07/12/2012 Newsnight


07/12/2012

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Tonight, turning crisis into opportunity. Faced with the worst

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economic conditions in decades, is it time to think big, and downsize

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the state. If you were starting from scratch, what would the

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Government control. We ask our radical thinkers how big it should

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Also tonight, more trouble and strive, the Government wants

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churches -- strife, the Government want Channel Tunnels to hold gay

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marriage. What do the Clergy make of this, we ask a couple of members.

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The map of the Blitz where every red dot marks a bomb. When they

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walked back home the house had been bombed and they were nowhere to be

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found. Good evening, you never want a

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serious crisis to go to waste, Obama's former righthand man, Rahm

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Emanuel, memorably claimed. Tonight, faced with one of the bleakest

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outlooks the country has ever faced. We asked what it would take to make

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a clean start of the crisis. We enter territory we rarely touch,

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the realms of what if. What if you could start again, to take account

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of your straitened times, would you roll back Government to its core

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purpose, if so, what would that be? How would we define our welfare

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sector, and what would we leave to the private sector.

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Don't like the state we are in, perhaps we should...start again. Go

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back to something like a blank sheet of paper. Afterall, it is

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only 100 years or so Agatha the British state was far smaller.

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-- or so ago the British state was So how did we get from there to

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this? The short answer is war. Taylor says the state established a

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grip over citizens and never let go. That grip has got tighter, given

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our tight fiscal times, is there a case for deciding what we really

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need the state to do, and what we can perhaps do without. It is what

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management consultants call zero- based budgeting. Under the model

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that we have been pursuing, basically, since World War I, the

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way the state starts providing private goods increasingly to the

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population. You have an obvious problem, you will run into proob

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emblem one day that what has -- a problem one day, that what has been

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given can't be taken away. You must have free bus passs or TV licenses,

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or free access to university, then you try to take it away, there is a

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big kerfuffle, sometimes you can take it away a bit, and sometimes

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not. This whole system is crazy. There has been plenty written about

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reducing the state to its core. Economists like Milton Friedman,

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who won the Nobel Prize, argue that state bureaucracy has not only

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infant sized citizens, they have a powerful incentive to increase

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their size and scope. His ideas were so controversial, that even

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his Nobel ceremony was interrupted by protest. I believe that the

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essential element of putting Britain on a prosperous track, for

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a long period of time, is to get the Government reduced in size, and

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to get rid of Government control over large areas of your economy.

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Friedman thought you could reduce the role of the state to a few core

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functions, defence of the nation. We need a mill treatment

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arbitration of disputes and enforcements of contracts, we need

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a court service. And protecting the individual from crime against

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themselves and their property. So we need a police force. And that,,

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pretty much is it. Of course, that would mean the

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state withdrawing from areas like health and education. Which, for

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many, perhaps the majority, is, well, unthinkable.

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But remember, not that long ago, the majority thought the state was

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best-placed to build cars and run airlines. Although health and

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education are vital, are they more vital thaned food. We don't have a

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national food service. Where state agencies do get involved with food,

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we get the common agricultural policy, and the result is often

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criminal waste and more expensive food for the public. The classical

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liberal views, that the irreducable core of what the state should spent

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on is public -- spend on is public goods. The classic is street

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lighting. Once the street lights up everybody can use them, they are

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non-excludable, as it is put. If people had to buy them privately,

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there would be an undersupply of them. I won't buy them becausely

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think you will buy them and I will free ride on you, and you will do

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the same you force people to buy them through taxation. Public goods,

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the famous public goods are things like street lighting and maybe

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rubbish collection, national defence, the rule of law, which

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comprises of the police and the courts. Some think that modern

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politics is hastening the day when we have a reduced core state, that

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so many voters currently benefit from state spending, either as

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employees or recipients, that any reductions become impossible.

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Witness the rows this week over the measures contained in the Autumn

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Statement. That means we will simply carry on borrowing until the

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markets say enough, and we find ourselves with no alternative, than

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to contemplate that blank page. With me now is Nassim Nicholas

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Taleb, author of Black Swan, and the former economic advise Tory

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George W Bush, and Matthew Taylor. If we were starting from scratch

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now, you looking in on this country, what would be core purpose and what

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would be auxiliary? There is a social contract between citizens

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and their state, the citizens agree to pay taxes in exchange for the

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state to do certain things. The voice of what the state ought to do

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will vary from country to country. The French answer to where you draw

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the line between public and private sector is different from the

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English answer. Is it to do the economic state the country is in?

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No it isn't. The Soviet Union discovered is the state can run out

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of money and cease to exist. We are at a critical moment in the United

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Kingdom and the United States, and all the indebted countries, where

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we have to address the question that what is the purpose and role

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of the function of the state. You can't have a system where the

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amount of money coming in is less than the amount of money going out,

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in payments, in benefits, to the public. So we have to be balanced.

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I'm saying Government has to take in more than it spends or it seass

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to be able to survive. Give me specific -- Saezs to be able to

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survive. Give me specifics? Given that everything has to be cut, we

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don't have enough cash, not here or in the United States to pay for

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everything promised to the citizens, so we have to put everything. There

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is no choice, it is not a redistribution argument F you taxed,

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for example, 1 -- if you taxed, for example, 100% of American citizens'

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income, we would still have a multigenerational debt problem. It

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is not a question of redistribution. Everything has to be renegotiated

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between citizens and state as to who will deliver what. The state is

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defaulting on the citizen, that is what austerity is. Would you agree

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that redistribution is way beyond this? I hate to introduce concept

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actual clarity to the debate, you have to clarify the size of the

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state, what the state does and regulation by the state. You could

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have a state that spend as lot of money, but doesn't provide services,

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or you could have a state that doesn't spend much money or provide

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services but regulates a lot. There is lots of ways the state

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influences things. We shouldn't underestimate the way the state

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changes any way. In the last few years the state has gotten out of

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the financing of higher education but more money has gone into early

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years. The state has gone out of the funding of nationalised

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industries. So actually, over time, what the state does and doesn't do,

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does actually naturally change. you think we are on the right track,

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with the examples you have used, do you think this is the right

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direction of travel? Well, we clearly are going to face some

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extremely difficult choices, coming up, there is no question about that.

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Whatever you think the right economic strategy is, we have got a

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big hole, and we will have to address that hole. That will take

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some difficult decisions. I think probably, the problem for the

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coalition at the moment, is it has ring-fenced certain areas, and if

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it is to be believed, the consequences that large swathes of

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Government will virtually disappear, in order to defend certain sacred

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cows, I don't think that is a terribly rational strategy. We are

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on hypothetical ground, starting with a blank sheet, and saying what

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should happen? I'm looking, smiling at this debate. The whole entire

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debate was Milton Friedman's archaic. The point is not the state,

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it is the private sector, the problem is to do with size. The

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most successful model in modern history, it is not the nation state.

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It was created recently, it failed twice in Ancient Egypt and China T

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started again, a century-and-a-half ago in Europe as an epidemic. The

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model that has worked is the bottom-up semi-state model. The

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governance is much better at the local level, city states. When you

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say city states, I think of Singapore, that can't work across

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the world? New York is a city state. Switzerland is a bottom-up

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municiple. These are smaller places? The idea

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that size matters a lot for more governance than the nature of the

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political system. That is what people fail to understand. Let me

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explain, you are top-down, sitting in Whitehall or Washington, and you

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make a mistake, you have no skin in the game, nobody will know a spread

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sheet will know about your mistake. It is theoretical. You are a local

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mayor, you make a mistake, and you are penalised by people around you.

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Let me add one thing. Let me bring you in at this exact point, the

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idea of localism and being accountable? I think it is exactly

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bright, Benjamin Barber is bringing out a book about If Mayors Ruled

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the World, mayors are more popular than prime ministers and presidents,

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nation state is too far away. 50 years ago a sociologist famously

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said in the modern world the state is too big for the small things in

:11:38.:11:48.
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life and too big small for the big things in life. It is about how the

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state operates. My profession is on risk business, you want to know the

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risk of projects failing, or not being delivered on time and cost

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overrun and failure to predict, simple. A �100 million project has

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up to 30% more cost overruns than a �5 billion project. The reason we

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have size is to save money, you agree, and to make things easier.

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Size comes with more and more errors errors that can be

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devastating. If it is that simple, if small things are safer and work

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better, why do we think so big, why do we talk in big Government?

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I do think there is an element of once, I think Milton Friedman said,

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there is nothing so permanent than a temporary Government programme.

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Once you create something, it is difficult to deconstruct it and

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take it away. Again, I think the critical issue isn't about the size

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of Government, it is about balancing how much you bring in, in

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terms of cash, and how much you are spending. The problem we face in

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all the industrialised countries is that, since the Second World War,

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we have been very lucky with demographics, we had baby-boom. The

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amount of money coming into the system was larger than the amount

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that needed to be paid out. This demographic has begun to change,

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and we built all our expectations that we could continue funding with

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debt permanently, that isn't true. Hang on, we also allowed, over the

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last 20 or 30 years, a massive increase in inequality, that

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increase in the level of inequality, is one of the things that fuelled

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the risks that led to the credit crunch. What leads to the growth of

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the state is want to go enhance entitlement, there is nothing wrong

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with that, want ago decent education for every child, and

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basic healthcare. We have to move to a place where we have basic

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entitledment but change how they are delivered. Your experience with

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Tony Blair, you must have had these conversations about what power you

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let go of, he brought in devolution. But it is very hard for politicians

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in power to let go? It is hard. And one of the reasons it is hard is

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because we have, it is not just the state that centralises, the

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corporate centre is centralised, the media is centralised. Ministers

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face the problem of going on radio and TV and defending the actions of

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someone who is operating anywhere in England, because we expect

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Whitehall to take responsibility for. That one of the things

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politicians have to get used to, is saying that is not my job any more.

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I have genuinely devolved responsibility for that. What

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happens in your model, where every tiny state operates in its own

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autonomy, what happens when there is failure? The beauty of the

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bottom-up. Cities go bankrupt, 20 years ago we were talking about

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cities going bankrupt left, right and centre. The difference is some

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cities will be successful and some will fail. There will be pressure

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and competition between them. can't literally have a city where

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people are living, failing, right? You can manage. New York had to

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pull out of and and compete. The state can step in for emergencies.

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We are not arguing that we should let them. You have the safety net

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of the state. You have to define an emergency? The point is, people

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mistake interventionism, in regular affairs, micromanaging things,

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which the state does, and invariably ends up doing, with the

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being there for emergency room. We need the state for emergencies. We

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need the state for things that cannot be done locally, for big

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failures, but we don't need the state to come and tell us how to

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increase happiness, we need the state to decrease unhappiness.

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is so easy to get into the hypothetical realm, let's go back

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to practical issues. I think you will always create a problem, this

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will be a controversial, if you pay people more to not work than to

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work. For example, you will always have a problem if you have an

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environment in which a fireman and a police officer cannot live within

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an hour of where they work, because prices have gone so far out of

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control. So there are some basic rules of the game. Whether you are

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a Conservative or a liberal, it doesn't matter. Again, it just

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comes down to balance sheet management, and one of the problems

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we have had, is the Governments are not subject to the same accounting

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rules as corporations and therefore, they borrow more than they should.

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It is also true that when the market fails, as it has,

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disastrously in the last few years, thank God for the state, if it

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wasn't for the state we would be in the real state of collapse.

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state causeded it to collapse. You have the state bailing out and

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allowing something too big to fail. We have run out of time. Should gay

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marriages be allowed to take place within a church. The Prime Minister

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has confirmed he wants MPs to vote on legislation, which would allow

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the ceremonies to be conducted in places of religious worship, no

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wonder the plans to be set out this week, religious organisations,

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which do not want to hold these services, will be given legal

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protection. Guaranteed exemption. It is something that has brought

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the three main party leaders together. A vow to support the

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right for gay couples to get married. But there is significant

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opposition from the Tory backbenches. Perhaps suspecting

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they are not all likely to honour and obey, David Cameron has

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promised a free vote on the issue. I'm in favour of gay marriage,

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because I'm a massive supporter of marriage, and I don't want gay

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people to be excluded from great institution.

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Key to the Government's response to the consultation, will be its

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proposal that churches and other religious institutions can marry

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gay couples if they wish, but legal protection given to those who

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prefer to remain exempt. This is unlikely to end the trouble

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and strife, the consultation period has exposed very public divisions.

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The Church of England, itself reeling after its synod voted

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against women bishops, remains firmly opposed to gay weddings,

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arguing they would lead to the deillusion of marriage.

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The Government -- deluegs of marriage. The Government hopes to

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have a vote before Easter, and applying to the statutes before

:18:20.:18:24.

2014, that is assuming the Lords doesn't block it. In which case,

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the honeymoon may have to just wait. Does the proposed legislation go

:18:31.:18:39.

far enough or too far. We have my guest, one in favour of marriage,

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and a group committed to the biblical teaching on marriage.

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Would you be happy to see gay marriages conducted in your church?

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No, because for two reasons, one, the concept of gay marriage is a

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contradiction in temples, it is not marriage. It would change -- in

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terms, it is not marriage, it would change everybody's marriage. We are

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not interested in protected churches on this. The fact of the

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matter is marriage is not just something for believers, it is for

:19:08.:19:10.

everybody. We are interested in the issue for the whole of the state.

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It is interesting, following your recent piece on the size of the

:19:14.:19:19.

state, here we have a Conservative Prime Minister, interfering in the

:19:19.:19:21.

religious beliefs, in fact the religious institutions of a society.

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This is extraordinary. Let me ask, would you be happy to see any

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service take place in any church? No, because...This Isn't about a

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personal church, you think it shouldn't be any church? It is

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saying, this will be saying that God blesses something, which he

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clearly teaches, both in creation and in the Bible Bible, he does not

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bless, it is not -- in the Bible, he does not bless, it is not right.

:19:49.:19:54.

This would come from the synod, you would say the Bible is the top, but

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in legislative terms, this would be something the synod would oppose,

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right? The House of Bishops of the Church of England, in response to

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the Government's consultation, said that they could not support the

:20:05.:20:13.

concept of gay marriage. This won't happen, then? Will it?

:20:13.:20:18.

think marriage will be opened as far as we can see to gay people, as

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well as straight people in Britain, at some time, in the next few years,

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maybe as early as 2015. But not in churches? Some churches, because

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there are churches who believe quite as strongly that they should

:20:30.:20:33.

marry gay people, as there are church that is believe they

:20:33.:20:36.

shouldn't. What would happen to those churches, then, would they be

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outside the thinking of the rest of the Church of England, what

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position would these churches who went against that be? You can say

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people have a right to object to marrying particular people, that is

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well enshrined in English law, for example, Clergy can object to

:20:57.:21:01.

marrying divorcees, that is the case since the 1920s, there have

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been provisions for Clergy's consciences since 1907, deceased

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wives' sisters. You don't need anything in law that protects you,

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you have always had the right to protect yourself from certain kinds

:21:18.:21:23.

of marriages? On-air I was discussing with maybe of the gay

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and lesbian transgender movement, who said they would bring cases

:21:28.:21:32.

against churches who wouldn't. This is a red herring, the issue is not

:21:32.:21:36.

whether or not it is in churches, the Government is trying to buy off

:21:36.:21:39.

religious opposition. We will send to every parliamentarian, is there

:21:39.:21:43.

a case for same-sex marriages, and issues of eligibility and

:21:43.:21:48.

consequences next week. It sets out hard social scientific evidence

:21:48.:21:51.

that same-sex marriage, same-sex relationships, formallising them in

:21:52.:21:58.

society is not a good thing for human flourishing. Scientific is a

:21:58.:22:03.

powerful word to use in an argument like this? Extraordinary, there are

:22:03.:22:06.

several jurisdictions in the world where there is marriage equality,

:22:06.:22:12.

the sky hasn't fallen in, in any many of them marriage is stronger,

:22:12.:22:15.

divorce rates have come down in some of them. We don't know what

:22:15.:22:18.

the relationship is, quite honestly there is absolutely no evidence

:22:18.:22:22.

that the sky falls in when you do it. Why not do it tomorrow, if they

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are always going to oppose it on that side of the church, why would

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you even wait for the Prime Minister, or the MPs to introduce

:22:28.:22:33.

it? I think, very sadly, the Church of England has a long debate about

:22:33.:22:36.

this, 20, 30, years ago we were thinking seriously about the

:22:37.:22:42.

position of gay people in society, in the 1990, it became politicised,

:22:42.:22:47.

I put my head over the parapet on gay marriage earlier thisy, I have

:22:47.:22:51.

had 500 responses from people, including many Clergy in the Church

:22:51.:22:54.

of England, the overwhelming majority of them are in favour of

:22:54.:22:57.

marriage equality, it is about one in ten weren't, of the responses I

:22:57.:23:00.

got. The interesting ones were people who said we can't talk about

:23:00.:23:04.

it, what we need to do is talk about it. By not having gay

:23:04.:23:07.

marriages in the Church of England for a while, that will give us

:23:07.:23:17.

space to work this one out properly, and look find the rather infatanile

:23:17.:23:22.

terms it has been talked about. you worried about getting left

:23:22.:23:25.

behind and making yourself irrelevant, if the vast majority of

:23:25.:23:28.

people have moved on, on this issue? The Church of England has

:23:28.:23:32.

never set its doctrine by public opinion poll or popularity. It has

:23:32.:23:36.

changed it? What has changed it? has changed, for example, whether

:23:37.:23:40.

it will marry people who have had sex before marriage, whether it

:23:40.:23:44.

will, as the examples were given, brothers of the dead brothers and

:23:44.:23:48.

all the rest of it, these things do move on? That is all within the

:23:48.:23:53.

concept of woman and man as the fundamental components of marriage.

:23:53.:23:57.

Why should that be a stronger definition than any of other

:23:57.:24:01.

examples? The evidence is, the evidence is that for human

:24:01.:24:04.

flourishing, for providing children with the rights to have a mother

:24:04.:24:10.

and a father, for the best context for both children being reared, and

:24:10.:24:13.

also for long-term. Real marriage ensures the future. The evidence is

:24:14.:24:18.

that if you want to have a life- long committed same-sex

:24:18.:24:24.

relationship, hold on, hold on. don't mind marrying older people

:24:24.:24:29.

who might not pro-create? If you have that, then non-monogamous

:24:29.:24:32.

same-sex relationships are much more continuous than if you are

:24:33.:24:37.

monogamous, it is different for marriage. You asked me then,

:24:37.:24:41.

another question, which was? If it is about procreation, why don't you

:24:41.:24:44.

mind marrying older people who aren't having children? Because,

:24:44.:24:49.

two reasons, it is pro-creative in principle, and secondly, they can

:24:49.:24:58.

still be a mother and father to children. The using phrase "equal"

:24:58.:25:02.

it changes marriage for everyone. have discovered there are gay

:25:02.:25:07.

couples in Britain, living together in fruitful, joyful relationships,

:25:07.:25:12.

sometimes for 20, 30 years, which entirelyly mirror the Christian

:25:12.:25:15.

virtues of marriage. As far as marriage being gendered, that is a

:25:15.:25:19.

strand of Christian teaching on marriage, not exclusively so. In

:25:19.:25:22.

the Bible the church is described as the bride of Christ, that

:25:22.:25:25.

doesn't mean all Christians are female, it doesn't mean they have

:25:25.:25:31.

to have sex, and who are the kids? It reduces it to be absurdity to

:25:31.:25:36.

say it is engendered in that way, it shouldn't be now. I disagree.

:25:36.:25:38.

Thank you for coming in if and talking about it.

:25:38.:25:46.

It is called, compellingly, bomb site.org, an interactive --

:25:47.:25:51.

bombsite.org, an interactive map that illustrates where each bomb

:25:51.:25:58.

fell in the blits and how the city was affected. The bliplts, which

:25:58.:26:02.

killed thousands and destroyed more than a million homes. This map

:26:02.:26:06.

pieces together the targeting, with photos and the history that arose

:26:06.:26:16.

from it. They accumulate and cluster, as

:26:16.:26:22.

though in an unwanted finding on a medical chart. In fact, this is the

:26:22.:26:27.

pathology of London during the Blitz. Each red dot represents a

:26:27.:26:32.

bomb site. Take a suburban street like Pember Road in Kensal Rise, in

:26:32.:26:38.

the North West of theAl. The new website records that -- of the

:26:38.:26:41.

capital. The new website records that Nazi bombers struck here. The

:26:41.:26:46.

houses all looked like this, except here, where number 24 used to be.

:26:46.:26:51.

have a couple of pictures here of Ivy. My cousin was left in the

:26:51.:26:56.

house, at the age of 16, very responsible lady. And the parents,

:26:56.:27:03.

my uncle and aunt, went out, probably to the Kilburn Empire,

:27:03.:27:10.

which they used to frequent, had a lovely evening. When they walked

:27:10.:27:17.

back home, the house had been bombed. Ivy was nowhere to be found.

:27:18.:27:25.

But she was found some while later, she had been, the house had

:27:25.:27:27.

suffered pretty well a direct hit and she was blown to piece. This is

:27:27.:27:33.

the sad thing, she was just at the age where she had young men taking

:27:33.:27:38.

an interesting. It all just disappeared like that.

:27:38.:27:42.

Thick smoke hangs over the heart of Britain, as a choking dawn reveals

:27:42.:27:47.

the terrors of the night. London has been wounded during the hours

:27:47.:27:57.
:27:57.:27:58.

of darkness, what colossal strength runs in her veins news reals of the

:27:58.:28:03.

blits shows the landmarks. There is a lot of misconceptions about the

:28:03.:28:08.

Blitz, that it was mainly aimed at the East End of London, it was

:28:08.:28:13.

terribly badly hit there, it was the dock, and the infrastructure in

:28:13.:28:17.

the place. It hit the west just as hard. There were 20,000 people

:28:17.:28:24.

killed, predominantly in the East End, but the leafy, outer suburbs

:28:24.:28:30.

were hit too. Causing devastation and terror, that was the motive of

:28:30.:28:34.

the Germans, to intell fear into that population.

:28:34.:28:42.

-- Instill fear into the population. Each red dot of the map, is a sign

:28:42.:28:49.

of something perishable,ry. We used to play in the bombed -- Memory.

:28:49.:28:53.

used to play in the bombed buildings, when I think we used to

:28:53.:28:57.

go up rafters with bits missing. I recall a house, we must have passed

:28:57.:29:03.

there the day after it had been bombed. It was a most extraordinary

:29:03.:29:05.

sight. There was a policeman standing outside, I recall, and

:29:06.:29:10.

debris in the road. And the whole of the front of the house had been

:29:10.:29:20.
:29:20.:29:20.

blown off. And there was a bed hanging out into the road.

:29:20.:29:24.

website will excavate war time from the rubble of history for a new

:29:24.:29:30.

begin raise, or so some hope. -- Generation, or so some hope.

:29:30.:29:34.

lot of young people are interested in the world war, because they are

:29:34.:29:37.

part of the key stage programmes, anything that shows people a little

:29:37.:29:41.

bit more, uncovers the archaeology of London, or any other city, is

:29:42.:29:44.

very, very valuable. It is interesting, people always say, the

:29:44.:29:48.

Second World War, people are obsessed with that, you know, can't

:29:48.:29:54.

we have closure. If I said to you, I'm going to take you to a plague

:29:54.:29:59.

pit, you wouldn't say, for goodness sake can't we get over the 16th

:29:59.:30:04.

century, can't we move on. website, and a forth coming app to

:30:04.:30:13.

go with it, are new tools for joining the dots of history.

:30:13.:30:16.

Review is up next. Matter that is in Glasgow.

:30:16.:30:22.

In the last book special of the year, we will be marking the 50th

:30:22.:30:27.

anniversary of A Clockwork Orange, and also looking at a book about00

:30:27.:30:30.

years of film censorship, which includes Kubrick's controversial

:30:30.:30:34.

film. There is a new novel from the creator of Reginald Perrin, another

:30:34.:30:38.

posthumous publication from David Foster Wallace, and the latest

:30:38.:30:42.

collection from Oliver Sachs, the world's favourite neurologist,

:30:42.:30:48.

which he calls an anthology of hallucinations! That is all from

:30:48.:30:52.

Newsnight. We leave you with a view from the earth as seen by NASA's

:30:52.:30:56.

newest satellite, back down to earth on Monday.

:30:56.:31:03.

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