to two programs this weekend. the new coalition government, at its plant cuts, and to compare to what is happening in the united states. our next guest is matthew parris, a columnist for the times of london. he also has a weekly radio program from the bbc. mr. parris was a conservative party member from 90--- 1979- 1986. >> matt the paris, back in april 2010, you read -- the truth is simple, we are living beyond our means. that was several months ago. >> and it is not so just died but a great many commentators have been saying since.

at least the early years of the century, all of us in britain, nearly all of us, have had the impression of the prosperity, a growing prosperity which appeared to be beyond any explanation in terms of anything we were to -- producing ore exporting. then people said, i cannot believe that. why are we getting so much richer? why are our house is worth so much more? the reply from a clever economists, we did not need to make things any more. the added value is taking place. i had never been convinced by this. that was the last 15 years old. i get that impression that we were just eating up the value of each other's houses. property values of a cornerstone of the englishman's idea of wealth. eating up the value of each other's houses, then taking out

bank loans on the values on the basis of the bank loan, buying more expensive properties, and then ball rolling on the back of it -- could not last, and it did not. i'm not an expert economist. all i can say is that i had that feeling that something was rotten. i could not put my finger on what. it is becoming clearer light now. >> back in 2005, you wrote a column in the times of london, and let me read this. over committed is the whisper.

>> there was a column that was as much about the united states as about britain. i had a very strong sense that we reached the apparent pique of our imperial power quite a long time after the basis, in terms of economic strength and in terms of military strength, the basis of that had begun to fade. there was a sort of overhang in a way, putting britain on the map. you could see by then that there was no way that we could maintain all this. we were becoming top-heavy. it was a period that we have the feeling that the same thing would be true about united states. >> open question, what do you do for a living? >> no one ever quite asks that. i am always stumped when people

2. i tell people that i am a writer and broadcaster. i like to say journalist, because people know what the term means. a columnist is not a journalist. i think that a columnist is a reporter. those of the people that i admire. -- those of the people that i admire. that is what i call journalism. anyone can sit back and tin a few thoughts on their opinions of the way the world is going. that is what i do. i am paid to do what a lot of british people do on the top deck of a bus. that is not a real job, as my father used to remind me. >> how long have you lived in the united kingdom? >> i am really a colonial boy. i was born in south africa. my parents immigrated to south africa. they could not find a home in england. they did not like the apartheid

or the racial stuff. they came back with me. they found england to cold after south africa and so they went to southern rhodesia where i was mostly raised. i went to school in swaziland and then my family was posted in jamaica and in spain. at the age of 18, i came back to england as a young man to go to university, and talked with a very british accent, but does not really understand or know the united kingdom very well. i feel completely british because i belong to a generation of home serving was a british thing to do. i feel entirely british, but i did not know england very well. i have been learning ever since. >> winded to serve in parliament as a member of the house of commons? >> i was elected, the third youngest, at the age of 29 in 1979.

i served for seven years before resigning my seat between elections to take a job in television and doing what you do now. my job bombed to >> why did it belong? >> in british television, you need to be a little bit of a comic book character to succeed and all of those people who anybody have heard of it that description. i was articulate enough and bright and tough, but there is something memorable about them. i let my program to an early grave. >> larry king has been on our television screens for years and he is about to be replaced by pierce morgan. >> that is what appears is going

to do. he absolutely answers the profile that i just described. he is a sense it -- sensitive man, but he pretends to be a bit of a loudmouth. he says all kinds of things that sound wondering and careless. people love it. there has to be intelligence behind the apparent stupidity and for a popular tv presenter, that is what you want. people feel they can relate to you, but underneath, you need intelligence. >> what do we expect to see when he comes on the former larry king show next year? >> it will be next year? he likes people talking about themselves and being a little emotional. i would not: oprah winfrey. he got prime minister to cry a

while ago. he asked questions that you are not expecting. he is not afraid to go deeply personal. >> and when you were in the house of commons, what did you learn about the -- that institution? >> i never entirely found my feet. i failed in a lot of jobs in my life and i say that is one of them. one thing about the house of commons is that it is a team game. there is a place for maverick individuals, one or two, but only one or two. generally speaking, you get along personally and advance your own career and also to achieve things politically and nationally as part of the team.

if you do not have the idea of team work, if you do not have the idea of occasionally biting your lips turning a blind eye, then you do not prosper. the other thing that i learned, and i do not think that american politics are all that different, is that it is a mistake to think that politics is about principle an argument. principal is not entirely absent. argument is important. it will always cause to difficulties, but in the end, in politics in britain, you are representing an interest and there are a group of people whose interest you are representing. you may care because you are

a compassionate person. you are representing the lower middle class and middle-class as .uch as the upper class aes never forget that. you can tweak them a little bit, but in the end, if they feel that you are not their man any longer, then you are done for. that may sound like a cynical view, but there is actually a principled defense of this kind of politics. as long as the house of commons and the house of lords have representatives of all interest within it, then fine, let them clash. what he's best argument -- let the best argument wind. europe-let the best argument win.

leave it to other advocates to have the other argument. there is a principal argument for doing politics like that. >> this is a frivolous thing that i want to ask you about. maybe you do not think it is a frivolous. some time ago, you jump in the water out here and swam across. why did you do that? >> i did that on the 28th of february, 1978. i would have been 27 or 28. it was just down there on the side of the river. there is a building that used to be the local government headquarters of london and i was working for margaret thatcher as her correspondence clark. it was about 10:00 p.m. and i

walked towards the station to take a train home. i saw a girl standing there crying and i asked her what was wrong and they said they took their dog out for a walk before bed and it climbed onto the stone parapet and had fallen in the water and because it is high tide, he cannot find the steps underneath the water. it was dark. it was high tide. it was windy. i saw the head of the dog going around in circles. this was not courage, it was stupidity. i did not have any idea that the river was so cold. i nearly drowned. just as my strength began to depart my body, after about three minutes in the water, i have gotten close enough to the steps for a hand to reach out

and pull me out. margaret thatcher gave me an award for bravery a couple of months later. without that award and the publicity that surrounded it, i would never have been selected as a conservative candidate for ec. >> but then use when the river -- but then you swam the river. >> that was at the age of 61. i guess my career was founded on the river. i have a flat on the river looking across, further down. ever since i moved in 15 years ago, i said that i was going to swim across that river. you cannot live by the river and a swim to the other side. i kept telling people that i would then it became a joke. one evening, i suddenly thought

that now was the night. i waited until what i thought was high tide. i did not realize that high tide is given in greenwich mean time. this was the british summer time. i got the time of the tide it wrong. swam an hour before the tide turned and a friend came with me. we did not have lifejackets or a boat. there have to be a risk that you would die or it would not be real. we were swept a mile upstream by the kurds. we were in there for about half an hour before we came out shivering. >> you got some criticism for that. was that fair? >> completely fair. the harbor master had to read the newspaper and say that this was a dangerous and irresponsible thing to do and to

not try it at home. that was his job. but i would do it again. >> if you are looking at great britain from the united states, and you cannot figure route what is going on with all the cuts, can you explain to was house of your the economic cutbacks are here? >> they have not yet been, but they are going to buy. eeople are beginning to sa where they are going to bite. one has to get an impression of ness over the past 10 years. we have almost doubled our expenditure on our health care. nobody doubts that the service has gotten better, but it has not gotten twice as good.

we have gotten to 8% of gdp. we have virtually doubled it. everywhere you go, schools, school buildings, welfare, the way the state help to when you are unemployed, they have soared. the malingering claims have grown. things have increased. expenditures have increased by 40 percent, 50%, 60%. a majority of our wealth has climbed to around the 50%. we cannot carry on with this. >> on health care, if you live

here, how much of your check do you pay to health care every month? >> i do not know because nobody tells you. it is part of the treasury's general coffers raced through taxation. >> let me ask you about the taxes. as a taxpayer, were the start? -- where you start? -- where do you start? there is no national sales tax. explain the vat. >> we do not have a state system in the way that you do, so we do not really have smaller units of government within the overall state that is capable of organizing their own budgets.

almost all of the expenditure is raised by the central state and spent by thes central state. it is a mega-sales tax. it is value added so that each individual along the chain, from the production of an item to the final sale of an item pays tax on the proportion of value that has been added while it was in their hands. from the point of view of the ordinary citizen, all you know is that the price, when quoted, you at 70.5% -- you add 17.5% >> . everything except food,

children's clothing, newspapers, magazines, charities, there are a few exempted items. >> to you have a property tax? >> not really. we have transfers of property, so whenever you transfer of property, you pay a portion. we have domestic rates. this is for your local authority, your town hall or whatever. you pay a tax according to the value of your party -- of your property. >> and go to the council tax. what percentage of your income -- of your property which to pay per year? >> i think that i pay about 1,500 pounds a year.

>> something like $2,500? >> $2,500. on a property that is $2 million, it is not enormous. >> in the united states, you play -- you pay anywhere near $15,000 for something like that. what other types of tax? >> the other big ones are excise taxes on tobacco, alcohol and fuel. we pay a huge amount of tax on fuel. i think more than half the cost of a gallon or a teacher is tax. >> a leader is three or four leaders to a gallon? how much is a leader of gas here? >> it is more than two pounds. nearly $4 a leader.

>> just for a leader. -- just for a teaclitrere. >> the greatest part of a bottle of wine is the excise duty. those taxes are causing difficult for the difficulty for the government. -- causing difficulty for the government. we are all in this together and people are getting onto the ferry and crossing the channel with trucks and coming back loaded with beer and cigarettes. the exchequer is being deprived. equalizing of taxation is going on across the european union

caused by the fact that if one country charges more tax, people will go to the other country to get it. >> in january, we will have a republican house of representatives and a democratic senate. and a democrat in the white house. david cameron is the prime minister and he has proposed all of these cuts. will you automatically get these cuts? >> pretty automatically. people who follow british politics may think that they are broadly to terrible, the british of the united states. your president is like our prime minister in that you have your parliament and we have to of hours. our prime minister has more power. the house of lords has very limited power.

it has no power over anything that raises money. it has no power in the revenue department. they only have the power to delay. they can keep sending bills back that it does not like until a year has passed. and then the thing will go through anyway. the house of lords is not democratically elected, it is appointed. there are plans to reform that. whether that will come about, nobody knows. it has no to her credit legitimacy. it has expertise. -- it has no democratic legitimacy. it has expertise. when the british look across your system, it looks like you have two arms of government to oppose each other. >> if our president selects the

treasury secretary, she goes before congress and has to be approved. hear, who decided who would be the chancellor of the exchequer? it would not have mattered if the whole of the conservative party and the nation were against it, the prime minister appoints his cabinet. >> you have a coalition government for the first time since when? >> there was a coalition government in the 1930's of a kind. then of course, during the second world war. anring the 1970's, we had eve arrangement between parties. they have been weak needed ak kneed things.

no one has any real experience with a willing coalition between to quite strong parties, when joined together, when their forces are joined, they more or less agree with each other on policy. this is a healthy coalition. they can not only carry on for five years, but also the next election. >> i am a member of the conservative party. i stand for what? can you delineate between the conservatives and liberals and the labor party? >> if you were to draw a continuous spectrum from what you might call the left to the right, the conservative party tends to occupy the right hand

third of that spectrum although are extremists. the liberal party is in the middle third -- that would be wrong. there are some level will mps.ea they are liberal and the old sense of the word -- in the old sense of the word. liberal means belief in individual freedom, a belief in individual liberty. >> like a libertarian? >> you can be a libertarian, but there are low tax liberals as well. it is a belief in freedom and a belief in freedom. >> let's say that you have the

correct or for the afghan war. if you're conservative, what is your position? >> if you are a conservative, it ranges from being against the war all along to being a really enthusiastic person in favor of it. you have the feeling that these are rather typical policy adventures where we have the duty to support the united states even if we had doubts. liberals are almost all against both wars. >> we saw tony blair as the head of the labor party. what is the labor party position on the war? >> they got themselves in government supporting the americans. tony blair tended to support the americans because he was sure it was the right thing to do.

the rest of the labor party was not persuaded of that. most of them took the view britain as an engine partner of the united states, has to support united states. >> if you are a conservative member of parliament, where you vat tax. the fac >> they are in favor of the vat. tories do not like capital gains taxes because they are a business minded party. they are not that keen on income tax because they represent a lot of people that pay income tax. >> what about the liberal party

members? are they for the vat tax? >> they have been for and against it at different times. >> what about the labor party? >> anybody that is in government or wants to be in government has to have a sneaking regard for the vat tax because it is an easy way of raising money and is a very difficult tax to avoid. >> if you live here, when will all of these new cuts come along and if they do come along, when will we see change if you live here? >> generally speaking, new money will not be allocated to people who were expecting it or think that they wanted. the cuts will bite with progressive ferocity. we are not going to see cancellation of a great many huge government projects. the government is trying to keep infrastructure reasonably preserved from the cuts.

the coalition has said that the role -- that there will be no cuts to health care. internal inflation within any health system is always higher than retail price inflation nationally. the health service is going to be there. waiting lists may get a little longer. education, which was supposed to be protected, already a new school building program has had to be canceled. the biggest one will be local governments that is to say all the town halls and the county council's all across the country. they rely on most of their income from central government. this is going to be considerably diminished. they will have to lose a lot of their staff, which they will do

through natural wastage. >> this country of 60 million people, 500,000 public jobs will be eliminated? >> yes. it is important to point out that half a million people are tomorrow.be sacked to more cas it will be done by not hiring new people and old people retire. the hope is that the private sector will take up the slack. it may be an optimist koop, who knows? >> here is a paragraph from a column that you wrote.

you say that it was at miami airport on august 17, 2004, as i stood musing for two hours in the alien's queue for fingerprints. what does that mean? where were you? >> i was traveling from europe to south america. the common way to go is using one of the american airlines to miami and changing in miami. i understand that the situation has improved. every time i have tried to use that airport, it has been extremely difficult. most airports across the world, if you are in transit, you never go through customs or immigration. you get onto the next plane. in miami, you have to go through the whole thing. you have to formally enter the united states and half an hour

later, leave the united states. hughes used to be horrendous. que e key is to be horrendous. -- of the lines used to be horrendous. people are quite severe and quite rude to the public and quite bossy. the consumer culture is held up to the world as good customer service. >> can you give me an example of where you see the public officials being rude to the american people? >> a woman that i was travelling with waited in line for about

three-quarters of an hour. that was the waiting time. she jumped the gun and move forward across the lawn before it was her turn, thus standing in the prohibited zone between the line and the officer's desk. the officer, another woman, shouted at her to get back and then told her to go to the back of the line and start again as a punishment for having stepped over the line. you would never get that in britain. you do not get officials handing out summary justice and punishments to people in line. >> what is happening with television here and the bbc? one of the things that seems to be under way is the bbc moving from london up to manchester. that is costing $1 billion and maybe more than $1 billion.

then you hear about firings coming along, cuts made to the bbc and changes to pay for the world service. >> there are trying to devolve the bbc from too heavy a concentration on london and that has been going on for about 40 years. this is one of the boldest moves, but it is part of the philosophy that the corporation has adopted from the start. it needs to be the british broadcasting corporation. it should not be the london broadcasting corporation. i present a program that is produced from bristol. >> where is crystal? >> it is about 150 kilometers to two hundred kilometers to the west of london. i never go to bristol. i interview them and london, but

it is produced in bristol. -- i interview them in london, but it is produced in bristol. unfortunately, and their arguments to be made for doing this, if you're going to have a state broadcasting corporation, let it spread itself widely around the state. there are times when the bbc is under severe pressure. they will not be able to increase the license fee. >> how much does the average brit pay for a television license a year? >> i have forgotten, but it was about 150 pounds to 250 pounds. >> about two hundred $50? >> yes.

if the bbc is under a lot of pressure financially, they are also under a lot of political pressure. the director general gets nearly 500,000 pounds which is approaching three-quarters of a million dollars a year. -- approaching $750 million a year. they sign contracts that appear to be absolutely clear -- lunar. >> how about your on-air people? in the united states, one of our anchors makes $15 million a year. >> if you are a big name,

jonathan ross is one of our big names. if you are a big name, you do really well. the others are not that will pay. -- that well-paid. this has unfortunately coincided with a squeeze on the corporation's revenue. it is an expensive plan to devolve the corporation. i would not like to be director general of the bbc. >> i read that several people quit the bbc when they announced the move. i guess the move has been known for a couple of years, but they announced the move to manchester. a sports announcer and others just quit. some did not want to live in manchester. how extensive is that? >> it is quite extensive.

some people will commute by train. >> how long does it take? >> it takes about 2425 hours. -- two 0.25 hours. -- 2.25 hours. you have a larger country. you do not have one huge center of gravity. a lot of british people think this about america. they think that new york is the united states as london is to the united kingdom. not so. a lot of the tile that there is, culturally, socially, it gravitates to london. almost every big corporation would feel the need to have its headquarters in london. the civil service is in london. the legislature is in london.

we are not a very big country and we are hugely centralized country. this has been the same, the labor of the government to try to devolve talent across the regions. >> for years, the bbc world service which can be heard all across the united states was headed by the office here in great britain. i understand that it is supposed to be funded by the bbc itself. is that true? >> i remember when the world service was funded by the bbc and then it was decided that it would be funded by the foreign office instead. everyone thought this would be a disaster for the world service. it with his become an arm of british foreign policy and they would starve it of money and try to direct its operation. that did not happen.

it has prospered under the wing of the foreign office. i do not see why it should not prosper under the wing of the bbc. the bbc has much bigger global reach, not in terms of the world service, but in terms of other activities and its marketing and its books and its videos. i think that the bbc is a conscious of the world. >> out independent is bbc and the fact that it gets its money from the government. has that worked in your opinion? >> if i was arguing before an american audience, i would say that it is extraordinary how independent the bbc is. do not think that this is a state broadcasting corporation like the russian one.

it is not. it is really independent. it does what it likes and often falls out of favor with government and it criticizes government all the time. if i am arguing with a british audience, we are a bit smug about the bbc. i would argue that it has got a pretty good degree of independence, but if you are the state broadcasting corporation, you darn well are the state broadcasting corporation. there are things that you do not do. there are things that you do not say. there are programs that you do not make. this does not apply to the leaner rivals that the bbc competes with. >> you were a conservative member of parliament. are you still a conservative? what would you define your

politics to be today? what you feel strongest about? >> i am still completely and deeply conservative. i was a conservative as a student, as an undergraduate. i have never wavered. i am a conservative partly because i hate socialism. i hate collectivism. i saw what a creeping collectivism was beginning to do to the united kingdom and any party that is going to resist the collective approach to human culture and autonomy is gore to be my party. i have always been a liberal conservative. i have always believed in a degree of compassion for the poor. i have always believed in individual liberty, which some of the right are a bit chary

about. i think it has a civilized influence on the conservative party and i think it has a growing up influence on liberal the depressed. -- liberal democrats. i think that the role and strength and the potential schilling of the culture of the state depends on how much money it has to spend and how much money it gets from the taxpayer. the battle to push back the frontiers of the state in the battles to push back the amount of money that the state is claiming from the individual i think is the absolutely central battle in the first half of the 20th century. i often say we when i should say

they. >> have you ever talk about the percentage of your income that goes to tax? >> yes. i have not made a total calculation. i do not need to. it is something approaching 60% of my income -- it would be in something more like 70% if you take the excise duties, the income tax, the capital gains tax and another one that we have not even mentioned called national insurance. i reckon that for every 100 pounds that i earn, i would be lucky if i get to spend more than 40 pounds and it may even be less than that. because theyhigher

are not worth as much after tax. people that get benched for people near the bottom and near the top. es try to middle class' come of on a joint in 40,000 pounds. they pay 30,000 pounds of that back. >> if you get sick, you can go into any hospital and get treated? >> that is true. you will not pay for health care for your education. for everything else, you pay. >> you have been openly gay and a member of the conservative wing of politics in this country. if you were in the united

states, that might not be easy. why have you been so open about it? >> it might not be easy, but on the other hand, you could find a range of people on the right in america to basically give exactly the same story that i am giving which is to believe in homosexual law reform and believe that gay people are equal citizens and that relationships between people of the same sex are not anti- social, dangerous, or personally damaging. they believe in a small state. the state should not travel over people's private lives. these are things that conservatives ought to be able to support. dr. andrew sullivan in the united states and you will get the same story from him that you

will for me. millions of other conservatives. >> how long have you been with his partner? >> i have been with my partner -- we met and grew closer about 15 years ago. we got a civil partnership ceremony about four years ago when those things became available. >> you say it ageism -- that ageism has settled in. >> a lot of older gentleman say that you are as old as you feel. i am not afraid of old age, but i do not like old age. i do not -- i am not afraid of the end of the summer holidays, but i do not like the end of the summer holidays. i do not want to die. i love life. i want to go on forever. i want to be mentally sharp forever. it happens to all of us at different ages.

i know that i am not as sharp in my brain as i used to be. i find myself sometimes struggling to keep a with very quick fire conversations for the tiny things explained to me more carefully. i can see that we are all the generating -- the-generating all through our lives, but it begins to accelerate after 60 and i do not like it. >> and your partner is considerably younger. >> he is about 20 years younger than me. in civil partnerships and marriage, one has a responsibility to marry someone very much younger than one's self so that they can have another partner in another life -- and another life later. >> does he write?

>> he writes the occasional editorial. when he writes the editorial, he writes according to the papers policy. he writes a column in which he raises the standard for the coalition. he is one of the few guardian columnist. >> why would he support the coalition? >> he is a little democrat. i do not think he belongs to any party, now. he is moving to the right of me in his own opinion. but that does not stop you working at "the guardian." in some ways, is more fun to be out of kilter with the majority view at your newspaper. you need voices that will explain the coalition. >> you mentioned education.

he said that you do not pay for education here. i heard on the gritty of the other day -- i heard on the radio the other day that students were demonstrating on the government's increasing the cost of university. private education, here, is public and public education is private? >> we have in this confusion -- endless confusion over this. in the old days, on the whole, rich people would have their children educated by a tutor. quite a lot of rich people decided to set up schools where you pay.

the recall public schools. the fact that they were paid did not make them not public schools. then, much later, in the 19th century, toward the end of the 19th century, free state education was set up. we ended up with schools call public schools which are actually private and state schools which are free. >> i heard a young lady on the radio talking to a liberal democrat who was a member of the coalition and she was so unhappy. she kept saying that you lied to me. i voted for you because you said you would not touch our cost of education and now you are upping the cost of education. explain why she was so upset. >> she was upset about tuition fees. you americans will not find anything remotely surprising in the idea that the university might charge students a fee.

we have not had that in the past in britain. it has all been paid for by the government. the labor government, having promised that it would not introduce tuition fees, did, but limited them to $4,500 a year. students could get a loan from the government if they did not have the money to pay those fees and the money would be payable back at a zero rate of interest. what this government is now doing is raising the season up -- of the ceiling to $25,000 or more. they are slightly changing the loan system so that after you have left the university, the more you get paid, the more you pay back.

the liberal democrats, because they are a party that does very well in university terms have been against this and they were unwise enough and realized that it was a mistake and they were unwilling enough to get all of their candidates to sign a pledge saying that liberal democrats would never raise tuition fees. now, they are port -- that are part of a coalition that has raised tuition fees. >> there are 650 something members in parliament? >> the conservative party is the majority. that would be about 350 or 340 or something like that. in the liberal democrats, add another 80 to that and they get

the overall majority. >> we are about over-out of time. if someone wants to read the body of information that you have written over the years, what is the easiest way to get? >> -- to get it? >> i have started an archive of my work, but a lot of it is copyrighted. a great bit of my riding -- my riding -- writing -- i think you have to pay. there are better reasons for scaling the wall of news international. >> you can go in there and find most of your stuff. >> i write a weekly diary and a column every saturday.

>> the last question or so, what do you think is in store for this country over the next five to 10 years. >> i slightly misinformed you when i gave you the number of conservatives which is closer to 319 or 320. they do not have a majority. the first question is, can the conservatives and the liberal democratic coalition come together until the next general election which they say they will have an 2015. i think that it can. the arithmetic is all there. i do not think you will see a week the government. nevertheless, -- see a weak government. if the economy goes flat, the liberal democrats will still like they have been drawn into a much unfortunate experiment.

if the economy crashes, whoever is the opposition will win the next election. if the economy goes well, people will think the coalition for making the cuts and making us leaner and healthier. >> what is your guess about the future? are you optimistic? >> i am guardedly optimistic. unless the world economy crashes, in which we would all be dragged down, i think the economy is in good hands. i will see a low growth for the next three or four years but i expect to see the cuts not hurting quite as much as everybody thought. these are changes that have to be made and we need to approach the next decade in a more fighting condition. >> matthew parris, thank you very much. >> it has been a pleasure.

>> for a dvd copy of this program call 1-877-662-7726. for free transcripts or to give us your comments about this program, visit us at q&a.org. q&a programs are also available as as c-span podcasts. >> the redesigned book notes website now has over 800 authors interviewed about their books. you can view all of the programs, read transcripts and use the searchable database and find links to blogs, facebook pages and twitter feeds. a helpful research tool and a

great way to watch and enjoy the offers and their books. >> next, prime minister david cameron in the british house of commons. then another chance to see q&a with matthew parris from the times of london. >> tomorrow, on "washington journal," robert nichols talks about financial issues, including the democrats' opposition to the tax bill. then, doesn't chafee speaks of the funding for detainees for prosecution. and then john gannon details a state-by-state survey of financial literacy. financial literacy. "washington journal," live