Browse content similar to 28/11/2016. Check below for episodes and series from the same categories and more!
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Governments of different political persuasions have tried to eradicate | :00:00. | :00:00. | |
Tomorrow, Theresa May's Government will say how it hopes | :00:07. | :00:18. | |
But do the solutions match the problem? | :00:19. | :00:23. | |
We'll look at both sides of the argument. | :00:24. | :00:27. | |
Also tonight, as government-backed forces take more territory, | :00:28. | :00:29. | |
They captured the civilians, they took the activists, | :00:30. | :00:35. | |
they shooted them immediately without any hesitation. | :00:36. | :00:46. | |
For all his faults, he was a great man. | :00:47. | :00:50. | |
Or should it be, for all his achievements, he was | :00:51. | :00:52. | |
Tariq Ali and Peter Hitchens will argue that one out. | :00:53. | :01:00. | |
A lot changed after the Brexit vote, quite apart from Brexit. | :01:01. | :01:05. | |
Not least we got a new Government and a new ethos that the economic | :01:06. | :01:08. | |
rules have to change, they've been tilted too far | :01:09. | :01:11. | |
in favour of the well-to-do and have left hard-working, | :01:12. | :01:14. | |
Now the big question is whether this Government or anyone else has | :01:15. | :01:20. | |
an idea as to what to actually do, apart from making speeches. | :01:21. | :01:22. | |
The Government is expected to publish its Green Paper | :01:23. | :01:28. | |
on tackling what it sees as corporate excess, | :01:29. | :01:31. | |
Will it force companies to reveal the gap between their CEO pay | :01:32. | :01:36. | |
Or insist workers should have a role in the bosses' remuneration? | :01:37. | :01:46. | |
The truth is, we've been banging on about this for some time. | :01:47. | :01:51. | |
Executive pay generally, it could be argued that the bosses | :01:52. | :01:55. | |
are creaming away money that should rightly go to the shareholders. | :01:56. | :01:57. | |
Even I have had cause to talk about it. | :01:58. | :02:00. | |
Well, a lot has changed since then, but chief executive | :02:01. | :02:05. | |
In fact it several times higher than it's was back then. | :02:06. | :02:11. | |
Bosses seem very good at controlling costs, except the costs of bosses. | :02:12. | :02:14. | |
This is recognised as a problem by fans of capitalism | :02:15. | :02:17. | |
Quite a bit has been tried in those intervening years to curb it and yet | :02:18. | :02:29. | |
Look, I think there's been a succession over five or six years | :02:30. | :02:34. | |
of pay outs that have not been in any one's interests. | :02:35. | :02:37. | |
Some of the banks, I think, paid out disgracefully | :02:38. | :02:39. | |
There was a time when one or two of them were paying three times | :02:40. | :02:45. | |
more in bonuses to top executives than in total dividends | :02:46. | :02:48. | |
That means the pension funds of which you and I are | :02:49. | :02:53. | |
First on everybody's list of what to do is to force | :02:54. | :03:04. | |
disclosure, Shine a light on what is happening. | :03:05. | :03:07. | |
Companies have long had to reveal directors' pay. | :03:08. | :03:10. | |
It was enshrined in law in 2002 and beefed up under the coalition. | :03:11. | :03:15. | |
By publishing the pay ratio, the ratio between the total chief | :03:16. | :03:18. | |
executive compensation and average worker pay, | :03:19. | :03:21. | |
it will make companies think very carefully about how they're | :03:22. | :03:25. | |
paying their chief executive and senior directors | :03:26. | :03:28. | |
I think it will give real focus to that area which I think | :03:29. | :03:33. | |
The second approach is to give more power to shareholders to thwart pay. | :03:34. | :03:41. | |
The so-called say on pay gives shareholders limited power, | :03:42. | :03:46. | |
a binding vote on the remuneration policy, every three years. | :03:47. | :03:49. | |
But those voting shareholders are generally fund managers looking | :03:50. | :03:54. | |
after our money but who are wrapped up in a City culture | :03:55. | :03:57. | |
In the case of BP earlier this year, 59% of shareholders voted | :03:58. | :04:03. | |
against the chief executive's ?14 million pay package | :04:04. | :04:06. | |
and the company simply ignored the vote. | :04:07. | :04:08. | |
But I think by getting shareholders involved right at the beginning | :04:09. | :04:11. | |
of the process, and in fact give them the power to effectively | :04:12. | :04:14. | |
approve the remuneration package, a shareholders' committee before it | :04:15. | :04:16. | |
even gets to the AGM, you can deal with these issues early | :04:17. | :04:19. | |
before it becomes a very public confrontation at the annual AGM. | :04:20. | :04:22. | |
It might take really draconian ideas like pay caps to work. | :04:23. | :04:27. | |
Simply not done, old boy, not in this country. | :04:28. | :04:33. | |
I'll tell you why this is so difficult. | :04:34. | :04:36. | |
Basically everybody, the whole sphere of society | :04:37. | :04:39. | |
that is involved in setting executive pay has a shared sense | :04:40. | :04:42. | |
of what the going rate for the Chief Executive of a big | :04:43. | :04:44. | |
company is, it's in the millions of pounds. | :04:45. | :04:49. | |
That culture or norm is very hard to dislodge. | :04:50. | :04:55. | |
No single company believes it can do it on its own. | :04:56. | :04:58. | |
Somehow, you have to reset everybody's expectations. | :04:59. | :05:04. | |
So, is the 2016 attempt to rewrite the rules going to be any more | :05:05. | :05:08. | |
And is executive pay the problem most people think? | :05:09. | :05:12. | |
Joining me now is Sam Bowman, executive director of | :05:13. | :05:14. | |
And Mariana Mazzucato, Professor of Economics | :05:15. | :05:18. | |
Is it a problem, first of all? It's a problem. It's been getting worse. | :05:19. | :05:28. | |
That's very important to say. You just said that you did this | :05:29. | :05:31. | |
programme 18 years ago saying that there was a problem. 18 years ago | :05:32. | :05:38. | |
the difference was 45-#1, the average worker earned 45 times less | :05:39. | :05:45. | |
than CEOs. Today it's 180. Maybe it was wrong before. Sure. But this is | :05:46. | :05:51. | |
about corporate governance. It's important not to criminalise this, | :05:52. | :05:55. | |
as though it's just bad behaviour. What have we allowed in a particular | :05:56. | :05:59. | |
type of capitalism, there's varieties of capitalism. This is | :06:00. | :06:06. | |
shareholder-driven capitalism. Versus stake holding capitalism. The | :06:07. | :06:10. | |
number one company in the world in telecoms is a Co-operative and | :06:11. | :06:13. | |
doesn't have this big difference. Ericson as well. These are companies | :06:14. | :06:19. | |
that have decided to boost share prices, to boost stock options and | :06:20. | :06:24. | |
boost executive pay. That's a decision related to corporate | :06:25. | :06:28. | |
governance. We have to question this corporate governance model. You come | :06:29. | :06:32. | |
from a more Libertarian angle. I assume you'll say it is up to the | :06:33. | :06:35. | |
shareholders who own the company to decide what the remuneration is, am | :06:36. | :06:41. | |
I right? You are right. A more interesting question is - are you | :06:42. | :06:45. | |
right? Is the increase in the ratio simply because shareholders have | :06:46. | :06:49. | |
become more lazy? Maybe these committees are better at giving | :06:50. | :06:53. | |
themselves money? Or perhaps it's because globalisation means having a | :06:54. | :06:56. | |
good executive is more important than 20 years ago? We look at the | :06:57. | :07:02. | |
evidence. We look at the share price changes when CEOs either die or | :07:03. | :07:05. | |
leave their companies suddenly. We can see whether that's changed more | :07:06. | :07:08. | |
dramatically in the last couple of years than before. It turns out when | :07:09. | :07:13. | |
we look at the evidence over not just the last 20 years, but 50 | :07:14. | :07:17. | |
years, there's been a steady upward change in the importance of a CEO to | :07:18. | :07:21. | |
a company. You're not telling me that these people need to be paid - | :07:22. | :07:28. | |
Yes, I am. You don't need to pay them that to get them to do the job. | :07:29. | :07:35. | |
In 45 minutes, one earns what the average worker earns in a year - | :07:36. | :07:39. | |
that's not excessive? The importance of a CEO is huge to a firm. If you | :07:40. | :07:47. | |
were Sony or Samsung 15 years ago. Samsung invested in smartphones. | :07:48. | :07:50. | |
Sony didn't. They made the right call. CEOs the decisions they make | :07:51. | :07:57. | |
matter enormously. We look at share prices. When Burberry lost their CEO | :07:58. | :08:05. | |
they lost ?500 million in one day. You're not going to dispute the fact | :08:06. | :08:09. | |
that they make a big difference to corporations presumably? Many | :08:10. | :08:12. | |
companies that have this excessive difference, I think it's excessive, | :08:13. | :08:18. | |
have not, during the time that this pay difference has increased, become | :08:19. | :08:21. | |
more productive, produced better products. If you look at the | :08:22. | :08:24. | |
pharmaceutical - It's not a question of the company. It's the question of | :08:25. | :08:27. | |
the executive. Is the executive more important than 20 years ago? Because | :08:28. | :08:31. | |
of globalisation the answer is yes. This goes back to the theory of | :08:32. | :08:35. | |
where wealth comes from. The stake holder model doesn't say that | :08:36. | :08:38. | |
executives are not important, it admits there are other people who | :08:39. | :08:41. | |
are also important. For example the workers, would do sit on the board | :08:42. | :08:44. | |
in many parts of the world. This isn't just a big idea that Theresa | :08:45. | :08:49. | |
May had. Scandinavia, Germany and Austria, where I was last week, this | :08:50. | :08:54. | |
is an admission that there's different collective actors that | :08:55. | :08:58. | |
take part in making companies successful. If you're right, then | :08:59. | :09:03. | |
all stock markets, all institutional investors with billions of pounds on | :09:04. | :09:08. | |
the line, other people's money and their own money are wrong. Adam | :09:09. | :09:16. | |
Smith, that your institute was named after, what he meant by the free | :09:17. | :09:20. | |
market was free from rent, free from rent. We're talking about massive | :09:21. | :09:26. | |
rent seeking. I tell you what - Talking about value creation as | :09:27. | :09:29. | |
though the executives have, over time, become more important for the | :09:30. | :09:33. | |
creation of value. That's what the evidence tells uses. Wait -- tells | :09:34. | :09:41. | |
us. Wait, wait. I did want to get into the practicalities. Let's | :09:42. | :09:45. | |
accept that your objective is to narrow the gap and get executive pay | :09:46. | :09:50. | |
down. We can carry on afterwards, do you think the kind of things you've | :09:51. | :09:55. | |
heard about publishing ratios, putting a worker on the remuneration | :09:56. | :09:58. | |
committee, does that match the scale of it? It's not a worker. It's trade | :09:59. | :10:02. | |
unions, yes. They're very important in negotiating and also thinking | :10:03. | :10:05. | |
about future investments. They should be on the boards, not just to | :10:06. | :10:10. | |
limit the pay. This is also, though it sounds defensive, this is of the | :10:11. | :10:14. | |
opportunities that are needed so when profits of companies are | :10:15. | :10:19. | |
re-invested in the future, in innovation, this is good for society | :10:20. | :10:23. | |
as a whole. Workers on the board would be fighting for that as | :10:24. | :10:26. | |
opposed to things like share buy backs, which have increased | :10:27. | :10:31. | |
massively. Workers on the board is a terrible poll similarity it's been | :10:32. | :10:34. | |
done in Germany. It's failed. One of the reasons Volkswagen went down is | :10:35. | :10:39. | |
because the board's atmosphere was poisonous. The chief executive | :10:40. | :10:44. | |
collaborated with the union represents and drove up costs. We | :10:45. | :10:50. | |
should encourage firms to give stakes in the firm. Publishing | :10:51. | :10:55. | |
ratios, does it carry the risk if you publish the ratio of the | :10:56. | :10:58. | |
executive pay to the average, they will outsource the low paid staff, | :10:59. | :11:02. | |
as lots of companies do, in order that the average pay of the | :11:03. | :11:06. | |
remaining staff looks higher. This area is replete with perverse | :11:07. | :11:11. | |
incentives. Why should they publish these payments of the differences? | :11:12. | :11:15. | |
Not because this is crim that behaviour, but -- criminal | :11:16. | :11:19. | |
behaviour, but as an indicator of something that is problematic. We | :11:20. | :11:23. | |
should focus on what's happening in the companies. Are they investing | :11:24. | :11:29. | |
the profits in the future growth? We have record level hording, | :11:30. | :11:32. | |
financialisation, using profits to boost your stock options which is | :11:33. | :11:37. | |
the main way these executives get paid. It's not that executives | :11:38. | :11:43. | |
aren't good. It's how important the executive is to the well being of | :11:44. | :11:48. | |
the company. You are generally seen on the right of politics, are you | :11:49. | :11:53. | |
worried by the drift of where society's going. Clearly, populism, | :11:54. | :12:00. | |
governments coming in are saying we've had enough. We hear about | :12:01. | :12:04. | |
post-truth politics. The evidence is clear that executives matter a lot. | :12:05. | :12:08. | |
What the Government's doing, maybe Theresa May believes in what she's | :12:09. | :12:11. | |
doing. More likely, she's trying to win votes. It's really sad that | :12:12. | :12:14. | |
very, very few people, even executives themselves, because | :12:15. | :12:18. | |
they're worried about how it looks to the public, are willing to say | :12:19. | :12:22. | |
look at the evidence, look at the importance of good CEOs because of | :12:23. | :12:25. | |
globalisation now, to the well being of their firms. We have to leave it | :12:26. | :12:30. | |
there. They're getting paid, so they're more valuable, that's wrong. | :12:31. | :12:33. | |
That's not what we're saying... Thank you very much indeed. | :12:34. | :12:42. | |
These are dark days for Syria's rebels in Aleppo. | :12:43. | :12:44. | |
In the last two days, Syrian government forces have | :12:45. | :12:47. | |
captured more than a third of rebel-held territory in eastern | :12:48. | :12:49. | |
Assad's forces seem to have all the cards, and it could be | :12:50. | :12:53. | |
that we are heading to some kind of last phase in what has | :12:54. | :12:56. | |
How far as the situation deteriorated? This war's been going | :12:57. | :13:05. | |
on for years, terrible suffering, a stalemate in so many ways. We have | :13:06. | :13:08. | |
seen in recent weeks quite a big change in Aleppo, what was the | :13:09. | :13:12. | |
commercial powerhouse of Syria in many ways, the great prize. If we | :13:13. | :13:16. | |
look at a map, we can see what's been happening since the summer. | :13:17. | :13:20. | |
You've got the crimson there, the rebel control and the green for the | :13:21. | :13:25. | |
government control. The yellow area are Kurdish group YPG who are | :13:26. | :13:30. | |
effectively allied to Assad in this battle. Over the summer, we've see | :13:31. | :13:35. | |
shrinkage on various fronts, the Syrian army has pushed the rebels | :13:36. | :13:39. | |
back and made that pocket smaller and smaller. Then this dramatic | :13:40. | :13:43. | |
change in the last few days, hundreds of air strikes, advances | :13:44. | :13:47. | |
from the east. That whole area in purple now gone for the rebels. | :13:48. | :13:51. | |
We've seen thousands of people on the move. We can look at video. Some | :13:52. | :14:00. | |
of these people heading towards that Kurdish area, seen as being in some | :14:01. | :14:04. | |
way not as dangerous for them having been on the rebel side. Others we've | :14:05. | :14:09. | |
seen boarding these notorious green buses that come to take people into | :14:10. | :14:14. | |
Assad territory. This has happened in many places like Homs and other | :14:15. | :14:18. | |
cities, when deals have been done to take the civilians out, when frankly | :14:19. | :14:21. | |
they've had enough. It is a big change. People in the city, many of | :14:22. | :14:27. | |
them feel the end is near. The end is near for Aleppo. What's | :14:28. | :14:31. | |
the significance of that in the bigger Syrian Civil War? It is very | :14:32. | :14:37. | |
significant in itself. President Assad is preoccupied with gaining | :14:38. | :14:41. | |
the prize. All sorts of things are lining up in his favour. Until the | :14:42. | :14:46. | |
US elections he thought he might deal with a Nato no-fly zone in the | :14:47. | :14:49. | |
north of the country. He knows that's not going to happen now. | :14:50. | :14:53. | |
President Obama has been pretty quiet about this. President Trump | :14:54. | :14:57. | |
has promised to defund the so-called moderate opposition. Things are | :14:58. | :15:01. | |
stacking up against them on all sides. Possibility that they may | :15:02. | :15:05. | |
even go into some sort of compact with the Russians, particularly | :15:06. | :15:09. | |
against Isis in the east of Syria. Things are really stacking up | :15:10. | :15:13. | |
against the armed opposition groups, but as always in this conflict, | :15:14. | :15:17. | |
there aren't enough people who support the Assad government to | :15:18. | :15:21. | |
really take control of all those areas they capture. In that sense, | :15:22. | :15:25. | |
there is no military solution. #12k34r thanks very much. | :15:26. | :15:28. | |
Earlier tonight I spoke to Ismail Alabdullah, who volunteers | :15:29. | :15:32. | |
with the White Helmets, a rescue organisation | :15:33. | :15:34. | |
I spoke to him two months ago and conditions were very bad then. | :15:35. | :15:41. | |
Actually the situation has become worse than ever, and I mean ever. | :15:42. | :15:59. | |
Since 15 days until now, Aleppo city under heaviest bombing ever. | :16:00. | :16:02. | |
Nonstop bombing from the very beginning in the morning up | :16:03. | :16:13. | |
until midnight by all kinds of weapons. | :16:14. | :16:17. | |
The bombing intensified more and more. | :16:18. | :16:21. | |
You're sounding exhausted, have you been up for | :16:22. | :16:23. | |
Actually I was trapped by the bombing, I couldn't move | :16:24. | :16:30. | |
When I tried to move, another mortar hit my place there. | :16:31. | :16:43. | |
I survived, I ran quickly to somewhere safe. | :16:44. | :16:51. | |
That time, another warplane dropped a rocket and a big explosion. | :16:52. | :17:00. | |
This situation, how can anyone do his job, to save | :17:01. | :17:04. | |
It's appalling, what you're describing. | :17:05. | :17:11. | |
You and I spoke two months ago and I asked whether you thought | :17:12. | :17:22. | |
it would be better to get out, | :17:23. | :17:24. | |
And you said no, not right now, that was two months ago. | :17:25. | :17:28. | |
And then you said if it gets much worse, maybe it will change. | :17:29. | :17:31. | |
What is the mood as to how to respond? | :17:32. | :17:37. | |
Now, most of the people want to leave the city. | :17:38. | :17:41. | |
Most of the people want to leave the city because they know now, | :17:42. | :17:48. | |
Russians, Assad's forces and maybe the new president of the US, | :17:49. | :17:54. | |
all of them want to kill those people who said no to Assad. | :17:55. | :18:03. | |
Now, the international community has let us down, let the people down. | :18:04. | :18:10. | |
Even this, even food kits for the poor people, | :18:11. | :18:13. | |
for the widows and for the orphans, medication, medicine | :18:14. | :18:16. | |
Even to get new doctors to the city. | :18:17. | :18:26. | |
Evacuate the injured people, they didn't respond. | :18:27. | :18:30. | |
Now, all the world let us down and we are facing big... | :18:31. | :18:43. | |
I don't know, maybe a big massacre will be in the coming days | :18:44. | :18:47. | |
Do you think if you put up a white flag, if you put up | :18:48. | :18:51. | |
the white flag and say, we surrender, do you think | :18:52. | :18:54. | |
the Syrian forces, the Russian forces would recognise that white | :18:55. | :18:57. | |
flag and protect you or do you fear that you would be | :18:58. | :19:00. | |
This has happened many times, it isn't the first time. | :19:01. | :19:06. | |
That happened in Daraa, that happened in Al Ghouta, | :19:07. | :19:11. | |
that happened, many massacres from Assad's forces, | :19:12. | :19:15. | |
and that happened today in one of the neighbourhoods | :19:16. | :19:19. | |
which was taken control of by Assad's forces. | :19:20. | :19:24. | |
They captured the civilians, they took the activists, | :19:25. | :19:27. | |
they shooted them immediately without any hesitation. | :19:28. | :19:30. | |
Thank you very much for talking to us and I hope to talk | :19:31. | :19:36. | |
A lot has been said about Fidel Castro in the last three days, | :19:37. | :19:46. | |
with the usual competing narratives of his life. | :19:47. | :19:48. | |
Looking back on his record, many on the left are keen | :19:49. | :19:50. | |
to give him the benefit of the doubt when it comes to his | :19:51. | :19:53. | |
Of course, they wouldn't extend that benefit to a Conservative prime | :19:54. | :19:58. | |
minister and find it unconscionable when right-wing figures defend | :19:59. | :20:01. | |
So we'll discuss what makes some offences forgivable, | :20:02. | :20:04. | |
But much of the recent commentary has been from those | :20:05. | :20:09. | |
One person who did was our own Stephen Smith, who wrote | :20:10. | :20:14. | |
a book about the country and its then president. | :20:15. | :20:16. | |
There's an argument that the 60s began not in 1963 | :20:17. | :20:29. | |
but in '59 with the Cuban Revolution. | :20:30. | :20:33. | |
In the 60s, you were nothing if there wasn't | :20:34. | :20:36. | |
And Fidel Castro, Che Guevara and the others were lucky | :20:37. | :20:43. | |
in their court artist artist, Alberto Korda, in | :20:44. | :20:45. | |
His image of Che appeared on the walls of student digs more | :20:46. | :20:51. | |
And even inspired revolutionaries close to home, not | :20:52. | :20:57. | |
I was never keen on T-shirts and badges at the time | :20:58. | :21:10. | |
of the anti-apartheid struggle and the radicalism in which I grew | :21:11. | :21:13. | |
up in British politics in the late 60s and 70s. | :21:14. | :21:16. | |
I always, I was always interested in the Cuban revolution, | :21:17. | :21:20. | |
very sympathetic to it, as a battle for justice | :21:21. | :21:24. | |
against a fascist dictator, but I never had a starry eyed view | :21:25. | :21:27. | |
The world wasn't used to seeing political leaders | :21:28. | :21:34. | |
They embodied a revolutionary chic that just had not been seen before. | :21:35. | :21:45. | |
You had to think of the traditional men in power, and they were men, | :21:46. | :21:50. | |
tending to be dressed in suits, definitely without the beards. | :21:51. | :21:54. | |
There was something different about these revolutionaries | :21:55. | :21:57. | |
who weren't afraid to dress in fatigues and carry rifles, | :21:58. | :22:01. | |
But they also, I think, in terms of the culture, | :22:02. | :22:10. | |
they encouraged people to come to the island, | :22:11. | :22:12. | |
Cuba has always been cool, though perhaps less | :22:13. | :22:18. | |
The classic film, Soya Cuba, I Am Cuba, which was using long | :22:19. | :22:28. | |
uncut shots 50 years before Birdman, and portrays the last years | :22:29. | :22:40. | |
of the Batista regime, when the island was a flash pot | :22:41. | :22:48. | |
In Latin America, Cuba showed what was possible. | :22:49. | :22:51. | |
After the Cuban revolution, change and alternative | :22:52. | :22:53. | |
to capitalism, an alternative to the kind of dictatorships that, | :22:54. | :22:56. | |
like Batista's, like Trujillo's, seemed possible and this | :22:57. | :22:58. | |
was a radically new opportunity for Latin America compared | :22:59. | :23:00. | |
Alongside Cuba's much vaunted achievements in health | :23:01. | :23:08. | |
and education at home, anti-apartheid campaigners credit | :23:09. | :23:13. | |
Castro's decision to send troops to Africa with adding | :23:14. | :23:15. | |
I think he played a very important role in the anti-apartheid struggle | :23:16. | :23:26. | |
by defeating the South African army with his Cuban troops in Angola, | :23:27. | :23:29. | |
I also think he did lots of fantastic things for health | :23:30. | :23:38. | |
and free education as well, and conquering poverty in a region | :23:39. | :23:41. | |
where poverty and bad health and education was rife. | :23:42. | :23:44. | |
But I cannot justify his human rights abuses. | :23:45. | :23:52. | |
Over a pub in London tonight, the Cuba Solidarity Campaign pressed | :23:53. | :23:56. | |
ahead with film night, despite the official mourning | :23:57. | :23:57. | |
They don't doubt Castro's contribution. | :23:58. | :24:08. | |
I think his legacy will not just be on education, | :24:09. | :24:11. | |
on health and the social life of Cuba, which has improved | :24:12. | :24:14. | |
Nothing compared with the bordello that it was before. | :24:15. | :24:19. | |
The revolution is about more than one person. | :24:20. | :24:23. | |
The revolution has brought forth a society, a model | :24:24. | :24:27. | |
of society that will endure because it is a model that works. | :24:28. | :24:35. | |
Castro famously claimed that history would absolve him. | :24:36. | :24:40. | |
What's less well-known is the riposte from a dissident | :24:41. | :24:42. | |
Cuban writer who settled in London and said that history | :24:43. | :24:45. | |
In a moment we'll debate the attitudes of the British | :24:46. | :24:52. | |
from France over the internet by Erik Durschmied, a journalist | :24:53. | :25:03. | |
who went to find Castro in the mountains of the Sierra Maestra | :25:04. | :25:06. | |
in the autumn of 1958, before the revolution, | :25:07. | :25:08. | |
where he conducted one of the first interviews with him. | :25:09. | :25:10. | |
There is not communism or Marxism in our ideas. | :25:11. | :25:26. | |
Our political philosophy is representative democracy, | :25:27. | :25:29. | |
and social justice in a well-planned economy. | :25:30. | :25:40. | |
You didn't think you would hear that from Fidel Castro! | :25:41. | :25:43. | |
Good evening, what is the story, how did you find him? Very simple, I | :25:44. | :25:55. | |
took my old car it was an old folks for them and I drove from Canada | :25:56. | :25:59. | |
into Cuba into the mountains -- it was an old Volkswagen. I thought I | :26:00. | :26:09. | |
would get hold of this man. I got out of the car and I told him who I | :26:10. | :26:13. | |
was and he said, come with us. It took us three weeks to get up the | :26:14. | :26:19. | |
hill, I guess they took us on a very tortuous road but I've finally made | :26:20. | :26:25. | |
it and got to the top of the hill and I is the Nene knew who he was | :26:26. | :26:30. | |
because he was so much taller and impressive compared Mac anybody | :26:31. | :26:39. | |
else. -- than anybody else. He was the great manipulator, he was full | :26:40. | :26:43. | |
of himself, he believed in his own gospel, I guess and at that time I'm | :26:44. | :26:50. | |
sure he was not a Cobeno because there was certainly no indication in | :26:51. | :26:59. | |
his camp -- not a communist. It was like an aboriginal tribe living in | :27:00. | :27:05. | |
trees and the whole myth about the great forces of Castro, there were | :27:06. | :27:11. | |
never more than 200 people at the most in the camp. There was no other | :27:12. | :27:20. | |
front. Remarkable that the merry band could go on and take the | :27:21. | :27:25. | |
country. What were the attributes, when you observed him, did he look | :27:26. | :27:29. | |
like a brutal man, a thoughtful man? Or just an alpha male lording it | :27:30. | :27:37. | |
over a gang? At the beginning, I thought of him as a sort of band it | :27:38. | :27:44. | |
up in the mountings, a revolutionary, I guess. Bans a | :27:45. | :27:49. | |
bandit. I'd never met a revolutionary before that. He was | :27:50. | :28:00. | |
quite years older than I am. But we struck it off quite well and I | :28:01. | :28:03. | |
stayed several months with him. It was quite an amazing time. I've | :28:04. | :28:09. | |
finally got to know him well. I'm sure he was very sincere in what he | :28:10. | :28:13. | |
was trying to do. What happened later to him is something else but | :28:14. | :28:20. | |
in these days in the mountains I think he was, he was like Moses | :28:21. | :28:29. | |
coming down from the mountain. Wow. He had one weapon that nobody | :28:30. | :28:33. | |
understood at the time, neither the Americans and certainly not Batista, | :28:34. | :28:41. | |
he had his voice, which was on the radio every night. Were you fooled | :28:42. | :28:49. | |
by him, seduced by him? Did you find yourself going native and deporting | :28:50. | :28:57. | |
the guy? It sounds like it a bit! I was certainly impressed by him. He | :28:58. | :29:03. | |
was so charismatic. It was incredible. He's just... I guess he | :29:04. | :29:13. | |
manipulated everybody. I think at the time, and I said it many times, | :29:14. | :29:20. | |
and the time he was really sincere. I've met him on a few occasions late | :29:21. | :29:27. | |
on, he invited me back and opened the doors for me. But it was a | :29:28. | :29:34. | |
different man, it wasn't any more that man that I had lived with and | :29:35. | :29:39. | |
met up in the mountains. It's interesting because the romantic | :29:40. | :29:43. | |
myth of the rabble in the mountings plotting to oust the brutal | :29:44. | :29:48. | |
dictator, that myth has lasted. It may not have lasted for you but it | :29:49. | :29:53. | |
has lasted for many people. And maybe that is wiped some people, on | :29:54. | :29:58. | |
the left, have overlooked things that they wouldn't overlook for | :29:59. | :29:59. | |
other people. I think he changed. Whether he was | :30:00. | :30:08. | |
pushed into this change by the Americans who didn't understand him, | :30:09. | :30:12. | |
I mean, you know, when you came to Havana in these days, I mean I only | :30:13. | :30:18. | |
went through Havana on my way into the mountains. But it was a sort of | :30:19. | :30:26. | |
bordellos and casinos and the rich and the happy. At the same time, he | :30:27. | :30:33. | |
talked on the radio every night and he said, "I'm going to do something | :30:34. | :30:37. | |
else. I'm going to change this country. We're going to be free. | :30:38. | :30:41. | |
We're not going to be any more linked to the Americans." There was | :30:42. | :30:50. | |
this joke, story going in Cuba about what's the longest cow in the world, | :30:51. | :30:58. | |
and the answer was - the head is in Cuba and the udders are milked in | :30:59. | :31:03. | |
the United States. That basically was the way that the Cubans felt, I | :31:04. | :31:11. | |
guess. He managed to talk to them on the radio, because even when they | :31:12. | :31:18. | |
finally won the revolution, I am convinced there were not more than | :31:19. | :31:26. | |
400 fighters. Batista had an army of 40,000. Thank you very much. | :31:27. | :31:28. | |
Joining me now is Tariq Ali, who, among many other things, | :31:29. | :31:31. | |
has written the introduction to a book of Fidel | :31:32. | :31:34. | |
We're also joined by Peter Hitchens, who is a columnist for | :31:35. | :31:38. | |
Just picking up from that kind of revolutionary in the hills, do you | :31:39. | :31:45. | |
think that will shape the romantic love for the man in the years after? | :31:46. | :31:49. | |
People wanted to believe it. Much of it was a myth from the start. | :31:50. | :31:55. | |
Batista was really overthrown by the Americans, who withdrew arms | :31:56. | :32:00. | |
supplies and told him he would have to quit. Castro simply moved into | :32:01. | :32:05. | |
the vacuum left by the collapse. The interesting thing about that is how | :32:06. | :32:12. | |
pit filly small Castro's band of brothers were. Yet he used | :32:13. | :32:19. | |
expressions such as moss coming down from the Mo -- Moses coming down | :32:20. | :32:27. | |
from the mountain. It's pathetic. Why do people want to swoon over | :32:28. | :32:32. | |
him? He was a young guy and maybe - OK, it is just one of those strange | :32:33. | :32:38. | |
things which people seem to want to believe in great leaders and great | :32:39. | :32:41. | |
men. You were a swooner, weren't you? You definitely swooned. I read | :32:42. | :32:46. | |
you some stuff. You put your name to aler in the Guardian about 11 years | :32:47. | :32:54. | |
ago. There has not been a single case of disappearance corpsure or | :32:55. | :32:58. | |
extra judicial prosecution since 1959 in Cuba. Is that true? Those | :32:59. | :33:04. | |
were the figures we obtained before I signed that letters. Why don't we | :33:05. | :33:08. | |
start with what Cuba was before the revolution? It was effectively an | :33:09. | :33:14. | |
American brothel run by the Mafia, seen as an American colony. The | :33:15. | :33:19. | |
Cuban revolutionaries, partially because the Americans withdrew | :33:20. | :33:22. | |
support from the dictator organised more and more support. It wasn't | :33:23. | :33:27. | |
just 200 people. The July 26 movement became a huge mass movement | :33:28. | :33:32. | |
and got rid of that. The reason for the support Castro enjoyed was | :33:33. | :33:36. | |
largely because people didn't want to go back being what they were, an | :33:37. | :33:40. | |
American colony. That is the key thing to understand. Like all | :33:41. | :33:46. | |
revolutions, they kill the one king and then they have to put something | :33:47. | :33:52. | |
in its place. But they didn't want to become a Soviet Colony. None of | :33:53. | :33:56. | |
that had any idea that was going to happen. Castro pretended or | :33:57. | :34:01. | |
genuinely Ted, and we don't know what the truth is, that he wasn't a | :34:02. | :34:04. | |
Communist and wasn't going to do this. Yet very quickly they became a | :34:05. | :34:08. | |
Soviet Colony, in which opposition to Castro was treated with the most | :34:09. | :34:13. | |
extraordinary brutality. It may be that people didn't officially | :34:14. | :34:18. | |
disappear, but I have to say, they were certainly tortured. One of the | :34:19. | :34:22. | |
Castro's original comrades and very much a strong opponent of Batista | :34:23. | :34:28. | |
when he said to Castro, I don't support your turn towards Soviet | :34:29. | :34:31. | |
Communism, Castro threw him into prison for 20 years, 16 in solitary | :34:32. | :34:36. | |
confinement and arranged for him to be tortured. I have to finish, | :34:37. | :34:40. | |
because the torture issue is here. His own account of this says his | :34:41. | :34:45. | |
genitals were pierced during his imprisonment, if that's not torture, | :34:46. | :34:53. | |
I don't know what is. Do you accept that there was solitary confinement, | :34:54. | :34:58. | |
gay people sent for re-education. Hang on one at a time. Why one at a | :34:59. | :35:02. | |
time. They go together or they don't. I don't deny that. I think | :35:03. | :35:07. | |
the way gay people were treated was appalling. I think the way in which | :35:08. | :35:12. | |
political prisoners at that time were treated was not great either. | :35:13. | :35:17. | |
If Mike Pence did that in the United States, if Mike Pence in Indiana had | :35:18. | :35:23. | |
been sending - you would be the first complaining and protesting and | :35:24. | :35:27. | |
saying this man is a monster. I would also see which side I'm on. | :35:28. | :35:34. | |
This is it. I was on the side and am on the side of the best things that | :35:35. | :35:37. | |
revolution has done. I don't deny that at all. Of course, it's not | :35:38. | :35:41. | |
flawless. They made huge number of mistakes. They, many of them, admit | :35:42. | :35:48. | |
it, and it wasn't, they never pretended they were a democracy. It | :35:49. | :35:53. | |
was essentialally a revolutionary dictatorship. I would say these | :35:54. | :35:58. | |
dictatorships are social. They do a great deal for their people on | :35:59. | :36:02. | |
health, on education - Hang on, you've just admitted all this stuff. | :36:03. | :36:07. | |
Hang on, first of all Castro did talk about representative democracy. | :36:08. | :36:14. | |
He did. Then he simply, I think said he was an located president. He did | :36:15. | :36:17. | |
say that. He did make promises of that kind. Most people believed he | :36:18. | :36:24. | |
would be actually running a freer government than the Batista | :36:25. | :36:28. | |
government. It was worse than that. You're going over the top. It was | :36:29. | :36:32. | |
not worse than that. If it had been worse than that, he would have been | :36:33. | :36:35. | |
toppled and when the Americans invaded him at the Bay of Pigs, why | :36:36. | :36:40. | |
wasn't there a mass uprising, which the Cuban emigres had promises the | :36:41. | :36:47. | |
Americans. There's a huge difference between discontented in a regime and | :36:48. | :36:54. | |
having a mass uprising. You're a generous, thoughtful person with a | :36:55. | :36:58. | |
sense of humour and proportion, but you won't take the step of saying | :36:59. | :37:02. | |
whatever good this regime may or may not have done, and it's questionable | :37:03. | :37:08. | |
whether it did - Any good at all? I haven't finished the question I was | :37:09. | :37:13. | |
going to answer. Quick, quick. The actions of Castro towards his | :37:14. | :37:17. | |
opposition were indefensible. Torture, forcing people to eat their | :37:18. | :37:23. | |
own excrement, locking people up 20 years for disagreeing with him. I | :37:24. | :37:27. | |
want him time to answer. Pinochet did a lot of those things. You don't | :37:28. | :37:33. | |
say for all his faults... Hang on, he wiped out 30,000 people for God | :37:34. | :37:37. | |
sake. How can you compare Pinochet to Castro. Because... Why mention | :37:38. | :37:44. | |
him? It's about... Which government supported Pinochet. It's because the | :37:45. | :37:49. | |
side you're on, you're willing to forgive all the things. People say | :37:50. | :37:55. | |
the same about Pinochet. No, even Pinochet's admirers don't say the | :37:56. | :37:58. | |
same things about him, by the way. They now accept what he did. Chile | :37:59. | :38:03. | |
is doing what it's doing to obliterate that legacy, which was | :38:04. | :38:07. | |
backed by the West. Can't you just recognise - This enormous rage you | :38:08. | :38:13. | |
get into about Pinochet's killing, but what about Castro's judicial | :38:14. | :38:17. | |
murders, the show trials, the shootings, the repeated firing | :38:18. | :38:20. | |
squads during the first months of his time in power? Utterly lawless. | :38:21. | :38:25. | |
Hang on. You must have the last word. I want Tariq to have the last | :38:26. | :38:31. | |
word. The Cubans made a revolution. The Americans tried to stop it. The | :38:32. | :38:36. | |
Americans punished them for nationalising all the big American | :38:37. | :38:41. | |
companies and liberating their country socially and economically | :38:42. | :38:44. | |
that they made mistakes, we know. But you know, the mistakes made by | :38:45. | :38:52. | |
people, dictators in South America, backed by the United States... You | :38:53. | :38:58. | |
use the word mistakes were made in a passive way. These things were worse | :38:59. | :39:02. | |
than anything the United States did. The worst of anything recently has | :39:03. | :39:16. | |
been the torture at out by who? What use is that as an argument? You | :39:17. | :39:23. | |
object to it quite rightly because you object to all torture. Yes. You | :39:24. | :39:28. | |
don't seem to object to it has so much when Castro is involved. No. | :39:29. | :39:33. | |
This is not true. I object to it, but I say when discussing the Cuban | :39:34. | :39:39. | |
revolution, one has to discuss a great deal. And not be completely | :39:40. | :39:45. | |
captured by ideology. Is there anything that excuses torture. No. | :39:46. | :39:49. | |
Why do you excuse it when Castro does it? We need to leave it there. | :39:50. | :39:51. | |
Thanks both very much. Fascinating. Straight after Newsnight | :39:52. | :39:54. | |
you can watch Fidel Castro, America's Nemesis, a special | :39:55. | :39:57. | |
on Castro's life, here on BBC Two. That's all we've got | :39:58. | :40:02. | |
time for this evening. I'm back tomorrow. Have a very good | :40:03. | :40:04. | |
night. Hi there. It's going to be a cold | :40:05. | :40:19. | |
start to the day across England and Wales. A few places will be minus | :40:20. | :40:23. | |
six, maybe even | :40:24. | :40:24. |