01/02/2018 This Week

Tonight on this Week,

dithering dogfish.

Is the government all at sea?

The ship is shaking

its shackles, captain.

What do we do, captain?

Has the PM been cast adrift?

Me ship foundered, me shipmates

lost, not a sail in sight, and I'm

all alone on the boundless ocean.

Cabin boy Kevin Maguire rounds up

a stormy political week.

Stirring starfish, Andrew,

there's mutiny afoot in Number Ten.

The PM's below deck,

shivering her timbers.

There no knowing how long

she's going to last.

We are here, which says

beware of sea monsters.

Never mind about the PM,

Commander John Simpson worries

Western democracy is under attack.

Buckling barnacles.

Help!

Jumping jellyfish, Andrew,

the sharks are circling,

and I fear democracy's

losing its sea legs.

Powder monkey Ralf Little embarks

on a voyage of political discovery.

Ahoy there, captain.

Politicians used to take youngsters

for nautical nitwits,

but the winds are changing.

Now, where's that rum?

Or Blue Nun?

Ready to fire, captain.

Fire.

Scupper me skull and crossbones,

is that the time?

First mate Liz, Master Michael

Bates, all hands on deck.

The good ship This

Week must set sail.

Evenin' all.

Welcome to This Week.

And as we come on air we learn that

North Korea has launched a nuclear

missile attack on Manchester.

We'll look at where this now

leaves BBC pay policy.

Will the Price Waterhouse report

still be implemented?

Will BBC Salford still be

covered by it, assuming

it survives the nuke?

The North Korea attack has plunged

the world economy into recession,

with mass unemployment

and plummeting living standards now

beckoning across the globe.

We'll investigate what this means

for the BBC gender pay gap.

And as a new Netflix documentary

reveals how slavery and people

trafficking are on the rise

in various parts of the world,

including here in London,

we'll expose the Dickensian

employment practices

of BBC executives who,

during one of their periodic

humiliations before a Commons select

committee, confessed to running

an illicit chimney-sweeping

operation which involved strapping

brushes to presenters' bums

and forcing them up chimneys

in their spare time.

Not only was this work unpaid

but women presenters were even

more unpaid than men.

Speaking of those for whom no

payment would still be

too much remuneration,

I'm joined on the sofa tonight

by two news commentators

who are living proof of the BBC DG's

claim that there is no market

for news in this country.

I speak of course of Michael

#choochoo Portillo and Liz

#fourpercent Kendall.

Your moment of the week?

Provoked by

the news that researchers working on

behalf of Volkswagen were poisoning

monkeys with diesel fumes, the

former chief scientific to the

government, who worked with me, Sir

David King, came out and said that

he really thought that the motor

companies had blood on their hands.

I had never thought about this. I

had thought that the cheating of the

tests that were done on the diesel

engines was really just a matter of

stealing a march on the market. But

he says that because he was duped by

this research in 2004, he

recommended to government that we

advantage diesel engines over petrol

engines so there have been many

more, and they have been kicking out

these fumes which have much more

nitrogen oxide in them than we

think, and many people are

susceptible to these fumes, so he is

saying hundreds of people have died

because these companies committed

this fraud. It had not occurred to

me before. Blood on their hands, he

said.

I think the coverage here

hasn't understood, given the

importance of the German motor

industry to Germany, the core of its

economy, this is a real crisis in

Germany. Because of confidence in

where the country is now going. It

turned out there were some humans

involved in the experiments, too.

Yes, indeed.

Lives, your moment of

the week?

Today's Office For

National Statistics statistics which

show that Britain is good at

creating wealth but terrible at

spreading it. The poorest half of

the population have 9% of the

country's well. This really matters

in terms of entrenching the North -

south divide, divides between older

and younger people. You cannot earn

or save your way into being really

wealthy any more, you have to be

born into it, Mariette, or inherit

it. And I think that should concern

not only those of us who believe in

social justice on the left, but

meritocratic, right, too.

Or else

work for the BBC.

We will move on!

This was supposed to be the century

which sealed the triumph

of liberal democracy.

The end of history as one US

commentator notoriously put it.

But the last two decades have seen,

from Caracas to Beijing to Moscow

and many places in between,

the rise of a new authoritarianism,

not just as a convenience

for governing elites

who want to dodge the annoyance

of democratic accountability,

but as a creed which they claim

is superior to democracy.

At the same time, the post-war

institutions designed

to guarantee our democracy,

security, prosperity

and the global rule of law,

the EU, Nato, the UN,

the IMF, are increasingly struggling

to stay relevant and in

some places downright dismissed.

And even in the most established

of modern democracies,

Britain, France, America,

Germany, there has been

growing populist anger

with our own governing elites.

So, rather than the triumph

of democracy, is there

a danger of its demise.

Who better to answer

that than the BBC's

very own John Simpson?

This is his take of the week.

As we all know, the leader

of the free world wants to make

America great again.

And in his first State of the Union

address earlier this week,

the President said,

"We are restoring our strength

and standing abroad".

But the fact is,

the world has changed.

Democracies are becoming

weaker and America isn't

the beacon it used to be.

Don't just take my word for it.

American think tanks have been

pretty gloomy recently.

Freedom House, for instance,

a non-partisan outfit

based in Washington, DC.

It says, "For the 12th consecutive

year, countries that suffered

democratic setbacks outnumbered

those that registered gains".

And it went on to say that countries

like Turkey and Hungary,

which had been looking quite

promising, were now slipping down

into authoritarian rule.

Our own Prime Minister is in China

at the moment, promoting

a golden era of friendship.

Not very surprising,

given that China is such

an economic powerhouse.

But it's also becoming an awful

lot more autocratic.

Just think of that Swedish-Chinese

publisher, who was arrested

by the secret police the other day.

Maybe President Xi Jinping thinks

that China is so rich nowadays it

doesn't have to worry

about what other people think.

Vladimir Putin is coming up

for another presidential election,

and with the main opposition leader

banged up, yet again,

the outcome is pretty certain.

Two Harvard professors,

Stephen Levitsky and Daniel Ziblat

have been arguing that in fact,

democracy can be killed

at the ballot box.

Once an anti-democratic leader gets

in, he, and it always

does seem to be a he,

is pretty much in for as long

as he wants, because every four

or five years, he can

stage a re-election.

All depressingly true,

but the common thread running

through all this doom and gloom

is the apparent decline

of the United States.

It used to be a counterbalancing

strength against

countries like Russia.

Not so much nowadays.

Freedom House says that 88 countries

are now what it calls free,

while 49 are unfree.

When I became a journalist back

in 1966, the whole picture

was far more gloomy,

but the trouble is, it's turning

in the wrong direction again.

But the big difference is that

in the past the United States

dominated the world.

And now it doesn't.

Many thanks to our friends

at the Diner on the Strand.

A few tequilas the merrier,

John Simpson is here.

Welcome back to the programme.

Nice

to be back.

Michael, is democracy on

the defensive?

Yes, I think it is. I

would go further and say that I

would regard democracy as largely

still experimental. There were 11

democracies in the world in 1941.

Even they were not democracy is

because the United States did not

have black people voting at that

stage. We only had women voting on

equal terms since 1928. Many

democracies came around in the 70s,

80s and 90s. So they have a very

short routes, not long established.

This is an idea that is still on

trial, I think. You can look at it

in various ways. I could say things

are much better now because black

people are voting in the United

States and most of the Eastern bloc

that was under the subjugation of

the Soviet Union is now democratic.

But he would counter and say, in the

last few years it has moved in the

other direction, and that is

absolutely right. And I worry about

some of the characteristics of

democracy, in particular that

democracy forces parties to vie with

each other to promise too much. And

the anyway, if they win the

election, the only way they can deal

with this is to give people today

what must be paid for tomorrow. And

whether it is the Labour Party

policy of increasing public

borrowing, or the Labour and

Conservative Party policy of the

last few years of having public-

private partnerships, it's all the

same, giving rewards to voters today

that must be paid for down the road.

That is a long-term threat to

democracy.

And if democracy is maybe

in retreat, certainly on the

defensive, are we witnessing the

rise of a new authoritarianism?

Without doubt. China, Russia, also

Turkey, medics this week have been

arrested because they protested

against what Turkey was doing in

Syria. I am less pessimistic, not

necessarily about the States,

although I do think that the checks

and balances of the judiciary, the

NGOs, the media are going full guns.

I am much more optimistic that it

can be about Europe. You will

remember, you may even have said

this, Michael, predictions of doom

and gloom on growth and the rise of

populism, growth is back now,

unemployment is down, Macron is

making a very optimistic pitch. So I

think you have to balance the

worrying events that we see in

China, Russia and places like

Turkey.

19 members of the German

parliament from the far right.

That

will not go away.

This is entirely

new. 90.

Where the risks really

lying is if Liberal democracies

allow globalisation to run rampant,

which is where the populist back --

backlash comes from, and if Liberals

become intolerant of those with

different views.

One of the things

that seems to have changed is that

democracy gets into the problems

they have been talking about and

others, and authoritarianism has

ceased to be something that just

strong leaders like, banana Republic

leaders of Latin America, Franco in

Spain and so on. If you listen to

the Kremlin or Beijing, they

actively propose authoritarianism as

a better way, don't they?

Yes they do. What worries me is that

China seems to have worked out a

different way. In the past all

China seems to have worked out a

different way. In the past all these

old freaks With their medals and

their uniforms have been in for 20,

30 years and so on, they never ran

the country properly. It was deeply

corrupt and ordinary people

suffered. Well, China's actually

deeply corrupt too, but it's a huge

success story. It's lifting millions

out of poverty. In China I spend

quite a bit of time there, people

always say to you - well, why should

we want all this democracy malarkey.

We've got everything. We can keep

quiet here. We don't have to speak

too loudly and we can make money. It

does worry me that that's a kind of

new danger.

A changing dynamic.

We never thought that would happen.

Never.

We thought authoritarianism

in the end would lead to democracy.

In a number of place it is's going

in the opposite direction?

It does

seem to be, yes.

Has the crash given

this legs too? Because the crash was

caused by people who were earning

millions and millions and millions

and never really seemed to pay a

price, but the rest suffered

austerity and wage stagnation and

democracy wasn't delivering in the

way it had for post-war generations.

While there was still a number of

communist countries in the world it

was easy to believe capitalism and

democracy was the same thing because

they were closely associated with

each. It's clear they are almost

opposites. Democracy is about

equality every five years, how often

you vote. Capitalism is about

inequality. It doesn't work unless

some people do better than others or

you aren't encouraged to

participate. Whereas you can say to

people - look, don't worry about a

bit of inequality because you get to

vote every five years. That may work

at a diversity of one to 20 between

the pay of a nurse and the pay of an

investment banker. At one to 2,000

it probably doesn't work quite as as

well.

That ratio has got wider.

It's

got wider.

And wider. You said you

were more optimistic, Liz, I

remember he when democracy seemed to

have triumphed every two or three

years. Portugal, Spain, Greece they

all ceased to be fascist countries

and joined democratic Europe. The

liberation of Eastern Europe, even

for a period, Russia itself. These

are being chalked up. Over the past

five years or ten years, even, where

has democracy triumphed?

Well, it

has gone backwards in many places.

The Arab Spring essentially a

democratic failure perhaps. Tunisia

a bit.

As we look forward I will be

interested in what John thinks about

this. Our... The soft power of

America and Europe our incredible

universities which many people from

China are coming to study at. The

dominance of our language and

popular culture and sport, do you

think that over time that those

things will have an influence, even

in a deeply authoritarian country

like China?

Oh, yeah. I think we're

seeing that quite clearly. When

Auntie May goes there she gets -

Her

new name.

It's going to stick.

It is

going to stick.

You know, people

have a respect for Britain because

of what they've heard about it in

the past. But, you know, political

weakness does eat away at that.

Britain is more - is weaker

politically than at any time in my

career since the 70s. That does

tell.

They can sense that.

They can

sense it. Just as they can sense,

you don't even need to sense it,

that Donald Trump is somebody that

everybody seems to want to laugh at.

And that he's obsessed with things

that don't relate to the outside

world. That cuts back on American

soft power just as British political

weakness cuts back on our soft

power. You can make a very good case

for saying that a couple of years

ago Britain had the greatest soft

power in the world, and maybe second

to America, maybe up there with

America. One or two. That I think is

fading at the moment. Maybe it will

come back. It's fading now.

I want

to finish on this point you made

about America. I can remember,

particularly during the Cold War

when the complaint from the left was

that America was too dominant and

even a threat to democracy. It

interfered in democratic procedures.

But now your argument is interesting

that the withdrawal of America,

becoming less important, is helping

the rise of authoritarianism and is

one of the causes of the decline of

democracy?

I feel that quite

strongly. I don't think that America

is pulling back as much as it seems,

when you listen to Donald Trump's

words. It doesn't really put very

much of these words into operation.

No.

It is words, but words are all

the rest have us got. You know, you

sit there, you sit-in Beijing, you

sit-in Moscow, you sit-in Paris or

London and all you hear is what

Donald Trump is saying, and you

don't see very much about the little

that he's doing.

Don't be too rosy

about the past. United States

routinely supported dictatorships in

Latin America.

Indeed. It wasn't a

great help to Iran in the early 50s

either. What we have been talking

about you seem to agree. Is this a

short-term phenomenon that will

change or is this the shape of

things to come, yes or no?

Shape of

things to come.

If we have

confidence in our values it need not

be.

I think everything is quite

short-term nowadays.

These days.

It

will be what is up will be down and

what's down will be up.

John, great

to have you back again. Good to see

you.

It's late.

Hunky-funky-love-action late.

Because, in news that will have

every spotty Herbert

and Henrietta at Tory HQ reaching

for their Barry White records,

researchers claim that attractive

people are more likely

to be right wing.

This has come as something

of a surprise to those of us who've

had to cover Tory party conferences

down the ages and drawn

the short straw of being dispatched

to the Young Conservative annual

shindig.

But there we are.

Who are we to challenge expert

research or forecasts?

Someone who's scrubbed-up well

tonight is the terribly

dashing Ralf Little,

who's putting 'alienation'

in the Spotlight.

And if you'd like to honour us

with your views on tonight's

programme, via the Tweeter,

the Fleecebook,

Uncle-Snapnumpty-and-all.

Well, you don't have our permission.

Our blunt advice is that three hours

of basket weaving a day and best

behaviour when your probation

officer comes to visit is a more

speedy way of getting released

back into the community.

Why is the Conservative

Party revolting?

Well, a comprehensive answer

would keep us here all night.

Suffice to say that the rumblings

and mumblings against the Maybot

from within her own crew reached

a crescendo in the past week,

loud enough to threaten the very

walls of the crumbling corridors

in the Palace of Varieties.

Her Tory critics accuse her

of drift and dither,

while drifting and dithering

about doing anything about it.

Yes, no matter the squalls

and tempests that assail her,

the leaky Good Ship May just keeps

ploughing on through storm-tossed

seas to destinations as yet unknown,

even by the navigator.

So is she unsinkable?

Or is she about to be

tossed overboard into

the shark-infested briny?

Here's scurvy sea dog Kevin

"Peg Leg" Maguire with his latest

despatch from Mutiny on the Maybot.

Britain is leaving

the European Union.

Britain has the strong

and stable leadership.

COUGHING.

Oh, excuse me.

On July 13th 2016, Theresa May's

premiership set sail.

Bound for Brexit success.

En route there began a fantastic

series of historical series

of events as men,

driven to desperation,

plunged into the unknown.

A series of events

had culminated in...

The most famous

non-mutiny in history.

This week mutinous Tory rumblings

spilled over into, well,

more Tory mutinous rumblings over

Theresa May's failure to get

the party ship shape.

Jacob Rees-Mogg was hardly

buccaneering in his implicit call

for Philip Hammond's resignation.

I'm deeply respectful of the system

that we have of government

and that is a matter for the Prime

Minister.

It wouldn't be right

for me to trespass on it.

But it was Admiral May that more

seemed to want marooned on the dead

man's chess with mutterings

about a Premiership.

Tightening the bottle screw

was Johnny Mercer who didn't quite

call blow the woman down,

but he didn't join in

the premier's sea shanties.

I'm of the view that any sort

of change of leadership is not

helpful at the moment

and I don't support that.

But I do think

the window is closing.

May said this was a load

of old bilge and refused

to abandon ship, for now.

Saying, I'm not a quitter.

I have but one concern, our mission.

Steering the Labour ship in Corbyn's

plac,e Emily Thornberry spotted

an opportunity to hang the Tories

from the yard arm.

Thou she blows.

When his party was 17 points ahead

in the polls and he told the House

that the Labour Party was, I quote,

"quarrelling like the film

Mutiny on the Boundy,

reshot by the team who made

well what a difference a year makes!

How the tables have turned.

Refusing to accept

the PM was shark bait

May's first mate bit back.

It's a delight to me to see

the right honourable lady

still in her place when no fewer

than 97 members of her frontbench

have either been sacked or resigned

since the the leader

of the opposition took office.

The Government's negotiations

were tied to the taff rail

potentially catastrophic

economic impact of leaving

the European Union.

Ministers didn't let the leak

capsize the Brexit rhetoric.

The article is a selective

interpretation of a

preliminary analysis.

It is an attempt to undermine our

exit from the European Union.

This response from the Government

didn't exactly calm the rolling seas

with opposition MPs voting

for the Brexit plans to be

keel holed in public.

He knows, we know and this report

confirms, that Brexit

is going to cause huge damage

to British jobs

and British families.

But their swashbuckling

Brexiteer, Iain Duncan Smith,

refused to let his timbers be

shivered by the revelations.

It's deliberately leaked

because it is gives a bad view

and therefore we should just put it

on one side and say -

look, leave it alone.

No sign of relief on the horizon

on the transition front either.

Michel Barnier, old salt

of the EU negotiating crew,

fired a shot across the UK's bough.

During transition, the UK

will continue to take part

in the single market.

To take part in the customs union

and to all union policies.

It will continue to have

all the economic benefits.

Therefore, it musts also

apply all the EU rules.

The single market

cannot be a la carte.

The Lords did their best to scuttle

any confidence in the Government's

ability to hit a decent Brexit

target for the UK.

My fear is that we will get

meaningless waffle in a political

declaration in October.

The implementation period will not

be a bridge to a clear destination,

it will be a gang plank

into thin air.

Refusing to give the BBC sight

of a safe port in a storm,

Carrie Gracie, the former China

editor, thinks the Corporation needs

to swab the decks on equal pay.

I feel very angry about what they've

put some other people through.

I really feel angry about some

of the things I've seen and heard

and some of the women

and the suffering

they've gone through.

I mean, you know, it's not funny.

The BBC has had to strike colours,

in a way, promising

pay cuts for some men.

Come on, come on.

Ha-ha.

Hee-hee.

Hang on, what are you doing?

Come back.

Come back, we've got a mutiny.

We've got to do a mutiny.

We can't get the crews today.

It looks like the Admiral

is going to stay at the helm.

Best to get back to work then.

A crooked old wreck,

not fit for purpose,

in danger of running keel over

anchor, that's what they're saying

about our illustrious

Houses of Parliament.

What do we do with

the Commons chamber?

What do we do with

the Commons chamber

when Parliament is refurbished?

I'm prepared to lay down my liberty

to actually work in that sort

sort of hell down there,

if it needs to be done.

Up she rises.

It's not a robin we need in this

house, it's a flipping big eagle

to pick up some of the huge mice

that kick about this place.

Up she rises.

In this instance, in supporting

motion B, absolutely

everybody vote leave.

Hooray, up she rises,

early in the morning.

I thought today was when we're

going to hoist and splice the main

brace, scuttle the Admiral you know.

She looks safe for now.

So Tiddles, it's now me and you,

and I can't even find any rum.

Our apologies to the Golden Hinde

near London Bridge for all those

empty Blue Nun bottles Kevin

left lying around.

Michael, what is more

Michael, what is more pathetic, Mrs

May's inability to lead, or Tory

MPs' failure to do anything about

it?

Probably the inability to lead,

because there's a good explanation

for their failure to do anything

about it, which is that they think

they might move to a worse place,

because they would have divisive

leadership election, and the person

who was elected might be even more

against what a particular voter

wants to see. So it's quite rational

to keep her in.

So why do they keep

on grumbling? Why don't they just

bottle it?

Because they are still

trying to adjust her course through

the water. I saw this during the

John Major government. When you are

not certain what the course of the

government is, both sides tried to

pull it in one direction or the

other. So the Brexiteers, in this

last week, have got wise to the

thought that the transition period

may simply be a two-year extension

of being in the European Union, with

the slight difference that we want

to participate in any

decision-making any more, and

obviously they try and pull back

from that. And Mrs May came up with

the response that she was not going

to accept a situation in which

immigration would be the same as

before.

It is not just about Brexit,

is it? Her problem is that they see

no leadership on the other big

question is, on housing, on the NHS,

on these huge gaps that we see in

terms of how well kids are doing at

school. And I think people, there is

clearly a massive battle over Brexit

and the transition deal, but the

underlying thing is that the Tories

know if they are just a party about

Brexit and they go back to the

electorate, they will be absolutely

done for, and there is nothing about

that either.

If they had a clear

vision of what a post-Brexit Britain

would look like in the government's

mind, that would dictate the

domestic agenda. Because whatever

the vision, the country would then

have to get itself into shape for

these new challenges and different

ways of doing things, so the two are

connected.

The two are connected. I

also think they are given a bit of

leeway to have these discussions,

because my reading of the situation

is that Jeremy Corbyn absolutely

does not want to become Prime

Minister while Brexit is an open

question.

Really?

He would jump at

the chance.

To inherit this mess

would be a nightmare.

I think the

opposite. They are worried that the

longer there is not an election, the

more it might slip from their hands.

They think if there was an election

called, for whatever reason, that

they would end up the largest party,

if there was an election in the

first half of this year. They are

not so sure that would be the case,

because we live in a world where you

are up, you are down, ask Nicola

Sturgeon, David Cameron, Hillary

Clinton, Angela Merkel, they are

worried that if you don't get an

election quite quickly they can't be

as sure of the outcome as they are

now.

I think it's right that they

can't be sure of the outcome, but I

think trying to deal with this

situation for the Labour Party would

be highly destructive, with a pretty

Eurosceptical leadership and a

pretty enthusiastic Labour Party

Parliamentary membership. I think

they would do well to let the Tories

go on trying to make sense of this.

Let me ask you one more question.

Jacob Rees-Mogg is now the bookies

favourite, and in some internal Tory

party polling he is the favourite to

succeed. What do you make of that?

I

make of it that he is now one of

about five or six Tories that the

public can name. That's because he

is not in office, he has the luxury

of saying pretty much what he

thinks. He is clear-cut and

relatively charismatic. He has

ideas. All of these things are what

the public is crying out for, so I

am not surprised that is his

position.

Would you be favourable

towards him as the next Conservative

leader?

I would favour Michael Gove,

which many Tories would say is a

preposterous thing to say. But

wherever you put Michael Gove in a

ministerial job, he gets on and does

things.

OK. What do you make of

these economic impact assessments?

Should we take them seriously? We

have not seen them all yet.

It is

difficult to model different

futures. But all of them show that

we will be worse off. And I think

the reason why they haven't been

published is not about undermining

our negotiating position. The idea

that Europe does not know what the

different options might mean is

delusional. It is about internal

party management. The Tories always

had a reputation for being strong on

the economy and supportive of

business. And that is really at

risk.

Michael.

You commission work

within government which is dominated

by the Treasury and the Foreign

Office, which are both fanatically

pro-European, all the analysis will

go in one direction, as it did

before the referendum, and much of

what was produced at that time has

been hugely discredited. Same old

same old.

The BBC or the Palace of

Westminster, which is crumbling

faster?

faster?

The Palace of Westminster.

You mean the fabric.

I don't believe

that the BBC is crumbling. They have

got to sort out what is happening on

pay. I think it has been appalling.

They have not sorted it out. Carrie

Gracie has said that our business is

telling the truth and if the

managers don't publish the data and

tell the truth about page, what are

they supposed to do? But I do not

believe the underlying values of the

BBC as a public service broadcaster

are crumbling. They just have too

uphold it when it comes to equal pay

and women.

Create it. Rather than

uphold, create it.

Carrie Gracie's

testimony, to me, proves nothing. I

would expect the Washington editor

to be paid more than the Beijing

editor, because the Washington

editor is on television most nights

and the Beijing editor isn't. I

would say that what someone was paid

would depend on how long they were

staying in their foreign posting,

whether it was nearly all the time

or not.

She was lied to, Michael.

And now to the crumbling bit. The

reason the BBC probably is crumbling

is that it is wedded to the licence

fee and does not have an alternative

policy. We can all see that the

licence fee is going to come to an

end. As people more and more watch

television material on their

laptops, iPhones, at the time of

their choosing, binge watching of

cereals, paying subscriptions to

Netflix, Apple and everybody else,

then the case for having a mandatory

tax for you to watch the BBC is

going to become thinner and thinner.

If you value a public service

broadcasting have to find a way to

pay for it.

Netflix are global and

the BBC insists on not being global,

so when I go abroad I can't watch

the programmes I have paid for.

They

need to sort that out.

They haven't

got the rights for abroad, that's

why.

I thought they put an enormous

amount of effort into sorting out

the rights.

If you sell Doctor Who

to an American market, whoever buys

the rights in America will have the

rights in America. Anyway, we shall

move on.

The political elites on both sides

of the Atlantic are used

to getting their own way

and being at the centre

of the action.

So it's come as something of a kick

in the Andrew Adonises to discover

that they're now on the sidelines.

That's the harsh truth for those

who backed Hillary Clinton,

the Remain campaigners who found

themselves on the wrong side

of the referendum, and Labour

social democrats who never

thought their party would end up

in the firm grip of Jezza

and his happy band of Corbynistas.

In many cases their unfamiliar

feeling of alienation has turned

into discombobulation.

So we thought we'd better put

alienation in the Spotlight.

Emily Thornberry reckons

the Government is alienating young

people from the political process.

There is no logical principle

of objection to votes at 16.

That is why every single

political party in this House

supports it except of course

the Conservative Party and the DUP.

But are the Tories keeping the youth

in the loop in other ways?

Hi, I'm Matt Hancock

and welcome to my app.

So come on, let's get started.

Nick Timothy had barely got started

at Downing Street before

he was cast out of Number Ten.

So is he still on the

outside looking in?

I haven't seen the Prime

Minister since I resigned

at the general election.

Corbynistas have transformed Labour,

but is their kinder,

gentler politics alienating

the old guard?

The atmosphere in the Labour Party

in recent months, not just

in Haringey, but across London

and across the country,

has been deeply troubling.

Members of the Upper House

are well aware that their

tedium is a turn off.

We're experts at being

boring, my Lords.

But one tardy peer managed to get

the Lords hashtag trending by

excommunicating himself yesterday.

I shall be offering my resignation

to the Prime Minister...

No, no!

..with immediate effect.

APPLAUSE.

This unapologetically divisive

figure used his big speech

on Tuesday to reach out to alienated

Democrats.

I call upon all of us to set

aside our differences.

Ralf Little thinks social media

offers those alienated from politics

the opportunity to engage.

So how do we maintain momentum?

Ralf Little joins us now. Welcome to

the programme. Are we more alienated

from politics, or have we never been

more engaged?

Like many complex

issues, I think the answer is both.

I think social media in

particular... Rather than try and

assume I can speak for the

electorate, I will speak for myself.

Politics, when I was younger, I

still think of myself as a young man

even though I am pushing 40.

Pathetic!

Definitely still young.

Thanks. When I was younger, at

school and as a teenager and even in

my 20s, politics was something that,

programmes like this, your parents

and grandparents watched. If you

wanted to be interested in politics,

it was something you had to seek

out. It was a club, or something

that people had a calling to wards

and then they sought out and they

joined and that was it. Obviously,

if you understand anything you

understand that politics affects us

all, but in terms of engaging with

it, unless you are a career

politician, it felt like something

over there and not for us. You see

it on Twitter now and people all the

time go, oh, well, whatever party

they are, they are all the same. It

always felt like that growing up.

But now social media, things like

Twitter... In many ways it is awful

but one thing is that it has made me

personally, the last few years, you

follow people that you admire and

you listen to their opinions, and

politics feels like you soak it up.

It's a more passive thing and then

you engage with it. So in that

respect, I think it's been much less

alienating.

And it is easier to get

your voice heard as well.

Beforehand, it was limited to who

could get into TV studios like this.

Yes, or you might write to an MP, or

go to a surgery, but you can be

heard now. There is this obsession

with in politics with how to get

young people engaged. I don't think

it is just that, I think more people

are generally engaged. Whether I am

talking to you here, or Professor

green is speaking very eloquently on

Channel 4, or Stormzy is tweeting

out crime for Corbyn. I don't think

I have ever been aware of that kind

of level of people that you would

not necessarily expect to see.

There

are downsides to social media and it

can be nasty at times. It can

cheapen public discourse. But from

what you say, overall it is a

positive, because it helps to

democratise discourse.

Well, the

other half of that answer is the

downside is that you have the

President of the United States

dominating the news cycle by firing

of tweets that seem to occur off the

top of his head, or he is a genius

who knows how to dominate the news

cycle. I know what I think. I never

thought in my lifetime I would see

the rise of the hard, hard, slightly

terrifying right, and see a US

President that would not literally

condemn that. Someone cleverer than

me is going to have to work out

whether it is a good or bad thing.

You showed social media the ability

to have democratic discourse in

action when you had an engagement

with the Health Secretary.

It's very

strange, isn't it?

That could not

have been done 20 years ago.

Absolutely not. And credit to Mr

Hunt, he replied, decided to engage

with me. On some level you have to

acknowledge that. I didn't mean any

of this to happen. I saw him on

Andrew Marr, saying things that

were, I'm trying to think of a

clever way of saying not true, but

not true. That will do it. More

accurately, saying things that in

Tiley misrepresented the full

picture, for certain ends. Whether

he knew that was the case, I can't

say, but I angrily fired off a tweet

where I claimed he knew that, which

I have retracted and apologised for.

That started a discourse, and he

replied to me, to his credit, and

slightly challenged me and said,

come on, these are some statistics,

this is what is the truth. If I am

wrong, show me. So I did.

Are we

more alienate it, or more engaged?

More engaged. Social media has been

positive. Politics isn't that alone.

Sending tweets and signing a

petition. Politics is about the

nitty, gritty, long hard slog of

taking difficult decisions and

changing people's lives.

That is the

politicians the people don't do

that. They are the ones with

opinions to chose people like you.

Michael, engauged or alienated?

More

engaged. It was a myth widely

perpetrated that democracy was done

to people. The whole point of

democracy is that it's theirs. If

you think politicians are useless,

step forward and replace them

Do-it-yourself.

We have to move on.

We have run out of time. Thank you

for being with us.

I've had fun.

That's your lot for tonight.

But not for us.

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

gender pay equality night,

and those who've just been awarded

whacking pay rises at your expense

have promised to put a few

quid behind the bar.

I'm more worried by the news that

two of Westminster's

finest drinking dens,

The Red Lion and Saint Stephen's

Tavern, could be closed as part

of the refurbishment

of our crumbly-rumbly wibbly-wobbly

Mother of Parliaments.

Michael's decided we need

a lock-in at Lou Lou's lest

the bulldozers head our way.

Liz has volunteered to erect

a makeshift barricade from

Ed Miliband's abandoned "soapboax".

I always knew she'd

find a use for it.

My only worry is we've

enough Blue Nun to see

us through the night.

But I suppose a supertanker

full will be adequate.

Nighty-night.

Don't let Big Bad John bite.

THE SPEAKER:

Order.

Order.

I'm sure it will not have

escaped public notice,

and it is rather a sad irony,

that when a woman is addressing

the House, quite a lot of noisy,

boorish and in one case rather

stupid individuals are

trying to shout the right

honourable lady down.

Cut it out!

# Big John.

# Big John.

# Every morning at the mine

you could see him arrive.

# He stood six foot

six and weighted 245.

# Kind of broad at the shoulder

and narrow at the hip.

# And everybody knew you didn't

give no lip to big John.

# Big John.

# Big John.

# Big bad John.#