24/03/2012 Dateline London

Hello and welcome to Dateline London. Does the British Budget

gouge grandmothers to mollycoddle millionaires? What impact will the

horrific killings in Toulouse have on the French elections? And can

sanctions really work against Iran and Syria? My guests are Marc Roche

of Le Monde, Mustapha Karkouti, Catherine Mayer of Time magazine

and Ned Temko of the Observer. The British finance minister,

Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne, this week offered a budget

statement which sounded like a review of last week's newspapers.

Much of what he announced had been leaked in advance, which left him

facing headlines that he was robbing pensioners to give a tax

break to millionaires. Is the criticism deserved - and where does

this budget leave the Coalition Government? It was a bit odd,

really, it was like a repeat programme! We had heard it all

before. It was even better the second time! The last few budgets

have been like that, even the last Labour Budget, that was leaked.

They lead to all the good stuff, and only the bad stuff came out on

Budget day. It do you not think that is a weird strategy? Wouldn't

it be better to leak the bad stuff? That is the tradition. I don't

understand that. I think that part was accident in confidence, and for

the first time, they have a coalition government, so you can no

longer have a Chancellor who would traditionally locked himself in the

ring, if he was friendly with the promise to, which wasn't the case

with Gordon Brown and Prime Minister -- with the Prime Minister.

Now it is two parties bartering, so more people in the room. But after

the Budget itself, -- as after the Budget itself, you have to look at

it economically and politically. Economically, the government will

be fairly for despite -- a fairly to despite that they won the main

argument. It comes out between 24 hours, IFS says this is what the

Budget does. They more or less backed up the government's

narrative, which is that the changes to the amount that

pensioners can deduct without paying tax is going up a little bit,

modestly, all it will do is balance out, because most of the austerity

has been taken by others, young people, it soon to be welfare

beneficiaries, and the other thing is that this reduction of tax on

the rich comes against the context of it not raising much money anyway.

The problem is the politics, and Labour is hoping that this

narrative of abusing a little old ladies, Robin Hood in reverse, to

give tax breaks to bankers, that will stick. It is to -- too early

to know. The IFS did broadly back up the government's narrative, but

even the word grannies, everybody loves their grandparents, it is so

difficult for any government to do anything which seems to penalise

the old at all. Absolutely, especially with the ageing

population, and those are people who vote, but I think it is an

extraordinary budget. All over Europe, they tried to increase the

access, the Socialist candidate to the presidency said he would go to

75 per tend for the richest, and in Britain, they diminish tax for the

rich, not only can they pay even less tax, and I cannot say because

they will pay less tax is that they will be more entrepreneurs, which

is the entrepreneur. Part of it is based say they thought this would

raise 6 billion, it is raising maybe 110 million, because if you

tax too much, people will find ways of avoiding it. But the rich anyway

will find a way to avoid it! The problem is that because of the cat,

the tax authority cannot do their job, so when the government says

they will fight fiscal evasion, people not paying taxes, not paying

taxes on nannies, they cannot do it, because at the tax authorities are

not up to the job, they don't have enough staff. So it is a win-win

for the rich and it is a loss last of for the poor. What did you make

of it? Everybody in America will see the system seems to penalise

the old. Older people are more likely to vote Conservative than

young people. So that was a very interesting choice. I tend to think

that the granny tax... I was bareback Wendy budget was delivered,

I heard the frenetic briefing afterwards, -- I was there when the

war budget was delivered. I spoke to Tory MPs, and I was saying, why

do you think this happened? They were saying, it is a problem. I

agree with a view that budgets work on several different levels. So it

is clear that there are some things that they did which might make

sense in terms of how you go about collecting taxes, or how you go

about attending the balance your budget, but they don't make

political sense. -- attempting to balance. But whether what they will

gain from it offsets the political price of doing it, the granny tax

is one where I think they stumbled into wit. I literally think they

didn't see that coming. It is particularly problematic not only

because of the ageing population, but this is a time when they are

also doing sensible things about making people work longer, but for

me it is allowing people to work longer! That is a very different

point about the not seen it coming. Perhaps it suggests a why so many

prime ministers like to have somebody who worked on a tabloid

newspaper working for them. Can I just say an interesting version of

that, which I heard about anticipating what the tabloids will

think, somebody told me the other night, watching Alastair Campbell

in action in his early days, when Tony Blair was going to go to a

music awards, and Alastair Campbell asked which of the different band

were going to be there, and he was told all of the bans, U2, Bowler...

He mustn't be seen with a Blur. He had already seen the headline, he

prevented it happening. Being the coalition, a lot of people are all

dead now, you have at the bottom, you have like a pyramid, but

surprisingly, the commentary after the Budget was that even some of

the Conservative media were not enchanted with that. To sell a

budget to the population, I think it is going to be a very difficult

task. There is one caveat. Unlike previous government, these

coalition partners are joined at the hip, and there is every

expectation this is a five-year government, we are just into it,

all that will matter in the end, as in the US, is how does the economy

look when we get close to an election? We will forget the

details. The grand narrative will be, which of these guys would you

trust with your economy? Although it is a budget which is meant to

deal with the economy, it is a political Budget. They have a

longer game to play. It I agreed with that, but I'm not sure it is

working, I think we may have seen a real sea change... A horrible

phrase to use, but what I think with the Occupied movement, and

this grass roots revulsion against entrenched privilege, I think that

gives the Tories are really big problem with the narrative, even if

the economy is doing well. If they cannot shake their image of being

the people who do things for their friends but not for the wider

population... But the economy is not doing fantastically well.

Whereas the growth? 2%, inflation is diminishing, but slowly. And

also, the provision for the deficit is still very big. So we are just

half way. The government has two years to get it together. Just one

final, quick point, after a couple of days a very bad headlines, the

government announced it may introduce a minimum pricing for

alcohol, 40 p a unit, which wiped the bad headlines off the front

pages. Do you think that is really a flyer? I spoke to one MP who said

that his constituents do not want to pay more for the glass of wine

in the evening because of a few yobs. His constituents will be fine,

because it will be these cheap, 50 p pints of lager in big paper bags,

rather than some vintage from Bordeaux! So it is baulk they will

work on. It was certainly not stop MPs! -- it will certainly not stop

MPs! We will leave it there. The killings in Toulouse of French

soldiers and at a Jewish school were apparently the work of a lone

al-Qaeda sympathiser - though exactly who trained him and for

what still is not clear. With just a few weeks to go before president

Sarkozy faces the voters, what impact will this have on French

voters, and on France's various ethnic and religious groups?

Terrible happenings in Toulouse, but does it have a political

impact? It can go both ways. The first explanation, Sarkozy was good

at crisis management, good at speaking to the nation and going in

to reassuring the nation, and also having words, which were very

important for Muslim compatriots, that this was a loner, and it is

very important that there is no retaliation and there is a national

unity. That could favour him, because whenever you have the

disorder and tragedy, the right- wing -- the right wins. A big chunk

of the public opinion thinks that if, by his sticking to the National

Front point of view on immigration, and too many foreigners, and also

the war of civilisation, all he has said has created a climate where

that sort of thing could happen. All this together can go the other

way. Succour to's problem is simple - he might do well in the first

round, in the second round, he has no reservoir of boats. It will be

the left that has that, and his opponent has been very low key with

that. I still think they will win. What do you think will be the

impact of this? Politicians have to be very careful with making

political capital out of tragedies. On the other hand, people do tend

to rally around the leader, whether that is. What I find interesting is

that it is a battle of narratives, it is a question of whether the

lesson for France is that these are complicated issues, they are issues

of religion verses secular life, ethnic relations among Muslim a

first generation a North African communities, the Jewish community.

That is one narrative. The other narrative, like post 9/11, is this

is an issue of the terror. This it is obviously the Sarkozy preference,

because then it becomes an issue of personal security, of national

unity, and in a way, it is a question of which are these

narratives wins out. You know France very well, I was talking to

a Moroccan friend the other day and it's partly here and partly there,

that he was worried that there would be a backlash against all

Muslims. Yes, they raise the fear or within the community, even in

this country, by the way, because they consider that a lot of

Mohammed Merah's actions -- a lot of Mohammed Merahs do exist in the

West, they are lower for -- lurking somewhere. Certainly, unemployment,

deprivation, whatever you want... He was a criminal. He was, and he

killed and North African. A French soldier, he killed him as well. So

it was perplexing for everybody. What the hell this follow really

wanted? If you look at the victims, they are not... They don't belong

Like any Western European country, they are from all backgrounds.

believe this is lurking in the West, that he had been under surveillance

for two years, that is really shocking. What do you make of this?

A I agreed that there is a kind of lurking danger, but there are a

series of lurking dangers. Look at what happened in Norway, somebody

he is coming to trial now, we will learn more, but it is somebody who

was animated by a set of ideas, some of them more obviously crazy

than others. It is very easy to cause mass destruction, very easy

for people to because mass destruction, very easy for people

to use the Internet to claim for their actions some greater

political or moral significance. is not easy to killed... it is easy

to kill unarmed children, but is not difficult. I understand that it

is politically expedient to except Muhammad Merav's idea that he is

affiliated to Al-Qaeda. There are any number of splinter groups and

people who could call themselves inspired by it, but it isn't a

coherent group. Certainly what he represents is nothing like that.

is interesting to notice that he tried to justify his actions by

revenge for the children of Gaza. It is important the reaction of the

Palestinians themselves, the prime minister came out and criticise

that action and called on the people to stop using this issue for

this kind of criminal action. they are not the people who will

here. The problem is that is why... he was addressing the rest of

society. He was worried that political reaction, racist reaction

in the West could be... it is very important to make the right noises.

Going back to the French election, that is where you were in what

Nicholas so cosy -- Nicolas Sarkozy has done in his political way of

dealing with this. All around Europe you see politicians moving

very hard to the right on immigration issues. In an economic

crisis it is very often an easy road. What I find important is that

we have seen at France that I don't see very often, which we had a

little bits in 1998 with the World Cup victory, which is a France

together United. This is very rare at a time what division and the

electoral campaign. France is multicultural. 10 % of the

population is Muslim. It is integrated. There are many more

than in Britain mixed marriages between Muslims and Christians and

France. From that horror, there is an image coming off quite a

cohesive new multicultural France. Diplomatic news this week it onto

intractable problems, Syria and Iran, so does putting sanctions on

governments prove any results? It is all very well to say that

President Assad's why should not be able to shop in London, but she has

a British passport so she can do it anyway. To these things do anything

other than come the conscience of the outside world? They leave a

very important impact on the Syrians themselves. When the

Syrians welcomed its President as said Junior, they did have hoped

they thought he was a reformer. With the wife coming from Britain

that increased be expectations. Certainly it increased the

expectation amongst the Syrian community in this country as well.

Now it has created disappointment, no doubt. All through the last 10

or 11 months, Syrians have been trying to find an explanation for

her position in supporting her husband. Until the revelation about

e-mails on shopping and all of that. So some people have said that for

the wives of some maiden its eastern leaders she is quite modest

and her shopping! It seems that now the explanation days, which is

quite feasible, but no matter how decent you are, once you find

yourself in at corruption Web and you are caught in its, you can't

get out of it. I think this is probably the case with her and her

family. With the sanctions, do you think sanctions do produce results?

They produce results. Whether it is the one you want it is another

matter. At the moment because everyone is so terrified that

Israel will steam in and attacked Iran, anything that is not Israel

attacking Iran is better than the alternative. The sanctions

introduced have already pushed fuel prices higher, so we're introducing

sanctions that are going to deepen unrest and some of her own

countries. Another aspect of sanctions since -- he is you never

know if it'll strengthen the opposition you want to strengthen,

or put additional pressure on it. Whether it will cause suffering to

the people who are already suffering. Sanctions are really

difficult tool, but they are preferable clearly to a bombing at

the hell out to people. You could remind us of how sanctions worked

in Cuba or in Zimbabwe, for example. I don't know how these particular

sanctions will work. My guess is that they are better than the

alternative. It is certainly better than the alternative. In my

experience of a foreign correspondent in similar situations,

the work more than we think. They were generally because these are

close-knit circles. It is not just President Assad's family, one of

the reasons there was the shift from President Hassan Be Younger to

him looking very much look like his father is that the real power was

the security services, the army, other security apparatus. The

message intended in sanctions like this history we won't convince Mr

and Mrs Azad, but if you are in that second echelon, the clock is

ticking. This is probably not a great career move to stick with

these people. On that level it probably works. It takes time.

only other thing I would say about Israel and Iran, I think you are

right about that, this is not just an issue for Israel and Iran. There

is a consensus that and new Kuala armed air ran is probably not a

great idea. Saudi Arabia, Turkey, other countries are not entirely

relaxed about it. The point about sanctions, it is partly frustration.

Nobody has got any better ideas about Syria. Absolutely. I think

the financial sanctions were quite well because at the moment they

have a terrible time to get their transactions through the bank's.

They import refined oil. That is their real weak points as far as

Iran is concerned. Once they have problems... at the was a real

pressure. That the West can continue, pressurising the

financial sector. We have no armament to do anything on the oil

because of what Catherine said, we don't want to have the oil at the

pump going through the roof. It is coming in America as well. They

have bizarre at 30 has diminished over the last couple of decades. In

its place another economy has risen by the revolution, they have their

own economy. But the desire is still strong, no doubt, but it is

not absolute power. It is sharing it with another. As far as the

nuclear issue, the trouble with Israel and Iran is currently really

Binyamin Netanyahu to, because he wanted the world's to take his

points. He is not listening to the rest. I happen to see someone very

close -- happened to see someone very close to him a week before

that and the problem with interpreting things like this is