12/05/2014 Newsnight

hand man tells me he stopped a great deal of leg's interference on

schools, the Liberal Democrats dismiss him as a fantasist.

From very serious to even worse now seperatists in eastern Ukraine say

they have declared independence and want to join Russia, the central

Government looks on impotently as police begin to swap sides. The

police changed sides? Yes, they changed from Ukrainian side to

terrorist side Insurgented organise phoney referendums on independence

and succession. Everyone is voting for independence, they don't know

anyone voting against. I haven't seen anyone voting no.

Mark Urban is in Moscow to second guess the Russians' next move.

Is partly genetics that determines why some societies become wealthy,

learned and sophisticated while others don't. The writer Sir

Nicholas Wade thinks so and been lambasted for it.

Alan scale little heads to Latin American beach where Scottish

imperial dreams ended in bankruptcy. And it is said forced them to accept

a union with England. It was the amazing fertility of this place that

brought the Scots here in the first place. You have to spend five

minutes here to know what it means, with a continual attempt to clear

the land, a fight against nature. Mention the name of the Education

Secretary, Michael Gove, in some parts of the land and the air is

suddenly thick with the smell of wafted garlic cloves and people

making the sign of the cross. Even Liberal Democrat partners is saying

he's as could legional as a starved rat. That has prompted a fierce

response from one of Michael Gove's previous advisers. The flash point

is free schools, Michael Gove's pet education project. What operates so

harmlessly in some parts of the world, what makes it so charged

here. Emily? I spoke to someone this afternoon and they said the peace

has broken out, it seemed to be that way over the Lib Dem-Conservative

spat on free schools. We heard calming words were had between

Michael Gove and David Laws, but they hadn't reckoned on one man, a

man the Liberal Democrats call "poisonous", they accuse him of a

personal and sustained war against Nick Clegg. He is Michael Gove's

former special adviser in Government, Dominic Cummings told me

this evening of the extent he said he had blocked, prevented Nick

Clegg's plans in Government. And I will talk you through what he said.

He said he certainly did stop a great deal of Nick Clegg's

interference in school policy. He would routinely call demanding ?100

million for an unknown gimmick, if you can follow it on the green. We

told him to "get stuffed", more importantly we stopped him

corrupting the free school process, nothing would have happened in

Government if we hadn't locked Clegg out of school reform. What are the

Liberal Democrats themselves saying? I guess it is important to say that

a lot of people in both parties think this is a man who has gone

rogue, he's now left his job and there is question marks over why

he's saying this kind of stuff. But I asked t Lib Dems for their

response to Cummings this evening. And this is what a Lib Dem spokesman

told me. "We're not even going to dignify these absurd statements with

a response. Dominic Cummings is an ex-Government visor, these comical

musings show why it should stay that way." Once you dismiss him as a

fantasist and an ex, you wonder why we are covering this? The reason is

he was very close to a senior Secretary of State on flagship

policy, which the Government has introduced for so long. So the

questions are, how much did he block, if anything, and exactly who

knew about what he was doing? Thank you. With all the name calling in

Westminster, one might be forgiven for For getting there is a crunch

looming on the horizon over the number of school places available.

We have been looking at whether free schools are part of the problem or

part of the solution. Everybody listening? Everybody listening. Very

good. It is not immediately obvious why a free school, like this one,

would be so contentious. But this category of schools trumpeted by the

Tories has caused a rift within the coalition. Lib Dems say they are now

worried about the amount pledged to be spent on them, and so is Labour.

For every parent wondering why their child is taught in a class size of

over 30, for every parent angry that they cannot get their kid into a

good local school, we now have the answer. The coalition, both parts,

has raided the schools' budget to pay for pet political projects in

expensive, half-empty and underperforming free

expensive, half-empty and schools are just academies that have

been set up from scratch since 2011, there is nothing very special about

them, like all academies they are responsible to the Department of

Education, not their local authority, and they have got the

right to vary, for example teachers' pay and conditions, and curriculum

more than other schools. Since 2011 the Government has opened 174 free

schools. Some, like this one, have been rated as "outstanding", others

have failed. So they are like the schools system at large, in any case

the last Labour Government set up academies from scratch too, they

were just free schools under a different brand. Why all the

political heat? Free schools are supposed to do two things, the first

is just to introduce more choice into the system, that is to say if

you create extra places at local schools parents can move their

children from one to another, creating competition between the

schools. The second thing they are supposed to do is allow new school

providers, like Arc Schools, that ones this run, into the system. So

local authorities may not just open and run new schools any more,

instead, the programme means that a private group must make a bid to

open a school and, if a minister approves it, the Department for

Education will fund it. There are problems, first because of a

population boom in England. The number of people need places is

soaring. This is a particular problem in London. This map shows in

dark red neighbourhoods where the nearest five primary schools are

full beyond capacity. The pink shows places where they have barely enough

room. The blue is where there is a little bit of spare capacity. If the

Government were to build no new schools on new capacity the story

would be horrific by 2017/18. While the Government may have wanted more

choice in schooling it is now racing to build enough places at all. Free

schools can make to meet that need. Some of them in densely built-up

areas have been put in unusual buildings. This one here is an old

Public Library. The problem is the process of setting up free schools

can be longer and more involved to the old fashioned way we set up

local authority schools. Free schools looks a an interesting way

of diversifying the schools in 24 country. That is an interesting and

desirable thing in itself. It is difficult to meet basic need in free

school innovations, in order to do that you have to have the proposals

coming through in exactly the places where there is pupil demand.

Children live in localities, thank's where you need schools. So the free

schools scheme isn't really suited to fighting the places squeeze in

England. It wasn't really designed to be. The DfE is spending a large

chunk of its building budget to help, ?5 billion over the

parliament. It is this coalition Government that has increased

spending on primary school spaces and local authority need and at the

same time has provided excellent new provision through the free school

programme. But if those measures should fail to hold off the schools'

crunch, Labour and the Lib Dems want you to blame free schools and their

promoter, Michael Gove. Now to more general matters, and some new polls

out? Yeah, you can make what you will of polls and people often say

you only recognise the ones you want to. There is a couple that won't

make good reading for Ed Miliband tonight. Both show the Conservatives

taking a lead for the first time in two years. The first one is an ICM

poll for the Guardian with the Tories jumping over Labour with 33%

of the vote, Labour on 31%. The astonishing thing is Labour have

dropped six points since April. They are the lowest they have been since

June 2010, shortly after Gordon Brown left. The other poll is Lord

Ashcroft, he puts Conservatives on 34% and Labour on 32%, they weren't

there since the omnishambles. The variance in the system is with a

two-point lead by the Tories Labour could still actually claim a

majority, such is the distribution of seats which means Labour picks up

more in small urban areas, et cetera, the Tories have a lot of

wasted votes. The weird system is they could still have a majority

even as they sit two points below the Tories. I still think it won't

make great ratting for Ed Miliband on a night he has tried to introduce

a new policy. Sooner or later something like this

was bound to happen and today one of the leaders of the trouble in

eastern Ukraine appealed for Russia to consider integrating the area

into Russia itself. He believes the called referendum staged by his

supporters in the area yesterday, proves the strength of feeling for

the idea. The British Foreign Secretary shrugged and said the

votes in the European song contest had more credibility. We will hear

what the Ukrainian Foreign Minister, well we were, but not now. First we

from report from the east of Ukraine. Here an army base is on

fire. Soldiers have vanished. No-one can tell us how it started, but in

the combustible atmosphere of the east, this is almost certainly no

accident. The police are nowhere to be seen. This is the backdrop

against which the polls will open in a few hours time. The fire men are

doing their best, but there is clearly no saving these barracks

now, the worry is of course for the weapons that may or may not have

been inside this building. Suddenly we get news that 30 masked men armed

with clubs are heading in our direction, it is time to go. Turn

the lights off. A few hours later the sense of menace was gone. There

was chaos, but also optimisim amongst the voters of this province.

There were all sorts of irregularities, no proper register,

no voting booths, not to mention the fact that the whole exercise was run

by the "yes" camp. But that wasn't really the point. The point was to

turn pro-Russian sentiment into political reality by sheer force of

numbers. Everyone is very clear here, everyone is voting for

independence, they don't know anyone who is voting against. I haven't

seen anyone voting "neit". A few metres away another burntout

building, this was the police station, there was a shootout on

Friday. TRANSLATION: There were bullets flying everywhere, shooters

on the roof tops. The Ukrainian military came in, apparently, in an

attempt to take control of the building. The locals believed the

army opened fire on the police, several people were shot dead,

including at least one policeman. She says something terrible is

happening that will destroy them. If the police switched sides it

explains how the seperatists took control of the city centre. The

result of the referendum was never in doubt, today they declared

themselves a sovereign state. Despite the febrile atmosphere

amongst the thoughs who came out to vote, there were almost no policemen

on the streets. We did find two, hiding from view, in an unmarked

Lada, they were nervous and didn't want to speak on camera. It is not

often that you see uniformed policemen on the streets these days,

these two I have just been speaking to have told me they are doing their

best to keep law and order here in the city, but they admit that

frankly they and some of their colleagues are scared. They admitted

freely that they have gone over to the side of what they call the

people, for the Donetsk People's Republic. They say they are against

the army. After the fighting on Friday, the army and the National

Guard retreated to the outskirts of the city. We found them at this

checkpoint in control at least of the main highway into town. Kiev

can't count on the loyalty of the local security forces, so these

soldiers have been brought in from outside. This captain is from

central Ukraine. Trained by NATO forces in the US and the UK, he

represents everything that the seperatists fear and loathe. He told

me he hoped this confrontation wouldn't end in a battle with the

local police. Can we ask you very simply the police, whose side are

they on now? Now on, in this town what I have information from this

town they are on the terrorist side. They changed sides, the police

changed sides? Yes, they changed from the Ukrainian side to the

terrorist side. In the nearby town of Mangush, polling took place at an

inprompt you polling station in the children's playground. No armed

seperatist here. These local policemen said they were still loyal

to Kiev, they continued to do their job and they would not cede control

to men with balaclavas and baseball bats. Back in Mariuple, the army

barracks were still mouldering, hours after it had been --

smelledering, hours after it was set alight ammunition boxes lay strewn

amongst the debris. The key thing here is the loyalty of the police,

in town after town, where they have switched sides, the seperatists have

mained control. At the airport pro-Government forces are gathering

in advance of an anticipated push to retake the city. Some are Ukrainian

army and national Guardsmen, others are forming private militias,

volunteers, taking up arms against the seperatists. He tells me they

need a new army, a more professional army, they are all prepared to fight

for Ukraine, to die for Ukraine. The men are nervous, the arrival of an

unknown vehicle prompts a Alcocking of weapons, the occupants are

questioned at gun point. Tonight Ukraine's Interior Minister said it

would step up its military operations. In western capitals they

have declared the referendum to be illegal. But the reality on the

ground is that Kiev's authority in the east is evaporating and it may

have to fight to win it back. Our diplomatic editor Mark Urban is in

Moscow. How is the Kremlin reacting to today's events? The amazing thing

is they haven't reacted directly to the bombshell, the Donetsk People's

Republic saying it wants to join Russia. There was a statement from

the Kremlin before it calling for a civilised outcome, for dialogue

between Kiev and the seperatists, that seemed not to anticipate

today's events. The President, Mr Putin, is down south in Sochi, his

supporters await his lead but he appears to be a man who most

definitely is not under the pressure of the 24-news cycle, and so people

don't really know how he intends to respond. What's the gen. Ral mood

there as you wander around Moscow. What is the attitude towards

foreigners? Westerners? It is a very bellicose atmosphere. You had the

Victory Day celebrations at the end of last week, and pretty

extraordinary stuff going out over the media. Last night on the main TV

channel, a piece lasting several minutes showing President Putin in

his command bunker supervising exercises, intercontinental

ballistic missiles being launched, that was done late last week, but we

saw the pictures last night. All sorts of other rockets and things

being fired. Quite extraordinary, you would think this is a country

about to go to war. Tonight watching the 24-hour news channel, seeing the

reports from eastern Ukraine, suggestions that foreign

mercenaries, westerners were the people who were actually killing the

pro-Russian seperatists in Donetsk, the only evidence for that I saw in

one piece was some European cigarette packets that had been left

behind in one of the bases. Another report claiming the CIA was deeply

involved now. A very particular message being given of a conspiracy,

if you like, a foreign-backed conspiracy. Has it affected

attitudes to foreign people, most people have been friendly, we got

into a heated discussion with a man in a restaurant, he said we are

American and we're different, he said what's the difference, you are

NATO. The boss of Pfizer the American pharmaceutical hoping to

gobble up AstraZeneca appears before the Commons committee and has to do

the same thing the next day before another committee. This double

whammy of scrutiny before the deal has been agreed reflects the level

of unease about what is planned. The American firm today claimed despite

all precedence to the contrary, its guarantees about protecting British

science jobs will have the force of law. It is a big day tomorrow. It is

a real blockbuster and not just because it is British science and

knowledge at risk, this would be the biggest-ever commercial deal, but

indirectly AstraZeneca supports about 30,000 jobs in this country,

and alone makes up 2% of exports. That is why tomorrow and Wednesday

will really matter. The central point is whether or not Pfizer's

promises about keeping jobs and research in the UK are worth the

paper they are written on. Now they claim these promises are absolutely

legally binding. They suggest that because it is true that the takeover

panel, you might not have heard of them. But they are the regulator of

these kinds of things do have legal recourse to try to hold companies to

promises they make during the course of a takeover bid. The difficulty is

if you fancy a bit of slight reading and rule three and rule 1. 1 of the

takeover code says they can only hold them to those promises if,

"things do not have a material change of circumstances". If there

is a material range of circumstances, perhaps the market

changes, perhaps maybe the price of drugs changes or something like

that, then the promises they make aren't worth anything at all. This

is becoming a pretty cleat calm charged take -- politically charged

takeover. Nigel Lawson is here. We have to remember this is a deal that

hasn't happened yet. Is it right that it is subjected to this sort of

political scrutiny? I think it is right it is subjected to scrutiny,

not just political, but also the scrutiny of the stock market, the

scrutiny of investors. I think that is absolutely right. It is extremely

complex issue, like in any complex issue, while there are always

arguments on both sides, and there are, I think you

arguments on both sides, and there does the balance

arguments on both sides, and there And the balance of advantage in

arguments on both sides, and there opinion is undoubtedly trying to get

the undertakings you can, they don't opinion is undoubtedly trying to get

want to incur the hostility of the British Government, that is no in

their commercial interests, they don't want to have the National

Health Service, which is a very, very big buyer of drugs hostile to

them. They have every interest in being co-operative. I think the

balance of advantage is that we remain welcome to perfectly

respectable, they are not a shower of crooks, investment in this

country, just as we invest very substantially in the United States.

Do you think those are the signals that are being sent by the

Government. Michael Howard is saying he wants better safeguards than have

already been offered by Pfizer? He can say what he likes. Not Michael

Howard, I mean David Cameron! Let's see what happens, at the end of the

day you get the best sort of under akings you can, they want to give

undertakings and they know it will not be helpful if they Welsh on the

undertakings. Laura is right there are circumstances these would not be

legally binding, but never the less it is in their interests to behave

well, if they can make money doing so, which I believe they can. And I

think as I say, we have benefitted tremenduously in this country. The

French put barriers up against overseas investment in a big way, it

has not done them any good. We have benefitted from being somewhere

people want to come and they want to come because it is Britain not

because we are the European Union. Equally our firms have benefitted

from the assets we have acquired in the United States. There is a long

history, this is not new. If you think in another area, Vauxhall

Motors, I think that General Motors bought vox haul in the 19 --

Vauxhall in the 1930s and it has been very successful. There is a

long history of shutting down deals that are not found conGeorgeal, and

science is very important? Science is centered in the universities. But

no company in the drugs business can be successful if it doesn't do

research. There is a question of how much research it does, but that is

absolutely vital. They all do it, Pfizer does too. Do you propose

confidence in Vince Cable as the right man to make this decision? I

don't believe that any single individual should make this

decision. I believe that at the end of the day you get whatever

undertakings you can and then you leave it to the shareholders to

decide how it should go. I believe that I, you know, I'm a semi-retired

politician and I have no regrets about being a politician, but I

think that once you start having these decisions, made by

politicians, for short-term political purposes, that is a big

mistake. Why does western civilisation

dominate the modern world, and why are some ethnic groups seemingly

more successful than others. Could the answer lie with genetic

differences, these are the questions posed, not in a century-old polemic

on eugenics, but the respected science writer for the New York

Times, Nicholas Wade, in a new book he explores why our increasing

understanding of our genetic make-up should lead us to believe our genes

have played a far bigger role in how our history unfolded than previously

thought. What is the core of your contention then? The core of my

contention is that we can tell from recent studies of the human genome

over the last ten years that human evolution didn't stop in the distant

past as people believe, to the contrary it has been vigorous and

extensive and has extended right up through the historical period. That

is the factual part of my book and then I have clearly a speculative

part in which I try to ask if evolution has been acted throughout

history, what kind of traits have been selected by natural selection,

what has it been doing. The suggest the most important thing that has

changed is not the nature of the people, because human nature is

pretty much universal, we are all very much the change. What has

changed is the nature of human societies. And natural selection

does that by making slight tweaks in human social behaviour and a slight

tweak in social behaviour can make for a very different society. For

example the radius of trust is rather narrow, in a tribal society,

you only trust your family or kinnage, in a modern state it is

larger. We have a genetic mechanism where it could be controlled by

oxitocin. We won't know that until the genes are found. We don't know

if there is an empirical basis for this theory at present? There is

certainly no proof of it, but there is a reasonable amount of evidence I

have tried to assemble in my book, which I think is a reasonable way of

looking at things. I was quite surprised to hear you say the

instructions for this programme that my book has been lambasted, that is

not at all true. I saw an article in the London Times this afternoon and

was completely biased and you have managed to find the one review that

has called my book "racist", the Times's own review has been very

open minded to what I'm trying to say. You could see how people might

turn it? This is a very dangerous area, and you have to approach it

very carefully. That is what I have done. I think it is worth trying to

explore because for the very reasons you say. This is territory where

academics fear to tread, you cannot write an article or book exploring

the difference between races without being accused of racism. In my mind

if one takes racism seriously one should define it narrowly and not

toss the word about as a casual insult, the essence of racism is to

assume one race is inherently superior to another, this is a

proposition I reject on almost every other page of my book.

Let's take a specific example, the question of the Industrial

Revolution as it occurred in England in the period we know about. Are you

saying there may be evolutionary reasons for that happening where it

happened when it happened? Yes we know from a study by Gregory Clarke,

who has measured the changes in English behaviour from the period

1200 to 1800, he finds that during this period the level of violence in

society decreases, literacy goes up, work hours go up and spending goes

up. So you start the period with a sort of violent peasant population

and you end it with a disciplined work force, which is immensely more

productive than the population was 600 years previously. The essence of

the Industrial Revolution is an increase in productivity. So Clarke

has provided a very interesting explanation based on changes in

English social behaviour of why this happened. All these behaviours could

plausibly have a genetic basis. He has provided a genetic mechanism

where it might happen. He found the well-off had more surviving children

throughout this period than the poor. So the genes and values that

made them rich then sort of perculated down through -- percan

you -- percolated down in society. This is a very interesting way of

looking at a behavioural change in a particular population. The

referendum to decide whether Scotland should reject the union

with England, which it once so enthusiastically embraced is now

four months away. Interest has quickened in what seems to be an

increased support to cutting the tie which has lasted 300 years. It is

widely acknowledge the Scots became much keener on joining England after

the catastrophic failure of their own attempt to build an empire. It

bankrupted Scotland and led to the attitude if you can't beat them join

them. 300 years ago a disaster that evolved here brought an end to the

Scots and an end to the independent kingdom of Scotland. The

anglo-Scottish union that is being challenged has roots here in Panama

. When a nation rethinks its future, as Scotland does, it also

re-examines its past. Scotland is re-thinking the lessons of what is

still known as the Darian disaster. In the archive in Edinburgh, there

is the story of an attempt by Scottish merchants to find a trading

colony, they would call it Caledonia and New Edinburgh. We have the

charter in constitution. It is a document set up how they wanted it

to run, from the judiciary and how disputes are settled. They are found

Agnew colony and whole new country? This is all the things about

beginning a country, there is a lot to think about that is what they are

trying to do here. It was fatastically ambitious? Very

ambitious indeed. It would be funded by public subscription, kept sealed

in this elaborately locked strong box. Across Scotland almost anyone

with savings queued to invest. It seemed everyone wanted to be part of

what they called the most noble undertaking. I think it was an early

example of financial mania, whipped up by those organising the capital

raising, particularly William Patterson, who was very skillful to

persuade investors to part with their money. He combined a clever

mixture of poetry and sound financial sense that was very

persuasive. The The subscription book remains, it would be millions

worth of donations if it was today. It was interesting how seized

Scotland was of the mania, it is a list of page after page after page

of those who sunk their life savings into the adventure. Palm quite reach

up to ?3,000 to people of modest means, Margaret Adamson ?1. It is

like looking at the wealth of a small and poor country being thrown

away. They filled their ships with goods they hoped to trade with the

maritime nations of the world. They took with them 85 campaign wigs.

They took wigs to central America? Yes, they didn't know with the

climate and what it would be like, they didn't understand. There would

be two major expeditions to Panama, carrying 3,000 settlers between

them. The first embarked in a mood of national euphoria. The fleet set

sail from here athlete in #16 98. The whole City of Edinburgh poured

down on the port of Leith to see the colt Colinists department. This was

a great at venture, those on board the ships thought themselves lucky

to be alive. They hadn't the slightest notion they were sailing

into personal and national catastrophe.

There is it is, Scottish Harbour, when they came around the headland

after four gruelling months at sea. They found themselves in calm seas

and fertile land not occupied by any European power. They thought the

harbour had room for a thousand ships. They should have looked at

the sky, they should have known it rains here most of the year, and

nothing ever dries out. It was the amazing fertility of this

place that brought the Scots here in the first place, you have to spend

five minutes here to know what that means. One of the settlers wrote

that the book breaking work of clearing the place took place, but

within a matter of weeks the jungle had grown back and it was though

nothing had been done to it, it was a continual attempt to fight against

nature and clear the land. And against disease, Malaria, yellow

fever, somewhere in this tangle is a Scottish cemetery with hundreds of

graves, no-one has ever found it. Nine months after the first fleet

set sale, two-thirds of the colonists were dead. The survivors

struggled on, they built a fort and named it for their patron saint, we

searched the forest and coastline for what is left of it. This is what

we have been working for, this is the start of the defensive trench,

the moat that they built around fort Andrew, they dug it through solid

coral rock for hundreds of yards, right to the far end and other

shore. It must have been a huge task. We went to the place the Scots

named New Edinburgh, it is still called that on some maps. They lived

here in houses like these. But nothing survives of their capital

city. 20 families live here now, descentants of the Indians that the

Scots tried to befriend. No Europeans ever succeeded in settling

this place, not even the Spanish. Only its oldest indigenous people

survive. 300 years ago the Scots made alliances with them, signed

treaties, traded with them, learned from them. Across the bay we found

the island that is still called Caledonia, a legacy of the Scots'

presence. The people today live off the sea and forest. It is part of an

autonomous province of Panama, reserved for them alone. And it is

dedicated to preserving its precolonial way of life, to keeping

the modern world at bay. The story of the Scots colony survives in

their oral history. TRANSLATION: The story of how white people, the Scots

tried to settle here has been passed down through the generations. Our

forefathers told us they became looking for gold there were battles

with the Spanish and many ships sank. They were driven inland

because of fear. When the Scots arrived the Spanish had already been

here for nearly 200 years. Their garrison town was the gateway

through which the gold and silver that made imperial Spain the

greatest power of the age was shipped back to Europe. The Spanish

blockaded and then besieged the Scots colony and then forced a

humiliating surrender. They burned what was left of Caledonia to the

ground. All but one of Scotland's great ships, with the goods they

hoped to trade were lost. But it was the role of the English that was to

cause lasting bitterness in Scotland. In London King William

olded the English colonies of the North Americas not to trade with

Caledonia and deny all assistance to the Scottish colonies. He was in a

slightly different position, English trading interests were very much

against the Scottish Company against the East India Company, the

realities of power was he was going to side with where the power and

money was, the London trading interests. Orders were sent to the

English plantations saying they weren't allowed to supply the Scots

with any extra provisions, they were trying to starve them out.

Scotland's imperial ambitions were defeated by climate and disease,

attacked by the Spanish, and sabotaged by the English. Within a

decade they accepted union with England. They agreed to pay a sum of

money to compensate. It was known as the equivalent, or the price of

Scotland. Bought and sold for English gold Robert Burns would say

later, "such a parcel of rogues in a nation". With us here in the studio

is a former economic adviser to the Scottish Government, and now a

visiting professor at the London School of Economics. We're joined

from Aberdeen by a professor at the University of troth collide and

author of Union and Empire. First of all, do you think this, how big a

deal was it in the making of the union? It was quite a big deal in

two ways, one was the issue, one was the equivalent, bailing out the

Scots in this terrible condition. The more basic point was it was a

demonstration that in the long run without the support of the English

Navy. Without access to a free trade zone with England, and without

access to the expanding English empire Scotland's prospects in a

global environment were not very good. And with access to all these

things they proved to be very effective. Do you think it was that

important? I think the Darian scheme was a fiasco in its execution, but

it was not the cause of union or indeed was it a financial

catastrophe for Scotland. It was doing quite well, regardless of the

Darian, which I think is being misrepresented here thus far. As a

relatively small country Scotland would be unable to carve out for

itself the international desknee it sought and therefore some kind of

alliance with a bigger partner just across the border was probably a

good idea. Scots weren't looking for other partnership, the Scots were

also at the same time as Darian investing heavily in Swedish

textiles and ballistics and German manufacturing as well. They were in

a good trade relationship with France and also a buoyant trading

relationship with the Dutch. We can overstate this desire for the

alleged poverty of the Scots. Do you think there is much a read across

into where we are now in relations with England and Scotland? Not very

much, we need to understand the prosperity of small countries in

today's world is based on defining your competitive advantages and

being able to sell them in a global environment. And Scotland was able

to do that from 1707, other small countries, like lites land or

Denmark or -- Switzerland or Denmark or Sweden have prospered only in the

20th century as a result of the growth of free trade. Do you see

much of a read across? I think the first thing that I need to state is

it is important to have collaboration with international

partners. That was clearly lacking at Darian, it could be one or

several partners, but the lesson is the need for international

collaboration. As you might say it was a lesson of the financial

crisis? You could exactly say that. You could say the same thing about

any financial crisis even in 20008, the need to have international

collaboration is vital. And you will be well aware of how often that

argument is made by those who wish to see the union continue? You could

equally say that international collaboration was important for

European banks, that is the sand navian countries included. There was

one blindingly obvious collaboration for Scotland at the beginning of the

18th century, and a large and increasingly successful country,

which happened to be located immediately across the hills, that

was England. Of course the Scots played an

important part in building the British Empire? We need to emphasise

over and over again that 150 years that followed union were for

Scotland. An amazing period of economic development that Scotland

moved from being a small country on the periphery of Europe to being in

the second half of the 19th century, one of the richest parts in the

world, you can see a legacy of that any time you go to Edinburgh or

Glasgow. What do you make of the fact that

pro-unionist politicians are using the Darian scheme as an argument

against separation? I think it is almost like a lack of confidence

that you can't do certain things, likewise the belief that the union

would have been a gesture by English, an altruistic gesture,

there is far more reasons that England wanted union than bailing

out Scotland. Disruption to international trade and war of the

Spanish succession, financial difficulties experienced by England

at the time. There is a bigger picture in this rather than easy

answers, that is Darian leads to England leads to money in their

pocket. It wasn't an act of altruism on England's part. But the Scots did

well out of the Britishm pyre. The coraly of that is when the British

empair they lost a large part of these benefits, so the union was a

great deal for Scotland in the 18th or 19th, it was not clear about the

20th century. That leaves the 21st century an open question.

??FORCEDWHI That is it from tonight. We leave you with images from a

Facebook page where Iranian women post pictures of themselves out in

public without a hijab, something that is punishable if it is done in

that country.