Browse content similar to 06/08/2013. Check below for episodes and series from the same categories and more!
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diplomats have pulled out of Yemen and western visitors are told to | :00:15. | :00:18. | |
leave immediately. Embassies across the Middle East are shut, but can | :00:18. | :00:27. | |
the threat from Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula be contained? | :00:27. | :00:32. | |
Americans America's special operations forces are being readied, | :00:32. | :00:36. | |
it looks like escalation. What about the people who can't | :00:36. | :00:41. | |
leave? We follow the Yemeni villagers living and dying with the | :00:41. | :00:51. | |
:00:51. | :00:53. | ||
daily reality of American drone strikes. | :00:53. | :01:00. | |
Here doctors and nurses should aim for zero-harm to patients. Or be | :01:00. | :01:03. | |
prosecuted for willful misconduct, but no finger pointing when things | :01:03. | :01:09. | |
go wrong. We will hear from the man who wrote today's NHS report for | :01:09. | :01:15. | |
David Cameron. And it lives! The British economy | :01:15. | :01:18. | |
has started twitching again, but behind the new numbers, is this | :01:19. | :01:24. | |
really what you would want to call a recovery? Is the resurrection for | :01:24. | :01:34. | |
:01:34. | :01:36. | ||
real? Is there a risk of driving a stake through its heart. | :01:36. | :01:40. | |
Good evening, the exodus of westerners from Yemen continued | :01:40. | :01:44. | |
today amid on going fears over the terror threat in the country. | :01:44. | :01:47. | |
British diplomatic staff are already on route to the UK. It | :01:48. | :01:53. | |
comes after the New York Times reported that American Security | :01:53. | :01:56. | |
Services intercepted phone conversations between two senior | :01:56. | :02:00. | |
members of Al-Qaeda. Rp presenting, the paper says, the most serious | :02:00. | :02:05. | |
plot since 9/11. Our diplomatic editor is here with | :02:05. | :02:09. | |
more. What can you tell us? I understand they are now looking | :02:09. | :02:12. | |
at sending special operations forces into Yemen. These sorts of | :02:12. | :02:17. | |
people have been in and out of there in recent years as training | :02:17. | :02:21. | |
team members or in liaison roles in relation to some of those drone | :02:21. | :02:24. | |
strikes. But the sort of option that is now being looked at is the | :02:24. | :02:28. | |
sort of option that would give them a strike option against the Al- | :02:28. | :02:31. | |
Qaeda leadership, able to mount the kind of operations we have seen in | :02:32. | :02:37. | |
Iraq and Afghanistan in recent years. What is the threat? It is | :02:37. | :02:42. | |
interesting, there seems to have been a whole tiered bit of | :02:42. | :02:46. | |
intelligence reporting from across the region, tiered levels, if you | :02:46. | :02:50. | |
like, of different types of intelligence coming in, being | :02:50. | :02:55. | |
assessed in different place. We know that the Americans across the | :02:55. | :02:58. | |
region have basically shut up shop with embassies in 19 countries. | :02:58. | :03:06. | |
Right the way from Tripoli over on the west of that map in Libya to | :03:06. | :03:15. | |
Muscat in the east, Sana'a, Kay row, ma -- Cairo, major stations. It | :03:16. | :03:19. | |
comes from chatter, Ramadan at the end, and Muslim countries may want | :03:19. | :03:24. | |
to do actual attacks and protests on American interests. There is the | :03:24. | :03:30. | |
much more specific stuff about Aden and Sana'a, we know from the New | :03:30. | :03:34. | |
York Times report that they intercepted conversations between | :03:34. | :03:44. | |
:03:44. | :03:45. | ||
Ayman al-Zawahiri, the leader of Al-Qaeda, and Tony Way, the | :03:45. | :03:52. | |
competent atrb and the competent affiliate of Al-Qaeda. It would be | :03:52. | :03:56. | |
range to say you were listening to the phone calls if that was the | :03:56. | :03:58. | |
method you were using. Others say it was electronic communication, a | :03:59. | :04:01. | |
little vague there. There is another level of intelligence | :04:01. | :04:08. | |
reporting down at the ground level in Sana'a, we know for example from | :04:08. | :04:11. | |
the Yemeni Interior Ministry that they have tracked Al-Qaeda | :04:11. | :04:15. | |
militants coming into Sana'a ready to mount attacks on western | :04:15. | :04:21. | |
interests there. Also things hotting up in the country with a | :04:21. | :04:25. | |
further drone strike north of the apple in the Marib province, said | :04:25. | :04:33. | |
to have killed four people, including two on the Yemeni 25 most | :04:33. | :04:37. | |
wanted list. Also there has been US manned aircraft over the country. | :04:37. | :04:43. | |
Is the UK's assessment of the risk the same as the US? It seems less | :04:43. | :04:47. | |
stark. People in Whitehall argue that the Americans may be taking no | :04:47. | :04:51. | |
chances because of what happened in September when they lost an | :04:51. | :04:55. | |
ambassador. The UK's view is not to get involved with the drone strikes | :04:55. | :04:58. | |
and with the direct action-type forces. | :04:59. | :05:05. | |
Let as talk now to Conservative MP, Rory Stewart, who recently returned | :05:05. | :05:11. | |
from Yemen. And dword Gordon director of planning during the | :05:11. | :05:18. | |
George W Bush era and now a risk consultant. David Gordon, let me | :05:18. | :05:23. | |
ask you for your reaction to the fact that American Special Forces | :05:23. | :05:28. | |
are readying for deployment? think here that what the Americans | :05:28. | :05:36. | |
are getting ready for is the possibility of a new type of Al- | :05:36. | :05:44. | |
Qaeda attack, based more on what happened in Benghazi than on the | :05:44. | :05:49. | |
traditional purely terrorist attack that you have an instantaneous | :05:49. | :05:53. | |
event, it has happened, something very, very big blows up. In | :05:53. | :05:59. | |
Benghazi as we saw there was this massing of extremists and militants | :05:59. | :06:05. | |
attacking a number of targets. I think that's what Special Forces | :06:05. | :06:10. | |
are being readied to protect and go directed against. Of course we | :06:10. | :06:16. | |
don't really know exactly what the threat is here? Rory Stewart, is it | :06:16. | :06:20. | |
a good idea? Is it a good idea to withdraw British diplomats. Is it a | :06:20. | :06:23. | |
good idea to get the special fores ready for deployment? I think we | :06:23. | :06:27. | |
need to understand what this threat is. In that I really agree with | :06:27. | :06:30. | |
David, we are really moving in the dark here. Unless we actually know | :06:30. | :06:34. | |
what the threat is it is very difficult to understand. It is very | :06:34. | :06:37. | |
unusual to have a situation where you would remove all your British | :06:37. | :06:42. | |
diplomats out of a country. Normally in somewhere like Iraq and | :06:42. | :06:46. | |
Afghanistan where there are very severe threats or even Yemen where | :06:46. | :06:51. | |
we have had bad threats for a few years, you look down the embassy | :06:51. | :06:54. | |
and trust the embassy defences to keep people out. I suspect there | :06:54. | :06:56. | |
must be something very strange going on here in the nature of the | :06:56. | :07:02. | |
threat. Meaning what?It must be something where they must guess and | :07:02. | :07:06. | |
maybe David's right the Benghazi analogy is the right one, that the | :07:06. | :07:09. | |
traditional defences of the embassy would not be enough to keep out the | :07:09. | :07:14. | |
threat. Mr Gordon, are you surprised that US intelligence | :07:14. | :07:18. | |
released such specific details about intercepting the | :07:18. | :07:22. | |
communications between these two senior Al-Qaeda leaders? Well, I | :07:22. | :07:29. | |
think part of the intent here was prevention, to say we know what you | :07:29. | :07:34. | |
are up to, you better not do this. It is a bit unusual, but I think | :07:34. | :07:44. | |
:07:44. | :07:47. | ||
that this is part of this is for whatever reason is there is a | :07:47. | :07:52. | |
chance that the terrorists know we know they are about to do something | :07:52. | :07:56. | |
they may not do it. Can I also say we need to distinguish the | :07:56. | :08:01. | |
terrorist threats from what has been happening in Yemen, that has | :08:01. | :08:06. | |
been much more positive in the last two years than anyone expected. It | :08:06. | :08:09. | |
is surprising now we find ourselves looking at Yemen in this way. If | :08:09. | :08:13. | |
you look at all the negotiation happening, people predicted civil | :08:13. | :08:17. | |
war, they predicted chaos, actually things have been much better | :08:17. | :08:22. | |
recently. Do you really think so? The problem of Yemen and Al-Qaeda | :08:22. | :08:25. | |
operatives there has been around for a number of years, hasn't it? | :08:25. | :08:30. | |
It has, but if you go back a year or 18 months, Al-Qaeda were holding | :08:30. | :08:35. | |
territory in Yemen. That was gotten rid of, they no longer hold the | :08:36. | :08:38. | |
territory. There was going to be huge problems between seperatists | :08:38. | :08:42. | |
in the south and groups in the north, it didn't really materialise. | :08:42. | :08:46. | |
Yemen has been more peaceful than people feared. Is that how it has | :08:46. | :08:54. | |
been seen in Washington? I think Yemen is still seen as being the | :08:54. | :08:58. | |
territory for a very capable Al- Qaeda group. But I think Rory is | :08:58. | :09:02. | |
right that in terms of how people were thinking about Yemen a year or | :09:02. | :09:07. | |
two ago, it was quite a bit more negative than what we have seen. | :09:07. | :09:14. | |
Look, I think what we may be seeing here is Al-Qaeda leadership in | :09:14. | :09:19. | |
Afghanistan and Pakistan urging the Al-Qaeda affiliates in the Middle | :09:19. | :09:26. | |
East, in North Africa, in the Levant, to do something against a | :09:26. | :09:31. | |
western target. Because in effect the centre piece of the Al-Qaeda | :09:31. | :09:34. | |
resurgence in this part of the world has been in Syria. What they | :09:34. | :09:41. | |
have really been doing here is fighting against Assad and | :09:41. | :09:47. | |
Hezbollah. I think what Al-Zawahiri is trying to say here is, yes it is | :09:47. | :09:52. | |
OK to become domestically focused on the near enemy, but don't lose | :09:52. | :09:56. | |
sight of the ultimate target of Al- Qaeda and that is the west and we | :09:56. | :10:03. | |
need to do something to show that we are still a form mid-able anti- | :10:03. | :10:07. | |
western organisation. -- Formidable anti-western | :10:07. | :10:10. | |
organisation. How should the west deal with that? We need to deal | :10:10. | :10:14. | |
cautiously. What I mean by this is we mustn't upset a lot of the | :10:14. | :10:17. | |
progress that has been made in Yemen. In the long run the way to | :10:17. | :10:21. | |
deal with a terrorist threat in Yemen is to get stability in that | :10:21. | :10:24. | |
country. That stability is painfully getting there. It has | :10:24. | :10:27. | |
been getting there because we managed to hold Russia and China | :10:27. | :10:32. | |
and the United States and France and Britain together with the whole | :10:32. | :10:35. | |
gulf operation council. Very unusual to have all these countries | :10:35. | :10:40. | |
co-operating. What we want to avoid is an anti-terrorist strategy that | :10:40. | :10:44. | |
begins to disrupt the stability that is beginning to emerge. Let's | :10:44. | :10:47. | |
hope that whatever this is we are going to get back to diplomatic | :10:47. | :10:54. | |
operations, so we will be able to reopen these embassies. No more | :10:54. | :10:59. | |
drones? Drone strikes will continue in Yemen. Would you like them to | :10:59. | :11:05. | |
stop? Sorry?Would you like them to stop? Am I in favour of drone | :11:05. | :11:10. | |
strikes? I'm not, for different reasons I'm not a great fan of | :11:10. | :11:15. | |
drone strikes, I think we can expect them to continue in Yemen | :11:15. | :11:19. | |
for the foreseeable future. It is clear the US thinks Yemen is | :11:20. | :11:23. | |
the new frontline in the war with Al-Qaeda, which is why they have | :11:23. | :11:28. | |
been sending as many drones there as they have to Pakistan and | :11:28. | :11:31. | |
Afghanistan. Strikes by drone aircraft have wiped out a whole | :11:31. | :11:36. | |
generation of Al-Qaeda's leadership. But is the use of them creating as | :11:36. | :11:42. | |
many enemies as they are killing? We have been to Zinjibar in | :11:42. | :11:50. | |
southern Yemen. The report contains some disturbing images. | :11:50. | :11:55. | |
We're heading into Zinjibar in southern Yemen. For years Al-Qaeda | :11:55. | :12:00. | |
in the Arabian Peninsula, or AQAP, have planned attacks from this part | :12:00. | :12:05. | |
of the country. There have been Yemeni army operations on the | :12:05. | :12:10. | |
ground, American drone strikes from the air, and repeated Al-Qaeda | :12:10. | :12:16. | |
counter strikes. This is a town under siege. On the streets we can | :12:16. | :12:22. | |
find little public support for Al- Qaeda. But plenty of anger over the | :12:22. | :12:32. | |
:12:32. | :12:44. | ||
drones that target AQAP. What do you blame for the retruction of | :12:44. | :12:54. | |
:12:54. | :13:16. | ||
Winning the support of people like this is crucial in America's fight | :13:16. | :13:20. | |
against extremism. The people here fear US drones as much as they fear | :13:20. | :13:30. | |
:13:30. | :13:36. | ||
Mohhamed Bagash and his two children were outside a health | :13:36. | :13:40. | |
clinic when it was hit by an American strike. They ran to a | :13:40. | :13:50. | |
:13:50. | :14:09. | ||
school and hid in the basement, He carried his children out, his | :14:09. | :14:19. | |
:14:19. | :14:32. | ||
son survived but his eight-year-old daughter bled to death. 15 | :14:32. | :14:37. | |
eyewitnesses reported seeing a drone hovering in the air, and two | :14:37. | :14:47. | |
:14:47. | :14:52. | ||
President Obama has said that drone strikes kill far fewer civilians | :14:52. | :14:58. | |
than conventional bombing or ground operations. In the capital, Sana'a, | :14:58. | :15:05. | |
I have come to meet one of the most pro--American voices in Yemen. | :15:05. | :15:09. | |
Farea Al-Muslimi runs a pro- democracy organisation. He thinks | :15:09. | :15:19. | |
:15:19. | :15:23. | ||
the drone war is playing right into Al-Qaeda's hands. | :15:23. | :15:27. | |
I think the drones have been one of the effective tools for Al-Qaeda in | :15:27. | :15:31. | |
Yemen. A big part of power for Al- Qaeda at the moment is to convince | :15:31. | :15:36. | |
Yemenis that they are in a war with Yemen and they are attacking the | :15:36. | :15:40. | |
sovereignty. One of the biggest mistakes he says is the way that | :15:40. | :15:44. | |
the US deals with civilian casualties. You are killing | :15:44. | :15:49. | |
civilians for no need and you are not even going to say sorry or | :15:49. | :15:57. | |
admit it or issue apology or pay compensation. Last September Ahmed | :15:57. | :16:03. | |
was working in the fields outside the town, his father, mother and | :16:03. | :16:07. | |
sister had gone to visit the local health clinic. It was 3.00pm when | :16:07. | :16:17. | |
:16:17. | :16:42. | ||
he heard a buzzing noise in the sky, He jumped on his motorbike to see | :16:42. | :16:46. | |
what had happened, when he got there he found that two missiles | :16:46. | :16:56. | |
:16:56. | :17:24. | ||
This footage was given to us by a local journalist. It is too | :17:24. | :17:28. | |
gruesome to show in full. The truck was packed with passengers coming | :17:28. | :17:33. | |
back from the market. The target was probably a local Al-Qaeda | :17:33. | :17:38. | |
leader, seen travelling on the same stretch of road. He got away, but | :17:38. | :17:48. | |
:17:48. | :18:02. | ||
13 people were incinerated. The few people that survived were taken to | :18:02. | :18:05. | |
the local clinic, they report seeing at least one drone and two | :18:05. | :18:15. | |
:18:15. | :18:15. | ||
Apology for the loss of subtitles for 65 seconds | :18:15. | :19:21. | |
In an off the record quote, given to a US newspaper, US officials did | :19:21. | :19:24. | |
concede it was an American strike. But there has been no American | :19:24. | :19:29. | |
acknowledgement or apology to the families of the 13 victims in Yemen. | :19:29. | :19:39. | |
:19:39. | :19:53. | ||
What does your community think, who do they blame for this? What would | :19:53. | :20:03. | |
:20:03. | :20:08. | ||
you say to the people who ordered this strike? The Yemeni Government | :20:08. | :20:12. | |
has promised an investigation into the attack. But no-one we spoke to | :20:12. | :20:18. | |
has seen any evidence of an inquiry. One group that does claim to offer | :20:18. | :20:23. | |
justice and redress is Al-Qaeda. We have heard many reports of Al- | :20:23. | :20:27. | |
Qaeda appearing after air strikes offering compensation and | :20:28. | :20:32. | |
increasing recruitment. Al-Qaeda have stepped in to help rebuild | :20:32. | :20:36. | |
homes, they provide funeral costs and offer financial support to the | :20:36. | :20:39. | |
families of those killed and injured. They also pressure the | :20:39. | :20:43. | |
relatives of those killed to join up to gain revenge. It is clear | :20:43. | :20:48. | |
that even when they lose active members, Al-Qaeda use these strikes | :20:48. | :20:53. | |
as an opportunity to recruit many more. | :20:53. | :20:57. | |
President Obama has said there is little chance of capturing | :20:57. | :21:02. | |
militants, Yemen is too weak. The state's reach too limited. He says | :21:02. | :21:05. | |
sometimes the only option is to kill. | :21:06. | :21:11. | |
But here many argue suspects can be caught, and they accuse the United | :21:11. | :21:18. | |
States of extra judicial execution. Anwar al-Awlaki was chief | :21:18. | :21:24. | |
propagandaist for AQAP, a Yemeni- American, he called for attacks on | :21:24. | :21:31. | |
American targets. He had close ties to the underwear bomber who tried | :21:31. | :21:39. | |
to explode a bomb in an aeroplane over Detroit in 2009. I'm on the | :21:39. | :21:45. | |
way to meet Mr Al-Awlaki's father. He says he was negotiating a deal | :21:45. | :21:50. | |
that would have seen his son stand trial, instead his son was killed | :21:50. | :21:55. | |
by an air strike. But your son was preaching hate and himself had | :21:56. | :22:01. | |
praised attacks on America? Even if he made some of those sermons that | :22:01. | :22:05. | |
could be classified as hate sermons, I don't think it is right for the | :22:05. | :22:09. | |
United States to go and kill him. But he is accused of being involved | :22:09. | :22:14. | |
in the airliner plot? Legally these are only allegations. They have not | :22:14. | :22:22. | |
been proven in a court of law. I don't know that in any court that | :22:22. | :22:25. | |
those allegations were proven against my son. If there are any | :22:25. | :22:30. | |
allegations against my son the United States Government could have | :22:30. | :22:35. | |
done something else going to court, but they didn't do that, they went | :22:35. | :22:40. | |
ahead and killed him. Mr Al-Awlaki said the ideology that consumed his | :22:40. | :22:47. | |
son is now taking many more. There were maybe 300 people who were in | :22:47. | :22:55. | |
Al-Qaeda. Now we are talking about thousands of people, all over Yemen. | :22:55. | :23:00. | |
We asked an interview with the US Ambassador in Yemen, our request | :23:00. | :23:04. | |
was declined. The Yemeni Foreign Minister did agree to an interview. | :23:04. | :23:08. | |
We began by asking whether America's targeting of Yemenis in | :23:08. | :23:18. | |
:23:18. | :23:19. | ||
Yemen a threat to the country's sovereignty. I think sovereignty is | :23:19. | :23:23. | |
in danger if it is done without the approval of the Government. If it | :23:23. | :23:28. | |
is done with the approval of the Government and for the interests of | :23:28. | :23:31. | |
the Yemeni people and their fight against terrorism, I don't think | :23:31. | :23:34. | |
this applies. But it is making people angry? | :23:34. | :23:39. | |
know, it make everybody angry to see drones coming and hitting | :23:39. | :23:46. | |
targets in Yemen. And killing civilians? This is accidental, they | :23:46. | :23:52. | |
are not targeting. Innocent people get killed, unfortunately. Every | :23:52. | :23:56. | |
Yemeni we have spoken to said target strikes acted as a useful | :23:56. | :24:00. | |
recruitment tool for them? I have heard this argument, there might be | :24:00. | :24:06. | |
some truth in it. But I think the fact is that if your targets are | :24:07. | :24:11. | |
Al-Qaeda leaders and if they are in dangering the security of your | :24:11. | :24:17. | |
country, there is no alternative. The future of this conflict will | :24:17. | :24:21. | |
depend on whether America can convince Yemenis that it is on | :24:21. | :24:25. | |
their side. Every night in the back streets, | :24:25. | :24:30. | |
young kids get together for a game of football. But growing up in | :24:30. | :24:39. | |
Yemen is hard. Their prospects are bleak. Corruption is endemic, | :24:40. | :24:49. | |
:24:50. | :24:50. | ||
Yemenis are in poverty. It will take more than this to get rid of | :24:50. | :24:54. | |
Al-Qaeda. The US provides hundreds of thousands of dollars in aid to | :24:54. | :25:00. | |
Yemen. But the noise from targeted strikes is drowning out other | :25:00. | :25:03. | |
progress. And whilst America continues to decimate Al-Qaeda from | :25:03. | :25:10. | |
the sky, opposition in the streets is growing. At ground level winning | :25:10. | :25:17. | |
in Yemen is harder than it look. You can see more of that reporting | :25:17. | :25:24. | |
from Yemen on Our World on the news channel this weekend. | :25:24. | :25:28. | |
For avid economy watchers in this country there have been several | :25:28. | :25:33. | |
sightings of a rare breed in the last few days, good news and quite | :25:33. | :25:37. | |
a lot of it. Sales up, house prices up, even manufacturing up, for some | :25:37. | :25:41. | |
it is enough to declare bomb times and break open the champagne. With | :25:41. | :25:45. | |
most people still worse off than before the crash, so this recovery | :25:45. | :25:49. | |
be like the British summer, unexpected, much celebrated and | :25:49. | :25:52. | |
short lived. We have been finding out. | :25:52. | :25:59. | |
The sun is out, the bars are open. The economy, like this cocktail, is | :25:59. | :26:07. | |
exhibiting qualities of fire on top of ice. Growth amid Austerry, and | :26:07. | :26:16. | |
in ever-larger dollop, led -- what matters is whether economic policy | :26:16. | :26:21. | |
can stain this growth, and that depends on what is causing it. | :26:21. | :26:26. | |
Today official figures showed a marked upturn in manufacturing, it | :26:26. | :26:31. | |
grew by 1.9% in May and June. There has been a rise in the all- | :26:31. | :26:34. | |
important service sector, that makes up two thirds of the economy. | :26:34. | :26:40. | |
It is now growing faster than at any time through 2006. That has got | :26:40. | :26:44. | |
economists rapidly remixing their GDP predictions. At the moment the | :26:44. | :26:48. | |
good news just keeps on coming, it looks like maybe some sort of | :26:48. | :26:52. | |
momentum is building in the economy. Some people have talked about the | :26:52. | :26:55. | |
economy reaching escape velocity. Where the recovery becomes self- | :26:55. | :27:01. | |
Steyning. I think that is maybe a bit over -- self sustaining, I | :27:01. | :27:05. | |
think that is maybe a bit over the stop. Things are on a firmer | :27:05. | :27:10. | |
footing than a few months ago. you dig into the details, there the | :27:10. | :27:15. | |
problems start? The signs are all the bonhomie is being driven by | :27:15. | :27:21. | |
lower saving and easier borrowing. If that is true and inflation takes | :27:22. | :27:25. | |
off then the Governor of the Bank of England, Jay Carney, will be | :27:25. | :27:29. | |
forced, or come under -- Mark Carney, will be forced to or come | :27:29. | :27:32. | |
under pressure to raise interest rates. That is something he wishes | :27:32. | :27:39. | |
to put off for as long as possible. In the first quarter we saw the | :27:39. | :27:44. | |
savings ratio lower than for a long time. That poses dangers for the | :27:44. | :27:48. | |
medium-to-long-term, first of all it may not be sustainable, and as a | :27:48. | :27:55. | |
country we need to save more not less. Mark Carney gets the first | :27:55. | :28:01. | |
taste of the limelight, the word is he will give a clear signal to keep | :28:02. | :28:05. | |
interest rates low for a period. Something that did work in the US. | :28:06. | :28:10. | |
If he fixes the rate too long and inflation eats up people's wages | :28:10. | :28:14. | |
that could choke off the recovery, again. I think he will press ahead | :28:14. | :28:18. | |
tomorrow with commit to go keep interest rates low for a long time | :28:18. | :28:21. | |
until for example unemployment comes down to a certain rate. Some | :28:21. | :28:27. | |
people think he doesn't need to do that any more, but the economy is | :28:28. | :28:31. | |
picking up momentum. I think now is the time to keep interest rates low | :28:31. | :28:36. | |
so people don't expect a rise and that snuffs out the recovery | :28:36. | :28:42. | |
finally getting going. The bank also has to use its muscle to | :28:42. | :28:48. | |
squash any new housing bubble. That has never been done before. There | :28:48. | :28:52. | |
is no free lunch here. It is clearly a risk that if the governor | :28:52. | :28:57. | |
guarantees interest rates will stay at zero for a very long time that | :28:57. | :29:02. | |
does stoke up bubbles and risks eroding the credibility of monetary | :29:02. | :29:04. | |
policy. It is a risk, but the risk of the other way that interest | :29:04. | :29:10. | |
rates shoot up and choke off the recovery is probably going to be | :29:10. | :29:14. | |
the determining factor here. Even if we do achieve lift-off, this | :29:14. | :29:20. | |
chart shows how far we have to go. It logs the output of all the UK's | :29:20. | :29:24. | |
productive industries, and shows we are nowhere near output at the peak. | :29:24. | :29:27. | |
It is the rate of recovery, however temporary, that is politically | :29:27. | :29:32. | |
important. For the past three years the political climate has been | :29:32. | :29:38. | |
decidedly non-but colic, with the politicians -- non-bucolic, | :29:38. | :29:42. | |
politicians aware that the buzz in London is not created elsewhere. | :29:42. | :29:45. | |
Now economic growth is rising and spreading, you are beginning to | :29:45. | :29:51. | |
hear two words you never thought you might in the same sentence, | :29:51. | :29:57. | |
that is "autumn" and "election". Yes it is uneven and patchy growth, | :29:57. | :30:00. | |
and if wages don't start to rise yes it will be hard to sustain. But | :30:00. | :30:06. | |
it is starting to alter the political arithmetic. | :30:06. | :30:11. | |
We talk to Allister Heath, the editor of City AM, and Kate Barker | :30:11. | :30:15. | |
an economist and former member of the Monetary Policy Committee. How | :30:15. | :30:19. | |
real is this, how tangible this recovery? The data we have had over | :30:19. | :30:22. | |
the past couple of months has really been a lot stronger. It | :30:22. | :30:26. | |
feels as though both business and consumers are starting to get some | :30:26. | :30:30. | |
confidence back. That has been very badly lacking in the economy. I | :30:30. | :30:33. | |
think this is good news. We have to be careful, we are coming are from | :30:33. | :30:37. | |
a very long period of a very long depression. Output is still more | :30:37. | :30:44. | |
than 3% lower than it was in 2008. It is a long way from a normal | :30:44. | :30:48. | |
economy. In the piece we had know we talked about low savings rates | :30:48. | :30:52. | |
and impaired banking sector. There is a long way to go before we hit | :30:52. | :30:56. | |
something that feels normal. Despite the figures people are | :30:56. | :30:59. | |
really struggling?. People are still getting poorer and wages are | :30:59. | :31:03. | |
not going up as much as inflation. People are substantially poorer | :31:03. | :31:08. | |
than a few years ago. I'm worried about this growth. It is the wrong | :31:08. | :31:13. | |
kind of growth. It is growth fuelled once again by excessive | :31:13. | :31:15. | |
consumer spending rather than increasing the production for the | :31:15. | :31:19. | |
economy. We are not producing more or exporting more, we are spending | :31:19. | :31:22. | |
more. What are we using to spend, we haven't got the wages or cash? | :31:22. | :31:26. | |
No, so people are dipping into their savings and also the | :31:26. | :31:31. | |
Government is fuelling increased borrowing and trying to stimulate | :31:31. | :31:34. | |
the mortgage market is subsidising credit, is subsidising mortgages. | :31:34. | :31:37. | |
That is quite a dangerous route, feel we have not really learned the | :31:37. | :31:41. | |
lessons of the past. The economy is not being rebalanced. Yes it has | :31:41. | :31:45. | |
grown, yes the news is good, and yes probably GDP will go up by much | :31:45. | :31:50. | |
more than anybody thought this year. I don't really think it is | :31:50. | :31:53. | |
sustainable in terms it is not high-quality growth or the growth | :31:53. | :31:58. | |
we need to get out of the bubble we have seen for the last few years. | :31:58. | :32:02. | |
The Governor of the Bank of England is expected to know tomorrow what | :32:02. | :32:08. | |
the base rate will be. For a considerable period of time this | :32:08. | :32:12. | |
called "forward guidance"? I don't know about this being the right | :32:12. | :32:16. | |
sort of recovery. I don't think it is something that is started with | :32:16. | :32:19. | |
consumer spending, you have to start somewhere. That will bring | :32:19. | :32:24. | |
the production along with it. We won't produce if there is no demand, | :32:24. | :32:28. | |
it is difficult to export at the moment. We have to look to the | :32:28. | :32:33. | |
domestic consumer to get that back. What is the governor doing? We | :32:33. | :32:37. | |
start to get people talking about interest rates going up. What he | :32:37. | :32:40. | |
has to do tomorrow is to try to tell with us what are the | :32:40. | :32:43. | |
circumstances in which the bank is going to start to put interest | :32:43. | :32:47. | |
rates up, to try to stop people speculating month by month that is | :32:47. | :32:50. | |
what is going to happen. He has quite a difficult job. I have been | :32:50. | :32:54. | |
on the committee. The other eight members are pretty feisty and have | :32:54. | :32:59. | |
quite different views. He isn't just going to give his views but | :32:59. | :33:05. | |
the views of the committee. I think he will try to say to the public | :33:05. | :33:09. | |
that they will keep bank rates low for some time, until unemployment | :33:09. | :33:14. | |
is falling and wages picking up. If we don't see wages pick up we are | :33:14. | :33:19. | |
not on our way back to recovery. What if he and the rest of the | :33:19. | :33:22. | |
committee decide they need to pick up the base rate because inflation | :33:22. | :33:26. | |
starts to shoot up and people have taken out mortgage, loans and so on | :33:26. | :33:29. | |
and so forth, based on the fact that the base rate will stay low | :33:29. | :33:33. | |
for a considerable period of time. It is a dangerous promise to be | :33:33. | :33:36. | |
waiting at the moment. With the economy starting to grow we will | :33:36. | :33:39. | |
start seeing inflationary pressures. What about the principle first of | :33:39. | :33:44. | |
all? The principle of trying to say, look, I'm not going to put up rates | :33:44. | :33:47. | |
unless something happens, unemployment falls or the economy | :33:47. | :33:51. | |
starts to grow faster. That is fine. The problem is, at a time like now | :33:51. | :33:56. | |
it is hard to predict anything like this. He's going to promise the | :33:56. | :33:59. | |
wrong thing. I don't think now is the time for extended period of low | :33:59. | :34:03. | |
interest rates. Quite the contrary. 0.5 interest rates in this country, | :34:03. | :34:07. | |
a crisis level of interest rates, an emergency level of interest | :34:07. | :34:10. | |
rates. We are no longer in the emergency situation. The economy is | :34:10. | :34:13. | |
growing. You have retail sales going up, manufacturing, you have | :34:13. | :34:16. | |
all the good figures coming out of the economy and we shouldn't be | :34:16. | :34:21. | |
talking about keeping rates low for another six months. You would put | :34:21. | :34:25. | |
the base rate up by how much? quarter or half a point. For what | :34:25. | :34:30. | |
purpose? First to send a symbolic signal to show the economy is | :34:30. | :34:35. | |
recovering and the bank is more confident and rates should go up. | :34:35. | :34:40. | |
It is a pro-growth move. To start warning people rates will go up | :34:40. | :34:42. | |
more as the economy continues to grow and they need to get their | :34:42. | :34:47. | |
finances in order, and they need to reduce borrowing and rates starting | :34:47. | :34:51. | |
to up properly. Do we need that warning? I disagree with that. | :34:51. | :34:56. | |
Firstly, I think if we started to put rates up a little bit, there is | :34:56. | :35:02. | |
a big risk that markets would get carried away push the yield up, it | :35:02. | :35:06. | |
will affect money for the long-term for companies. I don't agree with | :35:06. | :35:09. | |
the proposition that once rate go up they have to go up a long way. | :35:09. | :35:13. | |
In terms of bank rate we know, of course, that other rate, the rates | :35:13. | :35:19. | |
people are borrowing at are well above 0.5 indeed. It has been very | :35:19. | :35:23. | |
difficult to get rates as low as we would have liked. I don't think | :35:23. | :35:28. | |
they need to go up a long way in the next few years. I wouldn't want | :35:28. | :35:31. | |
to start warning people of thated today. | :35:31. | :35:34. | |
Patient safety should be the English NHS's top priority. That | :35:34. | :35:41. | |
was the message today from no less than a former healthcare adviser to | :35:41. | :35:45. | |
Barack Obama. In the wake of needless suffering in some of our | :35:45. | :35:49. | |
hospital, the Government asked Professor Don Berwick to assess | :35:49. | :35:55. | |
what had gone wrong. His review spoke of a zero-harm culture, tried | :35:55. | :35:59. | |
in Scotland, and a new criminal offence of willful misconduct he | :35:59. | :36:04. | |
doesn't seem the need to prosecute health workers who fail to report | :36:04. | :36:14. | |
:36:14. | :36:40. | ||
mistakes. He doesn't also want In the two-and-a-half thousand | :36:40. | :36:44. | |
years since the hippocratic oath was written, healthcare has changed | :36:44. | :36:49. | |
immeasurably. But the tenet of the oath remain the same. And yet, in | :36:49. | :36:52. | |
the 21st century, in spite of all the developments that should have | :36:52. | :36:57. | |
made looking after patients safer, many more than expected still die | :36:57. | :37:04. | |
under NHS care. Today one of the world's leading experts on patient | :37:04. | :37:09. | |
safety published his plans to create a culture of called "zero- | :37:09. | :37:15. | |
harm" in the NHS. One of Professor Don Berwick's findings is NHS staff | :37:15. | :37:20. | |
are not to blame. He says in the vast majority of cases it is the | :37:20. | :37:24. | |
systems, procedure, conditions, the environment and constraints they | :37:24. | :37:30. | |
face that lead to patient safety problems. | :37:30. | :37:33. | |
His recommendations include that staffing numbers should be adequate | :37:33. | :37:38. | |
and decided locally. He did not recommend minimum staffing levels. | :37:38. | :37:42. | |
Criminal sanctions should apply to reckless and willful neglect or | :37:42. | :37:47. | |
mistreatment of patients. But that unintended errors must not be | :37:47. | :37:51. | |
criminalised. Staff should speak up when things go wrong. But there | :37:51. | :37:56. | |
should be no blame culture. More simple regulation with an | :37:56. | :38:01. | |
independent review by the end of 2017. | :38:01. | :38:04. | |
While patient and nursing groups welcome the report, they say | :38:04. | :38:08. | |
opportunities have been missed. doesn't go far enough. We know from | :38:08. | :38:13. | |
evidence, from countries like Australia, and from the United | :38:13. | :38:18. | |
States, California by way of example, staffing level are decreed | :38:18. | :38:21. | |
in law. Organisation are not permitted to go below the minimum. | :38:21. | :38:26. | |
Where we have had problems in some parts of the NHS, it has often been | :38:26. | :38:31. | |
the case that you had far too few people on frontline doing the job. | :38:31. | :38:35. | |
We believe at some stage by law minimum staffing levels would be | :38:35. | :38:42. | |
set. We think that is in everyone's interest. My charity here is on a | :38:42. | :38:45. | |
daily basis are hearing horrendous stories about what has gone wrong | :38:45. | :38:51. | |
in the NHS. That hasn't gone away. This report might be a small step | :38:51. | :38:55. | |
in getting the patient safety, culture and communication needs | :38:55. | :39:04. | |
that we have. It can only work to complement the report about Mid- | :39:04. | :39:07. | |
Staffordshire. That report made 290 recommendations which is when | :39:07. | :39:14. | |
patient safety really came to the fore. In the cake of that inquiry, | :39:14. | :39:19. | |
England's Medical Director, Sir Bruce Keogh, investigated 14 NHS | :39:19. | :39:23. | |
Trusts in England, 11 have been placed in special measures. While | :39:23. | :39:30. | |
those reports looked at specific trusts, this review is welcomed by | :39:30. | :39:35. | |
some as encouraging culture change across the NHS. Those serious | :39:35. | :39:38. | |
incidents of disastrous care are wrong, thankfully. Never the less | :39:38. | :39:41. | |
the whole system could do a lot better to focus more on patient | :39:42. | :39:46. | |
safety. This report was taking that system-level view, with a range of | :39:46. | :39:49. | |
recommendations, right the way from staff in the NHS through to | :39:49. | :39:54. | |
Government. How you can achieve that sort of change. But changing | :39:54. | :39:58. | |
the culture of a huge organisation like the NHS is not something that | :39:58. | :40:02. | |
will happen quickly. Meanwhile today the medical production | :40:02. | :40:06. | |
society found three-quarters of sunnor doctors they surveyed said | :40:06. | :40:09. | |
they did not have enough time to give their patients the care they | :40:09. | :40:16. | |
require. Earlier I went to the Department of Health to speak to | :40:16. | :40:20. | |
Professor Berwick. Can I ask you first of all about the structure of | :40:20. | :40:24. | |
the NHS, huge bureaucratic organisation, over one million | :40:24. | :40:27. | |
employees thousands of managers. From your experience of it, do you | :40:27. | :40:32. | |
think it is the right structure to deliver safe patient care? There is | :40:32. | :40:35. | |
probably no-one right structure, but it is a promising structure to | :40:35. | :40:40. | |
do it T you have central accountability, the ability to | :40:40. | :40:45. | |
deploy resources and enormous possibility for learning. The NHS | :40:45. | :40:49. | |
is big enough anywhere a problem develops somebody else on the | :40:49. | :40:57. | |
system may have solved. It may be a weakness but it is its greatest | :40:57. | :41:02. | |
strength. Overly bureaucratic? There is that in all agencies, and | :41:02. | :41:05. | |
we experiment with deferred authority and oscillating. I think | :41:05. | :41:09. | |
there is a sense that a lot of the important things that need to | :41:09. | :41:14. | |
happen will happen in the shortend, in the hospitals, Trusts and | :41:14. | :41:18. | |
regions, that is a productive direction. If one of your relatives | :41:18. | :41:22. | |
had died from neglect in one of the hospitals in England in the last | :41:22. | :41:26. | |
few years. You might justifiably want to blame someone? The human | :41:26. | :41:31. | |
reaction to the strategy we saw at Mid-Staffordshire or something gone | :41:32. | :41:36. | |
wrong is. It is anger, fear, remorse, looking for someone to | :41:36. | :41:40. | |
blame, that is totally human. You would feel the same. Anything wrong | :41:40. | :41:44. | |
with that. Nothing wrong with it, it just won't work. The way out of | :41:44. | :41:49. | |
the trouble is really through a different approach. Hold on a | :41:49. | :41:54. | |
minute, that wasn't ip tensional we didn't do it on purpose -- | :41:54. | :41:57. | |
intentional, we didn't do it on purpose, how can we stop it | :41:57. | :42:00. | |
happening to anyone else again. We say it in a report that the only | :42:00. | :42:05. | |
suitable homage to the people who suffered in mid-faf Fordshire is | :42:05. | :42:10. | |
data, learning and improvement. You never, ever get to safety through | :42:10. | :42:14. | |
anger and blame. You get there through learning, curiosity and | :42:14. | :42:18. | |
commitment. What about the relatives who might want to hold | :42:18. | :42:24. | |
someone accountable? Tremendous empathy for them. I understand how | :42:24. | :42:27. | |
they would be angry, I would be too. The way to respond is to say look, | :42:27. | :42:32. | |
we are going to make this better, we together will come together and | :42:32. | :42:37. | |
we will make this service better and better and better in honour of | :42:37. | :42:42. | |
your injured relative. It is the only way we can do that really | :42:42. | :42:46. | |
respects them. If we choose a different path, the path of anger | :42:46. | :42:49. | |
or recrimination, you don't get there. What will happen is people | :42:50. | :42:53. | |
will hide the data, they will run and hide. | :42:53. | :42:58. | |
Because of the no-blame culture that you want to see in the NHS, is | :42:58. | :43:03. | |
that why you have rejected what Francis recommended, which was this | :43:03. | :43:07. | |
legal requirement for health staff to admit mistakes or report | :43:07. | :43:13. | |
failings? I see it is a balancing act, we may have moved the balance | :43:13. | :43:18. | |
to a different place. We do, for example, have in it a very small | :43:18. | :43:23. | |
call for what would happen infrequently, the prosecution of | :43:23. | :43:29. | |
people who willfully come close. There is respect to a duty or to | :43:29. | :43:33. | |
disclose, that is a tricky business. You really can't require people to | :43:33. | :43:40. | |
talk. It doesn't work. They will hide and become frightened. So we | :43:40. | :43:45. | |
shyed away from a duty of reporting for everyone for everything. There | :43:45. | :43:49. | |
is some strong language there about the absolute requirement that | :43:49. | :43:52. | |
patients be told when something seriously goes wrong and that | :43:52. | :43:58. | |
should be expected as a prove fgsal duty and owned by -- professional | :43:58. | :44:04. | |
duty and owned by managers. Can you see a situation where a prosecution | :44:04. | :44:12. | |
might be inappropriate? Sabotage when there is someone of criminal | :44:12. | :44:19. | |
intent who is stealing mediciness and substituting. Do we need new | :44:19. | :44:24. | |
laepblgslation? I'm not British -- Legislation? I'm not sure but the | :44:24. | :44:31. | |
advisory group felt better reformed in me and some introduction of the | :44:31. | :44:37. | |
statutory requirement would go some way. In mid-staffs the problem was | :44:37. | :44:43. | |
not the absence of some statute, it was a cultural phenomenon where | :44:43. | :44:49. | |
people didn't have the skills to look at data, and a vicious cycle | :44:49. | :44:54. | |
began leading to opaqueness and injury. No new law would have | :44:54. | :44:59. | |
prevended Mid-Staffordshire. In the past you have -- We vented Mid- | :44:59. | :45:03. | |
Staffordshire. You described yourself as romantic about England | :45:03. | :45:09. | |
would you confess that now? It is a nation committed to universality | :45:09. | :45:12. | |
and as a basic human right. You have chosen to do it with tax | :45:12. | :45:19. | |
support and publicly funded. You have done it in a way that is free | :45:19. | :45:23. | |
at the point of service. It is committed to equity. It is an | :45:23. | :45:27. | |
amazing investment. I'm still a constant fan of that endeavour. | :45:27. | :45:32. | |
are still romantic about it? still think it is ra great human | :45:32. | :45:37. | |
endeavour. If look at Mid- Staffordshire for a minute, take a | :45:37. | :45:42. | |
step back, what happened here was something went badly wrong. That | :45:42. | :45:46. | |
could happen anywhere. It went badly wrong. So many other nations | :45:46. | :45:48. | |
and places nothing would have happened, something went badly | :45:48. | :45:54. | |
wrong much you wouldn't have a mechanism here, the country is | :45:54. | :45:59. | |
mobilised journalism, the fo., my point is you can act because you | :45:59. | :46:08. | |
have a -- can take it and execute it. It is a shame it has to be | :46:08. | :46:11. | |
triggered by tragedy but you can act on it and improve things. I | :46:11. | :46:21. | |
:46:21. | :46:50. | ||
think that will happen. That's all for tonight. We will be back | :46:50. | :46:53. | |
tomorrow. Until then, have a good tomorrow. Until then, have a good | :46:53. | :47:03. | |
:47:03. | :47:30. | ||
evening. . Wednesday starts with rain in | :47:30. | :47:34. | |
Scotland, that will break up into showers during the day. Some cloud | :47:34. | :47:38. | |
building as the day goes on, but the rain is hard to find the one or | :47:38. | :47:41. | |
two showers popping up in Northern Ireland, a scattering of showers | :47:41. | :47:45. | |
for the afternoon in Scotland. Sunnier spells inDean. Inamongst | :47:45. | :47:51. | |
those hef and slow moving, but most will avoid them. As we look to | :47:51. | :47:54. | |
northern England you have cloud, sunny spells, the Midlands too. | :47:54. | :47:59. | |
There will be more cloud compared with today. The far south-east for | :47:59. | :48:04. | |
coastal counties, there may be a shower or thunder storm hopping | :48:04. | :48:08. | |
across the channel. A lower risk they will push inland. | :48:08. | :48:13. | |
The south west of England and for Wales, yes, the odd stray shower, | :48:13. | :48:18. |