27/03/2014 This Week

As celebrity royal couple Chris and Gwyneth fall off their marriage

throne, This Week takes a look at who wants to rule the political

world. King of TV history, David Starkey, assesses the quality of

leadership on offer. Forget Coldplay. I will be telling you why

our current crop of political leaders are a cup of cold sick.

As crown princes Nick and Nigel are given the chance to dress up as

kings, the BBC's very own court jester, Laura Kuenssburg bows down

to no-one. There was a conscious coupling between Nick and Nigel, who

clashed over Europe and immigration. It was certainly the TV debate of

the week, but was it a big fat turn-off?

And the world's biggest short actor, Warwick Davies, was certainly born

to rule the This Week studio. So is it time to stop typecasting? My

agent did not tell me I would be taking part in the political

pantomime. This Week, I love you, but is it

time for us to consciously uncouple? Evenin' all. Welcome to This Week, a

week when a new morning-after pill was unveiled, provoking howls of

outrage from the usual party poopers that it would only lead to even more

promiscuity among the young. Frankly teenagers didn't stand a chance

because chemists were cleared out by mid-morning as adults rushed to snap

up a morning-after pill they thought might help them forget the

night-before debate between Nick and Nige. Yes, as sordid spectacles go,

this was "conspicuous uncoupling" at its best, upstaging Gwyneth and

Chris in the process, with the Lib Dem and UKIP leader lobbing fake

hand grenades at each other from their respective fantasy worlds of

Europhiles and Europhobes. It's been quite a week for conspicuous

uncoupling here in Westminster, with Ed Balls helpfully explaining that

the reason for his leader's poor Budget response was because Red Ed

had been misled about what would be in the Budget by Twitter. Thanks a

lot, Ed, Balls, that is. Really helpful. And Boy George Osborne

uncoupled from himself with an out of body experience in which he

thought he was a bingo caller. I don't think he fooled anybody. If

you think that's weird just be glad you're not the Labour leader. 41% in

a YouGov Buzzfeed poll thought Mr Miliband was weird. But he was also

seen as the most honest party leader, Mr Clegg the most dishonest.

We could have saved Buzzfeed quite a bit of money if they'd spoken to us

first. Speaking of an odd couple who are barely conscious, I'm joined on

the sofa tonight by a two-man band who make a terrible racket. Think of

them as the Coldplay and Cold Pot Noodle of late night political chat.

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

#sadmanonatrain Michael Portillo. Your moment of the week? More

developments at the Metropolitan Police. A couple of weeks ago Diane

Abbott picked as her moment of the week the revelations that being

quarry into the Stephen Lawrence murder had been hampered apparently

by police corruption. Then it emerged that the files relating to

corruption had been shredded in 2003. It now emerges that there were

17 different investigations, and they were brought together in one

operation, which found there was a network of corrupt officers at the

heart of the Metropolitan Police. But the rate of hope in all of this

is that whereas all the information that was destroyed in 2003 was

thought to be lost forever, it may be that this second operation which

was, as I understand it, one that brought the others together, may

have duplicated some of that material. So it may yet be that some

of the people who have been acting corruptly can be brought to justice.

Doesn't it look more and more like the Chicago police in the 1930s? It

is too rhythmically disappointing and it absolutely has to be sorted

out. I hope that Bernard Hogan-Howe, the commissioner, will

be able to sort it out. His back is against the wall, too. Like the

police of the 80s. Mine has to be investment of Siemens in the fair

city I represent, a big investment. The windy city. They are bringing

over blade manufacturing from Denmark, wonderful news for a city

that has not had good news since the fishing industry collapsed. The one

that I complain about is the Number Ten media machine had it as the

headline on their press release that Siemens react to George Osborne's

Budget. This has been six years and they have been looking at 110

different locations. It is Siemens and associated British ports, so not

just a foreign investment. Now here on This Week, we take great

pride in being the BBC's number one flagship current affairs programme.

Current affairs. But every now and then, we're more than happy to

dredge up any old piece of Westminster gossip, dust it down,

spruce it up, find a location from a movie that came out four years ago,

and try to pass it off as contemporary political analysis.

Which is exactly what we've done this week, or rather what historian

David Starkey has done on our behalf. Actually it's much better

than it sounds. Here's his take of the week.

Feel you have seen this before? Well, you have, in the King 's

speech. In the film, this room is the consulting room of the Doctor,

the strangely and speech therapist, who enables George VI to overcome

his terrible stammer, to rally the British people in the Second World

War. Well, rumours this week that another George is also seeking out

expensive Harley Street speech therapists. It is Chancellor George

Osborne, who is trying to learn to drop his H, and get a lot of bottle,

just like Tony Blair. It says it all, really, doesn't it? Whatever he

sounds like, there are few people with too clever by half more clearly

written on their forehead than George Osborne. Even when he gets

the policy right, like pension reform, he perverts it by putting

the politics in front of the policy. Just like Gordon Brown at

his very worst. He targets different groups of people to buy off with

giveaways. In this case, I suppose, me, the grey vote. Andy Young Ed

Miliband's appeal is no more robust. There is a poll this week that shows

that four out of ten Britons think that he is a bit weird. I am only

surprised that is not more. Even the Shadow Cabinet are leaking like mad

that he is surrounded by a clique. Apparently, the Labour strategy is

to win with only 35% of the poll, ignoring middle England and relying

instead on the core vote and disillusioned Lib Dems. How

contemptible. And how dangerous. In the film, the doctor, the brash

Australian, succeeds by liberating King George from the stifling

formality of his British courtiers. Instead, our politicians, whose

lives are as a moat and exotic as 1930s Buckingham Palace, have

abandoned any discernible pursuit of the national interest. -- as

remote. No wonder most people are disengaged from politics. They are

right to be so. And from his consulting room at 33

Portland Place to our own little consulting room here in the heart of

Westminster, welcome back, Your Majesty. Hand. I would not go that

far. You usually go further. Do you think David is being harsh on

today's generation of politicians? Yellow macro I do, and I think his

example were not particularly good. I think the announcement on pensions

in the budget was the boldest stroke from a Chancellor of the Exchequer

since the abolition of exchange controls in 1979 by Geoffrey Howe. I

certainly think it was George Osborne's finest hour. It is true

that it benefits a part of the electorate who are there to be won

over but that has been evident for decades, that these people could be

won over by a change to the very unfair rules that oblige pensioners

of a certain age to take out an annuity. But it has taken George

Osborne to blow away the cobwebs at the Treasury. I remember Treasury

civil servants telling Chancellor this could not be done. He has done

it, and it is a very bold stroke and he deserves credit for it. And

broadly speaking, I think the coalition set itself an ambition to

reform the economy. It has taken longer than the coalition hoped it

would because we did not get growth back as fast as we hoped, but

nonetheless, the deficit is falling. On present projections, it will turn

into a surplus. I am sorry, but all of this is tedious, utterly tedious.

Who is this man who has come to be rude to us? Isn't it time you were

shaken up a bit out of this dreary complacency, because in the world

outside this studio and Westminster, the kind of thing you are saying has

absolutely no resonance at all? I agree with you, it seems the move

was sensible, but coming from George Osborne it loses any kind of moral

authority. He is seen simply as a wheeler dealer, the bingo player,

the gambler. Again, as we know, this is a very narrow section of appeal

to the Tory Homebase, the only group among whom they have a comfortable

lead, the elderly. Later we are dealing with typecasting, and you

are typecasting George Osborne, saying that because the decision

comes from him it must be narrow politicking. You are not allowing

for the possibility that he has developed. I am a historian. You

used to be. This transforms your view of George Osborne. You may now

speak. George Osborne's entire behaviour has been that of a rather

narrow, mean-spirited strategist. The silliest kind of tactician. The

shallowest kind of tactician. Why, if you are right, are we seeing

rapidly declining turnouts in elections? Why are we seeing the

rise of UKIP? Why are we seeing this erosion of the political basis. What

is your view, Alan? Is David being too tough on today's generation of

politicians? I think he is. They would say that, wouldn't they? I

have only existed in this current era. I would love to throw rocks at

George Osborne, but the question is, is there a modern politician, of

the last 20 years, who you would approve of? No. I really do think,

and the electorate seems to agree with me, it is striking going on a

programme like Question Time how profoundly unpopular politicians

are, how what they say is treated with contempt and not taken

seriously. For the sake of the next couple of minutes, let's assume you

are right. Why Armand politicians so inadequate? -- why our modern

politicians so inadequate? They tend to go to their core vote. There has

been a remarkable fragmentation of politics. Class waste politics has

gone and you are getting variance of Ken Livingstone's rainbow coalitions

of one sort or another, in which politicians are trying to target

groups and put them together. You have two parties, the Lib Dems and

UKIP, which are more or less, you can trace them. There are tiny

patches on the electoral map. What is striking is the absence of any

politician who can articulate an argument that appeals broadly, that

has any kind of national dimensional. This seems to me to be

utterly fundamental. I don't entirely disagree. One of the things

that has gone wrong is that politicians are tending to respond

to the wrong audience. The audience to which they are responding is the

24-hour media, the many channels, and that requires a constant

response several times a day, and you cannot possibly have things well

thought out if you are responding several times a day. The public,

beyond the media, I think once much broader brush stuff. It wants a

sense of direction, the destination to which it is being led. I think we

are going through a difficult phase in which politicians are addressing

the wrong people. In this respect, George Osborne is on the side of

virtue. He speaks very rarely and when he has something to say, he

says it. The Prime Minister is more guilty of speaking on a daily basis.

Maybe it is easier for the Chancellor told his tongue over a

long period. Does Mr Miliband come across as a bit weird? The polls say

he comes across as a bit weird. Anyone from his kind of background,

who looks what they are... The thing about him, and my strong advice to

him is not to try to act as someone he is not. If you act as someone you

are, someone very interested in ideas, who has read a lot of

philosophy, brought up in a political household, you are going

to be like that. But the public have more intelligence than just to

decide who is going to win the next election based on the fact that he

looks a bit leaky. They are more intelligent than that. They make

decisions on a much wider group of criteria.

Do most generations feel that way? The whole way our politics are

going, this fragmentation of the major political parties, this sense

of everyone of our political leaders - you mentioned Miliband looking a

bit geeky. Each one of our political leaders is a Spitting Image puppet

of what you think an extreme of the Tory Party might look like Old

Etonian. What an extreme of Labour might look like, radical, Marxist,

North London intellectual. Clegg, half-Dutch banker-father. Each one -

none of them seem to me to break out of that mould. This is what is

striking with Osborne, desperately apparently trying to have

anti-elocution lessons because he looks like... You sure that is true?

In the film I very carefully said it is rumoured that, the rumour is

quite powerful, but let's assume that he's not. Is it not true,

though, that we never really know who a leader is if people are real

leadership material until they become leader? Until it is too late.

Somebody it seems to me like Cameron, who thought it was going to

be terribly easy and he and Osborne bought so completely into the

previous Labour Government's package, their passionate support

for green, NHS and found themselves so wrong-footed by the situation in

which they inherited in 2010. I would argue as wrong-footed as badly

as Clegg was. They both found themselves doing the opposite of

what they said they were going to do. You have only got to think from

the shift of the greenest Government... Let's not - we have

heard enough of George for the night! Or indeed me! That is also

true. We have run out of time. Obviously too much of a good

thing(!) Now it's late, so prop up your

eyelids with a Blue Nun pillow - because waiting in the wings - actor

Warwick Davies is here to discuss the perils of being typecast - and

how to avoid them. And remember - if you have any

opinions about tonight's show, you can keep them to yourself and retain

your dignity - or share them with the world and embarrass yourself on

The Twitter, The Fleecebook and The Interweb.

Now, what's coming up next? Oh yes, the round-up of the week. I'm sorry,

I'm afraid we're all at sixes and sevens this week thanks to the news

that MPs have backed plans to decriminalise licence fee dodgers.

Auntie Beeb has warned that it might lead to even more viewers refusing

to stump up their hard-earned cash. I mean it's not as if people would

willingly pay to watch this drivel we put out week after week! We know

we need to win back your trust. Which is why we've sent Newsnight's

Laura Kuenssberg to hunt down the This Week viewer, whoever he or she

may be. Things are feeling shaky here at BBC

Towers. MPs have decided they don't want to lock up licence fee dodgers

anymore, so the BBC needs to get better attracting down people who

watch top-quality programmes in secret. So you, yes you, the This

Week viewer, I'm coming to find you, wherever you are.

# Someone's watching # Tell me who's watching me? #

Null The public lovers it when they crackdown on welfare. Surely that

couldn't be why MPs voted this week to put a lid on the Bill? Our

welfare cap ensures that never again can the cost spiral out of control

and the incentives become so distorted that it pays not to work.

From now on, any Government wanting to spend more on welfare will have

to be honest with the public. Labour will make different and fairer

choices to get the social security bill under control and tackle the

root causes of rising spending. On that basis, we will support this

motion. # I always feel like

# Somebody's watching me. # Don't be surprised if Red Ed joined

in, too. He has to show us he can be in control of the Budget if he was

in charge. He managed to take most of his obedient sorts along, too.

Who did that leave? Social security, people's lives should not be made a

matter of short-term political positioning. Not sure that was the

This Week viewer. Damn! Where has the This Week viewer gone? Carry on.

After the Budget, David Cameron seems to feel so bold he's even

brought back his idea of letting more of the wealthy off inheritance

tax. Surely, he is not trying to tempt those Tory types who are

having dark thoughts about going to UKIP?

# She's watching the Detectives... # Perhaps his confidence explains why

normal service was resumed at PMQs. The sides clashed over those

dastardly energy firms. Week after week he denounced Labour's call for

an energy price freeze to help families and businesses. But now

apparently he supports the price freeze. Can he explain why a price

freeze was wrong six months ago, but it is the right thing to do today?

What we have done is reduce the costs of energy charges so that

companies are able to cut their bills. 24 hours on, though, they are

both happy once more to slam the companies again. Ofgem is proposing

a tough but sensible course of action, a full market investigation

reference. This would be undertaken by the new competition and markets

authority, which has the robust powers required to investigate the

market and take the action that is needed to strengthen competition.

The great thing of course about the licence fee is you don't just get

TV, you get radio thrown into the bargain, too. Maybe that's why Nick

and Nige decided to start their own show. Dave said he wouldn't watch

the political punch-up, yeah, right, there is always catch-up! What I

wondered if Nige would be brave enough to say you know what, I agree

with Nick? This is a leaflet that Nigel Farage's party distributed in

the recent Eastleigh by-election. It says 29 million Romanians and

Bulgarians may come to this country. There aren't 29 million living in

Romania and Bulgaria. I'm not claiming 29 million people have the

right to come to Britain. Yes, you did. I'm claiming 485 million people

have the total unconditional right to come to this country if they want

to. Neither of them made a huge clanger, but is this just the start

of some weird modern pantomime? Who really wants to pay their licence

fee just for that? # I always feel like

# Somebody's watching me. # If the This Week viewer is desperate

for a re-run... Proposals were made to the Environment Secretary about

an amendment to the Hunting Act which would help upland farmers deal

with the problem of fox... That letter has been received and is

being considered, but I regret to say I don't think there will be

Government agreement. They might be coming after your licence fee, but

those cuddly foxes are safe. Oh, you are the This Week viewer? Can I come

in? It looks safer in there than out here in Westminster!

Many programmes would give their left arm to have a viewer like that.

And also to have Miranda. Welcome back. What did you make of the

debate? I loved it. It was fantastic. That is not what I meant!

How did it go for your glorious leader? I thought he did really

well. That is not what the polls say? Apart from anything else, he

did really well to challenge Farage to the debate and hold it and that

instant poll was very, very interesting and I think incredibly

positive for two reasons. Number one, a man who has literally been

burned in effigies in the streets with sub voted for socialism... I

did think it was really... It means there will be... This is

immigration. Two most electorally toxic issues and he got 36% of the

general public backing. Amazing. What do you say to that? I agree

with Miranda. Ah! Clegg did the right thing to challenge him.

Getting a 36% rating is pretty good. I think to get 36% rating when most

people are not enthusiastic about the EU is pretty good. I also think

it was very good for Farage, for him to get a 53% rating. Do you? To be

plastered all over the newspapers this morning, this is good for him.

Of course, he's building up to an election in which he may have, the

European election, in which he may have a good result. What is your

view? I understand Nick did very well for those people who were not

in that poll that YouGov did. Most people I spoke to thought he did

very well. If it hadn't been Nick, he would have wiped with the floor

with him. Given that some of the polling about Nigel Farage is quite

interesting about how what people think about him. Yes. Given that -

I'm a pro-European, there is a very good pro-European argument that has

not been made for a long time. It was good to get an hour's prime-time

viewing. It had the benefit of the people taking straight positions.

Yes. You had a clear choice before you. The political risk for Mr

Clegg, I would suggest, is that having made the Lib Dems clearly the

party that's most enthusiastic about Europe, if he then comes fourth or

fifth in the European elections - and he will come one or the other -

it is a bit of a blow for him? Well, I mean, I think it is relatively

inevitable, I have to say. This is... Relatively inevitable? Yes.

They are either inevitable or they are not? They can tonight! Very

well. We will allow that. Almost unique! It is just as well David

Starkey has gone! You are right. For Clegg, personally, and for the Lib

Dems, this is part of a much harder, longer journey back from disaster. I

think it is wonderful to have... You need to be rehabilitated, really. It

is wonderful to have someone say, I love the EU and to have someone else

say I want to leave the European Union. On the whole, people's

positions are so wishy washy. We will have a renegotiation and then

we will have a referendum and I will recommend people to vote to stay in.

Let's move on. The energy companies being referred to the Competition

Commission. Can there be any doubt that this has only happened because

Ed Miliband made the running on freezing prices at the last

conference? The fox has been shot. Miliband was doing terribly well

last October. He ran with it for two months. The combination of the t

Government pulling away some of the "green" taxes, the fact that some of

the companies are coming forward and saying they are going to freeze

prices until 2016, there is nothing left for Ed Miliband to say. He

produced this particular idea too early and he has given the

Government time to get rid of it. I wish David Starkey was back here.

That is precisely the kind of politics that is about dividing

people up and I mean, give the guy credit for a Leader of the

Opposition to be making the weather on energy, something he believed in.

He didn't calculate it in the sense of let's bring it up two months

before the general election. Absolutely right, he... He didn't

calculate it. Why has the fox been shot? You could see this sending it

to the Monopolies Commission, you are kicking - not you personally,

the Government is kicking it into the long grass. Labour is still

saying very well, we will support this referral, but let's freeze the

prices while the referral is going on?

One of the companies has said it will freeze until 2016 anyway. I

expect by the time we get to the election and the government has

withdrawn enough of the green taxes, that is the position it will be. The

government is not going to allow Ed Miliband to go into the election

saying he will freeze prices and have it mean anything. You have to

give credit where it is due to Ed Miliband for spotting something

about which people were very angry. That is a market where 95% is

controlled by... People were genuinely angry about their bills. I

am. They only did not become more angry because the winter was mild.

If it had been really cold, the anger would have been palpable.

Absolutely. Nobody has acted quickly enough on this. It was under Labour

that that situation was allowed to develop. It is good that it has been

tackled now. The coalition could have referred it a long while ago.

Why is Ed Miliband supporting a cap on welfare? Which he mentioned in

June 2013. I support him on this. This is not like the 1% last year,

which we opposed. This is saying there is this huge part of our Bill

that is annually managed expenditure, which is a tautology.

It is not managed at all. This huge swathes of money parliament has no

control over. Not only is it not going to be capped but it is rising

from 120 billion, up to 100 and -- 127 billion. When I was at the WP, I

had this bit of money, the departmental expenditure limit, and

this huge swathes of billions that was not managed at all. So he is

right to cap it? Absolutely. One important thing which came out in

the debate was that for the first time in our history this huge

swathes of money, annually managed expenditure, which there is no

control over, is now bigger than the departmental expenditure limit. 51%

to 49%. The first time in the history of this country. If the cap

had been on in 2010, George Osborne would have come back to increase it

about four times. That is what happens, you have to come back to

Parliament. It is an example of what happens sometimes in politics,

Labour has been dragged onto the Conservative ground, just as it was

over the 40% rate of tax. Just as the Conservatives were dragged on

too Labour ground over other things. This has been the most immense

change in public opinion on welfare, and I think it is extraordinary to

see a Labour party voting for a welfare cap. Are the Lib Dems

comfortable with the cap? Comfortable with this bit, yes, but

welfare reform generally is a more difficult topic for them and their

voters. We have had tautology. I think it is time to move on. Because

authors are annoyed. Now, authors are annoyed, writers

are annoyed, Jeffrey Archer's annoyed. But ever since the

Injustice Secretary, Chris Grayling, banned prisoners from receiving

books, hardened criminals have been celebrating. Because the message is

clear, cruel and unusual punishment packages will no longer be tolerated

in British jails and no inmate will ever face the literary equivalent of

breaking rocks in the hot noon-day sun. I give you, Michael Portillo -

The Future of the Right, by Michael Gove, a long-and-best-forgotten work

of pure fantasy from 1995. Selling for ?35 on Amazon, with one online

review describing Michael as "a gorgeous honey pot, and the hottest

babe in politics". That, thanks to Mr Grayling, will now never put a

prisoner's rehabilitation at risk ever again. So how did said man

manage so successfully to avoid his political destiny, and rehabilitate

himself? We decided to find out and put being typecast in this week's

Spotlight, which contains some flash photography.

He has been a robot, a wizard and now Warwick Davis's the juice type

theatre company is giving shorter actors the chance to play new roles

and change perceptions in the process. But is everyone else

getting typecast these days? Do Tories really think that the air and

bingo is what matters to working-class folk, or that George

Osborne's photo opportunity in a bingo hall could repair the damage?

Nigel Farage certainly wants to stop UKIP being typecast as a party of

fruitcakes and loonies, obsessed with the EU and immigration. I got

into politics because I felt the career political class of

Westminster had given away my birthright, our ability to govern

our own country, and I'm on a mission to get it back. As Caroline

Lucas goes on trial, if the Greens to want to be typecast as tree

hugging hippies, maybe blocking fracking trucks whilst singing we

shall not be moved is not a great idea. So, our politicians are easily

typecast. Will it ever stop, or is it up to individuals to break the

mould and take on new roles? Warwick Davies joins us now. Welcome to this

week. Good to see you. Is typecasting something that goes with

the territory, or can you do something about it? I am starting to

do something about it with my new venture. I have been acting since I

was 11. The reason I got interacting was because of my height. There was

a radio commercial in which they were looking for actors for Star

Wars. I went to the audition and I was be the right height for the job.

So I accept that for the first part of my career it was all about my

height. So I don't think typecasting is always negative. At times it can

be something that certainly started my career. When you become

successful it is less of an issue, I guess. Absolutely. More recently,

the opportunities I am offered are more about who I am, as opposed to

my height. For example, a role in Doctor Who last year. The character

was not written as a short character. He just happens to be

that way. So it is interesting when producers and directors can see

beyond the physical look of somebody. I would have bought one of

the motivations behind the red used height theatre company -- reduced

height theatre company, is that it allows you and your colleagues to

play roles that would not otherwise be available. Absolutely. It is

celebrating acting ability over physical type. Yes, it allows us,

certainly in the play we are doing at the moment, to play Vickers,

escaped prisoners, actresses, maids, all sorts of things. Do you think

that producers, directors, writers, they play it too safe and can be

cowardly when it comes to casting? Absolutely. There is a belief that

there has to be an explanation of why this character in this

particular piece is disabled or different. Instead of just, let's

get on with their story. Black actors suffered this some years ago,

where every time you had a black actor the story had to be about race

is somehow. We are beyond that now, aren't we? In future it would be

lovely to see short and disabled actors in pieces that did not have

to deal with issues surrounding that disability. Have you turned down

roles because you thought it was too much typecasting? I have done in the

past, not the surly because of the typecasting but because the

character did not find resolution. -- not necessarily. There was a part

where I played a clown in a circus. It was an interesting story but the

character had a chip on his shoulder and there was no resolution to it. I

felt I could not see the merit in doing it. We typecast politicians,

don't we? There was resonance in something that you said a moment

ago, which is that the typecast can be used by the victim for his own

benefit. I was typecast originally as being a mad right winger. But

actually, it was useful to me because I wanted to be recognised as

something, I wanted people to know who I was. If you are put in a

pigeonhole it can be useful early on. My goodness, after a while it

becomes a dam nuisance. Once the pigeonhole has been built, changing

it is really very difficult. Typecasting is a shorthand in

politics. The polls say Ed Miliband is weird, and David Cameron and the

Bollington boys, say Labour. But I don't think the public go along with

it. They hate the stereotyping of the old Etonian 's or whatever. They

want to make up their own mind. To bring a politician from central

casting 20 or 30 years ago, particularly in the Conservative

Party, they had to be a certainly will. They had to have a certain

background. Actually, now, Parliament is much more diverse and

perhaps typecasting is not as prevalent in politics as it was. Do

you think that is true in acting? Absolutely. I think we are fighting

ourselves with the play against a stigma that exists, that there is a

belief that a short actor can't attain greatness, perhaps. Somehow,

the performance may be inferior as a result. It certainly isn't. The

reviews are amazing. Where is it on? Richmond at the moment and then we

moved to high Wycombe, Derby, Manchester, Cardiff, on tour until

the 10th of May. Are you changing the plays as you go along? At the

end of the tour perhaps we will do a straight play or a musical or

something else. The key to it is that there is no reference to our

size, no jokes related to our height. We ignore all of that. And

you are in control. Absolutely. And the audiences are lapping it up?

Absolutely. It is liberating for asked but the audiences are enjoying

it. The key thing is that they say they forget we are short on stage

after about a minute. We have also scales down the set. Have you got

more TV coming up? I start a series in April on ITV, a travel show with

me championing the great British holiday. That sounds a bit

dangerous. Thank you. That's your lot for tonight, folks,

but not for us, because following Michael Gove's spontaneous rendition

of Wham Rap this morning for BBC School Report, his posse are now

booked for a live performance at Lou Lou's. The irony of a song

celebrating a life on benefits somehow passing the Education

Secretary right by. But we leave you tonight with a true Westminster

legend. Tradition dictates ageing Labour politicians are referred to

as "veterans", whilst Tories prefer the term "grandee", something that

annoyed and amused Tony Benn in equal measure. I suppose it's only

fair that, just this once, we put things right. Nighty-night, don't

let the old Labour grandee bite.