09/01/2014 Newsnight

It's already likely to be the most controversial television programme

of 2014, is Benefits Street the truth about welfare or just poverty

porn. You see this street here, James Turner Street was one of the

best streets. Unemployed, unemployed. Now, one of the worst.

Has the broadcaster, Channel 4, stitched up the residents of James

Turner Street in Birmingham. The executive who commissioned the

programme is here. Nick and Ed, the relationship everyone is talking

about. A less likely preferrer of an olive

branch is to be imagined one Lib Dem candidate told me. We will find out

what is really behind this political love-in. Newsnight talks to the top

CIA counsel w sought legal cover for waterboarding, Alan Dershowitz will

tell us why he thinks he was right, and Shami Chakrabrti why she's sure

he's wrong. Martin Scorsese's new film, The Wolf of Wall Street,

opened tonight in London, but there is already controversy over its

portrayal of bankers backlash. There was a backlash against Goodfellas

too. James Turner Street is one of the

most infault puss streets in Britain, after Benefits Street hit

the screens this week. Introducing a cast of a scammer and benefit

cheats. The reaction has been immense, from

accusation that is the channel sold the residents a false prospectus

about the programme, to get them to take part, to commentators who say

the series shows exactly why benefit reform is critical. Unemployed,

unemployed, unemployed. Most of the residents... . Penny for the poor.

Are claiming benefits. Probably a 5% of people on this road are working.

Is Benefits Street an honest observational documentary about life

in a deprived part of Birmingham or a manipulative stitch-up. On James

Turner Street today there were very few residents who wanted to go on

camera who would talk about the programme. There was anger here.

This man who didn't want to be identified has lived on the street

for two years and not on benefits. How do you feel the way the

programme has streeted the street and residents here? Very let down.

The production company have lied through their teeth to us. They have

done exactly what they said they weren't going to do. They haven't

shown a true representation of the street. Even though they have said

it is fair representation. It is not. A lot of people on the street

work, and nothing has been put on the show about the people who work

on the street. We have spoken to a number of residents about their

interactions with the producers of the programme. They have told us

they feel misled, and that producers weren't clear about how the street

was going to be portrayed. One woman who was asked to take part in the

documentary told me that she thought it was meant to be about community

spirit and at no point was she told it was about benefits. So what is

life really like here? Ray Bennett has been helping to cross James

Turner Street for the last eight years. What do you think it has done

in terms of the way the street is seen by everybody else? It has made

the street look bad. It is not that bad. You can't class everybody the

same can you. You shouldn't tar everybody with the same brush, that

is what I think. The programme claims that almost all of the

residents are on benefits. But that doesn't ring true, says George, who

has lived here since 1961. They are looking at some people who are

benefit and targeting the whole street. That is wrong. Why? I'm not

on benefits. Some of those who appeared on the programme have been

vilified on Twitter, branded benefits scroungers. But not Smoggy.

Sugar, coffee, hot chocolate, teabags, everything's 50p. Smoggy's

entrepeneurialism has made him a celebrity in Birmingham. It is

overwhelming, everything is happening overnight. What kind of

reaction are you getting? A lot of people stopping me in the street,

people saying I'm an inspiration and saying their children had seen what

I'm doing and wanting to do something positive themself. How

does that make you feel? Money couldn't buy that, that is special

that is. Channel 4's Big Fat Gypsy Wedding was also criticised for

voyeurism, so should these kinds of programmes be shown at all. In so

far as it is true, in so far as it is accurate and in that sense fairly

portrayed, it is hard to say we shouldn't be shown it. What did

become clear today is that the relentless media attention of the

last few days has been too much for some residents of James Turner

Street. I'm joined now by Lee lead of

factual programmes of Channel 4, Owen Jones, a columnist, and Fraser

Nelson editor of the Spectator magazine. Can we nail the issue of

the title. Were the participants told that the title of the show was

going to be Benefits Street? No, they weren't told that but not

something else either. The producers had been working with the residents

of James Turner Street for nearly two years now. It has been a

consultation with them, long before we started filming. We were there

filming for a year. They were very clear and transparent with everyone

on the street about what the nature of the programme was. Why they were

there and what the nature of the end product was. They were clear that we

were there. They were told it was going to be about benefits

primarily? We were there because it is a part of Britain that is heavily

reliant on benefits and James Turner Street sits within an area which has

a long-term problem with unemployment. The thrust of the

programme is, what's life like in Britain in a year when benefits are

being cut by the Government. Over a long period of time for a community.

Let me come to the final point, for a community that has, in spite of

the hardship that it goes through a very strong sense of community, a

very strong sense of neighbourliness, that is why that

street was chosen. What about the criticism that you don't show people

who work on the street and there are people who work on the street? It is

true to say the majority of the people on turn turn street do --

James Turner Street do claim benefits, that is clear and

transparent. Why didn't you tell them, Stu didn't you know it was

going to be called Benefits Street, when was that decided? Quite late in

the tie Day that would be the title. That is common for department trees.

Just before transmission? A couple of weeks before. At that point we

were transparent with the contributors. They knew it was going

to be called Benefits Street before it transmitted? Yes, yes. Are you

comfortable with the idea of poverty porn as an idea? I'm deeply

uncomfortable with that phrase. It is inaccurate, and it is patronising

to the people who take part in the programmes and who open up their

lives to it. It is offensive to the people who make them with diligence

and professionalism and integrity. It is a phrase I don't like. Why

have you such a problem with it? I don't think it is an honest

portrayal of life in Britain, it is the medieval stocks updated for a

modern format. What we have in this called debate about the welfare

state is a relents almost obsessive hunting down of the most extreme

dysfuntional unrepresentative people. They are adults, isn't that

a bit patronising? It is not, I tell you why, because we have a situation

now where according to the polls on average Britain's think 27% of

social security is lost through fraud, it is 0. 7%. People think

that the majority of the welfare state goes to unemployed people, it

doesn't, it goes to pensioners who paid in all their lives. It is to do

with these sorts of sensational programme, it is not just them, the

BBC themselves are responsible for this. People like us. BBC have lots

of different programmes? People Like Us which was a BBC programme did the

same in Manchester, this portrayed on housing benefit and had to

apologise for that. The programme didn't put words in people's mouths?

This is what these programmes do, like People Like Us and Skints,

which you also did, they hunt down the unrepresentative examples and

portray them in the most negative way. We have on social media a

response to, that people calling for them and people on benefits to be

gassed and hanged and shot. You must have a selective memory of Canon,

selecting Scent and Benefits Street and forgetting about a series of How

To Get A Council House, nobody accused that of poverty porn, it was

looking at both sides of people relying on social housing, we going

back to that series, we look at that again. We look at benefits in more

situation. -- ways. What is the benefit of these programmes? If what

we see is shocking shouldn't we change the system. We are good at

ignoring extreme poverty and pretending these things don't

happen. And say isn't it terrible and you are gawping at these people.

I don't think this is a freak show, it portrays them in a positive life.

A lot of the characters there are ones that I personally warmed to,

the villain of the piece isn't the people it is the system that makes

them lead the lives they do. The criticism is of young middle-class

producers that go in and do a kind of "does he take sugar" on areas

like this and retreat again and doesn't understand the lives of

these people. The cameras rolled and the people spoke in their own way. I

have had the advantage of seeing the second episode and portraying are

you minutian immigrants in a positive light. When people see the

whole series they will Israelite this is not an attempt to put people

-- realise this is not an attempt to put people in the stocks but say

this is what we do. The media has to be held accountable that not only is

people's perceptions of the welfare system is distorted, everyone has to

look at the factual figures and ask why have we ended up with the public

so misinformed, we need to redress the problem. Programmes looking at

low-paid workers dependant on benefits cut by the Government whose

real wages are cut and they are struggling. Are you really saying

that the people in James Turner Street shouldn't have their voice?

No, I'm saying that it should be balanced. This is the point about

the television programme, you balance them out. Most working age

people dependant on benefits are people who are in work. That is

because we are subsidising bosses who are charging, who are paying

poverty wages, it is the same in another part of the welfare debate

which is not shown on television, which is housing benefit is lining

the pockets of landlords, most people on benefits are in work, that

is not shown on the BBC or Channel 4. Does it give you pause when you

look at some of the reactions for people talking part in the programme

is so negative? We take our responsibility to contributors and

people who take part in the programmes very seriousliment as a

result the producers who worked with them over such a long period of time

are still on James Turner Street trying to help them deal with the

issues of having that attention brought to them. Why are people so

unhappy? Benefits has touched a nerve as an issue, it is an issue of

major concern. Can I ask you a direct question, when you see on

social media, you kept flashes up the hashtag for it, you saw people

calling for those people to be gassed, hanged and shot, and people

on benefits to go through that as well. Did you look at that and

think, hang on a minute, maybe we could have been a bit more balanced

here and not so sensationalist? When I see that I find it deeply

distasteful. Do you take responsibility? Hanging on. You do

take responsibility? I don't think you should judge the programme by

the reaction to the programme, I don't think you should judge the

reaction to the programme by the extreme n to the programme, that was

a handful of intemperate tweets. As someone there want to go show the

reality of modern Britain, do you think of the fact that people think

27% of people think fraud in the benefits system when it is actually

0. 7%, do you not think as a person making documentaries that it is your

job to educate people. You are distorting the issue, this is not a

programme about benefits. I'm talking about output, what

responsibility as someone informing the public by taking on the myth,

isn't the media about challenging the myth As well as exposing real

problems which this is it. There is nowhere enough outrage from people

about what we are doing in our society. Do you think it will make a

difference to the debate? The more people realise how broken the system

is and what life is like in the system the more attempt there will

be to reform and save the people caught in this issue. And it is the

people at the top who will do that as ever.

Who is behind me? I'm Sicilian, we don't sit with our backs with the

door we never sit with the back to the door, who has my back!

Interrupting Scorsese is never a good idea. When Ed Balls was writing

his new year's resolutions it appeared that one of them was "must

be nice to Nick Clegg". After the last election the Shadow Chancellor

said any accord between Labour and the Liberal Democrats would be

conditional on Nick Clegg's departure. But in this week's New

Statesman, Ed Balls was positively loved up, referring to a friendly

chat between the two at Westminster, the first for a long time, perhaps

ever. He disregarded the party line and didn't rule out a coalition

between the two parties. Here is Emily Maitlis's assessment of a new

special relationship. Now it is not every day that you get called a

"prove fall lack particular protection device -- a prophaylatic

protection item" it was from Boris Johnson, while it was unhe

hadifying, Nick Clegg's reply was revealing. I'm for once with Ed

Balls on this I think name calling is all very passe, very 2013. You

see messers Ball and Clegg have had a reproachment, a little warmth. He

said he had a friendly chat with them, he was not saying where but

the kind of place where people pass in the House.

It is very interesting, because in the past Ed Balls, of all senior

figures on the Labour side, has probably been one of the most openly

derisive of Nick Clegg and contemptuous about the Liberal

Democrats, for him to be saying nice things about the Lib Demes and their

leader, even to hint at a budding brow mans -- bromance is very

interesting. They were even tweeting each other, and teasing about a

cock-up, and Ed Balls responded in kind. I know there is much chat

about the tweet, I suggest everybody tweets Ed Balls it is always good

for your health! . But there is a lot of discussion as to whether it

was deliberate or whether it was a joke. Who knows? Before Ed Balls's

very public overture, I spoke to one senior Labour election strategist

who told me you will never hear us admit publicly or privately that we

are talking to the Liberal Democrats. The last thing we want is

to make them sit up in their coffin. That memorable phrase that stuck in

my head. The point he was trying to make was that Labour has done well

from ex-Lib Dem voters. Any hint of a pact, formal or informal, would,

he fears, send them ask theling -- scuttling back. The polls suggest

that next time round it will be a lot closer and the situation may be

different, that is important for the Lib Demes, they are loser,

ideolgically and historically to the Labour Party. Their supporters would

choose, by a majority of 2-1 to go with Labour if given a choice. The

last thing the Liberal Democrats want to do is go too close to one.

They don't want to jump into bed with someone and on the wedding

night find it should be someone else. It wouldn't be the first

attempt with Lib-Lab love, remember the Blair and Ashdown attempt many

years ago. Most have spent their political lives fighting the

Conservatives, over two thirds of our seats are held against

Conservative opposition It is not our natural home. The Liberal

Democrats are seen as the insurgents, gatecrashing in these

halls of power. But there is more effort these days to strike a

different stone. For Ed Balls there was this calculation, he is one of

the more partisan figures in politician politics. Perhaps he

thinks it doesn't do his own reputation any harm if he can sound

a more reckon sillry tone. It is more of a personal crusade, the

Liberal Democrats, the smallest party with the least poll ratings

could hold all the cards, or even, some suggest the keys to the

Treasury. The CIA's use of waterboarding on terror suspects

still arouses furious debate in the US. Now the former top CIA lawyer,

John Rizzo, in position in the years after 9/11 has written a book in

which he details the way he and others in the Bush administration

provided legal cover for torture and reveals he could have stopped the

programme before it began. He said some of the techniques sound

sadistic and terrifying, like something out of Edgar Allan Poe,

and yet were legally and morally justified. In the wake of drone

strikes he tells our BBC correspondent that capturing and

interrogating suspects is better than killing them. It was one of the

most controversial decisions taken in the CIA's history, to subject

terrorist suspects to what the agency called "enhanced

interrogation techniques". What nearly everyone else calls torture.

At secret locations around the world, known as black site, America

took the gloves off. Interrogators used things like waterboarding,

simulated drowning to get America's enemies to spill their secrets. This

man says he could have stopped it before it all began. John Rizzo was

the CIA's top lawyer who signed off on the programme. If I had said this

is crazy and it will get us in huge trouble and it is a huge risk we

shouldn't do it, we should just kill this right now before it gets

started, that would have held. I'm sure of that. Why didn't you stop

it, why did you sign off on those techniques? The country and the

agency was just consumed with the fear and the dread that another

attack was coming on the homeland. John Rizzo joined the CIA as a young

lawyer in 1975. Here's photographed by a foreign Intelligence Service on

an overseas mission. He was the go-to man for spies, who wanted to

know if their most controversial operations were legal or not. He

rose to become general counsel, the CIA's most senior lawyer in the

years after 9/11. Now retired, he's defending the decisions he and

America's leaders took in their fight against Al-Qaeda. After the

September 11th attack, the US began to round up high-value suspect, the

first major catch in March 2002 was A AbuZubatda. Under questioning by

the FBI, he identified the architect of the 9/11 attacks. The FBI Special

Agent who got than I tell begins told Newsnight it was done without

mistreatment. We were getting actionable intelligence, this

actionable intelligence had the possibility of saving lives. But the

CAI believed Zabada knew more, particularly about possible planned

attacks. They devised a new highly secret interrogation programme. John

Rizzo was given a list of new techniques his colleagues wanted to

use on Zubada. They methodically described all of the technique,

sometimes using visual demonstrations of, for instance a

facial grasp and that was the first time in my life I ever heard the

word "waterboarding". I had no idea what thawas What was your reaction?

Well some of the techniques, they have all been declassified now. Some

of them, frankly the facial grasp, maybe the belly slap struck me as

almost out of the three stoodges routine, but others, especially

waterboarding, and also you know the sleep deprivation technique they

were decribing which would involve extended periods of time without

sleep. Frankly, they struck me as something terrifying. President

Obama has described the enhanced interrogation programme as torture,

do you agree with him? If it was torture the CIA would not have done

it. Isn't that because you have defined it not to be torture as the

lawyer? Well yeah, I have interpreted it and more importantly

the highest legal representative in the elective branch has said it is

not the legal definition of torture. Now almost everybody else seems to

think it is? There seems to be a substantial opinion in that

direction. In taking office, President Obama's new team shut down

the enhanced interrogation programme. When Rizzo met Obama's

key aides, he discovered they wanted the CIA to do something else,

accelerate massively the programme of drone strikes, the new President

wasn't going to take any prisoners, a mistake says John Rizzo. Killing a

source of information should be the last resort, not the first resort.

The whole programme, you know, the whole enhanced interrogation

programme, the whole secret prison programme was designed to Ellis

incompetent information from high-level terrorists, that could

not be acquired by -- other means. That is why great pains were made to

aperture these people to get them to talk, they won't talk blown out of

the sky. The eliciting of information through waterboarding

imagined America's reputation abroad and damaged some at home. It was too

much for many to stomach, immoral some thought and illegal. The lawyer

who had to authorise that decision is unrepentant. It is not an easy

job to be a lawyer for an intelligence agency. It involves

moral conundrums? Yeah. Were there moral issues or a practical and

legal issue? It was more issues, you know, that walk I took around the

building after the techniques were first described to me in early 2002,

I can't believe I'm even considering this. But you said yes? I did say

yes, and it wasn't easy. But I mean I don't think I had another choice.

Here in the studio is Shami Chakrabrti the director of Liberty,

and joining us from Miami is Professor Alan Dershowitz, one of

America's most prominent civil liberty lawyers, who in his latest

book, Taking Stand, discusses his controversial support for

state-sanctioned torture. Alan Dershowitz, first of all, Riese reds

John Rizzo was adamant that waterboarding was not torture, in

your book is it torture? Yes it is, it ranges from one extreme to lethal

torture on the other in my book, but it is all torture. I think it is

illegal. I don't agree with the lawyer that thinks it should be

legal. My point is if it is going to be done, and I think it should not

be done. If it is going to be done it ought to be done visibly and with

accountability, which is why I have called for a torture warrant. I

don't favour torture but I favour accountability for torture. Just

like I don't favour the death penalty but I favour accountability

and visibility when we execute people, there is no inconsistency

between those two positions. Then inconsistency isn't surely that you

don't believe in torture, but even by suggesting a torture warrant

would give cover for people who want to torture and it also then

presumably contravenes the Geneva Convention? No, I think the fact of

torture contravenes the convention, I'm saying it shouldn't be done. But

if it is going to be done, if a ticking bomb exists and for example

if the Prime Minister of England had known that there was a terrorist

planning to blow up the subways of London and he could have stopped

that by using enhanced interrogation I believe he would have done it. If

he's going to do it I think there should be a warrant requirement. He

shouldn't be able to do it below the surface, not visibly and without

accountability. So I'm against torture but for accountability. What

do you make of that? I think that Professor Dershowitz is far too

clever a lawyer for me, I'm a little lost with we shouldn't do it but if

we're going to do it let's do it by making the judiciary complicit in

something that we all know is fundamentally immoral and wrong,

bottom line for me, very simple for me. Tyrants and terrorists torture

people, that is what makes them the bad guy, democrats, people who are

human rights lawyers like the eminent professor there and me, we

don't do torture, that is the difference between us, that's it.

And what Alan Dershowitz is saying, the ticking bomb, if the Prime

Minister knew that somebody had information about a bomb, about to

go off on the London Underground and whatever, and could find out that

information by enhanced interrogation techniques would you

say no? I don't think he should do that. If he wants to do that needs

to know he's behaving illegally. The responsibility is political. You

don't believe in it. I wouldn't do it. If push came to shove and there

was this ticking bomb, are you saying you wouldn't do everything in

your power to get the information to save people's lives? My problem is I

have a low pain threshold, I couldn't give birth without a great

deal of pharmaceutical and surgical assistance, I think if you tortured

me I would tell you whatever I thought you wanted me to say. I'm

not convinced about reliability, sometimes it is not reliable and it

is just wrong, it is just wrong. It is clearly sometimes reliable, you

don't rely on the word, you tell the terrorist, the person, to take you

to where the bomb is. It has to be self-proving. I'm not justifying

there. I'm saying I'm opposed to the death penalty I think it is wrong

and in violation of international law, but as long as we are executing

people we have to do with it due process and visibility and

accountability. As long as there is torture being used and every single

country in the world would use it in a ticking bomb place, let's make

sure there is accountability and visibility and not done underneath

the table and beneath the radar screen the way most countries do it

today. The waterboarding of three terror suspects, let as look at but

on Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, apparently sleep deprivation for 180

hours, he informed about a future plot. In your view was that

justifiable? I don't think it is justifiable, I understand why people

in the security business would want to do it. I think it would happen,

I'm making a descriptive statement. It will happen, if it is going to

happen I make enormive suggestion, let's make sure we do it with

accountability and visibility so the people knows about it and we can

have a debate and the public can decide whether there is a ticking

bomb case we want the bomb to go off or the people stopped. The problem

with the enormative suggestion -- the normative suggestion is the

eminent professor will normise it with bells and whistling. This is

what we did with internment and stucking people in Belmarsh Prison

for a few years, this is what they do with military commissions in

Guantanamo, you make it look legal and it is fundamentally wrong. Then

we abolish it and once we know about it. We are right out of time. Thank

you very much. The Oscar-winning director, Martin Scorsese, is well

known for his darkly comic films about gangsters including Goodfellas

and The Departmented, now he has taken the obvious next step and made

a film about bankers and brokers. The Wolf of Wall Street had its UK

pramer in Earler this evening in London. It is also had criticism of

revelling in the abilityics of the two real-life protagonists. Stephen

Smith spoke to Martin Scorsese about letting the bankers off lightly and

why he's afraid to go out in New York. In an interview the lighting

is so important, the ambience, the reassurance that nobody it about to

whack you! Who is behind me, I'm Sicilian, we don't sit with our

backs to the door, we never do, who has my back. With this script I'm

going to teach each and every one of you to be the best. This is the

greatest company in the world. Martin Scorsese's new film is the

rollicking true story of a New York broker who made a fortune selling

worthless stock. I was making so much money I didn't know what to do

with it. And lived high on the proceeds. Some have called this

black farce the director's best film in years, for others it is a little

too rollicking. We didn't try to judge their world and the people, we

think, I have seen that so often, that very often a story like that a

play, a novel a film, where you know the author is commenting on the

action and condemning it, or criticising it, I don't know,

sometimes especially particularly certain films, I think it makes the

audience feel they have done their job. So it is over to us in the

stalls to do the moral heavy lifting. And to make it more

complicated in that sense. This will take 50 trips. Money laundering old

school, broker Jordan Belfort, played by Leonardo di Caproi, took

his loot to Swiss banks in person. All right, not his person. America

is always represented as place of opportunity, which it still is, I

think. I was able to take advantage of that. I don't ever recall it

being a place where the main thing was to get rich, only to get rich,

only. I have a couple of million coming in a couple of weeks I give

you a call and you can come and pick it up. You will give me a call. When

it gets here I will give you a call and you can come and pick it up. We

don't work for you man. You have my money taped to your boob,

technically you do work for me. It was an opportunity to take

characters like that and confront the audience with it, but in a very

strong way, a very almost provocative way, I think. I think

very provocative. Have you been surprised or disappointed by a

certain amount of critical backlash to it. There was a backlash against

Goodfellas when it was made in 1990, they felt I glorified the

underworld. Ignoring the fact that everybody in the film is either

killed or goes to jail. As far back as I remember I want #D to be a

gangster -- I wanted to be a gangster. Bankers, some of them,

brokers, are they the new gangsters? It seems easy to say politicians and

bankers are all gangsters, how should I put it? Power, it is about

power. And one can utilise power in a more compassionate way, and others

the power will corrupt, absolutely. Where are the ones who were culpable

for what happened in September 2008? Billions of dollars have been spent

on fines, and I think you know those billions seem to be so easily given

that maybe they don't mean that much. Who is responsible? I don't

know. I just came out of a sense of frustration, it came out of that

sense, let's really show everybody enjoying themselves and destroying

everything that way. I think, to put you in that mind set, to put you in

that world. I go all over, I take people to the Bronx, Brooklyn,

Harlem, I don't care, makes no difference to me. Martin Scorsese

grew up in New York, and his films amount to a hymn to the city, or

perhaps a Bronx cheer. Even since some of your classic movies, Taxi

Driver, Mean Street, the place has cleaned itself up? That is what they

tell me. I won't test it out. I still feel I won't go into Central

Park, I try not to go below, I used to try not go below, well I don't go

below 57th street now. It is funny you say this, because a lot of

people would see you as, amongst other things, a Poet Laureate of the

American underbelly, over the long span of your career, and if anyone's

confident in that mill milure is you, but the perception of it seems

scary even for you? It doesn't mean I don't spend the time down in those

areas when I have to. Doing the leg work? Doing the leg work, hanging

out, doing what I have to do, shooting there, visiting. Again as

you get older there is less, people are no longer around, you don't see

that many people any more that you knew. There is no need to go down

there. ?26,000, for one dinner. This could be explained, we had clients,

the Pfizer clients. We had to buy champagne. And you ordered all the

sides. I or theed the sides. $26,000 of side, what were they, the sides

that cure cancer. That is the problem, that is why they were

expensive. Stop. As Scorsese's new picture opens, is the director's

chosen medium threatened. The film to challenge buttocks and attention

spans and the like. People are watching six-second films, vines.

Does that appeal to you? All the BS, as they say here that you wouldn't

have to put up with if you were just working across a six-second span?

What would you do, a high coup! I can't do high coup. Half a high

coup. They don't have the attention man for that. A coup or a high!

Back in October Newsnight broke the story that an internal audit by the

Department of Education into one of the Government's flagship free

schools had unearthed evidence of serious financial irregularities and

possible fraud. Today the West Yorkshire Police arrested a

41-year-old man in relation to their investigation into the school.

Richard Watson who reported on the original story joins me with the

latest. What has been happening? The police won't confirm the identity of

the man they have arrested. We understand very surely that this is

the principal, Mr Raza, who has been arrested. This story really began

back in October with our investigation into alleged financial

im ro-primity at the -- impriority at the axe cad me. We were leaked a

report carried out in March/April last year, the report contained

stark criticisms of financial mismanagement, alleged machines

mismanagement and even allegations of some fraud there. There was talk

in the report that some invoices had been fabricated, there was talk in

the report that ?86,000 had been misappropriated in some way. The

Government told us they would make sure ?76,000 was repaid to the

Government. There was serious talk, and talk of the school being run

like a family business. With many close relations of the principal

being employed. Some people told us without due process. The report was

carried out back in April, on the day of our investigation when it was

broadcast, they actually published a report on their website, some might

say that the two events were linked. That was that. And so the police

investigation continues from now on. Thank you very much. The Syrian

refugee crisis will not let up, two million have fled the country, many

to camps on the Terekish border, in Syria itself it is said 6. 5 million

people, including three million children have been displaced. The

western side effort into Syria was to combine two things, aid and

politics, supporting the rebel movements while supplying food, and

shelter. The screening for delivering the -- the vehicle for

delivering the relief, is mired in controversy over the allegations of

squandering of aid money and organisational chaos. They are

homeless, hungry, and freezing cold. In did you zero temperatures, Syrian

refugees in southern Turkey must might for hand-outs of winter

clothes. This some fled bombing and two families are sharing one room

and one blanket. At least aid is distributed here. Most relief

supplies must head into the chaos of Syria itself. Routes are blocked by

fighting and aid workers kidnapped or killed. It has become an

ever-greater challenge to ensure that help gets where it is needed

most. The solution western powers came up with has its name stamped on

hundreds of thousands of clothes and food packages, the ACU, an arm of

the Syrian opposition that could advise the world on relief efforts.

What foreign donors, particularly western donors wanted was a network

of eyes and ears inside Syria who could provide reliable information

about where aid like this was most needed and who could be trusted to

deliver it. That is why just over a year ago Britain, the United States

and France put intense diplomatic efforts to setting up the Assistance

Co-Ordination Unit, a body that could channel aid. But it is a body

many say hasn't delivered, despite those efforts. At its headquarters

in the Terekish cities, Britain paid to install the front door, it helped

equip the offices and train staff. With its allies, it also helped

install the most prominent female opposition leader, the called lady

of the revolution, Zahera Tassi to run it. She is a woman under siege,

European states worried about lack of accountability have put off plans

to pay the unit's salaries, after a year of infighting, many staff went

on strike last month, complaining of waste and mismanagement. Internal

ACU documents I have been looking at, and conversations with staff

reveal widespread concerns about the alleged squandering of aid money,

extravagant salaries, incompetence and cronyism. Those criticisms have

blackened the name of the ACU among Syrians and made European

Governments wary of giving cash to an institution they worked so hard

themselves to setting up. This man is one of a number of former key ACU

staff that Newsnight has talked to who have left the organisation,

shocked at how it was being run. The mind set was basically we don't need

exports, we know what to do, we can do everything, at the same time we

look at the daily work and how everything was done was very chaotic

and unorganised, it was done by people who have no clue what they

are doing. What is the result of that been for Syria? A lot doesn't

go through, things go late and not to the right place, they get

distributed the wrong way. This is the British Department of

Development and also this. Former staff have told us large bunkedles

of cash were handed over to Syrian groups in plastic bags, no questions

asked. In her first western interview, the manager denies any

waste. That wouldn't happen that a council comes to you to ask for

money and you go give them money? Not at all. Never? TRANSLATION: We

only fund projects that are complete ideas. So there is no easy money,

otherwise we wouldn't be properly accountable or transparent. But

there are also questions about what it is funding? Mona was a councillor

in Syria, where mainstream rebels are fighting an Al-Qaeda group,

extremists gained power, she says, because the ACU failed to fund

public services. TRANSLATION: With so little financial support our

local council and other political forces are much weaker, so extremist

groups emerged. We needed that support to prove our power. The west

wanted the ACU to fund islands of moderation in Syria. But as gulf

money has poured in, a plan to support civil courts against Islamic

ones also appears to have been dropped. People like me and other

people out there wanted the revolution to be inclusive, for

everybody, maintaining civil law and maintaining peculiarity, this is

being undermined over -- plurality, and this has been undermined every

year. The head of the ACU says she is unfairly attacked, she has had

successes, an early warning system and Syrian doctors detecting the

emergence of polio. TRANSLATION: I have faced so much criticism I have

lost a big part of my reputation. I'm still OK even though I have been

burnt in this job, we have managed to build an institution and protect

it from political disputes. In the unfoe significance capital of the

Syrian opposition, the ACU strike is now over, the unit is planning

reforms. Back at the border ever more refugees are flooding in. On

the other side, aid agencies will continue to deliver as best they

can. But hopes that the Syrian opposition might lead those efforts

now look niave. The west's attempt to mix aid and politics has proved

deeply frustrating. That's all from us tonight, Emily is back with you

tomorrow, before we go, the floods haven't been all bad, it seems, not

if you are a wake skater. Here is Nick Hedley taking full advantage of

the torrent on the outskirts of Godalming. This can be dangerous, so

don't try this at home. Good night. Good evening, a frosty start for

many parts of the UK in the morning, it means there is the