Episode 20 Sunday Morning Live

On today's programme: A 14-year-old girl who died of cancer has her body

frozen in the hope of a cure and being woken again.

We examine the ethical questions this case raises.

As prison officers strike to protest about the volatile state

of overcrowded jails, we ask should we keep

Greater community integration is key to Britain's future

You have got divisive political forces rising across the world. We

have got the choice. We can either build bridges or walls.

Len Goodman tells me why he has no plans to take it easy after stepping

You floated across that floor like butter on a hot crumpet. Len

Goodman! I am not retiring. You must never retire. Once you retire, you

never get a day off. Our panel is here and so is

Tommy Sandhu who'll be sharing Good morning. Lots of ways for you

to get in touch. You can contact us by

Facebook and Twitter. Don't forget to use

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[email protected]. Have you got your tissues ready?

Have I? For the emotions? Emotions will be running high today because

it is the last one of the series and the last chance to get your thoughts

to us. Bharti Tailor is the head

of the Hindu Forum for Europe. Andrew Pierce is a journalist

and broadcaster. Afua Hirsch is a writer

and human rights barrister. Murray Ballard is a photographer

and documentarian. A letter a dying girl wrote

to a judge was revealed this week. The 14-year-old who had terminal

cancer wanted to have her body She told Mr Justice Peter Jackson,

"I want to live longer and I think that in the future,

they might find a cure The teenager asked him to allow her

mother to carry out her wish, even though her father

at that time disagreed. The judge granted her request

and the girl has since died. Human embryos can be cryo-preserved

for years but more complicated structures seem

beyond current science. The judge in this case said he had

not considered whether cryonic preservation had any scientific

basis but there might need to be We'll discuss the implications

of this story with our First, Tommy has been

sampling some views. Nobody can fail to be moved by the

letter that the 14-year-old girl wrote to the judge in this case. Nor

can we not appreciate the dilemma faced by her parents but this has

triggered a nationwide debate. Do we really want to live forever? I think

I would do it myself. If there is a chance to survive, might as well

give it a shot. I think I am here for now and I can't imagine coming

back later. There is nothing particularly wrong with it. If you

can do that and that is what you want to do, why not? Imagine coming

back and literally not knowing everybody and the way the world is

so fast pace now, in a year we won't recognise it. Are we playing God?

Potentially but if you have lost your child very young, you would

want to hope there is a possibility. Are we messing with God and doing

his work? Yet, because when you are dead, you are dead and you can go to

eternity. She was 14 years of age and maybe she thought he could have

another chance at life. Now she has left her body, this is just a space

suit with a sell by date on it. It would be cool to come back and see

how life has changed but it is hard because you are stuck in a time zone

and your own believes that might not fit the beliefs of society in 100

years. So is it ethical to freeze

bodies for future life? Joining us for this debate

from our Oxford studio is Dr Anders Sandberg,

research fellow at the Future Dr Sandberg, you're

an expert in this area. Can you briefly explain how this

process is supposed to work? Cryonics suspension starts as soon

as possible after death has been pronounced. You cool down the body

using ice, you circulate the blood, you add protectant is to prevent ice

crystals forming and disrupting the tissue. Then you gradually lower the

temperature until no decay and changes happen, and then you store

the body in liquid nitrogen. OK. So when the body is brought back, I

suppose this is where the controversy is. Even now the

President of an American facility where this teenager has been frozen

has said that patients might wake up as clones with no memories. There is

no evidence yet of how you wake up and how healthy the body and the

mind would be. By Alex cannot make any guarantees like that. We need --

cryonics cannot make any guarantees like that and we need to develop the

science. That might be decades in the future. But they have plenty of

time. They can afford to wait because nothing is happening to

them. Are you planning to do this after your death? I am signed up to

it. I think there is a low chance, better than 1%, but that makes it

rational for me. How would you imagine your future? I am waking up

surrounded by people gleeful to find a scientist from the 21st century,

ready to point out I was wrong. And I might find my nephews and nieces.

Thank you. When I asked the doctor if he would do it, you grasped when

he said yes. He is obviously a very clever man but he is not behaving in

a clever way. It is a terrible thing. Brandon Stone's monster, I

was scared of that as a child. I loved Star Trek. This sort of stuff

is science fiction and that is where it should stay because there is no

guarantee. 1% chance? That little girl was exploited and her parents

and family have been exploited because they think there is a chance

that you might come back, like Lazarus from the dead. Lazarus was

for the Bible. We have just got to accept that we come into life and we

go out. Death follows life. But do you understand a 14-year-old girl

diagnosed with cancer who died who thought you should not die yet and

that 1% chance, why not give somebody hope? Of course it is

heartbreaking. You could not help but be moved by that letter. It

might have been far better for that girl to do the wish list and try and

carry out some of those wishes before death. It would have been

better if her parents had talked to her at length, and I know there was

disruption between the parents, saying that you are going to die and

one day you might see mummy and daddy in a nicer place, not in a

freezer in the United States which she is sharing with four other

bodies. So you would put the idea of heaven over the chance of your body

coming back to life? The remote possibility. I would. And even if we

can achieve it, we shouldn't. You have investigated cryonics around

the world and what was your response to this story? I was very moved by

the response to this letter. It was heartbreaking to read. I think that

the judge ruled in the correct way. I think that was the only decision

that could be made. The girl has the right to decide what happens to her

body after she dies. There is no certainty about this. The

facilities, the cryonics organisation involved, they are very

clear when they point out to patients that it is an experiment. I

don't know what more they can do. I take your point, it is very

delicate. She is 14. What does she know? I think we need to get real.

Technology is changing our lives in so many ways. A whole generation is

thinking about not just competing with automation machines but

augmenting their capacity and potential with artificial

intelligence. Given the desire to be resuscitated and come back from the

dead, reflected in so many faiths, it is a fundamental human desire, so

I don't think it is oppressing people want to use technology to do

it. I have a more practical approach. My main concern about this

is that technology is moving at an incredible speed but I don't think

that the courts are really keeping up with it. One of the big debates

about this girl was that scientists are complaining that the judges in

allowing her wish did not go into the merits of whether the science

woodwork and whether she would be brought back. Judges are not

equipped to do that. There are no regulations around this and it is a

completely grey space. We are facing very rapid change completely

unprepared and there will be many more people who will be bringing up

these ethical issues and we are not equipped to deal with them and that

is something we need. The judge made it very clear that he was not

deciding on science but on the future of the girl. You want to pick

up on that? We are living in a world where they are... Things are

changing very rapidly. There is a growing consensus of scientists who

believe that ageing is potentially curable. There are also discussions

around the first person to live to 1000 years old might already have

been born. It sounds like the stuff of science fiction to me but there

are very serious scientists, neuroscientists, talking about this.

What is your opinion on this? Should we be in bracing the science? My

view is that the girl should have been given all the different things

available in order to make their own decision, an informed decision and

as a Hindu we believe in reincarnation. We would say that

when her body died, the sole moved on and it may have been reincarnated

anyway, so to preserve the body and come back to the same body, for me

it doesn't make sense. But for her, it should have been an informed

decision, and I certainly wouldn't want to talk anybody out of it just

to say that it should be an informed decision. This is the question,

Doctor? How much information is given? Surely cryogenics is playing

on people's emotions almost? When you have a terminal condition you

are willing to try almost everything. It is worth noting that

cryonics is not terribly popular despite having been around for 40

years and I think you can make an informed choice. The girl here seem

to know what was going on and it was a chance, not a certainty. It is not

cheap, is it? The figure bandied around has been ?37,000 but it could

cost as much as ?100,000. Cryogenics is certainly benefiting from these

emotional times, shall we say? To some extent but if you want to be

rich you probably shouldn't start a cryonics company. They have been

around for a long time and they haven't got very large. People

prefer to eat healthy food, rather than filling out forms and going

through bureaucracy, which puts people off. Cryonics is about facing

death. You have got to recognise that I am a biological being and I

will die someday. Even with cryonics, sooner or later your luck

will run out. This is a way of staying in the game longer. I always

despair that we have incredibly scientific people with great brains

advancing the technology. Why not deploy their incredible intellectual

skills to trying to find a cure to the thing that kills that

14-year-old rather than keeping a body alive at 200 years? The counter

that to that is that if you keep the body, which can come back in 200

years, by then that might be yours for this cancer, once science

catches up, so why not take advantage? And does she come back

with the brain of a 14-year-old and what state is her body in and what

is the state of the cells? They could be badly damaged. It is very

dubious science at best. That is why I don't think it is bad to accuse

the scientists of exploiting anybody. She is not being promised

to wake up in this condition on this day with memories. They are just

promising a chance, maybe a 1% chance. For somebody facing death,

they are willing to spend that money just to have that chance. But coming

back to money there are real questions to ask about the

inequality around this. We have seen dystopian movies where if you are

wealthy you can live forever and have a limited life experiences and

if you are poor you live in a ghetto that is overcrowded and medieval.

The idea that this is something you can buy if you have enough money and

you can come back and be cured and be immortal but if you are poor you

have no control over how and where you die, and it feels like we are

moving closer to that future that is worrying. It is an expense and it is

a substantial amount of money. Just to point out, the cryonics

organisations, the two main ones in America and the institute where the

girl is preserved, they are not-for-profit organisations. They

actually try, from my understanding, to offer cryonics at the most

affordable price that they can. A lot of people that I have met pay

for it through a life insurance policy. They are not having to stump

up that feat in one amount. They are paying into a life-insurance policy

at if you sign up to it when you are younger, it is less money and it

will pay out when you die. Bharti, what are the religious

implications of this? If we have a belief in reincarnation, where is

the need to preserve the body? And if you don't have that belief? If

you don't have, one of the things that needs to be done is to give

people an opportunity to explore the different faiths and make a decision

based on their knowledge rather than just going for something which

preserves your body as it is. I do agree that it may not be in that

pristine condition that it was preserved in. You don't know how

long it's going to be there. What if you are someone who doesn't have

faith? Well, it is the same thing. Should we all be more accepting of

death? I do think that we are not aware of what death is and we don't

accept that that is the end of life. We are too far away from death. We

don't know it enough and it's something that frightens people,

whereas it should be a part of life. Let's find out what you've been

saying. You've been sending is us your thoughts on this. Interesting

this one. A real mixed bag. A lot of people aren't questioning the

ethical side but whether it's a waste of money, and it is your own

body and you should be allowed to do what you want to do. For example:

More hope in this than religion. Indeed. Dr Sandberg, what do you

make of the idea of waking up with no friends, no family, in a

different world? It would be sad, but then again maybe your friends

and family could also sign up. Cryonics patients are refugees, they

cannot survive here. Their only chance is to make a very daring

journey into the future, which might not welcome them. However, it is

worth do, because it's better than being dead. Bharti, one comment

there said death is need to be accepted. That's right. It is a

process. You are born, you live, you die, and then in my belief your soul

is reincarnated in another body and you live again, if you like. That is

not accepted. There are a lot of people, a lot of young people and

older people who've never had to face a close death. So they are

afraid of it, whereas it should be a part of your life journey. It is

interfering with nature isn't it in the As someone said, interfere at

your peril. I agree, big mistake, and a waste of money. I agree with

that as well. My cryonicist would refer to it as being an ambulance of

the future, that this isn't any different to having a heart bypass

or any other life-saving medical intervention, it is using the

medical technology of the future rather than what's available today.

It is a way of getting there. So some don't see that conflict between

religion and cryonics, they are extending their life, this physical

life that we know that exists now, and the religious afterlife is

something that is just being pushed back, perhaps. I think that we could

talk about this for a long time. Thank you very much panel for your

thoughts on that one. And thank you four your thoughts. Do keep them

coming in. Still to come on Sunday Morning

Live: London's Mayor Sadiq Khan on his campaign to bring Britain's

communities closer together. There's a school of thought that

says it is not possible, for example, to have mainstream Muslims

being compatible with western liberal values. I think that's

nonsense. Now it's time to meet a bit

of a television legend. Len Goodman, the cheeky chappie

and master of the one-liner, is head judge on the BBC's

Strictly Come Dancing. Len's announced he's

leaving the show this year. So I went to see him to get some

reflections on his life in front Having taken part in Strictly,

I know all too well So it was a bit of a relief

to meet him without He wasn't going be marking me on

style and my non-fancy footwork! Len? It was like a cowpat on

Countryfile. Hot and steamy! CHEERING. Let's go back to when

dancing first started in your life. I was 21. I'm sitting in a pub and I

said to one of my mates, shall we go to the pictures tomorrow night? He

said, no, it's Wednesday, I go ballroom dancing. I said, you don't!

He said, why. And he had never told you this before? No, a secret.

Ballroom? Why? Len, there's about four boys and there's about 40

girls. I said, I'm coming. So there I was and I got cracking on with it

and then started teaching. Starting judging. And so it went. And then 50

years later I got asked to do Strictly. Please welcome, the

judges. CHEERING. Len Goodman...

You floated across that floor like butter on a hot crumpet.

CHEERING. How do you explain Strictly's success? What's the magic

formula? It is like an old-fashioned variety show, with dancers, singers,

music, a little bit of comedy going on. Plus there is an edge, because

it's competitive. And what is wonderful about it is you can see

the celebrities, how hard they work. People see that you give up

everything just to learn that one dance for that week.

Let's talk about the controversy surrounding Strictly. Every year it

happens, the argument about whether should it be a dance competition, or

should it be an entertainment show? We have to judge purely be our

brains purely with our brains. The viewers, they want to be

entertained, and quite rightly so, so they can judge with their hearts.

But I think also the public like justice. So there does come a point,

and there has in the past, when they realise that really good dancers are

going and lesser dancers are staying. I think that's when they

say, oh, no, enough is enough. You've got a great turn of phrase,

Len. That's my granddad. My granddad was always coming out with things.

One of hisisation, and it is true today, you can't help how your mum

put your hat on, and so it is. You can't help you you were brought up

and that's how you become. When I used to teach dancing, I use to say,

no, you can't do this, it's all sizzle and no sausage, all

performance and no meat to it. It wasisation like that I use on

Strictly. The trouble is I'm a cup of tea in a world of skinny lattes.

What was your code to life, having a good life? When you are young, love

your parents, because they love you. As they get older the roles reverse.

My family comes first. My wife, Sue, my son, James. His partner, Sophie.

Little Alice, my first granddaughter. These are the most

important people to me. More important than golf! So would it be

unfair to describe you as a man of favourite then? No, I think,

especially as you get older, because you are getting nearer and nearer

and you don't want to take any chances do you really? My...

Jehovah's Witnesses with, so they used to chat to me as a little boy,

little Lenny, about God. That's always been in my head and they

convinced me to a large degree that there must be something more than

just you come on this earth, you live your four score years and ten,

or whatever it is, and you pop your catalogues and that's it. Pop your

clogs and that's it. You love a good tune. I do. And you have put

together Crooners and Swooners. When I look at this CD am I seeing the

soundtrack to your life? You are. When I was a little kid my dad used

to put me in the front room and put on the radio gram, putting on

Sinatra and Bing Crosby and fats Waller, so I grew one all that sort

of music in my head and loving it. You hit a couple of lines and

positions which are brilliant. Then you seemed to lose focus.

I think you get nervous. I have still got nerves to battle and I

will. I want to take you back a few weeks. It was disaster. What

happened? I got voted out of Strictly. What a liberty! Too early,

right? It's always too early for everyone. Of course it is. Think

back. Yeah. I got my best score from you that week. Can you remember what

it was? I'm pretty sure it was, I think it was more than a six and

less than an 8. I'm going to say it, it was a Severn! I'm sorry I didn't

have time to you've give you a 10 from Len, but it is what it is. It's

in my dreams. Such a pleasure. The pleasure's mine. I have enjoyed it.

Lovely chat. I'm going to put it into text talk. GRH! Len Goodman

there. He really is a lovely guy. Now let's move

on to our next debate. The number of people behind bars

in Britain is at a record level. This week, up to 10,000 prison

officers in England and Wales walked out in protest,

despite the fact they're legally not They say they're worried

about what they call the volatile state of jails

and fears of violence. The Ministry of Justice says it's

committed to safety and is investing extra money in

recruiting more staff. But the Chief Inspector of Prisons

claimed this week there are hundreds of people in prison

who shouldn't be there. So should we keep fewer

people in prisons? Joining the panel now are writer

and critic Alexander Boot and interfaith activist and founder

of the Active Change Also joining us down

the line is Eric Allison, prison correspondent

for the Guardian, who has had his own personal experience

of serving time in prison. Eric, thank you for joining us.

Bearing in mind your experience as a prisoner, do you think there are too

many people in prison? Can I say, I first went into custody in 1957.

I've been a student of the system ever since. While I was in and out

of the system and since I've been writing for the Guardian. I can say

with absolute certainty the prison system now is in a far worse state

than at any time since I've known it. If I give you a quick snapshot,

we lock up more people in England and Wales than any country in

Western Europe. The prison population has doubled since 1993.

The number of staff has been reduced by a third. This has created

turmoil. In the last year, there were six apparent prison on prisoner

homicides. There were over 2,000 serious prisoner on prisoner

assaults, and over 600 prisoner on staff assaults. And there was 32,000

recorded incidents of self harm. And the statistics there that you've

been quoting very much frightening. Alexander, do you think this is an

accurate assessment, overall the statistics are there, but an

accurate assessment what prisons are like in the UK? I'm not sure I like

the question of whether we put too many or too few people in jail.

There is no such thing as too many or too few, only how many does it

take for the state to perform one of its legitimate function which is is

protecting Her Majesty's subjects from internal crime and external

enemies. If it takes building more prisons and then filling them to the

gunwales, so be it. Or on alternative system? Or alternatively

reduce the amount of crime, because Britain, yes it has the highest

prison population in Western Europe, per capita, but it has by far the

highest rate of violent crime this Europe, so I have to see a causal

relationship there, the more crime we have, the more prisoners we will

have. If that particular correlation was distorted, justice isn't being

done. As a barrister, you have worked with

prisoners and not all prisoners are therefore violent crimes either.

Your view on this and the conditions they are facing, what is your

attitude? I disagree with that. It is much too simplistic. There are

many people in prison who shouldn't be and it is well documented that we

lock up people for minor, non-violent offences, even though

spending time in prison is likely to make them more violent and more

likely to commit serious offences. If they are there for a long period

of time? Short prison services are the worst possible sentence for

people because it removes the possibility of rehabilitating and it

doesn't prevent them committing crime because of crimes are

committed for reasons of poverty and struggling with everyday life. We

are locking up too many people. To pick up on that point, is that the

issue, the fact they are not rehabilitated effectively in prison?

Rather than it being wrong to people up for committing crimes? There are

huge deficiencies in rehabilitation in prisons and I don't think that is

party political because I was working in prisons under the Labour

government and even then there was this narrative that giving

opportunities to prisoners is going soft which is insane because as a

society we pay the price will not debilitating people. I have been

into prisons where the governor is frustrated because he has got to

build extra cells in his education centre, the place where you are

supposed to be teaching many of these people. Many are literate,

which is also criminal, that they have been through the school system

and cannot read and write and prison is where they could learn, but

because of overcrowding those spaces are used to imprison more

people and when they come out they have not been given any greater

opportunities. I will come to your second point in a moment but I would

like your reaction as well. We are asking whether we should send fewer

people to prison but we also talking about the effectiveness of prison.

Exactly. We should send fewer people to prison. Reoffending has become a

huge problem. The majority of people are going back into the prison

system and they are the young men and women who are reoffending,

because rehabilitation and other initiatives are not supported enough

to prevent reoffending from happening in the first place. We

know the government has pumped a lot of money into reduction of

reoffending but it hasn't worked, and they are pumping it in again to

the same institutions that have failed. Money is pumped into it but

we know that the institutions that are being used to reduce reoffending

are not being successful. Why? Because it hasn't been taken

seriously by the institutions that are supposed to be delivering it.

The main issue within the prisons is that we know we can mental people

through the prison system when they are about to leave which will limit

the chance of them coming back in again. -- mentor. And the Justice

Secretary has said that mentoring will be part of this new plan. You

think we should send fewer people to prison. I think some people

shouldn't be there. You certainly shouldn't be there if you haven't

paid fines, haven't paid your TV licence. Successive Tory Home

secretaries have said they will solve the foreign prisoner problem.

There are 11,000 foreign prisoners in this country and maybe we could

send them back to their own countries. I was talking to Ann

Widdecombe about the big problem here, who was prisons minister under

John Major, and some prisoners are in their cells for 24 hours a day

which is barbaric. They should be out everyday learning, learning to

read and write because of the problems of illiteracy in prisons,

or employed in a business which should be run like a business with

proper check going on. The big problem is there are too many of

them. -- profit share going on. And there is a picture of prisoners on

the Daily Mail eating takeaway fish and chips, taking pictures on the

mobile phones, bringing in drugs in drones with the connivance of prison

officers. Sentences were created by the criminal justice act were used

from April 2005, designed to extend the term for a prisoner if they were

deemed to be unsafe or society upon relief. What is your idea on that? I

am not I like the idea, to be perfectly honest. I do think our

judges pass sentences that are way too lenient to begin with. If they

weren't, there would be no need for this. Last year alone something like

558 sentences were toughened up on appeal. I think if a person is

sentenced to a certain term in prison, and services term, and pays,

as it were, the debt to society, I think he should be released. Even if

they could endanger the public? Isn't that the point of prison, that

you rehabilitate? There would be other ways of controlling that.

Sentencing is not a science. It is very difficult to get it right. The

press often talk about lenient sentences and there are lots of

prisoners who get their sentences reduced on appeal when judges get it

wrong. I understand the concept of the IPP, where you review if a

prisoner is safe to be released into society, but to have a system like

that you need to have functional prisons. People are being sent to

prison and they are not able to get on any of the rehabilitation courses

that would make them eligible for release. You are stuck in an

Orwellian nightmare where you can't prove that you are able to be

released because the courses are not available, there are no resources,

you are in yourself and for hours a day, and you cannot prove it or get

released, so you stay in prison indefinitely. There are people who

have stayed eight to ten years longer than their initial sentence

because they could not prove they were ready to be released. I agree

with you in general. This is overemphasised. In descending order

of priority the function of prison is to punish wrongdoing, to deter

subsequent wrongdoing, and rehabilitation. That comes very way

down on the list. We will come to you in a moment. Eric you have been

shaking your head listening to this discussion. The reaction? There are

so many things I can't believe here. Firstly that rehabilitation is low

down the order. Almost half of adult prisoners who are least offence

within 12 months. Over two thirds of young offenders under 18 reoffend

within 12 months. By the way, they are only the people caught

reoffending, so the figure is even higher. Lenient sentences? No. We

lock up more people than any other country in Europe and we lock them

up for longer. We have seen the failure. What we are doing at the

moment is just putting people in warehouses. That used to be the case

for the local prisons, they were known as warehouses when nothing was

done. But I come across training prisons now, called training

prisons, where people are locked up 22 hours a day. What are they

training for? Idleness? Daytime television critics? Look at the cost

of what we are doing, the cost of this failure. The average cost of

keeping a person in prison is ?36,000 a year. When you move up to

young offenders it is nearly ?70,000. When you come to secure

training centres which are run by private companies, by the way, we

are paying private companies ?163,000 per year per child per

place. ?163,000 per year to a private company. Again we come back

to the people in prison. The vast majority of people in prison are

doing short sentences. They are mainly non-violent, by the way. They

are nuisances rather than a danger. We call it the churn, the revolving

door. They get arrested, they serve a short sentence and they reoffend.

I am just going to reiterate what I said before. It is the reduction of

reoffending that needs to be emphasised again. Don't forget, we

have people who are threats to national security and the public and

they are in prison and no matter what happens, the rehabilitation

isn't working. So where do you put them, Andrew? I am not sure. If the

answer to build more prisons? I don't know. When we talk about

prisons, we forget about the victims. Every crime has a victim,

even if it is forgetting your TV licence. Every crime has a victim.

When victims seek some prisoners living it up behind bars, that is

not what they thought the deal would be. There should be an element of

punishment as well. I do agree that we are not doing enough to

rehabilitate these guys. Let's hear what you have been thinking about

this discussion. Thank you for your texts and tweets. In general people

are in support of the prison system that they are concerned about

whether enough rehabilitation is going on. Michael Mates the same

point as Andrew on the panel made. This is what people get angry about.

You mentioned those images of people living in almost luxury with pool

tables and fish and chips. I wish everybody could go into a prison and

see what it is like. The idea that prisoners are living it up in a lap

of luxury, I have never seen it. I have been into prisons so many

times. The reality of prison is you are incarcerated, locked up with no

freedom, you can't see who you want to see or go where you want to go.

That is the essential nature of the punishment and what they are

sentenced to. They're not sentenced to additional forms of torture

depending on the resources. You have got to remember that they are in

here to serve their time. Why are they all on their mobile phones

doing drug deals? That is not right. You are painting a picture and it is

not like that. I saw the photographs this week. Are you saying the isn't

a drugs problem in prisons? I don't see mobile phones when I go in. I'm

not saying it isn't happening. It is. I would imagine as a victim of

crime you want the person who offended against you released no

longer a threat than a danger which would be far greater concern than

what they are eating. In theory I would love to continue this

conversation but the reality of my life is that time is always against

us. I have got to close this discussion. Thank you so much and

please keep your comments coming in. The Mayor of London Sadiq Khan this

week called for an end to the politics of fear and division

following the Brexit campaign here and the American

presidential elections. At an international conference

in the capital, he warned that more integration of communities in the UK

is vital for the future and called for the building

of bridges not walls. Nikki Bedi went to meet

the Mayor to find out more. Sadiq, you have called for an end to

the politics of division and for greater integration in our cities.

Why is that so important in your view? 2016 has seen major upheaval

around the world. The decision to leave the EU, the US presidential

elections, divisive political forces rising across the world and we have

got the choice. We can either build bridges or build walls. I think the

reality is that diversity is a strength that diversity is not the

same as integration. In terms of what Donald Trump has been talking

about, he wants to build a wall to keep out illegal Mexican immigrants.

He also wants to clamp down on Muslims entering the country. Do you

think in any way that will fold into our lifestyles and decision-making?

There is a school of thought that says it is not possible for example

to have mainstream Muslim is compatible with western liberal

values. That is nonsense. Of course people have got genuine concerns.

The inability to get your son or daughter into a good school, to get

your luck on the health care he or she needs, to get decent affordable

housing for your nephews and nieces. -- to get your loved one the health

care they need. These are legitimate concerns but we need to address

these fears rather than playing on them. There are people who believe

that the Muslim communities in the UK don't integrate. Why do they feel

that? We have got to grapple with these issues. If it is the case that

certain parts of society are not mixing, and they are living

side-by-side rather than with meaningful engagement, we have got

to help them integrate. Sometimes it is basic stuff. Making sure that

schools are as diverse as they can be. Making sure that housing is

mixed. Helping people learn English not cutting the grounds for colleges

that teach English. Helping employers train up youngsters from

diverse backgrounds to have the skills for the jobs of tomorrow. How

much do you think or know that your faith informs your politics? I am

Muslim and I'm very proud of that but I'm not just a Muslim. I am

somebody who is a Londoner, English, British, of Asian origin, Pakistani

heritage, Islamic faith, I am a dad, husband, I am not the Muslim

spokesperson and I am definitely not Citizen Khan! Although you made that

wonderful appearance. I am looking for Mr Khan. Mr Khan? Yes, that's

me. Citizen Khan at your service! Hang on, I'm the Mayor of London.

Yeah, and I'm the Archbishop of Canterbury! Do something! We all

have layers of our identity and it is really important that we are not

embarrassed by that. What I am saying is that integration is not

the same as assimilation. Citizen Khan is a fictional and very funny

programme but it is not my role to be a community leader who is a

Muslim politician. I am a Muslim who happens to be a politician. Thank

you. Sadiq Khan, London's Mayor,

with his views there, but is genuine integration

achievable in the UK? We are rejoined now

by Bharti Tailor, head Affua, Sadiq Khan calling for an end

to the politics of division. More integration of our cities, is that

possible? When I hear people saying integration has failed,

multiculturalism has failed, I think you are trying to kill something

that you never gave a chance to thrive. One of the things I enjoyed

about the interview with Sadiq Khan is he is unpicking some of the

language. If you ask people what integration means, they might

struggle. We've got terms like integration, assimilation,

multiculturalism, there is no consensus as to what we aspire to in

our society. Do we want everybody to behave the same or are we happy to

be a society where people have different identities that they are

proud of. It is not about having to forget where you are from, you have

to forget the cultural values that you were raised with and which you

are attached to. We have to work out what you nights us and ask people to

be part of that project. We haven't done that. That. We see the talk

about British values this schools. Even the Government couldn't define

what that is. So much termology and ideas, Andrew I wonder if in this

political climate, post Brexit, post American elections, people are

saying there've been protest votes, angry votes, is this the right time

to push for integration? It is the best time to do it because of the

problems we have seen. We may yet see Marine Le Pen win in France, the

National Front. I lived in the East End of London. There's been no

attempt at integration. I went into a doctor's surgery and there were 14

different languages on the wall and three different interpreters in that

doctor's surgery. That was 12 years ago that. Number will have

multiplied. We've seen evidence of what is called the white flight. I

can't bear the expression but it is number of white people thought to

have left London in the last decade, 600,000. Do they feel their cultural

identity is being squeezed in parts of theest evened in particular. The

Tower Hamlets the overwhelming number of people are not

Anglo-Saxon, they are from Bangladesh and the Asian subcontinue

innocent. We should be living together harmoniously, not feeling

we have to move somewhere else. Hanif? If we don't do it now, we are

going to miss the boat, let's say. We've got a culture that's been

created in America, the nation that's divided on immigrants and

near the UK Brexit. It is all about immigrants, so if we don't create

the integration strategies now which have already been there but haven't

been emphasised, the NGOs, the community gait keepers have got to

reinforce the integration narrative. It can be done and if we don't do it

now we'll lose a generation. Bharti? What all policies have in common is

they don't give enough time. A policy will be brought in and it is

given ten years. If you look at communities, they take a lot longer

to development one of the factors missing from any integration policy,

whether it is multiculturalism or whatever it may be, it is this

factor of time that is not there. Do you feel once an idea is introduced

people could perhaps feel forced to integrate, uncomfortably rub along

with each other rather than it be an organic process? Yes, that's exactly

it. If you disappoint have enough time, you don't have time for that

organic process to take place. It is not just time but resources. I was

speaking to somebody who's been advising Angela Merkel's Government

in Germany on integrating there, a huge influx of refugees and

immigrants they have had in the last few years. They are pouring

phenomenal amounts of money into communities where immigrants have

moved, not just for the immigrant population but the previous

population, so there are enough services is. It is about policy,

services, a squeeze on housing, a shortage of school places. These are

predictable, something the Government should have planned for.

Instead there are competition for these resources. The people

frustrated with that are project their frustration on the

communities. Is there an economic side to this as well, a feeling of

the haves and the have nots? If I may, it is mainly when we are going

through bad times. Yes. People start to feel the pinch, see that jobs

they would like to do, previously didn't want to do, have gone to

somebody else. When we've got a period of wealth and everybody is

happy, you won't find Tim grant problem. You won't find integration

being a problem. It is when something happens or there's less

resources, that's when everybody starts to feel the pinch. We know

from our example of tackling extremism, we hear we need to

integrate, have cohesiveness, we should be doing that all the time.

At a young age, we have the youth to do it. We live side by side wouldn't

being forced to integrate? It is difficult to force anybody to do

anything. The pressures forced by the failure to act, just go to

Rotherham, where there was the terrible problem of the sexual abuse

of the young white girls seen as trashy objects by the largely

Pakistani community. It was the failure of the police, the council,

the social services to tackle it because they were worried about

social cohesion, how white react, they would be seen as racist, so the

victim there is were the white girls. So we are too politically

correct and scared? Yes, it is a problem. It is true, I don't like

the term political correctness, but the idea that people feel they can't

speak is really dangerous. That's why some of these resentments are

simmering. We need to grow out of the narrative when a Muslim commits

a murder, the whole Muslim community is asked to apologise. Nobody asks a

will person to apologise when it's a mass murderer or a gunman on the

loose, but when it's a visible immigrant... I'm not an immigrant, I

was born here and we are still regarded as immigrants and

responsible for the fact that people don't want to live in certain areas

because we live there. That's not a sustainable way of living in our

country. Bharti? You mentioned housing and the white flight, but

the more settled minority communities or immigrant communities

also move out of certain areas as they get prosperous, and the people

that come in are from a newer migrant community. So there is

always a transfer and there is always people moving out to suburbs

and more prosperous areas, because they can afford to. I'm not sure I

recognise what you are talking about when you say the entire perform

community is expected to apologise when there's been a murder. The only

time that's an issue is when there is an incident with a terrorist link

to it. Why terrorism. Jo Cox, that's not a terrorism, the He was a white

extremist. This is how Muslim communities feel. A lot of this has

been put on them many times. When there's been a terrorist incident,

it is put on them that they have to apologise for the act of somebody

else. Not acting with their faith. We have to call a terrorist a

terrorist and of an Islamist. The Jo Cox case is ongoing, so we are have

to avoid talking about that, without prejudicing that case. I want to go

back to class. We are talking about divided cultures but what about

class, the idea, Andrew, that people feel that economically they are

divided now? As Bharti was saying about certain areas, people become

prosperous and mover out. There is still an issue economically that

people feel hard done by. They feel they are left behind. This horrible

word globalisation that everybody talks about, that sweeps through the

world's economy making a lot of people a lot better off. In working

class disadvantaged areas where a lot of the immigrant communities

live, they've been left behind. There are white people living in

those areas too. Look at Canary Wharf, tenements blocks where my

father was brought up in in the 1930s, a lot of those people are

left behind. A great part of the imgrant community have done very

well and I'm pleased for it. But the economics of recession makes this

problem worse. It doesn't help that the people who make policy decisions

about immigration don't live in areas that are suffering from loss

of resources. People living side by side with large influxes of

immigrants. That creates a feeling that the people who've the

discussion don't understand their problems. That's why we see protest

votes. Brexit to me was an example of that. Tommy, you have reaction to

this. People are saying that immigration is unlikely and the

willingness and desire isn't there. Some are saying it is possible if we

learn to respect and accept each other.

That's optimistic! Thank you Tommy. Hanif, there was one comment there

saying it is money that divides. We were talking about the class issue,

of course it is. The historically it has always been an issue. So it is

money, not colour that divides? Every time something happens around

the world, we can't walk away from the fact we've got conflict all

around the world. Post 9/11 the dynamics changed and people's

perspectives are shifting towards the negative. Look around the world,

in every single western nation, it is more a Muslim terrorist thing

than anything else. A lot of things need to be done. We need bring

people together. We've worked with young people from different walks of

life, different cultural backgrounds. We've managed to bring

them together and you know what? The forged friendships work. They

communicate with each other. If we can encourage that, not force it,

but encourage it, we should. There was a time, Andrew, when people were

upset about the Polish workers coming here. It wasn't about race or

colour, but from another country, economically taking advantage of us.

Pinching our jobs, driving wages down. Remember it was a Labour Prime

Minister, Gordon Brown, who had the mantra British jobs for British

workers and they couldn't enforce that. Bharti? Jobs is one issue.

Issue. When through financial worries people turn to those that

are different to them in order to blame, if you like. We also see the

gen. Generational change which you referred to, the generation that are

born here, have a different attitude. Their way of living also

changes a little bit to perhaps what they see in the host community. When

you look at the long term thing, which is what I was saying before,

time also helps. The second, the third generation, they do have a

different attitude. I want to pick up on the comment that Tommy has,

that immigration has never worked and never will. We don't knee the

nation that we live in. This has been an immigrant nation for 2,000

years and we've absorbed so many waves of immigration. There were

African immigrants before there were English people. That's an important

point to end with. Thank you so much for your views.

That's just about all from us for this week

I've loved joining you every Sunday and I hope you've enjoyed

We'll leave you with the work of some of the finalists

of Faith Through A Lens, a photography competition designed

to capture the positive effects of faith in diverse communities.

From me, Naga Munchetty, and the whole Sunday Morning Live