16/11/2017 This Week

Tonight, on this week,

Andrew Neil is back.

Only this episode of This Week could

be more exciting than the first.

Underneath the Russian consulate.

Director of military intelligence.

On his left?

Chief of security.

Has the Kremlin been meddling

with Western democracy?

Are you sure this plan is foolproof?

Yes, it is.

Notorious Russia today secret agent

Afshin Rattansi is back.

He thinks it's all a joke.

And I'll be explaining how Twitter

trolls and RT are shaking

and stirring the very foundations

of Western democracy.

I warned you, we do not tolerate

failure, number three.

Agent Adrian Chiles,

codenamed five Live Big Stuff,

goes under the covers

in his pyjamas.

My orders are simple.

To round up the political week.

Which lunatic asylum did

they get you out of?

Don't make it tougher on yourself.

And historian Bettany Hughes plays

the devil's double-cross.

007 was given a licence

to objectify women.

But in the age of social media,

have things got any better?

From Russia with Love.

They dance for him, they yearn

for him, they die for him.

From Westminster to Pimlico,

Peckham to Penge, agent Andrew Neil

cuts an inimitable figure

on the This Week set.

Evenin' all.

Welcome to This Week.

And we come to you tonight

from a secret studio

in the bowels of Westminster.

Because, after 14 years

as your Dear Thursday Night Leader,

the Director-General of the BBC,

feared everywhere as Tony

the Crocodile, has mounted a coup

against me, backed by the brutal

forces of the North

Korean-trained Newsnight militia

and the Dimbleby Light Infantry.

The DG says it's not a coup.

But it looks and sounds

like a coup to me.

And I'm not talking about

the Scottish pronunciation of a cow.

Now I realise, dear viewer,

that we've been living high

on the hog these past 14 years,

with unlimited quantities

of Blue Nun and free membership

of Lou Lou's nightclub,

while you've had to make do

with the odd cup of fortified wine

and a Lidl loyalty card.

But do you think things will really

be better under the Crocodile?

Do you?

Really?

He makes his people drink the BBC

canteen coffee you know,

even though that

won't keep thm awake.

Speaking of those you wouldn't trust

as far as you could throw them,

I'm joined on the sofa tonight

by two has-beens who'd

sell their grannies just for five

minutes back in the limelight.

I speak, of course, of Michael

"the Machete" Portillo

and Ed "Kalashnikov" Balls.

Welcome. Your moment of the week,

Michael?

It had better be the coup

in Zimbabwe which you have been

parodying a moment ago. For two

reasons. One, I feel a certain

personal satisfaction in seeing this

horrendous dictator at least

confined to his house. Secondly,

although the outcome is uncertain

and it may just be that we trade one

dictator for another, at least one

source smiles on the faces of some

people in Harare, and they really

haven't had anything to laugh about

for the last 30 years. So at least

it was a moment for them, even if it

proves nothing more.

At least there

may be hope. Your moment?

It has

been a while Brexit week, for a

change, but my moment was an

astonishing article in the Sun

newspaper by the Prime Minister's

former chief of staff, completely

laying into the Chancellor of the

Exchequer just a few days before his

Budget, saying that he lacked

vision, essentially economic

literacy, and saying that he lacked

a burning desire to change people's

lives for the better. In normal

times, that would have been a huge

story. But with what is going on at

the moment, it seemed to pass

unnoticed.

It must have brought back

memories of you and Mr Blair and Mr

Brown.

There were some tough times.

But compared to that, they were

bosom pals.

It makes you wonder what

was happening when Timothy was in

ten Downing St. It was like that

with the Chancellor.

It's a common meme among our own

dear chattering classes that good

old Blighty doesn't really

matter any more.

So it was rather reassuring to learn

that Kremlin-backed troll farms

spent thousands of hours on social

media hiding behind false names

spewing out all manner of nonsense

trying to influence the outcome

of last year's referendum on the EU.

They even employed countless bots

and cyber bots to create fake news,

which is probably why it came

to the attention of our very

own MayBot, who this week accused

the Russians of "weaponising

information" and mounting

a sustained campaign of "cyber

espionage and disruption".

On the other hand, her bro

in the White House said he believed

President Putin when he claimed

Russia was not meddling

in Western elections.

So that pretty much settles it.

Of course, you couldn't

blame Mr Putin for taking

an interest in our elections,

where the outcome is still

uncertain, whereas the Russian ones

are pretty much a foregone

conclusion these days.

One key tool of Russian propaganda

is the Kremlin-financed RT,

the channel formerly known

as Russia Today but renamed

in the hope we'd forget

the R stood for Russia.

And roubles.

Lots of them.

Which perhaps explains why

Alex Salmond is now on its payroll.

Or maybe not.

In this era of fake news can we ever

establish where the truth lies?

Here's RT's Afshin

Rattansi with his take.

Yes, Comrade President,

so to summarise your daily update,

Russia will organise Britain's exit

from the European Union

by the 29th of March 2019.

Our Manchurian candidate

is in position at the White

House, making progress.

And partisan Carles Puigdemont

appears on Comrade Alex Salmond's

new RT show today to teach him how

to break up the United Kingdom,

as he did so in Spain.

What you saw was part of my daily

briefing with the Kremlin.

Now we have these stories for today,

we can use armies of Twitter trolls,

plus my show, to destroy the minds

of Western voters so they no longer

understand democracy itself.

One Moscow Mule, please.

Don't skimp on the Siberian ice.

Theresa May used her

Lord Mayor's Banquet speech

to peddle the conspiracy theory that

Russia is trying to undermine

the Western world order,

using Twitter, Facebook and RT.

This is the real fake news.

Millions of people voted for Brexit,

Trump and Catalonian independence

because after the wilderness years

that followed the 2008 global

financial crisis, they wanted

to exercise their democratic right

to reject the status quo.

It's insulting to say that

discerning voters were brainwashed

by Photoshop memes and fake news

promoted by Twitter bots

and Facebook trolls.

Also arguably a pathetic political

ruse by Theresa May to distract

the media and voters from the chaos

going on within the

Conservative Party.

The plotting and power grabbing

are emanating from the Palace

of Westminster, not Moscow.

And as for the new Cold War

that Theresa May appears

to say is on the horizon,

by resurrecting a new Red Scare

for the internet age,

it is she who risks drawing

the new Iron Curtain.

Is it any coincidence that countries

who blame Russia for political

outcomes defend elites that

are liberal, Nato-aligned nations?

States that lie outside this status

do not blame Russia for anything.

And please leave RT

out of all of this.

All we do is try to create the best

journalism to inform,

educate and entertain audiences

with stories often overlooked

by mainstream sources like the BBC.

No one tells the Going Underground

team what to say or do,

let alone the Kremlin in Moscow.

Which all goes to show how egregious

the attempts by the Western

establishment to clamp down

on the freedom speech of British

journalists working at the RT

headquarters in London really are.

Our thanks to Novikov restaurant

and bar for letting us film

at their beautiful Mayfair lounge.

Speaking of beautiful,

Afshin Rattansi from RT's

Global Underground joins me now.

Why are you in denial that Russia

has been meddling in western

elections when the evidence is

overwhelming?

It's overwhelming! In

the past few days, the Foreign

Secretary Boris Johnson was clear.

He said not a sausage of any

evidence of Russian meddling in any

elections in Britain. Why did he

change his mind, that is the

question.

So during the referendum

were those thousands of Russian

-based accounts that posted 45,000

Brexit messages in 48 hours and then

mysteriously closed down after the

referendum, we are meant to believe

these were ordinary Russians with an

itinerant interest in British

politics.

You make a good point and

maybe we should have another

referendum.

You want us to believe

that?

What do you mean? I don't

represent Russia. If there are these

bots that you claim, what is your

argument?

You are denying it. Oui I

am not denying anything. You cannot

deny that Russian -based accounts

tried to interfere and medal in the

American election, the French

election, the referendum, the German

election. It is clear.

And yet Boris

Johnson said there is not a sausage.

He is the Foreign Secretary.

I am

asking you.

Observing this as a

journalist, it is obvious there are

great power plays between great

powers and these have existed for

centuries. So presumably different

countries are seeking supremacy at

the moment.

So Russia does use

social media?

How do I know?

You are

with Russia today.

That is like

saying because you are at the BBC,

you know about Theresa May's

policies and what they do. Should I

just attack British policy through

Andrew Neil?

I do know about Theresa

May's policies. You don't know about

the Kremlin- linked Russian internet

research agency?

You are right!

You

don't know about it?

I obviously

don't.

And you are a journalist.

Where are you getting this

information from?

Everyone knows

about it. It is called the IRA. That

me show you a picture from this

agency. This was put out by Russian

social media, trying to make out

that this Muslim and is so uncaring

about what happened on Westminster

Bridge, the terrorist attack.

Hashtag ban Islam. It comes out as

if it was an American. It is a

Russian.

I can't confirm that.

Do

you approve of that?

I was in the

midst of that attack. Our

journalists were the first camera

crew on the scene.

That is not the

point.

So what are you talking

about?

The people that pay your

salary are putting this out.

How do

you know that?

Because I know where

it comes from, the Russian internet

research agency, a Kremlin- linked

agency. Everybody knows that.

Who is

telling you that?

It is well

established.

What does well

established, everybody knows, what

does that mean?

There have been four

academic studies in the past few

weeks showing where this comes from.

Does this matter?

I think the

questions are to what extent is it

co-ordinated and to what extent is

it effective. There are doubts about

those questions. That it is

happening, there is no doubt, and

you would have been on stronger

ground and at one moment you

appeared to move to stronger ground

in saying that everybody is at it.

That is plausible. I think that is a

stronger argument than saying that

it isn't happening.

I didn't say it

wasn't happening, I said the Foreign

Secretary said that.

It seems there

are questions as to whether it has

yet been effective. But that it

could be effective in future, I

think, is very much in play as a

strong possibility.

There is no question it is

happening, it is hard to measure if

it had effect.

The Russia Today is a

red herring. There is a newscaster

in Britain regulated by off, you

have to meet our standards in the

way they have to do things according

to our Lord -- Ofcom.

Hold on,

Russia Today has been Ofcom 15 times

by Ofcom.

Channel 4 has been since

he fresh -- censured.

There is an

allegation that comes from the

Russian government as well. The only

thing that is incredible in your

interview was you cite Boris Johnson

as a credible...

He has done it

three times, that is a sign of

desperation. You say that Russia

Today... All right, we will call it

roubles today.

It does journalism at

the BBC. I would say it does

journalism different to the BBC.

In

2015, your channel claimed the BBC

staged a chemical weapons attack in

Syria. It did not. Russia Today did.

You were censured by Ofcom. You

digitally altered the words spoken

by an interviewee to stand up the

story. I am talking about RT. Your

channel has also peddled conspiracy

theories that September the 11th was

an inside job.

Do you think the

team... ? We are regulated by

British Government agencies. If

anything of that kind was found to

be egregious, we would be fined,

taken off air.

As the Iranian

channel has.

You do not have a first

Amendment. Laura Kuenssberg still

kept her job after hitting out at...

Laura Kuenssberg is a fine

journalist. Isn't the issue what is

coming from the Kremlin and what

effect it has, it is divisive, as we

saw from that tweet. It is

potentially very disruptive, if it

is true this is coming into the NHS.

How do you know it is coming from

the Kremlin will stop this is where

the James Bond theme in this

programme is good. You are of the

Cold War mindset. You have to make

new friends, with China, Russia,

Brazil, India. You have to realise

these stories that appear in the

papers telling you that the Kremlin

put that tweet out, why do you

believe it?

Can be one thought, with

the strength of evidence the Kremlin

is interfering in electoral

processes in the west, it is

extraordinary and worrying that

Donald Trump chooses to believe

Putin without any question, to

denounce two former directors of the

CIA and to give the impression he is

a man, what, one would almost say

responding to some kind of fear of

blackmail from Russia.

You do not

see the value of the taunt. You do

not see any idea that Donald Trump,

moving closer to making deals with

Vladimir Putin perhaps over

strategic Arms Limitation is a good

idea? You obviously don't understand

what is at stake.

I do not think it

is a good idea to deny what is

obviously the case that Russia is

interfering in electoral processes

in the west. That limits the

credibility of the president and

leads to the suspicion he is a

frightened man.

The whole point of

Russia Today and election meddling,

it is focused to undermine our faith

in our democratic institutions and

to divide us as we saw from the

tweet we put on the screen. Mind you

want to be a part of that? Part of

what?

What I said.

What do you mean?

That is what it does. I went to your

website before we came on tonight

and there are stories that try to

undermine our faith in our society.

They tried to divide us. Give

provenance to Catalonia, Scottish

independence. You try to divide us.

I understand why the Kremlin wants

to do that, but I am puzzled as to

why, why do you want to be part of

that?

One of the first rules of

journalism the way I see it I

practised it here at the BBC and

that CNN and others, is that we, we

tell journalists think of the

poorest person watching, see what

their lives are like. There have

been many shows about rights in

Russia today. Again, you do not

watch the channel. You have not seen

debates about homosexuality, debates

about Russian atrocities in Syria.

All you three are doing is you are

frightened of a new entrant,

especially when Sky News may be

closing down. You may be left all

alone at the BBC. RT may be the main

news provider.

On that bit of fake

news we will call an end to it.

Thanks for being with us.

It's late.

Trump and Kim late.

With insults that can only be

broadcast after the watershed.

This time the "leader

of the Free World" fired off

a rather passive-aggressive

inter-continental Twitter-barb

at the "Dear Leader",

insisting he would never call

Kim Jong Un "short and fat", even

though Kim had called him "old".

For his part, Mr Kim

took it rather well,

merely sentencing the Donald

to death if he ever shows his big

tangerine face in Pyongyang.

Think of the danger if they both

had nuclear weapons.

Someone with a more reasonable

approach to our looks

is the historian and author

Bettany Hughes, who's putting body

image in the Spotlight.

And if you've got something to say

about tonight's programme then ask

yourself whether you're

getting out enough.

I know I'm not.

But if you insist on sprinkling

malodorous comments into the digital

ether like some incontinent

cyber-Tom-Cat, then be my guest.

The Tweeter, Fleecebook

and Snapnumpty are ready

for your witterings.

We await them with all the appetite

of a Gregg's sausage roll

at a church nativity.

Festive furry monsters

hiding under the bed,

Paddington Bear frolicking

on a snowy roof, even a sausage roll

replacing the baby Jesus

in a bakery nativity scene,

all brought to you courtesy

of a sleigh-load of pixies

from overpaid advertising agencies.

Yes, I know.

Too early.

But if it's not yet the Christmas

season, it is at least the season

of Christmas adverts,

warning us of the impending arrival

of Santa with all the charm

of an egg-nog hangover.

Mmm!

Egg-nog.

So what do you want for Christmas?

Maybe you'd like a stay on an island

especially built to be

free of politicians.

Or maybe you'd just

like a silent night.

Fat chance of MPs getting one

of those any time soon.

Adrian Chiles has

the week's round-up.

# Once there was a way...

Hard Brexit.

Really hard Brexit.

What's under the bed?

This week, 40 Tory MPs -

eight short of the number needed

to trigger a leadership contest -

said they were ready to sign

a letter of no confidence.

What a racket.

Shut up!

VOICES:

Hard Brexit.

Ow!

Oh, it's you, sorry, you all right?

As if the row made by the rabble

of rebels wasn't enough

for the Prime Minister,

she then had to contend with Boris

and Michael chumming up again.

This they did by writing

an ultra-secret letter.

Telling her how she

should go about Brexit.

It was so secret, that it went

to all the newspapers.

Shush.

Do you want a game of Scalextric?

# Once there was a way...

Oh, sorry, Moz, could be worse.

I mean, it could be

worse, couldn't it?

You could be, let's say,

a British woman imprisoned

in an Iranian jail waiting

for the Foreign Secretary

to say something helpful

to help you get out.

But then the Foreign Secretary goes

and says that you weren't just

on holiday in Tehran,

you were actually

teaching journalism.

Boris apologised, said he had

just been misunderstood.

My remarks on the subject before

the Foreign Affairs Select Committee

could and should have been clearer.

And I acknowledged that the words

I used were open to being

misinterpreted and I apologise.

I apologise to Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe

and her family if I inadvertently

caused them any further anguish.

It does seem that the Foreign

Secretary is not quite at the top

of the Prime Minister's Christmas

card list.

However, for now, it looks like he's

not going to get the sack.

Sorry.

Anyway, off the Prime Minister

went to make a speech

at the Lord Mayor's banquet.

For a bit of light relief,

she had a go at someone who presents

not quite as existential threat

to her as her own Cabinet.

Russia has fomented

conflict in the Donbass.

Repeatedly violated the national

airspace of several European

countries and mounted a sustained

campaign of cyber-espionage

and disruption.

So I have a very simple

message for Russia.

We know what you are doing

and you will not succeed.

Stop it!

Honestly, it is scary enough having

a monster under your bed,

but it turns out that if you really

want to arouse a ghost of Christmas

past, all you have got to do

is table an amendment

to your own bill on the

specific time and date

of departure from the EU.

Calm yourself, come on, calm down.

There are some very serious issues

to be settled in this bill

and I ask the government

to reconsider silly amendments

thrown out because they got a good

article in the Daily Telegraph,

which actually might do harm.

# Once there was a way...

The Labour MP Frank Field,

who had originally suggested adding

a deadline to the bill,

so he spoke in favour of it.

Using the analogy that

you would not buy a house

without agreeing an exchange date,

this led to an enjoyably

barbed exchange with

a member of his own party.

I think his analogy

of buying a house falls down

at the first hurdle,

because nobody commits to a date

to buy a house before they know

what it is they are buying.

As my right honourable

friend was kind to me

about the house analogy,

I have always bought my houses,

never inherited them.

I didn't.

I bought mine, too.

Comrades, comrades, play nicely.

# Golden slumbers fill your eyes.

Somehow the PM has got to find a way

of shedding the Brexit monster

and building some kind of legacy.

I want to make sure that young

generations, new generations,

can actually have that same

opportunity to have their own home,

to have the house or flat

that is going to work for them.

That's why I think it is

so important that the government

and I are putting our

focus on housing.

And that needs money,

of which there isn't

a great deal about.

With the budget a week away,

Labour's demanding spending

on public services.

The great lie behind austerity

was that we had no choice,

that cuts were essential

because there was no money.

Next week, the country does need

an emergency budget.

An emergency budget to alleviate

the emergency taking place right now

in our public services,

and also the millions of working

households in our country

struggling to get by.

The Labour leader used PMQs

to demand more public spending

and tackle the government

on tax avoidance.

Quite simply, isn't the truth

that this is a government that

protects the super rich

while the rest of us pick up

the bill through cuts, austerity,

poverty, homelessness,

low wages and slashing of local

services all over the country?

That is the reality

of a Tory government.

The PM flung that back at him,

saying taxes on the rich under

Labour had actually been lower.

Oi, Moz, knock it

on the head, will you?

The tax gap is now

at its lowest level ever.

If the tax gap had stayed

at the level it was under

the Labour Party, we would be losing

the equivalent of the entire

police budget for England.

I say to the right honourable

gentleman, he may have given

momentum to his party,

but he brings stagnation

to the country.

PMQs doesn't half go on,

these days, doesn't it?

It's past Michael's

bedtime, past my bedtime.

Past Andrew Neil's bedtime.

Come on, Mr Speaker, have a heart.

The running of Andrew Neil's

programme and his personal

convenience, or even opinion,

is not a material

factor in my thinking.

Now, he may say that is absolutely

shocking, but I couldn't give

a flying flamingo what he thinks.

All right, Moz, in you come.

No snoring, all right?

# And I will sing a lullaby.#

Other Christmas adverts

are available to be plagiarised.

And here's a lovely early Christmas

gift for you dear viewers.

Miranda Green joins us.

To

Brexit this week descended into a

slanging match over whether or not

the departure time and state should

be in the legislation. Is Brexit

driving us mad?

I think it is

slightly, on both sides of the

opinion divide, both sides of the

argument. Which is a shame. If you

look at some of the interesting work

that has been done where they have

got voters from both sides of the

argument together, the publics seem

to want a sensible compromise. But

whether we will get that, who knows

best if you have a compromise which

keeps us in a close relationship

with the single market, you have to

take rules from the ECJ. Will that

satisfy hard-line levers? I can see

a situation where even if we get a

deal, it will not shut down the

politics of Brexit over several

years in the future.

Are you trying

to cheer me up?

I cannot see much

like at the moment.

How serious is

the Tory rebellion?

Serious in terms

of numbers but not the issue.

Whether the date is in the bill or

not is completely irrelevant. It is

a government amendment to its own

bill. The government did not think

the date was important in the first

place, so if the legislation passes

without the date, it matters not a

jot. The other thing that does not

matter, I think, at all, is the

money. Brexiteers are getting very

worried about the money. In the end,

there is something which is worth

buying, two things. One is the

return of parliamentary democracy

and accountability to Britain, and

the other is access to the single

market. I think the price for those

two might be very high because they

are worth having.

Who else pays for

access to the single market?

The

others pay by having the

jurisdiction of the European Court

of Justice, which is not acceptable

to us. Which is why I think we might

have to pay.

Canada has just

massively improved its access to the

single market. It's not paying

anything and it is not subject to

the ECJ.

Icelander, Lichtenstein and

Norway are subject to the ECJ. I

have said this before. I think there

is a deal to be done but I think it

will cost us a bit of money.

Do you

think the government could fall over

Brexit?

At the moment people are

talking as if the swing

decision-makers are Michael Gove or

Boris Johnson. My fear is that they

are not really the people who will

drive the government position. All

you need is for the Daily Mail and

the Telegraph to say, it's a

betrayal on the amount of money

which we pay, or if it takes longer

than the two years. And I'm afraid

rather large parts of the

Conservative Party would go with

that Daily Telegraph Daily Mail lead

whatever Boris Johnson are Michael

Gove are saying.

Could that bring

down the government?

I think it is

impossible for Theresa May to

finally do the deal. There would

have to be a change of leader. The

question is, can the Conservative

Party in their current state manage

a transition to a new leader before

the end of the negotiation, or does

collapse into chaos? You can't rule

that out.

I thought the Tory plan

was to keep her in the job until she

does the deal, if she does it, then

get rid of her.

To do that, she has

to continue walking this terrible

tightrope between two sides of her

party and two sides of her Cabinet.

She did look a bit stronger this

week.

It was her first week without

a Cabinet resignation.

Indeed. That

is something to cheer about. But on

the Brexit substance it is very

difficult. She had quite a good

line, I thought, in what was

otherwise a flop of a Florence

speech, where she said, we are

Britain, we pay our way, these are

commitments we have made. I think

you could win the argument with the

public. I don't think the money is

much of a stumbling block as they

seem to think, although David Davis

tonight in Berlin seemed to be

saying, I am not going to say

anything about the money for several

weeks, which is a huge problem.

At

any stage during the referendum, do

you remember any lever telling us we

would have to pay to leave?

No. But

then they did not really agree on

what the destination was.

Aida

Dahlen anybody saying we will have

to pay to leave, but now they sink

to think that we do. Why did Boris

Johnson make such a mess of this

very difficult Iranians situation?

Well, I don't know and I don't want

to say anything that might make the

situation worse. But I assume he did

not invent this out of a clear blue

sky.

There is a strange reluctance

to apologise. I think you may be

right that we shouldn't go down that

road any further. Because it was

strange, if he just got it wrong,

why wouldn't he immediately just

apologise? But his critics, in their

zeal to do him down, in a sense it

also let Iran off the hook. For all

the floundering, Boris Johnson is

not the villain. It is the people

who have locked up this British

citizen.

That is true but in the

end, whatever the reality of, as

Michael says, if you are the Foreign

Secretary, you have to read your

brief and be on top of the issues.

You can't go to select committee and

not be clear when you are talking

about important matters. And I'm

afraid that Boris Johnson does not

really looked to me like he is on

top of the job. As Foreign

Secretary, the idea that he could be

Prime Minister is staggering.

Shares

in that are falling quite rapidly, I

think. Much to Michael, it has

cheered him up enormously. Is there

a slight sign that Boris Johnson has

grown into the job of Foreign

Secretary?

It is peculiar because I

would say no. Some people, being

kind about his appointment, thought

that perhaps he would. He ought to

have seen it as an important

potential stepping stone on his way

to being world king. It doesn't seem

like that at all. I think this

mistake of his is unforgivable.

It

looks like being expensive. He will

have to take a large cheque.

£450

million of debt which we owe to

Iran.

Maybe we can take it out of

the Brexit divorce bill.

We took 70

billion out of the public accounts

yesterday by redefining Housing

corporations.

Which only two years

ago we put into the national

accounts.

It makes you realise that

if we paid 60 billion euros to the

European Union, it can be undone in

an accounting change overnight.

Maybe we should print some more

money. Former Chief Secretary and

former close adviser to the

Chancellor, what should be in next

week's Budget?

I would settle for a

lack of disaster, I think.

You are

setting a very high bar. The last

three have been pretty much a

disaster.

That is rather my point. I

have no expectation that there is

anything he will do, or unfairness,

that he can do, to vast lead change

the direction of the country or to

raise the morale of the Conservative

Party. But if it isn't a mess, that

will be OK.

I don't think I can

remember a Budget whether Treasury

team and Chancellor have been so

poor at getting expectations in the

right place. In October, he told the

Sunday Times would be a

revolutionary budget, the last

chance to reset relations with the

public. That feels like a long time

ago. But he allowed this to become,

for him, can he save the government?

Since then the economic and fiscal

position has clearly deteriorated.

If he is going to slash the VAT

threshold for salt employed people

that is a total catastrophe.

Tory

owners of small businesses are going

to love that.

He can't be going to

do that.

It will make the National

Insurance row looked like a storm in

a teacup.

In the day that I was in

the Treasury, you could make Budget

decisions until the last minute.

These days, he has to go to the

Office for Budget Responsibility ten

days before. So if things are out

there now and the Treasury is not

knocking them down, it is probably

because they are in there. If he

does that on VAT for the

self-employed, cutting the threshold

down to 20,000, surely he can't do

that.

We will find out live on BBC

Two from 11:30am until 3:30pm on

Wednesday. Labour and Tories are

neck and neck in the polls at the

moment. Should the Tories be

comforted by that?

I think they

should be. If you look at the

detail, it is fascinating. Almost

20% of people say they would vote

Tory in the general election but do

not agree with anything the

government is actually doing. If

they disagree to that extent and

they are still not willing to back

Corbyn, that is a bit of a comfort

blanket for the government. It will

not get them through the governing

problems.

That was a point well made

by Tony Blair the other day, that

Corbyn ought to be miles ahead.

Have

we hit peak Corbyn?

Lots of people

are sticking with the Tories because

they want to see Brexit delivered.

It is not clear that they all end up

staying with the Conservative Party

afterwards. Who knows?

That's a very

good question.

Jeremy Corbyn had a

bad week at PMQs this week and we

were surprised by it but a year ago

it was bad every week.

He has had a

good run and that does not continue

indefinitely. He was bound to have a

bad week.

The Conservative Party

seems to be so good aching bad news

for itself that at the moment Jeremy

Corbyn is sitting back and letting

it happen. When he is more in the

spotlight, the questions arise.

If

there is a Budget which unravels,

that is a disaster for the

government this time. They can't

afford that. No pressure!

Miranda,

thank you.

Now you may find this hard

to believe when you have people

like myself, Michael and Ed on TV,

but the UK apparently has

a body image problem.

Yes, many of us, it seems,

have issues with the way we look.

Young people, too.

Body dissatisfaction

can start as young

as six, according to a report

published this week.

At its worst, this can lead

to depression, anxiety,

and conditions like bulimia.

And from prime-time TV

to magazines, to the adverts

on your local bus, these images

are virtually impossible to escape.

That's why we're putting body image

in this week's Spotlight.

In a week when I'm

a celebrity and its prurient

shower scenes returns...

Jesus Christ.

..we ask, does Britain

have a body image problem?

It's a jungle out there.

Really.

What I had to do was have a shower

and basically as the water fell

on me it then was removed

from the tank which was

activating a pulley system

which was holding Jay.

Our televisions and phones

are replete with such images,

and the Youth Select Committee says

enough is enough.

If you take a selfie

and nobody likes it,

you just feel it puts you down.

Some try and lose a lot of weight,

build muscle, to fit

into what society deems

as the perfect body image.

With new guidelines, is the Church

ahead of the state on this issue?

It's about giving schools guidance

and recommendations about how

they ensure that their schools

eradicate any form of bullying

whatsoever in their schools,

and particularly focused

on homophobic and

transphobic bullying.

Hello, everybody.

Even the stars of the internet

are feeling the need for reform,

as beauty blogger Zoella faces

criticism for a series of body

shaming tweets from 2009 until 201.

But Philip Davies is worried that

all this touchy-feely politics has

triggered a witchhunt.

Militant feminists have tried

to close down any talk about men

and women being treated equally,

and so in order to try

and close down the debate,

they hurl abuse at the people

who raise these issues.

So, progress on all fronts,

or an affront to decency?

Historian Bettany Hughes

is with us to discuss body

image in modern Britain.

Welcome, Bettany.

Have we, in modern times, have we

always had this concern about body

image, or is it reaching new peaks?

I think there is a bit of a perfect

storm at the moment because sometime

around the 90s, it became acceptable

to the obsessed with your body. As a

species we have always been

interested now bodies, delighted in

our bodies. If you go back to

prehistory, we created figurines of

ourselves and there were beauty

contests in ancient Greece. Sometime

in the 90s, everybody said it is

fine to be vain. There was a time

when people said don't be so vain.

There was even a song.

There was a

song. That happened, and then there

was a moment when kids were given

mechanical tools which meant they

could share images, they were

bombarded with images. So you get a

philosophical shift in society and a

mechanical shift that means images

are everywhere.

And we reached this

youth select committee report which

says children as young as six have

become obsessed with their image and

suffer from depression. I haven't

read anything more depressing

four-year is.

It is so depressing.

We all experienced playground

bullies, and suddenly you have a

thousand playground bullies and they

are wearing cloaks of invisibility

and they are in your pocket saying,

you are ugly, fat, the wrong shape,

size, colour. Something seriously

fundamental has to be done and we

have two in Courage children to

realise, without sounding too hippy

about it, that beauty is within, not

without.

I suggest the media has some

responsibility because a lot of

pictures of celebrities, models,

even though to most ordinary folk,

they look already amazing, but there

are electronic ways of making them

look more perfect.

That is the image

makers who play a big part because

there is a commercial imperative.

You have beautiful people selling

products to kids of all ages, and

they have to put a range of images

out there. You ask if it is a modern

issue. It has been going on at least

2500 years. That is why there is a

lot of catching up to do and you get

a moment in the classical world when

suddenly naked images of women are

everywhere and it is confusing for

men in society at that time because

there were naked images of women

everywhere and they are told to look

at these gorgeous images, but

women's bodies are to be feared,

conquered, controlled, and I see

that as a consistent trope.

Whereas

in the 90s and the decade after, the

body image was an issue for perhaps

younger women, it has become an

issue for young men, they feel

pressured.

Completely. Young men

often apparently used 12 kinds of

products on their body and hair and

faces every day. This does not

divide society in terms of gender,

we have all got to deal with it

because we cannot have kids aged six

having mental health issues.

Michael, it is depressing? Extremely

and I feel sorry for these children.

I think better knee is optimistic in

saying these are issues we have to

deal with, I do not know -- Bettany.

There seems to be a uniform concept

of what is the perfect body and I do

not think you will have our

advertisers throwing out different

kinds of bodies as though they are

content to...

The issue, some things

adults and parents deal with, like

crossing the road, bullying, but the

problem when you get to issues of

body image, it has changed in

generation. Parents often think

their kids look beautiful and do not

understand the kids themselves do

not feel that way and it is

something the adults have to start

talking about with the right kind of

messages to kids from a young age.

We are not doing that because we do

not get it and we have to get on the

programme.

You have a new TV show?

I

have, about the goddess Venus and

images of women. It went out last

night and it is now on BBC iPlayer.

Good to see you.

And there you have it.

We're off for a jungle-themed party

at Loulou's in honour

of Stanley Johnson's decision

to grace I'm A Celebrity

Get Me Out of Here.

Yes, Michael's wearing his Tarzan

thong, again, and Ed's had

the stains taken out of his ballroom

gorilla costume, all to pay tribute

to Boris's intrepid father,

whose ability to live off his son's

name clearly knows no bounds.

It's a family trait.

Clearly in the genes.

We have only one piece of advice.

Don't eat the bush tucker entrees.

There's no telling what you'll get

stuck in your dentures.

Speaking of which, we leave

you with a taste of a Nando's advert

withdrawn after its Zimbabwean

workers received death

threats back in 2011.

I wonder why.

Night-night, don't let

the spicy chicken bite.

# Those were the days, my friend

# We thought they'd never end

# We'd sing and dance

for ever and a day

# We'd live the life we choose

# We'd fight and never lose

# We were young and

sure to have our way

# Those were the days, my friend

# We thought they'd never end

# We'd sing and dance

for ever and a day.#