25/10/2011 Newsnight

With 24 hours to save the euro, so they say, and therefore the banks

and therefore the world economy, Europe's fate rests in the hands of

a former cruise ship crooner. Even if Silvio Berlusconi can sell at

least some austerity to a hostile coalition and public, can he

convince the Germans he won't soon hit them for a trillion euro

bailout? Those close to the talks in

Brussels have told me a serious deal tomorrow is now impossible,

and the differences remain immense. Why is it that Europe seems to

ineffectual with the well being of so many at stake. With a heavy

heart I will vote for the motion, and I will take the consequences.

No hard feelings says the Prime Minister, oh and by the way, you're

sacked, have relations between David Cameron and his eurorebels

been permanently soured. Is the real reason this Tory MP feels so

sore about a euroreferendum, that the shots in Government are being

called by this man's friends and colleagues.

As East Africa's tribe succumb to yet another famine, is it lack and

rainfall for lack of ethics that are the cause. God makes famine but

we stole from ourselves and we are starving as a result. Also tonight.

The film director David CCronenberg, on film, fear and fraud. Tomorrow

was supposed to be the absolute deadline for a deal to save the

euro, tomorrow's expected meeting for European finance ministers was

cancelled today, leaving hopes of that deal something of a shambles,

the heads of Government will still get together, even though tomorrow

doesn't seem to capture what has seized some of the participants, in

a crisis that could bring the dreams of the world's political

class come crashing down. There is still plent of talks to bail out

banks, and murderings of what that great statesman, Silvio Berlusconi,

may or may not do to show his Government's grasp of reality.

That cancellation of the finance ministers' meeting was at first

briefed as a good thing. Because we were so close to a deal that they

didn't need to meet. It turns out that was completely rubbish. They

are not close to a deal. British Government sources believe there

are too major sticking points. One the shape of the ES Severs, and

secondly they are nowhere near negotiating about Greece, with the

banks seeing 60% of their investment written out. The banks

are saying Government holds this debt when are Governments going to

take the pain. These are serious issues and we are told to wait.

This is incredible, the entire European project, it could turn the

whole world economy and they can't decide to do something? It is only

over the weekend they got serious about figures and percentages. If

you step back from all the technical jargon, they are trying

to take a huge chunk of European capitalism out of the capitalist

system. They are trying to say a bunch of banks and five out of 17

countries no longer have their debt valued by the global market. It

will all be protected within effectively a statised system. Once

you put it that way, they will say I'm centre right politician and you

are a Conservative, how did we end up doing this. The drama about to

play out in Brussels. It will be more than a five-act one let me

tell you. It is like an action movie, where all the plot lines

come together in the last five, frantic minutes. There are panicked

phone calls, knife-edge decisions, and nobody knows what's happening.

But we do know where it is supposed to end, Brussels, this time

tomorrow night. The deal they are trying to do is clear, it is to

take tax-payers' money from northern Europe, and use it to bail

out southern Europe, to shore up the banks, and to prevent Greece

collapsing into social chaos. But the political price for this is

immense. The leaders are only just confronting that.

Under the deal they are working for, 60% of Greek detect, held by banks

and - debt, held by banks and pension funds will be written off.

The banking sector will take a hit of at least 120 billion euros. To

prevent a wider crisis, 108 billion will be pumped into Europe's banks,

from private investors and an EU bailout funds and others. A new

fund, one trillion euro, will be brought in to take Portugal,

Ireland, Greece and Italy out of the bond market for years. There is

too much debt in the eurozone, too much public and private debt.

Ultimately banks will have to go to the wall and fail, and Governments

will have to write down debt, that is the only solution. This is the

specter haunting tomorrow's summits, Communists fighting anarchists on

the streets of at then, amid a general strike. The plan is to

write off nearly two-thirds of Greek debt. But the banks that will

take the losses from this troubled country are behind the scenes

resisting. And if they resist hard enough, it will be the global

banking system that goes up in flames.

Today, the French Prime Minister told the assembly it was certain

Greece would be rescued to save 60 years of European construction.

Those close to tonight's talks say it is the French banks conducting a

rear guard action against the haircut. The biggest problem

tonight remains the expanded bailout fund, the so-called ESSF,

the whole thing relies on tricky engineering, and the Germans who

are paying for it, need to see the Italians implement Austery, and in

pursuit of that, - austerity, and in pursuit of that, the Italian

Government has been brought close to collapse. Silvio Berlusconi

wants to raise the pension age to 67, to prove Italy is worthy of the

bailout. The northern league's leader, part of the coalition, does

not. TRANSLATION: They can't put the pension age up to 67 just to

please the Germans, the pensions are fine.

Some doubt any deal could be done with the current Government in Rome.

No-one trusts the Italians at the moment to get anything through. We

have reported there are calls that Angela Merkel made to the President

of Italy asking if there is any chance of Berlusconi leaving and a

new Government to come in and bring credibility to this. It is a real

pressing point right now. They want Italy to come to Brussels with

something, if they don't, the whole question is whether they will be

able to tap this bailout fund to buy Italian bonds and resell to

market. Less than 24 hours to go to the summit and so much stuff left

undecided. The challenge in Brussels is to do a deal that works,

the ESFS will take Italy out of the bond market for a year in return

for austerity and Spain. If we take Spain and Italy out of the market

for a year, at the end of the year we hope they will have regained

confidence in the markets. That is very unlikely. If they implement

the austerity measures demanded it will undermine their gross.Th they

will look worse and the parbgts won't want to buy their debt. If

they don't put the austerity measures in, the markets will

assume they are responsible and they won't take the measures

necessary, and they can't cut it, it is unlikely that Spain and Italy

will regain market confidence by the end of the year. That is why

they are taking it to the wire. This is a film with no script

writer, no directors, and actors who don't know their lines. It is

careering to a crisis and nobody knows how.

I'm joined by my guests tonight. Let's go to Rome first. Is the

Italian Government likely to agree to put the pension age up to 67?

party, part of the coalition will agree with that, I hope the other

party will agree with that. I'm confident we will implement the

measures in one way or another in the next weeks. You are a member of

Mr Berlusconi's party, is that Government going to survive, do you

think? Well, I think it will survive. But, I think that whether

the Government survives or not, we will implement those measures. By

the way we have implemented many measures, during the month of

August we passed several measures, including most of the requests we

received from the European Central Bank. You must be very grateful to

the French and Germans, thank heavens for Mrs Merkel and Mr

Sarkozy, for making you do things you wouldn't otherwise do? Actually

we would have done those things any way. Because we answer to the

markets and the Italian people, and we listen, but not answer to the

leaders of other countries, since we are sovereign states. You are

confident, are you, that the other countries, notably France and

Germany, of course, will be sufficiently convinced that you are

taking this seriously, that some sort of deal tomorrow will be

possible? I think they are much more convinced that - than they

show. The fact is, that currently they are worried with the problem

of Greece, where France has lots of interests. And the real problem

currently is that one. So they are trying to draw the attention to put

the attention on Italy, the problem is Greece and France with lots of

money in Greece. If they want to save French banks rather than the

euro, the problem is France and Greece, not Italy. This is always

the problem, it is always somebody else's fault, isn't it, do you

think there will be a deal tomorrow? It is not the fact, well,

I might say the same thing about what they are saying in France, and

Germany, that they say it is somebody else's fault. It is not

Italy's fault if French banks have lent Greece 150 billion euros. And

so you cannot tell me I'm putting the blame on others. We are taking

our responsibility, but we have no responsibility to the Greek

problems or the French banks' problems. Thank you very much for

joining us. We go to Brussels now and talk to a spokesman there. Do

you think there will be a deal tomorrow? Yes, I think there will

be a deal tomorrow. I think your presentation of the problem was

slightly sensationaliseed, and I think we're call working for an

agreement tomorrow evening. So you think when President Sarkozy said

Europe was never so close to exploding today, that was wrong was

it? That possibility that there could be an explosion does wonders

to concentrate everybody's minds to reach agreement. May I take you up

on something you said earlier about the finance ministers' meeting

being cancelled. There is a simple explanation for. That once it was

decided that the prime ministers would come to the meeting, there

was no need for the finance ministers to come to the meetings.

If you have the heads of Government coming to the meeting, there is no

longer a need for the finance ministers to come. It is as simple

as that. Although, of course, that was known some days ago. Let's talk

about what deal might be reached tomorrow? That was only decided,

that was actually only decided on Sunday that all 27 heads of

Government would come to the meeting tomorrow evening. OK. Let's

not get into nit-picking about. That let's talk about the deal.

but you presented it as a problem, it is not a problem, it has been

known since Sunday, it is not something new and dramatic, it is

quite normal. Will you be telling us, or will we be told, some how,

the details of the deal? Well, yes, of course, as soon as the deal is

reached. We wouldn't be having a meeting if there was already a deal

in place. But everyone knows the three main elements that are being

negotiated about. One bit has already been effectively more or

less agreed, that is the package for recapitalisation of banks.

There is faiing on that is there? There are on going - a figure on

that is there? There is on going discussions about everything. There

is a figure of just over 100 million euros, that part of the

deal is more or less put to bed, everything has to be agreed as part

of the package. But that bit is pretty well settled. The other two

elements there are still negotiations. But they are going on,

and we are quite confident that there will be an agreement tomorrow

evening. And we will be told, will we, how big the European Financial

Stability Fund will be? Yes, there are discussion about how to

leverage the existing fund, whose size is known, in order to increase

its fire power. There are two models being looked at for how you

could do that. It could be a combination of both models, if so

we will have a significant increase in the problem of the ESFS, you

call it a bailout for loans, for countries who need time to turn the

corner, they are getting loans, not grants from the tax-payers. That

will be put in place tomorrow evening. If there is no deal fom

tomorrow, will it be a disaster? There will be a deal, because

everybody recognises the importance of reaching a deal tomorrow. This

is part of a process. There will be technical things to be wrapped up

afterwards. Just as there are many things put in place already. This

has been a process, admittedly a step by step process, but that's

because the union is not a dictatorship, but of democracies.

They all have to go through their democratic procedures, you have to

first reach agreement among the elected Governments. They often

need to get parliamentary approval in their domestic Parliaments for

these packages. It is inevitably step by step, and some what slower

than the markets wish who act at the click of a mouse. Democratic

procedures, even when speedy, do take a bit of time.

Whether David Cameron feels his position in Europe has been

strengthened by what happened last night in Parliament is something he

won't tell us. Of course he won't, but the plain fact is dozens of his

own MPs snubbed him last night, by calling for a referendum on our

relations with the EU. It is also as plain on the noses of the faces

of Prime Minister and deputy, that the two parties in the coalition

have entirely different ambitions in Europe.

Yesterday's Government whipping operation did lack a bit of fire

power. Fitting, perhaps, then, that today the Prime Minister visited

some heavy weapons at a defence manufacturer.

His first job is to sort out his political defences.

The tactic for today seemed to be to try to sooth his troubled

backbenchers. There is no, on my part, no bad blood, no bitterness,

these are valued Conservative colleagues, I understand why people

feel strongly, and we will go forward together and tackle the

difficult decisions the country faces. What backbenchers seem more

interested in, is not being soothed, but evidence the Prime Minister is

going to deliver on what he seemed to promise yesterday. Like you I

want to see fundamental reform, like you I want to refashion our

membership of the EU so it better service our nation's interests.

the weekend, Mr Cameron told us any treaty change the EU needed to make

would be an opportunity for Britain to insist on reform. Treaty change

can only happen if it is agreed by all 27 member states of the

European Union. Any treaty change, as the last treaty change did, is

an opportunity for Britain to advance our national interest.

The rebellious mood among David Cameron's backbenchers hasn't

exactly been improved today. They are now looking for concrete

evidence that the Government intends to repatriate powers from

Brussels. But, instead of that, what they see they have got is,

well, doubt whether it is actually Government policy at all.

The Conservatives' Liberal Democrat coalition partners certainly aren't

looking to repatriate powers from Brussels. The deputy Prime Minister

today was looking at some virtual reality technology. He says it is

the Conservatives who need to get real. Unless you have got a strong

prosperous eurozone, you can't have a strong prosperous United Kingdom.

That is why this Government is not going to launch some smash 'n grab

raid on Brussels on its own, which would never work, it would be

condemned to failure any way. Holloway voted against the

Government yesterday, and in the process lost his junior Government

position. He knows what he wants David Cameron to deliver now.

very clear statement of the sort of powers that we would like to

repatriate, and some sort of time frame. But that time frame may well

be outside the time that we are in a coalition. We may be looking at

when the Tories next to come to power. I think some sort of road

map, if you like for that, for the future, would be very, very helpful,

especially if you are talking about party management. It is that phrase

"party management", that you hear time and time again. David

Cameron's style is not necessarily appreciated by all of his

backbenchers. In a sense all prime ministers have this complaint

levelled against them. Not all MPs have a leader who, shall we say,

shares their own view, of their own ability. But are there some other

reasons that David Cameron has lost the loyalty of some?'S Upset some

MPs over expenses, by taking a very draconian stance. He upset lots of

candidates by having an A-list, where he had certain candidates

that are preferred with the plum seats. A lot of candidates selected

were never on the A-list. They feel they became MPs despite David

Cameron, not because of him. Other MPs were kept quiet during the time

he was changing the Conservative Party's electoral strategy. He said

we must change to win. And of course, in the end, the

Conservative Party didn't win. Party management isn't helped by

the fact that David Cameron has to give coveted Government jobs to

Liberal Democrats. But, according to one of last night's rebels,

there are still some things he can do. Appointments must be made on

merit, because people can accept they are not a minister if they

think the people are ministers are there for the right reasons. Whilst

I fully support having a third of ministers to be female, that is

fine, as long as all those appointments are made on merit.

That is the first point. The second one, of course, is there is a

feeling that when people sort of cross the party, there is no way

back. I think it is important for a few people who have fallen by the

way side to be brought back into the fold. I would say both those

things, not being female, and having just lost my position in the

Government, such as it was. Obviously issues don't come any

more explosive for the Conservative Party than Europe, but there are

other potential rebellions in the air. In fact, we don't have to look

any further into the future than Monday, then the issue that might

trigger it is knife crime. If only there were levers he could

pull to make his party behave, but David Cameron knows he is, in the

future, going to have to choose his battles, if he wants his MPs to

follow orders. With us now is the Conservative MP,

Jacob Rees-Mogg, one of the 2010 intake who rebelled yesterday. We

are joined by former Liberal Democrat leader, Charles Kennedy.

When David Cameron talks about bringing back powers from Brussels,

is he talking as party leader or leader of the Government? He's both.

You understand him to be talking about Government policy. He's

talking as the Conservative Party leader and Prime Minister. But he

leads a coalition, and he has to carry the coalition with him.

Ultimately, if the Lib Dems really want to hand powers back to Europe

rather than keem them in Britain, they can walk - keep them in

Britain, they can walk out and have another election. Number Ten said

he wasn't speaking as leader of the Government but as leader of the

party, you are saying it is a distinction that can't be made?

can't make of the Prime Minister, he is Prime Minister and leader of

the country, the two are closely linked because is leader of the

Conservative Party. What do you think? As Prime Minister you are

head of the Government. The subsequent clarification that came

from Number Ten that you referred to, a little later, after his

remarks this morning, point to the difficulty that is now taking place

for the Conservatives. You know, last night's debate, it was

actually a very good debate in many ways. But what it revealed was not

so much about the fault lines in terms of Europe and European policy,

it was the continuing fault lines that have been there for the 25

years plus that I have been in the Commons now, within the

Conservative Party. I'm afraid other parties can't solve that

party for them. He spoke as leader of a Government which includes your

party? Yes, and you also fairly paid the clip of Nick Clegg

responding to those remarks a little later on in the course of

the morning. Making quite clear where we stood on this. I don't

know what Jacob is referring to about us wanting to hand more

powers to Europe, we have not said anything to that effect. I'm not

clear about what are the powers the Conservatives want to, or think

they can, or how they are going to go about achieving the repatriation

from Europe. Do you blame the Liberal Democrats for this mess?

think the Liberal Democrats are wonderful, loyal people, who who

have taken a serious decision, that is destroying them electorally, to

back a Conservative Government to solve an economic crisis we face.

On Europe they have always talked nonsense. That is theesprit decore

we have in this coalition and face! Jacob is entitled to his opinions,

he's a chip off all the distinguished block, I greatly

reveer his dad, but time has moved on. What is needed is a rational

debate about Europe. It is an issue, you have a gradeation of opinion

air strikes cross each of the political parties. None are so deep

and irreconcilable as they appear to be within the Conservative Party.

That is, at the end of the day, an issue that they will have to

resolve. Can you be reconciled in the Conservative Party?

Conservative Party is united in Europe, but there was strong Euro-

sceptic statements from the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary,

it is the coalition divided on Europe, not the Conservative Party.

That is important. Clearly you are deeply worried. When you were

speaking last night, you talked about, you invoked the spirit of

henry V, stiffen the sinews. Summon up the blood. Be like a tiger. As

opposed to being like Bagpuss. is absolutely right. Who is Bagpuss

in this rhetorical flight? Thank you for listening to the speech so

carefully. Who is Bagpuss? What the Prime Minister needs is to be able

to say to Lib Dem partners and in Brussels, that I have to get powers

back because my backbenchers want it. So David Cameron is Bagpuss?

Certainly not. We strengthen the Prime Minister's position and help

him to have the courage of a tiger when he's negotiating with the Lib

Dems. Otherwise left to his own devices he would be Bagpuss? No the

Lib Dems are closer to Bagpuss than the Prime Minister. There you are,

Charles Kennedy Cat On A Hot Tin Roof. We should end the metaphor or

we will end up like Theresa May at the Tory Party conference. I think

the point is this. I was our European spokesman all the moons

ago when Maastricht Treaty was going through. I argued for a

referendum at that time, and voted for a referendum en mass trict. We

take the view, as we said in the last manifesto, if you have got a -

on Maastricht, we take the view, as we said in the last manifesto, if

you have got a view and it is about to go forward, you should put that

to the people. The problem Jacob and his colleagues have got is we

had this great debate last night, very entertaining stuff, not least

Bagpuss, the fact of the matter is, those, there are some that want to

withdraw, the Conservatives, there are some who want to stay in and

reform, and that's not quite clear that what that means. There are

some talking about repatriation and a European free trade zone in which

the UK a member. For Jacob to try to pretend that is a united

Conservative position is hog wash. That is a fair point isn't it?

is wrong, the Prime Minister said that every treaty requires

unanimity and is an opportunity to renegotiate. That is what the

Conservative Party wants. We are completely united on that. What he

said had the support of the overwhelming majority of the party.

We voted to strengthen his arm in negotiations.

In case he becomes Bagpuss? wouldn't dream of doing such a

thing. Thank you very much. Now to the second in our series of

films to mark the birthday, some time in the next few days, of the

seven billionth person on this planet for some time.

Fergal Keane has been to one of the worst affected areas in Africa, in

the remote north of the country and found a crisis compounded by

decades of corruption Turkana. The burning air yields nothing.

Too many seasons without rain have turned the ground to dust.

Like so much of the rest of the Horn of Africa, the lands of the

Turkana are in the grip of drought. They are nomadic past tollalists,

who rely on the - Pastoralists who rely on the rain for their lands.

Now they come seeking relief. This emergency feeding centre is

providing rations for malnourished children. The animals on which

these people depended for a living have died. A tribe which is among

the most resilient and self- sufficient in the world, is reduced

to kpwueing for food. All morning people - reduced to queuing for

food. All morning people have continued to arrive, as news

spreads that food and medical help is available. If you require that

this is just one village out of hundreds, across this region. You

get a sense of the magnitude of this drought. How many droughts

have you seen in your life? Ten droughts.

Is this as bad as the other ones or worse? TRANSLATION: He says this is

worst of all. There are still food shortages,

despite the donation of a huge amount of international aid. What

are the problems with the children here? Malnutrition. That's the main

problem? Yeah, malnutrition. I have set out to discover why

there is no food security in a country that has received billions

in international aid over decades. Drought caused by climate change is

certainly a major problem. And the fact that Kenya hosts more than

half a million starving refugees from Somalia. But Kenya's crisis

has other, murkier roots. God makes droughts, men make familiar anyones,

and we stole from - famines, we stole from ourselves and we are

starving as a result. Across East Africa, the brunt of

the food crisis is being borne by Pastoralist communities like these,

there have been some Government- sponsored projects but the

overwhelming sense is of neglect. The infrastructure here is meagre

and much of it crumbling. Joseph sells water to his foal low

villagers, that he draws from this hole in the bed of a dried out

river. TRANSLATION: We feel rejected by

the Government. I don't understand why they don't help. Why they don't

provide any saistance. The Government has a lot of funds -

assistance, the Government has a lot of funds but none of it

trickles down here. The Kenyan's Government official line is to

blame the drought for this crisis. The international community and the

Kenyan Government have now mounted a massive relief operation. A

record �72 million was donated in Britain to help feed the starving.

What's unfolding here isn't simply the consequence of drought. Kenya's

food crisis is, above all, a crisis of governance. You simply can't

separate the imagery of hunger from the corruption and neglect that has

characterised the rule of Kenya's political elite.

It is all grimly familiar to the man who was once Kenya's anti-

corruption chief, and who now helps the UK Government monitor how its

aid is spent. How much of an imfact did corruption have on the hunger

crisis - impact did corruption have on the hunger crisis in this

country now? The drought we have in Kenya is a Government drought, it

is a corruption drought. It is what has turned the drought into a

familiar anyone. - Famine. Two years ago Kenya knew

it was facing a severe drought, but it emerged that officials sold much

of the country's grain to middle men for subsidised prices, the

middle men sold to the market at he can sorbant rates. Who were the -

exsorbant rates. Who were the people? People connected to

politicians. That is people profiteering out of famine?

Absolutely it is the coldest most merciless kind of corruption. This

time people are dying now. Nairobi, headquarters of the

Government and the courts, authors of the scandal have gone unpunished

by the law, like so many before them. An estimated one third of the

country's budget may vanish to corruption every year.

Food aid, in this case, from Saudi Arabia, is being used to make up

the shortfall in Kenya's supplies. When I met the minister responsible

for the relief effort, she was remarkably candid about what

corruption has done to her country. I think it has ruined us, because

if a son sees his father stealing and he gets away with it, he thinks

it is the way to do things. Until we prosecute and say no to impunity,

then there remains the problem. doesn't matter how high up the

chain it goes? In fact, the higher you reach the better the message

would be received better. Because occasionally, and what the cry of

the Kenyans has been, is that the courts start targeting the small

fish not the big fish, if we targeted the big fish the message

would be loud and clear. Some of your Government colleagues might be

nervous hearing you say that, and might not be too happy with that?

If you are corrupt you don't have to be happy. There are those in the

Government who believe it when they say that. But then they are not the

ones that wield the vital levers of power in the Government. You have

to keep in mind this is a coalition Government, we don't have an

opposition in Kenya, really, it is a mixture of everyone. With a fair

sprinkling of crooks in high places? Absolutely, with a fair

sprinkling of hardened thieves in high places. International donors

increasingly seek to deal with the dilemma of corruption, by bypassing

the state. Here British aid is being used to try to stimulate

local markets, moving people from Pastoralism to the cash economy.

21 century technology is harnessed in the remotist of places. These

women run small shops, with grants they receive from Oxfam. Money that

goes directly from donors in Britain to local people. They cue

with their smart cards, but instead of a pin to get the cash, they give

a thumb print. This woman supports six children from a small shop.

Tran All my animals died, - TRANSLATION: All my animals died, I

was forced to beg for food, this opportunity helped me open up a

business, now I can afford to feed my family.

A way of life dependant on regular rain to provide grazing is

threatened, perhaps terminally. Hire on the shores of Lake Turkana,

an EU scheme is encouraging Pastoralists to turn to fishing to

eek out a living. This man lost a huge flock of

animals, among them, 200 goats. For him, the Government has always been

far away. TRANSLATION: There is a small amount of aid from the

Government, but I haven't had any help. Some get the food, others

live without. It says much about the scale of the crisis facing the

Pastoralists of Turkana, that a people who used not even eat fish,

whose sense of themselves was built about roaming the land with their

livestock, should now find themselves here as part of a

community of fishermen. The big issue isn't that many more

thousands will have to change their way of life, it is whether they can

survive at all in this part of Africa.

Aid that goes directly to communities can change lives. But

the forces ranged against these people are daunting. Climate change,

rising food prices, corruption. How important is it to end the culture

of immunity that has allowed people at the very - impunity that has

allowed people at the very stop from looting the people? If we

don't solve that I can see the crisis year in year out for the

next 20 years, I don't know. The world can pour any amount of

food aid into Kenya, the NGOs can work to mitigate the effects of

drought, but the central truth of the story of the Turkana, is that

hunger is ultimately a matter of politics.

It used to be the case that if we wanted to be shocked by violent

graphic video we would have to pay our money and take our seat for the

latest horror movie at the local picture house. How deliberate and

planned that now seems when contrasted to the images that went

round the world within minutes of Gaddafi first being beaten, and

then a decaying corpse on display in a meat store. We will discuss

these images tomorrow with film maker David Cronenberg, who

collects an award from the British Film Institute tomorrow. Cronenberg

has been famous throughout his career for makes films exploring

dystopian visions of the future, the impact of technology on the

human experience, deviant behaviour, sub conscious desires and extreme

perversions. His 1996 film, Crash, shocked viewers and critics alike,

by exploring the sexual thrill of the car accident. She's a walking

advertisment...His Latest film, A Dangerous Method, gets to the root

of the preoccupations, by looking at the creator of the idea of the

sub conscious, fraud, and his relationship with Carl Yung. There

is a rumour running around veeyenya now you have taken one of your

patients as a mistress. Cronenberg's capacity for violence,

and the power of the shock, has empowered cinema of our time. Put

images on Korean that horrify, has risen again when pictures of a

bloodied Gaddafi was sent around the world on mobile phones within

minutes. What is the reaction to exposure of these images, are we

becoming unshockable, if so, does it matter.

David Cronenberg is here now, what did you think when you saw those

images of Gaddafi? What surprised me was a Gaddafi, who was never a

favourite of mine, I was suddenly feeling quite sorry for him, I felt

huge empathy, and it was quite striking to me that I felt that way.

It surprised me. I think it is because at that moment he had been

striped of all context and he was a human being who was suffering and

being assaulted. Do you think that the instant availability of that

sort of footage, and it is now available, we didn't show most of

it there, it is pretty horrific, do you think it affects us, how does

it affect us? As I say, you can make a case for it enhancing our

sense of empathy for people. It is easy to say we're being

desensitised because we see a lot of it. I don't really think that is

the function, that is something that has been mentioned to me,

because my earlier films were all horror films. People say do your

films desensitise people, I think not. I think people really

understand there is a kifrpbs when you are seeing a fictional -

difference when you see a fictional content. Yes, but that is not it?

It draws a completely different reaction from us. I remember

looking up on the Internet and watching a beheading, and I wish I

hadn't seen it. It was so disturbing. Why did you do it?

felt I needed to confront the reality of what was going on.

you didn't need to? What really disturbed me about it is the

perpetrators about the beheading were incredibly self-righteous,

they felt they were doing a wonderful sacred holy thing, but on

the human level it was absolutely hidious. You were drawn to it?

I actually had to compel myself to watch it, almost feeling that I

needed to confront what was going on in the world at the time. I have

never watched another one. Why did you feel that you needed to

confront it? Because you read about it, but no written description can

really deliver to you the full texture of it. Did you know exactly

what happens just from the word "beheading", you know what happens

when someone is beheaded? You don't. Their head is cut off and they are

dead, it is a horrible thing to do to someone? When you think of the

Guillotin, and you think you have seen it in movies, you have never

seen it, because there was no film at the time of the French

Revolution. The Guillotin comes down and the head comes off. But no,

this beheading took ages, it took half an hour, it was agonising, it

wasn't even like a slaughterhouse, which is much more efficient, it

was a ritual, full of self- righteousness. And to that extent

I'm glad I saw it. What does it make you do, it really makes you

hate the people who perpetrated it. Why have you been drawn to

fictional violence in your films? don't think that I have been drawn

to it more than verbal violence, let's say, my latest movie The Most

Dangerous Method, which is not about violence, it is about the

birth of psycho analysis. Certainly those things are connected, but as

George Bernard Shaw said, conflict is the essence of drama, it doesn't

always have to be physical conflict, but if you are a dramaist, you are

drawn to conflict, as part of your art. Movies, controversially Crash,

of course, these are movies about extreme human behaviour? Yes.

is it interesting? Freud was attacked because of his insistence

on the reality of the possibility of creatures from the Id, monsters

of violence. When he he was proposing the unconscious, it was

at a time when everybody felt man was evolving into a wonderful

supercivilised controlled thing. this because you are anxious about

the human potentialality for that sort of behaviour? Well, seeing

things like the Gaddafi thing can make you anxious. You would be

strange if it didn't. It is not so much anxiety as curiosity, really,

or a desire to know. It is an artist and a psycho analyst, they

do the same thing, they don't accept the official version of

reality, they want to dive under and see what is going on. Some of

it is dark, some of it is not just dark but unusual and curious and