Browse content similar to 23/05/2014. Check below for episodes and series from the same categories and more!
Line | From | To | |
---|---|---|---|
They ignored him, they dismissed him and taked him, it didn't work . What | :00:00. | :00:15. | |
will the established parties try next to stop the relentless rise of | :00:16. | :00:21. | |
UKIP. Obama's Treasury Secretary said he had to bail out the bankers | :00:22. | :00:25. | |
to save the world. He was the Sheriff and he tells us he was | :00:26. | :00:29. | |
dealing with a bunch of cowboys. We had a wild west financial system. | :00:30. | :00:35. | |
There were a lot of mistakes in oversight and risk management and a | :00:36. | :00:46. | |
lot of imprudence, absolutely. She became the poster girl for a more | :00:47. | :00:52. | |
modern, tolerant, inclusive Europe when she won Eurovision. Why are so | :00:53. | :00:57. | |
many voters about to vote for parties that are none of the above. | :00:58. | :01:02. | |
We will ask her tonight what she makes of that. | :01:03. | :01:09. | |
Nigel Farage promised a political earthquake in the local and European | :01:10. | :01:16. | |
elections, we won't know the euro results until Monday night. UKIP | :01:17. | :01:22. | |
certainly caused enough tremors to shake the other parties. We have the | :01:23. | :01:25. | |
headlines. Let me give you the big picture of | :01:26. | :01:29. | |
what happened today, because this is arguably the day that England went | :01:30. | :01:33. | |
into a four-party political system. If I go into the kind of councils | :01:34. | :01:37. | |
that the stories were defending tonight and I update it with these | :01:38. | :01:40. | |
results you can see what has happened. West Lancashire has gone | :01:41. | :01:48. | |
into no overall control. Amber Valley will be a particular feather | :01:49. | :01:55. | |
in the cap, tight low-fought at a Westminster parliamentary level. It | :01:56. | :02:00. | |
is old mining country in Derbyshire. These are the councils Labour was | :02:01. | :02:04. | |
defending, I will update you and show you what will happen, Great | :02:05. | :02:08. | |
Yarmouth has gone into no overall control. This is why, UKIP picking | :02:09. | :02:12. | |
up ten seats on the council here which snatched it out of Labour's | :02:13. | :02:17. | |
hands. What about the Lib Dem, they have had a pretty rough night. If I | :02:18. | :02:21. | |
update this they have lost a quarter of their councils tonight, just | :02:22. | :02:25. | |
eight up. Kingston upon Thames has gone to their partners in | :02:26. | :02:29. | |
Government, the Conservatives. Portsmouth has gone into no overall | :02:30. | :02:33. | |
control. We don't have a button for UKIP because they haven't got a | :02:34. | :02:39. | |
council, it is mathematically impossible for them to do it. If I | :02:40. | :02:43. | |
compare the kind of places where they have been doing well tonight, | :02:44. | :02:46. | |
they are pretty much all over the country. All over England, that is. | :02:47. | :02:51. | |
In Portsmouth they were fighting the Lib Dems, they have gained six seats | :02:52. | :02:54. | |
on the council there. In Rotherham they were fighting Labour, up ten | :02:55. | :02:59. | |
seats there. They were fighting the Tories in Basildon and Essex, up 11 | :03:00. | :03:03. | |
seats there, an extraordinary night for this party who have really come | :03:04. | :03:08. | |
of age. They call thselves the fox in the Westminster chickens. Let's | :03:09. | :03:12. | |
see how long the fox lasts and where it goes now. The Tories didn't do | :03:13. | :03:16. | |
well yesterday, but David Cameron's usual party critics have remained | :03:17. | :03:21. | |
untypically silent. Labour didn't do at all badly and in London did much | :03:22. | :03:25. | |
better than expected. But Ed Miliband's critics have been | :03:26. | :03:28. | |
anything but silent. Maybe because there was a number of seats Labour | :03:29. | :03:32. | |
has to win to form the next Government where its performance | :03:33. | :03:36. | |
ranged from lacklustre to poor, and one common theme links the Tories | :03:37. | :03:40. | |
and Labour was the disruptive influence UKIP had on their fortunes | :03:41. | :03:43. | |
across England. We have been to the old Middle | :03:44. | :03:49. | |
England railway town of Swindon, this report contains flash | :03:50. | :03:53. | |
photography. Pushing, pulling, disrupting, | :03:54. | :03:59. | |
contorting, changing the contours of the political map. UKIP hasn't won | :04:00. | :04:05. | |
councils outright anywhere. But Mr Farrage is squeezing votes, almost | :04:06. | :04:10. | |
everywhere. T conversations going on last night, one in Westminster going | :04:11. | :04:16. | |
amongst the commentators and Tory MPs who still see it as the old | :04:17. | :04:21. | |
left-right divide, and the other conversation was goes on in Swindon. | :04:22. | :04:25. | |
The traditional conversation that UKIP only takes from the Tories was | :04:26. | :04:33. | |
disproved here. But UKIP only takes from the Tories, right? Wrong, here | :04:34. | :04:38. | |
in Swindon and dispondent Labour, whose leader in this town Ed | :04:39. | :04:42. | |
Miliband forgot, failed to take the council. The kind they desperately | :04:43. | :04:51. | |
need. We lost votes to UKIP in the target seats, and that's cost us. A | :04:52. | :04:57. | |
depressing picture for Labour, because Swindon's the kind of seat | :04:58. | :05:00. | |
that's tight when general elections come round, where, in a normal | :05:01. | :05:04. | |
political cycle Ed Miliband should be well ahead. What do you think | :05:05. | :05:08. | |
about Ed Miliband though, he came here earlier in the week? You are | :05:09. | :05:14. | |
making a terrible face? Not great deal. He's not a leader. He's not a | :05:15. | :05:21. | |
leader? Normally we vote Labour, he's not the best man for the job. | :05:22. | :05:25. | |
He's not the best man for the job? They should have picked his brother. | :05:26. | :05:29. | |
What did you vote yesterday? Conservative? Why? It is better the | :05:30. | :05:33. | |
devil you know, you have to give people time to sort the country out. | :05:34. | :05:39. | |
Yeah. If we keep swapping and changing you have to start from the | :05:40. | :05:44. | |
beginning again. UKIP seem to be willing to tell the truth straight | :05:45. | :05:48. | |
up. People had questions, especially Nigel Farage, he answered the | :05:49. | :05:51. | |
questions in a way that makes you feel you are getting the answers you | :05:52. | :05:54. | |
want, he's not lying to you. Labour only needed one net gain here to | :05:55. | :05:58. | |
knock out the Tories, but with thousands of votes peeling away to | :05:59. | :06:02. | |
UKIP it didn't happen. The party did gain seats around the country, but | :06:03. | :06:08. | |
nothing like the number needed to look solidly and credibly like they | :06:09. | :06:15. | |
might win next year. Labour did grab councils from the Tories in London | :06:16. | :06:20. | |
and were top in some target seats. But a shaky national first place is | :06:21. | :06:26. | |
not enough to top this. The strategists at the top of the party | :06:27. | :06:29. | |
called it wrong, we should have taken the fight to UKIP from the | :06:30. | :06:32. | |
beginning and we never did. We have not done as well as we should have | :06:33. | :06:36. | |
done in both the presentation of our policies and the organisation. I | :06:37. | :06:40. | |
lost count the number of people canvassing over the last, especially | :06:41. | :06:45. | |
the last two or three days that said you will need a big kicking. Even | :06:46. | :06:50. | |
hints from Labour's top table they were too late to catch on. People | :06:51. | :06:54. | |
want tougher controls in immigration and reform in Europe, we have been | :06:55. | :06:56. | |
making those arguments in this election. We have to do so more | :06:57. | :07:02. | |
loudly over the next year. But for the leader, who has been in politics | :07:03. | :07:07. | |
man and boy, it is nothing to do with him or his campaign, but | :07:08. | :07:10. | |
something that has been brewing for years. I think in some parts of the | :07:11. | :07:15. | |
country we have had discontent building up for decades about the | :07:16. | :07:19. | |
way the country has been run, and about the way our economy works. And | :07:20. | :07:23. | |
people feeling that the country just doesn't work for them. What you are | :07:24. | :07:27. | |
seeing is some parts of the country is people turning to UKIP has an | :07:28. | :07:32. | |
expression of that discontent. The prize for the saddest faces of these | :07:33. | :07:37. | |
elections though must go to the Lib Dems. Wiped out in some cities, | :07:38. | :07:41. | |
losing all their councillors in Manchester. The Greens taking their | :07:42. | :07:46. | |
place as the official opposition in Liverpool. Losing overall more than | :07:47. | :07:54. | |
a third of their grassroots base. But Nick Clegg also appears to | :07:55. | :07:59. | |
believe it is not really mainstream politicians' fault. It is just that | :08:00. | :08:02. | |
what they have done has made voters grumpy. I certainly accept that | :08:03. | :08:09. | |
there is a very strong anti-politics mood around, by the way not only in | :08:10. | :08:12. | |
our country but in many other parts of Europe as well. I think we will | :08:13. | :08:15. | |
see that in the European elections in the days to come. Of course also | :08:16. | :08:19. | |
being part of a Government that has had to take extraordinarily | :08:20. | :08:23. | |
difficult and sometimes down right unpopular decisions over the past | :08:24. | :08:27. | |
four years, to get the economy back on track. But here is the curious | :08:28. | :08:33. | |
thing, no, not Nigel Farage having a beer and a fag, that seems to happen | :08:34. | :08:37. | |
almost whenever there is a camera around. But today's numbers point to | :08:38. | :08:44. | |
him having a smaller share of the national vote than at last year's | :08:45. | :08:51. | |
council elections. But he's so emboldened by his gains in places | :08:52. | :08:56. | |
like Essex, finally Farrage has vowed he will try his luck as an MP. | :08:57. | :09:03. | |
I haven't done a lot, just bought a pint of beer, there we are! What | :09:04. | :09:09. | |
won't be on offer to UKIP is a deal with those people he doesn't call | :09:10. | :09:14. | |
Conservative. Governing parties normally take a hammering in local | :09:15. | :09:17. | |
elections and David Cameron's party did lose councils, but the | :09:18. | :09:22. | |
performance was lacklustre, not disastrous. Yet listen closely, | :09:23. | :09:26. | |
there is no dismissing UKIP's support any more. Now he shares | :09:27. | :09:31. | |
their pain. We have got to work harder and really deliver, on issues | :09:32. | :09:36. | |
that are frustrating people and frustrating me like welfare reform | :09:37. | :09:38. | |
and immigration and making sure people really benefit from this | :09:39. | :09:42. | |
recovery. We will be working flat out to demonstrate that we do have | :09:43. | :09:45. | |
the answers to help hard working people. But it is not clear those | :09:46. | :09:54. | |
hard working people, or anyone else busy getting on with the day-to-day | :09:55. | :09:59. | |
even wants to be persuaded. UKIP's performance is more a tremor than | :10:00. | :10:03. | |
the promised earthquake, but in towns like Swindon they know they | :10:04. | :10:07. | |
had a tangible effect. There is too much of this towing the party line. | :10:08. | :10:15. | |
There is too much of being what they think is right rather than being | :10:16. | :10:19. | |
right. We get being told we are wrong for saying what people think. | :10:20. | :10:23. | |
Why wouldn't you, it is not racist or anything, it is what people | :10:24. | :10:27. | |
think. UKIP hasn't won the election, but in a sense no-one really has, | :10:28. | :10:31. | |
they have been pretty dismal for all the main parties. If anything is | :10:32. | :10:36. | |
victorious it is perhaps the argument that the current crop of | :10:37. | :10:39. | |
Westminster politicians doesn't connect let alone convince people in | :10:40. | :10:48. | |
the rest of the country. Sunday's results of the European elections | :10:49. | :10:51. | |
could see UKIP squeeze into first place. But voters are yet to answer | :10:52. | :10:56. | |
if our politics are permanently bent out of shape. She looked like Mary | :10:57. | :11:07. | |
Poppins and came straight back to the studio! How are the three main | :11:08. | :11:14. | |
parties going to react to UKIP? All of their performances have gone | :11:15. | :11:19. | |
pretty soggy, we need to keep it in perfective, the way their votes | :11:20. | :11:23. | |
added up had a tangible effect in Swindon and others. The Lib Dems for | :11:24. | :11:26. | |
them it is really a question of grin and bear it, they don't really have | :11:27. | :11:30. | |
much choice. I think they are quite resolved on that. For the | :11:31. | :11:33. | |
Conservatives, interestingly, the newer by-election is coming at us | :11:34. | :11:36. | |
thick and fast, that is next week, although there are a couple of | :11:37. | :11:40. | |
noises off tonight, broadly speaking their discipline seems to be | :11:41. | :11:43. | |
holding. And David Cameron is already responding quite far in | :11:44. | :11:46. | |
policy terms to the threat from UKIP, whether on welfare, tougher | :11:47. | :11:50. | |
language on immigration or that referendum promise. What is | :11:51. | :11:53. | |
happening, it is toughest, and we are seeing toughest already for | :11:54. | :11:56. | |
Labour. Partly because some of the private anxieties about how to deal | :11:57. | :12:01. | |
with UKIP, which have been there, have already spilt out into public. | :12:02. | :12:04. | |
You heard Ed Balls clearly saying they have to be stronger on | :12:05. | :12:09. | |
immigration, and Tessa Jowell, that very loyal Labour figure, and very | :12:10. | :12:12. | |
well known said this afternoon that Ed Miliband was absolutely not on | :12:13. | :12:16. | |
top of the bill from the checkout. A rather pointed remark at how he | :12:17. | :12:20. | |
handled the campaign in the last few weeks. For Labour this is | :12:21. | :12:23. | |
potentially a very dangerous moment. Ed Miliband is nowhere near the kind | :12:24. | :12:28. | |
of comfortable level he needs to be at, above 35% in order really to be | :12:29. | :12:33. | |
looking like somebody who could be walking through the steps of Number | :12:34. | :12:37. | |
Ten next year. Let's discuss the state of the | :12:38. | :12:40. | |
politics after these elections with Jeremy Hunt for the Conservatives, | :12:41. | :12:45. | |
and Chuka Umunna for Labour. Welcome both of you let me come to you first | :12:46. | :12:50. | |
Jeremy. The Tories haven't been quite scrutinised yet, let's look at | :12:51. | :12:53. | |
the result, you need to increase your share of the vote from the 36% | :12:54. | :12:58. | |
you got in 2010 to win in 2015, but you are falling back, your national | :12:59. | :13:01. | |
share of the vote projected yesterday was under 30%, and there | :13:02. | :13:05. | |
is only a year to go? Well actually I don't agree with that. Of course | :13:06. | :13:09. | |
you are comparing it to what happened at the last election and | :13:10. | :13:12. | |
since then we have had to take some very difficult decisions to deal | :13:13. | :13:15. | |
with the deficit that we have inherited in many other areas. If | :13:16. | :13:19. | |
you look at the recent trends, things have been moving much more in | :13:20. | :13:23. | |
our direction. We got a higher share of the vote than a year ago. The | :13:24. | :13:27. | |
polls have been closing. But you got a lower share of the vote than you | :13:28. | :13:31. | |
got in 2010. To win the election next year you need a higher share | :13:32. | :13:34. | |
you are going in the wrong direction? But this is what | :13:35. | :13:38. | |
Conservative Governments do. We take difficult decisions at the start of | :13:39. | :13:42. | |
a parliament, the decisions that are necessary in the long-term interests | :13:43. | :13:45. | |
of the country. And those decisions are often not popular, but then as | :13:46. | :13:50. | |
it gets closer to an election people start to see the fruits of those | :13:51. | :13:55. | |
decisions. Why is it that gap has been closing. It is important, there | :13:56. | :13:59. | |
is a lot of talk about the politics and strategyising, but we have one. | :14:00. | :14:03. | |
Five million people who have jobs who didn't have jobs at the last | :14:04. | :14:08. | |
election. They and their families are seeing their children going to | :14:09. | :14:11. | |
academies and free schools, the standards are getting better, more | :14:12. | :14:13. | |
doctors and nurses in the hospitals. The facts on the ground are | :14:14. | :14:16. | |
changing, that is making it very difficult for Labour to put together | :14:17. | :14:19. | |
their argument because they opposed so many of those changes. They may | :14:20. | :14:24. | |
be changing but you only got 29% of the vote. Chuka Umunna, Labour's | :14:25. | :14:30. | |
position, after four years of austerity, a flat-lining economy | :14:31. | :14:36. | |
according to Ed Miliband, and you have only added two percentage | :14:37. | :14:40. | |
points since 2010, the worst result in living memory? I thought we had a | :14:41. | :14:45. | |
good set of results over the last 24 hours. 31%? Let me finish. On top of | :14:46. | :14:53. | |
the councillors we had in 2010 we have 270-odd. Importantly we have | :14:54. | :14:57. | |
got the biggest share of the vote in the areas boundaries to some of the | :14:58. | :15:03. | |
key marginal seats, Carlyle, and in the south which importantly we need | :15:04. | :15:06. | |
to be winning back support in, Ipswich, Hastings. You are only two | :15:07. | :15:11. | |
percentage points ahead of the Tories, nationally. Of course we | :15:12. | :15:15. | |
have to remember that most, many of the seats if you look at London, for | :15:16. | :15:19. | |
example, that were contested yesterday were ones which were | :15:20. | :15:23. | |
boosted by the turnout in 2010. These were kind of Labour areas. So | :15:24. | :15:28. | |
you wouldn't expect to see quite the same performance in these seats. Let | :15:29. | :15:32. | |
me say something that I think is very interesting about London. | :15:33. | :15:35. | |
Because what Jeremy talked about is as people see the results on the | :15:36. | :15:38. | |
ground. For example, growth. You will begin to see the pick-up in the | :15:39. | :15:43. | |
Tory support. Now we know that 75% of the new jobs since 2010 have been | :15:44. | :15:46. | |
created in London and the south-east. But you saw things in | :15:47. | :15:49. | |
London, like, for example, the Tories losing their flagship | :15:50. | :15:56. | |
council, Hammersmith and Fulham, the Prime Minister's favourite council | :15:57. | :15:59. | |
falling to Labour. You have a London problem, you don't resonate with the | :16:00. | :16:04. | |
young urban, and you don't resonate with ethnic minorities and you do | :16:05. | :16:09. | |
badly in the capital? Let's look at London and the south-east, you have | :16:10. | :16:12. | |
got southern seats, some of the less southern affluent areas that Labour | :16:13. | :16:17. | |
need to win in like Thurrock, Gloucester and Worcester, where | :16:18. | :16:21. | |
actually they did disappointingly badly. I asked you about the Tories | :16:22. | :16:24. | |
in London not Labour in the south-east? Hammersmith and Fulham | :16:25. | :16:29. | |
is a Labour-held seat, if Labour want to win the elections they need | :16:30. | :16:34. | |
to win marginal seats, that is not what Hammersmith is. It is a bad | :16:35. | :16:39. | |
example. Why are you doing badly in London? The truth is better doing | :16:40. | :16:43. | |
better in London and better across the country. You are losing the | :16:44. | :16:48. | |
affluent suburbs and the inner cities? Look at the areas that | :16:49. | :16:52. | |
Labour need to win. They need to win councils like Plymouth, Swindon, | :16:53. | :16:57. | |
they need to win places like Tamworth. What about Lancashire. It | :16:58. | :17:01. | |
is not a geography lesson here, you can threw names at each other. There | :17:02. | :17:06. | |
is a very important point, no opposition party has ever won a | :17:07. | :17:10. | |
general election without being the biggest party in local Government. | :17:11. | :17:13. | |
We are going to be the biggest party in local Government. That's fine. | :17:14. | :17:18. | |
And we a growing in our support. History is not great lesson here, we | :17:19. | :17:22. | |
are now a four-party system. You only have one seat in Scotland, no | :17:23. | :17:27. | |
seats in the single major northern city and you are now losing out in | :17:28. | :17:31. | |
the suburbs and the inner cities of the capital, you are not even a | :17:32. | :17:35. | |
National Party any more? I totally disagree with that, look at Pendel | :17:36. | :17:40. | |
in Lancashire and the key battle grounds of the Midlands, places like | :17:41. | :17:45. | |
Tamworth. Birmingham edge basten to, Birmingham Northfield, where we won | :17:46. | :17:49. | |
seats off Labour if there was a general election today. We are | :17:50. | :17:52. | |
actually doing extremely well. It is very, very tough. We have to | :17:53. | :17:55. | |
understand after the difficult decisions we have taken over the | :17:56. | :17:58. | |
last three years that it is not going to be a popularity contest at | :17:59. | :18:02. | |
this stage. But in the end, in the end, what the British people are | :18:03. | :18:06. | |
looking for is substance. That is Moy point, it is very -- my point, | :18:07. | :18:10. | |
it is very important the substance on the ground is a growing economy, | :18:11. | :18:14. | |
better schools and hospitals. Let me put a point to you. Your cost of | :18:15. | :18:20. | |
living Crisis Line, it isn't really working is it? It is not really | :18:21. | :18:24. | |
cutting through, retail sales are soaring. Consumer confidence is at | :18:25. | :18:32. | |
its highest level since 1978, if there was cost of living crisis none | :18:33. | :18:38. | |
that have would be true? If you asked most people do they feel more | :18:39. | :18:45. | |
well off or if they are not facing a squeeze. They are absolutely facing | :18:46. | :18:49. | |
a squeeze on their living standards. There is parts of the country where | :18:50. | :18:54. | |
there is an imbalanced recovery, 54% of GDP growth has come from London | :18:55. | :18:58. | |
and the south-east. If you go to the south west and the north-east they | :18:59. | :19:02. | |
don't recognise the picture. You can have the data argument, but if you | :19:03. | :19:05. | |
look at the situations many people are facing they don't feel a hell of | :19:06. | :19:08. | |
a lot better off now. Overall you wouldn't get the rise in retail | :19:09. | :19:12. | |
sales if the whole country was in a cost of living crisis? The question | :19:13. | :19:16. | |
is how do people feel, how is that translating. They are showing how | :19:17. | :19:21. | |
they feel spending in the shots? The point is people are learning ?1,600 | :19:22. | :19:26. | |
less than in 2010. On election day it was revealed that net immigration | :19:27. | :19:34. | |
last year rose by 50,000 to 212,000, you promised it would fall below | :19:35. | :19:38. | |
100,000 by-election day. That is clearly not going to happen. Doesn't | :19:39. | :19:43. | |
that broken promise by a mainstream party explain why UKIP are doing so | :19:44. | :19:48. | |
well? We are frustrated it is taking so long to deal with the immigration | :19:49. | :19:51. | |
level. We have it down a third from the peak levels in 2005. One of the | :19:52. | :19:57. | |
reasons it is rising is we happen to be one of the most successful | :19:58. | :20:00. | |
economies in the Europe and we're tracting people from other -- | :20:01. | :20:03. | |
attracting people from other European countries. We are dealing | :20:04. | :20:07. | |
with the issues by making sure that people who should be paying for | :20:08. | :20:10. | |
their NHS care are properly paying for it and making sure people can't | :20:11. | :20:15. | |
claim benefits unfairly. It is important to say we recognise there | :20:16. | :20:21. | |
is frustration that people feel. Teresa May is a successful and tough | :20:22. | :20:25. | |
Home Secretary, I wouldn't want to bet against her delivering on | :20:26. | :20:29. | |
targets. I would bet against her and bet with you it won't happen. | :20:30. | :20:32. | |
The great financial crash of our age was six years ago, we are living | :20:33. | :20:36. | |
with its conscupss. The banks got bailed out with public money, but | :20:37. | :20:41. | |
millions of tax-payers were held below the water line. | :20:42. | :20:46. | |
A New York bank regulator suddenly found it was his job to save the | :20:47. | :20:51. | |
world. He has written a book called Stress Test, about it. He took the | :20:52. | :20:57. | |
job as US Treasury Secretary, some what reluctantly, and saw the | :20:58. | :21:03. | |
biggest banking bail out in history. He South Africans not just shaping | :21:04. | :21:07. | |
economic policy and managing financial markets, he has an | :21:08. | :21:12. | |
unparalleled understanding of the current economic crisis in all of | :21:13. | :21:23. | |
its depth, complexity and urgency. Timothy Geigtner spent a year | :21:24. | :21:32. | |
fighting crises, he earned a name as the "go-to man" in difficulties. The | :21:33. | :21:37. | |
financial markets across the globe are in turmoil. He was head of the | :21:38. | :21:42. | |
New York fed when the roof fell in six years ago, he was complicit in | :21:43. | :21:46. | |
the decision not to bail out Lehman Brothers, which many have blamed for | :21:47. | :21:50. | |
making the financial crisis worse. President Obama made him Treasury | :21:51. | :21:54. | |
Secretary when he won the White House in 2008. By his own admission | :21:55. | :21:58. | |
even he wasn't sure he was the right man to take the helm of an economy | :21:59. | :22:02. | |
on the brink of a financial meltdown. Within weeks of taking the | :22:03. | :22:08. | |
job he oversaw the second wave of bail outs, another $350 billion. He | :22:09. | :22:15. | |
was criticised for being too close to Wall Street, and for going easy | :22:16. | :22:21. | |
on the bankers, though he wasn't one himself. When he stood down last | :22:22. | :22:25. | |
year, some gave him credit for saving the day. Others complained he | :22:26. | :22:30. | |
bailed out the bankers who caused the crisis, while leaving as | :22:31. | :22:34. | |
casualties ordinary householders under water and drowning. When I | :22:35. | :22:37. | |
spoke to him in New York this afternoon, I asked him why nobody | :22:38. | :22:42. | |
had ever been held culpable for the crash. There were a lot of causes | :22:43. | :22:46. | |
for the crisis, a lot of regulatory failure, a lot of bad behaviour, a | :22:47. | :22:51. | |
lot of predatory lending, some pretty badly designed rules. We had | :22:52. | :22:55. | |
a kind of wild west financial system. You had a ring side seat at | :22:56. | :23:02. | |
the wild west, why didn't you see it coming? I talked openly about what | :23:03. | :23:08. | |
we saw and missed, I tried to point out during the years of the boom | :23:09. | :23:12. | |
what we were seeing in the United States which was a set of | :23:13. | :23:15. | |
vunerabilities, classic vunerabilities you see preceding | :23:16. | :23:19. | |
financial crises. What happened in the United States is we had a system | :23:20. | :23:23. | |
where finance outgrew the protections we put in place after | :23:24. | :23:27. | |
the Great Depression. Alongside the banking system we had this diverse | :23:28. | :23:32. | |
mix of shadow banks, non-banks, risky forms of finance that had no | :23:33. | :23:37. | |
constraints on risk and no protection against runs and panic. | :23:38. | :23:42. | |
That is what made the crises not so hard to anticipate, but so hard to | :23:43. | :23:45. | |
pre-empt and manage when the panic started. You argue that the banks | :23:46. | :23:51. | |
had to be bailed out to avoid a financial meltdown, I understand | :23:52. | :23:55. | |
that. Once they had been bailed out, why were the bankers responsible not | :23:56. | :24:02. | |
then held accountable? What we did in the United States it is a | :24:03. | :24:05. | |
different strategy than adopted not just in the Great Depression but | :24:06. | :24:08. | |
most countries around the world in the crisis. We forced a lot of | :24:09. | :24:13. | |
restructuring in our system, and we recapitalised it very aggressively | :24:14. | :24:16. | |
and dramatically, we thought that was the best way to make sure the | :24:17. | :24:19. | |
economy will benefit from the oxygen you need to grow as you come out of | :24:20. | :24:24. | |
this thing. Then we moved very quickly to put in place a | :24:25. | :24:27. | |
dramatically reformed set of constraints on risk, much more | :24:28. | :24:32. | |
modern and sophisticated and design set of risks, passed those | :24:33. | :24:39. | |
remarkably quickly. And we tried to defend the foundation for a tougher | :24:40. | :24:42. | |
enforcement response. Most people look at the scale of the enforcement | :24:43. | :24:46. | |
response to date and it is now changing, and said they don't feel | :24:47. | :24:50. | |
it was adequate given the level of pain. I understand it, that is in | :24:51. | :24:54. | |
some ways a measure of the fact that we allowed a system to grow up | :24:55. | :24:58. | |
without a well designed set of rules and we are trying to fix that. What | :24:59. | :25:04. | |
would have been wrong with a bit of Old Testament vengence? Nothing, | :25:05. | :25:08. | |
that is what prosecutors across the country have gone trying to do in | :25:09. | :25:11. | |
their careful way. I tried to explain in the face of a panic, with | :25:12. | :25:15. | |
the type of Great Depression like damage that was ahead of us at that | :25:16. | :25:20. | |
point. You first have to make sure you land the plane safely so you | :25:21. | :25:24. | |
protect many innocents from the risk of mass unemployment. You bailed out | :25:25. | :25:29. | |
the bankers and the banks that caused the crash, but you refused to | :25:30. | :25:34. | |
bail out the homeowners who were the casualties, why? That is a deep | :25:35. | :25:40. | |
misperception. Think about what happens in financial panics. To | :25:41. | :25:45. | |
protect people from the catastrophe of mass unemployment, huge loss of | :25:46. | :25:50. | |
wealth, business failure, mass foreclosure, you have to do | :25:51. | :25:52. | |
everything necessary, and this is the first obligation to prevent | :25:53. | :25:56. | |
collapse of the financial system. It is like the power grid, if you let | :25:57. | :26:01. | |
the lights go out nothing is possible. We did it not because we | :26:02. | :26:06. | |
had any interest or desire to protect the banks from their | :26:07. | :26:10. | |
mistakes, and we did have a lot of failure. As we learned from the | :26:11. | :26:14. | |
Great Depression and the crises that Folaued, you first had to do that if | :26:15. | :26:21. | |
you had any hope of reducing risk to victims. The US economy hasn't | :26:22. | :26:26. | |
pepped up that much, it is still a pretty anaemic recovery? The thing | :26:27. | :26:33. | |
about crises, after the trauma and the imbalances of the boom, as you | :26:34. | :26:36. | |
come out of it, as you bring down debt, as people save more, as you | :26:37. | :26:41. | |
work through the big overinvestment in housing, as you bring down | :26:42. | :26:46. | |
leverage, that makes growth slower, it is inescapably, it is partly why | :26:47. | :26:51. | |
you need to have a lot of sustained fiscal support as you come out of a | :26:52. | :26:57. | |
crisis. We had two additional head winds, prep mature and -- pram prep | :26:58. | :27:08. | |
mature, and we had a few shocks. The British economy is now growing | :27:09. | :27:13. | |
faster than the American economy and creating a lot more jobs relative to | :27:14. | :27:17. | |
the American economy, why do you think that is? Because of the | :27:18. | :27:20. | |
strategy we adopted, we got our economy growing again very quickly, | :27:21. | :27:24. | |
and if you look at the pace of growth in the United States and how | :27:25. | :27:28. | |
far we have come relative to you know just say the peak before the | :27:29. | :27:38. | |
crisis, we're actually far ahead of most of the other economies that got | :27:39. | :27:41. | |
caught in the crisis. Again, you know, we are still living with a lot | :27:42. | :27:45. | |
of challenges as a country. And it will take a sustained period of | :27:46. | :27:50. | |
better policy outcomes from Washington to help make a difference | :27:51. | :27:53. | |
on those things. I would take our challenges, I would prefer our | :27:54. | :27:58. | |
challenges to those of most of the countries, most of the major | :27:59. | :28:02. | |
economies in the world. Now, he's the rock star French economist whose | :28:03. | :28:09. | |
book Capital In The 21st century became a best seller. Passionate | :28:10. | :28:13. | |
politicians started to devise policies to tackle his thesis that | :28:14. | :28:19. | |
capitalism inevitably led to ever greater inequalities, he has been | :28:20. | :28:23. | |
tipped to win a Nobel Prize for his work. Tonight the statistical basis | :28:24. | :28:26. | |
of what he wrote has been called into question by the Financial | :28:27. | :28:30. | |
Times. Our economics correspondent is here. Do tell us more? I think | :28:31. | :28:34. | |
this book in the last few weeks sort of became the economics equivalent | :28:35. | :28:44. | |
of James Joyce's Uylesses, lots of people talking about it and not | :28:45. | :28:50. | |
everyone reading it. The Financial Times writer has read it and gone | :28:51. | :28:54. | |
back to the sores and asked a lot -- sources and asked a lot of | :28:55. | :28:57. | |
questions. He thinks he has found a lot of biggerors in the book. Some | :28:58. | :29:05. | |
of them are that Mr Picitty has copied sources over and got them | :29:06. | :29:10. | |
wrong, that happens. Some of the errors look a lot more serious, this | :29:11. | :29:15. | |
is the important thing to remember about his Capital in the 21 Century, | :29:16. | :29:20. | |
it was call for a global tax and wealth. And the charitable | :29:21. | :29:24. | |
interpretation is not everyone agreed with that. What most | :29:25. | :29:31. | |
economists said the biggest achievement was assembling the data | :29:32. | :29:35. | |
over three centuries. He claims that wealth inequality has been rising | :29:36. | :29:39. | |
for the last few decades. He took the numbers for Sweden, France and | :29:40. | :29:43. | |
the UK, add them all together and divide them by three, that is using | :29:44. | :29:46. | |
a simple rather than a weighted average, that is something you get | :29:47. | :29:52. | |
marked down for in a GCSE mas exam. That is a problem. What is more | :29:53. | :29:55. | |
interesting for the political debate in Britain is what the FT and Chris | :29:56. | :30:00. | |
Giles is saying about the UK economy. On Picketty's figures the | :30:01. | :30:06. | |
top 10% have been taking more of national wealth since 1980s, it | :30:07. | :30:10. | |
turns out he has used to do that tax records. They are numbers that | :30:11. | :30:14. | |
specifically say they are not for that purpose. If you used office fo | :30:15. | :30:19. | |
national statistics numbers you don't get that. Everyone will be | :30:20. | :30:23. | |
pouring over the data it is out in the public, has he responded? Chris | :30:24. | :30:27. | |
Giles has fired the starting begun and he has responded, he sent a | :30:28. | :30:31. | |
letter to the FT, the stone of the letter is it is a bit defensive. In | :30:32. | :30:36. | |
his defence, the only reason the FT can do that is he put all of that | :30:37. | :30:39. | |
information in the public domain. If he was trying to hide something he | :30:40. | :30:42. | |
has done it badly. What is interesting tonight is a change in | :30:43. | :30:46. | |
tone. He's saying he wants to debate the numbers, there is lots of | :30:47. | :30:50. | |
sources, let's have debate. That is very different from a few weeks ago | :30:51. | :30:55. | |
which is you might agree with me or not but the numbers spook for | :30:56. | :31:00. | |
themselves. As usual the contrary Brits had to be different and voted | :31:01. | :31:04. | |
yesterday in the elections for the European Parliament, most of Europe | :31:05. | :31:08. | |
doesn't vote until Sunday. There has been a euro-wide poll this month | :31:09. | :31:11. | |
which results in a different result from the one likely to be unveiled | :31:12. | :31:17. | |
on Sunday night. One outraged Russian politician even said "it's | :31:18. | :31:28. | |
the end of Europe". This night is dedicated to everyone who believes | :31:29. | :31:38. | |
in a future of peace and freedom. You know who you are. We are unity, | :31:39. | :31:48. | |
and we are unstoppable. She joins me now, welcome. You got a great | :31:49. | :31:52. | |
reception on the night that you won. But wouldn't it be true to say there | :31:53. | :31:56. | |
are many social issues, Europe is quite deeply divided? Yeah, you know | :31:57. | :32:02. | |
this night was a very special one, as you have seen in the little | :32:03. | :32:07. | |
video. It is funny for me because Europe voted in such a tolerant way. | :32:08. | :32:15. | |
For you? For me, and now it seems that a bit has changed. I think it | :32:16. | :32:19. | |
was a big statement at the Eurovision night. But I think it | :32:20. | :32:23. | |
just needs more than one statement. And there were some politician its, | :32:24. | :32:27. | |
particularly in Russia and Turkey, they were very critical, even wrote | :32:28. | :32:30. | |
about your victory, what did you make about that? First I really have | :32:31. | :32:34. | |
to say this is a very big honour for me. Because they think that I'm that | :32:35. | :32:41. | |
powerful to burst a whole coup, so thank you. I can understand that. | :32:42. | :32:46. | |
Since you won and we saw on the night how the audience loved it, but | :32:47. | :32:54. | |
have you been on the wrong end of abuse since, have people been nasty | :32:55. | :33:00. | |
or tweeting or Facebooking? You know I'm used to that, from the first day | :33:01. | :33:08. | |
of my career I had to fight against intolerance. You know most of the | :33:09. | :33:13. | |
people got it now, they understood that this is not a joke, that I'm | :33:14. | :33:17. | |
serious about what I think and say. But there are still people out there | :33:18. | :33:22. | |
who have to change some minds. Are you winning? Well I hope so that we | :33:23. | :33:28. | |
can win. You know I really believe in that we all can change something. | :33:29. | :33:35. | |
So do you think that in some way the votes that you got, people were | :33:36. | :33:38. | |
sending a political statement by voting for you? I think, you know at | :33:39. | :33:45. | |
the end of the day it is a singing contest, so by all mbeliefs and what | :33:46. | :33:54. | |
I said, if I had not that song I wouldn't have won. Besides that it | :33:55. | :33:58. | |
was a political statement. Especially you see it in Russia, I'm | :33:59. | :34:03. | |
number one on the iTunes charts. Even with a leadership that is not | :34:04. | :34:08. | |
very tolerant? Yes. And that's a huge thing for me, actually. It just | :34:09. | :34:12. | |
shows me that there are so many people out there believe in a future | :34:13. | :34:18. | |
without discrimination. What about a political career, have you thought | :34:19. | :34:22. | |
about that? Not really. I'm an artist, I speak out my beliefs, but | :34:23. | :34:27. | |
I'm going to stick with singing. What are you going to do next? We're | :34:28. | :34:32. | |
working on music, obviously, because this is the love of my life. But I | :34:33. | :34:37. | |
will continue talking about my opinions. We are glad you came on | :34:38. | :34:40. | |
and gave them to us tonight. Thank you. That is all we have time for, I | :34:41. | :34:46. | |
will be back with the Sunday Politics 11.00 on BBC One. There | :34:47. | :34:53. | |
will be a BBC Newsnight special on Sunday night, don't miss that, good | :34:54. | :34:54. | |
night. | :34:55. | :34:58. |