26/09/2013 This Week

Just how crazy is Labour leader, Ed Miliband, with his plan to freeze

energy bills? Would it take Britain back to the blackouts of the 1970s?

Power-dressing commentator Andrew Rawnsley, who was in short trousers

back then, talks political energy. His opponents may see Ed Miliband's

policies are a red cocktail from the 1970s, but when semi-voters hold

energy companies in contempt, I suspect his price freeze will prove

rather popular. Diplomatic relations with Iran have

been frozen in time since 1979 but could they be heading for a thaw?

The BBC's Frank Gardner is revving up his bike. I can't think of any

time since Iran underwent Islamic Revolution in the 1970s when there

has been such a resolve to try to settle the dispute to clean Iran and

the United States. And the era of Angela Merkel, who

wins in Germany again. German comedian Henning Wehn tells us what

makes this powerful lady so cool. Angela Merkel may have won over

Germany, but Andrew, she is not a patch on you.

Crazy horses. Aah, aah. Crazy horses. Aah.

Evenin' all. Welcome to This Week. Now, good ideas are few and far

between, but Ed Balls came up with one this week. Acknowledging that

trust in politicians is at an all-time low, he called on the

government's independent watchdog, the OBR, to test any claims he makes

between now and the next election, to reassure a sceptical electorate

that he can once again be trusted in office. Now, this makes perfect

sense to me. I don't understand why the government is so against it.

After all, the OBR is ideally placed to judge the reliability of the

Shadow Chancellor's statements, starting, perhaps, with the big

announcements he made at this week's party conference, such as "negative,

nasty briefing is wrong, but it's also a thing of the past". Wouldn't

you like the OBR to run its slide rule over that one? Or, how about,

"Briefing against a colleague is not something I've ever done. I think

it's the wrong way to do politics"? You'd pay for an independent

assessment of that. And our personal favourite, "Damian McBride did some

of those things. It was despicable. It's the wrong thing to do. It's not

something I've ever done. It's not something I will ever do". I'd like

to see the OBR crawl all over that. So we await the verdict of the OBR

with baited breath, and raised eyebrows. No. Not the Office for

Budget Responsibility. That's boring. We're talking about the

Office of Balls Responsibility. Now that really would be a welcome

addition to political life. Speaking of those who "would say that,

wouldn't they", I'm joined on the sofa tonight by two monstrosities

it's hard not to love. Think of them as the Preston Bus Station and

Godfrey Bloom of late night political chat. I speak, of course,

of #iffysmiffy Jacqui Smith, and #sadmanonatrain Michael "Choo Choo"

Portillo. Moment of the week? Peter Mandelson

came out against the Ed Miliband promise on freezing gas prices. I

thought this was interesting because Peter Mandelson was successful, with

Tony Blair, in getting business on Labour 's Mac side. For a

Conservative, during that decade and a half when business was on

Labour's side, it was incredibly tomorrow lies in. But the

announcement that Labour is going back to price freezes will next time

guarantee that the business vote and business money is with the

Conservatives, so a lot of Conservatives are feeling pleased.

But if Mandelson is against it, it will consolidate Mr Miliband's

position in the Labour Party. Yes. But Mr Miliband is depriving himself

of trade union funding and now business funding. Your moment? Lord

Ashcroft, former Tory treasurer, self-confessed tax avoidance, got

quite a sympathetic, almost generous response when he appeared at the

Fabian's fringe at Labour conference this week. It might have been

because one of the things he was talking about was the polling he has

done in the seats that Labour needs to win to gain a majority. It shows

Labour in a strong position. The swing is much higher there than in

other seats. He is now almost better known for his polling than for

funding the Tory party. You can wave count on Michael Ashcroft to be

helpful to the Conservatives! Now, how many This Week pundits does

it take to change a light bulb? Just the one. Michael holds the light

bulb and the universe revolves around him. Boom boom! Whether we

can turn it on is another matter entirely. Now Ed Miliband's

threatening to cap energy bills, and energy companies are threatening to

switch off the lights as they leave the country. But will Ed's policy

turn on the voters? Here's The Observer's Andrew Rawnsley with his

conference take of the week. Power. If Labour is to see it

again, the party has some stiff challenges to overcome. With just 20

months before the next election, the machinery has to be humming at the

party conference in Brighton. Challenge number one, to address

Labour's greatest vulnerability, it's deficit on economic

credibility. That demanded some convincing talk from the Shadow

Chancellor. The British people rightly want to know that the sums

add up. So we will go one step further and ask the independent

Office for Budget Responsibility, the watchdog set up by the

government, to independently audit the costings of every single

individual spending and tax measure in Labour's manifesto at the next

election. A clever play, by Ed Balls. If the Treasury resists

allowing the OBE are audit the plans, the risk for the Tories is

that they are the ones who will look like they are playing games. Power

challenge number two, where is the money going to come from? The Shadow

Chancellor has his eye on a very expensive train set. The HS2 project

has been totally mismanaged and the costs have shot up to £50 billion.

We will not take this irresponsible approach. Let us be clear, in tough

times when there is less money around and a big deficit to get

down, there will be no blank cheque from me as a Labour Chancellor for

this project, or any other project. I am told Labour is not going to

make a decision about HS2 for some time yet. For one thing, it is just

too useful to Ed Balls to be able to repeat no blank cheques as a way of

suggesting he would be a flinty disciplinarian. Power challenge

number three, putting the party's past behind it. That was not helped

by Gordon Brown's former hit man, Damien Wright, a man as well come at

the conference as flatulence in a crowded lift. -- Damian McBride.

They strutted around like characters from the West Wing. Bank 's to

people like you, it was more like the Sopranos. -- thanks to people

like you. It fitted that sort of idea of some people operating in a

way which people find acceptable because it is gangster -ish. How was

-- how damaging was this reminding of the civil war that consumed the

last Labour government? Not that much. The poisonous confessions

proved less of a distraction than the Labour leadership had feared.

Power challenge number four, make Labour look more like a party ready

for government, a pledge which they think the shine most brightly with

voters, the promised to freeze energy prices for 20 months. If we

win the election in 2015, the next Labour government will freeze gas

and electricity prices until the start of 2017. Your bills will not

rise. It will benefit millions of families and millions of businesses.

That is what I mean by a government that fights for you. That is what I

mean when I say Britain can be better than this. Read Ed is back,

the snap verdict of -- the left and the right. Peter Mandelson, helpful

as ever to his party and probably not troubled by the size of his gas

bill, added his voice to criticism of the price freeze. The parallel

that I see is with the windfall tax on privatised industries introduced

by Lord Mandelson was my friend, Tony Blair, in new Labour's first

term. Companies howled about that when it was first announced but grew

to accept it. And it also proved pretty popular with the public.

Power challenge number five, persuade more people to think of Ed

Miliband as a potential Prime Minister. His personal poll numbers

are persistently dismal. He took the leadership question head-on. I have

a question for the Tories today. If they want to have a debate about

leadership and character, be my guest. Talk to Tories and they will

often tell you they are confident of winning the next election if it is

Cameron against Miliband, a presidential contest. Strange,

then, their attitude to the idea of more televised debates. Some Tories

seemed to be suggesting they wanted to snuff them out. So, Labour left

Brighton with more energy. At the big test is whether they can keep

the generators turning in the weeks to come. -- but the big test.

Andrew Raunds Lee, practising for the blackout. He joins us now in our

little Westminster power station. Can we agree that Ed Miliband is in

a stronger place tonight than a week ago? I think he was. He went into

the conference with some of the Shadow Cabinet apparently on strike.

The August of angst, where the news vacuum was filled with critical

voices. We can argue about the policies. But he has at least now

given, and I heard this from a lot of MPs and activists, he has given

them some goods to sell on the doorstep. Although sensible people

do not think all our problems are doorstep. Although sensible people

over and we will win the next election automatically, they did

generally feel they were in a better place after the conference than

before. I do not agree with that. I think the problem is the freeze on

gas prices. It strikes many independent commentators as silly.

It is not grown-up economics. It is not something that can be sustained.

Sooner or later, the price will go up, or the price freeze will have to

go on. It is a step into populism, which I think actually reduces Ed

Miliband's status. I think he emerges worse. Do you not think it

might be popular populism? All of the polls tell us people are

outraged by the energy companies. I do not think people are that stupid.

I also think it comes two years to early. It is politically important

and economically right. It is politically important because it

puts flesh on the argument that the election will be fought on the basis

of living standards, and it is Labour that understands that whilst

the economy may be growing, living standards are not improving. And it

is economically right because the important point about it, behind the

headline, is the argument about the nature of the market and a

willingness to look at the way you reform that market, and also

politically, for Ed Miliband to be in a place where he says, I will

take on vested interests. You are not reforming the market. You are

making a state intervention to freeze prices. Whilst reform of the

market is undertaken. Why not reform the market? That is completely

legitimate to say that if the result of a cartel is barriers to entry and

vertical integration, prices that have increased disproportionately,

more disproportionately in the last few years than when we were in

government, then you need to reform the government -- the market. Of all

the things it is, it is not economically sensible. Where will

the Liberal party be? I agree that Miliband is strengthened, very much

so. On the one hand, Nick Clegg has positioned himself as the moderate

man between two extremes. It does look very socialist, and Michael is

right that people will be nervous about the practicalities of some of

these policies. On the other hand, there is an undoubted appeal for

disgruntled former Lib Dem voters. The strongest line in the speech, I

thought, was weak against the strong but strong against the week. I think

there are a lot of former Lib Dem voters who think that is a big

appeal. It may not last. Last year, she delivered a fantastic speech and

there was no follow-through. It is interesting to see what happens in

the next few months, because this may collapse. The difference this

year is actually what Andrew said. There is more policy this year,

things to get your teeth into. I was critical that our policy review was

like a pregnant panda and nothing was emerging. You are not on

Newsnight. Do not get carried away! Last year it was a very good speech

but the criticism was that people Last year it was a very good speech

did not row in behind it. That was because it was difficult to come

behind the concept of one nation. Now, you have lots of policy ideas

that people can debate and exemplify.

Ed Miliband's speech last year was quite well received. Then it all

seemed to fizzle away. We think everybody is listening as we do to

every cough and burp at a Conference - they are not. The real test is

will they be able to follow through - they are not. The real test is

and sell these messages afterwards? The other interesting thing is the

way we have all moved on to discuss it. It is the wrong sort of

recovery? It is this issue of who is benefitting from the recovery. If

the Government think that the nation will be grateful to them for

delivering a recovery, not necessarily. Labour is hoping this

is 1945. Andrew, what do we learn about the Labour election strategy

from the policies that were announced? Is he still going, given

the electoral arithmetic is on his side, it is still a 35% strategy? He

denies it so vehemently. No politician, if you said that is what

you were going to get, they would never have said it. I believe him

when he says, "I don't want that." You see Francois Hollande in France.

If you come with a brittle mandate, it will all go to grief very

quickly. Labour's ambition, surely, has to be much better than 35%.

These were policies designed to appeal to the middle-classes and the

centre ground. The types of things... Middle-class people pay

gas bills as well! Housing? Exactly. If it is populist Ed - it could be

Red Ed and Populist Ed - how should the Tories play him? I think the

Tories will be very pleased about this. I think he's left Planet

Reality. I do not understand how anybody could be arguing people's

living standards rise when the Government steps in and freezes

prices. You and I lived through it in the 1970s. It wasn't popular. You

have the Treasury subsidising people's mortgages. Does that make

sense? No, I disagree with that policy. I want to get on to the big

issue. Let's get on to Dame yek McBride. Jacqui, you must have been

as surprised as the Shadow Chancellor what he was getting up

to? I knew what Damien McBride was getting up to. The point is whether

or not that was symptomatic of what everybody was doing. One of the most

damaging things about his book is this sort of suggestion that somehow

or another the whole of politics is like this. It is not a suggestion at

all. It just so happens Gordon Brown's aide is leading the Labour

Party today. It is a very convenient spin for you to say that Damien

McBride's book is about how politics is corrupt. It isn't. It is about

how Damien McBride and Gordon Brown, for whom he worked, and the two Eds,

how they were corrupt. There is for whom he worked, and the two Eds,

nothing in there about David Cameron, or Michael Gove, or Oliver

Letwin. Most of the rest of the Labour Party. Do you believe Ed

Balls when he said he didn't know anything about it? Hold on. Did you

Balls when he said he didn't know believe Ed Balls? I believe Ed

Balls. He knew nothing about this? He was on the phone every week to

Damien McBride and you knew nothing about it? Most of us knew what was

going on. The question is... You did know about it? The suggestion that

Michael is making is that Ed was involved in it. I absolutely don't

believe that that is the case. Andrew, you have done the definitive

book on this? The problem is - and a lot of people watching - people say

to me well, if you sort of all knew, why did nobody do anything about it?

Talking from a journalistic perspective, if you were part of his

client group of journalists, to whom he gave this stuff, you were

unlikely to blow the whistle because you were being fed the stuff and you

weren't going to bite the hand that fed you. Everyone else was in the

position, like many Cabinet Ministers, like Jacqui, of having

really strong suspicions this was going on, but it was very hard to

get the cast-iron proof. I know many of Gordon's Cabinet Ministers said,

"You have to stop this." The Prime Minister sat there saying, "I know

nothing about it." Alright. I remember a time when Alastair

Campbell was doing very similar things. I remember the time when

Charlie Whelan was doing similar things. It is symptomatic of the

Labour Government from beginning to end. Alright. Already Tories are

saints, of course(!) We will end it on that agreement that the Tories

are not saints! Thank you both very much.

Now, it's late, and all a bit of a blur - for obvious reasons - so pour

yourself another pint of sweet German Liebfraumilch, because we

have another Teutonic treat in store waiting in the wings - the ubercool

German comedy ambassador, Henning Wehn, is here to explain the ongoing

appeal of Angela Merkel. And if you fancy explaining the

dubious appeal of This Week, shower us in faint praise as per usual on

The Twitter, The Fleecebook and that new-fangled Interweb.

Now, the world has been shocked this week by events in Kenya. On Saturday

attackers entered a shopping centre in the capital city Nairobi shooting

and throwing grenades at fleeing shoppers and taking hostages. A

dramatic four-day siege followed with a group of Islamists from

Somalia saying they were behind the attack putting radical terrorism

back at the top of the news. In Britain, the Prime Minister chaired

an emergency meeting on the Kenyan attack, which included British

victims. But what are the chances that what happened at the Westgate

shopping centre in East Africa could be replicated at Westfield's

shopping centre in East London? We turned to our man in the know, the

BBC's security correspondent, Frank Gardner. This is his roundup of the

week. The attack began at midday on

Saturday at Nairobi's Westgate shopping centre. It's a multi-storey

complex, one of the newest in East Africa, and popular can Kenyans and

expatriates. The attackers sprayed machine-gunfire and threw grenades.

They appeared to target non-Muslims... Covering the attack

story from here in the newsroom is a non-Muslims... Covering the attack

bit of a case of mixed emotions. As a journalist, as the BBC security

correspondent, this is what I do for a living so I'm glad that I'm around

to be able to do it. As somebody who has been shot themselves several

times, obviously it brings back some unpleasant memories. That doesn't

stop me covering it objectively and trying to get to the bottom of

stop me covering it objectively and what's happened.

The Nairobi story is an incredibly important one, not just because of

the horrendous high body count, but because this is something which

could happen anywhere in the world. It's happened in Mumbai already and

it begs the question - could it happen here in Britain?

Fighting and winning the battle against terrorism is something

that's in here, not just here. You can arrest people, you can track

them down, you can try them, you can incarcerate them if found guilty.

Ultimately, it is a battle of the minds. I think when we look back on

this week it is really going to be quite an important one,

historically. There will be the tragedy, the bloodstain of the

Nairobi attack that people will never forget. It also marks the

beginning of whal hopefully will be a journey to success in resolving

Iran's differences with the United States. At last, finally, after

eight years of vitriolic rhetoric coming out of Iran, there is now a

seemingly very moderate President, Dr Hassan Rouhani, who has still the

power and the blessing of the Supreme Leader in that country and

he is reaching out to the United States saying, "Let's do a deal on

the nuclear issue." That issue is that America and many other

countries suspect Iran of secretly building a nuclear bomb - Iran says

it isn't - and they are saying let's get sanctions lifted. If the US and

Iran can have a working relationship, the Middle East and

the world will be a much safer place.

Frank joins us now. Welcome back to This Week. How seriously do you

think our Security Services take a Mumbai-style attack in Britain?

Extremely seriously. When Mumbai got attacked five years ago and over 160

people were killed - and that hostage situation went on for three

days. It took the Indians a long time to react to it. The propaganda

value for the terrorists was enormous. That, as Jacqui knows

because she was Home Secretary at the time, was a real wake-up call,

because she was Home Secretary at not just here in Britain, but for a

lot of countries, they thought, "Crikey, if this happened here in

Britain, could we deal with it?" One of the first things they discovered

was that the police were undergunned, they didn't have the

firepower back then to take on those kind of jihadists. They would not

have been able to contain them whilst Special Forces were fetched

from their barracks. So a lot of thought has had to go into that.

They have held a whole series of exercises across the country called

Wooden Pride, where the police have been working with SAS and SBS to

fine tune how quickly they would respond to something like that.

Prime Ministers and Home Secretaries since then have resolved that if

something like that was to happen in Britain, they would move very fast

and very decisively to cordon it off and deal probably rather more

quickly with the terrorists than the Kenyan authorities did. They

appeared to hesitate in Nairobi. There was a lot of confusion. In

Mumbai and Nairobi, the police were outgunned? Yes, they were. It took

them a while to arrive. I don't think we should get complacent about

- in Europe, we now how to deal with -- we know how to deal with this.

Look at Oslo. He was a right-wing fascist extremist, more or less a

lone operator and the guy killed dozens o f people by himself. It

appeared to be a complex attack, an explosion followed by all these

people being gunned down. It was just him. As Frank mentioned, you

were Home Secretary. What changed after Mumbai? As Frank said,

remember an important element of the counterterrorism strategy was the

idea that you would prepare to protect. So you have to, when you

are faced with the potential that that might be the way in which

terrorists will want to attack, to think about what preparation is

necessary and to question the capacity that there is in place. So,

we asked questions. We thought about the way in which, whether or not how

that risk had been heightened and what might be done to mitigate it.

We don't have Special Forces all over the country, do we? Well, we

have... Do we? They are on short notice to move. In Hereford -

Newcastle is a long way. Yes. Of course, it is not going to be

possible to and nor would you want to have armed people all-around

waiting to be able to deal with something like that. Of course. It

is possible to make sure that people are prepared to know what to do as

quickly as possible, are vigilant about the potential start of

something like that and remember, you also need to keep people

prepared for other forms of attack as well. So, at that point, what we

thought was most likely was an attack on a crowded place with a

bomb, so there was a large amount of preparation that goes into that. It

is never possible to close off every risk. It is important to take, to

look at what's happened and use that... I'm not totally reassured we

would be able to respond in the way we would. A lot of commentary said

Al-Qaeda is going local now and you may think Nairobi fits into that. It

is a local dispute, Somalia. Kenyan troops involved there. We understand

a lot of Westerners are involved in Al-Qaeda and Somalia. At some stage

these people could - Brits as well - these could come back, they are

trained, they are now experienced, they know how to handle guns, we are

potentially on the firing line? Indeed, we are. We are so much in

the firing line that - we know about this. Fortunately, our intelligence

has foiled many plots so far. So far. We cannot rely on that being

the case. I think it is unrealistic to imagine at the beginning of an

attack like this your police force could jut gun the terrorists and if

you have 13 terrorists who are advancing with grenades, that is

very difficult. On the other hand, I thought it was probably ludicrous

when I heard suggested this week that we would have spot checks in

shopping centres and search people's handbags. That is not the nature of

the terrorist who is coming into these situations.

When Obama said two years ago that Al-Qaeda was on the path to defeat

coming he was wrong. I never signed up to the idea that this is an

endgame, that you end up winning or losing. You can only reduce

terrorism, like burglary, to a manageable level. I know that sounds

callous towards victims of terrorism, I am one myself, but it

is not something you win or lose because it is dynamic, fluid, it

moves. The other thing with Al-Qaeda, it might have been the

case that the traditional main part of Al-Qaeda began to be defeated,

but what you saw was what I have heard described as franchising of

the ideology and methodology. That is what you see in organisations

like Al-Shabab and others around the world. What makes you so sure, which

I took from that film, that Hassan Rouhani, you described him as very

moderate, and that he is not just playing us like a fiddle, and also

the way North Korea did. How can we be sure? We cannot. The proof will

be whether Iran is transparent and accountable in its nuclear

programme. This is about enrichment of uranium. Iran has the right to

civil nuclear energy. Obama said that this week. If you go to Iran,

civil nuclear energy. Obama said many Iranians will tell you they

have a right to a nuclear weapons, because Pakistan has it, Israel has

it, etc. Leave that aside, let's say they are not producing a bomb. Why

do they need to enrich uranium so far beyond the point at which it is

used for civil purposes? They have to be much more transparent about

that. In return, they will want sanctions lifted. Iran has set this

ambitious goal of three to six months. He has a mandate from his

people to get those sanctions lifted. Unlike the previous

relatively moderate, you are right, he is not very moderate, that was a

slip of the tongue. Compared to Ahmadinejad, he is moderate. But it

could just be softly spoken, the mood music is good but the same

old, same old under the surface. Proof will be whether they are

prepared to do a deal and open up their nuclear facilities to the

International Atomic Energy Agency. What is your take on it? I am less

International Atomic Energy Agency. optimistic than Frank. So far,

nothing has happened, other than a change of language. There has been

no change in the transparency of Iran, no firm proposal for any

action. The Israelis are certainly extremely dubious about the whole

thing. They could be playing for time. We could spend six months

investigating and not get any further. So it must be, the way the

United States must handle it must be that they get to the point of living

whether there will be more transparency or not very quickly. So

the Americans actually need at least as short a deadline as is being

suggested by the Iranians. He has changed the terms of trade, this new

president. It has changed the atmosphere. Completely. They clearly

want to do a deal. Iran is a bust country. It is a magnificent place

with an ancient history and it is bust. It has rising unemployment,

rising prices, all of that -- statistics are going in the wrong

direction. But a young, well-educated population. They are

fed up with sanctions and isolation. The supreme leader, ayatollahs

Khamenei, has given his blessing and said, get us out of this isolation.

You think so? He is only going to let him go so far. The Iranians

revolutionary guards are the real power the real military power on

that side the Gulf. Their capacity to make mischief in the region is

pretty big. The Gulf Arab states, to make mischief in the region is

British allies, do not trust them. They view Iran as an existential

threat, even without the nuclear bomb.

Now, two supermarkets have today withdrawn a controversial Hallowe'en

outfit, after widespread criticism. Asda and Tesco have apologised and

claim their Michael Portillo fancy dress costume of emerald-green satin

shirt, rubber face mask, and two-foot high quiff is no longer

available in their stores. Alastair Campbell, who has written of his own

depressing experiences on This Week, branded the costume "totally

unacceptable". "We are trying to change attitudes towards Michael

Portillo so people do not stigmatise him, and something like this comes

along and it reminds you we are basically still living in the dark

ages". Well said Alistair, but why is Michael considered so uncool? And

is that a stupid question? We decided to answer it and put

political coolness in this week's Spotlight.

Three cheers, and terms, as Angela Merkel wins office yet again, in

what some say was more a personal contest than a political one.

TRANSLATION: As the jubilate Shannon shows, we can be happy about this

super result. This is one former scientist who seems to have cracked

the chemistry of being cool. But does it matter if a politician is

thought of as cool? Tony Blair rode the cool Britannia waives right into

Downing Street. And Ed Miliband obviously feels he needs to address

the issue, with a conference speech that mocked his reputation for being

a bit of a nerd. She said I was an action hero who mysteriously

appeared out of nowhere. And she said that Ed was actually

attractive. And not geeky at all. In a week when Apple was voted the

coolest brand, does this prove that geek Chic has the power to make it

to number one again -- after all? Henning Wehn joins us again. Good to

see you. Am I right in thinking that Angela Merkel is so uncool that it

makes her cool? Probably. Over the past few years, everybody realised

nobody could have done any better in the role than she did, so there was

no reason to vote for anybody else. She had no competition. The parties

competed, but the Social Democrats, the Green leader, the other leaders,

the left-wing party, their leaders were nowhere near her in terms of

public acclaim. Probably not. Again, it was a strange election, as

the social Democrat party leader would have also made a very good

Chancellor. There was no reason to change the driver. Angela Merkel

does a great job. It is the same challenge as before, keeping the

European Union going. I think she is challenge as before, keeping the

the right person to do it. Angela Merkel does not seem to care very

much what people think of her. She made sure she won the election, so

she definitely cares what people think. She does not seem to care

that people think she is fuddy-duddy and uncool. She is the nation's

mother. Yes, Shias. -- she is. The idea that a politician has to be

cool is strange. The criticism of idea that a politician has to be

politicians being dull, what is the alternative? Berlusconi or Putin.

They are not dull, they are bonkers. That is a lot worse in a

politician. I want them to be as dull as possible. Is Germany like

Britain in that it is a mixture of very cool and very uncool? We can

discuss the word cool all day long. The important thing is that people

get up in the morning and have a job to go to, and at the end of the

month they pay their tax amnesty not send the money offshore. As long as

everybody does that, society will be all right. So we have a long way to

go. You have been talking for five minutes and neither of you have

mentioned leadership. Sometimes there are people who are clear

leaders. Angela Merkel is one of them. Tony Blair was one, Thatcher

was one. Funnily enough, Berlusconi and Putin, they are very clear

leaders. They have all got it. I do not think cool comes into it. Isn't

it also about authenticity? If people think you are doing a serious

job, being who you are, that is why people like Ed Miliband's speech,

because they liked the people like Ed Miliband's speech,

self-deprecating thing, a glimpse of what he is actually like. He looked

like he was acting. In the first five minutes coming attempt it to be

a stand-up comedian. He always does that. That is the way he behaves.

Stop giggling in the background, Michael Portillo. Shall we get the

violins playing? There is no point being here unless I can do some

facial expressions. We love it. Angela Merkel has leadership in a

very modern German way, given Germany's past history with

leadership. She is seen as a strong leader. The history cannot be

escaped. It is also the reason why most people want her to form a

coalition with the Social Democrats, not to have a minority

government or to go with the Greens. In Germany there is a huge desire

for broad consensus. Absolutely. The other one would have been a

coalition that could not last. Mathematically, the Social Democrats

could have a coalition with the Green Party and the commonest, but

that would be the end of Germany as a going concern, really. So the

grand coalition is the only option. There are some politicians who at

that time were cool. Clinton was cool. Agreed? Yes, but also a great

leader. Mr Blair was cool. Yes, and a great leader. Barack Obama is

cool. And a terrible leader. You can recall but not a good leader.

Definitely. I think of Clement Attlee, who is the ultimate uncool

great leader. What makes a politician very cool is winning. If

Angela Merkel had not one, everyone would have said, she has no policies

and sits on the fence. Because she wins, what a great leader and the

country can unite behind her. It is a bit like foot tall, politics. If

country can unite behind her. It is you win the game, you are the best

country can unite behind her. It is manager in the world. If you lose,

you are clueless. Is David Cameron cool? No. No. I thought he was quite

cool at the beginning. I think he is losing his cool as he loses his grip

on his party. And this is where, actually, you are right about the

whole leadership thing. When people are described as cool, I regard it

as a sign of public naivete. Blair and Obama regarded as cool. I think

as a sign of public naivete. Blair the public had great disappointment

with both. Michael Gove has a pair of lederhosen summing trunks. I am

glad we have not seen them. What are you up to at the moment? I'm

starting a tour tomorrow all over the country, and Scotland.

That's your lot for tonight folks. But not for us, because we're off to

twerk the night away at Annabel's. But we leave you tonight with at

least one politician who can carry off being cool. After all, it's far

more important than having a functioning foreign policy.

Nighty-night. Don't let Obama bite. Reverend Al Green was here.

# I'm so in love with you. # Those guys didn't think I would do

it. I told you I was going to do it.