next, c-span is q&a. then tony blair and christopher hichens. >> this week, a look at the american and british forms of government from our recent interviews in london. this program compares and contrasts the parliamentary government with our own. >> it is a lot of different things and it is also something to do with the political culture. it may soon treacherous to our media colleagues over here.

i think the discussion of the critical issues is somewhat more dominated by policy rather than treating the minutia of washington life. hear, which are bound up with winslet -- with westminster stories. in terms of the politicians, the politicians in the uk do talk about the issues, probably more than the politicians in the u.s. by was struck by that. the politicians are caught by a super level issue of discourse because they're worried about the money-raising. it does not happen so much here in the u.k. >> here, and explain the difference. david cameron is the prime minister and he has proposed all these cuts. will you get all these cuts?

>> pretty automatically. and the british people who follow british politics think that they're comparable o. your president is like our prime minister. you have two houses of your parliament and we have to of ours. no. our prime minister has much more power than your president. he has a complete power over the lower house of commons. and the house of lords has very limited power. it has no power over anything that costs money or raises money at all. it has no power in the revenue department. even the powers and the rest of legislation are only the power to delay. it can keep sending bills back that it does not like until a year has passed and then the parliament act can be invoked and it'll go through a. our house of lords is not democratically elected.

it has no real democratic legitimacy. it has expertise. it has not been set up to be an opposition to the house of commons. it often looks to us, british, looking to you, that you have two arms of government said up to oppose each other and slow the possibilities of making any change fast. >> if our president selects the treasury secretary, he or she goes before congress and has to be approved. who decided that george osborn would be the exchequer? >> the prime minister appeared entirely his decision. >> how much -- how many jobs does the prime mr. phil? >> he fills -- does the prime minister phfill?

>> if a particular wants them income he puts them into the house of lords, which he can do quickly. >> what is the restraint on the number of people you can put in the house of lords? >> there is no real restraint. you would be very much criticized if you put too many and, as mr. brown and mr. blair are criticized today. but there are no legal constraints. they can have -- if they have the nerve to do it, they can do it. >> how long is your assignment as a lord? >> for life. >> the two categories of the people in the house of lords in my time have been on a limited tenure, the church leaders. the bishops have to give up when they cease to be bishops. the judges as well. our supreme court was a part of the house of lords of to --

house of lords up to two years ago. >> how is the supreme court justice appointed? " we have an independent appointments board -- >> we have an independent appointments board. they are appointed by an advisory committee of people, of which the senior judges have a pretty good say. >> is there any good with that the public can get rid of a judge by impeaching, like here in the united states? >> i have never heard of it. i cannot tell you. i am sure there must be away. but it has never happened in my lifetime. i think the lord chancellor or the head of the judiciary, who schedules the appearances, would make sure they do not get any work to do. >> what about the depositions for the prime minister? what people do not like the cabinet officers? is there any way to get rid of

them? >> only if the prime minister was to. the only way you can get rid of them is by having a vote of no-confidence in the prime minister. if the prime minister backs them, you cannot get rid of them. but the prime minister is quite sensitive to some political position. he would not support somebody who has clearly lost favor with a repaired >> based on what you know, a few had even the opportunity, would you rather be prime minister of great britain or president of the united states when it comes to the power and the ability to get things done? >> i think the prime minister of this country has a great deal of power, more power than anybody realizes. the prime minister in this country skillfully operates and has a great deal of power and can get things done, and some of which the president of the

united states would find it difficult. >> you have a coalition government for the first time since when? >> there was a coalition government in the 1930's of a kind. of course, during the second world war, we had a coalition government. during the 1970's, we had an informal working arrangement between the liberal party and the labor party. almost all of those previous coalitions have been weak-kneed things where a government that was in trouble was needing to be propped up by another party or to get it through an emergency, like the second world war. nobody alive in britain today has any real experience of a willing coalition between two quite strong party is who, when joined together, are a fairly -- are in a fairly impregnable position and agree with each

other on primary policy. this is a healthy coalition that has the seeds to carry on for five years, but perhaps to carry on the other side of a general election. that is new to us in britain. it is common on the content, but not here. >> i am a member of the conservative party. i stand for what? if i am a liberal, i stand for what? >> there is a 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 there are wild extremes on the right were not in the conservative party. the labor party tends to occupy the left hand third. but to say that the liberal party is in the middle third would be wrong. there are a lot of them who are

to the right on the conservative and some who are to the left. liberal is in the old sense of the world, not the way you use it in the united states. liberal means a belief in individual freedom, a belief in individual liberty. >> that would be like a libertarian? >> there are plenty of libertarians in the liberal party. there are high tax liberals, but there are also low tax liberals as well. >> us say you have the iraq war or the afghan war. if you are conservative, what is your position? >> if your conservative, your position ranges from being against the war all along to be a really enthusiastically in favor of them to the feeling that these were rather

difficult foreign policy ventures, military adventures, where we had a duty to support the united states, even if we had some doubts about the venture. liberal democratic party are almost all against the war. >> this was the first election that we had leaders, like you do in america, we have our prime ministerial candidates -- even though the public does not have any right to vote for them, they had three debates. i think they were generally thought to be a success. i think they will be a regular feature of future elections. but there was a great deal of difficulty about it. mrs. thatcher would never have taken part in them, partly because she did not hold that sort of thing, so to speak, but she would up also been told by her advisers that you have everything to lose and nothing

to gain. you are in the lead. but this election was very interesting. david cameron was very keen to have them. he was pretty certain he could out-debate gordon brown in the elections. he completely, in my view, underestimated the appeal of nick clayton of the liberals -- nick clegg of the liberals. for the first time, the liberal man was the outstanding winner of that debate. the polls went up. by the second one, they got a better way of handling him and they got it right. it was quite interesting how to place. >> one of the things about this country, the system we have, is that want to win an election,

you have more power. you didn't have a balance of power here. we have an unwritten constitution, for one thing. the way it works, kind of, winner takes all. the prime minister provides the cabinet ministers. >> what does it cost you to run? >> the amount of money you can spend is set. it is calculated according to your population. no political action committee or political party is out to run campaign ads. you cannot buy television time

if you are a british parliamentary candidate. people cannot buy on your behalf. the third time i ran for --liament, a few years ago [no audio[inaudible] >> it would have been close to $8,000. >> yes. >> ghandi raise that? >> the party raises -- >> how do you raise that to? >> the party raises it through bake sales. you don't have a huge budget. it is about using literature. you can have a campaign website. but we have districts that are

smaller. so you can go door-to-door. the national policy is subject to much criticism. but for local members of parliament, we have tough campaign rules. >> how much do they pay you for your job? >> i think it is about 55,000 pounds. >> that would be somewhere close to $110,000. >> yes. >> is that enough to live on here? >> sure. >> comfortably? >> find with it. >> what does a it -- >> i am fine with it. >> what does a lord make in a year? question doesn't get a penny in salary. -- >> he does not get a penny in salary.

a member of the house of lords could turn and come including all his expenses and things, maybe $50,000 a year. >> in the united states, as you know, a member of the senate or a member of the house, by and large, cannot do any outside work. what is the rule here? >> you can do outside work, unless you're a member of the government. but if you're a back-bencher, as i am, you can do outside work. the house of lords is designed to encourage you to do so because we believe that the house of lords should be filled with a large number of people who have expertise in all sorts of different areas, like surgeons, professors, lawyers, and people who are most of the time practicing their trade, soared to speak, but it did so to speak, but attend the house of lords to be a part of the

debate. >> can remember the house of commons do outside work? >> thank -- they can do some, but i think it is fairly limited now and every penny of it has to be declared. gradually, they are not. that is a pity, too. i think we're better governed with people who have 1 foot in the real world, as long as we know where they are. i would not offend anyone for a minute advocating functioning in parliament and not disclosing when they are coming from. -- this was and where they're coming from. -- disclosing where they are coming from. >> is there any way to compare david cameron to any politician in the u.s.?

>> that is an interesting question. i do not think you get a similar kind of character. he is very much -- he is quite an establishment figure in terms of his background. he comes from what we would say is a posh background. he is a traditional tory prime minister. i do not know who that would be in the united states. but he has become known as a compassionate conservative. in that case, he would be compared to george bush. although i do not know that he would appreciate a comparison. he does not have the traditional u.s. background. but david cameron has at least given the impression of wanting to change the conservative party, make it more modern in a

sense to do to what tony blair did to the labor party, recognizing the people have changed and people are more tolerant than they once were, and also have a more open-minded approach to running government. but on things about the budget, they are pretty hard traditional in the sense of wanting to cut spending pretty sharply. that is something that we see here from conservative governments that we have not always seen from u.s. republican governments. they talk about cutting taxes, but they do not cut spending very much. the use least increase it. >> -- they usually increase it. >> you refer to cutbacks here as just plain cuts. can you explain how severe the economic cutbacks are here? >> they have not yet written, but they will bite. people are increasingly able to see where they will bite. to explain how severe the cuts

will need to be, one needs to give an impression first of the lotus and profligacy of the british government over the past 10 years -- the bloatedness and profligacy of the british government over the past 10 years. we have gone up from 4% of our domestic product to 8%. i think that you americans are close to 10%, and that is with private health care. everywhere you go, school buildings, welfare, claims for benefits, which is to say the way the state helps you when you are unemployed, they have soared in capacity benefit worried you say that you are unable to work to do to back it or whatever it may be. it may be serious or it may not.

but the rolling green claims have grown. -- but the malingering claims have grown. the proportion of our wealth of that is now being spent by the state has climbed from around 50%'s.s to the we cannot continue like this. >> what percentage of debt here compared to the u.s.? >> we are in the same ballpark. america, with its unique position and having the reserve currency at least for the moment of the world, it gets special treatment, i guess. they can get away with more borrowing than we can. the deficit is similar to the u.s. here, it was 11% of national income, which is roughly what i think it will be in the states.

that was considered to be an outrage by the incoming conservative government. it is much higher than when the international monetary fund famously had to come in bailout the u.k. in the late 1970's. people were very focused on that. with this new government, they can but to with this new government making such strides -- with this new government making such strides to bring it down, i would say that our borrowing is going on a downward path. our debt is at an average level, while it has risen a lot, it is still a half to some developing countries. the u.s. still looks like it is going up as far as the eye can see. the stock of debt relative to the economy will be the same ballpark, i suspect, in the u.s. case being higher. it will depend on how you treat the state to get.

we are in the same ballpark. when i this is different is that the u.k. has now put forward what most people would say is a credible plan for putting the debt on a downward path. you're not only borrow less, but you're not allowing the stock of debt to rise in the next year. that is not what is happening in the u.s. >> us not, my guest said that, if you're over 65 or 70, you get free bus rides. >> 60. absolute insanity. gordon brown introduced -- there are quite a few freebies that were introduced by him that now cost a lot of money. free tv licenses for all the people. that is option 0 for 70. -- over 75. you get a free ride to watch the bbc. if you buy a tv, you have to buy

a tv license, which cost a little under two hundred dollars. and that goes free to people over 75. even if they're well-off. it is even more extreme with the case of the bus traveling. if you are over 60, everybody in britain can get a card to give them free bus travel. it that is a point of contention. david cameron was pestered in the campaign and election to say that he would keep it. but the treasury would like to get rid of it. they think it is crazy to be giving this free travel to a lot of rich pensioners and rich elderly people. >> in this advice session, what people are coming to that are direct results of because. >> is very frightening. there are very big cuts in jobs in the public sector.

some government departments will lose 20% to 30%. in my district, those who work work for the government, hospitals, schools, government departments. that is the big thing. >> what special payments are in this country for either children or older people -- old people? >> in this country, we have benefit payments for unemployed people. obviously, we pay a pension to the elderly. again, there is the fact that people are worried about how they will manage and how rough the situation will get. >> how much does an older person who is retired get in a pension? how is it determined? >> you get a standard amount of money. i think it is about 70 pounds per week. >> so you're talking about $110

per week. >> but they also get other payments. they get a payment for fuel in the winter. but the basic payments are about 70 pounds per week. other payments they could get, whether they are payments for medical conditions or help with other things, those are being cut back and people are worried about it. >> what are some of the complaints you get all the time in your office from your constituents? >> they are just worried about how they will manage without a job. people are very concerned that the government has tripled the fees that people have to pay. people are worried about the future. in my district, we have a high turnout. i doubled my majority with the increased electorate. they came not in order to support me and my party because

they knew that this government was coming in and was not good for poor people. >> we have 2 million people who work for the federal government. when we watched the cuts being announced every year, 500,000 people in the public service, is that like cutting a fourth of our civil service? is it the same thing? how you cut 500,000 civil servants in a country of 6 million people? >> they are not all civil servants. it will also be policemen, the bureaucrats who are dealing with the different departments, and a lot of local authority, local government officials. the the thing to remember is that come in that figure, it is all the people working for local government. a good chunk of that -- >> what control does the prime minister have over the local government?

>> he is doing a classic trick of saying that we will cut a much money we will give to the local government, but we will give you much more control over how to spend it. they hated the fact that they were forced to spend on certain things. it is a similar debate in the u.s.. the state's hate having the federal government tell them how to spend the money. kamen said, you have less money, but we will stop -- cameron said, you have less money, but you will have more control on how to spend it. most constituents will be planning their local governments. >> in the u.s., the president said we will cut the money to the states. he may never be able to do that because congress would not go along with it. what about here? what is the chancellor of the exchequer says that we will cut the money to the states --

doesn't mean it will be cut to? >> it means it will be cut. what they say in parliament happens. that is the key difference. when parliament does not get its way, it is pretty celebrated and you will hear about it even in the states. that would be a major loss for the government. and a sense, things are a bit different in a coalition government. you have a lot of debate between the two parties, the liberal democrats and the conservatives, that have to happen behind closed doors within the treasury before these things get announced. in a sense, there is a new check a balance in the conservatives power that would not have normally been there. unless something cataclysmic happens, it will go through. that is the parliamentary system. it is a very different system. >> if you work for the chancellor of the exchequer, george was born, versus the treasury secretary of the united states, what would -- george osborn, versus the treasury

secretary of united states, what would a day be like? " it depends on the person. -- >> it depends on the purpose. some prepared speeches and they want everyone to have seen it before hand. most of these guys in there and they have people they trust and they want to do it at the last minute. people at the u.s. treasury would be tearing their hair out because larry and i would be discussing his crucial speeches at 3:00 a.m. what is really interesting and different is that the u.k. treasury is much more powerful in the u.k. than the u.s. treasury is. i was sort of amazed -- i should have known this going in -- but when i went to the u.s. treasury, i was surprised that it does not have much control over the monetary policy because that is the fed's job.

and it does not control budgetary policy. the president will set the budget. the budget he produces in january is currently receive and then ignored. , if is much more powerful. the finance minister stands up on a certain day -- you saw the report i did in the spring -- they stand up in parliament and announce what they will do. they sit down and, in a week or so, it will have happened. there is none of i think that is the key difference. of course, when it comes to the rest of the world, no one cares anymore what the u.k. treasury says. in the u.s., there was too much

control, some say too much control. the irony was we have a lot more control over other countries than we did over our own. >> i am sure you have been watching what has been happening in the united states, with the republicans basically saying "no" during the last years of barack obama's term. looking back at what happened during the blair yearsl -- >> i think what happened in our time, we inherited -- it was a pretty prosperous economy, and they held the line for it, and then things went radically wrong with spending.

we criticize them pretty wrongly at the time, saying you are not meant in the roof when the sun is shining, and when it rains, we all get wet. it is much more difficult now, starting from a difficult position to get back into the economy. now, i do not know if i am fair about this, because i do not follow american politics very closely, but there is one thing that i have noticed about politicians. if they are going to lose a vote because they do not have a majority, they can say some pretty courageous things in times -- terms of criticizing their opponents, knowing that their opponents are going to get the thing through anyway, so they can be ready in the years to come to say, "this did not work," and "that did not work." if it were the other way around, the other parties would have each said similar things that

they are saying. in other words, when you are in government, you are faced with some problems, and there is no way ducking them. you have got to deal with them. when you are in opposition, you can pick and choose what you make a fuss about, and no doubt, from where i sat, some of the major industries in the united states, particularly, i think, in others had build up some very, very deep-seated problems that had to be resolved. if i remember rightly, we had nine pins sinners -- nine pensioners for every employee in the company, and no company can survive that sort of historical cost, and big decisions have to be taken. the opposition sometimes criticize a bit nypirg we will

they would have to do some of those things themselves if they found themselves in government. >> as a taxpayer, where do you start with that? we hear about this thing called "vat," and we do not know that. we have the sales tax. >> is basically the same thing. >> there is no national sales tax. >> we do not have a state system in the way that you do, so we really do not have smaller units of government within the overall state that are capable of organizing their own budgets and their own tax-raising system. almost all of the expenditure is raised by the state, by the central state come and spend by the central state. -- spent by the state. the value-added taxes a slightly more complicated system. it is value added, so each

individual along the chain from the production of an item to the sale of an item pays tax on the proportion of value that has been added while it has been in their hands, but from the point of view of the ordinary citizen, on you know is the prices when quoted. -- paul you know is the prices when " to. it is going up to 20% -- all you know is the prices when quoted. everything except food, children's clothing, newspapers, magazines, charities. there are a few exempted items, but about 90% of what we buy. >> the vat is going up at the start of the year, and it was offset by cutting some of the payroll tax rise that they are not going to completely employment, but instead, they are doing a vat rise.

the conservatives in the 1980's, margaret thatcher, the increased the vat very sharply, and to some, that still has a resonance. the price of things they buy, it could well go up as a result of that. most people in the u.s. do not think in terms of that with a sales tax. this is a sales tax on everything except food, which is going to be 20% on top. >> do you have another tax that you pay? >> not really. we pay tax on transfers of property, so whenever you transfer a property, you pay a proportion of that. that is in the lower portions of the tax. we also have what are called domestic rates. it used to be called a domestic rates. this is a local authority, your town hall or whatever, and you pay a tax according to the

value, very approximately according to the value, of your property, but all of these taxes are very small compared to vat and income tax, which are the big ones. >> what percentage of your income would you pay? or what percentage of your property value would you pay a year? >> let me see. i think i pay about 1,500 pounds per year. >> something like $2,500? >> that is about $2,500 on a property that is worth perhaps $2 million, something like that, so it is not enormous. >> in the united states, you pay somewhere between $15,000 and above for something like that. >> yes, yes. >> so what other kinds of tax you have? >> the other really big ones are excise taxes, and that is primarily on tobacco, alcohol,

and fuel. we pay a huge amount of tax on fuel. i think more than half of the cost of a gallon or a liter of fuel is now the tax. >> yes, but a leader is -- what is it? three or four leaders to a gallon? >> yes. >> and how much is a leader of guest -- a liter of gas? the last thing i saw was about $3 a gallon. yours is three to four times more expensive. >> yes, the government raises the huge amount of revenue on fuel taxes. it raises a huge amount of revenue also on alcohol taxes, with the greater part of the cost of a bottle of wine is the excise duty. that is on tobacco, too. those are causing difficulties for the government, because on the other side of the english channel, in the european union, they do not pay anything like

that amount of tax on alcohol or tobacco, as a result of which, because we are all in a customs union together, people are getting on ferries, crossing over, coming back loaded with beer hit and cigarettes, so the chancellor of the exchequer is being deprived quite a lot of revenue. balancing, leveling, equalizing taxation going on across the european union, caused simply by the fact that if one country charges a lot more tax for one item or another, people will go to another country to get it. >> what is another difference? >> we do not have -- issues like abortion. we have access to abortion in this country. people sometimes debate about the time limits compound because you cannot have an abortion easily if the child -- people

sometimes debate about the time limit, the tissue cannot have an abortion easily if the child is -- because you cannot have an abortion easily if the child is later. gun control is not an issue in this country because, actually, people need guns to shoot birds in the country. there are some of the strictest gun control roles in the world. -- rules in the world. the number of people killed in newark and one month might be the number of people killed in a year -- killed in new york beat in one month. -- killed in new york and one month.

all of these. lifestyle, the ethics issues, they are not politicized in this country. >> why not? >> because the british do not think it is right. the british think these are matters of conscience. coming up before parliament, a vote of conscience. the majority of mp's. we have not had a death penalty. the british do not think it is right or humane. >> you have been for years openly gay and a member of the conservative wing of politics in this country. >> yes precooks if you're in united states, that might not be easy. why have you been so open about it? >> it may not be so easy. on the other hand, you can find a range of people on the right in america to give exactly the same story that i am giving, which is to believe in, sexual

law reform, to believe that gay people are equal citizens, and to believe that relationships between people of the same sex are not necessarily antisocial, dangerous, or personally obtained -- damaging. it is not inconsistent with being a fiscal conservative, a conservative, being in a small state. indeed, believing that a state should not trample too much over people's lives and believing in individual freedom of conscience, freedom of speech. these are all things a conservative ought to be able to support. i know matthew sullivan is only an honorary american, from him as you get from me, and many other conservatives. >> having a partner and two children, is that accepted university here in great britain? >> we now have a politician who has a partner and two children. i think it is pretty common.

i might be wrong, but i think last year was the time that more than half of the children born in the u.k. were born out of wedlock, so it is very commentarian it is one of those things -- in the modern world, you end up spending more time looking for a house and starting a family, and you look around and say, "you are not married yet. we will have to fix that in the future." >> in the united states, some groups say 70% are out of wedlock. >> i think it was not a conscious decision. i think if you need someone sort of later in life, and in, we met in our late thirties. there is a bit of time pressure. i did not dream about what it would look like. i was not sure i would get married, and it seems like a

bigger priority, as i say, to find a way to live together and start a family and then to get married. -- to start a family than to get married. it was a question of timing. >> how old are they? >> two and four. >> tight security. when you ride the subways, it does not let any more secure than our subways. in fact, you do not hard to see a policeman. you had that tragic subway accident, or terrorist situation, that killed 150 people, something like that. what has that done to society? i know you have the ira. >> terrorist violence in america. then, of course, you had the ira in the 1970's and 1980's. i was back on the subway, and so

was everybody else. we are not going to let terrorists stop us, going to work. british people are a little bit more phlegmatic about terrorist activity than the americans. we just go on with it. >> a lot may not remember our previous interviews from a long time ago, but i want to one a little clip of the one we did in 1988, because it tells a little bit of a story that they should know about you before we go any further. >> an ira bomb went off, which was designed to blow up the government, and i was, unfortunately, in a bedroom that was fairly near the bomb. my wife was killed instantly. there were four other people killed and others badly wounded. i was seven hours under the

rubble before they managed to dig me out. i do not think anybody else was under their except for maybe three. they got me out alive, just about, and i was a long time in the hospital, and then i had to set to and rebuild my life. >> go back to when that happens, please. >> well, i was fortunate enough. i got married again fairly soon afterwards. a great friend of my first wife have one more sun, and so we have three sons, and we have just celebrated at our silver wedding, 30 years since that happens, so i rebuilt my life in that sense, and i have a wonderful family around me, which helps. i still have trouble with my legs. where they were crushed. in fact, i was just in the

hospital three days ago, where every now and then, i get a different flareup with my legs, but they can sort it out. they can sort it out, so that side of it has not completely clear, but it does recover. i am lucky. >> what year was this? >> this would have been 1984, so it was just over 25 years ago when the bomb occurred. -- 1994. >> and that was the irish republican army, the ira. >> yes. we are trying to work together, and with some success, too. >> are you surprised that there are no more of the bombings going on? >> well, there are still a small element that i think would like to try to get the bombs going again, but they are not given much poppy was thought, even with the elements in irish society that would have been in

favor of basically a united ireland, so i think so far things are reasonably under control. but, you know, it has been a lot hearth hard work and getting things going. -- a lot of hard work and getting things going. >> that was the party meeting? >> it was the annual convention, yes. >> how many people were killed? >> there were five people killed in the building i was in. because i was a government chief at the time, i was in the next room as mrs. thatcher. of course, it was mrs. thatcher that they were after, and the bomb went off, and i fell four stories in the hotel, and so, they dug be out seven hours later from the hotel, and the only reason i survived was really luck. a girder from the hotel came down and stopped the hotel

crushing me, stop rubble crushing the, and the springs of a bed gave me enough to keep was prettyit amazing. >> is there any lesson from americans looking at 9/11, thinking this will never be over? >> well, i think you have got to have a combination of strong security, you have to do what is best to try to frustrate -- you need very good intelligence and some very brave men. they have usually infiltrated some of these organizations to find out what has gone on, but at the same time, i think the leaders of got to be able to start some sort of dialogue with these people. however evil the overall organization might be, there are some less evil people in it, and some people who could be persuaded.

the peaceful path is what is required, and what you must not do is to drive them all into the hard line. so in all of these successful things, i think there have been some negotiations where the moderate people are gradually drawn away from the real hard liners, and you can make some progress. >> why did you run in the first place? >> why did i run? some people who did not have a voice. there were about 20, and there were no black people at all, and i was the first black woman, and it was an opportunity to speak up for people who would not have got hurt otherwise. >> the first black woman to be in the parliament of this country. >> yes, and i was elected i think 150 years after the

abolition of slavery in the british empire. there are a great more minority members now on both sides of the aisle. there are about half a dozen, when they did not have any when i came in. there has been an advance. there are not as many as there should be, but it is a big advance. >> given the system, in your obviously aware of what goes on in the united states, we have over 40 members of the u.s. house of representatives of 435. what is the total number? >> i think it is about -- i think that it is about 20 something now. >> so under your system, how you get more minority elected? >> well, what the central party did is they put a lot of

pressure on. you have districts that are almost entirely minority. they will a led one or two members. we do not have the kind of history of segregation, so in the labor party, in the conservative party, i think they have begun to make things more diverse, and so they encourage -- that is probably the most polite thing -- they encouraged it. >> what part of your life here is regulated? in other words, do you have a lot of regulatory agencies that regulate the media, regulate energy, all of the various aspects of life? >> well, for instance, in the

media, you can have a station nighthawks in this country. >> you could, or you could not? >> you could not precooks mr. murdoch owns -- you could not. mr. murdoch owns sky. >> they have a responsibility for their news to be balanced. >> do you think the news is balanced? >> -- >> americans would say this is freedom, freedom to say whatever you want to say, freedom to have a gun in your house if you want to have. all of the things that we have been talking about here, the first amendment protect speech. in other words, a lot of people say you ought to be able to spend whatever you want to on politicians. >> it is a freedom of the

expense -- at the expense of those who do not have money, a freedom at the expense of the court. there are those that were talking about barack obama being a muslim. it is a freedom of things that is wholly misleading. if people are accustomed to hearing things without contradiction. >> is there a difference in journalism in the two countries? >> i think there is certainly, and i know this with "the new york times," having more to with "the financial times," which is a very serious publication here, you can say that they have much lower standards in terms of fact checking, but they basically leave the journalists to make their own judgments. >> where? >> in the u.k., and that may certainly -- certainly other newspapers, not necessarily "the f.t."

someone once said to me that the great thing about sunday's is that things do not have to be true. that is the kind of way that sometimes people talk in the u.k. of course, you would not hear that in any serious newspaper in the u.s. i was taken aback initially and then rather impressed by the amount of attention to detail when i was working at "the new york times." >> you read something, and i do not know the entire name, the press complaints board? >> yes. >> what is it? who runs it? what does it do? >> to put it bluntly, it was an attempt by the newspaper industry to demonstrate that they had set up a body to seek to raise standards, particularly standards of patient privacy and inaccurate reporting of things, partly to stop either political

party, whoever won the election, to bring in any control, statutory control to the press. and they wanted me to run it after the first chapter, who was a very nice man, had not made much of an impact, and he retired, and one of my tasks was to raise standards, if i could, by getting the public to complain about anything they thought was unfair, wrong, inaccurate, distorted, invasion of privacy, things of that sort, but we had no actual legal penalties. we could not find people, but we could do was criticize them pretty heavily, and the newspapers hated that -- we could not fine people. you never got charge anything for making a complaint. we did, i think, raise the standards over the years. >> who paid for it? >> the newspaper industry paid

for it, and i was the one as the chairman who had to maintain our independence from the newspapers. i had to be sufficiently respected by people to say that i was not there to will, because we were being paid for by the newspapers. >> what years did you run it? >> i ran it for seven years. i guess i started back in 1985, and i think i went to 1991, 1992. >> guys that americans -- a guy that americans are going to meet, pierce morgan. he is about to takeover for larry king. >> he is a good guy. he published photographs of i think it was the first earl spencer's wife, who was walking around the grounds of a nursing

home, where she had gone for a mental breakdown. >> who is earl spencer? >> he is the brother of princess diana, and he is one of our big landover is an member of the old school. i am an aristocrat of the new school. i do not have any land. but he is one of the big ones. this was right at the heart of what we were trying to stop. that is, the intrusion of somebody in hospital. and i said that this was a very serious breach of the code, and it was right at the beginning of the times. i went to rupert murdoch, and i said, "look, in the end, it is you that has to have people you have confidence in running your show." >> "news of the world." >> "news of the world," a very popular show, and murdoch said, "the conduct of this man is

unacceptable." of course, he went to get a job at another newspaper, and i invited him to lunch, and we are good friends. but there is no hard feelings of it at all. it was part of the process of trying to demonstrate that a free newspaper system did not need hard government intervention and laws to stop people going into people's privacy. >> -- >> i think we are alike. you have a written constitution. that written constitution means that you have the supreme court, the president, the house of representatives, and they all balance each other. balance each other.