectations and what the NHS can provide. That might involve a

radical revision of how we meet those needs. In children's care, my

specialism, the future is likely to involve the development of better

specialist units that -- supporting fewer improved satellite sites, and

better integration into primary care. We are going to have to learn

to live with less, including politicians, and they will have to

be brave enough to back the streamlining of services, even if it

involves closures within their constituencies. I love and respect

our NHS. We all want it to be like the picture portrayed in the Olympic

opening ceremony, but we are going to have to be honest about the bad

it's as well as the good. Until we acknowledge the floors, we cannot

make the improvements that are necessary. But one thing is for

sure, if we carry on as we are, there is a very real risk that the

NHS will burn out. And from the View Tube garden

overlooking the Olympic Park to our own little garden of Eden in the

heart of Westminster, Dr Ranj joins us now. You worked at the Medway

Foundation Trust. Yes.You said you are not surprised it is being put

into special measures. Why are doctors, clinicians and bureaucrats

working there, why are they scared to speak out? I would not say I am

an expert on why they are, and I am not a politician but I do work in

the coal face, and I am one of the people who has been involved and

affected by everything that is going on with the NHS. Why are they scared

to speak out? The biggest fear is that no one is listening. Not just

that no one is listening, but that they will be suppressed. We are

listening now, but is it too late? Is there still enough that we can

do? To be honest, people need to listen, but there is listening and

then there is acting on what people are saying. If you have pressure

coming from the top, from various organisations, it is very difficult

to get your voice heard. You say the problems are more widespread than

even after the Bruce Keogh report. That looked at 14 trusts and

highlighted several deficiencies and recommended improvements, but every

hospital around the country has scope to improve to some extent.

These are not problems that are unique to those 14 trusts is. The

difficulty is that they are full of April that are working their hardest

to make it work. There is a very small proportion that could do

better, I agree, but the vast majority are doing the best they

can. It is not their fault. As a former health secretary, why does it

take a report like this to bring these terrible failures to light?

Why don't ministers, civil servants, special advisers, why

don't they know already? Because you set up independent regulators to be

separate from government and to go in and do the job that ministers and

civil servants cannot do properly. Previous regulators did not do it

very well. What Bruce Keogh has got, they sent a team in of not just

clinicians but also patient representatives and GPs and nurses

and others, a team of 12 to 14, and they looked to see not just a

technical appraisal, but a cultural appraisal. They spoke a lot to

patients and staff. That was not the traditional way of doing

inspections. We are grasping for a way of getting better regulation.

When you were health secretary, did you have no idea that these things

could be happening in certain hospitals? I did, because the Health

Care Commision, the predecessor of the Care Quality Commission, were

telling us. They went into Stafford and gave us the report. They went

into Maidstone. Those reports then come to you, but we need to have an

independent regulator. The word independent is very meaningful. The

other thing that you point out is a separate issue where politicians

and, I think, clinicians, have to be brave enough to say the whole way

that the NHS is configured, which is a hospital based service, has to

change. But they are two separate issues. Let me put two things to you

for discussion. The way the NHS is configured, the organisational roots

go back to the 1940s. No Secretary of State for health can control what

is going on in it. It is too centralised and too vast for one

politician. Nigel Lawson once said the NHS was a religion. Is that the

reason we don't get the service we deserve? Yes, on the second point.

It has become a religion and it has become immune to reform and on that

first point, it is the classic nationalised industry, it is far too

big and it be then at -- it benefits the people employed rather than the

people who service should be delivered to. To say that it is

because people are under pressure, in some of these cases it is

perfectly clear that there was absolute neglect and neglect by the

people whose job it was to look after people directly but there must

be neglect by every consultant who walks the wards and sees people

lying in their own urine. Dying of thirst. And he did not think about

that. I don't think it is honest to say that we have asked nurses to

fill out too many forms. It takes being on the shopfloor to understand

the intricacies of the NHS and there are a vast to people doing an

amazing job and those who get highlighted by the tiniest

proportion and we should address that but if we are honest, you say

the NHS is immune to reform. If so, stop trying to reform it. Every

government comes in and there is another reorganisation which is not

always based on evidence or welcome and it takes time to recover.

Sometimes it is a good idea and we need to change things to make them

better but the problem is we only are just getting to the point where

we are starting to get to grips with things and someone comes in and

changes it. Let me explain, firstly that we continue the model of a

single National Health Service and what is wrong is the national part,

we are trying to manage an organisation of 1 million people and

not only is that unwieldy but it means we have a lack of local

sensitivity and a lack of competition, in the sense of some

people doing things better than one place than in others. Therefore,

people have the urge to catch up. And the great prejudice against

using the private sector which has existed over the decades, and I am

afraid that I think the deterioration of the National Health

Service and its reputation is actually important to bringing about

something quite different in the future, something better. You talk

about streamlining and centralising services. You could argue that it is

always far too centralised? Nobody at the centre can control it? The

Danish have a system like ours, funded by taxation, free at the

point of use and does not matter what your wealth is, you get care.

But it is locally controlled? And the people who run that locally are

held to account by their local community. Yes, but we need to

realise that their society and environment is different. We can put

other countries and learn from them and that is a good idea but we need

to put things into context and one of those points was that you said no

politician can control the NHS so then stop using it as a pawn. It has

come the piggy in the middle and the people at the heart of the NHS,

working and striving and trying to make things work, they are being

danced around. But is because of any hospital goes belly up or it is

discovered that hundreds are dying, it should not be the Secretary of

State in London, who has never been to that hospital... The media will

hold them accountable? If it deadpan falls on the floor, it echoes around

the country. Rudolf Klein, the great historian, said we have been through

control and we are going back to locally driven watchwords of the

Primary Care Trusts and they have been thrown up into the air and I

don't understand Michael 's reference to the nationalised

industry. The problems of the NHS are nothing to do with it being

publicly owned, they are to do with, in a sense, producer capture was

right, they always had a system for balancing books, it was called the

waiting list. They stopped operating in November because it was the end

of the financial year. Once those waiting lists were driven down, they

had to sort out finances and you will remember not just Patricia

Hewitt getting trotted out, it is not as if we went through our time

in office and we were keen not to upset the workforce - that had to

happen to put the NHS on a more stable footing. The problem is the

concentration on quality and if you could concentrate on quality,

locally driven, yes, and get on with it, I think that has been one of the

major problems. We will let you former Health Secretary have the

final word. Using my telepathic powers... I know what you're

thinking. I hear the words... Blue. None. Hangover in the morning. But I

also have a strange, tinkling sensation. Waiting in the wings, a

mystery to all of us, the one and only Uri Geller. He will talk about

the power of reputation. For those of you who don't have any reputation

to lose, get ready to be ignored on social media. The anticipation is

rising and temperatures rise, the press corps sufferers. Camp outside

a London hospital, waiting for the arrival of an overdue royal baby.

Even Her Majesty brokers silence, she just wanted to arrive so she can

go off on her holidays. We said the Economist's Anne McElvoy to do a

spot of preparation. This is a round-up of the political week.

the brakes on. I have been jittery this week, like Mr Fleet Street,

waiting for the arrival of a certain baby. Even the Queen has been

expecting... I am going on holidays! My brood are safely locked up in the

education system so I borrowed Agnes and Joseph to remind me of the joys

of childcare. I might even put myself forward as a Mary Poppins to

the new Prince or Princess. I am sure she could use my experience in

dealing with the little ones. Like some of our Parliament dreams, they

have resorted to squabbling and throwing temper tantrums. Come on,

they will be born into a tide of restorative. People on welfare, not

in work, apart from those who are exempt, such as the disabled, they

should not be earning more than average earnings after tax, which is

fair to the taxpayers. The thinking is pretty clear, stop those on

benefits you do not seem to be able to stop having children, from

claiming too much. But that puts Labour in a difficult position. They

are in favour of a benefits cap, just not the one on offer. The

benefit cap is good idea in principle but the one today has

proven such a shambles in practice so we have learned that there are

4000 families, about 10%, with large hammers of children who will not

come under this when introduced. Hang on, Liam Byrne actually thinks

that it is to lose. And some Lib Dems say, that is not very... It is

about the worst kind of politics and chasing popular is that the expense

of children's world being is not something I care for. She is a nice

lady! Well, Joseph, you might like that Lady butter attitude is not

very popular. So, she is also thinking about the next election and

the need to separate the Lib Dems from those nasty Tories. The

Conservatives are determined to keep welfare cuts at the heart of their

pitch for election. It might be brittle but it is probably quite

effective. -- brittle. -- brutal. It is important to keep the little ones

cool, otherwise they can get grumpy. Delightful child! But there have

been noises at the dispatch box over something rather serious - report

into failures at some NHS hospitals. The Tories say... It is all his

fault! And the Labour Party say... It is all his fault! This has been a

decisive week by the way the NHS plays into politics. The shift that

matters is that the health service is no longer beyond criticism. If

the NHS is considered labourers crowning achievement, today is no

darkest moment. As a Labour government is exposed as caring more

about its own reputation and our most vulnerable citizens in the NHS.

You should not play politics with people 's lives with the NHS, on

which all people depend. As a well-known childcare guru, I find

the hardest thing is to get children to give away their choice, even when

they are finished playing with them. I bet Liberal Democrat children do

not get to play with heavy weaponry. They have been back on their hobby

horse, asking us to reconsider the nuclear deterrent. It is time to

move on from the Cold War, to adapt our deterrents to the 21st century

in a way that does not copy my 's national security. The only thing

that has changed is that the fights between Tories and Lib Dems seem to

have eased. It is a longer unthinkable to think that we could

have another Cornish and after the next election. Our prime minister

does not like the nanny state much. What do you reckon? Did he not like

his nanny when he was little? And the prices of cigarette packaging

stays the same. But it's about politics, which give Labour the

chance to take Mr Lynton Crosby. Ed Miliband 's narrative is of rich,

cynical conservatives. Has he ever had any conversation with Lynton

Crosby about cigarette packaging? has never lobbied me on anything but

if he wants a scandal, why doesn't he faced the fact that the trade

unions by his Cabinet and his leadership. He is the Prime Minister

for Benson and hedge funds Santino is at! But the Tories are off with a

spring in their step for summer, even stop moaning. Ed Miliband might

relish the royal baby as a distraction from his modest poll

ratings amid doubts of whether we can envisage him up on the steps of

number ten. But you learn to love them in the end! Joseph? ! The Mary

Poppins of the programme. Brandon Jones, welcome back. The Tories,

very surprising that the stage, going off to the recess with a

spring in their step, the economy is improving from a low base. Do they

believe they might win the next election? Yes, I think so. We have

had the whole service, the economy, going well, advocate either has gone

home. The economy going better. The Prime Minister is doing better at

questions. I have mentioned this before but as I see it, there are

these firm rules and politics and when the public decides of the

leader of the opposition is not prime ministerial behaviour, that

person does not win. Neil Kinnock, Michael Howard. Iain Duncan Smith.

But the second rule is, you do not increase their share of the vote

went in office. And David Cameron only got 37% and he needs more for

the majority. He needs 40%. And he was off that last time and it would

be extraordinary if they could put on three percentage points. Some

Tories believe they could win the outright majority but I do not think

they can explain how that could happen. Rand, good news for Mr Clegg

and the Lib Dems that Mr Cameron and the Tories have spring in their

step? I think so, but the big? whether or not the UK economy

recovery can mean the Lib Dems recover? If things are getting

better for the coalition, particularly on the economic front,

the Tories, the danger is, they get the credit? That is true but the Lib

Dems are in good heart and they feel that the year has gone well and the

East the by-election was the turning point. And they have slightly more

focused messages than before. The big decision for them is whether or

not they continue with this idea that they need to differentiate all

the time and say, the Tories are the nasty party and we are the nice

ones. Or if, in the run-up to the general election, actually carry on

saying, this is what the coalition can do in the times of national

crisis. And getting a balance right is truly difficult. This is the

point in the political cycle, halfway between elections, when the

government of the day is meant to be in the doldrums and the opposition

is meant to be unrealistically ahead in opinion polls. What has gone

wrong? The coalition must be wishing they had for years as a fixed

parliament! Because a lot can happen. But Michael spoke about

those general rules and is another general rule that only once in the

last 80 years as a party one an election the first time after

losing. After five years out of office. That is a very big task. The

reason I am encouraged, and I do agree, Cameron has got a spring in

his step and Clegg, I thought he would go before the next general

election. He is looking less likely. And he has this Zen like transfer

all of this stuff is going on around him. But the thing about Ed Miliband

is, do not underestimate his speech about levy payers. What he has done

in reaction to what was happening at Falkirk is huge stuff. Provided it

is carried through and we talk about clause four, but this is even

bigger. If this comes off, it shows a level of leadership that I think

will perhaps not put him in that position that Neil Kinnock and the

others were in. If Labour struggled to get too far ahead in the polls

when the economy was in the tag, what happens if the worst is over

and things are improving? labour, and the issue has always

been the NHS, but they are even on the back foot on that. They are

still ahead on that. But that first part of the Parliament... We got the

lowest, second lowest votes... It is a long way to come back and we were

sitting ducks in the economy. To be blamed for that. I would not take

that as anything provided but it is all to play for and the IMF said

that we are very long way from a sustainable recovery. No one says

this is a recovery of the time we have known before. Lynton Crosby,

Michael, is he a problem for Mr Cameron or is he the reason that the

Tory message is more focused and sharper and much more resonating?

think of. He is probably less of a problem than he is because of

success. The focus is being successful. And they are hurling

overboard policies that were upsetting the grassroots. Getting

rid of the barnacles on the boat? I think it is a problem. But Lynton

Crosby has a consultancy that has Philip Morris, the tobacco company.

But for the moment the damage that does to the Tory party, at this

stage, cannot be prepared -- compared with any benefits. Are the

Lib Dems comfortable with Lynton Crosby? They will be very

comfortable if he becomes a problem for the Conservative Party. I am

sure that Michael is right. It is not difficult to understand that the

man in charge might be privy to the party and it is like Bill Clinton,

these denials. Why not just come clean? Yes, of course we have

discussed this and I know he has paid for one side of the argument so

I don't let that influence by judgement. It would be much better.

Isn't one of the problems when looking at the coalition at the

moment, it is Cameron and the Tories that everybody is talking about? The

way it has been covered, not covered as a coalition, it is covered

overwhelmingly as Conservative lead? There is an article in the new

statesman about that. Cameron has always been a very good performer.

He did not seem to have a good machine around him in the early

years and part of that was deciding that he did not need all of these

levers at Downing Street, and he criticised Tony Blair for having too

many special advisers. He soon learned that if you have not got

those leaders at the centre, nothing will happen. They have smartened up

but it is a long way. And I would be more worried, in a sense, if we were

picking too early. He might have peaked too soon? ! The BBC does not

forget that this coalition government has not faced the

opposition, from the BBC, but Margaret Thatcher did. That is

because the BBC does not have the right to attack a government that

got 60% of the vote and things like the schools reforms and the National

Health Service reforms, welfare reforms, they have been allied

through by the media, largely represented in the BBC, in a way

that they would not have been if they had been Thatcher reforms.

Minority or majority Conservative government. That is partly true but

obviously it is very much in the interest of the Lib Dems to pipe up

as much as they can about their priorities and things like taking

the poorest out of income tax, but, surprisingly, does resonate on the

doorsteps and it is very important that they get that policy. In

Eastleigh, they proved they got the credit for that and in their next

manifesto, they want to make that more ambitious, everyone earning

minimum wage is out of income tax. That is clearly identifiable. And

you can own that in the future. On a scale of 1-10, ten being most

likely, what is the chance of Nick and Dave returning? After 2015? As

Allen has said, quite rightly, there is a very long way to go but I think

it is quite likely. About seven or eight. But I think it is very

dangerous. If, going into the election, there is too much of the

stuff about bloodlines and there is some pre-negotiation. The electorate

will not like that. They must go but down. They have to stand down on

that. I would not have put the number as high as that but I am in

no doubt that the number is rising. More likely than Conservative

victory. If she is right, we will never mention that again! If she is

wrong... You will be ridiculed! Like all BBC programmes, we spend our

budget on focus groups. Alan Johnson is universally admired as a man from

humble beginnings who rose to several great offices of state whose

dignity, intellect, sheer likeability puts other politicians

to shame. And Michael is the funny guy with the strange accent always

talking to himself on a train. Does it matter what people think of us

and what can we do to change people's perception. We have no

idea. Attitude of the world 's fastest men drug tested positive,

causing a shadow to fall over the anniversary of the London politics.

This year 's outstanding ride by Chris Froome has forced him to

confront the reputation of his sport has for breaking the rules. I can

understand why people are asking this, given the history of the sport

and they have been let down so many times before. I am also one of those

people that has been let down, I also believed in people who have

turned out to be cheats and liars. But I can assure you, I am not.

Stuart Broad challenged crickets repetition as gentleman 's game.

refused to leave his wicket after clearly being caught out. Unlike JK

rolling, who has been caught out concealing her identity. And she was

a true author of this book. Using an alias. How powerful can reputation

be and how hard can it be to shake? Lynton Crosby's reputation certainly

seems to be growing at Westminster and as the old saying goes, there is

no cigarette smoke without fire. Uri Geller joins us. How much does your

reputation matter? I created my repetition and I moulded it and I

twisted it. Consciously? Absolutely, out of necessity. The

best thing that could have happened to me was controversy. So, my

reputation is shrouded with controversy. And that is great. As

long as they talk about me and mention my name, Oscar Wilde said,

there is only one thing worse than being talked about and that is not

being talked about. Yes, but repetition is absolutely important.

But when I read about JK, that is a great PR move. Think about that, it

has been done 1 million times before. Full page in the Sunday

Times! Exactly. In a superficial level, your reputation, which people

will always remember as the man who then spins. But according to a new

documentary, there is a lot more than that? That is true. Over 40

years, I have read minds, stopped Big Ben. It was rather quirky and

bizarre and unusual. I was never in the taken seriously. But, parallel

to that, to that show business lifestyle and the entertainer, I did

quite amazing things for many different intelligence agencies

around the world. Including the CIA? Absolutely, an arm of the CIA

got me out of Israel in 1972, to test my abilities and skills and

might are normal powers to see whether they could be used for their

purposes. How long did you do that? For a long time. And what amazed me

in this documentary by the revelations that I did not even know

about. The director, he is an Oscar winner, and I told him how I did it

but he must have used his reputation, adding the Oscar, his

charisma, his charm and personality, to get the information, to extract

the information from these people. Here is a man with a reputation for

ending spoons and being an intriguing character and doing

things we cannot explain, and doing it with great style and energy, and

it turns out that he has been working for the CIA? What does that

do? What it will do, it will enhance the feeling or triggered the belief

system in people that, hey, maybe Uri Geller does possess certain

powers. Otherwise the CIA would not be bothering? Look at his answer

about JK rolling, it is publicity! This is amazing. There is an entire

reputation on top of the previous one. We are not heart of this border

city! Alan, do you worry about your repetition? No, I did whenever I was

a minister, it is difficult not to, you read about it every day.

your reputation decides the repetition of the government so if

you make a big problem, then... Allen has done a reputational clue,

adding a book that reveals an entire side that most of us did not know

about. I think, in a way, we are all added. What are these doing for your

repetition? Making people think about me as a broadcaster, which is

true. Which is what you want? It is what you are? It is nice when I meet

people in the street and they say, you are the man who did the trains,

not the man... That is what you wanted to do and it is hard to shake

off any reputation as a Conservative minister? ! It takes a while. And

one dissolves into the other. But I do believe that what really

overpowers your reputation is your deep personality. If you are a nice

person and charming, and you smile. And you are open to everyone and you

sign autographed, that is all you need. So what is he going to do?He

has got it. We are going to put your reputation on the line here. Kate's

baby, boy or girl? I knew you would ask me. My wife is in the green

room. Ask her. She is great at that. What do you think, Michael? Boyet.A

boy. When is the documentary? This Sunday after Top Gear on BBC Two.

That is your lot for tonight and for the summer because this was our

final show of the series. Alan's Private Jet is ready to whisk him

off. Michael's faithful manservant is ready to whisk him off to a

pleasure Beach. The rest of us will be getting match fit for the next

series, because sadly for everyone involved, we return in September, in

time for the Lib Dem party conference. It does not get better

than that dash the Lib Dem party conference, in Glasgow. Who needs

the French Riviera. Tonight, we will leave you with a sticky and

frustrated press pack waiting for Kate to deliver the good news story