- Verity Murphy
- Fri 12 Mar 10, 01:04 PM
UPDATE ON TONIGHT'S PROGRAMME
The Lib Dems have kicked off their spring conference by launching their campaign slogan: "Change that works for you, building a fairer Britain", and the party's leader Nick Clegg promising there will be "no backroom deals" with other parties.
But with talk of a hung parliament in the air it is inevitable that everyone is asking which way the party would jump and calling Clegg the Kingmaker.
Michael Crick is at the conference in Birmingham and he has been spending the day finding out what the mood is on the ground. Gavin will be talking live to senior Lib Dem Chris Huhne.
Also, Nicolas Sarkozy is in London for meetings with Gordon Brown and David Cameron.
It is the French president's first meeting with the Tory leader since 2008, and their relationship over the years has been colourful.
Mr Sarkozy took exception to Mr Cameron's decision in November to withdraw the Conservatives from the European People's Party grouping in the European parliament, a move France's Europe Minister Pierre Lellouche, dubbed "autistic" (a comment he later said he regretted).
So, should Mr Cameron become prime minister, what future for the entente cordiale? Liz MacKean reports.
And, as we go to air we expect preview clips of Samantha Cameron's first TV interview - done with Sir Trevor McDonald and due to air on Sunday - to be released. What will they reveal about her, and will she prove to be an election asset?
ENTRY FROM 1304GMT:
Michael Crick has been despatched to Birmingham where the Liberal Democrat spring conference has got under way today.
France's President Nicolas Sarkozy is in London for separate talks with Gordon Brown and Tory leader David Cameron.
On the agenda at Downing Street will be the EU summit in Brussels later this month and EU plans to regulate hedge funds, about which the UK has raised concerns.
And when he meets the Tory leader the pair are expected to discuss Mr Cameron's position on European defence issues.
Plus, Mr Cameron's wife Samantha has given her first TV interview to Trevor Macdonald. It will be shown on Sunday but the first clips will be released tonight - what will it reveal?
More details later.
- Michael Crick
- Thu 11 Mar 10, 07:41 PM
I spent this afternoon in the Chilterns, gauging reaction to the government's new High Speed Rail Link from London to Birmingham.
It astonished me how many people who are directly affected by the new route had heard nothing about it in advance.
Indeed, in several cases I was the first to tell them.
This evening, for example, I came across a farmer and his wife whose farm will be split in two by the new line, with deep cuttings and a viaduct directly on top of their farmhouse.
The plans suggest their farmhouse will be acquired compulsorily.
The farmer's wife said she was "shocked", and seemed quite worried. Then I flagged down her husband as he was out driving his tractor, slowly ploughing up and down a steep field.
The new railway was complete news to him too.
"We'll all be millionaires!" he said.
And with that, he turned away and carried on ploughing.
- Verity Murphy
- Thu 11 Mar 10, 05:58 PM
UPDATE - HERE'S KIRSTY WITH MORE DETAIL ON TONIGHT'S PROGRAMME:
It's the new age of the train, ish! At least that is what the Transport Minister Lord Adonis believes - but his vision (five years after it appeared in Labour's manifesto) is limited to a high speed rail link between London and Birmingham with provisional plans to carry on northwards eventually.
The first stage wouldn't be completed until 2025. So how much will it cost?
Will it be green (the system, not the train), and how big will the objections be?
And given the Conservatives say they want to go the whole way, would an incoming Conservative government commit straight away to pushing up to Scotland?
Live tonight on the Newsnight platform each of the Transport briefs - Lord Adonis, Theresa Villiers and Norman Baker.
He was attached to George W Bush at the hip and spurred him on to The White House, and all the way through the Iraq War to 2007, now Karl Rove is the closest man to the former president to have penned a memoir, Courage and Consequence.
Tonight he gives his first UK interview to Newsnight - on weapons of mass destruction, water boarding, and being described by Bush as a "turd blossom".
He says the allegation yesterday by the former head of MI5 Eliza Manningham-Buller that Dick Cheney, Mr Bush and Donald Rumsfeld honed their approach to terror by watching the TV series 24, as "laughable", and claims that America under Barack Obama is a less safe place, now that "exceptional interrogation techniques" like water boarding, are no longer allowed.
And should we still care about the "Concept album"? Today Pink Floyd won a skirmish in the battle to classify their albums as whole entities - rather than being sold as single track downloads.
A founder member of Dire Straits and a member of the band Ash discuss whether the idea of a concept album went out with flares.
ENTRY FROM 1155GMT:
We have an exclusive interview with Karl Rove, former deputy chief of staff to President George W Bush, whose autobiography Courage and Consequence has been published. Peter Marshall will be looking at this new account of the Bush presidency.
Also, as the government publishes proposals for a high-speed rail route from London to Birmingham, Michael Crick will be assessing whether the scheme will be hampered by lack of funding and political and environmental opposition.
We are looking at the care of children in this country, as two appalling cases of child abuse conclude in court - Khyra Ishaq and Family Q. Are we failing to protect children adequately?
And Pink Floyd is suing record company EMI for selling individual tracks from their "concept" albums. We'll discuss.
More details later.
- Michael Crick
- Wed 10 Mar 10, 10:43 PM
UPDATE AT 2239GMT
Latest News:
I am told that Torsten Henricson-Bell has now decided NOT to put his name forward for Stalybridge and Hyde, though I understand that he was thinking about doing so.
I hope it wasn't my story which put him off.
It is an area that brings back fond memories for me. As a schoolboy, I spent many happy hours trainspotting on Stalybridge station (which still has a brilliant buffet-cum-bar), and then one summer as a student I worked as a "chain-boy" (carrying the surveyors' equipment) while they were constructing the M67 through the centre of Hyde.
ENTRY FROM 2106GMT
Word reaches me that a young Whitehall Special Advisor Torsten Henricson-Bell is spending a lot of time in the relatively safe Labour seat that James Purnell is vacating.
Were uber-Blairite Purnell, who resigned from the cabinet in protest at Gordon Brown's leadership, to be replaced by a friend of Ed Balls (former civil-servant Torsten began his journey into Labour politics while working for Mr Balls' wife Yvette Cooper), well let's just say the ironymeter might break.
Since late selections are as much a trial of who has the most strength within the Labour and trade union machine as anything (as the recent selection of John Cryer in Leytonstone and Jack Dromey in Birmingham Edrington show), it would also be a sign of who might triumph in any forthcoming leadership election. Not one that David Miliband will like I suspect.
- Sarah McDermott
- Wed 10 Mar 10, 11:49 AM
Update on tonight's programme:
Tonight we're planning to dedicate the whole programme to education.
Jeremy will be joined in the studio by Ed Balls, Michael Gove and David Laws, as well as people from the teaching profession, a businessman and a former children's Laureate to debate the big issues.
Our politics editor Michael Crick will be examining why education - not a make or break issue for parties in recent elections - is set to be a key battleground in the weeks to come.
The results of an exclusive poll commissioned by Newsnight suggest that the Conservatives are failing to win over voters unsatisfied with Labour's record on education.
We'll be looking back at Labour's record on education. Have they delivered on Tony Blair's famous "education education education" pledge?
Justin Rowlatt will be asking what education is for, and we'll also be examining choice and cutbacks.
Do join us at 10.30pm.
ENTRY FROM 1149 GMT
Tonight we're planning to dedicate the whole programme to the state of education - which is set to be a key election battleground in the weeks to come.
Jeremy will be joined by Ed Balls, Michael Gove and David Laws to debate the big issues.
More details later.
- Mark Urban
- Tue 9 Mar 10, 12:19 PM
In order to see this content you need to have both Javascript enabled and Flash installed. Visit BBC Webwise for full instructions. If you're reading via RSS, you'll need to visit the blog to access this content.
Among British soldiers in Afghanistan, Sangin has the grimmest reputation.
Half of all UK forces casualties occur in this one area of operations, with about one tenth of Britain's forces in Afghanistan deployed in it.
When the 2nd Battalion of the Rifles finished its tour in Sangin in the late summer of 2009, soldiers spoke about their six-month stint as an epic of hard fighting.
It had certainly been a difficult time, with 22 soldiers killed and dozens seriously wounded.
And while the attention has been on central Helmand and Operation Moshtarak, the losses incurred by the 3 Rifles Battlegroup, the battalion that took over in Sangin last October, have climbed to 27 killed, with around one month of their tour still to serve.
Eight Afghan National Army soldiers have also lost their lives there during the same five month period.
Yet all of the key players you meet there, from the British military commanders to the Afghan district governor talk about great progress.
When I asked Lieutenant Colonel Nick Kitson, the battlegroup commander, about the heavy price being paid by his troops he said:
"We've made a very conscious effort to keep going in the face of that, and it's not blind optimism or anything like that or throwing more cannon fodder forward.
"These are very carefully considered operations and the casualty figures just don't reflect the progress we've achieved."
District Governor Faizal Haq said: "I became the governor last year... [at that time] nobody could come here to attend any meetings because it was too dangerous, no-one alone could go out to the bazaar, you had to go to bazaar in a group of five or six, now the total control of the bazaar is in our hands."
People who know Sangin agree that things have got much better in the past year.
There are now three times as many shops trading in the bazaar, and 41 primary schools and one high school have opened.
The "ink spot" of security around the district centre has grown too.
By establishing a denser network of security posts around the bazaar and government offices, the 3 Rifles battlegroup has brought relative calm to an area around those central landmarks.
People who served with the last battlegroup have told me that IEDs used to be laid as close as 10 metres (yards) from their camp gates, and gun battles often started as soon as they left them.
However, the growth of this "safer" area can be measured in the hundreds of metres rather than kilometres, and it cannot be said that soldiers are completely safe from attack in these areas even now.
A couple of this past week's fatalities have happened within the inner group of patrol bases that surround the district centre.
Why then does the casualty rate remain so alarmingly high?
To start with Sangin has long been considered to harbour an unpleasant combination of tribal, criminal, and extremist elements.
Appoint a mayor from one tribe and you will inevitably incur the displeasure of another. Local politics are a Gordian Knot of violent rivalries.
In recent months, Lt Col Kitson and his people have been using different tactics.
These are the "population centric" ideas espoused for the past year by the Nato commander, US General Stanley McChrystal.
In order to win people over, members of the 3 Rifles battlegroup have been inculcated with ideas of 'heroic restraint' - refraining from returning fire or using heavy weapons under certain circumstances.
Gen McChrystal has always been candid that 'heroic restraint' involves patrolling soldiers accepting greater risk.
In Sangin you hear differing views about this doctrine and whether it is contributing to high casualties.
Some of the troops I met at Patrol Base Blenheim, on the violent fringes of north-east Sangin, and scene of almost daily firefights, were pretty frank about their intention to shoot insurgents as soon as they had positively identified them as being armed and presenting a threat.
They considered ideas like firing warning shots in such circumstances to be nonsense.
Elsewhere, many people were more on-message.
There can be little doubt though, that in getting "closer to the people" through the establishment of increased numbers of patrol bases and more patrolling by foot, the 3 Rifles battlegroup has embraced greater risk.
The fact that most of the recent British fatalities have been killed by gunshots rather than IEDs can be seen as evidence of these new realities - it is harder for the Taliban to place bombs inside the coalition's larger security bubble, while patrolling these areas exposes the soldiers to gunfire.
The sense that the new tactics have shifted the shape of the struggle into a contest for the support of the district's people extends more broadly too.
The Taliban Civil Commission, the Taliban's unofficial government in Sangin, has agreed that schools should re-open and apparently feels it is not in the movement's interest to attack the reinvigorated bazaar.
The Taliban too then, perceives that it must not wreck the possibilities for greater education and business.
So where does this leave the struggle in the months ahead?
Just securing an area of several square kilometres currently consumes around 1,500 British and Afghan troops. Extending it could require hundreds if not thousands more.
Yet Britain, paying the fearful price for a slow improvement in the district, would have to think hard before sending any more troops there.
The answer seems to lie in the re-drawing of boundaries currently being considered by senior Nato commanders.
The Americans will take over from the British in some places - and this could free up some troops.
They may also chose to place the British battalion in Sangin under a US brigade, which would bring US marines to secure some parts of the district.
One thing is clear - that those running Nato's operation think that what they are doing is working in Sangin and that they want more of the same.
- Sarah McDermott
- Tue 9 Mar 10, 11:58 AM
Update on tonight's programme:
Tonight Newsnight tracks down a former Irish priest named in an official report as a serial sexual abuser of children. Olenka Frenkiel has discovered that the former priest named in the Murphy report has been allowed to live quietly in Britain for many years. Read more on that story here.
It's been an interesting day on the markets with sterling under pressure after disappointing trade figures. Meanwhile the Greek Prime Minister, George Papandreou, has called on the US to help crack down on the financial speculators he blames for exacerbating his country's debt woes. Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel has also said that it could be up to the European Commission to decide if Europe should have tougher financial speculator rules.
We've asked Justin Rowlatt to investigate just what it is that these speculators actually do, and find out how powerful they are. He's been meeting the hedge fund manager, Hugh Hendry.
And Stephen Smith will be harnessing the crazy power of the internet and switching his webcam on to Chatroulette, the brainchild of a 17-year-old Russian student. How many times will Stephen get "nexted"? Then we'll be discussing why it is that people behave so differently online.
And don't forget that Newsnight needs your help for Pop-Up Politics. Like the temporary shops that pop-up on our recession-hit high streets, Newsnight plans to "pop-up" in your community. We want to report the policies that matter to you and the issues that you think will swing the election. Click here to send us your idea.
Do join Jeremy Paxman at 10.30pm on BBC Two.
---------------------------------------------------------------
ENTRY FROM 11:58 UK time
Tonight we have a film about a former Irish priest named in an official report into child sex abuse in Ireland's Catholic clergy as a serial sexual abuser of children. The Irish state has failed to bring him to justice and for 10 years he has been allowed to live quietly in Britain. Olenka Frenkiel has investigated the case and tracked him down.
Financial speculators have been attacked by European governments and the US in recent days for inflicting recession on the rich world and starvation on poorer countries. So what is it that these "speculators" actually do, and how powerful are they? Justin will be spending the day with hedge fund manager, Hugh Hendry.
And we'll be taking a look at the internet phenonemon of Chatroulette - the one-on-one text, webcam and microphone-based chat service connecting people around the world.
More details later.
- Sarah McDermott
- Mon 8 Mar 10, 05:37 PM
UPDATE - MORE DETAIL ON TONIGHT'S PROGRAMME:
Sangin in Helmand, Afghanistan, is the most dangerous place in the world for UK troops.
Since the beginning of this month, six UK servicemen have died in Afghanistan - all of them in the Sangin area.
Tonight, we have a powerful report from the troubled region by Mark Urban looking at what is happening on the ground and why the casualty rate is so high.
Mark has spoken to the troops engaged in fighting, the commanders making decisions on tactics and local Afghan leaders about whether progress is being made and the heavy price being paid to achieve it.
Also, Justice Secretary Jack Straw has told Parliament today that the reason why one of toddler James Bulger's killers is back in prison will not be revealed.
Mr Straw said divulging the reason why Jon Venables was returned to jail was not in the "interests of justice".
His announcement came on the day that Denise Fergus, James' mother, appeared on ITV's This Morning programme demanding that she be told what triggered Venables' return to custody.
Tim Whewell has been despatched to Liverpool to find out what local people feel and we will be debating the case in the studio.
Join Jeremy Paxman at 10.30pm on BBC Two for all that and more.
ENTRY FROM 1131GMT
A British soldier has been killed in an explosion while on foot patrol in in the Sangin area of Helmand province, the 272nd member of UK forces to have died in Afghanistan since 2001. Our Diplomatic editor Mark Urban has recently returned from Sangin - the most dangerous place in the world for UK troops - and we will have his report tonight.
Details of why one of James Bulger's killers has been recalled to prison may be released later, Jack Straw has said. Tim Whewell is in Liverpool to find out what people there think about the case of Jon Venables, who is back in prison after breaching the terms of his 2001 release on licence. What should we do about children who kill?
More later.
- Michael Crick
- Mon 8 Mar 10, 01:18 PM
Several observations on Ed Vaizey's apparent gaffe on tonight's Channel 4 programme, Cameron Uncovered, about David Cameron, in which he apparently says that Samantha Cameron may have voted Labour in 1997, and may even contemplate voting for Gordon Brown this time.
Both suggestions have been strenuously denied by Conservative HQ.
First, I was always under the impression that Samantha had not always been a rock-solid Conservative voter, and colleagues concur with this.
In any case why are the Conservatives complaining so vehemently about the suggestion that Samantha voted Labour in 1997?
OK, it may not be true, but surely getting Labour's 1997 voters to switch to them is what the Conservatives should be all about at the moment, and what better than for Mrs Cameron to be a prime example.
Split couples are nothing new in British politics. There are the Bercows, John and Sally, of course. And after the former Conservative MP Robert Jackson switched to Labour in 2005, his wife Caroline remained a Conservative MEP for another four years.
And the former Tory MP Robin Squire was married to a Labour activist.
Clement Attlee's wife Violet, who famously drove him around during election campaigns, was always known to be a life-long Conservative voter. But it didn't seem to do her husband much harm - indeed it may have helped Labour win over wavering Conservatives.
Some years ago I was told that in 1996, only a few months before she got engaged to William Hague, Ffion Jenkins was approached about becoming the Lib Dem candidate in Montgomeryshire (a Lib Dem seat), and she thought about the proposition for several days.
Lib Dems in Montgomeryshire had approached Ffion because the Jenkinses were a well-known Welsh Liberal family.
Meanwhile, his comments can't have done anything to reverse the apparent downward path of Mr Vaizey's political career.
Four years ago he was thought to be one of the original Cameroons, a rising star whose elevation to the Shadow Cabinet was only a matter of time.
Since then he largely seems to have disappeared, and to have lost favour with his leader, even before his Channel 4 comments.
Some colleagues say he's too laid back. But I'm told there's another explanation too. If anyone can enlighten me, I'd love to know.
- Verity Murphy
- Fri 5 Mar 10, 12:37 PM
UPDATE - MORE DETAIL ON TONIGHT'S PROGRAMME:
Don't forget Emily's weekly column Virtually There, in which she gives her slant on the interesting and amusing stories that have been circulating on the web, has just been published.
And here's what we have lined up for the programme:
Prime Minister Gordon Brown has been giving evidence at the Chilcot Inquiry, insisting that the decision to go to war in 2003 was "right" but indicating that he was in the dark about key decisions in the build up to war.
Tonight, David Grossman examines a carefully choreographed performance.
Emily Maitlis has just come back from an interview with controversial Dutch MP Geert Wilders who has shown his anti-Islam film in the UK's House of Lords today.
Recent polls suggest that he could soon become one of the most powerful men in the Netherlands.
And Tim Whewell reports on the growing tensions between Germany and Greece as northern Europe faces up to the prospect of bailing out their southern neighbours.
German lawmakers have reportedly come up with a radical plan for Greece to ease its financial crisis and prevent Berlin being stung for a bailout - a fire sale of ancient artefacts with the acropolis itself going to the highest bidder.
And from the German tabloid Bild the suggestion that Greece should flog some of its islands - that would certainly ease accusations of Germans hogging all of the sun loungers on the beach...
All at 10.30pm.
ENTRY FROM 1237GMT:
Prime Minister Gordon Brown is giving evidence at the Chilcot Inquiry, insisting that the decision to go to war in 2003 was "right". We will have the latest on that.
We are looking at the culture clash between German and Greece, amid German suggestions that the Greeks should flog some ancient artefacts and islands to ease their financial problems.
And controversial Dutch MP Geert Wilders has arrived in the UK to show his anti-Islam film after overturning a ban on entering the country.
More details later.
- Michael Crick
- Fri 5 Mar 10, 12:06 PM
Two political stories have dominated most of this week - Lord Ashcroft and Michael Foot - though there is no apparent link between them.
Or is there? In revealing that Lord Ashcroft is a "non-dom" for tax purposes, the Conservatives rightly point out that several big Labour donors are non-doms too, most notably the industrialist Lord Paul.
Now a colleague has drawn my attention to this passage from Kenneth Morgan's great biography of Michael Foot, where Mr Morgan writes of the fallout from the closure of the Ebbw Vale steel works in 1975, where Foot was MP, and whilst he was also Employment Secretary:
"He [Foot] persuaded a British-based Indian industrialist, Swraj Paul, Chairman of National Gas Tubes, to invest in the constituency by setting up the most advanced spiral weld steel mill in Europe, with the aid of funding from the British government and the EEC - Foot, an arch anti-European, was fully prepared to receive money from Europe for a good cause.
"Swraj Paul [later Lord Paul] had earlier helped to arrange Foot's first visit to India in 1973, and his giving the Krishna Menon Lecture, in honour of the old socialist guru of the thirties, in November 1976. Foot 'a man who inspires trust through his integrity', was always a hero to him.
"Swraj Paul's plant was opened on 22 November 1978 by no less a person than Mrs Ghandi. The Ebbw Vale economy continued to limp along."
It might also be added that when Indira Ghandi declared a state of emergency back in India in the late 1970s, Foot publicly came to her defence, thereby tarnishing his reputation as a great libertarian
- Verity Murphy
- Thu 4 Mar 10, 05:50 PM
UPDATE - MORE DETAILS ABOUT TONIGHT'S PROGRAMME:
It's all about age and youth tonight.
First, is the baby boomer generation the most selfish generation ever?
Have the baby-boomers screwed things up completely for the young - enjoying an economic boom, low tax, and big pensions while the young are unemployed, saddled with debt and unable to buy houses?
Justin Rowlatt has been talking to some of these Woopies - AKA a Well Off Older Person - and in the studio we will debate with guests young and old, including David Willetts, MP and author of The Pinch - How the Baby Boomers Took Their Children's Future - and why they should give it back.
Do tell us what you think too.
And are older people taking over the arts too? After decades of complaints about the dearth of good parts for older actors Stephen Smith interviews Sian Phillips, who at the age of 76 has taken on the part of Juliet in a Bristol Old Vic production of Romeo and Juliet where the star crossed lovers and other main characters are pensioners.
Also tonight, we kick off our new "Leaving Party" series, in which we interview MPs who are about to stand down.
In this first report Jeremy talks to two of the Tory old guard, the Wintertons.
ENTRY FROM 1110GMT:
It's all about age and youth tonight.
Is the baby boomer generation the worst generation ever? Have the baby boomers screwed things up completely for the young - enjoying an economic boom, low tax, and big pensions while the young are unemployed, saddled with debt and unable to buy houses?
And are the old taking over the arts too? It was always apparently youth that was most highly prized, but is that changing? Stephen Smith is on the case.
Do tell us what you think too.
Also tonight, we kick off our new "Leaving Party" series, in which we interview MPs who are about to stand down, in this first report Jeremy talks to two of the Tory old guard, the Wintertons.
More details later.
The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites
~RS~q~RS~~RS~z~RS~15~RS~)