ANY QUOTES USED MUST BE ATTRIBUTED TO MURNAGHAN, SKY NEWS

DERMOT MURNAGHAN: Now the Culture Secretary, Maria Miller, is all over this morning’s Sunday papers, let’s have a look at a few of them.  The Telegraph leads simply with ‘Minister Miller Must Go’, the Mail on Sunday a similar theme with ‘Sack Her – 80% want the Prime Minister to axe her’ and if she opens the Sun she’ll find she is being characterised there as a ‘Millerpede’ described as a greedy snake-like arthropod with far reaching tentacles. So can she hang on?  In a moment I’ll be speaking to former Culture Secretary, David Mellor, he was the first person to be Culture Secretary of course, the job that Ms Miller does at the moment.  I’ll also speak to the Deputy Political Editor with the Financial Times Elizabeth Rigby and to the journalist and satirist, Heydon Prowse.  Heydon co-stars in the BBC show ‘The Revolution Will Be Televised’ and has been exposing politicians misdemeanours since the beginning of the expenses scandal.  Good to see you all, let’s go down the line, David Mellor should Maria Miller go?

DAVID MELLOR: Well I really don’t want to answer that and I’ll tell you for why, because I don't think it matters whether she resigns or not.  Bless her heart, she won’t be missed if she goes and she won’t be noticed if she stays.  What this is all about is first of all the judgement of David Cameron and second, the integrity of parliament.  As I found to my cost when involved in a simple bit of consensual sex, it seems rather boring these days doesn’t it?   I wanted to resign the first evening that The People got on to this, John Major wished to hang on to me, perhaps he had his own reasons for that but we won’t go into that, anyway I allowed myself then to become part of a tug of war.  It was stupid and I regretted it.  She has made the same error.  I mean a thirty second apology to the house allowing a bunch of dim-witted backbencher to row her out of what an independent adjudicator had said.  Who is behind this?  David Cameron.  David Cameron came into the Conservative party leadership as someone who was going to wipe away all the sad old slugs, that part of John Major’s administration, he was the new face of the Tory party.  There was spray on integrity but do you remember that old music hall joke?  A father’s advice to his son, ‘Integrity my boy, that’s a thing, if you can invent that you can do anything.’  I don't know what David Cameron thinks he’s doing.  Look, this is the Sunday Telegraph, a Tory supporting paper, here is Mrs Miller like Fag Ash Lil, what’s she called White Dee from Benefits Street.  Is that really how he should want his government to appear?  And the last word would be, parliament can’t be trusted.  We’ve had the duck house and it’s rather like Dave is now saying ‘Duck house?  One my body, why be so moderate?  Have fifty duck houses.’  They haven’t cleaned up their act and they cannot be trusted.

DM: You mentioned that apology, just over thirty seconds, it was measured at 34 seconds by somebody, let’s have a listen to some of it.

MARIA MILLER [speaking in the Commons]: The report resulted from an allegation made by the Member for Bassetlaw.  The Committee has dismissed his allegations.  The Committee has recommended that I apologise to the House for my attitude to the Commissioner’s Inquiry and I of course unreservedly apologise.  I fully accept the recommendations of the Committee and thank them for bringing this matter to an end.

DM: Elizabeth, what do you think that did?  Did it compound the problem in the end that it was so cursory?

ELIZABETH RIGBY: Of course it did and I think there’s two things that compounded it for Maria Miller.  One was the shortness of the apology and the second was the fact that she dragged her heels so much within the inquiry.  Essentially she has actually been cleared of the allegations but the point is that if you know that this is a really emotive, explosive issue you should be contrite and trying to get it sorted out and move on.  I think part of the way she handled it is part of the problem that she’s having now but about whether she should step down or not, I checked in again today with her camp and with Downing Street and everyone is sticking to the line that she’s apologised for what she’s done, let’s move on and they are definitely trying to keep her there.  Now whether the press will let that happen …

DM: And there are other factors involved in it as well which we’ll come on to in a moment but Heydon, presumably given some of the work you’ve done, given what you’ve found out about MPs and their attitude to their remuneration, you weren’t surprised by any of this were you?

HEYDON PROWSE: No, not really.  I quite like this idea of an unreserved apology so that anything you do can be completely wiped clean after just a very unreserved apology.  Sorry for stealing that pair of trainers from that shop, I unreservedly apologise for it.  I think it shows a worrying level of hypocrisy given the kind of sentences that were handed down to rioters a while back which were quite shocking for stealing chocolate bars and small items like that but as soon as one of Cameron’s own does it, an apology is enough.

DM: I think she should pay back the full forty grand rather than a fraction of that which is what she’s been asked to pay back.

DAVID MELLOR: You see the problem is, David Cameron is about the moral high ground but it is not an act he can sustain.  He can talk about it, he can talk the talk but he can’t walk the walk.  This Benefits Street cartoon in the Sunday Telegraph shows what a lot of people will be thinking, they will be thinking that here is a cabinet minister pretending that an occasional night type place in her constituency is her main home.  I don't know if it’s dishonest or not dishonest but it smells.

DM: And then there was the Capital Gains she made on it and the fact that a lot of other MPs have done it …

DAVID MELLOR: The fact that a lot of other MPs do it, it’s rather like someone being accused of being a naughty boy in Sodom and Gomorrah and saying, well all my neighbours are doing it.  So what? 

HEYDON PROWSE: Well exactly, George Osborne remortgaged his house that he owned outright in Cheshire for the tune of about a hundred grand and we paid the interest fees.

ELIZABETH RIGBY: In defence of MPs what I would say is there is a whole new broom of MPs that have come in that were not involved in the whole past expenses system and now they are being denigrated in the press etc, just the political class, when they actually have to operate under quite a strict expenses regime.  Why don’t you just give them a break?

DM: They are all tarred with the same brush.

DAVID MELLOR: Why did the 2010 backbenchers …

HEYDON PROWSE: Wasn’t that why we created an independent system …

DAVID MELLOR: Parliament must take responsibility for what it does itself.

ELIZABETH RIGBY: And actually I spoke to some of the 2010 intake about exactly this on Friday and there was definitely a sense within the new MPs that it was like creating a ring of steel around someone to protect them and all it did was denigrating what they were trying to do. 

DM: In terms of the public’s mood to all this, they must be confused about how MPs are regulated.  After the expenses scandal they thought it had all been cleared up and now we have got these various committees, a parliamentary committee overruling a Commissioner and … Who’s in charge of MPs?  In the end it seems it’s the MPs themselves again.

HEYDON PROWSE: Well what’s the point of having an independent committee if you are just going to be referring back to another committee of MPs and marking the homework and deciding oh it’s fine, a slap on the wrist and next time don’t do it. 

DAVID MELLOR: And who won’t comment.  They were all rung up and asked why they did it but they won’t comment.

ELIZABETH RIGBY: The other point I would make about this, to broaden it all out into the whole issue of press regulation …

DM: Well that is what I wanted to mention because we’ve had one recorded phone call to the Telegraph from a special advisor and then an alleged phone call to the main editor of the Telegraph from Number Ten Downing Street. 

ELIZABETH RIGBY: Which is not … Behind the scenes you get leaned on quite a lot about what you write and it is [inaudible – acceptable/unacceptable?] but the other thing I would say about Leveson is the press wanted to have an independent regulator that they put people into to regulate them and the politicians said no.  This I think is part of the anger within the press, why is it that you allow each other to regulate in Westminster but …

DAVID MELLOR:  Look, it is riddled with hypocrisy so let’s not worry too much about hypocrisy, it is everywhere but just on this point, I think that David Cameron needs to take a long hard look about what kind of administration he is trying to run and of course the worst thing about this, and I’m sorry I didn’t mean to sound uncharitable, there are good ministers and there are indifferent ministers, there are probably too many indifferent ministers in this administration who are put there for tokenistic reasons.  There is no reason to think that Maria Miller knows much about culture, media and sport.  She was put in apparently because she was going to be Welsh Secretary because she was born in Wales and then they thought Maria didn’t sound Welsh enough, it sounded more like West Side Story…

DM: Is this true?  Are you serious?

DAVID MELLOR: So a Welsh MP was put in as Welsh Secretary and she gets put into Culture, Media and Sport.  Now I just think at that point you have to ask yourself, what’s all this fight about?

DM: Well she certainly couldn’t be Chancellor because she doesn’t seem to be clued in maths does she when interest rates went up and down.  Heydon, it’s said for all the parties but of course this is the one that’s in power at the moment, that they don’t have enough female figures in senior positions, is that something that’s protecting Maria Miller?

HEYDON PROWSE: Maybe that’s the reason they don’t want to get rid of her, yes.

ELIZABETH RIGBY: Can I say, I’ve been actually doing some work on this and I’ve been talking to lots of female MPs about why there is such a persistently, particularly in the Tory party, low level of people coming in, it’s actually people at applying and the thing that comes up time and again is that people do not want their families exposed in the press in this way, they just don’t want to do it and so actually Maria’s had a really, really rough run in the press before this even happened about all the things that you were on about, she’s a waste of space and ….

DAVID MELLOR: It goes with the territory if you’re in politics.  Heaven knows I received a few in my time …

ELIZABETH RIGBY: Look I’m saying that when I’ve spoken to lots of female MPs they keep saying the way women are treated in the press, female politicians, as a reason for women …

DM: And it goes back to the apology as well, bearing in mind if she had been a bit more sincere perhaps as she spoke to the House, a bit more from the heart, perhaps that might have worked.

HEYDON PROWSE: To be honest I don’t really care about her apology, I’d prefer to listen to a thirty second apology than a four hour apology, it’s not about the amount of time of the apology, I just want her to pay back the money that the independent committee advised her to pay back.   I think in relation to the way MPs get gunned in the press all the time, I totally understand and agree with that but David made a point about a scandal a while ago, about consensual sex, perhaps if we cut that side out of political …

DAVID MELLOR: Well I think we largely have to a certain degree.

HEYDON PROWSE: … and stuck to real stories like this, there’s a good reason she is being harangued in the press. 

DAVID MELLOR: But this reason about women politicians, I just don’t buy this that if you’re a woman you’re going to get attacked because you’re a woman.  Look at Theresa May, being Home Secretary is a jolly difficult job, I’m surprised and gratified that she is actually seen to have done a very good job, unusually for Home Secretaries her reputation is enhanced by being Home Secretary.  If Maria Miller had been that good it would have been the same with her but it is the sense that there’s two committees at the top …

DM: But isn’t the point you’re making that when you are attacked you’re attacked in a different way?  Your gender is used against you.

ELIZABETH RIGBY: Yes and when you’re talked about it’s about your shoes or your top or is your hair nice or what’s your lipstick like and then it might be about what you’re saying.

DM: We’re nearly out of time and I want to tap into your considerable political knowledge and ask you about another topic.  Nigel Farage, after those two debates with Nick Clegg, should he be in the leaders’ debates in 2015?  Does he deserve at that table, at the podium?

HEYDON PROWSE: I think it’s always good to put everyone, as many people who are significant across the political spectrum in a debate as possible.  I remember when the BNP were put on a national stage and they flopped and that was really encouraging.

DM: Okay, what do you think Elizabeth, should Farage be there?

ELIZABETH RIGBY: I think that they will avoid him being there at all costs and actually I think the big things about these debates, what’s come out of it is that it will either be the Tories will try and do it as a leaders’ debate of Miliband and Cameron, precisely because they do not want to have to go up against Farage because as we saw, you know, the man in the pub, the anti-establishment politician, especially after this …

DM: Leaving aside the negotiating that’s going to take place, David, just on how they will perform in the European elections, okay they have got no MPs but should UKIP be in those debates?

DAVID MELLOR: Of course.  Nigel Farage seems to be a signed up member of the human race, not an accusation you’d likely deliver against the other three party leaders.  What we have to worry about here is not whether the Tories or Labour are going to win the election and which Nick Clegg is going to go to bed with, what we have to worry about is whether the public are signed up to our democratic processes and to parliament.  All this Maria Miller stuff doesn’t help people sign up to parliament.  The truth is that Nigel Farage reaches parts that other beers do not reach, he is actually a man who people think is credible and what we want is a general election where people participate rather than the dismal abstentions that we’re getting increasingly in general elections. 

DM: Okay, well listen, we must end it there, thank you all very much indeed, Heydon, Elizabeth and David, very good to see you.