04/12/2015 Newsnight

as of today, based on the information and facts as we know

them, we are now investigating these horrific acts as an act of

terrorism. A mass shooting

on American soil that may now be Is this a game changer for US

security? The suspect's house is opened up

to the media, as US authorities say they believe one of the

killers swore allegiance to Isis. We talk to George Bush's former

homeland security advisor. A win for Labour,

after a tumultuous week. Our political panel is here to

discuss an extraordinary five days. France goes to the polls for the

first time since the Paris attacks. The Front National could be

the big winners. I think there is a big problem with

is lamb. Is lamb once Sharia to be all over the world. -- is

And in tonight's Artsnight, Arna Matronic, singer from

the Scissor Sisters, looks at how robots are shaping popular culture.

When does America start calling a mass shooting an act of terror?

Tonight, the FBI confirmed the investigation into the San Bernadino

killings had become one of terrorism, after one of the

found to have sworn allegiance to so called Islamic State on Facebook.

The California shooting, in which 14 people died and another 21 were

injured, was the deadliest mass shooting in the US for three years.

It appeared to have been triggered by a workplace dispute.

However, when police raided the home of the suspects, both dead,

they found pipe bombs and 6,000 rounds of ammunition,

suggesting attacks on a much bigger scale were being planned.

But the growth of what may be home-grown extremism in a country

already rife with gun massacres could be

International media poured through the apartment belonging to the

couple behind the shootings in San Bernardino. Surging among the debris

of daily life for clues to an attack which today the FBI confirmed they

are treating as a terrorist incident. The couple had tried to

destroy their phones and digital records but police did discover a

message pledging allegiance to Isis and rounds of ammunition and

bomb-making equipment. The shooters knew the victims. That's pretty

unusual for a terrorism type case. What we typically see is mass

shooters will often killed their family or friends or people who have

wronged them before going on a spree. With terrorists it requires

you have an operational component, a goal you're trying to accomplish.

You wouldn't necessarily target people close to you when your actual

target is normally something more symbolic. This is one of the

attackers. He was born in America and worked as an ire at -- and

environmental health specialist. His wife who died alongside him was

originally from Pakistan will stop they lived in Saudi Arabia before

moving to America. Police found no evidence they had direct contact

with Isis. So far it appears these people were completely under the

radar. Maybe they were communicating with like-minded individuals in ways

that have not been discovered yet and that too will be a challenge for

law enforcement and intelligence. If they were essentially radicalising

each other and it just came out of nowhere, that will be a deeply,

deeply concerning development for our authorities. Farooq's family

find it hard to believe that the quiet man they knew could kill his

colleagues in cold blood. I find it hard to believe he could do

something like this. Especially because they Wahab league married. I

think to myself if I had asked him how he was doing before, if I had

any inclination, maybe I could have stopped it. Last night there was a

vigil for the victims in this small IT not far from Los Angeles. This

was America's deadliest shooting since the massacre at Sandy Hook

high school. She would never want anyone sad for

her. She would want them happy. She would not want them crying or

anything. That's why I'm taking this and turning it into something to

make me strong. Previous shootings had provoked calls for greater

restrictions on gun laws. Did the fact that this was a terrorist

incident finally shift public and political opinion. While this could

become more of an issue in the presidential campaign. That might

have some long-term impact in future legislation. But for the near-term,

I think the existing camps will solidify their own positions and you

will hear lots of people saying if only the people in that building had

weapons, this never would have happened. As America mourns,

investigators will focus on what level of involvement, if any, Isis

had on these attacks. Politicians will focus on how that affects

policy domestically and abroad. Just before we came on air I spoke

to Fran Townsend, former Homeland Security and Counterrorism

Advisor to President George W Bush. I began by asking her what she

thought had brought I think it's a combination of

factors. One, the female shooter, they told us today that she had

pledged her allegiance to the leader of Isis on her Facebook page. When

you take that together with what we are now learning about the amount of

ammunition, the amount of planning, the number of pipe bonds. There's a

number of factors, the male shooter had grown out his beard, stopped

attending his mosque. When you look at all of the fact together, they

now feel comfortable to say this clearly was an act of terror. To

your mind does this sound like individuals who have been

radicalised, extremists? Yes. The FBI director as much as said that

they were radicalised, certainly inspired by terror groups. The

question that is outstanding that I think investigators will continue to

look at is, was there any more direct connection to a foreign

terrorist organisation? It's interesting that the wording has

changed now and we're calling this an act of terror. I guess if you

step back from it you could say any kind of mass shooting is

automatically an act of terror. Does this seem like a game changer to

you? Yes, for the FBI using the label of terrorism, it really has a

pretty distinct meaning. Regrettably in this country we have had a number

of mass shootings by individuals that were emotionally disturbed, one

might say, or motivated by some political cause. A week ago we had

literally a crazy person who went into... We don't think of that as

terror. The FBI director labels this as an act of terror but what he's

really referring to is this connection to radical Islamic

extremism. Does that change how America deals with the threat, then?

I think what changes is not so much the label but what we've seen is

Isis and these terrorist groups targeting soft targets. Places where

we don't think of having large security presence or screening, this

is not an airport or a military base or a Government building. When they

start going into office buildings or cafes or movie theatres, those soft

targets are nearly impossible to protect. I do think that has an

effect on Americans feeling quite vulnerable in a way that they

haven't before. America it's long been recognised has a major problem

with gun crime. Do you think this alters the way it looks at its

legislation around arms? You know, as I mentioned, we've had a number

of mass shootings that have happened at schools and movie theatres. It

always raises this gun debate between those who wish to see more

gun control and those who feel very strongly about the freedom to bear

arms under the second Amendment. In this particular case, these guns

were legally purchased. I think you will see a continued debate but

regrettably I don't know if it will go further than the usual political

back and forth that we see after one of these tragic events. After the

Paris shootings, we had many governors certainly of Republican

states saying no more Syrian refugees, it's all got to be a

clamp-down on the sort of people coming into America. This looks as

if its home-grown, it's already right within the country, doesn't

it? That's right and that a particular challenge for our Lorin

Forstmann. The FBI director has said we have ourselves to hundred 50

foreign fighters in this country, 900 subjects of investigation who

have some ties to terrorist organisations and full

investigations in all of the US's 50 states. So the magnitude of the

problem inside the United States, the challenge for law enforcement is

really substantial and the FBI director needs additional

resources, I think, just as in Great Britain you increase the number of

agents in MI5 to deal with the problem, I think we will have to

look the same way here and adding additional FBI agents. Thank you for

your time. No one, but no one could have

predicted quite how the past week The party that five days ago faced

possible revolt over a Commons vote is tonight looking

a lot more at ease with itself. A comfortable Labour win in Oldham

gives Jeremy Corbyn the filip of his first electoral endorsement

since he became leader. And the free vote

on Syria air strikes showed he still had plenty of supporters within

his Shadow Cabinet. Our party is, not just here in old

but all over the country, it shows the way we have driven the Torres

back on tax credits, on police cuts, an the whole

and -- agenda and narrative. It shows how deep rooted and strong our

party, the Labour Party is, for the whole of Britain. Thank you very

much everybody. But within these five days we've

also seen the emergence of a newly empowered Shadow Foreign

Secretary - Hillary Benn, who And of course a government who won

the Commons vote, but still has to convince the public the course

of action is the right one. Danny Finkelstein, Tory Peer,

Polly Toynbee of the Guardian, and James Schneider,

an activist with Momentum. I'm sure you've got much more grand

titles and they will appear shortly on the screens.

On Monday did you think that you would be feeling like this on

Friday? Difficult to say what I was thinking on Friday, -- on Monday, it

has been an emotionally tense week, we have been debating whether we

should be bombing Syria. As your introduction showed, in the end, we

have come out of it pretty strongly. Jeremy Harris shown strong

leadership, the overwhelming majority of members backed him, the

overwhelming majority of the Shadow Cabinet and MPs backed him. --

Jeremy has shown strongly to ship. Tom Watson, this morning, said that

your movement was a bit of a rabble, in irrelevance. I think we played a

role, providing the tool is a Borders and others to write to their

MPs, to say what they think about whether we should be bombing Syria.

And over 30,000 people e-mailed their MPs to say, please do not bomb

Syria. That had a sizeable effect. You have a message for Tom Watson,

who has called you and irrelevance? I do not wish to respond. We have

shown we are an effective. White poly, you would not call yourself a

supporter of Jeremy Corbyn but this has been a solid victory. A very

good victory for Labour. Very important that they should win it.

-- Polly, you would not call yourself a supporter of Jeremy

Corbyn. Jim McMahon is a very effective leader of the council,

moving his way up. You are deliberately saying this has nothing

to do with Jeremy Corbyn. I think you have got to remember that

by-elections are mostly won by oppositions, Ed Miliband one lot of

them, particularly early on in his time, Michael Foot won a lot of

by-elections during the early 1980s. By-elections are not very good

predictors of general elections. Where we are in the polls is more or

less the same as where we were at the general election, the Tories are

up a bit, Labour down a bit, not a significant change. What we are

looking for, what Labour needs, is any sign that Labour can bring over

at least some conservative voters in the crucial 94 marginal seats. That

is the great test. Old is not a good test of that. What is good news

about old, it sort of Ukip. Ukip was the great threat in places like

Oldham, so we were told. Danny, a lot of people trying to write of

Jeremy Corbyn. -- Oldham is not a good test of that. People trying to

see of Jeremy Corbyn, he is proving resilient. This week will have

strengthened him, I believe that before the Oldham result, which I

did not anticipate, I did not anticipate Labour would do so well,

because I had received reports that that was not the case on the

doorstep. In the end it was consistent with by-election results

for opposition parties, will be speaking, that is not what had been

anticipated. -- broadly speaking. Jeremy Corbyn depends on the support

of a broad Labour activist base, who elected him almost precisely because

of his views on this kind of issue. The more the Labour Party talk about

it, the stronger he gets. The idea that Hilary Benn has strengthened

himself by his speech, however effective it may have been with some

people, is to misunderstand the new geography of the Labour Party. He

has not strengthen himself, he has weakened himself, it is difficult

for someone with the position he has taken to command mass political

support of the Labour Party. If that is true, you are now looking at a

Labour Party that appeals either to Labour members or to his

parliamentary party, you will not get both. It is more serious than

that, either appeals to the party members or the voters, that is the

divide. That is Lee. Yellow I don't think that is the case, the

overwhelming majority of members were opposed to air strikes on

this, as were the overwhelming majority of MPs, slightly fewer MPs,

75%, members, 66%, MPs. There is not a huge split that has been spoken

about. The Labour Party view is different from the general public's

view. You have to say about the Oldham result, it is consistent with

the theory that he can be electorally appealing. There are

more plausible explanations for the outcome but you cannot reject that.

Jeremy Corbyn has strengthened themselves with the membership, the

problem is, Polly has putted well, can he appeal to mainstream

conservative voters and get a swing back from the Conservatives? There

is a dialogue between Jeremy Corbyn and his supporters and the

supporters through Momentum and his supporters and nobody is inside that

debate. I don't think so, Jeremy Corbyn is reaching out to the

public, come to the meetings, go to address the public -- go to the

meetings where he addresses the public, is reaching out to the

people, his leadership is not characterised by sitting inside

Westminster and being a part of the discussion. On the question of the

war, oddly enough, in a lot of people's mind, he is closer to where

the public are, because the public were swinging against the war. They

were swinging in favour of Labour's official position.

The war is quite a bad test of where Jeremy Corbyn may stand in peoples

minds. End of the week, biggest question I have, is he any good?

There is definitely a constituency in the party and in the country for

the view that he expressed, although whether it is big enough is another

question. Watching him in the House of Commons, that was not a good

deployment of the argument, some people in the SNP, for example,

deployed it much better. Jeremy Corbyn's decision to give a free

vote was not strategically correct. I do have some questions... I think

he has emerged stronger, because the party expressed support, but I was

not impressed by his conduct. David Cameron, number ten, a good week in

terms of the vote, but privately, there are real worry is these

bullying allegations, which go to somewhere much deeper. Those are

very important, my own view is that that does not have a very big

political effect, what might have an effect, you were right to say this,

a very big, substantial policy decision made, and it is extremely

difficult to see the way through in Syria. With the government actions,

which I did think were the right thing to do, there cannot be enough

by themselves. You are in a situation which is difficult to

limit. That is one of the bigger political situation. Waiting for

things to go wrong and then saying, here is the man that told you it

would. We do not want things to go wrong, lives are at stake, but we

think things will go wrong, and Jeremy Corbyn has been

underestimated consistently by his opponents, once again, by large

sections of the media and by his opponents. Thank you very much.

The first test of public political opinion since the attacks on Paris

come this weekend, with regional elections in France on Sunday.

The polls suggest the far-right party, the Front National,

They are looking to win between two and four of the 13 regions, which

would be seen as a springboard for a push for the presidency in 2017.

One of those regions is the South East,

from where Gabriel Gatehouse sent this

This little town voted in a Front Nationale mayor last year, so these

citizens know what it might look like to have a far right candidate

running things. He has improved security, planted flowers, spruced

up the place, according to this lady. These players are divided, one

says, he has not done much. Another says, he has done more than the last

guy. This is your father 's old car... This man, the mayor, it turns

out, is a bit of a character, 40 years old, a businessman from

Paris. The trouble with the Front Nationale, he tells me, is this,

people like their policies, but they don't like to be associated with

them. -- 40-something. When you open a Front Nationale office, you have

to do the same thing... Searching for the right analogy... A sex

shop! Really? Exactly the same thing, it has to be seen, but nobody

can see who is inside! LAUGHTER There is a serious side to this,

Front Nationale is trying to shed the image of a party of thuggish

neo-Nazis. They say that they have no problem with foreigners, or

immigrants, so long as they are patriotic. I love the people who

love my country, I do not like the people who hate it. To be clear,

anti-Semitism... Tolerated? It was never in my time tolerated. What

about anti-Islamic feeling? I think there is a huge problem with Islam.

It wants sharia law to be all over the world. This region, known as

Provence and got busier is one of the most diverse in the country,

including Marseilles, the first port of entry for generations of

immigrants. And the Paris attacks are put the spotlight on security

and on the Muslim population of France. -- Cote d'Azure. This is

fertile territory for the Front Nationale. At their rallies, the

faithful can sense victory within their grasp. Their candidate here in

the south is the 25-year-old granddaughter of the party's

founder, John Marine Le Pen, projecting herself as a breath of

fresh air, innate politics dominated by the out of touch elite. --

Jean-Marie Le Pen. They are all jeering at the mainstream

politicians, projected up on the big screen. These people have come to

see one person and one person alone. Marianne Le Pen, she's young, she

looks good on television, she is on the verge of becoming a superstar of

the far right. The speeches about French pride and identity, there is

no skinheads in the audience, but virtually no non-white faces,

either. She says, we know what we are, and we know what we are not. We

are not an Islamic nation. She spoke of the terrible lessons of Paris,

November 13. Afterwards, I asked her what she thought the lesson was.

Opinion polls suggest the Front Nationale's popularity has increased

by between 4% and 7% nationally since the Paris attacks. Here in the

south, the party is attracting middle class, middle income voters,

success in these regional elections could be a prelude to a strong

challenge for the presidency, in 2017.

Marseilles is home to an estimated quarter of a million Muslims, many

complain of systematic discrimination, jobs, housing and

more. For years, the community has been lobbying the Council for

permission to build an official grand Mosque, they have been

allocated this site, at an abandoned slaughterhouse in the rundown

northern outskirts of the city. -- Marseille. Construction has been

repeatedly blocked by the Front Nationale.

Abdul acknowledges that his community has a problem with

radicalisation, but here in Marseille, it feels like the twin

pressures of the attacks in Paris and the rise of the Front Nationale

is pulling the city apart, one elderly resident came up to speak to

me unbidden, he said, there is fear now, we are afraid to go to their

neighbourhoods, they are afraid to go to ours. He defined them as, "

the French", and us as, " the Muslims".

STUDIO: With a risk taker like Kasper Holten at its helm,

London's Royal Opera House has been shaking things up a little,

recent offering Morgen Und Abend, a world premiere by the Austrian

With minimal staging and a large amount of German,

it will test even the most enthusiastic of opera lovers.

It will receive its broadcast premiere tomorrow evening at 6.30pm

Newsnight was given exclusive access to the rehearsal process.

Covent Garden's history is full of marvellous, risky, new operas, it is

lifeblood to any new opera house to commission new work. Whenever we do

a new work, there is a risk. We are bringing a composer to a wider

audience who may not be well-known, asking him to take a chance on

someone we think has something important to say. But it is a bigger

risk not to take risks. -- asking that audience to take a chance.

Morgen und Abend is existential to its core, on an almost empty stage,

we find Johannes, a fisherman at the moment of his death, it is not yet

realise what has happened. Having done Anna Nicole, having done a big

success with that, you could say that you need to commission the

exact opposite, an opera about a Norwegian fishermen, getting born

and dying, that is about that! The Norwegian author is the most

performed living dramatist in Europe, but he has never gone down

particularly well in the UK, described by one critic as Beckett

without the laughs. It is about old love, not young love, and profoundly

touching. The love scenes between Johannes and his dead wife.

It is not minimalistic, minimalism, in my opinion, that means a

reduction of emotion. This is a music which is very romantic. Very

emotional. These emotions are grey and white. The music speaks

profoundly to me, it takes me to places within myself where I have

not been before. For this opera, he has abandoned his

habitual music language, instead, at the start, he has replaced the

singing voice with the spoken voice. In an opera house, the most

fantastic instrument is the human voice! I cannot say I agree, of

course I agree, but how the tone is, that, we know, is the most important

thing. Because then you speak properly, from wherever you like,

your soul. -- whatever you like. Casting an acclaimed actor known to

British audiences for roles in things like James Bond, out of

Africa and may help Mephisto to Amelia late Mac -- ameliorates the

risk. The greatest living composer in Austria, the greatest living

actor in Austria, that is the match, he is a most extraordinary animal

actor. If the energy is right it does not matter if somebody is

singing, talking, I answer can do any thing, even to a bird (!)

LAUGHTER It does not matter. Of course I had

him in mind, I'm sure, if you would give him a telephone book and ask

him to recite it, he would be able to make it interesting, strong,

intense... ! We should not do new opera because it is important, we

should do it because it is amazing. What will British audiences make of

Morgen und Abend, is British taste too different, or will it find

success as the operatic equivalent of Nordic noir? Conservative British

audiences do not like change, it really depends upon which kind of

audience comes to see it! I think this is a piece of its ordinary

genius which will hit powerfully in the gut everybody who sees it.

which this week is presented by the robot-obsessed singer Ana Matronic.

We hear a lot about how robots might affect the future of our economy,

but they are already making a big impact on art and culture.

I'm Ana Matronic, lead singer of the Scissors Sisters,