09/12/2015 Victoria Derbyshire


09/12/2015

Similar Content

Browse content similar to 09/12/2015. Check below for episodes and series from the same categories and more!

Transcript


LineFromTo

Hello it's Wednesday, it's 9.15, I'm Victoria Derbyshire,

:00:09.:00:13.

Coming up - the father of a young Conservative activist

:00:14.:00:19.

who took his own life after claiming he had been bullied by a senior

:00:20.:00:22.

member of the party's youth wing tells us police should

:00:23.:00:25.

widen their inquiry and calls again for the co-chairman of the party

:00:26.:00:27.

It is quite clear to me that David Cameron is protecting his friends.

:00:28.:00:38.

He should consider where his loyalty should be. It should not be to his

:00:39.:00:42.

friends, it should be to justice. Also today - we'll talk exclusively

:00:43.:00:45.

to the man who has made a hate crime complaint to the police

:00:46.:00:48.

about Tyson Fury's alleged anti-gay rant after watching a discussion

:00:49.:00:50.

about it on this programme. I did not say I have got a problem

:00:51.:01:00.

with homosexuals or abortionists or paedophiles. I did not say I am

:01:01.:01:06.

against it. I just said what I am taught in Scriptures.

:01:07.:01:09.

And residents in storm-hit Cumbria are warned of more heavy

:01:10.:01:12.

We'll speak live to some of those affected.

:01:13.:01:19.

We're on BBC Two and the BBC News Channel until 11 this morning.

:01:20.:01:40.

We'll talk later about the famous pride of lions featured on the BBC

:01:41.:01:44.

wildlife programme Big Cat Diary that have allegedly been poisoned.

:01:45.:01:49.

Our correspondent has just reached the Masai Mara game reserve.

:01:50.:01:51.

We'll talk to him before the end of the programme.

:01:52.:01:55.

As always, we're keen to hear from you on all the subjects

:01:56.:01:58.

we are talking about this morning - do get in touch.

:01:59.:02:01.

Texts will be charged at the standard messaging rate.

:02:02.:02:03.

And you can watch our programme and find all our best interviews

:02:04.:02:06.

on our programme page - bbc.co.uk/Victoria.

:02:07.:02:12.

He was found dead by a railway track in September.

:02:13.:02:17.

He had been hit by a train, having apparently taken

:02:18.:02:22.

off his shoes, laid down on a towel and waited for a train.

:02:23.:02:33.

After his death his mother and father found three suicide notes

:02:34.:02:35.

- one to his parents, another

:02:36.:02:37.

to friends and a third was titled to his "bullies and betrayers".

:02:38.:02:40.

Elliot Johnson claimed he had been bullied by the party's youth

:02:41.:02:42.

Those claims have rocked the party with further allegations

:02:43.:02:48.

of bullying, harassment and blackmail by Mark Clarke

:02:49.:02:51.

continuing to emerge over the last few months.

:02:52.:02:57.

The key question is who knew what when.

:02:58.:03:03.

This morning the man who is effectively in charge

:03:04.:03:05.

of running the party, Lord Feldman, is facing claims he was first told

:03:06.:03:08.

about the bullying five years ago, but he insists he first he heard

:03:09.:03:12.

Our political guru Norman Smith is here.

:03:13.:03:22.

This story is about what exactly? Well, this is a story about who knew

:03:23.:03:30.

what when in the highest reaches of the Conservative Party. It is a

:03:31.:03:33.

story about whether the Conservative Party failed in its duty of care to

:03:34.:03:37.

some of its youngest supporters. Some of them only 16 or 17. It is a

:03:38.:03:42.

story about the way young people can be treated in the brutal world of

:03:43.:03:46.

Westminster. The story begins last year in March, when a vibrant new

:03:47.:03:56.

Tory youth campaign was set up called Road Trip.

:03:57.:04:01.

They are bused in for the day and promised a "great time",

:04:02.:04:04.

curry and a free bar into the night as reward for a hard

:04:05.:04:07.

But it all came to a shuddering halt with the death of Elliott Johnson.

:04:08.:04:20.

Amid claims of bullying and abuse and sexual harassment. On the 18th

:04:21.:04:32.

of November this year, the man who set up ten Road Trip, Lancelot, was

:04:33.:04:46.

booted out of the party for life. He had previously been known as Tatler

:04:47.:04:50.

Tory, because Tatler magazine had big team up as a high-flyer. He was

:04:51.:04:56.

booted out of the party. One leek waiter, on the 27th of November this

:04:57.:05:04.

year, Fijalek's father went public with his concerns. This is when this

:05:05.:05:08.

story went nuclear. He called it a dry rot within the Conservative

:05:09.:05:13.

Party, where the party hierarchy turned a blind eye to what was going

:05:14.:05:17.

on in the youth wing because they thought they were achieving results.

:05:18.:05:21.

They did not want to know. And he dismissed the internal inquiry which

:05:22.:05:26.

had been set up by the Conservative Party as a cover-up. He said it was

:05:27.:05:29.

not acceptable to have party officials investigating themselves.

:05:30.:05:32.

He questioned whether senior figures in the party were fit to govern if

:05:33.:05:36.

this was how they treated his son's death. We now know that something

:05:37.:05:44.

like 40 people have come forward to give evidence to this inquiry. So,

:05:45.:05:49.

the implication is that there are and awful lot of people who might

:05:50.:05:53.

have been potential victims of this sort of bullying. And this goes to

:05:54.:05:57.

the top of the Tory party? It doesn't. It raises questions about

:05:58.:06:03.

the position of the current chairman, Siddique, and also the

:06:04.:06:08.

then chairman Grant Shapps. If we go to the day after Kirmond went

:06:09.:06:13.

public, on the 28th of November, Grant Shapps suddenly resigns. He

:06:14.:06:20.

was the man who brought Lancelot into the Tory party and encouraged

:06:21.:06:24.

this sort of youth campaign. He resigned, saying, the buck stops

:06:25.:06:27.

with me. He took full responsibility. But that did not end

:06:28.:06:34.

it. Questions were then raised about the current chairman Siddique and

:06:35.:06:37.

what he knew and why he did not do anything. Two days later, on the

:06:38.:06:40.

30th of November, he issued an unequivocal statement saying he was

:06:41.:06:48.

completely unaware of these claims. But this becomes politically

:06:49.:06:52.

complicated. Siddique is a very close friend of the Prime Minister.

:06:53.:06:55.

They go back to

:06:56.0:00:01

Download Subtitles

SRT

ASS