10/07/2014 Newsnight

act between privacy and security. It is not the sort of thing you can put

through the House of Commons in a single day. You have to think about

it carefully. As the conflagration burns in the Middle East, have we

entered a dangerous new phase. I will be speaking to the Israeli

intelligence minister. An old faster on the old masters, we

talk sex, death, religion and art. Carravagio and Rembrandt, the first

four film directors and dealing in the extraordinary business of

artificial light and what is cinemas it is no more and no less the

manipulation of artificial light. And... So long to the spirit of '68,

why is it that generation Y is moving to the right.

Good evening. When the Home Secretary Theresa May made a

statement to the House today, outlining fast-track legislation to

ensure police and Security Services can access mobile and internet data,

she did so secure in the knowledge that she would square the

opposition. Her Labour shadow, Yvette Cooper, and party leader, Ed

Miliband, wrote to their party today saying they had been guided by their

firm conviction that it was essential to ensure the safety of

civilians and privacy protected. Not all politicians are so sanguine.

2006 and a plot that caused chaos at airports across the world. You have

nothing but to expect but floods of martyr operations, volcanos of anger

and revenge erupting amongst your capital. In the end three men were

convicted of trying to blow up planes with liquid bomb, plan

uncovered after tapping into phone and internet records. From the

killer of Rhys Jones to the men who groomed girls in Rochdale. The

Government claims all could have gone free without the power to

monitor electronic communications. David Cameron says it is a power

that could disappear after a recent European ruling and an emergency law

is now needed. We face real and credible threats to our security

from serious organised crime, from the activity of paedophile, from the

collapse of Syria, the growth of ISIS in Iraq, and Al-Shabab in East

Africa, I'm simply not prepared to be a Prime Minister who has to

address the people after a terrorist incident and explain I could have

done more to prevent it. The police and other Government agencies made

more than 500,000 requests for data from communications firms last year.

This is so called met at that data, the raw information that shows who

is contacting who, for how long and if on a mobile, where from. There

were another 2,760 requests for interceptions, that would be the

content of the actual phone call, e-mail or message. It is an

essential source, I think, both countering terrorism and dealing

with serious crime. Particularly for law enforcement, this is an

essential tool. A lot of it is very basic, it is who called whom, when

and where, basic communications data. It is really important that

capability is maintained. In the aftermath of the Madrid and London

bombings, a European directive was put in place, forcing companies to

store customer data for up to 24 months and hand it over to the

authorities when needed, for years that wasn't questioned. But the leak

is from this man, Edward Snowden, changing the way companies and

Governments feel about state surveillance. In April this year the

European court of justice ruled that those firms no longer have an

obligation to store that data. Privacy campaigners say they have

already sent more than 1500 letters out, demanding that all personal

information is immediately deleted. Without this legislation we face the

very prospect of losing access to this data overnight. That appears to

have caused a panic in Whitehall and the sudden realisation that the

police and Security Sers could be on the backfoot. Today's emergency law

will override that European ruling, effectively restoring the status

quo. The new law is unusual for a number of reasons, the speed it will

be on the books for one, it should complete all its parliamentary

stages by next week and the way in which it has the backing of all

three main parties before being debated. Long-term critics are

suspicious, accusing the Government of a stitch-up. If there was a real

emergency it would be on April 8th when the European Court actually

made the ruling. Then you would have expected the Government to come to

the House and say we need to have an emergency law, if that was

necessary. They should have seen that coming. Instead, to rush it in,

one-and-a-half weeks before we end the session. It doesn't seem

sensible. Nick Clegg was at David Cameron's side today to support the

measures. On paper at least the new bill has greater safeguard as new

oversight board and promise of a review before the next election. We

have inserted a poisoned pill into the legislation, we are not putting

anything permanently on the statute book. The bigger question is what

happens after the date. The PM made clear today he would like to go

further, giving greater powers to the police and Security Services.

Even those who have worked on the frontline need to be convinced that

is really necessary. I think the act is pretty good. It is technology

neutral, it has enabled the authorities to collect information

which has saved lives and prevented crime. I'm not personally convinced

that there is a huge new area that is needed. Since Snowden, there has

been pressure on the state to roll back its ability to snoop.

been pressure on the state to roll marks a new stage. An attempt to

draw a line and set out why these powers are so necessary. Even the

politicians admit that getting the balance right between security and

privacy may take some time yet. Joining me now are the Justice

Minister and Liberal Democrat MP, Simon Hughes, and the director of

the Campaign Group Liberty. Simon Hughes, first of all, a massive

climb-down for the Liberal Democrats and another example of throwing your

principles to the wind to remain in the coalition? Completely not,

because, it doesn't increase the powers of the state at all. It

doesn't agree to the snoopers' charter which we have resisted and

has not been agreed by the coalition, and although the Tories

would like it we haven't agreed to it. It doesn't pick up some of the

ideas that were advocated by the last Labour Government. Why is so

last minute, what David Davis was saying is there has to be some kind

of debate in this, you had three months? You asked me a question

saying is it a big climb-down, I'm just saying not only is it not

because it doesn't change the present law in terms of its impact,

it also, as you heard Nick Clegg say, adds a huge amount of extra

things. We have got guarantee, we have secured a guarantee that the

big law, the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act will be

reviewed before the general election. We have secured that this

piece of temporary legislation has an end in 2016. Are these good

things? No. You do accept the terror threat, the threat from criminal

gangs is often on-line? I'm not going to have the nonsense I heard

from my Prime Minister today about this emergency being caused by

paedophiles and Jihadis. This court judgment that found the existing

regime unlawful, a disproportionate blanket interference with

everybody's privacy, criminal or not, this judgment came down on the

8th of April this year. I have read the bill very carefully, it is a

very short piece of enabling legislation that could have been

introduced into parliament pretty much three months ago. What is the

emergency? Why has it taken three months? Because they have been

stitching up a little deal with the coalition and it seems with the

opposition behind closed doors. They talk about committees of oversight,

why can't parliament be the committee of oversight? It will be

the committee of oversight. Parliament will have... Three days

to do this. You have looked at the bill it is a short bill, you have

conceded that. It took three months to draft. Let me deal with one point

at a time, it doesn't extend the powers of the state at all. Reverse

the judgment. It replaces via piece of legislation the secondary

legislation that was in existence under the directive, it doesn't

change or add to the law. Why so last minute? Because we were very

careful that once the judgment of the European Court was given, we

didn't want to get legislation wrong. Careful attention was given

to make sure we had the minimal amount of legislation to replace T

that is why this, and also for us, that many additional safeguards were

put in place. You have utterly changed your position? Who has? That

speech from the Deputy Prime Minister and Prime Minister today

could have come from Tony Blair or Gordon Brown or any previous Prime

Minister. It couldn't. You would have not supported this before the

general election? It couldn't. Minister you would not have done.

Because you heard what the safeguards are, they are a review of

the substantive legislation, part of an interim review. 2016, why so

late. There is a review of the main legislation, a new oversight board,

a change in the Scrutiny Committee in parliament, a sunset clause which

kills the bill, it doesn't enable it to be reviewed, there is a huge

reduction... In two years time... . Let me, it is really important. You

were against the whole communications data act? And it is

gone, we have stopped it, the Tories want it and we have stopped it. The

really important thing is this bill reduces the commitment we have got,

reduces the number of authorities who ask for data. It doesn't. It is

only such a short time since Lee Rigby and you said it was a kneejerk

reaction, and now we have this last-minute legislation. It was not

kneejerk reaction, if you it was you would have seen something brought to

parliament the day after the judgment. In the same way you are

attacking the idea that there is very little chance to have any

oversight of this, in the same way there doesn't appear to be any

public outrage, because the public believes, by and large, that the

Government is doing what it can to keep people safe from terrorism,

from paedophiles and from organised criminality, that is the duty of the

Government? Absolutely. I agree that this kind of data can be really,

really helpful and essential in all kinds of serious criminal

investigations, I'm sure the court of justice agrees that too. But they

found this blanket surveillance, this blanket reception and access to

data, all those thousands and thousands of requests, they found

that disproportionate, this bill creates no safeguards that ensure

the regime is more targeted and we go back to being citizens and not

all of us suspects. Which is why the very short legislation makes it

clear that the Secretary of State will only have power to issue

necessary and proportionate interception warrants. The whole

proportion issue is very important. But if it is proportional and

everything elsewhere are you making some -- why are you making such a

fuss about the sunset clause. What will change two years down the line

that will suddenly suggest you won't continue to support? There is a big

debate about this issue, rightfully around the world. I will give you

one example, I'm a member of parliament in the constituency where

Damilola Taylor was killed. His killers were found because police

were able to track the communication patterns on phones. I don't think

there is any disagreement that we need to be able to track these data

patterns. If that is the case, when the European Court says the legal

infrastructure that you have is not valid what do we do? Do we stand

back and do nothing? You haven't been targeting enough, you have been

indiscriminate. Putting a holding operation in by law. A holding for

two years? That is a long hold. There is plenty of time to look at

what we want to do properly both in this parliament and after the

election. You have an opposition to this, but what you don't know

because you are not a technological expert is how quickly the technology

is moving. We know by various things happening with airport surveillance

that things are moving very quickly in technological terms. Presumably

we have to do everything we can to cover the waterfront on this? The

technology moves apace, but the law and politics has to keep up. Wait to

keep up is not... That is what it thinks it is doing? This is giving a

blank cheque to the executive to reverse court judgments. This is

contempt. Let me finish. It doesn't change the law. It is contempt for

the law because it doesn't reverse the court judgment or put in the

safeguards that the court required to make it more targeted. It is

contempt for parliament because they will pass it in three days next

week. Contempt for parliament, three days? If this was a proposal to

increase the powers of the state. You are reversing the court

judgment. When a court judges... Are you reversing the court judgment? We

are dealing with the fact that the regulations we have... Are you

responding to the court judgment? Of course, you know that. The regular

layses at the moment we have -- the regulations we have at the moment

won't stand the test. Do we leave it to be legally tested and have no

law? Of course not, we could be left with no legislation at all to make

sure that the security authorities kept the data which we need to keep

this country safe and parliament will be able to deal with it. Thank

you very much indeed. We have long days of fighting ahead of us, these

were the words of Israel's Defence Minister today as rocket attacks by

both Israel and Gaza showed no signs of abating. Israel has struck around

780 targets in which at least 78 Palestinians have been killed since

Tuesday, while Palestinian militants in Gaza fired more than 4020 rockets

towards Israel. The UN Security Council discussed the crisis and Ban

Ki-Moon says that Gaza is on a knife-edge and called for bold,

creative thinking to end the violence. Who has the power and

influence to pull both sides back from another Israeli-Palestinian

war. Here is our diplomatic editor, this film contains distressing

images. M this film contains distressing

there is mounting. More than 80 dead and 500 wounded since Israel stepped

up attacks against Palestinian groups. They have been pounding

homes, telling people to leave with a warning. Sometimes they call and

warn you, sometimes they hit the house directly with no warning

whatsoever. We have experienced this kind of things from Israeli

warplanes in the past two days. But the easy targets were hit in the

first few days, and, as in past onslaught, the scope for tragic

errors is increasing. Several Palestinians killed watching a World

Cup match in one place, extended families becoming casualties in

another. But this exchange is different from past ones, for three

reasons. Since the last exchange in 2012 the balance has altered. Hamas

has acquired more missiles and some with longer range. Locally procuesed

Kasam 4 rockets can reach 17kms. Even two years ago Hamas could hit

Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, with Iranian missiles. Now it has another type,

the M 3 O2, with a 160km range that takes in pretty much all of Israel's

densely-populated coastal strip. Israel though has made the bigger

stride, its Iron Dome Defence System is performing better, knocking down

up to 90% of the in coming Palestinian missiles it is launched

at. A nationwide early warning and shelter system means that so far no

Israelis have been killed. And when it comes to striking back, sensors

and reaction times have been built to the point where a response to

rockets fired from Gaza can come in seconds. We are well instructed, we

do lots of drills, and all people need to do when they hear the siren

is to find the safest place around them, wait about ten minutes and

move on with your life. So it is not a big deal. The second thing that

has changed is Egypt. As a result of its volatile politics. When it was

run by the Muslim Brotherhood, President Mohammed Morsi smuggling

tunnels into Gaza proliferated and got big enough to take missiles

through. But under the General, many tunnels have been shut and Gaza has

been isolated. The Israelis have today released video of more of

these underground routes being bombed. But while Egypt's change of

Government might help Israel's security needs, it prevents Egypt

from playing the same role they did two years ago in mediating an end to

the fighting. Hamas still has ties with Qatar, where today its leader

was trying to mobilise support. TRANSLATION: I say to the American

Governments and the European countries, United Nationses and to

the brother in our neighbouring states of the Arabs, why the

Palestinian people supposed to be broken and surrender and die a slow

death? Here is another different factor, Israel has now started an

operation that could be hard to end. Hamas insists it will carry on

hitting back, and since Egypt is loathe to negotiate with the

Islamists, Israel has been left with the language of continued

escalation. The best help that the terrorists could get, the Hamas

movement could get is people that will explain to them that hitting

Israel does not pavement anybody that wants to explain that to the

Hamas movement is welcome to do that. Egypt, or anyone else in the

world. But the way that we would explain is that if you hit Israel

you will get hurt ten-times harder. The Palestinian Authority says than

Israeli ground operation into Gaza is imminent. Israel won't confirm or

deny that, but if the need not to be seen backing down sets the tanks

rolling, it could be a tragedy in the making.

Earlier this evening I spoke to Israel's minister of intelligence,

strategic affairs and international relations. Yesterday he repeated his

view that Israel needed to move into Gaza to eradicate Hamas. I began by

asking him if he thought Israel would launch that attack imminently?

Sooner other later we will have to go into Gaza to destroy the

terrorist army built by ham marks and maybe to enable the Palestinian

Authority to take control again of Gaza. If you went in as before, and

let's go back to 2009, when you went in there, 1400 Palestinians died, 13

Israelis died, that is a big disparity, but it does mean that

Israelis, you have got to prepare for Israeli fatalities? Yeah, look,

you describe the situation which is very complicated. But you know

despite many differences there are some similarities to what is going

on today in Iraq. The terrorist organisation, like Hamas or Al-Qaeda

or ISIS, with fanatical Islamic ideology is taking over the

territory, and again to attack other territories. But no Israelis have

been killed already, and we know that a substantial number of

Palestinians have been killed. Last night at a beach side cafe there was

an air strike and nine Palestinians watching the World Cup were killed

and 25 injured. How are they the enemy? It is very sad but you are

right. Hamas is launching rockets at our citizens. These were civilian,

you are accurate and can pinpoint your targets, how did you kill

football supporters in a cafe? Most of the casualties are Hamas, most

unfortunately when terrorists are shooting on our cities and towns we

have to protect our people. One of the reasons that there are no

casualties so far in Israel is because we managed to destroy

several thousand rockets before they were launched at our cities. Ban

Ki-Moon has called for bold, creative decisions, why not talk now

to Fatah, why not even talk to Hamas? Hamas don't want to talk with

us. Would you talk to them? Out of surprise one week ago, without any

reason, suddenly launches of hundreds of rockets into Israel.

Imagine that somebody would launch hundreds of rockets into Britain, in

London or Liverpool, and people would have to go underground. People

would have to go underground. Don't you have the opportunity to create a

laing peace and as Binyamin Netanyahu says, a two-state solution

now to avoid being drawn in and actually being vulnerable to the

wider problems in the Middle East. The creative solution surely is

finally to sit and you say Hamas won't talk to you, will you talk to

Hamas? We are talking to the Palestinian Authority, Hamas took

over from the Palestinian Authority, but you know what speaking about

peace, let me remind you again, we left Gaza, we uprooted all the

Jewish settlements in Gaza in order to promote peace. This happened nine

years ago. The Palestinians promised publicly that once we would go out

of Gaza there would be no hostility and rockets. 12,000 rockets were

launched from Gaza on our citizens, this is not the way to promote

peace, Gaza was supposed to be totally demilitarised, no rockets,

no missiles, that's a commitment we got from the Palestinians, and now

instead our people are under constant rocket fire every day,

going underground into shelters, no democratic Government would tolerate

such a situation and the Government of Israel is committed to defend

itself, exactly like the Government of Britain or the Government of the

United States or the Government of Italy and any other democratic

state. Thank you very much. Is there no chance of a reprobement between

the -- reproachment between the education workers and the Education

Secretary. They marched today and with the sharp words of Michael Gove

on Newsnight ringing in their ears. His blunt assessment of the teachers

who don't back his reforms. What is striking, I find, is that while I

can't put an absolute number on it, what I can tell you is that

outstanding teachers and outstanding head teachers are, I find,

overwhelmingly in favour. So it is the bad ones that don't get it? Yes.

Joining me now is Shaun Worth from the think-tank Policy Exchange, and

former adviser to David Cameron, and a teacher in a London comprehensive

school and author. Shaun Worth the bad ones don't get it, only bad

teachers out on strike today? It was one of the trade unions out on

strike today. But if you look at what they were striking about, which

was pay and performance. Let's talk about what Michael Gove was saying,

the bad teachers don't get it? I don't know about bad or good

teachers. The strike today was about pay, three-quarters of teachers

support pay reform and performance related pavement you have some trade

unions going out there and pretending there is massive

controversy over pay reform. But most agree with what was going on.

The teachers were out for a number of reasons, pay, pension, curriculum

changes and free schools, it was a general upset at the direction of

travel? What I would say about the politics of it, which is the root of

it, if you look at Tony Blair, you know, going back to anyone that has

reformed education, you know, you reform any of these big things run

by trade unions, you have a stand-up fist fight with them, gloves off and

that is tough. What he also said of course was the outstanding teachers

and the outstanding head teachers back him? I totally disagree with

this. Most teachers I encounter feel that Gove knows very little about

education and that most of his policies are extremely misguided.

The evidence is that things like going for academy schools and free

school, performance-related pay doesn't work. This is from the

Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, that

are saying that performance-related pay makes no significant difference

to pupils' outcomes. What we need to do is focus on what really works,

which is teachers co-operating, working together and supporting

teachers, giving them fair pay and giving them a chance to improve life

chances for individuals. Performance-related pay doesn't

undermine teams, it just means the OECD evidence is completely to the

contrary. It says some of the best education systems around the world

are attracting the brightest talent and teachers because of

performance-related pay. It is not about cash, it is about rewarding

people and valuing people. I would agree it is not about cash it is

about fair pay, and it is about encouraging teachers to co-operate

together. I know in my school we had a kind of performance-related basis

them in my school, until recently it didn't work, because it was very

high stakes and people were in their own little individual sigh locals.

We have got a new -- silos. Is Michael Gove not listening to the

evidence? He is not listening to the evidence. He would say that actually

the opposition is not necessarily what is happening in the classroom,

he says that it is an ideolgical opposition? It isn't, it is about

supporting what actually works. What works is when teachers co-operate,

they come together and are paid decently and you have an

evidence-based approach, like they have in perhaps New Zealand, where

they fund research that actually enables teachers to do a better job.

He has a duty obviously as Education Secretary, to do the best he can for

the majority of the pupils, and there is mixed outcomes. Does he not

need to take teachers with them? I'm a mild critic of his approach on

some sort of boring technical policy issues but also communications one.

Give me some boring then? Free schools and where you target them.

And let's target them in poorer communities because you will get

more political capital built up around that. What about

communication? Probably the same point. You know going into education

or health reform or any big public sector reform, you will have a

massive fight with the trade unionist and elitist establishment.

The way to win the political argument is to bring, not them with

you, probably but the public. He He has demonised us, I have had

Conservative, Conservative teachers complaining about him, he has

striped us of our pay for the last four years. He has cut our pay,

effectively, he has cut our pensions, I have had Tory teachers

who loathe what he's doing. None of his policies have worked. None of

them have worked. The academy system doesn't work. We know it doesn't

improve standards. You have had automatic pay progressions for 20

years. What works is fair pay, that is what teachers want. That is fair

pay. We are moving into a situation where people should be rewarded for

excellence, it is not a benchmark. We want a system that is fair, if

you have a system that backs up bullies and secretive siloism in

schools it won't work. That is what performance-related pay does. It is

unequal to women. You said there was a problem with communecation, it is

not going to get -- communication, it is not going to get any better,

will it? I think it will, the trick the Tory Party missed was not

putting it front and centre of the campaign from the start. It is the

most socially progressive policy we have, it helps poorest kids most. It

hasn't. It is not hard left it has been a disaster.

Sex and art have been the centre of Mr Greenaway's problems, for example

the Cook the Thief His wife and Her mother. His latest work explores sex

and eroticim and religious hypocrisy with works involving increst and

paedophilia taboos. The stories are staged in order to get a patron to

cough up for a revolutionary new printing press. I met him in the

National Gallery where it is being screened in front of the paper by

the paint -- of a painting by the painter himself. Really it is a film

about film making. Although he's a film make bitter repute, he really

existed, it is transpossession the activities of a film maker to a

print maker and he is me. In your film you choose difficult taboos,

are you trying to shock or entertain or inform I would like to think I

was honest enough to do all those things. Just to shock is not enough,

it produces sharp, quick and unnecessary returns. How did you

construct this, it is the most beautiful seas of tableau? I'm

trained as a painter. An Italian journalist asked me about starting

my career as a painter and now you are a film maker. My quick and

factitious replay was saying that I was always disappointed that

paintings didn't have soundtracks! This film has a constant soundtrack

and you have talked about cinema being too wordy? I really want to

make cinema that is cinema and not nothing else. You know we don't have

an image-based cinema we have a text-based cinema, every film you

have seen started life with text. I think we should prioritise the

image, the image, the image. I strive to make well wrought images.

The biblical creation of man and woman for painters, has always

presented problems. You start with the ultimate text, the Bible?

presented problems. You start with best seller of all time. Isn't that

a nice irony. And all those ironies are perpetuated. There are lots of

words on screen, but they are performing like images, it is Texas

image, in the beginning was the word. Did you want this film to be

erotic or was that just a by-product. I know you have railed

against the idea that it is pornography? Have I, I constantly

accuse in the dialogue of the painter being a pornographer, look,

is that pornography or eroticim. What is the difference between two

words. It is extreme piece of voyeurism, a woman totally displayed

for our voyeuristic gaze. I'm not sure if it is just a male gaze, I'm

sure women are just as interested in pornography as men, but there is a

way that it is blatantly obvious what the intent is meant to be. You

started as a painter and you have been making films, and in way you

are disparaging about certain elements of cinemas do you want to

be a painter again? Always, always, the painter in the film is me, full

of personal quirks and tropes and attitudes and self-reflections. What

kind of painter would you be? I grew up in the 60s, early David Hockney

always excited me. The list could go on and on and on. I think the first

four important film directors are Caravagio, Valasquez, here they are

again, Caravagio, and Rembrandt, and Valasquez, they are dealing in the

extraordinary business of artificial light, and what is cinema, no more

or no less than the manipulation of artificial light. A little while ago

you said when you reach the age of 80 you would kill yourself? I live

in Holland where euthanasia is not a dirty word. I cannot think of

anybody who has done anything really valuable after 80. Can you, tolls

toy d toll -- Tostoy only died at 82 but didn't do anything useful. I

think the old should move asides and let the enterprising young step

forward. I'm a good Darwinian, I have four children and passed on the

genetic material and I can't think of anything more important than

procreation. I'm engaged with film making enterprising and exciting,

but only filling in the time between now and death. Relaxed or

entrepeneurial or lazy, generation Y have come of age. Our reporter is

certainly in the demographic. When you think of political radical its,

you probably don't think of -- radical, you probably don't think of

generation Y, today's 18-30s, yet this generation might represent the

biggest this generation might represent the

the Second World War. A generation that redefines politics in our

society in its own image just as the great post-war generation did 70

years ago. We are not talking about technology tweeting or texting, we

are talking about a revolution in how we are thinking. They might not

know it, but if generation Y has a spiritual home then it is here, at

the economist tower, the home of the magazine which for centuries

espoused a form of political, social and economic liberalism, which is

precisely where my generation is at. They held a lot of views that

conventionally might be called right-wing, they are more likely to

support privatisation, and more instinctively comfortable with

business, and the role of the private sector, and less comfortable

with the role of the monolithic welfare state. On social issues they

are more conventionally left-wing, they are liberal on matters of

sexual and racial and other forms of cultural identity. They are a

mixture of both. But on economic matters they tend to the right. They

are more individualistic than previous generations were at the

same points in their lives. This is more than just an age effect as

sociologists call it, it is a generational effect. Data from Ipsos

mori confirms this view, for example, when asked whether taxes

should go up to support increases in unemployment benefit, generation Y

were the least likely to think they should. Their parents of the same

age on the other hand were overwhelmingly in favour. Rather

than relying on pollsters and journalists in London, Newsnight

decided to test this in an unscientific way, going to a college

in Nottinghamshire to talk to some of the younger members of the

generation Y. Should jobseeker's allowance be time-limited? All of

you think yes. Why? I think it gives people Anne sentive that if they

have got a - -- an incentive, if they have a time limit they have to

work especially hard to get a job, and we need that incentive in

society now, too many people are relying on the benefits system to

give what they need, it is tough love. It would encourage people to

not spend essentially too much time or their entire lives, perhaps not

contributing to society, and I feel there is a ticking timebomb

situation perhaps motivating people to go and find a job. Even though

some have described them as the jilted generation, they don't seem

keen on robbing the rich to feed the young poor? Should the Government

have inheritance tax? It is just legalised grave robbing. If a person

their entire life has worked and tried to create something and they

want to pass it on to the next generation, I don't think the

Government should have any say or power in what happens to it. This

group didn't want the state support, they saw it as their responsibility

to get a jobs, thought they should pay their own tuition fees and

generally want to be self-reliant. The question is why has this shift

taken place. One man who thinks he knows the answer is Ryan Shorthouse,

who from his own front room in London runs his think-tank Bright

Blue, that lobbies for liberalism in the Conservative Party. I think it

is generation DIY, do it yourself. There has been a huge rise in the

number of young people who are self-played, a 55% -- self-employed,

a 55% rise. A lot of people have adopted Thatcher's views, a belief

in a small state and privatisation. Also political discourse is

dominated by ambition, opportunity, they are words that are often put

out there and have been adopted by both the Thatcher Government and the

new Labour Government. I think young people have really swallowed that.

Are we missing the bleeding obvious, this is the first generation to grow

up with the Internet as an ever-present force in their lives.

Brixton building here used to be John Major's father used to speak

but now it is a trendy pub. We all grew up in the age of the internet

which has given us a thirst for individualism and actually made us

quite competitive, documenting our lives competitively on social media.

With a social media generation and it is all me, me, me, that is kind

of good if you can harness it into a positive thing. The rise of this new

selfie generation poses huge questions, one of them is this, can

those born in an era of collectism, the welfare state, the BBC, maybe

the idea of a nation itself, survive the transition to my generation

where the individual is king. My guests join me to discuss this.

First of all, when Sarah was your age she was out on the streets

campaigning, that doesn't happen any more, have all the battles been won

or you just don't care? For me I look at the process that I have

seen, those on the Iraq War and on student finance, they have been lost

and I think young people are now thinking well we won't bother with

that, we will just really power on and try to do well for ourselves. Do

you think that is a healthy thing, do you think it is selfish? I don't

think it is selfish, I think actually we can take a real

positivity from that. I think self-responsibility is so important,

especially with finance. People really need to be taking personal

responsibility for their own finance. Rather than leaving it to

some kind of collective responsibility? As we heard on the

video they don't want to be falling back on the state. Do you think you

did the heavy lifting? We did the heavy lifting on social issues, and

we were very effective in doing it. And partly the irony we were

effective in doing it is not just because there was a lot of us but

because we grew up in a welfare state that made us more equal and

made us good at protesting because we had the safety net. Do you

recognise what generation Y seems to be, the kind of tenets of it now,

are they attuned to your daughters, not in a negative way, but you have

daughters, does it feel more individualistic or feel that

actually they are out for something that is a different thing, they are

not out for the general good? It feels like a generation under siege,

and not a generation under siege from social issues but economic

issues. Those economic issues are so big that it is very hard to know how

they can protest against them. What you are saying is they are so

desperate trying to get on to the jobs and housing ladder they haven't

got time to even talk about mainstream broad politics? It is not

even they haven't got time it is the issues are so big and when they go

to the Government the Government's attitude is what can we do about it

is too big for us. I agree with you, most of the people featured on the

video have no idea of the economic reality of their situation. What

they have been very exposed to are very negative conotations of people

who are on benefits, programmes like Benefits Street, projecting quite...

Does that mean they don't want to take part in the wider discourse in

society, that they are too busy, selfies, on-line, blaming the

baby-boomers for drinking the well try? This is a view of the

generation that older generations have created actually. What the

younger generation hasn't seen is a world that they have lived in

without the welfare state and the NHS. If they did see that and

experience that their views might change. It is interesting because we

are now in a situation where you know there is different priorities

for a generation Y, and there is an ageing population, and as Lewis

said, institutions like the NHS and so forth, they are not invested in

them. So what's going to happen when we're nearly shuffling off the

mortal coil, will anyone be looking after us? What I suspect is there is

one leftover social battle that the baby-boomers didn't fight and we

have yet to win, which is the right to die. I would actually suggest

that rather like your Peter Greenaway film, very few of us

actually want to be infirm and badly cared for with dementia. We would

actually like to make the final choice up until then. What we will

do is help generation Y by deciding when and where we go, and as long as

we sort out the inheritance tax, maybe we will hand on some money to

help them. Would you like that or actually would you like to think

that you have become more caring as you get older? It is not about lack

of care. Looking after the older generation or do they have to

literally get lost? I know pensions will get massively more expensive

for the taxpayer in the state pension and also the private

pensions that young people are receiving are absolute chicken feed

compared to what older generations have had. We are seeing older

generations retiring now and they are on the breadline. What will

happen to us, that is what we need to think about. We have to know what

we are attacking here, when generation Y talks so rudely about

the welfare state and benefits scroungers, we have to ask serious

questions, the welfare state didn't cause the recession we are in. You

are concerned about pensions and welfare and why aren't you out there

with placards? I'm making my career about writing about this and trying

to get older generations to see exactly what's going on. And you are

absolutely right, we managed to make protests work because we learned it

from the cradle to the grave. They have failed with two very important

protests so you can blame both political parties for that, Labour

with the Ir War and this one. We will be discussing this for time to

come. All we have time for tonight, good night.

come. All we have time for tonight, good night.

We saw 26 degrees in the sunshine, but also for eastern areas intense

rain which will continue overnight, finally petering out through Friday

morning. We think still some nasty conditions around for the rush hour,

sea fog near the east coast, the odd patch of fog will clear, and a good

deal