Browse content similar to 04/02/2014. Check below for episodes and series from the same categories and more!
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to you and the guys trying to get some of these people's power back | :00:00. | :00:00. | |
on. Hello and welcome to our look ahead | :00:00. | :00:21. | |
to what the papers will be bringing us tomorrow. With me, Neil Midgley | :00:22. | :00:27. | |
from the Daily Telegraph and the media executive Sue Douglas. Let's | :00:28. | :00:41. | |
talk about the Daily Telegraph, Sue Douglas - gay couples free to marry | :00:42. | :00:45. | |
after historic vote by MSPs. This of course is the Scottish issue of the | :00:46. | :00:51. | |
Telegraph. I am interested in what the minister actually said, Alex | :00:52. | :00:57. | |
Neil. He says, this legislation sends a powerful message to the | :00:58. | :01:00. | |
world about the kind of society we in Scotland are trying to create. He | :01:01. | :01:06. | |
said, a nation where the principles of fairness and equality are weaved | :01:07. | :01:11. | |
into the fabric of our society. That is a push for independence, isn't | :01:12. | :01:15. | |
it? It may well be. Probably they are latching onto anything. It is | :01:16. | :01:24. | |
quite a long stretch to make that into a cry for independence, I | :01:25. | :01:31. | |
think. I suppose, given that the law was passed in England last year... | :01:32. | :01:37. | |
Excuse me, I have got a bit of a cold tonight. Yes, the same thing | :01:38. | :01:40. | |
has been passed in England, but what he saying is, this is the kind of | :01:41. | :01:45. | |
land, this is the kind of fare, equal society, which we want. I am | :01:46. | :01:51. | |
not sure he is necessarily entirely in step with the people who are | :01:52. | :01:56. | |
going to be voting. Opponents of the law have been saying that public | :01:57. | :02:01. | |
opinion is out of step. Obviously, the Church of Scotland and the | :02:02. | :02:05. | |
Catholic Church in Scotland, both saying, as with the English | :02:06. | :02:08. | |
churches, that they will not conduct same-sex marriage is. I am gay so I | :02:09. | :02:13. | |
am in favour of this legislation, both north and south of the border. | :02:14. | :02:17. | |
But further down, it talks about, there were some amendments, for | :02:18. | :02:21. | |
example, trying to protect potential foster parents, trying to ensuring | :02:22. | :02:28. | |
in the law that those people would not be barred from a -- from | :02:29. | :02:36. | |
adopting or fostering. Those amendments, protecting those kind of | :02:37. | :02:40. | |
people were defeated. To my mind, we are going quite a long way towards | :02:41. | :02:45. | |
the thought police, if we start dictating who is and who is not | :02:46. | :02:49. | |
essentially a good parent, based on what their view of marriage is. | :02:50. | :02:55. | |
Also, that has very little to do with independence. These are big | :02:56. | :02:58. | |
picture stories which affect the whole country, and the moral tide of | :02:59. | :03:03. | |
the country, they are not really about how Scotland is, on its own, | :03:04. | :03:09. | |
going to lead, because it is not, as you have said. They are following. | :03:10. | :03:13. | |
The front page of the Scottish Daily Telegraph as well, jobs at risk with | :03:14. | :03:18. | |
Alex Salmond, say bosses. Fears voiced over the economic | :03:19. | :03:23. | |
consequences of a yes vote. Bob Dudley making his views felt today | :03:24. | :03:28. | |
on the independence question. It is quite ironic I think, because the | :03:29. | :03:34. | |
old chief executive of BP, Tony Hibbert, was an Englishman, who made | :03:35. | :03:38. | |
himself very unpopular in the US, being under the attic after that big | :03:39. | :03:42. | |
oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Now, they have brought in an | :03:43. | :03:45. | |
American and he is being underpin attic in Scotland. -- being | :03:46. | :03:53. | |
undiplomatic after that big oil spill. If I were Alex Salmond, I | :03:54. | :04:04. | |
would because in him, because I think the Alistair Darling campaign, | :04:05. | :04:11. | |
the no campaign, the -- the Better Together Campaign, but rape Britain | :04:12. | :04:18. | |
is better together... Hugh Pym -- Great Britain -- was actually | :04:19. | :04:23. | |
speaking to Bob Dudley about which pet's latest figures, and it just | :04:24. | :04:29. | |
happened to be quite an afterthought, 15-20 minutes into the | :04:30. | :04:34. | |
conversation, when this came up, and he was not reticent. You would think | :04:35. | :04:40. | |
he might have been a little bit more diplomatic, potentially, perhaps, in | :04:41. | :04:46. | |
what he said? Again, I think probably, what he was doing was | :04:47. | :04:50. | |
creating a great sound bite which has very little to do with | :04:51. | :04:53. | |
independence. Back to the point I was making earlier, it is much more | :04:54. | :04:58. | |
about the future of BP and about him as a spokesman for BP saying | :04:59. | :05:01. | |
something memorable, which I do not think anybody will remember. Do you | :05:02. | :05:11. | |
think so? Hugh Pym was saying, he was waiting for him to step back a | :05:12. | :05:15. | |
little bit, from what he was saying, but in fact, no, it all came out. | :05:16. | :05:23. | |
Great Britain is great, and all of the other issues, it felt as if he | :05:24. | :05:27. | |
had been thinking about it for a while. There is still a lot of oil | :05:28. | :05:33. | |
in the North Sea off Scotland, in which BP has interests. If there is | :05:34. | :05:37. | |
uncertainty over the currency and over the membership of the European | :05:38. | :05:40. | |
Union, then clearly those are big factors for big is this. We should | :05:41. | :05:43. | |
reiterate that there are lots of businesses out there who think that | :05:44. | :05:47. | |
going it alone is I will just throw that in. -- is a good idea. Prince | :05:48. | :05:56. | |
Charles went down to the Somerset Levels today, and said, the tragedy | :05:57. | :06:01. | |
was that nothing happened for too long. Yes, he said, there is nothing | :06:02. | :06:08. | |
like a jolly good disaster to get people to start doing something. Did | :06:09. | :06:14. | |
he say that?! Yes, he did say that. We are very good in adversity, | :06:15. | :06:20. | |
aren't we? We know what he means. Well, his views, presumably, on what | :06:21. | :06:25. | |
the Environment Agency has or has not been doing, are quite clear. His | :06:26. | :06:31. | |
opinions carry weight, but he does not have, even as you were | :06:32. | :06:38. | |
suggesting, Clive, the restraints on pen and tongue which the chief | :06:39. | :06:40. | |
executive of a large corporation might have. And he has come out and | :06:41. | :06:45. | |
said almost in as many words that a lot of people have been saying about | :06:46. | :06:50. | |
the Environment Agency. Chris Smith, who has not even been to Somerset | :06:51. | :06:54. | |
yet. Not in the last few weeks. Yes, during the crisis. Where are they | :06:55. | :07:03. | |
and what are they doing? So, do you think David Cameron, when he heard | :07:04. | :07:07. | |
these comments, went, oh, no. I do not know, but the line he could have | :07:08. | :07:13. | |
borrowed would have been, we are great when we pulled together. That | :07:14. | :07:18. | |
is why I imagine he was there, trying to give some sense of | :07:19. | :07:22. | |
coherence and community, we have got to deal with this together. He was | :07:23. | :07:26. | |
not down there just to slag off the Environment Agency. He is also a | :07:27. | :07:32. | |
farmer of course. He cares about the countryside and climate change and | :07:33. | :07:35. | |
all of the other things which people have talked about in this context. | :07:36. | :07:39. | |
So I think will be his visit puts him very much on the front pages. | :07:40. | :07:46. | |
Let's go on to the Independent. This has the continuing battle in Syria. | :07:47. | :07:51. | |
The battle for Homs. Patrick Cockburn is the only western | :07:52. | :07:53. | |
journalist, according to the Independent, witnessing the latest | :07:54. | :07:58. | |
eruption in the city, as the flash point of the civil war continues, it | :07:59. | :08:08. | |
says. We have been inundated with pictures like this. It becomes | :08:09. | :08:13. | |
almost unreal, unless you have those personal stories of someone being | :08:14. | :08:18. | |
found in the debris. It's very undisturbed -- hard to understand. | :08:19. | :08:22. | |
When you look at to picture like that, the complete destruction for | :08:23. | :08:27. | |
-- of a city that has survived for hundreds of years. Some of the | :08:28. | :08:30. | |
buildings have literally been standing for hundreds of years, and | :08:31. | :08:35. | |
look what we have done to them. But it is almost background. We don't | :08:36. | :08:40. | |
take enough notice any more, and I think it needs those personal | :08:41. | :08:46. | |
stories to bring it home. Are we in the media doing enough to bring it | :08:47. | :08:53. | |
home to the public? This is a great piece of reporting. The movement in | :08:54. | :09:01. | |
the tectonic plates is happening at governmental level, of course, | :09:02. | :09:06. | |
between the Americans, Russians, French, British, the Syrian regime | :09:07. | :09:11. | |
as it stands, the Syrian opposition... We are between two | :09:12. | :09:17. | |
sets of Geneva talks. The Russians say that the Syrian regime will | :09:18. | :09:21. | |
indeed come to the next round of talks, whether or not there is an | :09:22. | :09:28. | |
agreement. It's very difficult to report on what's really going on in | :09:29. | :09:33. | |
those discussions, because they are going on between half a dozen | :09:34. | :09:39. | |
people. Also, what is going on in Syria is not isolated. People are | :09:40. | :09:44. | |
trying to get over the border into other countries. It has been | :09:45. | :09:47. | |
spilling over into the Lebanon, and what is happening in Beirut now is | :09:48. | :09:53. | |
significant. There is car bombs and people dying all the time in Beirut | :09:54. | :09:59. | |
at the moment. That whole area is becoming difficult, and what we do | :10:00. | :10:03. | |
about that isn't just peace talks. This is a real seismic change, | :10:04. | :10:11. | |
tectonic plates clashing. It has to be said that the peace talks did | :10:12. | :10:16. | |
reach the conclusion that women and children were supposedly able to | :10:17. | :10:20. | |
leave the city, though the menfolk have to sign in register before they | :10:21. | :10:24. | |
leave. As a result, not many have left. Let's go onto the Mirror. This | :10:25. | :10:32. | |
is an interesting one. Osborne plans to cut top rates of tax even more. | :10:33. | :10:37. | |
Over my dead body, says Danny Alexander. Some are saying, I've got | :10:38. | :10:47. | |
no problem with that. Probably both coalition parties! He's not the most | :10:48. | :10:52. | |
charismatic politician, Danny Alexander. The two coalition | :10:53. | :10:57. | |
parties, given that we now have a fixed term parliament and we know | :10:58. | :11:02. | |
when the next election is, May 2015, in a way we didn't have previously, | :11:03. | :11:07. | |
the battle lines have been drawn between coalition parties as much as | :11:08. | :11:11. | |
they are between the Tories and Labour. It means the coalition | :11:12. | :11:15. | |
parties are in an uncomfortable position, where they have to govern | :11:16. | :11:21. | |
together, yet set out their stall for the election campaign. What | :11:22. | :11:26. | |
Danny Alexander stirs here, he will oppose any move by George Osborne to | :11:27. | :11:39. | |
reduce the top tax rate of 45p in the pound. The extra revenue raised | :11:40. | :11:47. | |
by the extra 5p in the pound is very small. Yes, what are we arguing | :11:48. | :11:56. | |
about? It's almost like squabbling over minor things. Are these the | :11:57. | :12:01. | |
major issues in the economy? Its symbolism. The Lib Dems want to keep | :12:02. | :12:08. | |
a higher tax rate to indicate that they are bashing the rich, because | :12:09. | :12:12. | |
it is the fault of the rich that we had the recession in the first | :12:13. | :12:17. | |
place. The Tories, if they are being real Tories, would say, in order to | :12:18. | :12:21. | |
have economic growth, first, you need greed, and you pick -- and you | :12:22. | :12:27. | |
need people who want to get rich. They will only get rich if they | :12:28. | :12:31. | |
don't pay too much tax. Isn't this all confusing for the voter? The | :12:32. | :12:38. | |
member of the public, seeing two parties in the coalition squabbling | :12:39. | :12:42. | |
like this when they are supposed to be running the country? That's | :12:43. | :12:48. | |
right. The high ground is, in the end, trying to be divisive about | :12:49. | :12:53. | |
rich and poor and the haves and have-nots. In the taxi on the way | :12:54. | :12:59. | |
here, I was talking to the taxi driver and saying, what has happened | :13:00. | :13:04. | |
now is there are more people... . The social divide between the haves | :13:05. | :13:07. | |
and the have-nots is probably greater than it has ever been, and | :13:08. | :13:13. | |
that is the greatest story. Squabbling about 5p, that isn't | :13:14. | :13:18. | |
going to affect very many people, is evading the issue. We can continue | :13:19. | :13:22. | |
this all night. We will continue in an hour's time. Banks for that. Stay | :13:23. | :13:28. | |
with us on BBC News, because at the top of the hour, 11pm, we will have | :13:29. | :13:36. | |
much more on the storms that are hitting south-west, and the fact | :13:37. | :13:39. | |
that lots of people that don't have any power. The lines have come down, | :13:40. | :13:45. | |
causing a lot of problems for many people. Now it's time for sports | :13:46. | :13:46. | |
day. Hello and welcome to Sportsday. | :13:47. | :14:00. | |
The headlines tonight: Is it all over for KP? Kevin Pietersen is | :14:01. | :14:03. | |
dropped for England's one-day tour of the Caribbean and the World | :14:04. | :14:08. | |
Twenty20. Michael Laudrup becomes the | :14:09. | :14:09. |