23/04/2012 Newsnight

This programme includes flash photography.

Have the technocrats lost control of Europe, the French have voted

against austerity, the markets are in turmoil.

Six million cast their votes for the French far right. We will talk

to one of its leading members. The Dutch Government has collapsed,

others are in peril, where does this leave the eurozone's grand

plan. In France, so influential in European politics, and incumbent

President, who promised austerity, is floundering, while those who

seem to say it doesn't have to be that bad, have prospered at the

polls. As the economic indicators nose

dive, for much of the eurozone, there is only recession ahead. The

unelected law makers in the House of Lords are faced with reform

again, don't hold your breath. Here are all the successful acts of

parliament, if you want to seat unsuccessful attempts to reform the

House of Lords, you would need a room twice as big.

We have the minister responsible for this can of worms, and the peer

who formerly led the liberals. Also: a mass murderer on prime time

TV, are the Norwegians right to let Breivik rule the airways, we ask if

Scandinavian liberalism is the way ahead.

Good evening, like a good old fashioned horror film, the eurozone

blockbusters get bigger and brasher. On the eve of the French election

results put a man who doesn't believe in austerity in the lead.

Six million voters voted for the far right.

The Dutch Government has resigned, the Czech Government is in peril

too, is this the end of the centre right dominance in Europe, where

does it leave hopes of a UK recovery.

If Nicolas Sarkozy was just running on his record, his task would be

difficult enough. Millions of French people blame him for what

they call the bling-style of presidency, for fail to go protect

jobs, and running huge public sector deficits. Of course, it is

the future he appears to promise, by signingp to that fiscal EU

budget deal, which limits the way Governments can spend money, and

puts all sorts of sanctions in place, that is his real political

problem now. The other key candidates in this election seem to

be promising the people it really doesn't have to be that way. And

over the past 24 hours, we have seen, that a big majority of the

electorate seems to buy that argument.

Extreme politics and extreme weather, an incumbent President

seems to be swept away, and some ideas about France's position in

Europe with him. After the polls closed on the first round of voting,

crowds of supporters gathered at Socialist Party headquarters. Their

leaders' predict they will win, and recast the European debate about

how to beat recession, and mass unemployment.

The vote and the majority of the people want a new economic dynamic

created in Europe, especially in France. It is sure. We don't accept

this situation, concerning industry, concerning salaries, concerning

employment. We have to change. They extol the country's

revolutionary ideals and the struggle for social justice.

Facing the choice of Government cups, or deeper economic pain, the

French have voted for neither of the above. Each candidate has a

different formula of how exactly the country should now push ahead,

and the results, when they came in the early hours, showed opinion

polarised. Francois Hollande, the socialist

won with 28.6%, Nicolas Sarkozy came second with 267.2%, Marine Le

Hollande and Melenchon essentially believe in borrowing their way out

of recession, Le Pen, in leaving the euro, Monsieur Sarkozy

campaigned for following the EU's new rules, but suffered for it.

So the result service notice to Brussels, Berlin, Europe more

widely, that the system of political management, Merkozy,

Franco German domination of the politics of the eurozone, and

indeed their ideas on austerity, may all be on borrowed time.

But, of course, the socialist activists here, at Monsieur

Hollande's headquarters, are not taking victory for qant granted,

they are setting out to win that second round decisively. Today the

socialist leader was in Brittany, fighting on what is a now two-horse

race with the President. The socialists did well in this

region, but so did the National Front. Now madame Le Pen south of

the race, he's trying to get some of her votes.

TRANSLATION: If I become the next president, I will continue to do

what I do now, to come and talk to you and listen, because you have

given me important messages, on work, school and health.

Mr Sarkozy returned to the stump today as well, having suffered the

shame of being the first incumbent President to lose the first round

of IRA election campaign -- a re- election campaign. Is his prestige

fatally damaged, he's moving right wards, also trying to get National

Front votes, but Marine Le Pen is not in the mood to do him any

favours. TRANSLATION: I no longer believe in what Nicolas Sarkozy

says. There is many voters who trusted me and showed dignity and

strength in voting for me, they also don't believe in his postures

and his promises. So will Le Pen's voters now go to the centre right,

and Sarkozy? It doesn't usually poll voters to go for the right,

they don't make any suggestions, or they call for abstention, it is

likely they will do the same again. Which means that the electorate

will probably go maybe up to half to Sarkozy, maybe less than that,

and then spread between abstention and Hollande. You have to remember

that theers of the National Front are usually not liking Sarkozy.

There is a strong position. But also a number of them are strongly

disappointed by Sarkozy. Hoping to find some suitably right-

wing cabbies, we dropped in at this taxi haunt, but found them in

moderate mood, wanting to vote for the man they expected to do more to

protect the economy. TRANSLATION: I haven't decided how

to vote, I will wait and see what they both propose over the next two

weeks. TRANSLATION: I'm anti-Sarkozy, I'm

voting Hollande. I think he will bring a new flair to the country, a

change for the French people. Mr Sarkozy is stepping up his

campaign messages, on themes like immigration, the control of

national borders, things he hopes will gain him those far right

voters. But will it be enough to close the gap with Monsieur

Hollande? Almost nobody outside the President's campaign thinks it will.

The socialist has an advantage of 10% in the polls, even 12% in some.

And there is a view that means he cannot be beaten at this stage of

the election. There has been plenty of negative

campaigning already, and it could easily become nastier during the

second round. If the left, as expected, wins, it will have to

live with a newly-empowered far right, that represents positions on

immigration or Europe that have, up to now, been kept out of the

mainstream by the French political elite.

I have been speaking to a member of the Front Nationial. Why did six

million French people vote for your party? I think they have come to

realise that not only did we put forward the good questions, as even

a former socialist Prime Minister recognised, Mr Laurent Fabius, but

that we also got the good answers to these questions. The what was

that, was it rejection of the euro, was it rejection of immigration?

I think it is rejection of what you could call the decadence of France,

but not only France but maybe also of some other countries in western

Europe. That is a loss of independence, declining of the

identity, given the massive immigration policies, that is for

sure. Also because of globalism, that unemployment is increasing,

jobs going elsewhere. You have split the vote on the right, do you

really prefer to see President Hollande instead of President

Sarkozy? We did consider that the called progressives didn't bring

any progress, and the called Conservatives did not conserve

anything of our inheritance, cultural, political, economic

inheritance. That is why we disagree with both. What should

your voters do on the 6th of May in the second round? I think they will

listen to what Marine Le Pen will say, on May 1st. But I doubt, very

frankly speaking, that you will ask our people to vote either for Mr

Sarkozy nor for Mr Hollande. What will be, then, the relationship now

between your country, France, and Germany? We will have to be

independent. I have, we have nothing against Germany, and we are

happy to have at least a peaceful relationship with Germany, but I

think the interests of Germany are not necessarily our's. I don't know

if the economic or financial policy of the strong mark may be that it

fits German interests. Mr Gollnisch, in 2007, you yourself

were convicted for contesting the existence of gas chambers and the

number of deaths in the Holocaust, can you see why the world is uneasy

with your party? Sorry, you are completely mistaken. The Supreme

Court of my country, the 11 judges stated very clearly that I was

completely innocent. They wiped out all accusations against me, and

they stated very clearly that I had been prosecuted on the basis of a

forgery. Thank you very much indeed. You are welcome.

Paul Mason, our economics editor, is here with me now.

It looks like there is more political crisis coming from the

Netherlands tonight, prompted by Europe. Where are we going with

this? We have to roll back the film a bit, to last December. When they

came up with the plan to save Europe. And part of it was pumping

money in from the Central Bank, and part of it was this new treaty, the

one that Cameron, remember, vetoed, they had to do it as a separate

treaty, it says no more discretionary fiscal stimulus,

instant austerity. We have the basic of it here. 06% of GDP debt

limit, they have to impose that. They have to stick by the old

Maastricht rules, and make them tighter. Essentially you can't do

fiscal stimulus, the structural deficit can never be more than 0.5%

of GDP. You can't do what Obama, and Alastair Darling did,

stimulating the economy. Hollande said he would renegotiate that, if

he win. He then rolled back from it saying he would make additions to

it. Tonight the Dutch Government has fallen because it tried to

implement this by 2014, they all are. And the far right there,

supporting the Conservative-led Government, pulled out of the

Government, because they wouldn't make social security cuts. So the

whole thing is now a mess, the Czech Government, also, teetering,

on the whole brink of trying to to this. But it is a dead letter, it

is something the Germans will very quickly, as the markets already

have, have to get their heads around. If you separate out the

politics for a second, real concerns about the economy itself

now? The eurozone shrank in the last three months of last year. We

think it has probble shrunk in the first three months of this year,

today's statistic tis -- statistics say it is probably shrinking in the

second quarter. We are looking at a whole year's worth of stagnation

and recession in the eurozone. The Spanish Central Bank confirmed it

is officially in recession. In the face of it, what does Hollande

stand for? Hollande stands for spending more, he stands for taxing

people more. He has promised to balance the books, but later, to do

the austerity later. It is the he wants to balance the books, which

completely flies in the face of the way most of the financial markets

and bankers want, which is austerity. Where next? The Greek

elections, 6th of May, on the current standing the combined votes

of the elive lent of Labour and the Tories, are 36% in the polls, and

the communists and Trotskyists are 36%, we will be talking about a

different extreme in European politics there.

How do the rest of Europe feel about the French result, they don't

claim to be a representative cross section, we have brought together,

Peter Altmaier, Angela Merkel's Chief Whip from Berlin, Nigel

Farage, leader of UKIP, and Keith Mangan, senior leader of the bank

UBS. How big a moment do you believe this is? It is quite

significant. Your package has clearly explored the way in which

the votes have split about almost a third of French voters went more

parties of the more extreme left and right. So the battling over

these votes, particularly for the National Front parties' votes, I

think, will drive the French political debate towards an even

stronger tone of nationalism, and anti-austerity. This is quite

destablising. I'm not saying this will cause an imminent eruption in

Europe, but it is certainly detablising against an already very

unstable economic backdrop. Peter Altmaier, clearly it isn't in

the bag for Francois Hollande, but how much do you think would change

under his presidency, relations with Germany? First of all the

presidential race is far from being over. Nicolas Sarkozy is a fighter

and he will fight on. But even if the outcome of the second tour

would be different I suppose that, at the end of the day, I cannot see

any working functioning alternative to what was decided by the European

Summit in November, as soon as Mr Would start spending more,

disregarding the principles, he would be punished by the financial

markets. Therefore, I'm quite optimistic that after a while we

can continue in consolidating, instead of making and allowing more

public deficit than we can pay back. Let me get this straight, would you

be scared of an Hollande presidency, or do you think it would end up

being exactly the same? Well, first of all, as a Christian democrat, I

would be very much in favour of a winning of Mr Sarkozy, but if Mr

Hollande, at the end of the day, would become the new French

President, it wouldn't change, of course, fundamentally the Franco

German relationship, this has worked independently of all

political constellations. Secondly, it is quite clear the Fiscal

Compact cannot be changed, retro actively, it is under way for

ratificaton in many member states. And so, perhaps we will have some

debates, internally, in France, but I cannot see the risk of any major

change in European economic politics.

We will come back to that, Nigel Farage, when you look at the French

political scene, as it stands today. When you see the National Front in

France doing well. What do you think? I think Marine Le Pen has

tried to change the National Front, and take it away from debating race,

and take it away from this awful anti-semitism that seemed to

permeate it. She has been campaigning on the fact that she

wants France to leave the euro. She has a sneaking admiration among

many Conservative figures in France. If Hollande does win, two things

happen, firstly, the huge competitive gap between France and

Germany gets wider, and in fact, the debate about the future of the

euro won't be between Germany versus Greece, it will be Germany

versus France. Secondly, she will be the ability, if Sarkozy loses,

to completely reconfigure Conservative politics in France.

you think she has shred the party of the Zen know phobic image, do

you see her as a kindred spirit? don't think the National Front can

get rid of that horrible, anti- semetic, deeply racist past, I do

know from skrfr friends of mine in France, that if -- Conservative

friends of mine in France, if she was to leave the National Front,

and set up a new party in the wake of the Sarkozy loss, then you would

find a real, genuine, big euro- sceptic party, in France. The

Franco German pact is what has kept this whole thing together. I think

really for the euro and for the European project, the game is up.

When she talks about, as the speaker earlier did, about loss of

identity, those being the things that people voted for them, those

are issues close to your heart? Very close. I don't support the

National Front, or her father, or Bruno Gollnisch, and I never have,

I know what she tried to do, and she said so herself, is to take the

National Front from being the BNP and turning it into UKIP. She has

said that herself. I admire what she has tried to do, I think she's

a bigger front than the National Front, and if she breaks away from

it and has a genuine, non-sectarian, non-racist party in France, I will

cheer to the rafters. If Hollande, George Magnus, wants to leave

austerity behind, as you suggested, could it be that France alliance

itself much more closely with southern Europe, with those

neighbours like Spain and Italy, who have rejected it? I'm not quite

sure which way the cause and effect works, my understanding, certainly,

is that a lot of politicians in Italy, Portugal, Spain, Greece,

elsewhere, actually who have been willing an Hollande victory,

because his victory could act as a lightning rod, for this general

disaffection with the politics of austerity. I mean, that in itself

is a different issue. It's possible that Hollande could articulate that

view on behalf of more and more European countries, in what clearly

might leave Germany a little bit isolated now, particularly with the

Dutch Government having fallen. is very difficult that, you might

have been living in cuckoo hand, talking about austerity as if --

cuckoo land, talking about austerity as if it is the only way,

and the people around Europe are saying no to it? It was clear from

the beginning this was a very difficult process indeed. But my

impression is to the contrary, the new Governments in Italy and Spain

and Portugal have made the basic choice in favour of reforming of

regaining competitiveity, of restructuring the country, of

bringing down the deficit. What do you make of the Dutch and the

Czechs tonight? Well, if Mr Hollande would change, would try to

change that strategy, I cannot see how this could work, already today

all the money is flooding back to Germany, we have spreads where

Germany can borrow for 1.6% for ten years, the money it needs, other

countries have to pay up to 4% more. This is an indication of trust of

financial markets. You cannot survive without the trust of the

financial markets. I think this sort of dysfunction in European

financial markets is very much about the fact that the markets

actually, they are not willing austerity in other countries. That

may have been the case a year or two in Greece, but actually they

are frightened by what austerity will lead to in terms of the

viability and the stability of political systems. So I think you

know, what Hollande, if Hollande is elected, I'm not sure it is much

better under Sarkozy, but if Hollande actually becomes the

President, that is why I feel he may well feel with momentum behind

him that this is a moment, to basically launch, as it were, an

anti-austerity alliance in Europe. If there was an anti-euro alliance,

you would cheer it to the rafters, what would Europe look like with

Marine Le Pen around the table, with others, if the euro collapsed

and your dream came true, it would be a mess? Let's think of a Europe

with democratic nation states not being dominated by German economic

policy, or unelected bureaucrats based in Brussels. We could trade

together, we could co-operate together, we could have mutual

deals and our workers moving around countries and our students on

exchanges, we would get back our democracy, independence, pride and

self-respect. It is going to happen, I'm certain of it, this model is

being reject. Mr Altmaier can say what he likes, people do not want

to live under German-dominated austerity. We are seeing a

democratic rebellion across Europe. Nobody is dominating Europe, but

the consensus of 27 sovereign states. All these states, except

the UK and the Czech Republic, have agreed on the fiscal package. The

far left and far right have been defeated in the elections, it is

now a battle between centre left and centre right. I'm convinced

this will go on and succeed. They are yelling in my ear now, we

must leave it. When it comes to the House of Lords,

Britain finds itself in the esteem country of Kazakhstan and one other

country, the only place where the second chamber is bigger than the

first. Today it was recommended the House of Lords be elected by a --

be replaced by a elected body. Some Lib Dem MPs will vote against

their leader's plans for reform. George V on his way to open

parliament in 2010, much has changed, but much is still the same.

The Government then was heading for a showdown with the Lords, it was

determined to reform the Upper House. On its way to its promised

abolition of the Lords, the then Government put through the

parliament Act of 1911, to establish, in law, the primacy of

the Commons. But only, you And boy were they not kidding on

that one. In the 100 years or so since the parliament Act was signed,

and this is the original, held in the Parliamentary Archive, there

have been numerous attempts to reform the Upper House. Where they

have been successful, they have generally been about excluding

people from sitting in the Lords. The last Labour Government got rid

of the vast majority of hereditary peers, and shipped the Law Lords

off to sit in their own Supreme Court. A far trickyier, and

impossible question to answer satisfactorily, is who should sit

in the Lords, and how should they be selected. One of the issues is

it is will legislating about parliament itself. Every single

member of parliament, in both houses, 1400 people, think they are

an expert in the subject and they all have their own opinion. As if

to illustrate the point, today of the day the joint committee, made

up of MPs and peers, was supposed to publish its recommendations. It

did, but at the same time. people are entitled to a say.

minority group of the committee, published their own report,

disagreeing with the first lot. The issue that d divided the committees,

divided many parliamentarians, should members of a reformed Upper

House be elected or not. At the moment the country understands very

clearly that we go to an election with a manifesto, whatever party

you vote for can come to this place and legislation a dlifrb its

legislative programme, very clearly. -- deliver its legislative

programme, very clearly. The moment you have a mandate from the people,

they will ask why do you have primacy.

However used to getting their way the Lords might be in their day

jobs, they have to accept that the Commons is the boss when it comes

to making laws. The Government and majority committee report both say

electing peers won't change this. Indeed, the Government and the

committee have come up with remarkably similar proposals.

There is a difference in the numbers involved, the Government

wanted 300 members of the new Upper House, the point committee 450, but

both propose 80% should be elected, the rest nominated, and include 12

bishops, both proposed that an elected member should serve a non-

renewable term of up to 15 years, and both that the elections should

be held under a single transferable vote, and should coincide with

elections to the Commons. But, today's report recommends a

referendum, before the changes become law. I don't think a

referendum is strictlinessry, because this change to --

strictlinessry, because this was in -- strictly necessary, because this

was in every manifesto. We should take it seriously and it should be

debated and discussed, I can see arguments against it, but I'm happy

to listen and consider. The Deputy Prime Minister, emphatically, does

not want a referendum? It is something we have been talking

about for 100 years and we need to get on with it for minimum fuss.

One thing that hasn't changed since 1911 and the Parliament Act, then

it was a liberal Government pushing reform, today it is Liberal

Democrats in Government pushing for reform. Their coalition pearer ins

are far less enthuse aix, in some cases openly hostile to what Nick

Clegg is proposing. Some believe this issue, far more than health

and deficit reduction, has the capacity to rip the coalition apart.

Indeed, some Lib Dems suggest that if the Conservatives don't back

Lords reform, without a referendum, well, they won't vote through the

reduction in parliamentary seats that would, or should, favour the

Conservatives. We have had one referendum that proved disastrous

results, from a coalition point of view, we don't need another.

Another one would put a strain on the coalition? It would put a great

strain on the coalition, and if we don't vote through the

redistribution, and equally great strange on the coalition, if the

Conservatives don't stick to the coalition agreement and vote

through Lords reform. I think David Cameron, although he may wish it

otherwise, has no choice but put it into the Queen's Speech, because it

is part of the coalition deal. The bill will be introduced, but

subject to hundreds of amendments on the floor of the House of

Commons t will take weeks there. I think the likeliest thing is that

the bill will be withdrawn. Predicting failure for Lords reform,

has been a pretty God bet over the last century. It combines three

factors that make inertia likely. The politicians are split. None of

the solutions comes without potential problems, and, according

to opinion poll, the public don't really care one way or the other.

Is it right to prioritise reform at that time of such vulnerability.

What will be the knock-on effect for the House of Commons.

The man the Huffington Post said one day could be party leader, and

-- Mark Harper. The Prime Minister and his

colleagues were called posh people who don't understand ordinary

people, how will reforming the Lords dispel that image? The Prime

Minister made it clear this morning, the Government's priority is still

reducing the deficit, economic growth and jobs for hard working

families in the country. It is absolutely possible for the

Government to do more than one thing at a time. Even though the

public don't care about it? If you knock on somebody's door, they

won't ask you about it. If you ask the public if they think somebody

who makes the laws should be picking by them as opposed to

leaders of the political parties, overwhelmingly they say yes, the

public should pick emthis. It might be a subject they don't care about

much, but they agree with what the Government is doing, and electing

80% of the House of Lords is part of that. How do you begin to

explain to people why an unelected man like yourself, spend a day

longer making laws for the country? I don't at all. To return to the

basic question, our two parties came together in a coalition to put

the financial situation in the country right. We are being

constantly side tracked on to things like the AV referendum, the

National Health Service Bill and now this. It simply is distracting

from what is the main issue. It has always been distracting, and has

been more 100 years t doesn't put something that is undemocratic

right? You are wrong about that, there has been steady improvements

and changes over that 100 years, and more are now needed.

elections? I think there is a very interesting new report out today

from the Conservative lawyers, saying there should be instrict

elections. This report itself, to my -- indirect elections. This

report itself, to my surprise, says the committee has recommended, that

the committee would like the Government to give further

consideration to a nationally indirectly elected House. That

would have the advantage of not setting autopsy competition between

the two houses, there would be no popular mandate from the Upper

House. Would it matter if the Lords did become more powerful than the

Commons, if they were both essentially elected bodies, fairly

representing our countries, would it matter? The point we have made

is this, the relationship between the two houses will change if the

Lords is elected. The Parliament Act means that the Commons can

always get its own way. My own view is actually if we strengthen

parliament, I think strengthening the laws will strengthen parliament.

If ministers have to work harder to persuade parliament as a whole to

pass legislation, I think that is a good thing. If you made things

better by the number of bills you passed, the last Labour Government

would be more successful. Even if they are in competition with each

other? The Commons will always get its own way, and that is right,

they determine what governs the country, ultimately is controls the

budget and the money. I think a stronger House of Lords would be a

good thing. The committee itself has said that the House of Lords

will have more power, and that will be a threat to the Commons. That is

what your colleagues in the Commons are worried about. The committee

says the things in place to ensure the primacy of the Commons, the

Parliament Act, all the underpinning. They say class two is

a waste of time? They say to look he at the drafting of the bill, and

we will. The things that guarantee the primacy of the Commons, the

committee thinks that is solid, and that will guarantee the primacy of

the Commons going forward. You made the point that the coalition

parties came together to sort out the deficit in the economic crisis,

why is your leader prior yietsing this now then? I think Nick has had

a consistent view, he thinks the House of Lords should be wholly

elected. It doesn't go into the detail of how the House of Lords

works. Are we seriously going to have Members of Parliament, with

senators, presumptionably they will be called senators, not Lords, for

15 years marching around their constituents, saying we have a

mandate too. That is why the House of Commons is saying do we want

this and the cost of it. If the public has to vote, the referendum

will put the kie Bosch on it, people won't vote for something

that is 400 unelected Lords. The mass murder on trial in Norway

has been given rock star attention and prime time television time. The

man accused of shooting 70 people, many teenagers, has been discussed

and dissects as merely a point view. The approach to the trial of Anders

Behring Breivik, whose evidence ended today, is perhaps

unsurprising in such a liberal society in nor way. But is it the

right one? To many, the courtroom scene is

beyond the grotesque, the evidence certainly far worse than gruesome.

A mass murderer, whose only regret at killing 77, is it was 500 short

of the number of victims he wanted. With his fascist salute and bovine

smirk, spent a decade in his room dreaming up an audience like that.

That was his plan, to use this explosion, and the massacre at

Utoeya, to give him a time in court that should be his stage, his way

of propaganda for his case. In one way you could say the more he

speaks, the fewer followers he will have. There are many thinking this

is too much. Yet even some of those who escaped

the horror of the island of Utoeya, whose friends were killed, even

they endorsed the process. I think it is good to see him now, when he

is surrounded by police, and in a safe place.

It gives a little closure. What is striking is the courtliness

of the courtroom, the way the prosecutors lined up to shake the

killer's hand, before listening to his long and detailed account.

He wanted to behead the former Prime Minister, leaving the island.

He was explaining why he even killed those under 16 years,

because they also were a part of the brain-washing camp of the

Labour Party. He had so many things to explain, and it is important for

the court, to decide if he's insane or not. Is there not concern that

he is getting the platform which he said was his reason for committing

the crimes in the first place? we are dealing with here now is a

dilemma. How to get the information from the man, that has committed

this horrendous crime, and the ideas about it, how long does it

take. The court in Oslo says it will take five days. What he means

is Norway's court system might be described as liberal, but it isn't

niave, they have limited Breivik's statement to five days, in a trial

lasting 12 weeks. What's more the cameras have been banned for the

statement, they are determined that clips won't bounce around YouTube

for all eternity. The world's media have been following the case, news

channels filled with hours of the trial, and they will return if they

are allowed back in. For Norway this is unusual. They welcomed the

cameras because this is a national tragedy, and the nation needs

catharsis. They heard Breivik's voice and his justification of the

unjustifyable initial low. TRANSLATION: I acknowledge the acts,

but I do not plead guilty, I will claim was doing it in self-defence.

Elsewhere in Europe judges give short shrift to defendants using a

court for a political platform. In the US, the alleged architect of

9/11, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, goesen to trial next month, before

a military tribunal, where his rights are limbed so he won't use

it. The Scandinavians are growing weary of Anders Behring Breivik.

think we will see his photo on the front page another week or two. But

then I think the appeals from the victims of going to the supermarket

without seeing his face on the front pages, can we be free of that,

and I think the newspapers will do Brian Friedman, a Guardian writer

and author of political thrillers human rights lawyer.

I'm wondering if you buy the argument that a nation in grief

needs the catharsis that comes with seeing a trial like this? It is

hard to speak against the survivors of the attack that say it helps

them. That is not the main reason, Norway feels it is their legal

system, and they don't want to change it just because of him. They

want to plof the system is robust enough, -- prove it is robust

enough and they can cope with it. There is an immediate dimension to

this, let's say the courts are right to remain open and stick to

their principles, it doesn't make it right for the media in Norway

and the world, to hand this man a megaphone, to treat his statement

as if it is a familiar flet written for a think-tank and people arguing

the rights and wrongs of it. It is about the media coverage of this?

It feels the courts have been responsible, they won't have

cameras on his statement, there is a question about whether you do.

Let's say you have made that choice, there is a burden of responsibility

on all of those of us around the every nugget, and nuance of his

speech, ass if a thinker whose opinions deserve debating, that is

-- as if a thinker whose opinions deserve debate is wrong. Do you

believe they are feeding this oxygen? I'm a firm believer in open

justice. I don't like the way we have been recently going, which is

when it comes to terrorism, and things that we really are horrified

by, that we seek to deal with things increasingly behind closed

doors. I think open justice is an essential element in a democracy. I

think the Norwegians have dealt with this rather well. I'm somebody

who opposes tell advising of criminal trials. I don't know --

teleadvising of criminal trials. This is clearly a man who relishes

psycho analysing himself in front of an entire world? The court is

psycho analysing him, they are having to decide is this man

somebody who is pathological, I think it is coming through he is.

He is playing it carefully, he said he wouldn't testify at all unless

he got a full hour to read his statement. He had written in his

1800-page manifesto that your trial is stage to the world. Knows the

propaganda value of that, the problem is, by giving him that

stage, we are setting out an incentive to other Breivik, kill as

this man did and you will be rewarded with this global platform.

Should we not turn up on the doorstep and mention how many

people are shot in these situations as journalists? You don't pour over

these manifestos as if they have kick started a debate, rather than

committed a murderous crime. Many of the trials in this country, the

people who did the airline bomb plot, the focus of the coverage in

2006, it was about the mechanics of the plan, the scale of it, people

did not go into great depth about their political ideas. We don't

need to know his views on multiculturalism, he is a mass

murdering? It is very important for this court to hear about this man's

motives for doing what he did. It exposes the uglyness of his views

of how important it is that we engage with difference, and we do

not have automatic hostility to the other. Which I think is happening

increase league across Europe. are more understanding of the fact

these motives killed 70 people? have to understand what brought

this man to this position. So that you can sentence him and what will

happen to him is he will get a heavy sentence. It is not to do

that by covering it as if it is the Chancellor's budget statement,

minute-by-minute. There is a plea for consistency, Breivik is treated

differently because he as a threat to Norway and Europe from within.

Those people deemed from without, the 9/11 hijackers, mom hom mom is

a definitive -- Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is a definitive example,

and they are treated in a different way. Do you think it is a prepable

system? There is a legal argument, my instincts are with normway, the

response of the Norwegian Prime Minister was responding with more

freedom and more democracy. That is great, the rest of us outside, the

media, we have then a response toblt say that is happening as a

trial. But -- responsibility to say that is happening as a trial.

public are entitled to know what happened and what went wrong. It is

important for the victims of this atrocity and families to have a

public hearing, that is absolutely vital, that is what law is about in

a democracy. The 29th certificate national kite

festival kicked off in China this weekend. Hopefully you will be

If you get a try day you will be doing well. A lot more rain to come.

This is Tuesday, a damp start across East Anglia and the south-

east. Fade ago I way and the showers getting going by the

afternoon. Sunshine and showers, many places vieding them but many a

downpour or two. The best of brightness getting up

to 12-13, warmer than southern counties, when the showers come

along they will tumble by seven degrees. Some of the best sunshine

across the west coast of Wales, reasonable here, but heavy showers

inland, especially over the high grond. Northern Ireland seeing

sunshine and showers, you might get lucky to avoid them, you will be

doing well. Ten degrees in Belfast, best across Scotland will be west.

Further east clouds, showers, cool, and some snow over the Grampians.

Looking further ahead it goes downhill on Wednesday. Really wet

weather, pushing across the country, starting off in the south, heading

northwards, a deluge, sproing strong winds, temperatures held