Browse content similar to 21/11/2012. Check below for episodes and series from the same categories and more!
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Remember when this was the sort of thing that came to mind when | :00:12. | :00:16. | |
someone mentioned "banking". merely the servant of the bank, to | :00:16. | :00:22. | |
carry out the policy of the bank. Isn't that so? That's so, Sir, yes, | :00:22. | :00:25. | |
merely the servant. How the great and the good would | :00:25. | :00:28. | |
like to be able to make banking safe and dull again. | :00:28. | :00:35. | |
But how? You want to know about banking, talk to a Rothschild. | :00:35. | :00:40. | |
Could this really have been one of the last attacks on Gaza. We will | :00:40. | :00:45. | |
explore what the ceasefire means. Revolting students protest at the | :00:45. | :00:50. | |
cost of university education, but are fees actually remodelling ivory | :00:50. | :00:53. | |
towers into something of practical value? | :00:53. | :00:57. | |
And this was China at the weekend, not that they wanted us to know. | :00:57. | :01:04. | |
We talk to three Chinese writers will sow censorship works and how | :01:04. | :01:13. | |
they -- how censorship works and how they work around it. | :01:13. | :01:17. | |
TRANSLATION: In this system people worship authority. | :01:17. | :01:19. | |
worship authority. Night. As if we needed any | :01:19. | :01:24. | |
reminding of the mess we are in. It turned out today that last month | :01:24. | :01:28. | |
the country had to borrow �2.5 billion more than was necessary a | :01:28. | :01:33. | |
year ago. So goes the programme of reducing the debt. This morass was | :01:33. | :01:36. | |
created originally by a banking crisis, which has triggered a | :01:36. | :01:39. | |
wholesale loss of affection for banking in its turn. You may | :01:39. | :01:42. | |
perhaps know the feeling. If you have a banker in the family, it is | :01:42. | :01:47. | |
not quite up there for being outed for having Radovan Karadzic on your | :01:47. | :01:50. | |
Christmas card list, but the fear and loathing linger. A | :01:50. | :01:53. | |
parliamentary commission took evidence from the Chancellor today | :01:53. | :02:03. | |
:02:03. | :02:06. | ||
on what might be done. We watched. The 18th century philosopher David | :02:06. | :02:11. | |
Hum e said politicians must think every man was supposed a knave. | :02:12. | :02:15. | |
Certain environment and groups create an atmosphere of greed and | :02:16. | :02:20. | |
selfishness, that might otherwise not be the case for individuals. He | :02:20. | :02:23. | |
said that as London was rapidly becoming the centre of the banking | :02:23. | :02:30. | |
world, with a reputation for honesty and probity, and the saying | :02:30. | :02:35. | |
"my word is my bond". Now that bond is severely damaged by 21st century | :02:35. | :02:41. | |
greed. None more so than the LIBOR scandal, where bankers willfully | :02:41. | :02:44. | |
manipulated a key interest rate, that may have affected even | :02:44. | :02:48. | |
mortgage rates. An all-powerful commission was established to look | :02:48. | :02:53. | |
at why some bankers behave in such a reckless way, and how it can be | :02:53. | :02:56. | |
mitigated. Today they were grilling the man who set up the commission. | :02:56. | :03:00. | |
I hoped this commission can look at other issues, like the standards we | :03:00. | :03:02. | |
expect of the profession and how, for example, in the medical | :03:02. | :03:07. | |
profession, or the teaching profession, we expect certain | :03:07. | :03:12. | |
standards, and those standards are you know administered by the | :03:12. | :03:17. | |
profession, often, but how we can create something similar in the | :03:17. | :03:20. | |
banking industry. But peers and MPs wanted to talk | :03:20. | :03:23. | |
about the actual laws being introduced by the Chancellor, aimed | :03:23. | :03:28. | |
at changing banking behaviour. Especially ring-fencing or the | :03:28. | :03:32. | |
partial separation of banks' high street operations from their | :03:32. | :03:34. | |
speculative investment banking division. The commission of worried | :03:34. | :03:39. | |
that banks could find a way to bore under any ring-fence. There is a | :03:39. | :03:44. | |
very clear objective in the bill. Which is is that the regulators and | :03:44. | :03:47. | |
the Government of the day can continue the provision of core | :03:47. | :03:51. | |
services in the banking industry, in the situation in which a bank is | :03:51. | :03:57. | |
failing. And that, I would say, is then absolutely a crucial objective, | :03:57. | :04:03. | |
which, by the way, my predecessor found himself unable to deliver. | :04:04. | :04:07. | |
The Chancellor, smarting from today's disappointing Government | :04:07. | :04:12. | |
borrowing figures, also warned the commission not to undo many of the | :04:12. | :04:15. | |
reforms which had already been agreed over the last two years. | :04:15. | :04:19. | |
Commission grandees didn't like that. You gave us the job of going | :04:19. | :04:23. | |
over the ground, and I suspect if you were sitting on this side of | :04:23. | :04:28. | |
the table you probably wouldn't take too kindly to a Chancellor or | :04:28. | :04:31. | |
Government minister saying, I want you to look at that, but not that, | :04:31. | :04:37. | |
and so on. I'm sure you will appreciate will we find it very | :04:37. | :04:41. | |
convincing to be told that we should be wary of unpicking a | :04:41. | :04:46. | |
consensus, you just something has achieved a consensus, it doesn't | :04:46. | :04:51. | |
make it right, it is our job to take a look at it. You would agree? | :04:51. | :04:55. | |
The LIBOR scandal may be the trigger for the latest probe, but | :04:55. | :05:00. | |
it was the slithery head of the latest snakes. We have seen banks | :05:00. | :05:04. | |
linked to drug cartels and banned transactions, we have seen | :05:04. | :05:08. | |
telephone salaries, fired executives with huge pay-offs and | :05:08. | :05:11. | |
bonuses for failure. Can the culture of greed ever been | :05:11. | :05:16. | |
pertained whilst pursuing a profit? I think it is very difficult to | :05:16. | :05:21. | |
actually turn knaves back into Knights, which is, in a sense, what | :05:21. | :05:25. | |
we want to do here. We want to reinstill bankers the sense of | :05:25. | :05:28. | |
public service, the sense that they are providing a service to the | :05:28. | :05:31. | |
community and they are not just in it purely for making enormous | :05:31. | :05:35. | |
bonuses or large sums of money. think you can, I think that we have | :05:35. | :05:40. | |
been through a period of great excess in the financial markets, | :05:40. | :05:45. | |
where the profit motive dominated everything. Clearly things have | :05:45. | :05:48. | |
changed. We have new regulation, and there is a new mind set out | :05:48. | :05:54. | |
there. The new COEs in some of the major banks, one of their first | :05:54. | :05:59. | |
tasks going to be to introduce a corporate culture which has much | :05:59. | :06:02. | |
higher ethical standards than we have seen in the past. | :06:02. | :06:06. | |
In order to work as an investment banker in the City of London, you | :06:07. | :06:10. | |
need to be accredited with the FSA, to show you are not a known | :06:10. | :06:15. | |
criminal, et cetera. But there is no ethical aspect to that license. | :06:15. | :06:20. | |
Unlike in the retail banking sector. So, if you are selling mortgages or | :06:20. | :06:25. | |
car loan, there is a far higher standard of proof and qualification | :06:25. | :06:29. | |
needed, than if you are trading billions of derivatives or complex | :06:29. | :06:34. | |
financial products, that could bring down an entire bank, or even, | :06:34. | :06:40. | |
in some cases, an economy. It took a former derivatives trader, | :06:40. | :06:43. | |
now an in coming Archbishop of Canterbury, to ask what many | :06:43. | :06:47. | |
outside the establishment were thinking. Surely the easiest way to | :06:47. | :06:51. | |
get lots of small banks is to break up the big ones, we might come back | :06:51. | :06:54. | |
to that on another occasion. Despite the decadence of recent | :06:54. | :06:59. | |
years, tough new rules are on their way to rein in bankers and banks. | :06:59. | :07:03. | |
Some things can't be regulated. The shadow banking sector, which | :07:03. | :07:09. | |
includes hedge funds, is worth a staggering $67 trillion worldwide. | :07:09. | :07:14. | |
$9 trillion in Britain alone. No amount of ethical change could | :07:14. | :07:19. | |
protect the global economy from a collapse of that magnitude. | :07:19. | :07:24. | |
Here in the studio now is Sir Evelyn Rothschild, from the most | :07:24. | :07:31. | |
famous banking family in the world, and John Moulton, and Jennifer | :07:31. | :07:39. | |
Moses, former executive at Goldman Sachs, and director of Agent | :07:39. | :07:43. | |
Provocateur. What has gone wrong with banking? | :07:43. | :07:46. | |
personally don't think anything has gone wrong, I just think it got out | :07:46. | :07:53. | |
of gear, due to many things. And if you want me to say so. JP Morgan | :07:53. | :08:03. | |
:08:03. | :08:05. | ||
made a speech, or he wasn't alone, to Congress, in 1933, complaik | :08:05. | :08:08. | |
explaining a Select Committee that -- explaining a Select Committee | :08:08. | :08:12. | |
that bankers needed to behave in a correct manner if they were going | :08:12. | :08:16. | |
to carry out their duties. It is an interesting speech and something | :08:16. | :08:20. | |
which one should pay attention to, that was in 1933. The suggestion is, | :08:20. | :08:24. | |
that something has happened and it is about motivation? I think if you | :08:24. | :08:30. | |
take that point, if I may say so, no-one has commented on it, but | :08:30. | :08:35. | |
there is one thing that has transpired, that is technology. | :08:35. | :08:40. | |
Technology has played a huge part in changing people's attitudes to | :08:40. | :08:46. | |
banking. In the sense that traders are now quick in reaction, they | :08:47. | :08:52. | |
take views that don't necessarily think through, you have the example | :08:52. | :08:56. | |
of CityCorp, when you had silos, and one silo didn't know what the | :08:56. | :09:00. | |
other of doing, and people were taking action. The other point | :09:00. | :09:05. | |
which is very important, is that when day-to-day bankers saw that | :09:05. | :09:10. | |
their return was half the return of investment bankers, they decided | :09:10. | :09:13. | |
they should join up and do some of the investment banking work. What | :09:13. | :09:18. | |
do you think has gone wrong in the way banking works? I think it is | :09:18. | :09:24. | |
become too successful. We ended up with too few, large banks, many in | :09:24. | :09:29. | |
the UK, of course, owned overseas, which wasn't a situation | :09:29. | :09:34. | |
historically. You had distant owner, high leverage, and rapidly | :09:34. | :09:38. | |
increasing remuneration, as people tried to chase the investment | :09:38. | :09:41. | |
banking model. Things became far more complicated, and actually, | :09:41. | :09:46. | |
ethics did take more and more of a back seat. Jennifer Moses, do you | :09:46. | :09:54. | |
accept that ethics took a lower and lower place in the pecking order? | :09:54. | :10:00. | |
Well, I think it's, I think we have to note that there have been | :10:00. | :10:04. | |
financial panics, problems, ethical issues in banking, forever. This is | :10:05. | :10:09. | |
a cyclical problem. I'm not convinced there was a golden age in | :10:09. | :10:14. | |
which ethics and banks were perfect. But, I think what did happen is we | :10:14. | :10:19. | |
had, not just tech nol, but, frankly, democratisation of credit, | :10:19. | :10:23. | |
a lot more people had access to credit, and finance became a very, | :10:23. | :10:30. | |
very large part of the economy. Excuse me cutting across you, but | :10:30. | :10:34. | |
everyone is trying to work out looking forwards, how do you bring | :10:34. | :10:39. | |
some sense of order, morality, and minimised danger in future? There | :10:39. | :10:43. | |
are all sorts of ideas, there is an idea for a hypocratic oath for | :10:43. | :10:47. | |
bangers, and an idea of something like a General Medical Council for | :10:47. | :10:51. | |
bankers, are any of these ideas going to work, John Moul to n? | :10:51. | :10:55. | |
don't think they will work easily. You need to change the views of the | :10:55. | :11:00. | |
people -- -- change the people at the top. You need to change | :11:00. | :11:03. | |
remuneration, and make sure the organisations are not so powerful | :11:03. | :11:08. | |
that they encourage the arrogance, which encourages people to be | :11:08. | :11:12. | |
unethical. We reached a stage where, not so many years ago, suddenly | :11:12. | :11:17. | |
bankers became quit agrossive. If you said you weren't going -- quite | :11:17. | :11:19. | |
aggressive, if you said you weren't going to work with them, they | :11:20. | :11:23. | |
threatened to work with other people or they wouldn't support you. | :11:23. | :11:27. | |
That only arose in a world where there were relatively few banks and | :11:27. | :11:32. | |
they were very powerful. The big problem for tax-payers is some of | :11:32. | :11:35. | |
these banks can behave like this, the traders take all the risk, and | :11:35. | :11:40. | |
they know they will be bailed out by the taxpayer. How do we get to a | :11:40. | :11:45. | |
position where that will never happen again? The word "never" | :11:45. | :11:49. | |
happen again, is unlikely. We will hopefully have a better system. | :11:49. | :11:53. | |
What you have to be aware of is the increased amount of cash in bonus | :11:53. | :11:56. | |
hauls, given to bankers, rather than participating in the company | :11:56. | :12:00. | |
which they work. The loyalty factor disappeared. Because if you are | :12:00. | :12:05. | |
paid �50,000 a week, in cash, and then the next week you are paid by | :12:05. | :12:09. | |
someone else �75,000, you will depart. But if you have shares in | :12:09. | :12:13. | |
the business you are working in, and participation, that is a | :12:13. | :12:16. | |
different way of looking at things. That is something that should be | :12:16. | :12:19. | |
ruled in very strongly by the authorities. | :12:19. | :12:22. | |
The Chancellor says we need to get to a position where bad banks can | :12:22. | :12:26. | |
be allowed to fail. How do we get there? They shouldn't be allowed to | :12:26. | :12:30. | |
fail, it is the question of, we have had a...Why Shouldn't they be | :12:30. | :12:36. | |
allowed it fail? We should have proper regulation in supervision. | :12:36. | :12:39. | |
The supervision has to be well done. We have to pay the supervisers and | :12:39. | :12:42. | |
make them understand what they are doing. Supervision will | :12:42. | :12:45. | |
occasionally fail. We need to have more and smaller. That is really | :12:45. | :12:49. | |
the point. The Archbishop was making that point. He made the | :12:49. | :12:53. | |
point, and the answer came back that, we have got ring-fencing, you | :12:53. | :12:57. | |
can still have these big banks, but effectively running separate | :12:57. | :13:00. | |
division, will that work? Why would you bother. You have two operations | :13:00. | :13:05. | |
under a single holding company. The chances of one tunnelling to the | :13:06. | :13:09. | |
other, which is the phrase the Bank of England uses, is quite high. It | :13:09. | :13:13. | |
will be quite a big regulatory burden stopping them from | :13:13. | :13:16. | |
tunnelling across. If you just make them separate in the first place, | :13:16. | :13:20. | |
you don't need to worry about this ring-fencing. One of the things the | :13:20. | :13:27. | |
Chancellor hasn't done is decide where the line actually drops for | :13:27. | :13:30. | |
ring-fencing, which is rather vague. It is not clear where the line | :13:30. | :13:35. | |
should be. We need to make smaller banks, so they can be orderly wound | :13:35. | :13:40. | |
down. Forcibly split them up? might have to. Jennifer Moses, what | :13:40. | :13:47. | |
do you make of that idea, more banks, smaller? I think that is the | :13:47. | :13:52. | |
right idea. I think there is a tension between wanting to have | :13:52. | :13:55. | |
very successful banks that are big players on the international scene, | :13:55. | :14:03. | |
and the reality that the retail banking side was shovelling coal | :14:03. | :14:08. | |
into the furnace of the casino, and that became a tax-payers' problem, | :14:08. | :14:13. | |
and we can't have that again. I'm not sure changing compensation, the | :14:13. | :14:16. | |
horse is out of the barn already, that is happening. That is not | :14:16. | :14:20. | |
sufficient. We need more banks, we need to separate retail operations | :14:20. | :14:26. | |
so, they become, frankly, more of a utility. Then have a better | :14:26. | :14:30. | |
visibility around the risk-taking shadow banking sector as well. I | :14:30. | :14:36. | |
don't think "never" will happen. I'm sorry there is a delay on the | :14:36. | :14:39. | |
satellite, forgive me. What about the other deno mam number, the | :14:39. | :14:45. | |
banks can now get involved in -- phenomenon, the banks can now get | :14:45. | :14:50. | |
involved in all sorts of transfactions, they are funding | :14:50. | :14:53. | |
transactions that allow hedge funds 0 drive up the price of oil or food | :14:53. | :14:56. | |
or whatever, although they are making it possible, they are not | :14:56. | :15:02. | |
actually accountable for it. The mechanism is entirely clean? That | :15:02. | :15:07. | |
is a very good point. You mentioned the other financial instruments. It | :15:07. | :15:13. | |
is really unspeakable that it took so long to license hedge funds. | :15:13. | :15:16. | |
Hedge funds have been one of the most dangerous instruments in | :15:16. | :15:24. | |
modern times. They do not help the economy, they are not far different | :15:24. | :15:28. | |
from being bookmakers. They are funded by banks? They are, but they | :15:28. | :15:32. | |
act in a manner that is not constructive for the banks. | :15:32. | :15:36. | |
So the regulation is pointless, isn't it? Now they are regulated | :15:36. | :15:42. | |
and licensed. Not very much. In most jurisdictions, I fear. In | :15:42. | :15:47. | |
reality we need to make sure our retail banks don't fund the casino. | :15:47. | :15:50. | |
This crisis wasn't caused by the hedge funds. We are looking forward | :15:50. | :15:55. | |
to the question of how you regulate banking effectively, when so much | :15:55. | :15:58. | |
is done at arm's length, effectively, by the banks? You just | :15:58. | :16:03. | |
have to make sure that the high street bank, the retail, the | :16:03. | :16:07. | |
systemic bank, doesn't have large chunks of its capital exposed to | :16:07. | :16:13. | |
the casino world, the huj fund world. The hedge fund -- hedge fund | :16:13. | :16:17. | |
world. The hedge fund world is arguably dangerous and harmless, it | :16:17. | :16:20. | |
is a betting activity. It doesn't make a difference to the economy | :16:20. | :16:23. | |
unless it brings down things that matter when it fails. Where do you | :16:23. | :16:26. | |
think the next crisis will come from? I think the next crisis will | :16:26. | :16:30. | |
arise either in Europe, or in the current banking system, when the | :16:30. | :16:36. | |
LIBOR class claims come home. I agree. | :16:36. | :16:40. | |
Jennifer Moses, you have the last word, where do you think the next | :16:40. | :16:46. | |
crisis will come from? I actually think it is going to come from Asia. | :16:46. | :16:49. | |
Where I think we don't have very good visibility at all about the | :16:49. | :16:57. | |
banking system. So we don't know if the banks are well capitalise, if | :16:57. | :17:00. | |
they weren't corrupt. So I think that's where the growth and the | :17:00. | :17:05. | |
danger lies. Thank you all very much indeed. | :17:05. | :17:11. | |
For the last three-and-a-half hours, there has been a truce in Gaza and | :17:11. | :17:16. | |
Israel. Earlier there had been more of this. | :17:16. | :17:21. | |
Now, in the last eight days, Israel has killed an estimated 140 | :17:21. | :17:24. | |
Palestinians and lost five of its own citizens. The truce was | :17:24. | :17:29. | |
announced by the Egyptians. But the American Secretary of State clearly | :17:29. | :17:33. | |
had a significant role in the agreement. Can this ceasefire last? | :17:33. | :17:38. | |
Mark Urban is here. How did news of the ceasefire come out? Of course, | :17:38. | :17:41. | |
for days we have had this business with the Egyptians and the | :17:41. | :17:45. | |
Palestinian factions saying it is imminent, any minute now. It does | :17:45. | :17:49. | |
seem it was necessary for the Americans to become engaged, with | :17:49. | :17:52. | |
Hillary Clinton, personally travelling to Israel yesterday to | :17:53. | :17:56. | |
deliver Benjimin Netanyahu, the Israeli Prime Minister, on this | :17:56. | :17:59. | |
deal. Therefore, when the announcement was made in Cairo, the | :18:00. | :18:05. | |
honours were done, jointly, by the Egyptian Foreign Minister and | :18:05. | :18:09. | |
Hillary Clinton. The people of this region deserve the chance to live | :18:09. | :18:14. | |
free from fear and violence and today's agreement is a step in the | :18:14. | :18:20. | |
right direction that we should build on. Now we have to focus on | :18:20. | :18:25. | |
reaching a durable outcome, that promotes regional stability, and | :18:25. | :18:30. | |
advances the security, dignity and legitimate aspirations of | :18:30. | :18:36. | |
Palestinians and Israelis alike. How did the ceasefire come about, | :18:36. | :18:41. | |
what was each side trying to gain? In a security sense, we saw them | :18:41. | :18:47. | |
going hammer and tongs in the last 36 hours, we saw the initial target | :18:47. | :18:51. | |
list of the Israelis, exclusively at first the rocket sites, turned | :18:51. | :18:55. | |
into something quite different. On the Palestinian side too, there was | :18:55. | :18:58. | |
escalation, perhaps to try to empower the negotiating process. A | :18:58. | :19:02. | |
bus bomb in Tel Aviv this morning. That is something that hasn't | :19:02. | :19:06. | |
happened for quite a while. Yesterday too firing another rocket | :19:06. | :19:10. | |
at Jerusalem. Very important symbolic target and showing that | :19:10. | :19:14. | |
new capability. From the Israeli side, the level of violence that | :19:14. | :19:21. | |
has been dished out from air and sea, and land, in the past 36 hours, | :19:21. | :19:26. | |
very intense. Symbolically attack significant targets. The national | :19:26. | :19:31. | |
Islamic bank, in the centre of Gaza City, an organisation set up by | :19:31. | :19:35. | |
Hamas to try get around various international sanctions put upon | :19:35. | :19:41. | |
them. Another key target very near the bank in Gaza City, the Civil | :19:41. | :19:45. | |
Administration Building, all sorts of administration goes on there, | :19:45. | :19:49. | |
particularly going into Israel. And symbolic from the Israeli point of | :19:49. | :19:54. | |
view. Infrastructure, a key bridge put in on the highway that connects | :19:54. | :20:00. | |
Gaza to the south of the Gaza strip, and the Egyptian border area, and | :20:00. | :20:04. | |
that border area, heavy bombing, on the smuggling tunnels, Israelis | :20:04. | :20:09. | |
would say trying to prevent reply with missile, but also damaging the | :20:09. | :20:15. | |
economy and wider community in gas za. So we don't get too -- Gaza. So | :20:15. | :20:20. | |
we don't get too carried away, is it likely to be permanent? Both | :20:20. | :20:26. | |
sides were seeking something that lasts not months or days, but years. | :20:26. | :20:30. | |
They are both trying to convince the wider world opinion that it was | :20:30. | :20:33. | |
unbowed and got the better deal. Hamas has stressed this evening, | :20:33. | :20:38. | |
that if this ceasefire period of 24-hours persists and is solid, | :20:38. | :20:44. | |
that border crossings will be open to Israel and Egypt, the siege in | :20:44. | :20:47. | |
their terms, will be broken. The Israelis from their side said they | :20:47. | :20:50. | |
didn't want a sticky plaster agreement, they wanted something | :20:50. | :20:53. | |
that gave accountability and monitoring. The accountability, all | :20:53. | :20:56. | |
sorts of other factions have fired hundreds of rockets into Israel | :20:56. | :21:00. | |
before this started, Hamas was saying, not us. They now see that | :21:00. | :21:04. | |
as being a situation where Hamas will be accountable. Monitoring by | :21:04. | :21:08. | |
outside forces the Egyptians, and possibly others. If you look in the | :21:08. | :21:13. | |
broader sweep, not just the past few weeks, the fascinating thing is | :21:13. | :21:21. | |
how far Israel's security position vis a vis dwaz za, has deteriorate | :21:21. | :21:26. | |
-- Gaza, has deteriorated. When they left before they were dealing | :21:26. | :21:32. | |
with bombs, rockets and firearms. Now they have cities in rocket | :21:32. | :21:37. | |
range, thousands of rockets into Gaza, hitting Tel Aviv, Hamas has | :21:37. | :21:40. | |
maintained the rocket fire throughout the eight days, despite | :21:41. | :21:43. | |
the intensity of the Israeli bombardment. Accountability, | :21:44. | :21:47. | |
perhaps the key point in awful this. Israel and Hamas do not recognise | :21:47. | :21:53. | |
one another in one sense. But now, Hamas is being asked to be | :21:53. | :21:56. | |
accountable. In that sense, Israel has given it that form of | :21:56. | :22:01. | |
recognition. Thousands of students milled | :22:01. | :22:04. | |
through the centre of London protesting, what they were | :22:04. | :22:08. | |
protesting about of rather lost in the shambles at the end of the | :22:08. | :22:17. | |
prosession. When, beard faced beard, anorack charged anorack, and | :22:17. | :22:20. | |
oranges were thrown. It is no question that university students | :22:20. | :22:23. | |
are having a tougher time of it than their parents had. Of course, | :22:23. | :22:27. | |
they don't like paying hefty fees. The bigger question is what the new | :22:28. | :22:31. | |
system of funding is doing to higher education, which raises the | :22:31. | :22:36. | |
familiar question, what is a university for? Vasily Grossman | :22:36. | :22:41. | |
went to today's rally. They are no longer protesting | :22:41. | :22:45. | |
against something that might happen, students in England face a new | :22:45. | :22:50. | |
reality. Higher fees are with us. And they are not universally | :22:50. | :22:54. | |
popular. A lot of my friends don't have | :22:54. | :22:58. | |
anything to look forward to once they graduate. It is such a | :22:58. | :23:02. | |
difficult climate to get a job, it's not fair having all that | :23:02. | :23:07. | |
burden of debt. There is a few schemes within the uni, to try to | :23:07. | :23:13. | |
ease it, but obviously it is tough. It is clear there is still plenty | :23:13. | :23:17. | |
of anger about the decision to increase tuition fees. Beyond that, | :23:17. | :23:21. | |
what has been the impact on the higher education sector as a whole. | :23:21. | :23:25. | |
For a start, let's look at student number, there were bre dictions | :23:25. | :23:28. | |
before the change came in, -- predictions before the change came | :23:28. | :23:33. | |
in, that we would see a massive dropping off in the numbers of | :23:33. | :23:37. | |
people going to university. If you lock at the graph t appears the | :23:37. | :23:41. | |
drop off has happened. But much of this is accounted for by many | :23:41. | :23:45. | |
students who would have come this year, foregoing their gap year and | :23:45. | :23:48. | |
starting their degrees last year to avoid the fees. Allow for this in | :23:48. | :23:52. | |
the graph for England where fees went up, it looks pretty similar to | :23:52. | :23:56. | |
that of Scotland and Wales who have their own systems of university | :23:56. | :24:00. | |
finance. So much for student numbers, what | :24:00. | :24:02. | |
about the composition of the university population. Has there | :24:02. | :24:06. | |
been, as some predicted, a massive drop in the numbers of students | :24:06. | :24:11. | |
from poorer backgrounds going to university? There are some | :24:11. | :24:14. | |
suggestions when you look at the applications this summer, it is | :24:14. | :24:20. | |
students from richer backgrounds, more prosperous socialy economic | :24:20. | :24:23. | |
backgrounds who have decided not to go to university. The numbers are | :24:23. | :24:27. | |
very small, so you can't read too much into it. Certainly it looks as | :24:27. | :24:30. | |
if students from poorer backgrounds are still going to university. That | :24:30. | :24:34. | |
is not what many people predicted. Of course, the Government put a lot | :24:34. | :24:38. | |
of work into making sure students from poorer backgrounds weren't put | :24:38. | :24:43. | |
off applying, with all sorts of help available. However, one study | :24:43. | :24:46. | |
of this help suggests that students won't know exactly what they will | :24:46. | :24:50. | |
qualify for, until they get well into their first term. Which seems | :24:50. | :24:56. | |
of limited value, if the purpose is to persuade them to apply in the | :24:56. | :24:59. | |
first place. Simon Hughes advised the Government on fair access. He | :24:59. | :25:03. | |
says we clearly have more work to do on this system. There is money | :25:03. | :25:07. | |
given, increasing amounts for scholarships, I'm trying to make | :25:07. | :25:10. | |
sure the decision is made by Government to move it from | :25:10. | :25:14. | |
scholarship for fees or living costs, so scholarships for living | :25:14. | :25:18. | |
costs F we can get that message across, there will be help for | :25:18. | :25:21. | |
youngsters who need it, with living costs, you don't worry about the | :25:22. | :25:25. | |
fees unless you are earning and it will come out of your salary. Then | :25:25. | :25:29. | |
we will have really broken the back of the issue. Some universities are | :25:29. | :25:33. | |
actually offering less help for poorer students. If we divide | :25:33. | :25:37. | |
universities into five groups, with the most prestigious on the left, | :25:37. | :25:42. | |
here is the help they offered last year and here is the help this year. | :25:42. | :25:46. | |
The higher up the pecking order, the more is being done. Another | :25:46. | :25:49. | |
thing that we can say has changed are the kinds of courses that | :25:49. | :25:53. | |
students are opting for. For vocational courses like | :25:53. | :25:58. | |
medicine, dentistry, engineering, physical science and law, have only | :25:58. | :26:02. | |
seen small declines in applications from last year. However, the big | :26:02. | :26:07. | |
hit has been taken by courses that less obviously lead to a job, like | :26:07. | :26:12. | |
creative arts and design, social studies, and non-European languages. | :26:12. | :26:17. | |
Each suffering a double-digit drop. Blunt low, the universities that | :26:17. | :26:20. | |
are -- bluntly, the universities that are not delivering courses | :26:20. | :26:24. | |
that do well for students. Where the student feedback says it is not | :26:24. | :26:27. | |
well taught or the buildings aren't good, and they don't get enough | :26:27. | :26:30. | |
seminars or lecture, those courses are go. The finances of | :26:30. | :26:34. | |
universities will not, in the end, be able to fund, courses that | :26:34. | :26:39. | |
aren't seen to be good by the people going to them. | :26:39. | :26:43. | |
Politically determined that these protestors won't get near | :26:43. | :26:48. | |
parliament, however, -- police are determined that protestors won't | :26:48. | :26:54. | |
get near parliament. MPs will say victimisation was not the plan. The | :26:54. | :26:58. | |
purpose of increasing tuition fees was to shore up the future of | :26:58. | :27:02. | |
higher education funding. In that context, how successful have the | :27:02. | :27:06. | |
changes been. If we look at the projections for university finance | :27:06. | :27:10. | |
going forward, this line shows what the Government is putting in, | :27:10. | :27:14. | |
falling off rapidly. But this is more than offset by the rise in | :27:14. | :27:19. | |
fees, and the increase in foreign students. On paper, this all looks | :27:19. | :27:24. | |
healthy enough. But it is dependant on keeping enrolment stable. And | :27:24. | :27:27. | |
that the Government doesn't put more barriers in the way of foreign | :27:27. | :27:30. | |
students. Clearly, it is a very difficult | :27:30. | :27:34. | |
issue, with the immigrations and visa reforms going on at the moment. | :27:34. | :27:39. | |
It is something we are acutely aware of, that we need to make sure | :27:39. | :27:43. | |
we have a coherent policy in terms it of immigration in international | :27:43. | :27:46. | |
students, I'm not sure that is the case at the moment. These students | :27:46. | :27:52. | |
have clearly made up their minds about I hooer fees, and we can't -- | :27:52. | :27:55. | |
higher fees, and can he can't getting students to relish paying | :27:55. | :28:02. | |
more. Although it is early days, we are appearing to see the start of | :28:02. | :28:06. | |
reevaluation of university as a choifplts some deciding to change - | :28:07. | :28:09. | |
- choice. Some deciding to change what they are studying and some not | :28:09. | :28:15. | |
going at all. My guests are we me. | :28:15. | :28:25. | |
:28:25. | :28:30. | ||
-- my guests join me now. Alice Swift is a student on the | :28:30. | :28:35. | |
marched today. What is wrong with the reevaluation | :28:35. | :28:42. | |
of what universities are for today? I don't think anyone would deny | :28:42. | :28:49. | |
that universities need to be incrementalally added to. What are | :28:49. | :28:52. | |
you against? The fundamental overhaul of universities. It is one | :28:53. | :28:57. | |
of the asset of the country. It is one of the finest things around the | :28:57. | :29:01. | |
world regarded that Britain does. It should be overhauled in new | :29:01. | :29:03. | |
economic circumstances is undeniable, the Government hasn't | :29:03. | :29:07. | |
set out to do that. From the moment the Brown review was published and | :29:07. | :29:11. | |
the White Paper, the Government was talking about a fundamental, | :29:11. | :29:14. | |
radical shake-up of education in England. It seems to many people | :29:14. | :29:18. | |
inside of universities, that is a very imprudent thing to do, in an | :29:18. | :29:21. | |
era where the universities have never been more important to the | :29:21. | :29:23. | |
knowledge economy, and our competitive advantages have never | :29:23. | :29:27. | |
been more difficult to obtain, to fundamentally overhaul one of the | :29:27. | :29:33. | |
best things we have. This is an epitaf you have for your | :29:33. | :29:38. | |
Government? I took the evidence on committee. I wish Howard was there. | :29:38. | :29:42. | |
He's getting stuck on language. The reality is students are at the | :29:42. | :29:47. | |
heart of the system. That is a God thing. That means that stew -- good | :29:47. | :29:51. | |
thing. That means students are able to compare and contrast which | :29:51. | :29:56. | |
courses are right for them. More engagment with employers, not just | :29:56. | :30:00. | |
business, third sector, service sector, with business. Before I | :30:00. | :30:06. | |
finish. The old system, if you are earning �21,000 today, you would | :30:06. | :30:11. | |
pay �470 a month back. Under the new system, if you earn over | :30:11. | :30:17. | |
�21,000, you start paying. If you earn �22,000, you pay �90 a year. | :30:17. | :30:22. | |
There is so much misinformation about the fees. There is less | :30:22. | :30:27. | |
concern about fees being paid back than what it is doing to | :30:27. | :30:32. | |
universities, what is your job? Director of Employer Engagment. | :30:32. | :30:36. | |
What does that mean? We are looking all the time at how employers are | :30:37. | :30:39. | |
involved in the relevance of what students are learning. We are | :30:39. | :30:44. | |
working with employers on co- creation of courses to make sure we | :30:44. | :30:47. | |
are meeting the needs of employers. You are churning out a work force | :30:47. | :30:51. | |
for them? We would regard in our education that we are providing is | :30:51. | :30:55. | |
so much more than just equipping them for their work. But they have | :30:55. | :30:58. | |
knowledge, the ability to think creativity, critically, an | :30:58. | :31:08. | |
:31:08. | :31:10. | ||
litically, work in teams. That is what stew -- Anwar that litically. | :31:10. | :31:14. | |
-- analytically. That is what students want? Yes, but the way the | :31:14. | :31:20. | |
education system is now being made to be beholding to the market is | :31:20. | :31:24. | |
very dangerous. Why? At the University of Birmingham, loads of | :31:24. | :31:27. | |
departments that are seen as something that can't contribute to | :31:27. | :31:33. | |
the dictate of a market economy, things like archaeology, | :31:33. | :31:37. | |
antiquities, sociology, all of these subjects are very much under | :31:37. | :31:43. | |
threat. They are not beholding to the markets. Is that not because | :31:43. | :31:47. | |
students don't want to study them? No that is not it. How are they | :31:47. | :31:51. | |
under threat? In the University of Birmingham there are threats to | :31:51. | :31:55. | |
close these departments down as we speak. If lots of students wanted | :31:55. | :32:00. | |
to study the subjects and pay the fees, I suspect they will be kept | :32:00. | :32:06. | |
aon? Lots of students want to study the subjects, sociology, the | :32:06. | :32:09. | |
University of Birmingham has tried to close sociology down, when there | :32:09. | :32:13. | |
is a huge demand for sociology, that is why it can't close it down. | :32:13. | :32:17. | |
Perhaps you could engage with that? If the University of Birmingham is | :32:17. | :32:20. | |
closing down courses where there is massive demand there is something | :32:20. | :32:23. | |
wrong at the university. I don't think that is happening. If you | :32:23. | :32:27. | |
look at the evidence, and we saw it in the programme, the Russell Group | :32:27. | :32:30. | |
University, this is the same in America, where you see place like | :32:30. | :32:38. | |
Harvard do well in attracting students from lower socialy | :32:38. | :32:43. | |
demographic backgrounds into their -- socialy demographic backgrounds | :32:43. | :32:49. | |
into their sources. That is happening with the Russell Group | :32:49. | :32:59. | |
Universities. We will monitor this thing. If you are saying the market | :32:59. | :33:03. | |
is a bad thing because employers, the third sector and the service | :33:03. | :33:07. | |
sector engage with universities, that is a good thing. | :33:07. | :33:11. | |
University of Birmingham have departments beholden to fossil fuel | :33:11. | :33:17. | |
companies, and teach such a wide variety of oil--based practices, in | :33:17. | :33:23. | |
30 years time what do we do when we reach a climate catastrophe, the | :33:23. | :33:29. | |
market works on short-termism, and it doesn't consider these aspects, | :33:29. | :33:32. | |
we are beholden to it, the whole regime. There is a question about | :33:32. | :33:36. | |
the broader social context. Frankly, I don't want to be rude, what is | :33:36. | :33:43. | |
the point of people paying their taxes, and you are, what, early | :33:43. | :33:46. | |
modern intellectual history aren't you, a subject most of us don't | :33:46. | :33:51. | |
really understand. Why should the taxpayer support that sort of | :33:51. | :33:56. | |
activity? There is a huge range of answers to that question. The | :33:56. | :33:59. | |
public, market face of the university is crucially important, | :33:59. | :34:03. | |
but what universities fundamentally do. What is your contribution to | :34:03. | :34:05. | |
the market? I'm here discussing it with the programme. You are not | :34:06. | :34:10. | |
getting paid much for this, I will tell you? As a matter of fact, the | :34:10. | :34:14. | |
project which I direct at the Oxford University has raised $2.5 | :34:14. | :34:17. | |
million of American money. If you are asking for a direct | :34:17. | :34:20. | |
contribution to the market, there you have it. This is more money I'm | :34:20. | :34:25. | |
going to make in a very substantial fraction of my career, OK. But if | :34:25. | :34:29. | |
you are asking a more general question, which I presume you are, | :34:29. | :34:35. | |
which is about why every modern, western, prosperous, democratic | :34:35. | :34:43. | |
country, for the last 50 years, has supported a publicly subsidised | :34:43. | :34:46. | |
university system, then there are all kinds of reasons for that. | :34:46. | :34:54. | |
There is the fact that a democratic quality depends on an educated | :34:54. | :34:57. | |
electorate, and innovation is fundamentallinessry for the economy. | :34:57. | :35:01. | |
There is the fact that our cultural industries as well, very vital and | :35:01. | :35:06. | |
an important part of our economy, depend directly on universities. | :35:06. | :35:09. | |
Come on? But the really extraordinary thing, this is | :35:09. | :35:13. | |
something that hasn't been picked up in the media, this is the first | :35:13. | :35:18. | |
time, in modern history, that a publicly-funded university system | :35:18. | :35:21. | |
has been eliminated with the stroke of a pen. It is not a stroke of the | :35:21. | :35:26. | |
pen, students don't want to study a lot of these subjects? Jo that is | :35:26. | :35:31. | |
not true. In every other -- That is not true. In every other country, a | :35:31. | :35:34. | |
university system exists directly funded by tax-payers' money. | :35:34. | :35:37. | |
England has just done something that is radical and unprecedented. | :35:37. | :35:40. | |
Which is to remove, overnight, at the stroke of a pen, the direct | :35:40. | :35:44. | |
funding of universities. I would like to make the point about | :35:44. | :35:47. | |
innovation. It is essential to our economy that we innovate. We have | :35:47. | :35:54. | |
just done a study through our Think And Do Tang, at Birmingham | :35:54. | :35:58. | |
University, showing the enormous value of design and education to | :35:58. | :36:03. | |
our economy in the Midlands. This is all about encouraging radical | :36:03. | :36:06. | |
innovation and lateral thoughts. Probably the sort of things that | :36:06. | :36:09. | |
come very natural in your sort of area. I don't think it is one or | :36:09. | :36:13. | |
the other. Do you think he's a luxury? No, I don't. Do you think | :36:13. | :36:18. | |
society is, in any way, harmed, if as, let as say for the sake of | :36:18. | :36:22. | |
argument, that Alice is right, let's say certain subjects stop | :36:22. | :36:26. | |
being caught in universities. It doesn't matter if it is ark kolg or | :36:26. | :36:30. | |
something else. But something that is -- archaeology, or something | :36:30. | :36:33. | |
else, does society suffer with that? It is about understanding | :36:33. | :36:37. | |
where the value is of these different subjects. I would say | :36:37. | :36:41. | |
society does suffer, absolutely. Why? Because education is a public | :36:41. | :36:47. | |
good, it is a social good, and it can't be beholden to whatever the | :36:47. | :36:51. | |
short-term prospects of the market. That is in your assertion. | :36:51. | :36:56. | |
doesn't need to be a trade-off. We don't needing to purely market- | :36:56. | :37:00. | |
driven. The evidence does seem to suggest that students are voting | :37:00. | :37:04. | |
with their feet? Some are, some of the very successful universities | :37:04. | :37:07. | |
will continue to subsidise courses that they think are for the social | :37:07. | :37:10. | |
good. They are good things to have in a society. There is nothing | :37:10. | :37:15. | |
wrong with that. Do you think it matters then that fewer people wish | :37:15. | :37:18. | |
to study non-European languages? think it matters that we make sure | :37:18. | :37:23. | |
that there is enough courses, enough diversity, in the economy, | :37:23. | :37:27. | |
so there is choice for everyone. That is not what your system is | :37:27. | :37:34. | |
allowing to happen. This is fundamentally important point, the | :37:34. | :37:38. | |
ascendant economies in the world are not in Europe. If we want to | :37:38. | :37:41. | |
engage with the ascendant economies in the world we have to maintain a | :37:41. | :37:45. | |
capacity to teach young people non- European languages. If the market | :37:45. | :37:49. | |
signals seem to be suggesting to student that this is not a | :37:49. | :37:52. | |
profitable activity, then we are dealing with market failure. The | :37:52. | :37:56. | |
market signal are failing to convince students to study things | :37:56. | :38:02. | |
we desperately need. Can I make a more general point. Be quick. | :38:02. | :38:06. | |
real point is, although engaging directly with the market is one of | :38:06. | :38:09. | |
the very important things that universities do, really, | :38:09. | :38:13. | |
fundamental, crucial and unique things that universities do, | :38:13. | :38:16. | |
staying way back from the short- term cycle of journalism and | :38:16. | :38:21. | |
politics and business, engaging people's minds with the really big | :38:21. | :38:26. | |
problems. We're entering a century in which we are being faced by the | :38:26. | :38:29. | |
most enormous problems, it is vitally important that universities | :38:29. | :38:32. | |
not be swallow up by the short- termism of the political cycle on | :38:32. | :38:36. | |
the one hand or the economic one on the other. Thank you very much all. | :38:36. | :38:40. | |
In China, hundreds of activists have rallied to the defence of a | :38:40. | :38:44. | |
blogger, who made the mistake of making a joke about the Communist | :38:44. | :38:47. | |
Party Congress, which has just closed. It wasn't very funny, I | :38:47. | :38:50. | |
won't trouble you with it. The Congress is supposed to have mapped | :38:50. | :38:55. | |
out a bold new future for China. What happens to people who have the | :38:55. | :38:59. | |
temerity to think outside the orthodoxy, will provide a very | :38:59. | :39:03. | |
early test of whether the country is really taking a new direction. | :39:03. | :39:06. | |
From Beijing, Paul Mason reports on writers who work under a repressive | :39:06. | :39:16. | |
:39:16. | :39:20. | ||
The Chinese invented writing, paper and the printed book. But from the | :39:20. | :39:27. | |
early days of pen and paper, there were also pioneers of censorship, | :39:27. | :39:31. | |
book-burning and propaganda. Today, many Chinese novelists and | :39:31. | :39:35. | |
historians are seeing their work censored or simply banned. I have | :39:35. | :39:38. | |
been speaking to three of them. About what it is like to have your | :39:38. | :39:48. | |
:39:48. | :39:49. | ||
thoughts suppressed. In this village of 800 people, a | :39:49. | :39:59. | |
:39:59. | :40:03. | ||
dozen blood collection stations Yan Lainke's novel, the The Dream | :40:03. | :40:08. | |
of Da, ne Village, is the true story of an AIDS epidemic that | :40:08. | :40:12. | |
happened when the Government encouraged people to sell their | :40:12. | :40:17. | |
blood to get rich. Blood banks opened in the village market, the | :40:17. | :40:21. | |
village crossroads, and the empty rooms of private homes. They even | :40:21. | :40:28. | |
opened up in converted cow sheds. Throughout the village, blood | :40:28. | :40:33. | |
filled plastic tubing, hung like vines. And bottles of plasma, like | :40:33. | :40:37. | |
plump, red grapes. Everywhere you looked there were broken glass | :40:37. | :40:42. | |
vials and syringes, discarded cotton bud, used needles and | :40:42. | :40:47. | |
splashes of congealed blood. All day long the air was filled | :40:47. | :40:54. | |
with the stench of fresh blood. Yan's novel about the scandal was | :40:54. | :40:58. | |
published in China, but disappeared after three days. It is now banned | :40:58. | :41:06. | |
there. TRANSLATION: In China today, one type of writing that is deemed | :41:06. | :41:10. | |
unacceptable, is when a writer looks too closely at China's | :41:10. | :41:13. | |
reality. Another kind of writing that is unacceptable here is, | :41:13. | :41:17. | |
writing that brings back to life moments in China's history that are | :41:17. | :41:21. | |
supposed to be forgotten. Also, if a piece of writing is too | :41:21. | :41:25. | |
imaginative, then it is also deemed not suitable for readers. It is for | :41:25. | :41:29. | |
these three reasons that books are seen as controversial, or are | :41:29. | :41:39. | |
:41:39. | :41:41. | ||
consistently banned. The dream of the village does not just show a | :41:42. | :41:46. | |
scandal, it shows how mania can take hold in a place where one | :41:46. | :41:52. | |
party is determined to force the pace of growth. TRANSLATION: At the | :41:52. | :41:56. | |
beginning of the 90s, the whole country needed to develop very | :41:56. | :42:00. | |
quickly. Everywhere needed money. We must acknowledge that the people | :42:00. | :42:05. | |
who sold blood were organised by the Government to do this. More | :42:05. | :42:08. | |
importantly though, the environment at the time in China ignited | :42:08. | :42:12. | |
people's desires and people's inner darkness. People desired money, | :42:12. | :42:15. | |
they needed money, they earned money, they went crazy about | :42:15. | :42:25. | |
:42:25. | :42:26. | ||
becoming rich, and so they sold their blood. China's new leaders | :42:27. | :42:30. | |
have come to power, pledging a crackdown on corruption. | :42:30. | :42:35. | |
But the book-buying public are ahead of them, Chinese readers are | :42:35. | :42:39. | |
devouring crime novel, with stories of official skullduggery, by the | :42:39. | :42:44. | |
million. I felt as though a heavy stone were | :42:44. | :42:48. | |
pressing on my chest, choking off my breath. The boulder was | :42:48. | :42:58. | |
:42:58. | :43:00. | ||
corruption itself, and everyone who hated and fought it was cisofice. | :43:00. | :43:06. | |
This man's crime novel, The civil Servant's Notebook, tells the story | :43:06. | :43:12. | |
of bureaucrats selling their soulss and losing their minds in the | :43:12. | :43:17. | |
system. TRANSLATION: In China we have a very bad tradition, in this | :43:17. | :43:19. | |
system people worship authority. Worshiping authority has become | :43:20. | :43:24. | |
part of our way of thinking, our way of life. Like a religion. To | :43:24. | :43:34. | |
:43:34. | :43:35. | ||
give up a way of thinking, a way of life, a religion, is very difficult. | :43:36. | :43:40. | |
Whout challenge, the boulder of corruption would grow larger and | :43:40. | :43:43. | |
larger, someone would need to continue to role the boulder up the | :43:43. | :43:47. | |
hill, even though it was bound to roll back down every time. So long | :43:47. | :43:52. | |
as we persisted, we might find a new meaning within our lonely, | :43:52. | :43:55. | |
painful, absurd and despairing lives. | :43:55. | :44:02. | |
In real life, the author was a civil servant, and his real-life | :44:02. | :44:08. | |
boss was sentenced to death for gambling away $3.6 million of the | :44:08. | :44:12. | |
public's money in the casinos. The book has not been banned, but in | :44:12. | :44:18. | |
the wake of the Boshili scandal, China's most prominent scandal for | :44:18. | :44:23. | |
decades, he fears a book like this would not be published today. | :44:23. | :44:28. | |
TRANSLATION: I think the system creates officials like Boshli, one | :44:28. | :44:36. | |
may have fallen, but if the system does not change, there will be L | :44:36. | :44:46. | |
:44:46. | :44:48. | ||
iOS hili, Xianshili and Maoshili. The background to the censorship is | :44:48. | :44:53. | |
rising discontent. These pictures, shot on Saturday in one of the | :44:53. | :44:57. | |
provinces, and uploaded secretly to the internet, show thousands of | :44:57. | :45:02. | |
demonstrators and police vans overturned. The spark, a police car | :45:02. | :45:09. | |
chase that injured bystanders, the underlying issue, corruption. | :45:09. | :45:18. | |
It's not just the present that exercises China's censures, one of | :45:18. | :45:22. | |
their key obsession -- censors, one of their key observations is the | :45:22. | :45:30. | |
past. None so much about Mao's overthrow, triggering one of the | :45:30. | :45:35. | |
biggest famines in history. Homes were dismantled, and woks, basins | :45:36. | :45:40. | |
and bowls were requisitioned. Grain supplies were centralised. By the | :45:40. | :45:50. | |
:45:50. | :45:52. | ||
summer of 1959, the famine was intense. Yang Jisheng's book, Tomb | :45:52. | :45:56. | |
stone, has sold half a million copies on the black market. It is | :45:56. | :45:59. | |
acclaimed in the English version, but it can't be published | :45:59. | :46:09. | |
:46:09. | :46:10. | ||
officially in China itself. TRANSLATION: Tombstone has four | :46:10. | :46:15. | |
levels, one is to remember my father, the second is a tombstone | :46:15. | :46:19. | |
to the 36 million Chinese people who starved to death. The third is | :46:19. | :46:23. | |
a tombstone for the system that caused the familiar anyone, the | :46:23. | :46:26. | |
fourth is a tombstone for myself, if anything happens to me, writing | :46:26. | :46:31. | |
this book has put me at risk, politically. | :46:31. | :46:35. | |
Yang, a veteran journalist for the state news agency, spent years | :46:35. | :46:38. | |
secretly compiling data on the familiar anyone, whose cause and | :46:38. | :46:42. | |
scale were denied then by the propaganda, and still are denied by | :46:42. | :46:47. | |
the Communist Party today. TRANSLATION: The basic reason why | :46:47. | :46:51. | |
tens of millions starved to death was, totalitarianism, in this type | :46:51. | :46:57. | |
of system, once a calamity occurs, ordinary people have no means of | :46:57. | :47:00. | |
saving themselves. TRANSLATION: During the Great Leap Forward, I | :47:00. | :47:04. | |
was active in the communist youth league, when my father died of | :47:04. | :47:06. | |
starvation, I thought it was something just happening to my | :47:06. | :47:11. | |
family. I thought his death was my fault. Because I hadn't gone home | :47:11. | :47:15. | |
to pick wild plants for him. Only later I discovered that it wasn't | :47:15. | :47:19. | |
just a provincial problem or local problem, it certainly wasn't just | :47:19. | :47:23. | |
my family's problem, it was a national problem. I'm still a party | :47:24. | :47:29. | |
member. Although now I think communist is a fantasy. I do | :47:29. | :47:32. | |
believe the party wants to do good for the people and the workers. I | :47:32. | :47:37. | |
want to speak for the people, that is why I'm still a party member. | :47:37. | :47:41. | |
We know Chinese culture is a mixture of the ancient and new. If | :47:41. | :47:46. | |
China's people could read their own great modern literature, it would | :47:46. | :47:49. | |
be richer still. But the new is controversial, and the Government | :47:49. | :47:52. | |
has no intention of freeing it up right now. What's happening in | :47:53. | :47:55. | |
Chinese literature is important, because it mirrors what is | :47:55. | :48:00. | |
happening on the internet, and in millions of private conversations. | :48:00. | :48:04. | |
There's a parallel universe of ideas out there, just waiting to be | :48:04. | :48:09. | |
expressed in the open. TRANSLATION: My aim is to speak the truth. To | :48:09. | :48:13. | |
act honestly and to be a real person. A writer should constantly | :48:13. | :48:21. | |
pursue the truth. I want to tell my readers what really happened. | :48:21. | :48:24. | |
regime in history has managed to suppress its own literature forever. | :48:24. | :48:30. | |
But China's leaders intend to give it a go. Whether they succeed | :48:30. | :48:36. | |
depend, in large part, on the power of writing. | :48:36. | :48:39. | |
Paul Mason, we must have talked too much earlier, I'm told that's all | :48:39. | :48:49. | |
:48:49. | :48:51. | ||
much earlier, I'm told that's all we have time for. Good night. | :48:51. | :48:54. | |
Good evening. We have more atrocious weather for Thursday. | :48:54. | :48:58. | |
More very heavy rain falling another inch or two of rain in | :48:58. | :49:02. | |
areas completely saturated already. The likes of south-west Scotland, | :49:02. | :49:05. | |
western Scotland, we have an amber warning out here. Across parts of | :49:05. | :49:08. | |
the south-west of England. And Wales too. Southern Wales, it is | :49:08. | :49:11. | |
where we have seen the most serious flooding this week. We could see | :49:11. | :49:16. | |
another inch or two of rain. Damaging gusts of wind. 50-60 miles | :49:16. | :49:21. | |
an hour inland, 70 miles an hour in the coast. With the ground so | :49:21. | :49:24. | |
saturated could bring the trees down. After the rush hour, with the | :49:24. | :49:29. | |
rain across Northern Ireland and the winds t eases some what into | :49:29. | :49:35. | |
the afternoon, and before it clears the potential for snow across the | :49:35. | :49:37. | |
Scottish mountains wet weather into northern England and the afternoon. | :49:37. | :49:41. | |
It looks largely dry in the south and east, that said the winds get | :49:41. | :49:45. | |
strong into the afternoon, that gives problems for the wind itself | :49:45. | :49:48. | |
in the rush house across the home counties and the south-east of | :49:48. | :49:52. | |
England. It looks pretty miserable with heavy rain on Thursday, a | :49:52. | :49:55. | |
dryer day across the northern half of the UK on industry. Showers | :49:55. | :49:58. | |
around, after a chilly start. A slightly dryer day for some parts | :49:58. | :50:02. | |
of southern Britain as well. But the rain slow to clear from the | :50:02. | :50:06. |