26/06/2014 This Week

Tonight on This Week, as the world's most powerful media mogul,

Rupert Murdoch, flies into town we take a look at What the Papers Say.

Former News of the World editor and David Cameron right-hand man

Andy Coulson is found guilty of conspiracy to hack phones,

but what will be the political damage for the Prime Minister?

Writing the headlines, Radio 5 Live's, Victoria Derbyshire.

Lots of coverage of that trial on the front pages of the newspapers,

but how much notice will voters take?

Live's, Victoria Derbyshire. Still on the front page,

chaos in Iraq. Roberts is playing the blame game.

President Obama is so worried about getting the kind of headlines George

W Bush did that he is failing to show leadership in the Middle East.

Roberts is playing the blame game. And the wrong sort of headlines

at the World Cup, as Luis Suarez loses it and is

banned for biting an opponent. Sports presenter and journalist

Charlie Webster is here to talk about coping with pressure.

Watch out, I hear that Michael is a bit of a biter.

about coping with pressure. This Week - tomorrow's fish

and chip paper, if we're lucky! Evenin' all. Welcome to This Week,

as we sink our teeth into another week of political foul play. "Dog

bites man" is the classic non-news story, but so, these days, thanks to

Luis Suarez, is "man bites footballer". He did it for the third

time this week and has been ordered to park his fangs on the sidelines

for the rest of the World Cup. But He did it for the third time this

week and has been ordered to park Coulson being found guilty of

conspiring to hack phones was a verdict that came back to bite the

Prime Minister on the bum, forcing Call-Me-Dave to apologise for being,

as he put it, just a Good Samaritan who gave the disgraced editor of a

sleazy red-top tabloid a second an open goal at PMQs but in the end

drew less blood than Luis Suarez, largely because the PM wrapped

himself in the Leveson report, a Report he has no intention of

implementing. At least he has something back from the 5 million

quid of our money he spent on it. himself in the Leveson report, a

Glastonbury. Think of them as the free festival and the free love of

"AJ" Johnson, and #sadmanonatrain Michael "getting off at the next

stop" Portillo. The Queen visited a jail in Belfast

with two format inmates, the First Minister and Deputy First Minister

of Northern Ireland. It was, I thought, another extraordinary move

by the Queen. She has, I think, 88 years old and making political

history, making strides with the peace process. It is remarkable that

she is playing an important political role, not an inappropriate

party political role, but nonetheless a political role. I

think when we look back on her reign, we will regard her as one of

the great monarchs. I am only sorry that what she did this week, with

all its magnanimity and integrity, was perhaps overshadowed because we

were concentrating on the lack of integrity and competence of

politicians. The Home Secretary made a speech on Tuesday, a very good

speech. It is the first time I have heard are make a strong defence

against the more extreme rubbish that has come out since the Ed

Snowden revelations. She said the danger is not mass surveillance, but

that the internet would be impossible to govern and a haven for

terrorists and serious criminals. That is why the government published

almost two years ago a draft bill, the Communications Data Bill, the

absence of which in the Queen 's speech was noted by virtually no

one. The government's main aim is to protect the population and I don't

care what problems they are having in the coalition. If they could get

agreement to get a draft bill out, they should get a bill out, because

this is a serious problem, even more serious when we see what is

happening in the Middle East. Now, while the British political

and media classes have been obsessing about hacking

and the next president of the European Commission, matters have

continued to deteriorate in Iraq. The alliance of hardline Islamists

and Saddam revanchists is holding what it's gained

and is still making progress, while Prime Minister Maliki has

rejected an Iraqi government of "national salvation", despite

American demands that he do so. Washington cynics say

President Obama knew that's what he'd do all along, which is why he

made it a condition of US action. Now he need do next to nothing.

So where now for Mr Obama's "no, we can't" foreign policy?

The appetite for further foreign wars is close to

zero on both sides of the Atlantic. But does inaction make the world

a more dangerous place? We turned to historian

Andrew Roberts. This is his take of the week.

I am a British historian who has been living in America for the last

four years, and a great believer in the special relationship. I have

become convinced that Barack Obama is now so obsessed with his legacy

that he has decided that America effectively should not have a

foreign policy, at least one worthy of the name. As a result, President

Obama has turned out to be a worse president than anyone since Jimmy

Carter. It is precisely because he is obsessed with his place in

history that history will, in fact, judge him as being a much more

dangerous president than George W Bush. In 2011, Iraq was a sovereign,

stable and self-reliant country. President Obama's words, not mine.

Then he pulled out US troops, and now, only three years later,

genocidal offshoot of Al-Qaeda called ISIS has captured Tikrit,

Mosul and Fallujah, and is marching on Baghdad itself. Because defence

cuts have sliced back the RAF from 20 strike and fighter squadrons in

2003 down to just seven today, Britain cannot act alone. We need

leadership, and President Obama is not giving it. Although America was

not popular when George W Bush was president, it was at least feared

and respected. Now, because President Obama is so desperate for

America to be popular, it is neither feared nor respected, nor,

ironically enough, popular. This is the one I'm getting.

And from the brand-spanking new Foyles book shop on Charing Cross

Road to our own little book shop here in the heart of Westminster,

Andrew Roberts joins us now. Michael, President Obama, is he the

worst president since Jimmy Carter? Yes, I think he probably years.

Where I disagree, I don't disagree that he has no foreign policy worth

a name, but where I disagree is that I don't think the contrast with

other presidents is as stark as it might appear. Although George W Bush

was feared, and the United States was taken more seriously in those

days, clearly the interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan were

ineffective and counter-productive. Also, broadening this out to Ukraine

and Russia, it has never been the case that the United States has been

able to control what Russia does. The big contrast is that what Russia

now does is a lot further away from the West than what it used to do in

the days of stronger presidents. Russia are used to intervene in

Czechoslovakia and Hungary and the West could do nothing about it, but

now it intervenes in Crimea and the West can do nothing about it. In

summary, we have never been able to do anything about Russia and as far

as the Middle East is concerned we used to intervene but our

interventions were destructive and counter-productive. I think that is

very fair. We could also take into account the South China Sea and the

Syrian civil war to see a much weaker America, a hobbled America.

And I wonder whether or not the attack on the Crimea would have

taken place if Ronald Reagan had been president. I think you could

have assumed the Russians were at several times, in Kennedy's

presidency and Ronald Reagan's presidency, for example, scared of

what America might do, that they might act irrationally, something

might go horribly wrong. Vladimir Putin has none of that fear. Will

President Obama be judged as more dangerous than George Bush? He

won't, because there is no doubt America has the person they voted

for. It is the same over here. We have the same issues in terms of the

unpopularity, for whatever reason, it is no doubt it was not a stunning

success going into Iraq. The further America gets from 9/11 and the less

familiar those memories are, when Obama came in, it was clearly the

case, and it still is, I saw a poll that said 16% of Americans thought

troops should go in in response to ISIS in Iraq. The fact is that

President Obama has a foreign policy, just not one you agree with.

He actually hasn't worked out what should happen next. That is the

point of a foreign policy. I am not talking about boots on the ground

and fighting ISIS, but the same things he is doing in Afghanistan,

drones. You could use proper tax from planes in the Gulf. None of

this is happening. You think drones would stop the Taliban and taking

over Afghanistan? So far, they have done a lot better than nothing. At

the moment, all he is saying he is going to do is nothing against ISIS.

We are genuinely thinking about losing the capital of Iraq because

he is not willing to do the same thing in Iraq as he has been doing

in Afghanistan. Let me just point this out. By the time he leaves the

White House America will import almost 0% of its oil and gas. It

imports no gas from the Middle East. Hallelujah. That is not a foreign

policy, it is an energy policy. It has geopolitical consequences

because he has decided he does not need the Middle East any more. The

Pacific is more important to him than the Middle East, so why put

boots on the ground and men and material there? Because you will

have the same situation as you had in Afghanistan when the Taliban were

protecting Al-Qaeda. It is not to do with 9/11 any more. He does not

think the region matters so much to America any more. The last time they

went into Iraq it was not a great success. It was not a great success.

The reasons the government went into Iraq in 2003 were, on their own

merits, at the time, correct. It was the right thing to have done. Excuse

me, there were no weapons of mass to structure and we had no plan to make

it a better place. Nobody knew there were no weapons of mass

destruction. Everybody assumed that there were. The appendices to the

Butler report show clearly that the Joint Intelligence Committee was not

sure if there was any WMD. MI6 thought there was, and that is the

key thing. The first outing was a failure, the place is a mess, there

is no appetite to go in for a second time. Of course. And Obama's foreign

policy might be different if there had not been invasions of Iraq and

Afghanistan before. That has exhausted the political capital and

the public will. I think Andrew's view is extreme. Even with George

Bush, gun toting George W Bush, the Russians went into Georgia. I don't

think anything would have stopped the Russians going so far. Actually,

they pulled back in eastern Ukraine. If you look back to Clinton, it was

not a brilliant success. Roux and happened on his watch and nobody did

anything. He was late going into Bosnia. On foreign policy, I don't

think Obama is the worst president since Carter. From the point you are

making earlier, the reason to go into Iraq was not just weapons of

mass destruction. In fact, that was quite a small thing in the big

debate that was taking place. Not in this country. Mr Blair said, if he

gives up his WMD tomorrow, then we don't go in. That was the British

government line. We were both there and we voted for it. I go to this

region a lot. From the Mediterranean shores of the Levant, all the way

through that region to the Gulf, to the borders of Saudi Arabia and

Iran, the region is engulfed in a Sunni Shia sectarian war. That is

what this is about and why would you want to get in the middle of that?

In order to stop, basically, the most genocidal, vicious of all of

these offshoots of Al-Qaeda taking over a country that we went to war

to try to protect. You think drones will do that? I also talked about

actual planes coming off aircraft carriers. You asked Alan whether

Obama could be adjudged to be the worst President. It all depends what

happened next. If the Middle East degenerates into a continuing

melting pot of war and of exporting of terrorism to Europe and to the

United States, then very probably that is exactly how he will appear,

then people will struggle to remember the dilemma with which he

was struggling at the time, in other words that people were exhausted,

that his previous campaigns had been unsuccessful. But it's certainly I

think possible that Obama will go down in history as a very bad

President because this will cause a great deal of bad history in the

future. I took issue with David Cameron last week when he was saying

it's a matter of great interest. But we don't know whether bombing them

would make it more dangerous. We haven't even mentioned Iran. In the

way it's going at the momenthe, by the time he leaves the presidency or

soon afterwards, he's going to face a nuclearised Iran which again he's

done nothing about. Iran will control most of eastern Iraq thanks

to the invasion of 2003. I want to put a final point to you. When we

were in in 2003, he'd never thought through what the potential

consequences were and they were largely disastrous, as we can now

see today. Have you thought through the consequences of intervening

again? Yes, I don't think the Isis taking over of Baghdad is anything

like the same as overthrowing Saddam Hussein. Saddam Hussein is less bad

than the present threat to Iraq. Even more vicious and more

totalitarian. You are the historian. Fair enough.

I'm not talking about the past. 20130, the debates over this, you

know, WMD was not the key factor. All right. We'll leave it there,

Andrew robbers, thank you for being back with us. It's late, Jeremy

Clarkson leaving Rebekah Brooks' house party with a brunette late. If

you are doing something you shouldn't be, sfop it now or put him

or her down, stay focussed because waiting in the wings, qualified

football coach Charlie Webster is here to talk about how you handle

the pressure. If you can't handle the pressure, the truth or the

drink, feel free to vent on the Twitter, Fleecebook or interweb.

We'll pay to attention whatsoever. Always keen to find new ways to

balance the books, the Queen had the people from the Antiques Roadshow

around her house in Northern Ireland the other day. They had a poke about

to see what valuables they were hiding. Maybe they found a fewite

ens that could be flogged down the car-boot sale. Who knows. Victoria

Derbyshire has the round-up of the political week.

Working out how much an antique is worth can depend on many things, its

beauty, authenticity, rarity, age and condition. Working out whether

it's fake or real can be an even trickier thing to judge. It was the

Prime Minister's judgment which was called into question this week.

If you are spending a lot of money on something valuable, as any expert

will tell you, it's history, where it's been, find out as much as you

can about its past. David Cameron was accused of not doing any

background checks when he recruited Andy Coulson, former Murdoch man, as

Head of Communications, at Number Ten. With Coulson found guilty of

conspireing to hack phones, Mr Cameron was forced to say he was

sorry. I take full responsibility for employing Andy Coulson. I did so

on the basis of undertakings I was given from him on phone hacking and

they turned out not to be the case. I said if they turned out to be

wrong I would make a full and frank apology and I do that today. With

his judgment being questioned, debate quickly turned to why Mr

Cameron hired Andy Coulson in the first place, particularly when so

many people had apparently warned him not to. It was an opportunity

for the Labour Leader, Ed Miliband, who's had his own judgment issues

lately, to pile on the pressure at Prime Minister's Questions, accusing

David Cameron of bringing disgrace to Downing Street.

The truth about this is the charge against the Prime Minister is not

one of ignorance, it's wilful negligence.

At the heart of this scandal are thousands of innocent victims of

phone hacking he didn't stand up for. The Prime Minister will always

be remembered as being the first ever occupant of his office who

brought a criminal into the heart of Downing Street.

He brought up the issue of the warning from the Guardian, I totally

disproved him using the evidence. He brought up the idea of direct

vetting, I've totally disproved him by using the evidence. He cannot

bear the fact that an eight-month inquiry that he hoped was going to

pin the blame on me found that I had behaved correctly throughout. That

is the case. It's clear that questions will conto

be asked over the Prime Minister's decisions. What is unclear yet is

how this will play out with voters and whether it will dent their trust

in David Cameron. There's little chance of finding a

long lost portrait by an old master. But the portrait of European master

in waiting, Jean-Claude Juncker, is still haunting the Prime Minister.

Trying to do the right thing for your country can get very lonely

sometimes. # All by myself

# Don't wanna be # All by myself... #

David Cameron's lone some campaign to try to stop Mr Juncker becoming

the next President of the European Commission was and truly pole axed

this week. He was blasted in a series of ex-pleat it laden secret

recordings of the Polish Foreign Minister who laid into Dave and his

policies on Europe. Any chance of some late support from the Prime

Minister slipped away faster than you could say European referendum.

It leaves him even more isolated in Europe than he was before.

Mr Juncker taking the crown anyway...

The boss of the Bank of England was under the MP's hammer too this week.

Once the golden boy of banking, are we seeing the worth of Mark Carney

beginning to fall? It strikes me that the banks are

relying on their unreliable boyfriend. One day hot, one day

cold. The people on the other side don't know where they stand. The

Bank of England chief boyfriend wasn't having any criticism of his

interest rates policy. As far as he's concerned, relationships are

still going strong. What we really wants is a nice big, durable

expansion. Oh, Mark, you tease. We are looking to manage monetary

policy to achieve the inflation target in a way that supports a due

rabble expansion. In the doing so, we are looking to use up, make sure

the economy absorbs is a better way of putting it, wasteful capacities.

He's playing hard to get. Now, where's David Dickinson when you

need him? I need to find out how much an England kit's worth. Hardly

worn, unlikely to be worn again, seriously good condition.

Victoria in the Chiswick Auction House there. Back to our collection

of antiques in Westminster. Mir an that joins us.

Michael, even Mr Cameron's had to admit it was a huge error of

judgment to take Andy Coulson into Government as director of

communications. S. He was warned not to do it. Does it do political

damage to the Prime Minister in the broader context? Well, it does. For

instance, if there's a vicious article in the Daily Telegraph this

morning by Peter Oborne, describing him as a shallow careerist, it

liberates journalists to write that sort of stuff which I suppose

percolates down. But the statement you won't hear David Cameron making

this week is, look, I as Prime Minister have had to make an apology

which is rather humiliating. Had I not hired Andy Coulson, I would

probably not be Prime Minister. So how bad has my judgment really been?

Yes, but the argument, Alan, is not that he originally hired Andy soup

son, that that in itself, I was going to say in retrospect, but he

was told not to do it, but the bigger damage was when he took him

into Government and he became on the Government payroll? I find that

extraordinary because it's true there is an argument that the Head

of Communications doesn't have to have controlled vetting which

happened to one of my special advisers when I became Home

Secretary. They had to go through that, it's quite a process, takes a

month and you have to see really sensitive documents. There is an

argument Head of Communications doesn't have to do that, but the

predecessors have and when the Prime Minister knows there was at least a

furore around this guy, you would have thought the sensible thing to

do would be to ask him to go through that. Then he had some defence, he

didn't know what was going to happen with the hacking trial. Even that

developed vetting, probably wouldn't have gotten to the bottom of it

Higham not saying that. I'm saying if you are the Prime Minister and

you have done something controversial by taking on Andy

Coulson -- I'm not saying that. When you go into Downing Street, you

would insist, his predecessors were vetted. So you would think he'd do

that. It's about whether you are blackmailed, whether there's

anything that might have come out. The Rebekah Brooks thing might have

come out. Is it politically damaging? Is this an issue for the

Westminster village with the politicians and the media all

obsessed with this or is it having cut-through? Does it undermine Mr

Cameron in the eyes of the voter? I think the reputation of politicians

generally can't get much lower in the public's eyes and indeed the

reputation of journalists also. So I fear actually... Hold on! Well, I'm

an NUJ member, I count myself amongst the despised profession, so

I think in a sense one of the things that happens is that the worst

prejudices will be confirmed about both sides in this Leveson battle

that's ongoing. I think in terms of David Cameron personally, I think

that he will probably escapend also I do tend to agree with Michael

because when he originally hired Andy Coulson, the Conservative Party

in opposition was failing to make any impact at all and that was the

point at which Gordon Brown was riding high in the polls, they badly

needed to do something and hiring a man who was in charge in a tabloid

newspaper who took interest in politics as much as the average

voter... Well... ALL SPEAK AT ONCE

That is why he did it. That is why they appointed him into Government

too. They thought he was very good and thought he needed to go on and

thought this was not going to come to trial and they thought that even

if it did, he might be found not guilty. After all, it's taken 11 men

and women eight months to decide that some people knew a lot and some

people knew nothing at all. Do you think that Mr Cameron was so unaware

of what tabloids get up to, particularly the News of the World,

which was the sleaziest of all the red tops, he was so unaware, that he

could hire an editor from a red top tabloid? ? Hang on, it's just been

established that Rebekah Brooks knew nothing at all about what was going

on. No, no, no. There were 500 people hacked at least and Rebekah

Brooks didn't know about it so of course he could believe that Coulson

knew nothing about it. Not the editor of the News of the World.

Andy Coulson had a working class background. I don't believe he's the

only one who could have been appointed. He wanted to cosy up to

News International. He'd gone down the route of hug a hoodie and all

that, that wasn't working, that little guy who used to advise him

wasn't... The Tory press was attacking at the time. At the time,

we were 15 points ahead in the polls, so it was to cosy up to News

International. Also David Cameron today at PMKQs has been using the

Leveson Report as his shield. He's not going to implement it, by the

way. That's the one. Before we move on to the issue of Mr Jean-Claude

Juncker, which everybody is talking about, how does the Crown

Prosecution Service come out of all this? In July 2009, when the

Guardian printed the story, the Director of Public Prosecutions was

having a review at the time. That was one of the reasons why we

thought, let's see what comes out of that review. I would love to know

from the vendor rector of public prosecutions, his event -- his

version. It got an important conviction. There were five others

who did plead guilty. The Metropolitan Police, from the time

of the conviction of the first journalist, had 11,000 pages of

evidence which they believed was not worth pursuing further, most of

which evidence form the backbone of the case that brought about this

conviction. Parte two Lord Leveson, if it ever takes place, is crucial

here. I received a letter from John Yates after this blew up in 2011,

saying that the reason why he was, Operation Weeting was taking place

and his operation could not get anywhere, was because News

International only started to cooperate in January 2011. That is

exactly when Andy Coulson left Downing Street. There is something

to tie up here about what the relationship is with the

Metropolitan in an News International. The Leveson report

also says that for more than 35 years there has been inappropriate

closeness between the occupants of Downing Street of both parties and

Fleet Street. That goes all the way back to Mr Blair, Mr Brown and Mr

Cameron. He Jean-Claude Juncker, a household name, even in Scunthorpe.

Does it matter if Mr Cameron is isolated on this to the British

public, do they care? It matters very much. It is superb and ideal.

That is what his backbenchers think, you are right. It demonstrates where

Britain is. Britain has most of the day with the European project and

our European partners have most of the with us. The idea that David

Cameron could negotiate a couple of tweaks and come back with something

which was better which he could put to the referendum is blown out of

the water. Either he has to abandon the project of pretending to do

that, or he has to offer a referendum in which he will campaign

for us to leave. Are you a fan of Mr Juncker? No. I agree that nobody in

Britain of any party once Juncker in charge, but that is what we have

got. Pro-Europeans are in a fix because we have the least attractive

head of Europe at the time when we are supposed to be hoping for some

sort of respectable renegotiation that we can campaign on. Are you not

attracted to a man who has cognac for breakfast? A bit early for me.

Cameron's judgement, he writes letters supporting MPs who are

deselected, talks up Maria Miller and then she goes, talks up Juncker

and seems to unite all of the people who are against him, as I am and all

three of us are, in favour of him. There is an issue here. This may be

right or wrong, but his backbenchers love it at the moment. He is always

in trouble with his backbenchers on Europe. David Blunkett, stepping out

of politics, said Ed Miliband should bring back some old is from his

Shadow Cabinet, naming one Alan Johnson at the top of the list. What

do you say? Thank you, David. I was in the Shadow Cabinet and I

resigned. It is very nice of him. I wrote him a little note thanking him

for that. Was it in red or green ink? I am sorry to see David go.

Now, unlike Downing Street special advisers, everyone who joins

This Week must undergo a rigorous process of Developed Vetting.

All our team are quizzed by BBC security about anything that may

leave them open to prosecution, blackmail, or ridicule.

Alan was probed about his tendency to go sock-less

in the summer months. Michael about all those trips to

Rio, "researching" the Brazilian railway system, and Miranda about

the vicious rumour that she was once a member of the Liberal Democrats.

But none of them cracked, and that's why we've decided to put handling

pressure in this week's Spotlight. For the first time in nearly 80

years, a male British player walked out into Centre Court as reigning

Wimbledon champion. Pressure of expectation is-Andy Murray but the

top Scot seems to enjoy top spot, and he strolled through his opening

matches in straight sets. Not everyone deals with pressure as

well. Footballers must be feeling the heat in the zeal, and if you are

Luis Suarez, the only way to deal with high-pressure situations is to

bite your opponents. Sadly, the England team are lacking bite and

have jetted home early from the World Cup. And if England's

cricketers, beaten by Sri Lanka on the penultimate ball of the second

test, this was a week when English sportsmen crumbled under pressure.

The House of Commons turned into a pressure cooker for the Prime

Minister this week. One day after Andy Coulson was found guilty of

conspiracy to hack phones, questions were fired at the Prime Minister for

his judgement. I know you don't agree with it. I know he is so

desperate not to talk about the economy, not to talk about

unemployment, not to talk about the deficit, but you can't rerun an

enquiry that has taken place. In sport, politics and beyond, is their

pressure in every profession. How do you keep cool when the heat is on?

And when the pressure bites, how do you bite back? Charlie Webster joins

us again. Good to have you back. This Suarez biting incident, is it

an example of a sports person cracking under pressure, or is he

just mad? I am not going to say he is mad, you said that. I am talking

about this and we have been speaking about it for days, about why he did

it, and pressure. I don't think it is pressure. We should not be asking

why. He bit somebody. We are not allowed to bite at school. I am not

allowed to sit here and bite you. I would probably be arrested and taken

off the show and never come back. There would be repercussions. Why

are we saying, is it pressure? You should not bite. Point taken, but is

it possible to understand the pressure these sports stars are

under? I think pressure is in different contexts. I am under

pressure in certain ways, and so are you doing live television. In

politics. Surgeons, that is incredible pressure I could never

understand, saving somebody's life. However, a footballer also has

pressure we can never understand. I am not a professional footballer but

I work with a lot of them and see that pressure that we don't

appreciate, especially when you can go into the World Cup and in 90

minutes you can be hero or villain. Remember David Beckham when he was

pictured as a dartboard. He said in 2012 that he still has nightmares

about what happened. These are real people. Just because they earn a lot

of money and they are footballers, and I'm sure there will be people

saying, they earn all this money and they should come good. But they are

still human beings and they feel pressure that we don't understand.

Andy Murray was someone who was thought not good enough to cope with

pressure at one stage and therefore was not going to win one of the

great titles, but he proved the critics wrong and was able to cope

in the end. He did, but with Andy Murray we have a different

expectation than with England. Footballers national sport. With

England, every time there is a World Cup, or European Championships, no

matter what, even though we say we will not put on the expectation, we

sit there saying, come on, this might be the time. With Andy Murray,

he has worked really hard and he has done a lot of marginal little things

that have made his game better, made his head better. He has worked to

win a Wimbledon title. He did not get it first time because maybe he

did not have the mental capacity, the poise to cope with the

pressure. It is those marginal gains that top athlete make you

exceptional, or just a top athlete. Some people will be saying, I will

tell you what pressure is, it is putting food on the table for my

kids on the minimum wage, it is having enough money to pay the rent

at the end of the week, hoping I will still have a job at the end of

the week. All of these gilded sports stars that get paid a fortune, they

have no idea about real pressure. What would you say to that? I could

not agree more. I am not from a moneyed background either so I

understand those pressures. We all have different pressure and

expectations. I put a lot of pressure on myself. The thing that

is different is that Wayne Rooney will be on the front and back of the

newspapers and publicly pressurised. Publicly idolised, or made into

somebody we hate and that let us all down. You cannot just sit there and

relax about that. Politicians come under huge pressure. When did you

feel on the most pressure? I suppose it was when a man was flying into

Chicago airport and was going to blow himself up on Christmas Day,

and there was a link back to him being radicalised in the Yemen but

was studying in this country. There was the pressure of thinking that

there could be loads of men on planes doing this. He had found a

way through the system. That was a lot of pressure. It is different in

a team sport. I don't think there is pressure on the team. There is

pressure on Andy Murray in the singles. The same way as the primer

stand the leader of the at Prime Minister's Questions, it is a

pressure that even a government minister is more in a team game.

What about you, Michael? I have just thought of it, a similar thing. I

was the Ministry of transport on duty over Christmas and New Year

immediately after Lockerbie, when a lot of journalists were dressing up

as maintenance staff and getting onto aircraft in order to

demonstrate that security was lax. I was on television day and night,

facing very difficult questions. I would say the ability to face

pressure is what marks the very few top politicians out from the rest.

It is not only the ability to cope with it, but to thrive on it. Blair

and Cameron are two very rare creatures who cope with it, are able

to relax with it, and indeed enjoy it. It was also true of Margaret

Thatcher. For instance, following the West and allegations, she went

to the House of Commons and said, I may not be Prime Minister this

evening if this debate goes badly. But it went well. That is the same

as sport. It is that tiny margin that sets those people apart,

otherwise we would all be winning Wimbledon and would-be Jessica

Ennis. She thrived under the pressure. Pressure gets the best out

of people. What marks a great sports person and a strong politician is

the ability to take proper decisions under pressure, rather than just

crack up. Definitely. You are a football coach as well. Under

pressure to get a winning team. I am a qualified football coach and I do

a lot of competition myself. At the end of January I ran 250 miles down

the country, campaigning against an issue I am passionate about, sexual

and domestic abuse. I found that the pressure was really hard on me

because I didn't want to let anybody down. I felt I had a duty to do it,

to finish it. I did, just about. That's your lot for tonight, folks,

but not for us because it's Northern powerhouse night at Lou Lou's, and

George Osborne will be unveiling his meat-pie-in-the-sky plans to build

High Speed Rail 3 between Manchester and Leeds, reform the Smiths

and rebuild the Hacienda. But we leave you tonight with

exclusive footage from the latest Shadow Cabinet meeting, which proves

that, despite his denials, Alan Johnson has been helping Labour's

young and inexperienced front bench team prepare for political battle.

Nighty-night, don't let the boogie man bite.

# Yes, I am # Yes, I am

# I am a guitarist # Watch me strum. #