:00:00. > :00:09.Tonight, as Britain's top spooks come to Westminster, This Week spies
:00:10. > :00:21.the top political stories of the week.
:00:22. > :00:26.Are rising house prices the dirty little secret of electoral politics?
:00:27. > :00:35.Architect and presenter George Clarke keeps housing policy under
:00:36. > :00:39.surveillance? There is no secret code to cracking the housing crisis.
:00:40. > :00:43.We just need to build more. As the Government announces the loss
:00:44. > :00:46.of nearly 2000 shipyard jobs, is it secretly playing politics with
:00:47. > :00:55.peoples livelihoods? Agent Q, Quentin Letts, is bugging us all.
:00:56. > :00:59.For the people of Portsmouth, ship building was the big story of the
:01:00. > :01:06.week, but at Westminster they were more concerned with spies and spoke
:01:07. > :01:10.'s. -- spooks. And sadly the spies weren't keeping
:01:11. > :01:13.an eye on a suspected terrorist who escaped wearing in a burka. But are
:01:14. > :01:16.we getting too spooked by this particular piece of clothing? Stand
:01:17. > :01:24.up comedian Shazia Mirza puts cultural sensitivities under
:01:25. > :01:28.interrogation. I don't know why people are so offended about the
:01:29. > :01:31.burka. Have you seen Michael Portillo's shirts? !
:01:32. > :01:46.This Week - licenced to thrill. It would be worse if he wore them on
:01:47. > :01:51.his head. Evenin' all. Welcome to This Week,
:01:52. > :01:55.and what a crazeee week it's been in Canadian politics. Not a phrase you
:01:56. > :01:58.often hear in London, or in sleepy Ottawa for that matter, but thanks
:01:59. > :02:02.to roly-poly Rob Ford, the avuncular Mayor of Toronto, municipal politics
:02:03. > :02:07.in the land of Celine Dion is almost more eyebrow-raising than Grant
:02:08. > :02:10.Shapps' CV. For those who don't follow Canadian politics, and I
:02:11. > :02:14.suppose there might be a handful of you that don't, pull that House of
:02:15. > :02:18.Leather sofa closer to the TV and I shall elucidate. Mayor Ford is a
:02:19. > :02:21.politician for whom normal rules do not apply, a Canadian Boris Johnson,
:02:22. > :02:25.if you like, from number eight in the G8, who admitted this week that
:02:26. > :02:33.only a year ago, and against his better judgement, naturally, he
:02:34. > :02:36.smoked a pipe of crack cocaine. "Probably in one of my drunken
:02:37. > :02:39.stupors", said the Mayor, who went on to urge police to broadcast
:02:40. > :02:43.compromising footage of him, claiming, "I want everyone in the
:02:44. > :02:49.city to see this tape. I don't even recall there being a tape or video.
:02:50. > :02:54.I want to see the state I was in", sounding uncannily like Michael
:02:55. > :02:57.Portillo after our end credits roll. So has the Mayor resigned in sack
:02:58. > :03:02.cloth and ashes, perhaps even with Toronto plod feeling his collar? Not
:03:03. > :03:08.a bit of it. After the revelations his approval rating went up 5%, to a
:03:09. > :03:11.not too shabby 44%. Rumours Ed Miliband is contemplating a similar
:03:12. > :03:17.poll-boosting strategy are, as yet, unconfirmed. Speaking of those who
:03:18. > :03:21.claim "nothing to see here, move along now", I'm joined on the sofa
:03:22. > :03:27.tonight by two Westminster eagles who dare. Think of them as the
:03:28. > :03:33.Broadsword and Danny Boy of late night political chat. I speak, of
:03:34. > :03:43.course, of #manontheleft Alan "AJ" Johnson and #sadmanonatrain Michael
:03:44. > :03:53."All Aboard" Portillo. Your moment of the week. Such variety, Andrew!
:03:54. > :03:57.The government is restructuring the national health service, and because
:03:58. > :04:01.of this, certain small organisations that existed before ceased to exist,
:04:02. > :04:05.so the managers do not have that thing to manage any more. At that
:04:06. > :04:11.point they are paid off with enormous payoffs. Some of them got
:04:12. > :04:15.over 200,000. I think one got over 600000 and a married couple got
:04:16. > :04:20.nearly a million between them. And then, the health service does not
:04:21. > :04:23.cease to exist goes there are then new organisations that come into
:04:24. > :04:26.play. And guess what, these people are then employed by the new
:04:27. > :04:31.National Health Service organisations. Having trousered a
:04:32. > :04:37.few hundred thousand, they go into another job. These are a few
:04:38. > :04:44.millions that could be spent on patients. People are always keen to
:04:45. > :04:53.give away money if it is not theirs. This is what happens in nationalised
:04:54. > :04:56.industries. It is our money. It is not often that a government pulls
:04:57. > :05:01.its own legislation as it is trundling through the process. I
:05:02. > :05:08.cannot remember in it -- I cannot remember it happening in the
:05:09. > :05:12.previous 18 years but it happened twice already. This week, the much
:05:13. > :05:17.derided lobbying bill was pulled. The lobbying Bill has managed to
:05:18. > :05:21.unite the Christian Institute with the humanist Society. It has united
:05:22. > :05:25.the league against cruel sports with the countryside Alliance. They
:05:26. > :05:29.paused at the six weeks. The only other time it happened as with the
:05:30. > :05:33.health and Social Care Bill that created the mess Michael was just
:05:34. > :05:37.talking about. Question, who was the minister in charge of both? Poor old
:05:38. > :05:42.Andrew Lansley, the member for South Cambridgeshire. Lightning strikes
:05:43. > :05:47.twice. He probably has his finger on the button but it happens to be the
:05:48. > :05:54.pause button. He has been rehearsing that one. I think he did well, the
:05:55. > :05:57.rehearsals paid off. Now, you can't move for MPs feeling
:05:58. > :06:00.your cost-of-living pain, your pinched pocket, your squeezed
:06:01. > :06:04.middle, before heading off to their country estates to put six grand on
:06:05. > :06:08.their heating bill expenses. But Ed Miliband has made the running on it
:06:09. > :06:11.and the Government has yet to come with an effective response. The
:06:12. > :06:15.Chancellor is hoping that strong growth and rising house prices might
:06:16. > :06:18.be the antidote, but is that just a short-term fillip, especially when
:06:19. > :06:21.it comes to housing? We turned to architect and presenter of
:06:22. > :06:22.Restoration Man and George Clarke's Amazing Spaces, George Clarke. This
:06:23. > :06:43.is his take of the week. The cost of living is dominating the
:06:44. > :06:49.news again, but while food prices, energy prices and transport costs
:06:50. > :06:52.are spiralling out of control, the one thing that all politicians have
:06:53. > :07:04.not got to grips with is the biggest problem of all, and that is housing.
:07:05. > :07:10.Britain is right in the middle of a massive housing crisis, and in so
:07:11. > :07:14.many ways this building symbolises the scale of the problem. It was
:07:15. > :07:18.owned by a council, empty for years, completely abandoned and has
:07:19. > :07:23.now been sold to a private owner for nearly ?3 million. The idea is that
:07:24. > :07:27.the money is reinvested to create more affordable homes, but does that
:07:28. > :07:40.mean affordable housing is being pushed outside of our major cities?
:07:41. > :07:46.As an architect, it depresses me that over the last 30 or 40 years,
:07:47. > :07:50.no government has taken the tough decisions needed to solve the
:07:51. > :07:55.housing crisis. Housing has become a political football that is kicked
:07:56. > :07:58.around from one side to the other. I sometimes think the government do
:07:59. > :08:02.not really know how to position themselves. They want to leave
:08:03. > :08:07.housing is a free market, but actually the free market has failed.
:08:08. > :08:16.They have built many expensive trendy homes, but not enough
:08:17. > :08:20.affordable ones. As a result, it is really difficult for people to get
:08:21. > :08:24.on the property ladder. In so many ways, the system is a mess. Since --
:08:25. > :08:30.since Thatcher brought in the right to buy scheme, one point 5 million
:08:31. > :08:33.council houses have been taken out of the system. Everyone sold should
:08:34. > :08:38.have been replaced with another, but they were not. Because of that, we
:08:39. > :08:46.have a massive amount of demand and a huge lack of supply. We need to
:08:47. > :08:50.reuse and recycle our existing buildings, as well as building new
:08:51. > :08:56.ones, to meet the current demand. We need to build between 250,000, and
:08:57. > :09:02.300,000 new homes each year. Last year we only built 120,000. Until we
:09:03. > :09:05.build the number of homes Britain needs, we will not solve the cost of
:09:06. > :09:08.living crisis. And from the Bankside Open Spaces
:09:09. > :09:11.Trust in Southwark, to our own little open space here in the heart
:09:12. > :09:22.of Westminster, George Clarke joins us now. People are staying single
:09:23. > :09:26.for longer, meaning a bigger demand for houses. People are getting
:09:27. > :09:30.divorced, families are breaking up, meaning a bigger demand for houses.
:09:31. > :09:35.We have increasing immigration, which is a bigger demand for houses
:09:36. > :09:40.as well. Why have politicians been so slow to react by building more
:09:41. > :09:46.houses? They have been. I agree with every word of that piece. The ONS
:09:47. > :09:50.published statistics today. We did not cover ourselves in glory but we
:09:51. > :09:58.got up to 230,000 houses built just before Lehman Brothers. That year
:09:59. > :10:03.was the peak, the ONS have said today. That has dropped now by 44%,
:10:04. > :10:10.and an 8% reduction last year, down to 120,000. There needs to be
:10:11. > :10:13.political consensus. I cannot think of any reason why, just as in London
:10:14. > :10:19.everyone worked together on something like Crossrail, it was a
:10:20. > :10:23.cross-party big project, and the problem is much wider than London,
:10:24. > :10:27.of course, why there can't be a political consensus on the need to
:10:28. > :10:33.increase the supply of housing. Why wasn't it a priority in the last
:10:34. > :10:37.Labour government? When we came in there was a ?19
:10:38. > :10:41.billion backlog of repairs to council housing. We put a lot of
:10:42. > :10:44.money into the decent homes standard, bringing those up to a
:10:45. > :10:48.decent standard. As a result, we did not put the money into
:10:49. > :10:51.house-building. I think the statistics, there are about 400,000
:10:52. > :10:56.plots that have received planning permission and you can build on
:10:57. > :11:00.them, which are standing there, either bank, which is one of the
:11:01. > :11:07.points Ed Miliband was making in his conference speech, but for whatever
:11:08. > :11:12.reason no one is building on them. What do you want the government to
:11:13. > :11:16.do? Build more affordable housing. How they do it will be the hotbed of
:11:17. > :11:21.the housing debate over the next few years. Do they do it through council
:11:22. > :11:27.house building, or housing institutions? Housing associations
:11:28. > :11:30.to a brilliant job to try and build as many affordable houses as
:11:31. > :11:33.possible. The fact is, you have to get your hands on the land. The
:11:34. > :11:36.government owns a huge amount of land, which should be made more
:11:37. > :11:40.available for the building of affordable homes. The government has
:11:41. > :11:44.come up with a scheme for the big house bonus, which you build now and
:11:45. > :11:49.pay later, but I think that should even apply to self builders. The
:11:50. > :11:54.collective self builder last year was the property developer. These
:11:55. > :12:01.are people who build their own homes? Just over 50,000 self built
:12:02. > :12:05.homes last year and the biggest house-builder built 12,000. But we
:12:06. > :12:13.are still low in the developed world league table of the number of self
:12:14. > :12:16.build homes per capita. Michael, if you look at the fact that the last
:12:17. > :12:22.Labour government record was lacklustre on this, why hasn't this
:12:23. > :12:27.government learned the lesson? Because there is even less money
:12:28. > :12:30.around now than there was before. George pointed out that this has
:12:31. > :12:35.been going on for donkeys years. The last time anybody talked of building
:12:36. > :12:41.300,000 houses was in the 50s or 60s. So the problem is quite
:12:42. > :12:46.intractable. I do not think it is just that rotations are too stubborn
:12:47. > :12:50.or stupid to see the problem. I think there are genuine issues. This
:12:51. > :12:53.government says a lot of the issues to do with planning controls, with
:12:54. > :12:57.how long it takes to get planning permission, how resistant people are
:12:58. > :13:01.to houses being built in their areas. And indeed, I think in this
:13:02. > :13:06.country, by contrast with others, the citizen is king. The state
:13:07. > :13:10.serves the citizen, not the other way around. Even a government that
:13:11. > :13:13.wants to say, let there be houses, finds itself trampling over the
:13:14. > :13:18.right of lots of people who want them not to be houses. One thing I
:13:19. > :13:21.disagree with in George's report is that I think it was fundamentally to
:13:22. > :13:25.the benefit of the country when the number of council tenants went down
:13:26. > :13:29.and the number of owner occupiers went up. Something we talked about a
:13:30. > :13:32.few weeks ago on this programme, one of the things that strikes me as
:13:33. > :13:37.awful is the proportion of owner occupiers has shrunk dramatically.
:13:38. > :13:41.Whereas people still think we are top of the table, I looked at it the
:13:42. > :13:48.other day and we are now 17, in terms of owner occupation. The idea
:13:49. > :13:50.of right to buy, I had no problem with because homeownership gives
:13:51. > :13:54.stability to communities and people stay for longer. My issue was that
:13:55. > :13:57.when we sold off those houses, we did not build the new ones to
:13:58. > :14:01.replace them, so people like my family, who were brought up in a
:14:02. > :14:12.council house, my sisters cannot get the Council house on the list. But
:14:13. > :14:17.Labour did not change that. No. People point to the 1930s, when that
:14:18. > :14:20.are set -- the recession was not so deep and the recovery came quicker
:14:21. > :14:26.because of a house-building boom. You see that as you drive out West
:14:27. > :14:30.London. But there was no town and country planning act in the 1930s.
:14:31. > :14:35.And then we had this house-building boom in the 50s and 60s, but that
:14:36. > :14:40.was on the back of a huge slum clearance programme that went on in
:14:41. > :14:44.all of our major industrial cities. The political imperative of both
:14:45. > :14:50.these things does not seem to exist at the moment. But I think it comes
:14:51. > :14:53.back to the point where this started, about the rising cost of
:14:54. > :14:58.living and how much of your personal income is spent on particular
:14:59. > :15:02.things. When it comes to rent and mortgage is, it is a huge proportion
:15:03. > :15:07.of your income. Now, particularly when you look at the scale of house
:15:08. > :15:11.prices, the general average was that they house would cost roughly three
:15:12. > :15:16.and a half times your income. It is now over six times your income. I
:15:17. > :15:22.think there is a political imperative, because waiting lists
:15:23. > :15:24.have never been longer. There is a political imperative because parents
:15:25. > :15:32.see that their kids cannot get on the housing ladder. They cannot get
:15:33. > :15:36.rid of them. I do not dispute that everybody understands the issues,
:15:37. > :15:40.but I think the system is not set up well enough to deal with it. We have
:15:41. > :15:44.tried to put it on to the private, big house-builders to make -- to
:15:45. > :15:49.meet the affordable home requirement. But it is a pain in the
:15:50. > :15:54.backside for them to do that stuff, and it costs them to do that. I
:15:55. > :16:02.think the state needs to step in to build affordable homes. The elephant
:16:03. > :16:08.in the room is that we have run a low interest rate Brucie to make
:16:09. > :16:10.sure people would not be repossessed who had massive debts. The
:16:11. > :16:15.consequence is that house prices have started to rise again. One has
:16:16. > :16:20.to be careful about talking in averages here. That is a Southeast
:16:21. > :16:25.bubble. Even on average, house prices are rising. People are less
:16:26. > :16:30.able to get on the housing ladder. Rents have now risen to reflect
:16:31. > :16:37.capital values. Rents used to be much cheaper than capital values.
:16:38. > :16:41.But now the rents are catching up, which means that even the people who
:16:42. > :16:46.can't get on the property ladder are having a real cost of living problem
:16:47. > :16:51.cos the rents are going crazy. If we went in for another state backed
:16:52. > :16:56.housing building programme, what is the guarantee that we will not end
:16:57. > :17:02.up building a lot of the rubbish we did last time 's I think we have
:17:03. > :17:09.moved on from that. The 60s was a terrible time for British
:17:10. > :17:15.architecture, no doubt about that. Technology has moved on. I think the
:17:16. > :17:20.lessons have been learnt. We are never going to build that quickly or
:17:21. > :17:27.badly again. That does not mean we should not be building at all.
:17:28. > :17:31.Now, like an Indian rocket heading for Mars or Michael Portillo heading
:17:32. > :17:35.for the dance floor, prepared to engage thrusters as we head into
:17:36. > :17:41.political orbit. Waiting in the wings, stand-up comedian Shazia
:17:42. > :17:46.Mirza is here to explain why everyone is so blooming sensitive
:17:47. > :17:49.about cultural sensitivities. And for the vast majority of you who
:17:50. > :17:53.have nose insisted it is whatsoever, or culture, for that matter, we
:17:54. > :17:56.await your latest ramblings on the Twitter, the Fleecebook or the
:17:57. > :18:02.culture free zone that is the inter-web. Today marked a watershed
:18:03. > :18:07.in British politics. The country's top spooks, called M, N and O,
:18:08. > :18:12.presumably, appeared together in public for the first time. They
:18:13. > :18:17.revealed to a committee of MPs some astonishing secrets. The days of the
:18:18. > :18:27.Cold War are over. Really? When did that happen? Real spying is not like
:18:28. > :18:31.James Bond. Wow! Who would have thought it? So we asked the Daily
:18:32. > :18:35.Mail's Quentin Letts to infiltrate the murky world of Westminster
:18:36. > :18:38.politics for his round-up of the week . This report includes scenes
:18:39. > :19:01.of terrible acting, which some viewers might find disturbing.
:19:02. > :19:11.Talk, age and Letts. I always knew it would come to this. Interrogated,
:19:12. > :19:16.weather BBC. You are our most valuable asset, and yet you have
:19:17. > :19:21.failed to gain this programme a single scoop. Explain yourself. I
:19:22. > :19:26.don't have to answer to you. We will throw in a bottle of blue nun. All
:19:27. > :19:32.right, then stopped started with a terrible row about a lost terror
:19:33. > :19:37.suspect. On Monday, it emerged that Mohammed Ahmed Mohamed had given his
:19:38. > :19:42.government minders the slip at a West London Mosque. He ditched his
:19:43. > :19:46.electronic bag from Q branch and radically changed his appearance.
:19:47. > :19:56.Personally, I could not see what the fuss was about. I thought it was a
:19:57. > :20:02.brilliant disguise. The Home Secretary was spooked because he was
:20:03. > :20:06.one of those chaps on TPIMs, terrorism prevention and
:20:07. > :20:12.investigative measures. Critics say they just aren't as strong as
:20:13. > :20:19.control orders. He took off his tag and dumped into a taxi. She was
:20:20. > :20:22.warned about changing the law, she was warned about weakening controls,
:20:23. > :20:29.she was warned that more people would act is gone, and they have,
:20:30. > :20:32.twice. Still, she will not act. What the right honourable lady never
:20:33. > :20:39.tells this house when she makes this point is that 43 people who were
:20:40. > :20:44.subject to control orders have now exited those control orders. The
:20:45. > :20:48.truth is that even before time limited TPIMs were introduced, the
:20:49. > :20:56.courts would not allow people to be left permanently on control orders.
:20:57. > :20:58.But the real problem for the Home Secretary is that a lot of these
:20:59. > :21:07.measures are about to be expiring and can't be renewed without fresh
:21:08. > :21:11.evidence. On Tuesday, it was the turn of the boys in blue to get a
:21:12. > :21:16.bashing. Two officers had to perform the most excruciating, humiliating
:21:17. > :21:24.duty that can ever befall a public servant. They had to say sorry to
:21:25. > :21:28.Keith Vaz. Poor swine. They had to tell him they may have inadvertently
:21:29. > :21:34.misled MPs over a meeting they had with former government Chief Whip
:21:35. > :21:37.Andrew Mitchell. Alas, PC plod's memory just isn't what it used to
:21:38. > :21:42.be. One of them had even forgotten the name of the Home Secretary and
:21:43. > :21:45.managed to call her that woman. Whilst I believe that at the
:21:46. > :21:49.relevant point of the meeting on the top of October, I appear to have
:21:50. > :21:53.failed to bring the Home Secretary's name to mind, I fully
:21:54. > :21:56.accept that this does not excuse the form of expression are used in the
:21:57. > :22:01.meeting with Mr Mitchell, and I apologise. At one person who did not
:22:02. > :22:06.get an apology from one of the officers was the former chief whip.
:22:07. > :22:13.Do you wish to take this opportunity to apologise to Mr Mitchell and his
:22:14. > :22:18.family, as Mr Hinton has done, for the distress caused? I can't
:22:19. > :22:28.apologise for something I have not. Tell us about your timing naval
:22:29. > :22:30.intelligence. Yes, a good old 21st Gloucestershire Sea cadets. Later
:22:31. > :22:36.that day, government sources disclosed that BAE Systems were
:22:37. > :22:40.going to mouth more than 400 shipbuilders, most of them in
:22:41. > :22:45.Portsmouth. We have announced that the Clyde will become the focus of
:22:46. > :22:49.the whole of the UK's warship building industry. Many workers
:22:50. > :22:52.in's felt they were paying a high price for train to keep Scotland in
:22:53. > :22:56.the union, and I would agree. Many of us was a prized at Prime
:22:57. > :23:00.Minister's Questions. They did not seem to want to talk much about
:23:01. > :23:07.shipbuilding. But the session still went into extra time. John Bercow,
:23:08. > :23:11.the speaker. We all know who he works for. I was getting desperate
:23:12. > :23:17.for a scoop, so I assume my best secret identity yet to try to flush
:23:18. > :23:24.out a story, what the prime minister might call the Ed Miliband
:23:25. > :23:29.disguise. Chicken! Heap, is to protect the NHS, but it is now clear
:23:30. > :23:35.that the NHS is not safe in his hands. My job is to stand up for the
:23:36. > :23:39.NHS and deliver a strong NHS. When will they understand that his job is
:23:40. > :23:44.to stand up to the bullyboys of Unite and show some courage? Then
:23:45. > :23:49.the big story hit me. The spy chiefs were coming to town. The whole week
:23:50. > :24:13.had been a diversion. Quentin, you have got to reach M.
:24:14. > :24:18.The leaks from Edward Snowden have been very damaging. They have put
:24:19. > :24:21.our operations at risk. It is clear that our adversaries are rubbing
:24:22. > :24:26.their hands with glee. Archiver is lapping it up. The ayes have it, the
:24:27. > :24:29.ayes have it personally, I can't see the point of all this cloak and
:24:30. > :24:35.dagger stuff if even our top spy chiefs are staying in the shadows.
:24:36. > :24:44.It is called 21st century accountability, and you have made us
:24:45. > :24:48.look like complete numpties again. If I didn't know better, I would
:24:49. > :24:53.think you were a double agent, or worse, a Liberal Democrat. How dare
:24:54. > :25:00.you! I have had quite enough of this. I off to have mighty -- my
:25:01. > :25:10.teeth. Anyone know how to get this chair off? Most annoying.
:25:11. > :25:15.He will return, with the chair, too. Now to join us, we have a former
:25:16. > :25:18.Home Secretary and former defence secretary here. Let's go straight to
:25:19. > :25:21.the former Home Secretary first. What was achieved by the three spy
:25:22. > :25:28.chiefs appearing in front of this committee? Given that just over 20
:25:29. > :25:32.years ago, you could not even know their names, there were not even
:25:33. > :25:35.recognised as people, the heads of these three organisations, it was an
:25:36. > :25:40.event in itself that they appeared before the committee. Gordon was
:25:41. > :25:46.killed when he was prime minister for their appearance. Gordon Brown.
:25:47. > :25:51.He was keen for some of them to be held in public. Now it has happened
:25:52. > :25:58.for the first time. Did you learn anything you did not know? The point
:25:59. > :26:03.was that all this information that has been Benoit Paire has been of
:26:04. > :26:09.help -- the information has been helped to our enemies, they claimed.
:26:10. > :26:14.They simply asserted that. Did not see any evidence. That is right. And
:26:15. > :26:18.when challenged to give some examples of what it might be that
:26:19. > :26:22.Al-Qaeda was lapping up, in his phrase, he said, we would have to
:26:23. > :26:29.have a private session to give any examples. But Andrew's question was,
:26:30. > :26:32.what was the point of it. The point is that they have seen what happened
:26:33. > :26:37.when this happened in the United States. The spy chiefs were treated
:26:38. > :26:40.respectfully and have a chance to make points about national security
:26:41. > :26:46.that do not otherwise get made very much. This committee does have
:26:47. > :26:54.people who have been in my position before. Malcolm Rifkind is a former
:26:55. > :26:59.defence secretary and Foreign Secretary as well. These are people
:27:00. > :27:04.who respect the security forces. They are not going to give them a
:27:05. > :27:12.hard time. All right, they can't say why it would be damaging, but of
:27:13. > :27:15.course, the revelation about the degree, the amount of information
:27:16. > :27:20.does security forces are able to hoover up, that is of course some
:27:21. > :27:25.benefit to our enemies. There was a whole series of court cases where
:27:26. > :27:27.the government preferred not to pursue the case rather than to
:27:28. > :27:32.reveal in court what they did and did not know and how they did or did
:27:33. > :27:37.not know it. I assume that some of that information has been
:27:38. > :27:42.compromised. On the other hand, this particular committee is also the
:27:43. > :27:48.committee that failed to nail down what was happening over
:27:49. > :27:51.extraordinary rendition. The question about the security services
:27:52. > :27:57.is one of oversight and control, and whether the checks and balances are
:27:58. > :28:02.as strong as they need to be. There are lots of people watching the
:28:03. > :28:06.proceedings today thinking, yes, this may be progress. It has been 38
:28:07. > :28:10.years since the CIA chiefs made themselves available on Capitol Hill
:28:11. > :28:19.am so it is progress, but is it enough scrutiny? It was
:28:20. > :28:24.choreographed on Capitol Hill. I agree with Michael. In these
:28:25. > :28:31.circumstances, it does show progress. I personally, I think
:28:32. > :28:34.Malcolm Rifkind is a fine chair, but this idea that it should always be
:28:35. > :28:38.someone from the opposition rather than government is a good idea. Do
:28:39. > :28:44.you agree with the head of MI6 that as a result of the Guardian leaks
:28:45. > :28:49.and so on, our adversaries are rubbing their hands in glee? They
:28:50. > :28:54.probably are. I think the Guardian have tried to be very responsible,
:28:55. > :28:57.because they said they have redacted information. The complaint would be
:28:58. > :29:02.that no one from the security forces that down with them with these
:29:03. > :29:06.articles, as they did in America. But nevertheless, what they think is
:29:07. > :29:11.innocuous, they are bumbling amateurs in this field. They don't
:29:12. > :29:14.know what information is innocuous or not, because so much could
:29:15. > :29:21.compromise our agents that a fairly simple statement without any names
:29:22. > :29:26.or operational details could affect things. Let's move on. This is
:29:27. > :29:36.relevant, because Mohammed Ahmed Mohamed was under this TPIM, a
:29:37. > :29:42.watered down version of the control order. He escaped in a burka and is
:29:43. > :29:47.a suspected terrorist. What do you make of that? It has got worse for
:29:48. > :29:53.Theresa May, because she told Parliament that the police had his
:29:54. > :30:06.passport, when they didn't. Then she was clearly wrongly briefed. OK, you
:30:07. > :30:13.can say that. Is it a problem for a figure like that to get a passport?
:30:14. > :30:18.It gets worse, because when TPIMs were introduced, people, not just
:30:19. > :30:24.us, Alex Carlile, a Liberal Democrat, said, look, this is going
:30:25. > :30:28.to be dangerous. It is fair enough for Theresa May to say other people
:30:29. > :30:34.have escaped control orders. They did, until they were tightened up
:30:35. > :30:37.and we were allowed to move people away from their natural habitat and
:30:38. > :30:49.their networks. Once that happened, there was not a single person who
:30:50. > :30:52.escaped. The central dilemma is that in a democracy you cannot hold
:30:53. > :30:56.people unless you have gone through a judicial process and put them in
:30:57. > :31:01.jail, and the courts will make life difficult for you unless you have
:31:02. > :31:04.been able to do that. Some of these people are not being prosecuted
:31:05. > :31:07.because the prosecuting authorities are not willing to reveal the
:31:08. > :31:11.evidence against them. But it remains a fundamental problem,
:31:12. > :31:15.because the government is asserting on the one hand, we know these
:31:16. > :31:20.people are dangerous but we are not seducing them or putting them in
:31:21. > :31:24.jail. Except that Theresa May insisted that he does not pose a
:31:25. > :31:29.direct threat to the British public. Even though he is 27, received
:31:30. > :31:35.training from Al-Shabab, who were behind the Kenyan attack, and they
:31:36. > :31:43.are the Somali -based arm of Al-Qaeda. Surely he is potentially a
:31:44. > :31:47.danger. If not, why was he under a TPIM? It is a nonsensical statement.
:31:48. > :31:52.There is a fundamental trouble with this approach. It is an approach as
:31:53. > :31:57.to how you tackle an incredibly small number of people, that is the
:31:58. > :32:01.thing. The phrase used by the head of GCHQ in committee, he got into a
:32:02. > :32:09.slightly peculiar metaphor about needles and haystacks. But it is how
:32:10. > :32:11.you treat a handful of people who have exceptional circumstances
:32:12. > :32:18.around what might come out in those court cases. You are right, no party
:32:19. > :32:22.is totally united on this. Alan was right to point out that Alex
:32:23. > :32:27.Carlisle is a Liberal Democrat and when he stood down from overall
:32:28. > :32:33.responsibility for anti-terrorism policy, he warned that this was an
:32:34. > :32:36.accident waiting to happen. All politicians can sympathise with each
:32:37. > :32:46.other in the fundamental dilemma thrown up in a democracy. Is Terry
:32:47. > :32:52.is a M -- a credible future leader of the Conservative Party. --
:32:53. > :32:56.Theresa May. As a former Defence Secretary, have
:32:57. > :33:02.English shipyards been sacrificed for the sake of keeping Scotland
:33:03. > :33:06.within the union? It looks very much like that. The fundamental problem
:33:07. > :33:11.is that 20 years ago we had three times as many surface ships as now.
:33:12. > :33:15.With a smaller Navy, you need fewer places to build the ships.
:33:16. > :33:19.Therefore, you cannot sustain both the south coast of Britain and the
:33:20. > :33:25.Clyde, so it will be one or the other. What happens if Scotland goes
:33:26. > :33:28.independent? Is it clear that we will then say the highly
:33:29. > :33:32.sophisticated ships, orders which will not be placed until after the
:33:33. > :33:37.referendum, they will not go there? If they do not go there, if Scotland
:33:38. > :33:44.becomes a foreign country, and we have closed down ship holding in
:33:45. > :33:47.England, where do we go? You would reopen it quickly and many Scottish
:33:48. > :33:53.workers would migrate to work there. But you would not build ships in a
:33:54. > :33:58.foreign country. That is clear. The politicians seem reluctant to state
:33:59. > :34:02.what to me seems very clear. Sticking with Scotland, is Alistair
:34:03. > :34:08.Darling right to call for a reopening of the enquiry into the
:34:09. > :34:12.shenanigans in Falkirk constituency? He said police are now looking at
:34:13. > :34:17.this because the e-mails have been handed to the police. Remember, we
:34:18. > :34:21.gave the police the internal report and they took no action. Now they
:34:22. > :34:25.are looking at the e-mails, as Alistair Darling said, and that must
:34:26. > :34:32.be the first step. What emerges from that, I do not know. He and the
:34:33. > :34:37.leader of the Labour Party in Scotland both want a new Labour
:34:38. > :34:41.Party enquiry. The candidate stood down that was at the heart of this.
:34:42. > :34:48.The chair man is no longer the chairman of the party. I get all
:34:49. > :34:54.that. It does not get around the fact that there is quite a lot of
:34:55. > :35:03.evidence in the e-mails to suggest that Unite were involved. Why should
:35:04. > :35:06.the police be the first resort? Why does the party not look after its
:35:07. > :35:12.own affairs before the police get involved? It is probably
:35:13. > :35:15.unprecedented for us to hand the report to the police. The argument
:35:16. > :35:22.is that we are covering things up and it is quite the opposite. The
:35:23. > :35:28.enquiry did not speak to the relevant parties. The Unite union
:35:29. > :35:35.told me that. Do you agree with Nick Clegg when he said about somebody,
:35:36. > :35:38.near as a man who gets about ?1 million and spends all his time
:35:39. > :35:45.sneering at politics, when talking about Jeremy Paxman? I saw the
:35:46. > :35:49.headline and I put my head in my hands, and then I hoped against hope
:35:50. > :36:01.that he was talking about Russell Brand. But he was not. Do you agree?
:36:02. > :36:05.I think people should vote. I think people should answer the question,
:36:06. > :36:12.particularly at this time of night. Do you agree? I think the point was
:36:13. > :36:18.better made than the headline suggests. Now, here's a good one.
:36:19. > :36:22.You'll like this. An Englishman, a Welshman, a Scotsman, an Irishman, a
:36:23. > :36:26.rabbi, a Muslim and a Hindu all walk into a bar. But because we're on the
:36:27. > :36:28.BBC, and we've read our editorial guidelines, we're duty-bound to
:36:29. > :36:31.inform you that absolutely nothing funny happened whatsoever. Nobody
:36:32. > :36:34.was made the butt of a joke and everyone had their cultural identity
:36:35. > :36:38.respected. Which is as it should be, or is it? We decided to find out,
:36:39. > :36:56.and put cultural sensitivities in this week's Spotlight.
:36:57. > :37:04.When Mohammed Ahmed Mohamed went on the run, wearing a burka, it
:37:05. > :37:09.violated our cultural sensitivities as much as our security, forcing the
:37:10. > :37:15.Home Secretary to defend herself and resist calls to ban the burka from
:37:16. > :37:23.British streets. It is the right of a woman to choose how she dresses.
:37:24. > :37:29.Ken Clarke considers the face veil a very peculiar costume and called for
:37:30. > :37:37.it to be banned in open court. It is impossible to have a proper trial.
:37:38. > :37:41.Meanwhile, calls for action on female genital mutilation drew
:37:42. > :37:47.attention this week to another controversial practice made it
:37:48. > :37:52.illegal in 1985. Yet without a single prosecution to its name. How
:37:53. > :37:58.should society respond to a practice that appears contrary to its values,
:37:59. > :38:01.and do we sometimes fear causing offence a little too much? At least
:38:02. > :38:08.Prince Charles can be relied on to be sensitive, something he probably
:38:09. > :38:18.did not inherit from his father. Shazia Mirza joins us. Is it not
:38:19. > :38:25.clear that in many cases wearing the burka, the niqab, the full-face veil
:38:26. > :38:28.is really a way of marginalising women, making them second-class
:38:29. > :38:34.citizens and making sure they do not participate in the mainstream of our
:38:35. > :38:38.society? My mother wears the niqab. She is not religious but she just
:38:39. > :38:43.does not want to be seen with my dad. The thing is that a lot of
:38:44. > :38:49.these women choose to wear it. They are not forced to wear it. I know
:38:50. > :38:53.loads of Muslim women and it is a minority that where the burka, which
:38:54. > :38:56.is the full thing. I know a lot of women that where the niqab, and
:38:57. > :39:01.their husbands do not like them wearing it, but they want to wear
:39:02. > :39:07.it. Why has it been on the increase recently? I perform in Pakistan are
:39:08. > :39:16.locked and you rarely see women in the Burke and the niqab. Why here?
:39:17. > :39:23.Partly, I think they are cold, I think it is the British weather. The
:39:24. > :39:26.overwhelming number of British Muslims come from south-east Asia,
:39:27. > :39:34.where there is no tradition of wearing it. Is it the men or the
:39:35. > :39:37.mosques telling them to do it? When Blair went into Iraq, there was a
:39:38. > :39:42.rising extremism. Since then, women are wearing it, some as a political
:39:43. > :39:46.statement because they feel they are being attacked. I know some women
:39:47. > :39:51.that wear it as a fashion because a lot of their femmes -- friends are
:39:52. > :39:56.wearing it. Lots of Muslim women are Judge Mansour to other Muslim women
:39:57. > :40:01.who do not wear it. In the north of the country, there is a high Muslim
:40:02. > :40:03.unemployment problem. There is an issue of multiculturalism and
:40:04. > :40:10.integration, making sure the British Muslim community is a successful
:40:11. > :40:15.part of British society. It seems one way to make sure that does not
:40:16. > :40:22.happen as to where the burka. Many of these women are really educated.
:40:23. > :40:28.But who would employ somebody wearing a burka? My mother is a
:40:29. > :40:32.teacher and when she is teaching, she never wears it. They are very
:40:33. > :40:36.good at taking it off when they need to. I have a friend who was a doctor
:40:37. > :40:42.who wears the niqab. When she is a GP in her surgery, she takes it off.
:40:43. > :40:48.There has been an argument that they should not have to take it off.
:40:49. > :40:53.Where are you on this? It would be futile to legislate on how people
:40:54. > :40:59.dress. Although the French have tried. But that is futile. The
:41:00. > :41:10.Spanish government used to try to ban the bikini. That was under
:41:11. > :41:14.Franco. The government does require some things of us. We are not
:41:15. > :41:17.allowed to be indecent in public. Women cannot show their breasts in
:41:18. > :41:21.public. In certain places you have to dress in a certain way, so it is
:41:22. > :41:27.reasonable that someone appearing as a witness in a court case, someone
:41:28. > :41:30.dealing with the public on behalf of a public institution, in these cases
:41:31. > :41:36.they should be required not to wear the niqab. Many of the women are
:41:37. > :41:41.very compliant with this, happy to take off their full-face veil at
:41:42. > :41:47.passport control, in a court of law. They are happy to do that. I was
:41:48. > :41:51.coming out of the Gulf last week and there were three women in front of
:41:52. > :41:55.me in the niqab. The passport control was run by men. They were
:41:56. > :41:59.forced to show their faces, in the Gulf. Surely you have to do that.
:42:00. > :42:05.Otherwise it could be this man who has just done a runner. And it does
:42:06. > :42:11.not say in the Koran that when you get a passport control you must keep
:42:12. > :42:14.it on. But it does say you have to behave modestly, which is good
:42:15. > :42:21.advice wherever you are, whether Muslim or not. I do not quite
:42:22. > :42:24.understand why you lumped it in with female genital mutilation, because
:42:25. > :42:29.that is clearly against the law. It is astounding that have been no
:42:30. > :42:33.prosecutions. If that is because someone is concerned about a
:42:34. > :42:38.cultural issue, I would be very depressed. People are scared to
:42:39. > :42:45.bring up this issue. Health professionals are scared to ask.
:42:46. > :42:48.These girls are never going to prosecute their parents. They do not
:42:49. > :42:54.want to bring a prosecution against their parents. But often in a child
:42:55. > :42:57.abuse case, the kids are too frightened to do anything and do not
:42:58. > :43:01.even know if they have the power to do that, but surely it is the job of
:43:02. > :43:06.a proper society to step in and do something. The thing with genital
:43:07. > :43:11.mutilation is that people are thinking it is a Moslem religious
:43:12. > :43:15.issue, and it is not at all. It is not a religious issue, not a Muslim
:43:16. > :43:21.issue. It is a cultural issue that has been going down for centuries
:43:22. > :43:30.and nobody has questioned it. Which culture. Sudan, Somalia. But is it
:43:31. > :43:37.happening in Christian, Hindu, or seek communities? I don't know.
:43:38. > :43:40.That's your lot for tonight folks, but not for us, because like today's
:43:41. > :43:43.Intelligence and Security Committee hearing, we're operating on a
:43:44. > :43:47.two-minute delay because we can't be trusted. So I may appear to be
:43:48. > :43:50.speaking to you now, but in reality we're already half way to Annabel's
:43:51. > :43:56.in the back of Charles Clarke's minicab. So we may have left the
:43:57. > :44:00.building, but we leave you tonight with pictures that made the front
:44:01. > :44:03.page of all the papers. Everyone at home, please put your hands together
:44:04. > :44:06.for the truly astonishing sight of a woman wearing a sari. Nighty-night,
:44:07. > :44:12.don't let a frenzied media over-reaction bite.