Browse content similar to 02/09/2011. Check below for episodes and series from the same categories and more!
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Tonight, just how close was the CIA to Gaddafi's own regime? A new | :00:09. | :00:12. | |
leader of Libya says he was imprisoned and tortured by the | :00:12. | :00:17. | |
Americans in the aftermath of 9/11, then handed over to the curl nel | :00:17. | :00:22. | |
for more. What hope is there for trust between the two sides now. Do | :00:22. | :00:25. | |
we really know who was behind this revolution. | :00:25. | :00:27. | |
Here in Libya there is an international scramble to make | :00:27. | :00:32. | |
friends with the new leadership, even if some of them turn out to be | :00:32. | :00:36. | |
old enemies. Another coalition triumph, control | :00:36. | :00:38. | |
orders restricting the movement of terrorist suspects were dumped by | :00:38. | :00:44. | |
the Liberal Democrats. Why are they now back in all but name. | :00:44. | :00:47. | |
Also tonight, whatever happened to the August silly season. | :00:47. | :00:53. | |
What a summer it's been, riots, Libya, the economy, phone hacking, | :00:53. | :00:58. | |
and now I've been called back from the Newsnight Villa in Tuscany, to | :00:58. | :01:08. | |
:01:08. | :01:12. | ||
do a special report on a Good evening. One of NATO's key | :01:12. | :01:17. | |
allies in Libya, the leader of military forces in Tripoli has | :01:17. | :01:25. | |
alleged he was kidnapped and interrogated by the CIA, and then | :01:25. | :01:29. | |
turned over to Gaddafi. Abdul Hakim Belhaj said he was turned over to | :01:29. | :01:37. | |
the CIA for his alleged links with Al-Qaeda, links he denies. These | :01:37. | :01:42. | |
are the strange bedfellows and allegations emerging. | :01:43. | :01:48. | |
We have a bit more now. There is more light being shed on | :01:48. | :01:52. | |
the dark side of the war on terror, that is for sure. 30 years ago | :01:52. | :01:55. | |
Islamist fighting groups were America's great friends, fighting | :01:55. | :01:58. | |
the good fight against the Russians in Afghanistan. Ten years ago that | :01:58. | :02:04. | |
all changed with the war on terror. The enemy's enemy, Colonel Gaddafi | :02:05. | :02:10. | |
became the great friend. Now that's all changed again, and we have a | :02:10. | :02:16. | |
former Jihadist leading the fight against Gaddafi's forces in Tripoli. | :02:16. | :02:18. | |
He's revealing some embarrassing secrets. | :02:18. | :02:22. | |
Suddenly everything has changed, the rebel force that took Tripoli | :02:22. | :02:28. | |
is now the de facto army of the new Libya. The man who led them is | :02:28. | :02:32. | |
Abdul Hakim Belhaj. Today we are witnessing a new revolution which | :02:32. | :02:36. | |
everyone is happy about. But the hero of this new revolution, | :02:36. | :02:40. | |
championed by NATO and America, has also said just a few years ago he | :02:41. | :02:47. | |
was being tortured by the CIA. Back in the 1990s, Belhaj led an | :02:47. | :02:51. | |
Islamist guerrilla group fight to go overthrow Gaddafi. Then the | :02:51. | :02:55. | |
Americans lent Gaddafi a hand. According to Belhaj he was first | :02:55. | :02:59. | |
detained in an airport in Malaysia in 2004. From there he was taken to | :02:59. | :03:04. | |
a secret prison in Bangkok, Thailand, where, he says, two CIA | :03:05. | :03:09. | |
agents took a direct part in his torture. He don't give details. | :03:09. | :03:13. | |
Days after that he was handed to the Libyans, a gift from America to | :03:13. | :03:22. | |
the Gaddafi regime. He was to spend six years in Tripoli's notorious | :03:22. | :03:27. | |
Abu Salemprison. The CIA, Libya relationship is no surprise to this | :03:27. | :03:33. | |
man. Libyan-born he was locked up in Guantanamo Bay. In September | :03:33. | :03:37. | |
2004, two Libyan intelligence officers turned up as his | :03:37. | :03:41. | |
interrogators. He said the real enemy is not the Americans, we are | :03:41. | :03:46. | |
the real enemy, you are our enemy. They said things like they will | :03:46. | :03:50. | |
kill me when I went back, they came to take me back to Libya. The real | :03:50. | :03:55. | |
problems are in Libya where they will kill me. Clearly you are like | :03:55. | :03:59. | |
the son, opposing the Gaddafi regime and an enemy of the | :03:59. | :04:02. | |
revolution. They were making all sorts of threats. Were you worried? | :04:02. | :04:08. | |
I was very worried. The Americans kept threatening with handing us to | :04:08. | :04:11. | |
the Libyans. Six years ago Newsnight coroborated his story | :04:11. | :04:16. | |
about Libyan agents in Guantanamo, by following the logs of a CIA | :04:16. | :04:20. | |
plane, tracked from Washington DC to Tripoli and back to Guantanamo | :04:20. | :04:27. | |
Bay. All the Libyan detainees in | :04:27. | :04:31. | |
Guantanamo were interrogated by Gaddafi's agents, says this man. | :04:31. | :04:36. | |
One of them, still locked up in Guantanamo, they threatened to | :04:36. | :04:40. | |
sodomise him when he came back. They said he was pretending to be a | :04:40. | :04:45. | |
man. They said he had this orange suit, they will make him look | :04:45. | :04:52. | |
orange without the suit, they will have the iron and use it on his | :04:52. | :04:55. | |
skin until the skin will become orange, things like that. They made | :04:55. | :05:01. | |
threats to all of them. Newsnight established that he was | :05:01. | :05:07. | |
in Guantanamo, because the Americans had confused him with a | :05:07. | :05:15. | |
Jihadi from somewhere else. Did they believe it? The rubbish | :05:16. | :05:19. | |
intelligence that came out. I think at that time they were so hungry | :05:19. | :05:23. | |
for information that the Security Services of Libya or more cock co- | :05:23. | :05:29. | |
could take the CIA for - Morocco could take the CIA for a ride. | :05:29. | :05:35. | |
far did they take them for a ride? All the way. You remember Colin | :05:35. | :05:45. | |
:05:45. | :05:45. | ||
Powell talking about WMDs and all gad da links, that came from an Al- | :05:45. | :05:51. | |
Qaeda man who was Libyan and rendered, the Americans went to war | :05:51. | :05:57. | |
on that, and it wasn't true. He turned up dead two years later in a | :05:57. | :06:03. | |
Libyan prison. You can see the truth of the platitude, your | :06:03. | :06:08. | |
enemy's enemy is your enemy's friend, is more true now. How are | :06:08. | :06:16. | |
everyone feeling about the allied forces involved in the revolution. | :06:16. | :06:20. | |
There was jubilation in Benghazi this week, as bus loads of | :06:20. | :06:24. | |
Gaddafi's victims came home. Political prisoners from Libya's | :06:24. | :06:29. | |
most notorious jail. Tripoli's Abu Salem. One released earlier | :06:29. | :06:34. | |
remembers the massacre there in June 1996, when an estimated 1200 | :06:34. | :06:39. | |
prisoners were shot dead. Saturday 29th at 11.00, they started | :06:39. | :06:47. | |
shooting them from the roof. I saw six special forces shooting with a | :06:47. | :06:50. | |
Kalashnikov and the other guy has a heavy machine gun, from the roof, | :06:50. | :06:57. | |
on the top of the roof, shooting the protestors inside the yards. | :06:57. | :07:00. | |
Relatives weren't told, cynically for years afterwards, guards | :07:00. | :07:06. | |
accepted food parcels for the dead and resold them. The victims' | :07:06. | :07:12. | |
families had been bringing food and needs to their kids. Believing and | :07:12. | :07:20. | |
hoping their kids were still alive. The jail commander with his | :07:20. | :07:26. | |
soldiers would take those things. The jail's victims included both | :07:26. | :07:30. | |
opposition activists and others merely suspected of dissident | :07:30. | :07:35. | |
thoughts. Some were Democrats, others Islamists. | :07:35. | :07:39. | |
This young man, I interviewed him alongside his father, earlier this | :07:39. | :07:48. | |
year in the eastern city of Deraa, were among hundreds jailed after | :07:48. | :07:53. | |
fighting. He said he wouldn't do that again. TRANSLATION: I went to | :07:53. | :07:56. | |
Iraq for love of the country, to sacrifice myself because of what | :07:56. | :08:04. | |
happened in the Abu Graib jail, and the occupation. | :08:04. | :08:07. | |
Today in Benghazi, as every Friday, they were praying on the square, | :08:07. | :08:14. | |
that for months was the heart of the Libyan revolution. This is an | :08:14. | :08:18. | |
overwhelmingly devout and socially conservative society, but one that | :08:18. | :08:24. | |
now claims to be committed to pluralistic democracy. Libya's new | :08:24. | :08:28. | |
leaders vehemently deny there is any major strain of Islamism in | :08:28. | :08:32. | |
their revolution. Most former Islamists within their ranks say | :08:32. | :08:36. | |
they long ago abandoned any extreme views they may once have held. Even | :08:36. | :08:40. | |
so, some western politicians, particularly in America, think | :08:40. | :08:45. | |
Libya needs to be watched very carefully in future, for any | :08:45. | :08:50. | |
possible resurgence of radicalism. It was the murder, just over a | :08:50. | :08:56. | |
month ago, of this man, the rebels' Commander-in-Chief, Abdel Fattah | :08:57. | :09:02. | |
Younes, that most alarmed Libya's western backers, and many within | :09:02. | :09:07. | |
the country. The investigation's continuing, but both the National | :09:07. | :09:10. | |
Transitional Council and Younes's family say Islamist militia men | :09:10. | :09:16. | |
were to blame. They were an Islamic radical group, who committed this | :09:16. | :09:21. | |
execution. According to the eyewitnesses, who have been with | :09:21. | :09:29. | |
him, his guards, so that people looked in a strange shape, with a | :09:29. | :09:35. | |
long beard, with their vocalisation, the way that they spoke, were | :09:35. | :09:44. | |
obviously looking like people from extreme background. No-one's yet | :09:44. | :09:47. | |
sure whether the transitional council can control radical groups, | :09:47. | :09:53. | |
or how far it may go to co-opt Islamists into its vision of the | :09:53. | :09:57. | |
future. Libya's revolutionaries are so keen on legality, that here on | :09:57. | :10:01. | |
Benghazi water front, amid the souvenir stall, with the hats and | :10:01. | :10:07. | |
the bags, you can also find a copy in Arabic and English of the Libyan | :10:07. | :10:11. | |
constitution. This isn't the new constitution, it is the | :10:11. | :10:18. | |
constitution of the Libyan monarchy from 1951. And 1952, under the | :10:18. | :10:23. | |
monarchy, is the only year that Libya has ever had an election. | :10:23. | :10:26. | |
There is an interesting difference between this old 1950s constitution, | :10:26. | :10:31. | |
and the new one worked out very scruplously by the National | :10:31. | :10:36. | |
Transitional Council. Here you can see under the old one, article five, | :10:36. | :10:41. | |
saying Islam is the religion of state. Now, under the new draft | :10:41. | :10:45. | |
constitution, that is rather amplified, to say that Sharia, | :10:45. | :10:49. | |
Islamic law, will be the primary source of all future legislation | :10:49. | :10:52. | |
here. That's a distinct difference that some people feel is a | :10:52. | :10:59. | |
concession to Islamists. But not major one. | :10:59. | :11:06. | |
For now, gratitude for the west's support is linked to a desire for | :11:06. | :11:11. | |
diversity in Libya and there is a willingness to forgive America for | :11:11. | :11:15. | |
its security links with Gaddafi after 9/11. If you go and knock on | :11:15. | :11:21. | |
any door in Tripoli, Benghazi, or in the southern part, asking what | :11:21. | :11:25. | |
friends of the United States or Britain, what the west means to you, | :11:25. | :11:31. | |
they would say, our lives. They do appreciate what they did. To | :11:31. | :11:36. | |
protect civilians. Britain, America and other western states may | :11:36. | :11:40. | |
sometimes have found the Libyan dictator useful in the past, the | :11:40. | :11:46. | |
feeling here is they have certainly redeemed themselves now. | :11:46. | :11:53. | |
We can speak now to Sheuer, the former head of the CIA Bin Laden | :11:53. | :11:57. | |
unit in Edinburgh, and the former leader of the Liberal Democrats, | :11:57. | :12:00. | |
Menzies Campbell joins us too. Michael Sheuer, it is pretty | :12:00. | :12:03. | |
embarrassing if this is proved that the Americans and Gaddafi were | :12:03. | :12:10. | |
working rather well together, all the time? Why would that be | :12:10. | :12:18. | |
embarrassing, mam, Mr Blair, Condoleezza Rice and others went to | :12:18. | :12:21. | |
kiss Colonel Gaddafi's butt when he gave up weapons of mass destruction. | :12:21. | :12:26. | |
It is a strange way to phrase it to say the CIA had a relationship with | :12:26. | :12:30. | |
Libya, the United States Government had a relationship with Libya, as | :12:30. | :12:34. | |
did Britain and France and all the Intelligence Services. This is not | :12:34. | :12:37. | |
a surprise. Is it something you are proud of or is it a source of | :12:37. | :12:45. | |
regret? Certainly I don't regret it. You work with whoever you can work | :12:45. | :12:49. | |
with to protect the United States, that is the bottom line. Our | :12:49. | :12:53. | |
Government said he was a good guy now and we should deal with them. | :12:53. | :12:56. | |
The Intelligence Services are not independent actors, in the United | :12:56. | :13:00. | |
States, everything we did with Gaddafi was approved by Mr Bush, | :13:00. | :13:07. | |
and had to be reapproved by Mr Obama. That is the real truth of it, | :13:07. | :13:15. | |
Israel poll teak means we have always - real politk means we have | :13:15. | :13:21. | |
always had to use dictators? supported Saddam Hussein when he | :13:21. | :13:24. | |
was using chemical weapons against the Iranians and his own people, | :13:24. | :13:28. | |
look how that turned out. I agree with what was said, it is not the | :13:28. | :13:31. | |
Intelligence Services that need to be embarrassed, it is the | :13:31. | :13:35. | |
Governments. I have some form on this. He said there is no | :13:35. | :13:39. | |
embarrassment at all, why would you be embarrassed in protecting | :13:39. | :13:43. | |
national security in doing so? said it was understood that the | :13:43. | :13:46. | |
Intelligence Service was not embarrassed. I think Governments | :13:46. | :13:51. | |
are embarrassed. As I say, I have some form on this, I was taken to | :13:51. | :13:57. | |
task by a commentator in national newspaper here, after I was thought | :13:57. | :14:01. | |
to be unenthusiastic about the deal which Tony Blair had done. Of | :14:01. | :14:05. | |
course you have to do deals, often with people whose methods and whose | :14:05. | :14:09. | |
philosophy you don't like. But that doesn't mean to say you shouldn't | :14:09. | :14:14. | |
be as if todayous about how you deal with - as if stidous about how | :14:14. | :14:22. | |
you deal with grb fastidious about how you deal with them. | :14:22. | :14:26. | |
ascensionly believe now these men are terrorists? NATO has supplied | :14:26. | :14:36. | |
:14:36. | :14:38. | ||
air support to people who would be called the Taliban. We walked into | :14:38. | :14:42. | |
the affair in Libya with the basis of the revolution coming out of | :14:42. | :14:46. | |
Benghazi, the most strongest Islamist place in Libya, and those | :14:47. | :14:50. | |
people have carried the fighting, while pushing forward English | :14:50. | :14:55. | |
speaking, legalistic intellectuals, who are on the transitional council | :14:55. | :15:01. | |
now. Whether that holds steady in the future I think is highly | :15:01. | :15:05. | |
unlikely. So much for the utopia, Menzies Campbell, how worried are | :15:05. | :15:11. | |
you that the man militarily leading Libya is a former Jihadi, you heard | :15:11. | :15:17. | |
in Tim's piece that Sharia is a part of the future legislation and | :15:17. | :15:23. | |
this man is a Jihadi? As was said a few moments ago, we have to keep | :15:23. | :15:28. | |
our eye on Libya. Mr Belhaj is surprisingly short of rancour about | :15:28. | :15:32. | |
any of the things that happened to him. He does claim that he has | :15:32. | :15:35. | |
abandoned the whole notion of holy war, it is not what people say that | :15:35. | :15:42. | |
matters, it is what they do. That is why the west has been at pains | :15:43. | :15:47. | |
to embrace the national council, why else was there that meeting | :15:47. | :15:51. | |
yesterday in Paris when we were trying very closely to embrace the | :15:51. | :15:56. | |
leaders of the new Libya, in order to ensure that we have some | :15:56. | :16:03. | |
influence in relation to their promises to accept, adopt and | :16:03. | :16:07. | |
implement. Do you accept that rendition was the wrong policy? | :16:07. | :16:11. | |
think it was absolutely the right policy, and will have to be revived | :16:11. | :16:14. | |
under the next President, whether that is a re-elected President | :16:14. | :16:19. | |
Obama or a Republican. Is the CIA still monitoring, what are | :16:19. | :16:23. | |
essentially the new leaders of Libya now? I would certainly hope | :16:23. | :16:26. | |
so, I would certainly hope they would be doing that now. I I was | :16:26. | :16:31. | |
going to say there is a fundamental difference. On these matters, as | :16:31. | :16:36. | |
far as I'm concerned. Rendition is illegal, it is illegal in | :16:36. | :16:39. | |
international law, and almost certainly illegal in the domestic | :16:39. | :16:44. | |
law of the countries in which it is practised. And if you accept that | :16:44. | :16:48. | |
rendition is a legitimate means of conducting the campaign against | :16:48. | :16:54. | |
terrorism, then you are giving away an enormous amount of your moral | :16:54. | :17:00. | |
authority. You lose your moral authority by doing so? The moral | :17:00. | :17:05. | |
high ground is where you shoot your guns straightist from. I wouldn't | :17:05. | :17:08. | |
worry about international law for a second if I was in charge of | :17:08. | :17:13. | |
protecting the United States. David Cameron was once reported to | :17:13. | :17:23. | |
:17:23. | :17:23. | ||
have said control orders had the potential to be an car crash. After | :17:23. | :17:27. | |
spending months trying to relocate terror suspects, ministers have | :17:27. | :17:31. | |
draft proposals appearing to endorse what they tried to get rid | :17:31. | :17:35. | |
of. The terrorism and detention and investigation measure, which came | :17:35. | :17:40. | |
to be known as TPIMS, have been lambasted this week, but are | :17:40. | :17:49. | |
control orders back in all but name. What are - What are they actually | :17:49. | :17:55. | |
doing, with this complicated set of measures? It is best to look at a | :17:55. | :18:01. | |
terrorist suspect under the name PD. He's under a old style control | :18:01. | :18:07. | |
order, he's under virtual house arrest. It is deemed his | :18:07. | :18:12. | |
prosecution is impossible because the intelligence and evidence is | :18:12. | :18:16. | |
inadmissible in court. The Liberal Democrats have always been opposed | :18:16. | :18:20. | |
to a control order regime, one of the things they were opposed to was | :18:20. | :18:28. | |
the forcible relocation. PD has been relocated to the Midlands, to | :18:28. | :18:31. | |
break connections with co- conspirators and supporters. The | :18:31. | :18:33. | |
Liberal Democrats as soon as they came into the coalition Government | :18:33. | :18:36. | |
started arguing strongly against the Conservatives that they needed | :18:36. | :18:41. | |
to water down, to weaken, and dilute the control order | :18:41. | :18:45. | |
legislation. To a certain degree they were successful. They wrung | :18:45. | :18:48. | |
out a new legislation, proposed, and coming into force in January. | :18:48. | :18:52. | |
The key changes they have forced through is the idea that people, | :18:52. | :18:57. | |
suspects, weren't going to be forcibly relocated any more. Wind | :18:57. | :19:02. | |
forward six months to today, and now we seem to have something of a | :19:02. | :19:07. | |
vault fast. The Government have now proposed draft legislation, that | :19:07. | :19:10. | |
seems to indicate in exceptional circumstances, this won't be the | :19:10. | :19:13. | |
case and these suspects will be allowed to be forcibly relocated in | :19:14. | :19:19. | |
a time of crisis. To try to cut through all the confusion, I spoke | :19:19. | :19:22. | |
to Lord McDonald, the former head of public prosecutions today, to | :19:22. | :19:26. | |
ask him, in effect, what then is the difference between the old | :19:26. | :19:31. | |
control order regime and this new set of measures? None at all. The | :19:31. | :19:35. | |
new powers in the enhanced bill as published yesterday are control | :19:35. | :19:38. | |
orders. There is one substantial difference s they be limited to two | :19:38. | :19:42. | |
years, unless there was further evidence coming forward. The suite | :19:42. | :19:47. | |
of powers is the same. Telephone bans, computer bans, the advanced | :19:47. | :19:51. | |
bill is a control order bill. The Government has to make its mind up. | :19:51. | :19:54. | |
I don't really like the look of a situation in which the Government | :19:54. | :19:58. | |
makes its mind up and says hang on, just in cautious we will have | :19:58. | :20:01. | |
something else up our sleeve. They have done it with control orders | :20:01. | :20:04. | |
and 28 days. Ministers need to stand back from Security Service | :20:04. | :20:13. | |
advice and take decisions in the public interest. | :20:13. | :20:18. | |
Security sources have told me it may not be as simple as that, they | :20:18. | :20:21. | |
were comfortable with the new measures. It may be people in the | :20:21. | :20:27. | |
police or the Home Office. It remains a mystery tonight. We asked | :20:27. | :20:31. | |
the Home Office to clear up the mystery on the programme, they | :20:31. | :20:35. | |
denied. Joining me now is Tom Brake and the | :20:35. | :20:40. | |
former Labour cabinet minister, Hazel Blears. I guess this is the | :20:40. | :20:46. | |
car crash that David Cameron proverbly first warned of? What we | :20:46. | :20:50. | |
have is the TPIMS legislation going through the House of Commons at the | :20:50. | :20:53. | |
moment, which will get rid of control orders. That is what the | :20:53. | :21:00. | |
counter terrorism review which we initiated...In All but name? It has | :21:00. | :21:03. | |
got rid of relocation and control orders. What the council also said | :21:03. | :21:09. | |
was there may be a need for additional legislation if there | :21:09. | :21:13. | |
were extreme, exceptional circumstances. That is what has now | :21:13. | :21:16. | |
come forward. That is draft legislation. That is not going to | :21:16. | :21:19. | |
be legislation, unless those extreme circumstances apply. It is | :21:19. | :21:23. | |
not clear to me what those extreme circumstances might be. You are | :21:23. | :21:27. | |
playing with words? There would be a parliamentary debate and a vote | :21:27. | :21:30. | |
at the end of the process. If we are not happy that extreme | :21:30. | :21:35. | |
circumstances apply, I'm sure we will vote against that legislation. | :21:35. | :21:38. | |
Hazel Blears, does this make sense to you, does it seem difference | :21:38. | :21:43. | |
from what you set up in the first place? It is an absolute and utter | :21:43. | :21:46. | |
shambles. For the last few months on the committee which I have been | :21:46. | :21:49. | |
a member of. I have been moving amendments saying the Home | :21:49. | :21:53. | |
Secretary should at least have the power to consider relocation, she | :21:53. | :21:59. | |
might not decide to use it in every case, but it might be appropriate | :21:59. | :22:02. | |
In the last six months the Home Secretary has used two control | :22:02. | :22:06. | |
orders and used the power of relocation and then proposed not to | :22:06. | :22:09. | |
give herself the power. Then yesterday we hear there will be an | :22:09. | :22:12. | |
emergency bill. The prospect of making emergency legislation, when | :22:12. | :22:16. | |
we might have a number of terrorist attacks going on, where we have a | :22:16. | :22:19. | |
debate in the House of Commons, to see whether or not we have the | :22:19. | :22:22. | |
power of relocation, is absolutely ludicrous. If the Government now | :22:22. | :22:26. | |
have accepted they need the powers, it should be in the ordinary | :22:26. | :22:29. | |
legislation, which is what we have been arguing for from day one. This | :22:29. | :22:35. | |
might be a car crash, I think it is an absolute dog's breakfast. | :22:35. | :22:39. | |
good faith it would be hard for the public to see the difference | :22:39. | :22:42. | |
between one circumstance and another, when you are bringing in | :22:42. | :22:45. | |
emergency legislation all the time? It is not a surprise. It was known | :22:45. | :22:48. | |
in January that legislation of this nature would come forward. It is | :22:48. | :22:52. | |
only draft legislation. Will you vote against it? It is not | :22:52. | :22:55. | |
something going through the House of Commons. The TPIMS legislation, | :22:55. | :22:59. | |
getting rid of control orders and relocation, that is what is going | :22:59. | :23:02. | |
through the House of Commons, that is what I'm sure parliament is | :23:02. | :23:06. | |
going to vote for. Now at some point in the future, there are | :23:06. | :23:11. | |
extreme circumstances, perhaps multiple, potentially put pel | :23:11. | :23:15. | |
attacks in London, say, when - multiple attacks in London, say, | :23:15. | :23:18. | |
when the Government feels the legislation will need be debated, | :23:18. | :23:21. | |
we will cross that bridge when we come to it. You heard there, they | :23:21. | :23:24. | |
are the same thing, you are reintroducing the same thing, but | :23:24. | :23:31. | |
reduceing to admit to the public you are doing so? We are not | :23:31. | :23:34. | |
reintroducing it, there aren't extreme circumstances in parliament | :23:34. | :23:39. | |
and we haven't voted to implement it, it is not the same as control | :23:39. | :23:44. | |
orders. Fundamentally t doesn't get past the real issue, a lazy way to | :23:44. | :23:48. | |
deal with people? It doesn't push people towards a court process or a | :23:48. | :23:52. | |
trial, or monitor them properly. It leaves them in limbo? We have | :23:53. | :23:55. | |
always said that prosecution has to be the preferred way of dealing | :23:55. | :23:58. | |
with these people. There are a small number of cases, perhaps just | :23:58. | :24:02. | |
a dozen of them, where you have very dangerous people. You cannot | :24:02. | :24:04. | |
get the evidence through the conventional criminal justice | :24:04. | :24:08. | |
system, and therefore you have to control their movements. What we | :24:08. | :24:11. | |
have seen now is a political fudge with the Liberal Democrats, who | :24:11. | :24:14. | |
wanted to get rid of control orders, the Conservatives know that you | :24:14. | :24:18. | |
need, as last resort, to take these steps, and we're now seeing, I | :24:18. | :24:22. | |
think a really big split in the coalition b what the legislation | :24:22. | :24:27. | |
should be like. When Tom Brake says that London could be facing | :24:28. | :24:31. | |
multiple attacks and then we will a parliamentary debate as to whether | :24:31. | :24:34. | |
or not to relocate people, I'm desperately worried if the | :24:34. | :24:38. | |
legislation goes through as it is, we could find people coming back to | :24:38. | :24:43. | |
London w all of their associates and co-conspirators, before the | :24:43. | :24:48. | |
Olympic Games next year, I don't think that is a risk worth taking. | :24:48. | :24:53. | |
The protection of the public needs to be first and forecast, it is | :24:53. | :24:58. | |
less likely considering the less loved up Cameron, he will be | :24:58. | :25:02. | |
listening to these views? Public security has to be the security, | :25:02. | :25:06. | |
and it is. That is why, as well as getting rid of control orders, at | :25:06. | :25:10. | |
the same time we have introduced additional resources for | :25:10. | :25:14. | |
surveillance, so we can make sure that some of the people who | :25:14. | :25:16. | |
previously would have been relocated, if they are going to | :25:16. | :25:21. | |
remain in there n their existing properties, there will be increased | :25:21. | :25:24. | |
surveillance to make sure if they were intent of committing any acts | :25:24. | :25:30. | |
that they would be stopped. At Newsnight we would never stoop | :25:30. | :25:35. | |
so low as to do silly stories, no matter what the season was. But it | :25:35. | :25:41. | |
has been the talk, Orlament of the newsrooms up and down the country, | :25:41. | :25:51. | |
:25:51. | :25:53. | ||
that there has been too much news to touch on the normal August fair, | :25:53. | :25:58. | |
- fayre, including surfing dogs. We went out to find some, this report | :25:58. | :26:01. | |
contains flash photography and quite poor jokes, even by his | :26:01. | :26:07. | |
standard! Hey kids, how have you been | :26:07. | :26:10. | |
enjoying the summer, that magical time when you pack up your troubles | :26:10. | :26:15. | |
and head to the beach, and the newspapers and telly join in the | :26:15. | :26:19. | |
fun w light-hearted stories that wouldn't normally see the light of | :26:19. | :26:25. | |
day. That didn't really happen this year z it. What a summer it has | :26:25. | :26:31. | |
been, riots, Libya, phone hacking, now I've been called back from the | :26:31. | :26:35. | |
Newsnight Villa in Tuscany, to do a special report on a skateboarding | :26:35. | :26:38. | |
dog. That's right. You won't want to | :26:38. | :26:43. | |
Miss Theo here on his deck. It's what Lord Wreath would have wanted. | :26:43. | :26:47. | |
Elsewhere, it's not really been a light and fluffy few months has it. | :26:47. | :26:53. | |
After the riots, politicians dumped their buckets and spades and | :26:53. | :26:57. | |
grabbed brooms instead. There were huge big events going on through | :26:57. | :27:01. | |
August, that was unusual. There was a more secular trend at work here, | :27:01. | :27:05. | |
in an age of globalisation, things happening far way from Britain have | :27:05. | :27:10. | |
a direct effect on what happens here. And the House of Commons | :27:10. | :27:14. | |
after the expenses scandal felt it had to reassert itself as the main | :27:14. | :27:19. | |
forum for discussing things, and it is not right it is just in TV and | :27:19. | :27:23. | |
radio studios, it wanted to reassert itself as part of British | :27:23. | :27:30. | |
national life. As night follows day, we turn to a foreign policy think- | :27:30. | :27:33. | |
tank. Their gaem German spokesperson said riots are one | :27:33. | :27:39. | |
thing, but politicians shouldn't be unnerved by things like the markets | :27:39. | :27:43. | |
in August. Mrs Merkel while wandering the hills was asked to | :27:43. | :27:46. | |
interrupt her holiday to come back because of market volitility. To my | :27:46. | :27:51. | |
mind, rightly, she said, no. The markets are volatile in August | :27:51. | :27:54. | |
because the trading is very thin, most of the senior people are away. | :27:55. | :27:59. | |
Junior people are trading, they are very nervous, they come up with | :27:59. | :28:03. | |
stories and I'm interrupting my holiday for market volitility. She | :28:03. | :28:07. | |
didn't say anything, she kept on hiking. Every dreamed of owning one, | :28:08. | :28:12. | |
soon you can, this will be available in a few months time. | :28:12. | :28:17. | |
Perhaps I'm very old fashioned, but this country has a proud tradition | :28:17. | :28:21. | |
of utterly fatuous summer news, which we discard at our peril. In | :28:21. | :28:28. | |
the past we have heard about the world's tallest man, an eight foot | :28:28. | :28:32. | |
five Ukrainian, an upside down house in Poland. And this photo | :28:32. | :28:37. | |
shoot in the Alps. And who can forget, the important historical | :28:37. | :28:44. | |
document of what Freddie Star once did to a hamster. Animals always | :28:44. | :28:47. | |
feature heavily in summer season stories, and probably my favourite, | :28:47. | :28:50. | |
and many people's favourite silly season story, was the time that | :28:51. | :28:54. | |
John Prescott and Peter Mandelson were vying for control of the | :28:54. | :28:57. | |
levers of power, and Peter Mandelson was compared by John | :28:57. | :29:03. | |
Prescott, just down the river, actually, memorably to a Chinese | :29:03. | :29:08. | |
mitten crab. His name is Peter. That was one of the finest of the | :29:08. | :29:12. | |
silly season stories. Still to come, our skateboarding dog, don't look | :29:12. | :29:16. | |
for it anywhere else, they don't have it. We have had a mini-silly | :29:16. | :29:20. | |
season this year, I suppose, with the Speaker's wife in the Big | :29:21. | :29:24. | |
Brother house. But as so often in the summer, the British have been | :29:25. | :29:29. | |
left standing by the Germans, they got an entire season's worth of | :29:29. | :29:36. | |
news out of a missing cow. They were chasing a cow recently in | :29:36. | :29:43. | |
Germany, it was a big story. They were chasing a a cow? One escaped, | :29:43. | :29:53. | |
:29:53. | :29:56. | ||
Story.? And now because we know you have | :29:56. | :30:03. | |
missed that kind of thing. Even you, Newsnight viewer, it is Theo, an | :30:03. | :30:06. | |
11-year-old skateboarding dog. If that doesn't have you rushing out | :30:06. | :30:12. | |
to renew your license fee in the morning, nothing will! | :30:12. | :30:16. | |
You can find Theo on the website shortly I'm sure. | :30:16. | :30:26. | |
:30:26. | :30:57. | ||
That's all from Newsnight tonight. After a summer of rioting and | :30:57. | :31:02. | |
clashes with police in Chile over education costs, the students of | :31:02. | :31:05. |