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Transcript: Any Questions? 09 November 2007 |
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PRESENTER: JONATHAN DIMBLEBY
PANELLISTS: Rt Hon DAVID BLUNKETT MP: former Home Secretary
BARONESS SHIRLEY WILLIAMS: Liberal Democrat Peer
SHAMI CHAKRABARTI: Director of Liberty
ALAN DUNCAN MP: Shadow Secretary for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform
From: The Sheffield International Documentary Festival in Sheffield
DIMBLEBY
Welcome to Sheffield where we are in the centre of the city as the guests of the Sheffield International Documentary Festival. This is the UK’s premier festival of its kind and brings together filmmakers from all over the world to view the best, to discuss, debate, to argue and to make as many deals as they can in an intensive week of creativity. On our panel the Sheffield boy who grew up to be an MP and this week celebrates 20 years in the House of Commons. He has been Education Secretary but perhaps more notably and slightly more controversially Home Secretary as well. Now on the back benches David Blunkett chairs the yellow school bus commission. What is that in a sentence?
DAVID BLUNKETT
It’s about security for children, safety and reducing the school run in the morning which will be a great thing for all of us.
DIMBLEBY
Thank you. Shirley Williams was one of Mr Blunkett’s predecessors as the Labour Education Secretary who carried through the comprehensive revolution then she defected to become a star in the Liberal Democrat firmament as their Leader in the Lords. She was asked to tiptoe into Gordon Brown’s big tent by advising him on the global threat from nuclear proliferation. Did you ever accept the invitation?
SHIRLEY WILLIAMS
Yes, on the basis that I was independent of the government, not responsible for anything it did and free to criticise.
DIMBLEBY
Shami Chakrabarti used to work in the Home Office where as a Barrister she advised the Ministers for both main parties. In 2001 she left to join the Human Rights Group Liberty where she has been Director for the last four years. Alan Duncan was a Shadow Minister when Michael Howard was leader of the party and in 2005 had a tilt at the leadership himself before withdrawing from the contest to endorse David Cameron whom he now serves in the role as Shadow Secretary for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform. It’s a horrible mouthful. I know it’s not your responsibility isn’t it.
ALAN DUNCAN
Yes stupid name they should never have given it and we’ll change that pretty much on the first day.
BLUNKETT
Well it will be the only thing you will ever do.
(LAUGHTER)
DIMBLEBY
Thank you. He’s the 4th member of our panel. (APPLAUSE)
Our first question please.
DAVID LAGSTINGS
Is it time the West walked away from Musharraff?
DIMBLEBY
Shami Chakrabarti?
CHAKRABARTI
Time or high time? Um what is going on in Pakistan today is absolutely tragic, astonishing, shameful. We have to acknowledge our part in it before we can look forward to the future. A lot of focus has been placed on the importance of holding elections and elections, as we know, are critical in a democracy but let’s be clear that a democracy does not constitute having elections alone. The Chief Justice of Pakistan is currently under house arrest. OtherJustices of the Supreme Court of Pakistan have been corrected in the words of General Musharraf the Dictator. The Chair of the Pakistani Human Rights Commission, the equivalent of Trevor Phillips is under a 90 day control order, under house arrest. The free media has been shut down. I think the lesson to be learnt is that there is no such thing as your favourite dictator or your pet dictator. This is worthy of a Disney cartoon. One of our pet dictators is missing. We have made some mistakes but looking forward General Musharraf has got to be told not just to hold elections but to release the judges of the Supreme Court. One in 4 lawyers has been arrested. You know David and I , David and I were not always the best of friends when he was Home Secretary and I was in my job but let me tell you something while us Human Rights Lawyers and judges sometimes irritated him he never blooming well arrested us. That’s the difference (APPLAUSE) that’s the difference between a free society and a dictatorship. (APPLAUSE)
DIMBLEBY
Alan Duncan?
DUNCAN
I don’t follow Pakistan very well but I was at university with Benazir Bhutto. I have known her for 31 years and in fact have been in contact with her today. I also know the other side because Chokar Sidiz the Prime Minister was effectively the person doing trade finance when I was selling the country oil when it was stuck after the first invasion after the invasion of Kuwait. Look Pakistan is pivotal to global peace and in difficult circumstances like this things are not just black and white. I think Mosharraf has overplayed his hand. I think he is on the way out but it’s not a simple case of black and white because what we have to see is a transition from military dictatorship to democracy in a way that does not cause absolutely horrid civil strife and what is more the thing about Pakistan is that it’s always a delicate balance between the need for democracy and the order that comes from the military and in the end the military have got their finger on the nuclear button. So I want to see Benizir Bhutto or someone elected Prime Minister and I want to make sure that that country does not decay into chaos.
DIMBLEBY
Is there any more in your judgement that the West can do?
DUNCAN
Well I think that we have to keep up pressure. I mean you know America says that is wants democracy but it doesn’t always like democracy when it doesn’t get the right result and this is one country in which we have to have democracy but we also have to accept the difficult circumstances in which a democratically elected Prime Minister has to be able to work with the military because that is the way that country is at the moment. One day I hope it won’t be so we have to keep up pressure. I think that Benazir Bhutto is being amazingly brave. I think that for General Musharraf to call martial law has made a colossal error. It has destroyed the credibility, what credibility he had, and I think this means he ain’t going to survive. But let me just give you one quick scenario. What happens if Benazir or Mosharraf come in in a fantastic democratic victory and then it all somehow decays with civil strife. Al Qaeda come and sort of undermine Pakistan and you get another military coup. Where are we then? Let’s really put our common sense hat on here and realize that this is a very very difficult set of circumstances
DIMBLEBY
Under those circumstances….that means you don’t, as it were, in terms of the question you don’t walk away from Musharraf?
DUNCAN
I don’t think you should just walk away from Musharraf, condemn him, potentially provoke the army and condemn that country into ungovernable civil strife. Basically Pakistan is an extremely difficult country to govern. It is almost ungovernable and we need to be responsible to make sure it is governable and that it can be responsible against those forces that would blow us up and also in a way that can bring prosperity and stability to the people of Pakistan.
DIMBLEBY
Shirley Williams?
WILLIAMS
I think, first of all I think the good news is that there has been incredible courage shown by the judges, the lawyers, indeed the Human Rights spokesman in Pakistan. One really has to pay tribute to that. We have seen country after country where democracy has been undermined and has finally crumbled and where most people have simply walked away and pretended that they couldn’t see what has been going on. I think it is really hugely to the credit of this whole section of Pakistani society that they have taken huge risks, they have faced the military, they’ve committed themselves to trying to building democracy in Pakistan. Now the West made one huge mistake, and the huge mistake was to put everything onto this relationship with Musharraf. And in the end Musharraf was a General. He was dubiously elected and he knew that the Supreme Court was about to say that he hadn’t been properly elected because he knew the election hadn’t been properly conducted and yet we rested the whole of the weight of our bastions in the whole part of Asia on this one man. We did not support or build up, I don’t believe, ordinary Pakistanis in the way that we needed to do and it is important that the commonwealth is now coming out very strongly and saying there has to be an election soon. There has to be a return to the rule of law and as Shami was suggesting there has to be the release of all the people who have been arrested. But we shouldn’t kid ourselves. We might buy time that way but we then have to come in with much greater support to the civil society in Pakistan and we have to use the Commonwealth to help us do that because we simply cannot rely on a very small number of people effectively ordering the rest of Pakistan what to do. It is a very dangerous situation, we haven’t got a lot of time. My own view is that it’s more dangerous than anything that has been offered to us by Iran or North Korea and we had better do something as soon as we possibly can to strengthen civil society in that country.
DIMBLEBY
When you say more dangerous you mean because of the combination of radicalism of a religious kind and nuclear weapons.
WILLIAMS
And nuclear weapons and the fact that really the security of Pakistan rests heavily on the relationship between the army and the civil society and that relationship is becoming more and more strained literally day by day.
DIMBLEBY
David Blunkett?
BLUNKETT
Well I agree with the last point that Shirley has made I don’t have the connections that Alan obviously has in terms of Pakistan although I have many residents and citizens in the constituency who originated from Pakistan. I have met Musharraf, I had the privilege of spending an evening with him. A privilege because it is a terrible job being the President of Pakistan, facing the border country, his own country actually holding if not Bin Laden himself certainly the representative and followers of Bin Laden inside the Pakistani country on the border with Afghanistan and there aren’t simple, it is quite right to say there aren’t black and white answers here, but I think to sort of suggest that somehow if only he went and democracy flourished we’d be able to deal with the terrorists on the border and inside Afghanistan is naivety at its most gross.
DIMBLEBY
So you would not walk away from Musharraf. You would try to persuade him
BLUNKETT
I would, well I think the US and the UK have played a signal role today in terms of the last 24 hours of Benazir Bhutto being released from detention which was an outrage and of course we should bring pressure to bear to restore the independent judiciary and to ensure there are elections during the course of January. Of course we should but somehow the idea that somehow overturning Musharraf would help us and be a great move forward is as naïve as the people who believe that the elections that took place a few years ago in Algeria where there is an Islamist regime about to be elected was a great step forward for democracy were frankly very stupid and we don’t live in a world where simply imposing our norms on other people actually solves the world’s problems
DIMBLEBY
Shami Chakrabarti?
CHAKRABARTI
David fine.. you know you didn’t arrest me, you called me stupid and naïve but it’s better than arresting me OK….
BLUNKETT
I agree with that because we live in a democracy, an open democracy and we don’t have on our borders people who are prepared to destroy everything we stand for
CHAKRABARTI
But David what has General Mosharaf achieved in the fight against terrorism? What has General Mosharaf achieved in closing down the Madras’s and the Islamist radicalism that is poisoning us as much in Britain as it is around the world. You cannot have your pet dictator. What are we saying to the world about our entry in the competition of ideas? (APPLAUSE)
BLUNKETT
But, you see the problem is Shami you entirely right he has failed but the alternatives at each point of his failure have been even worse that is the point I am trying to make to you not that what he is doing or what he has done is anything I would condone but in the circumstances he faces and with the opponents he has faced, the people on the streets wanting him out
CHAKRABARTI
OK David what abut the components of democracy You say it is good that Benazir Bhutto is released, a politican is released. Do you agree with me that the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Pakistan must be released immediately?
BLUNKETT
Yes I do actually agree with that yes.
WILLIAMS
Shami is right about all that but we shouldn’t kid ourselves that unless we bring far more support behind public democracy in Pakistan that we can do more than hold the situation for a few months. We have to see this as an emergency and it is an emergency that we have got to build up a real civic support
DIMBLEBY
And we could stay with that but we have a lot more so we must move on to our next question please.
ROSIE SOUTHWICK
Should Sir Ian Blair be forced to resign?
DIMBLEBY
Shirley Williams?
WILLIAMS
Yes he should. Now I say that very reluctantly because as a Chief Police Officer in London he has done several very good things. He has been much more conscious of racial discrimination than most other Heads of the Met in recent years. He has done a great deal to support neighbourhood policing although I must say that it would be nice if neighbourhood policemen actually saw themselves as responsible for saving drowning kids and to stop people beating up old gentlemen. It seems extraordinary that they can stand to one side and watch it happen. Nevertheless Ian Blair has tried his best to get community policemen back on the beat. Number 3 he has actually set up some very interesting innovations like the attempt to go back and look at unsolved murders and it looks like we might be close to solving the awful murder of Stephen Lawrence because of the work that has been done by new technology. The trouble is that at the end of all that he has I think committed one unforgiveable offence and that was to try to block the investigation of the independent police commission into the killing of the innocent civilian man Mr de Menezes and you cannot do that. You have to accept that in a democracy you have got oversight and the oversight is independent and you must not try to fiddle it and there is some evidence that the police did try to fiddle it and that is the one thing that you can’t forgive so I say with some sorrow that Mr Blair has to go. (APPLAUSE)
DIMBLEBY
David Blunkett?
BLUNKETT
Well I think Sir Ian Blair himself would accept that two years ago when the terrible tragedy took place he was wrong in terms of equivocating and I think he has made that clear as well.
DIMBLEBY
In terms of the IPCC?
BLUNKETT
Yes which has been held over for 18 months by the way while the Health and Safety Executive took the case which was reported last week. We have got an issue here which is about how when there is a tragedy we have to deal with the aftermath and make sure it doesn’t happen again without actually dealing with an individual and next April we bring in the corporate manslaughter laws which in these circumstances wouldn’t apply to the police but in principle does. Namely are you looking to put the institution right or are you looking for a victim? I am partly affected by emotions. I may as well admit the idea. I hate the idea of the media universally as a pack going for someone’s head. I really dislike. I had a dose of it myself (APPLAUSE) and it has been deeply unedifying over the last 10 days to see that. Would it do any good and who would benefit if the man who has learnt the most from what has happened, two years on actually now resigned, after those two years, rather than putting right the mistakes that were made and actually dealing with and particularly I have to say with the Head of counter intelligence Peter Clark, actually stepping down as well because he is retiring, actually for the Head of the Met to go at the same time.
DIMBLEBY
On the point that you and Shirley Williams both dealt with which was his attempt to stop the investigation by the IPCC the Chairman Nick Hardwick holds Sir Ian personally responsible for I quote here ”much of the avoidable difficulty the Stockwell incident has caused the Metropolitan Police arose from the delay in referral”. Does that not have a significant impact in itself on public confidence which is so crucial?
BLUNKETT
Well I appointed Nick Hardwick and I set up when I was Home Secretary the Independent Police Complaints Commission so I am hardly going to condemn them for their condemnation but the question that was put to us was actually would it be beneficial if Sir Ian Blair went and I am answering the question. I don’t think it would. It would satisfy a frenzy. We had Michael Mansfield, the lawyer today, suggesting it was some kind of conspiracy that involved the Daily Mail who had been calling for Ian Blair’s resignation almost daily actually colluding with the Met Police in terms of the diversion ie the issues around Stephen Lawrence. I think the world is losing it a bit. I mean the idea that the Daily Mail and the Met would collude to put out a story that was diversionary so that Ian Blair could get off the hook is frankly you know derisory
SHOUT FROM AUDIENCE Far fetched?
DIMBLEBY
Shami Chakrabarti?
BLUNKETT
Well that might not well be in the world we live but it ought to be far fetched.
CHAKRABARTI
David I spoke to Doreen Lawrence this afternoon because I heard what was being said about these new revelations about the Lawrence case and Doreen said to me that she was anxious and she didn’t know just as I didn’t know the genesis of these stories but she thought it would be really wrong indeed if anybody had briefed the papers for any dubious reason and frankly whether the timing was convenient or not the Yard should not be briefing the police at all about any ongoing investigation that might result in a fair trial (APPLAUSE) As for Sir Ian this debate about Sir Ian has become very political, very party political, but do you know what that is partly his fault. People say that Ian Blair is the progressive copper, he is the left wing copper who cares about race equality well goodness me I think in 2007 we can all unite in this country and say we all care about race equality and Ian Blair is not the only copper who cares about race equality
DIMBLEBY
Would it make a difference? To cut to the chase on this would it make a beneficial difference do you believe if he went?
CHAKRABARTI
Yes I do actually because it is about trust and confidence and honour and accountability and one of the reasons that Sir Ian is such a controversial figure is that he has been party political. He has campaigned for ID cards during the last election campaign, he campaigned for the 90 day pre charge detention. Whether he believed in those policies or not it is not appropriate, this is not Pakistan. Our politicians do not wear uniforms here… sorry just to finish As for the De Menezes case itself, I think that even before today when we looked at the corporate failure that was shown in this rather strange Health and Safety, honestly Health and Safety prosecution that delayed by the way the publication of the report that we should have seen two and a half years ago, because of Health and Safety, when nobody was going to go to prison and there was a fine that the tax payer pays. I think the IPCC needs to answer some questions about why it delayed the publication of its report. When nobody individually is to blame but the organization is to blame the person at the top, out of honour, out of dignity, out of public trust in confidence takes the wrap and if that is not good enough he hindered the investigation, he personally hindered the investigation. He is supposed to defend the rule of law not undermine it. (APPLAUSE)
DIMBLEBY
Alan Duncan
DUNCAN
I have actually found the last two years rather humiliating for Britain and I think degrading for the Metropolitan Police and confidence in both needs to be restored. This all started with the shooting of an innocent man. Now I can actually accept that there were circumstances in which that shooting happened and that people are not to blame but it is what followed that is inexcusable. As Shami and Shirley have said for the Chief of the Met to try and block what should be the proper path into investigating what went wrong I think is inexcusable and to add to that I mean really the squalidness of having the Health and Safety Executive investigate the Metropolitan Police in the middle of a major exercise against a terrorist threat makes us look absurd Health and Safety is not the right forum in which the conduct of the police at a moment like this should be studied and for Ian Blair to block the proper study of what went on is I think grounds for his resignation. (APPLAUSE)
DIMBLEBY
David Blunkett
BLUNKETT
It tragically didn’t start with the shooting. It started with 52 people being killed on July 7th it started with two weeks later a failed, failed attack…..
SHOUT FROM AUDIENCE It started in Iran
BLUNKETT
…. On 21st July and as we have heard over the last 24 hours the admission of one of those involved in it that he was engaged in trying to blow up another group of people on the day after the 21st July this incident occurred. There were some terrible decisions taken and a terrible mess in terms of communication but I can’t see any reason whatsoever two years later, other than for those who are against our country and are seeking to destroy our lives that we should take out the head of the Metropolitan Police as a way of
WILLIAMS
Oh David
DIMBLEBY
But do you think it was right David for them to try and block the IPCC enquiry (TALKING OVER EACH OTHER)
BLUNKETT
No I don’t think it was right for him to do so. I am not suggesting that it was. It would not make an H’aproth of difference other than to undermine the learning of those lessons and the implementation…
DIMBLEBY
You are implying that Shirley Williams amongst others have got something against this country
BLUNKETT
I didn’t suggest anything of the sort
DIMBLEBY
Well I may have misunderstood but she misunderstood as well but she certainly got very cross at that moment
WILLIAMS
As I understand it the proudest achievements of this country are precisely the accountability of people before the law without fear or favour. Ian Blair is part of that accountability. He tried to get round the mechanisms that exist to make it honest and I think that that brought upon us a very shameful episode and I don’t believe it is wise or sensible of David to start talking about undermining the values of this country when they are in fact represented by precisely that concept of accountability. (APPLAUSE)
BLUNKETT
I was talking about, I was trying to address and it‘s difficult to do so now the 22 and 23 July two years ago and the circumstances in which people were making decisions and quite clearly a number of people made the wrong decision
CHAKRABARTI
You are quite right David and nobody is blaming the officers on the ground but why did the Met brief the newspapers about this man’s immigration status, about what he did or didn’t have in his blood stream and that he had a puffa jacket on. That was unnecessary (APPLAUSE) and it was wrong
DIMBLEBY
Yet again we must
BLUNKETT
I am looking forward to you moving on because I would like a bit of popularity by the end of the evening.
DIMBLEBY
Well we will see what happens you don’t know what the questions are and nor do the rest of the panel but you may or may not we will see. I just want to ask our audience here as everyone says it is a matter of public confidence, is the overwhelming issue. Who in this audience thinks he should go? Would you put your hands up? Who in this audience thinks he should stay? Well in this audience which is not scientifically selected the overwhelming majority thinks he should go. Last week in the programme incidentally elsewhere the balance was roughly even with a slight majority in favour of him staying. We’ll move on with a reminder of the Any Answers number it is 08700 100 444 and the email address any.answers@bbc.co.uk that is after the Saturday edition of Any Questions? Our next please
LAWRENCE CRAIG
Is there any evidence of the need to extend Police Detention powers beyond 28 days?
DIMBLEBY
Any evidence of the need to extend police detention powers beyond 28 days?
Alan Duncan?
DUNCAN
No, it’s as simple as that. I have very little to say beyond that simple two letter answer. The government have given no evidence whatsoever. It’s one of those moments where they are really stuck in a rut where I think at the beginning they were trying to look tough on terrorism and saying it was absolutely necessary but the arguments I think over the last few months have been so compelling against that stand that actually the argument for liberty as against what we need to do to tackle terrorism have won and we should not be sucked into the vortex which says we need to keep in the creeping extension of the right to detain without charge, believing it is going to tackle terrorism. No evidence whatsoever has been given by the government that any case that they might have pursued so far or even hypothetically they might want to pursue could justify something like 56 days which is probably why the Home Secretary when asked whether she had a length of time in mind said Oh I don’t know.
DIMBLEBY
This may or may not be your moment of popularity David Blunkett (LAUGHTER). It’s your turn to have a go.
BLUNKETT
I fear not Jonathan. It’s obviously not my night. I don’t actually think we should be fixating on 56 days. I didn’t think we should be fixating on 90 days when we were debating it and said so. I do think there is room for a sensible debate about whether 28 days should be extended. Only 3 cases, but only 3, reached the point where they would have run out of time. We do not know and we can’t whether those cases would have actually had a more substantive charge if there had been more time to examine the evidence and the more complex the cases get the more devious the conspiracies become, the more difficult it is to actually unravel them so I would think there should be a sensible compromise between the main political parties on charge followed by continuing interrogation which I think all parties are now agreed on with some possibility of a modest extension in terms of the 28 days which takes account of what is happening with the technology and the scientific evidence and the complexity but actually in the end of course it is getting in at a very early stage and prevention
DIMBLEBY
Sorry when you say compromise do you in that process have to come up with a maximum day or are you saying there would be flexibility beyond 28 days depending on the circumstances perhaps overseen by a judge or whatever?
BLUNKETT
I think there could be there would have to be a maximum because I don’t think parliament is going to vote for flexible ad infinitum we are not in Italy or France are we? As in the case in Perugia and you know people being held for up to a year. We are in Britain and we need to be calm about this because a senior judge from France recently addressed a seminar I was at in London. Dominic Grave, your colleague Alan, was at it when he said if you think you have got a surveillant society in Britain you really need to come to France so we need to get this in perspective. I think flexibility with really rigid judicial oversight could allow us to reach a compromise but I don’t think we should actually do so in the adversarial way we are doing at the moment and we should reach a sensible agreement that it wasn’t a party political matter.
DIMBLEBY
You aren’t a Minister but obviously you had a key responsibility. Do you have – you say it shouldn’t be 90 but should be something more that 28. In the end someone has got to come down with what it should be. What would your rough days number be?
BLUNKETT
Well believe it or not, given my reputation as Home Secretary, I was in fact very cautious. I extended it from 7 to 14 days and there was very little controversy about that because I think most people accepted that 7 days was just not acceptable in the circumstances. I mean my own preference would be to try and reach an agreement around 40 days. But I am not in Government am I.
CHAKRABARTI
Think of a number, any number, double it
BLUNKETT
Well no what about 28 or 56 you can think of any number you like. I mean you can be as clever as you like Shami and we have known each other a long time now and you are always welcome back
DIMBLEBY
Shami Chakrabarti?
CHAKRABARTI
Well after John Reid you are welcome back as well. (LAUGH) Alan says no, I say Hell no and by the way there is a kind of resonance, these questions are all melting in together because one of the greatest advocates of extension is that great honourable man Sir Ian Blair. We have the longest period of pre charge detention in the western democratic world and we are the country of Magna Carta We have been talking about Pakistan. We are rightly going to lecture the Burmese Generals and the Pakistani Generals let’s make sure we do it from a very firm footing. David is right though to talk about a serious debate and consensus and I do think that we have got the prospects of that consensus David. I think you are right to talk about the possibility of post charge questioning. We have been hearing on the news this evening and this week about people who have been charged with all sorts of offences, possessing material, attending terrorist training camps and so on. We think that you should be able to charge someone with one of those offences properly and then to question them post charge as investigations develop, the complex conspiracies that your colleagues talk about, that span the globe. We think we should really give serious consideration to the use of telephone tap evidence in criminal trials to bring more suspects to justice as they do in the US and all over the western world and God forbid in a genuine nightmare scenario there is already civil contingency legislation on the statute book that would allow a temporary, a genuine temporary emergency rather than the permanent undeclared emergency that we are in danger of entering into that only hands the terrorist the ultimate victory. (APPLAUSE)
DIMBLEBY
Shirley Williams
WILLIAMS
Two things to being with. First of all Amen to what Alan Duncan said I am delighted to hear him say it. We haven’t always found the conservatives reliable on the issue of civil liberties but it’s great to have a conversion thank you very much Alan and I shall put it to the test in the coming parliamentary period. The second thing I wanted to say is to David and that is when David said and I agree with him that there ought to be a political consensus it ought to be out with party politics. I have to say that my experience has been that we started out with 24 hours, we shifted to 48 hours, we shifted to 7 days, we shifted to 14 days, we shifted to 28 days. At each point we thought this was the end of the process, no we are standing on shifting sands which keep moving further and further to the authoritarian right and at the end of the day that is not a consensus on which the parties will agree nor should they, because some of us believe very deeply that this was the country of habeus corpus, that that was one of the things that actually identified Britain and if I may say so to Gordon Brown Britishness is what is was all about. The most fundamental rights to the world that were expressed in the Magna Carta with a right to trial and then on and I hate seeing that tradition destroyed for no good reason whatsoever. It was Alan Duncan that said rightly that the police had themselves not asked in any clear way for more time that every case they had been able to deal with in 28 days and if there are one or two exceptional cases which has not yet been proven then the regulatory reform acts enables people to involve themselves in intelligence, and surveillance in bugging phones and all the rest of it but you don’t need to breach the concept of habeus corpus. We have got to dig in and we have got to dig in and defend our basic liberties and one more point about it, my final one
DIMBLEBY
Swiftly if you would
WILLIAMS
Very quickly. If the terrorist win what they want by breaking the commitment of British people and other democratic peoples to their own laws they will have won without a single bomb going off. We cannot let them win by this I think deviant way and that is what we are beginning to do by conceding the breaking up of our own liberties (APPLAUSE)
DIMBLEBY
You are itching to come back in David Blunkett very very briefly because we must move on
BLUNKETT
No it’s OK I’ll forgo it.
DIMBLEBY
OK generous and helpful thank you. We’ll go to our next please
EMMA HODDINOT
10% of young people in Sheffield are not in education, employment or training. Will raising the education age to 18 engage or alienate these young people?
DIMBLEBY
Proposals in the Queens Speech from the Government. David Blunkett?
BLUNKETT
No on their own they won’t . I think the principle of engaging young people in education and training and getting them into jobs when they have left school is very sensible and commendable and we should work strongly towards it. I think however and I saw this in a school that I went to this morning here in Sheffield that unless we start the process much earlier whatever we do, whether we threaten whether we provide carrots, whether we extend the education maintenance allowances, whether we provide the opportunity of new apprenticeships all of which is currently being proposed we won’t achieve it unless way back in their primary school and through their early teens we are actually engaging with those young people. I went in to do a project his morning with young people who are deeply damaged. 15 year olds who weren’t really able to say more than a few words, whose life had been destroyed by their experiences and trying to punish or cajodle or push them into education or training would be meaningless without the intensive work that is going on so I think from the age 12 and 13 that we need to look at why those young people have copped out of school, why they truant , why they find the traditional education system unacceptable and we have to perhaps get them a day a week into work, perhaps a day a week into college, we need to get them out of the traditional classroom and if we are going to make it work for 16 and 17 year olds we need to offer them the change of volunteering and to engage with projects which have nothing to do with traditional college courses or traditional work patterns and unless we do that in 2013 we will be back where we started from. (APPLAUSE)
DIMBLEBY
Does that mean the present proposition which would be a compulsory obligation and it would be an offence not to stay on from 16 to 18 only has your sympathy at the point when it can be demonstrated that all those earlier things are in place.
BLUNKETT
Well I think if… I agree with everything that is being proposed including the right to education and training which was originally in the 1945 Act and never implemented. I am against the idea might as well be clear about it of suggesting that deeply damaged young men and women could somehow be fined and it would make them go into education or training. I think it is cloud cuckoo land (APPLAUSE)
DIMBLEBY
That will undoubtedly be heard by those who follow these things closely or even not quite so closely. Shami Chakrabarti?
CHAKRABARTI
I want to say this once in my life, ladies and gentlemen, and you are my witnesses. David Blunkett is completely right (APPLAUSE) No, more seriously he is right that the age by itself the compulsory age, 16/18, doesn’t by itself do the trick it is neither repressive or reformative by itself You know I am 38 I quite fancy going back to compulsory education for another 10 years but no one is offering it to me. The question is how we engage young people and give them something that they want rather than something that they are told they must have. I once met a wonderful woman who was the UN’s special raconteur on children and she said to me you in England have a funny attitude to children. I said oh yes, I felt the hackles rising, I felt patriotic for a moment She said in other countries when kids don’t turn up for school they say what is wrong with the school in England you say what is wrong with the child.
DIMBLEBY
Shirley Williams?
WILLIAMS
Let me say really quickly yeh I will carry my crumpled bouquet up to David as well. I think he gave a very good answer on that and I would only add two other things. I would hate to be a teacher in a 17 to 18 year old class if all the kids there were forced to be in the classroom I can’t imagine anything more ….. (APPLAUSE) Secondly I agree with David the concept of the right to 2 years education between 16 to 18 is a good one but the youngsters must be free to choose whether they work in that period under proper surveillance, whether they stay in school, whether they train for an apprenticeship or whether as David rightly says they volunteer or work in other settings. The key things is that that two years should be able to be used over a long period of time because a lot of youngsters at 16 are basically school bored, school tired, hell to teach, hell to control but once they get married or find a partner it is amazing how many young men and women want to go back to education. Build on that.
DIMBLEBY
Thank you. (APPLAUSE) Alan Duncan?
DUNCAN
Put simply, I think this is a flawed attempt to address some serious failings of our educational system. It is difficult to keep a lot of kids at school under the age of 16 let alone over and I think that as soon as you introduce the element of compulsion which the government is trying to do you risk losing the whole battle wanting kids of this age to be successful and learn more. I think this ill conceived and I think the government has not really discussed it enough and tried to bring everyone with them. It’s a pity because it is such a serious issue.
DIMBLEBY
Thank you our next
HUGH OSBORNE
Which is going to cost more ID cards or the Olympic Games? And which is going to be most worth the money?
DIMBLEBY
Shirley Williams
WILLIAMS
They are probably both not going to be worth it. But let me say a word about the ID cards quickly. I think the ID cards are much more serious than people realize and I will say two words about that. One is the cost the LSE reckoned it be about 19 billion pounds, the government firmly says 5.6 billion pounds and don’t forget it started at 500 million pounds so it was already 10 times as much. We have now got Gordon Brown saying he is going to review the whole of the automatic system which sounds to me like a useful door being open in case he decides to parachute out before very long. But to my mind the absolutely key thing and I can’t stress it enough is the level data that the government proposes to collect under the ID bill and the amount that it is going to extend to for eg not only doctors and clinical and genetic and retail and every other kind of control and data adds up in my view to a big brother scheme of a most terrifying kind and I will add one other thought to that which I find mind boggling and that is because it is so expensive the government has proposed it will sell, sell our data to commercial interests who will then be able to track down every dam thing that you do from dawn until dusk. You won’t be able to escape from it because the ID card that will be checked against your credit card will be a record of exactly where you have been, what you have done who you have talked to and I think it is a terrifying scheme and I am another person who is prepared to say I wouldn’t co-operate with it in any way at all. (APPLAUSE)
DIMBLEBY
When you say that, the two candidates to lead your party have both said they won’t
co operate. Nick Clegg has said that he would not provide information to the authorities if asked to give it. And he said that in effect he would court jail. Would you do that as well?
WILLIAMS
Of course because (APPLAUSE) sometimes no you are never justified in a democracy in using force and violence to overcome the law but you are absolutely justified in using non violence, civil methods to say I cannot
DUNCAN
Even when you are a law maker?
This is absurd, this is outrageous
WILLIAMS
It is not absurd, nor outrageous
DUNCAN
If you are a member of the parliamentary system
WILLIAMS
What happened with the poll tax? The pensioners in the poll tax refused to pay the poll tax, the people who decided to free the slaves refused to accept the law about slavery
DUNCAN
Shirley Williams you have been in Parliament and are in the House of Lords you are part of our legislature
DIMBLEBY
Hold on just a second Alan Duncan and very briefly Shirley
WILLIAMS
Quite simply the ID card will undermine individual liberty so seriously that one is entitled to say one won’t cooperate with and I have not suggested I use violence. I am suggesting I would not co operate and nor will I
DIMBLEBY
And prison so be it …
WILLIAMS
So be it. I am not suggesting any act of violence but you have got to not co operate with something as bad as this.
DIMBLEBY
Can I just …….Do you believe that Nick Clegg is going to emerge and do you want him to emerge and there is much debate about this about where you are going to stand and when
WILLIAMS
Oh yes I am supporting Nick Clegg I made that plain but I have got great respect for Chris Hughes as well.
DUNCAN
This is a very very sad moment actually in this programme. We have just been talking about Pakistan and the rule of law. The fact that lawyers are opposing Musharraf and about the importance about some kind of rule of law in any sane state now there are lots of things that have happened in Parliament that I don’t agree with. I’m a legislator, I’m elected. If I want to stand up and say everything that Parliament that I don’t like I am entitled to break the law about I think that would be wrong and we have got two leaders for the Liberal Democrat Party saying that they don’t care what Parliament does if they put this through they would then think that they are entitled to break the law. Neither is fit to be leader of a parliamentary party at all (APPLAUSE AND BOOS)
WILLIAMS
What do you think happened in Pakistan?
DIMBLEBY
Hang on all four of you perhaps I can explain we are very close to the end so you can all be momentarily silent and then I will introduce David Blunkett quickly on this please. I am sorry we haven’t got longer
BLUNKETT
Firstly the scheme that Shirley has outlined is not the scheme that is being put forward. There is no suggestion of having all these records sold or having medical information on or cross referencing with your credit card. The 500 million a year was 500 million a year which over 10 years was 5 billion and it is 5 billion over 10 years because it is attached to the payment of the biometric passport and that is £70 for the passport and it is £30 for the clean database which is crucial to make it work which is £100 which people will pay and you can’t go to jail and you can lose the right to a passport but you can’t go to jail.
DIMBLEBY
In the interests of justice and democracy and freedom of speech Shami Chakrabarti before we end the programme has to come in Shami
CHAKRABARTI
Tosh, Alan really sorry to say so but tosh the Supreme Court Justices in Pakistan are breaching a new emergency ordinance because they put personal ethics and moral values above immoral law (APPLAUSE) no you have had your turn, you have had your turn. Who needs me when you have got Shirley Williams that’s all I can say, I want to go back to compulsory education. ID cards and the Olympic Games will both be costly but at least my little boy will have some fun at the Olympic Games. The ID cards a re like pre charge detention think of a number, any number, double it, triple it and on it goes. It will be costly to our purses but equally it will be costly to our privacy and goodness me our race relations tin this country (APPLAUSE)
DIMBLEBY
And there I am afraid unhappily we have come to the end of this very important debate. I wish we could go on but that is all we have got time for from here with the Sheffield International Film Festival. Goodbye.
Transcript: Any Questions? 9th November 2007
PRESENTER: JONATHAN DIMBLEBY
PANELLISTS: Rt Hon DAVID BLUNKETT MP: former Home Secretary
BARONESS SHIRLEY WILLIAMS: Liberal Democrat Peer
SHAMI CHAKRABARTI: Director of Liberty
ALAN DUNCAN MP: Shadow Secretary for Business Enterprise and Regulatory Reform
From: The Sheffield International Documentary Festival in Sheffield
DIMBLEBY
Welcome to Sheffield where we are in the centre of the city as the guests of the Sheffield International Documentary Festival. This is the UK’s premier festival of its kind and brings together filmmakers from all over the world to view the best, to discuss, debate, to argue and to make as many deals as they can in an intensive week of creativity. On our panel the Sheffield boy who grew up to be an MP and this week celebrates 20 years in the House of Commons. He has been Education Secretary but perhaps more notably and slightly more controversially Home Secretary as well. Now on the back benches David Blunkett chairs the yellow school bus commission. What is that in a sentence?
DAVID BLUNKETT
It’s about security for children, safety and reducing the school run in the morning which will be a great thing for all of us.
DIMBLEBY
Thank you. Shirley Williams was one of Mr Blunkett’s predecessors as the Labour Education Secretary who carried through the comprehensive revolution then she defected to become a star in the Liberal Democrat firmament as their Leader in the Lords. She was asked to tiptoe into Gordon Brown’s big tent by advising him on the global threat from nuclear proliferation. Did you ever accept the invitation?
SHIRLEY WILLIAMS
Yes, on the basis that I was independent of the government, not responsible for anything it did and free to criticise.
DIMBLEBY
Shami Chakrabarti used to work in the Home Office where as a Barrister she advised the Ministers for both main parties. In 2001 she left to join the Human Rights Group Liberty where she has been Director for the last four years. Alan Duncan was a Shadow Minister when Michael Howard was leader of the party and in 2005 had a tilt at the leadership himself before withdrawing from the contest to endorse David Cameron whom he now serves in the role as Shadow Secretary for Business Enterprise and Regulatory Reform. It’s a horrible mouthful. I know it’s not your responsibility isn’t it.
ALAN DUNCAN
Yes stupid name they should never have given it and we’ll change that pretty much on the first day.
BLUNKETT
Well it will be the only thing you will ever do.
(LAUGHTER)
DIMBLEBY
Thank you. He’s the 4th member of our panel. (APPLAUSE)
Our first question please.
DAVID LAGSTINGS
Is it time the West walked away from Musharraff?
DIMBLEBY
Shami Chakrabarti?
CHAKRABARTI
Time or high time? Um what is going on in Pakistan today is absolutely tragic, astonishing, shameful. We have to acknowledge our part in it before we can look forward to the future. A lot of focus has been placed on the importance of holding elections and elections, as we know, are critical in a democracy but let’s be clear that a democracy does not constitute having elections alone. The Chief Justice of Pakistan is currently under house arrest. OtherJustices of the Supreme Court of Pakistan have been corrected in the words of General Musharraf the Dictator. The Chair of the Pakistani Human Rights Commission, the equivalent of Trevor Phillips is under a 90 day control order, under house arrest. The free media has been shut down. I think the lesson to be learnt is that there is no such thing as your favourite dictator or your pet dictator. This is worthy of a Disney cartoon. One of our pet dictators is missing. We have made some mistakes but looking forward General Musharraf has got to be told not just to hold elections but to release the judges of the Supreme Court. One in 4 lawyers has been arrested. You know David and I , David and I were not always the best of friends when he was Home Secretary and I was in my job but let me tell you something while us Human Rights Lawyers and judges sometimes irritated him he never blooming well arrested us. That’s the difference (APPLAUSE) that’s the difference between a free society and a dictatorship. (APPLAUSE)
DIMBLEBY
Alan Duncan?
DUNCAN
I don’t follow Pakistan very well but I was at university with Benazir Bhutto. I have known her for 31 years and in fact have been in contact with her today. I also know the other side because Chokar Sidiz the Prime Minister was effectively the person doing trade finance when I was selling the country oil when it was stuck after the first invasion after the invasion of Kuwait. Look Pakistan is pivotal to global peace and in difficult circumstances like this things are not just black and white. I think Mosharraf has overplayed his hand. I think he is on the way out but it’s not a simple case of black and white because what we have to see is a transition from military dictatorship to democracy in a way that does not cause absolutely horrid civil strife and what is more the thing about Pakistan is that it’s always a delicate balance between the need for democracy and the order that comes from the military and in the end the military have got their finger on the nuclear button. So I want to see Benizir Bhutto or someone elected Prime Minister and I want to make sure that that country does not decay into chaos.
DIMBLEBY
Is there any more in your judgement that the West can do?
DUNCAN
Well I think that we have to keep up pressure. I mean you know America says that is wants democracy but it doesn’t always like democracy when it doesn’t get the right result and this is one country in which we have to have democracy but we also have to accept the difficult circumstances in which a democratically elected Prime Minister has to be able to work with the military because that is the way that country is at the moment. One day I hope it won’t be so we have to keep up pressure. I think that Benazir Bhutto is being amazingly brave. I think that for General Musharraf to call martial law has made a colossal error. It has destroyed the credibility, what credibility he had, and I think this means he ain’t going to survive. But let me just give you one quick scenario. What happens if Benazir or Mosharraf come in in a fantastic democratic victory and then it all somehow decays with civil strife. Al Qaeda come and sort of undermine Pakistan and you get another military coup. Where are we then? Let’s really put our common sense hat on here and realize that this is a very very difficult set of circumstances
DIMBLEBY
Under those circumstances….that means you don’t, as it were, in terms of the question you don’t walk away from Musharraf?
DUNCAN
I don’t think you should just walk away from Musharraf, condemn him, potentially provoke the army and condemn that country into ungovernable civil strife. Basically Pakistan is an extremely difficult country to govern. It is almost ungovernable and we need to be responsible to make sure it is governable and that it can be responsible against those forces that would blow us up and also in a way that can bring prosperity and stability to the people of Pakistan.
DIMBLEBY
Shirley Williams?
WILLIAMS
I think, first of all I think the good news is that there has been incredible courage shown by the judges, the lawyers, indeed the Human Rights spokesman in Pakistan. One really has to pay tribute to that. We have seen country after country where democracy has been undermined and has finally crumbled and where most people have simply walked away and pretended that they couldn’t see what has been going on. I think it is really hugely to the credit of this whole section of Pakistani society that they have taken huge risks, they have faced the military, they’ve committed themselves to trying to building democracy in Pakistan. Now the West made one huge mistake, and the huge mistake was to put everything onto this relationship with Musharraf. And in the end Musharraf was a General. He was dubiously elected and he knew that the Supreme Court was about to say that he hadn’t been properly elected because he knew the election hadn’t been properly conducted and yet we rested the whole of the weight of our bastions in the whole part of Asia on this one man. We did not support or build up, I don’t believe, ordinary Pakistanis in the way that we needed to do and it is important that the commonwealth is now coming out very strongly and saying there has to be an election soon. There has to be a return to the rule of law and as Shami was suggesting there has to be the release of all the people who have been arrested. But we shouldn’t kid ourselves. We might buy time that way but we then have to come in with much greater support to the civil society in Pakistan and we have to use the Commonwealth to help us do that because we simply cannot rely on a very small number of people effectively ordering the rest of Pakistan what to do. It is a very dangerous situation, we haven’t got a lot of time. My own view is that it’s more dangerous than anything that has been offered to us by Iran or North Korea and we had better do something as soon as we possibly can to strengthen civil society in that country.
DIMBLEBY
When you say more dangerous you mean because of the combination of radicalism of a religious kind and nuclear weapons.
WILLIAMS
And nuclear weapons and the fact that really the security of Pakistan rests heavily on the relationship between the army and the civil society and that relationship is becoming more and more strained literally day by day.
DIMBLEBY
David Blunkett?
BLUNKETT
Well I agree with the last point that Shirley has made I don’t have the connections that Alan obviously has in terms of Pakistan although I have many residents and citizens in the constituency who originated from Pakistan. I have met Musharraf, I had the privilege of spending an evening with him. A privilege because it is a terrible job being the President of Pakistan, facing the border country, his own country actually holding if not Bin Laden himself certainly the representative and followers of Bin Laden inside the Pakistani country on the border with Afghanistan and there aren’t simple, it is quite right to say there aren’t black and white answers here, but I think to sort of suggest that somehow if only he went and democracy flourished we’d be able to deal with the terrorists on the border and inside Afghanistan is naivety at its most gross.
DIMBLEBY
So you would not walk away from Musharraf. You would try to persuade him
BLUNKETT
I would, well I think the US and the UK have played a signal role today in terms of the last 24 hours of Benazir Bhutto being released from detention which was an outrage and of course we should bring pressure to bear to restore the independent judiciary and to ensure there are elections during the course of January. Of course we should but somehow the idea that somehow overturning Musharraf would help us and be a great move forward is as naïve as the people who believe that the elections that took place a few years ago in Algeria where there is an Islamist regime about to be elected was a great step forward for democracy were frankly very stupid and we don’t live in a world where simply imposing our norms on other people actually solves the world’s problems
DIMBLEBY
Shami Chakrabarti?
CHAKRABARTI
David fine.. you know you didn’t arrest me, you called me stupid and naïve but it’s better than arresting me OK….
BLUNKETT
I agree with that because we live in a democracy, an open democracy and we don’t have on our borders people who are prepared to destroy everything we stand for
CHAKRABARTI
But David what has General Mosharaf achieved in the fight against terrorism? What has General Mosharaf achieved in closing down the Madras’s and the Islamist radicalism that is poisoning us as much in Britain as it is around the world. You cannot have your pet dictator. What are we saying to the world about our entry in the competition of ideas? (APPLAUSE)
BLUNKETT
But, you see the problem is Shami you entirely right he has failed but the alternatives at each point of his failure have been even worse that is the point I am trying to make to you not that what he is doing or what he has done is anything I would condone but in the circumstances he faces and with the opponents he has faced, the people on the streets wanting him out
CHAKRABARTI
OK David what abut the components of democracy You say it is good that Benazir Bhutto is released, a politican is released. Do you agree with me that the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Pakistan must be released immediately?
BLUNKETT
Yes I do actually agree with that yes.
WILLIAMS
Shami is right about all that but we shouldn’t kid ourselves that unless we bring far more support behind public democracy in Pakistan that we can do more than hold the situation for a few months. We have to see this as an emergency and it is an emergency that we have got to build up a real civic support
DIMBLEBY
And we could stay with that but we have a lot more so we must move on to our next question please.
ROSIE SOUTHWICK
Should Sir Ian Blair be forced to resign?
DIMBLEBY
Shirley Williams?
WILLIAMS
Yes he should. Now I say that very reluctantly because as a Chief Police Officer in London he has done several very good things. He has been much more conscious of racial discrimination than most other Heads of the Met in recent years. He has done a great deal to support neighbourhood policing although I must say that it would be nice if neighbourhood policemen actually saw themselves as responsible for saving drowning kids and to stop people beating up old gentlemen. It seems extraordinary that they can stand to one side and watch it happen. Nevertheless Ian Blair has tried his best to get community policemen back on the beat. Number 3 he has actually set up some very interesting innovations like the attempt to go back and look at unsolved murders and it looks like we might be close to solving the awful murder of Stephen Lawrence because of the work that has been done by new technology. The trouble is that at the end of all that he has I think committed one unforgiveable offence and that was to try to block the investigation of the independent police commission into the killing of the innocent civilian man Mr de Menezes and you cannot do that. You have to accept that in a democracy you have got oversight and the oversight is independent and you must not try to fiddle it and there is some evidence that the police did try to fiddle it and that is the one thing that you can’t forgive so I say with some sorrow that Mr Blair has to go. (APPLAUSE)
DIMBLEBY
David Blunkett?
BLUNKETT
Well I think Sir Ian Blair himself would accept that two years ago when the terrible tragedy took place he was wrong in terms of equivocating and I think he has made that clear as well.
DIMBLEBY
In terms of the IPCC?
BLUNKETT
Yes which has been held over for 18 months by the way while the Health and Safety Executive took the case which was reported last week. We have got an issue here which is about how when there is a tragedy we have to deal with the aftermath and make sure it doesn’t happen again without actually dealing with an individual and next April we bring in the corporate manslaughter laws which in these circumstances wouldn’t apply to the police but in principle does. Namely are you looking to put the institution right or are you looking for a victim? I am partly affected by emotions. I may as well admit the idea. I hate the idea of the media universally as a pack going for someone’s head. I really dislike. I had a dose of it myself (APPLAUSE) and it has been deeply unedifying over the last 10 days to see that. Would it do any good and who would benefit if the man who has learnt the most from what has happened, two years on actually now resigned, after those two years, rather than putting right the mistakes that were made and actually dealing with and particularly I have to say with the Head of counter intelligence Peter Clark, actually stepping down as well because he is retiring, actually for the Head of the Met to go at the same time.
DIMBLEBY
On the point that you and Shirley Williams both dealt with which was his attempt to stop the investigation by the IPCC the Chairman Nick Hardwick holds Sir Ian personally responsible for I quote here ”much of the avoidable difficulty the Stockwell incident has caused the Metropolitan Police arose from the delay in referral”. Does that not have a significant impact in itself on public confidence which is so crucial?
BLUNKETT
Well I appointed Nick Hardwick and I set up when I was Home Secretary the Independent Police Complaints Commission so I am hardly going to condemn them for their condemnation but the question that was put to us was actually would it be beneficial if Sir Ian Blair went and I am answering the question. I don’t think it would. It would satisfy a frenzy. We had Michael Mansfield, the lawyer today, suggesting it was some kind of conspiracy that involved the Daily Mail who had been calling for Ian Blair’s resignation almost daily actually colluding with the Met Police in terms of the diversion ie the issues around Stephen Lawrence. I think the world is losing it a bit. I mean the idea that the Daily Mail and the Met would collude to put out a story that was diversionary so that Ian Blair could get off the hook is frankly you know derisory
SHOUT FROM AUDIENCE Far fetched?
DIMBLEBY
Shami Chakrabarti?
BLUNKETT
Well that might not well be in the world we live but it ought to be far fetched.
CHAKRABARTI
David I spoke to Doreen Lawrence this afternoon because I heard what was being said about these new revelations about the Lawrence case and Doreen said to me that she was anxious and she didn’t know just as I didn’t know the genesis of these stories but she thought it would be really wrong indeed if anybody had briefed the papers for any dubious reason and frankly whether the timing was convenient or not the Yard should not be briefing the police at all about any ongoing investigation that might result in a fair trial (APPLAUSE) As for Sir Ian this debate about Sir Ian has become very political, very party political, but do you know what that is partly his fault. People say that Ian Blair is the progressive copper, he is the left wing copper who cares about race equality well goodness me I think in 2007 we can all unite in this country and say we all care about race equality and Ian Blair is not the only copper who cares about race equality
DIMBLEBY
Would it make a difference? To cut to the chase on this would it make a beneficial difference do you believe if he went?
CHAKRABARTI
Yes I do actually because it is about trust and confidence and honour and accountability and one of the reasons that Sir Ian is such a controversial figure is that he has been party political. He has campaigned for ID cards during the last election campaign, he campaigned for the 90 day pre charge detention. Whether he believed in those policies or not it is not appropriate, this is not Pakistan. Our politicians do not wear uniforms here… sorry just to finish As for the De Menezes case itself, I think that even before today when we looked at the corporate failure that was shown in this rather strange Health and Safety, honestly Health and Safety prosecution that delayed by the way the publication of the report that we should have seen two and a half years ago, because of Health and Safety, when nobody was going to go to prison and there was a fine that the tax payer pays. I think the IPCC needs to answer some questions about why it delayed the publication of its report. When nobody individually is to blame but the organization is to blame the person at the top, out of honour, out of dignity, out of public trust in confidence takes the wrap and if that is not good enough he hindered the investigation, he personally hindered the investigation. He is supposed to defend the rule of law not undermine it. (APPLAUSE)
DIMBLEBY
Alan Duncan
DUNCAN
I have actually found the last two years rather humiliating for Britain and I think degrading for the Metropolitan Police and confidence in both needs to be restored. This all started with the shooting of an innocent man. Now I can actually accept that there were circumstances in which that shooting happened and that people are not to blame but it is what followed that is inexcusable. As Shami and Shirley have said for the Chief of the Met to try and block what should be the proper path into investigating what went wrong I think is inexcusable and to add to that I mean really the squalidness of having the Health and Safety Executive investigate the Metropolitan Police in the middle of a major exercise against a terrorist threat makes us look absurd Health and Safety is not the right forum in which the conduct of the police at a moment like this should be studied and for Ian Blair to block the proper study of what went on is I think grounds for his resignation. (APPLAUSE)
DIMBLEBY
David Blunkett
BLUNKETT
It tragically didn’t start with the shooting. It started with 52 people being killed on July 7th it started with two weeks later a failed, failed attack…..
SHOUT FROM AUDIENCE It started in Iran
BLUNKETT
…. On 21st July and as we have heard over the last 24 hours the admission of one of those involved in it that he was engaged in trying to blow up another group of people on the day after the 21st July this incident occurred. There were some terrible decisions taken and a terrible mess in terms of communication but I can’t see any reason whatsoever two years later, other than for those who are against our country and are seeking to destroy our lives that we should take out the head of the Metropolitan Police as a way of
WILLIAMS
Oh David
DIMBLEBY
But do you think it was right David for them to try and block the IPCC enquiry (TALKING OVER EACH OTHER)
BLUNKETT
No I don’t think it was right for him to do so. I am not suggesting that it was. It would not make an H’aproth of difference other than to undermine the learning of those lessons and the implementation…
DIMBLEBY
You are implying that Shirley Williams amongst others have got something against this country
BLUNKETT
I didn’t suggest anything of the sort
DIMBLEBY
Well I may have misunderstood but she misunderstood as well but she certainly got very cross at that moment
WILLIAMS
As I understand it the proudest achievements of this country are precisely the accountability of people before the law without fear or favour. Ian Blair is part of that accountability. He tried to get round the mechanisms that exist to make it honest and I think that that brought upon us a very shameful episode and I don’t believe it is wise or sensible of David to start talking about undermining the values of this country when they are in fact represented by precisely that concept of accountability. (APPLAUSE)
BLUNKETT
I was talking about, I was trying to address and it‘s difficult to do so now the 22 and 23 July two years ago and the circumstances in which people were making decisions and quite clearly a number of people made the wrong decision
CHAKRABARTI
You are quite right David and nobody is blaming the officers on the ground but why did the Met brief the newspapers about this man’s immigration status, about what he did or didn’t have in his blood stream and that he had a puffa jacket on. That was unnecessary (APPLAUSE) and it was wrong
DIMBLEBY
Yet again we must
BLUNKETT
I am looking forward to you moving on because I would like a bit of popularity by the end of the evening.
DIMBLEBY
Well we will see what happens you don’t know what the questions are and nor do the rest of the panel but you may or may not we will see. I just want to ask our audience here as everyone says it is a matter of public confidence, is the overwhelming issue. Who in this audience thinks he should go? Would you put your hands up? Who in this audience thinks he should stay? Well in this audience which is not scientifically selected the overwhelming majority thinks he should go. Last week in the programme incidentally elsewhere the balance was roughly even with a slight majority in favour of him staying. We’ll move on with a reminder of the Any Answers number it is 08700 100 444 and the email address any.answers@bbc.co.uk that is after the Saturday edition of Any Questions? Our next please
LAWRENCE CRAIG
Is there any evidence of the need to extend Police Detention powers beyond 28 days?
DIMBLEBY
Any evidence of the need to extend police detention powers beyond 28 days?
Alan Duncan?
DUNCAN
No, it’s as simple as that. I have very little to say beyond that simple two letter answer. The government have given no evidence whatsoever. It’s one of those moments where they are really stuck in a rut where I think at the beginning they were trying to look tough on terrorism and saying it was absolutely necessary but the arguments I think over the last few months have been so compelling against that stand that actually the argument for liberty as against what we need to do to tackle terrorism have won and we should not be sucked into the vortex which says we need to keep in the creeping extension of the right to detain without charge, believing it is going to tackle terrorism. No evidence whatsoever has been given by the government that any case that they might have pursued so far or even hypothetically they might want to pursue could justify something like 56 days which is probably why the Home Secretary when asked whether she had a length of time in mind said Oh I don’t know.
DIMBLEBY
This may or may not be your moment of popularity David Blunkett (LAUGHTER). It’s your turn to have a go.
BLUNKETT
I fear not Jonathan. It’s obviously not my night. I don’t actually think we should be fixating on 56 days. I didn’t think we should be fixating on 90 days when we were debating it and said so. I do think there is room for a sensible debate about whether 28 days should be extended. Only 3 cases, but only 3, reached the point where they would have run out of time. We do not know and we can’t whether those cases would have actually had a more substantive charge if there had been more time to examine the evidence and the more complex the cases get the more devious the conspiracies become, the more difficult it is to actually unravel them so I would think there should be a sensible compromise between the main political parties on charge followed by continuing interrogation which I think all parties are now agreed on with some possibility of a modest extension in terms of the 28 days which takes account of what is happening with the technology and the scientific evidence and the complexity but actually in the end of course it is getting in at a very early stage and prevention
DIMBLEBY
Sorry when you say compromise do you in that process have to come up with a maximum day or are you saying there would be flexibility beyond 28 days depending on the circumstances perhaps overseen by a judge or whatever?
BLUNKETT
I think there could be there would have to be a maximum because I don’t think parliament is going to vote for flexible ad infinitum we are not in Italy or France are we? As in the case in Perugia and you know people being held for up to a year. We are in Britain and we need to be calm about this because a senior judge from France recently addressed a seminar I was at in London. Dominic Grave, your colleague Alan, was at it when he said if you think you have got a surveillant society in Britain you really need to come to France so we need to get this in perspective. I think flexibility with really rigid judicial oversight could allow us to reach a compromise but I don’t think we should actually do so in the adversarial way we are doing at the moment and we should reach a sensible agreement that it wasn’t a party political matter.
DIMBLEBY
You aren’t a Minister but obviously you had a key responsibility. Do you have – you say it shouldn’t be 90 but should be something more that 28. In the end someone has got to come down with what it should be. What would your rough days number be?
BLUNKETT
Well believe it or not, given my reputation as Home Secretary, I was in fact very cautious. I extended it from 7 to 14 days and there was very little controversy about that because I think most people accepted that 7 days was just not acceptable in the circumstances. I mean my own preference would be to try and reach an agreement around 40 days. But I am not in Government am I.
CHAKRABARTI
Think of a number, any number, double it
BLUNKETT
Well no what about 28 or 56 you can think of any number you like. I mean you can be as clever as you like Shami and we have known each other a long time now and you are always welcome back
DIMBLEBY
Shami Chakrabarti?
CHAKRABARTI
Well after John Reid you are welcome back as well. (LAUGH) Alan says no, I say Hell no and by the way there is a kind of resonance, these questions are all melting in together because one of the greatest advocates of extension is that great honourable man Sir Ian Blair. We have the longest period of pre charge detention in the western democratic world and we are the country of Magna Carta We have been talking about Pakistan. We are rightly going to lecture the Burmese Generals and the Pakistani Generals let’s make sure we do it from a very firm footing. David is right though to talk about a serious debate and consensus and I do think that we have got the prospects of that consensus David. I think you are right to talk about the possibility of post charge questioning. We have been hearing on the news this evening and this week about people who have been charged with all sorts of offences, possessing material, attending terrorist training camps and so on. We think that you should be able to charge someone with one of those offences properly and then to question them post charge as investigations develop, the complex conspiracies that your colleagues talk about, that span the globe. We think we should really give serious consideration to the use of telephone tap evidence in criminal trials to bring more suspects to justice as they do in the US and all over the western world and God forbid in a genuine nightmare scenario there is already civil contingency legislation on the statute book that would allow a temporary, a genuine temporary emergency rather than the permanent undeclared emergency that we are in danger of entering into that only hands the terrorist the ultimate victory. (APPLAUSE)
DIMBLEBY
Shirley Williams
WILLIAMS
Two things to being with. First of all Amen to what Alan Duncan said I am delighted to hear him say it. We haven’t always found the conservatives reliable on the issue of civil liberties but it’s great to have a conversion thank you very much Alan and I shall put it to the test in the coming parliamentary period. The second thing I wanted to say is to David and that is when David said and I agree with him that there ought to be a political consensus it ought to be out with party politics. I have to say that my experience has been that we started out with 24 hours, we shifted to 48 hours, we shifted to 7 days, we shifted to 14 days, we shifted to 28 days. At each point we thought this was the end of the process, no we are standing on shifting sands which keep moving further and further to the authoritarian right and at the end of the day that is not a consensus on which the parties will agree nor should they, because some of us believe very deeply that this was the country of habeus corpus, that that was one of the things that actually identified Britain and if I may say so to Gordon Brown Britishness is what is was all about. The most fundamental rights to the world that were expressed in the Magna Carta with a right to trial and then on and I hate seeing that tradition destroyed for no good reason whatsoever. It was Alan Duncan that said rightly that the police had themselves not asked in any clear way for more time that every case they had been able to deal with in 28 days and if there are one or two exceptional cases which has not yet been proven then the regulatory reform acts enables people to involve themselves in intelligence, and surveillance in bugging phones and all the rest of it but you don’t need to breach the concept of habeus corpus. We have got to dig in and we have got to dig in and defend our basic liberties and one more point about it, my final one
DIMBLEBY
Swiftly if you would
WILLIAMS
Very quickly. If the terrorist win what they want by breaking the commitment of British people and other democratic peoples to their own laws they will have won without a single bomb going off. We cannot let them win by this I think deviant way and that is what we are beginning to do by conceding the breaking up of our own liberties (APPLAUSE)
DIMBLEBY
You are itching to come back in David Blunkett very very briefly because we must move on
BLUNKETT
No it’s OK I’ll forgo it.
DIMBLEBY
OK generous and helpful thank you. We’ll go to our next please
EMMA HODDINOT
10% of young people in Sheffield are not in education, employment or training. Will raising the education age to 18 engage or alienate these young people?
DIMBLEBY
Proposals in the Queens Speech from the Government. David Blunkett?
BLUNKETT
No on their own they won’t . I think the principle of engaging young people in education and training and getting them into jobs when they have left school is very sensible and commendable and we should work strongly towards it. I think however and I saw this in a school that I went to this morning here in Sheffield that unless we start the process much earlier whatever we do, whether we threaten whether we provide carrots, whether we extend the education maintenance allowances, whether we provide the opportunity of new apprenticeships all of which is currently being proposed we won’t achieve it unless way back in their primary school and through their early teens we are actually engaging with those young people. I went in to do a project his morning with young people who are deeply damaged. 15 year olds who weren’t really able to say more than a few words, whose life had been destroyed by their experiences and trying to punish or cajodle or push them into education or training would be meaningless without the intensive work that is going on so I think from the age 12 and 13 that we need to look at why those young people have copped out of school, why they truant , why they find the traditional education system unacceptable and we have to perhaps get them a day a week into work, perhaps a day a week into college, we need to get them out of the traditional classroom and if we are going to make it work for 16 and 17 year olds we need to offer them the change of volunteering and to engage with projects which have nothing to do with traditional college courses or traditional work patterns and unless we do that in 2013 we will be back where we started from. (APPLAUSE)
DIMBLEBY
Does that mean the present proposition which would be a compulsory obligation and it would be an offence not to stay on from 16 to 18 only has your sympathy at the point when it can be demonstrated that all those earlier things are in place.
BLUNKETT
Well I think if… I agree with everything that is being proposed including the right to education and training which was originally in the 1945 Act and never implemented. I am against the idea might as well be clear about it of suggesting that deeply damaged young men and women could somehow be fined and it would make them go into education or training. I think it is cloud cuckoo land (APPLAUSE)
DIMBLEBY
That will undoubtedly be heard by those who follow these things closely or even not quite so closely. Shami Chakrabarti?
CHAKRABARTI
I want to say this once in my life, ladies and gentlemen, and you are my witnesses. David Blunkett is completely right (APPLAUSE) No, more seriously he is right that the age by itself the compulsory age, 16/18, doesn’t by itself do the trick it is neither repressive or reformative by itself You know I am 38 I quite fancy going back to compulsory education for another 10 years but no one is offering it to me. The question is how we engage young people and give them something that they want rather than something that they are told they must have. I once met a wonderful woman who was the UN’s special raconteur on children and she said to me you in England have a funny attitude to children. I said oh yes, I felt the hackles rising, I felt patriotic for a moment She said in other countries when kids don’t turn up for school they say what is wrong with the school in England you say what is wrong with the child.
DIMBLEBY
Shirley Williams?
WILLIAMS
Let me say really quickly yeh I will carry my crumpled bouquet up to David as well. I think he gave a very good answer on that and I would only add two other things. I would hate to be a teacher in a 17 to 18 year old class if all the kids there were forced to be in the classroom I can’t imagine anything more ….. (APPLAUSE) Secondly I agree with David the concept of the right to 2 years education between 16 to 18 is a good one but the youngsters must be free to choose whether they work in that period under proper surveillance, whether they stay in school, whether they train for an apprenticeship or whether as David rightly says they volunteer or work in other settings. The key things is that that two years should be able to be used over a long period of time because a lot of youngsters at 16 are basically school bored, school tired, hell to teach, hell to control but once they get married or find a partner it is amazing how many young men and women want to go back to education. Build on that.
DIMBLEBY
Thank you. (APPLAUSE) Alan Duncan?
DUNCAN
Put simply, I think this is a flawed attempt to address some serious failings of our educational system. It is difficult to keep a lot of kids at school under the age of 16 let alone over and I think that as soon as you introduce the element of compulsion which the government is trying to do you risk losing the whole battle wanting kids of this age to be successful and learn more. I think this ill conceived and I think the government has not really discussed it enough and tried to bring everyone with them. It’s a pity because it is such a serious issue.
DIMBLEBY
Thank you our next
HUGH OSBORNE
Which is going to cost more ID cards or the Olympic Games? And which is going to be most worth the money?
DIMBLEBY
Shirley Williams
WILLIAMS
They are probably both not going to be worth it. But let me say a word about the ID cards quickly. I think the ID cards are much more serious than people realize and I will say two words about that. One is the cost the LSE reckoned it be about 19 billion pounds, the government firmly says 5.6 billion pounds and don’t forget it started at 500 million pounds so it was already 10 times as much. We have now got Gordon Brown saying he is going to review the whole of the automatic system which sounds to me like a useful door being open in case he decides to parachute out before very long. But to my mind the absolutely key thing and I can’t stress it enough is the level data that the government proposes to collect under the ID bill and the amount that it is going to extend to for eg not only doctors and clinical and genetic and retail and every other kind of control and data adds up in my view to a big brother scheme of a most terrifying kind and I will add one other thought to that which I find mind boggling and that is because it is so expensive the government has proposed it will sell, sell our data to commercial interests who will then be able to track down every dam thing that you do from dawn until dusk. You won’t be able to escape from it because the ID card that will be checked against your credit card will be a record of exactly where you have been, what you have done who you have talked to and I think it is a terrifying scheme and I am another person who is prepared to say I wouldn’t co-operate with it in any way at all. (APPLAUSE)
DIMBLEBY
When you say that, the two candidates to lead your party have both said they won’t
co operate. Nick Clegg has said that he would not provide information to the authorities if asked to give it. And he said that in effect he would court jail. Would you do that as well?
WILLIAMS
Of course because (APPLAUSE) sometimes no you are never justified in a democracy in using force and violence to overcome the law but you are absolutely justified in using non violence, civil methods to say I cannot
DUNCAN
Even when you are a law maker?
This is absurd, this is outrageous
WILLIAMS
It is not absurd, nor outrageous
DUNCAN
If you are a member of the parliamentary system
WILLIAMS
What happened with the poll tax? The pensioners in the poll tax refused to pay the poll tax, the people who decided to free the slaves refused to accept the law about slavery
DUNCAN
Shirley Williams you have been in Parliament and are in the House of Lords you are part of our legislature
DIMBLEBY
Hold on just a second Alan Duncan and very briefly Shirley
WILLIAMS
Quite simply the ID card will undermine individual liberty so seriously that one is entitled to say one won’t cooperate with and I have not suggested I use violence. I am suggesting I would not co operate and nor will I
DIMBLEBY
And prison so be it …
WILLIAMS
So be it. I am not suggesting any act of violence but you have got to not co operate with something as bad as this.
DIMBLEBY
Can I just …….Do you believe that Nick Clegg is going to emerge and do you want him to emerge and there is much debate about this about where you are going to stand and when
WILLIAMS
Oh yes I am supporting Nick Clegg I made that plain but I have got great respect for Chris Hughes as well.
DUNCAN
This is a very very sad moment actually in this programme. We have just been talking about Pakistan and the rule of law. The fact that lawyers are opposing Musharraf and about the importance about some kind of rule of law in any sane state now there are lots of things that have happened in Parliament that I don’t agree with. I’m a legislator, I’m elected. If I want to stand up and say everything that Parliament that I don’t like I am entitled to break the law about I think that would be wrong and we have got two leaders for the Liberal Democrat Party saying that they don’t care what Parliament does if they put this through they would then think that they are entitled to break the law. Neither is fit to be leader of a parliamentary party at all (APPLAUSE AND BOOS)
WILLIAMS
What do you think happened in Pakistan?
DIMBLEBY
Hang on all four of you perhaps I can explain we are very close to the end so you can all be momentarily silent and then I will introduce David Blunkett quickly on this please. I am sorry we haven’t got longer
BLUNKETT
Firstly the scheme that Shirley has outlined is not the scheme that is being put forward. There is no suggestion of having all these records sold or having medical information on or cross referencing with your credit card. The 500 million a year was 500 million a year which over 10 years was 5 billion and it is 5 billion over 10 years because it is attached to the payment of the biometric passport and that is £70 for the passport and it is £30 for the clean database which is crucial to make it work which is £100 which people will pay and you can’t go to jail and you can lose the right to a passport but you can’t go to jail.
DIMBLEBY
In the interests of justice and democracy and freedom of speech Shami Chakrabarti before we end the programme has to come in Shami
CHAKRABARTI
Tosh, Alan really sorry to say so but tosh the Supreme Court Justices in Pakistan are breaching a new emergency ordinance because they put personal ethics and moral values above immoral law (APPLAUSE) no you have had your turn, you have had your turn. Who needs me when you have got Shirley Williams that’s all I can say, I want to go back to compulsory education. ID cards and the Olympic Games will both be costly but at least my little boy will have some fun at the Olympic Games. The ID cards a re like pre charge detention think of a number, any number, double it, triple it and on it goes. It will be costly to our purses but equally it will be costly to our privacy and goodness me our race relations tin this country (APPLAUSE)
DIMBLEBY
And there I am afraid unhappily we have come to the end of this very important debate. I wish we could go on but that is all we have got time for from here with the Sheffield International Film Festival. Goodbye.
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