i don't want to die. i wanted to help you. i'm about to go to heaven. i will help you from there". lucy manning, bbc news. now, it is newsnight. mr gove has a view. i think we should listen to the pay review bodies who govern each individual area of public sector pay. mrjohnson, we are told, has a view. has the government been underpaying nurses and teachers, mr secretary? we can all have a view. welcome to the post—austerity age. the deficit problem has not exactly been cured, but things have changed since 2010, and politics sees other issues as more pressing — none more so than pay forfive million public workers. a veteran deficit slayer gives us his view. all the president's tweets.

if you're struggling to keep up with the trump social media strategy, we'll give you the latest. and more to the point, we'll discuss what it says about his presidency. and what have this lot have got in common? the answer is music producer clive langer. when i worked with david bowie, we met socially quite a few times. but then, you know, he has your number. you don't have his. hello. the debate over what replaces austerity is under way, and public sector pay is at the heart of it. the 1% cap on pay rises remains for now, but there are those in government who want more pay for public workers, paid for by tax rises, others who think we should borrow to pay more and, presumably, others who think the pay cap should stay for the next few years until the deficit is definitively slain.

the economic arguments are interesting, given that the deficit is not the problem it was. but the politics is even more interesting — even among a certain class of deficit headbangers, the will for austerity is fading. and then there's the fact that the debate about it within government is so public. 1000 firemen from all parts of the country head for hyde park in the rain to publicise the demand for higher pay. public sector pay has long been an issue, and an emotive one. 0ne claim for more money that everybody supports, except the powers that be, is for the nurses. 2010 is when the latest vagaries affected public service. the government is asking the public sector to accept a two—year pay freeze. that was followed by a 1% cap on pay rises. year after year, who knew we would still be talking about it in 2017? the problem is that in delivering

spending cuts, each small—sounding 1% saved on public sector pay lops almost 2 billion off public spending. for ages, restraint seemed like easy money for the exchequer. and there was a holy trinity of arguments in favour. 0ne, back in 2010, the need to make savings was greater with the deficit running at 10% of national income. two, the justification was clearer. public sector pay was running perhaps higher than equivalent private sector pay. three, public sector workers had not seen their pensions as badly curtailed. in 2010, public sector pay was a relatively attractive thing to hold down, partly because it had done better than private sector pay in the years following the recession. therefore, the government might have thought it could suppress public sector pay growth without too much pain in terms of people

leaving and getting jobs in the private sector. but now all three of the trinity of arguments have diminished. the deficit is smaller. the public sector pay advantage over private sector workers has shrunk away, and public sector pensions have been trimmed as well. so, is whitehall ready to declare austerity dead? cautious economists may worry that the public sector has only got two modes, tap shut or tap gushing. with urgency over the deficit gone, it will not be a careful easing of pay restraints on a case—by—case basis. no, it will be a money rush. it takes strong leadership to stop it happening and with minority government we do not have strong leadership. which is why it seems post—austerity

politics has been unleashed in an ill—disciplined way. let's notjump ahead of ourselves. the policy has not changed for now, but the talk has surely gone too far for the direction of travel to remain unchanged for long. so much for the economics. what about the politics? 0ur political editor nick watt is here. nick, what's been going on today? tell us more about the goings on and the behind the scenes issues. there is irritation in the treasury, bordering on fury, that now we have had a third of the cabinet signalling they want that 1% public sector pay cap to be reviewed. i am hearing talks these ministers are virtue signalling and what has happened to the constitutional principle that the prime minister is first among equals? all the cabinet think they are equal. in a speech tonight to the cbi, the chancellor said there is no change to the policy of striking the right balance of being fair to our public servants and fair to those who pay for them. but he said the government is continually assessing that balance and in a sign of how complex he regards this, he says

there should be a grown—up debate on how to fund public services — and the only way to do that sustainably in the long term is by growing the economy. a grown—up debate. why can't we have a childish debate! do you think philip hammond can do anything about this? will he? this is a minority government, so it feels that the chancellor may well act in his budget later this year and may send the signal in the run—up to that budget. interestingly, in his speech tonight, he said the spike in inflation due to currency depreciation has led to what he has called frustration over the stagnation in real pay growth. i understand there is a concern between the gap between that 1% pay cap and inflation, which is currently running at close to 3%. i think what we could be looking at later this year is movement in that area by putting a link between inflation and public sector pay rises.

maybe not a real terms rise in pay, but what you could maybe see is perhaps you could have a rise in pay at 1% below the cpi. the consumer prices index. kenneth clarke was chancellor of the exchequer between 1993 until 1997, as well as a number of other senior cabinet roles. he spent money as well as dishing it out, but in his years, the deficit came down substantially. is there an economic case at the moment for continuing with the pay restraint in the public sector beyond this year? yes, there is, until the economy shows signs of definitely recovering from the current, serious slowdown. now we are a minority government, but one that is intending to go on, and we have to work out our aims. i presume we will carry on for a few years and we will have a successful government which means we show we are confident, we have

a reasonable economy, we avoid going into recession and we get nearer a reasonable brexit deal and we achieved reasonable growth. if everyone is going to get into the lobby of the week and this week, it is public sector pay... the politically vulnerable. what you cannot do is give in to that. what would be disastrous and silly, economically, would be putting money in to fuel a burst in pay in the public sector pursuing inflation. you are making out the case for public sector pay rises is weakness and stupidity, and you have retention problems which means you have to pay them more. the public sector used to be paid

more than the private sector and that has gone now. in parts of the country you have secure and reliable jobs. nurses are so popular, they are highly respected by me and other people and they are on the front line and we have a problem with nurses. brexit has meant devaluation, which has meant this country is less attractive for nurses to work in and the romanians have gone back. whatever the cause, basic economics means if you are short of people, you pay more to get them. how much are you going to give? if the government gives into this, it will not get any credit for it. firstly, our opponents, the labour party, will say it is not enough, you have abandoned the cap. the newspapers and the political bubble will say, another defeat for theresa may and the chancellor. that is what happened to the very sensible decision on abortion

for northern ireland women, which i'm sure theresa may was extremely anxious to agree with, but it was portrayed as a defeat for her. you say the politics mean you have to stand firm. responding to labour's manifesto which was rather popular, responding to that by getting halfway on matching certain things is not going to work? if you are in government, you have to take tough, difficult decisions which are in the general public interest, including public servants, because you wish to keep a strong, growing, modern economy. throwing money about to make yourself more popular next week is a mistake. when you were chancellor you got the deficit down. it was not starting from such a high base. you took unpopular actions. you put up taxes and you cut spending and you did them in about even measure. that was a political choice.

you thought, let's be a centrist government and we will do a bit on spending and a bit on taxes. george 0sborne's austerity was very different. it was more than 80% on spending. he did not put up taxes. you could say it has gone too far on the public service side and we need to spend more, and we need to put up taxes to pay for it. he took over from a very high taxing government, so he was restrained. what you have to do is address the reality of the economic situation of the moment. behind all this, somebody used earlier the phrase grown—up politics. if you are in government, unlike these other people floating around doing interviews, you have to look at the reality and your duty to deliver an economy which, in a few years‘ time, is better than when you took over. the labour party held,

but when wereached therglegtign. , we were miles ahead of them in the opinion polls on the economy. what do you think philip hammond means by grown—up conversation? it addresses the extremely serious economic problems we face. is it not grown—up at the moment? make a cheap political point. it is the politicians as much as the media, in the political bubble, it is not grown—up at all. the fact is, brexit is making us poorer. brexit has stimulated a devaluation and inflation and living standards are dropping and we are the slowest growing economy. it may be temporary. gove and johnson, those who wanted brexit, are those who have been out in the last 2a hours suggesting public sector pay needs to be raised.

i think your clips span what michael said. you have cut out all the stuff when we talked about fiscal discipline. 1; z.: $134??? 5§5§3 ;: .; r: z; .—7 and talk about politics and defend their policies and explain why they are doing things. philip should do more of it, theresa may should do more of it and go back to sensible discussion. all this pr rubbish about slogans, get rid of it. they need to practice otherwise they will get spun to make mischief. you are saying we should not worry. it is not a cabinet of ill—discipline? they need to be reminded they all got to contribute to the seriousjob in hand otherwise the whole cabinet will go down you will cast serious doubts

on economic ability. you cast the public sector pay issue as populism, a word bandied about a lot. you see it as all part of one and the same. it is this week's media campaign. the nurses and doctors settled for 1% without any particular demur two months ago, and suddenly it is the great passionate cause of the day. you famously called theresa may a bloody difficult woman. she took that as a badge of honour and was quoting it. do you still think she is a bloody difficult woman? she needs to be difficult. i hope she proves to be a bloody difficult woman and says, we have the serious task of government, let us follow

grown—up politics or we will be stuck in that cliche. we have an economic difficulty, we do not want to be left behind by the developed world, we have a lot of tough challenges, we are not suddenly throwing money about so that we can beat the labour party and say, we are giving everybody a pay rise. you will set of private sector pay rises and set off interest rates, and cause a blow to confidence and cause further slowdown. ken clarke, thank you. for the past three years the royal military police, the rmp, have been investigating hundreds of cases of alleged wrongdoing by british forces in afghanistan. yesterday the sunday times reported claims of a cover up of dozens of unlawful killings by what the newspaper described as a ‘rogue' sas unit. the sunday times reported that fewer than ten cases are now being actively investigated by the rmp and just one of them is a case of unlawful killing involving a 2011 sas operation in helmand province. 0ur defence editor mark urban has been following these allegations

for years and can now add something to the story for us. take us through the allegations. essentially, if you talk to people who have been involved with special operations in afghanistan, there is a widespread belief that the sas at times was using excessive force or stop that might be at the extreme end, getting people who should have been taken prisoner, and going right the way back to such things like so—called tactical questioning, a practice they ramped up in iraq in the 2000s and also took to afghanistan, quite rough interrogation of people on site. where raids were taking place was the these kind of excessive use of force. it is right to say that people that you speak to believe the sas were engaged in that at times during the operations in afghanistan. what was going on?

there were a set of factors, they came to it late, the royal marines rivals had dominated the theatre until 2009. there was pressure on them to achieve results and they achieved them a certain way in iraq and it was pretty kinetic as they would say. there was also the perception that the detention system was broken, and this is something we have reported before on this programme, that people who were being arrested, thousands, all but a small number were released immediately and that led to an allegation from someone who ran the detention centre, this was a broadcast we had in 2015. i've spoke to people on the ground who said that whenever they found