Browse content similar to 22/06/2012. Check below for episodes and series from the same categories and more!
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The Labour Government got it wrong on immigration. The party's leader | :00:15. | :00:20. | |
Ed Miliband admits they did not recognise the cost to society. His | :00:20. | :00:25. | |
solution? Companies to report if more than a quarter of their | :00:25. | :00:29. | |
workers are from overseas. We return to Crewe to find out how | :00:29. | :00:34. | |
that has gone down. They knew a long time ago they were wrong. That | :00:34. | :00:39. | |
was before the Conservatives came into power. We debate whether any | :00:39. | :00:43. | |
party is being straight with voters about immigration. | :00:43. | :00:49. | |
In Warsaw the German Chancellor reacts to Greece leaving the euro, | :00:49. | :00:53. | |
Surrey leaving Euro 2012. In Rome that there is another big | :00:53. | :00:59. | |
sounding promise of action. Just how long can this game go on? We | :00:59. | :01:03. | |
ask if we can keep on waiting for another solution just around the | :01:03. | :01:09. | |
corner. Good evening. For politicians of | :01:09. | :01:13. | |
the main parties the immigration debate has rarely been a | :01:13. | :01:16. | |
comfortable one. When voters raise something they still passionately | :01:16. | :01:22. | |
about, as happened to Gordon Brown, they can be dismissed as bigoted. | :01:22. | :01:28. | |
When political leaders promise a brake on immigration, employers' | :01:28. | :01:31. | |
organisations start fuming about the loss of reliable, foreign | :01:31. | :01:35. | |
workers. His Ed Miliband's confession of past Labour mistakes | :01:35. | :01:41. | |
the beginning of a new policy or an attempt to defuse the issue? Tim | :01:41. | :01:49. | |
Whewell reports from Key Crewe, where in 2006 he fell hunt for | :01:49. | :01:59. | |
:01:59. | :02:02. | ||
Newsnight on the social tensions. Where he made a film for Newsnight. | :02:02. | :02:06. | |
He is a place that sums up how recent migration has changed the | :02:07. | :02:11. | |
face of Britain, a place most people speed through, but where, | :02:11. | :02:17. | |
eight years ago, thousands of Polish people suddenly and totally | :02:17. | :02:25. | |
unexpectedly got off. The demography of a medium-sized | :02:25. | :02:30. | |
town that had seen little previous immigration was transformed. | :02:30. | :02:34. | |
According to the local council, at least 3000 Polish people have a | :02:34. | :02:39. | |
right in this one town alone, immediately making up over 6% of | :02:39. | :02:46. | |
the population. Families like the Roberts were not hostile to the | :02:46. | :02:56. | |
:02:56. | :02:57. | ||
incomers, but they were remarkably prescient. It feels like a foreign | :02:57. | :03:01. | |
country sometimes. If this continues, the bubble will burst | :03:01. | :03:07. | |
and jobs will become scarcer. What happens then? What happens to where | :03:07. | :03:13. | |
you have got British lads working alongside immigrant labour? Who | :03:13. | :03:21. | |
gets the sack? The arrival of the migrants, following the Eastern | :03:21. | :03:25. | |
expansion of the European Union, came as a complete surprise to the | :03:25. | :03:29. | |
then Labour Government. It predicted net immigration from the | :03:29. | :03:35. | |
new EU states would be between 50131000 a year. Some mistake. In | :03:35. | :03:44. | |
fact, 576,000 arrived over the following seven years, peaking at | :03:44. | :03:49. | |
112,000 in 2007 alone. Today, the present Labour leader, Ed Miliband, | :03:49. | :03:55. | |
kind dog apologised. We too easily assumed that those who were | :03:55. | :03:59. | |
worrying about immigration were stacked in the past, and realistic | :03:59. | :04:06. | |
about how things could be different, even prejudiced. But Britain was | :04:06. | :04:12. | |
experiencing the largest peacetime migration in history. People's | :04:12. | :04:20. | |
concerns were genuine. For much of the last decade there was something | :04:20. | :04:23. | |
missing between what people were talking about and what politicians | :04:23. | :04:29. | |
were prepared to talk about at Westminster. The impact of European | :04:30. | :04:34. | |
migration was not acknowledged and many felt that showed the elitism | :04:34. | :04:37. | |
of the political class. They were not concerned about the problem | :04:37. | :04:45. | |
because it did not affect them. But schools and other services came | :04:45. | :04:52. | |
under unexpected strain and inevitably, as very few politicians | :04:52. | :04:57. | |
noticed at the time, wages were driven down. Now that process is | :04:57. | :05:01. | |
continuing as early migrants become more settled and new ones arrive | :05:01. | :05:06. | |
from further afield. Brian Roberts has worked in the building industry | :05:06. | :05:13. | |
for 45 years. I just spoke about an instance today with a colleague of | :05:13. | :05:23. | |
mine who said a gang of Romanians weather gang master paid exactly | :05:23. | :05:32. | |
half of what he was getting paid. That wage which they were taking | :05:32. | :05:38. | |
home was well below the basic minimum wage. It was recruitment | :05:38. | :05:42. | |
agencies that fuelled migration to Crewe. For a while this one had a | :05:42. | :05:45. | |
branch in Poland and was single- handedly responsible for attracting | :05:45. | :05:51. | |
many of the new workers. Our name was being published in the | :05:51. | :05:54. | |
equivalent of almost the Daily Times in Poland, not to our | :05:54. | :06:01. | |
knowledge. Suddenly, we were getting 400 e-mails a week. | :06:01. | :06:07. | |
firm, which has since changed hands, has always paid the minimum wage or | :06:07. | :06:11. | |
above. Labour now wants a new regulation to ensure recruitment | :06:12. | :06:16. | |
agencies do not exclude British workers. But they say they never | :06:16. | :06:21. | |
did, they just do not get enough local applications. The reason | :06:21. | :06:24. | |
Labour did not talk much about European migration is not just | :06:24. | :06:28. | |
because of blindness or political correctness, it is because there | :06:28. | :06:33. | |
are no easy solutions. Most EU citizens have a right to work here | :06:33. | :06:38. | |
and as recruitment agencies will tell you they are often more polite | :06:38. | :06:43. | |
and more punctual than local job- seekers and more willing to do jobs | :06:43. | :06:51. | |
that locals often will not take on. Filling the local skills gap in the | :06:51. | :06:54. | |
electrical trade is one way to create a more level playing field | :06:54. | :06:58. | |
in employment. More apprentices like this are being trained, but | :06:58. | :07:04. | |
they still face competition from incomers. They are willing to work | :07:04. | :07:10. | |
for a lot less, people from other countries. Do you see that? You see | :07:10. | :07:16. | |
it from time to time on site. like many similar places up and | :07:16. | :07:22. | |
down Britain, is now more mixed ethnically than ever before. Most | :07:22. | :07:26. | |
locals accept that, but they wish they had had more warning. | :07:26. | :07:30. | |
He is this really a complete change of heart from Labour? I have been | :07:30. | :07:35. | |
speaking to Labour's Shadow Communities Secretary Hilary Benn. | :07:35. | :07:39. | |
To be clear, this is the Labour Party saying there are too many | :07:39. | :07:45. | |
immigrants in this country? No, it is not that. What Ed Miliband said | :07:45. | :07:49. | |
is that in relation to the accession States we got it wrong in | :07:50. | :07:54. | |
not putting in place transitional controls. Looking back on it, we | :07:54. | :07:58. | |
should have done and had we done so, fewer people would have come from | :07:58. | :08:02. | |
those countries. So there are not too many immigrants in this | :08:02. | :08:06. | |
country? You got it wrong about the numbers, but there are not too | :08:06. | :08:12. | |
many? This is all about innuendo? could not disagree with you more. | :08:12. | :08:18. | |
This is about recognising the benefits and the consequences and | :08:18. | :08:22. | |
understanding when people see communities that changing very fast, | :08:22. | :08:26. | |
they feel uncomfortable. It does not mean they are bigots. It is | :08:26. | :08:31. | |
also about looking at the way in which the economy works. There is | :08:31. | :08:37. | |
also evidence this immigration has had an impact on wage rates. Some | :08:37. | :08:40. | |
recruitment agencies say they only recruit people from certain Eastern | :08:40. | :08:45. | |
European countries and that cannot be right. It is also looking about | :08:45. | :08:49. | |
the skills that people in this country have so they also can | :08:49. | :08:53. | |
participate in the labour market. You are accepting there is a | :08:53. | :08:58. | |
cultural issue. A parent can say in leaves, my local school, more than | :08:58. | :09:02. | |
half the children do not speak English as a first language and I | :09:02. | :09:09. | |
am worried about that. To say that is not bigoted? I do not sign | :09:09. | :09:13. | |
constituents saying that. They talk about housing and jobs. In some | :09:13. | :09:17. | |
parts of the country they talk about the pace at which their | :09:17. | :09:21. | |
community has changed. It is right we should be debating it and | :09:21. | :09:27. | |
looking at practical solutions, for example whether people are from the | :09:27. | :09:32. | |
UK or if they come from abroad they get at minimum wage. Looking at the | :09:32. | :09:38. | |
work of the gang masters' Licensing Authority which we set up in the | :09:38. | :09:46. | |
way of that tragedy in Morecambe. If your proposals go through, if a | :09:46. | :09:50. | |
work force contains more than one in four emigrants, the Jobcentres | :09:50. | :09:55. | |
should get involved. That would apply to a lot of hospital wards, | :09:55. | :10:00. | |
wouldn't it? Let's be clear, the country has gained a lot from | :10:01. | :10:05. | |
immigration. In Leeds many people have come from all over the world. | :10:05. | :10:09. | |
Can you say is there any upper limit to the number of immigrants | :10:09. | :10:13. | |
who should be allowed into this country because of the social | :10:13. | :10:18. | |
strains and consequences you have talked about? We have said we will | :10:18. | :10:22. | |
look at the question of caps, but you have got to be straight about | :10:23. | :10:26. | |
Eastern European migration because there is no control over that. That | :10:27. | :10:31. | |
is why we said clearly, we should have put those controls in place. | :10:31. | :10:36. | |
The problem with the Government's cap is it only applies to a very | :10:36. | :10:41. | |
small proportion of migration. We did put in place the points based | :10:41. | :10:45. | |
system which allows people to coming weather is a skills shortage | :10:45. | :10:49. | |
and that is sensible and the Government has carried on with it. | :10:49. | :10:54. | |
What about non EU immigration which some people feel is culturally more | :10:54. | :10:57. | |
difficult to assimilate and that is not a matter that you have | :10:58. | :11:02. | |
discussed? With respect the points based system applies to non e | :11:03. | :11:08. | |
migration and that is something we thought it was right we should be | :11:08. | :11:13. | |
looking at what the skill needs are and if there is a shortage and if | :11:13. | :11:16. | |
it is important for the economy, you can allow people in, but you | :11:16. | :11:21. | |
should be able to control immigration at immigration control. | :11:21. | :11:25. | |
The Government has continued with that because it was the right thing | :11:25. | :11:33. | |
to do. Deborah Mattinson runs the Opinion Research Company Britain | :11:33. | :11:37. | |
Thinks and Ian Birrell was a speechwriter for David Cameron in | :11:37. | :11:41. | |
the 2010 campaign, but thinks they are getting it wrong on immigration. | :11:41. | :11:47. | |
First of all, do you see this announcement by Ed Miliband as him | :11:47. | :11:51. | |
saying, actually, we have got a political problem and it is a vote | :11:52. | :11:58. | |
user for Labour? I think he is, yes. Basically, the situation Labour | :11:58. | :12:02. | |
finds itself in his we have seen a lot of disillusionment with the | :12:02. | :12:07. | |
Government, but people not yet rushing towards Labour. They are | :12:07. | :12:12. | |
not yet ready. Labour does not have the licence to be heard yet and it | :12:12. | :12:17. | |
will not have that until it really accepts responsibility for some of | :12:17. | :12:21. | |
the things people think it got wrong the last time and immigration | :12:21. | :12:25. | |
is one of them. When you did focus groups through the last Government, | :12:25. | :12:33. | |
does it come up a lot? Yes, and we saw a real change as well. In 1999, | :12:33. | :12:38. | |
fewer than 5% said immigration was one of the top problems facing the | :12:38. | :12:44. | |
country. It is now a number two only to the economy. People are | :12:44. | :12:49. | |
really, really worried about it. you think there is actually among | :12:49. | :12:54. | |
the main parties a bit of a political consensus about this? | :12:54. | :12:58. | |
They head like his immigration spiralling out of control and | :12:58. | :13:02. | |
something must be done and there is a fundamental agreement? All the | :13:02. | :13:06. | |
parties have accepted this is an issue that needs to be addressed. | :13:06. | :13:10. | |
But I thought the speech day was disingenuous drivel. All the | :13:10. | :13:14. | |
parties are coming out with the same rhetoric and promises, but it | :13:14. | :13:19. | |
is down to economics and there is very little they can do. What Ed | :13:19. | :13:22. | |
Miliband should have done is apologise because they are not | :13:22. | :13:28. | |
telling the truth about immigration. Immigration benefits our public | :13:28. | :13:33. | |
services because immigrants are more likely to pay taxes, it helps | :13:33. | :13:38. | |
our pension crisis, and it is good for the British economy. That is | :13:38. | :13:42. | |
not what they are saying and that is why the public is in such a mess | :13:42. | :13:47. | |
on theirs. Politicians have not stood up and said, immigration is | :13:47. | :13:50. | |
beneficial for us, we need it and there is not much we can do about | :13:50. | :13:54. | |
it. People think politicians have not been straight because they have | :13:55. | :14:01. | |
not allowed a debate. It is not that they are not making the right | :14:01. | :14:06. | |
noises, they are not talking about it at all. The discussion has | :14:06. | :14:12. | |
closed down. If you raise it, you are regarded as a bigot. This it | :14:12. | :14:18. | |
that or is it that there is no easy solution as you suggest? | :14:18. | :14:22. | |
endlessly here there is no debate. We hear is when people are debating | :14:22. | :14:30. | |
it. We had Margaret Hodge talk about the pressure on social | :14:30. | :14:36. | |
housing which led the BNP to power in her local area. We have had | :14:36. | :14:40. | |
Gordon Brown and David Blunkett raised it. There is nothing we can | :14:40. | :14:45. | |
do about it because it is economics and it is good for the country. | :14:45. | :14:49. | |
That is a message a lot of people are not prepared to listen to. | :14:49. | :14:55. | |
People see it as a problem. have to start with where people are. | :14:55. | :15:00. | |
There are a lot of good points to make about immigration, economic, | :15:00. | :15:04. | |
but if you do not start where people are, they are not going to | :15:04. | :15:09. | |
listen or be persuaded. What Ed Miliband has done today, quite | :15:09. | :15:15. | |
successfully, is to say, I understand how you feel. I | :15:15. | :15:19. | |
understand the problems. He has also talked about the benefits in | :15:19. | :15:29. | |
:15:29. | :15:30. | ||
It's rubbish. We will have this early warning system when we get | :15:30. | :15:35. | |
recruitment company which gets up to 20%. When I saw Hilary Benn | :15:35. | :15:41. | |
being asked what he would do about it, he had no answer. It's figure | :15:41. | :15:44. | |
leaf solutions. They should say out loud and proud that immigration is | :15:44. | :15:48. | |
very good for the country. That we need. It it helps our public | :15:48. | :15:55. | |
services. One of the things that he said, let's be honest, let's not | :15:55. | :15:58. | |
overpromise. If leading politicians made that argument, what would | :15:58. | :16:01. | |
happen? People would close down. They wouldn't listen to it. What | :16:02. | :16:06. | |
they are saying, at the moment, people feel that it causes more | :16:06. | :16:10. | |
problems than it offers solutions. Unless you start were they are, at | :16:10. | :16:14. | |
the problem end of things, you are not going to be able to persuade | :16:14. | :16:19. | |
people of the solutions. We never hear anything... All we hear from | :16:19. | :16:23. | |
politicians are the problems, never the solutions. That is not true. | :16:23. | :16:26. | |
The politicians failed it give leadership on this issue what so | :16:26. | :16:32. | |
ever. That is why the public has myths and misconceptions because of | :16:32. | :16:36. | |
the appalling political leadership in all parties. Do you accept there, | :16:36. | :16:40. | |
is as I tried to explore with Hilary Benn, a cultural issue. | :16:40. | :16:46. | |
People see their communities changing it causes fear and concern. | :16:46. | :16:50. | |
It's legitimate? There are concerns and issues. It's wrong for | :16:50. | :16:54. | |
politicians to come out with this shallow rhetoric that we hear today. | :16:54. | :16:59. | |
Yes, there is a plus side to it. It is good for our schools. A study | :16:59. | :17:04. | |
came out if there is Polish kids in schools, schools do better. Not bad | :17:04. | :17:10. | |
for housing. 25% of the population think if you weren't born in this | :17:10. | :17:13. | |
country you shouldn't be educated by the state. That is were people's | :17:13. | :17:17. | |
views are at the moment. That is the way politicians have been | :17:17. | :17:22. | |
handling this. That is because of the lack of leadership. It make it | :17:22. | :17:26. | |
is far worse. What he said carefully today is, let's not over | :17:26. | :17:30. | |
promise. He was critical of what David Cameron has said because it's | :17:30. | :17:35. | |
not deliverable. We will leave it there. Here's another one of those | :17:35. | :17:39. | |
notorious BBC repeats. Everyone is terrified by the euro crisis. The | :17:39. | :17:42. | |
top leaders in Europe get together and decide something must be done | :17:43. | :17:47. | |
to save the euro. They announce something big, but a few days later | :17:47. | :17:51. | |
people decide it wasn't that big after all. Everyone returns to | :17:51. | :17:55. | |
being terrified. Today's big sounding announcement was another | :17:55. | :17:57. | |
�100 billion for investment in growth. Will it make any | :17:57. | :18:06. | |
difference? Here is Paul mason. Confidence in Europe is burning. | :18:06. | :18:15. | |
Time is running out. Men the -- when the IMF says you are facing a, | :18:15. | :18:18. | |
"Critical stage" you had better believe. Christine Lagarde laid | :18:18. | :18:23. | |
down a challenge to the way Europe and, above all, Germany has faced | :18:23. | :18:27. | |
the crisis. She called for immediate concrete steps to form a | :18:27. | :18:32. | |
banking union. For the ECB to begin printing money. An end to | :18:32. | :18:37. | |
austerity-driven bail outs and the direct bail out of the Spanish | :18:37. | :18:43. | |
banks from money from the ESM. In Rome today, at the pre-meeting of | :18:43. | :18:48. | |
the eurozone's four big economies they decided to do none of the | :18:48. | :18:52. | |
above. TRANSLATION: I think that in | :18:52. | :18:55. | |
European politics and culture a new awareness has grown up that growth | :18:55. | :19:00. | |
can be based only on budgetary discipline, but that budgetary | :19:00. | :19:04. | |
discipline is not sustainable economically and politically if | :19:04. | :19:09. | |
there are no possible conditions for growth and employment. Against | :19:09. | :19:15. | |
the rumble of protests across Europe today, the leaders are | :19:15. | :19:19. | |
proposing a stimulus package worth 130 billion euros. It sounds a lot. | :19:20. | :19:25. | |
It's worth 1% of the eurozone's GDP. The political pressure now is on | :19:25. | :19:29. | |
Angela Merkel, asked to release central bail out funds to help | :19:29. | :19:35. | |
Spain she said simply this. TRANSLATION: If I simply gave money | :19:35. | :19:39. | |
to a Spanish bank or other bank I can't say what that bank should | :19:39. | :19:42. | |
change because I'm not responsible, I'm the German Chancellor. I can | :19:43. | :19:46. | |
only say that to my banks. That is the problem I vfplt it's not that I | :19:46. | :19:52. | |
do not want to help, but we set up them under such conditions. That is | :19:52. | :20:01. | |
how we will condition. There is a German word for all that, it is | :20:01. | :20:06. | |
nien. Paul is with me now. How long have they got? Well, month Monti, | :20:06. | :20:11. | |
the Prime Minister of Italy said today, a week to save the euro. He | :20:11. | :20:15. | |
is not normally given to high peshly. That is probably right. We | :20:15. | :20:21. | |
started this week in Mexico at the G20. What happened? The Germans | :20:21. | :20:25. | |
gave a positive signal about two things that everybody knows we need | :20:25. | :20:29. | |
to do. Europe needs to get a decision on. One is banking union. | :20:29. | :20:34. | |
The idea of various steps, whether it is guaranteeing everybody's | :20:34. | :20:38. | |
deposits or pan-European regulation. They have said, they have flagged | :20:38. | :20:42. | |
up very strongly, there will be a deal on that at the end of next | :20:42. | :20:45. | |
week at the summit in Brussels. The thing the Germans have been | :20:45. | :20:53. | |
resisting on, that is using the bail out fund of Europe, to pump | :20:53. | :21:00. | |
money into Europe's banks direct. Merkel had up to now said, no, in | :21:00. | :21:04. | |
Mexico on Monday she said it was possible. The whole of the | :21:04. | :21:07. | |
broadsheet press of the world took that as a signal that, by now, by | :21:07. | :21:11. | |
Friday, in Rome, the scheduled pre- summit we might be hearing some | :21:11. | :21:15. | |
kind of maybe. Instead, as you saw in my package she said, no, we are | :21:15. | :21:20. | |
not going to do it. Now, you can only watch history unfold like a | :21:20. | :21:24. | |
car crash with four drivers, as we have done, and conclude there will | :21:24. | :21:28. | |
be an impact unless they steer away from the problem by next Friday. | :21:28. | :21:34. | |
Well, OK. We are joined now by the Financial Times' Gillian Tett, | :21:34. | :21:37. | |
Maria Margaronis of The Nation and Dr Imke Henkel of Germany's Focus | :21:37. | :21:41. | |
Magazine. Economics first. Does this pre-summit summit get us | :21:41. | :21:48. | |
anywhere at all? We are back to were we where before. Frustration | :21:48. | :21:52. | |
and disappointment in the markets and amongst other world leaders. As | :21:52. | :21:56. | |
Paul says, in Mexico last week there was a feeling there would be | :21:56. | :21:59. | |
a breakthrough. Certainly the Americans have been pushing very, | :21:59. | :22:06. | |
very hard. There were rumours about a five-part plan doing the rounds | :22:06. | :22:12. | |
growth pact, the hopes have been dashed. What we are seeing is that | :22:12. | :22:16. | |
Angela Merkel is caught between a rock and a hard place right now. | :22:16. | :22:19. | |
She is under intense pressure from the markets and international | :22:19. | :22:23. | |
leaders to do something. The political opposition inside Germany | :22:23. | :22:27. | |
itself to bailing out other parts of the eurozone is rising too. | :22:27. | :22:31. | |
that fair. If she is blinking, she is blinking in such a way that | :22:31. | :22:36. | |
people can't really notice it, she is not moving it at all? | :22:36. | :22:41. | |
description is very fair. It is interesting, it is not just the | :22:41. | :22:45. | |
opposition that we used to have that we don't want to pay for it. | :22:45. | :22:50. | |
Which she should have started arguing against far earlier because | :22:50. | :22:54. | |
Germany profited hugely from the euro. She should have brought it in | :22:54. | :22:58. | |
a way to pay it back. There is another position growing this is | :22:59. | :23:03. | |
the fear that is what going to further and further integration | :23:03. | :23:10. | |
will be undemocratic beast. That is quite interesting. The German | :23:10. | :23:15. | |
Parliament will vote end of next week on the fiscal compact. They | :23:15. | :23:20. | |
will pass it. That won't ab problem. The President won't sign it because | :23:20. | :23:26. | |
they are now looming quite a few calls in the constitution court | :23:26. | :23:30. | |
that might bring it down or at least will change it. As the Greeks | :23:30. | :23:32. | |
watch this, also watch the football tonight, perhaps, with the same | :23:33. | :23:37. | |
kind of feeling, you must feel that the politics of this, never mind | :23:37. | :23:41. | |
the economics, is not going your way at all? No, I think the | :23:41. | :23:45. | |
question is people are asking, is how long will European policy be | :23:45. | :23:49. | |
held hostage by German domestic politics. It feels clear the | :23:49. | :23:55. | |
blockage is in Germany. Maybe for forever. Given that rock and the | :23:55. | :24:00. | |
hard place argument Mrs Merkel may not move at all? She may not. If | :24:00. | :24:06. | |
you look further down-the-line, we either have dissenter gracious of | :24:06. | :24:10. | |
the eurozone or greater political union, givenlet gap between the | :24:10. | :24:13. | |
northern and southern countries, which is worse than it was two | :24:13. | :24:18. | |
years ago, how is it going to happen Is the big solution is so | :24:18. | :24:24. | |
elusive, there is no big solution. It's politically impossible. These | :24:24. | :24:29. | |
are nation states remaining nation states and this rhetoric we need | :24:30. | :24:36. | |
more Europe is simply that. Fear is gluing them together. The political | :24:36. | :24:42. | |
elite know if the project falls apart it will be very nasty indeed | :24:42. | :24:46. | |
if Greece leaves the eurozone. You could say the European Union was | :24:46. | :24:51. | |
driven by fear of committing the sins of World War II. A project was | :24:51. | :24:54. | |
designed to heal those wounds. Tragically a project designed to | :24:54. | :24:58. | |
heal the wounds of World War II is re-opening them. Look at all the | :24:58. | :25:02. | |
rhetoric coming out of Germany and Greece right now. A project that is | :25:02. | :25:07. | |
glued together by fear, without any positive vision for the future, | :25:07. | :25:10. | |
it's debilitating. Nobody today in the eurozone doing what you hear | :25:10. | :25:13. | |
from a place like America saying, this is the American dream. What is | :25:13. | :25:19. | |
the European dream today? What is the positive image the voters can | :25:19. | :25:25. | |
cling to. Mrs Merkel will say, it's more Europe. What do Germans think | :25:25. | :25:33. | |
of that? For Germany it's connected to what was said 20 to 30 years ago, | :25:33. | :25:39. | |
more democracy. What Merkel is saying is more Europe is in fact | :25:39. | :25:43. | |
quite contrary. It will be less democracy. It will be... Or some | :25:43. | :25:53. | |
:25:53. | :25:53. | ||
people... It's aiming towards an entity that will have augtisim to | :25:53. | :25:58. | |
rule over national budget that will take away sovereignty from national | :25:58. | :26:02. | |
budgets. It will, in the end, have far less democracy and far less | :26:02. | :26:06. | |
rights for the European citizens. The implications of that, | :26:06. | :26:09. | |
presumably if you are sitting in Greece and worried about where the | :26:10. | :26:14. | |
next pay cheque is coming from, is more German control. Where the | :26:15. | :26:20. | |
nationalism comes in More German control and much less democracy. | :26:20. | :26:24. | |
Gillan talks about the wounds of World War II opening up. We have | :26:24. | :26:30. | |
real ghosts for this party called Golden Dawn, beating migrants on | :26:30. | :26:34. | |
the streets and working hand in hand in Athens with the police and | :26:34. | :26:39. | |
is very frightening indeed. Do you think your country is a democracy? | :26:39. | :26:45. | |
No, I don't. Not at this point. The economic programme imposed on | :26:45. | :26:49. | |
Greece was not designed. They are not choosen. The last election was | :26:49. | :26:54. | |
fought on the grounds of fear. Two German newspapers published Greek | :26:54. | :26:59. | |
editorials in Greeks telling Greeks which way to vote as if they were | :26:59. | :27:04. | |
dropping leaflets on an occupied city. I'm sure that went down | :27:04. | :27:09. | |
really well. I wonder if they know what they are doing. We learnt | :27:09. | :27:11. | |
after Lehman Brothers collapsed that extraordinarily unexpected | :27:11. | :27:13. | |
things can happen in financial and economic terms. What we are | :27:13. | :27:17. | |
learning right now in Europe is that something extraordinarily | :27:17. | :27:20. | |
unexpected things can happen in political terms too. Who would have | :27:20. | :27:23. | |
imagined, think back a year or two years ago, just as we find it | :27:23. | :27:29. | |
impossible to imagine a big bank collapsing, who would imagine that | :27:29. | :27:33. | |
this think you are hearing about in Greece and Germany could have | :27:33. | :27:37. | |
happened. It's extraordinary. Just how much further can it go? | :27:37. | :27:42. | |
other terror in Germany, apart from not having a sound currency, it | :27:42. | :27:49. | |
produces political extremism in Germany itself? In Germany itself | :27:49. | :27:53. | |
as well. Political extremism isn't a big danger in Germany. We have | :27:54. | :27:58. | |
other parties who are more funny than extreme. I wonder, I say you | :27:58. | :28:03. | |
are quite right in asking that, does Merkel, do they know what is | :28:03. | :28:08. | |
going on in Greece? Do they really feel that they might be responsible | :28:08. | :28:15. | |
for the Greek right and -- right emerging and becoming more popular. | :28:15. | :28:18. | |
We watched the football tonight when we were trying to do work. | :28:18. | :28:21. | |
When you see Angela Merkel celebrating, as is her right, she | :28:21. | :28:25. | |
is a German Chancellor, supporting a German team. Do you think that | :28:25. | :28:29. | |
gets, that in itself strikes a serious raw nerve as well in | :28:29. | :28:34. | |
Greece? I don't think it's so much Angela Merkel celebrating. People | :28:34. | :28:37. | |
in Greece feel so ground down. So exClarence Housed at this point | :28:37. | :28:41. | |
that the football has a symbolic meaning. I was in Athens last week | :28:41. | :28:45. | |
when Greece beat Russia. There was this moment of, kind of, a day | :28:45. | :28:49. | |
before the election. Somebody sitting next to me in a cafe said, | :28:50. | :28:58. | |
"If we win the party will win tomorrow" of course they didn't. It | :28:58. | :29:04. | |
will be depressing for the Greeks. Paul, your sense of this. Listening | :29:04. | :29:09. | |
to what Mario Monti had to say and the politicians getting it in the | :29:10. | :29:16. | |
neck now. Is this when economic unrest is spreading into a wider | :29:16. | :29:19. | |
political discontent? What Maria Margaronis said there, I spent the | :29:19. | :29:27. | |
last two weeks in Spain and Greece, you are right there is a tangible | :29:27. | :29:30. | |
fear of being beaten up and the police standing back and doing | :29:30. | :29:34. | |
nothing. The Greeks voted for parties that were Europeanists. | :29:34. | :29:40. | |
Even the left party, Europeanists. If the Europeans abandon them, what | :29:40. | :29:44. | |
an example to Spain, which is next up. We will have to leave it there. | :29:44. | :29:48. | |
In a minute Kirstie will be presenting the Review Show from | :29:48. | :29:54. | |
Glasgow. What do we have? Tonight, it's move over Malcolm Tucker the | :29:54. | :30:01. | |
Veet is coming through. Julie Walters as a hippie trippy old in | :30:01. | :30:06. |