Browse content similar to 05/04/2016. Check below for episodes and series from the same categories and more!
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Iceland's Prime Minister quits | :00:00. | :00:09. | |
after revelations in the Panama Papers. | :00:10. | :00:12. | |
Our Prime minister insists he's tough on corruption, | :00:13. | :00:16. | |
so is it time to impose direct rule | :00:17. | :00:18. | |
on the tax havens who answer to Britain? | :00:19. | :00:22. | |
As trouble brews in paradise, we'll put that | :00:23. | :00:24. | |
Companies in Bermuda pay taxes, I am the taxman, I am the finance | :00:25. | :00:33. | |
minister, I can tell you, that we pay taxes. | :00:34. | :00:36. | |
And the former foreign office minister who took | :00:37. | :00:38. | |
back control of the Turks and Caicos tells us how he would do it now. | :00:39. | :00:52. | |
One week on from news that Port Talbot is up for sale, ministers are | :00:53. | :00:56. | |
to consider loaning money for a new power plant to bring down its huge | :00:57. | :00:58. | |
energy bills. How much our energy costs and the government energy | :00:59. | :01:01. | |
policy really to blame for the problems. And will anyone pay up for | :01:02. | :01:04. | |
its multi-billion pound pension burden? We will ask the former | :01:05. | :01:06. | |
pensions Minister for his view. the new prince of pop is under | :01:07. | :01:13. | |
attack for his hair style. Are Justin Bieber's white | :01:14. | :01:18. | |
dreadlocks an insult The Panama Papers have | :01:19. | :01:19. | |
claimed their first scalp. A big one, the Prime Minister | :01:20. | :01:40. | |
of Iceland, Sigmundur Gunnauggson, who, the papers revealed, | :01:41. | :01:42. | |
set up a company in the British Virgin Islands | :01:43. | :01:44. | |
with his wife and then, when he entered parliament, | :01:45. | :01:47. | |
failed to declare it. Our own Prime minister who had been | :01:48. | :01:49. | |
under pressure over the revelation of his late father's involvement | :01:50. | :01:52. | |
in a Panama based fund for investors, today insisted he had | :01:53. | :01:55. | |
no shares, no offshore trusts | :01:56. | :01:57. | |
and no offshore funds. It is the central role which British | :01:58. | :01:58. | |
dependencies have played in what Jeremy Corbyn today called | :01:59. | :02:01. | |
the encouragement of tax avoidance on an industrial scale that led him | :02:02. | :02:03. | |
to echo the call made by the former Business Secretary Vince Cable | :02:04. | :02:07. | |
on Newsnight last night for the imposition of direct rule | :02:08. | :02:09. | |
on British overseas territories VOICEOVER: The Panama papers have | :02:10. | :02:28. | |
claimed their first big scalp. CHEERING | :02:29. | :02:34. | |
A crowd here in Reykjavik have been demanding the resignation of | :02:35. | :02:36. | |
Sigmundur Gunnlaugsson, the prime on a stir of Iceland, if you days ago | :02:37. | :02:40. | |
he was dismissing claims that he had hidden wealth offshore in Panama and | :02:41. | :02:47. | |
today he quit over the scandal, his finance minister also implicated is | :02:48. | :02:51. | |
still hanging on. David Cameron has come in for some heat as well, his | :02:52. | :02:56. | |
late father, who worked in finance, used Panama as well. I own no | :02:57. | :03:02. | |
shares, I have a salary as Prime Minister, and I have some savings, | :03:03. | :03:06. | |
which I get some interest from, and I have a house which we used to live | :03:07. | :03:11. | |
in, which we now let out while we are living in Downing Street, that | :03:12. | :03:16. | |
is all I have. No shares, no offshore trust, no offshore funds, | :03:17. | :03:20. | |
nothing like that. The Labour leader focused today not an Panama but on | :03:21. | :03:25. | |
some of the British Overseas Territories, 14 of them, former | :03:26. | :03:28. | |
crown Colonies, still dependent on the UK. Many, like Montserrat and | :03:29. | :03:34. | |
the Falklands, have not become financial centres, others, have made | :03:35. | :03:38. | |
their way onto lists of tax havens. There is particular attention on bee | :03:39. | :03:42. | |
media, in the Atlantic, the British Virgin Islands and the Cayman | :03:43. | :03:46. | |
Islands in the Caribbean, and Gibraltar, in Europe. These | :03:47. | :03:50. | |
territories are accused of enabling excessive secrecy, of the sort that | :03:51. | :03:52. | |
allow the Icelandic Prime Minister to keep his investments hidden in | :03:53. | :03:58. | |
Panama. You can go through the British Virgin Islands, classic | :03:59. | :04:01. | |
case, you can incorporate a company very cheaply there, and then you | :04:02. | :04:07. | |
can, that company can own assets, and even though you, the rich | :04:08. | :04:10. | |
person, are the beneficial owner of the company, you can put nominees in | :04:11. | :04:15. | |
the way. If you go to the British Virgin Islands and try to find out | :04:16. | :04:18. | |
more about the company, and I have done that myself, you bang your head | :04:19. | :04:22. | |
against a brick wall. To give you a sense of what this secrecy means on | :04:23. | :04:25. | |
the ground, this is a company filing from the British Virgin Islands, LW | :04:26. | :04:32. | |
group Limited, 350578. It tells you the number of the lawyers who set up | :04:33. | :04:36. | |
the company and their address, the company current lawyers, and their | :04:37. | :04:40. | |
address. What it does not tell you is that this company is the owner of | :04:41. | :04:45. | |
a number of large British companies, namely, yodel, the delivery company, | :04:46. | :04:50. | |
and Littlewoods, the shop, it is not tell you who the shareholders are, | :04:51. | :04:53. | |
it is the Barclay brothers in this case. We can work out from filings | :04:54. | :04:57. | |
elsewhere what the Barclay brothers company is but other owners have | :04:58. | :05:00. | |
stayed off the radar. What can the Foreign Office do? Jeremy Corbyn | :05:01. | :05:06. | |
alluded to the fact that in 2009, London imposed a wrecked role on the | :05:07. | :05:11. | |
Turks and Caicos Islands because of local corruption, he suggested the | :05:12. | :05:14. | |
Foreign Office to do the same for overseas Territories who do not play | :05:15. | :05:18. | |
ball on secrecy. Actually it is more likely they would use another power. | :05:19. | :05:22. | |
The Foreign Office's final big lever is legal, it can pass laws or order | :05:23. | :05:29. | |
council through the Privy Council Office the territories into line, | :05:30. | :05:32. | |
that relies upon the overseas territories doing as they are told, | :05:33. | :05:37. | |
and not declaring independence. Some of the bigger overseas territories, | :05:38. | :05:40. | |
like Bermuda, may be tempted by that path. The Foreign Office considers | :05:41. | :05:45. | |
this a nuclear option, they would prefer to chivvy and encourage but | :05:46. | :05:51. | |
use little bargaining chips. The dramatic pressure is there preferred | :05:52. | :05:58. | |
weapon. It is seen as a bunch of banana republics, people can dismiss | :05:59. | :06:02. | |
that, what we are intimately involved in this issue, in this | :06:03. | :06:05. | |
problem, we in Britain, and in Europe. European tax savings, the | :06:06. | :06:10. | |
United States as well, the rich world is part of the problem, that | :06:11. | :06:14. | |
is where the tax havens are, you are not going to stash money into | :06:15. | :06:18. | |
Nigeria, you will stash it somewhere rich and developed. One thing has | :06:19. | :06:22. | |
become clear, Ireland's tax havens are only one corner of the | :06:23. | :06:24. | |
controversy around tax. -- island. STUDIO: Earlier I spoke | :06:25. | :06:36. | |
to the Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister | :06:37. | :06:39. | |
of Bermuda Bob Richards and asked him what he says | :06:40. | :06:40. | |
to Jeremy Corbyn's suggestion that places like Bermuda should be | :06:41. | :06:43. | |
brought under direct rule. I would say that the need is a | :06:44. | :06:48. | |
country that has its own constitution. | :06:49. | :06:52. | |
We have a democratically elected government that operates under the | :06:53. | :06:57. | |
rule of law under the Constitution, and the Constitution is an agreed | :06:58. | :07:00. | |
document with the United Kingdom government. We would not expect the | :07:01. | :07:08. | |
United Kingdom, a government that has great respect for the rule of | :07:09. | :07:16. | |
law, to breach their own covenants. How do you justify to British | :07:17. | :07:21. | |
taxpayers that you provide a place for people to hide the they are due | :07:22. | :07:25. | |
to pay in the countries where they are based? That is a question based | :07:26. | :07:33. | |
on a full is assumption. We have our own laws, our own taxes. Every | :07:34. | :07:38. | |
company that incorporates in Bermuda has two provide the government | :07:39. | :07:45. | |
agency, the bemused and monetary authority, the names of the | :07:46. | :07:49. | |
beneficial owners of those companies. -- the Bermudan monetary | :07:50. | :07:57. | |
authority. That includes trusts. It is a beneficial ownership register. | :07:58. | :08:00. | |
You provide the information but you do not deny that they are not paying | :08:01. | :08:04. | |
the taxes they are due to pay in their own country, for example, | :08:05. | :08:10. | |
Britain. If the British authorities think that some Britain has a | :08:11. | :08:13. | |
company in Bermuda, and they are not paying their taxes, we will assist | :08:14. | :08:19. | |
the UK Government, your government's laws around taxes, are for them. | :08:20. | :08:25. | |
Anything that we can do, the only thing we can do, is cooperate and | :08:26. | :08:29. | |
assist with you when asked through the proper channels. Why do you | :08:30. | :08:34. | |
think that in 2013, David Cameron said to Bermuda that you had to get | :08:35. | :08:41. | |
your house in order? I think that he misspoke, quite frankly, because | :08:42. | :08:47. | |
insofar as a business concern, the United Kingdom is planning to | :08:48. | :08:53. | |
construct a beneficial ownership registry. So that you know that. -- | :08:54. | :08:58. | |
I'm sure that you know that. The media has had such a registry for 70 | :08:59. | :09:04. | |
years, 70... It does not mean that you are not a tax haven. Yes it | :09:05. | :09:12. | |
does? Yes, it does, the people of Bermuda pay taxes, companies pay | :09:13. | :09:15. | |
taxes, I am the taxman, I am the finance minister, I can tell you, | :09:16. | :09:20. | |
the taxes come to about 18% of GDP. We pay taxes. Every time I put up | :09:21. | :09:27. | |
taxes I get howls of from residents, as I did in this budget session. The | :09:28. | :09:32. | |
notion that we can run a country, run a government, without taxes, is | :09:33. | :09:36. | |
not really realistic. Do you put yourself in a different bracket from | :09:37. | :09:41. | |
the Cayman Islands and the British Virgin Islands? I'm not going to | :09:42. | :09:45. | |
comment on overseas territories, the only thing I can say to you is this: | :09:46. | :09:52. | |
there seems to be a tendency on the part of not just the UK but the UK | :09:53. | :09:56. | |
included and other countries to treat all overseas territories the | :09:57. | :10:02. | |
same. One size fits all. I continue categorically, one size does not fit | :10:03. | :10:07. | |
all. The constitutions of those islands that you mention are | :10:08. | :10:12. | |
different from Bermuda, we have a higher level of self-government, | :10:13. | :10:16. | |
than they do. From the beginning, from 1947, our forebears had the | :10:17. | :10:22. | |
notion that we did not want just anybody doing business in Bermuda, | :10:23. | :10:26. | |
we would screen them and we would approve them, and discard the ones | :10:27. | :10:31. | |
that did not meet our standards. That is the reason that you do not | :10:32. | :10:35. | |
see the new dimensions in those Panama papers. By the way, I must | :10:36. | :10:41. | |
remind you, the UK is mentioned in the Panama papers! But, not Bermuda. | :10:42. | :10:43. | |
Thank you for joining us. STUDIO: Joining me now from Cardiff | :10:44. | :10:50. | |
is Chris Bryant Labour MP who was the minister responsible | :10:51. | :10:53. | |
for the last time we took powers imposed direct rule on the Turks | :10:54. | :10:56. | |
and Caicos Islands in March 2009, though in that instance it was to do | :10:57. | :11:01. | |
with a corruption scandal. Wait a minute, what a load of | :11:02. | :11:09. | |
baloney you have heard, Bermuda certainly has no income tax, no | :11:10. | :11:14. | |
property tax, no sales tax, no inheritance tax! It is a tax haven! | :11:15. | :11:20. | |
The whole point of the way some overseas territories have | :11:21. | :11:22. | |
constructed their tax regime is not just to be competitive, but is to | :11:23. | :11:28. | |
attract people to try to hide their international assets there. Do you | :11:29. | :11:34. | |
agree with Jeremy Corbyn that direct rule should be imposed on the | :11:35. | :11:37. | |
territories and dependencies? The one thing that was said that was | :11:38. | :11:41. | |
right, we should not treat them all exactly the same way. You have | :11:42. | :11:45. | |
criticised Bermuda, could there be direct rule? Not tomorrow, no there | :11:46. | :11:50. | |
should not, there are plenty of other powers that the UK Government | :11:51. | :11:55. | |
already has, which it has, for some reason for the last six years it has | :11:56. | :11:59. | |
been choosing not to exercise. Sorry to enter, let me clarify the | :12:00. | :12:03. | |
position, is Jeremy Corbyn wrong to lump them together? He has not lump | :12:04. | :12:08. | |
them together, we are not saying that we should suddenly install | :12:09. | :12:12. | |
direct rule over the Falkland Islands, Pitcairn, the British | :12:13. | :12:16. | |
Indian Ocean Territory! The point is really important, in Turks and | :12:17. | :12:21. | |
Caicos, the cavernous is still chaired by the British governor. -- | :12:22. | :12:26. | |
the cabinet. All legislation must receive Royal assent, because they | :12:27. | :12:29. | |
are part of the British Crown. There are plenty of powers that the | :12:30. | :12:33. | |
government has. Let me give you one instance, when I was Foreign Office | :12:34. | :12:39. | |
minister, in 2009/10, several of the financial services overseas | :12:40. | :12:41. | |
territories, which Jeremy Peace writes 2.2, they were insignificant | :12:42. | :12:45. | |
financial problems and they needed to borrow a lot of money. -- which | :12:46. | :12:56. | |
is right to point to. I refuse to allow them to borrow more money, | :12:57. | :13:01. | |
until such time as they brought in some broader tax basis, because it | :13:02. | :13:06. | |
is one thing to try to have a competitive tax regime, I understand | :13:07. | :13:10. | |
that, but it is another to have a set of rules which means that you | :13:11. | :13:15. | |
can hide the beneficial ownership of significant assets from the rest of | :13:16. | :13:18. | |
the world. It is worth bearing in mind that 8% of the worlds wealth is | :13:19. | :13:23. | |
hidden. Let's be clear, a lot of what is being revealed and will | :13:24. | :13:29. | |
still be revealed and is yet to be revealed was during Labour's watch. | :13:30. | :13:36. | |
This is a long-standing problem. I agree. | :13:37. | :13:40. | |
It is not one-sided fits all but is there an argument for taking Turks | :13:41. | :13:50. | |
and Caicos under direct control and how would you do it? You would have | :13:51. | :13:57. | |
two order in Council, a pretty straightforward process. But it is | :13:58. | :14:02. | |
the implications of it. Of doing that, what would they be? They would | :14:03. | :14:07. | |
be dramatic. That would be the nuclear option. I would say you need | :14:08. | :14:13. | |
to use all the other powers and I'm mystified why why the Conservative | :14:14. | :14:16. | |
government in 2010 or Coalition Government, decided to allow all bad | :14:17. | :14:22. | |
are linked to go forward for all those other countries without | :14:23. | :14:25. | |
requiring them to move forward on transparency. The one point in | :14:26. | :14:30. | |
relation to Bermuda, which is key, it is all very well to gather | :14:31. | :14:34. | |
information within Bermuda, on beneficial ownership, but you need | :14:35. | :14:38. | |
to share that between all the different dependencies, overseas | :14:39. | :14:44. | |
territories and the UK Government, to make sure you're doing it | :14:45. | :14:49. | |
properly. And in the end, my constituents spit with fury when | :14:50. | :14:53. | |
they hear that there is one set of rules for the ultra rich and another | :14:54. | :14:57. | |
set of rules for everyone else. Everyone else has got to pay their | :14:58. | :15:01. | |
fair share of tax and why should these big corporations not. Why | :15:02. | :15:07. | |
should wash and go or kitten able to hide ownership of properties through | :15:08. | :15:13. | |
companies in BBI or why should we in the UK not be able to know that the | :15:14. | :15:17. | |
president of the United Arab Emirates owns vast chunks of the | :15:18. | :15:22. | |
London property market. Thank you very much for that, Chris Bryant. | :15:23. | :15:24. | |
There are two big imepdiments to a potential sale of Tata Steel, | :15:25. | :15:27. | |
we'll deal with the massive pension burden in a moment, | :15:28. | :15:29. | |
but the other is the cost of energy, twice what Germany pays. | :15:30. | :15:34. | |
Industry, and not just the steel industry, | :15:35. | :15:36. | |
But is there an inventive way to tempt a buyer in, | :15:37. | :15:40. | |
through an energy deal, or is energy a red herring? | :15:41. | :15:45. | |
Here's the FT's energy correspondent Kiran Stacey, | :15:46. | :15:47. | |
who we asked to shed some light on the issue. | :15:48. | :15:56. | |
Among the attempts to save steel-making at Port Talbot, | :15:57. | :15:59. | |
one intriguing idea sits on the table. | :16:00. | :16:02. | |
Supposing the government could lend the money | :16:03. | :16:09. | |
for a buyer to build their own gas power station | :16:10. | :16:11. | |
The cripplingly high energy costs, about which Tata has | :16:12. | :16:14. | |
repeatedly complained, would no longer be an impediment. | :16:15. | :16:16. | |
But how much are energy costs and the government energy | :16:17. | :16:24. | |
policy really to blame for the company's problems? | :16:25. | :16:26. | |
When steel companies are put under pressure and profit | :16:27. | :16:31. | |
margins are squeezed, or even wiped out completely, | :16:32. | :16:35. | |
those fixed costs and costs with reasonable variations, | :16:36. | :16:38. | |
like electricity, become a much bigger issue. | :16:39. | :16:40. | |
And that is what we have seen over the last two or three years. | :16:41. | :16:44. | |
There is no question that electricity prices for heavy | :16:45. | :16:46. | |
Higher in fact than any other country in the EU. | :16:47. | :16:50. | |
One explanation is the subsidies given to renewables such as wind | :16:51. | :16:57. | |
Like us, their subsidies are paid for by putting levies | :16:58. | :17:05. | |
But unlike us, the German government has given large industrial users | :17:06. | :17:09. | |
9 billion euros back on their bills since 2013. | :17:10. | :17:14. | |
In that time the UK has paid out just ?160 million. | :17:15. | :17:22. | |
Melting steel at temperatures of almost 1300 Celsius | :17:23. | :17:24. | |
But how much of an impact do energy prices and green subsidies actually | :17:25. | :17:30. | |
Of that 9.5p per kilowatt hour of electricity that UK heavy | :17:31. | :17:37. | |
industry paid in 2014, this is how it broke down. | :17:38. | :17:41. | |
The raw electricity accounts for 55% of the cost. | :17:42. | :17:46. | |
Delivering it accounts for another 27%. | :17:47. | :17:49. | |
And energy and climate change policies account for 15%. | :17:50. | :17:58. | |
Of the overall costs of running a blast furnace such | :17:59. | :18:00. | |
as those at Port Talbot, electricity accounts for about 6%. | :18:01. | :18:05. | |
Altogether therefore, green policy accounts for around 1% | :18:06. | :18:08. | |
of what it costs to melt steel at the South Wales site. | :18:09. | :18:12. | |
The figures you have seen are about electricity. | :18:13. | :18:17. | |
We are talking in Port Talbot largely about gas. | :18:18. | :18:20. | |
And gas is not affected by this at all. | :18:21. | :18:25. | |
And British Gas prices are about medium for the whole of Europe. | :18:26. | :18:34. | |
So it cannot be this, i.e., green taxes, which has affected | :18:35. | :18:37. | |
the closure or the threat of closure of Port Talbot. | :18:38. | :18:39. | |
There are lots of other things that could have done it, but above all, | :18:40. | :18:43. | |
it is the international price of steel which has | :18:44. | :18:45. | |
The government could of course remove green levies altogether. | :18:46. | :18:52. | |
It could, in the words attributed to David Cameron, | :18:53. | :18:54. | |
That would give you your one, maybe 2% saving on the cost | :18:55. | :18:59. | |
But compared to the 30% drop in the price of some steel products | :19:00. | :19:05. | |
worldwide in the last year, I'm not sure that that is going | :19:06. | :19:08. | |
to make the difference needed to save the British steel industry. | :19:09. | :19:18. | |
It is possible that generous government subsidies could pull | :19:19. | :19:21. | |
companies on the cusp of going under back from the brink. | :19:22. | :19:23. | |
But it seems that in the case of Tata, their problems | :19:24. | :19:26. | |
The other huge issue surrounding Tata or any other potential buyer is | :19:27. | :19:37. | |
pensions. With me now in the studio | :19:38. | :19:38. | |
is Steve Webb, who was Pensions Minister for the five years | :19:39. | :19:41. | |
of the coalition government. In your view is any potential buyer | :19:42. | :19:49. | |
going to take on the pension burden? It looks pretty toxic to me. You | :19:50. | :19:54. | |
have enough trouble making money selling steel but if you're worried | :19:55. | :19:57. | |
also about the cost of pension promises already made but the fact | :19:58. | :20:01. | |
that the pension deficit could blow up again in the future, you just | :20:02. | :20:08. | |
never knew a pension fund deficit and any purchaser would not want | :20:09. | :20:11. | |
that level of uncertainty. What would the most likely outcome be | :20:12. | :20:14. | |
question mark in a normal situation, if a business is running and become | :20:15. | :20:20. | |
insolvent, the pension fund if it is short of money as this is, and it | :20:21. | :20:28. | |
changes by the day. Potentially it runs into billions by some measures. | :20:29. | :20:35. | |
140,000 people involved, not just the workers working for Tata at the | :20:36. | :20:38. | |
moment. Yes, the people actively working, and another 30,000 who have | :20:39. | :20:43. | |
not yet retired, a round 80,000 to have retired. If the money goes into | :20:44. | :20:48. | |
the Pension Protection Fund, would you think is most likely, they will | :20:49. | :20:57. | |
not get 100% of their action. -- pension. It will not replace every | :20:58. | :21:01. | |
penny of the pension you're going to get. So men and women would lose | :21:02. | :21:06. | |
their pension. And the hardest-hit would be the longest serving. Just | :21:07. | :21:14. | |
explain why that is. No one is getting a full pay-out. If you have | :21:15. | :21:17. | |
not yet reached pension age you get 90% of something, that something is | :21:18. | :21:22. | |
capped. If you've worked in the industry man and boy all your life, | :21:23. | :21:26. | |
you could build up a pension or perhaps 60,000 a year but the cap | :21:27. | :21:31. | |
would take you down to around 30. You could lose potentially up to | :21:32. | :21:35. | |
half your pension. There is also an issue over whether it was index | :21:36. | :21:42. | |
linked. Again that would be the long serving workers who lose out. You | :21:43. | :21:46. | |
have brought in something to try to amend this, but it was not passed. I | :21:47. | :21:54. | |
thought it was wrong to cap long-term workers. If you have a | :21:55. | :21:57. | |
decent pension because you worked in a scheme of your life, it is not | :21:58. | :22:02. | |
their that it is capped so hard. So last year, I legislated for a bigger | :22:03. | :22:08. | |
cap for longer workers but that has not been implemented. It is that cap | :22:09. | :22:13. | |
plus 3%. And why has it not been implemented? I guess it has not been | :22:14. | :22:18. | |
a priority, to be fair to the new government, they have been doing | :22:19. | :22:22. | |
other things, but it ought to be a priority. Long serving workers need | :22:23. | :22:27. | |
this. And there is no impediment to David Cameron for example doing this | :22:28. | :22:31. | |
tomorrow. Detailed regulations could be done in a matter of months. So | :22:32. | :22:37. | |
before all this happens, it could be done. One of the other ideas being | :22:38. | :22:42. | |
floated is the idea that the government as it did with Royal | :22:43. | :22:45. | |
Mail, would take on the pension burden. And you rules would preclude | :22:46. | :22:51. | |
that, do you think, or not? It would be challenging to say the industry | :22:52. | :22:58. | |
is a special case. And the government would be worried that the | :22:59. | :23:03. | |
car industry, defence, aerospace, they would be worried about the | :23:04. | :23:06. | |
president. Not that they could not afford to, today they would not be a | :23:07. | :23:11. | |
problem but promises would need to be kept for decades to come. I think | :23:12. | :23:14. | |
the worried would be the president. Anti-EU? You're not allowed to | :23:15. | :23:18. | |
subsidise your own industries where the complete with other people. So | :23:19. | :23:24. | |
the EU takes the view there is too much steel capacity so that is hard | :23:25. | :23:27. | |
to see that working for the government. | :23:28. | :23:28. | |
The Canadian singer songwriter Justin Bieber has been accused | :23:29. | :23:30. | |
of cultural appropriation for wearing his blond | :23:31. | :23:32. | |
As someone who in the past defended US reality TV star Kylie Jenner's | :23:33. | :23:37. | |
right to style her hair in corn rows, | :23:38. | :23:40. | |
he is not unaware of the implications of his new hairstyle. | :23:41. | :23:43. | |
But are the Rolling Stones guilty because they appropriated soul blues | :23:44. | :23:46. | |
What is cultural appropriation and what is cultural appreciation? | :23:47. | :23:51. | |
This programme, the proud boast would be meaningless first with | :23:52. | :24:10. | |
Justin Bieber news if we were not all over his latest hairstyle. | :24:11. | :24:16. | |
The Canadian pop star has been dividing opinion with his new | :24:17. | :24:20. | |
hairdo. Are these dreadlocks and if so is it cultural appropriation as | :24:21. | :24:25. | |
some have claimed? Another man got into trouble on a San Francisco | :24:26. | :24:31. | |
campus for his haircut. You say I cannot have the hairstyle because of | :24:32. | :24:43. | |
your culture? Are you Egyptian? I have certainly been told, made aware | :24:44. | :24:49. | |
in no uncertain terms that the hairstyle I have had have been | :24:50. | :24:53. | |
deemed too black or not appropriate for that situation. So again of | :24:54. | :24:58. | |
white person is able to just kind of experiment with these hairstyles as | :24:59. | :25:02. | |
though there some of costume and is not subject to any of the same | :25:03. | :25:08. | |
stigma that a black person might be. It is frustrating. | :25:09. | :25:17. | |
At this busy mixed barbershop in London this evening the reaction to | :25:18. | :25:23. | |
the Justin Bieber Barnet Fair Rory seemed to be, keep your hair on. I | :25:24. | :25:29. | |
wish I had that amount of hair! Why not. If you've got the hair, you can | :25:30. | :25:35. | |
do whatever you want with it. I think they look nice. I do. The | :25:36. | :25:44. | |
crossover between cultures, it is predominately known as an | :25:45. | :25:51. | |
Afro-Caribbean type of thing. It looks a bit like punk. Not raster or | :25:52. | :26:02. | |
anything. That does not look very good! He is copying the black spiral | :26:03. | :26:08. | |
of dreadlocks I suppose. But he has changed it up a bit. It is like Mick | :26:09. | :26:14. | |
Hucknall and boy George, they tried to do something like that. If he had | :26:15. | :26:19. | |
come to you what would you have said this remark he would be in the chair | :26:20. | :26:23. | |
right there! I would ask one customer to get up and get him | :26:24. | :26:26. | |
straight in the chair, Justin Bieber! | :26:27. | :26:28. | |
Joining me in the studio to discuss this further is Ian Dunt the Editor | :26:29. | :26:31. | |
of "politics.co.uk", Emma Dabri an academic and writer. | :26:32. | :26:33. | |
And from our BBC studios in New York writer Chimene Suleyman. | :26:34. | :26:37. | |
Good evening. It is a particular debate in the United States. Do you | :26:38. | :26:44. | |
think that Justin Bieber has done something wrong? I think we should | :26:45. | :26:51. | |
not necessarily hold celebrities to a higher status than the rest of us. | :26:52. | :27:01. | |
The issue really, he is allowed to do what he wants to do with his own | :27:02. | :27:04. | |
hairstyle. But we have a responsibility to each other and | :27:05. | :27:08. | |
responsibility to marginalised communities to listen to why this | :27:09. | :27:13. | |
had them or if there is something we are doing is harmful. What might be | :27:14. | :27:19. | |
harmful about that. And then make an informed decision. In your opinion | :27:20. | :27:22. | |
what is harmful? I think there is a fine line between cultural | :27:23. | :27:26. | |
appropriation and cultural appreciation. It is a fine line. But | :27:27. | :27:33. | |
a line nonetheless. Appropriation I think, there has been a lot of | :27:34. | :27:36. | |
miscommunication about what the word means. It is not about necessarily | :27:37. | :27:42. | |
enjoying someone else's cultural aesthetic. It is about taking an | :27:43. | :27:48. | |
aspect of something that belongs to someone else, without their | :27:49. | :27:52. | |
permission, and profiting from it. Let me put that to Ian Durrant. It | :27:53. | :27:58. | |
is someone taking something from another culture, taking advantage | :27:59. | :28:05. | |
for example of a marginalised culture. Like chicken tikka masala | :28:06. | :28:11. | |
or Elvis Presley and the blues, which basically created rock 'n' | :28:12. | :28:16. | |
roll. Exactly that. We are people, we mix cultures and we mix | :28:17. | :28:20. | |
artistically. And bank god we do because if we do not we are | :28:21. | :28:24. | |
functioning in an almost identical way to the way the far right has | :28:25. | :28:27. | |
always asked us to in our little identity ghettos. That seems more | :28:28. | :28:32. | |
severe than the haircut of Justin Bieber. Does it matter? I think | :28:33. | :28:38. | |
saying that Elvis began rock 'n' roll is typical of what happens when | :28:39. | :28:43. | |
we see cultural appropriation at its finest. One generally of white | :28:44. | :28:48. | |
artist discredited and history will credit this person as being | :28:49. | :28:52. | |
responsible for something that has been born often out of black | :28:53. | :28:58. | |
struggle. You say that about the Rolling Stones as well? If you are | :28:59. | :29:02. | |
going to save the invented rock 'n' roll, that is a problem. Two said | :29:03. | :29:08. | |
they invented it, it is spurious. It is inaccurate. And it is crucial as | :29:09. | :29:14. | |
well the idea that the question was, is it an insult to African culture. | :29:15. | :29:21. | |
I think when we live in a time when African culture is diverse, is it | :29:22. | :29:27. | |
still routinely stigmatised and presented as letter, as primitive | :29:28. | :29:34. | |
and underdeveloped. But at the same time there is a systematic | :29:35. | :29:36. | |
extraction of African resources, physical, material and cultural. | :29:37. | :29:42. | |
That is when it gets into appropriation. It is not | :29:43. | :29:46. | |
appreciation, we do not actually appreciate African culture when | :29:47. | :29:48. | |
black people are participating in that. But only when a white person | :29:49. | :29:51. | |
starts to take ownership. Was Elvis taking the blues and doing | :29:52. | :30:06. | |
something with it, was that an act of cultural appropriation? The fact | :30:07. | :30:09. | |
that he is now known as the king of rock and roll... It speaks to the | :30:10. | :30:14. | |
fact that a white person will always end up with being predicted with an | :30:15. | :30:20. | |
innovation that has come from black struggle and creativity. So that was | :30:21. | :30:24. | |
a bad thing, most people would say that started a rich cultural | :30:25. | :30:33. | |
heritage we have all enjoyed. Often when something is taken, in the | :30:34. | :30:41. | |
past, they get the credit for it? And we live in a racist society, | :30:42. | :30:46. | |
unfair, but this is not a sensible way of dealing with that. | :30:47. | :31:00. | |
What would you regard as being an act of cultural appreciation? It | :31:01. | :31:06. | |
tends to happen more organically, I grew up in London, there is a | :31:07. | :31:11. | |
diverse community there, often what happens is that subcultures are | :31:12. | :31:15. | |
formed through that process. It has the be an organic thing. To go back | :31:16. | :31:21. | |
to what has been said about erasure, in the last week, with the debate | :31:22. | :31:23. | |
that was happening around Rory Goldstein, who was wearing | :31:24. | :31:28. | |
dreadlocks at a San Francisco University, there was a lot of real | :31:29. | :31:33. | |
commitment to the history behind the dreadlocks, how may people wanted to | :31:34. | :31:36. | |
mention that the Celts also wore dreadlocks. And Vikings. What | :31:37. | :31:42. | |
happened in that conversation, even in that debate was that the | :31:43. | :31:46. | |
African-American community, the black community, the Rastafarian | :31:47. | :31:49. | |
community, were deleted from the discussion. -- Corey Goldstein. To | :31:50. | :31:53. | |
favour a group of people that has not existed for the last thousand | :31:54. | :31:58. | |
years. It is... It is this level of erasure that we are talking about. A | :31:59. | :32:02. | |
different type of erasure, as you might call it, if you look at John | :32:03. | :32:09. | |
Cena walls, who got a lot of flak for taking a Bollywood theme in | :32:10. | :32:12. | |
India as part of a cold play music video. Was she guilty of cultural | :32:13. | :32:18. | |
appropriation? -- Beyonce Knowles. Cultural appropriation is not just | :32:19. | :32:22. | |
about taking the signifiers of a different cultural group and wearing | :32:23. | :32:28. | |
them and using them, it is about power dynamics, as far as I'm aware, | :32:29. | :32:32. | |
there is not such a discrepancy of power dynamics between | :32:33. | :32:35. | |
African-Americans and Indians, there is not a systematic use of Indian | :32:36. | :32:42. | |
culture by African-Americans for their own material and cultural | :32:43. | :32:47. | |
gain, in the same way that global popular culture takes and takes and | :32:48. | :32:51. | |
takes from black culture, lack people are rarely credited. Do you | :32:52. | :32:58. | |
accept the difference, Ian, that if Beyonce Knowles, for instance, | :32:59. | :33:04. | |
because there is similarity in terms of power, between African-American | :33:05. | :33:09. | |
culture and England's culture, is it OK for her to wear dreadlocks? -- | :33:10. | :33:15. | |
and Indian culture. You are saying there is a difference, yes. Power | :33:16. | :33:21. | |
dynamic start important that does not mean that one thing is immoral | :33:22. | :33:28. | |
one and moral another, we should not do some assessment of relative | :33:29. | :33:32. | |
levels of the scrum and nation. Is there a danger that this will lead | :33:33. | :33:36. | |
to more division, the more this has been emphasised. I think that there | :33:37. | :33:42. | |
is an organic exchange of cultures that happen, that kind of | :33:43. | :33:46. | |
contributes to London culture and too many manifestations of | :33:47. | :33:51. | |
contemporary culture. There is actually a far more... There is a | :33:52. | :33:54. | |
far more raw and cynical use of, within popular culture, really of | :33:55. | :33:59. | |
things that come from blackness, bearing in mind, blackness and | :34:00. | :34:05. | |
African this is still routinely subjected to this concept of being | :34:06. | :34:12. | |
inferior and lesser. And yet at the same time every blue seems to be | :34:13. | :34:14. | |
obsessed with the cultural output. -- Africaness. The calculation on | :34:15. | :34:20. | |
this, when I look at someone, I need to look at the race when I make an | :34:21. | :34:24. | |
evaluation of whether they are culturally appropriating or not... | :34:25. | :34:27. | |
Anti-racist teaching has been to look at what some things rather than | :34:28. | :34:30. | |
how they look, this runs against that. Thank you all very much | :34:31. | :34:34. | |
indeed. Riad Sattouf is a Franco-Syrian | :34:35. | :34:42. | |
graphic novelist who worked on Charlie Hebdo for a decade, | :34:43. | :34:44. | |
before the attack, won a Cesar for his first film and has now | :34:45. | :34:47. | |
put his own nomadic childhood between France, Libya and Syria | :34:48. | :34:50. | |
into a graphic novel memoir. It's a best seller in France, | :34:51. | :34:53. | |
has been translated into 15 languages, | :34:54. | :34:55. | |
and is about to be published here. The title of the memoir, | :34:56. | :34:57. | |
The Arab of the Future, refers to his father's belief that | :34:58. | :35:00. | |
Arab nationalism, as evinced by Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, | :35:01. | :35:02. | |
would transform the Arab world. And so in 1980 he takes his French | :35:03. | :35:06. | |
wife, whom he met at the Sorbonne in Paris, and toddler Riad off, | :35:07. | :35:11. | |
first to Libya and then to his family village near Homs | :35:12. | :35:14. | |
in Syria where comically nothing ever appears to go right for this | :35:15. | :35:17. | |
idealist bombastic man. We witness all this | :35:18. | :35:21. | |
through the the sensory the urine smell from | :35:22. | :35:24. | |
Libyan men and the sharp | :35:25. | :35:31. | |
and spicy air in France. But the book doesn't shy away | :35:32. | :35:33. | |
from his Syrian family's First of all, why have you begun | :35:34. | :35:45. | |
this odyssey, this is only the first part of what will eventually be your | :35:46. | :35:51. | |
life in the graphic novel. In 2011I had to help a part of my family that | :35:52. | :35:59. | |
were still living in Homs to come to France and I had difficulty | :36:00. | :36:01. | |
obtaining authorisation in France for them. So I wanted to tell, buy | :36:02. | :36:08. | |
comics, what was happening in the French administration. To tell the | :36:09. | :36:13. | |
story, I had to tell it from the beginning. So I started this | :36:14. | :36:20. | |
project. Early on the cartoon, you allude to your own ability as a | :36:21. | :36:24. | |
draw. -- in the cartoon. When other kids are drawing pictures, you are | :36:25. | :36:28. | |
drawing pictures of the French president! I tell the story of my | :36:29. | :36:34. | |
future, with my father, who was Syrian, my mother, French, I tell | :36:35. | :36:45. | |
the story, the birth of the ambition to become a cartoonist. Sometimes | :36:46. | :36:51. | |
people say that you are gifted to music, to drawing, I was very | :36:52. | :36:55. | |
interested to show that I think it does not exist! For me, for example, | :36:56. | :37:00. | |
one day, I had drawn a character like that, my grandmother, she | :37:01. | :37:07. | |
thought that it was the president, Pompidou, so in her eyes, I was a | :37:08. | :37:13. | |
genius. But then, you scribble, and you are rude and so forth, it is | :37:14. | :37:19. | |
more that you are controversial, as you are as a cartoonist. I was very | :37:20. | :37:26. | |
good at drawing when I was a child. To be like other people, I faked it! | :37:27. | :37:34. | |
One of your earliest memories is seeing Colonel Gaddafi, when you go | :37:35. | :37:38. | |
to Libya, your father idealises what he stands for, you see him | :37:39. | :37:42. | |
everywhere, you see him in the school, on the billboards. This idea | :37:43. | :37:47. | |
that dictators, early on in your life, become a very big thing for | :37:48. | :37:52. | |
you. My father was an educated man but from a very poor family, he was | :37:53. | :37:58. | |
for education, modernity, he was against religion. He had very strong | :37:59. | :38:04. | |
paradox, for example, he was admiring Colonel Gaddafi, he was | :38:05. | :38:07. | |
admiring Bashar al-Assad, he was dreaming of making one day a coup. | :38:08. | :38:13. | |
He wanted to execute everybody! He was obsessed... He wanted to become | :38:14. | :38:21. | |
somebody powerful. As a boy, it is what I am telling in the book, I | :38:22. | :38:25. | |
admired my father, and I thought that everything he was telling me | :38:26. | :38:32. | |
was the truth. Actually, difficult and dark elements in the book, what | :38:33. | :38:35. | |
happens when you go to the village, near Homs, where your father was | :38:36. | :38:41. | |
raised, you meet, first of all, children that you play with and your | :38:42. | :38:44. | |
cousins. Children are playing with plastic soldiers, and saying that | :38:45. | :38:48. | |
these are is really soldiers, cut off their heads, they are Jewish. My | :38:49. | :38:54. | |
father was from a Syrian family, he became a doctor. He had been offered | :38:55. | :39:02. | |
to become a teacher at Oxford. He preferred to go back to the Arabic | :39:03. | :39:09. | |
world and Syria, we went to live in his village, to this small peasant | :39:10. | :39:14. | |
village. Near Homs. In the village, a very rude life. Syria was obsessed | :39:15. | :39:20. | |
with Israel, all of the children... You were inculcated at an early age, | :39:21. | :39:24. | |
your cousins thought you looked Jewish, they beat you up. They did | :39:25. | :39:28. | |
not think I looked Jewish, but it was because I was French origin, so | :39:29. | :39:34. | |
when you are from foreign origin, it was analysed that France was an ally | :39:35. | :39:38. | |
of the United States, the United States is an ally of Israel! When | :39:39. | :39:42. | |
you were French, you were Israelis! LAUGHTER | :39:43. | :39:47. | |
They were telling me that I was a Jewish! The first Arabic word I | :39:48. | :39:53. | |
heard was the word who Jewish. You produced this book am which has been | :39:54. | :39:58. | |
fated by both the left and the right in France, very good response to it. | :39:59. | :40:04. | |
-- feted. I wonder if some in the Arabic world think you have been | :40:05. | :40:08. | |
disrespectful, you are very funny about what you see as a medieval | :40:09. | :40:12. | |
view, actually... LAUGHTER ... Of the village near Homs, you | :40:13. | :40:18. | |
would presumably say on the other side, your grandmother was French. I | :40:19. | :40:22. | |
am telling the story of my family and my life. My family in Syria, | :40:23. | :40:27. | |
some of them read that there was a book, they said, it was like that. | :40:28. | :40:35. | |
It is very known. I'm just telling the point of view of the children in | :40:36. | :40:42. | |
a small village, near Homs, and I let the reader make their own | :40:43. | :40:46. | |
judgment on it. Thank you very much for joining us. | :40:47. | :40:50. | |
Before we go, let's take a look out of the windows. | :40:51. | :40:53. | |
Well, this studio doesn't have any, but the artist Gillian Wearing, | :40:54. | :40:55. | |
in a collaborative project with people all round the world, | :40:56. | :40:58. | |
has created a new artwork that celebrates the very different | :40:59. | :41:00. | |
views that people enjoy from their windows. | :41:01. | :41:02. | |
Your Views will premiere at the University of Brighton Gallery | :41:03. | :41:04. | |
from 30 April to 29 May as part of the 50th anniversary edition | :41:05. | :41:07. | |
of Brighton Festival and HOUSE festival. | :41:08. | :41:12. | |
Here are a few windows. Goodnight. | :41:13. | :42:08. | |
Good evening to you, looks like the weather is going to be very | :42:09. | :42:15. | |
changeable across the UK during Wednesday, and so from our two hour | :42:16. | :42:16. |