25/07/2014 Newsnight

Miliband. Well, look, you know and I know I'm not from central casting.

You can find people who are more square jawed, who look less like

Wallis. The Labour leader lays bare his image problem and admits he's

awkward on camera. Will the public agree with him. The slowest recovery

for 100 years or the day they declare the economy booming. Are you

better off than you were six years ago. We talk to the Chancellor,

George Osborne. I'm the first to say today is not the day where we say

job done, it is the day we resolve to do more, so yes, people feel

prosperity. We have our Newsnight proms in the studio.

Good evening, telling people you look like a cartoon character was

always going to be gamble. Reminding people of awkward photo moments can

go both ways too. What Ed Miliband did today was brave, confronting his

critics face on, he admitted PR was not battle he often won. He said he

hoped people looked for more than chisel good looks from a Prime

Minister, the public have learned to like Labour's policy but will they

love Ed, will voters come away refreshed by his honesty, or hear a

man who hasn't convinced him he's a leader.

Plenty of people have said it before, Ed Miliband doesn't always

look good in a photo. He can come across a bit awkward, a bit, well,

strange. The strange thing today was not that someone was saying this

again, but that person was none other than Ed Miliband himself. This

was billed as an important speech launching Labour's summer campaign,

Ed Miliband looked pretty uncomfortable as he waited to go on.

This was afterall a bold move to focus on his failings in an attempt

to neutralise them. I'm not from central casting, you can find people

who are more square-jawed. More chiselled, who look less like

Wallace! And I even believe, I even believe that you could probably find

people who look better eating a bacon sandwich! If you want the

politician from central casting it's just not me. It's the other guy.

This was, of course a dig at David Cameron, Labour has long sought to

cast him as the slick insubstantial PR guy. But in the process Ed

Miliband is guarnteeing that every newspaper, bulletin and blog will

show endless unflattering photos of him portrayed at Wallace, or going

head-to-head with bacon sandwich and losing. Or any number of shots in

which he doesn't look like everyone's idea of a world's

statesman in waiting. Leaders with low personal ratings are caught in a

Catch 22 situation, they can either pretend they don't exist and get on

with it, but that doesn't work. Because it becomes a permanent

theme. Or they try to address it. And in trying to address it today I

think Ed Miliband did it quite effectively by framing the debate

about leadership between seriousness, him, and the guy who is

good at photo opportunities but is quite hypocritical in his values,

Cameron. Mr Miliband clearly believes the rehashing of all these

odd-looking pictures, here is another one, is a price worth

paying, if, as he told me in answer to a question after the speech he

can change the way we think about politics and leadership. You know

David the honest feeling I have about this is thank goodness, let's

have this debate, it is not just about me, frankly, this has been a

long time coming, and if we don't have this debate now we will have to

have it at some point. Is politics really in touch with what people

want from our politics. Other politicians have tried to neutralise

image problems too by acknowledging them. Iain Duncan Smith knew he

couldn't compete with the volume generated by Tony Blair, instead he

tried to cast himself as something different. Do not underestimate the

determination of a quiet man. Gordon Brown feared comparisons with

Mr Blair and David Cameron, his response, not flash, just Gordon,

and incidentally not successful. Will it work for Ed Miliband? It

will appeal to some people. But the bigger problems is that most people

have already decided, they have decided some time ago. You have been

in leader of the opposition for four or five years, they are not just

suddenly going to say, he has told me to look at him differently, now I

will. Of the The problem was put by Ronald Regan succinctly, if you are

explaining, you are losing. No more photo opportunities like this one,

we shall see. Time is not on Ed Miliband's side, just a few short

months to convince voters to change their assessment of him and what a

Prime Minister should look like. Joining us now is Lucy Powell a

Labour shadow minister who ran Ed Miliband's 2010 leadership campaign.

And Phil Collins of the Times, Tony Blair's former speech writer. As

David was saying it is a license for every broadcaster to run 100 bad

photos of Ed Miliband, do you think it will change anything Phil? I

doubt there are many people who haven't made up their mind about Ed

Miliband. I also think that it is never true that anyone who has an

image problem doesn't have a real problem underneath it I think the

idea that you can separate an image problem from an actual problem is an

illusion. The image is a convinced form of reality. What the image is

telling you is something genuine about the way people think. People

are not idiots, they don't fall for an image that is entirely false. So

when you get things like the bacon sandwich, it is not that anyone

thinks eating bacon sandwiches a test of political virility, they are

thinking this is a visual metaphor for significant thought already,

which is I don't regard this man as prime ministerial? Why? Not because

of the bacon sandwich, but the test that the Labour Party has to pass on

running the nation, in particular the economy. There was the Regan

phrase, if you are explaining you are losing, which in essence is what

Phil said, if you have to come on to a stage and say you are not very

good as a PR man, you have lost them already? The bulk of the speech was

talking about the positive things he brings to the table I think they are

the things that fundamentally are the things that people want to see

in a Prime Minister. You know what is it that we're actually asking for

from a Prime Minister? Do we want somebody who gets up every morning

thinking what can I do today to help Labour win the election and to

change the country or do we want somebody who will get up in the

morning and worry what they will look like in a contrived photo

opportunity situation that day? So I think what Ed offers, which is a big

vision, which is good policies about really fundamentally changing this

country so people who work two jobs don't have to go down to a foodbank

every day to get their meals. Or are we worried about how we eat a bacon

sandwich, which is ridiculous. You ran Ed Miliband's campaign, this was

what four years ago now, we are coming up to an election in May, did

you realise, did you ever spy that this might be a problem. That he is

now admitting, we're putting it out in the open, did you see that? This

is not different from what we have always known about Ed and what he

has said about himself. He is by his own admission that is a guy that is

more interested in policy, principle and conviction. When you are taking

on Phil's point there, that is what the public actually say about Ed,

they think he is a man of principle and man of conviction. They think he

is a man who has good policies and the right ideas. What about

authenticity, do they believe in him. Why does he become Labour

leader and then feel the urge to get married the next month? I don't

think it is true, Lucy, I think that nobody who supported Ed Miliband

would have thought that four years on he would have to make this

speech. If you remember at the time the thing about his leadership bid,

he was someone who could connect directly with the people. That is

turned out not to be true. I don't disagree what you said about the

substantive questions, the question is whether he can be the messenger

for the messages. I think it is clear that he clearly cannot. I

disagree, there are two reasons why I backed Ed Miliband to be leader

the Labour Party and so many other people did, firstly, I think he

understood better than any of the other contenders at the time about

the fundamental change we needed to see in our economy and politics in

this country which, I think other people thought we could just have

one more go, one more heave of the same with a new cast. When you look

at the policies and the poll, the policies do well, the leader does

not. Don't you feel you backed the wrong horse? I I absolutely do not,

I'm incredibly proud of what Ed has done over the last four years, I

know I will make extremely good Prime Minister. The issues he's

talking about are the issues that I get on the doorstep, they are the

issues people are interested in. Honestly are we really going to

decide who is the Prime Minister of this country on the basis of whether

you stand awkwardly when you are at a nursery or whether you are eating

a bacon sandwich. That is the question that is on tonight? Nobody

is thinking of it like that. It is unfortunate to say the least that he

made this speech on the day which the economy recovered to the size it

has since the 2008 crash. What the visual representations of his

weakness tell us is people don't think Labour can be trusted with the

economy. There are two weaknesses the Labour Party have had since Ed

became leader, one is the question of leadership and the second

economic competence. They are totally linked, this speech was an

attempt to separate the two, as if you can have leadership over there,

as if it is leadership not about anything in particular, it is

leadership about the economy. Labour is miles behind on the economy.

Until he does a second speech which is a me cull a on the economy, there

is no way this can have an impact. He's trying to separate it, did you

ever write Tony Blair a speech that put weaknesses on the table that

said, here you are. Yes, you do it all the time. I completely

understand the imperative behind the speech, I don't think it was a bad

speech in that sense, it was the right thing to do. What were the

weaknesses you laid bare for Tony Blair? There were loads of them,

they were ages ago and often economic. That is the one that is

what we are talking about tonight. Are you saying that a good speech

means you get away with it and people don't talk about it? A good

speech always confronts the weakness. It always cites the

opposing case. Like what? And puts it very strongly. Labour, you go

back to the beginning of Blair's time, Labour were considered to be

extremely weak on the economy, between them Blair and Brown

entirely neutralised that objection. On crime Labour did the same thing.

At the moment Labour is extremely weak on the economy of economic

competence, and you cannot have a speech about leadership which,

doesn't go straight to economic competence. This speech tried to

separate those two things. I don't think it did. And Ed Balls were was

the cabinet, Ed Balls was making mass plastacine figures at a school?

The fundamental debate in this country is about the economy, who is

sharing and benefitting in the proceeds of growth in the figure

West see today, is it a few at the top who are doing very nicely out of

this recovery, or is it ordinary people like I represent. It is not

ordinary people I represent, who have two incomes coming into the

household and can't afford to buy a school uniform for their kids. Or

who have a job and it is not a route out of poverty. Ed Miliband is

addressing these big issues, and I think that is something we want to

see in a Prime Minister. Not someone who is worried getting up in the

morning, and worrying about how they can contriumph a situation to make

them -- -- contrive a situation. Ronald Regan brought up the question

of how much better off are people when they wake up. The Chancellor's

figures say the economy is back to where it was in two OK 008, some

would say better. But there are stagnating wages and an on going

struggle about the deficit. How would you answer the Regan question

and how solid are the economics underneath. We interviewed the

Chancellor in Newcastle. GDP, the overall size of the economy

grew by zero. 8% in the most recent quarter, it is up three. 1% in the

last year, and yesterday the IMF forecast that this year the UK would

grow faster than any other advanced economy. The big news is that the

economy is finally returned to its prerecession peak. But the sector

level is a different story. Services passed the peak in 2013, but

construction and production are well below six years ago. While the

nation's income is back to its previous size, that is not yet the

case for individual incomes. That is simply because the money is spread

around a much larger population than it was six years ago. And compared

to the periods immediately after the 1980s and 1990s' recession, this

recovery has been historically slow. Why has it taken our economy so long

to return to where it was in 2008? Thanks to the hard work of the

British people we have reached a major milestone in our long-term

economic plan, but I'm the first to say that the job is isn't done. That

a great recession has had a huge impact on the United Kingdom, and

let us resolve not to repeat the mistakes of the past but go on

working to plan that is delivering greater economic security for

people, that is delivering a brighter future for all. If we look

at the public sector finance figures which came out earlier this week, we

see income tax receipts were up by less than 3% in the last year. But

stamp duty receipts were up more than ho %, 40 -- 40%, does that tell

us about the nature of the recovery? Jobs are created all over the

country. In the north-east of England we had the fastest rate of

job creation than any part of the country. 5,000 jobs, that is

economic security for families. Of -- 65,000 jobs. That is economic

security for families. The economy will grow and we can take a

realistic assessment of what the country can afford and the deficit

comes down. At the heart of the economic plan is restoring

confidence in the UK, creating jobs and growing our economy, but of

course there is much more to do. That fact that income tax is growing

so slowly, stamp duty associated with the housing market is growing

so quickly, it tells us something, it tells us that people's income

growth has been weak, but the housing market is up 20% in London,

10% nationwide, is this the kind of recovery we wanted? What I'm

passionate about is people having economic security, people who didn't

have jobs having jobs. That is what the recovery is delivering. But

Britain has got to earn its way in the future. We have to export more,

we have to invest more. We have to make sure that the business like

where I was yesterday in Stockton, that business, a small manufacturing

business is able to sell its wares all over the world. That is what I'm

working on. That is the long-term economic plan. As you said lots of

people in work, record numbers in employment, that is very, very good

news, but you know the downside has been productivity, output per hour,

how productive people have is weak since 2008, that is a big

medium-term challenge when you talk about the long-term plan. What are

you going to do about productivity? I agree with you, productivity is a

long-term plan, I would rather have the productivity challenge than the

long-term unemployment like in the past. In the end the country can

only be productive if we are improving skills and education, and

we are delivering that with reforms. If at the same time the economic

infrastructure of the country is being improved, cities like here in

Newcastle should be part of a northern powerhouse where we bring

real transport connections for the future here. So these are all the

things we can do to improve our productivity. But for me this is

further evidence of why we have to go on working through the plan.

Things like productivity, things like the imbalance in our economy,

things like the fact that our education system continues to need

to improve. These are all future challenges. Looks at the IMF

forecast yesterday, excellent news for the upgrades for the UK, but in

general global growth was revised down by the IMF, and big downward

revision, a lot of challenges in the world economy, Russia, Ukraine,

southern Europe, could this blow us off course? I thought the IMF

forecasts were revealing, because it said Britain was growing faster than

any other major western economy. That is due to the long-term plan we

are pursuing. But also, as you point out, in the rest of the world,

unfortunately, the economy is not as strong as we would hope. On the

continent of Europe, in the eurozone it is weak. That is a challenge for

the UK. We are an open and global economy. What it says do me is we

need to redouble our links with the Chinas, the Indias of this world, so

that we export more to the faster-growing parts of our economy.

In the world. That is what I'm determined to do, I was in India a

few weeks ago. That is how you deal with the challenge of a slower of

growing Europe. You said this week that the economic should be bearing

economic pain by imposing sanctions on Russia, how much pain should he

be prepared to bear? The situation in the Ukraine is troubling not just

for the people of Ukraine but the whole international community and

the UK. There is an economic cost from sanctions, I won't pretend

otherwise. You have to consider the economic cost of allowing a

situation where international borders are ignored. Where

commercial airlines and innocent people are shot out of the sky. That

is a much greater economic risk for the UK. We will act with our

European partners and American partners to impose sanctions where

they are necessary, to make sure that Russia complies with the norms

of international law. At this point in the Gaza crisis

even a 12-hour cease-fire has to be hard fought. As we came on air a

senior Israeli had told the BBC they were considering one day's truce

starting tomorrow, Hamas has ly agreed, we are reading that in the

last few minutes. John Kerry is pushing for seven days, an ambition

that seems elusive given the events of the last 18 days, on the day of

rage the death toll continued to rise, more in Gaza and the West

Bank. As Ramadan draws to a close, France will have a meeting to seek

peace. Turkey may hold the role that Egypt once held as mediators. John

Kerry said he still hoped for a seven-day humanitarian truce for

next week's Eid festival, but there was terminology to work through.

More than 800 Palestinians, mostly civilians and 36 Israelis have died

since the start of the conflict 18 days ago.

Palestinian leaders called for day of rage, in protest at the death of

civilians. Fighting continued throughout the day in Gaza and in

the West Bank. Hamas is yet to respond to the proposed cease-fire,

but its leaders have already said the group won't agree to a deal

without an end to Israel's blockade. In a statement tonight Israel's

Defence Minister said the country may soon broaden its ground

operation there. The efforts to broker a lasting cease-fire have

been complicated by the recent breakdown of the national unity

Government of Fatah and Hamas. Fatah's commission for international

relations join us from Ramallah. There is a small window for

optimisim, but do you look at Hamas and its position of strength and

think that their tactics appear to be working better? Let me state I'm

relieved for the 12 hours n our situation that would mean saving the

lives of tens and hundreds, primarily children. The UN

statistics today showed every hour we lose a Palestinian child because

of the Israeli bombardment and the guided missiles, so in these 12

hours we would have saved 12 Palestinian children. As for the

long-term prospects for this, let me also state three crucial facts right

from the beginning. First this is not Israel's war against Hamas. This

is really Israel's war against the Palestinian people. It did not start

in Gaza but in the West Bank, and after that incident which still has

so many question marks next to it, the disappearance of the three

settlers. The second fact, this is not about really a truce here or a

truce there. Israel started and imposed this war on us in our

entirety, and lastly this is not about rockets it is about

occupation, it is about the denial of basic rights. And therefore to

put things into perspective, not to be lost in the details is important

for the discussion, please go ahead. Absolutely, I just want to look at

the role that Hamas is playing, they seem to be completely dominating

negotiations at the moment, and I wonder whether you think you are

moving towards the Hamas line now? No, I don't think the calculation is

such. This is not a rivalry between Fatah and Hamas, both Fatah and

Hamas are targeted, the Israeli missiles that come from the most

sophisticated army and the most sophisticated air force does not

really distinguish between this Hamas family or that Hamas or Fatah

family. They wipe out entire families and some of them or even

most of them are civilians non-Hamas and non-Fatah, some of them are

Fatah, all of us on the occupied terrorists realise this is

Netenyahu's onslaught on us, first it was Netenyahu's coup d'etat

against our national unity Government which was only struck a

few days before the Hebron incident. It was his attempt... The division,

from the outside world, people have looked at Fatah and said you can

negotiate better with Israel without Hamas being part of the

negotiations. Do you see yourself as more compromised now, you have to

move towards Hamas if you want solidarity for the Palestinian

people. You have to move towards Israel if you want peace? Emily your

question is the main point here is the Hamas-Fatah relationship, there

is no Hamas rockets in the West Bank and yet the Israeli army have reeked

havoc here in the last four or five weeks. Five Palestinians were

murdered today, an Israeli settler decided to spray those leaving the

mosque. There is no rockets in the West Bank, the only difference is in

the West Bank we have a sweeping colonisation, and theft of land

right in fronted of the cameras, this is not about Hamas. Thank you,

your point very well made. Thank you very much for joining us, we have

just run out of time. If you want to know what twitch ask

a 14-year-old. The gaming site is on the verge of being bought by Google

for $14 billion, it makes no sense until you realise the site has 45

million dedicated gamers and more traffic than Amazon. It allows

others to watch others playing games. Why would you want to? This

is going well out of control. Who would want to watch teenagers just

clicking away, playing their video games all night. Good pass, just you

know so good. It turns out that number runs into millions. Twitch is

a service that lets gamers broadcast what is on their screen, live to

huge audiences around the world. Now Google is rumoured to be snapping it

up for a billion dollars. One of its largest-ever deals. Google already

owns YouTube and advertising on video, on-line on YouTube is already

a big business. It is just seeing that Twitch is growing like a weed

in the on-line video space. But cracking something that it has not

done before, which is this live streaming, it really wants a slice

of that pie to expand the YouTube business. It all might sound like a

silly amount of money, but the other numbers linked to Twitch are just as

impressive. Last year the site attracted 45 million viewers every

month. Making it by far the largest of its type. At one point it

accounted for 43% of all live streaming across the entire

internet. YouTube, by comparison, makes up just zero. 5%. But there is

another statistic that makes it incredibly attractive to

advertisers, more than 60% of its young viewers watch for more than 20

hours a week. The kind of number that would make a middle-aged

television executive weep. If you said ten years ago that people would

be literally watching live as someone else played a video game,

and that would be an enormous video business, no-one would have believed

you. And yet it is enormous in Asia, that is why you haven't heard about

it much in the west. But it is part of a much wider global trend. Kids

today don't watch traditional television in the way they used to.

They are watching video games, like their real sports. Crazy stuff at

the University of Effort. But the success of Twitch tells us something

about how the media landscape is changing. The rise of streaming

sites has made stars of young video bloggers like JJ from Watford. I

thought I would be a bit more real this time. He has more than eight

million regular subscribers, making his work incredibly influential,

he's a big user of sites like Twitch. TV is boring, you can't

choose what you want to watch, you just see what you want to watch.

With the Internet you are able to pick what you want to watch. Choose

and you are able to choose what you want to watch at a certain time. But

Twitch doesn't just let gamers broadcast their video its be also

the leader in competitive gaming, a semiprofessional spectator sport

which is offering prize pools bigger than major golf tournaments. A World

Championship event was held in Seattle, boasting a prize pool

reaching more than $10 million. We love it, obviously in Asia they love

it like insane. That's why they are able to have e-sports events and

sell out arenas and have dollar 11 million prize spots. It is insane.

In way the purchase of Twitch is not gamble on the future. For millions

of young teenagers and gamers around the world, this is a major part of

their daily lives. Let me take you through tomorrow's papers before we

go. The times has a new missile threat.

That's all for tonight. We leave you with ruby Hughes, the celebrated

soprano performing at the Royal Albert Hall on Sunday. Though

performs the lullaby Nana. ?CLEAR

She performs Nana in Spanish) Another warm night ahead, but the

heat will ebb away this weekend. The mist low cloud in eastern areas

burning off quickly. Most of England and Wales having a dry, warm day.

Something a