Browse content similar to 07/01/2016. Check below for episodes and series from the same categories and more!
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First week of the year, and it's not looking good | :00:00. | :00:07. | |
This year opens with a dangerous cocktail of new threats | :00:08. | :00:14. | |
For Britain, the only antidote to that is confronting complacency. | :00:15. | :00:24. | |
We'll ask if the next leg of the protracted sequence of global | :00:25. | :00:27. | |
Shocking footage from Syria draws attention to the latest horror | :00:28. | :00:38. | |
to afflict certain towns in the country - | :00:39. | :00:40. | |
After January, I'm available for | :00:41. | :00:50. | |
I wouldn't say that, or you'll be doing it. | :00:51. | :00:55. | |
Newly-published transcripts reveal a new contender for the greatest | :00:56. | :00:58. | |
Veteran script writer, Andrew Davies, talks us | :00:59. | :01:07. | |
Sex is terribly interesting to everybody. | :01:08. | :01:12. | |
Stock markets falling - especially in Shanghai. | :01:13. | :01:32. | |
Oil prices falling to shockingly low levels. | :01:33. | :01:39. | |
of a devaluation war in Asia which has all sorts | :01:40. | :01:41. | |
No wonder that Chancellor George Osborne thought it might be prudent | :01:42. | :01:47. | |
Anyone who thinks it is mission accomplished with the British | :01:48. | :01:54. | |
Or it will be the year we look back at | :01:55. | :02:09. | |
Yes, listen, and you'll hear the distinct sound | :02:10. | :02:19. | |
Remember, after the crash, its economy, and those | :02:20. | :02:30. | |
of other emerging nations, were the great hope. | :02:31. | :02:32. | |
And there are worries about the debt that accumulated in the years | :02:33. | :02:38. | |
In some ways, you can see the latest concerns as part of a pattern that | :02:39. | :02:43. | |
Go back to Japan in the 1980s, it was the world's beacon of growth | :02:44. | :02:56. | |
It was underpinned by credit growth and a property and stock market | :02:57. | :03:06. | |
They don't think the market is transparent enough. They don't | :03:07. | :03:17. | |
understand what is going on. The Japanese stock market | :03:18. | :03:19. | |
peaked at 39,000 in 1989. Today, two and half decades later, | :03:20. | :03:23. | |
it's at less than half that level. But while Japan had a hangover, | :03:24. | :03:30. | |
the world carried on turning, But they soon imploded | :03:31. | :03:32. | |
into a regional crisis Some of us are old enough to have | :03:33. | :03:56. | |
reported on it. The problems with Asia and the banks go far wider and | :03:57. | :04:01. | |
deeper than Japan. Just as El Nino is creating chaos in the weather | :04:02. | :04:06. | |
system, a global storm is staring in the world economy, coming from the | :04:07. | :04:12. | |
Pacific region. The number of countries that got into trouble in | :04:13. | :04:16. | |
Asia, borrowed money from the rest of the world. There were some common | :04:17. | :04:22. | |
themes and the most important was that they had all been on a private | :04:23. | :04:23. | |
growing binge. Over to the west, another bubble - | :04:24. | :04:26. | |
the dot com boom. A surge in optimism, growth | :04:27. | :04:32. | |
and subsequent disappointment. The west weathered the dot com crash | :04:33. | :04:35. | |
comfortably thanks to low interest rates and growing debt | :04:36. | :04:38. | |
that fuelled growth. Which kind of almost | :04:39. | :04:45. | |
brings us up to date. China was the post-crash | :04:46. | :04:53. | |
poster child. They were going to be | :04:54. | :05:01. | |
a market for the west, languishing in stagnation | :05:02. | :05:04. | |
and having to sort out debts. And yes, China did keep | :05:05. | :05:07. | |
going but now even it is running The fear is always that | :05:08. | :05:09. | |
you have not just a boom-bust cycle which is as old as the hills - | :05:10. | :05:13. | |
it's the boom underpinned by borrowing, with debts making | :05:14. | :05:16. | |
the subsequent bust all the more And the issue is, is there a bit | :05:17. | :05:22. | |
of that in China now? Look back at the last decade, debt | :05:23. | :05:33. | |
in China has been growing, fuelling growth. It is not clear the debt | :05:34. | :05:40. | |
will be paid back. You can't go on fuelling the economy by letting debt | :05:41. | :05:48. | |
rise like that for ever. China is resonating the kind of financial | :05:49. | :05:51. | |
crisis we have seen in the past in other parts of the world, which is | :05:52. | :05:56. | |
that it is starting to look quite shaky on the basis of an unstoppable | :05:57. | :05:59. | |
build-up in credit creation and debt. The government should step in | :06:00. | :06:04. | |
to break it and stop it. The story is that while China's | :06:05. | :06:06. | |
factories keep producing - overproducing perhaps, | :06:07. | :06:09. | |
the world has been struggling to buy all the stuff that it's | :06:10. | :06:11. | |
capable of churning out. We know how to spend, | :06:12. | :06:13. | |
but not how to then pay There is a cocktail of pernicious | :06:14. | :06:24. | |
things going on in the global economy, which has to do with the | :06:25. | :06:33. | |
legacy of past access. So, in the Western world, we are still dealing | :06:34. | :06:36. | |
with the consequences of our own financial crisis which was caused | :06:37. | :06:41. | |
why excessive credit. In the emerging countries today in general, | :06:42. | :06:46. | |
particularly in China, they are having to deal with the consequences | :06:47. | :06:48. | |
of excessive credit creation. So many economic crises - | :06:49. | :06:51. | |
is another one due? In a moment we'll be discussing how | :06:52. | :06:53. | |
worried we should be with two big beasts of the economic jungle, | :06:54. | :07:00. | |
but first, let's focus for a moment on the situation | :07:01. | :07:02. | |
in China with the BBC's Asia Business Correspondent | :07:03. | :07:05. | |
Karishma Vaswani. The stock market is what they are | :07:06. | :07:12. | |
feeling at the moment and it has been pretty remarkable, having to | :07:13. | :07:18. | |
shut down as soon as they opened? It has been a remarkable start to the | :07:19. | :07:25. | |
New Year. On Monday when trading first started, the circuit breaker | :07:26. | :07:29. | |
mechanism the Chinese authorities put into place, that kicked in | :07:30. | :07:32. | |
shutting trading down for the day on Monday. Things looked better on | :07:33. | :07:38. | |
Tuesday, but on Thursday, we saw this happen again. 29 minutes of | :07:39. | :07:43. | |
trade, the shortest trading day in China's history of the stock market. | :07:44. | :07:50. | |
Pessimism and anxiety investors. Give us a little bit on the exchange | :07:51. | :07:55. | |
rate. It is complicated in China, two exchange rates. There is a fear | :07:56. | :08:02. | |
of an exchange rate war going on in that region? Basically what has | :08:03. | :08:05. | |
happened is the feeling is the central Bank of China allowed the | :08:06. | :08:14. | |
currency to depreciate to rate we haven't seen since 2011. Other | :08:15. | :08:19. | |
countries in the region become less competitive. Many of these countries | :08:20. | :08:23. | |
in Asia have benefited from the economic boom we have seen in China | :08:24. | :08:27. | |
over the last decade. Think of Australia, Indonesia, Malaysia, | :08:28. | :08:33. | |
selling the commodities to the hungry giant China is. As a result | :08:34. | :08:38. | |
of this effect give devaluation there are concerns we could see a | :08:39. | :08:42. | |
currency war across the region forcing other countries to try and | :08:43. | :08:45. | |
lower their currencies at a time when the US is raising interest | :08:46. | :08:50. | |
rates 's. Looking at it briefly, to what extent have the authorities in | :08:51. | :08:55. | |
China run out of tools to get growth. You cannot just keep using | :08:56. | :09:05. | |
monetary creation? They made the decision today to suspend the | :09:06. | :09:09. | |
circuit breaker mechanism on the stock market. It shows they are | :09:10. | :09:13. | |
running out of ideas. There is a lot of speculation in China that they | :09:14. | :09:19. | |
don't know what to do next. In the weeks to come, we will start to see | :09:20. | :09:23. | |
more moves from the regulators there. Thank you very much. | :09:24. | :09:26. | |
I'm joined now by Adair Turner, a former chair of the Financial | :09:27. | :09:29. | |
Services Authority, who has written a book about our pact with debt. | :09:30. | :09:31. | |
And Rupert Harrison, who until 2015, was the chief of staff | :09:32. | :09:34. | |
This thesis there is a link between this crises and China, do you buy | :09:35. | :09:54. | |
it? Yes, I assert in my book it is there. You look at the fundamental | :09:55. | :09:59. | |
cause of the financial crisis in 2008, it is driven by the fact that | :10:00. | :10:03. | |
private debt in the advanced economies had gone from 50% of GDP | :10:04. | :10:12. | |
in 1950 to 170% of GDP in 2007 and grew pretty much every year for | :10:13. | :10:18. | |
those 57 years. What has happened since 2008 is the debt hasn't gone | :10:19. | :10:22. | |
away, it is just shifted around. In the advanced economies we have | :10:23. | :10:26. | |
achieved a very small amount of reduction of debt to GDP in the | :10:27. | :10:30. | |
private sector, offset by a big increase in public debt. Then we | :10:31. | :10:36. | |
have had a big shift of debt to the emerging markets and in particular | :10:37. | :10:40. | |
to China. Essentially that growth of the Chinese debt was deliberately | :10:41. | :10:46. | |
planned by the Chinese authorities in 2009 as the mechanism to offset | :10:47. | :10:52. | |
the dangerous impact for the economy of the crisis in the West. But it | :10:53. | :10:57. | |
has got to a stage now, where it is out of control and that | :10:58. | :11:02. | |
extraordinary investment boom, in particular a construction boom has | :11:03. | :11:10. | |
come to an end and we are facing the deflationary consequences of that. | :11:11. | :11:14. | |
This pattern isn't over yet and the total level of debt has just gone up | :11:15. | :11:20. | |
and up. Rupert, do you buy the Chinese problem, because most of us | :11:21. | :11:24. | |
are focusing on the stock market and interest rate, do you think deep | :11:25. | :11:29. | |
down there is a problem like there is in other places? Absolutely, in a | :11:30. | :11:37. | |
sense it was caused or at least exacerbated by the Chinese response | :11:38. | :11:41. | |
to our financial crisis. But I think China would have had to go through | :11:42. | :11:44. | |
something like this anyway. It is making a transition like many other | :11:45. | :11:51. | |
countries to growth not based on consumption. They exacerbated the | :11:52. | :11:55. | |
scale of the problem they had to face. They would have had to face it | :11:56. | :12:00. | |
anyway. The question is in all market economies, do we have debt | :12:01. | :12:05. | |
crises and financial crises, the answer is yes. As the world the only | :12:06. | :12:22. | |
way to make growth? Going back to Japan, you have had a beacon of | :12:23. | :12:24. | |
global growth getting into crisis and then another one runs with it | :12:25. | :12:30. | |
and builds up credit. Who will pick up the growth if China stops growing | :12:31. | :12:34. | |
and becoming the kind of spender of last resorts to the world? In a | :12:35. | :12:40. | |
sense, China's slowdown is nothing new. It probably started two years | :12:41. | :12:46. | |
ago. The story of 2015 is a economies like the UK, the US and | :12:47. | :12:51. | |
increasingly be eurozone, eked out decent growth, unemployment coming | :12:52. | :12:55. | |
down at a time when China was slowing dramatically. I don't think | :12:56. | :12:59. | |
we should be too pessimistic of our ability to grow without China. I | :13:00. | :13:05. | |
think the UK economy is doing OK, but only OK. The latest figures show | :13:06. | :13:11. | |
we grew by 2.1% last year. You have to allow for the fact we have a | :13:12. | :13:15. | |
population growing up .6% per annum. If you turn into the growth of | :13:16. | :13:22. | |
income per capita, it is only 1.5%. That has just got back to income | :13:23. | :13:27. | |
standards very slightly above the 2007 peak. This is getting on for an | :13:28. | :13:33. | |
entire decade, in which capitalism has failed to do what we thought it | :13:34. | :13:38. | |
would do before, which is to deliver at least over a decade period of | :13:39. | :13:43. | |
time, growth in income standards. Even in the US, which has been the | :13:44. | :13:47. | |
most successful recovery from 2008, this has been a mediocre recovery | :13:48. | :13:52. | |
compared with what the US economy used to do. At the core of that is | :13:53. | :13:57. | |
what is called the debt overhang. Is there anything new about that? | :13:58. | :14:04. | |
People have put together data that goes back a long way. The financial | :14:05. | :14:09. | |
crises have been part of capitalist economies for centuries. We know | :14:10. | :14:13. | |
recoveries from deep financial crises like the one we had, take a | :14:14. | :14:21. | |
long time. Over centuries, the human progress and wealth creation has | :14:22. | :14:25. | |
been unprecedented. It means the machine is running out of steam? | :14:26. | :14:30. | |
This has occurred at a higher level of debt than any since 1929. Very | :14:31. | :14:41. | |
briefly, do you have an idea for how you can have growth without | :14:42. | :14:48. | |
encouraging consumers to spend more? I have a radical proposal, there are | :14:49. | :14:52. | |
some circumstances in which your deflationary problems are so deep | :14:53. | :14:56. | |
you should run increased public deficit and funds them with central | :14:57. | :15:05. | |
bank money. You print the money and explain it you want to print money | :15:06. | :15:09. | |
rather than borrow it and get the growth without the borrowing? Yes | :15:10. | :15:12. | |
that's right. Whether you think that is a good idea or not, I will give | :15:13. | :15:17. | |
you a prediction one country of the world will do that, that country is | :15:18. | :15:25. | |
Japan, because it has a level of debt which it can not possibly pay | :15:26. | :15:30. | |
back. You said you didn't believe that bit. That that is the only way. | :15:31. | :15:38. | |
The UK and United States economies demonstrate what needs to be done. | :15:39. | :15:42. | |
The recovery has been slow, but it has been par for the course. The | :15:43. | :15:48. | |
only way way to grow is what has been happening, inVoe vat and in-- | :15:49. | :15:57. | |
innovate and invest. Should we be worried in conditions in the world | :15:58. | :16:03. | |
are poor to get growth we are going to resort to consumer spending, | :16:04. | :16:11. | |
shopping, borrowing. There is a myth that the recovery has been debt | :16:12. | :16:15. | |
fuelled. We can do it. And you know of course there are risks, China is | :16:16. | :16:22. | |
a risk, or other risks. The other lesson is you can have long | :16:23. | :16:29. | |
upswings. The big question is as we remove the fiscal stimulus and one | :16:30. | :16:33. | |
reason that has kept the UK economy going over the last five years is a | :16:34. | :16:40. | |
very big fiscal stimulus, even within the austerity which George | :16:41. | :16:43. | |
Osborne and Rupert were responsible for, that was a reduction in the | :16:44. | :16:48. | |
level of deficit, but it was still a big deaf #1i9. Ficit. Then we will | :16:49. | :16:56. | |
only be only grow by returning to private credit growth and that what | :16:57. | :16:59. | |
is the Office of Budget Responsibility forecast for the next | :17:00. | :17:03. | |
five years will be the case. Degrees of pessimism and optimism. Thank you | :17:04. | :17:05. | |
both very much. We've become used to seeing some | :17:06. | :17:08. | |
dreadful images coming out of Syria, but today distressing footage has | :17:09. | :17:11. | |
emerged that still has The situation in Madaya, | :17:12. | :17:13. | |
a town of 40,000 people that is just 15 miles | :17:14. | :17:16. | |
north-west of Damascus, is known to be dire - | :17:17. | :17:19. | |
it has been besieged for months, and people left there | :17:20. | :17:22. | |
have nothing to eat. Residents say they've received no | :17:23. | :17:25. | |
food aid since October and some have Well, images released by opposition | :17:26. | :17:28. | |
activists give some indication as to the suffering | :17:29. | :17:33. | |
that is resulting. This footage released by | :17:34. | :17:38. | |
the Syrian American Medical Society shows a young boy called | :17:39. | :17:42. | |
Mohamed Eysa, who tells us he hasn't I'm afraid we don't know any | :17:43. | :17:45. | |
more about this child, Finally, here you see | :17:46. | :18:01. | |
a banner in English - the adults desperate at least | :18:02. | :18:05. | |
to save the lives of the young ones and draw attention | :18:06. | :18:09. | |
to their situation. Activists say up to 40 | :18:10. | :18:10. | |
civilians have now died, either from starvation and lack | :18:11. | :18:13. | |
of medicines or from trying The better news today, | :18:14. | :18:15. | |
is that the United Nations says the Syrian government has agreed | :18:16. | :18:19. | |
to allow humanitarian aid We need to be clear though, | :18:20. | :18:21. | |
that while we have these pictures from Madaya, | :18:22. | :18:25. | |
this is not the only town Dr Ammar Ghanem is | :18:26. | :18:27. | |
originally from Madaya. He now works for a charity called | :18:28. | :18:32. | |
the Syrian American Medical Society and is in regular touch | :18:33. | :18:35. | |
with relatives from the town. Thank you for joining us. You're in | :18:36. | :18:49. | |
contact with the town. Your town. What can you tell us about what is | :18:50. | :18:55. | |
happening there? Well the situation is really above description. The | :18:56. | :19:01. | |
siege started in and has continued for 200 days. In the last two months | :19:02. | :19:09. | |
it's Ca lated. Now nothing is allowed come in or go out. The | :19:10. | :19:16. | |
regime has tried to put the check points in every entrance to that | :19:17. | :19:23. | |
area and the rest of border is planted with land mines. Who anybody | :19:24. | :19:29. | |
who will think about escaping will face his death and anybody who wants | :19:30. | :19:33. | |
to choose to stay will die from starvation. We are seeing pictures | :19:34. | :19:38. | |
today, but let's be clear we are only talking about it because we are | :19:39. | :19:41. | |
seeing the pictures, but this situation is not one that has just | :19:42. | :19:47. | |
occurred, and it is not the only place, Madaya? Yes there is multiple | :19:48. | :19:58. | |
areas like Madaya, but the only situation is more difficult than | :19:59. | :20:05. | |
other places. Gota is a larger place and they can plant and eat. Madaya | :20:06. | :20:10. | |
is a small area and people are forced to be in that prison without | :20:11. | :20:16. | |
any resources. So what about if you take a large number of the | :20:17. | :20:20. | |
population and put nit jail and say you're not going to have any food or | :20:21. | :20:27. | |
water and you let them die. That is what is happening in Madaya. We have | :20:28. | :20:32. | |
heard food will go in, but they're talking about that taking a few | :20:33. | :20:37. | |
days. Doctors as I understand it say every day now means fatalities. | :20:38. | :20:44. | |
Definitely. We started fatalities, we have a report from December, with | :20:45. | :20:50. | |
a documented 30 cases of death from hunger and starvation by names and | :20:51. | :20:56. | |
ages and each day we have more documented cases that die from | :20:57. | :21:00. | |
hunger. If we delay, we will talk about more people dying. Who will be | :21:01. | :21:06. | |
responsible for this. It is remarkable that in 2016 that | :21:07. | :21:11. | |
starvation is being used as a weapon of war. It is not just if Syrian | :21:12. | :21:19. | |
Government using that weapon, the UN says others been using starvation | :21:20. | :21:25. | |
and south-east and siege as weapons. Yes and it has nothing to do with | :21:26. | :21:29. | |
the conflict. No matter what the conflict is about. Why don't we | :21:30. | :21:34. | |
leave the civilians alone? They're humans and they want to live and to | :21:35. | :21:39. | |
take care of their children. So we need to leave them alone. The | :21:40. | :21:43. | |
situation here is another holocaust, like what happened to the Jews | :21:44. | :21:48. | |
before it can happen to Madaya people. This is happening in the | :21:49. | :21:52. | |
21st Century in front of our eyes. We ch see this through the social | :21:53. | :21:56. | |
media and the internet and we allow it to happen. Thank you and we know | :21:57. | :22:02. | |
that situation is getting more attention now. Thank you. | :22:03. | :22:07. | |
Well, that potentially makes more poignant the issue of Europe's | :22:08. | :22:10. | |
response to the humanitarian crisis in Syria, and the migrant crisis | :22:11. | :22:12. | |
At the time, Hungary was much criticised for its allegedly | :22:13. | :22:19. | |
not-very communitarian response to the crisis, | :22:20. | :22:23. | |
implacably opposed to the open border stance of the Germans, | :22:24. | :22:26. | |
keener than anyone on deploying copious quantities of fencing. | :22:27. | :22:31. | |
But in Germany right now, there are tensions | :22:32. | :22:34. | |
following the disorder in Cologne and other cities on New Years Eve | :22:35. | :22:38. | |
and other countries in the EU are now themselves rediscovering | :22:39. | :22:45. | |
their national borders, Sweden, Denmark for example. | :22:46. | :22:49. | |
Is the criticism of Hungary being revisited? | :22:50. | :22:53. | |
Mark Urban has been weighing up the arguments. | :22:54. | :23:04. | |
Europe's migration crisis keeps prompting nations | :23:05. | :23:07. | |
to do their own thing, while paying lip service | :23:08. | :23:11. | |
to the decisions reached collectively. | :23:12. | :23:15. | |
For Germany, that is a danger to the Schengen system of borderless | :23:16. | :23:18. | |
travel and European unity more widely. | :23:19. | :23:25. | |
TRANSLATION: I don't issue any concrete warnings here or say | :23:26. | :23:30. | |
what happens if, but I do say a Schengen | :23:31. | :23:33. | |
system can only work if there is joint responsibility | :23:34. | :23:35. | |
for taking in refugees and joint responsibility | :23:36. | :23:37. | |
Recriminations continue about the violent disorder | :23:38. | :23:49. | |
in Cologne, Stuttgart and Hamburg on New Year's Eve. | :23:50. | :23:51. | |
Was it mass sexual assault, were most of | :23:52. | :23:53. | |
the perpetrators asylum seekers or not? | :23:54. | :23:56. | |
As questions multiply, so too the political cost | :23:57. | :23:59. | |
for a Chancellor who accepted more than one million migrants. | :24:00. | :24:06. | |
There are divisions within the Christian Democrat Party. | :24:07. | :24:10. | |
I am not quite sure the Socialists are quite as united as they appear. | :24:11. | :24:13. | |
The one group which clearly is united are the German left, | :24:14. | :24:20. | |
but I think there are divisions in Germany, we have elections soon, | :24:21. | :24:22. | |
we will see how they work out. | :24:23. | :24:26. | |
At the moment I would still put money on | :24:27. | :24:28. | |
Merkel, but maybe less money than I would have done | :24:29. | :24:37. | |
Earlier this month Sweden put controls | :24:38. | :24:39. | |
The Danes have in turn now said they will be putting them | :24:40. | :24:44. | |
France meanwhile retains its border checks put in place after the Paris | :24:45. | :24:48. | |
attacks and other two Schengen signatories, | :24:49. | :24:50. | |
Austria and Slovenia, have now erected a border fence | :24:51. | :24:52. | |
As well as those internal checks, countries on | :24:53. | :25:00. | |
Europe's periphery have been putting fences too, | :25:01. | :25:04. | |
trying to keep migrants out and increasingly that approach | :25:05. | :25:06. | |
called Fortress Europe by some is seen as key. | :25:07. | :25:11. | |
Yes, I think that the Germans care about that. | :25:12. | :25:26. | |
Our citizens enjoy the abscence of internal border control | :25:27. | :25:28. | |
between Schengen states in Europe, but they | :25:29. | :25:32. | |
and only if external border control works and then internal border | :25:33. | :25:41. | |
Today, other European leaders are more | :25:42. | :25:50. | |
David Cameron voicing support for a comprehensive policy | :25:51. | :25:55. | |
to limit the flow of Syrians into Europe. | :25:56. | :26:02. | |
I quite agree with Victor that Europe needs strong external | :26:03. | :26:05. | |
borders and those that help provide those strong external borders | :26:06. | :26:07. | |
I believe are doing very much the right thing. | :26:08. | :26:14. | |
Much now depends on EU plans for a new border force and a deal | :26:15. | :26:17. | |
with Turkey to cut the flow of people to the Greek islands. | :26:18. | :26:21. | |
But neither promises to be a perfect solution. | :26:22. | :26:24. | |
Thousands of refugees are still making the journey weekly | :26:25. | :26:27. | |
and Europe's nations are still struggling to agree how | :26:28. | :26:29. | |
I'm joined from Spain by Peter Sutherland, | :26:30. | :26:39. | |
the United Nations Special Representative | :26:40. | :26:41. | |
of the Secretary-General for International Migration. | :26:42. | :26:49. | |
Can you give us a comment on what happened in Cologne and other German | :26:50. | :26:58. | |
cities, that seems to have thrown a new perspective on the the issue for | :26:59. | :27:04. | |
some people in Germany. The simple answer is I can't comment on it. The | :27:05. | :27:08. | |
German police have not commented fully on it. It is being | :27:09. | :27:13. | |
investigated. The numbers involved in the appalling hooliganism that | :27:14. | :27:16. | |
took place, where they came from and so on is an issue which can only be | :27:17. | :27:23. | |
resolved through proper judicial and police mechanisms of decision-making | :27:24. | :27:27. | |
and to make a comment on it and to apply a responsibility to any one | :27:28. | :27:32. | |
particular group will I think be quite wrong for somebody who doesn't | :27:33. | :27:36. | |
know the answer to it. I find hour and I must say this if I may at this | :27:37. | :27:45. | |
stage, I find this debate about borders, border controls, Razor wire | :27:46. | :27:48. | |
borders in the context of what you have shown in terms of what is | :27:49. | :27:54. | |
happening in Madaya and the fact that we are getting a hundred | :27:55. | :28:00. | |
thousand Syrian refugees, let's stop talking about migrants, the vast | :28:01. | :28:05. | |
bulk of these people are escaping persecution, our only concern should | :28:06. | :28:10. | |
be the humanitarian concern of doing about it, rather than having wires, | :28:11. | :28:15. | |
fences and borders to stop people moving across borders. Of course you | :28:16. | :28:21. | |
have to have at the borders of the European Union a proper assessment | :28:22. | :28:25. | |
of whether people are genuine refugees, but if they are, we are | :28:26. | :28:30. | |
all morally and legally obliged to let them in. And there can be no | :28:31. | :28:36. | |
comparison between the generosity of Germany, which has been obvious, and | :28:37. | :28:40. | |
the very opposite position which has been taken by Hungary in terms of | :28:41. | :28:50. | |
razor wire fences. Is there a dilemma, you can have a country like | :28:51. | :28:57. | |
Germany that lets in a million refugees and you have a incident | :28:58. | :29:03. | |
like Cologne and the beneficiaries to that are parties that benefit are | :29:04. | :29:09. | |
parties to the right that will stir up racial and ethnic tension and | :29:10. | :29:14. | |
they may be telling you there is a capacity for a country to absorb | :29:15. | :29:19. | |
refugees without tension, but if you bring a in too many you will create | :29:20. | :29:28. | |
dischord where there was Harman -- harmony. That is the challenge to | :29:29. | :29:34. | |
advance the more balanced view that can be advanced about the problems | :29:35. | :29:40. | |
that we are trying to resolve, the suffering of refugees, does this | :29:41. | :29:45. | |
generation of Europeans wish to be marked as earlier generations were, | :29:46. | :29:52. | |
with their refusal to take in genuine refugees. I'm not talking | :29:53. | :29:55. | |
about people who are not genuine refugees. But they have to take on | :29:56. | :30:00. | |
the debate. With the far right parties. Which are emerging all over | :30:01. | :30:05. | |
Europe and are growing and will no doubt be stimulated by events such | :30:06. | :30:10. | |
as those that took place in Cologne if they can be blamed on migrants. | :30:11. | :30:19. | |
But they have to be taken on. And not simply kowtowing to the argument | :30:20. | :30:23. | |
that we should put up borders all over Europe when our great source of | :30:24. | :30:24. | |
pride was that we had removed them. Does this not strengthen the David | :30:25. | :30:36. | |
Cameron argument that it is not about helping 200 thousand migrants | :30:37. | :30:42. | |
who got on boats and came to Europe, but it is about helping the millions | :30:43. | :30:47. | |
who are there in the region, in Lebanon or in parts of Syria. Is | :30:48. | :30:53. | |
that not the approach that doesn't allow the far right to benefit from | :30:54. | :30:58. | |
this and also helps more people? Of course we should be helping those | :30:59. | :31:03. | |
particularly in Turkey and in Lebanon who are taking, in the case | :31:04. | :31:11. | |
of Turkey, 2 million refugees and over 1 million in the Lebanon on. | :31:12. | :31:17. | |
But let me ask this question, 100,000 arrived in Greece in the | :31:18. | :31:22. | |
last short period. What is to happen then, are they to lie on beaches? | :31:23. | :31:31. | |
Are they to war, as 77% of them have done, up through the Balkans to be | :31:32. | :31:35. | |
blocked by razor wire fences. Are they to be lodged in camps and | :31:36. | :31:41. | |
locked into them? Or, are we to welcome them? Those are the only | :31:42. | :31:48. | |
alternatives, apart from sending them back to what you have just | :31:49. | :31:53. | |
shown on your television. That is not answerable other than by the | :31:54. | :31:58. | |
answer that we have defined away. Germany has given far more, as had | :31:59. | :32:02. | |
Sweden and many others in Europe in terms of giving places to refugees. | :32:03. | :32:09. | |
It is causing political difficulty in Germany to continue this when | :32:10. | :32:13. | |
others aren't doing this. Peter Sutherland, thanks. | :32:14. | :32:16. | |
He knows how to tell a story and he knows to make sure there's | :32:17. | :32:20. | |
sex appeal up there on the screen when he does. | :32:21. | :32:22. | |
Andrew Davies is Britain's best paid screenwriter. | :32:23. | :32:24. | |
He's the man who made Colin Firth's career by putting him | :32:25. | :32:27. | |
in a clinging wet chemise in 'Pride and Prejudice'. | :32:28. | :32:29. | |
And he's receiving acclaim this week, for his adaptation of 'War | :32:30. | :32:31. | |
and Peace', the BBC's big drama offering of the winter, | :32:32. | :32:34. | |
although some have suggested he's sexed up Tolstoy's masterpiece, | :32:35. | :32:39. | |
less subtly physical than the original. | :32:40. | :32:42. | |
Andrew Davies has been answering his critics, | :32:43. | :32:44. | |
and giving a master class on filleting the classics, | :32:45. | :32:46. | |
to our own very poorly adapted Stephen Smith. | :32:47. | :32:50. | |
Ask Andrew Davies to cut down a classic and he doesn't mess about. | :32:51. | :32:54. | |
Eventually I just took a pair of kitchen scissors and opened up | :32:55. | :32:59. | |
the spine and cut it through the middle. | :33:00. | :33:05. | |
I could carry it round in a jacket pocket then, that kind of thing. | :33:06. | :33:08. | |
Did you utter a silent apology to Tolstoy as one | :33:09. | :33:12. | |
I did feel a bit guilty about it, so I felt a kind | :33:13. | :33:18. | |
Poor old Tolstoy really had a hammering | :33:19. | :33:31. | |
We crossed the steps of Warwickshire to his | :33:32. | :33:35. | |
# If they asked me, I could write a book #. | :33:36. | :33:43. | |
So, this is my journey to work in the morning. | :33:44. | :33:46. | |
From the bedroom, into the cupboard in the corner. | :33:47. | :33:51. | |
Through the corresponding one in the next-door house and this | :33:52. | :33:54. | |
I think it's a very good thing to do, to chop out the boring bits. | :33:55. | :34:14. | |
Henry James called War and Peace a great baggy monster. | :34:15. | :34:19. | |
By which he meant it had lots of things | :34:20. | :34:23. | |
in it that Henry James, and in fact most modern critics, | :34:24. | :34:26. | |
would say shouldn't be in novels at all. | :34:27. | :34:29. | |
Great long essays about history and philosophy | :34:30. | :34:31. | |
So long as some of his ideas emerge through | :34:32. | :34:43. | |
Oh, this incestuous romp between brother and sister | :34:44. | :35:02. | |
Anatole and Helene, didn't happen in the book. | :35:03. | :35:04. | |
Say critics like Simon Scharma, who bashfully admits he only | :35:05. | :35:07. | |
made his way to the end of the novel eight times. | :35:08. | :35:11. | |
He probably read it eight times and never noticed it. | :35:12. | :35:16. | |
After my first reading, I hadn't noticed it either. | :35:17. | :35:19. | |
Actually, he did put one little scene in it where Anatole is kissing | :35:20. | :35:26. | |
Pierre comes upon them and is a bit alarmed. | :35:27. | :35:37. | |
You know, you think, well, that's not your average | :35:38. | :35:40. | |
I would write 70,000 men engaged in a | :35:41. | :35:51. | |
Bodies flying through the air and I'd just | :35:52. | :35:58. | |
cheerfully stop work and go and have lunch. | :35:59. | :36:05. | |
It's not my job to make it look like all this is happening | :36:06. | :36:08. | |
I'd like to think Colin Firth still sends you a cheque every | :36:09. | :36:18. | |
year for making him a star, Does that happen? | :36:19. | :36:21. | |
Sex is terribly interesting to everybody. | :36:22. | :36:34. | |
And it does help to sell shows. | :36:35. | :36:41. | |
So even if the coverage of it in the papers is exaggerated, | :36:42. | :36:50. | |
it usually does help the audience figures. | :36:51. | :36:57. | |
Is it possible to adapt a book and be faithful to it? | :36:58. | :37:02. | |
An adaptation is always different according to when it's | :37:03. | :37:05. | |
Even the reading of a book, when anybody | :37:06. | :37:11. | |
reads a book, it's different from another person's reading. | :37:12. | :37:14. | |
I used to teach English and I would give | :37:15. | :37:19. | |
lectures saying my God, this is a wonderful book and trying | :37:20. | :37:22. | |
This adapting job is a bit like that, only with millions | :37:23. | :37:30. | |
If you enjoyed Brokeback Mountain, you'll probably enjoy reading | :37:31. | :37:42. | |
the transcripts of conversations between Bill Clinton and Tony Blair, | :37:43. | :37:45. | |
They date to the late '90s, and came out of a BBC freedom | :37:46. | :37:50. | |
of information request to the Clinton Presidential Library. | :37:51. | :37:52. | |
The transcripts show the then British PM and the US President | :37:53. | :38:00. | |
Two youthful looking lawyers turned leaders, | :38:01. | :38:13. | |
back in 2000 one of them was about to become a father. | :38:14. | :38:22. | |
After January, I'm available for babysitting. | :38:23. | :38:28. | |
Oh, I wouldn't say that or you will be | :38:29. | :38:30. | |
You said you wanted to continue my work with the third way | :38:31. | :38:34. | |
Helping Blair balance work and family. | :38:35. | :38:37. | |
I tell you, Cherie's in great form but keeps | :38:38. | :38:41. | |
put you down on the babysitting list now, mate. | :38:42. | :38:48. | |
Now that would be a special relationship. | :38:49. | :38:54. | |
But in the transcripts of conversations running | :38:55. | :38:56. | |
to more than 500 page, sometimes a little more explanation | :38:57. | :38:59. | |
My staff won't let me talk to you un-Lescer's | :39:00. | :39:17. | |
Now, Bill, I thought we should have a word about Kosovo. | :39:18. | :39:21. | |
Intervention in Kosovo and the Northern Ireland peace | :39:22. | :39:23. | |
process were the backdrop to this bromance | :39:24. | :39:25. | |
between a second term Clinton and a first term Blair. | :39:26. | :39:31. | |
Thank you for giving Great Britain to Tony Blair and Tony Blair to the | :39:32. | :39:38. | |
world. As they chat we get a sense | :39:39. | :39:42. | |
of how these men view There is a limit to how many | :39:43. | :39:45. | |
times you can do it. Yeah, we end up being being part | :39:46. | :39:51. | |
negotiator and part therapist Some day we should write a book | :39:52. | :39:55. | |
together about these Northern Ireland figures large, | :39:56. | :39:58. | |
but the conversations don't I'm watching the end | :39:59. | :40:02. | |
of an old Peter Sellars movie. I can't tell, I've only | :40:03. | :40:13. | |
seen about five minutes, but Herbert just disappeared | :40:14. | :40:16. | |
along with a castle. with Northern Ireland. | :40:17. | :40:18. | |
humour since you're dealing I just wanted to bring you up today. | :40:19. | :40:36. | |
Tony Blair's answers from here were redacted. I know what you mean. It | :40:37. | :40:52. | |
is all redacted. Tony, when this comes out, who do you think they | :40:53. | :40:58. | |
will get to do the voices? I don't know, some impression it. Not that | :40:59. | :41:08. | |
Rory Bremner? That is more likely than Jeremy Corbyn leading the | :41:09. | :41:21. | |
That's all we have time for. Good night. | :41:22. | :41:26. |