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PRESENTER: Jonathan Dimbleby
PANELLISTS:
Bob Marshall-Andrews
Michael Gove
Jude Kelly
Timothy Garton Ash
FROM: East Preston, West Sussex
DIMBLEBY
Welcome to Sussex and to East Preston which is a few miles along the coast from Worthing on a wonderful evening. We're here in this ancient but now thoroughly modern settlement at the village hall on the eve of its annual festival, which boasts more than 70 events in the offing.
On our panel: Bob Marshall-Andrews thought he had lost his seat on May 4th and told an interviewer: "My going will be one of the very few things that will cheer the PM up." But he survived as a Labour backbencher to call for Mr Blair's departure. And doubtless to add to his own tally of 29 rebellions in the last parliament.
Michael Gove thought that Michael Portillo should and would be leader of the Conservative Party. Michael Portillo thinks that Michael Gove should and will be leader of the Conservative Party if not this time round. As a newly elected Conservative MP Michael Gove is already familiar as a former reporter for that institution which is regarded by some of his new colleagues as a hot bed of subversion, namely the BBC, as a columnist for The Times and a trenchent inquisitor on the Moral Maze.
Tim Garton Ash is professor of European studies at St Anthony's College, Oxford. On both sides of the Atlantic and in Europe he's widely regarded as one of the very best of those who write and broadcast on the troubled international age in which we live. His most recent book of many has the not exactly catchy title Free World: Why Crisis of the West Reveals the Opportunity of our Time. But it's both an eloquent testament to his eminence and just out in paperback. For which observation I don't even get a drink let alone 10% of the royalties.
Jude Kelly is a theatre director, which is hugely to understate her role in the life of the arts. As the artistic director and chief executive of the West Yorkshire Playhouse for 12 years she was indeed responsible for productions like the Seagull, the Tempest and Singing in the Rain and this year for On the Town at the London Coliseum, all of which had most of the critics drooling in admiration. But she also runs Metal - her own laboratory, as she calls it, in London, where she encourages artists of all genre to experiment and inspire. In addition to that and more, she chairs the Arts, Culture and Education Committee of London's bid to host the 2012 Olympics. And if you see no ready connection between discus throwers and the arts, she will graciously but with much historical knowledge tell you why you should. She's the fourth member of our panel. [CLAPPING]
Our first question please.
BERESFORD
Peter Beresford. Will a French No on Sunday allow Mr Blair to avoid humiliation next year?
DIMBLEBYBob Marshall-Andrews.
MARSHALL-ANDREWSYes, is the short answer to that, I think that that is undoubtedly right. If one wants to broaden it a little on to the constitution, it wouldn't be a humiliation from my point of view because I would vote for it but the constitution itself is a camel, it should have been a racehorse but it's a camel, it's 366 pages, it's impenetrable, incomprehensible in many ways and precisely what Europe doesn't want at this stage. What we wanted was a short statement of what we all genuinely believe in, which is the sanctity of European peace and the continuation of European prosperity and living together. That's what we needed, we needed a short document, we haven't got one. And so I think that that is probably at the end of the day why there will be a No vote in France. The country that is - actually has the most gain from a European constitution and I suspect that the gravamen of your question I agree with it, the near certainty is that we will then not have a referendum in this country and I will welcome that very much because I think it would be a very difficult debate to have. [CLAPPING]
DIMBLEBYProfessor Timothy Garton Ash.
GARTON ASHWell I've just been in France and it's a very odd debate this because what the French don't like about the constitution is that it's for them too British. Believe it or not, it brings in Anglo Saxon free market liberalism. And what we don't like about it or many people in this country don't like is of course that it's centralising, bureaucratic and too French. So I mean it's hard to recognise that it's the same treaty. I actually agree with Bob Marshall-Andrews, I think it's the best treaty we've got and I think it will be a disaster for Europe if we lose another four or five years. I think it will get Tony Blair off the hook in the short term but it will also rob him of the best opportunity he has to go out in a blaze of glory because referendum won or lost he would have least have taken a stand and if he won it he could go out in a blaze of glory and hand on to Gordon Brown. As it is I think he'll go out probably next year or at the latest the year after, not with a bang but with a whimper.
DIMBLEBYDo you believe, as some enthusiasts for the constitution do, that this is a potentially catastrophic event that will occur because it will send everything back into the melting pot, decisions won't be able to be made, little progress will be forthcoming?
GARTON ASHNo I don't think it's as bad as that but I think it will be a bad day because as I say I think we'll lose three or four years and in that time lots of opportunities will be lost and in that time no one will be there to stop, for example, the United States going it alone as they did in Iraq, nobody will be there to negotiate powerfully on our behalf with China, nobody will be there to give a strong European voice. So I think it will be a very dark day but not the end of the world.
DIMBLEBYJude Kelly.
KELLYWell if as Bob has said we'd had a short statement that we could have all have understood I would have welcomed a referendum but actually I feel this is a travesty because most people haven't the faintest idea how to grapple with the complexity of what's on offer, it's far too dense. If you say it's impenetrable and you're paid to do this how can the British people or the French people or the Dutch people actually address the issues. So it feels as if one's being made a fool of really, to try and grapple with something through a referendum which you can't possibly understand. I mean this is a patchwork of all kinds of issues - defence, foreign policy, trade - and I think that it's - it makes me feel as if this is a slightly cynical act going on of asking people to vote for something where it brings out in people prejudices and bigotries and whatever they've read last because that's all they can feel. I was interested to notice that some students around the different countries were actually saying that they felt uneasy because they wanted a united Europe for the reasons that Tim's just said but they felt that the treaty didn't address things that were really of great concern - environmentalism, globalism - a sort of general sense of how we're dealing with wealth and fiscal equity. And so they - it wasn't really vote for or against, it was actually this isn't the right piece anyway.
DIMBLEBYMichael Gove. [CLAPPING
GOVEI think a No vote in French certainly would save Tony Blair from humiliation because he'd pledged to have a referendum if there is a treaty to have a referendum about and I have no doubts that if there were a referendum in this country that we would reject the European constitution. And reject it for very good reasons. [CLAPPING] One of the problems with the European constitution is that it further centralises power in Europe, now I think in the modern world power instead of being centralised should be devolved to the lowest possible level. Britain is already too centralised as a nation and important questions and decisions - planning questions and decisions which local government should take are taken in Whitehall by John Prescott and important decisions that national government should take and that we should elect them to take are being taken in Brussels by a supranational institution. So we need devolution. The other thing I would say is that unfortunately the European Union's institutions are failing, for the last 10 years the European Union hasn't been able to have its accounts passed by the court of auditors because so much of it is open to fraud and abuse. We desperately need reform but this constitution isn't the reform that we need.
DIMBLEBYOn the centralising power can you identify one or not - maybe you can't - one element of that centralising process that you regard as inimical?
GOVEThere are many. I think that the creation of a European foreign minister who seeks to speak for Europe on all foreign policy issues is something that is not in Britain's interest. I also think that the transfer of competencies across a whole range of areas - energy is one - are all areas where Europe shouldn't be exercising power, it should be up to people whom we elect and whom we can throw out because one of the key problems with European institutions is that the individuals who exercise power within them are not accountable. The key question about anyone who exercises power - and it's Tony Blair's question - is how can I get rid of you and we can't rid of many of the people who make these decisions.
DIMBLEBYTim Garton Ash, just on the [CLAPPING] on this question of centralisation apart, which you touched on earlier, just by way of description, what's your response, if any, to what Michael Gove said?
GARTON ASHWell I think that myself that we do need a European foreign minister, we need a strong European foreign policy, otherwise we have to leave it to the Americans. And if you look at what happened in Ukraine last year, where I was in Ukraine, it was an absolutely fantastic moment of liberation and we stopped the bloodshed because we had a European foreign policy. If you look at Iran now it's Europe, not the United States, that is trying to prevent them developing nuclear weapons because we have a European foreign policy. Britain on its own alas is no longer strong enough to exercise its weight in the world and to restrain the United States or China or other powers, we do need a European foreign policy. And we need to be properly informed about what Europe is doing.
DIMBLEBYJude Kelly.
KELLYWell just as a side issue, I was thinking about how young people would feel about the debate we're having now, which as Bob said earlier, would be complex and difficult to understand. We're now teaching citizenship in our schools but I suspect that we're a long, long way away from the voting of 18 and onwards feeling that they have a handle on the complex world that we're asking them to comment on now. And until we have a different kind of political debate, which is not party political, but actually about the generality of the decisions that the world is making, then I'm not sure that we have good enough platforms for the British public to become more educated with.
GARTON ASHJonathan, can I just say one more thing. We need a better press. There's a wonderful story about Boris Johnson when he was a Brussels correspondent and told me by a friend of mine, Boris came barging in late to a press conference and he said: "Okay, so tell me what's going on and why is it bad for Britain." And that is - that is the attitude of the whole of the British press - maybe vote No, but at least know what you're voting No too.
DIMBLEBYCan I ask you a political question on this, Bob, if President Chirac says you should have a referendum in any case, even if we lose it, and if, as we're told, Brussels might be saying the same thing that all the other countries should go ahead regardless, then your view that Tony Blair would be off the hook, if he were to heed that, would no longer stand.
MARSHALL-ANDREWSWell yes I mean President Chirac ...
DIMBLEBYDo you think ...
MARSHALL-ANDREWSPresident Chirac doesn't dictate to us whether or not we have a referendum and my view is that we certainly would not have a referendum if the French vote No. But it seems to me, and I mean it's underlying in what we're saying, that the problem with this is that we've centred a European debate, are you pro or anti Europe, on something which is not a vehicle to have that debate with. This constitution, as I say, it's an impenetrable document, very, very few people could actually recite even the main factors of this and we are having a European debate which is clothed in this document, which is quite wrong. I happen to believe that Europe has been an enormous success. I was born, like Michael was, and I was just born during the course of the last war, I was gurgling my defiance at the good doodlebugs, when the thing stopped. So I didn't know much about it but I did know about the aftermath and it shadowed the whole of my childhood, the war and the war before that and our families all felt the loss involved in that. And the fact that I've lived 61 years of my life in a Europe which has been happy and free and peaceful seems to me to be an endorsement of Europe, rather than otherwise.
DIMBLEBYThank you. We will go to our next question with a reminder of the Any Answers number, which is 08700 100 444 and the e-mail address, which is any.answers@bbc.co.uk, if you wish to communicate by either of those means it's after the Saturday edition of Any Questions. We'll go to our next please.
WALSH
Dr James Walsh. Should Michael Howard go now or later and will it make any difference?
DIMBLEBYTim Garton Ash.
GARTON ASHWell there's a wonderful and very true saying about the Conservative Party which is that the Conservative Party never panics except in a crisis. And we're seeing that illustrated wonderfully, again you know I don't belong to any political party, I just enjoy the wonderful spectacle of the Conservative Party coming up with unelectable leader after unelectable leader. Maybe we'll have to wait 10 years until it's Michael Gove.
DIMBLEBYShould he go now, the other Michael, Michael?
GOVEWell first of all I'm very grateful to Tim for his double edged endorsement which will of course kill any prospect of me rising to any eminence. I don't believe that Michael Howard should go now, no. I was one of those people who was disappointed when Michael announced that he wanted to relinquish the leadership immediately after the Election and I don't think that we should be in any hurry to get rid of him now. And I'll tell you why. I think before we choose who our next leader is we need to have a debate about the direction in which the Conservation Party should go. The Conservative Party made some progress at the last election but it wasn't nearly enough. We're still becalmed at 33% in the polls and this is not a sufficiently strong position for an effective opposition, let alone an alternative government. We need to have an honest and heart searching debate about the future direction of our party and that debate I think would only be interrupted by discussion about personalities.
DIMBLEBYAnd is there a debate ...
GOVEBecause it's only through having a discussion about where we should go that we can decide who should take us there.
DIMBLEBYAnd is that debate presented as or caricatured as the party tearing itself apart in public for month after month and failing to provide an opposition, there's a so be it answer from you yeah?
GOVEWell I think the most important thing about that debate is that it should be civil and moderate because I think the people were glad that the Conservative Party, even people who won't going to vote for it, were glad the Conservative Party in opposition got its act together in the months before the General Election and that we were unified and I think we've got a duty to remain civil and moderate because people expect that the politics should be conducted in that way. And I also think that if we do have the debate on those terms then we can discuss some of the things that we need to look at in our record. For example, one of the things that I think was perhaps a flaw in the way in which the Conservative Party's operated in the past is when it came to public services some of our policies could easily be presented as opt outs for the rich. I think what we need to do when we look at public services is seek to manage them in the interests not of the richest but of the very poorest in our society. I think having a debate about ideas like that would put the Conservative Party in a far better light and equip us to be a successful alternative government.
DIMBLEBYAn outsider [CLAPPING] an outsider in this to an extent at least - Jude Kelly.
KELLYWell I probably wouldn't start from here at all in a sense. Well to answer your question specifically, I think he should stay for a bit because I do actually agree with Michael that I think that a debate should happen about what is the future of the Conservative Party, I wouldn't put it in that silo. I mean what I observe is that Britain has changed so rapidly and there is such diversity in all kinds of ways now, I don't see parliament represents that diversity in all kinds of ways and I think the Conservative Party, in my opinion, can't evolve quickly enough to represent the British public anymore. And I think it should actually rethink from the bottom up exactly who it thinks British people are now what the young people of the future are going to be like and how they can genuinely - how any party can genuinely represent that. Because what I see and it's true of all the political parties is that young people, mainly still men, mainly still white, go to study politics at university, they go straight into parliament, they go straight into politics, they're really like the equivalent in the old days when people went to school and then became teachers and never saw the world. And I don't believe the House of Commons is really anymore representing the richness of British life. And we have to do something about that because until we do we are going to have increasing voter apathy. So my sense of well I wouldn't start from here is to say maybe the Conservative Party could just stop for a while, and I'm not really being comic about that, and have a debate ecumenical debate across all the parties about whether or not we can get there just through evolution or whether some radical change about party politics has to happen. [CLAPPING]
DIMBLEBYDo you want him to go or to stay?
MARSHALL-ANDREWSNo I don't think he should go immediately because I think it's very important that the Conservative Party should sort out how they elect their leader because in those circumstances that will dictate the leader that you have. And I hope - I really, really hope that we have an effective leader of the Conservative Party. I've been in a very unhealthy House of Commons, in the only time that I've been there in the last eight years, when the truth is that there hasn't been a real opposition to the government - that's not a healthy state of affairs. And the Conservative Party needs to organise how it elects its leader. The first thing it needs to do is to say that that should go back to members of parliament, I'm sorry to say that here but I'll tell you why - it's because - I see someone's shaking their head energetically - so I will, I'll try and tell you - try and tell you why and that is the constituent parts of the Conservative Party, very much like our own party, tends to be ageing, tends to be rural - oh dear - thoroughly decent - thoroughly decent misguided certainly but thoroughly decent people and they will - they will vote naturally enough for somebody who they like, somebody who they trust and you will end up with Iain Duncan Smith, again, which is what happened on the last occasion. Thoroughly decent, thoroughly nice, ex-army officer and in parliamentary and political terms totally ineffectual. Now that is a real problem for the Conservative Party and what happens then of course you get an over-reaction by members of parliament who then have their own palace revolution and you have buffy followed by the vampire, which is what had happened on - on this occasion. [CLAPPING] So you've got to get it right, you've got to give it back to politicians who will, whether they like them or not, will choose someone who's going to be an effective leader in the House and in the party. Now if you want my nap - my nap forecast for this I'll give it to you. I think that David Davis will become leader of the Conservative Party and I say that because on the last occasion there was a Conservative leadership I put some money on him and lost it and I [LAUGHTER] and I think it's time that he paid me back.
DIMBLEBY[CLAPPING] Michael Gove, briefly, do you think it should be the MPs who make the final decision as to who should lead your party?
GOVEI do think it's the MPs who should make the final decision, I think there is one flaw with the current process that's been outlined. The grass roots are to be given a say but it's a truncated say - only - only grandees of the grass roots, as it were, the chairman of constituency associations and a few others are going to be invited to give their view. I think that we should ask all 300,000 members of the Conservative Party what their view is but I think that the ultimate decision should rest with MPs, because whoever leads us in the House of Commons has to command the confidence of members of parliament.
DIMBLEBYAnd can you have a result which has a majority of those 300,000 or so in favour of one candidate and the MPs voting for another?
GOVEThat's always a possibility but again within the Labour Party their electoral college means that the trade unions or for that matter constituency parties can take a different view.
DIMBLEBYIt's the first time I've heard a Conservative politician defending the strategy being proposed by the Conservative Party in terms of saying well it's just what Labour did as well when you - I seem to remember you used to condemn what Labour did with great ferocity.
GOVEI don't believe in condemning people with great ferocity when they come from great parties, or they produce great individuals like Bob, I just think that what one recognises is that there is no perfect method of election for a party leader. And I was interested as well by Bob's endorsement of David Davis because one of the things I do think is that we're fortunate because there are a number of people who could succeed Michael who would be successful and powerful leaders and David Davis is one of them.
DIMBLEBYThank you. Let's have our next - our next question please.
BOTTOMLEY
Peter Bottomley. As a break from politics could members of the panel give two lines of their favourite poetry?
DIMBLEBYBreak from politics, you give every appearance, those who can't see but those who can hear you, that you are yourself not entirely disengaged from this debate, as Mr Bottomely of Westminster, is that right?
BOTTOMLEYThat's true and also part time poetry judge for Literary Review.
DIMBLEBYBefore we come to that just quickly on this - do you think that your leader should step down now or are you with Michael Gove - he should stay?
BOTTOMLEYI'm with Michael Gove. And Michael Howard for that matter.
DIMBLEBYAnd Michael Howard on this. And do you believe that the MPs should decide it too?
BOTTOMLEYIn the end I think you've got to have the confidence of your parliamentary party.
DIMBLEBYOkay, thank you very much. The question, in case you've - can the panellists remember what the question was? We're getting away - we're getting away from politics briefly, if not mercifully. Michael Gove.
GOVEWell it's very difficult but I suppose some lines of Philip Larkin would come to mind. Man hands on misery to man, it deepens like a coastal shelf. Get out as early as you can and don't have any kids yourself. [CLAPPING]
DIMBLEBYJude Kelly.
KELLYWell I think there's a line - well of course I'm in love with Shakespeare, I mean that's what I was - I don't know if I was brought up on it but I mean it's what I studied as a young girl has remained with me and of course the female characters in Shakespeare are interesting to girls and Portia, when she comes back in Merchant of Venice from doing something which I think is entirely foolhardy, which is to dress up as a man to go and protect her lover and find out when she's in the courtroom that actually her lover loves a man more than he loves her. And I think what she then brings to bear on Shylock is very frightening. But she comes back in a state of remorse and sees in her own window a light and she said: "There shines a candle in my window. There shines a good deed in a naughty world." And I think that shiny phrase a good deed in a naughty world is something which is an example of what poetry does, which it highlights little moments, tiny distilled intimate personal moments which we need, we need those more than we need the big political rhetoric. [CLAPPING]
DIMBLEBYTimothy Garton Ash.
GARTON ASHWell I'm going to give a rather serious answer because I've spent quite a lot of my life travelling in dictatorships and studying dictatorships behind the iron curtain and elsewhere. And many of the people I've known best and admired most have been people who've spent years in prison for their political convictions, political prisoners and some lines that mean a lot to me are actually from an English poem and they are: "Stone walls do not a prison make, nor iron bars a cage, if I have freedom in my love and in my love am free, angels alone that soar above enjoy such liberty." [CLAPPING]
DIMBLEBYIs that one of the Richard's - it's Shakespeare is it not - Stone Walls do not a prison make? What is it?
GARTON ASHI knew you were going to ask me that. [LAUGHTER] It's an 18th Century poet who was known for nothing else and I've forgotten his name.
DIMBLEBYOkay, in that case I can just remind you of the Any Answers question - those hundreds of thousands of you who know the answer, please let us know at Any Answers ...
GARTON ASHActually I have remembered, he's called Richard Lovelace.
MARSHALL-ANDREWSWe think it's Dunn over here but that's a team effort.
KELLYWe think we're on the wrong panel show suddenly.
DIMBLEBYNow it's your turn. Bob, your turn.
MARSHALL-ANDREWSYes, two snatches if I may. The first from J. Water Savage which is serious and sad but beautiful - and I think it's beautiful and it puts life into perspective. And he said: "I strove with none, for none was worth my strife. Nature I loved and next to nature art. I warmed both hands before the fire of life. It sinks and I'm ready to depart." And the other - the second snatch that I would go for is to misquote England's greatest ever poet, if I may, which of course is Kipling. If you can keep your head when all about you - when all about you are losing theirs then you have sadly underestimated the gravity of the situation. [CLAPPING]
DIMBLEBYJude.
KELLYWell I just wanted to comment. First of all I think the question's great because we were talking before the piece - the show began tonight about the fact that too often politicians and people in public life are forced to be sort of professional all the time, which seems to imply that they haven't got a soul, they haven't got a kind of inner - inner texture. And I think I was very struck all during the election, I didn't near one person mention the arts, I didn't hear one person talk about poetry and actually if politicians and people in public life did make it clear that their love of the arts, their love of expressiveness, their belief in these ideas was available I think there'd be a great deal more trust. And I mean Tony Harrison, one of our great poet's, born in Leeds, absolutely coming from a non-educated family, his parents hardly ever spoke, which probably drove him to poetry, now speaks of the fact that in his passport he is proud to say occupation: poet. And poetry is hugely flourishing all over Britain. Our great philosopher is Shakespeare. It makes me wonder when you've got such erudite quotes here from all of you lot why in parliament you don't use the language of art more often. [CLAPPING]
DIMBLEBYPeter Bottomely, as you put the question, a thought and some lines?
BOTTOMLEYAgain slightly serious, Pat Glimerick [phon.] who died a year or two back wrote a lovely poem just before he died, it starts: "What shall I do when I'm called to die, will I not say too soon my time is ended, the years too quickly have gone by with so little done of all that I intended." [CLAPPING]
MARSHALL-ANDREWSIt might be a good idea when thinking about the war and the tragedies that we've had, going back to Kipling, to think about boots, - the great, great poem that he wrote, "It's Tommy this and Tommy that and Tommy go away but it's yes sir Mr Atkins when the band begins to play." [CLAPPING]
DIMBLEBYI have an instinct that some listening to this programme would like this part of this programme to continue indefinitely but we are now going to go on to our next question.
SULLIVAN
Margaret Sullivan. Is the government wise to press ahead with the introduction of compulsory ID cards?
DIMBLEBYMichael Gove.
GOVENo I don't believe it is wise. On the whole I'm instinctively opposed to the principle of identity cards because I think they change the nature of the relationship between us and the government. I think that the government exists for the convenience of the people, the people don't exist at the convenience of the government. And I think identity cards, if they're compulsory, mark a shift in that relationship. [CLAPPING] I did think it was important after 9/11, when we realised the scale of the terrorist threat that we faced, to look seriously at the case for them, even though I'm instinctively opposed I felt that I owed the advocates of identity cards a proper hearing. But having looked at the scheme that the government's come up with then I'm still very, very happy to be opposed to the scheme. I think that the scheme they put forward is expensive, massively so - that money could be better used to protect us in other ways. It already seems to be running into a whole host of inefficiencies. And I think one of the most dangerous things about identity cards is that it would give the security services false comfort - the belief that when someone had an identity card they were who they said they were. And as we know identity cards, like all things devised by man, can be outwitted by other men more ingenious and more wicked than the devisers of the original scheme. Identity cards would give us a false comfort in the war against terrorism and indeed against the many other dangers that we face. So therefore I think pretty strongly that the government should not press ahead with its scheme. [CLAPPING]
DIMBLEBYOf course in Europe, Timothy Garton Ash, there are a number of countries that use identity cards.
GARTON ASHYes, that's right and I mean let me start by saying that I think that in the so-called war on terror we have seen, particularly with this government, dangerous encroachments on our liberties, on our civil liberties, one after the other. You have to strike a balance between [CLAPPING] security and liberty, they have got the balance wrong. And the height of that or the depth of that was when they actually seriously proposed to take away the ancient right of habeas corpus. So I think it's a real problem. Now I don't actually ...
DIMBLEBYCan I just - I don't want to stop what you're about to say - but to what do you attribute that a sense that the risk is greater than you believe it to be, although indeed you don't have access obviously to the kind of intelligence they have, or simply the nature of government that you must minimise any risk and therefore perhaps this would help?
GARTON ASHI think that Tony Blair has signed up too much to the idea popular in George Bush's White House that this is a war - that the war on terror is a war like the Second World War and you know in war time civil liberties do have to be limited, and I think that is a great mistake because actually if we start sacrificing our own liberties this is a great victory for Osama bin Laden, it is precisely what Osama bin Laden wants. And I would rather take a few more risks of being blown up by a bomb and keep my liberty.
DIMBLEBYAnd you were going on to make a further point though.
GARTON ASHYeah I was actually going to say something which I think actually was slightly different from what Michael was saying, that's to say having spent a lot of time in Europe, where people do carry identity cards, I don't in principle regard identity cards as a huge infringement of our liberties. But the question was would the government be wise to introduce them and the answer is they would be extremely unwise because it seems to me absolutely clear that they're not going to be able to make them work with the three biometric measures of our irises and face shape and so on and it is going to turn into a farce. It's going to be their poll tax. And as we come up to the next election there would be story after story in the papers about the old age pensioner in Worthing who was mistaken for a dangerous Arab terrorist.
DIMBLEBYJude Kelly.
KELLYWell I've thought a lot about this because if in a minor way you have authority and responsibility and then you have crisis - I mean supposing your theatre goes on fire or something - there's suddenly an outbreak of legionnaires disease or something where you're responsible to find out what to do immediately, there is a dreadful imperative that sets in most human beings which is a sort of panic and must call to action, must do something now. I don't believe that the people who are trying to bring in identity cards are malign in their intentions, I think they want to keep people safe but I think that's the sort of thing where you say don't climb any trees, don't go on the swings, basically don't go out, to keep safe would be to actually restrict liberty too much. And it was George Bush, after 9/11, who said in the long run stability cannot be purchased at the expense of liberty. Now to me the identity cards really conjure two things which I really abhor. One is the encouragement of faceless bureaucracy and the other is petty abuse of power. I feel in my bones that there was enough evidence during the suss law period for random petty power brokers to really abuse their power ...
DIMBLEBYThis was the stop - this was the powers to in London to stop and search.
KELLYPowers to stop and search. It had a dreadful, dreadful effect on racial relationships between the police. The police have only just recovered. We mustn't reintroduce something which allows citizenship to be abused again.
DIMBLEBYBob Marshall-Andrews.
MARSHALL-ANDREWSYes unhappily this government does not have a good record on civil liberties and they would do well to bear in mind really what is a sensible aphorism, that you will never reduce the sum total of human wickedness by a reduction in human liberty. And it's as simple as that. This identity card bill - let me tell you straightaway - the government has now said that they accept that it will have no effect at all in the battle on terrorism. They have also said in terms - in terms of the meeting that I was at three days ago, Charles Clarke has now said and it's transparently true, they've said that it will have no effect at all in the fight against illegal immigration. Let me tell you, having looked at the bill, there is nothing in this bill, nothing statutorily, to restrict the amount of information that goes on to your card. There is nothing in the bill which allows you to check the information that goes on to your card in order to decide whether it is accurate. There is nothing in the bill which restricts on a statutory basis the government agencies, other agencies outside government to whom this information can be made available. There is nothing in the bill - I'm going to stop fairly soon - there is nothing - there is nothing in the bill that prescribes or stops government making it compulsory to carry this bill. All this privilege will cost you £100 in order to buy it and it can be made compulsory without a further act of parliament. The biometric testing, contrary to what some people said, has been tested, some of it, and the facial mapping has a 60% success rate. That is to say it has a 40% failure rate. And there is the problem with the Worthing lady and the member of al-Qaeda.
DIMBLEBYBob Marshall-Andrews ...
MARSHALL-ANDREWSNo other country, no other Western or advanced country has identification cards of this kind and this is going to cost £5.7 billion. Apart from that ...
DIMBLEBYBob Andrews.
MARSHALL-ANDREWSApart from that it's fine.
DIMBLEBYIf - if [CLAPPING] If it is so palpably wrong to introduce it, as it is in your view, why is the overwhelming majority of your own party in the House of Commons evidently willing to vote for it?
MARSHALL-ANDREWSWell we don't know that yet do we, I mean we'll have to see whether they are overwhelmingly going to vote for it. I mean members of parliament do tend to support their own government. But I suspect that this maybe an issue, this maybe an issue which is such a profound issue of principle that you may find a substantial number of Labour members of parliament who are very unhappy about it.
DIMBLEBYYou are one of those that was reported in today's paper of introducing what in technical terms is called a reasoned amendment, does that mean you and others are going to try and root and branch throw it out?
MARSHALL-ANDREWSWell we're certainly going to consider. I don't want to be elliptical about this and I don't want to speak for other people but we are certainly considering putting down what is called a reasoned amendment. And of course with the wonderful way of parliament that means an amendment which is not reasoned. But yes it is an amendment which goes to the very heart and the root of the bill and we can do that and I think that there is - it's very probably that we will do so in order to try and make the government seriously think again at this stage before we get dragged what is inevitably going to be a serious disaster.
DIMBLEBYThank you. The opinion polls have hitherto tended to show that most people are strongly in favour of ID cards, I'm talking about the opinion polls. Just out of interest in this audience here in this village in Sussex, how many are in favour of ID cards in principle, would you put your hands up? And how many are agin? Well you've heard a debate without a strong defence being made of them but I'm sure as independent minds of your own they represent - there's a gesture being made to me - sorry Jude Kelly you were going to say?
KELLYWell I just ...
DIMBLEBYCan I just give the what I think the tentative result was? Jude wants in, she can come in. Basically overwhelmingly here those - the audience here does not favour ID cards. Sorry Jude.
KELLYI just tend to think that people imagine when they want ID cards that they want them for some other people, they want some other people's identity cards to be looked at and not their own. Well that's often what will happen.
DIMBLEBYOkay we will leave that there, with a reminder of that Any Questions number again for your views on this, 08700 100 444, that's the Any Answers of course I should say. The e-mail address any.answers@bbc.co.uk. Can we go to our next?
MURPHY
Rosaline Murphy. Who's fault is it: the pupils, the teachers or the government?
DIMBLEBYThe Unity City Academy in Middlesbrough has been at the sharp focus of this with Ofsted saying it's failing to give its pupils an acceptable standard of education and being very fierce indeed, while saying there are some good things about leadership, financial management, standards of teaching, learning, attendance at school, punctuality, behaviour and the rest. Jude Kelly.
KELLYMmm. Well I think it is a crisis of leadership, I think leadership is so important in all walks of life and particularly if you are literally saying something that is that you're going to take something from a failure to a success in a straight trajectory. And that's what's being asked of a lot of schools or special academies because the short termism that I think is asked of politicians and asked - demanded by the media means that people want instant results. I think it's extremely difficult when you have multiple problems in an area, where you have truancy, where you have bad behaviour, where you have broken families, where you have all kinds of difficulties, it takes a most unusual leader to be able to take a school on that trajectory to success. And usually they don't have enough independence either to do it without people interfering all the way along the line. I don't think we've been actually training people outside of politics to think of themselves as civic leaders in all walks of life and I think we're now seeing the deficit of that fact. So I don't think it is government or schools or children, it's the combination of reaping what we've sown. During the '80s we did not invest in society and the second generation children of those parents who were not invested in are not able to cope and neither are the schools.
DIMBLEBYI must ask you to give relatively attenuated answers, if you would, Michael Gove.
GOVEI don't think it's necessarily helpful to blame anyone when a school goes into special measures. Normally the most important and influential person in any school is the head teacher but I know the head teacher in this case worked very hard. I think it would be wrong to say on the basis of what's happened in Middlesbrough that City Academies are wrong and an experiment that's failed. The good thing about City Academies is that people who were prepared to be philanthropists and give money will be directed towards some of the very poorest areas in Britain in order to try and give them a leg up. I think that's absolutely right and I think because this particular City Academy was in a deprived area of Middlesbrough where many pupils were socially excluded it was always going to be an uphill task. But I don't think that we should run away from the principle when outsiders want to become involved in education we should welcome them and we should direct them towards the poorest and those who are most excluded in our society.
DIMBLEBYLord Marshall-Andrews. [CLAPPING]
MARSHALL-ANDREWSI will be very brief. It is multiplex and it's multifaceted and it depends entirely on the school. I've had schools in my patch go into special measures for completely different reasons, I mean some of them have had - let's be blunt about it - heads that haven't managed the school very well. But on other occasions it's been quite clear that there are other facets - there are other aspects of the intake, it's been very difficult indeed and there are pressures on schools now which have got nothing to do with education at all. So I think it is a multifaceted question and one has to look individually at each particular school.
DIMBLEBYThank you. And Professor Garton Ash.
GARTON ASHI agree that it's too easy to play the blame game here. This was a very difficult particular case. What I think I would say in general terms is that three of the truest words Tony Blair ever spoke were: Education, education, education - because if this country is going to be able to compete with the fiercely competitive economies of the Far East - of China, of India - in a fiercely competitive world, we're not going to do it because we have cheaper labour because we don't or raw materials, we're going to do it because we have better education. So schools, schools, schools.
DIMBLEBYThank you. [CLAPPING] And we can just squeeze in one more.
TARRAN
Patricia Tarran. With the Chelsea Flower Show in mind, would you like a flower to be named after you and if so which flower would you choose?
DIMBLEBYRobert Marshall-Andrews. [LAUGHTER]
MARSHALL-ANDREWSWell I was - I was once called the thorn in Tony Blair's red rose. So I rather like that actually. So I think that that may very well be - that may very well be the case. But I think in truth I like messy flowers, and I have in mind rhododendrons, which grow far too big and [indistinct words], so I think a rhododendron.
DIMBLEBYThe Marshall-Andrews rhododendron. Tim Garton Ash.
GARTON ASHI don't think I would like a flower to be named after me thank you very much. Looking at all the other people they've been named after I'm not sure I want to join that company. [LAUGHTER]
DIMBLEBYJude Kelly.
KELLYOkay I'm going to donate the naming of my flower to a cause, the cause is the Olympics, the cause is the Olympics in 2012, I'm going to say it's a clematis because it spreads like wildflower, it's extremely beautiful, has a huge effect on the garden and if we win the Olympics for 2012, which I think we will, then I think the whole country will bloom. [CLAPPING]
DIMBLEBYAnd Michael Gove.
GOVEI wouldn't like to have a flower named after me but if I had to I would ask it to be a shrinking violet. [CLAPPING]
DIMBLEBYFat chance. That brings us to the end of this week's programme. Thank you for having us here in East Preston and Kingston Village Hall. Next week we're going to be in Milton [Halls], with Chris Smith, who's going to join the Lords very soon; John Redwood, who's a shadow minister; Baroness Shirley Williams who was the Liberal Dem leader in the House of Lords and the United Kingdom correspondent of Le Monde Marc Roche. So we will be in Milton Keynes next week, till then from here, goodbye. [CLAPPING]
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