11/07/2014 Newsnight

Putting a price on married life, today the court upheld a minimum

income requirement for a foreign spouse to enter this country. I

still can't believe this is happening in Britain. Tonight we

meet the families torn apart by the Home Office ruling. He missed her

learning to crawl, he missed her learning to walk, I couldn't believe

that here in England the rights of a British child were so, not even

neglected, but just ignored. This man can't remember his name and

doesn't know anything about his own life. What is amnesia, and how does

it work? We will meet the woman whose childhood memories were wiped

away. Is football the continuation of politics by other means.

Historian Dan Snow has a theory. It is not like we didn't see it coming.

The Italians have been hungry for retribution since Boudica destroyed

their ninth legion thousands of years ago. And this. Does it upset

you to see two men dancing together. Good evening, we go first tonight to

the developing situation in Gaza. The Israeli Prime Minister, Binyamin

Netanyahu has said no amount of international pressure will stop

Israel from acting with all its power against what he calls a terror

organisation in Gaza. A grim milestone was crossed today as the

Palestinian health ministry reported more than 100 dead since the bombing

began four days ago. Our diplomatic editor is with us

now. Given Netenyahu's response, what does that say for any US

mediation now? Well what we have heard tonight is that it hasn't

begun in any real sense. That means that Mr Netenyahu still has days in

which to try to destroy the Hamas and other armed groups

infrastructure as he would call it in Gaza. There are some issues too,

even when the Americans do become more seriously engaged

diplomatically. Firstly, there is the practical problem they classify

Hamas as a terrorist organisation, and they generally held to the line

that they don't conduct negotiations with them, some method would have to

be found to do that. Then there is the bigger question of what does

Hamas want in this? Earlier this evening I spoke to former US Middle

East negotiator, Robert Denine. It came into this conflict very weak

politically and economically, it seems to want to reassert itself

within Palestinian politics, within Gaza and within Palestine at large,

that is in the West Bank as well. And to a certain extent it has

achieved that aim, although the question of how does it sustain it

if it agrees to a ceasefire? Meanwhile, as we have said the death

toll in Gaza is rising? Yes, it topped 100 this morning. Now for

example people make comparisons with two previous periods of violence,

2009 and 2012, it is getting closer to the 2012 total. That went on for

2009 and 2012, it is getting closer Israelis have mounted their strikes

the easy pickings, if you like, the guys firing rockets off the beach,

the things that can be engaged without any real risk of civilian

casualties have gone. They start to hit inside the town, the

Palestinians of course try to protect some of their surviving

weaponry by moving it close to people and we see more and more

houses bombed in the last 24 hours. With all the risk of something like

a school or centre full of people being hit. The Palestinians of

course from their point of view, they want to be seen to be answering

back forcefully, not to be cowed, they have been firing rockets back

into Israel. So far the Israelis have not suffered a fatality in

this. We have had casualties today, a petrol station was hit by

Palestinian rockets, spectacular blaze and people wounded. They have

also had people wounded in Beersheba, the southern city

tonight. Another thing that may encourage the Israelis to continue,

and the other thing is are they considering going in on the ground

as well? Stragically or perception wise it

must be a point where it becomes counter-productive for the Israelis?

A ground attack as in 2009 would cause more than ten-times the

Palestinian casualties, well that one z than in this episode of

violence between the two sides. It ratchets things up massively.

Potentially, although Israelis talk about finishing off this problem. It

means reoccupying and readministering the Gaza strip, and

the Israelis don't want to do that. Even if they stop short of that, and

carry on with bombardment for the next few days, they run various

risk, they don't want to be seen to be afraid of those, but equally

there are risk, for example you get big regional players like Turkey,

they have been trying to improve relations. Turkey one of the few

countries that could be talking to Hamas as part of a solution, well

today the Prime Minister of Turkey said reproachment with Israel, some

he will Kate diplomacy going on in the last few years on hold. Here is

Mr Erdinc. Recep Tayyip Erdogan. TRANSLATION: We can't have a

positive attitude about the process while our brothers in Gaza are being

killed and bombed. Israel must establish the ceasefire and stop

shooting. So these are critical days ahead really. The next few days, I

think, will show whether there will be a ground operation, or whether

the US can engage diplomatically, possibly through Turkey or Qatar,

one of the countries that closely speaks to Hamas and get some sort of

ceasefire on the table. How much should you have to earn

before you are allowed to get married? The question may sound

absurd, it is absurd, but for the many Britons who marry somebody from

overseas or outside the EU it is entirely relevant. Today the Court

of Appeal backed up a Home Office ruling that set a minimum income

threshold of ?18,a 500. The Home Office says these marriages must not

be established in the UK at the tax-payers' expense. Those on the

wrong side of it ask why their need to share their life with their loved

ones comes at such a high price. Higher? Higher. I still can't

believe this is happening in Britain. I don't feel we deserved t

I don't feel that anyone deserves to have their family effectively

exiled. Your life whilst this appeal is going on is on hold. We're so

strong as a couple, and we will just keep fighting until the end. Two

years ago ministers tightened the rules, making it harder for a

British citizen to bring a husband or wife into the country from

outside the EU. Since then our courts have been locked in a tussle

between the right to protect our borders and the right to a family

life. Olivia is half British and half Ecuadorian, her mother, Lizzie,

was teaching English in South America when she met the local

doctor she would go on to marry. The new family wanted to start a new

life in Britain. I just felt really confident that he was going to get

the visa, I couldn't see any reason why he wouldn't, because we were

legally married with a British marriage certificate. This is the

entry clearance officer's refusal notice. This is when we learned that

we were being refused in March. How did you feel at that point?

Devastated, I just completely broke down. I was trying to, I remember my

husband saying and sending me the e-mail and reading it on-line while

he was watching me on Skype and I just read through it and I was like

that's OK look up and say it is all right, this is just a blip and will

be sorted out in a couple of week, don't worry we will be fine. And I

looked up and just... Tears. Just couldn't do anything. For a UK

citizen like Lizzie to bring her husband into the country, she now

has to earn ?18,600 a year, her husband's income isn't taken into

account. The Government says the new rule will drive down net migration,

cut the benefit bill and promote integration. But the level of income

needed is set above the full-time minimum wage. Just under half of

British people in employment would not be earning enough annually to

sponsor a family migrant under this policy. Among certain groups among

women it is a much higher proportion, 60 per cent plus. It is

higher outside London where a lower or minimum wage goes a longer way.

Arlene moved from the Philippines to Great Yarmouth to work in a care

home and study. She met Stephen and two years later they married, just

after the new law came in. When we take the vow as a married couple, it

says for richer for poorer, in sick he is, until death do us part. He

can't live without me as well. And it is killing us both. Stephen

hasn't been earning enough to keep Arlene in the country. She's now

fighting a deportation order. The Government set this target of

reducing overall net migration in this country, and it would argue

that this is one way of doing it? Surely if that is the case then we

would close our border to EU countries coming in. Around 30,000

couples applied for a partner visa every year. Half from Asia, with the

largest numbers from Pakistan and India. One in three is now rejected,

a number that has doubled as the new rules have come into force. It is

perfectly legitimate for a Government to try to pursue a very

popular policy of returning immigration to more moderate levels

and family reunion is the third largest in-flow into Britain. I

think the path the Government has thought -- in the past the

Government has thought there is abuse in the channel and the system

hasn't encouraged integration, particularly in the case of spouses

coming in from the Indian sub-continent, and has led to some

cases of welfare dependency. This is a letter I wrote to the Prime

Minister, from the perspective of Olivia, "please help, I can't have

computer Pahad, this makes us very sad. These are my shoes now, I'm

eight months older, our court date is one year and one month after we

applied for a visa". In South America Lizzie had been working in

bank earning a good local wage, but converted into pounds that wasn't

enough to meet the earnings target and bring her husband back to

Britain. He missed her learning to crawl. He missed her learning to

walk. I couldn't believe that here in England the rights of a British

child were so, not even neglected but just ignored. Completely. I was

child were so, not even neglected furious. I felt like I didn't even

child were so, not even neglected recognise this country any more. For

Stephen it is all about proving he has hit the income threshold. He

needs to show six months of earnings above that for an appeal to be

successful. You have to earn the money, just to keep going at the

moment, and with the cost of barristers and solicitors, you know,

earning I'm earning is going towards them. But she's worth it at the end

of the day. Last year the Home Office lost part of a test case, the

High Court ruled it set the income target at a level that was

disproportionate and unjustified. Today in the Court of Appeal that

ruling was reversed. Three judges said immigration policy should be

left up to the Home Secretary, not the courts. The Home Office decided

to put all applications on hold, spending the Court of Appeal's

judgment, obviously today the Government has won, so that's a blow

to those who are hoping that the High Court's judgment would be

upheld. But it is only a battle that the Government has won, there is a

wider war still going on and the individuals may take their case to

the Supreme Court if they get permission to do so. The Government

welcomed the ruling, saying migrants must be able to integrate and family

life should not be established here at the tax-payers' expense. We're

talking here about the right of an individual to marry who they choose,

which seems a pretty basic right, but it is also a pretty basic right

to live in a relatively stable country without very large levels of

immigration, you might say, and clearly a lot of voters do think

that. And simply the right to live in a relatively integrated society.

Earlier this year, a breakthrough for Lizzie and her family. After

working in a new job for six months the Home Office approved her

husband's visa. It is like a huge weight has been lifted off my

shoulders. I can sleep again, I can eat again. It is amazing, it is like

life should have been a year ago. Lizzie's husband, Alexander is

living in Devon and retraining as a British doctor. I can't recover the

year that I lost with my daughter and my wife, my family. There is no

money enough to pay me or my family because of this year. We lost a lot.

I didn't marry her just to let the UK take her away from me, no, I

married her for a reason, and she will be with me until the day I die.

For others there is still uncertainty. Today's ruling is

likely to be challenged in the Supreme Court. Until then thousands

of couples will be told to earn more to pay their way, or to make a life

outside this country. We asked the Home Secretary and the

Immigration Minister if they would come on the programme to talk about

today's ruling but they declined. His name is Robert, at least that's

what the doctors have called him. He was found in a park, he speaks with

a slight eastern European accent and seems good at sport. This much we

know, all the rest is a mystery, even to him. The man is a victim of

amnesia and can recall nothing about his own life. Doctors have warned

that he faces a long road to recovery and that the symptoms he

displays fit no conventional explanation. We will meet a woman

who lost the first 20 years of her life to amnesia in a moment. First

Robert's story. On the 18th of May the man in red

here was found in a mark in Pete borrowing, dazed -- Peterborough,

dazed and frustrated without identification to identify him. The

police concerned about his state of mind took him to hospital, where he

has been ever since. We know people who get amnesia of this kind, a

psychogenic F uge. It is associated with depression, and people get them

after major trauma. In Robert's case we don't know anything. Most amnesia

is transient, in this case it is transient, that is what makes the

case unusual. Robert can speak English, but with an accent,

although he can read Russian and Lithuanian, he can't speak either

language. He's hoping someone will see his picture and come forward to

identify him. The hospital set up a helpline for people, and say they

will carefully screen any call that comes in. Provan Susan Blackmore has

worked in studies on identity and other issues. Our other guest lost

20 years of memory and never regained them. It clearly wasn't

transient for you, you describe it as having lost your history, what

was that like? It was like having two parts of my life. It was in my

early 20s this happened. Due to a seizure under medication I was on.

So the whole 20 something years of my life just disappeared and didn't

come back. I have had to rebuild it. When you look at pictures of

yourself, or when you hear stories about yourself, does that trigger

anything for you? Occasionally, it is like having photographic

memories, the photographs don't bring back any emotions. Music can

do that. I can hear something on the radio and that can bring back

memories and emotions more than a photograph. What did you do then?

You had to ask your mother about yourself or what you liked or what

you, who your friends were, what happened? Well it was due to a

seizure, and a few seizures on the medication I was on. It was my

mother that brought me round a few times. And she had to tell me who

she was and who I was and what I was doing, quite calmly and slowly.

Extraordinary. When you hear Jo's story, can you be yourself without

memory? That very evocative idea of having two separate lives there?

Yeah. It is strange, isn't it? But as soon as we start to think about

who am I, what is the self any way, things are very strange. I would

think most people feel as though this is my body this is my arms and

leg, I'm somewhere in here controlling this, I'm the conscious

things who has free will and is aware. But if you actually look

inside a brain you just find loads of neurons, there is no middle in

the brain where I could be controlling things. Some how these

billions of neurons and trillions of connections make this thing here

feel like there is a self inside there is conscious. How does it do

that? Memory is very important to that, it is not everything. One of

the interesting things that we're hearing here is how, I believe her

mother told her that her personality was similar in her earlier life, is

that right? Jo, just explain that, did your mother say that you shared

the same sort of innate characteristics during the next 20

years as during the first 20? That's what she has told me, yes. I have to

believe her! What does that mean, is it your sense of humour or the way

you talk or is it the things that you like, what was the connection

between the old self and the new self? I think probably the way I

spoke didn't change. I didn't have to learn how to speak or write

again, the brain decides what you can remember and what you can't

remember in something like this. She has given two very good examples of

things that would survive the loss of, what we are really talking about

episodic memory, things that have happened to you. She can clearly

remember skills and writing and speaking, those skills are stored in

different parts of the brain from the episodic memory, the stories of

your life. Those things can stay the same. You would be recoginsable to

somebody else as being the same person, the same sense of humour and

the same way you wave your arms and lots of things about your habits

will be the same, even if you can't remember what happened yesterday.

Does it make you vulnerable? Yes, I think it probably does. In certain

circumstances if it is required of you to have some background and to

be able to say things about who you were in the past, you will feel

pretty, not like other people who can think they can remember a whole

lot of their past. But in other situations it won't at all, because

most of our life we don't have to think about our childhood F I

couldn't remember the first 20 years of my life, in most circumstances

that wouldn't matter. And Jo, let me ask you that question, do you feel

vulnerable without those first 20 years, do you explain that to a lot

of people or does it not actually impede what you do on daily basis? I

think there is two answers to this, the first is I think many people,

I'm in my early 40s now, many people have problems rembering their

childhood any way. But the two people in my life that have really

helped have been my best friend Nicky and my mother. I think my

mother's helped me more with the childhood memories, and my best

friend, with some of the teenage memories, which sometimes I don't

want to remember! Have doctors told you there is any chance of that

coming back now, or do they presume that after 20 years that is just

gone? It is in there somewhere, I think the brain has it in there

somewhere, it is just I can't recall it. Are there triggers or is music a

trigger occasionally? Yes it can be, that can be a trigger for an

emotional memory, rather than just a photoic MEP -- photographic memory.

Music is very important to me. This started with us talking about

Robert, a very young man, who knows nothing about himself now, there is

a vulnerability to what people tell you about yourself or project on to

you at this point, even calling him Robert? One of the things that

memory can help you with is to disagree, no that is not right, that

is not me. It can take away a lot of confidence if you don't have that

background, so he must be feeling quite scared, I imagine.

When you talk about Luis Suarez's reputation it can be taken either

way. A brilliant striker and bizarre appetite for other players. It

hasn't stopped his rise, his move to Barcelona was confirmed today with a

price tag of ?75 million. The football world, it seems, is already

moving on, even before the Cup Final. Sunday will bring together

Brazil-killers Germany, and Brazil's great couldn't NENLT them rival,

Argentina. It also marks some of the most incredible football a

tournament has ever seen. Upset and destruction and uncomfortable truths

about England. To some it is enough it is about football, to another

like Dan Snow it is about power and politics and the settling of great

nationaic scores. When it came to history this World

Cup had it all, mighty Brazil knocked out with the greatest margin

ever. Costa Rico defying the odds and qualifying. Spain crushed at the

first hurdle. InDom mitable Germany. World class football. But for poor

old England, history wasn't on their sidede.

England's World Cup campaign has been a failure of historic

proportions. I can't think of a worse performance since the Dutch

Navy sailed into the river Medway in June 1667 and burned the entire

English Royal Navy at anchor. It is worse than that, it is the most

disastrous English foreign exhibition since that fool he ward

II marched his army north and lost the Battle of Bannockburn, idiot! It

is not like we didn't see it coming, Italians have been hungry for

retribution since Boudica destroyed their 9th legion. As for Uraguy,

more caution, haven't we forgotten the ship hitting the unchartered

reef in 1809. I'm available for selection. Bill

shankly, the great player and manager had it right, football isn't

about life or death, it is far more important than that. The games we

have seen being played in the World Cup are not just about which team

lives or dies, they are about how they impact that greatest game of

all, power politics. The World Cup is the perfect environment to

revisit rivalries and settle old scores. That is not to say the

violence doesn't sometimes bubble over, in 1969 a game between Honture

are yous and El Salvador, rather than relieving the tension between

the two countries, it ignited a full scale war. It was called the Soccer

War, luckily it didn't last long. Speaking of rivalries, who can

forget the dramatic day when the Dutch brought Spain's period of

global domination to a close. I'm talking about the battle of the

downs fought in 1569 off the coast of Kent. . They managed to repeat it

last Friday 13th. What about Brazil, also highly fancied before the

tournament yet collapsed under pressure. Will their much-touted

economy, an engine room of the developing world prove just as

fragile? One down, half time, you missed a couple of easy analogies

out there, but you can pull it back in the second half. We probably

should talk about Germany, in 1954 the west Germans managed to reach

the World Cup final. They met their ancestoral enemy, the Hungarians. It

was the first time the German National Anthem had been played

since the Second World War, they managed to win the match, and amid

national celebration the German post-war economic miracle was born,

an episode that happened on the football pitch that has broken

English hearts since then. Except for that glorious summer's day in

1966. An opening in the defence and the hat trick! History fizzes

through the Argentina-England rivalry, how do Co It not after --

how could it not after the receipt coats invaded in the 1880s, more

recently with the Falklands War. And Maradona's hand of God goal, who

says it is his favourite goal, like stealing the England team's wallet.

David Beckham saw red during a game between Argentina, briefly becoming

a national pariah, times change. In fact, it looks like our two greatest

adversaries have worked out they might as well cut out the middle man

and play each other, take heart England fans, if a nation can be

judged by its enemies, these two finalists suggest England must be

great afterall. I'm really clutching at straws now. So as the world

powers rise and fall what will the great future rivalries be, Iran

versus USA, or Russia seems to be back as everyone's favourite

adversary. But one day China might match its economic power with

prowess on the football pitch. Now China v Japan, that would be a match

with history. There is one lesson from history is that the English

need a little help. Where was the best player in Britain? Welshman

Gareth Bale during the World Cup, on the Penarth pier that's where. And

Sir Alex Fergsuon could have been involved. If we want to make World

Cup history for the right reasons in future, it will have to be Team GB

that does it. That is all for this week, but on

the day the British dance council stands accused of trying to ban

same-sex pairs from competitive ballroom dancing, we leave you with

the award winners dancing the Speak Up Mambo.