15/05/2014 This Week

# Rise like a Phoenix. Tonight on This Week, as Austrian

lady-man Conchita tops the Eurovision poll, we look to the

other, slightly less popular, Euro and Scottish polls. Representing

Scotland, the BBC's latest star, Sarah Smith. There are not any

bearded ladies in Scotland, but David Cameron is paying a visit

today to try to live up the European election campaign.

And just like the UK's Eurovision vote, Michael Gove and the so-called

education "blob" disagree over the benefits of free schools.

Representing Educating Essex, the risque headmaster Mr Drew, who is

clean shaven this evening. The headteacher jury gives free schools

nil point. And controversy over a bearded drag

queen winning Eurovision but not as much caused by Jeremy Clarkson and

the local radio BBC DJ, over use of the N-word. Someone more used to the

mean streets of Baltimore than the political stage, The Wire's Clarke

Peters is our final contender. A bearded woman wins the Eurovision

Song contest. I guess it's all in the game, Junior. It's all in the

game. We'll try our very best and rise

from the ashes of another edition of This Week.

Evenin' all. Welcome to This Week, and the start of a 20-day - count

'em - 20-day break for our overworked and under-performing

parliamentarians. Yes, the Zombie Political Apocalypse is upon us, so

watch out voters, the Westminster Walking Dead are converging on their

constituencies as we speak, for some unearned respite from the

legislative horror. Yet with almost 12 months still to go until the

general election, the coalition are making sure they at least sound

busy, busy telling anyone who'll listen that they haven't run out of

substantial ideas or policy gimmicks. They have so many

indignities to put up with. This week, Michael Gove had his lunch

money, -- confiscated by Nick Clegg. He also had to ride out free school

lunches are great and affordable 100 times. Speaking of reanimated

corpses who feed off the brains of others, I'm joined on the sofa

tonight by two sharp dressed men who every girl is crazy about. Think of

them as the ZZ Top and the ZZ Bottom of late-night political chat. I

speak, of course, of #manontheleft Alan "gimme all your lovin" Johnson,

and #sadmanonatrain Michael "all your hugs and kisses too" Portillo.

I think you can take off the disguises now. Your moment of the

week? A personal one. I travelled last week between juristic them and

Bethlehem, which requires you to go through the barrier erected by the

Israelis. -- Joe Root Sylla them and Bethlehem.

It is the first time I had seen the barrier, which is as tall as a

house. I suppose it is hundreds of kilometres long because it goes all

around the settlements. I don't want to make a cheap, anti-Israeli

point, because since it was put up they have reduced the number of

terrorist incidents dramatically, but it is just a human tragedy. It

is terrible to see this wall between two sets of people. If you live the

other side, if you are Palestinian, you obviously feel you are in prison

because you are entirely dependent on what comes through the wall from

Israel. If you are in need of work and you have to work in Israel, you

are required to walk through the checkpoint, get in a bus and be

taken to work and then be brought back in. I found it deeply shocking

euphemism for it is a barrier, because they do not want to compare

it to the Berlin wall, but it is a great big wall. I have been

supporting a strike in the land Registry, which is an important part

of our economy, and part of the civil service, which does an

important function, a quasi judicial role. But essentially, government

guarantee for who owns what in terms of land around the country. There

was a consultation period a couple of months saying that the government

wanted to change but that the status quo, remaining in the civil service,

giving 100 million back to the Treasury last year, by the way, was

an option. But a document leaked to the Guardian showed they had a ready

made up their mind to privatise it. And that is what sparked industrial

action, and I very much support it. It has not had much coverage. Which

is one of the reasons I raise it. It has had very little coverage. It has

now. Molly, your moment of the week? Really? I found that the most

interesting. Now, whilst well behaved pupils

spent the past week revising and sitting exams, the politicians

responsible for their education spent the week scrapping behind the

bike sheds, with Tory Education Secretary Michael Gove and his gang

of advisors fighting with the Lib Dem gang over free schools and free

school meals. We should not be surprised when they start arguing in

public over who made what free. All the naughty boys denied any

wrongdoing, claiming, "Please, sir, wasn't me, sir, he started it, sir".

We thought some discipline was required and turned to Educating

Essex star, headteacher Mr Drew. This is his take of the week.

In school halls like this up and down the country young people have

been taken exams this week. They work hard and take it seriously. At

the same time, politicians have been squabbling about free schools and

free school meals. They don't understand the damage they do.

Perhaps they should learn the lesson from our young people. The

government policy on free school meals from reception to year two

children is a good example of what government should do, but they could

not work out how to deliver it and it is causing problems. The parties

are now happy to argue and fight over whose idea it was and how it

should happen. They should reflect on what they are doing. For the

Education Secretary and his advisers, if opening a free school

causes disruption, so be it. They feel they are battling the blob of

education. What is that? Teachers like me who believe in local

accountability in a national system. Free schools can be set up, it

seems, by anyone. Even if they have no idea about education they will be

given money to set up a school and manage a system educating children.

It just doesn't make sense. Unfortunately, anyone in education

who is hoping that after the next election that if Tristram Hunt

becomes Education Secretary the world will be different will be

sadly disappointed. The art and seems to have one by Mr Goh vent --

Tristram Hunt sounds more and more like a junior minister than someone

from a different party. I like Michael Gove. I don't buy into what

a lot of people say that he is fundamentally bad. I think he has

done a lot of good things for the education system but I think the

politicians at present delight in listening to think tanks, ignoring

what education experts say an almost taking pleasure in doing things

which fundamentally change everything that has gone on

previously. I just think they don't understand the damage they do.

And from the assembly hall at Brentwood County High School to our

own little assembly hall here in the heart of Westminster, Mr Drew joins

us now. Michael, let me come to you, is he right to be so critical of

politicians when it comes to education? I thought Mr Drew was

firing at the wrong target, because on the whole I don't think

politicians disagree about education. Politicians of the three

main parties disagree with the blob. And for the last 40 years,

ministers, whether working for Tony Blair or for David Cameron, have

been trying to bring what they would regard as some common sense, some

aspiration and standards into the system, against certain

educationalists who have social theories about what should go on in

education. I don't think that the blob includes Mr Drew and I suspect

it doesn't include a lot of teachers, but it does include some

people in ivory towers who have been constructing education policy for

the last five decades and have managed to sustain that construction

of education policy in the face of what ministers, elected by the

people, wanted to do. And Michael Gove is maybe the first person to

begin to wrestle with that blob. You feel that he means the education

establishment, union leaders, educationalists, some people in the

Department for Education as well. You felt it referred to you. I would

be proud to be part of what he calls the blob. I did my PGCE at the

Institute of education in London, a world leading organisation in

training of teachers. The Institute of education has been repeatedly

denigrated by Mr Gove over the last few years to the point where they

can't get funding to do things they want to do. We do read what these

people write, and they do know what they're talking about. It feels like

at this point in time, Michael referred to the fact that Michael

Gove has been able to do things ministers have wanted to do

four-year is, but it feels like what he is doing is what may be

politicians of his ilk have wanted to do for a long time, take on what

they see as a vested interest. But I think they missed the point

completely, because it feels as if people are experts in education,

because we say things Michael Gove does not like, we are without value

and have no interest at all. I think you can be somebody who wants

incredibly high standards, the very best for children, and still be a

believer in education theory and promotion of ideas. It is not just

Mr Gove who has faced resistance to his changes. The last Labour

government under Mr Blair faced a lot of resistance from the

educational establishment. I was Education Secretary and I remember

it. I think Mr Drew's piece showed that actually what Michael Gove is

doing is turning the whole of the educational establishment against

him. There is a lot of truth to what Michael Portillo says about having

to fight for academies, having to open up schools which were closed

institutions. Ken Baker started that process and we carried on and turned

around many bad results. It isn't that bit of the educational

establishment Michael Gove is upsetting, it is the whole range of

teachers. I am amazed how many enemies he has made, and he has made

them because it seems to them to just be a heads down ideological

experiment with no proof that it is working. Academies, and spreading

academies, concentrating on raising standards, that is all stuff that we

should be doing. But the free school experiment, copied from Sweden, and

he was full of himself in opposition saying this Swedish experiment was

working, well, it is not working in Sweden now and there is a lot of

evidence that it is not working here. You are turning into an

academy. There is no choice. If you could choose you would not do it?

Absolutely not. The government have created an environment in which you

either turn into an academy or you will not get any money. We convert

on the 1st of June, and suddenly we can start bidding for access to

funding that the DfEE sits on. Alan referred to the thing regarding

results and improvements. Under the Labour government schools were told

that results were going up and up, but unfortunately it feels to

teachers as if the moment the new coalition government comes in, that

idea of improved standards is not the mantra that they want, so they

have to talk about invented grade inflation, doing down the work that

we have done. There is a lot of evidence to suggest it is invented.

I would suggest it is one of the biggest lies of the last few years.

Why can't it be true that teachers have got better, worked harder with

children, that children work harder? Because we can compare the questions

of 20 years ago to the papers of today. By doing that, you missed the

point about how exams work. Exams work on a factual basis

historically, so the questions look cleverer. Questions in exams in more

recent times are more about the open-minded thinking process. I

completely dispute that. When I did exams 40 years ago they were not

just fact -based. They were all about imagination, interpretation,

applying intelligence. That a complete invention that these things

were not in the curriculum 40 years ago. You weren't around... I was 40

years ago. There are lots of attempts going on by teachers to be

positive. The Headteachers round table work together and promote

ideas into government, coming up with curricular models that allow

everyone to do things. These groups of teachers get ignored, dismissed.

How come more and more top jobs in our country are going to public

schoolboys? That is a whole other argue up about the problems of

breaking into some professions and some of the professions that were -

It was happening. It is stepping back now? I would say that is a

completely different argument to state schools. Would you? Yeah. I

was at a guy from St John's College Cambridge, 70% from director grammar

schools now it's... I don't think you can use grammar schools as a

proper example of state schools. It becomes an easy thing to do say

children went to a grammar school where you cream off the people at

the top - I understand that. The bit of the argument you deny. In those

days people who had no money got into Oxford and Cambridge and became

Cabinet ministers, because of the changes ha is no longer true.

Grammar schools don't spread advantage they entrench it. That is

the Conservative Party view, it's absolutely right. The point you make

about kids not being as bright as they were, looking at the exam

papers of 20 to 30 years ago. You can get children now to take the

exam papers of 30 years ago. You can't get children then to take the

exam papers of today. That is the essential point. Life changes.

Questions change. Computer technology etc changes. Final

question to Mr Drew. You attack free schools. The latest Ofsted study

shows, they are being held to a higher degree by Ofsted. Of those

new free schools provided by new entrance, people never in the

education before, 75% are outstanding? I don't think 75% are

outstanding. 5% have been graded as good or outstanding. 75% outstanding

by those provided of new entrants not in the system before. The

arguments is the people come in and give you a run for your money?

Michael Gove talks about the fact he wants all state school children to

have the same opportunity as children say going to Eton or other

places. What Michael Gove has done is created an unlevel playing field.

The reason why maybe free schools in that environment can do better is

because the funding is not the same. If you look at the funding given to

a new free school opening and you look at the way they are funded.

Their funding per pupil is higher than a school that doesn't receive

that. At the end of the day, the more money you give to somebody in a

school, if you double the amount of money you have, you can cut your

class size in half - Lots of countries are spending less per

pupil than we are and getting better results. Better results. Why are

China ahead of Britain in the PISA tables, they use Shanghai and the

most wealthy children. You can't compare. There was a survey last

week that said Britain had the second most successful education

system in Europe. Where was that all over the news when the PISA results

come out, we are the worst people in the world. When another survey say

we ared second only behind Finland, where is the news about that? It's

not a storey people want to publish. Good luck with the Academy. Thank

you. Now, it's late - Richard Judy pearl-handled revolver late. So join

us in our own little pact and let us put you out of your misery by

sticking with us to the bitter end of the Blue Nun keg. Because a man

who starred in the best TV show ever made, well after Breaking Bad, is

now waiting in the wings of the second best - or should that be

third best TV show ever made! From The Wire, now from This Week, actor

and writer Clarke Peters is here to discuss something we're not even

sure we can say - the N-word. And with news that Morrissey has now

joined Twitter - and attracted three times more followers in an hour than

we've managed to attract in three years - we can no longer claim to be

the most miserable whingers on The Twitter, The Fleecebook or the

Interweb. Morrissey has arrived. We all know how much the Prime Minister

likes his holidays, but the jellyfish of Lanzarote will have to

sting some other hapless Brit this weekend because, with the polls

narrowing in Scotland, it's squeaky bum time for Unionists, and

call-me-Dave's been forced to head for the lochs and highlands he loves

so much to help convince the Celts that they're better off with him in

charge. Good luck with that, Dave! So with a new programme on BBC Two

Scotland starting soon called, Scotland 2014, we turned to its host

and new BBC super-signing, Sarah Smith, for her thoughts on Cameron

in Caledonia and for her round-up of the political week.

All those arguments that go round and round in Westminster every week,

from up here in Scotland, they don't look like anything more than just an

illusion. Lots of people think the SNP leader,

Alex Salmond, is a big head even if the 5: 2 diet means the body is

getting smaller. Why shouldn't he be pleased with himself, his campaign

for Scottish independence has all the momentum right now. The No

campaign is known as Better Together. It has become obvious this

week they are not very happy together. Splits over a negative and

lacklustre campaign. Some would like to see the man in charge, Alistair

Darling's, head on a platter. They can't sack him, that would look too

chaotic. He will be sidelined we will see more of his old boss,

Gordon Brown instead. David Cameron has come up to Scotland today.

Gordon Brown instead. David Cameron though Scottish Labour have told him

to keep out of the country because he is so unpopular here. He's

unimpressed with Labour's efforts so far. He is ignoring their warnings

that his presence might persuade people to vote Yes, something Alex

Salmond is happy to exploit. More pandas in the zoo than Tory MPs.

Sending them up to Scotland won't impress the Scottish people. I think

the Prime Minister's performance has been a major liability for the No

campaign. David Cameron been looking into a crystal ball and seen a

future in which Scotland really might break away? He has been

contemplating his own political future. Telling friends there is no

reason why he should have to resign if there is a Yes vote. Many think

there is no way he could cling on to political power if he has lost a

large chunk of the country. It's that everyone who cares about our

United Kingdom speaks up for our United Kingdom you hear it from the

Liberal Democrats, Labour politicians and a Conservative like

myself. As Prime Minister of the United Kingdom I want to play a

strong and positive role in making the case, not only for what we have

achieved together as a United Kingdom what we can achief together

in the future. We have European and local elections next week, and the

Tories are going into both feeling 10-feet taller since two separate

opinion polls put them ahead of Labour for the first time in two

years. Down in London, Ed Miliband is worrying about his shrinking

popularity. It causes him additional problems here in Scotland too. The

more it looks like the Tories might win the next Westminster general

election, the more Scots will be persuaded to vote for independence

to escape from Tory rule. That's a conundrum for David Cameron too. The

more he looks like a winner down south, the more he might end up

being a loser up here. The good news for David Cameron is that his

Government seems to have found their way through the economic maze, which

is more than I'm managing to do here! Unemployment is at its lowest

rate for five years, the governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney has

upgrade the growth forecast. In short, the economy has started to

head back to normal. Everything in Scotland is reflected through the

independence referendum. Now people are asking themselves if the UK

economy is improving, does that mean that Scots will vote to stay part of

the union so they can share in the benefits? Does it mean they will

think they can now afford to go their own way? Now, I just need to

work out how to go my way out of here! Nigel Farage came to visit us

in Scotland a few days ago. He might as well have beamed in from outer

space for you will the relevance he has here. He could yet have an

impact on the referendum. Let us imagine UKIP do really well in the

European elections in England, but their stars fail to shine in

Scotland. That would allow the Yes campaign to argue that voters

priorities and values are so fundamentally different in the two

countries there is no point in continuing with a political union.

What Alex Salmond is offering you is not voting Yes for independence,

it's voting Yes for Brussels. He wanted Scotland to join the euro. He

is happy for the majority of Scotland's laws to be made somewhere

else. The Better Together campaign have never challenged him on this

point because they too want Scotland and the UK to remain part of the

European Union. Back in the real world, looking out

across the Edinburgh skyline, it's worth remembering, it was 15 years

ago this week the Scottish Parliament first opened. It was 20

years ago this week that my father, the Labour leader, John Smith died.

People have been asking me all week - what would he have made of the

referendum debate? The truth is I don't know the answer to that more

than anybody else. I know he was a man who passionately loved Scotland

and passionately loved politics. Whatever else, he will certainly be

enjoying every minute of it. Sarah Smith there. We are joined in our

little world of illusion by the man some of you may have heard of, the

leader of UKIP, Nigel Farage. And a woman you all have heard of, the

leader of the Green Party, Natalie Bennett. Welcome to both of you.

Natalie you are an Australian leader of the Green Party of England and

Wales. Should Scott land leave the UK I'm a British leader. I choose to

be British. There is a clue in my title which is The Leader of the

Green Party of England and Wales. We choose to go independent in 1990.

The Scottish Greens are saying a Yes vote. A different Yes vote to what

Alex Salmond is saying. Yes for a radically changed Scotland. A

Scotland that works for the common good. Nigel, what is the relevance

of UKIP in Scotland They will win their first seat in the European

parliament next Thursday. Pretty confident of that. We may win two if

it goes well. One I'm certain of? Really? That would be a turn up. It

will change the debate north of the border. The proposal is, say goodbye

to Westminster and say, yes, to Brussels. Call it what you like.

Whether you are pro-EU or not you cannot be an independent nation and

a member of the European Union. I'm hoping we can change the whole

dynamic of that debate over the summer. Why isn't Alistair Darling

running a more inspiring Better Together campaign? I think he is.

It's difficult when you are arguing for a No vote to anything. It's a

negative that you are asking for. The I think some of the stuff we

hear down here is exaggerated. They had a steady lead. A bigger lead,

but it looks like it's opening up again. They have drafted in Gordon

Brown we don't know if Alistair Darling can work together? I watched

them work together. Sometimes successfully, sometimes not. You

watched them blow apart. I would guess Gordon was planning to come in

at some stage. There was a certain tension whether Gordon could work

effectively with the other parties. There was a Labour campaign he was

involved in. You wonder if Scottish Labour tribalism isn't more

important than saving the union for them? I hope it is. It's crucial.

You have seen it close up. I'm surprised at left. For a

left-of-centre party to be arguing for the kind of, I think, narrow

nationalism we seeing up there astounds me. I believe in the union

because I think England is much better with Scotland. Scot can is a

separate country. It can do its own thing now with devolution. It must

be right for people on the left to say, we should be part of something

bigger, not something narrower and smaller. What the Scots are saying.

They want a society that, works for the common good not just for the

good of the few. They have been trying to do that against the weight

of English votes for a long time. It doesn't just give a majority for

independence.le to say the Scots are saying that would be quite

inaccurate. You end up at the point of the election date if you follow

the train through - Widen again? No - It's right on the edge. The facts

are important. The polls have started to widen again. Not back to

the wideness where they were before. They have started to widen again. I

was up there injuring during the 2011 Scottish shall parliament

campaign it felt like a different country to me! Is Nigel. You called

her the party 's rise g star. She resigned because she said you were

"attracting the racest vote" how did that make you feel? She was on

Channel 4 News arguing because we don't want to discriminate between

engineers from India and doctors from New Zealand, we have an open

door that UKIP had the most Equitable idea. What happened? She

was under huge peer pressure at university. After the debate on

Channel 4 her opponents said disobliging things to her. I can

only think some pressure was applied to her to make her change her mind.

A sense of perspective on this. One 21-year-old member of the party, who

wasn't holding a position in the party, she had in previous years,

leaves the party and makes that comment. Front page on the

newspapers.le hugish on the BBC News. The week before we had several

dozen black and minority ethnic candidates on a stage with me in

London. Last Sunday we overtook the Conservative Party in terms of the

number of black and ethnic voters to come out for us next week, shows me

that there is an establishment here terrified of what UKIP is doing and

desperate to pin this label on us. But it is in a long line of similar

examples. There is no other example, not one. Not one example of

an ethnic member of UKIP leaving and saying that. But lots of

embarrassments for you. One of the people you mention who was with you

on the platform, a restaurant owner, high up your list, could well be in

MEPs, you have described him as your immigration spokesman at one stage,

it is now discovered that his restaurant was employing seven

illegal immigrant is. Here's our small business spokesman and his son

is the director and runs the restaurant and they have an argument

with the immigration people which they are appealing. The Labour Party

in Harrow last year, seven Black Labour councillors resigned,

accusing the party of racism. That is not a national news story. If it

happens in UKIP, it is. Of course we have people who have said and done

bad things. But the level of media witchhunt against anybody from UKIP

who says or does anything shows me we must be doing very well. There is

a reason why these stories get picked up. If you look at the

posters you put up, post dangerous, damaging, divisive posters, claiming

26 million Europeans are coming to take your job, you are taking

problems we have in our society, problems with the fact of low pay,

with housing shortages and the NHS and schools, and you are blaming

immigrants. You are letting the establishment off the hook. If you

understand basic arithmetic, you will see that in the last year the

number of foreign workers in Britain increased by 7%. Net migration to

Britain is nearly 250,000 people a year. Logically, there are fewer

jobs, there is wage compression, fewer primary places, more pressure

on Accident Emergency. It is called numbers, how the world

actually works. How do you think UKIP is standing up to the media

spotlight? Is it having any effect, are they continuing to rise in the

polls? I saw one poll this afternoon which showed the UKIP vote was very

soft vis-a-vis the general election. The Conservatives are now more or

less resigned to coming third in the European election, so it is all

about 2015, leaving the Scottish referendum aside, which is very

important. So I think the Conservatives feel reasonably safe,

in the sense that Labour and the Conservatives are very close in the

opinion polls which is a good position for the Tories right now.

They are looking at what the UKIP voters will do in 2015, and a poll

today suggested the UKIP vote for 2015 is soft, so people will vote

UKIP next week but are unclear about what they will do in 2015. What is

interesting is that there are quite a lot of Conservative voters who

will lend their vote to UKIP in the European context but go back to the

Conservative Party at the general election, but the Labour voters who

have switched seem to want to stick with us rather more. I think it is

quite likely that the arithmetical effect will be greater on the Labour

Party than on the Conservative Party. Natalie Bennett, he gets lots

of publicity, not all of it good. Your problem is that you don't get

any. We have a rising range of publicity. People are noticing that

the European elections are proportional representation, and we

have seen a significant rise in the polls. What would be a good result?

We need a swing of 1.6% of trouble our number of MEPs. I am confident

with -- we will see an increase in our number of MEPs. Do you want

another bet with me? You lost the last one. Another fiver. Finally, on

Ed Miliband, what is the biggest reason his poll ratings are now not

just below Gordon Brown's but below Nick Clegg's? The single biggest

reason why the leader of the Labour Party is not streets ahead, you have

to look at the point that only once in the last 80 years has a party

come back into power five years after losing. That does not explain

his personal ratings. It is a very difficult route to take. I am trying

to tell you the truth. In terms of where we stand now, having lost an

election very recently, in the minds of people, they rejected us. Nobody

won that election, we lost it. To come back from that, the second

worst vote we had since universal franchise, is a tough job. In terms

of the policies he is putting forward, the popularity of those

with the public, he is doing fine. The parting -- the party ratings are

OK, not great, but why are his personal ratings so bad? What is

really important is how the party is doing. The individual ratings, you

can never be prime ministerial when you have not been Prime Minister.

Invariably, even John Major against Tony Blair, they will show that the

person in post gets a lot better polling on does he look as good as a

Prime Minister. A good straight bat there. Mo runs, but you were not

bowled out. Thank you both. Now, some things we can say, some

things we can't. We can say Gary Barlow's a tax avoider with an OBE.

Yet for some strange reason only David Cameron understands, we can't

say he's a tax evader without an OBE, despite being ordered to pay

back millions of pounds in tax he managed to evade. I mean avoid. I

mean evade. I mean avoid. Oh, it's harder than I thought. But when it

comes to other words, it's easier. Or is it? That's why we've decided

to tackle the ultimate verbal taboo and put the N-word in tonight's

Spotlight. If reports of the takeover of Doctor

dre's beats electronics by Apple are true we could soon see the world's

first hip-hop had phoned billionaire, not bad for a wrapper

first gain in famille and fortune with the liberal use of the N-word.

A veteran local radio DJ played an old retort -- recording of the sun

has got his hat on, not realising it contained the same racial

profanity. The BBC said an on-air apology was not enough and accepted

his resignation. But for Jeremy Clarkson, an online apology was

enough, after an outtake appeared to show the top gear presenter reciting

a famous nursery rhyme and mumbling what sounded like the N-word by

accident. Clarkson got away with it. So is the N-word always a no-no in

every situation, or are there times when it is acceptable depending on

who uses it? Or is the issue far from black and white? I'm delighted

to say we are joined by Clarke Peters. Welcome to this week. Is

there ever an appropriate time to use the N-word? I don't think so.

Was there ever an appropriate time to use the KE word after the Second

World War? That seems to have gone out of the language, but for some

reason the N-word seems to have left and it came back. I am going to

point attention to something that Marlon Brando was pointing out. We

have to look at where it is being promoted from. And then we have to

look at why it is back out here. Richard Pryor pretty much brought it

back into vogue. But having gone to Africa and realising who he was, he

also came back and said, wait a second, I was wrong. We don't need

to do that. Please stop. Which I thought was not only brave but the

right thing. Would it have been better to have attempted to abolish

the use of the word altogether, rather than as a number of Black

stars and celebrities did, trying to expropriated for themselves? How can

you do that? The moment you say it, you cannot take it out of the air

and stick it and hide it someplace. We shouldn't be having this

conversation. We shouldn't have to have this conversation. If you can

take one word out of our language commie can take the N-word out of

our language through a couple of generations. These rap stars, was it

a mistake? I think they were used, quite honestly, in order to get it

back into the world. In order to take a look at the differences

between us by the colour of our skins. And I think they are not

aware of how they were being used, because all of a sudden you are a

millionaire, a billionaire, coming from a low income, and uneducated

family environment. But at the end of the day, the use of the word has

got you some money. We got to a stage where it had almost become

acceptable for black people to use it, but obviously still very

unacceptable for others to use it. It is really not acceptable for

black people to use it. It was in the wire, wasn't it? It was. When

they tried to put it into my character's mouth, I said, there is

no way that this man is going to condescend to this level of

communication. There is just no way. How do we put it back in the box? We

know what it means, where it comes from. Unfortunately, people don't

know what it means all where it comes from, or how painful it is to

people of colour, as well as for Caucasians who feel guilty because

it is out there. Everybody hurts from it, except for those who are

making money off of it. One way to start putting it back into its box

is to censor it, but also to start explaining to people where it comes

from and why it is so distasteful and reprehensible. Absolutely.

Education will be the greatest thing for getting rid of that word. It

will give people of colour sense of integrity once it is out of the

way. In the 1950s, we had the images - this is black America I'm speaking

of - I am surprised having been here all these years that now it is

here. Like crack is here, like the police now have guns here. When I

got here, it was not like that. Maybe this is the project --

progression we have to go through, I am not sure, but we can get rid of

this word. I can only agree. The word is unacceptable. I had heard

black people were using it so I thought that was a matter for black

people to discuss amongst themselves. I think we have heard a

very logical explanation about why that is not acceptable either. I

think the BBC got it totally wrong on those examples. They did nothing

to Clarkson and they sacked someone for putting on a record. They messed

up both ways. You have to look at the reasons why a person has done

what they have done, or made the decision they have made. I don't

think either one of them should have been - they should have been

chastised, but I don't think he should have lost is job, but I think

Jeremy saying, it was a bad move, that should easily be accepted. He

was brought up at a time when that word was there. It was part of his

DNA as a child. Just before we go, what are you up to? I am doing

Midsummer murders. Good to see you again. We have met in another life,

you know. But we will not tell you about that.

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

old school and heading back to Annabel's, where it's classic disco

inferno night. And with Clarke Peters along for the ride, the dance

floor are in for a flared-trouser treat. Because believe it or not,

Clarke is actually responsible for some deep disco history. He may not

be in this clip but his backing vocals most certainly are.

Nighty-night. Don't let the Clarke Peters boogie night bite.

# Boogie nights # Ain't no doubt, we are here to

party # Come on out, got to get it started

# Dance with the boogie, get down # Because boogie nights are always

the best in town # Got to keep on dancing

# Keep on dancing # Boogie nights

# Feel that groove, let it take you higher. #