27 November 2002

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Pre-Budget Report

On Newsnight we lead the programme with the Chancellor's pre-Budget report. It turns out that the Treasury's confident predictions about the state of the British economy were way off the mark. We explored precisely whose fault this was.

We had our Economics Correspondent Stephanie H Flanders, and our Political Editor, Martha Kearney in the studio, along with the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Paul Boateng, David Willetts of the the Tories, and Matthew Taylor of the Liberal Democrats.

Fire-fighters' Strike
We also talked to someone central to the fire dispute that we've not heard much from yet. Jeff Orde is president of the Chief and Assistant Fire Officers' Association (the equivalent of the Association of Chief Police Officers.) We asked him how, exactly, the chiefs intend to transform the fire service.

Guantanamo Bay Suspects
Finally, Peter Marshall has discovered something rather remarkable about the Al Quaeda suspects being held in Guantanamo Bay. It turns out that the CIA has concluded most of them are low-level types, with, in the CIA's opinion, little intelligence to offer. The Director of the CIA even thinks some of them should have been released ages ago.

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