Episode 9 BBC News: The Editors

Welcome to this special edition of The Editors.

We thought it would be a good idea to gather here almost halfway up The

Shard, the tallest building in Western Europe, which opened during

this past year and has already shached London's skyline. -- shaped

London's skyline. I'm joined by three stalwarts from the programme -

Nick Robinson, political editor, Bridget Kendall, our contributing

editor, and Mark Easton, our home editor. Thanks to all of you for

coming. Hello and welcome. We'll remember

2013 for all sorts of things no doubt, not least because it was the

year when we finally lost one of the world's genuinely inspirational

leaders. Not too many of them around of course. Nelson Mandela. It is

hard to think of any equivalent to him in modern times, just Mahatma

Gandhi perhaps. Even I was too young to meet Gandhi, but I did meet

Nelson Mandela on many occasions and I can echo Gorky's comment, while he

is alive no-one is entirely an orphan. I feel we've all been

orphaned a little bit. Nick Robinson, do you think it is going

to change things in the world, let alone South Africa, not to have

Mandela alive and around? We've lost a symbol haven't we? Global leaders

have lost a single figure they could look up as representing all that

they think leadership should be about, being above and beyond

everyday politics, capable of bringing people together rather than

dividing them. Does it change day-to-day politics? No, after all

Nelson Mandela hasn't been in control of South Africa for a long

time. The thought he was close to death, that it wouldn't be long, has

been around for a long time. But that gathering of all the world

leaders together, that was a moment when they could come together and

reflect on what they had lost and what they had learnt. Bridget

Kendall, do you think that, do you agree with Nick that politician did

regard him as something too emulate? Or do you think they just thought,

there he is on his pedestal but I can carry on with politics in my own

way? I think some. I was struck by the words of the words of the

Nigerian President, Goodluck Jonathan, who said, he was such a

selfless man, he only served one term. You think of all the other

politicians in Africa and beyond, when they had the opportunity

certainly served more than one term and sometimes meddled with the

constitution so they could carry on even longer. It set me thinking that

maybe the way that Nelson Mandela was able to become in his own

lifetime, go from being a political prisoner to a legend before he died

was precisely because he wasn't so much of a politician. He was only in

office for a short time and didn't have to make so many of those grubby

compromises that so many politicians do. Mark Easton, do you think we

needed to have a Nelson Mandela figure, that we want d to have

somebody who was a little bit above politics in the way that he was? I

think that normally our default position on politicians that they

are weasels or toads, so when you have something like Mandela, he in a

way merely by comparison makes our lot look so shabby. That's a bit of

a problem in a way, because we've seen this year and in previous years

institutional trust being eaten away. Faith in politics, faith in

politicians is under real attack at the moment. This makes it very

difficult for political leaders to operate actually. So in a sense,

having Mandela there as this, he said he was never a saint but

certainly he felt very much a very special person sitting on an

extraordinary pedestal. I think for other politicians he was a bit of a

problem. I think that in his passing has focused a lot on that, on the

standard of our politics generally. Perhaps without him, perhaps we'll

be slightly more forgiving to our politicians. I wonder. It is a neat

point that bridge et makes, that in a sense he propose to power without

making those compromises. Of course he made the ultimate sacrifice, he

was 27 years in prison. But he was frozen in people's minds. They could

say, we hugely admire his willingness to do this, what he

stood for and the generosity of spirit he displayed afterwards. But

what he didn't have the the person he pushed to one side, the element

of hypocrisy, something said one year and contradicted the next. He

was free of that. That doesn't mean on leaving prison he could have made

a terrible mess of it, but he did the opposite. He was free of what

most people who have to rise to power have to have, the greasy pole,

the compromises needed to climb, as Disraeli said, the greasy pole. I

wonder if the passing of Mandela will make people remember, that

extraordinary moment when he left prison, how the times then were

simpler. It was a simple issue getting rid of apartheid. It was a

moral issue. You look at the world now, the problems in solving what

seems to be a huge moral issue. For example Syria. What to do about all

those refugees, all those people in trouble. Looking back it feels as

though maybe something's -- some things were simpler. Let's talk

about Syria. Because in 2013 the balance of the awful civil war there

tilted back it seems to me in favourite of the Assad regime. And

we had written off until that moment and the regime of course was of a

particular brutality, is still and had been of great corruption, which

had provoked the civil war in the first place. The UN says that more

than 100,000 people have died and over 2 million have become refugees.

After the regime's decision to use chemical weapons on its own people

the war stood to impinge on the politics of the outside world much

more than it had. President Obama seemed determined to do something

about it and was then badly wrong footed by Russian diplomacy of all

things. Britain was shown to be completely out of its depth and so

was France. The scourge of chemical weapons came back. Bridget, because

you raised the issue of Syria I'm going to ask you first. Would you

accept that this idea which I confess is my own that the balance

has tipped back in favour of Assad? I think that's right. I think if we

look back maybe with a bit more hindsight on 2013, people will

perhaps remember it as the year when the Western powers stopped saying

not only Assad must go and Assad will go, and even he will be gone in

six months, and began to realise that perhaps he is not going to go.

That the battle on the ground maybe stalemate. Maybe he is winning

ground but he is not losing that much ground. But also that there are

other things happening in Syria. Maybe that are worse than President

Assad. The groundwork which was laid, we now know, for the deal that

was done on chemical weapons went back some time. President Obama and

President Putin have been talking about it for over a year. Secretary

Kerry went to talk to the Russian Foreign Minister back in the spring.

I think that's the moment actually when everything shifted on Syria.

When he came out of that meeting and made it sound as though maybe

President Assad didn't need to be history before there could be peace

talks. That was a concession by the West. Maybe when we look back on

2013 it will be the year of western concessions on Syria. Wasn't it in

part, Jon, was the west craved a simple solution? It goes back to

what Bridget was saying earlier about South Africa really and the

difference with now. Looking for a post-Assad solution they couldn't

find one, couldn't agree one, didn't know how to reach it. They ran out

of road really. What height have been a good idea six or 12 months

previously suddenly didn't look possible because of the rise of

extremism on the opposition side in Syria. Presented with chemical

weapons, in a sense there was a sim splift, right, we can all agree we

are against those. Recould reach a deal, it turned out to everybody's

surprise that the Russians were up for it and the Assad regime. And

there was almost I feel here in London and elsewhere a kind of smack

of relief - thank God there is something we can tell our peoples

we've done. You need nowadays, don't you, to have a moral cause that can

unite people. Weapons of mass destruction. Weapons of mass

destruction. Didn't work for lock. -- for long I think the political

situation in Britain over Syria, the British public had after Afghanistan

and particularly after Iraq didn't believe there was such a thing as a

simple war, that we are going to go in there and sort it out and come

home again. And they were right. And they were right. As far as Syria

were concerned, the politics of Syria became almost impossible for

the Prime Minister. You must remember, Nick, the night of the

vote. The ayes to the right, 272, the noes to the left, 285.

CHEERING It is very clear tonight that while the House hasn't passed a

motion, it is clear to me that the British Parliament reflecting the

views of the British people does not want to see British military action.

I get that and the Government will act accordingly. It really was a

defeat not only for David Cameron personally, not only for the

Conservative Party, the coalition, possibly, but it was also a block on

British pretensions in the world wasn't it? It was. A dramatic

change. Remember that David Cameron had seen Syria not as a repeat of

Iraq. He had seen it as a repeat of the Balkan wars of the 1990s. He

thought this was a moment in which the western leaders in particular

should not look as though they were willing to stand by as people were

massacred, as they had in Kosovo, as they had in Bosnia and elsewhere,

and it was therefore his moral duty to do something. This is what he

wanted. He kept talking about it. There were people in his cabinet who

tried to hold him back, and Obama was unwilling to do at this time.

When he finally presented it to the House of Commons for a vote, he

found, as Mark said, it wasn't just public opinion didn't want it to

happen, parliamentary opinion aware of that, simply could not be

Marshalled in a way that would give him the votes he needed. One of the

big challenges for David Cameron domestically has been the issue of

immigration and the rise of UKIP. Nick, I remember neatly summed up

the issue in his film for this programme some months ago. For

decades the whole question of immigration was inextricably linked

with race, which is why mainstream politicians were so terrified of the

subject. But now the new influx of immigrants are white and from

Europe, that link's largely been broken. But the pressure is still on

the politicians, because of questions of integration and

questions of whether the country is simply too full. Mark, do you think

that it really is a game changer all of this? Or is it just a phase that

we are going through and when we start to get jobs back again and

money we won't be so worried about it? Sfrnlt I think it is certainly a

huge political issue, there is no question about that. It will be

hugely important in the run-up to 2015. I think in what Nick was

talking about, the huge numbers of people coming from Eastern Europe.

Absolutely right. They went everywhere. There isn't a postcode

from the land which hasn't seen someone from Eastern European

countries in their area. People are hearing foreign voices at the bus

stop, shops selling strange beer in the high street. That makes people

feel uneasy. It makes people whose families have been here for

generations feel uneasy, and the new arrivals fuel uneasy in society.

That change does pose some real questions. What I think is happening

and I will be interesting to hear what Nick feels about this. I wonder

if the debate is slightly changing. We've been having a debate probably

for the last perhaps nine years. Really since the A 8 countries

joined the EU, about immigration. As a subject. Just immigration. What I

think has happened in this year, 2013, and I think we are going to

see more of it in 2014 and the run-up to 2015 is more of a nuanced

debate, what immigration? What kind of migrants do we like and which

ones do we not like? When you ask the public, there is a big

difference. Foreign students, which is the one we've cut most to try to

get net migration down. They are the ones they worry about least. I think

a lot of stories in the papers, we are going to have a grown-up

discussion about immigration, just feel that now it is absolutely

mainstream, on the end, no-one has concerns about talking about

immigration, but it would be like talking about money and saying, now

it is a bit more to it than that. I don't know what you think about it,

Nick, but I think the discussion is becoming a bit more layered Partly

because of what I was getting at in that film, most of the at tuts to

politicians -- attitudes of politicians to immigration is that

it is associated with racism. We've talking about the wave of

immigration from the Commonwealth, from the Caribbean or Africa or

India and Pakistan and Bangladesh. Now because it is not that it

liberates people to feel that they can have a conversation. And because

people have grown up even in quiet rural inquiries with a sense that we

are a multicultural and multiracial society, they are able to say we are

relaxed about students and we are quite relaxed about people with high

skills. What we don't want is low-skilled people who refuse to

speak the language. There is a more nuanced debate but it is a vigorous

one. With the European elections next year, that's when the big test

of UKIP, the UK Independence Party comes. People often forgets, what

drives votes to UKIP haven't Europe but immigration. Do you think this

is part of the diminishing of Britain in the world? That not only

are we not as powerful as we used to be but we are rather nasty, we don't

like foreigners? I think for a lot of people around the world they see

Britain as a destination that they would like to go to. Partly because

of the language. It is seen as an affluent country. Very developed.

And actually quite a place where you can do what you want to do. That's

what quite a lot of foreigners say to me. But it depends how much money

you've got. If you are poor and you can't make the grade, it may feel as

though Britain is less welcoming. That feeds into a much bigger

question, the idea of European values. Part of the world which was

believed in ustice and equality and suddenly they want to close their

borders. Not just Britain but other countries too. Whether the rest of

the world looking in decides this is an example of hypocrisy not just in

Britain but in Europe. Perhaps that's diminishing morally. I would

slightly question the premise of your question as to whether Britain

is a nastier country than it was. I think in many ways the evidence is

that we are a lot more tolerant than we were. In many respects. We are

certainly intolerant of people who break the rules. People who abuse

their power. People who break the law. Very intolerant of that. But we

are much more tolerant of difference. We are much more

tolerant of people who've come from other backgrounds. Quite welcoming

in that sense. In fact I think this is one of the phenomenons of the

age. We are seeing a country that is a lot more at ease with the change

than often we give it credit for. Let's turn to a slightly better news

item I suppose for the Government of this country. It is the economy. The

year began, it seems such a long time ago, with the threat of a

triple-dip resolution. But as the year went on provisional figures

started to show that far from going through a triple-dip, Britain had

never gone through a double one. The Bank of England had a new Governor,

the Canadian, Mark Carney, who took over from Sir Mervyn King. Mr Carney

says an economic recovery has taken hold. So, what are we thinking? Is

this now the defining issue? Is it still the defining issue of the

Government? And have they actually managed to do what they promised? Or

is it smoke and mirrors? I think it is undoubtedly the defining issue.

The argument about how real the recovery is, how lasting it is, and

by how real I mean, do people feel it? Is it not just in the numbers

but people's everyday experience. That Mr Be the defining issue of the

2015 general election undoubtedly. The argument that still rages about

whether austerity was the reason we had a recovery and whether we would

have had one sooner and faster would rage not through the next election

but people will be writing economic history books in 50 or 100 years'

time. Mark, do you think it has done us permanent harm or is it something

that we can get over? Like the Americans got over the '30s? I will

tell you what I do think. In terms of Britain's attitude to austerity,

a lot of people don't think it has been that bad. We did a poll not so

long ago, a few weeks ago, for the BBC. The aim was to try and find out

did people think public services had got worse, stayed the same or got

better. 60% of them thought they were the same, despite the cuts, or

a proportion thought they had improved during the cut-backs. I

think that's because the way that this downturn has played out has

been narrow. Certain groups have really struggled. You look at the

Treasury's graph of who is really being hit by all the measures in

terms of welfare and tax and the rest of it, the people who've been

hit most of all are the richest 10% in the country. After that, it is

the poorest 10%. And then the next poorest 10% and the next. This isn't

a story funnily enough about the squeezed middle. It is the opposite.

The people who've been hurt most are at the extremes. The very rich and

the very poor. I think what was so interesting about that poll is that

it may be that the suffering of the poorest 10% is relatively

invisibility. It doesn't crudely sell papers. It is not something

people choose to present to their readers. Closed shops in high

streets. Anecdotal evidence that everyone has heard of young people

finding it so hard to find a job. Unless that changes, the figures

might look better but people will say, what recovery? We want to see

tangible things that change in our lives. Are we changed as a country

as a result of this? In one sense we are changed less than I thought we

would be. At the beginning I thought there would be a fundamental debate

about the shape of the state. Do we as a country conclude regretfully we

think we have to all pay for our own healthcare for example? I'm not

saying it is not right or wrong, but we haven't had the debate. Nobody's

had the argument. If you look at what Governments should and

shouldn't do, the argument hasn't been had. Some on the left are

trying to say, look at that latest statistic that said that the core

state would get back to the level of 1948. It hasn't stimulated much of a

debate. Let's turn to something, as they say, completely different. 20 3

saw two major changes in the wide (Inaudible) we'll look at Iran in a

second, but the new leadership in Beijing headed by Xi Jinping is

obviously trying to open up the Chinese system. In all sorts of

ways, without allowing the Communist Party to lose control. An immensely

difficult thing to do, if they can pull it off. The outside world's

economic health, of course, increasingly has depended on China.

David Cameron will say, you and I were there Nick earlier in the

month, on a trip which he said secured valuable trade deals and

improving the relations between the two countries. Actually I wasn't

really sure that he was right about that. What do you think? He

obviously wanted to make it seem like that but he didn't come back

with much. In trade deals there wasn't that much. Anybody who has

done these trips before will know the ones that were unveiled were

done weeks before and were held back. I was struck by two things.

This doesn't mean it was right, but the businessman travelling with him

to man and woman said we think this helps to break through. We are way

behind the French and the Germans in terms of our trading relationship

with the Chinese. Enormous amounts of Chinese money comes to Britain,

this city in particular. But when we are trying to sell things there I

think we are fourth, behind the two European countries in particular. On

the political side, it was all in the mood music wasn't it? The Prime

Minister eventually got himself a dinner with President Xi and

regarded it as a concession. But does it change anything? What do you

think, Bridget? It is part of a foreign policy which has been in

place since the economic crisis of 2008 really, but definitely with

this Government. It has shifted the policy towards the focus on trade.

That means doing what you can to have better relations with countries

who might help your economy, even if you don't like some of their

policies. China's one, it is the most important but it's not the only

one. David Cameron's repaired as far as he can relations with Russia. He

has courted the Gulf, he's been everywhere. India, shouldn't forget.

It comes back to what I was saying before about European values. Does

it matter? Is there going to be a moment when human rights will be an

issue that will get in the way of trade relations? At the moment,

probably not, because from's still that deficit to pay off. And what

are you going to do about it? You need to increase Britain's trade

with the world. It feeds into that geophys cal shift in the last five,

I six, ten years. Do you think it was wise of David Cameron to have

met them? Was it wise? I think he thought it was the right thing to

do. I personally think it was a good thing to do. I think the Dalai Lama

is a terrific guy. Worked out OK in the end. Part of this is the way we

view what happens overseas. How do people in the UK think about what's

happening in the rest of the world? What we've seen in the last five or

ten years is quite a big change. Whereas foreign news was kind of on

the inside pages and you may have seen a bit on the telly or heard a

bit on the radio, now actually I find with young people they have a

much greater understanding of what's going on. They are talking about.

This we talked about Syria earlier. Make Cameron felt that the British

public weren't prepared to go to war, but the British public when

they see pictures of starving children on the television or on

their mobile phones when they are travelling to work in the morning,

that changes things. People raising money for Syria. You can feel a

slight change this the way that we relate to what's happening intlgly.

What about this other subject of Iran? I feel that's been a big

change this year, which we've kind of not noticed. Iran wouldn't let

many of us go from. They were scared of the rioting that happened in 20

#0 #9 So it didn't get much attention outside the country. I

agree with you, Jorngs it is the most important shift in foreign

policy this year. There I was trashing foreign policy saying it is

all about trade but this was about old-fashioned diplomacy. And skilled

diplomats. A new Government in turn, definitely, but also western

partners who've prepared to compromise. I think it is something

that we should all welcome. The clock was at less than five to

midnight for Iran getting the capability to have nuclear weapons.

Clearly bombing wasn't a good idea. This ask a way out of that

predicament if everything goes well. It was one of the issues I thought

could destroy this coalition Government. If a Conservative wing

in the coalition tried to support, albeit verbally military action

against Iran, and the Liberal Democrats would need to say, "Up

with this we cannot put." That would have torn the Government apart. The

consequences isn't just for domestic politics, which is relatively

trivial, but for the Middle East to move to military action. It seemed

quite likely if turn had continued to ig ignore this. When the deal

came people didn't have that sense of wow! That's quite a change. And

they probably don't fully clock how much this could change things in

future. We were talking about Syria earlier. It looks as though Iran had

a role in pushing Assad perhaps towards chemical weapons. But we

could see, I don't know if it will happen in 2014, but in the next

couple of years, a change in allegiances so that we are with Iran

and Assad fighting Al-Qaeda in northern Syria. It is not

inconceivable. In my long experience of Iran, there is always something

unpleasant comes up just when you think it is all there. I said

something, not someone. We started off this programme talking about a

hero, about Nelson Mandela. There's another hero of course who stepped

out of the limelight, fortunately still with us, and that is a man 26

hn r reign won him flawed its across the globe, including the total of

greatest living Briton bestowed upon him. Parents Sir Alex Ferguson, who

at aged 71 stood down as the manager of Manchester United after

delivering no fewer than 38 trophies for his club. Is he the greatest

living Briton? Come on. Of course he isn't. I talked to him about this.

The let a little bit of light into the way we work Jon. I'm sitting at

home being interviewed by the Today programme about the serious topic,

and John Humphrys, bless him, at the end of a conversation on welfare or

the economy, says tell me about Sir Alex Ferguson. I instantly turn into

the confer sashl style I have with my two sons who are obsess sieve

Manchester United fans, I said with inverted commas, he is the greatest

living Briton. He proved a remarkable capacity to motivate

young men. Which you could translate that into politics, it would be

extraordinary. Manchester United is quite an extraordinary thing in its

own right isn't it? It led the way in British football. I think

Manchester United, I'm going to confess I'm an Arsenal fan, so I

cannot share Nick's adoration, but I think both Manchester United and my

club are examples of something quite interesting. Which is a new global

identity. People who are Manchester United fans or Arsenal fans, and it

is true of many big sports teams now, are part of a family that goes

right around the planet, that cuts across almost every grouping you

could imagine. I sit at the Emirates, the Arsenal ground, and I

can see Thailand Arsenal fans, gay Gunners. Every facet of society is

there. What Sir Alex Ferguson did at Manchester United was turn a

football club into a global phenomenon. Overs have followed. It

is what people are searching for these days. We talked about

immigration. In one sense people are wanting something distinctive and

that's why they are anxious about immigration. On the other hand

people are searching for identities that are broad and welcoming and

inclusive. That's why I think they support football clubs, which have

part of that for them. It is about branding. People want to be part of

a global brand. I think what we are seeing this year and for many years

to come is this tension between narrow identity and global identity.

It will produce all kinds of tensions. Nobody ever seems to like

my club, Chelsea. This is part of Britain now though, and Britain is a

major, it is part of our soft power isn't it? Absolutely. Football is

one way which is putting Britain on the map. I was on holiday in Vietnam

and when I stop ed people to ask them the way, they say where are you

from, Britain? They always wanted me to tell them not just what my

favourite... They didn't say Chelsea though did they? No, they didn't.

Manchester United was the favourite club. There was one Ipswich

supporter. They always wanted me to tell them the members of all the

teams. I realised as a diplomatic correspondent I'm not doing my job

properly. When we were in China you go to a luggage of 500 UK and

Chinese businessmen. What's the big symbol? The Premier League trophy

and everyone is queuing to have their photo taken with it.

Absolutely. That's it from this final edition of BBC News The

Editors in 2013. So thanks to my fellow editors for having explained

the world to us all. And with all our best wishes for a very happy new

year to you. Until we meet again, goodbye.