30/07/2013 Newsnight

storm after Newsnight investigated abuse on Twitter last night, there

has been an arrest of a 25-year-old man from South Shields. We will

have the latest. Having hidden from the press for so long, we will hear

from Twitter's head of trust and safety from California. We will

speak to Stella Cerasy an MP subject to the most vile abuse

herself and a Twitter enthusiast, Toby Young, who says in most cases

the trolls should be ignored. The biggest breach of classified

information in America in history, Bradley Manning handed out secret

information of over 700 classified files. He was found not guilty of

aiding the enemy, but as he faces the rest of his life in prison, is

he a hero or martyr. We will hear from whistleblowerer Adniel

Ellsberg. Does this look deslate to you,

there is a fracas about fracking after an MP from the Deep South

offered his view about the north- east. There are large uninhabited

and desolate areas in the north- east where there is plenty of move

for fracking. The Brazilian musician and former Culture

Minister, Gilberto Gil, on whether his country's great dream of

progress and prosperity has begun to come apart. Good evening,

following Newsnight's investigation last night of rape threats and

other abuse on Twitter, there has been an arrest of a 25-year-old man

from South Shields. We tracked down an alleged Twitter troll to an

address in the area. The rape threats against Caroline Criado-

Perez are just part of the many obscene abusive and sometimes vile

lent tweets directed at some women in public life by abusers. We will

hear from another one of their targets, the Labour MP, Stella

Cerasy in a moment. After avoiding interviews for the past few days we

will also hear from a Twitter executive from California. First,

Paul Mason on this evening's developments. What has been

happening? Over the weekend it took me and another journalist about 12

hours over two days to assemble the evidence that linked one of the

Twitter accounts that had threatened to rape the two women

involved and an internet connection in South Shields in the north-east.

So it took quite a long time to do that, the evidence was not straight

forward, but we thought compelling. I have spent the afternoon

conveying that evidence and explaining it to Northumbria Police,

and tonight, as a result of Newsnight's investigation a 25-

year-old man in South Shields, as you say, has been arrested on

suspicion of harassment as part of the Met's investigation into the

attacks on the two women. That case is subdued now and nothing more can

be said about it. Secondly that hasn't stopped abuse, another MP

has received a direct rape and murder threat, from the same person

who was playing cat and mouse, it looks like, last night with the

police, saying come on close me down. It shows how hard it is both

for Twitter and for the police to even trace somebody like that.

Given how hard it was for untrained police people to get their heads

around what it is that links one account with another. Now in the

course of doing this, it is fairly clear the police are stretched, the

detectives who are having to pick up these cases in different parts

of Britain are not necessarily the ones who have been trained to do

the usual stuff, the stuff aimed at child abusers and porn. It is not

necessarily those people who have to pick this up. It can be quite

hard for the resources to be assembled. I think that's why the

police keep emphasising, they would like Twitter to sort it out.

spent the day almost on the trail of a technological solution, as we

will see it is not that easy but there are bossablities, in the

process we had to talk to some of the called "trolls" who do this. We

have expunged all offensive and swearing. We have had to use some

of the bad language because that is the language these people speak in.

Since high-profile British women got hit with rape threats on

Twitter, many of us have seen our timelines filled with shocking

abuse and imagery, prompting a very practical question. Just what do

you do if your internet timeline on social media gets suddenly swamped

with people threatening rape or using extreme imagery of sexual

violence, and who are they? I have been talking to the trolls, to

people who have studied them and to those trying to come up with a

technical solution. Quinn Norton is a US journalist who has studied the

trolls and been harassed by them. She thinks demands by Twitter to

suspend the accounts won't be enough. It is easy with a basic

understanding of programming to autogenerate tonnes of accounts,

endlessly, and there isn't really a good way of stopping them. There is

so many tools of getting around all the ways to stop. That the best

thing to do is let them have their account and to block that account

so that you don't see it. Because if you remove that account they are

motivated to come back 10,000 fold. When I showed her some of the

abusers on my timeline, though we work on different continents, she

recognised two immediately as part of a hardcore that had harassed her,

prompting the question why not ban them? The social problem is men are

raised to hate women. And technology is not going to fix that,

what is what will fix that is a societal conversation about why

that is and why it shouldn't be. the I was contacted by one of the

people involved in directing hardcore rape jokes at women. I had

But there are technical solution, blogger Rebecca Watson had a bad

experience at a conference two years ago. 4.00 am I said I had

enough guys and I'm going to bed. I walked to the elevator and a man

got on with me and said don't take this the wrong way but I find you

very interesting and I would like to talk more, would you like to

come to my hotel room for coffee. Just a word to the wise here, guys,

don't do that. For saying this she was deluged with abuse on Twitter,

in response her supporters set up a programme that monitors and blocks

a shared list of abusers, and the man who wrote it talked me through

the installation. I will just block the super slimey, the Washington

Post. The block works by blocking a list of offenders that is

constantly updated by a community, it uses Twitter's own technology,

that prompts another question. Why don't Twitter implement what you

have done as part of Twitter? question. They certainly could do

easily, they have shared lists for following people, they could easily

have the ability that people who can create shared lists for

blocking people that would be possible. Why don't they?They are

so changing their platform, as an IT person I understand why, in

terms of keeping stability and the cost of doing that. They have to be

very careful they maintain the service. Those who have been around

a long time remember when the whole internet was predominantly male,

and there are some social media sites now openly struggling to be

representative. If you look at other on-line communities, Redet

that is predominant low young white males, there is no marginalised

groups left there. There is a considerable lack of women and

people of colour. Why?These voices don't get heard. Why?I guess and I

will get completely flaipltd now, there is racist abuse there,

homophobia, mysogynistic abuse there. Why as a woman would you

want to go there to get demeaned and put down for being a woman.

Twitter, slow to act in the crisis, there is an existential question,

it is nothing to do with the blocking mechanism, it is simply

are they prepared to see their part of cyberspace become essentially

white and male? For a company set to take a billion dollars next year,

driven by advertising, that is quite a question.

Del Harvey is head of Twitter's trust and safety, I spoke to her

from California before we came on air. The British politician, Stella

Cerasy, has been repeatedly told on Twitter that she will be raped, why

have you done so very little about it? To back up and give you a

little bit of context about who I am and why I'm the person here

talking to you, along with what's actually so far in this, I'm Del

Harvey, I head up the Trust and Safety Department at Twitter, the

department to handle users' safety and the like. I have been at

Twitter for five years. The CV is very interesting can we move on,

why have you done so very little about the threats of rape to a

British Labour politician? I think that there is perhaps a Misper

exception of how we responded. When we were made aware of the issue

over the weekend we had reached out privately to the parties involved,

we have been talking with them and with law enforcement. We have been

engaged in active dialogue since this weekend and we have been

continuing that dialogue. feminist campaigner, Caroline

Criado-Perez told me last night that when she complained about rape

threats she was blocked by one of your managers. Why would you do

that? I can't speak to the details of why he would do that, or what

that would mean for him or what that situation was but I can say

that's...Is It acceptable in Twitter when someone complains

about rape threats for a Twitter executive to block them, is that

acceptable to you? I would much rather they tell the person how to

report the threat. You going to discipline this guy? He's not in my

department, I know we are certainly talking about what happened and why

we, quite frankly, didn't provide him with the guidance on what he

should do in a situation like that. The thing is, I'm talking to you

about rape threats to women and you're talking corporate jiberish?

I'm certainly not trying to. The fact of the matter is we do work

with law enforcement on issues like these, these sorts of threats are

against the rules. We suspend accounts when they are reported to

us, we are working to make it easier to report those accounts. We

think this is really important. I have spent the majority of my

career working on issues tied to this. Before Twitter I worked with

domestic violence victims and rape victims, along with law enforcement

on the on-line abuse cases, this is something that is so important to

us and we care about getting right. If it is so important why are you

so slow, why do the women involved say the response is inadequate, why

does shadow Home Secretary here say it is inadequate, why is it so

inadequate? Part of the challenge is we have a really wide variety I

have a bues cases on Twitter. From everything from somebody following

someone who they want to see their tweet to someone trying to raise

attention to human rights issues, and these sort of changes around

how we can make it easier for people to report abuse, we also

have to make sure we are building in protections to make sure people

aren't being silenced at the same time. How many people do you employ

to sort out these very serious threats of sexual violence towards

women? There is actually dozens of people in the Trust and Safety Team,

which is worth rembering that Twitter is a case with the company

got outleapt a bit by the brand and the use of it. The use of Twitter,

the countries it is used in, the way it took off like a rocket ship

and we are trying to make sure we have everything right that we need

to make sure people feel safe on that rocket ship, so to speak.

Caroline Criado-Perez said that she hopes what happened to her and to

other women here will be a wake-up call to you, I'm just trying to

figure out where the wake up is happening. How are you waking up?

We have a number of things that we had in development, for example we

had launched about three weeks ago the ability to report a tweet from

the actual tweet itself on IOS and mobile. This was really underscored

to us the need to really push to get that out to all parts of the

platform. Because it is really clear that people aren't aware that

we do have rules. It is not OK to harass people, it is not OK to

threaten them with violence. said you have got dozenss of people

working on this, there are 400 million tweets every day, surely it

can't be enough? That is part of the reason that users have to

report to us as well. That is actually an issue that happens on

any platform at scale. Users have to say this is what happened this

is not OK. It would be great to prevent abuse before it starts. We

have automatic systems that look for spam and take action. But there

is always the challenge of context that you can't always get in 140

characters, which is why we need users to report. A number of

British MPs have a lot of questions they would like to put to Twitter,

will you put up perhaps yourself or someone senior from Twitter to come

to the United Kingdom and discuss this formally with British Members

of Parliament? I haven't heard personally about the request, but

we're absolutely open for discussion. This is an area that

we're already working with law enforcement, we welcome feedback in

terms of areas where they have heard complaints or criticisms. It

is really genuinely important to me that we get this right. I can't

really underscore that enough. I don't want people to think that we

don't take it seriously. Just a final thought, one Conservative

woman MP, Claire Perry said she thought about quitting Twitter over

this, a number of women have suggested that is a route they

considered too. Do you worry that the whole future of Twitter here is

in the balance in the sense that you might become just a place where

angry men sound off about women and women just don't want to know

Twitter? Honestly the biggest thing I worry about is users think we

don't care no matter what the abuse they are experiencing or the issue

they have. Whether it is this or 100 other things, I want people to

understand that we welcome their feedback and guidance on what they

are feeling and how we can make it better for them.

Thank you very much for joining us, thank you.

Stella Cerasy is here, a Labour MP who has been a target of some of

the vile threats. And Toby Young, a Twitter enthusiast who has argued

blocking and ignoring the abusers is the way forward. What did you

make of what you heard there about Twitter saying they are trying to

do their best? It is frustrating for those affected that we are

hearing different stories from the police and Twitter. It is not the

platform itself making people persistently doing this, I'm still

receiving rape and death threats today, it is people who are idiots

and people who may well be escalating in their violence and

aggression towards women. I need to see Twitter working with the law

enforcement agencies when you have a serious threat of violence and

aggression towards somebody, the way I have experienced, and

Caroline and now several members in parliament are experiencing.

you encouraged by what you heard from Del Harvey? I was encouraged

last night hearing from her but that was four days after, and we

were blocked by staff. She has admitted offline she felt it wasn't

got right, and my concern is getting it right in the UK, this is

about violence against women and this new platform against with this

old crime. What about Twitter and the way they are trying to respond

to it, it is very difficult for them, she made that quite clear?

Twitter's defence at least they have a Trust and Safety Division,

manned by human beings. The way Facebook deals with abuse is

entirely computerised, if a user is flagged up enough as abusive, there

is a mathematical sum that bans them. People can abuse the process

by flagging up people who they politically disagree with and get

them off. If they are getting somewhere it is very, very slow?

That is partly because they are so overwhelmed by reports of abuse.

Twitter is used by tens of hundreds of millions people around the world,

there are lots and lots of trolls out there. There must be reports of

I have a bows that Twitter is being deluged with. Let's talk about the

way you both deal with this, you deal with it, you have complained,

but you also retweet some of the tweets, you are followed by a lot

of people, 32,000 people, some of these rather sad cases are not

followed by anybody, however offensive it is you are giving them

a megaphone aren't you? I use a range of ways to deal with people

who behave in offensive and abusive ways on Twitter, sometimes I will

send them pictures of kittens because that is the level of debate

they deserve. As Toby knows when he has crossed a line I will retweet

issues and say I will challenge and call you out and say is this

acceptable behaviour. This is illegal, if someone walked up in

the street and someone said they would rape me, as people have on

Twitter over the last few days, I would dial 999. We mustn't think

because it happens on-line it is less serious. 50% of stalking cases

involve both own and off line harassment. These people are not

letting go, they need to understand neither are we in treating it

seriously. You are saying in most cases you can ignore it? I don't

have a problem at all with Stella reporting people who threaten her

with violence to the police, and I'm not surprised she's cross that

Twitter are not doing more to co- operate with the British police to

pursue those people. That is totally understandable. What I'm

nervous about is something Stella said to me earlier which is she had

a conversation with a woman you just interviewed in which she

persuaded her to include the word "harassment" in Twitter's abuse

policy, therefore hence forth anyone guilty of harassment will be

banned from Twitter. That is a vague and elastic term and open to

abuse. The worrying thing about Twitter responding to a complaint

by a British politician, in a way which is likely to lead to more

sensorous behaviour on Twitter, what do they do if a Chinese

politician makes a complaint and wants a change of policy. Saying it

is a bit of a wild west and even blocking it doesn't make it go

away? It was about particular types of harassment, you can't have it

both ways, you can't say they have a manned system to look at the

cases so they have a clarity about what harassment is, and then say

they shouldn't deal with harassment. I talk about things under the

protection of harassment act illegal in this country, they have

to have a process in dealing with people get a warning, that is fair,

isn't it Toby? Twitter should definitely be held to account for

not enforcing its own abuse policy. I read the policy on the way here,

it includes not allowing local users to break local laws, you are

perfectly right to say they should co-operate with the police if you

want people to be prosecuted for breaking harassment laws, what I

don't want Twitter to do to go beyond enforcing its existing

policies and introduce more censorous policies which would lead

to a cleaned up place which isn't what we know and love. Do you agree

it is not a technical problem but the way some men behave and our

society, and you won't fix that by going to Twitter? We have to call

it out and having a process that says if you continue to behave in

this way you will face consequences. We need police at a local and

national level understand the risks coming from on-line behaviour and

how it manifests offline. This is about taking violence against women

seriously, Toby I don't think you understand here, nobody is talking

stopping you making comments about MPs tits, I would hope you would

stop on your own. We are talking about the right to contact people

who say offensive and abusive things and there is no recourse for

this, Twitter doesn't have a clear line about this and they need to

get one. You are saying Twitter needs to jump on anybody being

offensive and abusive about women, but ignore people being offensive

and abusive towards men. When did I say that. You want to enlist

Twitter in your campaign to re- educate men and make them less

sexist. Actually I said I would really hope you would get to the

21st century and stop tweeting about women's tits in parliament,

that is what I said, I also said it is good that Twitter has a proposal

where people will look at reports of abuse. What I asked Twitter to

do on Monday night was give data and understanding about reports

they get so we understand the level of difficulties they are dealing

with. The problem you are not facing up to if you do persuade

Twitter, if you do enlist Twitter in this political cause of yours,

it will be harder for Twitter to resist when they are called up and

brow beaten by Chinese politicians or Saudi politicians who try to

enlist them in their political cause. You said it is about local

laws, harassment is illegal, we have strengthened the laws about

stalking. You are rather inconsistent, you want to defend it

as a no man's land what everybody says goes or it is not accountable,

which is it. If you include the word "harass" in the abuse policy,

which you said you persuaded them to do, after a two-hour

conversation, that they will go beyond simply asking local users

toe abide. There is a legal definition, you know that don't you.

It is already in Twitter the's abuse policy to stop people abusing

local laws, why do they need to add the word "harass", it sounds like

you want them to go beyond it and enlist it in a political campaign.

It could lead in not in all cases to be banned but accounts suspended.

I'm concerned about it takes me as a British MP to have this change.

We haven't got more than 140 characters left. Did you, by any

chance tweet about women's tits in parliament? It wasn't my proudest

moment, I asked who a particular MP, who one couldn't see the head of

but sitting behind Ed Miliband wearing a low-cut dress, I

committed the sin of noticing it, that constitutes harassment in some

people's views. You can Israel read more of Paul

Mason's thoughts and whether there is a tech solution to trolling and

what steps he has himself taken on his blog. Still to come: There are

large and Ince habited and desolate areas in -- and uninhabited and

desolate areas in parts of the north-east where there is plenty of

room for fracking. Whoops! Now the case against Bradley Manning was

simple, he made public through WikiLeaks the biggest trove of

classified information ever, in defiance of his military oath and

the law. He as, as the prosecution said, a traiter. The case for him

is the files did not put US security at risk but did embarrass

the Government. He was a young, niave, good-intentioned sold yes, a

whistleblower not a traitor. We will examine both sides of the

argument. What is not in doubt is a court has found him guilty of most

of the charges against him though not the most serious. He can expect

to spend the rest of his life behind bars. This footage was never

meant to be seen by you or me, it is from Baghdad 2007 when a US air

crew killed a dozen people, including two journalists. Come on

fire. It came to light in the biggest leak of classified

information in US history, including almost half a million

pages of war reports from Iraq and Afghanistan.-And-a-quarter of a

million state department cables. -- and 250,000 state department cables.

We learned in 2009 America's ambassador in Kabul described the

Afghan President as a "paranoid and weak individual", that the US

planned to spy on UK secretary- general, Ban Ki-Moon, and that logs

from the Iraq War suggested 15,000 more civilian deaths than the US

Government had acknowledged. Prosecutors and many of his

countrymen called the young soldier, Bradley Manning, a traitor. His

supporters said he was a niave but well-intentioned wibble. He himself

admitted ten -- whistleblower, he himself admitted to ten of the

charges against him, and said he wanted to start a true debate

against war and foreign policy. Today at a military base 25-year-

old Manning gave no reaction as the verdicts were read out by the

military judge. Manning was convicted of 20 out of 22 charges,

including six under the Espionage Act. Crucially he was acquitted of

the most serious charge of aiding the enemy, which he always denied.

Prosecutors said he helped American enemies because files he leaked

were allegedly found on discs at Osama Bin Laden's compound.

fact that he might be used to embolden future whistleblowers, I

don't think that, he faces a century-and-a-half in prison.

Future wibbles there will be. The Government -- whistleblowers there

will be. The Government is concerned about it and they

levelled the aiding the enemy charge against Bradley Manning to

set a precedent. I wonder what he's thinking now, Edward Snowden, the

US spy who leaked his Government's clandestine surveillance of

civilians and is now in his sixth week here in a transit hotel in

Moscow seeking asylum somewhere in the world. He's being helped by

Julian Assange, himself holed up in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London,

and who put Bradley Manning's treasure trove on-line. Tonight on

Twitter WikiLeaks called the convictions dangerous national

security extremism from the Obama administration. Some think the

White House has more than the whistleblowers in its sights they

recently accused a Fox News reporter of being a co-conspirator

after he reported classified information from a state department

source. The first amendment of our constitution says freedom of speech

and the press. The courts have determined that speech covers

whistleblowers, and the press it speaks for itself. What we are

seeing in some of these prosecutions and investigations is

a war against the first amendment. A chilling effect on the right of

Americans to inform their Government, their fellow citizens,

appropriate officials, of official misconduct. Senators will soon

debate new laws protecting journalists, but not people like

Bradley Manning, who the Government considers a traitor. He left court

knowing he might have started a debate about Freedom of Information,

but with a hefty prison sentence expected tomorrow, it may not be a

debate he can be part of. Adniel Ellsberg is a whistleblower

who famously leaked the Pentagon papers in 1971, which revealed

details of the American actions during the Vietnam War. With us in

Washington DC is David Rivkin, a former White House attorney serving

under Reagan and President Bush. Daniel Ellsberg do you think this

is a just verdict against Bradley Manning? I think it is

unconstitutional when applied to whistleblowering and unauthorised

disclosures to the public. I was the first person who faced the

charge and the leading attorney of the day said that the law was

clearly unconstitutional in that unprecedented use. I would say that

the law of the constitution hasn't changed, no legislation has changed.

The legal climate has changed so it is less likely that the view would

prevail in the Supreme Court today. It was absolutely right. He should

have not faced those charges or those views at all. Do you see him

then, people see him as a demonstrator, some people do, how

do you view him? I think it is outrageous for an American under

our constitution to use that term, you know, it is a term, it is the

only crime defined in our constitution to limit it to what it

was from what it was in the British Empire. That was because the people

who founded our constitution were traitors in the eyes of ING Emperor

George III. We were founded by traitors, they didn't want a law

criticising the King or the Government was treasonous, they

made the constitution that way, therefore Bradley Manning was not

charged with traesson formally, he couldn't be, because our deaf --

trees son, he couldn't be, because it means you have to adhere to the

enemies of the United States, and it is clear he didn't do that to

Al-Qaeda or the Taliban, as much as I didn't to the vet con. The

prosecution admitted itself itself to use that. Outrageous. Bradley

Manning has been compared to the founding fathers of the United

States of America? Rubbish, there is a technical definition of

treason in the constitution, that is about the only thing that Mr

Ellsberg is right about, that Mr Manning does not meet. The notion

that espionage laws and other laws that bar disclosure of classified

information utterly misleads the existing juris prudence, it is not

worth debating as it is for constitutional lawyers. I'm not a

lawyer, but I was the first person charged with that, and Mr Rivkin

doesn't know what he's talking about. If I may. Mr Rivkin. If I

can talk about it. If it hadn't been for Bradley Manning we

wouldn't have found out all the details of the mistreatment of

Iraqi prisoners, that may be embarrassing to the United States,

but surely that is something with the people of the United States

would wish to know? It is criminal. Go ahead. We are a nation of laws

and not men. We are a Republic, a democracy, we are not a

totalitarian regime. If you are confronted with evidence of

wrongdoing. I disagree that abuses that came out were nothing to do

with Mr Manning. Both of our countries believe in the rule of

law and procedures of laws, whoa made Mr Manning and Edward Snowden

God, who allowed them to decide abuses occurred and then offer

reams of information and nobody elected them or appointed them. In

a democracy that is not how you proceed, that is the fundamental

problem with the self-appointed prophets of openness. The debate

now taking place in Congress, with 205 votes voting for the first time

to rein in the NSA would not be taking place if Edward Snowden had

done anything differently than what he did do. He had been tout of the

country as he saw from -- he had to be out of the country as he saw

from Bradley Manning and incommunicado as he is right now.

We owe him a great debt for starting the possibility of

remaining a democracy and not becoming the police state of which

we now have the infrastructure. The architecture, the archives.

Rivkin? Let me say the following, the essence of American

constitutional order and for that an order of any democracy is that

processes and procedures matter more than specific policy outcomes.

Even if you take Mr Ellsberg at his word that we some how became a

fascist totalitarian state. Don't misquote me Mr Rivkin. OK, even if

it were true, even if it were true horrific abuses are occuring, which

they are not, this is not the right way to proceed. Our constitution,

Bill of Rights, separation of powers, is essentially about how we

as a body and society deal with problems. Having people break that

oath and take it upon themselves. With respect Sir you don't

understand anything about American political systems, or political

philosophy. It is again not about your outcomes it is about how you

go about solving problems. Do you believe for example with injustice

we should take arms and rise in rebellion to cure this injustice.

You misquote me. Let's not do the War of Independence all over again.

What impact do you think this will have and The Snowman case will have

on whistleblowers in the future? I'm very encouraged by the fact

there is at last the discussion taking place in the Congress for

the first time on the fact that the reforms instituted by the church

committee have failed. The Pfizer amendment court has failed as a use

of the judicial terrain in the abuses of the NSA, the intelligence

committees have failed. In fact the idea that President Obama has said

the three branches of Government have participated in this when what

you have is a secret briefing of a gang of eight in the Congress,

secret decisions on secret law by a secret court, the amendment court,

that constitutes oversight and separation of powers, is simply

absurd to say that. The fact is our secrecy system is put. Gentlemen we

have run out of time. Now the North-South divide is something

that worries politicians in all the main political parties w Labour in

recent years stronger in Scotland and the north of England and the

Conservatives stronger in the other end of the country. Today that

divide was made flesh in the shape of a living, breathing Conservative

peer, Lord Howell of Guildford who talking about the north-east of

England as good for fracking to produce energy, because of large

desolate areas. The result was a small political earthquake. First a

bit of background, the Government, at least the Conservative portion

of the Government loves the idea of fracking, led by the Chancellor,

George Osborne, who has looked with some envy across the Atlantic at

cheaper energy prices that have come about on the back of fracking.

As a result economic growth and energy-intensive industries being

re-born in the United States N this country we are at a far earlier

stage. It is still very controversial, we are at the

evaluation stage, we are at testing and evaluations and seeing if this

thing will work. We are also at the stage of protest. People worried

about what might happen to their community. It is a very delicate

stage. The Government wants to get something done, people are worried

about it. Into this very delicate balance step forward Lord Howell,

former Conservative Energy Secretary way back, he was in Mrs

Thatcher's first cabinet. What did he have to say? Would the minister

accept it could be a mistake to think of and discuss fracking in

terms of the whole UK in one go, there are obviously are in

beautiful rural areas, where it is not just the drilling and the

fracking which I think are exaggerated but the trucks and the

delivery and the roads and disturbance, those are justified

worries. But there are large and uninhabited and desolate areas,

certainly up in parts of the north- east where there is plenty of room

for fracking.... ( talking and laughter) well away from anybody's

residence without any threat to the rural environment. That brought the

House down, he's not a Government minister, why does anybody care?

Downing Street has been quick to point that out, he doesn't speak

for anybody except himself. Why is it making the news? Two reasons I

suspect, we are on the doorstep of the silly season, the Commons has

packed up and headed off for the summer break. The Lords is still

sitting just, but there is a lack of political news around and there

was another reason did I mention that Lord Howell is George

Osborne's father-in-law. No man or woman can be held responsible for

what their father-in-law had to saying, I suspect the Chancellor

would have father his wife's dad picked his words a little more

carefully. What has been the reaction? Labour MPs have said this

shows that Conservatives are out- of-touch, that they are hostile in

fact to other parts of the country apart from the south-east of

England. On Twitter we have heard about the nasty Side of Twitter

this evening, there has been some fun to be had. Particularly from

people posting rather lovely pictures of the north-east of

England, of which we can see a selection here. Under the hashtag

desolate. Lord Howell has issued a statement apologising, he said he

never intended to say the north- east of desolate, he said there are

parts of the country less densely inhabited than others. The north-

east is less densely inhabited, there are two out of 29 MPs

Conservative, I don't suspect what happened today will improve that

proportion any time soon. Brazil was once the ultimate

fantasy destination, the beaches, the carnival, the music, the

football, more recently the Brazilian dream has included rapid

economic growth, putting the bee in the called BRIC countries, was that

another fantasy? This summer has seen riots across Brazil, the

Pope's visit this month highlighted great equalities. One man who ought

to know the Brazilian realitys is former Culture Minister and

musician, Gilberto Gil, we caught up with him here on the summer

festival circuit. This is what cabinet ministers do after they

leave office. Well Brazilian cabinet ministers, to be fair.

Gilberto Gil, former Culture Secretary, to be specific, Hello,

I'm Stephen, very nice to meet you. Newsnight met him in a corner of

the WOMAD music festival. We have cleared a space in the woods for U

We began by talking about the recent riots in his homeland, he

believes they were coming for a long time. I see as a natural

consequence of you know everything that's been going on. Globally.

People having access to information and to possibilities to act

politically and everything, and of course I mean in the new element,

they are the new technologies. The World Cup and the Olympics and

the expenditure for putting those games together, they are just

triggering elements for something that has been accumulating for

longer and longer and longer. was no surprise to you? For me, no.

No surprise. I think the world was surprised. The world...It Shouldn't

Gil has mixed the musical traditions of his huge country with

western styles, as a new documentary shows. He has been a

social reformer and political activist. Thrown in jail for his

pains in the late 60s under a military dictatorship. A decade ago

he was in power himself. In the centre left Government of President

Lula. A bit of a lifestyle change for a

strolling Troubadour. Being there and having to deal with

the whole you know state affair thing it's hard. It is difficult.

Once upon a time it might have been Gil hosting the Pope on his first

overseas visit to Brazil. He's going to the favelas, to the slums,

and telling people keep on trying, you know. Carry on. Struggle. Don't

submit yourselves. So in a sense he's playing the game. He is from

Argentina, he's from a background of enduring and supporting workers

and supporting poor communities and everything. So he knows you know.

He's in, he's in his place. The World Cup is happening in

Brazil next year, how do you think it is going to go, will it pass off

peacefully? We just had the Confederation Cup a month, less

than a month ago. We had, we're able to open the new stadiums, you

know. With riots going on down the streets? With riots going on down

the streets, and I mean both things at the same time. I think that will

prevail for the World Cup and for the Olympics too. You think they

will pass off peacefully? I think so. I think so.

# So don't worry # About a thing

# Because everything will be all right

Gilberto Gil's tribute to Bob Marley, both to be considered stars

of world music. Is that a good category to be in? Or a bit of a

pigeonhole? ,r It's a little unfair in that sense, but at the same time

it gives the world, you know, a goal, a chance to say we have a

global music, we have a universal language. So from that side it is a

little positive. Whatever you call it, Gil, at 71,

continues to bring his music from Bahia in Brazil to the sun-kissed

Savannahs of the UK and beyond. I have been able to survive, I have

been able to you, you know, to do my thing, to do my travellings, to

do my, I have also as well great support from the industry and great

support from the society, from the public. And you will keep going?

Until I die I hope! Nice to meet you.