Episode 8 Sunday Morning Live

It's thought that 20,000 people have died so far in the deepening

Syrian conflict while the West looks on. Since Iraq and

Afghanistan, we're much more cautious, but is it now time for us

Good morning. I'm Samira Ahmed and welcome to Sunday morning Live. A

diplomatic solution to the conflict in Syria looks further away than

ever; following the resignation of Kofi Annan, what can the new peace

envoy hope to achieve. Reports coming out of the country report

almost daily massacres, but our countries and others can't agree on

a course of action. Maternity leave is thought to be a woman's rights

in a civilised society, but in the current economic climate is it a

luxury? Some companies are being crippled by it. The cost of

maternity leave is out of control. Why should an employer pay for an

employee to have a baby? I'm an employer, I don't care about your

baby, I care about my business. And gold medallists seem to

represent the best of Britain, but can the same be said of our

football? The football Morley bankrupt or are a few tarnishing

the game. Welcome to my panel. Owen Jones is

a author of Chavs. He's a keen cyclist, who sees himself as a bit

of a Bradley Wiggins, but lacks the sideburns.

Pat Nevin jir jir Kim Howells was a former minister of culture. And

Katie Hopkins is a former member of Sandhurst and currently train s

While we've preferred to focus on the Olympics, the international

story this summer has been the escalating bloodshed in Syria.

President Assad is still in power, 20,000 people are dead and there

seems no agreement on the way forward with China and Russia

vetoing every plan so far. Is it now time for us to intervene. In

2011, the UK helped to enforce a no-fly zone over er Syria, but

while the UK has offered support, such as medical supplies and radio

to the political opposition, it remains Government policy not to

send arms to the rebels. assistance does not include lethal

assistance to the opposition, and we will be careful to whom we

provide the practical help I have mentioned. However, with atrocities

allegedly being committed on both sides, is it our moral duty to be

doing more? Critics of intervention say it's not that simple and the

sending in of arms or troops will only exacerbate the situation and

could lead to wider war in the Middle East?

But those who oppose the government's stance ask why is the

world standing back and doing nothing when, in the past, it has

stepped in to help those under threat. So do we have a moral duty

to intervene and attempt to end the bloodshed destroying a country or

should we keep out of affairs that may not concern us and do more harm

than good? Katie Hopkins, would we do more harm than good if we enter

veined now? I think given our notion of what is right and morally

wrong, aren't we obligated to intervene?

Well, if you they which should, text yes or no. You can also vote

on-line or on the website. We'll show how you voted at the end

of the programme. I want to ask Kim Howells first, if you were phone

minister now would you feel we should be intervening? No, I don't

think so. I was in favour of intervening right the at the very

beginning, because I think there is a place for intervening. When

should we have done it? Very, very quickly and maybe tried to make a

safe zone either in Lebanon or on the Turkish border. It would have

been very, very difficult. This is not Libya and not even Northern

Iraq. This is a very complex situation. It would have been very,

very difficult to do. So it's the com flexity of the situation now

that that's made it impossible? It's in the middle of the world's

most volatile region and Syria is spiralling out of control. I have a

lot of time for William Hague as Foreign Secretary, but I think he

can't control who our intelligence or arms would end up with in the

end and the opposition is fragmented. They have given motives

for doing what they're doing. Some are democrats, some are Salaphist.

But that's true of many countries where we've intervened. There is

surely an argument to intervene? I'm sure everyone will be watching

the TV with horror. Instinctly we feel we should do something, but

we're seeing an escalating sectarian war. There are other

minorities who also fear the fall of the regime, like the Christians

and the Jews. We are having foreign intervention at the moment from

Qatar and Saudi Arabia, neither of which are democracies. And this is

the problem. And partly, on the one hand, I mean, I don't -- obviously

I oppose very strongly the Western intervention in Iraq, it was one of

the biggest British foreign policy disasters since World War II. The

idea of repeating that is utterly unthinkable. But what we're seeing

at the moment and this is my fear, is that the intervention taking

place at the moment from Bahrain and Saudi Arabia is being funnelled

into the most radical and sectarian groups on the Sunni side and that

is causing an escalation of the sectarian bloodshed that we're

seeing. But this is the fear, I'm interested you're in favour of

intervention given the complexities? There are so many

complexities, and opinions but we can't sit back on our sofas and say,

"This is my opinion." But do you think it would be worse if we went

in? What could be worse than people shot on the streets and seeing

children being maimed. I don't think we have a right in the a

democratic society to say we cannot intervene. Go ahead? There is a

wider question, of course, which is that the international

organisations we have at the moment that try to stop governments

murdering their own people are completely ineffective, and that

goes for the UN, the Arab League is useless. And the African league is

useless. And in the Former Yugoslavia, look at that situation,

do you allow a brutal government to murder its own citizens and not do

anything or do you try and figure out some way of intervening so as

to try and lessen the brutality of what's going on in there. For me it

has to be the latter. But just to reflect what you're saying, we

could all say it's easier to be an armchair bomber than allow bombs to

rain down on another country. But in Iraq things did get a lot worse

because of the intervention. The situation got worse and there were

divisions between Sunni and Shia, and other groups came in. But to

flip that over, you are saying that Saddam should have been allowed to

stay there? He was a brutal murderer, and some people supported

him, you and your allies. That's outrageous, I don't like dictators.

Your former leader, Tony Blair, who is now advising the Kazakhy standy

dictatorship for millions of dollars every year, I want

democracy, which equally applies to all and that comes from those

struggling below. And that's what we saw in the Arab Spring. It came

from people fighting themselves against dictators. But sheerly we

have a right to try and make democracy rule and we have a right

to intervene to help people who couldn't understand why we're

letting them suffer? Surely we have a right with our forces and troops

and our justice of what is right and wrong, surely there is a moral

decency to do that? That is a very naive view of the way Western power

operates. Western power backed several dictatorships, we've just

had a Saudi invasion last year, which the West failed to condemn.

So what are we supposed to do about it? Are we so bound by our own

history that we can't change, and you say Iraq was a disaster, but I

disagree with you. Are you telling me that the people being murdered

in Srebrenica, because of the influence of the UN shouldn't

somehow have been rescued from the Serb Serb terrorists and the Muslim

terrorists. This is another example. You did have unfortunate foreign

intervention because the French backed and armed the regime.

Srebrenica is an example, wasn't there a case for moral

intervention? I think internationally co-ordinated action.

What does that mean? I'll tell you. It means that British and American

troops are put in the way of danger, because no-one else will put their

troops in danger. That's not true. Kofi Annan suggested a Government

of national unit to bring those together and have a timetable for

eelections. Unfortunately that was blown out of the water by the West

position. I want to cam back to Syria, because we have people with

Syrian perspectives. I'm calling Abdul from the group, British

solidarity for Syria. Abdul, one of the problems in this situation is

we know there are atrocities being carried out by rebels as well, not

just the Assad government is arming them really going to be a solution?

We must not get things out of proportion. Even the report from

the UN is clear saying the vast majority of the violence is being

conducted by this dictatorial regime. To simply state that the

rebels are committing crimes, that is a fact, but the most well-

trained and professional armies in the world commit crimes, we've seen

the Americans commit crimes in the Iraq and Pakistan. The entire

revolution is made up of people who are no better than Assad, you can't

say that. It's a situation where we have a warlord killing his own

people. In the last month alone 5,000 people have been killed.

Major Jean Tim cross joins us now and he served in Kosovo and Iraq,

all the places we've been discussing. From your experience do

you think military intervention in Syria could be made to work and

how? This is not an easy question and my view at the moment is it

would be very, very difficult. And you've mentioned the various

conflicts I've been involved with. I come at this from two

perspectives, one as a Christian and the other is the just war

principles. And I think it is important to

stress they are principles, they are not requirements. All of those

just war principles and the responsibility to protect talk

about things like what author would we have to intervene and would this

place be better as a result of the intervening. There's no doubt we're

not going to get any UN authority on this, because the Russians and

the Chinese are not going to agree. Would no-fly zones make a

difference or would it be humanitarian intervention that

would make a difference? One has to look at the reality. Putting a no-

fly zone into Syria would be different to Libya. Why? Syria has

an extremely effective military who are, sadly still loyal to the Assad

regime. So trying to establish a no-fly zone would be difficult.

It's a much bigger place than Libya. The Libyan air defences were along

the coast. That's not the case in Syria. So it would be extremely

difficult but, and it is an important but, my line is that we

do need to be thinking about how we can provide thought leadership and

international organisations and how we can begin to think through some

sort of ability to help, particularly on the humanitarian

front. But it is not going to be easy. Syria is big, it's a hugely

important part of the Arab Spring which follows from September 11th

and the economic crisis, but it matters because of Iran and the

knock-on effect into Lebanon. And I endorse Kim Howells point of view,

I think the Foreign Secretary is doing a very good job of this,

trying to strike a well-balanced line here but we need to think this

through and try and intervene in some sense. Thank you. Is

Afghanistan an interesting comparison. There, Western military

intervention has done a huge amount for people's lives, particularly

women and children. Isn't there a case we could see our intervention

in the same moral way? Most people in Britain want people returned

from Afghanistan. That is a conflict which has gone on for well

over ten years and we all hear the tragic roll call of British

servicemen dying each week. And we see a corrupt regime under Hamid

Karzai, who didn't actually win the elections and there's huge

allegations of rigging. I don't want to go into the details, I want

to bring in another contributor before more comments from you. And

that is the Reverend Assar, a Syrian Anglican priest in this

country. What is your concern about how safe the Syrians were if the

rebel side were to win? If the military intervention happens then

nobody is safe, definitely nobody is safe. And the amount of violence

would escalate beyond imagination. I think I disagree totally how Mr

Hague and Mr Cameron dealt with Syria. I think they dealt

appallingly, because it is not about the question of stretching

our muscles in the UK and milt ry, why can't -- hilt tarly, why can't

we stretch our muscles here in the mind. As a Syrian and as a priest,

no-one has suggested, for example, an international conference to

bring all the Syrians together to talk about the situation. All what

we talk about is we talk about whether we enter vein militarily or

not. Thank you. That's a very good point? There have been lots of

international discussions about what to do in Syria. It's not true

to say there have been no attempts on diplomacy. Kofi Annan tried to

organise something and it didn't work and it's not going to work

because this is a huge interniceine conflict in Syria. Have you been

convinced now by what you've heard? Not at all. And the diplomatic

solution, we did try and it did not work. And I think if we're just

prepared to watch we're nothing better than voyeurs, nothing better

than the people who slow down on a motorway to watch a crash. We don't

get our guns out in a car crash, though. Contributions from viewers.

The forces have been cut while still involved in Afghanistan, who

are you going to send? Another I don't think anyone should be arming

terrorists or rebels, as it will come back to bite us. And another,

"They should be protecting this country, not acting as world police.

You have around 20 minutes before the poll closes. Thanks to everyone

for taking part in that discussion. Now, women have fought long and

hard for maternity pay but as welfare payments and even child

benefit in particular have been cut, is it time for a rethink. Currently

a mother can claim six weeks at 90 persist -- persist pay. Katie

Hopkins says it's ridiculous that employers should have to pay for

their employees to have children. The cost of maternity leave is out

of control. Why should employers fund their employees' decisions to

have children. I'm an employer and I don't care about your baby, I

care about my business. With a pregnant employee in my business

the costs are substantial and entirely biased around the needs of

the employee. My businesses is expected to pay for her maternity

leave, to pay to recruit a temporary hire while she has gone

and also to hold her job open should she wish to return. And

despite offering all of these kourtd sees I cannot ask when she

plans to leave, how long she is gone for or when she plans to come

back, if at all. And in the run-up to her leave I'm expected to fund

digsial absences through sickness or related appointments. I'm not

happy. When I was pregnant I did not attend antenatal appointments.

I did not have to practice my breathing and I missed a few scans.

I was working in the States at the time. We had eight weeks unpaid

leave and no special treatments. Here in the UK I get all of the

onerous responsibilities as an employer. So it's time to stand up

for the rights of employers and stop paying women for the choices

they've made. Setting aside the moral dilemma of

whether Katie should have been missing scans, if you have a webcam

you can make your pint on Skype or connect us in the many other ways.

It's not politically correct but you hear a lot of concern

particularly from small businesses that they can't ask questions of

the woman and it's a huge financial burden. First of all, there are two

men on this panel and one of the only women in Britain who has had

stance. There are only four countries in the world that don't

have paid maternity leave and what is shown there is there is a huge

cost borne by business if you don't have it, because people don't

return to their jobs and you have to pay for recruitment. But this is

about our society is it just based on prurly boft or the needs of

working people and their families? And this would penalise women for

having a child at a particular point. There are huge benefits for

women taking time off, in terms of prenatal and post natal care.

Breast-feeding, the World Health Organisation recommends six months.

But businesses have to pay for all this? Why is it my responsibility

that it is better for breast- feeding if they take time off. That

is not my problem. I was in the States when I had my first child. I

had eight weeks off and I didn't take it all. If you choose to have

a baby it's your choice as an individual, it's not my

responsibility as your employer. I'm not responsible, I didn't

decide for you to have a baby, you did. But businesses are not being

hammered by ma ternt believe. a small business. Don't talk over

me. The problem with small businesses isn't having to pay

maternity leave, it's not being lent to properably by the banks and

it's having to respond to the economy. We all depend on a new

generation and all depend on people having children. There is already a

low birth rate. If women aren't able to be supported whilst they

have children we'll either have a low birth rate or women will drop

out of employment altogether. Katie respond to that? From a small

business perspective and I run one, so clearly I have a valid opinion,

the two things that matter to us is cash flow, that's king and being

able to generate cash flow through the business and the second thing

is forecasting your business. Clearly, if you have employees

going to leave on maternity leave, and you don't know if they're going

to come back or if at all and how long you get a temporary employer

in. But you can claim the money back in arrears. You get the money

back for the individual who has left, but you don't get money back

to recruit somebody to stand in their place, and who wants to take

a temporary position, not many people so that's difficult. A lot

of this legislation was developed under your Government for good

reasons, but you took it too far, Katie is trying to say and it is

having a huge cost on small businesses? We didn't think about

the impending economic crisis. And by the way, I agree very much with

what Owen is saying about women having this incredibly important

role, the central role in society, of bringing up young children, but

if your economy is going bankrupt how do you pay for a welfare state,

not just for maternity leave but for lots of things. Is this a case

for rolling it back somewhat? not sure about rolling it back, but

you could modify things by saying if, for example, a small business,

like Katie runs, is finding it extremely difficult you have to

find some way of either compensating them for maternity

leave and pay, which I'm in favour of, or else you face an abyss,

which is you don't pay women to have children, basically. Women

either don't go into employment, which would be a terrible thing or

else the birth rate declines even further. I want to bring in some

contributors. Kate Kingston who is an entrepreneur and has a small

business. You are exactly the sort of person who is struggling with

maternity and it's crippling businesses like yours, is that your

experience? Not at all. It doesn't cripple our business. We support

our staff having a life-work balance. In the main we are

supportive of maternity and paternity rights and we're given at

least six months' notice to prepare both the company and the employee

for any changes that this effects. In addition, we are given help by

the Government by being able to recover our costs through HMRC.

want to get an American perspective as well. Christine Brown-Quinn is

the female capitalist, that's her blog. In America you get a lot less

maternity leave and it is unpaid. Is that a benefit for women in the

workplace? Well, the first thing I would say is that maternity leave

is both a personal and a business issue. In terms of a personal issue

you can't really legislate that. For each individual woman they may

want, you know, three months off, they may want six months off. They

may want a year or two off. We cannot possibly do one size fits

all, "This is right for mothers, they should take this time off"

that's impossible. That's the personal piece. The business piece,

on the other hand is really about openership of the individual and

the piece that works in the US is that the individual takes

responsibility for exiting the business and reentering the

business. And what I find, having lived in the UK for over 20 years

and having had leave in the US, in the UK twice, but in the UK, now

with this year maternity leave it's incredibly difficult to reenter

into a business, a year, particularly for a small spwis a

lifetime. And my business -- business is a lifetime. In my

business we help women programme in their careers and a year out is too

long. What would be the right length, do you think? I think for

businesses again, appreciating the context in the UK and not as an

American, or as a dual citizen I wouldn't say the US model is right

for the UK. The UK has its own culture and history, et cetera. I

think that the six months, also having been a manager in a larger

organisation, with people going on leave, six months of manageable. A

year -- - a year is extremely difficult. I met a very senior

woman executive in America who said because you have to make a tough

choice and go back after eight weeks it is a tough choice and

there are a lot more women at the top. Here, women have it both ways

and people without children don't and they resent that? No, studies

in America show that women are far more likely to drop out of work

because they're forced to make a choice between career or a child.

And when they re-enter the market they are lower skilled so the cost

of training them up is wasted. Because women are forced back to

work, there are breast pumping areas where they go with a photo of

their child, which they may not even see...It's Fine for middle-

class women who can hire a nanny, which you did, it's fine and why

should people not be allowed to work if they can't afford to have a

nanny? It is a choice. Am I going to work or have my children? In the

States a lot of women were at board level because they stayed in the

game compete being their male counterparts and they didn't take

massive periods of time out when you get excluded from being able to

rise to the top. It actually favours women in the long run. And

I think from an employment perspective if we were more open

about maternity, what was involved, when are you going to go and come

back, people would be more willing to hire them. I'm going to talk

about that. Steve is a former civil servant and resigned from the Home

Office in a row over border staffing. The Home Office is a big

public sector employer and employs a lot of women, as a former

executive there, what was your feeling with maternity leave? Was

it something that affected how people regarded women and should

it? I think you've got some crossed wires here. I was brought on as the

author of a book The Woman Racket. Which is directly relevant to our

discussion, but crucially you have worked in the protector where a lot

of maternity leave is claimed. Is it of concern for you and why?

There are two problems. First of all, the employer has to leave the

job open for a full year and research shows only 10% to 15% of

women are like men in their attitude to work and there is

comprehensive research on this, and the chances are that the woman is

not going to come back full-time and unlikely to be part time.

Unlike other benefits, SMP is not means tested, so a woman can take

any old job shortly before she becomes pregnant in the knowledge

that she can have a full year...Do You think women are doing it in

this calculated way? Some people will always respond to perverse

incentives, and there are always examples of that. I want to get a

response? Very briefly, I think this exactly encapsulates the

problem with maternity pay. It gives people those types of

thoughts. Women are into skulduggery, and trying too trick

and con. And if we were clearer and made it a better system it would be

fairer for all of them and people wouldn't be thinking like this

about women. You think it compares with immigration in our way over

maternity leave. Is it open for misclaiming? We should be talking

about it in a wider context in terms of are we able to continue

paying it in Do you think there is a mood where the government is

feeding an attitude of too many immigrants and too many welfare

claimants? Is that a problem? will always be a temptation for

government to try and play cards that it thinks are populist. But

the problem is we're living in very, very difficult times at the moment

and the assumptions I grew up with, about the benefits of the welfare

state and they are undoubted in my view, by the way, we aren't going

to continue with those. That's nonsense. One of the few welcome

things this Government is doing, which you won't hear me say very

often is introducing paternity leave, so men can share the burden

of raising the children and I think that's an important step forward.

wish we could talk about the Scandinavian style with high taxes

and funding, but that's nor another programme. One slaughter, "There is

a need for children, they will pay our pensions in the future. And

another says, "All businesses are affected, not just small businesses,

it's a level playing field and another says, "A reasonable short

time off is OK, but not an endless payment. Do you still have that

warm glow from watching Mo Farah or Jessica Ennis winning gold? But how

do the footballers compare? Is football morally bankrupt? You can

join in the discussion: Keep voting too in our poll:

The question is should we intervene You have fine mivs before the poll

closes. -- minutes before the poll closes.

It is time for our moral moment of the week, where you choose your

stories. I think, Owen, you were going to start with the strange

story of Julian Assange? Yes, this is a tough one. This is after the

granting of asylum by Ecuador andess a he now holed up in the

embassy. I was speak I am speaking as a supporter of WikiLeaks, it's

helped to hold some people in the world to account. But this is a

separate issue. There are some very serious allegations of rape against

him in Sweden. There have been a lot of myths which have circled

around, it wouldn't constitute rape in this country, not true, two

courts have ruled that it would constitute rape. And there are some

who argue that people are trying to crush WikiLeaks, but this is

entirely separate and he must go to Sweden and face these allegations.

A lot of people are saying this is about America and not a criminal

rape case. Absolutely and I'm going to agree with Owen. We need to get

this guy out of our country. I think Ecuador is completely wrong

to harbourim, and it's all at the taxpayers expense. Ecuadorian tax

payments. But he's not wanted here. The discussion of the threat to

intervene by William Hague, has that surprised you or is it quite

right, Sweden and Britain are angry about this? I'm not surprised

they're angry. The guy, I think he's a coward and manipulative,

he's handled the media brilliantly. He has a lot of middle-class

supporters. None of them are talking about those two women who

brought charges in Sweden. I think it's a disgrace. And by the way,

Ecuador, along with a lot of other South American states has a long

history of inviting Nazis after the war, gangsters, and Argentina,

Brazil Uruguay. You're too young. Don't patronise me. I'm not

patronising, get your history right. Another one, Katie, you chose the

conviction of Pussy Riot, -- Kim you chose Pussy Riot, the story of

the girl band in Russia. concerned not because of the rock

band or what happened, but it seems to me the tendancies that we assume

happen when you have a working democracy are not transparent in

Russia now and I think it's getting worse. I think it's becoming more

repressive and the state is less tolerant and it really grieves me

to see it. I'm not saying there wouldn't have ban tremendous row if

this had happened in Canterbury Cathedral or St Pauls. I was

thinking of the young man who got jailed for desecrating the Cenotaph

a few years ago, it is interesting that they were sentenced for

hooliganism and blasphemy? Which says a lot about the regime. That's

right. They were harking back to medieval court rulings. Do you

think a lot of people are complaining about the punk band,

but will it tip for them or against them? There is tipping favour

against Putin. He came in with a centralise regime and traded off

human rights for rising living standards but I think he's starting

not to get away with that, particularly in the last elections

with the huge protests against alleged wide-spread rigging in

those elections, so I think this could cement increasing opposition

in Russia. Are you optimistic? I'm not optimistic. I'm afraid I

think there are tends sis within the Russian ruling class, and

believe me there is one to become more authoritarian than less so.

And Katie, this is lighter. Yes, within the marriage unit a man, I'm

going to gesture to you, Kim, but I'm not entirely pointing at you, a

man will drink less if he's married whereas a woman will start to drink

more if she is married but I don't buy into the notion of men giving

permission to women to drink, I think it's that they drive women to

drink! Do you drive women to drink? I think it's a complete nonsense.

If women want to drink they drink because they want to drink. Men can

drive women to drink. That's what I'm saying. And there are women who

can drive men to drink, believe me. That's a very intense look. The

poll is closing now, so please do not text as your vote won't count

and you may still be charged. We'll bring you the results at the end of

the show. Now, the Premiership kicked off

yesterday, if you haven't noticed and after the great Olympic

festival is it a case of the hangover after the party? World-

wide praise and a record haul of 29 gold medals, leave most people

thinking the Olympics has been a huge success and made the country

proud. But can the same be said of football? The setting up of the

Premier League 20 years put big money at the heart of the game and

now even the bosses agree it has an image problem. I'm not making

comparisons, I'm saying clearly we are in greater focus and there is a

stark contrast being made and that has to be dealt with. Some Olympic

athletes earn very little, often training with day jobs, but some

footballers earn �200,000 a week. Many say footballers earn far too

much and these spoilt young men behave terribly badly, often, with

sexual scandals and law breaking making the front pages as much as

the results on the back ones. Football fans too have been

criticised for their aggressive behaviour, a direct contrast to the

positive, celebratory atmosphere at the Olympics. But football

supporters argue that while Olympians are under huge pressure

it's once every four years and nobody cares what athletes get up

to in their private lives. Footballers, on the other hand,

must perform week in, week out for months under the glare of the media

both on and off the pitch. Is it any wonder some crack under the

pressure and the Olympics was not without problems, sponsorship

issues, dirtry dirty tricks in some case and drug results have taken

away some of the shine. So, should football take a leaf out of the

Olympics page, or are they too different to compare?

You can join in my webcam and make your point by phone, text or on-

line. And we're joined by Pat Nevin, a re found in football pundit now,

but you're no stranger to spinning a few discs. And I've had some

Twitters that people have seen you at festivals? Yes, I've done some.

Excellent. We're bringing you on today as a pundit. Stories like the

John Terry row over the summer, compared to the joy of the Olympics

it does seem that football needs to clean up their act? Yes, I think

you've made the point, to compare them is a grotesque

generallyisation. In football, you tend to see, yes,

John Terry and the problems throughout the season, but I've

worked with these guys for 20 years and there's plenty of good guys in

there as well. And compare that to the Olympics, yes, it's lovely to

see Mo Farah and Jessica Ennis, but behind them there are some similar

stories. There was a drug problem, Tweets, and a man on drugs. They're

all Olympic stories. And Usain Bolt, he was pictured with three

beautiful blond handball players between his two events. Do you

think there are people looking to make trouble? There is certainly a

case that in the media it is portrayed in a certain way. And

another point made in the introduction is that the Olympians

are not under that pressure all the time, but the footballers are. Did

you see Victoria Pendleton after her medal? Pure relief. And Chris

Hoy said to her, "Don't worry, it's all over now" and that's not the

pressure of a medal, it's the pressure of the media. And Owen, it

there an element of we're picking on these few people from often

humble backgrounds who earn big money and they live a big lifestyle

under the pressure? There is often that class element. There are the

stories that when people get big money they spend it in a tacky way.

And we've seen it with football fans, particularly in the past. The

lowest point was Hillsborough. There's also the idea of a small

minority of football fans tarring all people. Terry Venables in the

early 90s said he didn't want to do down his own background, but the

rising prices of the stadium tickets would kick out the people

causing trouble. That's nfrtsate. And prices have risen since 1990 by

600%. That's interesting. New Labour were at the forefront of

politicians jumping on the football bandwagon and it became a big

business. The Premier League has put millions into certain clubs, do

you think it's big business that has corrupted football? No, I think

all sport has had corruption in it. You really don't think it has

changed because of the Premier League? No, it's changed enormously.

It's one of the biggest businesses in Britain. Now, is that wrong or

right? When Owen wrote his book about the demonisation of working-

class fans it was a reminder that we need it. This is a hugely

popular form of entertainment and these are very fit young men and

women who play it. I want to bring in a webcam viewer. And you've

worked with a number of Premiership teams. What do you think of this

argument that football is morally corrupt? Well, I've got to say

immediately I'm most impressed by your comments already but the

Olympics - the whole Olympic Games is just a form of entertainment

based on sport and football is not really sport it's a way of life for

people. It's two entirely different things and this way of life, we

tend to judge people here because they're wealthy and in high profile,

but John Terry was mentioned there. The man is where he is because he's

very good at what he does. Football players don't just celebrate

because they were selected to represent the team, that's when the

work begins. And they have to do it twice a week. But what about those

terrible rape scandals? Really serious involvement in abusing

people? Let me say immediately that I don't think that all football

players are totally innocent of everything. I think they're like

society, this is a people's game. It's about people. Wherever you

have a group of people I am positive you will find good and bad

amongst them. The only differences is these guys are in high profile.

And you take Big Brother, for instance, and reality television

shows where they take ordinary people and put them under a

spotlight 24 hours every day. That's a good point. I want to

bring in another football view which is that Keith Hammond is from

an organisation called Christian in Football and represents players in

the non-league games. What, for you is the problem with football now

we've had discussions about corruption and morals? Well,

firstly I'd like to say it is dangerous to compare between

Olympians and football. It is right to say that in any walk of life, in

Olympics and football there are good and bad and good and bad

attitudes. So the first thing I think is important to say it's

dangerous to talk about it like this, but I think the Olympic

spirit did show a different way of doing things. Is it about the

winning? I was interested in Alan Pardew saying yesterday what he did.

He got involved in a difficult system. This is the man in

Newcastle? Manager of Newcastle but he came out publicly and said he

was wrong and he was talking about the Olympic spirit and how it is

good for us to copy that in football and it would be good and

for him he struggled morally, but he's going to work on that and do

something different. So there is an issue in that, this winning at all

costs and it doesn't matter how, there is less of a playing spirit,

is that what you're saying? That's what I'm saying. From a Christian

point of view we want to play it's not about winning at all costs. But

the trouble with the top clubs with all the money involved that causes

extra pressure, huge pressure. But at our level - look football at any

level, people want to go and win, don't they. But it can cause moral

problems when you cheat and want to do something different. Christians

in football we say, "Do not cheat." It's a great sports. That's lovely,

but I've even seen kids at my son's school diving. You can't say there

isn't a problem with the game 20l compared to 20 or 30 years ago?

was talking to somebody who, just like Robbie Savage who had come out

of the game recently and I was making the point about diving and

he said, "They all do" and I said, "Does that make it OK?" but the

referees are in place to take care of it. But do you want anything

done with legal disputes? Trust me, you have to. Not just football, but

every sport. Dwayne Chambers, who are drug cheats and they've cheated

people out of their level of sport. As soon as money and big business

gets involved, sadly it because business and you need the rules.

One contributor says, "Turn it to the fans". Hillary Salt is a season

ticket holder at one of the biggest and most successful and rich clubs,

Manchester United. What do you think is the issue? Are fans part

of the problem with why football has moral issues? I think certainly

the impact of the Olympics is that politicians and the press have used

this as another stick to beat football with. The kind of contempt

that politicians and the press have for footballers in the stands is

pal.able. At Old Trafford now we have signs up inviting us to text

seat number of people behaving badly so they that can be evicted.

And that constant intervention I think is part of the problem.

don't think there is an issue with racist chanting and abuse. A lot of

fans say they don't want to take their kids to games as a result?

Yes, those were a cruel and brutal should be evicted. Actually racism

isn't a big problem you very rarely hear racist comments thees days,

they should focus on swear words now. There are some saying anybody

who swears should be baned. But people who go to football behavic

that for 90 minutes and for the rest of the week we go back to

being mild-mannered accountants and work with the people we've just

been insulting. So, is it a wider issue? It is a much wider issue. I

was brought up in a rugby culture but I hardly go nowadays.

people say you don't get the swearing and you can take your kids.

Well, I don't know. The fact is, the professionalism does change

things dramatically and it's a very big business. It's a big form of

entertainment and if we forget that, well, we're trying to pretend that

that reality doesn't exist. That point about racism which was

mentioned. It is a problem in football, but it is something that

is addressed. That organisation, Kick racism out of football are a

fantastic organisation. But one of the reasons they get so angry,

footballers are held up to be role modeles, but not necessarily all

people are able to cope with being a role model, but some of the

problems is that people pay a lot of money and they get angry....I

Want to take you back to that first comment, about racism in football.

I was one of the first to stand up and speak about racism on the

terraces. I've heard people writing that football has a problem with

racism and that really angers me and the reason is, there might be

an odd comment, and the odd player and boy do we come down hard on it

and I think football should be lauded for what it has been done

because I think it's changed society. 1993 I started working on

this, and I come from an educational background and I

couldn't believe it was allowed to go on in the sport on the terraces.

Boy we've changed it. We've come a long way. We're not on to educating

people in this society, we're educating the whole world and

that's fantastic. But you never hear that. Should we be taking that

to other sports? It would be nice. We have to leave it, but that's a

nice note about the effect in other countries. Viewers are saying"" I'm

sure four the money that the players receive I could set a good

standard and behave myself." And another says, "It's just lazy

journalism all this football bashing." And another says,

"Footballers need to get some sense of perspective." We have to leave

it there, and this 1 what you told us as a result of the poll.

14% said yes, we should intervene and the rest said no. I could have

predicted that. Eye think it's right and it has big implications

for what we do as a nation in the future? Do we become a supered up

Sweden or continue to an big player on the world stage? I think we're

going to have a very different international profile in the future.

And do you think we'll regret having stayed out, maybe in a

couple of years? No, Iraq was such a disaster and the reason

people..Rubbish. It isn't rubbish. Hundreds of thousands of people

died in that and human rights abuses in that country remain

indexic. The debate has to be had about the nature of the

intervention and whether it as an honest brokage in the Middle East.

What are your views? My worry is that governments will intervene not

because it is the right or the wrong thing to do but because it

will suit them and I THINK the reason we're not helping at the

moment is because it would not suit us going forward, the people we

would help on the ground and it's a political issue, not a moral one.

Thank you all very much more newer thoughts. Thanks to all of you who