no, our prime minister has much more power than your president. he has complete power over the lower house, the house of commons. and the upper house has very limited power. it has no powers over anything that costs money or lose raises money at all. it has no powers in the revenue department. even its powers and the rest of legislation are only the power to delay. it can keep sending bills back that it does not like until one year has passed and then the parliament act can be invoked and it goes through anyway. the house of lords is not democratically elected. it is appointed. there are plans to reform that. nobody knows if that will happen. it has no real democratic legitimacy. it has expertise. it has not been set up to be in opposition to the house of commons. it often looks to us british

looking to your system as though you have set up two arms of government almost to oppose each other and to slow the possibility of making any big change fast. >> if our president selects the treasury secretary, and he or she goes below -- before congress to be approved. who decided that george osborn would be the chancellor of the exchequer? >> it would be the prime minister. >> how much appointment power does the prime minister have? how many different jobs does he or she fell? >> he fills virtually the whole of the government. >> how many would that be? >> about 100 appointments. >> to all those come from the house of commons? >> yes. if he wants them in, he puts them into the house of lords which he can do quickly. >> was the restraint on the number of people he can put on the house of lords? >> there is no real restraint.

you would be very much criticized if you put too many interests mr. brown and mr. blair are criticized today. there is no legal constraint. if they have the nerve to do it, they can do it. >> how long is the appointment as a lord? >> for life. the two categories of people in the house of lords that in my time had been on a limited tenure have been the church leaders, the bishops. they have to give up when they cease to be bishops. and the judges because our supreme court was part of the house of lords up until two years ago and they have moved out now and they no longer sit as members of the house of lords themds. >> we have an independent appointments board. they are appointed by an advisory committee of people

which of the senior judges have a good say. >> is there any way a -- the public can get rid of a judge by impeachment and united states? >> i've never heard of it. technically, i can't tell you. i am sure there must be a way that it has never happened in my lifetime. the lord chancellor or the head of the judiciary, the senior judge in the supreme court whose schedules the appearances would make sure he did not get any work. >> what about the cabinet positions for the prime minister? what people don't like a cabinet officer? is there any way to get rid of them? >> only of the prime minister wants to get rid of them. the only way you can get rid of them is by having a vote of confidence from the prime minister. if the prime minister back to them, you can't get rid of them.

the prime minister is quite sensitive to his own political position and he would not support somebody who had clearly lost favor with everybody. >> would you rather be prime minister, forget the country involved, 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 people -- more power than people realize. the president has a great deal of power, the prime minister in this country skillfully operating has a great deal of power and can get most things done, some of which the president of the united states would find difficult. >> you have a coalition government for the first time here since when? >> there was one in the 1930's of a kind. 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 those previous coalitions have been weak-kneed where a government that was in trouble needed to be propped up by another party or get through an emergency like the second world war. nobody alive in britain today has any real experience in a willing coalition big two -- between two quite strong parties who when joined together, when their forces are joined, are in a fairly improbable position and to more or less agree with each other in the main areas of policy. this is a help the coalition that has within itself the seeds of being able to carry on for five years but the guts to carry on the other side of a general election and that is new to was in britain. >> i am a member of the

conservative party and can you delineate between the conservatives or a liberal, what do i stand for? >> if you drew a continuous spectrum from the left to the right, the conservative party right andccupiy the third of that spectrum. there are wild and extremists to the right who are not in the conservative party. the labor party tends to occupy the left hand third. to say that the liberal party is in the middle third would be wrong. there are a great many of whom are to the right of some and there are some liberal mp's to the left. the liberal is liberal in the old sense of the word. you tend to mean left-wing by liberal in the united states. we don't.

liberal means a belief in individual freedom and liberty. >> like a libertarian? >> you could be. there are high tax liberals and low tax liberals as well. it is the belief in freedom and individual liberty. >> let's say you have the iraq or afghanistan war. if you are conservative, what is your position? >> it or conservative, your position ranges from being against the war as i was to be a really enthusiastic in favor. this was the feeling that these are foreign policy adventures where we had a duty to support the united states even if we had some doubts about the adventure. liberals are -- liberal democrat party are against both wars. >> this was the first election

that we had our prime ministerial candidate, although the public has no right to vote for them, they had the three debates. i think there were generally thought to be a success. i think they will be a regular feature of future elections. there was a great deal of difficulty about it. mrs. thatcher would never have taken part. she would have been told by her advisers that you have everything to lose and nothing to gain. you are in the lead. this election was quite interesting, really. david cameron was very keen to have them because he was pretty certain that he could out-the

debate gordon brown and the elections. that is what he felt. he completely underestimated the appeal of nick clegg of the liberals. he allowed the others to keep arguing. the first time, the liberal man was an outstanding winner of that debate. the polls went up. by the second round, they got a better way of handling them and they got it right. it was quite interesting how it took place. >> one thing about the system we have is that once you win the election, you have more power. have a balance of power. we have an unwritten constitution, for one thing. it is winner takes all. the party that wins the election provides the prime minister,

provides the cabinet ministers. >> what does it cost you to run? >> we have a really tough campaign finance rules. the amount of money you can spend is fixed. it is calculated according to your population. no political action committee or the national party is not allowed to run ads in your campaign. you cannot buy television time if you are a british parliamentary candidate. i think the very first time i ran for parliament i remember my cash limit was 4,500 pounds.

400 and >> how do you raise that? >> the party raise it through bake sales. the campaigns in this country are very much a door-to-door. you don't have a huge budget. nowadays, you can have a campaign website. the districts are smaller than american districts. we rely on door-to-door. the national party has more criticism. >> how much did they pay you for

your job? >> i think about 65,000 pounds. >> that would be somewhere close to $100,000? >> yes. >> is that enough to live on? >> comfortably? >> it is more than most people in my district have. >> what does a large make every year. >> he does not get a salary. he gets expenses which are not unreasonable. a member of the house of lords could turn in, including all his expenses, maybe $50,000 per year. >> in the united states, a member of the senate or a member of the house, by and large, can i do outside work. what is the rule here?

>> you can do outside work unless you are a member of the government. if you are a back bencher, like i am, you can't do outside work. the house of lords is designed to encourage you to do so. 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 but turning up at the house of lords to take part in the debate. some people like me have become politicians and we show up every day. >> can member of the house of commons to outside work? >> they can do some but i think it is fairly limited now and very much has to be -- every penny has to be declared.

i think that is a pity, too. i think we're better governed by people who have 1 foot in the real world. as long as we know where they are, i would not to offend anybody advocating for a position in parliament and not making it clear where they are coming from. >> do you have a disclosure requirement on where you make your money outside? >> yes, you do, but you don't have to say how much you make. you have to say what your do and what your interests are. >> can you compare david cameron to any politician in the west? >> i don't think you would get a similar kind of character. he is quite an establishment figure as far as his background. he comes from a posh background and said the many of the people

in his cabinet. he is a traditional tory prime minister. he has become known, at least in the lead up to this, he was a fresh face, he was supposed to be a compassionate conservative. in that sense, you could compare him to george bush but i am not sure he would embrace the comparison. george bush also was from a more traditional u.s. background. the key thing about david cameron is that he has given the impression of wanting to change the conservative party and make a more modern -- and make it more mmodern. it wants to have a more open- minded approach on how you run government. on things like the budget, they are pretty traditional in the

sense of wanting to cut spending sharply. that is something we have seen from conservative governments that we don't always see from u.s.-republican governments. they talk about a but they don't usually spend -- cut spending. >> if you look at britain from the united states and cannot figure out what is going on with all the cuts and you refer to cutbacks, can you explain to us how severe economic cutbacks are here? >> they have not yet benton but they are going to buy a 10 people will see that. to explain how severe the cuts will need to be, one has to give the impression first of the of bloated ness and profligacy a british government over the last 10 years. we have almost doubled our expenditure on our health care, on our national health service.

nobody doubts the service has gotten better but it has not gotten twice as good. we have gone up from about 4% of our gross domestic product to something like 8% of our gdp aid. you americans place it at 10% and that as with private health care. we have actually doubled. schools, school buildings, welfare, claims for benefits, which is the way the state helps you when you are unemployed, the incapacity benefit when you say you are unable to work, they malingering claims have grown. things -- expenditures have increased by 40% or more. to the extent that the proportion of our wealth that is now being spent by the state has climbed from around the 40's to

around 50%. we cannot carry on like this. these things have got to be cut. >> how does the percentage of debt here compared to the u.s.? >> we are in the same ballpark. america has a unique position of having the reserve currency at least for the moment gets special treatment, i guess. they can get away with more borrowing than we can. our borrowing is similar to the u.s. this year it was 11% of national income which is roughly what it will be in the states and that was considered to be an outrage by the incoming conservative government. it is much higher than when they enter emotional -- when the international money fund had to do a bailout. this new government is making

strides against opposition and concern. they are trying so hard to bring it down. i would say our borrowing is going on a downward path. we are in the middle of the pack of developed countries where in the u.s., it still looks like it is going up. debt relative to the economy will be the same ball park in the u.s. and u.k.. it depends how you treat state debt. we are in the same ballpark. what is different is that the u.k. have put forward a credible plan for putting the death of the downward path. you are borrowing last but not

allowing the deck to ride. that is not what is happening in the u.s. >> this is a small thing for you. if you are over 65 or 70, you get free bus rides? >> over 60. gordon brown introduced to this. these are freebies that cost a lot of money. a free tv license is. s is one over 75. you get a free ride to watch the bbc. if you buy a television here, you have to buy a television license which costs under $200 and that goes free to people over 75 even if they are well off. even more extreme is the bus travel.

over 60, everybody in britain can get a card to entitle them to free bus travel. that is a point of contention. david cameron was pressured on the campaign to say that he would keep fit. the treasury would like to get rid of it. it is crazy to be getting -- giving this free travel to a lot of rich pensioners and a rigidly people. >> -- and rich elderly people. >> this new government will make big cuts in jobs in the public sector. some government departments could lose as many as 20%. most people in my district to work, work for the government's. . they are in fear of their jobs. >> what special payments are

there in this country for either children or older people? >> in this country, we have a system of payments for unemployed people. obviously, we pay an old age pension to the elderly. the other thing people are worried about is the fact that people will lose these benefits. >> how much does an older retired person get as a pension? how is it determined? >> you get a standard amount of money, i think it is about 70 pounds a week for a single person. >> you talk about what hundred $10 per week. >> they can also get other payments. they get pimmit to help with fuel in the winter. the basic one is about 100 pounds per week.

they could get payments for medical conditions or help with other things. they have cut back and people were about the. >> what complaints you get in your office from your constituents? >> they are worried about how they will manage without a job. people are very concerned that the government has tripled. people are worried about the future. in my district, we have an unprecedented turnout in 20 years. we have an increased electorate and they came out to support me and support my party because they knew that this government was coming in and they were not good for poor people. >> we have about 2 million people work for the federal government. when we watch the cuts being announced over here like 500,000 people being cut in public

service, is that like cutting 1/4 of our cell -- self-service? >> they are not just civil servants, they are everybody. it might be 100,000 civil servants but it will also be policemen and bureaucrats who are dealing with the different departments. it will also be local government officials. in that figure, it is all the people working for local governments. a good chunk of that -- >> what control does the prime minister have over the local government? >> he says that we will cut -- how much money we will get to local governments but we will give more control over how to spend it. they did not like that there were forced to spend on certain things the state's hate having

the federal government control how they spend their money. david cameron said they would have less money but the federal government had less control. a lot of the cuts will be found at the local level. most people blame the local government. >> in the united states if the president says they're going to cut the money to the states, he may not be able to do that because congress could not go along with that. what about here? >> they can do that. >> just like that. >> there are times when the government does not get its way and that is celebrated and you would hear about them even in the states. that would be a major loss for

the government. 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 has to happen behind closed doors in the treasury before these things get announced. there is a new check and balance on a conservative power that would not have been there. unless something cataclysmic goes through, will law will change the >> if you work for the chancellor of the exchequer versus the treasury secretary in the united states, what would be added to be like? >> i suspect this speech writing process would be different. depends on the person. -- it depends on the person. hi think most of these guys get

in there and have people they trust and a walk in at the last minute. people at the u.s. treasury would tear their hair out. there is not a lot of time for checking with the rest of the bureaucracy. what is really interesting is different is that the u.k. treasury is much more powerful in the u.k. than the huge u.s. treasury is. what was surprising to me is out in bits and that the u.s. treasury is. it doesn't really control budget policy. the president will produce any budget he wants. the budget that reduces in january is kindly received and completely ignored. the treasury in may coalition

government or any government is all powerful. i have american friends who are astonished to watch this. the finance and minister stands up on a certain day in parliament and announce what they will do and said down and in a week or so, it will happen. there is none of the debate or the months of painful back-and- forth that to happen conference. 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 years -- what is the difference? >> 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 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 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, and spent by the central 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, all you know is the prices when quoted. it is going up to 20%.

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 liter is -- what is it? three or four liters to a gallon? >> yes. >> and how much is 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, 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 rules in the world. the number of people killed in new york city in one month might be the number of people killed in the u.k. a year. 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 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 common. 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 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's, and i 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 1994, so it was just over 25 years ago

when the bomb occurred. >> 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 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 going, but it was pretty 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 elect one or two members. we do not have the kind of history of segregation, so in the labour 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 encourage 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. >> mr. murdoch owns sky. >> they have a responsibility for their news to be balanced.

>> do you think the news is balanced? i think it is when you compare to fox. freedom, freedom to say whatever you want to say, freedom to have to have. all of the things that we have 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 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 fine people, but we could do was criticize them pretty heavily, and the newspapers hated that. 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. >> a guy that americans are going to meet, pierce morgan. he is about to take over 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 land owners and 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. having fought in the iraq war and the second world war side- by-side, it has brought us together. there is a lot in common. there are assets that are very good. i think in some ways, american society is more open and is much less class driven than

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