:00:11. > :00:16.Jimmy Carr has been mauled this week for avoiding tax. David
:00:17. > :00:26.Cameron said he was morally wrong. If you could legally get away with
:00:27. > :00:38.
:00:39. > :00:43.paying only 1% income tax, wouldn't Good morning and welcome to Sunday
:00:43. > :00:49.Morning Live. The Treasury says tax-avoidance costs us �7 billion a
:00:49. > :00:54.year. The Chancellor says avoiding tax is morally repugnant, but Peter
:00:54. > :00:58.Hitchens says it is common sense. have nothing against legal tax
:00:58. > :01:04.avoidance. Where does it say in the Bible that we have to give our
:01:04. > :01:09.hard-earned money to a bunch of incompetent politicians? This man
:01:09. > :01:14.has gone to the High Court to allow doctors to kill him, without being
:01:14. > :01:17.charged for murder. And Billy Connolly says he rowed with his
:01:18. > :01:24.wife over letting his teenage daughters have sex in the family
:01:24. > :01:28.home. The my guests have been looking forward to sparring with
:01:28. > :01:34.each other all this week. Peter Hitchens is with us, a columnist
:01:34. > :01:38.for the Mail on Sunday, the proud scourge of liberal left-wing as
:01:38. > :01:42.everywhere. That's why we put him next to the historian and
:01:42. > :01:49.playwright Francis Beckett, who says he is proud to be a card-
:01:49. > :01:55.carrying lefty. And Mohammed Ansari is a Muslim former banker, who has
:01:55. > :02:05.written a sex education for schools, who has six children. -- a sex
:02:05. > :02:24.
:02:24. > :02:28.education guide. We would like you Jimmy Carr was exposed over some
:02:28. > :02:32.questionable tax dealings this week. The Government says people who
:02:32. > :02:37.avoid tax are no better than benefit cheats, but Peter Hitchens
:02:37. > :02:42.thinks it is total poppycock. This is what he thinks. As it happens, I
:02:42. > :02:48.pay my tax, properly, at the proper rate. But much of your taxes, and
:02:48. > :02:53.mine, are wasted on things like schools that spread propaganda and
:02:53. > :02:56.ignorance, police who will not fight crime, stupid foreign wars,
:02:56. > :03:01.expensive armies for politically correct jobs works. So, I have
:03:01. > :03:09.nothing against legal tax avoidance, provided it is done by people who
:03:09. > :03:13.think as I do. What I object to is modish Liberals, endlessly going on
:03:13. > :03:17.about how they are in favour of a high-spending state while quietly
:03:17. > :03:22.taking advantage of legal tax dodges. This is more common than
:03:22. > :03:32.you might think. In my view, they should all be made to pay a special
:03:32. > :03:33.
:03:33. > :03:38.ATP mack in the pound tax, a tax on being insufferably left-wing. --
:03:38. > :03:43.80p in the pound. Where does it say in the Bible that we have to give
:03:43. > :03:48.our hard-earned money to a bunch of incompetent, wasteful MPs? In any
:03:48. > :03:53.country, there will always be legal tax avoidance schemes. I challenge
:03:53. > :03:59.any of you, hand on heart, to say honestly that if you were offered a
:03:59. > :04:04.chance to pay less tax, you would not take it. Jimmy Carr's mistake
:04:04. > :04:12.was to get well paid for whipping up moral outrage against certain
:04:12. > :04:17.sectors, then to go out and hire some tax lawyers himself to reduce
:04:17. > :04:21.his own taxes. I am also puzzled about how the Prime Minister can
:04:21. > :04:28.denounce the action of Jimmy Carr as morally wrong. Mr Cameron is
:04:28. > :04:33.rather rich, yet for seven long years, he claimed roughly �20,000 a
:04:33. > :04:36.year in parliamentary expenses, one of the highest claims in a wall of
:04:36. > :04:40.Westminster, for the mortgage interest on a rather nice country
:04:41. > :04:45.house. All perfectly legal and within the rules, but paid for out
:04:45. > :04:50.of your taxes and mind. If that isn't immoral, then nor is tax
:04:50. > :04:56.avoidance. In fact, I rather wish I had managed to avoid helping him
:04:56. > :05:01.pay for his cover. That's the question, is avoiding tax immoral,
:05:02. > :05:06.especially compared to what the MPs have been doing on expenses?
:05:06. > :05:11.the rich should pay their taxes, so that nobody should dial one and
:05:11. > :05:21.treatable illness, and other things. So, that's the question for our
:05:21. > :05:33.
:05:33. > :05:37.vote. This week, you can also vote online, on our website. So, Peter,
:05:37. > :05:41.it was your Sunday stand - hospitals, schools, we are stealing
:05:42. > :05:46.money from them if we do not pay our taxes? Hang on, who does the
:05:46. > :05:50.money belong to? Does it belong to the state and they let us keep some
:05:50. > :05:54.of it, or does it belong to us, and we give some of it to the state in
:05:54. > :05:58.a society run by consent? We have to start by remembering that the
:05:58. > :06:03.money is ours to begin with, and in many cases, we can spend it better
:06:03. > :06:08.than the state can. If you send the government out to buy you a loaf of
:06:08. > :06:12.bread, it would come back one week later with a stale cake and not
:06:12. > :06:17.much changed. In many cases, it does very bad things with our money.
:06:17. > :06:23.I did not want to have a war in Iraq, I do not want to have a war
:06:23. > :06:27.in Afghanistan. I do not want them to be employing thousands of jobs
:06:27. > :06:30.woulds in the public sector. If I was to build a national Health
:06:30. > :06:34.Service, frankly, I could build a better one out of a banana than the
:06:34. > :06:38.one we have built, which is enormously inefficient. We have
:06:38. > :06:42.dirty hospitals, and people dying of neglect. It is not a question of
:06:42. > :06:45.schools and hospitals, therefore we must pay tax, it is a question of
:06:45. > :06:49.whether the government has a moral right to require of asked to give
:06:49. > :06:53.them as much about money as possible. It is obviously not so. I
:06:53. > :06:58.can spend most of my money, and so can most people, better than the
:06:58. > :07:02.government can. But it absolutely is a question, Peter, of schools
:07:02. > :07:06.and hospitals, in the sense that if we do not pay taxes, how will we
:07:06. > :07:10.provide them? Are we going to provide them out of charity?
:07:10. > :07:14.Personally I have always been with Clement Atlee on that. He said that
:07:14. > :07:17.if the rich wanted to help the poor, they should pay their taxes,
:07:17. > :07:25.because that is far better than some kind of private enterprise,
:07:25. > :07:30.far better than charity, because overall, it is benefiting everybody.
:07:30. > :07:34.Let's keep it on morality, if the morality of avoiding taxes...
:07:34. > :07:40.is one very important point which you're missing, otherwise you will
:07:40. > :07:43.go off in the wrong direction, and you will wish you hadn't - I am not
:07:43. > :07:53.saying people should not pay tax, I believe they should pay tax, within
:07:53. > :07:53.
:07:53. > :07:57.the law. But in any society, there will always be lawful tax avoidance.
:07:57. > :08:01.If David Cameron is attacking tax avoidance, then there is something
:08:01. > :08:04.overtly hypocritical about that, because David Cameron is the Prime
:08:04. > :08:09.Minister, and all the schemes that we have heard about, the Jimmy Carr
:08:09. > :08:12.scheme, all of them, they are easy to close. The reason they have not
:08:12. > :08:16.been closed, I suspect, is that you would not just catch people like
:08:16. > :08:22.Jimmy Carr, you would catch all sorts of donors to the Tory party,
:08:22. > :08:28.who David Cameron does not wish to catch. Is this about fat cats, not
:08:28. > :08:32.picking on just a few comedians? With my banker's hat on, which is a
:08:32. > :08:35.bit dissimilar to this one, there are a few principles we have to
:08:35. > :08:40.concentrate on. The first one, Jimmy Carr has not done anything
:08:40. > :08:44.illegal. Secondly, he is well known for his sense of humour. My
:08:44. > :08:47.instinct is that he has probably apologised and moved away from
:08:47. > :08:52.these tax schemes just so that David Cameron does not take the
:08:52. > :08:57.moral high ground again. There is a difference between being legally
:08:57. > :09:01.right and Molly right. You have to look at morality in the round.
:09:01. > :09:04.Jimmy Carr and any individual has a moral, ethical duty to make sure
:09:04. > :09:08.that they mitigate their tax liability within the boundary of
:09:08. > :09:15.the law. Any right-thinking person would go to their bank manager,
:09:15. > :09:19.their financial adviser, and say, how do I mitigate my tax liability?
:09:19. > :09:24.But shouldn't it be made illegal, don't you think? What Jimmy Carr
:09:24. > :09:29.did, it is not illegal, we know that, it has not yet been tested in
:09:29. > :09:33.the courts - should it not be made illegal? Should we not be saying to
:09:33. > :09:37.David Cameron, if you think this is immoral, and then make it illegal.
:09:37. > :09:41.Closing loopholes is a difficulty and the consequence of having a
:09:41. > :09:45.broken taxation system. Is it about the amount of money, is it because
:09:45. > :09:54.Jimmy Carter -- wreckage was making �3 million and hiding �2 million of
:09:54. > :09:58.it? -- Jimmy Carr was making �3 million? I think this is a huge
:09:58. > :10:03.destruction. For a rare moment, Peter and myself will stand on the
:10:03. > :10:06.same ground on this one. We have a broken taxation system. We have a
:10:07. > :10:13.system where Philip green, for example, can transfer assets, in
:10:13. > :10:18.his wife's name, to be housed offshore, so he can be saving �250
:10:18. > :10:23.million in tax. What bothers me is that there is so much tax that we
:10:23. > :10:30.are required to pay. But not people like Philip green, doesn't that
:10:30. > :10:38.bother you? This is not about week, tax avoidance is for the very, very
:10:38. > :10:47.rich. It is not for people on ordinary incomes. Lots of people
:10:47. > :10:56.avoid tax. In the case of Tony Blair, who, on a �12 million income
:10:57. > :11:00.in the past year, paid just �300,000, about 3%. This is an
:11:00. > :11:04.imperfect world, and in this imperfect world, and the same is
:11:04. > :11:07.true of justice, it is regrettably always going to be the case that
:11:07. > :11:11.the rich will be able to get away with paying less tax than anybody
:11:11. > :11:15.else. But if you're worried about the unfairness of tax, you should
:11:15. > :11:19.be saying, why is it that poor people should be taxed in many
:11:19. > :11:23.cases to subsidise things that they do not want, to pay for services
:11:23. > :11:27.which are inadequate? That is an injustice which could be rectified.
:11:27. > :11:31.The other thing you're missing is that what really got this going was
:11:31. > :11:39.the hypocrisy of Jimmy Carr, attacking exactly the sort of
:11:39. > :11:46.schemes which he then went and engaged in. Being a left-wing
:11:46. > :11:51.windbag... That's deeply unfair, because there is no evidence at all
:11:51. > :11:58.that Jimmy Carr is left wing. going to say, I think there is
:11:58. > :12:03.plenty of dispute about it. Let me bring in somebody from the Tax
:12:03. > :12:09.Justice Network. Somebody said, if it is not illegal, why does it
:12:09. > :12:14.matter? Well, good morning. It matters because the sums are so
:12:15. > :12:21.large. First of all, the estimate of �7 billion is on the low side. A
:12:22. > :12:26.far more accurate is that tax- avoidance costs this country around
:12:26. > :12:28.�25 billion a year. So, the sums involved are enormous. It is
:12:29. > :12:32.absolutely the case that if the rich people are not paying their
:12:32. > :12:37.tax, others are picking up the slack. All the rest of us are
:12:37. > :12:47.having to pay much more tax as a result. I would also like to pick
:12:47. > :12:50.
:12:50. > :12:55.up on a point that was made earlier about cash ISAs - these are exempt
:12:55. > :13:00.from tax. Tax-avoidance might be, strictly speaking, legal, but for
:13:00. > :13:04.many years, apartheid was legal, slavery was legal, sex
:13:04. > :13:09.discrimination was legal. Tax avoidance is legal, largely because
:13:09. > :13:15.of the extensive lobbying which happens around the tax arrangements
:13:15. > :13:18.of the rich. So, it could be closed down very, very quickly. And the
:13:18. > :13:22.result would be that most of us would end up paying very much less
:13:22. > :13:26.tax. You think there is a moral difference between the Jimmy Carr
:13:26. > :13:32.kind of avoidance, the offshore thing, and some of the smaller
:13:32. > :13:36.scale stuff? Anything which involves using offshore structures
:13:36. > :13:40.in dodgy places like Jersey, the reason they are being used is
:13:40. > :13:44.because people are hiding these structures in order not to draw
:13:44. > :13:49.attention to them. Even they must be aware of the fact that there is
:13:50. > :13:54.something dodgy about it, because they are using offshore tax havens.
:13:54. > :13:57.The language which John is using is based on the idea that all our
:13:57. > :14:01.money belongs to the government, and that there is something moral
:14:01. > :14:05.about the Government spending our money, and that it is better at
:14:05. > :14:09.spending it than we are. None of these things is true. It is an
:14:09. > :14:13.ideological position. You may think that, but that does not mean that
:14:13. > :14:17.your position is more moral than mine. I happen to think that most
:14:17. > :14:22.people have a better idea of how to spend our money, morally, then it
:14:22. > :14:26.any government I have ever encountered. I don't think the idea
:14:26. > :14:32.that so much money is lost to tax evasion, thinking about it like
:14:32. > :14:37.that, is the right way. Why do we pay such colossal sums of money in
:14:37. > :14:41.tax to governments which, by and large, waste it and misuse it?
:14:41. > :14:46.we are not talking about people who pay colossal sums of money in tax,
:14:46. > :14:52.we are talking about relatively tiny sums of money, in proportion
:14:52. > :14:58.to the income that they earn. You and I a pay what I think is a
:14:58. > :15:03.fairly reasonable amount. But I am not super rich. If I was, I would
:15:03. > :15:05.be able to find tax schemes, like Tony Blair can find, like a number
:15:05. > :15:09.of donor parties to the Conservative Party can find, which
:15:09. > :15:13.would enable me to pay relatively no tax and increase the burden on
:15:13. > :15:19.the very people you claim you're trying to help, which is people on
:15:19. > :15:24.low incomes. It is the wasteful, incompetent, stupid government!
:15:24. > :15:28.You're starting in the wrong place! Taxation is not just about
:15:28. > :15:32.individual, personal income taxation, the taxation structure is
:15:32. > :15:42.much broader than that. We are talking about capital gains tax.
:15:42. > :15:43.
:15:43. > :15:47.Why can't you invest in certain Have we have to focus on
:15:47. > :15:50.something... Find a Peter will dislike the fact that this comes
:15:50. > :15:58.from a bleeding heart leftie, but there was an article last week in
:15:58. > :16:04.the Guardian that talked about the corporate tax swindle. For the
:16:04. > :16:09.single biggest shift in assets in income for generations, possibly
:16:09. > :16:13.history, has happened as a result of the changes in the corporation
:16:13. > :16:19.tax system which this government has brought in. Overseas
:16:19. > :16:22.companies... The system is only on a par with the system they have in
:16:22. > :16:29.Switzerland, where billions of pounds are not going to be
:16:29. > :16:33.collected by the Exchequer. I want to bring in Moly. Is this about
:16:33. > :16:38.rich individuals like Jimmy Carr being hypocritical or is it about
:16:38. > :16:42.corporations that we should be focusing on? I think it is everyone.
:16:42. > :16:46.Everyone should be paying their fair share of tax, from my
:16:46. > :16:55.neighbours, Jimmy Carr, Philip Green. Of course it is different
:16:55. > :16:58.with large corporations not paying their tax. Vodafone paid no
:16:58. > :17:01.corporation tax last year, which is ridiculous when we are having a
:17:01. > :17:06.huge public sector cuts and the government say we have no money
:17:06. > :17:13.left. How do you deal with the fact that when you look at the amounts
:17:13. > :17:18.of money, there's an issue about a few people and big corporations not
:17:18. > :17:22.playing -- paying their fair share. That is a different question, that
:17:22. > :17:26.is a question of the competence and abilities of Her Majesty's Revenue
:17:26. > :17:31.& Customs and whether they are up to the job of collecting tax. Some
:17:31. > :17:38.questions have to be raised about that. You are not saying paying tax
:17:38. > :17:46.is immoral? If we introduce my plan of an 80% windbag tax for left-
:17:46. > :17:50.wingers, we would raise so much money. This government, at a time
:17:50. > :17:56.when there are huge austerity measures in this place -- country,
:17:56. > :18:00.the government has decided to lose 10,000 jobs from HMRC, which is
:18:00. > :18:04.about compliance and checking tax revenue. We have a government
:18:04. > :18:10.saying it is immoral not to pay your tax, they are cutting tax jobs,
:18:10. > :18:13.at the same time they are giving Catt -- tax cuts for the wealthy as
:18:13. > :18:19.in society. Why do we live in a society where the poorest carry the
:18:19. > :18:22.heaviest tax burden? Do you think the imbalance between austerity and
:18:22. > :18:26.tax-avoidance means we are making cuts we should not be? You're
:18:26. > :18:34.worried about poor people paying more than their fair share. What we
:18:34. > :18:40.don't address... His tax being spent in the way we want it to be
:18:40. > :18:46.spent? There are so much that is indefensible. If people are worried
:18:46. > :18:51.that the tax they pay it is unfair they should address themselves. The
:18:51. > :18:56.entire product of the income tax in this country is spent on welfare
:18:56. > :18:59.payment. Most people don't even know facts like this. Once you
:18:59. > :19:05.start to examine how the money is raised and spent, it will horrify
:19:05. > :19:10.you. He is about time we started to challenge the idea that everything
:19:10. > :19:13.the public sector does is wrong and incompetent. We've seen, in the
:19:13. > :19:16.last 30 years, government progressively trying to push more
:19:16. > :19:20.of their responsibilities over to the private sector and it hasn't
:19:20. > :19:24.worked. That is because the public sector is actually an awful lot
:19:24. > :19:29.better, and I mean the government and the Civil Service, far better
:19:29. > :19:39.at delivering than most of the subsequent Thatcherites like
:19:39. > :19:43.Peter... I'm not a Thatcherite. Neo- fish. If somebody said to you,
:19:43. > :19:47.this is absolutely legal, I've got a way you can pay 1% income tax,
:19:47. > :19:52.are you not telling me you would not be tempted? I would be tempted
:19:52. > :19:55.but I wouldn't do it. I think he has to be in the privacy of the
:19:55. > :20:00.confessional to answer that question. When it happens to you,
:20:00. > :20:07.you will know. What about you? would take any opportunity to pay
:20:07. > :20:11.little tax. I have advised people to reduce their tax liability
:20:11. > :20:15.legally, but I would say, when you look at the state of the broken
:20:15. > :20:20.taxation system, Peter would have you believe it is some other thing,
:20:20. > :20:25.if you look at Islamic principles, taxing the surplus wealth and
:20:25. > :20:35.marketable assets of the wealthiest in society... It is a far fairer
:20:35. > :20:37.
:20:37. > :20:41.system. We do have to leave it there. A quick e-mail...
:20:41. > :20:48.Avoiding tax is a separate argument from an incompetent government,
:20:48. > :20:58.morally you should pay tax. That is our poll question today. Is
:20:58. > :21:08.
:21:08. > :21:12.You can also vote online. You have about 20 minutes before it closes.
:21:12. > :21:16.It was impossible not to be moved by his suffering this week. Tony
:21:16. > :21:21.Nicklinson is put paralysed and he wants doctors to be allowed to kill
:21:21. > :21:25.him. He is not asking for a change in law on euthanasia, he is simply
:21:25. > :21:31.asking to choose how he ends his life. Would you give it to him or
:21:31. > :21:35.does it set a dangerous precedent? Tony Nicklinson can't eat by
:21:35. > :21:39.himself, he can't hide his wife or his children, his mind remains
:21:39. > :21:44.sharp, but since his stroke seven years ago, it is locked inside a
:21:44. > :21:48.helpless body. Another thing he can't do is end his own life. He
:21:48. > :21:53.says it is wrong that a doctor is not allowed to help him to die.
:21:53. > :21:56.is no longer acceptable for 21st century medicine to be governed by
:21:56. > :22:00.twentieth-century attitudes to death. His condition means the only
:22:00. > :22:06.way for him to take his own life is to starve himself to death. This
:22:06. > :22:09.could take months and would be slow and painful. But at the moment, any
:22:09. > :22:13.doctor who helped him to die would be charged with murder. Tony says
:22:13. > :22:19.this law condemns him to a life of pure torture which could last over
:22:19. > :22:22.20 years. Opponents say if Tony wins his case, it could make other
:22:22. > :22:28.disabled people feel value less and put them under pressure to end
:22:28. > :22:31.their lives to save trouble for carers. And some doctors argue it
:22:31. > :22:35.will fundamentally change the patient doctor relationship.
:22:36. > :22:39.concern is that by setting a precedent, it would change both
:22:39. > :22:42.relationship between patients and doctors and an expectation that we
:22:42. > :22:48.are able to deliver something that currently we can't deliver within
:22:48. > :22:52.the law, namely to actively kill a patient. Tony and his supporters
:22:52. > :22:57.say that with proper safeguards, he should be allowed to choose how he
:22:57. > :23:01.dies. But others say if the court allows him to be helped to die, it
:23:01. > :23:06.will open the floodgates to other cases and in effect make euthanasia
:23:06. > :23:10.legal. If you have a webcam, you can make
:23:10. > :23:17.your point on Stipe or join the conversation on Twitter, text or e-
:23:17. > :23:21.mail. We are joined by a Christina Patterson. Tony Nicklinson says his
:23:22. > :23:26.life is torture because he has to go on this way. Would you deny him
:23:26. > :23:34.the right to end his life the way he wants? I don't think it is me
:23:34. > :23:38.denying him, it is not society denying him, I think it is possible
:23:38. > :23:42.to hear him talk about the situation he is in and see his face
:23:42. > :23:46.crumpled up in pain and not feel desperately sorry for the situation
:23:46. > :23:52.he is in. But we did not create that situation, that was terrible,
:23:52. > :23:57.terrible, terrible luck. We can't construct laws around people's very,
:23:57. > :24:00.very bad light. I think what he is one thing, which is for someone
:24:00. > :24:04.else to make a decision about whether his life is worth living,
:24:04. > :24:08.and not just to help him die but to kill him, is a step too far. He's
:24:08. > :24:14.made a decision about whether his life is worth living. We have Jane
:24:14. > :24:18.Nicklinson on the phone. Thank you for joining us. How do you answer
:24:18. > :24:23.people, and there are many people, who say your husband has had
:24:23. > :24:29.terrible luck, but we can't change the law, it is just too big a step.
:24:29. > :24:33.We disagree with that. Briefing furtive safeguards are put in place,
:24:33. > :24:38.the vulnerable people that everybody talked about will be
:24:38. > :24:43.protected. People say he does have things Philiphaugh. Well, all I can
:24:43. > :24:46.say is how dare they presume what Tony should or should not thing.
:24:46. > :24:51.They should try changing places with him. Is this would you and
:24:51. > :24:56.your daughters want? It is not what we want, it is what Tony wants.
:24:56. > :24:59.Because we love him, we are fully supporting him. Peter, if Tony
:24:59. > :25:05.could find a doctor who would be willing to end his life, we do want
:25:05. > :25:09.that Dr to be allowed to do it? is very difficult for me. There's
:25:09. > :25:16.an absolute prohibition on this for me, but that would have to apply to
:25:16. > :25:21.me alone. For him it is a different matter. In this case, if
:25:21. > :25:26.individually her doctor were to do this, and it went to trial, I think
:25:26. > :25:30.it is very unlikely that a jury would actually convict. In fact,
:25:30. > :25:35.this reminds me very much of the law on abortion in England and
:25:35. > :25:38.Wales before 1967, based on an horrendous case in 1938 in which a
:25:38. > :25:44.doctor performed an abortion on a young girl who had been raped by a
:25:44. > :25:49.gang of soldiers. He was, after a very dramatic trial, acquitted
:25:49. > :25:54.under very, very specific circumstances and as a result
:25:54. > :25:58.abortion was illegal under restricted circumstances based on
:25:58. > :26:02.common law. If that remained the case, there would be something
:26:02. > :26:07.Toller look about it. If you change the law, safeguards which Mrs
:26:07. > :26:11.Nicklinson speaks of very often don't turn out to be safeguards in
:26:11. > :26:15.practice. The safe cards in the 1967 abortion Act were not
:26:15. > :26:19.safeguards. Instead of having a few people in terrible circumstances
:26:19. > :26:24.been permitted to have abortions, we now have 200,000 abortions a
:26:24. > :26:29.year, which was never the intention of the law and was supposed to be
:26:29. > :26:33.ruled out. Be very careful about safeguards. I'm not unsympathetic,
:26:33. > :26:38.who could fail to be sympathetic about this. Turning it into a
:26:38. > :26:42.general change in the law is very dangerous. If you could find a
:26:42. > :26:45.doctor, and I don't know if you've been approached by anyone, Peter is
:26:45. > :26:50.implying that juries would be sympathetic and they would never go
:26:50. > :26:55.to jail. You should just try to find the solution yourself. We are
:26:55. > :27:00.not trying to change the law, it is just a law that is already there
:27:00. > :27:04.that we are into it indifferently. This business of the floodgates
:27:04. > :27:08.opening is nonsense. This would only apply to someone that is so
:27:08. > :27:12.severely disabled, but they can't do it themselves. So someone that
:27:12. > :27:17.is completely paralysed. I keep being told there are so few people
:27:17. > :27:20.like Tony around that the law should not be changed for him. In
:27:20. > :27:25.the next breath, people say that the floodgates will open and there
:27:25. > :27:29.will be thousands of people knocked off. You can't have it both ways.
:27:29. > :27:35.There will be a rigorous procedure to go through. It would have to be
:27:35. > :27:38.taken to the courts to get approved. It would work, I'm sure it has
:27:38. > :27:43.worked in other countries and we all know there's a judge in Canada
:27:43. > :27:47.that also agrees with us. Jane is absolutely right, people talk about
:27:47. > :27:51.the flood gates and I want to know where these floodgates are? Where
:27:51. > :27:55.are these thousands of people just waiting to be allowed to ask for
:27:55. > :28:00.their doctor to kill them as soon as Mr Nicklinson gets his way? It
:28:00. > :28:10.seems to me that I can't understand how the state can have the cruelty
:28:10. > :28:14.and arrogance to say to Mr Nicklinson, whose situation we have
:28:14. > :28:21.described, who has clearly and intelligently thought this out, and
:28:21. > :28:25.has made it clear decision about his life and how we can then be so
:28:25. > :28:30.crawl and so arrogant as to say to him, I'm sorry, Mr Nicklinson, but
:28:30. > :28:34.we think you might think differently in a year or two. He
:28:34. > :28:39.knows he is not going to do that. He has thought this through, he is
:28:39. > :28:43.not a child. How we can say to him that in some way or another he is
:28:43. > :28:47.setting some sort of President, he is not doing that. He doesn't know
:28:47. > :28:51.that he will not change his mind. Many people have felt at various
:28:51. > :28:55.points that they would rather die than be alive. I have had loopers
:28:55. > :28:59.and cancer twice. There might have been moments when I thought this
:29:00. > :29:04.was too tough. I would like to end it. I am extremely grateful that I
:29:04. > :29:09.did not. I am not saying nobody could have the presumption to say
:29:09. > :29:15.to Tony Nicklinson, you will change your mind, cheer up. It is very,
:29:15. > :29:19.very desperate for him. But it is also, I think, not true that it is
:29:19. > :29:23.a life entirely without joy. On his Twitter feed this week, he said
:29:23. > :29:26.what joy it is to be loved. At the moment he feels that the
:29:26. > :29:31.frustration of not having control over his life over rights that joy
:29:31. > :29:34.and that is entirely understandable, but it is also possible there will
:29:34. > :29:43.come a point when that balance changes. I want to bring in Nikkei
:29:43. > :29:46.Kenwood. You have had a similar condition to Tony's locked-in
:29:46. > :29:56.syndrome. What is your concern about his family's desire to allow
:29:56. > :30:00.
:30:00. > :30:08.Yes, I was locked-in for many, many weeks, and I am still severely
:30:08. > :30:14.disabled. My concern is that I feel hurt, I feel affronted, I feel
:30:14. > :30:20.scared for people in similar situations, because it will change
:30:20. > :30:26.people's perception of who should live and who should die. Already,
:30:26. > :30:31.lots of people who are severely disabled live with extreme bias
:30:31. > :30:37.spoken about them. I have had people say to me, if I were you, I
:30:37. > :30:45.would rather be dead. Every day, something is said that paints a
:30:45. > :30:51.negative picture of my life. Tony is thinking about Tony, but as soon
:30:52. > :30:59.as he takes this to any sort of judicial considerations, then it
:30:59. > :31:06.becomes about all of us. Can I put that quickly to Jane Nicklinson?
:31:06. > :31:11.She says, it is about all of us. This is absolute rubbish. If you
:31:11. > :31:15.want to die, you ask for it, if you don't, then do not ask for it,
:31:15. > :31:20.plain and simple. If this lady does not want to die, then do not go to
:31:20. > :31:27.your doctor and say, I want to die. It is nonsense, it is pure
:31:27. > :31:34.scaremongering. Jane is reacting very much how people react who do
:31:34. > :31:38.not understand disability issues. Excuse me, I sit and watch my
:31:38. > :31:46.husband every day, I understand it perfectly well. Then, I would like
:31:46. > :31:50.to know why a Tony does not go out, why he does not see people. I have
:31:50. > :31:56.sat with people in the same situation as Tony in cinemas, in
:31:56. > :32:02.cafes, and gone for walks with them. People have a life. You said
:32:02. > :32:09.yourself, Jane, that it would be like abortion, and then it would
:32:09. > :32:15.become mainstream. That's not what I said, I said public opinion had
:32:15. > :32:23.accepted abortion, so they would accept this. It is a change of
:32:23. > :32:27.attitude, which takes time to sink in. How do you think people who
:32:27. > :32:33.have got children who are like Tony, I have got teenage friends who are
:32:33. > :32:41.like Tony, how do you think we feel when somebody is placing such a low
:32:41. > :32:47.value on our lives? One final word to you on this, Jane. It is
:32:47. > :32:50.absolute nonsense. If someone wants to die, like Tony, they ask for it.
:32:50. > :32:54.It will not be offered to them. They think people think that
:32:54. > :32:58.somebody who is really disabled will go to the doctor, and the
:32:58. > :33:02.doctor will say, your life is not worth living, so I will knock you
:33:02. > :33:06.off. It is ridiculous! It would have to be asked for, it would have
:33:06. > :33:11.to be approved by the courts, it would be a hugely complicated
:33:11. > :33:16.procedure, and it would be only a few cases, I'm sure. Thank you both
:33:16. > :33:19.of you so much. The two issues raised there - whether people would
:33:19. > :33:24.feel devalued, and we have a big problem with a growing elderly
:33:24. > :33:33.population, but also, the moral values have changed, and we need to
:33:33. > :33:38.recognise that? Yes, and what's regrettable is the slightly angry
:33:38. > :33:43.tone which is being adopted towards Jane, which is wrong. I think the
:33:43. > :33:50.needs to be a bit more sympathy on both sides. But fundamental models
:33:50. > :33:55.do not change. Some things are wrong, and that's why so many of us
:33:55. > :34:01.see a society facing problems. The old in our society are increasingly
:34:01. > :34:05.the ones who have the houses and the wealth and the money. I don't
:34:05. > :34:10.think it is safe to put into the hands of doctors and relatives
:34:11. > :34:15.necessarily the fate of the old and the ill, if those are the
:34:15. > :34:20.circumstances. I don't think that legal safeguards can be relied upon.
:34:20. > :34:25.I think the abortion act of 1967 is proof of that. It is supposed to
:34:25. > :34:29.have safeguards in it, but they are worthless. I have sympathy with
:34:29. > :34:32.that idea, but it does not seem to me that Jane Nicklinson is saying
:34:32. > :34:36.in any way that she wants to put this power into the hands of
:34:36. > :34:40.doctors. The power is in the hands of her husband, and her husband
:34:40. > :34:44.will take the decision about his life. No doctor is going to take
:34:44. > :34:48.the decision for him. As I understand it, what he wants to do
:34:48. > :34:55.in fact is not to die straightaway, but to have the power, when he is
:34:55. > :35:00.ready. As I understand it, he wants to be able to use the defence of
:35:00. > :35:03.necessity. I think it would be hard to ask a doctor to have a look at
:35:03. > :35:08.the relationship that he has with his wife and daughters, for example,
:35:08. > :35:12.who adore him, and he adores them, and say, it is necessary for him to
:35:12. > :35:19.die. I don't think that is a good interpretation. I want to bring in
:35:19. > :35:22.one more person on the telephone. We have got Kevin, from the
:35:22. > :35:28.organisation Not Dead Yet UK. If you could find a doctor who was
:35:28. > :35:33.willing to do it, why not give them legal protection? Why should we put
:35:33. > :35:39.this on to doctors? As a matter of fact, most doctors do not want to
:35:39. > :35:43.do this. One key point is that if we do introduce a law here, it does
:35:43. > :35:46.introduce have radically different mindset, where we move into a place
:35:46. > :35:52.where we have a legally supported opinion that some people, they can
:35:52. > :35:56.be treated as objects, to be disposed of. The difficulties that
:35:56. > :35:59.we keep repeating are those about safeguards and the vulnerability of
:35:59. > :36:05.disabled people, for example. In terms of safeguards, if it could be
:36:05. > :36:10.done, it would have been done already. That's one thing. As we
:36:10. > :36:20.have discovered in places like Holland, the safeguards cannot be
:36:20. > :36:30.applied in such a way... In Holland, it is legal for somebody over 70
:36:30. > :36:31.
:36:31. > :36:37.who is tired of living to have this applicable to them. We have a
:36:37. > :36:40.situation, and Jane was clear about this, we have more than 9,000
:36:40. > :36:50.people dying through a particular form of sedation in Holland every
:36:50. > :36:51.
:36:51. > :36:56.year. So, what actually happens is that the extension of the law in to
:36:56. > :37:04.a situation where lots of people who are vulnerable are affected in
:37:04. > :37:08.this way. I am afraid we have to end it soon. This e-mail says, it
:37:08. > :37:12.should be down to the person and the family. We could have a law
:37:12. > :37:15.where people can go and die with respect and dignity. This lady from
:37:15. > :37:18.Essex says, I have seen people suffer, we should have a right to
:37:18. > :37:24.die. I would like to thank everybody who has taken part in
:37:24. > :37:27.that very difficult discussion. Later on the programme - one
:37:27. > :37:31.reality TV star says her mother put her on the Pill at the age of 14,
:37:31. > :37:36.so she could have sex with her 15- year-old boyfriend. Is that
:37:36. > :37:45.responsible parenting, or should parents be banning teenage sex,
:37:45. > :37:55.particularly in their own home? And remember to keep voting also in the
:37:55. > :37:59.
:37:59. > :38:09.poll. The question - is avoiding tax immoral? You have got about
:38:09. > :38:12.
:38:12. > :38:22.It is time for our moral moments of the week. Peter, you were intrigued
:38:22. > :38:25.
:38:25. > :38:32.by a story about hell. Yes, this survey shows apparently that where
:38:32. > :38:37.people believe in hell, they behave better. In nations where people
:38:37. > :38:41.believe in hell, there is less crime. Yes. But even so, it does
:38:41. > :38:45.seem to me that in societies where people stop believing in hell, it
:38:45. > :38:50.is often the case that hell appears in their societies, which could
:38:50. > :38:54.increasingly be said of our own. In some of the nasty parts of Britain,
:38:54. > :39:01.you could often think on a Saturday night that you were in the suburbs
:39:01. > :39:04.of hell, if not in the centre of it. I don't know if they believe in
:39:04. > :39:14.Hell in Saudi Arabia, they do not believe in it in the Church of
:39:14. > :39:18.
:39:18. > :39:27.England, I'm delighted to say. they do. Do they? My moral moment
:39:27. > :39:32.of the week... You do not believe in it, presumably. No, I do not
:39:32. > :39:37.believe in hell, I do not believe in heaven, either. Do you think
:39:37. > :39:40.there is a possible link to how people might live their lives?
:39:40. > :39:44.relies on the International Criminal Court. That's quite right,
:39:44. > :39:49.I do, I would rather rely on that than on some kind of God whose
:39:49. > :39:53.presence nobody has been able to prove to me. I believe neither in
:39:53. > :39:57.heaven or in hell. I think they're quite useful social constructs for
:39:57. > :40:02.an awful lot of people. I think they have helped keep order in the
:40:02. > :40:05.world for a long time. But the fact that they are useful and actually
:40:05. > :40:09.quite comforting things to believe in - it is quite comforting to
:40:09. > :40:14.think that somehow or other, when we die, all the injustices of the
:40:14. > :40:19.world will be put right and everything will be OK... It is more
:40:19. > :40:23.than comforting, it is an enormous puzzle. Why is it that we have a
:40:23. > :40:27.parody, this immense desire for justice, and yet it is quite plain
:40:27. > :40:33.that justice is never completed in this world? If there is not another
:40:33. > :40:36.place, where justice is complete, then why do we have this sense?
:40:36. > :40:40.Because we are complicated and fascinating creatures, and we have
:40:40. > :40:44.all kinds of contrary and ludicrous use. But that takes you past the
:40:44. > :40:48.argument. It seems to me that it is not surprising, of course your
:40:48. > :40:54.beliefs affect your behaviour. We need to get through all of these.
:40:54. > :40:58.Rowan Williams has been giving his you, a man of belief. And like hell,
:40:58. > :41:02.this is entirely rational. What he has said is that the Big Society is
:41:03. > :41:06.a complete fraud. He has exposed a complete fraud. He has exposed
:41:06. > :41:10.this. We talk about a Big Society, and then we diminish it and make it
:41:10. > :41:14.smaller and smaller, and remove all the safeguards to help the poorest,
:41:14. > :41:16.we start removing housing benefit, we start removing housing benefit,
:41:16. > :41:21.we cut back on the amount of education which the state provides,
:41:21. > :41:24.we cut back on the national Health Service, and we call it the Big
:41:24. > :41:32.Society. It really is very much like George Orwell's Ministry of
:41:32. > :41:36.truth, which told lies. I have to say, being accused of waffle by
:41:36. > :41:42.Rowan Williams it is a bit like being called Fat... This was a
:41:42. > :41:46.story about obesity, is that right? Yes, apparently, people are not
:41:46. > :41:51.noticing they are getting just enormous, because everybody around
:41:51. > :41:54.them is also enormous. We all adapt to our cultural norms, and we all
:41:55. > :42:00.know that the West is pretty much eating itself to death. It is not
:42:00. > :42:09.ideal. Gluttony is a deadly sin, isn't it? It is, it also makes you
:42:09. > :42:12.fat. I don't think there has been any evidence to show that more
:42:12. > :42:16.religious societies are necessarily thinner societies. No doubt there
:42:16. > :42:20.will be studies to be conducted. But we do need to address this,
:42:20. > :42:24.because at this rate, not only will people be popping their clubs left,
:42:24. > :42:28.right and centre, but it is going to bankrupt the NHS. -- popping
:42:29. > :42:34.their clocks. It has been said that we must not give our young people
:42:34. > :42:38.too many negative messages about body image. You have lots of
:42:38. > :42:43.contrary messages. You have people who are 25 stone, and on the other
:42:43. > :42:47.hand, people who are starving themselves. These polarities are
:42:47. > :42:51.always a sign of a society which is out of balance. If you look at
:42:51. > :42:57.America, the West Coast, ludicrously thin. And they believe
:42:57. > :43:05.in Hell in America, don't they? all of them. They are a lot more
:43:05. > :43:11.religious! Fat is hell. Let's levered there. The poll is closing
:43:11. > :43:19.now, so please do not text. The online vote is now closing as well.
:43:19. > :43:24.We will bring you the result at the end of the show. Now, it has got to
:43:24. > :43:27.be one of the most difficult decisions for parents to take. A
:43:27. > :43:31.teenager brings home their boyfriend or girlfriend - would you
:43:31. > :43:34.allow them to sleep together under your roof? What did your parents do
:43:34. > :43:38.when you were a teenager, and did you get it right with your
:43:38. > :43:42.children? It is difficult for parents when they realise their
:43:42. > :43:45.teenage children are becoming sexually active. Nowadays, it is
:43:45. > :43:49.happening younger. But should we allow them to have sex in our
:43:49. > :43:53.homes? Some say it is better to know where your children are. They
:43:53. > :43:57.are likely to have sex behind your back anyway, and at greater risk.
:43:57. > :44:01.Being open about it might make our children more confident in talking
:44:01. > :44:06.to us about relationships. It might also help lower the number of teen
:44:06. > :44:09.pregnancies. We have still got one of the highest rates in Europe. But
:44:09. > :44:13.others argued that some teenagers do not actually want to have sex,
:44:13. > :44:17.but feel pressured into it, so allowing them to have their
:44:17. > :44:21.partners stay over could add to that pressure to have sex. And what
:44:21. > :44:27.happens if your children are only 14 or 15? Should you sanction them
:44:27. > :44:36.doing something illegal? Should we embrace our children's sexual
:44:36. > :44:43.awakening, no matter how uncomfortable we may find it? You
:44:43. > :44:48.can join us on webcam, or make your point online. Mohammed, you have
:44:48. > :44:52.got six children in your family, what were the rules? The rules are
:44:52. > :44:55.very straightforward. It is no sex before marriage. Some people find
:44:55. > :44:57.before marriage. Some people find this very old fashioned. It is, I
:44:57. > :45:01.this very old fashioned. It is, I hope, traditional British values.
:45:01. > :45:05.But actually, if you make the rules player and straightforward,
:45:05. > :45:08.prevention is better than cure. If you get to the point where you're
:45:08. > :45:13.having to have a discussion, that the boyfriend or girlfriend have
:45:13. > :45:18.come home, where are they going to sleep, together on the sofa, then
:45:18. > :45:23.you have probably already gone too far? Even if they are at university,
:45:23. > :45:27.and they are coming home to stay? If you want to do things in a moral,
:45:27. > :45:31.and I hope a sensibly discriminating framework, within an
:45:31. > :45:35.Islamic environment, and within many other religious and non-
:45:35. > :45:39.religious environments, we certainly did not have dating
:45:39. > :45:44.before marriage. It is kind of, you're single, then you reach a
:45:44. > :45:49.point in time, and you get married. It makes the process a lot easier,
:45:49. > :45:56.and you miss out on this, a mile out to say, sticky middle
:45:56. > :46:00.situation? I think you just did! Is the problem that too many parents
:46:00. > :46:10.want to be their child's best friend, but actually you should be
:46:10. > :46:10.
:46:10. > :46:15.No. What we have just heard is fine if you happen to be a religious
:46:15. > :46:20.person. If you want to bring your child up believing certain things,
:46:20. > :46:25.if you want to bring your child up believing in the precepts of Islam
:46:25. > :46:30.and therefore this is one of those precepts. I don't want to do that.
:46:30. > :46:35.My main concern about this would be to say, let's not make sex some
:46:35. > :46:39.sort of enormous taboo. Let's make it a normal part of growing up.
:46:39. > :46:44.People grow up at their own rates and within their own time. They
:46:44. > :46:51.want to start having sex at different times. Let them do so.
:46:51. > :46:56.Really? Absolute glee. I would far rather children didn't regard it as
:46:56. > :47:02.something they could not discuss with their parents. Discussing an
:47:02. > :47:07.doing our separate things. exactly. Use -- you are saying you
:47:07. > :47:13.don't let them have it until they are married. You have to be
:47:13. > :47:17.absolutely certain that that is carrying on. Would you happily have
:47:17. > :47:24.your 16-year-old son and his 13- year-old girlfriend sleep in your
:47:24. > :47:30.house? That would be rape. Would you be tacitly endorsing your son's
:47:30. > :47:37.rape of a 13-year-old? No. Let's distinguish aged consent. Nobody is
:47:37. > :47:40.saying under 16. Should your child want to have sex... Are I can't
:47:40. > :47:46.think of a bigger deterrent to sex than having sex in your parental
:47:46. > :47:51.home! So the parent is desperate for their child... It depends how
:47:51. > :47:56.relaxed... If you want to postpone it for as long as possible, by all
:47:56. > :48:02.means bombard them with information. A commonsense approach is required.
:48:02. > :48:10.Is it different for women and men? Billy Connolly... That is a
:48:10. > :48:14.Freudian thing. It is different for fathers? I'm agreeing. Billy
:48:15. > :48:19.Connolly is very odd about this. He is very, very upset that his
:48:19. > :48:23.daughter shouted at him to get out of her room when she was 14. Good
:48:23. > :48:27.Lord, he doesn't know very much about 14-year-old girls! He is a
:48:28. > :48:30.man alone in a house of women. think men get more upset about
:48:30. > :48:35.their daughters having sex and women do about their sons having
:48:35. > :48:38.sex. Why are women less bothered? They don't have this Daddy's little
:48:38. > :48:47.girl thing going on. That is right but it is not something we should
:48:47. > :48:52.take into account. No. I can tell you that one would feel different
:48:52. > :48:57.about one's daughter to how I would feel about my son. But at the same
:48:57. > :49:00.time, one ought to ignore that. I bring in Philip, a
:49:00. > :49:04.psychotherapist and broadcaster. I remember watching you give advice
:49:04. > :49:10.to young people on TV over the years. Why do so many parents have
:49:10. > :49:14.a problem with this? There's a Freudian element, and thank you for
:49:14. > :49:20.the memories! I to call of your advice! And you are still here to
:49:20. > :49:24.tell the tale. Just as children have a horror of thinking about
:49:24. > :49:29.their parents' sex lives, parents have a horror about their
:49:29. > :49:34.children's sex lives. That is healthy? It is, but we need an
:49:34. > :49:39.appropriate boundary. I think it is a matter of being welcoming to
:49:39. > :49:44.those who are legally engaged in the exploratory business of sex. We
:49:44. > :49:52.are not born knowing how to do it. But things like Mohammed's
:49:52. > :49:58.guidebook for schools. There are a lot of guides. Provided you don't
:49:58. > :50:01.belong to a Major religion, I think the modern Western view is that we
:50:02. > :50:05.need to learn and we need to fail, we need to have relationships that
:50:05. > :50:10.break before we find one that might last. This is an interesting
:50:10. > :50:15.question. Assuming that one is not religious, we know that most adults
:50:15. > :50:20.are having sex outside marriage, so that should not be taboo. I'm not
:50:20. > :50:23.sure where Philip is coming from this the right place. When we look
:50:23. > :50:28.at the state of sexuality and our approach to sex in this country, in
:50:29. > :50:33.the West generally, who's to say it works? When we look at the rates of
:50:33. > :50:39.marriage breakdowns, how stable relationships are, how unhappy many
:50:39. > :50:42.children are, and how many children from unhappy homes end up being the
:50:42. > :50:47.scourge of society, whether it is criminality or producing more
:50:47. > :50:53.unhappy children? There are huge questions around sex and sexuality
:50:53. > :50:56.and we need to have an adult debate about this. Culture... You are
:50:56. > :51:01.taking quite an extreme view. They understand why you laugh because of
:51:01. > :51:05.your religion. I'm not sure it is that. I think sex outside marriage
:51:05. > :51:09.-- no sex outside marriage is pretty extreme. There's a happy
:51:09. > :51:13.medium and I think children are under horrendous pressure to be
:51:13. > :51:17.sexually active from an early age. People are starting puberty earlier.
:51:17. > :51:23.I heard statistics last week that the average age of puberty is now
:51:23. > :51:28.to end. Children as young as five and seven are getting it. Parents
:51:28. > :51:31.do have a responsibility to try to counteract the pressures in society
:51:31. > :51:38.for children who don't understand what sexual exchanges all about. A
:51:38. > :51:42.lot of them think it is a way of being popular in class.
:51:42. > :51:52.approached this issue from a non- religious point of view, which is
:51:52. > :51:53.
:51:53. > :51:57.to say it actually... Young people, do young people, even 16 or 17, do
:51:57. > :52:03.they have the moral, sexual integrity, the maturity, to handle
:52:03. > :52:07.a sexual relationship? Funny you should say that. On the line I have
:52:07. > :52:15.been 18-year-old, Ryan, who has kindly agreed to talk to us about
:52:15. > :52:21.this. You live with your mum. What is her view about having
:52:21. > :52:25.girlfriends over and have you feel about it? I then had one girlfriend
:52:25. > :52:31.and I had been with her for three years. We got together when we were
:52:31. > :52:36.15. My mum's attitude changed because when I was 15, it was
:52:36. > :52:41.before the age of consent, and my mum said no way. Did you listen?
:52:41. > :52:49.Say that again. Did you listen when she said absolutely no way? Largely,
:52:49. > :52:55.yes. She is the one bringing me up and she knows what is best for me.
:52:55. > :52:59.Respect comes into it as well. From my perspective, because I had been
:52:59. > :53:03.with my girlfriend for so long, I realised I am not going out
:53:03. > :53:07.drinking and bringing home a different girl every night, I'm not
:53:07. > :53:10.being irresponsible or anything like that. I'm in a loving
:53:11. > :53:14.relationship, I love her more than anything, and we have pretty much
:53:15. > :53:22.grown up together. It seems like the right thing. Your mother is
:53:22. > :53:30.happy? When you got to 16? No. Even when I was 16, she said you are
:53:30. > :53:35.only 16. What is the situation now that you're 18? It is kind of hard
:53:36. > :53:42.to explain. Sometimes my girlfriend might stay over, but it is always
:53:42. > :53:46.down to her parents as well. It has changed a lot with weddings. My
:53:46. > :53:51.father took us to a wedding on my father's side of the family one
:53:51. > :53:55.time and my girlfriend was able to stay over with me with my father's
:53:55. > :53:59.permission and her parents' permission. There's also an
:53:59. > :54:04.argument about whether or not it is allowed to happen or allowed to
:54:04. > :54:07.happen in their house. Thank you. One of the interesting things is
:54:07. > :54:12.the idea of different parents having different attitudes and how
:54:12. > :54:16.you negotiate that. Mohammed, if one of your children wanted to
:54:16. > :54:20.marry, but their parents were happy to let them stay over together.
:54:21. > :54:23.orders two children, when they were old enough, they wanted to get
:54:23. > :54:33.married and they got married, and they went straight from almost
:54:33. > :54:35.
:54:35. > :54:40.being single. At what age? They married at 21 and 19. Quite young.
:54:40. > :54:46.If we take the broader point of different sets of parents and
:54:46. > :54:49.different moral values, how do you negotiate that? How many UK -- how
:54:49. > :54:56.you negotiate anything else, by talking about it and having an
:54:56. > :55:00.enormous row! The real good. This is very, very difficult territory.
:55:00. > :55:04.Frankly, unless you are bringing children up in a fiercely religious
:55:04. > :55:08.household, they will have sex so the question is how you manage that.
:55:08. > :55:13.My generation were terrified of fades and we took contraception and
:55:13. > :55:19.protection seriously. Talking to them about it is not necessarily
:55:19. > :55:24.protecting them. No. I think I would far rather have children, if
:55:24. > :55:31.they are going to do this, doing it in a place where we know where they
:55:31. > :55:39.are, we know what they are... if they are under age? Yes. Even if
:55:39. > :55:45.that is technically rape? That is... A can you answer that? I can't
:55:45. > :55:50.answer that. It is under-aged. is the part where you have a row!
:55:50. > :55:55.What we are saying is that is illegal and you have to deal with
:55:55. > :55:59.it. You have to prevent it. If you were talking about two 15-year-old,
:56:00. > :56:05.I don't see any difference. couple of e-mails...
:56:05. > :56:09.Teenagers have been having sex for decades, so what difference now? At
:56:09. > :56:13.least with parental support, contraception can be safer.
:56:13. > :56:17.Parents should not the ban or encourage teen sex, their job is to
:56:17. > :56:23.make teenagers will inform decisions.
:56:23. > :56:26.We have to end there. Text and phone line votes are in. I want to
:56:26. > :56:32.thank everyone because it was very frank and I thought quite
:56:32. > :56:38.illuminating. Is avoiding tax immoral? This is what you told us.
:56:38. > :56:44.61% of you said yes, 39% said no. What are your thoughts as the ex
:56:44. > :56:49.Banket in the room? It wasn't overwhelmingly. It wasn't. Peter
:56:49. > :56:56.and I did our best to get those figures down a bit. Something that
:56:56. > :57:03.is illegal is clearly immoral. necessarily true. When the
:57:03. > :57:09.Government is behaving in such a hypocritical... Are immoral? When
:57:09. > :57:13.the government is behaving in such a Nipper -- hypocritical manner and
:57:13. > :57:16.largely with questionable morality in how they approach tax, I think
:57:16. > :57:19.the voters and the nation is probably split on how they view
:57:19. > :57:22.these things. But there's a responsibility to manage your
:57:22. > :57:29.financial affairs sensibly and there's a responsibility to take
:57:29. > :57:33.best advice. Christina? Most of us have thought about nothing else all
:57:33. > :57:37.week and this tax situation and I am now sick to death of it! Did you
:57:37. > :57:43.feel sorry for Jimmy Carr? No. My pity for Jimmy Carr is fairly
:57:43. > :57:48.sparing. I also think that until people are in a similar situation,
:57:48. > :57:52.most of us don't have a choice about tax. It is very, very easy to
:57:52. > :57:57.pass judgment on other people. The main difference... I don't like
:57:57. > :58:01.what Jimmy Carr did, it is very unattractive and hypocritical given
:58:01. > :58:05.what he said about tax, but the bottom line is it is lack of
:58:05. > :58:10.opportunity. Most of us don't have the opportunity. You would do it if
:58:10. > :58:13.you could? I would not. Particularly if I was super rich.
:58:13. > :58:17.The super rich are not using money to give themselves a better life,
:58:17. > :58:21.they are using money as a means of acquiring power. It is not just
:58:21. > :58:29.Jimmy Carr, it is Tony Blair and the rest of them. Thank you to
:58:29. > :58:33.everyone who has taken part. Don't text or call the phone lines any