december the festive spirit on december the tst. festive spirit on december the 1st. well, what a week we've witnessed with the assisted dying vote and labour's first cabinet resignation. pat mcfadden, the chancellor of the duchy of lancaster, will be joining me. i'm going to be asking him about the departure of transport secretary louise hague. i'm also going to be speaking to shadow environment secretary victoria atkins. she'll be live with me. i'll ask her about why she supported the assisted dying bill. former home secretary alan johnson will be with me to talk about his new book on harold wilson . and of book on harold wilson. and of course, i'll also be talking to him about what's been a tricky first few months for labour in power. the pollster scarlett mccgwire will join me in the studio to reflect on the latest ipsos poll. that's found that nigel farage is the most popular politician in the uk today. nigel farage is the most popular politician in the uk today . and politician in the uk today. and earlier on this week, i sat down with sir jacob earlier on this week, i sat down with sirjacob and lady rees—mogg ahead of their new reality programme, meet the mogs, being released tomorrow. once again, we've got 90 minutes of punchy british politics ahead, so do not even think of going anywhere .

going anywhere. but before all that, i'm joined by aubrey allegretti, chief political correspondent at the times, to go through the sunday papers. aubrey, lovely to see you. let's talk about the assisted dying bill. could the bill be killed? that's what the sun is suggesting. just explain what happens next with this legislation, which i personally think was rushed through on friday. five hours of debate. i know there will be more debate , know there will be more debate, but when you compare it to, say, for instance, the debates around banning hunting, which i think racked up about 6 to 700 hours, hundreds of hours. exactly. i mean, what was the urgency? i don't quite understand how quick we must do this now. >> so, i mean, i sat through hours and hours of the debate, watching from the press gallery as mps stood up one by one to either speak for or against the bill. and actually, there were a lot of mps who said that they

would vote for it, but reserved the right to vote against it further down the line. and what they really were trying to do was continue the debate. that's the way they put it. now. the question of whether or not that debate is terribly substantive is one that we will see in the next few weeks. we anticipate that over the next five months, mps will continue to scrutinising this bill. so what will happen next is it goes to committee stage. kim leadbeater, the labour mp behind this bill, will appoint up to 16 mps to sit on that committee and there were concerns that she would, if you like, sort of rig it, put lots of pro assisted dying mps on it. but she has committed that it will reflect roughly the result at second reading. so obviously there was a big majority for the pro campaign. and so we expect there will be more of those sorts of people on the committee, but there will be some people who voted against it as well, and the government, meanwhile, which has sort of sat on the sidelines and had a penod on the sidelines and had a period of enforced silence put on it by the cabinet secretary, will now conduct impact assessments. so we'll start to know a little bit more about what this means for the creaking

court services and the very, very obviously difficult nhs, which people are already experiencing long waits for in the first place when they come to operations and to see a gp. so we're going to find out a little bit more about how this will interact with and make possibly worse those delays. we know that wes streeting the health secretary, and the justice secretary, shabana mahmood, voted against it, very opposed. how much are they going to get behind it? that's the sort of big question for the next few months. >> well, they may well share the public's fears, which are that the court service, which is already overburdened and plagued with delays, along with the nhs waiting lists still at 7 to 8 million, won't be able to cope with this. i mean, we've got no idea how many people are going to opt for it on a sort of daily basis. is it going to be one person, 1290 200? this is why people are scratching their heads wondering why on earth there was this sense of urgency when we have been discussing this for years, just can't quite understand why it's rushed through. lord sumption has written a quite compelling piece in the sunday times, basically

making the point that, you know, yes, he can understand the arguments on both sides , but arguments on both sides, but what's the word he used? he says that the legislation is overengineered and coldly inhuman. >> yeah. i mean, and he says that as a former justice of the supreme court, he sat on a case that discussed assisted dying. he did support a sort of change in the law. but he is discussing in the law. but he is discussing in the law. but he is discussing in the sunday times about why he doesn't feel any joy at the passing of it. he thinks it's unlikely that the principle of autonomy will stop where the bill leaves it, i.e. speaking to a concern that was raised by people like danny kruger. the conservative mp, who basically said, you know, even if you pass this bill, the courts might then go to on decide because somebody bnngs go to on decide because somebody brings a complaint that it breaches their human rights and it widens the scope of it, i.e. the original intention of the bill. it doesn't stay there . and bill. it doesn't stay there. and that has been seen in a few instances where other countries have passed this sort of legislation, certainly not all, but it is a concern that people like lord sumption have. and i think it speaks to a fear that

ultimately mps have gone into this debate a bit blind. there hasn't been an impact assessment. there are lots of parts of the legislation which use the words by regulation. and what that effectively means is that ministers will go in and fill in the gaps they will get to make the decision, and they won't need to use primary legislation to enact it by alarm. >> bell is ringing in my mind. there because, oh, ministers are filling in gaps in legislation. is never a good move. lord sumption also makes the point that when it talks about two doctors signing off on assisted death and then it being assessed by a judge to what extent will the judges assess it? is it is a judge going to be assessing the circumstances of the patient's illness? is the judge going to be assessing whether it fits the parameters of the legislation? it's all very murky, and that's why it should have taken more time before we got to this stage, i think, to debate it. but let's see, it's going to be a story that runs and runs over the course of the next 6 to 12 months. now, slight change of tack here, but it is also an

interesting investigation. this greg wallace . so there's a lot greg wallace. so there's a lot of coverage. this is initially a telegraph investigation. they followed up on it today. they got people coming forward. but almost every newspaper aubrey has got some tale or other from somebody saying, well i flagged this to the bbc times radio's aasmah mir has said, well, i flagged this, sorry, she's left now, but she was there and we've got other commentators saying it. he's fought back and he keeps on recording these social media videos, saying that these are allegations that have been made by middle class, middle aged women. not sure whether the class or indeed the age of the accusers is that relevant, but it once again begs the question how many times does the bbc need to be informed of alleged wrongdoing before actually taking any action? this seems to have been going on now, with complaints dating back more than a decade. >> and i think what's interesting is obviously the complaints at least date back to 2017, 2019. and it seems as though people at sort of all tiers of the organisation were

ringing alarm bells. it was not just people on the show. yes, we're told that people i think the head of the sort of non—scripted entertainment for the bbc sent an email several years ago saying his behaviour was unacceptable and can't continue. so if you've got really senior people ringing the alarm bell. yeah, i mean , how alarm bell. yeah, i mean, how loud does it have to be before people start to take notice? >> he is protesting his innocence and he certainly does deserve a right of reply to these claims. we've also had, like rod stewart's wife, penny lancaster, suggesting that he was, you know, lanca