25/01/2018 This Week

Tonight on this week, quick, call

the midwife, something momentous is

about to happen.

about to happen. Giles Brandreth,

are you free?

Yes, I'm on the case

Andrew, but don't expect a trouble

free round-up this week, this

delivery's proving pretty

complicated. Never seen anything

quite like it.

I wouldn't bank on

that baby's future. Mind you,

socialist father Paul Mason thinks

we are all doomed, whatever our age.

Can Davos give birth to some new

thinking about capitalism?

Can Davos give birth to some new

thinking about capitalism?

Maybe the

milk of human kindness will avert

disaster? Gail Porter certainly

thinks so.

Compassion, Andrew, it's

sadly lacking in the world today.

I know, life's tough, but don't

panic. Breathe in, breathe out. Blue

Nun, hot towels and earplugs at the

ready, another one is about to pop.

Evenin' all.

Welcome to This Week.

And, as we come on air,

the PM has announced that,

though she will not oblige

Boris Johnson by stumping up

more dosh for the NHS,

she has decided to finance his idea

of a bridge over the Channel -

provided he uses

Carillion to build it.

That way, said the PM's spokesman,

the Boris Bridge will become one

of the Foreign Secretary's great

infrastructure legacies,

along with Boris Island Airport

on the Thames Estuary,

the Garden Bridge across the Thames

in Central London and not forgetting

the Hanging Gardens of Babylon,

created by Boris during

a gap year at Eton.

On a personal note,

I joined Ukip this morning.

By mid-afternoon I was leader.

By early evening efforts

had begun to depose me.

But I'm hanging in.

If I can survive til the weekend

I'll be the longest serving Ukip

leader since St Nigel of Farage.

And news is reaching us from Davos

that President Trump is locked up

in his hotel suite and refusing

to come out.

Apparently he's been

inconsolable since learning

that the Liberal Democrat's declared

he wasn't welcome in this country.

The President's Men fear he might

never recover from such a snub.

"Who is Vince Cable

to do this to me?"

The President has just written

in a heart-breaking tweet.

Followed by the even more

despairing, "Who is Vince Cable?"

Speaking of those who've endured

more snubs than they've had votes,

I'm joined on the sofa tonight

by two men who couldn't even get

membership of the President's Club,

that well-known group of businessmen

committed to women's rights

who stage an annual tribute

to feminism at the Dorchester Hotel.

In fact, the Club decided

to wind itself up rather

than let these two join.

I speak of course of Michael

#choochoo Portillo and Chuka

#smooth operator Umuna.

Welcome to you both. Michael, your

moment of the week?

The deservedly

former Prime Minister David Cameron

said in Davos that Brexit had been a

mistake but not a disaster. He was

the architect of project fear and he

told us there would be immediate

economic disaster. The interesting

thing to me was that, of course, the

remarks were caught off guard by a

camera and a microphone he didn't

realise were listening to him. He

never appears to answer questions as

to why he held this referendum. It

plunged us into the state we are in.

Whether you are pro or anti Brexit,

this topic is still live. He walked

off the field the next day. It's

difficult to remember the cause of

it all but the cause was Ukip and I

believe they are subject for

discussion.

Chuka, your moment?

My

moment is very moving and an

incredible speech given by Baroness

Tessa Jowell of Brixton.

A friend of

this programme.

She's been

incredible to so many of us, such a

mentor, she's one of the most

kindest most genuine people in

British politics and absolutely

typical of her, as she goes through

this battle with cancer, that she

should use her own situation to

campaign to improve the

opportunities for others going

through what she's going through to

access the very best medical

research trials et cetera and it's

extraordinary. You very rarely see,

in fact never see in the House of

Lords a round of applause. She got

more than that, she got a standing

ovation of several minutes. Tessa,

if you are watching, we all wish you

well and we are right behind you.

We

do indeed. We say to our viewers,

you can see this on the BBC iPlayer

and YouTube. It's worth watching

both the speech and the follow-up

reaction to it from the House of

Lords.

Now before we go any further,

a little reminder that we're having

a party in Sarf London

on the evening of March the first.

If you'd like to come along you need

to follow the instructions

on the This Week website.

Or the tweeter.

We can't take all of you,

so if you're thinking of applying

pull out the stops and tell us

why on earth you would

want to come along.

Now there was a time -

during the long

Thatcher-Major-Blair-Brown years -

when it looked as if British

socialism had been consigned

to the dustbin of history,

along with the donkey-jackets

so many on the militant

left liked to wear.

Even a real crisis of capitalism -

the Great Crash of 2008 -

did not revive it.

Indeed Labour was replaced

by a centre-right Coalition.

But the sclerotic recovery

from that Crash, the long

shadow of austerity,

stagnant real wages

and a new generation which doesn't

see what's so great about capitalism

when it has no capital -

and of course has never been served

a British Rail sandwich -

all that has put socialism back

on the agenda and Jezza in control

of the Labour Party.

So are we on the brink

of a new Red Dawn?

Here's Paul Mason with

his Take of the Week.

The global elite assembled at Davos

have one job and that is to imagine

how an automated indigenousical

capitalism could work and for

everybody.

-- digital capitalism could work and

for everybody. The capitalism we

have got now clearly doesn't work.

Sure you

Sure you can print 12 trillion

dollars, but rising populations and

better education prospects are

running out. Technological

innovation, contrary to the hype

isn't contributing to growth we can

measure because its main effect is

to collapse the price of everything.

In the meantime, the global system

is breaking up. It doesn't start

with trade but with things like the

Internet or different encryption

laws or even artificial intelligence

where suddenly there's an arms race.

Meanwhile, all over the developed

world, people are losing their

belief in mainstream politics, in

democratic culture and even in the

rule of law. If all you get from

rising growth is rising inequality,

that's going to get worse.

That's what's driven Donald Trump

and what's driving support for the

far right in Germany.

They say with these Davos events

you've seen one, you've seen them

all. As one World Bank economist put

it only this week, these are people

who won't pay the living wage but

will sponsor a Symphony Orchestra.

But I can see a change. The original

idea behind Davos, a kind of

confident, Liberal Democratic

capitalism has become more of a thin

veneer and it's the crux and the

autocrats and the dem dogs who're

starting to set the agenda -- the

crooks.

The choice facing people at Davos

is, find another form of capitalism

or popular pressure is going to pull

the system apart and push politics

to the extremes a lot.

Our thanks to Concrete

Space in Shoreditch.

Welcome Paul Mason.

Michael, is global capitalism in

crisis?

No. I would put forward a

number of facts. Communist China's

adoptedical tallism, the former

Soviet Union's adoptedical tallism.

I think the only country that hasn't

now is North Korea. The effects of

it has been to make people much

richer. The average income of the

global population's doubled in the

last ten years. There's a middle

class now in India of hundreds of

millions as there is a middle class

in China of hundreds of millions.

Capitalism is highly successful.

Communism's always been associated

with mass murder, Stalin killed 30

million. I think we do well to stick

with capitalism. It has its ups and

downs but it's very successful

across the world.

Let me respond to

that before I bring in Chuka?

People

like me have no intention of trying

to relive the horrors of the state

command planning forced march.

Like

the Soviet Union?

And China et

cetera. The Chinese Communist Party

is common among capitalists at the

moment. I could be wrong, but the

reason why I think I'm not is that

there is something special about the

technology that we are trying to

apply that is different to all the

other machine technologies. It's an

information machine acts

differently, as I said in the VT. It

collapses the price of everything.

My take on the crisis is, it's not

just a cyclical thing, a few banks

got a few things wrong, it's a

signal that there is no value coming

down the line towards us from the

future, such as the big tech

companies thinking that there is.

Technology just really doesn't

provide that new wave of technology.

It has to adopt technology?

Absolutely, but the problem about,

if technology does not create value,

ie tangible GDP monetisable value,

we borrow what, 70 trillion, or £270

billion, no, trillion it's got to

be, trillion, yes, on the basis of

what, we pay it back in the future

through growth and that has to be

monetary.

Let me bring Chuka in.

Oxfam said this week really moving

into the political row on the

charity stage, we are dominated by

an extreme form of capitalism.

Did

Oxfam used to be a charity rather

than a political organisation.

It's

a charity.

There is a crisis of

capitalism. In a way I disagree with

Michael and Paul. Michael's argument

is, if you look at overall levels of

poverty across the world, growing

middle classes, in Asia and Africa

et cetera, the numbers of people

living in poverty have relatively

reduce and there is research to back

that up. However, it ignores...

It's

not relative.

It's absolute.

Extreme

poverty, people have fell into

extreme poverty and it's very

extreme. Accounted for 40% of the

globe in the 1980s, today it's under

10%.

Yes, absolutely, I totally

accept that point. But what it

ignores is actually the impact of

inequality. On this, this is where I

take issue with Paul's analysis of

what will happen with the

technology. The truth is, we don't

know if there'll be a net increase

or loss in jobs. I think where

there's more research to back up a

lame is that the Noake noltion I

think exacerbate inequality. The

challenge for capitalism going

forward is how do we ensure more

people have capital and how do you

prevent relative inequality. I'm

abusing my position here, I want to

ask you a question, are you saying

you want a different form of

capitalism or do you want to do away

with it all together? I want private

and public sectors work together.

Both. My prognosis in the book

called Post Capitalism is that

technology eats the market over a

century because it won't provide a

renewable capitalism in the way that

other waves of technological

innovation have. But that doesn't

solve our problem. We have to design

a kind of capitalism that solves the

problem.

So you do want capitalism?

I would be closer to some of the

right-wing critics of Oxfam's report

than some of the general uncritics

of it because it was once said that

it was revolutionising the

production. That's what's happened.

The problem we've got, it's more

built in. The inequality within

nations is demonstrably built into

the current model of accumulation

and I see that as half of what is

driving that.

I wouldn't disagree. I

think there are different forms of

capitalism and they bake in

inequality in different ways. I

think the other issue with your

piece actually is, classically I

suppose on the left welike at

inequality and economic inequality

but also there are cultural issues,

some related to inequality and

economic factors but there's a whole

culture war value going on.

Communist systems brought massive

inequality between the ruling class

and the rest. In capitalism, the

people at the bottom are always

getting richer, participating in the

wealth. In communist societies, the

society is literally went bankrupt,

unable to sustain themselves.

Have

people really been getting richer?

Yes.

In recent times?

Yes. People in

the street now wearing shoes,

educated, they have health care.

Obesity is a characteristic of the

poor. If you had said that in the

19th century, people would have been

amazed. And this idea that

technology makes things cheaper, it

always has. That means that people

can afford more. They can buy more

things because they are cheaper. As

they buy more things, so the demand

becomes more widespread, so the

employment opportunities become

greater. I am unconvinced at this

stage that artificial intelligence

is going to be any different from

any other technological innovation,

all of which so far have replaced

labour-intensive technologies with

new labour-intensive technologies.

We are always able to see the jobs

destroyed, and we never foresee

those created.

You wrote your book

at a time when the recovery from the

crash was still very slow, the

slowest recovery from any downturn

in recent memory. But only in the

past 18 months, things have changed.

The eurozone is showing growth. The

American economy, 3%, looks better

now too. Emerging markets are

growing strongly.

I take my cue from

not only my research but the Bank of

England. The Bank of England did a

research project on long-term

sources of growth, which basically

says the extra workers and increased

education that has driven global

growth in the last 30 years is

running out. The catching up growth

that China has done, that is going

to run out. The Bank of England, its

economists, see growth at 1.5 in the

next 30 years. If that is true, the

success stories are the countries

that fight for their bit of it. This

is the mind-bender for those of us

who have grown up for 30 years

thinking the global economy is

simply a win-win. Trump might indeed

achieved 3% growth and

re-industrialisation through America

first, and I think if he does, in

two or three years' time, other

countries will look at that and they

will say, we want some of that.

One

can do it, but if everyone tried...

Back to the 1930s and a negative sum

game. Defend globalisation by doing

less of it.

To bring it back to

today's politics, let's assume you

are right. I am not quite sure what

your friends a Corbyn government

versus a May government would make.

A massive difference. The thing that

sticks me to Corbyn, for all the

differences I might have with him on

minor issues, is that he is the

first social democratic politician

who is prepared to say that

neoliberalism is over. The model for

the last 30 years, Blair, Thatcher,

Major, Brown, is over. We need a new

one.

He is not a social Democrat.

Of

course he is.

He has never had any

empathy with the German social

Democrats, or Gordon Brown. Reed it

is a semantic issue.

It's quite

important. If you introduce tax

credits, national minimum wage,

infrastructure investment.

Final

thought.

Final thought, I think what

a Labour government has to do is to

create a new normal, like the Attlee

government did. That means knocking

off the hard edges of what it wants,

but the new consensus has to be what

I said in the VT, a kind of

capitalism that starts to suppress

inequality and drive growth is not

through money printing. If Labour

can deliver that, the Tory

government that comes after it, when

we are probably all gone from this

so far, would have to start from a

very different premise than the last

30 years.

Thank you for being with

us.

It's late.

Boris Johnson's mummified

great-great-great-great-great-great

great grandmother late.

Yes, in a world where fact

increasingly out-freaks fiction

and freaks out the rest of us -

scientists have used

DNA from a mummified

big toe to establish

that the Foreign Secretary

is related to the toe's owner,

a 16th century Swiss noblewoman.

Naturally.

Sadly, Anna Catharina Bischoff died

of mercury poisoning in a failed

attempt to cure her of syphilis.

But stop sniggering at the back.

Researchers think she contracted it

while caring for those

with sexually-transmitted diseases,

allowing BoJo to dub her a pioneer

in sexual health care.

And from a powerful woman

of the 16th century

to a well-known woman of today.

TV presenter and former model

Gail Porter, who will be shining

the spotlight on compassion tonight.

And if you'd like to get

in touch on the Tweeter,

the Fleecebook, or the Snapnumpty,

then you know where you can

stick your cyber ramblings!

Just saying.

I'm sure someone out

there is interested

in what you have to say.

But I suspect most folks couldn't

give a flying Paxman!

This week's Cabinet meeting

will forever be known

as the Beasting of Boris.

In response to his spin doctors

revealing in advance

that he was going to raise the case

for more money for the NHS,

the Prime Minister presided over

a staged humiliation

of the Foreign Secretary,

as minister after minister

lectured him on the constitutional

convention that what happens

in cabinet stays in cabinet.

How do we know all this?

Because the Downing Street spinners

leaked a blow by blow account

of the cabinet discussion,

clearly considering it more

important we know about the Biffing

of Boris than adhering

to their own

constitutional niceties.

Speaking of niceties,

here's Giles Brandreth

and some Sunday night period

drama involving babies.

Hours of agony, pushing

and screaming, tirades of abuse,

and then a tiny, bloody reward.

Yes, it's the This Week round-up,

and it's messy business.

Still, so long as you've got

plenty of hot towels

and you stay up at the head end,

you should get through it.

Speaking of painful comings

and goings, Ukip's leader,

Henry Bolton, began the week

defending his position,

after his party's ruling committee

voted to remove him by Caesarean

section after his girlfriend

had made racist remarks

about Prince Harry's fiance,

Meghan Markle.

But it takes more than a racist

girlfriend and a vote

of no-confidence to get rid of man

like Henry Bolton, who can strangle

a badger with his bare hands.

I will not be resigning

as party leader.

It is now time to put an end

to the factional infighting that has

been going on within the party

for some time, and to remove those

who have been part of that.

In a single phrase,

it is time to drain the swamp.

The swamp is draining

all on its own, as 14 senior Ukip

figures have quit their posts ahead

of next month's ballot,

when the party membership

will decide whether or not to get

rid of Mr Bolton.

Meanwhile, former leader

Nigel Farage, epidural at the ready,

had these words of encouragement.

It's been an appalling few weeks

and I think Henry Bolton has

shown very bad judgment.

I'm not saying that I support

Henry Bolton, but I do

support him saying to the NEC, "I'm

not going to take your judgment,

I will move this onto a full

extraordinary general meeting

of the Ukip membership".

Duty calls.

Hello, Brandreth Birthing,

how may I help you?

Labour complications.

It seems the patient has split

from the EU but is still umbilically

attached to the single market.

Very tricky.

You can have access

to the single market.

You would be effectively members

of the single market.

No, you would have access

but you will not be a decision-maker

when it comes to the rules,

and that's quite important.

The process can be toughest

on expectant Leavers.

There they are, hoping

for a bouncing baby Brexit,

brimming with bilateral trade deals,

and they end up pacing up and down

in the waiting room,

stuck in transition.

The Brexit Secretary reminded us

that you can't rush these things.

Aren't we just still acting

as if we are in the European Union,

we are bound by the European Union,

we are lackeys of

the European Union?

No, we are acting as

a law-abiding country.

Can't we be a bit bolder?

We are not going to break those

undertakings, laws, commitments.

We are leaving.

We don't need to behave

as if we are a permanent member.

And no need for forceps.

Indeed, he also reassured them

that the UK wouldn't pay for access

to the single market.

I don't see us paying for access.

Bearing in mind, I could turn around

to Mr Barnier and say,

"OK, I'll pay you taxes.

"I'll pay you £1 for every £1000

of business we sell to you,

"as long as you pay me £1 for every

£1000 of business you sell to me".

I think I'd make money on the deal.

Meanwhile, the man responsible

was in a positive mood.

Baby Brexit may have been a mistake

but Daddy Dave says it

could have been worse.

Modern man, Dave, unlike some.

MPs this week debated the latest

sexual harassment scandal,

following reports that an undercover

journalist had been groped

at an exclusive men-only charity

event called the Presidents Club.

What happened was that women

were bought as bait for men,

rich men, not a mile

from where we stand,

as if that is an acceptable

behaviour.

It is totally unacceptable.

This seems to be the place.

Hello, did you call the midwife?

Wouldn't you be happier

in a hospital, Mother?

Not sure we could manage

a bed at the moment,

but they do a lovely

line in corridors.

Boris Johnson, the Foreign

Secretary, was recommending

to the Cabinet spending oodles more

money on the NHS, but

the Chancellor, Phillip Hammond,

felt he'd had enough of Boris' lying

gas and air.

Mr Johnson is the Foreign Secretary.

I gave the Health Secretary an extra

£6 billion at the recent Budget,

and we will look at departmental

allocations again at the Spending

Review when that takes place.

At Prime Minister's Questions,

the waters broke.

Boris Johnson's intervention

was a gift for Jeremy Corbyn,

who demanded more money

to for the NHS.

But Mrs May, the nation's matron,

downplayed the crisis and told us

that her government was spending

a fortune on the NHS.

Now, Mother...

The Prime Minister is frankly in

denial about the state of the NHS.

Even the absent Foreign Secretary

recognises it, but the Prime

Minister isn't listening.

When is she going to face up

to the reality and take action

to save the NHS from death

by a thousand cuts?

This is a government

that is backing the NHS plan,

that is putting more money

into the NHS.

Because this is a government that

recognises the priorities

of the British people.

Oh, nearly there,

Mother, nearly there.

Oh, look, look.

Oh, a beautiful baby.

Coochie, coochie.

We are going to call

you little Eugenie.

Oh, it's a boy, and a bruiser.

We'll call you Andrew Neil.

Mother.

Well done.

We'd like to reassure the Nursing

and Midwifery Council and expectant

mothers everywhere that no women

or children were harmed

during the making of that film.

And thanks to Balfe's Bikes

of Dulwich, South London,

who are to blame for putting Gyles

on two wheels.

And with us now, Ukip's fairy

godmother, Christine Hamilton.

So, is Ukip in its death throes?

Who

knows.

If anybody knows, it's you.

Of course I don't know. The next

step, as everybody knows, is the

extraordinary general meeting which

is going to take place in about, I

think it's the 18th February if that

is a Sunday. Nobody knows where it's

going to be yet, it's rumoured to be

in the middle of the country, like

Derby or Coventry.

It's a secret,

like a rave where you meet in the

middle of the night. We'll have to

go to Facebook.

It's not a secret,

it's just not been organised yet.

So

it is a secret.

No, a secret is

slightly different. If you put a

compass point in the middle of the

country it's meant to be easier

access for everybody.

Does it matter

changing your leader. If you changed

your leader, you would be the most

successful party in the room?

I

don't know what will happen at the

EGM. There's a huge amount of

anti-Henry Bolton sentiment out

there.

He's the leader?

By the skin

of his teeth. He's not alone in his

clinging on. I think he's been

puppeted by Nigel Farage and he's a

very strong force in Ukip and a lot

of people follow Farage come what

may so it really depends who gets

there, who gets to Derby.

Who can

find out where it is.

We'll all be

told where it is.

How is he being

puppeted, what's Farage's game here?

I don't think Henry Bolton is acting

entirely off his own back by saying,

aisle not going to go. Somebody is

saying, hang on in there, because it

would suit them if he'd implode

because that would pave the way for

him to come forward with the Farage

party which he'd want to do.

Let's

get away from Ukip.

But if they're in decline, the

significance of that is for Labour

because the Ukip vote collapsed back

into the Tories and we go back in

England to a two-party system. If

that is going to be the future, it's

tougher for Labour if Ukip is no

longer the threat on the Tory flank.

Potentially. I'm not sure I totally

accept the analysis that we had a

reassertion of a two-party system. I

think for Labour or Tory alike, in

that sense

By share of the vote.

But

that means every person in every

case was voting because and for the

parties, not inspite of them.

If

they look at the June vote, they go,

suddenly we are at 83%. The combined

Labour Tory vote?

Yes. I think that

is dangerous because there were a

lot of people voting for other

reasons. All the research from June

2017 shows a huge number of people

voted Labour for the first time,

particularly young people, in the

belief we'd stop a hard Brexit as it

were. The research backs that up.

It's more complex than you might

think.

That's what helped Labour get

Green and Lib Dem votes, which is

why England particular came back to

a two-party system.

I suppose it

just means we are not super, super

particular.

Moving on to even more

matters, didn't we see the more

dividing Cabinet lines being

exposed. Mr Hammond, Amber Rudd and

others want us to continue to shadow

most of what the EU does even if we

are no longer in it. There's Michael

Gohel, Liam Fox, Boris Johnson, they

really want us to strike out on our

own. How do you reconcile that? It's

irreconcilable, is it not?

Yes,

they're in fundamentally different

positions. We have seen the

organised ganging up on members of

Cabinet. We have talked about how

they are gangs up on Boris on the

NHS and this evening a succession of

ministers have come out to

criticise, and I think rightly, what

Philip Hammond said about

remaining...

Closely aligned?

Extraordinarily close or as close as

we possibly could be to the European

Union. Yes, the two positions are

irreconcilable, but I think the

position of the British people is

pretty clear, it's that we must

leave the European Union that. Is

the policy of the Government and the

Prime Minister.

Given this division

which has come to the foreas we move

on to the next stage, because the

next stage of Brexit is for the

Government to decide what kind of a

relationship it wants with the EU.

That's phase two. This argument

between close alignment and striking

out on our own, look, if Ukip wasn't

fighting among itself all the time,

there would be a role for Ukip from

his point of view of keeping the

Government's feet to the fire on

this?

Despite the fact Ukip is

internally fighting, there is still

a role for it. Although membership

might have plummeted, there are

still a lot of people out there

supporting the aims of Ukip and they

don't want Ukip to disappear. Going

back to what you were asking Chuka

earlier, Ukip's always drawn its

support, it used to be a third from

Labour, a third from former Tory and

a third who've never voted before

and I lot of them went back to

Labour, especially in the Welsh

valleys, for example, so it's not

true to say all the Ukip voters went

to the Tories. It's fluid. What

knows what will happen at the next

election and Ukip is necessary to

keep the Government's feet to the

fire because, as Mrs May seems to be

holding together if this

extraordinary coalition in the Tory

party and while they've got her it

can continue, but I mean how much

longer can she continue?

It's a pity

that we had a June 2017 election.

Before that, Labour MPs were

frightened by the fact that in many

of their constituencies there had

been a Brexit majority and Labour

MPs who came on the sofa were

careful to say how they were going

to respect the wishes of the British

people. Chuka doesn't bother with

that any more. Ukip is not a force

in the land, whereas after 2015 we

still thought it was. It's a great

pity because, the effect of the 2017

general election has been to lessen

the impact of what the British

people clearly decided in 2016.

I'm

not so sure about that, funnily

enough because OK, in 2016, people

voted to leave the European Union

and the majority of people

participated in that referendum but

how was reserved to Parliament and

Theresa May put coming out of the

single market and the customs union,

pursuing the so-called hard Brexit,

she immediate that the centrepiece

of her general election campaign and

lost her majority. So I'm not sure

you can necessarily read into this

that, you know, we can't have a

debate and scrutinise what form of

Brexit is.

You are quite right, the

nature of the deal requires debate

and argument. But in that debate,

are you able to tell us, is it

Labour's position to remain members

of the single market or not?

Well,

at the moment in transition, yes.

But in terms of the long-term, we

haven't come to a decision on that.

I'm very clear, I think we should be

arguing for us to stay in the single

market permanently.

Membership?

Yes.

Which is effectively staying in?

Yes. At the moment what is going on,

the leadership is waiting to see if

public opinion moves in a particular

direction and they are looking at

polling and focus groups. I would

argue in the end you have got to

lead and make the argument for your

values, when Labour stops doing

that, support for things like

poverty reduction, inequality

reduction falls, so it stands to

reason, if we make the argument for

a kind of, personally I wish it

wasn't happening, but...

It wouldn't

happen if we stayed in the single

market.

That's why it's his policy.

You can be a member of the single

market unless you have had free

movement.

ECJ.

Well, you're...

Doesn't mean it's the right thing to

do but you are staying in.

You are

not. There are countries that

participate fully, Norway,

Lichtenstein, Iceland, they're not

in the European Union but

participate fully.

You are saying

you respect the views of the British

people who voted to come out. They

did not vote 20 To come out yet stay

in the single markets. They voted to

come out.

Staying in the single

market wasn't on the ballot paper. I

represent the most remained

constituency in the country so my

constituents were actually prefer

not to be leaving.

It was clearly

understood leaving the EU means

leaving.

How do you know. £350

million a week for the NHS was the

big thing that got the leave

campaign in there.

There's nothing

to stop that.

Sometimes you wish you

never raised the subject! It's like

ground hog day on the referendum and

we have ran out of time. Christine

Hamilton, thank you.

Rough sleeping rose 15% last year.

It's risen ever year

for the past seven years,

a 170% increase since 2010.

Tonight around 4,750

people in England alone

are bedding down in doorways,

under bridges and in parks

homelessness in its

rawest, cruellest form.

We're one of the richest countries

in the world with a sophisticated

and extensive welfare state.

And we like to think we're

a compassionate country.

So why is rough

sleeping on the rise?

Tonight we're putting

compassion in the Spotlight.

Emily Thornberry quoted

Thurgood Marshall in a debate

on refugees yesterday.

The measure of a country's greatness

is its ability to retain

compassion in times of crisis.

With rough sleeping rising

for the seventh consecutive year,

is compassion in short

supply these days?

People walk past who know

you, what you've grew

up with and all that, and they just

look down their nose at you.

And when someone's actions

are monstrous, is there any

room for compassion?

175 years.

I just signed your death warrant.

In turbulent times, do we need

to rely on business leaders

to inject politics with kindness?

It would be great to have China be

a leader in the reduction

of inequality, which really fits

in with the founding principles

that China is run under.

Can you expect much sympathy...

We have seen you kissing

her very intimately...

If your actions collide

with your colleagues' principles?

It's all become a bit

of a soap opera.

He's now got no mandate at all.

A bit of an embarrassment.

Useless leader.

Lost all touch with reality.

Get the hell out of politics.

Gail Porter thinks the world

can be a cold place.

So how can we be kinder?

And Gail Porter is with us now.

Welcome to the programme.

Thank you

very much for having me.

We like to

think of ourselves as a

compassionate nation. Are we fooling

ourselves?

Well, it's a really

difficult thing for me to broach

because, I mean I think of myself as

a very compassionate person and I

know there are lots of really kind

people out there, but I sometimes

feel like the Government lets us

done and we are let down in so many

different ways. Yes, I would kind of

like to be the Alice in Wonderland

of everything's going to be

wonderful.

Everything is never

wonderful, but the growth in rough

sleeping is a kind of metaphor for

it in some ways, isn't it? You do

wonder, why is this being allowed to

happen at this stage in 2018 in a

rich, advanced country? .

I think

it's absolutely appalling that

people are still sleeping rough. I

don't know if you know my story, but

six years ago I lost my house and I

couldn't afford to pay my rent and

all the rest of it and I ended up

sleeping rough. I luckily had friend

whose sofas I could sleep on and

stuff but I slept rough for a couple

of nights in Hampstead Heath which

was extremely scary and I think, how

does this happen in this day and

age. I worked since I was 15, I hit

on a bad time, never taken benefits

or asked for help and I suddenly got

struck. I couldn't pay my rent and I

had nowhere to go and, you know, I

walked past people every single day

and I think, how does this even

happen.

Although you managed to pull

out of that, the great danger when

that happens to a lot of people is

that it's a dissent into hell?

Exactly, it's a never ending circle

because they can't apply for

benefits this they have not got some

where to stay, they have not got an

address, a lot of people can't get

work without an address.

It

reinforces it?

Exactly.

We often

expect Government to do too much and

Government's not very good at doing

quite a lot of things but when you

look at the rough sloping, the

growth and the problem, you do

wonder why Government can't just get

a grip of this -- rough sleeping.

One Government described this

current Government as basically a

visionless meet yobbingrity and in a

way you would think that Mrs May

would get out of bed one morning and

think, look at the figures, we have

got to do something about that.

Mediocrity.

Something has to be

done.

I travel the world, there is

rough sleeping everywhere, in every

single country I've ever visited

there is rough sleeping. If there

were an answer, then I think at

least one country that I've visited

would have come up with the answer.

I remember Tony Blair was swept into

Downing Street in 1997 on the

promise that he was going to abolish

rough sleeping of course he did not.

It did decline dramatically.

It went

on and on. I've lived in London all

that time, there's always been rough

sleeping.

But it was going in the

other direction.

It was going in the

other direction I completely agree

with you, it was.

I remember

cardboard city as it was called on

the South Bank. That went, there was

a drastic reduck Shannon and since

-- reduction and since 2010, it's

increased by 17%. It's related to

the withdrawal of support,

withdrawal of benefits and impact of

public services and austerity. I

don't know any independent outfit

that would deny that.

What austerity

have we had? We have borrowed every

year more than we've earned, we have

the largest deficit in Europe,

consistently. We are spending more

than £100 billion a year on welfare.

Let me get a final thought from Gail

because we have been through this.

What would you like to be done, what

do you think would allow us to

tackle this?

Obviously, I'm not a

politician, but there needs to be

more money put into looking after

people that are in situations like

myself, you know. People that have

worked. I worked my entire life and

unfortunately I hit a bad patch and

there was nowhere to turn to. I

would have loved to have gone to the

Government and said, can someone

please help me.

Just to get you

through.

Just anything, even a

conversation, put me in the right

direction, you know, I think

sometimes people think homeless

people are either bad people or

going through some sort of terrible

situation in their life. Some people

are hard workers and unfortunately

just hit a rough patch.

We are going

to have to leave it there because we

have run out of time. Thank you very

much for being with us.

That's your lot for tonight folks.

But not for us.

We're off to Lou Lou's, where it's

the President Club's Mea Culpa

night, with all-female dining guests

and top businessmen serving drinks

in short, tight black dresses.

I'm told the women have

lots of ballroom dancing planned,

inspired by the example

of our old chum Ed "twinkle ties"

Balls, whose Strictly Come Dancing

fame gained him entry

to The Donald's Mar

a Lago estate in Florida.

I'm told the President

was particularly taken

by his spangly Lycra and energetic

Rumba.

This has inspired Chukka to threaten

to perform his Gangnam Style routine

which takes "cool" to a new level -

of despair - and Michael

will dance the Time Warp

from the Rocky Horror Show,

just as soon as we get his legs

into his fishnet tights.

Night-nighty don't let

the special relationship bite.

We have had a great discussion, we

are on the same wavelength and I

have every respect for the Prime

Minister. The Prime Minister and

myself have had a really great

relationship. There are some people

that don't necessarily believe that,

but I can tell you, we have

tremendous respect for the Prime

Minister and the job she's doing. I

think the feeling is mutual from the

stand point of liking each other a

lot. There was a little bit of a

false rumour out there, I just

wanted to correct it frankly. I have

great respect for everything you are

doing. We are working on the

transactions in terms of economic

development, trade, maybe most

importantly military. We are very

much joined at the hip when it comes

to the military. We have the same

ideas, the same ideas and there's

nothing that would happen to you

that we won't be there to fight for

you, you know that. I just want to

thank you very much, it's a great

honour to be here. Thank you very

much.

Thank you very much, Mr

President, thank you.