Browse content similar to 27/03/2014. Check below for episodes and series from the same categories and more!
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As celebrity royal couple Chris and Gwyneth fall off their marriage | :00:08. | :00:11. | |
throne, This Week takes a look at who wants to rule the political | :00:12. | :00:23. | |
world. King of TV history, David Starkey, assesses the quality of | :00:24. | :00:31. | |
leadership on offer. Forget Coldplay. I will be telling you why | :00:32. | :00:37. | |
our current crop of political leaders are a cup of cold sick. | :00:38. | :00:44. | |
As crown princes Nick and Nigel are given the chance to dress up as | :00:45. | :00:48. | |
kings, the BBC's very own court jester, Laura Kuenssburg bows down | :00:49. | :00:58. | |
to no-one. There was a conscious coupling between Nick and Nigel, who | :00:59. | :01:03. | |
clashed over Europe and immigration. It was certainly the TV debate of | :01:04. | :01:07. | |
the week, but was it a big fat turn-off? | :01:08. | :01:12. | |
And the world's biggest short actor, Warwick Davies, was certainly born | :01:13. | :01:17. | |
to rule the This Week studio. So is it time to stop typecasting? My | :01:18. | :01:25. | |
agent did not tell me I would be taking part in the political | :01:26. | :01:29. | |
pantomime. This Week, I love you, but is it | :01:30. | :01:31. | |
time for us to consciously uncouple? Evenin' all. Welcome to This Week, a | :01:32. | :01:42. | |
week when a new morning-after pill was unveiled, provoking howls of | :01:43. | :01:45. | |
outrage from the usual party poopers that it would only lead to even more | :01:46. | :01:52. | |
promiscuity among the young. Frankly teenagers didn't stand a chance | :01:53. | :01:55. | |
because chemists were cleared out by mid-morning as adults rushed to snap | :01:56. | :01:58. | |
up a morning-after pill they thought might help them forget the | :01:59. | :02:01. | |
night-before debate between Nick and Nige. Yes, as sordid spectacles go, | :02:02. | :02:07. | |
this was "conspicuous uncoupling" at its best, upstaging Gwyneth and | :02:08. | :02:11. | |
Chris in the process, with the Lib Dem and UKIP leader lobbing fake | :02:12. | :02:14. | |
hand grenades at each other from their respective fantasy worlds of | :02:15. | :02:22. | |
Europhiles and Europhobes. It's been quite a week for conspicuous | :02:23. | :02:24. | |
uncoupling here in Westminster, with Ed Balls helpfully explaining that | :02:25. | :02:27. | |
the reason for his leader's poor Budget response was because Red Ed | :02:28. | :02:31. | |
had been misled about what would be in the Budget by Twitter. Thanks a | :02:32. | :02:36. | |
lot, Ed, Balls, that is. Really helpful. And Boy George Osborne | :02:37. | :02:41. | |
uncoupled from himself with an out of body experience in which he | :02:42. | :02:47. | |
thought he was a bingo caller. I don't think he fooled anybody. If | :02:48. | :02:50. | |
you think that's weird just be glad you're not the Labour leader. 41% in | :02:51. | :02:54. | |
a YouGov Buzzfeed poll thought Mr Miliband was weird. But he was also | :02:55. | :02:58. | |
seen as the most honest party leader, Mr Clegg the most dishonest. | :02:59. | :03:01. | |
We could have saved Buzzfeed quite a bit of money if they'd spoken to us | :03:02. | :03:05. | |
first. Speaking of an odd couple who are barely conscious, I'm joined on | :03:06. | :03:09. | |
the sofa tonight by a two-man band who make a terrible racket. Think of | :03:10. | :03:12. | |
them as the Coldplay and Cold Pot Noodle of late night political chat. | :03:13. | :03:16. | |
I speak, of course, of #manontheleft Alan "AJ" Johnson and | :03:17. | :03:25. | |
#sadmanonatrain Michael Portillo. Your moment of the week? More | :03:26. | :03:30. | |
developments at the Metropolitan Police. A couple of weeks ago Diane | :03:31. | :03:35. | |
Abbott picked as her moment of the week the revelations that being | :03:36. | :03:38. | |
quarry into the Stephen Lawrence murder had been hampered apparently | :03:39. | :03:43. | |
by police corruption. Then it emerged that the files relating to | :03:44. | :03:48. | |
corruption had been shredded in 2003. It now emerges that there were | :03:49. | :03:54. | |
17 different investigations, and they were brought together in one | :03:55. | :04:02. | |
operation, which found there was a network of corrupt officers at the | :04:03. | :04:05. | |
heart of the Metropolitan Police. But the rate of hope in all of this | :04:06. | :04:09. | |
is that whereas all the information that was destroyed in 2003 was | :04:10. | :04:15. | |
thought to be lost forever, it may be that this second operation which | :04:16. | :04:18. | |
was, as I understand it, one that brought the others together, may | :04:19. | :04:22. | |
have duplicated some of that material. So it may yet be that some | :04:23. | :04:26. | |
of the people who have been acting corruptly can be brought to justice. | :04:27. | :04:32. | |
Doesn't it look more and more like the Chicago police in the 1930s? It | :04:33. | :04:37. | |
is too rhythmically disappointing and it absolutely has to be sorted | :04:38. | :04:41. | |
out. I hope that Bernard Hogan-Howe, the commissioner, will | :04:42. | :04:46. | |
be able to sort it out. His back is against the wall, too. Like the | :04:47. | :04:53. | |
police of the 80s. Mine has to be investment of Siemens in the fair | :04:54. | :04:58. | |
city I represent, a big investment. The windy city. They are bringing | :04:59. | :05:03. | |
over blade manufacturing from Denmark, wonderful news for a city | :05:04. | :05:07. | |
that has not had good news since the fishing industry collapsed. The one | :05:08. | :05:12. | |
that I complain about is the Number Ten media machine had it as the | :05:13. | :05:18. | |
headline on their press release that Siemens react to George Osborne's | :05:19. | :05:22. | |
Budget. This has been six years and they have been looking at 110 | :05:23. | :05:30. | |
different locations. It is Siemens and associated British ports, so not | :05:31. | :05:34. | |
just a foreign investment. Now here on This Week, we take great | :05:35. | :05:38. | |
pride in being the BBC's number one flagship current affairs programme. | :05:39. | :05:41. | |
Current affairs. But every now and then, we're more than happy to | :05:42. | :05:44. | |
dredge up any old piece of Westminster gossip, dust it down, | :05:45. | :05:47. | |
spruce it up, find a location from a movie that came out four years ago, | :05:48. | :05:51. | |
and try to pass it off as contemporary political analysis. | :05:52. | :05:54. | |
Which is exactly what we've done this week, or rather what historian | :05:55. | :05:57. | |
David Starkey has done on our behalf. Actually it's much better | :05:58. | :06:00. | |
than it sounds. Here's his take of the week. | :06:01. | :06:28. | |
Feel you have seen this before? Well, you have, in the King 's | :06:29. | :06:37. | |
speech. In the film, this room is the consulting room of the Doctor, | :06:38. | :06:42. | |
the strangely and speech therapist, who enables George VI to overcome | :06:43. | :06:47. | |
his terrible stammer, to rally the British people in the Second World | :06:48. | :06:54. | |
War. Well, rumours this week that another George is also seeking out | :06:55. | :06:57. | |
expensive Harley Street speech therapists. It is Chancellor George | :06:58. | :07:03. | |
Osborne, who is trying to learn to drop his H, and get a lot of bottle, | :07:04. | :07:14. | |
just like Tony Blair. It says it all, really, doesn't it? Whatever he | :07:15. | :07:22. | |
sounds like, there are few people with too clever by half more clearly | :07:23. | :07:27. | |
written on their forehead than George Osborne. Even when he gets | :07:28. | :07:31. | |
the policy right, like pension reform, he perverts it by putting | :07:32. | :07:37. | |
the politics in front of the policy. Just like Gordon Brown at | :07:38. | :07:43. | |
his very worst. He targets different groups of people to buy off with | :07:44. | :07:48. | |
giveaways. In this case, I suppose, me, the grey vote. Andy Young Ed | :07:49. | :07:57. | |
Miliband's appeal is no more robust. There is a poll this week that shows | :07:58. | :08:03. | |
that four out of ten Britons think that he is a bit weird. I am only | :08:04. | :08:10. | |
surprised that is not more. Even the Shadow Cabinet are leaking like mad | :08:11. | :08:15. | |
that he is surrounded by a clique. Apparently, the Labour strategy is | :08:16. | :08:20. | |
to win with only 35% of the poll, ignoring middle England and relying | :08:21. | :08:25. | |
instead on the core vote and disillusioned Lib Dems. How | :08:26. | :08:28. | |
contemptible. And how dangerous. In the film, the doctor, the brash | :08:29. | :08:47. | |
Australian, succeeds by liberating King George from the stifling | :08:48. | :08:52. | |
formality of his British courtiers. Instead, our politicians, whose | :08:53. | :08:59. | |
lives are as a moat and exotic as 1930s Buckingham Palace, have | :09:00. | :09:04. | |
abandoned any discernible pursuit of the national interest. -- as | :09:05. | :09:08. | |
remote. No wonder most people are disengaged from politics. They are | :09:09. | :09:13. | |
right to be so. And from his consulting room at 33 | :09:14. | :09:17. | |
Portland Place to our own little consulting room here in the heart of | :09:18. | :09:19. | |
Westminster, welcome back, Your Majesty. Hand. I would not go that | :09:20. | :09:37. | |
far. You usually go further. Do you think David is being harsh on | :09:38. | :09:40. | |
today's generation of politicians? Yellow macro I do, and I think his | :09:41. | :09:46. | |
example were not particularly good. I think the announcement on pensions | :09:47. | :09:50. | |
in the budget was the boldest stroke from a Chancellor of the Exchequer | :09:51. | :09:53. | |
since the abolition of exchange controls in 1979 by Geoffrey Howe. I | :09:54. | :09:58. | |
certainly think it was George Osborne's finest hour. It is true | :09:59. | :10:02. | |
that it benefits a part of the electorate who are there to be won | :10:03. | :10:05. | |
over but that has been evident for decades, that these people could be | :10:06. | :10:09. | |
won over by a change to the very unfair rules that oblige pensioners | :10:10. | :10:13. | |
of a certain age to take out an annuity. But it has taken George | :10:14. | :10:18. | |
Osborne to blow away the cobwebs at the Treasury. I remember Treasury | :10:19. | :10:21. | |
civil servants telling Chancellor this could not be done. He has done | :10:22. | :10:26. | |
it, and it is a very bold stroke and he deserves credit for it. And | :10:27. | :10:31. | |
broadly speaking, I think the coalition set itself an ambition to | :10:32. | :10:36. | |
reform the economy. It has taken longer than the coalition hoped it | :10:37. | :10:39. | |
would because we did not get growth back as fast as we hoped, but | :10:40. | :10:44. | |
nonetheless, the deficit is falling. On present projections, it will turn | :10:45. | :10:49. | |
into a surplus. I am sorry, but all of this is tedious, utterly tedious. | :10:50. | :10:55. | |
Who is this man who has come to be rude to us? Isn't it time you were | :10:56. | :10:59. | |
shaken up a bit out of this dreary complacency, because in the world | :11:00. | :11:04. | |
outside this studio and Westminster, the kind of thing you are saying has | :11:05. | :11:09. | |
absolutely no resonance at all? I agree with you, it seems the move | :11:10. | :11:14. | |
was sensible, but coming from George Osborne it loses any kind of moral | :11:15. | :11:19. | |
authority. He is seen simply as a wheeler dealer, the bingo player, | :11:20. | :11:26. | |
the gambler. Again, as we know, this is a very narrow section of appeal | :11:27. | :11:30. | |
to the Tory Homebase, the only group among whom they have a comfortable | :11:31. | :11:37. | |
lead, the elderly. Later we are dealing with typecasting, and you | :11:38. | :11:41. | |
are typecasting George Osborne, saying that because the decision | :11:42. | :11:44. | |
comes from him it must be narrow politicking. You are not allowing | :11:45. | :11:47. | |
for the possibility that he has developed. I am a historian. You | :11:48. | :11:55. | |
used to be. This transforms your view of George Osborne. You may now | :11:56. | :12:00. | |
speak. George Osborne's entire behaviour has been that of a rather | :12:01. | :12:08. | |
narrow, mean-spirited strategist. The silliest kind of tactician. The | :12:09. | :12:15. | |
shallowest kind of tactician. Why, if you are right, are we seeing | :12:16. | :12:20. | |
rapidly declining turnouts in elections? Why are we seeing the | :12:21. | :12:26. | |
rise of UKIP? Why are we seeing this erosion of the political basis. What | :12:27. | :12:34. | |
is your view, Alan? Is David being too tough on today's generation of | :12:35. | :12:41. | |
politicians? I think he is. They would say that, wouldn't they? I | :12:42. | :12:46. | |
have only existed in this current era. I would love to throw rocks at | :12:47. | :12:51. | |
George Osborne, but the question is, is there a modern politician, of | :12:52. | :12:57. | |
the last 20 years, who you would approve of? No. I really do think, | :12:58. | :13:03. | |
and the electorate seems to agree with me, it is striking going on a | :13:04. | :13:08. | |
programme like Question Time how profoundly unpopular politicians | :13:09. | :13:11. | |
are, how what they say is treated with contempt and not taken | :13:12. | :13:16. | |
seriously. For the sake of the next couple of minutes, let's assume you | :13:17. | :13:23. | |
are right. Why Armand politicians so inadequate? -- why our modern | :13:24. | :13:29. | |
politicians so inadequate? They tend to go to their core vote. There has | :13:30. | :13:33. | |
been a remarkable fragmentation of politics. Class waste politics has | :13:34. | :13:39. | |
gone and you are getting variance of Ken Livingstone's rainbow coalitions | :13:40. | :13:45. | |
of one sort or another, in which politicians are trying to target | :13:46. | :13:48. | |
groups and put them together. You have two parties, the Lib Dems and | :13:49. | :13:53. | |
UKIP, which are more or less, you can trace them. There are tiny | :13:54. | :13:58. | |
patches on the electoral map. What is striking is the absence of any | :13:59. | :14:03. | |
politician who can articulate an argument that appeals broadly, that | :14:04. | :14:06. | |
has any kind of national dimensional. This seems to me to be | :14:07. | :14:13. | |
utterly fundamental. I don't entirely disagree. One of the things | :14:14. | :14:21. | |
that has gone wrong is that politicians are tending to respond | :14:22. | :14:25. | |
to the wrong audience. The audience to which they are responding is the | :14:26. | :14:29. | |
24-hour media, the many channels, and that requires a constant | :14:30. | :14:35. | |
response several times a day, and you cannot possibly have things well | :14:36. | :14:38. | |
thought out if you are responding several times a day. The public, | :14:39. | :14:44. | |
beyond the media, I think once much broader brush stuff. It wants a | :14:45. | :14:47. | |
sense of direction, the destination to which it is being led. I think we | :14:48. | :14:52. | |
are going through a difficult phase in which politicians are addressing | :14:53. | :14:58. | |
the wrong people. In this respect, George Osborne is on the side of | :14:59. | :15:02. | |
virtue. He speaks very rarely and when he has something to say, he | :15:03. | :15:07. | |
says it. The Prime Minister is more guilty of speaking on a daily basis. | :15:08. | :15:11. | |
Maybe it is easier for the Chancellor told his tongue over a | :15:12. | :15:15. | |
long period. Does Mr Miliband come across as a bit weird? The polls say | :15:16. | :15:23. | |
he comes across as a bit weird. Anyone from his kind of background, | :15:24. | :15:28. | |
who looks what they are... The thing about him, and my strong advice to | :15:29. | :15:32. | |
him is not to try to act as someone he is not. If you act as someone you | :15:33. | :15:37. | |
are, someone very interested in ideas, who has read a lot of | :15:38. | :15:40. | |
philosophy, brought up in a political household, you are going | :15:41. | :15:44. | |
to be like that. But the public have more intelligence than just to | :15:45. | :15:48. | |
decide who is going to win the next election based on the fact that he | :15:49. | :15:52. | |
looks a bit leaky. They are more intelligent than that. They make | :15:53. | :15:56. | |
decisions on a much wider group of criteria. | :15:57. | :16:00. | |
Do most generations feel that way? The whole way our politics are | :16:01. | :16:08. | |
going, this fragmentation of the major political parties, this sense | :16:09. | :16:12. | |
of everyone of our political leaders - you mentioned Miliband looking a | :16:13. | :16:17. | |
bit geeky. Each one of our political leaders is a Spitting Image puppet | :16:18. | :16:22. | |
of what you think an extreme of the Tory Party might look like Old | :16:23. | :16:26. | |
Etonian. What an extreme of Labour might look like, radical, Marxist, | :16:27. | :16:35. | |
North London intellectual. Clegg, half-Dutch banker-father. Each one - | :16:36. | :16:39. | |
none of them seem to me to break out of that mould. This is what is | :16:40. | :16:43. | |
striking with Osborne, desperately apparently trying to have | :16:44. | :16:48. | |
anti-elocution lessons because he looks like... You sure that is true? | :16:49. | :16:53. | |
In the film I very carefully said it is rumoured that, the rumour is | :16:54. | :16:58. | |
quite powerful, but let's assume that he's not. Is it not true, | :16:59. | :17:03. | |
though, that we never really know who a leader is if people are real | :17:04. | :17:07. | |
leadership material until they become leader? Until it is too late. | :17:08. | :17:11. | |
Somebody it seems to me like Cameron, who thought it was going to | :17:12. | :17:16. | |
be terribly easy and he and Osborne bought so completely into the | :17:17. | :17:19. | |
previous Labour Government's package, their passionate support | :17:20. | :17:27. | |
for green, NHS and found themselves so wrong-footed by the situation in | :17:28. | :17:34. | |
which they inherited in 2010. I would argue as wrong-footed as badly | :17:35. | :17:39. | |
as Clegg was. They both found themselves doing the opposite of | :17:40. | :17:42. | |
what they said they were going to do. You have only got to think from | :17:43. | :17:48. | |
the shift of the greenest Government... Let's not - we have | :17:49. | :17:52. | |
heard enough of George for the night! Or indeed me! That is also | :17:53. | :17:57. | |
true. We have run out of time. Obviously too much of a good | :17:58. | :18:01. | |
thing(!) Now it's late, so prop up your | :18:02. | :18:05. | |
eyelids with a Blue Nun pillow - because waiting in the wings - actor | :18:06. | :18:09. | |
Warwick Davies is here to discuss the perils of being typecast - and | :18:10. | :18:11. | |
how to avoid them. And remember - if you have any | :18:12. | :18:15. | |
opinions about tonight's show, you can keep them to yourself and retain | :18:16. | :18:19. | |
your dignity - or share them with the world and embarrass yourself on | :18:20. | :18:22. | |
The Twitter, The Fleecebook and The Interweb. | :18:23. | :18:25. | |
Now, what's coming up next? Oh yes, the round-up of the week. I'm sorry, | :18:26. | :18:29. | |
I'm afraid we're all at sixes and sevens this week thanks to the news | :18:30. | :18:33. | |
that MPs have backed plans to decriminalise licence fee dodgers. | :18:34. | :18:36. | |
Auntie Beeb has warned that it might lead to even more viewers refusing | :18:37. | :18:41. | |
to stump up their hard-earned cash. I mean it's not as if people would | :18:42. | :18:45. | |
willingly pay to watch this drivel we put out week after week! We know | :18:46. | :18:50. | |
we need to win back your trust. Which is why we've sent Newsnight's | :18:51. | :18:53. | |
Laura Kuenssberg to hunt down the This Week viewer, whoever he or she | :18:54. | :18:55. | |
may be. Things are feeling shaky here at BBC | :18:56. | :19:16. | |
Towers. MPs have decided they don't want to lock up licence fee dodgers | :19:17. | :19:21. | |
anymore, so the BBC needs to get better attracting down people who | :19:22. | :19:25. | |
watch top-quality programmes in secret. So you, yes you, the This | :19:26. | :19:31. | |
Week viewer, I'm coming to find you, wherever you are. | :19:32. | :19:37. | |
# Someone's watching # Tell me who's watching me? # | :19:38. | :19:55. | |
Null The public lovers it when they crackdown on welfare. Surely that | :19:56. | :19:59. | |
couldn't be why MPs voted this week to put a lid on the Bill? Our | :20:00. | :20:04. | |
welfare cap ensures that never again can the cost spiral out of control | :20:05. | :20:09. | |
and the incentives become so distorted that it pays not to work. | :20:10. | :20:13. | |
From now on, any Government wanting to spend more on welfare will have | :20:14. | :20:17. | |
to be honest with the public. Labour will make different and fairer | :20:18. | :20:21. | |
choices to get the social security bill under control and tackle the | :20:22. | :20:26. | |
root causes of rising spending. On that basis, we will support this | :20:27. | :20:30. | |
motion. # I always feel like | :20:31. | :20:38. | |
# Somebody's watching me. # Don't be surprised if Red Ed joined | :20:39. | :20:43. | |
in, too. He has to show us he can be in control of the Budget if he was | :20:44. | :20:47. | |
in charge. He managed to take most of his obedient sorts along, too. | :20:48. | :20:55. | |
Who did that leave? Social security, people's lives should not be made a | :20:56. | :21:02. | |
matter of short-term political positioning. Not sure that was the | :21:03. | :21:08. | |
This Week viewer. Damn! Where has the This Week viewer gone? Carry on. | :21:09. | :21:14. | |
After the Budget, David Cameron seems to feel so bold he's even | :21:15. | :21:18. | |
brought back his idea of letting more of the wealthy off inheritance | :21:19. | :21:22. | |
tax. Surely, he is not trying to tempt those Tory types who are | :21:23. | :21:26. | |
having dark thoughts about going to UKIP? | :21:27. | :21:35. | |
# She's watching the Detectives... # Perhaps his confidence explains why | :21:36. | :21:40. | |
normal service was resumed at PMQs. The sides clashed over those | :21:41. | :21:45. | |
dastardly energy firms. Week after week he denounced Labour's call for | :21:46. | :21:49. | |
an energy price freeze to help families and businesses. But now | :21:50. | :21:54. | |
apparently he supports the price freeze. Can he explain why a price | :21:55. | :22:00. | |
freeze was wrong six months ago, but it is the right thing to do today? | :22:01. | :22:03. | |
What we have done is reduce the costs of energy charges so that | :22:04. | :22:08. | |
companies are able to cut their bills. 24 hours on, though, they are | :22:09. | :22:13. | |
both happy once more to slam the companies again. Ofgem is proposing | :22:14. | :22:19. | |
a tough but sensible course of action, a full market investigation | :22:20. | :22:25. | |
reference. This would be undertaken by the new competition and markets | :22:26. | :22:30. | |
authority, which has the robust powers required to investigate the | :22:31. | :22:33. | |
market and take the action that is needed to strengthen competition. | :22:34. | :22:49. | |
The great thing of course about the licence fee is you don't just get | :22:50. | :22:55. | |
TV, you get radio thrown into the bargain, too. Maybe that's why Nick | :22:56. | :23:00. | |
and Nige decided to start their own show. Dave said he wouldn't watch | :23:01. | :23:05. | |
the political punch-up, yeah, right, there is always catch-up! What I | :23:06. | :23:09. | |
wondered if Nige would be brave enough to say you know what, I agree | :23:10. | :23:14. | |
with Nick? This is a leaflet that Nigel Farage's party distributed in | :23:15. | :23:22. | |
the recent Eastleigh by-election. It says 29 million Romanians and | :23:23. | :23:28. | |
Bulgarians may come to this country. There aren't 29 million living in | :23:29. | :23:32. | |
Romania and Bulgaria. I'm not claiming 29 million people have the | :23:33. | :23:36. | |
right to come to Britain. Yes, you did. I'm claiming 485 million people | :23:37. | :23:41. | |
have the total unconditional right to come to this country if they want | :23:42. | :23:46. | |
to. Neither of them made a huge clanger, but is this just the start | :23:47. | :23:51. | |
of some weird modern pantomime? Who really wants to pay their licence | :23:52. | :23:57. | |
fee just for that? # I always feel like | :23:58. | :24:03. | |
# Somebody's watching me. # If the This Week viewer is desperate | :24:04. | :24:11. | |
for a re-run... Proposals were made to the Environment Secretary about | :24:12. | :24:14. | |
an amendment to the Hunting Act which would help upland farmers deal | :24:15. | :24:20. | |
with the problem of fox... That letter has been received and is | :24:21. | :24:23. | |
being considered, but I regret to say I don't think there will be | :24:24. | :24:27. | |
Government agreement. They might be coming after your licence fee, but | :24:28. | :24:35. | |
those cuddly foxes are safe. Oh, you are the This Week viewer? Can I come | :24:36. | :24:41. | |
in? It looks safer in there than out here in Westminster! | :24:42. | :24:50. | |
Many programmes would give their left arm to have a viewer like that. | :24:51. | :24:53. | |
And also to have Miranda. Welcome back. What did you make of the | :24:54. | :24:59. | |
debate? I loved it. It was fantastic. That is not what I meant! | :25:00. | :25:03. | |
How did it go for your glorious leader? I thought he did really | :25:04. | :25:08. | |
well. That is not what the polls say? Apart from anything else, he | :25:09. | :25:11. | |
did really well to challenge Farage to the debate and hold it and that | :25:12. | :25:17. | |
instant poll was very, very interesting and I think incredibly | :25:18. | :25:21. | |
positive for two reasons. Number one, a man who has literally been | :25:22. | :25:28. | |
burned in effigies in the streets with sub voted for socialism... I | :25:29. | :25:51. | |
did think it was really... It means there will be... This is | :25:52. | :25:56. | |
immigration. Two most electorally toxic issues and he got 36% of the | :25:57. | :26:01. | |
general public backing. Amazing. What do you say to that? I agree | :26:02. | :26:08. | |
with Miranda. Ah! Clegg did the right thing to challenge him. | :26:09. | :26:13. | |
Getting a 36% rating is pretty good. I think to get 36% rating when most | :26:14. | :26:19. | |
people are not enthusiastic about the EU is pretty good. I also think | :26:20. | :26:23. | |
it was very good for Farage, for him to get a 53% rating. Do you? To be | :26:24. | :26:28. | |
plastered all over the newspapers this morning, this is good for him. | :26:29. | :26:32. | |
Of course, he's building up to an election in which he may have, the | :26:33. | :26:36. | |
European election, in which he may have a good result. What is your | :26:37. | :26:41. | |
view? I understand Nick did very well for those people who were not | :26:42. | :26:48. | |
in that poll that YouGov did. Most people I spoke to thought he did | :26:49. | :26:52. | |
very well. If it hadn't been Nick, he would have wiped with the floor | :26:53. | :26:55. | |
with him. Given that some of the polling about Nigel Farage is quite | :26:56. | :26:59. | |
interesting about how what people think about him. Yes. Given that - | :27:00. | :27:06. | |
I'm a pro-European, there is a very good pro-European argument that has | :27:07. | :27:09. | |
not been made for a long time. It was good to get an hour's prime-time | :27:10. | :27:13. | |
viewing. It had the benefit of the people taking straight positions. | :27:14. | :27:17. | |
Yes. You had a clear choice before you. The political risk for Mr | :27:18. | :27:22. | |
Clegg, I would suggest, is that having made the Lib Dems clearly the | :27:23. | :27:28. | |
party that's most enthusiastic about Europe, if he then comes fourth or | :27:29. | :27:32. | |
fifth in the European elections - and he will come one or the other - | :27:33. | :27:37. | |
it is a bit of a blow for him? Well, I mean, I think it is relatively | :27:38. | :27:40. | |
inevitable, I have to say. This is... Relatively inevitable? Yes. | :27:41. | :27:46. | |
They are either inevitable or they are not? They can tonight! Very | :27:47. | :27:51. | |
well. We will allow that. Almost unique! It is just as well David | :27:52. | :27:56. | |
Starkey has gone! You are right. For Clegg, personally, and for the Lib | :27:57. | :28:03. | |
Dems, this is part of a much harder, longer journey back from disaster. I | :28:04. | :28:10. | |
think it is wonderful to have... You need to be rehabilitated, really. It | :28:11. | :28:15. | |
is wonderful to have someone say, I love the EU and to have someone else | :28:16. | :28:19. | |
say I want to leave the European Union. On the whole, people's | :28:20. | :28:23. | |
positions are so wishy washy. We will have a renegotiation and then | :28:24. | :28:26. | |
we will have a referendum and I will recommend people to vote to stay in. | :28:27. | :28:33. | |
Let's move on. The energy companies being referred to the Competition | :28:34. | :28:39. | |
Commission. Can there be any doubt that this has only happened because | :28:40. | :28:48. | |
Ed Miliband made the running on freezing prices at the last | :28:49. | :28:53. | |
conference? The fox has been shot. Miliband was doing terribly well | :28:54. | :28:57. | |
last October. He ran with it for two months. The combination of the t | :28:58. | :29:00. | |
Government pulling away some of the "green" taxes, the fact that some of | :29:01. | :29:03. | |
the companies are coming forward and saying they are going to freeze | :29:04. | :29:06. | |
prices until 2016, there is nothing left for Ed Miliband to say. He | :29:07. | :29:10. | |
produced this particular idea too early and he has given the | :29:11. | :29:15. | |
Government time to get rid of it. I wish David Starkey was back here. | :29:16. | :29:18. | |
That is precisely the kind of politics that is about dividing | :29:19. | :29:24. | |
people up and I mean, give the guy credit for a Leader of the | :29:25. | :29:28. | |
Opposition to be making the weather on energy, something he believed in. | :29:29. | :29:32. | |
He didn't calculate it in the sense of let's bring it up two months | :29:33. | :29:40. | |
before the general election. Absolutely right, he... He didn't | :29:41. | :29:43. | |
calculate it. Why has the fox been shot? You could see this sending it | :29:44. | :29:50. | |
to the Monopolies Commission, you are kicking - not you personally, | :29:51. | :29:54. | |
the Government is kicking it into the long grass. Labour is still | :29:55. | :29:58. | |
saying very well, we will support this referral, but let's freeze the | :29:59. | :30:01. | |
prices while the referral is going on? | :30:02. | :30:06. | |
One of the companies has said it will freeze until 2016 anyway. I | :30:07. | :30:13. | |
expect by the time we get to the election and the government has | :30:14. | :30:17. | |
withdrawn enough of the green taxes, that is the position it will be. The | :30:18. | :30:21. | |
government is not going to allow Ed Miliband to go into the election | :30:22. | :30:24. | |
saying he will freeze prices and have it mean anything. You have to | :30:25. | :30:30. | |
give credit where it is due to Ed Miliband for spotting something | :30:31. | :30:36. | |
about which people were very angry. That is a market where 95% is | :30:37. | :30:49. | |
controlled by... People were genuinely angry about their bills. I | :30:50. | :30:56. | |
am. They only did not become more angry because the winter was mild. | :30:57. | :31:00. | |
If it had been really cold, the anger would have been palpable. | :31:01. | :31:07. | |
Absolutely. Nobody has acted quickly enough on this. It was under Labour | :31:08. | :31:11. | |
that that situation was allowed to develop. It is good that it has been | :31:12. | :31:17. | |
tackled now. The coalition could have referred it a long while ago. | :31:18. | :31:23. | |
Why is Ed Miliband supporting a cap on welfare? Which he mentioned in | :31:24. | :31:29. | |
June 2013. I support him on this. This is not like the 1% last year, | :31:30. | :31:34. | |
which we opposed. This is saying there is this huge part of our Bill | :31:35. | :31:40. | |
that is annually managed expenditure, which is a tautology. | :31:41. | :31:46. | |
It is not managed at all. This huge swathes of money parliament has no | :31:47. | :31:50. | |
control over. Not only is it not going to be capped but it is rising | :31:51. | :31:57. | |
from 120 billion, up to 100 and -- 127 billion. When I was at the WP, I | :31:58. | :32:03. | |
had this bit of money, the departmental expenditure limit, and | :32:04. | :32:07. | |
this huge swathes of billions that was not managed at all. So he is | :32:08. | :32:15. | |
right to cap it? Absolutely. One important thing which came out in | :32:16. | :32:20. | |
the debate was that for the first time in our history this huge | :32:21. | :32:24. | |
swathes of money, annually managed expenditure, which there is no | :32:25. | :32:28. | |
control over, is now bigger than the departmental expenditure limit. 51% | :32:29. | :32:36. | |
to 49%. The first time in the history of this country. If the cap | :32:37. | :32:40. | |
had been on in 2010, George Osborne would have come back to increase it | :32:41. | :32:44. | |
about four times. That is what happens, you have to come back to | :32:45. | :32:50. | |
Parliament. It is an example of what happens sometimes in politics, | :32:51. | :32:53. | |
Labour has been dragged onto the Conservative ground, just as it was | :32:54. | :33:01. | |
over the 40% rate of tax. Just as the Conservatives were dragged on | :33:02. | :33:05. | |
too Labour ground over other things. This has been the most immense | :33:06. | :33:08. | |
change in public opinion on welfare, and I think it is extraordinary to | :33:09. | :33:15. | |
see a Labour party voting for a welfare cap. Are the Lib Dems | :33:16. | :33:22. | |
comfortable with the cap? Comfortable with this bit, yes, but | :33:23. | :33:27. | |
welfare reform generally is a more difficult topic for them and their | :33:28. | :33:35. | |
voters. We have had tautology. I think it is time to move on. Because | :33:36. | :33:38. | |
authors are annoyed. Now, authors are annoyed, writers | :33:39. | :33:40. | |
are annoyed, Jeffrey Archer's annoyed. But ever since the | :33:41. | :33:44. | |
Injustice Secretary, Chris Grayling, banned prisoners from receiving | :33:45. | :33:47. | |
books, hardened criminals have been celebrating. Because the message is | :33:48. | :33:52. | |
clear, cruel and unusual punishment packages will no longer be tolerated | :33:53. | :33:56. | |
in British jails and no inmate will ever face the literary equivalent of | :33:57. | :33:59. | |
breaking rocks in the hot noon-day sun. I give you, Michael Portillo - | :34:00. | :34:09. | |
The Future of the Right, by Michael Gove, a long-and-best-forgotten work | :34:10. | :34:18. | |
of pure fantasy from 1995. Selling for ?35 on Amazon, with one online | :34:19. | :34:22. | |
review describing Michael as "a gorgeous honey pot, and the hottest | :34:23. | :34:33. | |
babe in politics". That, thanks to Mr Grayling, will now never put a | :34:34. | :34:36. | |
prisoner's rehabilitation at risk ever again. So how did said man | :34:37. | :34:43. | |
manage so successfully to avoid his political destiny, and rehabilitate | :34:44. | :34:48. | |
himself? We decided to find out and put being typecast in this week's | :34:49. | :34:51. | |
Spotlight, which contains some flash photography. | :34:52. | :35:06. | |
He has been a robot, a wizard and now Warwick Davis's the juice type | :35:07. | :35:15. | |
theatre company is giving shorter actors the chance to play new roles | :35:16. | :35:18. | |
and change perceptions in the process. But is everyone else | :35:19. | :35:27. | |
getting typecast these days? Do Tories really think that the air and | :35:28. | :35:30. | |
bingo is what matters to working-class folk, or that George | :35:31. | :35:35. | |
Osborne's photo opportunity in a bingo hall could repair the damage? | :35:36. | :35:41. | |
Nigel Farage certainly wants to stop UKIP being typecast as a party of | :35:42. | :35:47. | |
fruitcakes and loonies, obsessed with the EU and immigration. I got | :35:48. | :35:50. | |
into politics because I felt the career political class of | :35:51. | :35:54. | |
Westminster had given away my birthright, our ability to govern | :35:55. | :35:58. | |
our own country, and I'm on a mission to get it back. As Caroline | :35:59. | :36:04. | |
Lucas goes on trial, if the Greens to want to be typecast as tree | :36:05. | :36:08. | |
hugging hippies, maybe blocking fracking trucks whilst singing we | :36:09. | :36:11. | |
shall not be moved is not a great idea. So, our politicians are easily | :36:12. | :36:18. | |
typecast. Will it ever stop, or is it up to individuals to break the | :36:19. | :36:27. | |
mould and take on new roles? Warwick Davies joins us now. Welcome to this | :36:28. | :36:33. | |
week. Good to see you. Is typecasting something that goes with | :36:34. | :36:37. | |
the territory, or can you do something about it? I am starting to | :36:38. | :36:41. | |
do something about it with my new venture. I have been acting since I | :36:42. | :36:46. | |
was 11. The reason I got interacting was because of my height. There was | :36:47. | :36:50. | |
a radio commercial in which they were looking for actors for Star | :36:51. | :36:55. | |
Wars. I went to the audition and I was be the right height for the job. | :36:56. | :37:00. | |
So I accept that for the first part of my career it was all about my | :37:01. | :37:06. | |
height. So I don't think typecasting is always negative. At times it can | :37:07. | :37:10. | |
be something that certainly started my career. When you become | :37:11. | :37:17. | |
successful it is less of an issue, I guess. Absolutely. More recently, | :37:18. | :37:23. | |
the opportunities I am offered are more about who I am, as opposed to | :37:24. | :37:29. | |
my height. For example, a role in Doctor Who last year. The character | :37:30. | :37:34. | |
was not written as a short character. He just happens to be | :37:35. | :37:42. | |
that way. So it is interesting when producers and directors can see | :37:43. | :37:44. | |
beyond the physical look of somebody. I would have bought one of | :37:45. | :37:50. | |
the motivations behind the red used height theatre company -- reduced | :37:51. | :37:58. | |
height theatre company, is that it allows you and your colleagues to | :37:59. | :38:00. | |
play roles that would not otherwise be available. Absolutely. It is | :38:01. | :38:07. | |
celebrating acting ability over physical type. Yes, it allows us, | :38:08. | :38:12. | |
certainly in the play we are doing at the moment, to play Vickers, | :38:13. | :38:17. | |
escaped prisoners, actresses, maids, all sorts of things. Do you think | :38:18. | :38:25. | |
that producers, directors, writers, they play it too safe and can be | :38:26. | :38:30. | |
cowardly when it comes to casting? Absolutely. There is a belief that | :38:31. | :38:34. | |
there has to be an explanation of why this character in this | :38:35. | :38:39. | |
particular piece is disabled or different. Instead of just, let's | :38:40. | :38:44. | |
get on with their story. Black actors suffered this some years ago, | :38:45. | :38:48. | |
where every time you had a black actor the story had to be about race | :38:49. | :38:53. | |
is somehow. We are beyond that now, aren't we? In future it would be | :38:54. | :38:58. | |
lovely to see short and disabled actors in pieces that did not have | :38:59. | :39:02. | |
to deal with issues surrounding that disability. Have you turned down | :39:03. | :39:07. | |
roles because you thought it was too much typecasting? I have done in the | :39:08. | :39:14. | |
past, not the surly because of the typecasting but because the | :39:15. | :39:19. | |
character did not find resolution. -- not necessarily. There was a part | :39:20. | :39:24. | |
where I played a clown in a circus. It was an interesting story but the | :39:25. | :39:28. | |
character had a chip on his shoulder and there was no resolution to it. I | :39:29. | :39:32. | |
felt I could not see the merit in doing it. We typecast politicians, | :39:33. | :39:41. | |
don't we? There was resonance in something that you said a moment | :39:42. | :39:44. | |
ago, which is that the typecast can be used by the victim for his own | :39:45. | :39:50. | |
benefit. I was typecast originally as being a mad right winger. But | :39:51. | :39:55. | |
actually, it was useful to me because I wanted to be recognised as | :39:56. | :39:59. | |
something, I wanted people to know who I was. If you are put in a | :40:00. | :40:02. | |
pigeonhole it can be useful early on. My goodness, after a while it | :40:03. | :40:09. | |
becomes a dam nuisance. Once the pigeonhole has been built, changing | :40:10. | :40:15. | |
it is really very difficult. Typecasting is a shorthand in | :40:16. | :40:20. | |
politics. The polls say Ed Miliband is weird, and David Cameron and the | :40:21. | :40:27. | |
Bollington boys, say Labour. But I don't think the public go along with | :40:28. | :40:33. | |
it. They hate the stereotyping of the old Etonian 's or whatever. They | :40:34. | :40:39. | |
want to make up their own mind. To bring a politician from central | :40:40. | :40:43. | |
casting 20 or 30 years ago, particularly in the Conservative | :40:44. | :40:46. | |
Party, they had to be a certainly will. They had to have a certain | :40:47. | :40:52. | |
background. Actually, now, Parliament is much more diverse and | :40:53. | :40:56. | |
perhaps typecasting is not as prevalent in politics as it was. Do | :40:57. | :41:03. | |
you think that is true in acting? Absolutely. I think we are fighting | :41:04. | :41:08. | |
ourselves with the play against a stigma that exists, that there is a | :41:09. | :41:13. | |
belief that a short actor can't attain greatness, perhaps. Somehow, | :41:14. | :41:19. | |
the performance may be inferior as a result. It certainly isn't. The | :41:20. | :41:27. | |
reviews are amazing. Where is it on? Richmond at the moment and then we | :41:28. | :41:31. | |
moved to high Wycombe, Derby, Manchester, Cardiff, on tour until | :41:32. | :41:37. | |
the 10th of May. Are you changing the plays as you go along? At the | :41:38. | :41:43. | |
end of the tour perhaps we will do a straight play or a musical or | :41:44. | :41:46. | |
something else. The key to it is that there is no reference to our | :41:47. | :41:51. | |
size, no jokes related to our height. We ignore all of that. And | :41:52. | :41:59. | |
you are in control. Absolutely. And the audiences are lapping it up? | :42:00. | :42:05. | |
Absolutely. It is liberating for asked but the audiences are enjoying | :42:06. | :42:09. | |
it. The key thing is that they say they forget we are short on stage | :42:10. | :42:13. | |
after about a minute. We have also scales down the set. Have you got | :42:14. | :42:22. | |
more TV coming up? I start a series in April on ITV, a travel show with | :42:23. | :42:25. | |
me championing the great British holiday. That sounds a bit | :42:26. | :42:33. | |
dangerous. Thank you. That's your lot for tonight, folks, | :42:34. | :42:36. | |
but not for us, because following Michael Gove's spontaneous rendition | :42:37. | :42:39. | |
of Wham Rap this morning for BBC School Report, his posse are now | :42:40. | :42:43. | |
booked for a live performance at Lou Lou's. The irony of a song | :42:44. | :42:47. | |
celebrating a life on benefits somehow passing the Education | :42:48. | :42:52. | |
Secretary right by. But we leave you tonight with a true Westminster | :42:53. | :42:54. | |
legend. Tradition dictates ageing Labour politicians are referred to | :42:55. | :42:57. | |
as "veterans", whilst Tories prefer the term "grandee", something that | :42:58. | :43:00. | |
annoyed and amused Tony Benn in equal measure. I suppose it's only | :43:01. | :43:05. | |
fair that, just this once, we put things right. Nighty-night, don't | :43:06. | :43:08. | |
let the old Labour grandee bite. | :43:09. | :43:12. |