03/12/2012 Newsnight

Suppose you sat in cafe, went on- line, and bought a Christmas

present, and that neither the company that sold you the coffee,

the search engine that found your retailer, or the retailer itself,

paid as much tax as many politicians think it should pay,

would you mind? In increasingly straightened times,

the way some multinationals minimise their taxes has become

hugely charged. The Government still aren't doing anything about

it. That is their job. It is just ridiculous that they still haven't

acted. As the Chancellor talks of

crackingdown, is what's legal the same as what's moral, and if not,

can the citizen change the corporation?

Maurice Saatchi lost his wife to cancer, now he wants to change the

law, if recommended treatment doesn't cure, should doctors be

free to try something else? The women of the Libyan revolution,

now victim to some of the Islamist militias, once on their side.

He was hittinging me with his feet and HIStory gun, he was calling me

an Israeli, an Israeli spy, calling A statement today announced that

the Duchess of Cambridge was pregnant. We won't mention it again,

promise. We were rather taken with the statement from a Parliamentary

Committee that some of the best known multinationals operating in

this country were being immoral. In not paying more tax.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer, meanwhile, talks tough about, as he

puts it, going after companies which aggressively avoid tax. The

problem with all this blow-Hardtalk, is that the tax officials in this

country, seem to have no objections to arrangements which mean that a

multinational corporation like Amazon, can make sales of �3.4

billion in the UK, but pay just �2 million in corporation tax. But is

legal the same as moral? Politicians, bankers, the press,

they have all been under the spotlight, now it is the turn of

major corporates in the public gaze over their tax apayers. Starbucks,

Facebook, Google and Amazon, apart from all being American, they have

all created a reputation of legally avoiding tax. In parliament last

month, MPs didn't pull any punches, while executives floundered. I will

come back to the committee, and it is possible to show that figure,

disclose that figure. Can you say that again? I will come back to the

committee andly see whether it is possible to disclose that figure.

We have not disclosed those figures ever publicly, either on a country

basis or website basis. You are either running the business very

badly, or there is some fiddle going on. We clearly are not

aggressively looking to avoid tax or tax on any structure anywhere,

we have had profitability challenges, very sincere ones,

unfortunately, that we are not pleased with. It is nothing, I

assure you, to do with tax avoidance. The committee said the

Government should get a grip and clampdown on multinationals that

exploit tax laws. It described the behaviour of large corporations as

outrageous and an insult to those who pay their fair share, and said

HMRC lacked clarity when trying to explain its approach to enforcing

the corporation tax regime. Even before the report was published,

Starbucks were signals over the weekend, that all the public

pressure and negative headlines, So why the change of heart? Weeks

of nasty Headlines, and the threat of sit-ins and direct action like

this one in Oxford Street, by protest groups like UK Uncut,

appear to have galvanised a coffee chain, worried about brand damage.

This is the Government's role. It is their job to crackdown on tax

avoidance, it is clear that the public are outraged by this.

Margaret Hodge and the PAC are outraged by this. The media is

brimming with outrage about tax avoidance, and yet the Government

still aren't doing anything about it, that is their job, it is

ridiculous that they still haven't acted. The problem is, the disabled

people, mothers, children, who are bearing the brunt of the cuts, that

is outrageous, when there is so much money that could be collected

from tax avoidance that could be put into public services.

The key to this is something called transfer pricing which allows one

part of a company to bill another part for using goods, especially

services. In general, the bit of a multinational that controls

valuable brand trade marks or patents, bases itself in a low-tax

country, lix Luxembourg, Ireland or Switzerland t can bill the sister

British company where taxes are higher, for permission to use the

trade marks or certain products. That has the effect of magnifying

the profits in Luxembourg and minimising them in Britain, thus

cutting the amount of tax paid here. Finally the profits left over in

Luxembourg or other low-tax country, get sent back to the States where

it cannot be taxed a second time. Britain has signed tax treaties

with 137 different countries all around the world, meaning companies

trading here and British companies trading overseas, can't be taxed

twice on the same income. So the Government is in a bind. It cannot

ignore the concerns of voters, nor too can it clampdown on the likes

of Starbucks, Google and face book, without rufpbing the risk that

overseas Governments will clampdown on the likes of RBS and BP or Glaxo.

It might be up to consumers to urge companies to pay for tax on their

profits. Consumers account for 70% of all spending in the British

economy, yet as a lobby group, they are a slumbering giant. When that

giant growls, though, big business tends to listen. Think of the

backlash when Coca-Cola tried to introduce New Coke in the 1980s,

the boycott against South African goods during the apartheid era.

More recently there was a campaign to prevent sexualised clothing

being marketed to young girls. That was co-ordinate bid one of the most

powerful consumer groups in the land, Mumsnet. It is not what I

think about things, it is what the collective thinks. Believe me there

is a myriad of voices, there is loads of dissent, lots of

discussion, and it is healthy. It is the wisdom of a crowd having

debated and debated and debated. Are you conscious of the power you

could wield against companies? think you know the reason we have

done more formal campaigns like Let Girls Be Girls, and another one

called We Believe You, getting people to understand the issues

around domestic violence and rape, is because we do realise we wield a

certain amount of influence. The moment prime ministers start

knocking on your door and asking to speak to your users, you realise

you have some influence. Despite the poet Tennessee of millions of

people thinking -- poetentcy of people discussing on-line, it is

only useful if it is acted on in the real worlds. Customers have

that effect on brand reputation if they unite together, they need to

unite on-line and make sure there is an off-line part to that

mobilisation. Only if they connect the on-line mobilisation in off-

line action, can they damage the reputation of a brand. Google,

Amazon and other multinationals in the spotlight reiterated today that

their tax affairs were fully in order, that is true, but because

the Government's hands are tied by international tax treaties t will

doubtless hope that other firms will follow Starbucks lead, and

voluntarily agree to pay for corporation tax.

We asked many of the companies accused of immorally minimising

their cushion tax bills on to tonight's programme. None of them,

includinging Starbucks, Amazon or Google, -- including Starbucks,

Amazon or Google would appear. Joining us are my guests now. The

former Canon Chancellor of St Paul's Cathedral, Giles Fraser, the

tax campaigner, Ellie Mae O'Hagan, and Mark Littlewood of the

Institute of Economic Affairs. Mark Littlewood, is there any point in

George Osborne blustering about things being outrageous? No point

at all. It is as if he was announcing today that he would send

more traffic cops on to the motorway, because he doesn't like

people driving at 70 miles an hour. If he has a problem with people

driving at 70 miles an house he and his Government should cut the speed

limit. He has to be clear about what the law is. The problem here

is vagaries in the law. We can argue in these studios, and George

Osborne and Danny Alexander can release press released as long as

they like about the realities, the Government has to have a clear tax

code and it doesn't. Enforcement becomes a bit of a joke. As far as

you are concerned, there is nothing wrong with what these companies

have done, they have merely complied with the law and played --

paid what was necessary? They are operating according to the law. To

take the point, it is not just the UK tax law, it is the international

tax codes that we all need to comply with. So why are you so

upset about it? About tax avoidance. There is no tax avoidance, they are

paying what they are supposed to pay? That is a red herring to say

they are paying what they are supposed to pay. Why? There are

loopholes they are exploiting. Should they pay more? They are

supposed to pay a rate of corporation tax that they are

avoiding. They are manipulating the, as Mark said, the poorly-

constructed laws in order to use loopholes to get out of paying what

they are supposed to pay. They are not paying what they are supposed

to pay. There is a huge difference between what is moral and what is

legal. What is going on here, if you have, if you are a company that

makes and sells books, the books are printed in the UK, their

warehouseed in the UK, they are shipped out in the UK, sent to UK

customers, the invoices are printed on UK paper and sent out in the UK

but Luxembourg printed on the bottom so you pay the tax in

Luxembourg, you don't have to be a rocket scientist to work out

something is fundamentally wrong there. This is nonsense. Which bit

is nonsense? When you are talking about Amazon, people don't go to

their websites because they are boxed and labelled in the UK. They

go to them because they are internationally recognised as a

brand. I suggest they are cheaper? It is cheap and convenient.

recognised. If you are somebody, think of an on-line bookshop, you

can go to, Amazon has great recognition. These are not

justifications to avoid tax. People on the screen here have great brand

value. How is that an issue about tax avoidance. If you open a cinema

in London and show Hollywood blockbuster movies, like Spiderman,

what proportion of the ticket price should go to the IP property owner,

the person who owns Spiderman in America, clearly more than 0%, as

much as 5%, 10%, I'm not sure, it is precisely this argument that

Starbucks are in. If the consequence of that, is that small

book shops, for example, to take the book analogy, if they go out of

business, tough luck? They pay their taxes? There is no question

that Amazon and Starbucks are paying their taxes. Small book

shops are going out of business. Small coffee shops to the expense

of Starbucks? You don't care about that either? The market trend is

people are buying books on-line cheaper, and coffee from recognised

chains, this is a change in consumer behaviour. The interesting

thing now is Starbucks customers decide, we have had enough of you,

we will never buy coffee from you again, unless you hand over a

billion or two billion to the taxpayer, that is consumer power. A

wonderful thing in a free market and free society. We will come to

the question of consumer power. Let's explore the moral point

further, morally, is a company entitled, I know you are a tax

specialist, but is a company entitled to decide to pay more tax

regardless of its obligation to its shareholders? Arguably it is not

more tax, is it, if it is paying more tax than is legally due, that

is arguably not tax. That is the basic question. Are companies free

to do that? Well, that's a question that isn't a tax question, at all,

that is about the duties of the directors and so on. But arguably,

if it is not the legal liable tax it is not tax. The legal liable tax

is the corporation tax of Britain, if you are not paying at that rate,

you are avoiding tax. That is zero, if you have no profits. What do you

want us to do, withdraw from the European Union, is that the idea?

think this Government should introduce an anti-avoidance

principle. There is research that says you will recoup �5.5 billion

in tax, at a time of unprecedented cuts to public services it is

incumbent on the Government to do that, morally incumbent as Giles

was saying. Could that work? think we are going to get one.

we will get an anti-abuse principle, the research shows that won't work,

I'm asking for an anti-avoidance principle. We have yet to see the

details, none of us know the details. But the key point about

this is that most big businesses actually welcome the introduction

of such a principle. Because, actually, they are not interested

in aggressive tax avoidance. are they participating in it?

don't think they would see that is what it is. Hang on a second.

is this a moral question? Because it is about your contribution to

the common good. And the question is, do these very large

multinational companies actually contribute to the good of all. And

if they are paying, if they are actually paying very little tax,

and they are also putting small businesses out of business, there

is a very strong argument to say they don't...There Is an argument

to say they employ people and pay national insurance? There is a

balance of advantage, there is a balance of advantage, if they are

saying they make no profit, I don't know why they are operating here if

they make no profit, that seems extraordinary. They say they make

no profit, they boast to their shareholders they are making

extraordinary profits in their glossy brochures and then they ship

all their profits overseas. This country doesn't have the advantage

of that. That is a very simple matter. That is a very simple

matter, Charles. If there is any fraud going on t needs to be

prosecuted. I didn't say there was fraud. If the minutes of their tax

holder meetings are different to their returns, this needs to be

investigated by the tax authorities, not grandstanded by politician. It

needs to be investigated by the tax authorities in the same way that if

I claimed I was on the minimum wage, it would be investigated by the tax

authorities. The tax authorities are too lenient. Once you mix up

the common good and handing money over to the state, they are not

exactly the same thing. If Starbucks decides to give money to

charitable arms or whatever, I'm sure that would be giving to the

common good. I want to the make the point about the moral issue Jeremy

has been talking about, we are living in a time of unprecedented

cuts to public services, it is irrefutable the damage it is

causing to people's lives. Would you ban duty free products. Excuse

me, pleat finish my point, George Osborne will be repeating the

mantra there is no alternative, here is an alternative. Would you

ban people buying duty-free, that is tax avoidance. That is a total

red herring, that is a red herring, because duty-free products are

designed to relieve people of tax. Are so are these tax codes.

Transfer pricing is an incredibly complex thing. Normal people can't

take advantage of it, it is not the same as a duty-free. You are

distracting from the point I'm making. You want a general anti-

avoidance rule, applying to everyone, I assume. Living in a

time, let me finish my point, let me finish, we are living in a time

unprecedented cuts that is causing damage to people's lives, and

women's services which is what being protested about on the

weekend. This is about cuts not tax. Tax avoidance corporation, loses

�25 billion a year. What about personal tax avoidance. That is a

different issue. Hang on, you said earlier you want a general anti-

avoidance principle, I'm trying to work out. You can write the

principle in such a way. I'm trying to work out why the general anti-

avoidance principle you argued for, doesn't apply to duty-free

cigarettes. We as a society will write that and exclude that, we

will write the general anti- avoidance rule and decide what goes

in it. We don't have to include that. OK you two, let someone else

have a say. If I behaved, you know, at the moment, extraordinary, these

large companies now negotiating their tax with the Government. I

would love the tax man to call me up and say come out for a cup of

coffee and we will negotiate my tax, that is not how it works. If the

Government agrees there is nothing wrong with it? There is a

difference between what is legal and what is moral. What is legal

must track what is moral. That, if it doesn't track, to some degree,

that people recognise, out there, there is a great deal of political,

social, unhappiness about this sort of thing. Clearer, simpler tax

codes. You have been very restrained, come on? On the moral

point. Clearly all human activity has a moral angle to it. I think it

is incumbent of all of us in our public lives to think about that.

In whatever walk of life we are in. But there is also some pragmatisim

to this. The fact of the matter is, we need this economy, we need, for

this economy to improve, for more jobs to come, we need inbound

investment, we need healthy companies locating here. The

Government has done a lot of work to make the UK a more attractive

environment, both for people to headquarters. That is an argument

for lowering taxes? To attract inbound investment. There is a real

danger with this debate. Bear in mind when I talk to my colleagues

globally the UK is leading this debate like this. There is a real

danger that we are putting off those investors. I'm hearing that.

You can't be black mailed by large companies. It is not a question of

blackmail. There are 62 million people in this country, they will

make profits if they pay their fair share of tax, they will make

profits on it, that is why they are here. The idea that we will up

sticks and go if you don't like paying the tax. There will be some

tax rates the UK could have that would be too high people would go

elsewhere. You know, that the levels of taxation that are being

paid here are silly low, silly low. Silly high. There is a level, there

is a level which is fair, it is fair to business, indigenous

businesses that work here, it is fair to those of us who receive the

benefit, all of us who receive the benefit of taxation. The idea that

you could ship out your responsibilities and warehouse them

overseas is clearly morally wrong, and pragmatism is no alibi.

would you increase tax revenues? I'm interested in people paying

their fair share of that. I think that's what is crucial here.

think it should be higher? Yes, if a company like Amazon and Starbucks

are paying the minuscule amounts that we have at the moment, then,

yes, they should be paying a lot more. How would you change the

corporation tax rules? Luckily I'm not an accountant so I can't do

that. It is a much harder task than you are saying. We can put a man on

the moon we can make this work. Thank you all very much.

Now, a cure for cancer is the Holy Grail of medical research, yet is

it possible that the law is preventing doctors from making

progress? A Private Members Bill introduced

in the House of Lords this afternoon, more or less claims it

may be. According to Lord Saatchi, the advertising empresary and

former chairman of the Conservative Party, the law xels doctors to

stick to conventional treatments. He lost his wife to ovarian cancer,

the treatment of which is harsh and almost always unsuccessful, why not

free doctors to try something new? He's with us.

There have been incredible advances in the treatment of many cancers,

childhood cancers stand out. Broadly, we are doing well in

common cancers such as breast and colorectal cancers, but less well

with brain and pancreatic cancers. Maurice Saatchi says he wants to

help people to treat harder to treat cancers, including ovarian

cancers, including the one that his wife died from. He his says goal,

introduced through a Private Members Bill in the Lords today, is

to create greater innovation in cancer treatment. In the framework,

doctors can try new treatment. The idea is to free them from the

threat of being sued from departure from the range of conventional

treatments, without condoning recklessness.

Aren't there other factors, than fear of being sued, like lack of

money for research, why the need for a new law. When a doctor thinks

about how they are faced with a difficult clinical sin Nair hey,

they take all the appropriate measure, that is referrals, --

scenario, they take all the appropriates, referrals, talking to

patients, giving them the advantages and disadvantages of one

treatment or another. There is always the questions in the back of

the mind, what happens if something goes wrong. The bill helps clarify

the situation, that if something goes wrong, then the doctor will be

less liable. Some cancer charities support the

move, they say there is a need to challenge the status quo. We would

support anything that will improve the survival rates for women with

this disease. The treatment for ovarian cancer has hardly changed

in the last 30 years, this will give women the opportunity to talk

to their doctor and say, what is the right treatment for my disease.

Because we know that one size doesn't fit all.

This cancer research centre in Cambridge aims to link laboratory

research to practical applications in the clinic. James Brenton

specialises in ovarian cancers, in particular why treatments work for

some women and not others. So does he think fear of being sued is

holding back innovation in cancer treatment? No, I don't think it is

litigation fears. I think it is really a lack of understanding

about what is happening in the cancer when a patient has relapsed

with ovarian cancer. If we look at other cancers where survival has

changed dramatically over the past 20 years, like breast cancer, we

have identified particular changes that mean specific therapies work

very well for those women. We don't have that information yet for

ovarian cancer, that limits the opportunities for new medicines to

come into the treatment of the disease.

He says the current survival rates for ovarian cancer are not as good

as he or others would like. survival for most women with

ovarian cancer is 20-30% of those women still alive in five years,

using the medicines we have, the chemotherapy drugs. Even in the

most severe cases, 15 out of 100 are still alive. We are not happy

about the survival figures, we do know the medicines we have cause

great benefit in the short-term, the problem is the patients become

resistant to the chemotherapy drugs, that is the reason for the low

survival. Ovarian cancer is one of the most intractable of cancers.

The majority of women present with late-stage cancer, and survival in

these women have not improved significantly in recent years.

According to to Cancer Research UK, overall cancer rates of survival

have doubled in the last 40 years, with half of people diagnosed with

cancer surviving their disease for at least five years. In the 1960s,

only around a quarter of children survived cancer, now almost three-

quarters will survive for more than ten years, with many of those being

cured of their disease. The bill raises concerns about the

level of innovation in cancer treatment, but even for ovarian

cancers, the future looks more promising. There is good evidence

that good research into ovarian cancer will change the outcome,

they are medicines called PARP inhibitors, for those with a gene-

change in ovarian cancer which will change the outcome and cure more

patients. James Brenton says his team is researching other promising

avenues, such as a simple blood test to spot changes within a

single cancer, by looking for cancer DNA in a patient's blood.

While those behind today's bill say they agree with more kept kal

colleagues, that some form of clin -- sceptical colleagues, that

Transformers of clinical trial must be the basis of deciding to try new

treatments, in the future, they say, as gene-based approaches, allow

therapies targeted at individual patients, that fine tuning itself,

pay mean large-scale clinical trials are not always possible.

Lord Saatchi is with us now, you lost your wife to cancer in the

summer of last year. Was there a particular point in the treatment

where you realised that the law needed to be changed. I realised

the progress of cancer is relentless, remorseless, and

merciless. I also observed that the current treatments, certainly for

the kind of women's gynaecological cancer I'm now an expert in, these

treatments are medieval, degrading, and ineffective. If I may suggest,

the most useful way we could have this conversation, if it is all

right with you, is in terms of problem-solution. I will try to

describe the problem, I will have to be very stark about it, because

otherwise it will be quite possible for somebody to say, well, it is

not necessarily for this change in the law. May I do that? Please.

the moment women would think of the worst part of cancer treatment as

being hair loss. Caused by the drugs. And for a woman, in

particular, I think, hair loss is most distressing. But I can assure

you that hair loss is the good news. The less good news is that the

effects of the drugs, they cause and mimic the disease, with

symptoms like nausea, sorry about this, vomiting, fatigue, most

distressing, but I'm still in the good news, because the really bad

news is that the effect of the drugs on the immune system of the

woman, allow fatal infection to enter the body, and then the woman

is as likely to die from the infection as from the cancer.

That's the problem, if I can put it that way. Then we can come on to

the solution to that problem. does your bill propose? The bill

starts from the position that the current law is a barrier to

progress in solving the problem I have just described. A barrier to

progress in curing cancer. This is because any deviation, by a doctor,

from what his standard procedure, is liable to lead to a finding of

guilt for medal negligence. In other words, this is a deterrent --

medical negligence. In other words this is a deterrent. This is so

should somebody sue? Yes. Have doctors said that is deterring them

from trying other forms of treatment because of this?

trafting of this bill, taking place -- drafting of this bill, taking

place by some great parliamentary draftmen and great medical figures

in this country, has dealt with exactly that question, that the

fear in the mind of any doctor, that any departure from standard

procedure, will cost them their livelihood, and their reputation.

That's very serious what this bill will do is relieve them of that

burden, and allow more innovation. What it won't do is to create a

situation in which doctors are free to experiment in a reckless manner.

In fact, I would say, not to go on, I would say that this bill will do

more to deter reckless innovation, than the present law. Because it

sets out, after much consultation with the medical profession. It set

out a procedure, a process, which constitutes responsible innovation.

It contrasts that with reckless experimentation, which puts

patients lives at risk. But the reason there is an insistence upon

conforming to recognised treatment, is precisely to protect the patient

from quickry? Quickry, snake oil salesmen, -- Quackery, snake oil

salesman? This bill will protect better than the current low. The

bill sets out a hard process for a doctor to follow, if he is to

innovate in a responsible manner. Have you any examples of the way in

which this fear you say doctors have has got in the way of

innovation? The fear I describe is in the mind of all doctors at all

times. How would it not be. If you were the patient and I was the

doctor, and I could see your situation was grim, there is

nothing I can do for you, because my situation, as a doctor, is if I

depart from what is standard, my entire family, my livelihood, my

reputation, is likely to be destroyed. That's a problem. The

current law is case law, if this bill became law, this would become

statute law, and the definition of responsible innovation, instead of

being uncertain, as it is now, would become certain, because it

would be in the law. Can you give me an example of the

sort of thing you are thinking of? I'm not thinking that there is over

there a cure for cancer, which if only it could be picked up and

grout into a patients' hospital room everything would be well. --

brought into a patients' hospital room everything would be we will.

This bill won't cure cancer, it is to encourage the man or woman who

will cure cancer. I assume like all medical discoveries, like the

discould havery of pencilian or insulin, it will -- discovery of

pencilian or insulin, it will be that one man or woman will have an

idea in their head about how to cure Cannes, and they will pursue

it with great -- cancer, and they will pursue it with great rigour

and encouraged by it. This bill will encourage that. Do you think,

because of the advances we have made in mapping the human genome,

and all of rest of it, because of that gene therapy, and one thing or

another, we may be at the point where there is the possibility of

change, and some how the inhibitions on how doctors behave

are stopping that? I couldn't have put it better than the way you have

just put it. I'm very hopeful, as the oncologist on your film said. I

hope he's right. I haven't seen that myself. The survival rates in

the kind of cancer I'm familiar with are zero. The mortality rate

is 100%. And those rates are, as your film showed, the same as 40

years ago. The question one must ask is how is this possible? How

could there possibly have been such tremendous technological advance,

at a breath-taking rate, in so many fields, but not in cancer. They

have in some areas of cancer, haven't they? In some areas. Of

this improved considerably, not in this Cannes r cancer. Not owe vair

-- Cancer. Not ovarian cancer. should address why that should be.

When do you think the bill might become law?. That is a very telling

question. The bill will become law when the Government decides it will

become law. I have produced the bill in the House of Lords. Have

they given you any indication they will support you? No, I imagine

what the Government will say, when you ask them, is all is well, the

Government are doing a marvellous job investing tremendous sums,

great research is taking place everywhere, and no Government could

do more. I expect that's what they will say. But that would be very

dim of them. So, knowing how intelligent the Prime Minister is,

I doubt that will be his response. I'm looking forward to tremendous

support. Lord Saatchi, thank you. It's over a year since the end of

the war which brought down the dictatorship of Colonel Gaddafi in

Libya. What bright hopes there were. The country has now staged

elections and a new Prime Minister struggles to chart a new course for

his country, including, he says, the promotion of human rights. But

Libya is very far from free. Something like seven or eight

though people are being held by various militias or gangs, which

control many of the streets. Women who took part in the struggle to

dump a dictator, now find themselves at the particular mercy

of Islamist gangs. Tim Whewell has been speaking to one of them.

It was a victory over one of the world's most enduring dictatorships,

a victory hastened by British political and military support.

is great to be here in free Benghazi, and in free Libya.

Your city was an inspiration to the world, as you threw off a dictator

But one young Libyan, who chose freedom, can't enjoy its fruits. An

ardent revolutionly, Magdulien Abaida is facing the cold reality

of exile on the epbl of the North Sea. She has been given -- end of

the North Sea. She has been given asylum by David Cameron's

Government, to protect her from some of the forces that are at work

in Libya. To have this revolution, and work hard for this revolution,

and then, in the end, after that you just have to leave it. Because

it is not a safe place for you any more.

During the revolution everybody was united, we all were working

together. But now, it's quite difficult.

Sunderland, where she knows no-one, is now her temporary home, at the

end of tumultuous year-and-a-half, when she joined protests against

Colonel Gaddafi, helped organise medical and food supplies for the

rebels, and then, in liberated Libya, began to campaign for

women's rights. It was that struggle against

discrimination, she believes, that put her life at risk. One of the

women's meetings she attended in Benghazi this summer was

interrupted by armed men. They came and took me from my room, five men.

They were armed. They asked me to go with them. I asked them who they

were, they said that I will know. Her captors, she says, were members

of the revolutionary militias. The brigades were formed from

volunteers, who took up arms against Gaddafi, in the spring of

last year. But after his overthrow, many

refused to integrate into a national army. And some, that

operate as a law unto themselves, particularly in Benghazi, have

strongly Islamist views. It was one of those militias, that seized her

during the women's rights workshop, she was released, but abducted

again the next day and taken to their base. Someone came and he

started kicking me. And then, he was hitting me with his feet, and

with his gun. He was telling me that I he will kill me and bury me

here, and nobody knows. He was calling me an Israeli spy, and

calling me whore and bitch, and tell me about my morals. You don't

have any. He hit me in my face, and he started, he keeps swearing.

These are the bruises she was left with. He was telling me he can kill

me, right now, and bury me here, and nobody knows about me. I

thought that I'm not going to, I will be killed in that place.

Eventually released, but accused by the militia of working for Israel,

which she strongly denies. She fled the country. Her application for

asylum here was supported by Amnesty International. This case is

really emblematic of the kind of behaviour, as Amnesty International

we have documented since the fall of the former Government, our

militias are acting completely out of control. There are hundreds of

them across the country. People who have been tortured and died under

torture and held incommunicado, all of this is happening while the

Government is watching and unable to rein them in. Angry crowds

stormed military bases, demanding an end to the lawless brigades,

that came after accusations that some had been involved in the

attack on the US consolate, and the assassination of the US Ambassador.

The Libyan Government vowed to bring them under control, so far to

no effect. Among those kidnapped and tortured

is one of Libya's best-known brain surgeons.

Is that embarrassing for Britain, the UK spent hundreds of millions

of pounds on the air campaign that helped overthrow Gaddafi, but did

it also help unleash forces that can't now be easily controlled.

are concerned, we are working with a Government that is also concerned

about it. We are trying to make sure we provide advice to

particular ministries, the Ministry of Justice, Interior, defence, in

human rights issues. We are training people, and spending money

on projects so more people are able to understand human rights

principles and putting them in action. We are trying to be

strategic with our help, practical in terms of assistance, and we are

working with people who recognise, that although they are making some

progress, clearly they have many challenges after 40 years.

The hope is, that Libya's new Government, appointed this month,

after a long period of political uncertainty, can end the abuses.

The new Justice Minister is a former human rights lawyer. We need

to put an immediate end to all human rights abuses, particularly

in Libyan prisons and detention centres. This is a problem that we

are facing, we are not shying from it, we are not denying it. We know

we have a big prob blems and - problem, and we have the will. To

put an end to that. Back in Sunderland, Magdulien

Abaida thinks it will be a long time before it is safe for her to

go back. Grateful to have been given refuge

by the UK, she's going now to pick up the papers that will allow her

to stay in Britain. She will be campaigning from here,

to end, what she sees, as efforts by Islamic fundamentalists in Libya

to roll back women's rights. It is like now we have to control women,

we have to hide them, so we can improve. Which is like, it is a big

shock for us. The revolution would have been

impossible without the work of women, who fed the frontline, and

performed many other tasks. Afterwards, some set about

empowering themselves to demand a bigger political role too. They

were horrified that the rebel leader, Mustafa Abdul Jalil, used

his Liberation Day speech to suggest making it easier for men to

have more than one wife. This is not why we made the revolution, not

for men to marry four women, the revolution was made by women and

men, and we wanted more rights, and not to destroy the rights of half

of the society. And again, when the female compere at the ceremony to

transfer power to the new parliament was heckled off stage

for not wearing a veil, and replaced by a man.

There have been reports too of women harassed by militias, for

sitting at cafes on their own at night. But Libya's always been a

conservative society, and though she doesn't live in Libya full-time,

activists, Sara Maziq, thinks women are achieving far more now than

they could ever under Gaddafi. Currently we have 33 women in our

Congress, we have two ministers in our previous transitional

Government, and now two ministers in this Government. I think there

is a lot of positive signs. I do hold a lot of hope in our new Prime

Minister. I know previously he was a humam rights activist. I know

that he supports fully women's rights. We need to look at the

overall picture, and the overall picture what is happening in Libya,

as far as I'm concerned, as a Libyan, is really in some ways a

miracle. But Magdulien Abaida can't return to the activism that helped

make her a target of the Islamists' wrath. If you went back to Libya

now, what do you think will happen to you? They will detain me

directly. And then? I don't know. Maybe they release me before, now,

if they catch me again they wouldn't release me any more.

There we are. That's it for now the Turner Prize

was won tonight by Elizabeth Price, whose video installation, the

Woolworth's Choir of 1979, tells the story of a fire that destroyed

a city centre store and left ten icey start in Scotland, but only a

patchy frost in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Further showers

coming in on the breeze here. Mostly of rain. And very few

showers for the east and south-east of England. Let's take a look at

things into the afternoon. Showers in North West England, some filter

towards the Midland. Increasing cloud. For East Anglia and the east,

sunshine here, temperatures not as high as they were today, as seven

or eight degrees. Showers across south-west England, is sunshine

inbetween. As there will be to showers in Wales. We don't welcome

any more rain to the flood-affected areas, at least it is not a

constant rain. For Northern Ireland sunshine and showers, with

temperatures around five or six degrees, a few showers brushing the

far south-west of Scotland. Elsewhere a cold day in Scotland,

cloud around an area of rain, sleet and hill know nudging south across

northern Scotland. This is the picture for Tuesday into Wednesday.

On Wednesday there will be a lot of sunshine around, the fine day but a

cold one, across the bulk of the UK. Make the most of all of that, after