10/04/2014 This Week

Tonight, This Week is bewitched by Westminster.

Not an enchanting tale, as Culture Secretary Maria Miller is dunked by

the press and then forced to resign. The Spectator's Isabel Hardman

assesses whether there was any kind of witchhunt.

Culture secretary Maria Miller whizzes she could wriggle her nose

and cast a spell to make her expenses problems go away. In the

end, she disappeared in a puff of smoke. With improving economic news,

Chancellor George Osborne wants to conjure up a boom before the next

general election. Former Dragon and Businessman with money-making powers

Theo Papthetis is a supernatural-confident. Shopkeepers

have magic powers. We see things before anyone else. And the Irish

President certainly put a spell on us, with a first ever state visit to

the United Kingdom. So, what's the magic ingredient that attracts so

many people to Britain? Irish comedian Aisling Bea reveals all.

Dignity, always dignity. When shall we three meet again? On

This Week, of course Evening, all. Welcome to This Week. An historic

week, with the first ever official visit of the Irish head of state. At

the state banquet, the Queen naturally wore her Crown, while

Martin McGuinness looked fetching in his favourite balaclava. It was the

week in which a largely unknown cabinet minister's 15 minutes of

fame and fortune, let's not forget, ended with her return to obscurity,

from which she's unlikely ever to return. I've forgotten her name

already. And it was the week in which the divine David Cameron

claimed to a Christian group that, by promoting the Big Society, he was

merely following in the footsteps of our Lord Jesus Christ and doing

God's work here on earth. The fact that he did this to the strains of a

soprano singing the hymm Ave Maria only goes to show that religion and

irony are not incompatible after all. If there are things that are

stopping you from doing more, he told his congregation, think of me

as a giant Dyno-Rod. I guess that's the sort of thing you learn in the

dormitories of Eton of a night. And for those of you who've forgotten

what the Big Society is, it's just like the Big Issue - except nobody

buys it. Speaking of those things nobody would buy even at a massive

discount, and even if they came with a Miller-sized expense account. I'm

joined on the sofa tonight by two men who are celebrating the 20 year

anniversary of Britpop and were both big in the 90s. Think of them as the

Liam and Noel of late night political chat. I speak, of course,

of #manontheleft Alan "AJ" Johnson. And #sadmanonatrain Michael "All

Aboard" Portillo. Your moment of the week. I was very pleased that Nigel

Evans, the former deputy speaker, long serving of Parliament was

cleared of all charges laid against him. His reputation has taken a

terrible kicking. He looked like a half broken man. I believe there is

more kicking of his reputation to come. I want to put it on the record

how much Parliamentary colleagues that I knew, I thought he was one of

the most straightforward, loyal, decent, reliable people I ever came

across. For that reason, I'm pleased, at least, that he has not

suffered the horror of being found guilty of these charges. Not one of

the nine, was he found guilty. As a former Home Secretary, I want to

talk to you later about what this means for the Crown Prosecution

Service. Before we get there, what is yours? The public disclosure act,

which introduced protection back in the late 90s, it was not perfect. It

was very difficult to know who a whistle-blower would go to to blow

their whistle too. There was a number of prescribed people. They

could go to the National Audit Office or the ombudsman, but that's

a pretty daunting task. From this week they can go to any member of

Parliament. Why? Because a member of Parliament, not one of mine, a

conservative, David Davies, he slogged through a ten minute Bill,

went to the progress of getting Government support, went to talk to

the opposition and now it has become a statutory instrument. Practically

nobody knows about it. In a week when perhaps the worst side of

Parliament has been shown, I think it's a good example of the hard slog

of politics that gets you no particular praise, but will have

been very beneficial for a lot of people. If you are a whistle-blower,

you might be careful which member of Parliament you go to, some are more

executive minded than the executive. Everyone else is delighted, Andrew.

I'm just putting that warning out there, you can't trust them all.

According to the ever humble Maria Miller, in the end she had to go

because she'd become a distraction. The Chancellor was miffed that we

work to preoccupied with her to notice that the International

Monetary Fund. Forecasts had been too pessimistic and they now think

they will be the fastest-growing economy in the G7 this year. But

given their atrocious record of predictions, is it really time to

unscrew a bottle of the blue stuff? But the IMF is not alone in saying

this is a more robust recovery than expect it. We turned to the nation's

favourite shopkeeper, former Dragon Theo Paphitis. This is his take of

the week. As a shopkeeper, icon of all people,

recognise the importance of consumer spending. I've been saying it for a

while and now, if consumers are spending it shows they have still

got confidence the economy. Now, I have been positive all of the way

through this recession. Why? Because it is my third one. My only concern

is if we can keep interest rates down, preserve employment. The

answer, yes, we did. All this talk of the squeezed middle, what a load

of political claptrap. You are electioneering. As far as I'm

concerned, it doesn't actually exist.

The so-called squeezed middle, as far as I am concerned, have not done

too bad out of this recession. Mortgage rates have gone down to

unprecedented levels, leaving a bigger disposable income. The worst

they have had to do is tighten their belts a little bit, miss out on

their ski holiday and maybe change the car a little less frequently.

So, if the so-called squeezed middle have not paid the price for this

recession, who has? Those at the bottom, the poor. They have seen

rent go up, their fuel costs go up and, in some cases, their benefits

go down. Quite rightly, the Government has

tried to bring down our welfare bill. That has come at a cost. The

cancer on our society, payday lenders and the rise of food banks.

Whilst brilliant, there's no reason they should exist. In my opinion,

politicians have stopped focusing on people in the middle, they should

focus on people at the bottom. And from the Centre Court Shopping

Centre in Wimbledon to our own little shopping centre here in the

heart of Westminster. Theo Paphitis, welcome to the show. Now, after the

crash, we lost 7% of our GDP, more than we did in the great

depression. The economy is still smaller than it was in 2007. Wages

have been trailing prices for years. Are you really sure this recession

hasn't hurt badly? It certainly has, you probably remember the last two

recessions as well. The first two were really painful, unemployment,

queues at the dole office, it didn't happen this time. Employment and

interest rates were the keys, that made a massive difference. As we

have seen, some of the poorest in society have, unfortunately, paid

the price. What do you say to that? I would say the middle-income group,

the squeezed middle, probably their quality of life has not eroded as

much. They have tightened their belts a little bit. So I agree with

that. But you can't get away from the fact that wages on average down

?1600. The red book on the budget just a few weeks ago said that by

the next election wages would be down by 5.6%, real wages. Gas

fires, rail fares etc, it has had an effect on everyone. It had an effect

on a group of people that are not in the category where you probably

wouldn't go to food banks, but they are also not getting the benefit of

the decrease in high rate of income tax. In that sense, there is a real

problem. Theo? The squeezed middle, what a load of nonsense. It's more

like the squeezed bottom! I think I've heard you say that a couple of

times. We had food in times when there was excessive everywhere. All

they had to do was get rid of some of those excesses. They have

relatively remained unscathed. The bottom end have suffered, but the

middle have suffered. It's very difficult for the group of people in

the middle who have seen an effect on their income, that didn't happen

in the previous two recessions, actually. There was not that

reduction in real take-home pay. Come on, you are old enough to

remember the facts, you don't have too make it up. Let me bring Michael

in here, well you recover. I suppose a more modest way of saying what

Theo is arguing is that the last six years have hardly been great, but

there has not been, for most people, abject misery. Most folk

have, with a bit of belt tightening, managed to make ends meet? I think

it's very solitary if you go abroad and see what people in Spain and

Greece say, Italy, Ireland, where there have been massive adjustments

in property prices. I think property prices is at the heart of what Theo

is arguing. If you are a property owner, the fact that interest rates

have remained so low, for so long, it has been of extraordinary

benefit. You would have expected to pay much more for your mortgage. All

of this has come at a price, in economic terms. We have not made the

adjustment that other countries like Ireland and Spain have made in

property prices. We left them very high. This is because the Government

didn't want anyone to be repossessed. There have been very

few repossessions. But it means we have a credit fuelled recovery, not

an exporter fuelled recovery. It means we are in danger of going back

into the cycle. Except there is no rise in negative equity, none at

all. In fact, negative equity is in decline. Unsecured debt, largely

credit card debt, has risen only modestly. I think when you look at

the debt figures, there is little evidence to say this is a recovery

fuelled by debt. First of all, people in properties feel much

richer. I understand that. And their mortgages have gone down, the point

you have been making. If you keep interest rates at 1% for six or

seven years, you can bet that people, sooner or later, are going

to start borrowing again. It's too good a deal. Overall, households are

still paying down their debt. It follows from what you said, if you

are right. Ed Miliband constantly banging on about the squeezed

middle, if you are right, he is saying something that is not

resonating? The middle is not squeezed, it won't resonate? They

have to concentrate on the realities. It seems like a great

thing, if you want to appeal to a wider electorate. That is what we

do. The reality is, as far as the middle is concerned, they have had a

pretty soft landing. Let's talk about the bottom as well. I

understand the point you make about them being squeezed. You also make

the point that employment has remained high. That is of immense

benefit to people in the bottom. A lot of people that might expect to

be unemployed or not. Maybe the squeezed middle, if it has been

resonating, will run out of steam? There is a poll in the standard

tonight that shows 80% of the public that shows there is an issue, so it

does not look like it is running out of steam. Now, a cost of living

problem, Labour saying there is a crisis. If you take tax and benefits

alone, that average group in the middle has lost around ?980. That

figure only works when you include the top 10%. Make the top 10% to

come out and then do the average it comes to ?400. Still a squeeze. So

Theo, this is all wonderful Abbas Khan I did not say it is all

wonderful, I am a realist. You have to accept there is a problem, Theo?

The problem came when we went into the deepest recession. You lot went

off, the other lot came in and then it is the public who have got to put

up with it. Now you're saying oh my God, it was so terrible. Now we were

out of the recession by five successive quarters of growth. We

were supposed to continue that level of growth. If you look at the state

of the French or Italian economies, the Spanish, all of them have shown

some growth. The eurozone, the US is growing. Not as fast as the UK

economy. That is because it has already grown. Slowest recovery from

any American recession in history. And the same in Britain, also.

Things seem to have changed. I think anybody accepts there is a recovery

underway. Labour is slightly ahead in the polls, inflation is falling,

unemployment is falling, living standards are starting to rise

again. This is not the economic backdrop Labour thought it would he

fighting the election on? I think anyone who is analysing this would

have expected us to make a recovery by the 2015 election. Probably not

as strong as it has turned out to be? Michael's point, that it is

based on easy credit. It is not. Once those interest rates go up, as

they inevitably will. The man in Weston-super-Mare will start feeling

things are getting better. A year ago, Labour said there was no

recovery and the government have two change its strategy. But the IMF has

admitted it was wrong. I don't think anybody could count on this recovery

a year ago. Just over a year ago, a feeling had set in that the recovery

was so slow, we wondered if it was going to come back. We now

absolutely take for granted the recovery, but we also forget that

until recently we did not count on it at all. Surely the point that

still resonates, when it comes to 2015, for most people, they will

still not be as well off. They will be less well off in 2015 than they

were when this coalition come to power? A lot of people expected a

lot, a lot worse with the recession than it turned out. In some ways

they will feel very relieved. CEO won't be the only person in the

world to remember who was in power when the recession began. It is too

difficult question for this time of night.

Now it's late. "Chief Whip, Sir George Young, knocking on Maria

Miller's door with a pearl-handled revolver" late. But unlike Maria,

Blue Nun passes the smell test... Sort of. So hold your nose and pour

yourself another. Because waiting in the wings is Irish actor and

comedian, Aisling Bea, to talk about the visit of the Irish President and

the attraction of coming to Britain. And if you have any moral

superiority left in you after the sorry saga of Ms Miller, feel free

to vent your synthetic outrage at us on The Twitter, The Fleecebook and

the Interweb. It's not as if we actually bother reading any of your

comments - so fill your boots. Now. MPs head off on their Easter

holidays next week and so do we! For me, it's a two-week

all-expenses-paid holiday at an exclusive resort Down Under with

Wills and Kate! For Michael and Alan, it's an

all-paid-for-by-expenses stay in a pokey flat in Basingstoke

masquerading as a family home with Maria Miller! Sorry guys, she's

really not suffered enough. So to get us all in the mood for Easter,

we sent the Spectator's Isabel Hardman to learn from one of

London's top chocolatiers William Curley. Here's her EGG-cellent

round-up of the week. See what I did there? Who writes this stuff?!

Hello. I am busy preparing Easter treats for the This Week team.

Making chocolate takes a long time, longer than 32 seconds. If you are

not careful you could end up like our politicians with a bit of a

sticky mess. Sorry, Chef! On Monday, the Prime Minister

started with a trip to the supermarket. Not his favourite one,

he is a Waitrose kind of guy. But as they had an Easter off on, get

thousand of jobs for free. But the journalists had something else on

their minds. Maria Miller is in her job because she is doing a good job

as Culture Secretary. She went through this process and the

committee found she had made a mistake in her mortgage claim so she

repaid money, made an apology. I think that is the right thing to do.

Come on Isabel, let's move it. But Downing Street melted faster than a

chocolate teapot and failed to sell the tie any support the Maria

Miller. And Esther McVey were given free rein to criticise Maria Miller.

It is at times like this is a minister needs his or her bag

carrier to step up to the plate for them. I'd do think this is a

witchhunt by the media, who are angry about the leather some

reports, equal marriage and they are taking it out on Maria. Many in the

Conservative Party thought it was her clumsy text messages that did

the Maria Miller. She tried to sweeten her constituents by penning

an emotional piece for her Basingstoke local newspaper. Perhaps

if she had written this on the day she spoke in the Commons, she could

have support -- survived. Support was like gold dust. It is a question

of honour. She should quietly have gone to the Prime Minister and said,

I think I should go. And the Prime Minister should have said, yes,

thank you for doing a good job, you can come back at some time later.

Honour is saved at all that, I am out raged about it. Even so, most of

us thought she would try to stick it out until Wednesday when

Conservative backbenchers meet at the committee. As journalists were

sharpening pencils in anticipation when Mrs Miller decided to take an

early Easter break. I hoped that I could stay but it has become clear

to me over the last few days this has become an enormous destruction

and it is not right I am distracting from the incredible achievements of

this government. -- enormous destruction. Was she pushed, Ord did

she jump? Number ten has shut down all

discussion repeatedly saying it was Maria Miller's decision to go. It

sounds like she did get a visit from someone and it probably wasn't the

Easter Bunny. What really did for Maria Miller was a mix of backbench

fear of the public backlash, a lack of warmth from senior colleagues and

the Chancellor's allies were furious that this news about the economy was

lost in the mix about the ongoing Maria Miller model.

What have we got here? Oh dear. It's not up to standard. The Minister has

dominated the agenda. Labour's pledge to give English councils ?20

billion disappear faster than 32 second apology. So a PMQs, Ed seized

his opportunity. He said six days ago she had done the right thing and

should leave it up that. Does he realise it is a terrible error of

judgement? Why didn't he call on her to resign? He seems to be the first

leader of the opposition in history to come to this house and make the

first suggestion someone should resign, after they have already

resigned. I have heard everything! It is my job to fire members of his

cabinet. In opposition, David Cameron prided himself on his

finesse in judging the public opinion. But he has misjudged the

public mood now and many Tory MPs are worried it has left them looking

vulnerable before the European elections. Still, there is one bit

of politics guaranteed to leave you with the sweet taste, and a sugar

high. Andrew, this is for you. Michael, what did you make of the

shambles? One of the biggest shambles I have ever witnessed in

British politics? Because? Unnecessary? David Cameron had

decided his government was going to be whiter than white. Maria Miller

had been forced to make an apology to the House of Commons for being

uncooperative with the investigating authority. Any Secretary of State

who found people were being uncooperative with her or with him

would be outraged. I don't see how you can have a member of the cabinet

apologising to the house who had been uncooperative with the

authorities. That was a sack of all offence in itself. I think David

Cameron should have said, I told you things were going to be different

under me, I don't think she has done anything wrong, but she did not

cooperate, so she has gone. He would have saved himself a week of

terrible publicity. And he was worried that she must not be hounded

out by the newspapers. But what he achieved is that she has been

hounded out. If she had gone before the first began, that implication

would not have been carried. I suppose what happened was, he got

distracted by the thought she was going to be bullied and Harry ride

the Daily Mail, the Daily Telegraph and the other unhappy newspapers.

But that should not have clouded his judgement. The point to focus on is

she had done something not come -- compatible with her position as

Cabinet minister. David Cameron is not the first to do this, spend so

much political capital on a relatively obscure politician, that

no one had really heard of in the country. Was regarded by many people

as not very good at her job in the first place. Yet he is out on a

limb. Why does that happen? Not exactly a household name before This

Week. She sure is now! David Cameron does seem to have a little bit of a

fetish of this idea of personal loyalty. We saw this also with Andy

Coulson. It is as if he sees it as his own code of honour. Which in

theory is not a bad thing? In the right circumstances it can be an

admirable quality. But as Michael said, if you know what you might end

up having to do, do it quickly because a week of these front pages

has been bad for the Prime Minister. Do you think the political class in

general forgot how bad this is? No, Betty Boothroyd had it right. Nobody

was expect a Maria Miller to get away with this. When David Cameron

was in opposition, a lot of decent Tories went, he sacked them in

opposition. He said it was wrong. There was no way her house in

Wimbledon, in which her husband, her children and parents lived was her

second home. It starts from that ASIC points and builds from there.

The frustration for politicians on all sides who were tearing their

hair out last week because she was still there, people seem to think

that is still the system. This system has changed completely. If it

happened now it would be an independent person dealing with it.

Maria Millie was only dealt with under that process because it was a

legacy before 2010. I read articles from a usually very informed

journalist that seem to have missed that point. David Cameron back to an

events and nobody to defend her until it was too late? It was the

wrong wicket to be batting on. Just to dwell on hard strawberry this has

all been, as you pointed out, we had this fantastic economic news,

completely lost. The beginning of the European elections, completely

drowned out. In one year's time, we will be in a general election

campaign. To have a Government associated with the sleaze of MP

expenses, one year before the election, it is a calamitous

outcome. So easily avoided. Do you think there was an element of a

witchhunt in this by the papers? Many people are saying it. I don't

know anybody in the newspapers who thought that Maria Miller was a

formative figure in the Leveson process. She just happen to have the

portfolio. It was Oliver Letwin, the Prime Minister. Nobody thinks she

was important, so I doubt see why the papers would have created a

witchhunt. Your point of David Cameron expending so much political

capital, it would be odd for the papers to blend -- rent their spleen

on this. On gay marriage as well, she wasn't the influence. It was the

Prime Minister will who forced this. Are you not surprised, as I was

surprised, that the Prime Minister did not replace Miss Miller with one

of the number of rather, just as there are on the Labour side, the

number of rather bright young Tory women? I was surprised, but I do

think that the new Secretary of State for culture is very

interesting. He is of Pakistani origin, working class background,

completely self-made. So he's a really interesting appointment.

Esther McVey would have been interesting. Pretty Patel, who

happens to be a woman and an ethnic minority. Absolutely. What he has

ended up with is a cabinet with the proportion of women in it going down

all of the time. When he came into Government he promised to have 40%

of his ministerial team female. We have half the percentage of women in

our cabinet that Rwanda has, less than half. Rwanda! If you were

inventing a parliament, as they did in Rwanda, you presumably were...

That is what they are dealing with. Francois Hollande has 52%.

Absolutely. This point of giving the women's Minister position to

somebody who is not a full member of cabinet and reporting to a man,

extremely unhealthy. There is not a mother, does that matter? I think it

does, being one myself, I know that women's lives change radically when

they become mothers. You look at things slightly differently. You

care about things differently as well? Your economic circumstances

change completely, if you don't have people who understand that

experience, you will have lined spot on policy. On gay marriage, he has

managed to appoint a woman responsible for women's issues who

voted against gay marriage, so people are now saying she is

Minister for heterosexual women. Final thought, Michael? I think

there has to be a reshuffle because I think we do need to have more

women and more ethnic minorities. The real issue is who is in the

inner circle. The cabinet is in public display, but the people

really calling the shots are a small group close to the Prime Minister,

some of whom are in parliament and some of whom are not. I'm very few

of whom are women. They don't let girls into Eton! Dick Whittington

found that the streets of London were not paved with gold. Whilst

Maria Miller found that the streets of Wimbledon most certainly were -

to the tune of over ?1 million, minus capital gains tax - if she

ever gets round to paying it. So, with such riches to be made from so

little effort, is it any wonder people from around the world want to

come, and live, and claim expenses in Perfidious Albion? And so, on the

day when those annoying fact-checkers at the Office for

National Statistics revealed we've underestimated the number of recent

migrants by at least 350,000, we've decided to ponder why people bother

and put "Coming to Britain" in this week's Spotlight.

Once upon a time, the headliner Martin McGuinness toasts the Queen

would have shocking connotations. But the former IRA man showed times

have changed for the better at Windsor Castle this week. The

banquet was in honour of Michael D Higgins, the first-ever state visit

by an Irish President, who spoke of friendship, shared history, but not

forgetting our troubled past. The intertwined histories of Ireland and

Britain have indeed no great turbulence. But we meet at a time

when the relationship between hers has never been more friendly or

respectful. So, what have his charm and stature done for Anglo-Irish

relations? For a start, it shows Irish visitors no longer labour

under the impression they are not welcome at the top table. Foreigners

come to Britain for lots of reasons. One MP is determined to find out

why, living undercover as a migrant, trying to understand why so many

young Poles want to move to Britain. If only he had asked the

Education Secretary. He told cabinet that people come here for a variety

of attractions, one of them being, and I quote, loads of hot sex.

# It's getting hot in here, to take off all your clothes... #

So, what makes our fair isle so attractive? In a week when Ireland

and Britain moved closer together, are people more ready to put the

past behind them in search of a brighter future?

How about that? How important was it to see the head of state of Ireland

sitting down at a state banquet? Hugely important. Odd balaclava

jokes aside, it was an amazing thing to see. I moved to win in seven

years ago. If you had told me then they would be hanging tricolours

alongside union Jacks on the road to Buckingham Palace, you would have

laughed your head off. To see them now, as someone who lives here, it

is sort of a beautiful thing. Going back to the balaclava, even more

remarkable was Martin McGuinness? It really was. There was a lot of

controversy about it, obviously. But it is sort of a testament to

humanity that can happen. It is sort of one of those things where you go,

God, we are not robots, we are humans and we get over things. If

you put anger aside, the amount that can be achieved in such a short

amount of time is remarkable and a testament to human people. To

humans, rather. The lead up to what happened, the huge success of this

week, it can go back to the Queen's visit to Ireland three years ago,

which laid the groundwork for this? Absolutely. Even in the week in the

lead up to that, people were still naysaying. Report of a bomb on a bus

from Dublin, quite serious threats. As soon as she stepped off the

plane, in a green outfit, spoke a bit of Gaelic, everybody went, oh,

she's lovely, just like your old mother, just like your mother. How

popular William and Kate are as well, that has filtered into

everybody's psyche. The Queen's magnanimity in this is exceptional.

I think she has played more of a political role on Ireland than she

has ever played on any other subject. Her willingness to go to

Ireland, lay a wreath, her willingness to have Martin

McGuinness in Buckingham Palace, remembering the assassination of

Lord Mountbatten by the IRA, this is an extraordinarily personal mission

the Queen has undertaken, without parallel and without precedent. One

of the consequences has been, as the Prime Minister claimed this week,

and I think he was right too, that Anglo-Irish relations have been good

for some time now. But they have never been better? No. I think in

terms of what Her Majesty did, what Martin McGuinness did was hugely

brave. It's no good celebrating what has happened in Northern Ireland. I

used to represent members killed on duty, 16 of them assassinated during

the troubles, I was always over there as a union official. You can't

celebrate that and failed to recognise the courage it took from

people on all sides. I think that is an aspect of it. It would have been

easy for him to play to the gallery and say, I'm not going to go. It

doesn't make him any less of a Republican that he's gone to the

Palace. He has taken his responsibilities seriously and that

is remarkably brave. I think in politics you really respect people

that aren't looking for glory or the vote, genuinely looking for change.

I think that is what all of this is. What was really appreciated, the

symbolism was so huge, especially with the tensions. When the Queen

came over three years ago, and she doesn't normally speak the language

of the place she visits, she arrived and spoke a little line of Gaelic,

of Irish, at the start of a meal that they were having. It was so

huge to hear the Queen of England speak a line. A tiny bit of

symbolism that makes a huge difference. Martin McGuinness, he is

bowing his head, but he's not... There was a slight gesture there.

For her, to welcome him, when her family had been affected. What we

had on Spotlight is why people want to come to Britain. I wonder why,

for most people, it is not so much Britain they want to come to, it is

London? London is a beautiful city, I have been living here for seven

years and I love it. Why did you come here? To steal your jobs. I

moved over here to go to drama school. I moved over here seven

years ago, before the crash in the economy. I sort of moved over here

out of choice and opportunity rather than necessity, which is a nicer

reason to move anywhere. When I moved here, I was immediately

involved in the community, the artistic community. I have always

felt a familiar tie to London. I feel part of it. There are very few

Cockney geezers left in London. Where you come here, you sort of

become a Londoner. If you move to Dublin, you will never become a

Dubliner. Have the natives been friendly? I haven't talked to many

of them, I haven't been able to go out in these tropical climes. Some

of my best friends are you people! These aren't Londoners, these

Scotsmen and... I can't tell difference. There is a huge Irish

community in London. It does amazingly well. There is the Irish

Centre in Camden, which doesn't just look after... We run the London

Irish comedy Festival, it doesn't just look after the elderly people,

it also looks after the vulnerable young people that come over on

Ryanair, expecting everything to be amazing. To quit hint? There is a

support system? You are happy to be here? -- Dick Whittington. The And

there is also loads of hot sex. That is the real reason you came? I can

confirm the reports. That is your lot for tonight, but not for us. It

is the smell test, and Michael is wearing his Teen Spirit, just for

the occasion. We leave you tonight with the increasingly gorgeous

George. Windsor, that is, not Galloway. He already looks like he

has a way with the girls. Good night, don't let the return of cool

Royal Britannia bite.