Browse content similar to 06/04/2016. Check below for episodes and series from the same categories and more!
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A referendum vote that goes against the EU. | :00:07. | :00:08. | |
What message are European voters trying to send? | :00:09. | :00:15. | |
It's was not a vote about Dutch membership, and two thirds | :00:16. | :00:18. | |
of the country stayed away from the polls, | :00:19. | :00:20. | |
but the No campaign here will still take | :00:21. | :00:22. | |
Should we have hope or fear for the future of the British steel | :00:23. | :00:30. | |
industry, with Sanjeev Gupta the front runner to buy it? | :00:31. | :00:37. | |
It was done on the back of an envelope because we didn't have | :00:38. | :00:43. | |
access. It started a week ago, so we don't have any access to the data. | :00:44. | :00:48. | |
So you have done a back of the envelope calculation? Yes. | :00:49. | :00:49. | |
Also tonight, how to buy a Kalashnikov on Facebook. | :00:50. | :00:51. | |
We found a number of portable defence systems, shoulder fired | :00:52. | :01:03. | |
anti-aircraft systems. These are basically a threat to civilian | :01:04. | :01:04. | |
aviation. And I'll show you mine, | :01:05. | :01:06. | |
if you'll show me yours. We'll discuss how far | :01:07. | :01:08. | |
is transparency the answer to the questions raised | :01:09. | :01:13. | |
by the Panama Papers. Well, a blow to the EU | :01:14. | :01:22. | |
tonight in a public vote. A Dutch vote on the EU | :01:23. | :01:27. | |
treaty with Ukraine. Normally it wouldn't | :01:28. | :01:35. | |
come to a referendum, of signatures can get | :01:36. | :01:37. | |
it on to the ballot, And according to exit polls | :01:38. | :01:40. | |
in the vote today, the Dutch have rejected that Ukraine Association | :01:41. | :01:44. | |
Agreement. But one can only suspect that wasn't | :01:45. | :01:47. | |
really what the voters It's being seen by those who want | :01:48. | :01:50. | |
Brexit as a key test of public Nigel Farage has been out | :01:51. | :01:54. | |
in the Netherlands campaigning. How does it play into the debate | :01:55. | :02:02. | |
around our referendum? Alex Forsyth is our correspondent | :02:03. | :02:06. | |
in Amsterdam and joins us now. Start by giving us the school, the | :02:07. | :02:16. | |
margin of victory for the rejection of people and the turnout. The | :02:17. | :02:20. | |
results are still coming in but we've had the exit poll and as the | :02:21. | :02:23. | |
results have come in they seem to confirm it, a turnout of 32% which | :02:24. | :02:29. | |
is significant because the threshold required to make the referendum | :02:30. | :02:34. | |
result valid was 30%. It has just snuck over that. In terms of the | :02:35. | :02:39. | |
result, the exit poll suggests 64% of voters who went to the polls have | :02:40. | :02:43. | |
rejected the idea of ratifying the deal between the EU and the Ukraine. | :02:44. | :02:50. | |
What that means in reality is still questionable because 27 other | :02:51. | :02:53. | |
countries in the EU have backed the deal, the European Parliament has | :02:54. | :02:58. | |
backed it. Now the Dutch Foreign Minister Mark Rutte has said that we | :02:59. | :03:02. | |
will have to look at this again, that the no vote cannot be ignored. | :03:03. | :03:08. | |
He will talk to the cabinet in the Netherlands and to the EU and decide | :03:09. | :03:12. | |
how to progress without -- the Dutch Prime Minister. Although this was | :03:13. | :03:17. | |
ostensibly about the Ukraine deal with the EU, there was a bigger | :03:18. | :03:22. | |
issue, a test of your scepticism in the Netherlands because this was | :03:23. | :03:26. | |
triggered by the Eurosceptic campaign, using a new Dutch law | :03:27. | :03:29. | |
which was designed to promote democracy to get a petition | :03:30. | :03:33. | |
signatures to get the referendum to happen and they say that the result | :03:34. | :03:37. | |
is a victory showing that people are frustrated about the EU and they are | :03:38. | :03:43. | |
not prepared to take it any more. Commenting on the Brexit debate here | :03:44. | :03:46. | |
and how much the Dutch Eurosceptics are aware of what's going on here | :03:47. | :03:50. | |
and how they are timing this against British events. And by being Anglo | :03:51. | :03:54. | |
centric in thinking that way? Is the British vote playing a role in Dutch | :03:55. | :04:01. | |
politics? Undoubtedly it is, I was at the campaign event in a town | :04:02. | :04:07. | |
north of Amsterdam a couple of days ago and Nigel Farage was there. It | :04:08. | :04:11. | |
was a Eurosceptic rally, organised by the people behind the reference | :04:12. | :04:16. | |
campaign but he was greeted with a very warm reception, people knew who | :04:17. | :04:20. | |
he was and the sentiment was that, we want a node in the referendum, | :04:21. | :04:24. | |
which they see as giving a bloody nose to Brussels, as giving a signal | :04:25. | :04:30. | |
to the UK that you can do the same -- a no vote. As you might expect, | :04:31. | :04:37. | |
the Brexit camps in the UK have left on the result of ready saying that | :04:38. | :04:41. | |
it shows that we aren't alone in our concerns about the EU in terms of | :04:42. | :04:46. | |
its expansion and what they see as its democratic shortcomings. By | :04:47. | :04:50. | |
trying to use this result to embolden the Eurosceptic campaign | :04:51. | :04:54. | |
and it might do that but this is a singular result, on paper to do with | :04:55. | :04:59. | |
the Ukraine. Although it plays into the Eurosceptic argument and will be | :05:00. | :05:02. | |
seen as a boost to the Brexit campaign in the UK, one might argue | :05:03. | :05:06. | |
that its impact on the public could be fairly limited in Britain. Thank | :05:07. | :05:07. | |
you for joining us. Daniel Hannan, the prominent | :05:08. | :05:09. | |
eurosceptic, is on the And Michael van Gaal ten is funded | :05:10. | :05:26. | |
at yes campaign joins us -- Michael van Halten. What do you make of | :05:27. | :05:30. | |
this? In every referendum, people have voted against Brussels, we had | :05:31. | :05:34. | |
one in Greece and in Denmark and now the Netherlands. People have had | :05:35. | :05:37. | |
enough of a remote and self-serving bureaucracy. A funny question but | :05:38. | :05:43. | |
wiped wouldn't people vote -- why wouldn't people vote against | :05:44. | :05:49. | |
muscles, given that this is an issue that people don't know much about? | :05:50. | :05:54. | |
-- against Brussels. Isn't it telling how you put the question? It | :05:55. | :05:58. | |
assumes that the European system lacks legitimacy and public support | :05:59. | :06:03. | |
and that of course we would want to kick it. Like in a by-election, the | :06:04. | :06:08. | |
incumbent government always loses them because people want to keep | :06:09. | :06:11. | |
them on their toes. But the idea of Europe is that we would all get | :06:12. | :06:16. | |
along better, that the Schengen group would soothe those animal | :06:17. | :06:19. | |
cities but in reality, Europe isn't working. I don't think that this | :06:20. | :06:23. | |
vote was really about the Ukraine agreement, which I voted for in the | :06:24. | :06:28. | |
European Parliament. On almost every metric the European Union has failed | :06:29. | :06:32. | |
to deliver what it promised, greater prosperity and national cohesion. | :06:33. | :06:37. | |
You have to agree that every time the voters are given a chance to | :06:38. | :06:41. | |
vote on anything European, they vote against it, don't they? Absolutely, | :06:42. | :06:49. | |
there is a big problem for Brussels and the EU in terms of how we | :06:50. | :06:53. | |
communicate with citizens on European issues. It has to be said | :06:54. | :06:58. | |
that in this election, the referendum today, only one third of | :06:59. | :07:03. | |
voters took the trouble to vote and actually much of the debates during | :07:04. | :07:06. | |
the referendum campaign has been about the referendum law itself. | :07:07. | :07:10. | |
This was the first time that we have had a referendum under this new law | :07:11. | :07:14. | |
and two thirds of voters stayed at home. Many people who support the | :07:15. | :07:19. | |
agreement stayed at home. The discussion will be about the EU, but | :07:20. | :07:24. | |
also about how we conduct politics. A lot of people supporting Britain | :07:25. | :07:29. | |
staying in the EU will say, goodness gracious, basically, if the Dutch, | :07:30. | :07:32. | |
one of the original six members, one of the original three, the Benelux | :07:33. | :07:37. | |
concept, the core of Europe, if they are showing such satisfaction with | :07:38. | :07:42. | |
the project, this is really a very serious problem -- such | :07:43. | :07:49. | |
dissatisfaction. It is clear that it is a problem for Dutch politics and | :07:50. | :07:55. | |
politics in the EU. Issues that ten, 20 years ago could be taken behind | :07:56. | :07:59. | |
closed doors and were self-evident now being questioned by people and | :08:00. | :08:03. | |
that is a healthy process, but one that politics has not become | :08:04. | :08:06. | |
accustomed to. Politicians do not know how to discuss and sell these | :08:07. | :08:10. | |
issues to the voters and that is something we have to address. Can | :08:11. | :08:17. | |
this be seen as a kind of anti-elite vote, as much as an anti-European | :08:18. | :08:21. | |
vote? Everywhere you see voters, like in the US, choosing outsiders, | :08:22. | :08:27. | |
and there is a bit of that? There is an element of that, people look at | :08:28. | :08:32. | |
the Brussels project, they see politicians and the big banks and | :08:33. | :08:36. | |
the big arms companies and the establishment and a feud diplomats | :08:37. | :08:39. | |
and civil servants and they say, what's in it for everybody else, a | :08:40. | :08:44. | |
valid question to ask. We have democracy because we have got away | :08:45. | :08:48. | |
from self-serving oligarchies. It is a should aim -- it is a pity that | :08:49. | :08:55. | |
people see Brussels going in the opposite direction. Is it going to | :08:56. | :08:58. | |
play much in the British debate? Only in the sense that we are not | :08:59. | :09:02. | |
alone, almost every referendum now, France, the Netherlands, Denmark, | :09:03. | :09:11. | |
goes against British integration, it is not a British eccentricity. If | :09:12. | :09:15. | |
the British were to vote to leave the EU, would there be pressure for | :09:16. | :09:19. | |
a membership referendum in another lens? No, there is still massive | :09:20. | :09:24. | |
support for membership of the EU in the Netherlands and people clearly | :09:25. | :09:27. | |
saw it as a separate issue. People voted because they felt that the | :09:28. | :09:32. | |
Ukraine was not the right country to do a deal with. The Dutch | :09:33. | :09:37. | |
overwhelmingly support membership of the EU. Thank you for joining us. | :09:38. | :09:40. | |
Now before we leave the subject of Europe, just time | :09:41. | :09:43. | |
will make its most important political decision for a generation, | :09:44. | :09:52. | |
whether to leave or remain in the European Union. | :09:53. | :09:56. | |
Some have made up their minds, but if you are struggling | :09:57. | :09:59. | |
through the quagmire of competing arguments, | :10:00. | :10:02. | |
Over the next two months, Newsnight will be devoting a series | :10:03. | :10:07. | |
of special programmes to some of the key issues, | :10:08. | :10:11. | |
like migration, security, the economy and sovereignty. | :10:12. | :10:18. | |
Only you can decide how you will vote but we can arm | :10:19. | :10:21. | |
you with some of the information you need to make a choice, | :10:22. | :10:24. | |
so join us for the first of these special shows this Monday. | :10:25. | :10:32. | |
The starting gun has now been fired on the future | :10:33. | :10:36. | |
Tata Steel said today the sales prospectus for its UK operations | :10:37. | :10:40. | |
will be released on Monday, and they are then looking | :10:41. | :10:42. | |
The Business Secretary Sajid Javid was in Mumbai today, | :10:43. | :10:50. | |
talking to Tata Steel, and stressing that he's | :10:51. | :10:51. | |
talking to other companies who are potential buyers. | :10:52. | :10:53. | |
The most prominent of those, some would say the only show | :10:54. | :10:56. | |
in town, in fact, is a company called Liberty Steel | :10:57. | :10:58. | |
It's a newish company which has recently acquired some other | :10:59. | :11:04. | |
But can this bid realistically herald a new era for British steel? | :11:05. | :11:08. | |
Our policy editor Chris Cook reports. | :11:09. | :11:18. | |
What links the Palm, this development in Dubai, and offers | :11:19. | :11:24. | |
above a sandwich shop on the Isle of Man, and the troubled Tartar | :11:25. | :11:29. | |
steelworks at Port Talbot? The answer is the man who hopes to turn | :11:30. | :11:33. | |
those steelworks around, Sanjeev Gupta, the head of Liberty. Today, | :11:34. | :11:40. | |
the Business Secretary was in Mumbai to talk to Tata about the prospects | :11:41. | :11:46. | |
of selling the steelworks on. One company that has come forward, | :11:47. | :11:52. | |
Liberty International, which has an interest in the British Steel | :11:53. | :11:55. | |
industry. I met with them, that is one example. What I would like to | :11:56. | :11:59. | |
see is many more coming forward and I hope that is what happens. Sanjeev | :12:00. | :12:05. | |
Gupta's company recently took over part of Scotland and before that, a | :12:06. | :12:12. | |
plant in Newport. For a spell that thought the plant was running, he | :12:13. | :12:15. | |
paid the staff for three months and gave them half pay for 15 months. We | :12:16. | :12:22. | |
have had a good experience, our members were there over the | :12:23. | :12:26. | |
transition period, short time workers and they were supported | :12:27. | :12:29. | |
through the process and we've been able to work constructively with him | :12:30. | :12:33. | |
and with the company which I think bodes well for any future | :12:34. | :12:37. | |
arrangement. What does Sanjeev Gupta plan to do? A brief the local MP | :12:38. | :12:43. | |
earlier today. In the end he would like to close down the blast | :12:44. | :12:47. | |
furnaces because he believes they are high cost. And replace them with | :12:48. | :12:52. | |
an electric arc furnace, which he would build from scratch on the | :12:53. | :13:01. | |
site, which uses scrap steel and import slab steel from elsewhere in | :13:02. | :13:03. | |
the world, potentially Brazil for example. They are the key elements | :13:04. | :13:10. | |
of his proposal. He also talks about keeping one blast furnace open | :13:11. | :13:15. | |
through the transitional period, and possibly even for longer. There are | :13:16. | :13:19. | |
some issues, the plan is hardly complete. The analysis has been done | :13:20. | :13:26. | |
on the back of the envelope because we haven't had access. This started | :13:27. | :13:30. | |
a week ago, we haven't had access to the data. So what you have done is a | :13:31. | :13:34. | |
back of the envelope calculation? Yes. The fact that he does not seem | :13:35. | :13:39. | |
across the details now may come back to hurt him, he has two conveys the | :13:40. | :13:43. | |
Treasury to help him and there is another reason why it Whitehall | :13:44. | :13:47. | |
might not want to give him assistance, this is the week that | :13:48. | :13:53. | |
the Panama Papers came out and offshore businessmen are not the | :13:54. | :13:56. | |
flavour of the month. That is a category that Sanjeev Gupta falls | :13:57. | :14:01. | |
into. I'm not referring to the fact that his registered address is at | :14:02. | :14:06. | |
the Palm in Dubai. He also has a holding company on the Isle of Man, | :14:07. | :14:11. | |
liberty is UK is registered here in the rooms above Tasty Bite on the | :14:12. | :14:21. | |
north of the island. That is not his main holding company, that is in | :14:22. | :14:25. | |
Singapore, and that is where Liberty Steel's ownership leads. Sanjeev | :14:26. | :14:29. | |
Gupta will have to answer questions about what is onshore and what is | :14:30. | :14:33. | |
offshore pretty quickly. There are more simple questions. 60% of the | :14:34. | :14:38. | |
workforce in Port Talbot is employed in the heavy end, managing the blast | :14:39. | :14:44. | |
furnaces and parts of the process that are closest to that. And of | :14:45. | :14:49. | |
course, a model that possibly looks at closing down the blast furnaces | :14:50. | :14:54. | |
causes concern because of the impact on jobs. There are not many other | :14:55. | :15:00. | |
takers for the Port Talbot works although a management buyout is | :15:01. | :15:04. | |
quietly being worked on. Right now, saving our steel is far from | :15:05. | :15:06. | |
straightforward. While we are on the subject | :15:07. | :15:08. | |
of business, here is remarkable story about the trade | :15:09. | :15:10. | |
in weapons, trade online. And I'm talking real weapons | :15:11. | :15:16. | |
here like Kalashnikovs or even surface-to-air missiles and above. | :15:17. | :15:18. | |
Traded via Facebook, of all places. Not here, you'll be relieved | :15:19. | :15:22. | |
to hear, we are talking about a market in Libya, a country | :15:23. | :15:25. | |
already awash with weapons. Colonel Gaddafi was an obsessive | :15:26. | :15:41. | |
buyer of weapons. During his 40 years in power he spent an estimated | :15:42. | :15:47. | |
$30 billion on arms, like a compulsive shopaholic, he bought up | :15:48. | :15:49. | |
anything he could get his hands on from the humble Kalashnikov to tanks | :15:50. | :15:58. | |
and mortars, missiles and minds. When rebel forces toppled his regime | :15:59. | :16:03. | |
five years ago, Qaddafi's tightly controlled stockpiles were thrown | :16:04. | :16:07. | |
open. Today these weapons are largely concentrated in the hands of | :16:08. | :16:13. | |
rival militia groups but in this lawless and divided country, it's | :16:14. | :16:16. | |
getting easier for anyone to get their hands on a gun or even | :16:17. | :16:20. | |
something bigger. Newsnight has been given access to data that shows how | :16:21. | :16:25. | |
arms are being traded openly on the Internet. Researchers have been | :16:26. | :16:29. | |
tracking weapons sales on a number of different online platforms. A | :16:30. | :16:35. | |
rocket propelled grenade launcher, offered for sale on Facebook. | :16:36. | :16:38. | |
Another seller comment on the picture that he has more missiles | :16:39. | :16:43. | |
for sale. Over a period of the year, the researchers monitored more than | :16:44. | :16:48. | |
1300 weapons sales, on just a handful of pages, most of them | :16:49. | :16:55. | |
closed the secret Facebook groups. The research was commissioned by the | :16:56. | :17:00. | |
small arms survey, a group that tracks weapons proliferation around | :17:01. | :17:05. | |
the world. We spoke to one of the investigators in Libya who wanted to | :17:06. | :17:10. | |
remain anonymous for his own safety. Basically the dealer comes with the | :17:11. | :17:15. | |
gun in the trunk of his car, and other phone calls, they meet at a | :17:16. | :17:23. | |
certain place, usually a public place, and they do the transaction | :17:24. | :17:28. | |
not so public, it's quite discreet, 100% cash. Much of the trade is in | :17:29. | :17:34. | |
small arms, pistols, rifles, the kind of thing an individual might | :17:35. | :17:39. | |
want to buy for personal protection, especially in a country as lawless | :17:40. | :17:45. | |
as Libya. But not all of it. More worryingly, the researchers also | :17:46. | :17:48. | |
found evidence of bigger weapons being bought and sold online. They | :17:49. | :17:54. | |
trekked nearly 100 separate trades in what are known as light weapons, | :17:55. | :17:58. | |
that is light as opposed to heavy artillery, but make the mistake, | :17:59. | :18:07. | |
this is serious stuff. Traditionally they were small arms, rifles, | :18:08. | :18:11. | |
machine guns, there were significant systems that could have impact, | :18:12. | :18:17. | |
terrorist use, including anti-tank weapons. One seller offered this | :18:18. | :18:25. | |
anti-aircraft gun for 85,000 Libyan dinar, about ?45,000, truck | :18:26. | :18:34. | |
included. These are the kinds of weapons the rebels used to overthrow | :18:35. | :18:37. | |
Colonel Gaddafi, the kinds of weapons you would buy if you want to | :18:38. | :18:48. | |
wage an insurgent campaign. These man portable air defence systems up | :18:49. | :18:52. | |
perhaps the most worrying, hand-held surface-to-air missiles that can | :18:53. | :18:55. | |
take a passenger plane out of the sky. The researchers found two | :18:56. | :19:00. | |
systems for sale, this reusable shoulder head launcher, on offer for | :19:01. | :19:07. | |
between 4000 and 8000 Libyan dinar, or about 2000 to ?4000. We found a | :19:08. | :19:19. | |
number of shoulder mounted anti air missiles, they are basically a | :19:20. | :19:22. | |
threat to civilian aviation. Researchers believe that people | :19:23. | :19:27. | |
wanting to buy these weapons are a number of the militia but they are | :19:28. | :19:32. | |
also more worrying implications. Can see that the weapons are leaking out | :19:33. | :19:37. | |
and given the flow we already see of human trafficking, and other illicit | :19:38. | :19:41. | |
flows across the water into Europe, it's not beyond the realm of | :19:42. | :19:43. | |
possibility we could see some of these weapons going across the water | :19:44. | :19:50. | |
into Europe. Most of the weapons tracked by the researchers came from | :19:51. | :19:54. | |
Colonel Gaddafi's Arsenal although some had been shipped to Libya | :19:55. | :19:59. | |
before or after the revolution. In this country it is difficult to | :20:00. | :20:04. | |
define this trade in legal terms, it is certainly unregistered and it's | :20:05. | :20:07. | |
definitely against Facebook policy. In a statement, they told us: | :20:08. | :20:27. | |
at the moment this appears to be largely internal trade, that is to | :20:28. | :20:33. | |
say the weapons are being bought and sold by Libyans, most likely for use | :20:34. | :20:39. | |
in Libya. But the ease-of-use and anonymity the Internet offers | :20:40. | :20:43. | |
suggests threat of these weapons is spreading beyond Libya's borders. | :20:44. | :20:47. | |
While we talk about what the leaked Panama Papers tell | :20:48. | :20:50. | |
us about tax avoidance and evasion, there is another angle. | :20:51. | :20:53. | |
If I'm evil or if I'm a tax evader or even just imagine I'm | :20:54. | :21:01. | |
the Prime Minister of Iceland, I tend to prefer my private | :21:02. | :21:03. | |
And our society has been complicit in allowing the rich and | :21:04. | :21:21. | |
powerful to have their secrets because we allow | :21:22. | :21:24. | |
everybody to keep their finances to themselves. | :21:25. | :21:27. | |
Well all of a sudden the culture of privacy or | :21:28. | :21:30. | |
secrecy, call it what you will, that culture is under threat. | :21:31. | :21:32. | |
Really because of the data stick, the | :21:33. | :21:35. | |
technology of data storage and data search, has made it easier than ever | :21:36. | :21:39. | |
before to dump terabytes of secrets into the public domain. | :21:40. | :21:41. | |
And now we have seen it done, you wouldn't want | :21:42. | :21:44. | |
your life to depend on data that had been leaked. | :21:45. | :21:46. | |
So do we welcome this new world of transparency? | :21:47. | :21:51. | |
The Prime Minister certainly says he does. | :21:52. | :21:53. | |
You're going to have so much information about what we do, | :21:54. | :21:57. | |
how much of your money was spent doing it and what the | :21:58. | :22:00. | |
This cloak of secrecy has fuelled all manners of | :22:01. | :22:05. | |
questionable practice and downright legality. | :22:06. | :22:06. | |
And work with us to spread this abridged transparency around | :22:07. | :22:09. | |
Is it fair to say the Panama whistle-blower has done more | :22:10. | :22:16. | |
to prise open the murky world of offshore companies than the Prime | :22:17. | :22:19. | |
But let's ask why would we want for transparency, why not and how could | :22:20. | :22:30. | |
we achieve it? There is enforcing the tax rules, | :22:31. | :22:40. | |
the difference between legal appointment and illegal evasion is | :22:41. | :22:43. | |
you should have no reason to hide the legal ploys. But we also like | :22:44. | :22:50. | |
transparency in order to know where people's money comes from. We can | :22:51. | :22:54. | |
all ask the question had that person get to be so rich. President Putin's | :22:55. | :23:01. | |
cellist friend, we can see just how good a cellist he must been to gain | :23:02. | :23:09. | |
his wealth. So is there and I commit against transparency? He is one | :23:10. | :23:14. | |
offered by the Chief Executive of HSBC to MPs went emerged he was | :23:15. | :23:20. | |
hiding his fortune offshore. My question was why you felt the need | :23:21. | :23:27. | |
is a Hong Kong domiciled person to create a Panamanian company. There | :23:28. | :23:35. | |
was no tax purpose, it was... It was purely to give me privacy within my | :23:36. | :23:40. | |
own company. Is that a good enough reason? I suppose you might say that | :23:41. | :23:44. | |
as well as the bankers, kidnappers and crooks would be interested in | :23:45. | :23:49. | |
his private wealth data. But let me ask, do you think everyone who wins | :23:50. | :23:54. | |
the lottery should have to take the publicity box? Using your own salary | :23:55. | :23:58. | |
should be published so I can look it up, like I can look up your house on | :23:59. | :24:02. | |
the land Registry but the site to find out who owns it and at what | :24:03. | :24:07. | |
price they bought it? If all that sounds bonkers, it is exactly what | :24:08. | :24:11. | |
those crazy Scandinavians do already. Sweden, Norway and Finland, | :24:12. | :24:17. | |
everyone's income and tax details are published online. But that | :24:18. | :24:21. | |
Scandinavian example does give us a clue into how we get more openness | :24:22. | :24:27. | |
if we wanted. We would need a wholesale change of culture we from | :24:28. | :24:30. | |
the principle that my business belongs to me, and that's a pretty | :24:31. | :24:36. | |
big shift. Think of all the concern around procedure and encryption and | :24:37. | :24:42. | |
how we want the government to stop finding out staff to stop that is | :24:43. | :24:47. | |
what we want to do as well as distributing data sticks to | :24:48. | :24:48. | |
whistle-blowers. Earlier I spoke to Tom Macan, | :24:49. | :24:52. | |
the former governor of the British Virgin Islands, | :24:53. | :24:54. | |
who thinks we need more I began by asking him | :24:55. | :24:57. | |
what legislation he would seek The legislation has to be passed | :24:58. | :25:00. | |
by the Virgin Islands House of Assembly and I think it needs | :25:01. | :25:04. | |
to involve a public register, so that anyone can gain access | :25:05. | :25:07. | |
and find out just who owns what. Because that is rather | :25:08. | :25:18. | |
difficult at the moment. In your experience, did the British | :25:19. | :25:19. | |
government push very hard The British Virgin Islands, | :25:20. | :25:22. | |
the clue is in the name, isn't it? Did the British government tell | :25:23. | :25:31. | |
them, look, we want a bit There was pressure throughout my | :25:32. | :25:34. | |
time towards the running of an efficient and legitimate | :25:35. | :25:39. | |
financial services sector. But I can't say that it enjoyed | :25:40. | :25:46. | |
ministers' sustained attention And indeed the system, as it runs, | :25:47. | :25:53. | |
is indeed reasonably well monitored. The weakness comes at the end stage, | :25:54. | :26:01. | |
knowing exactly who owns what. The fact that this information | :26:02. | :26:10. | |
is only available to the agent, probably the legal firm, | :26:11. | :26:16. | |
in the Virgin Islands. Could the British government, | :26:17. | :26:21. | |
and I haven't really managed to hear a clear answer on this, | :26:22. | :26:25. | |
could the British government told the richest Virgin Islands, | :26:26. | :26:28. | |
you are going to do this, because we tell you you have | :26:29. | :26:30. | |
to do it? It would be possible for the British | :26:31. | :26:33. | |
government to obtain an order in Council, which is the basis | :26:34. | :26:40. | |
on which the BVI constitution exists and the order in Council | :26:41. | :26:46. | |
could give an instruction. This would be the nuclear option, it | :26:47. | :26:51. | |
has only been done twice recently. That was to abolish | :26:52. | :26:54. | |
capital punishment, and to abolish discrimination, | :26:55. | :27:00. | |
legislation forbidding But I can't say that it enjoyed | :27:01. | :27:04. | |
ministers' sustained attention There was an extent to which this | :27:05. | :27:24. | |
was rather meaningless because there had been no capital | :27:25. | :27:26. | |
punishment for half a century, and the laws making homosexuality | :27:27. | :27:29. | |
is a criminal offence had So this would be a very major | :27:30. | :27:31. | |
departure from current practice. Let's discuss this issue | :27:32. | :27:36. | |
of transparency versus secrecy with the Guardian's Polly Toynbee, | :27:37. | :27:38. | |
and the tax lawyer James Quarmby who leads the private wealth team | :27:39. | :27:40. | |
at Stephenson Harwood LLP, James, first of all, things have | :27:41. | :27:54. | |
changed. Even today as we speak, the law here has changed about who owns | :27:55. | :27:59. | |
companies. How significant is the change? Extremely, because we are | :28:00. | :28:04. | |
the first country to introduce a fully public register of companies. | :28:05. | :28:10. | |
That's not just who owns the companies but the people behind | :28:11. | :28:14. | |
those companies. And the one behind the one behind that? It will trace | :28:15. | :28:19. | |
all the way through, they have come up with a concept called persons of | :28:20. | :28:26. | |
significant control. Because it gets ridiculous after a while, if | :28:27. | :28:29. | |
somebody has a 2% interest in the company, there is no point reporting | :28:30. | :28:33. | |
that. Say you have persons of significant control, whoever they | :28:34. | :28:38. | |
are, wherever they are, whatever they are hiding behind, they are | :28:39. | :28:41. | |
going to be reported. And that works for companies. The FT are reporting | :28:42. | :28:49. | |
that David Cameron, in 2013, obstructed a similar idea as regards | :28:50. | :28:57. | |
the trusts. And I think the Cameron defence is that they wanted to make | :28:58. | :29:00. | |
sure it worked on companies they thought trusts different. | :29:01. | :29:08. | |
This comes from the money-laundering directive in the EU. What the EU was | :29:09. | :29:16. | |
saying is, let's extend this to trusts. Most of the EU don't have | :29:17. | :29:21. | |
trusts, so it is England that invented them. They are saying that | :29:22. | :29:26. | |
there are hundreds of thousands of trusts and most of them are so | :29:27. | :29:30. | |
mundane that requiring the trustees to report them becomes a complete | :29:31. | :29:37. | |
intrusion into your life. Before we go on to the general principle, the | :29:38. | :29:43. | |
British government's commitment to openness, Cameron has talked about | :29:44. | :29:47. | |
it all the time, do you buy it? He has talked a wonderful talk, he has | :29:48. | :29:52. | |
been lyrical about the corruption and how he's going to have sunlight | :29:53. | :29:57. | |
everywhere. We'll wait and see. What is coming in today is more minor | :29:58. | :30:02. | |
than it looks because there is nobody to check it, companies put in | :30:03. | :30:05. | |
their own reports, companies house do nothing with it. Banks who know | :30:06. | :30:10. | |
who the owners are are not required to tell companies house who are the | :30:11. | :30:17. | |
beneficial owners. I think there is a lot of wriggle room. What's more, | :30:18. | :30:23. | |
Cameron at this moment in Europe is blocking the blacklisting a lot of | :30:24. | :30:26. | |
these treasure Island is that we administer, these tax havens -- | :30:27. | :30:35. | |
Islands. He is telling his MEPs to block these things. Let's talk about | :30:36. | :30:42. | |
the principle, James, give us a legitimate reason why people should | :30:43. | :30:47. | |
have financial secrets, why they should be disguising their ownership | :30:48. | :30:50. | |
of assets at all? I want to challenge your use of the word | :30:51. | :30:55. | |
secrets and talk about privacy. There is a point at which | :30:56. | :30:59. | |
transparency becomes intrusive and a bad thing. You want some good | :31:00. | :31:04. | |
reasons? Let's look at all of the publicity we've had about online | :31:05. | :31:10. | |
identity theft. We're all told, be careful how much information you | :31:11. | :31:17. | |
give away, right? But that's not what is causing the super-rich to | :31:18. | :31:21. | |
have these companies in the Channel Islands? It is more complicated, | :31:22. | :31:25. | |
people are advocating that details of your wealth, if you want to take | :31:26. | :31:30. | |
the Scandinavian model, in Sweden they publish your tax returns, so | :31:31. | :31:34. | |
they know how much you learn, how much you give to charity. That's | :31:35. | :31:39. | |
going to provide criminals, conmen, opportunists of the worst possible | :31:40. | :31:44. | |
kind the leveraged to have a go at you. Polly, you are laughing? I'm | :31:45. | :31:52. | |
sorry! Criminals, they are the people sorting their money away, | :31:53. | :31:57. | |
there is no good reason why anybody should have offshore accounts. It is | :31:58. | :32:02. | |
easy to set up a company here, it is much more expensive and complicated | :32:03. | :32:07. | |
to do it there. You are hiding things, almost by definition, apart | :32:08. | :32:10. | |
from a fewer cases. You believe that all of it should be available for us | :32:11. | :32:17. | |
all to see? As you say, it would be a monstrous culture shock and people | :32:18. | :32:20. | |
would feel that they have had their clothes ripped off them, but once we | :32:21. | :32:25. | |
have got used to the idea and took up the Scandinavian idea, I think | :32:26. | :32:32. | |
people would realise, knowing what the person next to you earn is, are | :32:33. | :32:35. | |
you owning the same, especially women who often paid less... We | :32:36. | :32:43. | |
talked about asking what somebody's salary is. The whole point about it, | :32:44. | :32:50. | |
I have published it before, so has George Mumby in the Guardian, the | :32:51. | :32:56. | |
point about it is, what is my salary, I will come if you will! -- | :32:57. | :33:04. | |
Monbiot. Let's be open. The point is, like paying your taxes, you do | :33:05. | :33:08. | |
it because everybody else does and if somebody doesn't, they stop | :33:09. | :33:11. | |
paying their taxes, everybody else starts to say, I know these | :33:12. | :33:16. | |
billionaires who have their money salted away in tax havens, why | :33:17. | :33:21. | |
should I pay? Why are we focusing on billionaires? Ordinary people would | :33:22. | :33:25. | |
be impacted. Because they have the tax havens. Hold on, we're obsessing | :33:26. | :33:30. | |
over the rich and famous and notorious, I want to talk about the | :33:31. | :33:34. | |
60 million people who would be affected by the intrusion of having | :33:35. | :33:36. | |
their financial affairs posted on the Internet. Let me ask you, would | :33:37. | :33:43. | |
you nail your bank account on your front door for the public to see? If | :33:44. | :33:47. | |
everybody else will, absolutely. You are happy to do it, but do you want | :33:48. | :33:54. | |
to force that on other people, who wants to keep their affairs secret | :33:55. | :33:58. | |
and that isn't fair. What is happening now, most people pay their | :33:59. | :34:05. | |
tax and they feel that there are fears that smack their affairs are | :34:06. | :34:10. | |
not very secret but it is the mega rich offend people, and increasing | :34:11. | :34:15. | |
the late -- increasingly they are getting away with it. The Panama | :34:16. | :34:20. | |
Papers frightens people, people with a reputation to lose know that it | :34:21. | :34:23. | |
can be hacked and they had better not do it any more. | :34:24. | :34:26. | |
It's been distressing to read about the murder of Angela Wrightson | :34:27. | :34:28. | |
in recent days, mocked, tortured and killed at her own home | :34:29. | :34:32. | |
in 2014, by two girls, one aged 13, one 14. | :34:33. | :34:37. | |
The two are both 15 now, both have had lives appropriately | :34:38. | :34:44. | |
described as chaotic, both spending time in care, and it seems | :34:45. | :34:48. | |
the pair of them together, were far more unpleasant | :34:49. | :34:50. | |
They will be sentenced tomorrow, but what is the best way | :34:51. | :34:54. | |
You obviously can't call them victims in this case, | :34:55. | :34:57. | |
but can you treat them like ordinary murderers? | :34:58. | :34:59. | |
Let's discuss this with Laurence Lee, the solicitor | :35:00. | :35:02. | |
who represented John Venebles during the James Bulger case | :35:03. | :35:04. | |
in 1993, and Amanda Holt, a criminologist at the University | :35:05. | :35:07. | |
If I can start with you, Lawrence, first of all, is our system is | :35:08. | :35:20. | |
well-designed to deal with these kinds of cases, do you think? Let me | :35:21. | :35:26. | |
say from the outset, good evening, let me say from the outset that most | :35:27. | :35:30. | |
young people in society are well bought up and we are dealing with a | :35:31. | :35:36. | |
very small minority. This is a debate that has raged for years | :35:37. | :35:40. | |
about whether they are victims of society. There was a case of the | :35:41. | :35:48. | |
police officer who was killed, the guy who did it, Clayton Williams, | :35:49. | :35:55. | |
was found guilty of manslaughter and his solicitor said he was a victim | :35:56. | :35:58. | |
of society, which hasn't gone down very well. But as far as these young | :35:59. | :36:05. | |
girls are concerned, they are in the minority but I wish I knew the | :36:06. | :36:10. | |
answer to the problem. Let me put it to Amanda. How do you think or do | :36:11. | :36:15. | |
you think a 13-year-old should be treated the same as an 18-year-old | :36:16. | :36:19. | |
for committing the same crime? I don't think they should, we should | :36:20. | :36:25. | |
take into account the kind of vulnerabilities that children have. | :36:26. | :36:31. | |
They don't have the cognitive immaturity as an adult, which is why | :36:32. | :36:34. | |
we don't let anybody vote who is under 18 or buy cigarettes and | :36:35. | :36:41. | |
alcohol, or consent to sex. The age of criminal responsibility is | :36:42. | :36:46. | |
incredibly low in England and Wales, anomalous compared to the other | :36:47. | :36:50. | |
rights that we get. Answer that point, would you treat a 13-year-old | :36:51. | :36:57. | |
the same as an 18-year-old,? You can't treat them in the same way. I | :36:58. | :37:02. | |
have banged on about the age of criminal responsibility for years. | :37:03. | :37:04. | |
Maybe my views are slightly different from others'. The age of | :37:05. | :37:11. | |
common responsibility is in my view correct for grave crimes there may | :37:12. | :37:17. | |
be a two tier system. I think New Zealand has a two tier system for | :37:18. | :37:23. | |
the grave crimes, ten, but for minor crimes, maybe 13, 14. The courts | :37:24. | :37:28. | |
shouldn't be cluttered but it would be wrong to increase the age of | :37:29. | :37:36. | |
criminal responsibility. The Bulger killers could never have been | :37:37. | :37:40. | |
prosecuted. What kind of sentence, how do you decide to sentence | :37:41. | :37:44. | |
someone who is 13, and does it make a difference that they have had a | :37:45. | :37:49. | |
difficult background? You have to take their background into account, | :37:50. | :37:52. | |
and different disadvantages. That isn't suggesting that we should let | :37:53. | :37:58. | |
them off the hook. The other thing I'm concerned about, these debates | :37:59. | :38:02. | |
emerge when we have a case of such extreme horror, even young people | :38:03. | :38:05. | |
who are engaged in criminal activity, all of them, 99% of them | :38:06. | :38:11. | |
would be appalled at the horrendous crime but it is always these crimes | :38:12. | :38:14. | |
that are at the forefront of people's minds when we have these | :38:15. | :38:19. | |
debates and I think that is worrying because we have this idea of a young | :38:20. | :38:26. | |
people committing crime rather than the other crimes that people commit | :38:27. | :38:30. | |
and often grow out of. In a sentence, what kind of discount, | :38:31. | :38:35. | |
what kind of sentence are you talking about for such a crime? You | :38:36. | :38:42. | |
have to take each case and look at the context, I can't comment on this | :38:43. | :38:46. | |
particular case. I don't think I can gladly say, this is for this and | :38:47. | :38:51. | |
this for that. With adults as well, we have to look at the | :38:52. | :38:56. | |
circumstances. Redemption, do you believe in redemption, for evil | :38:57. | :39:00. | |
children? Yes, because if you look at the Bulger killers, at the time | :39:01. | :39:05. | |
it appeared that Thompson, who was the other lad, would reoffend more | :39:06. | :39:12. | |
likely than Venables, but Venables did. But it seems that Thompson has | :39:13. | :39:20. | |
redeemed himself. It's impossible to say at ten how you will turn out. | :39:21. | :39:24. | |
Those two boys pressed the self-destruct button. It appears | :39:25. | :39:28. | |
that Thompson has come out better, as it were. Thank you for joining | :39:29. | :39:30. | |
us. We leave you with the burning | :39:31. | :39:31. | |
question in the tech world - who is going to be top dog | :39:32. | :39:36. | |
in the emerging world Last week we saw the best known | :39:37. | :39:39. | |
contender, Facebook's Oculus Rift. Now it's the turn of | :39:40. | :39:52. | |
their big rival, the HTC Vive. The Vive's big sell is that you're | :39:53. | :39:54. | |
not confined to the sofa, you can walk around | :39:55. | :39:57. | |
and even touch things. Here it is with the help of some | :39:58. | :39:59. | |
old fashioned green screen, so that we can see what the people | :40:00. | :40:02. | |
with the headset see. Any questions? Can I go first? Go | :40:03. | :40:17. | |
crazy. Go and get it! He actually gets it! It makes you feel you are | :40:18. | :40:25. | |
pulling the strings back. Turn left! No way! My goodness, so cool. O! | :40:26. | :40:38. | |
Look at this thing. Ooh! | :40:39. | :40:44. |