Browse content similar to 30/09/2011. Check below for episodes and series from the same categories and more!
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We know there is acrisis of economic growth, is there really a | :00:09. | :00:13. | |
crisis of can capitalism in Britain? As the new �50 note goes | :00:13. | :00:20. | |
on display boosting the face not just of a great British scientist | :00:20. | :00:26. | |
but a venture capitalist Ed Miliband calls for us to get a | :00:26. | :00:31. | |
Fayer economy. Growth is built on sand if it comes from our predators | :00:31. | :00:38. | |
and not our producers. Is it type to tear up the old rule back. The | :00:38. | :00:42. | |
CIA kill another Al-Qaeda spiritual leader. Was he really the lifrpbl | :00:42. | :00:48. | |
pin we are led to believe. Amanda Knox isn't only guilty of murder as | :00:48. | :00:52. | |
her Court of Appeal edges towards it is conclusion we are told she's | :00:52. | :00:55. | |
also a diabolical, satanic, demonic she-devil. Is our cultural | :00:55. | :01:05. | |
:01:05. | :01:07. | ||
fascination with female killers Good evening. On the even of the | :01:07. | :01:09. | |
Conservative conference, the government knows it has to convince | :01:09. | :01:14. | |
us that it has a real plan for economic growth. That may just mean | :01:14. | :01:19. | |
tearing up the rule book. Earlier this week, to the derision of many | :01:19. | :01:23. | |
business leaders, Ed Miliband, tried to do just that. Talking of a | :01:23. | :01:27. | |
need to find a fairer and more decent capitalism. It was time to | :01:27. | :01:30. | |
cull, he said, the predator businesses who leave morality | :01:30. | :01:36. | |
behind. Is he right? Realistically, how could it work? We ask if | :01:36. | :01:40. | |
politic has to re-think its big ideas to help Britain emerge from | :01:40. | :01:47. | |
the economic abyss. On the knewly designed �50 note there is | :01:47. | :01:53. | |
recognition of what capitalism can achieve at its best. On the left is | :01:53. | :01:57. | |
Matthew Bolton who transformed James Watts improvement from a | :01:57. | :02:00. | |
steam engine into a business that changed the world for good. Ed | :02:00. | :02:03. | |
Miliband believes there is a crucial difference between business | :02:03. | :02:07. | |
owners that support the industries of the future, and those who just | :02:07. | :02:13. | |
want a quick puff of profit. must learn the lesson that growth | :02:13. | :02:17. | |
is built on sand if it comes from our predators and not our producers. | :02:17. | :02:24. | |
For years as a country we have been neutral in that battle. This is the | :02:24. | :02:28. | |
Mayfair Headquarters of the company singled out by Ed Miliband as being | :02:28. | :02:34. | |
willing to sell your grandmothers for a fast buck. They took over | :02:34. | :02:39. | |
Southern Cross and sold out increasing its investment. Ed | :02:39. | :02:44. | |
Miliband would say that's asset stripping, black stone Group would | :02:44. | :02:51. | |
say it's adding value. What is asset stripping anyway? Richard | :02:51. | :02:58. | |
Gere gave a good explanation to Julia Roberts when she played a | :02:58. | :03:02. | |
prostitute and him a kor corporate rate raider. You don't make | :03:02. | :03:06. | |
anything or build anything. What do you do with the companies | :03:06. | :03:12. | |
when you buy them. I sell them. sell them? I don't sell the whole | :03:12. | :03:16. | |
company. I break them into pieces and I sell that off. It's worth | :03:16. | :03:21. | |
more than the whole. It's like stealing cars and selling them for | :03:21. | :03:26. | |
pof its. Sort of, but legal. Here is what Ed Miliband sees Alex | :03:26. | :03:30. | |
Salmond set stripping. Blackstone took over Southern Cross. It split | :03:30. | :03:33. | |
the company into a property firm which owned the buildings and a | :03:33. | :03:37. | |
care provider then expanded with borrowed money. The property firm | :03:37. | :03:41. | |
then sold the homes to third party landlords which leased them back to | :03:41. | :03:47. | |
the care provider. Blackstone sold out in 2007 for a big profit. As | :03:47. | :03:50. | |
rents rose and local authority payments fell, Southern Cross | :03:50. | :03:57. | |
collapsed and had to break itself up, causing anguish for 31,000 | :03:57. | :04:02. | |
residents. Not every takeover is asset stripping. Critics believe it | :04:02. | :04:07. | |
happens too often. A company comes and acquires a business. It doesn't | :04:07. | :04:11. | |
improve that business in anyway at all. What it does, it loads the | :04:11. | :04:16. | |
business up with debt. It extracts as much cash out as it can by | :04:16. | :04:20. | |
cutting costs and cutting employees and investment. Then it simply | :04:20. | :04:24. | |
walks away as soon as possible with a profit. It doesn't build any | :04:24. | :04:29. | |
long-term improvement at all. bad or for good predators are | :04:29. | :04:32. | |
stalking businesses like the leisure industry. This might seem | :04:32. | :04:38. | |
like a goodbyes on a Friday night. The owner of All Bar One is the | :04:38. | :04:45. | |
prey of a hostile takeover bid itself. It's predator is Joe Lewis, | :04:45. | :04:50. | |
the Tottenham Hotspur owner. He reckons if he took it over he would | :04:50. | :04:55. | |
do a better job of running it. If capitalism is red in tooth and claw | :04:55. | :05:01. | |
don't we need a few predators. The private equity companies say they | :05:01. | :05:09. | |
are often supporting invest os not asset strippers. We invested in | :05:09. | :05:14. | |
companies between three or or five years. They that has gone up during | :05:14. | :05:17. | |
the downturn. If you talk to the managing directors of the companies | :05:17. | :05:22. | |
we invest in they value the skills that private equity brings to bear. | :05:22. | :05:27. | |
It's about building sustainable business over the longer term. | :05:27. | :05:33. | |
most criticised press tors like BlackStone have achieved positive | :05:33. | :05:37. | |
results keeping employees in work who may have lost their jobs. How | :05:37. | :05:40. | |
could you discourage the bad predators without keeping out the | :05:40. | :05:46. | |
good ones? There is an important point at the root of this. Alhamzi | :05:46. | :05:49. | |
though very often markets work really well, private interests work | :05:50. | :05:54. | |
in the public interest. Sometimes, it doesn't. The public interest | :05:54. | :05:59. | |
isn't being well served by unregulated markets. We don't have | :05:59. | :06:03. | |
to talk about state intervention much we can talk about getting | :06:03. | :06:06. | |
employees, kust ministers mers and other stake holders involved with | :06:06. | :06:13. | |
the governance of companies or the ownership of companies. If I take a | :06:13. | :06:17. | |
company that is going to go bust, I may have to shut down one of the | :06:17. | :06:21. | |
three factories and sell it off. That could look like asset | :06:21. | :06:27. | |
stripping, I may lay staff off, I would say save 1,000 jobs rather | :06:27. | :06:32. | |
than cutting 200. There are no set of rules you can write down in | :06:32. | :06:36. | |
black-and-white and a tick box exercise. There is an awful lot of | :06:36. | :06:41. | |
judgment involved. That is a hard thing to do. The capitalism of | :06:41. | :06:51. | |
Matthew Boulton and James Watt may not have been kinder than today's. | :06:51. | :06:56. | |
By putting them on the �50 cot Bank of England be hinting we should | :06:56. | :07:02. | |
take a trip back to the future stphr Joining me now to discuss the | :07:02. | :07:10. | |
morality of capitalism is Rowenna Davis of the soon to be published | :07:10. | :07:12. | |
book, Tangled up in Blue, Blue Labour and the Struggle for | :07:12. | :07:15. | |
Labour's Soul. Also joining me from Newcastle is Business Angel and | :07:15. | :07:16. | |
multi-millionaire venture capitalist, Jeremy Middleton. He's | :07:16. | :07:21. | |
also the deputy Chair of the Conservative Party Board. Business | :07:21. | :07:24. | |
has slammed Ed Miliband's vision this week. He is right, isn't he, | :07:24. | :07:29. | |
to be thinking big and thinking philosophically, this is radical? | :07:29. | :07:33. | |
It shows he doesn't understand business. He is talking about | :07:33. | :07:38. | |
predators, he means people like me who are business angels or venture | :07:38. | :07:44. | |
capitalists. What this country needs is more venture cam | :07:44. | :07:49. | |
capitalists. They fill the gap where banks won't go. Banks won't | :07:49. | :07:55. | |
do startups which we need. You won't find banks taking risks, | :07:55. | :08:00. | |
venture capitalists do that. If you look at Dragon's Den. I'm sure your | :08:00. | :08:06. | |
viewers see it, who would put the money in if the Dragons didn't, no- | :08:06. | :08:09. | |
one certainly would put the money. In we need more dragons we don't | :08:09. | :08:14. | |
need to put the fire that the dragons have out. Which is what Ed | :08:15. | :08:19. | |
Miliband would do. Now will is a question in the wake of 200 about | :08:19. | :08:23. | |
what kind of capitalism we want. The fact is, it hasn't been working. | :08:24. | :08:27. | |
At the moment we are going to be paying back a hell of a lot of | :08:27. | :08:32. | |
money to banks because they acted morally irresponsiblibly. Business | :08:32. | :08:36. | |
cannot continue as normal. What about the venture capitalists we | :08:36. | :08:42. | |
are talking about - With all due respect to Jeremy, it's a sip | :08:42. | :08:44. | |
simplistic interpretation of the speech to say that Ed Miliband | :08:45. | :08:49. | |
doesn't like venture capitalists. What he was saying was, there is a | :08:49. | :08:52. | |
difference between goodbyes practice and bad business practice. | :08:52. | :08:55. | |
We should divide those lines. We don't need business that is built | :08:55. | :09:00. | |
on sand, that ends up bringing long-term - Of which Jeremy | :09:00. | :09:05. | |
Middleton it's hard to disagree with? This country needs growth and | :09:05. | :09:11. | |
jobs. For that we need risk takers. We don't need more regulation, more | :09:11. | :09:15. | |
taxation - Can I come in on that point? We need support. It's | :09:15. | :09:19. | |
nonsense to be talking in this way. How are you going to do it? When | :09:19. | :09:25. | |
you talk about risk takers, is a bad company or two a price worth | :09:25. | :09:28. | |
worth paying? I think, we talk about the odd bad company, there | :09:28. | :09:34. | |
are good and bad in life. To be perfectly - They do exist? | :09:34. | :09:37. | |
Businesses overwhelmingly are forces for good. I have been | :09:37. | :09:44. | |
investing in companies for 20 years. I sit on numerous boards. Over that | :09:44. | :09:46. | |
time the companies I'm involved with employed 5,000 people or more. | :09:46. | :09:51. | |
They have paid millions in tax. That is a force for good. The idea | :09:51. | :09:57. | |
that somebody can set up some sort of commissar to judge what is good | :09:57. | :10:00. | |
and bad. You have to pay taxes and follow the law. That is what | :10:00. | :10:06. | |
companies need to do. How would you do it? I find this ridiculous. | :10:06. | :10:09. | |
Goodbyes practice and bad business practice. If you get the regulation | :10:09. | :10:13. | |
right in the beginning you stop state intervention. People don't | :10:13. | :10:19. | |
have to step in and bail out - There is already regulation - | :10:19. | :10:24. | |
good is that regulation. We have a massive financial crisis much I | :10:24. | :10:28. | |
don't see many regulations changing in the way wake of it. What would | :10:28. | :10:33. | |
you do? We have rules anyway. Why don't we make them recognise moral | :10:33. | :10:39. | |
standards. Why don't we - nothing revolutionary - What does that mean, | :10:39. | :10:44. | |
recognise moral standards? Put it into something that someone can | :10:44. | :10:49. | |
understand. When you do public procurement, make sure we give | :10:49. | :10:53. | |
contracts to those companies who give apprenticeships. Tax breaks to | :10:53. | :10:57. | |
companies who pay the living wage wage to their workers because we | :10:57. | :11:03. | |
respect dignity in work. concrete examples? You find anybody | :11:03. | :11:08. | |
who does apply will, living in this country lrks have to pay the | :11:08. | :11:12. | |
minimum wage - Living wage. might give the contracts to people | :11:12. | :11:15. | |
who are paying higher sums. You are forming a judgment there which you | :11:15. | :11:20. | |
are not in a position to do. You talk about apprenticeships as good | :11:20. | :11:23. | |
things. What about small companies. And people taking - Why don't we | :11:23. | :11:28. | |
give tax breaks to those companies to help them? Can I also point out. | :11:28. | :11:33. | |
It's obvious that Jeremy knows what goodbyes practice is and recognises | :11:34. | :11:39. | |
moral standards. One of the companies he set up Homeserve say | :11:39. | :11:47. | |
it's bleest believes in responsibilities of integrity. When | :11:47. | :11:54. | |
the government starts talking about it, it's as if it's - You are being | :11:54. | :11:57. | |
complimented. Whether you like it or not, you are an ethical business | :11:57. | :12:02. | |
and that the economy would flourish from that? Well, I'm grateful for | :12:02. | :12:06. | |
that. And I think it's great that companies - You recognise your | :12:06. | :12:11. | |
morality in your business? It's in the best interests of business to | :12:11. | :12:14. | |
behave in the best interest of their communities. All the Boards I | :12:14. | :12:19. | |
sit on we spend our time thinking about how to improve customer | :12:19. | :12:23. | |
services. How do we improve the motivation and moral of our staff? | :12:23. | :12:29. | |
We don't need to do is more regulation and more taxation and - | :12:29. | :12:34. | |
It's not more regulation to give awe tax break. Apart - it looked to | :12:34. | :12:38. | |
me like a speech where he is trying to create a bogey man. Trying to | :12:38. | :12:41. | |
find someone to blame. I really don't know what he was specifically | :12:41. | :12:45. | |
planning to do. Who is going to judge what is good and what is bad? | :12:46. | :12:51. | |
It's in the best interests - It's not about sitting in judgment on | :12:51. | :12:56. | |
companies? What is it. Who are the predators. You are talking about | :12:56. | :13:00. | |
practices, that is not what he said. I spoke to the office today to make | :13:00. | :13:05. | |
sure it's clear. He is not sitting in judgment on companies. He is | :13:06. | :13:10. | |
saying there are rules to the game in the market. When we design the | :13:10. | :13:13. | |
rules they should be implemented with an eye to marral standards. | :13:13. | :13:16. | |
That would be good for society and good for business. That isn't | :13:16. | :13:19. | |
radical at all, is it? particularly, no. I don't see what | :13:19. | :13:25. | |
the problem. Is I would say that every single man - every single and | :13:25. | :13:29. | |
man woman on the street would tell you that they know what goodbyes | :13:29. | :13:32. | |
practice is. They know it's immoral to have something come through | :13:32. | :13:36. | |
their door offering them a loan for something they can't afford and can | :13:36. | :13:40. | |
never pay back. The public taste for that kind of operation has just | :13:40. | :13:47. | |
reached a limit. You must recognise that things have gone badly wrong | :13:47. | :13:51. | |
since 2007/2008 something big has to change? There is no doubt that | :13:51. | :13:54. | |
most companies are ethical and wish to be as ethical as possible. That | :13:54. | :13:58. | |
is goodbyes. What I'm saying, if all you are saying is what we | :13:58. | :14:03. | |
already know, what are you saying? I mean, is motherhood an apple pie? | :14:03. | :14:07. | |
Most of us entirely go along with that. If that is all it is, what is | :14:07. | :14:11. | |
the substance in the speech? I didn't hear it. There is a hell of | :14:11. | :14:16. | |
a lot. What you are suffering from a moral blindness in what is | :14:16. | :14:19. | |
happening here. Even though we bailed out the banks the | :14:19. | :14:23. | |
regulations that came through hardly make any difference at at | :14:23. | :14:27. | |
all. Ed Miliband is saying - Firmer regulation? That would be one part | :14:27. | :14:32. | |
of it. A lot of incentives. Have worker representation? Tax breaks | :14:32. | :14:37. | |
for the living wage? What you mean, you want to interfere in business | :14:37. | :14:43. | |
more. Not at all. One of the things you have - That is you hand it back. | :14:43. | :14:45. | |
That is absolutely fan fine. There are rules already. Why don't we | :14:45. | :14:51. | |
have rules that have an eye to marral standards. The status quo | :14:51. | :14:59. | |
Jeremy, I know you are having problems with your earpiece. We | :14:59. | :15:02. | |
understand George Osborne is going to say tomorrow that tax cuts will | :15:02. | :15:06. | |
be pretty much ruled out before the next election. As an entrepreneur | :15:06. | :15:11. | |
yourself, could we get your response? The most important thing | :15:11. | :15:15. | |
is that we have an economy that is growing and that means lower | :15:15. | :15:19. | |
interest rates and that means we have to control the debt. That is | :15:19. | :15:23. | |
the most important thing. I hope taxation will come down when it can | :15:23. | :15:27. | |
come down. The Government has already made some reductions in | :15:27. | :15:30. | |
corporation tax and has promised more, but you can't we do use them | :15:30. | :15:36. | |
further and to you can afford it. - - reduce them. Thank you both very | :15:36. | :15:40. | |
much indeed. Where Bush tried, Obama, it could | :15:40. | :15:43. | |
appear, has succeeded not once but twice - and in a field few imagined | :15:43. | :15:46. | |
would be his strength. Tonight, America hailed as a victory the | :15:46. | :15:49. | |
assassination of Anwar al-Awlaki - Al-Qaeda's link, they said, to the | :15:49. | :15:53. | |
English-speaking world. So what is his legacy, and how will his death | :15:53. | :16:03. | |
:16:03. | :16:07. | ||
be received? Tim Whewell reports. He was the western face of Al-Qaeda. | :16:07. | :16:12. | |
Not a senior commander, or even a senior cleric at, but the terror | :16:12. | :16:17. | |
network's most charismatic English language propagandist. I eventually | :16:17. | :16:22. | |
came to the conclusion that she had against America is binding upon | :16:22. | :16:27. | |
myself just as it is binding upon every other able Muslim. A US | :16:27. | :16:32. | |
citizen born in New Mexico, Anwar al-Awlaki could speak to American | :16:32. | :16:38. | |
and British Muslims in their own language and recruit them to do his | :16:38. | :16:42. | |
cause. Now an air strike in his adopted homeland of Yemen has put a | :16:42. | :16:50. | |
stop to that. My reaction is we got him. This is one of the most | :16:50. | :16:53. | |
treasured targets we have been seeking for a long time. We all | :16:53. | :16:58. | |
feel this is, in terms of winning that important wall we talked about, | :16:59. | :17:05. | |
the war of ideas, it is an absolutely critical victory. | :17:05. | :17:15. | |
:17:15. | :17:17. | ||
Awlaki was in touch with an... He was in contact with the underpants | :17:17. | :17:21. | |
bomber, who planned to blow up a plane to Detroit on Christmas Day | :17:21. | :17:27. | |
that year. And he inspired Russian our Chowdhry, who stabbed the | :17:27. | :17:33. | |
London MP Stephen Timms at his constituency in 2010. Ifan a fist | :17:33. | :17:39. | |
comes to you and says give me prove that God exists, -- Ifan a feast. | :17:39. | :17:45. | |
You say that you exist. Pish -- if an atheist or stop he enjoyed a | :17:45. | :17:50. | |
devoted following worldwide. American and British Muslims after | :17:50. | :17:56. | |
he moved to the UK in 2002. He spoke here at the East London | :17:56. | :18:00. | |
Mosque in December 2003. During the two years or so that al-Awlaki | :18:00. | :18:04. | |
spent in Britain, he was in great demand as a speaker at Islamic | :18:04. | :18:11. | |
events. The group's hosting him did not support extremism. This London | :18:11. | :18:14. | |
mosques -- this London Mosque actively opposed it and he didn't | :18:15. | :18:19. | |
preach violence. But he did open the eyes of at least some of his | :18:19. | :18:23. | |
audience to a more political understanding of Islam. And while | :18:23. | :18:28. | |
it is perfectly possible to be an Islamist without being violent, it | :18:28. | :18:33. | |
is quite difficult in these times to be a violent Jihad the without | :18:33. | :18:40. | |
first being an Islamist. Emphasising the divide between | :18:40. | :18:43. | |
Muslims and the West, pushing people towards the violence, | :18:43. | :18:47. | |
without advocating it directly, was the subject of a major study | :18:47. | :18:52. | |
published in London. He was immensely popular. He was the face | :18:52. | :18:57. | |
of orthodox conservative Islam in the West. He was sent all around | :18:57. | :19:00. | |
the country, speaking that universities, packing every place | :19:00. | :19:05. | |
he went and spoke out. A lot of the Islamic Forum's lit up with | :19:05. | :19:10. | |
excitement when he came. He was really treated... The treated he | :19:10. | :19:15. | |
got was unparalleled as far as Islamic preachers go. Moving to his | :19:15. | :19:20. | |
parents' home in Yemen in 2004, he taught at this university, where | :19:20. | :19:24. | |
Newsnight found a strong anti- Western attitudes, before later | :19:24. | :19:28. | |
becoming prominent in the increasingly powerful local branch | :19:28. | :19:32. | |
of Al-Qaeda. Since Osama Bin Laden's death, it has emerged that | :19:32. | :19:39. | |
it was al-Awlaki Al-Qaeda in the Arabian prince here but wanted to | :19:39. | :19:44. | |
increase the Western attacks -- AQAP. What we have found is that | :19:45. | :19:49. | |
there was this the division between the old guard and the new card and | :19:49. | :19:52. | |
al-Awlaki represented the new guard. Even though it was lower | :19:52. | :19:56. | |
consequence, they were higher density attacks, to illustrate they | :19:56. | :20:02. | |
were still relevant. But now Yemen appears to many to be on the verge | :20:02. | :20:07. | |
of civil war. Split in two opposing factions and tribes after months of | :20:07. | :20:11. | |
protests against President Ali Abdullah Saleh. Al-Awlaki is dead | :20:11. | :20:15. | |
but the chaos in the country may mean that the remaining Al-Qaeda et | :20:15. | :20:22. | |
fighters have more space to operate. This period of turmoil with the | :20:22. | :20:26. | |
President is supposedly committed to transition. We have seen an | :20:26. | :20:31. | |
enormous amount of instability and in that process, unfortunately, | :20:31. | :20:38. | |
over 65 members of AQAP have managed to escape from prison. On | :20:38. | :20:44. | |
the one hand, we have decapitated their leader with al-Awlaki, but we | :20:44. | :20:48. | |
have now seen at the Asper of a number of disciples across the | :20:48. | :20:58. | |
:20:58. | :20:59. | ||
Off and his influence will outlive him in the West. -- and. | :20:59. | :21:03. | |
Operationally, you can say we are safe for now, but if we are talking | :21:03. | :21:06. | |
about ideologically, that is not going to end. He has said | :21:06. | :21:10. | |
everything he needs to say as far as convincing people to mobilise in | :21:10. | :21:16. | |
favour of Al-Qaeda. America's drone attacks in Yemen are likely to | :21:16. | :21:20. | |
continue, further weakening the terror network, but the struggle | :21:20. | :21:26. | |
for hearts and minds in the Muslim world will have to continue as well. | :21:26. | :21:29. | |
The appeal trial of Amanda Knox will come to its conclusion early | :21:29. | :21:32. | |
next week in Perugia, when six jurors and two judges decide | :21:32. | :21:36. | |
whether to overturn her conviction and 26-year sentence for murder. In | :21:37. | :21:39. | |
2007, the American was found guilty - along with her boyfriend and | :21:40. | :21:44. | |
another man - of killing British student Meredith Kercher. But | :21:44. | :21:47. | |
during the hearing, the lawyer of the man she had originally and | :21:47. | :21:50. | |
wrongly accused of the crime, Diya Lumumba, described her as a | :21:50. | :21:56. | |
"demonic she-devil with a dirty soul". Has a trial that started as | :21:56. | :22:06. | |
:22:06. | :22:11. | ||
a media circus turned into She was a diabolical satanic and | :22:11. | :22:21. | |
:22:21. | :22:25. | ||
Not the words of some medieval Pope, but one of the lawyer's are bought | :22:25. | :22:29. | |
in the appeal of Amanda Knox. She has been described as everything | :22:29. | :22:33. | |
from Jessica Rabbit to a Venus in a first during the past we got caught | :22:33. | :22:39. | |
herrings. Just calling her a murderer doesn't seem to be another | :22:39. | :22:49. | |
:22:49. | :22:56. | ||
Today, the prosecution alleged that if her appeal were allowed, she | :22:56. | :23:05. | |
would immediately flee the country. TRANSLATION: We know that if the | :23:05. | :23:10. | |
verdict is overturned, there will be an immediate escape overseas. As | :23:10. | :23:14. | |
a result, even if this is the second of a three-step legal | :23:14. | :23:19. | |
process in Italy, it is up to you to ensure that justice -- ensure | :23:19. | :23:25. | |
justice. Amanda Knox claims the murder was carried out by Rudy | :23:25. | :23:31. | |
Hermann Guede ape from the Ivory Coast on his own. He has also been | :23:31. | :23:35. | |
convicted of the murder. -- from the Ivory Coast. Will we will find | :23:35. | :23:39. | |
out the verdict on Monday, but guilty or not, what does her | :23:39. | :23:42. | |
depiction in the media and now the court as some kind of modern-day | :23:42. | :23:45. | |
witch say of misogyny in modern-day Italy? | :23:45. | :23:48. | |
I'm joined now by author and feminist commentator Joan Smith and | :23:48. | :23:50. | |
Annalisa Piras, the London correspondent for Italian news | :23:50. | :23:54. | |
magazine L'Espresso. Welcome to you both. Just to | :23:54. | :23:58. | |
clarify, we are not really talking about the innocence or guilt of | :23:58. | :24:05. | |
Amanda Knox. But we have seen some of the words used there. You could | :24:05. | :24:10. | |
just say it is a pretty normal case of a lawyer trying to influence the | :24:10. | :24:15. | |
case, could ensue? I think it is the culmination of a pro -- process | :24:15. | :24:20. | |
that has been going on since 2007. It is a really horrible murder of a | :24:20. | :24:24. | |
young woman and the whole case has got completely messed up by the | :24:24. | :24:28. | |
focus on Amanda Knox. After all, three people have been convicted of | :24:28. | :24:33. | |
different things in relation to this murder. We hear enough -- | :24:33. | :24:36. | |
almost nothing about the two men involved and what has happened is, | :24:36. | :24:40. | |
I think normally in cases like this, you get a sense of what actually | :24:40. | :24:43. | |
happened. I think it has been completely impossible from the | :24:43. | :24:47. | |
start to get a sense in this case because of the focus on one woman, | :24:47. | :24:52. | |
who is a foreigner, who is pretty and obviously quite sexual, and | :24:52. | :24:56. | |
that has muddied the entire case. Do you think this is specific to | :24:56. | :25:02. | |
the culture in which the trial is taking case? Or is this what we do | :25:02. | :25:07. | |
to all alleged women killers? is always a fascination with any | :25:07. | :25:11. | |
crime which involves a man and a woman, or more than one murderer. | :25:11. | :25:15. | |
If there is a woman involved, the focus tends to be on her rather | :25:15. | :25:19. | |
than the male perpetrators. I think also you have to remember that | :25:19. | :25:23. | |
Italian culture, particularly popular culture, is incredibly | :25:23. | :25:27. | |
sexist and women are centralised all the time and it has a prime | :25:27. | :25:30. | |
minister who seems to describe himself as a part-time Prime | :25:30. | :25:33. | |
Minister because he is so interested in his sex life. That is | :25:33. | :25:37. | |
very much to the detriment of women because it portrays them as sexual | :25:37. | :25:40. | |
creatures and whenever they are portrayed primarily as that, they | :25:40. | :25:44. | |
get punished for it with this kind of rhetoric about witchcraft and | :25:44. | :25:51. | |
last. Is that too profound to make this into a Berlusconi's it to | :25:51. | :25:58. | |
leave...? -- Italy. I think it is quite clear that it is not a | :25:58. | :26:03. | |
country for women. He has brought back a very chauvinistic and Mrs | :26:03. | :26:08. | |
Dot -- misogynistic attitude towards women, dividing them into | :26:08. | :26:16. | |
Madonna, Hall and which. Amanda Knox has fallen into the last | :26:16. | :26:21. | |
category. On top of that, she is also American. That goes deeper | :26:21. | :26:25. | |
into the Italian male Psyche, because in the Second World War, | :26:25. | :26:29. | |
when the British and American women arrived, there is this image of | :26:29. | :26:34. | |
these terrifying, liberated sexual woman that is not controllable but | :26:34. | :26:39. | |
is incredibly attractive. Before we make this into a sob story, and she | :26:39. | :26:45. | |
is not the real victim here at all, Meredith Kercher is, Jessica | :26:45. | :26:49. | |
Rabbit? That is a quote used by her own defence lawyer. It works both | :26:50. | :26:55. | |
ways. That is my point, it is actually impossible to work out who | :26:55. | :27:00. | |
the real demand a Knox is in this trial. -- Amanda Knox is in this | :27:00. | :27:04. | |
trial. But these are a generation of women who have been posting | :27:04. | :27:08. | |
personal things about themselves on internet website and a huge deal | :27:08. | :27:13. | |
has been made about what she posted on a social website. That is the | :27:13. | :27:17. | |
kind of thing that young men and young women do it without thinking | :27:17. | :27:22. | |
about what it would look like it in a highly publicised trial. You have | :27:22. | :27:26. | |
to remember that the extraordinary accusation this week is that women | :27:26. | :27:31. | |
are dressed -- driven by lust and our sex-crazed, that was kind of a | :27:31. | :27:38. | |
pact with the devil. It is medieval. It goes back to 1486 and the | :27:38. | :27:44. | |
publication of the Hammer at of witches. Most of that book inspired | :27:44. | :27:49. | |
incredible scenes across Europe and ended in the deaths of thousands of | :27:50. | :27:54. | |
its innocent people. All that was because women cannot be trusted | :27:54. | :27:57. | |
because they are defective compared to men and are untrustworthy and | :27:57. | :28:01. | |
all of that is coming out in the trial. The wider question is that | :28:01. | :28:05. | |
whatever the verdict now, will there be a suspicion that somehow | :28:05. | :28:10. | |
it has been influenced by the way this trial has been run? I guess | :28:10. | :28:14. | |
that is impossible to avoid. There has been such a phenomenal media | :28:14. | :28:19. | |
attention, and there has been all of these stereotypes are thrown at | :28:19. | :28:26. | |
had, it is difficult to say they jury will not be influenced. On the | :28:26. | :28:29. | |
other hand, I trust the final verdict will take into account | :28:29. | :28:35. | |
everything that has been put on the table, the reliability of the Pru | :28:35. | :28:39. | |
found the evidence and her behaviour and so on. -- prove, and | :28:39. | :28:47. | |
the evidence. And nothing she will get a lesser conviction that she | :28:47. | :28:51. | |
has now. -- I think. I think it does a disservice to everyone in | :28:51. | :28:57. | |
the trial, including the victim, to turn a forensic forum into a witch | :28:57. | :29:02. | |
hunt like this. Thank you very much. Let's take you | :29:02. | :29:06. | |
through the papers. I mentioned the story in the Daily Telegraph. Just | :29:06. | :29:10. | |
there to talk you through this. George Osborne says he is a | :29:10. | :29:14. | |
conservative who believes in the Lower taxes but not finding them by | :29:15. | :29:19. | |
borrowing more, so it is highly cautious on whether there will be | :29:19. | :29:23. | |
tax cuts in the next -- before the next election. | :29:23. | :29:27. | |
The Tories despairing over Cameron growth plans. | :29:27. | :29:37. | |
The Daily Mail, the revolt over EU benefits. And at how the city | :29:37. | :29:39. | |
bankrolls the Conservatives. That's all from Newsnight tonight, | :29:39. | :29:42. |