Murnaghan Sunday Paper Review with Rachel Johnson, Damian Green & Terry Waite

ANY QUOTES USED MUST BE ATTRIBUTED TO MURNAGHAN, SKY NEWS

DERMOT MURNAGHAN: It’s time now to take a look through the Sunday papers and I’m joined for that task by the humanitarian, author and former hostage, Terry Waite; by the writer and columnist Rachel Johnson and by the Conservative MP and former Police and Criminal Justice Minister, Damian Green, a very good morning to you all.  Terry, a lot been going on and with your experience I want to get your take on this story you’re going to kick us off with, the attempted rescue of some hostages in Yemen.  

TERRY WAITE: Yes, this is a story I’ve taken from the Telegraph but it’s featured also in the Times and the Observer and it’s the situation where the Americans attempted to release hostages and unfortunately both were killed. I think first of all it illustrates the extreme danger and difficulty engaging in an enterprise like that, you’ve got to have very, very sharp intelligence.  Now they had good intelligence, drones had been surveying the area, unfortunately though just before, within a hundred yards of the compound, a dog barked, they were alerted and allegedly a terrorist then shot the two hostages.  It’s particularly tragic, one was a journalist and I think it points to the fact which we should not underestimate of how many journalists have been killed in the line of duty in the last years, a tremendous number and I think also, secondly, ransom was or had been paid for the second hostage, the South African, and that particularly tragic for both families.  

DM: Terry, when you were being held in Lebanon, a very different situation of course and a very different group, but just this issue of rescue, did that go through your mind while you were being held, did you hope there might be an attempted rescue or did you also fear what might happen in the course of one of these?

TERRY WAITE:  Well I was there in solitary for almost five years and the thought often went through my mind and I hoped and prayed that no one would attempt a rescue.  If anyone came in the room I had to be blindfolded and so I never saw anybody for over four years but occasionally – I was moved from location to location and occasionally I could bend down and see a gap under the door and the hallway was piled with arms and I was fairly convinced that if a rescue attempt had been made I would have been shot, no doubt about it.  

DM: Damian, just come in on this because as Terry mentioned there, it is thought that the South African hostage, that some kind of deal had been done and he might have been released.  Now we know that that doesn’t happen with British hostages, do you think that ought to be looked at in certain circumstances?

DAMIAN GREEN: No, I think we’ve had this consistent approach for decades now under various governments that if you pay ransoms, if people know you are going to pay ransoms you are doing two things.  First of all you are funding your enemy because that’s where they get a lot of their money from.

DM: But you are potentially saving a life.  

DAMIAN GREEN: Well you can save a life, you might save a life though tragically in this case that hasn’t worked, but what it means is that your citizens are that much more vulnerable because every British citizen would then be a potential source of income for terrorist groups so I think our approach may appear harsh but in the end actually it’s the correct approach.

DM: In the end. Okay, I want to move on because we’ve got a limited amount of time and there is a lot for you all to comment on so Rachel, come in on this next story, obviously Terry and Damian are going to have a view on this, this is the Archbishop of Canterbury wading into the poverty debate.  

RACHEL JOHNSON: Yes, there is going to be a parliamentary report, I think it’s published tomorrow and it’s the splash in my paper, the Mail on Sunday and there is tons inside on it as well and he is calling for a sort of huge wholescale effort to combat food poverty and he thinks that the government should actually back food banks, that David Cameron shouldn’t turn down European money – he turned down £22 million last year to fund food banks – and to accept they are part of the fabric now in a country where even people in work have to receive working tax credits in order to be able to eat.  So in a sense I think …

DM: So do you think he’s right and do you think he’s right to express an opinion on it?

RACHEL JOHNSON: Ah, I think he is very much right.  The church has to take a moral position when it sees need and suffering throughout the country and I spent a week living on £3 a day and so I did see it.  I went into this issue thinking people who can afford Sky TV and cigarettes aren’t poor and all those sorts of thing but it is such a complicated issue this and people cannot afford to eat decent food.  The food available in food banks by the way, those who think it’s like walking into Asda, it’s not like that, it’s white bread and it’s tinned tuna and only one protein a week so there are huge issues here and he’s got a lot of very good recommendations.  

DM: Damian, do you think the Archbishop has strayed across the line here?  Is he talking as the leader of the Anglican church here or has he got deep into a big political issue?  

DAMIAN GREEN: Well he has clearly got into a big political issue …

DM: But should he?

DAMIAN GREEN: Well I don’t mind church leaders intervening in political issues as long as they accept they are then in the political arena.  There is a slight feeling of well, this is the Archbishop of Canterbury, you mustn’t disagree with him.  Well actually in some respects I do disagree with him.  Obviously you take the lead seriously and I’ll read the report when it comes out but the thought that the state has got to get involved in this seems to me the wrong road.  Food banks work quite well …

DM: Isn’t that what the welfare state is there for?

DAMIAN GREEN: Exactly and we have a welfare state now but what they are specifically saying is now the welfare state should take over food banks, should nationalise food banks and all that would mean is that we would be spending a bit more on welfare so I’m not quite sure what additional value there is.  The additional value in food banks as they are currently run is that they are an expression by millions of people of individual charity and that reflects very well on them, on us as a society and that’s why food banks are able to do the job they do.

DM: Terry, broad point then, tell me is the Archbishop perfectly at liberty to get involved in these kinds of issue and could it apply to others, could it apply to foreign affairs, all kinds of things?  

TERRY WAITE: Oh he is absolutely right to get involved in political life because that’s part of the life of the nation so therefore he has a legitimate right to say that.  I think he is right also that there is a great deal of poverty and I agree with Rachel, it’s a complex issue. I think one further point though, I would like to see in our schools more nutritional education to enable young people to know how to get the best.  Because of the pressure of life, because of the lack of education, many people do tend to buy expensive products, frozen products and so on….

DM: Processed products.

TERRY WAITE: Processed products, exactly and I’m not saying this is a total answer, it’s only a partial answer to a very complex issue.  

DM: Okay, Damian, bring us your next story, something I’m sure the Archbishop of Canterbury and the government would and definitely do agree on and this is the Prime Minister leading a global way against child pornography.

DAMIAN GREEN: Yes, it’s a terrible issue but it is a really important thing for the British government to be doing, to be leading a world attack on this and what we hear today is that UNICEF is going to get involved which will help because a lot of the production of these disgusting videos happens in the developing world, it happens in poorer countries where at worse we have seen parents sell their children to be abused online, an absolutely appalling thing so having UNICEF involved will help with that.  The other piece of good news in here, the terrible news about increasing child abuse, is that last year we signed up Google and Microsoft to help and they have said that they now produce algorithms which means if you try and search for some of this disgusting material you get nothing back but a warning and in the course of the last year there are a fifth as many searches now as there used to be, so that’s proved really very effective.  

DM: Rachel, what do you think about it?  It’s great that the Prime Minister makes these pronouncements but in terms of the power that one nation has?

RACHEL JOHNSON: Well if it’s UNICEF it’s all nations but it does strike me that the problem is the people viewing, the proliferation of images which means basically if you view child pornography you are watching documentary evidence of a crime and we have yet as to this point failed to prevent this proliferating throughout the world.  Now yesterday or the day before I had to send my piece to the Mail on Sunday from my computer to the Mail on Sunday’s server and it contained the word nipples.  It did not get through.  So if the Mail on Sunday’s servers can prevent …

DAMIAN GREEN: What were you writing about?

RACHEL JOHNSON: I was writing about Madonna’s dress but if it is possible for the Mail on Sunday’s system to stop a piece of my writing going into their server, it must be possible – I mean it must be possible.  These Google algorithms are a brilliant idea but also for anyone to host such images, things are very, very detailed now and there must have been a lack of  will …

DM: It must be possible to find out where they’re viewing them and send the police round.  Terry, you’ve got another story here on the church, this is on the physical churches abandoned and vandalised.  Is this a sign of our increasingly secular society?

TERRY WAITE: I mean we’re going to face – it is a sign of a secular society I think or increasingly secular, but I think we’re  going to face a massive problem in the future, given all the churches in the country and given the dwindling congregations in certain parts of the country, it is going to be impossible for them to be kept up.  Now I have had personal experience of this with a big church in Gorton Manchester, a deprived area, a monastery.  Now that was abandoned regrettably by the Roman Catholic church, by the Franciscans, but it was taken up by a couple who used to attend there and said we’ve got to get this place on its feet. They have made the most remarkable, wonderful installation and they are now serving in a very realistic way a deprived community and the monastery is a place to be proud of.  It costs a fortune but it did show that a couple, just a couple with a vision, could actually do something and that’s what’s required, that’s the way forward.

DM: A quick last story, Rachel, the front page of the Sunday Times, Osborne goes to war against the Liberal Democrats, they think their mansion tax will fix the deficit.  

RACHEL JOHNSON: The mansion tax could pay for the monasteries.  Anyway, this is I think triggered by Nick Clegg’s decision not to sit through the autumn statement leading some people to say that the coalition was only together for the deficit and things like that.  

DM: Damian Green, the coalition is over now isn’t it, you’re splitting apart and post-Christmas you start fighting like cats in  sack.  

DAMIAN GREEN: Well we’re going to fight an election against each other in five months’ time but the real story here is Vince Cable who publicly now opposes things that he signs up to privately.  If Vince is that worried about being in this government he always has the option of leaving it, it seems to me.  

DM: You kind of just proved the point there, Damian Green!  Thank you very much and thanks to Rachel and Terry as well, very good to see you.