01/12/2011 Newsnight

Will the map of Europe be redrawn by Christmas? According to George

Osborne, the future of the British economy relies on the plan now

being hatched in Paris and Berlin. A new treaty for a new Europe. But

is anyone buying it? TRANSLATION: So, I say to you,

Europe has to be rethought, rebuilt, there is an emergency. The world

will not wait for Europe. Wel we will be discussing how the

eurodrama will unfold, and whether this is the last chance before we

go under the edge. Now we know big deficits will be

with us long after the next election, how will our parties and

political actors react. Tonight, we reveal how British

technology, which can monitor your phone, e-mails and tweets, has been

supplied to middle eastern regimes. The Syrian regime has access

supplied by western companies, that enables them to follow those users

and locate them and therefore arrest them.

And Martin Scorsese on film, art and the politics that permeate his

pictures. For me, Casino, for example, was a political film. The

amount of excess, there is nothing that is never enough, until finally

it explodes. Good evening. Maybe the eurozone

will break up, said the governor of the Bank of England today. Maybe it

will continue, but countries will default. The truth is, no-one knows.

It was a particularly worrying sentiment from the governor, given

the Chancellor, earlier this week, said Britain's economic future now

depends on what happens across the water. Tonight in Paris, President

Sarkozy began to set out yet another rescue plan. One that would

involve a new treaty to overhaul and re-think Europe. But has it any

chance of working? Paul Mason reports.

There are, technically, just nine days left to bring financial order

to Europe. By the time the EU's leaders meet, a week tomorrow, they

need to have some kind of little piece of paper to wave, some plan,

some undertaking. But E-day is looming, and no such undertaking

his been given. We did get this, though. A speech

from the man who could sort it out. The credible signal is needed to

give ultimate assurance over the short-term. What I believe our

economic and monetary union needs is a new fiscal compact. A

fundamental restatement of the fiscal rules, together with a

mutual fiscal commitments. That means putting Brussels, Berlin and

maybe Paris in charge of everybody else's budget, leaving eurozone

voters to decide what colour ties the politicians doing their bidding

will wear. Here's the problem, peripheral Europe is effectively

bust, the money the rest of Europe raised to bail them out is not

enough. And, the ECB could sort it by printing money and lending it,

but it won't, that is the problem. And so tonight, a cunning new plan

from President Sarkozy. Well not a plan, but the promise of plan on

Monday. It will involve treaty changes. TRANSLATION: France and

Germany, after so many tragedies, decide to unite their destiny, to

look towards the future together. My dear compatriots, to backtrack

on this strategy would be absolutely unforgivable. Germany

and France separated would result in the whole of Europe being

separated and weakened. Under the emerging plan, eurocountries will

hand powers to Brussels to oversee national budgets, to intervene and

cancel them where needed to stay within the rules. Then, and only

then, will the Germans allow the ECB to start buying the debts of

the distressed south. Ultimately, that would lead to pooling Europe's

debts in called eurobonds, a sticking point with the Germans up

to now. In Nicolas Sarkozy's speech tonight, we have a feeling that

perhaps if France is willing to go towards a new treaty, which is the

word Nicolas Sarkozy used in his speech, perhaps it means that

Germany is going towards the creation of eurobonds. Which today

looks a something that is inevitable, at least from France.

There is a credit crunch happening in Europe's banks, that creates two

dangers for Britain. One, economic slowdown, because that is our

export market, two, contagion, to our banks. The Bank of England

revealed today that RBS is heavily exposed to bank debts in the

troubled south of Europe to the tune of 30% of its core capital.

Add in the exposures to the debts of troubled countries, and 83% of

the core capital of Britain's big four banks is at risk. Of course,

that's only a problem if there is a credit crunch. You can see signs of

a credit crunch already in the euro area, I don't think that is begun

yet, but you can see how it would come through here, if funding costs

were to continue to be as high as they are. Now they are working on

contingency plans for a eurobreak up, what kind of event are they

planning for? Maybe it won't break up, maybe it will in various forms.

Maybe there will be questions of default. None of us know. It is no

sense to say there is a single one event in which we have to make

contingencies. While those in power contemplate Armageddon, people in

the high streets, here and across Europe, have to sense the gloomy

atmosphere and hope for the best. The best might have to be a large

amount of money. It is still possible they will come up with the

called bazooka mark II, about 300 billion euros from the IMF, 250

billion from the EU stability fund, and maybe 160 billion from the

European Central Bank itself. Analysts believe it is this, money

cobbled together from wherever you can, that has the best chance of

ending the crisis. But all ending the crisis means, this time, is

putting it off for a year, or maybe two.

Tomorrow David Cameron heads for Paris, he has pledged to do what he

can. The problem is, that's not much, except stick to the old

addage, keep calm, and carry on cutting. Paul Mason, to peer

through the economic gloom is Ken Rogoff, who wrote the book on debt,

quoted by George Osborne, to justify his economic strategy, Lord

Lamont, once Chancellor himself, of course, and by Gillian Tett of the

Financial Times, who is in New York. First of all, Ken Rogoff, a hedge

fund manager said, was he worried? He wasn't just worried as a hedge

fund manager, he was worried as a father what was happening. We don't

have to worry about his own personal finance, how long do you

think Merkel and Sarkozy have got to sort this out? Let's put it this

way, they can make things blow up really quickly, but I don't think

they can fix things really fast. The discussion here is very, very

simple, the Germans don't want to put water into a leaky bucket. It

is not just a matter of having a big bazooka, it is not just a

matter of having enough this time, they need a system so it doesn't

just keep going. Germany is being asked, essentially, to take on a

lot of debt, and open-ended guarantee, in return for handshake

from the periphery of Europe. It is a very, very delicate deal. Gillian

Tett, the Germans don't want to put water into leaky bucket, if it

could be fibgsd that would be better, this is this super-- fixed

that would be better, this is where you have this superdeal with

fingers in every pie in Europe. There is a game of brinkmanship,

and Angela Merkel is taking it to the brink. The key thing to

understand is what the central banks did on Wednesday in terms of

their joint arrangements, is really provide a breathing space for the

next eight or nine days, for the eurozone leaders to get their act

together. The brilliant irony is the Central Bankers around the

world are in some ways quite a co- ordinated bunch, they understand

each other and operate together smoothly. The problem is, it is

still not clear if you have a deal on the table. There is real concern

in the US, where I'm sitting, if they don't get their act together

in seven days, they will have missed their last, best chance.

What does it look like from your position, Lord Lamont, first of all,

before we talk about David Cameron's reaction to all of this,

does it looks a if a deal could be on the table? From what has been

outlined in the programme, it sounds as if it is going to be more

supervision of national budgets, peer group pressure, with a little

bit more teeth, a bit more discipline. To be honest, I don't

think that would really work, I'm rather surprised that the

suggestion is, that if they can get more control of other country's

budgets, the ECB would then be asked to buy the bonds of these

peripheral countries. I personallyam -- personally am

rather surprised Germany would accept this. Let's talk about the

British response, the idea there would be a new treaty, do you think

that David Cameron's position would be that in order to get this new

treaty through, he would be prepared to wave it through or --

wave it through, or looking for differences in Working Time

Directives or is it the wrong time to make those arguments? If the

provisions don't affect Britain, it would be reasonable to say we would

allow them to go through. It would be ridiculous to call a referendum

in Britain over something that didn't affect us. He has to

absolutely ensure any new treaty changes can't, in some indirect way,

be used against British interests, be used as protection. Be used to

discriminate against the British financial services industry. He has

to be absolutely sure about that. Obviously the financial

transactions tax has to be something that, if it ever comes

into existence, does not have any effect on Britain. Ken Rogoff, are

you as pessimistic as Lord Lamont, as to whether this supervisory

structure would actually work, nation-to-nation? I agree entirely

with Lord Lamont, that it is not going to work, at least not for

years and years. The Maastricht Treaty didn't really work, that was

a treaty. The Maastricht Treaty the French and the Germans just

violated it, they won't over the 60% rule, Tewin suited them. What

they realise -- when it suited them, they realised there wasn't a lot

they could do about it. There is basically a handshake, this isn't a

treaty, even if it was a treaty, what are the ramifications. You

really need more of a political union. It is not enough just to

talk about superadvising national budgets. You have to have a

Treasury that has huge taxation power, you have to transfer a lot

of power to the centre, or at least lay out a road map where that will

happen. Do you agree with that? There has to be something, a much

bigger idea than what has been put forward just now, Gillian Tett?

think the problem right now, we have been up and down this hill so

many times in the eurozone in the last six months, the trust has

really shattered. People, as Ken says, doesn't trust a handshake,

but want tangible action. What people are looking for, in terplgs

of creating a union that work -- terms of creating a union that

works, is some element of fiscal union and transfers, be it joint

eurobonds or something like that t will be a question of whether they

can come up with something tangible that will matter in the next eight

days. A giant Treasury, a big fiscal union? When Mrs Merkel uses

the phrase "fiscal union", she means something completely

different, she doesn't mean a European Treasury, or European

minister of finance, she just means more supervision of other country's

budgets, with Germany in a leading position. But, frankly, that is

more or less what we have had, and when you have the criminals as the

jury, you don't get very far. Inevitably, will the shape of

Europe change, there will be defaults, will countries drop out

of the eurozone in order to keep the northern centre holding?

think we have moved into more dangerous territory, because you

are now, for the first time, getting people openly talking about

the shape of the eurozone altering, about individual countries dropping

out, about the possibility of the whole thing imploding. This is

quite unusual for people openly to be discussing this. We had that at

the Cannes summit, when the for the first time, having denied Greece

could ever leave the euro, people suddenly said, yes, if Greece

doesn't want to abide by the rules, it may have to be chucked out.

Previously they said that was unthinkable. Ken Rogoff, in your

view, will there be 19 countries in the eurozone after the new year, or

will we see a much smaller eurozone s that inevitable? I think it will

have to get smaller before it gets bigger. I don't see how they can

have a real fiscal union, more political union, without looking

hard at the current membership, and realising some of the countries,

Greece is the obvious one, but I think there are others, Portugal,

they are really ready to be in that. What worries me about what they are

doing, they seem to be making this handshake as if they don't have to

make those decisions. Then it is hopeless, Italy is at least an

interesting case. You might be able to keep Italy in, Greece has

reached absurdity. Gillian Tett, as you said, we have been marched up

and down the hill. We heard Mervyn King, hearing about the nine days

ahead. Will this just be kicked forward again, or does this

actually have to be the real crunch? The onus is we -- the

answer is we just don't know. One of my reporters went ahead to a

conference in New York, of emerging market investors from around the

world. The question was asked of the audience, how many of you think

the eurozone will be together, in its current form, with all 17

members in a year's time, 80% of the audience said they didn't think

it would hang together. That is the indication of the scepticism and

cynicism in the markets. If you, from what Lord Lamont said about

what Angela Merkel thinks fiscal union is, they think everyone needs

to be German right now, and the rest of the world is saying it

won't happen. We are in the middle of a decade of economic pain,

living standards are dropping, the gulf between the rich and poor yawn,

and the structural deficit, George Osborne admits, will be with us

through the next election. The bombshell, how will the political

debate change, and are our politicians up to the challenge? As

the dust settled on the Autumn Statement, what became clear is

that the Conservative attempt to demonstrate the support for women,

is hardly going smoothly. It is women, overwhelmingly, who will be

hit by the Chancellor's decision to snatch back �110 a year, promised

to many of Britain's poorest families. How could the Liberal

Democrats show themselves as distinct from the Tories, amidst

the prognosis of economic doom beyond the next election. Danny

Alexander said it himself on Tuesday's Newsnight. You are going

into the next election, promising further billions of pounds in cuts

and public spending. That is what you are going to say in your

manifesto in the next election. afraid so. Senior Liberal Democrats

Newsnight spoke to today, have intimated their fears for the

party's distinctiveness. One senior Does the public believe that Labour

has a different and credible economic script? When the task of

the next Government will be to curb a still large deficit. The polls

suggest that people think things would be even worse under Labour.

How are the politicians going to deal with this future for political

insiders, I'm joined by Danny Finkelstein of the Times, and once

of Conservative Central Office, Tony McNulty, and Edward hare sis

former ld MP. The idea we are all in this glrb Liberal Democrat MP.

The idea we are all in this together, with the Conservatives

thinking about women and the idea of that, with the fewer public

sector workers, the idea that violent and mental issues won't be

at the fore any more. It is back to the barricades. There will be

massive distributional issues making cuts of that kind. Making

cuts in public spending will come from people who depend on spending

more or who work in the public sector, that is very hard. For

people who are Conservative modernisers it is very difficult.

Isn't the problem with this, David Cameron set himself out to be the

moderniser, that was the USP, and here you have it, the retrenchment

again, the language doesn't sell that in any kind of positive way,

does it? It is very, very difficult. The problem for all political

parties, is the next election will be one in which you are not looking

at how do you spend the money in the future, you are looking at how

to make more cuts, how do you make a little bit less and a bit more.

You have Steve Hilton not believing in climate change any more? I don't

know about that. This leaves a problem for the Liberal Democrats,

Evan Harris, you are tied in a sense to the Conservatives' coat

tails, Danny Alexander himself said, you go into the next election with

the deficit not obliterated, having to promote the same level of cuts.

The problem that exists for Conservative modernisers is even

greater for Liberal Democrats, that is why I think, it is quite clear

when you make cuts, as most Liberal Democrats accept has to be done, as

Danny said, it will affect people who use public services the most.

That is why I think Liberal Democrats will now concentrate on

stopping story tax cuts for better- off people, the 50p rate must stay.

There must be no question of there being inheritance tax cuts, things

like that will be well defined. has to be something more creative,

otherwise you seem joined at the hip? There will be differenciation,

more on those issues, they become even more important. How do the

Liberal Democrats do that? I think actually there is a position for

the Liberal Democrats, it is on distributional issues. I think the

Tories will obviously try to close it down, they won't go after the

50p or the in herance tax, that gives them a problem -- inheritance

tax, and that gives them a problem with their base. The Liberal

Democrats believe in redistribution and they can argue about the

fairness of the measures and moderate them. If we are

Conservative fiscal, it is in the coalition, it is not in the next

manifest at the moment that is why I think Danny Alexander did get it

wrong. If you say your people are in the public sector, will you get

the vote next time round with this platform? Danny Alexander nor Nick

Clegg writes the manifesto, you can call them the architect, he was

chairman of the body that wrote it, he didn't win many of those battles.

What I have been told today, and you said this in the introduction,

rightly, when he said the Liberal Democrats would go into the

election with, not just more cuts set out, which may be the case, but

a specific agreed cuts with another party. That is not going to happen,

because we are committed to being independent of the other parties.

Let's talk about that with Tony McNulty, you are independent of

both parties. Can we see a position, or would it just be so beyond the

pale, that Labour could do a deal with the Liberal Democrats? I think

this week has been seismic in terms of politics for some of the reasons

suggested. The notion that the next election, whatever the outcome, if

it is not a majority Labour Government, that we do deals with

Huhne and others that is gone. That is a question for the Liberal

Democrats. They are getting rid of four of their beasts? Let's see if

they get four seats. What about the Labour Party? We have to put

ourselves in the polls. The redistribution we have seen that

the liberals are endorsed have been from the poorest to the richest.

The new cuts announced have been much more severe on the bottom

percentage than higher. Labour has some flexibility. I don't think the

Liberal Democrats have, you can't issue a red book with an as tricks

that said only subject to the agreement of the Liberal Democrats,

The Labour Party has a degree of flexibility, you still have to

commit to vast cuts and explain, roughly speaking, where they come

from. There may be some flexibility for slowing down the cuts, at that

point, you won't be able to cancel them all. You will have to fight

that on the election. How will Labour get its credibility back,

will Ed Balls say slash, cut, slash, cut? They have to say it now, not

six months down the road towards the next election. The policy of

Labour has not to come forward with the big decisions because they see

it as foolish? They don't have to go into the detail, Cameron learned

that from the last election. They must get to stage where Labour's

economic narrative become as real one. Part of that is challenging

the analysis so far. David Miliband started that last night with a good

speech. With the Labour Party needs to recover, it is almost as

tempting as being tribunal and saying we don't do a -- tribal and

saying we don't do a deal. Let him speak? You have this problem, there

are plenty of people in the Labour Party who think if the economy

tanks or doesn't improve or flatlines Labour won't need to

regain credibility. That is tempting, just as it is tempting to

personalise politics and say whatever the merits after the next

election of getting power, we are not going to deal with individuals,

I don't think your leader take that is same view.

What I think we are missing a big point, that is all the parties are

going to face something that nobody has faced in this country ever,

that is we simply not going to be able to afford the state, in the

way that we have been able to afford it in the past. We are all

going to have to propose new ways of doing things, on a very grand

scale. What we have learned is the economy is far less wealthy. So

this changes not just this kind of politics, the politics we have

talked about, but much more fundamental things. I think there

is room for the superrich to pay more, that might well be a dividing

line. I'm not convinced that those in the Liberal Democrats will take

that view and win out. That will be a battle. We will want to

differentiate ourselves, even more than we have in the past. And I

don't accept this idea that the red book writes the manifesto, that is

absolutely wrong. I don't think Nick Clegg agreed with what Danny

Alexander said on this programme. We can explore this, even further

in weeks to come and months to come. If everybody is going to be

batoning down the hatchs in the economy and there is no room for

manoeuvre. In what way does politics play out, what do people

want from politicians they are not getting now? First of all, everyone

knows the situation is very, very grim. They don't expect politicians

to solve the problems immediately, but they do expect some hope at the

end of the day. The problem will be, not what politicians say, but

simply the actual reduction in people's real living standards, for

people who don't earn very much. That will be very difficult for the

Government. The problem for Labour is, it weakens them because they

will fight an election where their narrative is let's borrow some more

in order to borrow less. Such an unconvincing line that nobody will

believe. The line is to let's borrow more as a result of failure,

that can't be right either. Syria is now in state of civil war, a UN

official said today, it is estimated more than 4,000 people

have been killed by pro-Government forces since March, who is

supplying President Assad and other repressive regimes with the

technology to hunt down the dissenters. An investigation by

Newsnight and the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, has found

a British company, based in Oxfordshire, has been implicated in

the sale of state-of-the-art technology to Syria. It is not the

only British company with a role in allowing despotic regimes to access

technologies to help them spy on their sit ens.

-- citizens. The Arab Spring, Egypt, Libya, now Syria. Popular uprisings,

fuelled by new technology. Co- ordinated using mobile phones, the

Internet, texts and tweets. These pictures captured last week

from Syria, spread around the globe, on the World Wide Web. But now, the

very technologies that helped spark these revolutions are being used to

crush them. Technology of this kind can be every bit as lethal as the

bullets directly sold by a munitions company, or armments

quartermastre. Brighton beach, on the Sussex coast,

an unlikely venue to host a hub of dissent. But the current Syrian

popular uprising is organised on an international scale. Here in

Brighton, mam mam plays his party. The Arab Spring has turned into

winter in Syria, we have 20,000 people in prison, 4,500 people are

dead and people are struggling on daily basis. He has no permanent

address. He flits from place-to- place, using friends' address,

using their internet connections, laptops and computers, fearful he's

being monitored by the Syrian Security Services, here on British

soil. He maintains daily contact with

friends and colleagues, in Syria. Helping to desem raitate

information about developments in - - deseminate information about

developments in his country. And such has been their success, that

even the cyberactivists, operating behind closed doors, those

uploading images of the demonstrations, are now being

targeted too. The people who are usually using

the Internet to communicate with us are at more risk being arrested by

the regime than people on the streets. This is because we believe

that the Syrian regime, and we have evidence for that, that the Syrian

regime has access to software supplied by western countries, that

enables them to follow those users, and locate them. How many people do

you personally know of who have been actively targeted by the

state? Since May, and early July, I know of about 40-50 people, I went

to school with when I was back in Syria, they have been arrested and

we believe they have been arrested as a result of the new technology

and software that the Syrian regime is using to target activists.

Newsnight has learned that Syria has been provided with technology,

produced by the British-owned company, Sophos. This is its sales

pitch. Access to retain telecomdata, has become an important tool for

law enforcement and Intelligence Services in their fight against

Toryism. We asked Sophos for -- Terrorism. We asked Sophos for an

interview. They confirmed that it supplied technology to an Italian

company last year, they knew it was part of a bigger contract with

Syria. We don't monitor data, that is done within the

telecommunications software. The software is designed so when data

is requested by police forces can be safely be passed to the police

force. But you are selling it to nation states?, you are providing

it to nation states where the police force don't have a

particularly good track record, if we look at Syria there are problems

for many years? As a company we ensure, whoever we sell to, we

ensure we follow EU regulations and guidelines. Our customers are

telecommunications companies. say you follow the letter of the

law, isn't there a moral responsibility? Yeah, when we see

situations like Syria, absolutely, we are concerned, and we will take

further steps, the moral responsibility. We don't have the

benefit of hindsight to look back and remove our software where it

has been sold. Steve Mumford admits Sophos doesn't know if its product

has been sold to other authoritarian regimes. We showed

him the interview with Mahmood. have evidence that the Syrian

regime has access to software supplied by western companies, that

enables them to follow those users and locate them. Will you think

hard about who you supply in the future? First of all, I think, from

what I hear on this report, none of our software would be involved in

that. You would not need our software to do the tracking down

and the finding of people. Secondly, absolutely, when we see activities

like this, we absolutely will stop doing business with anyone

contributing to this. He agreed there was a need for tighter

regulation of the industry. industry which now sells equipment

to dictators and democracies alike. Today WikiLeaks, in conjunction

with Privacy International, launched a database detailing the

scale of the electronics surveillance industry. It is worth

surveillance industry. It is worth more than 3 billion a year, with

more than 160 companies in 25 countries. Most pariah states don't

have the technology base to develop good surveillance software. The

Chinese can, I would be very surprised if countries like Syria

could. If you are the secret police in Syria, you are naturally going

to buy your surveillance software from Britain or France, or America

or Italy or wherever you can get it. It is not that hard to find. This

is the Milipol International Trade Fair held in Paris a few weeks ago.

We went along. Amid the sniper rifles, machine guns, weapons and

military hardware up for sale. An entire section was devoted to

surveillance. I spoke with one salesman, I asked him if he was at

all concerned about how his company's technology might be used

by certain regimes. This is a direct quote. "We have no control

over what they will do, targeting, we can't have any control on that,

the person who may be bad for you, may not be bad for me. So we can't

judge that. We're just providing the technology for finding people

who are of concern to a particular nation." We reject the view that

Government's oppression of the internet, phone networks and social

media at times of unrest is acceptable. Britain will always be

on the side of people aspiring for political and economic freedom. In

the Middle East and around the world. Laudible sentiments from

Foreign Secretary, William Hague, but actions speak louder than words.

Newsnight, and the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, have been

looking at the role of UK-based companies, exporting state-of-the-

art technology, which can be put to use by questionable regimes.

ThorpeGlen, Suffolk, said to have sold tracking and monitoring

technology to Indonesia. Gamma Group, Andover Hampshire, via a

third party, offered monitoring technology to President Mubarak's

regime in Egypt. Hidden Technology Systems Limited, Essex, sold

tracking devices to Saudi Arabia, who, it says, wanted to buy the

best of British. And, Creativity Software, Kingston upon Thames,

Surrey, sold tracking technology to a mobile phone tracking network in

Iran. It is this involvement with Iran that has prompted concern from

leading politicians. The crossbench peer Lord Alton has asked dozens of

questions in the House of Lords. He cites the case of an Iranian

journalist tortured in jail. He was subjected not only to physical

abuse, but they detailed all of the conversation that is he had, and

they were able to say whom he had met as a result of using technology

which had been sold to the Iranian regime. My concern is, that it is

not just Iran, but throughout the whole of the region, that we have

been aiding and abetting, the very despots that democracy activists

and human rights campaigners have been trying to replace through the

Arab Spring. The details of Creativity Software's deal with

Iran are not known. Through Lord Alton's persistent questioning, it

has emerged it had a stamp of approval through GCHQ. I find it

really extraordinary that in many to a question I tabled, that the

Government have conceded that an agency, operating out of GCHQ, held

a meeting with Creativity Software, and they discussed the dual

application of this technology, and then nothing at all was done to

deter the export of technology, that could be used to abuse humam

rights activists, to arrest democracy activists and to lead to

people being tortured in Iranian prisons. We contacted all of the

companies named in our investigation. Creativity Software,

confirmed its commercial engagments started in 200 9, it says it wasn't

deployed until 2011. It says any connection with alleged human

rights abuses is clearly erroneous. Hidden Technology, confirmed is

supplied tracking technology to Saudi Arabia. ThorpeGlen, we made

repeated requests for comments, it is yet to reply. Gamma Group, it

said in statement that it did not supply a specific tracking

technology to Egypt. Sophos say the deal with Syria has

now been terminated. It and its Italian business partner said the

system was installed but not operational. As the protests in

Syria continue, cyberactivists are looking at new ways to avoid

detection, fully aware that a growing number of western companies

are successfully selling monitoring and tracking technology to whoever

is prepared to pay. No Government minister was

available to speak to us about the sale of British technology abroad.

Machismo, religion, redemption, Martin Scorsese's films from Taxi

Driver, Mean Streets and Raging Bull, have shed light on all the

darkest places, now he has come out with Hugo, a family film, and a

celebration of moving pictures in 3D, no less, this week Scorcese was

in London and met Peter Marshall to talk about movies, music, in what

he considers to be his major political work, you may be

surprised by his answer. The master on set and in his

element. Martin Scorsese's first family film, Hugo, honours the

history of cinema itself. With a British cast, homage is paid to the

pioneers that brought, what the director calls, the magic, into his

life. The first thing that came to mind, or the feeling, was being

always, more or less, streeted as an invalid as a child, because of

the asthma I had for so many years. You had asthma? Yes, from the age

of three on. Being kept away from sports, nature, anything green, and

certainly animals, and no running, no hysterical laughter, and so I

was in the movie theatres a lot. Whatever I couldn't do or be a part

of, in the life around me, some how in the imagination, and in the

spirit of the cinema, I experienced it. I shared it with my father,

mainly, in the early days. The message from Hugo, in ultra

modern 3D is for getting the past only kills the present. Kingsley is

the great director, now reduced to running a toy shop, his film work

disregarded, as the movies have moved on. History, says Scorcese,

is the key to understanding. are a human encliek peedia! I saw,

I was able to see many of these films at the time, when I was home

alone, waiting for my parents to come back from work, there was a

television set. Jean Cocteau, the basic American films and British

films. The British cinema is a very important to me from 1945 on.

Scorcese's own place in film history is assured. From Taxi

Driver to Raging Bull, and then, into the new century, an Oscar for

The Departed, these days his music documentaries are matching the

success. If I had the ability to compose and play music, that is

where I would have found myself, in a sense, expressing myself. I think

music in its basic form is a pure form. You bring them together and

make them work together in way which seems to enhance both? Film

to me is very musical. A film without music is very musical,

because of the rhythm of the cuts and how you proceed, the pacing of

the picture. The pace of the film and how the audience reacts, I

should say, camera moves, obviously a musical. The rhythm of motion in

a way. So, for me, music is part of your blood, in a way, it has to be

so much part of your life. My brother played guitar, my father

used to be able to. I was never able to. You have fairly Catholic

tastes as well? I think so, yes. We're New Yorkers, and you know,

working-class people, radio playing all the time, whether it was opera,

or swing music, or whether it was American or British swing, some

jazz, of course. Dylan's music in No Direction Home,

was punched up to startling effect. With George Harrison's Living In A

Material World, he has repeated the trick. Scorcese enjoys music with a

wallop, he loved punk. # He's in love with rock'n'roll.

There was a freshness to it, because it had, direct, it had

something to say, they weren't going to be stopped. Somebody told

me family member made meat balls for the clash? My mother. Your mum

and Joe Strummer? I know Joe, and the manager, and a young lady named

Pearl Harbour, yes. And we had some good Italian dinners, we used to

cook every Sunday, my mother would come. She would say I'm sure all

the buys would come, she would hold and hug -- these boys would come,

she would hold them and hug them. Punks for lunch? They were very

sweet. As far back as I would remember, I always wanted to be a

gangster. Scorcese's best known for his gangster films like Goodfellas,

rarely stinting on the body count. But the director said one of his

hardest hitting, Casino, was more than anything, a political story.

The crash we all now endure, he says he put on screen two decades

ago. For me it has to be in the microcosim, in way, for me, Casino,

for example, was a very political film. In the sense that in the

opening image you have Robert De Niro walk out on the screen, in a

salmon-coloured sports coat, white slacks, and patent leather shoes,

gets into this Cadillac, turns the key and the car blows up. It is a

true story. The amount of excess, the amount of never, there is

nothing that is ever enough, until finally it explodes.

This was in 1995. It was a concern of mine that, and that is one of

the reasons of making the George Harrison film, Harrison pointed it

out, he had everything at the age of 19, 21, but there has to be more,

there has to be more to being alive. It was like how much more do we

need of this. Look at this, they are tearing down the old Vegas,

where it was like an old western, where you would have gun fighters

or gamblers coming in, they would gamble, that is what they do, they

gamble. Here, and the new Vegas, by the end of that film, it is a Vegas

where they bring the family, because we have theme parks for

them outside, while you are gambling away the money, for us,

because you are not going to win it, we will keep it. It is purely evil.

Martin Scorsese, tomorrow morning's front pages, beginning with the

Financial Times, Mario Draghi, the petd of the ECB hints at eurozone

Unison have offered Jeremy Clarkson a day to be care worker, it seems

like great idea. Today marks the start of the

Australian summer, celebrated on Bondi beach by some night surfing.

# Night swimming # Your photograph on the dashboard

Hi there. Good evening. It will turn out to be a cold night, clear

and starry skies, widespread frost will develop, especially into the

countryside. A chilly start to Friday morning, patches of ice

around, with overnight showers. As we go through Friday, most places

will have decent sunshine, it will tend to turn cloudy from the west

as we go through the afternoon. Eastern England having decent

sunshine, temperatures up to eight degrees. As we travel further

westwards, here we will notice the freshening south-westerly breeze,

the cloud will thicken up, and eventually outbreaks of rain moving

in. Cloudier in the morning, outbreaks of rain pushing into

western coastal counties, across the hills, damp weather for the

Isle of Man. Cold night, with cloud coming over the top forp for

Northern Ireland, temperatures four or five. Turpblg -- turning to snow

across the Scottish mountains. Through Friday and Saturday, we

lose the outbreaks of rain, it should be dryer generally across

England and Wales through the weekend. The exception is across

southern parts on Saturday. We will see outbreaks of rain, for example,

in London, that should clear fairly quickly. The rain clears away from

the far south of England and Wales. During Saturday morning, most