[Music]
I
[Music]
welcome to Sputnik orbiting the world
with me George Galloway and me G the
Tories have been in conclave in
Manchester but no puffs of white smoke
identifying the next leader are yet
discernible or rather several chimneys
were beling at the same time in
different Shades of Gray Boris Johnson
had a good conference Theresa May and
her new Wonder Woman Garb had a bad one
Gideon Osborne busy politically
crossdressing had neither one thing nor
the other David Cameron painted the
conservatives as the new center ground
and painted the labor leader as an
outlaw living in the forest and painting
his face a deep shade of red it's going
to be an interesting few years former
Tory cabinet minister the right
honorable Andrew Mitchell MP joins us
now to review the Tory conference and
more Andrew the last time you were here
you were hot foot from the airplane just
back from Washington where you led a
delegation
which included the then little known
Jeremy Corbin trying to get the British
resident of Guantanamo Bay shakar Amor
out from unjust imprisonment first of
all then did you recognize Jeremy Corbin
from the prime minister's description
this week well I don't think that the
Prime Minister was trying to describe
Jeremy Corbin he was making a political
point which as you know George you get
at these party uh conferences but I did
think the Prime Minister made an
extraordinary uh Speech and uh a very
good one probably the best I've heard
him make in the 10 years he's been
conservative party leader uh and I think
for those on the left the way he planted
Tory tanks firmly on uh the ground of uh
social progress and uh Mobility social
Mobility is uh for the Tory party a an
inspiring and uh very important uh piece
of political footwork well it's very
loyal of you but he did say that Jeremy
Corbin was a Britain hating terrorist
loving leader and neither of those two
charges is true is it well I wouldn't uh
necessarily have used those words uh
myself no but you know this is a Party
Conference a big setpiece annual uh
Speech and you expect a bit of uh that
sort of knockabout in it well uh it's
the kind of language that in
totalitarian countries is used just
before the leader of the opposition gets
put under arrest as far as far as I know
the government has no plans to follow
that uh pathway did David Cameron make a
mistake indicating so early when he
would be going doesn't that transform
every Tory conclave from now on in into
a kind of hustings well I don't uh well
there two as different aspects to your
question on the on the issue of whether
there will be a degree of um hustings at
the next conferences the answer is yes
but as to whether he was right to do it
I rather think he was and and and the
reason is this you and I can both
remember George former Prime Ministers
being eased out and pushed out by their
parties in his case he's made it clear
how long he's going to stay and I think
it gives him not only a greater
Authority because he doesn't have to do
all that stuff that others had to face
but it also I think enables him to
control the big beasts within the party
more easily because he's got another
couple of reshuffles uh in his knapsack
and uh if uh the big beasts don't uh
behave don't put their shoulders to the
wheel to drive forward the policies
which he has uh set out so clearly in
that speech then he can get rid of them
so actually I think it gives him greater
Authority and avoids the problems which
some of his predecessors of both parties
have had maybe so uh I think as an
observer that it disadvantages George
Osborne um because it's clear that Mr
Cameron would like to be succeeded by
him uh but it's also clear that the
Nexus of power around Cameron in Downing
Street uh is of limited uh shelf life so
it transforms the other candidates into
Insurgency and George Osborne in a sense
as the incumbency and I thought that
that was partly reflected in the
conference somewhat to my surprise I
thought Boris Johnson did really well
you said Cameron speech was the best
he'd made uh in 10 years I thought Boris
Johnson's speech was the best I'd heard
him give yes it was a a very good speech
and of course it anchored Boris firmly
in the one nation uh part of the
conservative party which is where he
belongs and it emphasized the success he
has had as mayor of London over the last
eight years his record of that and that
will will help him but in the end you
know uh George you and I've seen this
before the favorite never wins look at
what's happened just happened in the
labor party look at what happened to the
conservative party and invariably the
favorite never wins several times in the
conservative party in our time together
yes but the favorite is Osborne and I
agree with you he's not going to win I
don't think well the favorite never does
Boris uh was a more serious character at
this conference than he was at the last
one he can he can he can come across a
kind of harping hippopotamus but
actually I thought he was really pretty
sharp at this cont confence yes uh I I
think I agree with that and I think that
the speech that he delivered was uh a
very good speech indeed I thought
actually that George's speech if you
read it particularly was uh very strong
and good indeed this decentralization of
power which both major political parties
have sought to do uh largely
unsuccessfully I think that's an
important part of extending the uh
Democratic agenda Democratic
accountability particularly um so I
thought they were all very good speeches
but I agree with you that boris's speech
was a much more serious speech of a
leadership Contender than we perhaps
seen in the past there's the rub uh
George Osborne's speech reads better
than it sounded and looked uh and in
this age Once Upon a Time politics was
all in the reading now it's all in the
watching and all in the listening I'm
not sure that his kind of desiccated
calculating machine type of delivery
cuts it in the 21st century well we'll
see I mean his shares go up and down
with the economy that is George's great
strength and although you and I would
not tend to agree on this I think he's
done a very good job as Chancellor of
the exer and as our finance minister but
in the end his shares in the party uh go
up and down with the economy and uh his
position at the moment as favorite if I
was him I would find an uncomfortable
position uncomfortable thees a May
staked out the right-wing ground didn't
she in her new power stance and power
dressing uh bashing the European Union
more than the others bashing immigrants
more than the others not sounding too
liberal on prison and uh other legal
matters uh she's the right-wing
candidate uh and Osborne and uh Johnson
are fighting in the center left would
that be accurate I I think that Tory
leadership elections are more complex
than that and I often think that
particularly among members of parliament
uh it's as much personality that counts
as much as uh as policy I think the
problem with Theresa May who is clearly
a very strong Contender is that she
appeared As I understood her speech to
be attacking her own record and I'm not
sure what the purpose of that is if you
get up on stage and say what a mess
immigration policy is when you've been
in charge of it for 5 years it's not
immediately clear what conclusions you
are inviting the audience to reach very
shrewdly put um now let's turn if we may
to shakar Amar you you know I have the
highest regard for you and your
colleague David Davis both of you were
with Jeremy Corbin on that very
important mission to Washington you
were counterintuitively some would say
as conservatives not particularly
left-wing ones you were standing up for
justice you saw Shaker amama banged up
in guantan Bay without charge without
trial year after year long after he'd
been cleared and you've got them out you
must be feeling quite pleased about that
well we let's not count the chickens
till he's back but uh we have uh I hope
being successful we were pretty
outspoken when we were there and as I
think we said before in your program
this these were four members of
parliament who've been around the block
a bit uh of very very different views in
fact I think I may have said that when
we all had dinner together we found
there was nothing we agreed on at all
apart from the importance of getting
Shaka am out of should be angry that's
how it should well but but uh I think we
need to see him back there are some more
hurdles to go through but the 30-day
period has now started and I think one
of the reasons why David Davis and I and
others in the conservative party think
this is such an important issue is that
in the end if you are going to beat
uh the terrorists if we are going to
face down and end the isil Insurgency we
have got to do it in accordance with the
rule of law and show that our values are
better than the values that they assert
and for the American government to keep
someone in jail for 14 years who never
seen his own 13-year-old son to uh do so
in spite of the fact that two presidents
have specifically cleared him for
release one in 20 7 and one in 2009
never charge him is a very serious
matter it undermines the principled
position that I believe Western
democracies should take in these matters
so it's it's very important indeed that
that this incarceration is ended and I
also believe it's extremely important
that when he is returned to the United
Kingdom he speaks out about what has
happened to him and is not uh silenced
by uh the lawyers or anyone else that he
speaks out about what's happened so that
if there are errors and things that have
been done wrong in the system we are
able to put them right now these hurdles
you mention uh in getting him back these
are most they they mostly lie in
Washington yeah yes yes they do and it's
it's whether or not there's a problem
with uh the Congress um about the
procedures but we are very hopeful that
uh he will be back in that 30-day period
the British government has said that
they will be sending a plane to fetch
him from Guantanamo and the sooner he is
back here and able to speak uh straight
to the media not intermediated by anyone
else about the experiences that he has
had we can then address anything that
has been done wrong which the British
government or British officials were
involved in and make sure that they are
put right so they did happen again thank
you very much Andrew Mitchell for coming
on board the Sputnik coming up next it's
the Scandal that just won't leave the
British establishment alone Mark wats of
exodo news don't miss it
[Music]
it welcome back to Sputnik we featured
momental in a much criticized edition of
the BBC's Panorama last week but they
didn't mean it as a compliment the BBC
itself deeply entangled in a child sex
abuse Scandal though Panorama didn't put
it that way has been accused of blaming
the victims and shooting the
messenger and the chief Messenger on
this story is our next guest the editor
in Chief of EXO news Mark Watts Mark we
stand by our story that you have
performed a signal public service with
the journalistic campaign that you have
run on this big Scandal Do You Stand by
Your Story uh we certainly do um bearing
in mind that what we've done is reported
on evidence uh and we've been very
careful not to talk about uh truth of
specific allegations or falsity of them
because that not something that's
appropriate when you've got live
criminal investigations but I think one
thing that people should be aware of is
another very interesting investigation
that we only revealed on Monday that was
launched last week and that really lies
behind what we're seeing which is an
investigation being conducted by the
Mets um Professional Standards
directorate into a senior detective who
is suspected of leaking the details of
at least one abuse complainant
to journalists and is also suspected of
briefing as it were against operation
Midland which is the investigation into
child sex abuse torture and murder now
we haven't named who that senior
detective is but I think that is going
to be one to watch well uh a senior
police officer leaking to the media
would not be a first uh but it would be
a particularly damaging leak if
established uh and calls further into
question exactly what's going on here
I'll tell you my take I think it's the
public take that the establishment are
terrified of this story it won't go away
so the best tactic perhaps the only
tactic is to blame the victims and and
shoot the messenger I think that's I I
think that's what is going on and just
to be clear that the senior detective
who's under investigation has nothing to
do with the pedophile unit uh he's not
working for the pedophile unit he's not
working on operation Midland it's
someone quite separate and um I think
what we're seeing is the media being
used actually to do exactly what you say
which is to attack abuse survivors and
it's terribly easy to attack abuse
survivors because they often are not
always but often are people with
enormous ongoing problems they may have
had convictions I mean they generally
all have problems but some of them have
convictions some of them um have had a
pass of taking drugs and so on so it's
very easy to attack abuse survivors but
what's interesting is very little has
been said and Panorama managed I think
to say literally nothing about the
police officers the former police
officers who have come forward to claim
that past investigations by the police
into evidence of child sex abuse by
prominent people including politicians
were closed down and we have 49 examples
where the Met has referred I think
that's the right number 49 referred to
the independent police complaints
Commission of which 29 of the Met are
being pursued by the ipcc and another
two police forces elsewhere so 31
ongoing investigations into claims by
former police officers that operations
were closed down improperly when they
were pursuing evidence of child sex
abuse by MPS or other prominent people
well I can assure you Panorama did not
find the time to mention that fact uh
because I've uh I've studied Panorama
frame by frame um I was
surprised that the BBC was the sewer in
choice for this attack exactly on top of
on top of shooting the messenger and
blaming the victims considering what
considering the many of the alleged and
some proven abusers were themselves
high-profile employees of the BBC
and considering that the BBC suppressed
their own journalists investigations
which would have unveiled the conduct of
Jimmy savil of the BBC much earlier than
was done um well you're right of course
that the BBC is hardly an independent
institution on this matter um but it's
also interesting to know that there are
lots of journalists at BBC are very
conscious of this and I can tell you
there is Civil War at the BBC over that
Panorama you have Civil War effectively
between um some of the journalists on
BBC News as distinct from Panorama not
least because some of the journalists on
BBC News were following some of the big
stories that we were doing particularly
on operation Midland which is the the
investigation into child sex abuse
torture and murder um and there's there
there's Fury there's Fury about what
Panorama has done because one of the
things that Panorama has done and this
is something that the Met here in an
extraordinary strong statements issues
just as the pro was starting um the Met
knew what the Panorama was going to say
because of course Panorama had put at
some stage some allegations to them and
they were Furious because they regard uh
the approach that Panorama took as
deterring other Witnesses particularly
abuse survivors from coming forwards and
I think um they talked about I wonder if
I can just quickly find the reference
what the Met said and I have to say I
completely agree with them but what the
Met said was was we are worried that
this program Panorama and other recent
reporting referring to newspaper reports
will deter victims and Witnesses from
coming forward in future seeing an
individual make allegations and then be
targeted by the media is not going to
encourage others to speak out there was
something a little unseemly about highly
paid powerful journalists kind of
bearing down on uh people who were
clearly a bit unsteady on the legs
metaphorically especially when they went
for them and completely didn't mention
the former police officers um because
they were perhaps a little bit more
difficult to um try to discredit as
Panorama set out to do but I I want to
tell you something that really brings
this home after the program um I took a
call in the early hours of the morning
from an abuse Survivor who is um has
come forward and is at the center of a
police investigation was not even
mentioned in the Panorama who had
attempted suicide as a result of that
program and what that person said to me
was if I hadn't already come forward
after watching that I wouldn't now in
other words exactly what the Met said
now um apart from the Civil Wars within
the BBC and media responses how do you
think the public have the public in
general received this program well it's
very hard to gauge that isn't it I I
have to say that the program was a a
real muddle and a mess and actually the
consistent message that I've received
and we often everyone working for xray
all been asking you know friends and
parents and brothers and sisters who are
not too familiar with the story just to
get an impression and most people were
totally befuddled it was a complete
muddle and I don't know quite frankly
that the public would know what to make
of that well they say a camel is a horse
designed by a committee it looked to me
like a program that had been forced to
pull a punch or two here and there that
had been under pressure internally
perhaps as a result of the ructions at
the BBC to which you refer and the
reason I watched it twice was I couldn't
quite understand what their point
was well you're right and and part of
the reason why they would have had to
pull the punches from the ones they
wanted to strike was because the
solicitor general Robert Buckland
conservative MP issued a warning a very
Stark warning um just uh just I think
roughly two weeks ago which said that no
media should be
prejudging active live criminal
investigation so he was stressing that
even though there are no court
proceedings on these investigations into
VIPs I mean actually there is one but he
wasn't referring to that one because
everyone knows not to report too much
about the one that's going through the
courts but in terms of the ones that
just active criminal investigations as
opposed to court proceedings he warned
that no one should be reporting anything
that prejudges the issue in other words
no one should be saying it is true uh
that specific allegations are true or
that specific allegations are false or
that the Witnesses are talking nonsense
who are subject still to these live
criminal investigations now here's the
problem if you title a program as
Panorama did um what's the truth first
of all it was quite obvious that
Panorama didn't know what the truth was
but even if you did know according to
the solicitor general's warning you
shouldn't be saying because this is
active criminal investigation and we
have to allow the police and judicial
system to work now that's not to say
that it's unreasonable to scrutinize
what they're doing I think it is
reasonable to do that and to ask
questions I think it's fair enough to
sort of ask questions about why did the
senior police officer talk about the key
witness at the base of operation Midland
being credible and true I mean that is
fair enough and you know we our eyebrows
raised when that phrase was used it was
perfectly reasonable has I have I I in
my view for the police to talk about the
witness being credible and his accounts
has been credible and interestingly the
Met has repeated that just recently in
the face of all the false reporting uh
which seems to have come from the senior
detective uh who's got nothing to do
with operation Midland who under
investigation that the claim was that
the operation was on the running out of
steam winding down the made it clear
they got 20 27 officers on this case and
they they made they made the point that
they would not be doing so would not be
investigating this in this way if they
didn't regard
the core allegations has been credible
credible yeah now summarize for us where
this all now
stands who's under investigation not the
names but the kind of people uh are
charges already laid against anyone are
they likely to be laid soon as far as
you're able within the constraints of
professional ethics and and the law just
summarize for the viewer where this
scandal now St well so far um we have
had the DPP issue a statement some while
ago now um which I don't think also was
mentioned in Panorama about Cecil Smith
who was uh a liberal MP of senior
backbencher and we learned from that DPP
statement that there were three
occasions on which he should have been
prosecuted over allegations of child sex
abuse the evidence was strong enough to
charge and yet that did not happen so
that's that we have the current case
that I referred to earlier um
with Lord janana who's a former uh labor
MP and he's facing a trial we expect it
to be converted into a trial the facts
because we're we're really expecting um
a finding that he's not fit to plead and
what the trial of the facts will do is
determine whether the alleged acts which
is from memory it's 22 counts of child
sex abuse that's alleged and he he does
deny the allegations uh the court will
will be charged as it were with finding
whether the Acts were done and beyond
that we have uh an incredible number of
police investigations uh up and down the
land into prominent people the one as I
say that people are most conscious of is
operation Midland which started as a
result of evidence that exero first
reported um and that is investigating
allegations of child sex abuse by a
group of very prominent uh men including
politicians but not only politicians as
well as murder is in fact investigating
allegations of three murders in addition
to that we are aware of a former liberal
Democrat MP who is subject to a um
criminal investigation we are aware of a
serving labor mp uh who also is under
investigation by the police for child
sex abuse I mean there were a plethora
of Investigations into prominent people
and in addition to which we have the
ipcc investigations a plethora of them
into closed operations of the past Mark
wats more power to your elbow That's
What I Say Thanks very thanks for coming
on the
Sputnik and now it's your turn to tell
us what you think through the portals of
social media what's ratling guy well I
asked them whether they agreed that
David kon's attack on Jeremy Corbin is
basically Civil War speech and Michael
Taylor answers it was done to tease out
a reaction from JC so that Cameron can
revert to shouting and bullying well
that's all have you got for this week
which alas means that's the end of the
show you can stay in touch with us
though on Twitter at rtor Sputnik and on
Facebook Sputnik on Russia today it's
goodbye from me G and from me George
Galloway it's been
marvelous