Browse content similar to 29/01/2014. Check below for episodes and series from the same categories and more!
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They may have created the Labour Party, but the trade unions could be | :00:13. | :00:18. | |
on the eve of losing their role of choosing the party leader. A change | :00:19. | :00:25. | |
could be on the way but will it give the unions less power or more. We | :00:26. | :00:30. | |
talk to the cartoonist who drew the caricature of Jesus with the Prophet | :00:31. | :00:34. | |
Mohammed, and which caused a Liberal Democrat to get death threats. I | :00:35. | :00:38. | |
can't see that it's my problem. I can't be responsible for the actions | :00:39. | :00:45. | |
of bad people. The writer Alain De Botton on what's wrong with the | :00:46. | :00:50. | |
news. We hear about terrible catastrophes all the time, and yet | :00:51. | :00:54. | |
in our hearts we often don't much care. The news doesn't help us to | :00:55. | :00:58. | |
care. Because it parachutes us into places only when disaster strikes. | :00:59. | :01:06. | |
He's here with Alistair Campbell and Samira Ahmed. Now in an | :01:07. | :01:16. | |
ever-changing world the ability of the Conservative Party to taunt the | :01:17. | :01:19. | |
opposition with the cry that it has been bought by the trades unions and | :01:20. | :01:26. | |
had its leaders chosen by the trades unions has been a constant theme | :01:27. | :01:31. | |
more or less since the dawn of contemporary politics. Ed Miliband | :01:32. | :01:34. | |
has indicated while he's happy to take the money the arrangement needs | :01:35. | :01:37. | |
to change. We understand we are about to learn how he plans to | :01:38. | :01:41. | |
change the system which gave him, rather than his brother, the | :01:42. | :01:45. | |
leadership of the party. What have we learned this evening? I sense | :01:46. | :01:49. | |
this is a pretty significant moment for the Labour leader. These plans | :01:50. | :01:53. | |
are being finalised as we speak, we will know more about them on Friday. | :01:54. | :01:57. | |
It feels like a big moment and crunch time. At the heart of this is | :01:58. | :02:01. | |
that rather complicated and close relationship you were decribing | :02:02. | :02:04. | |
between Labour and the trade unions. We understand that Ed Miliband is | :02:05. | :02:09. | |
going to radically transform the way Labour chooses its leaders, | :02:10. | :02:12. | |
including the way he was chosen. Some in his party are even calling | :02:13. | :02:19. | |
it his own clause IV moment. At the moment leaders are chosen through | :02:20. | :02:23. | |
the Electoral College. This is how the college is shared. One third of | :02:24. | :02:29. | |
the vote for MPs and MEPs, another third for party members, and the | :02:30. | :02:33. | |
controversial third is given to the trade unions. Under the reformed | :02:34. | :02:37. | |
plans, from what we are learning, it would move to one-member-one-vote. | :02:38. | :02:45. | |
Each Labour Party member, some 200,000, gets a vote. That sounds | :02:46. | :02:49. | |
like fairer system and pretty simple. With one bound he was free! | :02:50. | :02:54. | |
Sort of, we understand that within this package is the introduction of | :02:55. | :02:58. | |
a new kind of membership, possibly one they are calling the "associate | :02:59. | :03:03. | |
union member". They would be able to exercise their own individual vote | :03:04. | :03:07. | |
at greatly reduced annual fee, maybe as little as ?3 a year. This goes to | :03:08. | :03:12. | |
heart of what Ed Miliband was saying in that rather forceful speech last | :03:13. | :03:16. | |
summer. He promised to put more power into the individual members of | :03:17. | :03:20. | |
the union, and not as it were to the union leaders. But here is the rub, | :03:21. | :03:25. | |
the unintended consequence of what might happen is if just one in ten | :03:26. | :03:32. | |
union members signed up to become a new associate member, you can see | :03:33. | :03:37. | |
what happens, that as group could potentionally wield more influence | :03:38. | :03:41. | |
that the rest of the Labour Party. Although, voting as separate | :03:42. | :03:46. | |
individuals rather than a block-style vote and what the unions | :03:47. | :03:51. | |
prefer to call a "guided vote". The question is, would these reforms, as | :03:52. | :03:54. | |
we understand them, give the unions more power or less and how would the | :03:55. | :04:01. | |
MPs and MEPs feel about that amount of power coming from a different | :04:02. | :04:05. | |
source? What about the highly controversial matter of the | :04:06. | :04:07. | |
political levy, which he did talk about a few months ago didn't he? | :04:08. | :04:12. | |
Controversial, because assumed your membership of the Labour Party, when | :04:13. | :04:16. | |
y joined the union, and it charged you for it. This is what Ed Miliband | :04:17. | :04:19. | |
said last year. He couldn't have been any clearer about wanting to | :04:20. | :04:27. | |
end that automatic opt-in livy. I do not want any individual to be paying | :04:28. | :04:32. | |
money to the Labour Party in affiliation fees unless they have | :04:33. | :04:39. | |
deliberately chosen to do so. Individual trade union members | :04:40. | :04:44. | |
should choose to join the party through the affiliation fee, not the | :04:45. | :04:50. | |
automatically affiliated. In the 21st century it just doesn't make | :04:51. | :04:55. | |
sense for anyone to be affiliated to a political party unless they have | :04:56. | :05:02. | |
chosen to do so. So he keeps using that word "choose". I understand | :05:03. | :05:06. | |
there is a fierce debate, those close to Ed Miliband, some are | :05:07. | :05:09. | |
saying they believe the reforms are a key test of his leadership. And | :05:10. | :05:13. | |
some who are saying this puts the party's finances at massive risk by | :05:14. | :05:18. | |
allowing union members to opt out of this political levy. One insider | :05:19. | :05:22. | |
told me it is crackers, you can't just crater the party's finances. | :05:23. | :05:26. | |
What they imagine would happen if you allowed people not to pay that | :05:27. | :05:31. | |
sum. What I understand is, it will be an opt-in mechanism. What one | :05:32. | :05:36. | |
union leader described to me as a standardising of a system that | :05:37. | :05:40. | |
already happens in several of the unions. But in order to stop a | :05:41. | :05:45. | |
massive and instant black hole in Labour's finances, the plan would be | :05:46. | :05:49. | |
rolled out very gradually, possibly over a five-year process and one | :05:50. | :05:53. | |
union at a time. So Labour wouldn't feel the impact of that negative | :05:54. | :05:58. | |
effect so instantly or so bleakly. Thank you. Now it takes a bit of | :05:59. | :06:03. | |
believing that someone could be put in fear of their life by a cartoon, | :06:04. | :06:06. | |
but that's the world we are living in. When a Liberal Democrat | :06:07. | :06:11. | |
candidate met a man wearing a T-shirt carrying a cartoon showing | :06:12. | :06:18. | |
Jesus and Mohammed and then tweeted that image, he so irritated some | :06:19. | :06:22. | |
members of the Muslim community that they demanded he be striped of his | :06:23. | :06:29. | |
position in the party. He said he didn't feel threatened by the | :06:30. | :06:34. | |
cartoon even though there is ban on any likenesses of the prophet. Majid | :06:35. | :06:40. | |
Nawaz says he was standing up for liberal Muslims whose voices are | :06:41. | :06:45. | |
seldom heard, when he tweeted an image of a cartoon showing Jesus | :06:46. | :06:52. | |
saying Hey and Mohammed saying Hi. He said it was not offensive and | :06:53. | :06:55. | |
he's sure God is greater than being threatened on it. He had just been a | :06:56. | :07:01. | |
guest on the BBC's Big Questions programme, in the front were two | :07:02. | :07:07. | |
students with T-shirts showing Jesus and Mo. A debate ensued about | :07:08. | :07:11. | |
whether they have the right to wear them. Do they have the right to wear | :07:12. | :07:15. | |
those T-shirts? No. Why are you trying to offend a religious faith. | :07:16. | :07:21. | |
You are offending us. That T-shirt doesn't threaten me or my God or my | :07:22. | :07:25. | |
faith, it doesn't threaten the Koran, it doesn't threaten any | :07:26. | :07:28. | |
aspect of my religion, I do not feel threatened by these gentlemen | :07:29. | :07:32. | |
wearing that T-shirt. It was the BBC's decision not to show a | :07:33. | :07:36. | |
close-up of the T-shirts that prompted Majid Nawaz to send the | :07:37. | :07:40. | |
tweet. Within days tens of thousands of Muslim, including members of the | :07:41. | :07:43. | |
Liberal Democrat party had put their names to this on-line petition | :07:44. | :07:48. | |
calling for him to be deselected as a parliamentary candidate. Some said | :07:49. | :07:50. | |
he should be killed. Majid Nawaz's decision to tweet the | :07:51. | :08:14. | |
image of the Jesus and Mo cartoon, hasn't just set up a debate about | :08:15. | :08:17. | |
freedom of speech, it has also set the Liberal Democrats an important | :08:18. | :08:21. | |
test. What does it actually mean to be a liberal? This afternoon the | :08:22. | :08:30. | |
petition's organisers met with former leader of the Liberal | :08:31. | :08:33. | |
Democrats Paddy Ashdown, and urged him to deselect Majid Nawaz. We are | :08:34. | :08:36. | |
very clear, we don't believe his position is tenable, he has to step | :08:37. | :08:42. | |
down and we have let the leadership, Paddy Ashdown in particular know how | :08:43. | :08:46. | |
we feel, we believe he should step down. What do you say to people who | :08:47. | :08:52. | |
say your position is very il-liberal in your view? I'm not that, I'm a | :08:53. | :08:57. | |
liberal and Liberal Democrat who believes with liberalism with | :08:58. | :09:02. | |
respect, freedom to speak out and freedom of expression. Except in | :09:03. | :09:06. | |
areas where you don't like it? No, definitely, liberalism with respect, | :09:07. | :09:10. | |
regardless of what area it is, it doesn't matter if it phoneds people | :09:11. | :09:16. | |
or not, my argument is simple, liberalism with respect, thank you. | :09:17. | :09:20. | |
So is Majid Nawaz's position safe, after the meeting Lord Ashdown | :09:21. | :09:24. | |
didn't appear to be offering any guarantee? If members of your party | :09:25. | :09:31. | |
keep calling for Majid Nawaz to stand down, what will you do? It is | :09:32. | :09:34. | |
a matter for proper procedures for the party. In order for someone to | :09:35. | :09:38. | |
stand down there has to be a clear case for that. He has express admin | :09:39. | :09:43. | |
youth view, and he has used immoderate language in expressing | :09:44. | :09:47. | |
it, he has apologised. How do you know it is a minority view, how do | :09:48. | :09:53. | |
you know what all Muslims think about these cartoons? You have to | :09:54. | :09:58. | |
know what their theology is, if you don't know that in Britain, a vast | :09:59. | :10:03. | |
majority of Muslims believe that any image of the prophet is blasphemous. | :10:04. | :10:08. | |
Many Muslims are not offended? And they are entitled not to. The | :10:09. | :10:12. | |
majority Muslim belief is against any image of the prophet. That does | :10:13. | :10:16. | |
not allow the majority to tell the minority they may not hold it. The | :10:17. | :10:21. | |
Jesus and Mo comic shows the two characters sharing a house, Majid | :10:22. | :10:25. | |
Nawaz calls it a mild cartoon, whether it is right to ever show a | :10:26. | :10:30. | |
picture of the Prophet Mohammed is the subject of debate in Islam. Some | :10:31. | :10:33. | |
of these people are saying within Islam you can't draw pictures of | :10:34. | :10:39. | |
people or of animals or of the Prophet Mohammed, peace be upon him, | :10:40. | :10:43. | |
especially him. There are paintings by Muslim who is are more religious | :10:44. | :10:46. | |
than the Muslims today who are complaining about this and yet they | :10:47. | :10:51. | |
are paintings, they exist, they exist in art galleries an the world. | :10:52. | :10:56. | |
So this is not an issue which it just has one view. There are many | :10:57. | :10:59. | |
different views within the Muslim community. The Liberal Democrats may | :11:00. | :11:04. | |
hope their internal procedures can fix this row, but as of tonight more | :11:05. | :11:09. | |
than 21,000 people have signed the petition calling on Majid Nawaz to | :11:10. | :11:13. | |
go. The campaigners say the fight goes on. Earlier I spoke to the | :11:14. | :11:22. | |
creator of the Jesus and Mo cartoon, he asked that his appearance and | :11:23. | :11:26. | |
voice be disguised. I started by asking him if he has been | :11:27. | :11:31. | |
overwhelmed by the attention his cartoons have received? I'm | :11:32. | :11:35. | |
horrified. And yeah I suppose I'm quite bewildered, because the mind | :11:36. | :11:40. | |
set of people so determined to take offence or to exploit that offence | :11:41. | :11:45. | |
of others for their own ends is very alien to me. So, yes, I find that | :11:46. | :11:54. | |
bewildering. But I do think that rather than focussing on me, it is | :11:55. | :12:03. | |
Majid Nawaz that deserves our support really. He epitomises what | :12:04. | :12:09. | |
is happening in the Muslim community at the moment, where there is a | :12:10. | :12:13. | |
division. The Muslim community is sorting itself out between your | :12:14. | :12:20. | |
moderate, liberal, average every day Muslim who couldn't careless less | :12:21. | :12:26. | |
about a cartoon and just wants to get on with his life. And the | :12:27. | :12:32. | |
self-serving rabble-rousers that are just trying to promote their own | :12:33. | :12:37. | |
selves. But for you as an atheist who kinds the whole subject of | :12:38. | :12:44. | |
religion inherently comical, they are all wrong Of ge. Of course, it | :12:45. | :12:53. | |
doesn't matter -- of course, it doesn't matter if you are wrong if | :12:54. | :12:57. | |
you are not rabble rousing. Why did you start doing the cartoon? I have | :12:58. | :13:02. | |
always found religion very interesting but at the same time | :13:03. | :13:05. | |
quite amusing. The idea was in my head for several years about | :13:06. | :13:09. | |
featuring the two major prophets of the two major world religions in a | :13:10. | :13:14. | |
cartoon strip. But it was actually the Danish cartoon fiasco that | :13:15. | :13:21. | |
prompted me to actually begin and so I did, back in 2005 in September. | :13:22. | :13:26. | |
Doesn't that suggest that you deliberately set out to court | :13:27. | :13:29. | |
outrage? It might suggest that. But it is not true. I deliberately set | :13:30. | :13:38. | |
out to have a laugh at religion and to provide amusement for atheists. | :13:39. | :13:43. | |
But you do understand that depicting the prophet is a great offence to | :13:44. | :13:50. | |
Muslims? To some Muslims. Not all Muslims. And also it is not my | :13:51. | :13:57. | |
concern because I'm not a Muslim. Isn't it your concern if you give | :13:58. | :14:08. | |
offence? No. It's my concern to make people laugh, I don't give offence | :14:09. | :14:15. | |
to anyone deliberately. If they take offence then that's their | :14:16. | :14:19. | |
prerogative, they can take offence. You don't find something offensive | :14:20. | :14:26. | |
about somebody anonymously making others unhappy? If they stumble upon | :14:27. | :14:32. | |
it, then I admit they may find it offensive then. But they don't have | :14:33. | :14:35. | |
to stay and they don't have to come back. It is the Internet. There are | :14:36. | :14:40. | |
thousands of things on the Internet that I would find very offensive and | :14:41. | :14:45. | |
occasionally I stumble on them. I don't go back. But if these cartoons | :14:46. | :14:51. | |
are done to give amusement to yourself and to fellow atheists, if | :14:52. | :14:58. | |
they should result in harm coming to someone, is that sufficient | :14:59. | :15:04. | |
justification? ? The desire for a bit of humour a bit of a laugh? I | :15:05. | :15:10. | |
can't see that it's my problem. I can't see that as my problem, I | :15:11. | :15:15. | |
can't be responsible for the actions of bad people. I am creating | :15:16. | :15:26. | |
something to make my fellow atheists laugh. Other people take it | :15:27. | :15:30. | |
differently, there are other people that gain strength from my cartoon. | :15:31. | :15:38. | |
It is a very badly-drawn, poorly executed silly comic strip, but some | :15:39. | :15:44. | |
people feel it is very important to them. They find it liberating. I | :15:45. | :15:54. | |
don't want to say I have a duty, because that sounds pompus. But I | :15:55. | :16:02. | |
will continue. You are resolved on that are you? Pretty much. So here | :16:03. | :16:09. | |
we are, 12 minutes to 11, nearing the end of day in which millions of | :16:10. | :16:13. | |
things have happened, some happy, some tragic, frightening or | :16:14. | :16:20. | |
reassuring most of them dull. And out of this quotidian mails strum, | :16:21. | :16:31. | |
Bd mails stop BBC editors selected ten things they constitute news, and | :16:32. | :16:34. | |
they will be in the newspapers, and whether you pay attention or not the | :16:35. | :16:39. | |
world will continue to turn, and tomorrow night there will be more | :16:40. | :16:43. | |
news. What is all this exposure to events over which we have no control | :16:44. | :16:47. | |
doing to us? Before we talk about it here is the writer Alain De Botton's | :16:48. | :16:51. | |
take. The news doesn't come with any instructions. At school they teach | :16:52. | :16:57. | |
you how to analyse books and pictures, but no-one ever tells you | :16:58. | :17:01. | |
how to make sense of that far more powerful questionable art form, the | :17:02. | :17:07. | |
news. We're taught to decode Shakespeare, but not the celebrity | :17:08. | :17:13. | |
section of the Daily Mail, George Elliott, but not the Sun, yet the | :17:14. | :17:17. | |
news is the most powerful force out there, shaping how we view political | :17:18. | :17:21. | |
reality, no wonder revolutionaries head to the TV and radio stations | :17:22. | :17:24. | |
first whenever they want to change stuff. Here is my list of some of | :17:25. | :17:32. | |
what's questionable about the news. Modern democratic nations think | :17:33. | :17:37. | |
badly of censorship. They pride themselves on how much information | :17:38. | :17:40. | |
is out there. But there's an awkward fact about information. If you have | :17:41. | :17:44. | |
too much of it, it starts to number you, you lose the thread, you forget | :17:45. | :17:48. | |
what you were even interested in or what could be changed. Rather than | :17:49. | :17:53. | |
making us more political, an excess of information can erode any sense | :17:54. | :17:58. | |
of what the real priorities are. Here is the paranoid frightening | :17:59. | :18:03. | |
thought, if you want to make people accepting of the status quo, you | :18:04. | :18:06. | |
have two option, either give them no news at all, or, more slyly, give | :18:07. | :18:13. | |
them the opposite, so much news they will drown in it, then nothing will | :18:14. | :18:20. | |
ever have to change. Thought ful people often imagine that what makes | :18:21. | :18:23. | |
news organisations serious and worthy is their ability to provide | :18:24. | :18:29. | |
us with information that's unbiased. But this bias against bias is | :18:30. | :18:34. | |
fundamentally mistaken. Facts only become meaningful to us when they | :18:35. | :18:40. | |
slot into some picture of what matters. Neutrality is simply | :18:41. | :18:44. | |
possible, vis a vis the biggest questions. Think of the big figure, | :18:45. | :18:50. | |
Plato, Buddha, Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, all of these have been | :18:51. | :18:54. | |
highly biased, their judgments were anything but perfectly balanced. | :18:55. | :18:58. | |
Don't need news striped of buyia, we need news presented to us with the | :18:59. | :19:13. | |
best kinds of bias. The news might tell us what is happening in the | :19:14. | :19:16. | |
economic establishment, but fails to tell us what might and should | :19:17. | :19:19. | |
happen. It sets an agenda but the agenda is woefully limited. The so | :19:20. | :19:24. | |
called debate about the economy doesn't stray beyond some tightly | :19:25. | :19:29. | |
defined line, restricting the audiences' understanding of what is | :19:30. | :19:32. | |
actually possible. Alternative views soon end up in the territory of what | :19:33. | :19:36. | |
is dismissed as radical and ridiculous. The news terrifies us | :19:37. | :19:43. | |
every day about floods, fires, cancer. And at the same time it | :19:44. | :19:49. | |
makes us furious, mostly at apparently incompetent people | :19:50. | :19:52. | |
running the country, messing everything up. News outlets badly | :19:53. | :19:58. | |
need their audiences to be agitated, frightened and bothered a lot of the | :19:59. | :20:02. | |
time, and yet we have an even greater responsibility to try to | :20:03. | :20:06. | |
remain resilient and see that the news is, in part, at least winding | :20:07. | :20:11. | |
us up for its own ends, to keep itself in a job. We hear tragedies | :20:12. | :20:25. | |
all the time, 300 gone through, and a thousand starving here. Yet in our | :20:26. | :20:29. | |
hearts we don't much care. Is it because we are shallow and cold? No, | :20:30. | :20:33. | |
it is just the news doesn't help us to cautious because it parachutes us | :20:34. | :20:37. | |
into places only when disaster strikes. But we can't care about | :20:38. | :20:42. | |
people in trouble when we didn't know them when things were OK. We | :20:43. | :20:45. | |
need to know the steady state of a land before we can be motivated to | :20:46. | :20:52. | |
care about its crises. The news ends up corrupting us with a sense of the | :20:53. | :20:58. | |
overwhelming importance of our own era and concerns. Our debt, our | :20:59. | :21:03. | |
affairs, our parties, our rogue missile, but a good life involves | :21:04. | :21:09. | |
realising that there moments when the news has nothing to teach us, | :21:10. | :21:14. | |
and we have to leave it behind to focus on some of our own anxieties | :21:15. | :21:17. | |
and hopes in the brief time we are all allotted. Here to discuss all of | :21:18. | :21:25. | |
that, Alain De Botton, the author of a new book, The News: A User's | :21:26. | :21:30. | |
Manuel, Samira Ahmed, a journalist and presenter of Newswatch, a BBC | :21:31. | :21:35. | |
programme that keeps a watch on how news is reported. And Alistair | :21:36. | :21:40. | |
Campbell, former Fleet Street hack, better known for serving as Tony | :21:41. | :21:44. | |
Blair's Director of Communications. Several time in your book you make a | :21:45. | :21:48. | |
comparison between religion and news, what do you mean? Religion | :21:49. | :21:52. | |
used to be the place you went out to find out what was important, what | :21:53. | :21:55. | |
mattered and what is the meaning of life. All of those things we have | :21:56. | :21:59. | |
taken to the news. The news is the thing that guides us and tells us | :22:00. | :22:02. | |
what is important. The interesting thing is we never think here is | :22:03. | :22:07. | |
something that we should learn to ingest with a little bit of care. We | :22:08. | :22:11. | |
get taught how to read books and look at pictures, nobody says there | :22:12. | :22:14. | |
is this thing called the news and it is a strange phenomenon and you need | :22:15. | :22:17. | |
to think of a few things before going near it. Nobody teaches us how | :22:18. | :22:21. | |
to take in the news. That is what I'm interested in. Do you recognise | :22:22. | :22:25. | |
this picture, Alistair? I do, I read the book earlier today, I do agree | :22:26. | :22:30. | |
with a lot of the thesis. I do think there is now a need for a kind of | :22:31. | :22:35. | |
education about the modern media. Because I think there is very little | :22:36. | :22:39. | |
self-analysis within the media about itself. And I think some of the | :22:40. | :22:42. | |
points he made, even within that film, we saw Emily earlier talking | :22:43. | :22:48. | |
about Labour and the trade unions, everything has to be presented as | :22:49. | :22:52. | |
really new, really big, really important, the new this, the new, | :22:53. | :22:57. | |
that the biggest since the last big thing, and... Of course. I know, but | :22:58. | :23:04. | |
you say "of course", but part of your job is... Do you want us to | :23:05. | :23:09. | |
come on air and say nothing much happened today and here are a few | :23:10. | :23:14. | |
old stories. You made a speech and you said some days you should do | :23:15. | :23:18. | |
exactly that. I think you should and nobody does. But on a regular date, | :23:19. | :23:21. | |
that is a significant story. I'm not saying it is not a significant | :23:22. | :23:26. | |
story, I not criticising Emily for the story, I'm saying news has | :23:27. | :23:31. | |
become what somebody, an editor, a presenter decides is of interest. | :23:32. | :23:36. | |
But the viewer. I'm not saying it is new, I'm simply saying I agree that | :23:37. | :23:40. | |
the reader, the viewer, people growing up in Britain today where | :23:41. | :23:44. | |
the media is much more prevalent than it ever used to be, I think | :23:45. | :23:48. | |
there is a need for people n a sense, to get an education about | :23:49. | :23:51. | |
where it is coming from and often why. It is ubiquitous, you accept | :23:52. | :23:57. | |
that? It is, but the one thing I would agree with Botham on is | :23:58. | :24:01. | |
education is important. I speak in schools a lot. I'm always struck by | :24:02. | :24:05. | |
the fact that essentially watching the news is like critical | :24:06. | :24:08. | |
appreciation. You should approach it with that critical detatchment. Most | :24:09. | :24:12. | |
young people get that very, very quickly. They need to be taught it | :24:13. | :24:16. | |
as part of a genuine thing. My greatest concern is this idea that | :24:17. | :24:20. | |
some how the news is some how not made by individuals who are, it is | :24:21. | :24:25. | |
some how a force out there. One, I think it gives a sense of community, | :24:26. | :24:28. | |
people can turn on and tune into a sense of what is going on in the | :24:29. | :24:31. | |
outer world and feel connected to it, in a positive way. They are not | :24:32. | :24:35. | |
connected, they can't do a dam thing about it? Sometimes they can. An | :24:36. | :24:39. | |
interesting thing about a story which there is a lot of cynicism | :24:40. | :24:43. | |
about how it is reported is changes to the NHS. We have had a lot of | :24:44. | :24:47. | |
complaints about the bias in the way it is reported. Here, here. There is | :24:48. | :24:51. | |
a whole political party set up on that. You could argue about what the | :24:52. | :24:56. | |
truth of it is, but people have been motivated to take action. Just to | :24:57. | :24:58. | |
give you one briefly, because in your book you talk about this drip, | :24:59. | :25:03. | |
drip, where news isn't given context. The Staffordshire Hospital | :25:04. | :25:08. | |
scandal, that emerged because patients were being reported | :25:09. | :25:12. | |
anecdotally to journalists. Now we have coverage of the National Health | :25:13. | :25:15. | |
Service, right across the media that only wants to focus on the National | :25:16. | :25:19. | |
Health Service being bad, when the National Health Service is actually | :25:20. | :25:23. | |
very, very good. Everyone knows the National Health Service is pretty | :25:24. | :25:26. | |
good, which is why when it goes bad it is news? It used to be, I used to | :25:27. | :25:33. | |
have a colleague on the daily Mir Yorks she was the health -- Daily | :25:34. | :25:39. | |
Mirror, her job was to write good stories about the National Health | :25:40. | :25:42. | |
Service, she was laid off because the editor said there was no longer | :25:43. | :25:45. | |
a market for good stories about the National Health Service. Because the | :25:46. | :25:48. | |
news and the nature of the news has changed. Isn't it changed because of | :25:49. | :25:52. | |
spin doctors. No. Do you accept no responsibility for feeding a news | :25:53. | :25:56. | |
agenda? No, not at all. I just want to ask this one question, you said, | :25:57. | :26:00. | |
just a year or so ago that the one thing that still makes you wake up | :26:01. | :26:04. | |
and think did I really do that was getting Tony Blair joining the | :26:05. | :26:10. | |
Rashid story, there was a point that was a distraction that the Murdoch | :26:11. | :26:16. | |
press took up and took attention away from a story. I'm referring to | :26:17. | :26:19. | |
a story years back and you are taking it up as serious. You talk | :26:20. | :26:24. | |
about the Olympics in the book. That was a good news story? DPAKT exactly | :26:25. | :26:30. | |
but up until the point to the Opening Ceremony the media were | :26:31. | :26:33. | |
busting a gut thinking it would go wrong. You do sound a bit like | :26:34. | :26:39. | |
Martin Lew! I don't think so. The news when it is looking for | :26:40. | :26:42. | |
corruption, and it spends a lot of time looking for corruption, it | :26:43. | :26:45. | |
imagines that corruption comes in the handy shape of one bad egg and | :26:46. | :26:49. | |
put in a prison van and taken away. They don't say that. They are more | :26:50. | :26:56. | |
complicated and don't involve criminal negligence, they involve | :26:57. | :27:01. | |
stupidity and lazy thinking, that is hard for the news to get its teeth | :27:02. | :27:05. | |
in. That is tripe what about Government spending on computer | :27:06. | :27:09. | |
systems, that is just incompetent. A very important story. And very well | :27:10. | :27:15. | |
reported? But one that really struggles. If you look at who is | :27:16. | :27:21. | |
clicking on the Justin Bieber going mad, versus chaos in the DRC | :27:22. | :27:26. | |
stories. I am afraid we are not all imbued with your high standards? I | :27:27. | :27:33. | |
think the real challenge in a multichannel world is how do you get | :27:34. | :27:36. | |
the most important news to be the most ar? At the moment there is a | :27:37. | :27:39. | |
yawning divide between news that is important and news that is popular. | :27:40. | :27:42. | |
In a democracy that really matters. What you want to do is to yolk the | :27:43. | :27:47. | |
two together? That comes throughout your book, talk about what the news | :27:48. | :27:52. | |
should do. I'm trying to make it better. You do that as well. | :27:53. | :27:58. | |
Everyone who loves the news as I do it. That is the difference between | :27:59. | :28:02. | |
God and bad journalism, a lot of your complaints are about bad or | :28:03. | :28:06. | |
sloppy journalism. Let's get ambitious about what we can do. We | :28:07. | :28:10. | |
are the first generations to know about news and have it on offer. We | :28:11. | :28:14. | |
are working out how it works. It is natural to be confused. Are you | :28:15. | :28:18. | |
suggesting it has a moral purpose beyond informing people? Yes. That | :28:19. | :28:21. | |
it should be changing them? I think the point of the news is to make the | :28:22. | :28:24. | |
nation flourish, to help the nation to go better. That's why we are | :28:25. | :28:28. | |
interested in criminality, that is why we are interested in scandals, | :28:29. | :28:31. | |
we are trying to get things to go better. Who makes that judgment? I | :28:32. | :28:36. | |
think that is the collective voice out there. It gets better because | :28:37. | :28:40. | |
you expose wrongdoing and people might challenge. One of the most | :28:41. | :28:43. | |
important aspects in news reporting, which you in your book write in the | :28:44. | :28:47. | |
headlines about criminal trials, there is something wonderful seeing | :28:48. | :28:52. | |
a criminal trial that brings people to justice, sometimes it is an | :28:53. | :28:54. | |
individual example but can you change the law and change behaviour. | :28:55. | :28:59. | |
Alastair gave a lecture in Cambridge saying that Watergate had been the | :29:00. | :29:04. | |
greatest journalistic story in the 20th century but ruined journalism. | :29:05. | :29:08. | |
His point was because Watergate was such a big story, and still the | :29:09. | :29:13. | |
yardstick, that now journalism is only journalism if it is bringing | :29:14. | :29:17. | |
somebody down, preferably somebody in a position of power. A great | :29:18. | :29:26. | |
example is Fred Goodwin and taking away his Knighthood, I don't think | :29:27. | :29:29. | |
there was a public attitude to see it taken away, but it was a public | :29:30. | :29:33. | |
appetite for saying something is wrong. We had a Government that | :29:34. | :29:36. | |
cynically threw him to the wolves and encouraged the news machine to | :29:37. | :29:40. | |
offer him up. We have a PR man who is our Prime Minister now. You know, | :29:41. | :29:45. | |
there is a kind of an interesting relationship between politics and an | :29:46. | :29:49. | |
attempt to manipulate the news agenda, which you know all too well | :29:50. | :29:53. | |
about. I do, but I think the relationship between media and | :29:54. | :29:55. | |
politics, let me give you one example. You look at this wall, | :29:56. | :30:01. | |
there is more media than ever. Even on the Daily Mirror two reporters | :30:02. | :30:07. | |
had a job covering parliament, we now have shows thousand -- thousands | :30:08. | :30:13. | |
of showers of parliament and nobody is covering it. There is nobody on | :30:14. | :30:17. | |
the benches either half the time? Agree there is an issue about | :30:18. | :30:23. | |
political reporting. We have the parliament channel nobody watches. | :30:24. | :30:26. | |
Part of the job is to say it is not just about sales and ratings, we are | :30:27. | :30:29. | |
part of an important process involving the public. Politicians | :30:30. | :30:34. | |
have to not play the game with creating little policy ideas. They | :30:35. | :30:38. | |
wouldn't do that if they felt they were forced on to the agenda. Go to | :30:39. | :30:42. | |
more mature countries you will find less going on. Can I bring it back | :30:43. | :30:46. | |
to the viewers and every week we have people who e-mail in and I | :30:47. | :30:49. | |
think your book implies people feel helpless and are some how | :30:50. | :30:53. | |
manipulated by this. Social media gives them a big voice. We put too | :30:54. | :30:58. | |
much emphasis on social media, most people aren't on there. Most young | :30:59. | :31:02. | |
people are not watching the BBC. The media have a short attention span, | :31:03. | :31:08. | |
we move on now. You can always contact Newswatch and complain about | :31:09. | :31:13. | |
bad coverage and we will tackle it with BBC boss, the editor of | :31:14. | :31:17. | |
Newsnight has yet to commit to a date. If he doesn't come, I will. We | :31:18. | :31:23. | |
want the editor. You may recall a few months ago Newsnight reported on | :31:24. | :31:28. | |
police investigations into a Pakistani political party called the | :31:29. | :31:32. | |
MQM, with headquarters in North London. The MQM represents Muslims | :31:33. | :31:41. | |
who arrived in Pakistan during the creation of their country in 1947. | :31:42. | :31:50. | |
The leader of the MQM has been accused of involvement in 30 murders | :31:51. | :31:55. | |
in Pakistan. Yet he maintains total control of the party and 19 members | :31:56. | :31:58. | |
in the parliament there, all from British soil. As we have discovered, | :31:59. | :32:04. | |
that intense investigation into the MQC is putting the party under | :32:05. | :32:11. | |
intense pressure. An office in Karachi. A college in East London. | :32:12. | :32:19. | |
And a murder in Edgware. The British Police are trying to work out | :32:20. | :32:24. | |
possible connections. A Pakistani politician is complaining of British | :32:25. | :32:31. | |
Police harassment. Altaf Hussein has lived in North London for over 20 | :32:32. | :32:35. | |
years. He has been accused in numerous murder cases back home. | :32:36. | :32:40. | |
When he gives a speech down a telephone line to Karachi, thousands | :32:41. | :32:46. | |
gather to listen. It is remote control politics. As the MQM leader, | :32:47. | :32:51. | |
he's a hugely powerful figure in Karachi, representing, he says, the | :32:52. | :32:56. | |
secular middle-classes. And he's not happy with the investigation into | :32:57. | :33:01. | |
the murder of one of his party officials Imran Farooq. A senior MQM | :33:02. | :33:07. | |
official, he was bludgeoned and stabbed to death after walking to | :33:08. | :33:14. | |
his home in September 2010. It has been a massive investigation, more | :33:15. | :33:19. | |
than 4,000 people have been interviewed. And for months now | :33:20. | :33:28. | |
Altaf husband tain -- Hussein has been complaining. | :33:29. | :33:40. | |
MQM officials say they want to co-operate with the murder inquiry, | :33:41. | :33:45. | |
but complain of police harassment. The only person so far arrested in | :33:46. | :33:51. | |
the case is Altaf's nephew, who is now on police bail. He was arrested | :33:52. | :33:55. | |
on suspicion of conspiracy to murder. Police believe the case will | :33:56. | :34:06. | |
be unlocked in Pakistan. Officially the police will neither confirm nor | :34:07. | :34:11. | |
deny that they have asked for Pakistani assistance in the case. | :34:12. | :34:18. | |
But Newsnight has learned that the UK Crown Prosecution Service has | :34:19. | :34:21. | |
formally requested that Pakistan give access to two suspects, and | :34:22. | :34:26. | |
documents obtained from Pakistan named them. As Mr Saied and a Mr | :34:27. | :34:36. | |
Khan Camran. The two men flew from Pakistan to London. The first to | :34:37. | :34:44. | |
come Mr Saied, arrived in the UK in February 2010. He stayed first in | :34:45. | :34:50. | |
Tooting and then in a bedsit in this North London street. Mr Khan Kamran | :34:51. | :35:02. | |
came a few days before the killing. Phone records show he was with Mr | :35:03. | :35:08. | |
Saied the whole time in the UK. On the evening of the murder they left | :35:09. | :35:12. | |
from Heathrow to Sri Lanka and then on to Karachi, where the Pakistani | :35:13. | :35:16. | |
authorities picked them up on the airport tarmac. It is thought they | :35:17. | :35:19. | |
are still being detained in Pakistan. So how did they get to the | :35:20. | :35:30. | |
UK? The two suspects applied to study at this East London college. | :35:31. | :35:34. | |
The rules say that non-attending students must be reported within | :35:35. | :35:39. | |
days of going missing. And yet the college, which enjoys official "most | :35:40. | :35:46. | |
trusted status" for sponsoring students, said for one of the men it | :35:47. | :35:50. | |
waited 18 months before making a report to the UK authorities. The | :35:51. | :35:54. | |
college says it has been asked to explain this and has done so. The | :35:55. | :35:58. | |
Home Office refuses to say whether the college kept to the rules, it | :35:59. | :36:01. | |
just says it is not currently being investigated. So, how did the two | :36:02. | :36:08. | |
men get the visas? Documents obtained by Newsnight say the visas | :36:09. | :36:14. | |
were endorsed by a Karachi businessman, Mr Khan, who was in | :36:15. | :36:20. | |
regular contact with Mr Hussein's nephew throughout 2010, the visas | :36:21. | :36:28. | |
were then processed by Atif Siddique. He told Newsnight he was | :36:29. | :36:32. | |
not an agent of the college and didn't know either of the suspect, | :36:33. | :36:37. | |
and Mr Ali Khan did not respond to our request for comment. And the MQM | :36:38. | :36:42. | |
denies any link with the murder case. There are raids against MQM | :36:43. | :36:48. | |
leadership, all the people in MQM and what would you expect Mr Hussein | :36:49. | :36:52. | |
to say, what would a reasonable man in Britain say? Therefore I would | :36:53. | :36:56. | |
tend to think there is one very important aspect which maybe the | :36:57. | :36:59. | |
authorities and police are overlooking and that is perhaps a | :37:00. | :37:08. | |
possibility that this murder of Dr Imran Farooq could be a spoiled | :37:09. | :37:12. | |
mugging or it could well be that it is some conspiracy hatched by our | :37:13. | :37:19. | |
political enemies abroad. It is very easily they are attempting to slap | :37:20. | :37:24. | |
the blame on us. It is only fair to point out that a nephew of Mr | :37:25. | :37:27. | |
Hussein has been arrested in connection with the murder inquiry. | :37:28. | :37:31. | |
May I say this again, that is primarily because wrong information | :37:32. | :37:34. | |
has been fed and that nephew that you are talking about, he faced a | :37:35. | :37:42. | |
lot of atrocities at the hands of the authorities in Pakistan. He | :37:43. | :37:45. | |
himself is not a person who is really with himself, mentally. The | :37:46. | :37:51. | |
MQM faces multiple investigations. One is into Altaf Hussein's speeches | :37:52. | :38:07. | |
in the UK. More than 10,000 people have complained to the Met about | :38:08. | :38:12. | |
these kinds of threats. The Met says it is still considering the issue of | :38:13. | :38:15. | |
whether these statements amount to incitement. Then there is the matter | :38:16. | :38:20. | |
of nearly half a million in cash found in Mr Hussein's home and the | :38:21. | :38:27. | |
party headquarters. Last month the police arrested a long-serving party | :38:28. | :38:31. | |
official in connection with possible money laundering. Many of the | :38:32. | :38:36. | |
party's UK bank accounts have been closed down and there is unpaid tax, | :38:37. | :38:42. | |
MQM insiders admit they face a massive back tax bill. The MQM is | :38:43. | :38:47. | |
under real pressure now and the question is whether they the | :38:48. | :38:54. | |
Pakistan Government will give access to the two suspects. Politically | :38:55. | :38:58. | |
Altaf Hussein's supporters say his power base is intact, but his | :38:59. | :39:04. | |
opponents say his grip on Karachi is loosening. | :39:05. | :39:08. | |
Now a poll carried out for Newsnight and released tonight shows that over | :39:09. | :39:12. | |
a quarter of women claim to have been sexually harassed at work, on | :39:13. | :39:16. | |
the street or in a social situation. Over half of those questioned about | :39:17. | :39:20. | |
harassment at work thought the best thing to do was to deal with it | :39:21. | :39:25. | |
themselves and respond immediately, 37% felt it worth involving an | :39:26. | :39:29. | |
employer, 6% they would prefer a legal response. The poll in which | :39:30. | :39:33. | |
over 800 women were questioned was conducted just after the Liberal | :39:34. | :39:37. | |
Democrats embarrassment over the Lord Rennard affair. More than a | :39:38. | :39:41. | |
third of the participants found the party less attractive because of the | :39:42. | :39:46. | |
way it handled the allegations, almost half weren't so bothered. | :39:47. | :39:51. | |
Here to discuss this is Laura Bates, founder of the Everyday Sexism | :39:52. | :39:55. | |
Project. And the journalist Dame Ann Leslie. Are you surprised Laura at | :39:56. | :40:00. | |
the size of the sample of women who felt they had been harassed? No, if | :40:01. | :40:04. | |
anything only surprised that it sounds a little bit low to me. But I | :40:05. | :40:08. | |
think that might be partly because no under 18s were questioned in this | :40:09. | :40:11. | |
survey, and sadly the reality is that a lot of the people reporting | :40:12. | :40:15. | |
sexual harassment to us are actually schoolgirls in their school uniform. | :40:16. | :40:19. | |
It is something that happens at an incredibly young age. What did you | :40:20. | :40:23. | |
make of this proportion, about a quarter of the women surveyed? | :40:24. | :40:28. | |
Again, you know the whole thing is a question of gender and time, because | :40:29. | :40:34. | |
in my youth, of course, a quarter, is nothing. It was 100%, for | :40:35. | :40:38. | |
heaven's sake, I spent a lot of my youth when I was young and gorgeous | :40:39. | :40:42. | |
like you being chased around the furniture by dirty old men. I took | :40:43. | :40:47. | |
it as that's what one did and occasionally of course I would stub | :40:48. | :40:51. | |
out a fag on wandering hand if it was getting a bit too far. But of | :40:52. | :40:56. | |
course in a way that kind of every day sexism, although it is very | :40:57. | :41:00. | |
annoying, and it is still annoying clearly wasn't as bad as the | :41:01. | :41:07. | |
institutional sexism. For example at 22 I was very successful already and | :41:08. | :41:11. | |
earning a lot of money, and I was forbidden from getting a mortgage | :41:12. | :41:15. | |
because I was a single woman and I was told things like, why don't you | :41:16. | :41:19. | |
get a nice man to look after all that. You know. That sort of thing. | :41:20. | :41:23. | |
So I sometimes think people like you, although I think you are | :41:24. | :41:27. | |
wonderful and I wouldn't dream of criticising a sister or any fellow | :41:28. | :41:32. | |
sisters I just think sometimes... But here it comes! Sometimes you | :41:33. | :41:39. | |
don't realise how silly it can sometimes seem. People I know who | :41:40. | :41:44. | |
say I'm sexually harassed because someone says that's a nice dress. | :41:45. | :41:50. | |
That is not sexual harassment. No sexual harassment. We are not | :41:51. | :41:53. | |
complaining about compliments, we are talking about something quite | :41:54. | :41:56. | |
extreme here, the fact that things have moved on for women is | :41:57. | :42:00. | |
wonderful, why should that mean we shouldn't tackle it. Over a quarter | :42:01. | :42:04. | |
of women is a huge figure, why do we keep coming back to this idea of | :42:05. | :42:07. | |
women shouldn't be overreacting, women shouldn't this and that, why | :42:08. | :42:10. | |
aren't we stopping and ask why are men doing this. Men or women or | :42:11. | :42:17. | |
children or anybody should not because that way perdecision lies, | :42:18. | :42:21. | |
all I'm saying is sometimes I think when women particularly, because of | :42:22. | :42:25. | |
course we are women, whingeing away, moaning away on television, when | :42:26. | :42:30. | |
actually I think the worse problem at the moment facing society is poor | :42:31. | :42:38. | |
white boys, who underachieve in class, they are also the great | :42:39. | :42:43. | |
sexual harassers. That is a serious problem, but it is another problem | :42:44. | :42:46. | |
than the one we are talking about right now. It is related. And | :42:47. | :42:51. | |
serious. This is why the schools. Serious sexual harassment is a | :42:52. | :42:55. | |
serious matter isn't it? It is very annoying. There is a problem with | :42:56. | :42:59. | |
definition here? It is not about whingeing or moaning, we are talking | :43:00. | :43:02. | |
about sexual harassment, that is something, this isn't a women's | :43:03. | :43:05. | |
issue, this is something nobody should have to put up with. Which is | :43:06. | :43:09. | |
why I brought up young boys, you talked about school girls who are so | :43:10. | :43:13. | |
pressured, these young boys who see a lot of television, a lot of porn, | :43:14. | :43:19. | |
they think that young, of course their testosterone is at their peak, | :43:20. | :43:24. | |
they think these girls should be available. I absolutely think it is | :43:25. | :43:29. | |
not just a question of women it is a question of boys, particularly. | :43:30. | :43:33. | |
Where do you think those boys are getting those messages from, I | :43:34. | :43:39. | |
agree. That is not really what we are talking about here, and it is | :43:40. | :43:43. | |
interesting that when sexual harassment comes up, particularly to | :43:44. | :43:46. | |
do with women, the response very often is this kind of let's talk | :43:47. | :43:49. | |
about other problems, let's say there is more serious things going | :43:50. | :43:53. | |
on. But I just think you know why don't we actually stop and instead | :43:54. | :43:56. | |
of looking at the victims at all, say shall we talk about the | :43:57. | :43:59. | |
perpetrators, why are people doing this. Let's look at that. We have | :44:00. | :44:03. | |
just been doing that. Let's look at the second part of this survey, the | :44:04. | :44:07. | |
first question was extremely difficultly worded I think, but the | :44:08. | :44:11. | |
question as to what women thought was the appropriate thing to do, | :44:12. | :44:15. | |
that an immediate, far higher proportion thought the things to do | :44:16. | :44:20. | |
was give an immediate response and a smaller proportion thought you took | :44:21. | :44:23. | |
it up with your employer or whatever. What do you make of that? | :44:24. | :44:27. | |
I think that is partly because a lot of women are operating currently in | :44:28. | :44:32. | |
a world where people aren't taken when they try to report things. As | :44:33. | :44:35. | |
we have seen in the media response to the recent allegation, instead of | :44:36. | :44:39. | |
taking it seriously and dealing with it, things are brushed off and swept | :44:40. | :44:43. | |
under the car at the time pet. We receive a huge -- carpet, we receive | :44:44. | :44:47. | |
a huge amount of women trying to report it to HR, they are told not | :44:48. | :44:52. | |
to make a fuss and see how it could impact on their career. And many | :44:53. | :44:55. | |
women are not in a situation where there is a HR department to go for. | :44:56. | :44:59. | |
We have heard from waitresses who have been told to choose between | :45:00. | :45:03. | |
getting an abortion or resigning when getting pregnant. Women in the | :45:04. | :45:07. | |
service industry getting groped and assaulted, there is nobody to be | :45:08. | :45:14. | |
report it to. Need to look at the perpetrators. I know it is unfair, | :45:15. | :45:19. | |
because you know my grandmother who was brilliant and you know passed | :45:20. | :45:26. | |
all, it was a long time ago, she was a brilliant mathematician, she went | :45:27. | :45:30. | |
to Cambridge, she passed absolutely the top but Cambridge did not allow | :45:31. | :45:34. | |
women to get degrees. So of course and then I'm not quite as old as she | :45:35. | :45:38. | |
was, of course there were things against me. And I just sometimes | :45:39. | :45:45. | |
wonder if women who go on and on and on about the natural interaction, | :45:46. | :45:52. | |
natural I'm afraid, of folks at bars and parties in that particular | :45:53. | :45:56. | |
survey that they were sexually harassed, there is some pest there, | :45:57. | :46:00. | |
they can push them off, you know. Why are we going on. They shouldn't | :46:01. | :46:04. | |
have to Anne. Why not. You are talking about natural interaction, | :46:05. | :46:08. | |
sexual harassment is about unwanted behaviour. Of course a lot of | :46:09. | :46:14. | |
unnatural interaction is unwanted. I'm sure you have had a period in | :46:15. | :46:18. | |
your time. I tell you what we're going to the credits now. You are | :46:19. | :46:26. | |
not going to confess when you were unwanted. Kirsty has the pleasure | :46:27. | :46:29. | |
tomorrow until then good night. | :46:30. | :46:32. |