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Hello and welcome to Dateline London. Does the British Budget | :00:26. | :00:30. | |
gouge grandmothers to mollycoddle millionaires? What impact will the | :00:30. | :00:33. | |
horrific killings in Toulouse have on the French elections? And can | :00:33. | :00:41. | |
sanctions really work against Iran and Syria? My guests are Marc Roche | :00:41. | :00:48. | |
of Le Monde, Mustapha Karkouti, Catherine Mayer of Time magazine | :00:48. | :00:51. | |
and Ned Temko of the Observer. The British finance minister, | :00:51. | :00:54. | |
Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne, this week offered a budget | :00:54. | :01:01. | |
statement which sounded like a review of last week's newspapers. | :01:01. | :01:04. | |
Much of what he announced had been leaked in advance, which left him | :01:04. | :01:07. | |
facing headlines that he was robbing pensioners to give a tax | :01:07. | :01:10. | |
break to millionaires. Is the criticism deserved - and where does | :01:10. | :01:13. | |
this budget leave the Coalition Government? It was a bit odd, | :01:13. | :01:16. | |
really, it was like a repeat programme! We had heard it all | :01:16. | :01:25. | |
before. It was even better the second time! The last few budgets | :01:25. | :01:30. | |
have been like that, even the last Labour Budget, that was leaked. | :01:30. | :01:33. | |
They lead to all the good stuff, and only the bad stuff came out on | :01:34. | :01:38. | |
Budget day. It do you not think that is a weird strategy? Wouldn't | :01:38. | :01:43. | |
it be better to leak the bad stuff? That is the tradition. I don't | :01:43. | :01:49. | |
understand that. I think that part was accident in confidence, and for | :01:49. | :01:53. | |
the first time, they have a coalition government, so you can no | :01:53. | :01:57. | |
longer have a Chancellor who would traditionally locked himself in the | :01:57. | :02:01. | |
ring, if he was friendly with the promise to, which wasn't the case | :02:01. | :02:07. | |
with Gordon Brown and Prime Minister -- with the Prime Minister. | :02:07. | :02:14. | |
Now it is two parties bartering, so more people in the room. But after | :02:14. | :02:21. | |
the Budget itself, -- as after the Budget itself, you have to look at | :02:21. | :02:25. | |
it economically and politically. Economically, the government will | :02:25. | :02:31. | |
be fairly for despite -- a fairly to despite that they won the main | :02:31. | :02:39. | |
argument. It comes out between 24 hours, IFS says this is what the | :02:39. | :02:42. | |
Budget does. They more or less backed up the government's | :02:42. | :02:48. | |
narrative, which is that the changes to the amount that | :02:48. | :02:53. | |
pensioners can deduct without paying tax is going up a little bit, | :02:53. | :02:57. | |
modestly, all it will do is balance out, because most of the austerity | :02:57. | :03:03. | |
has been taken by others, young people, it soon to be welfare | :03:03. | :03:06. | |
beneficiaries, and the other thing is that this reduction of tax on | :03:06. | :03:11. | |
the rich comes against the context of it not raising much money anyway. | :03:11. | :03:19. | |
The problem is the politics, and Labour is hoping that this | :03:19. | :03:22. | |
narrative of abusing a little old ladies, Robin Hood in reverse, to | :03:22. | :03:29. | |
give tax breaks to bankers, that will stick. It is to -- too early | :03:29. | :03:35. | |
to know. The IFS did broadly back up the government's narrative, but | :03:35. | :03:39. | |
even the word grannies, everybody loves their grandparents, it is so | :03:40. | :03:44. | |
difficult for any government to do anything which seems to penalise | :03:44. | :03:48. | |
the old at all. Absolutely, especially with the ageing | :03:48. | :03:52. | |
population, and those are people who vote, but I think it is an | :03:52. | :03:58. | |
extraordinary budget. All over Europe, they tried to increase the | :03:58. | :04:02. | |
access, the Socialist candidate to the presidency said he would go to | :04:02. | :04:07. | |
75 per tend for the richest, and in Britain, they diminish tax for the | :04:07. | :04:12. | |
rich, not only can they pay even less tax, and I cannot say because | :04:12. | :04:16. | |
they will pay less tax is that they will be more entrepreneurs, which | :04:16. | :04:22. | |
is the entrepreneur. Part of it is based say they thought this would | :04:22. | :04:26. | |
raise 6 billion, it is raising maybe 110 million, because if you | :04:26. | :04:31. | |
tax too much, people will find ways of avoiding it. But the rich anyway | :04:31. | :04:38. | |
will find a way to avoid it! The problem is that because of the cat, | :04:38. | :04:43. | |
the tax authority cannot do their job, so when the government says | :04:43. | :04:48. | |
they will fight fiscal evasion, people not paying taxes, not paying | :04:48. | :04:52. | |
taxes on nannies, they cannot do it, because at the tax authorities are | :04:52. | :04:58. | |
not up to the job, they don't have enough staff. So it is a win-win | :04:58. | :05:03. | |
for the rich and it is a loss last of for the poor. What did you make | :05:03. | :05:13. | |
of it? Everybody in America will see the system seems to penalise | :05:13. | :05:16. | |
the old. Older people are more likely to vote Conservative than | :05:16. | :05:22. | |
young people. So that was a very interesting choice. I tend to think | :05:22. | :05:28. | |
that the granny tax... I was bareback Wendy budget was delivered, | :05:29. | :05:35. | |
I heard the frenetic briefing afterwards, -- I was there when the | :05:35. | :05:41. | |
war budget was delivered. I spoke to Tory MPs, and I was saying, why | :05:41. | :05:48. | |
do you think this happened? They were saying, it is a problem. I | :05:48. | :05:54. | |
agree with a view that budgets work on several different levels. So it | :05:54. | :05:59. | |
is clear that there are some things that they did which might make | :05:59. | :06:03. | |
sense in terms of how you go about collecting taxes, or how you go | :06:03. | :06:07. | |
about attending the balance your budget, but they don't make | :06:07. | :06:14. | |
political sense. -- attempting to balance. But whether what they will | :06:14. | :06:19. | |
gain from it offsets the political price of doing it, the granny tax | :06:19. | :06:23. | |
is one where I think they stumbled into wit. I literally think they | :06:23. | :06:28. | |
didn't see that coming. It is particularly problematic not only | :06:28. | :06:31. | |
because of the ageing population, but this is a time when they are | :06:31. | :06:36. | |
also doing sensible things about making people work longer, but for | :06:36. | :06:43. | |
me it is allowing people to work longer! That is a very different | :06:43. | :06:50. | |
point about the not seen it coming. Perhaps it suggests a why so many | :06:50. | :06:55. | |
prime ministers like to have somebody who worked on a tabloid | :06:56. | :07:03. | |
newspaper working for them. Can I just say an interesting version of | :07:03. | :07:06. | |
that, which I heard about anticipating what the tabloids will | :07:06. | :07:10. | |
think, somebody told me the other night, watching Alastair Campbell | :07:10. | :07:15. | |
in action in his early days, when Tony Blair was going to go to a | :07:15. | :07:21. | |
music awards, and Alastair Campbell asked which of the different band | :07:21. | :07:28. | |
were going to be there, and he was told all of the bans, U2, Bowler... | :07:28. | :07:36. | |
He mustn't be seen with a Blur. He had already seen the headline, he | :07:36. | :07:45. | |
prevented it happening. Being the coalition, a lot of people are all | :07:45. | :07:55. | |
:07:55. | :07:56. | ||
dead now, you have at the bottom, you have like a pyramid, but | :07:56. | :08:00. | |
surprisingly, the commentary after the Budget was that even some of | :08:00. | :08:09. | |
the Conservative media were not enchanted with that. To sell a | :08:09. | :08:12. | |
budget to the population, I think it is going to be a very difficult | :08:12. | :08:20. | |
task. There is one caveat. Unlike previous government, these | :08:20. | :08:24. | |
coalition partners are joined at the hip, and there is every | :08:24. | :08:28. | |
expectation this is a five-year government, we are just into it, | :08:28. | :08:34. | |
all that will matter in the end, as in the US, is how does the economy | :08:34. | :08:37. | |
look when we get close to an election? We will forget the | :08:37. | :08:42. | |
details. The grand narrative will be, which of these guys would you | :08:42. | :08:48. | |
trust with your economy? Although it is a budget which is meant to | :08:48. | :08:53. | |
deal with the economy, it is a political Budget. They have a | :08:53. | :08:57. | |
longer game to play. It I agreed with that, but I'm not sure it is | :08:57. | :09:04. | |
working, I think we may have seen a real sea change... A horrible | :09:04. | :09:11. | |
phrase to use, but what I think with the Occupied movement, and | :09:12. | :09:17. | |
this grass roots revulsion against entrenched privilege, I think that | :09:17. | :09:21. | |
gives the Tories are really big problem with the narrative, even if | :09:21. | :09:26. | |
the economy is doing well. If they cannot shake their image of being | :09:26. | :09:29. | |
the people who do things for their friends but not for the wider | :09:29. | :09:37. | |
population... But the economy is not doing fantastically well. | :09:37. | :09:44. | |
Whereas the growth? 2%, inflation is diminishing, but slowly. And | :09:44. | :09:49. | |
also, the provision for the deficit is still very big. So we are just | :09:49. | :09:54. | |
half way. The government has two years to get it together. Just one | :09:54. | :09:59. | |
final, quick point, after a couple of days a very bad headlines, the | :09:59. | :10:03. | |
government announced it may introduce a minimum pricing for | :10:03. | :10:07. | |
alcohol, 40 p a unit, which wiped the bad headlines off the front | :10:07. | :10:12. | |
pages. Do you think that is really a flyer? I spoke to one MP who said | :10:12. | :10:17. | |
that his constituents do not want to pay more for the glass of wine | :10:17. | :10:25. | |
in the evening because of a few yobs. His constituents will be fine, | :10:25. | :10:32. | |
because it will be these cheap, 50 p pints of lager in big paper bags, | :10:32. | :10:39. | |
rather than some vintage from Bordeaux! So it is baulk they will | :10:39. | :10:48. | |
work on. It was certainly not stop MPs! -- it will certainly not stop | :10:49. | :10:54. | |
MPs! We will leave it there. The killings in Toulouse of French | :10:54. | :10:58. | |
soldiers and at a Jewish school were apparently the work of a lone | :10:58. | :11:00. | |
al-Qaeda sympathiser - though exactly who trained him and for | :11:00. | :11:04. | |
what still is not clear. With just a few weeks to go before president | :11:04. | :11:06. | |
Sarkozy faces the voters, what impact will this have on French | :11:06. | :11:14. | |
voters, and on France's various ethnic and religious groups? | :11:14. | :11:17. | |
Terrible happenings in Toulouse, but does it have a political | :11:17. | :11:22. | |
impact? It can go both ways. The first explanation, Sarkozy was good | :11:22. | :11:28. | |
at crisis management, good at speaking to the nation and going in | :11:28. | :11:35. | |
to reassuring the nation, and also having words, which were very | :11:35. | :11:39. | |
important for Muslim compatriots, that this was a loner, and it is | :11:39. | :11:42. | |
very important that there is no retaliation and there is a national | :11:42. | :11:46. | |
unity. That could favour him, because whenever you have the | :11:46. | :11:52. | |
disorder and tragedy, the right- wing -- the right wins. A big chunk | :11:52. | :11:57. | |
of the public opinion thinks that if, by his sticking to the National | :11:57. | :12:03. | |
Front point of view on immigration, and too many foreigners, and also | :12:03. | :12:09. | |
the war of civilisation, all he has said has created a climate where | :12:09. | :12:12. | |
that sort of thing could happen. All this together can go the other | :12:12. | :12:17. | |
way. Succour to's problem is simple - he might do well in the first | :12:17. | :12:23. | |
round, in the second round, he has no reservoir of boats. It will be | :12:23. | :12:29. | |
the left that has that, and his opponent has been very low key with | :12:29. | :12:36. | |
that. I still think they will win. What do you think will be the | :12:36. | :12:42. | |
impact of this? Politicians have to be very careful with making | :12:42. | :12:47. | |
political capital out of tragedies. On the other hand, people do tend | :12:47. | :12:52. | |
to rally around the leader, whether that is. What I find interesting is | :12:52. | :12:56. | |
that it is a battle of narratives, it is a question of whether the | :12:56. | :13:03. | |
lesson for France is that these are complicated issues, they are issues | :13:03. | :13:13. | |
of religion verses secular life, ethnic relations among Muslim a | :13:13. | :13:16. | |
first generation a North African communities, the Jewish community. | :13:16. | :13:24. | |
That is one narrative. The other narrative, like post 9/11, is this | :13:24. | :13:28. | |
is an issue of the terror. This it is obviously the Sarkozy preference, | :13:28. | :13:33. | |
because then it becomes an issue of personal security, of national | :13:33. | :13:37. | |
unity, and in a way, it is a question of which are these | :13:37. | :13:42. | |
narratives wins out. You know France very well, I was talking to | :13:42. | :13:46. | |
a Moroccan friend the other day and it's partly here and partly there, | :13:46. | :13:50. | |
that he was worried that there would be a backlash against all | :13:50. | :13:56. | |
Muslims. Yes, they raise the fear or within the community, even in | :13:56. | :14:03. | |
this country, by the way, because they consider that a lot of | :14:03. | :14:11. | |
Mohammed Merah's actions -- a lot of Mohammed Merahs do exist in the | :14:11. | :14:20. | |
West, they are lower for -- lurking somewhere. Certainly, unemployment, | :14:20. | :14:26. | |
deprivation, whatever you want... He was a criminal. He was, and he | :14:26. | :14:36. | |
killed and North African. A French soldier, he killed him as well. So | :14:36. | :14:41. | |
it was perplexing for everybody. What the hell this follow really | :14:41. | :14:47. | |
wanted? If you look at the victims, they are not... They don't belong | :14:47. | :14:57. | |
:14:57. | :15:05. | ||
Like any Western European country, they are from all backgrounds. | :15:05. | :15:15. | |
:15:15. | :15:16. | ||
believe this is lurking in the West, that he had been under surveillance | :15:16. | :15:22. | |
for two years, that is really shocking. What do you make of this? | :15:22. | :15:28. | |
A I agreed that there is a kind of lurking danger, but there are a | :15:28. | :15:34. | |
series of lurking dangers. Look at what happened in Norway, somebody | :15:34. | :15:39. | |
he is coming to trial now, we will learn more, but it is somebody who | :15:39. | :15:45. | |
was animated by a set of ideas, some of them more obviously crazy | :15:45. | :15:55. | |
:15:55. | :15:55. | ||
than others. It is very easy to cause mass destruction, very easy | :15:55. | :16:02. | |
for people to because mass destruction, very easy for people | :16:02. | :16:08. | |
to use the Internet to claim for their actions some greater | :16:08. | :16:15. | |
political or moral significance. is not easy to killed... it is easy | :16:15. | :16:21. | |
to kill unarmed children, but is not difficult. I understand that it | :16:21. | :16:29. | |
is politically expedient to except Muhammad Merav's idea that he is | :16:29. | :16:35. | |
affiliated to Al-Qaeda. There are any number of splinter groups and | :16:35. | :16:41. | |
people who could call themselves inspired by it, but it isn't a | :16:41. | :16:48. | |
coherent group. Certainly what he represents is nothing like that. | :16:48. | :16:56. | |
is interesting to notice that he tried to justify his actions by | :16:56. | :17:03. | |
revenge for the children of Gaza. It is important the reaction of the | :17:03. | :17:07. | |
Palestinians themselves, the prime minister came out and criticise | :17:07. | :17:11. | |
that action and called on the people to stop using this issue for | :17:11. | :17:17. | |
this kind of criminal action. they are not the people who will | :17:17. | :17:25. | |
here. The problem is that is why... he was addressing the rest of | :17:25. | :17:30. | |
society. He was worried that political reaction, racist reaction | :17:30. | :17:35. | |
in the West could be... it is very important to make the right noises. | :17:35. | :17:41. | |
Going back to the French election, that is where you were in what | :17:41. | :17:51. | |
:17:51. | :17:51. | ||
Nicholas so cosy -- Nicolas Sarkozy has done in his political way of | :17:52. | :17:56. | |
dealing with this. All around Europe you see politicians moving | :17:56. | :18:03. | |
very hard to the right on immigration issues. In an economic | :18:03. | :18:08. | |
crisis it is very often an easy road. What I find important is that | :18:08. | :18:15. | |
we have seen at France that I don't see very often, which we had a | :18:15. | :18:21. | |
little bits in 1998 with the World Cup victory, which is a France | :18:21. | :18:30. | |
together United. This is very rare at a time what division and the | :18:30. | :18:33. | |
electoral campaign. France is multicultural. 10 % of the | :18:33. | :18:42. | |
population is Muslim. It is integrated. There are many more | :18:42. | :18:47. | |
than in Britain mixed marriages between Muslims and Christians and | :18:47. | :18:53. | |
France. From that horror, there is an image coming off quite a | :18:53. | :19:00. | |
cohesive new multicultural France. Diplomatic news this week it onto | :19:00. | :19:09. | |
intractable problems, Syria and Iran, so does putting sanctions on | :19:09. | :19:13. | |
governments prove any results? It is all very well to say that | :19:13. | :19:18. | |
President Assad's why should not be able to shop in London, but she has | :19:18. | :19:24. | |
a British passport so she can do it anyway. To these things do anything | :19:24. | :19:28. | |
other than come the conscience of the outside world? They leave a | :19:28. | :19:36. | |
very important impact on the Syrians themselves. When the | :19:36. | :19:42. | |
Syrians welcomed its President as said Junior, they did have hoped | :19:42. | :19:47. | |
they thought he was a reformer. With the wife coming from Britain | :19:47. | :19:57. | |
:19:57. | :19:57. | ||
that increased be expectations. Certainly it increased the | :19:57. | :20:01. | |
expectation amongst the Syrian community in this country as well. | :20:01. | :20:08. | |
Now it has created disappointment, no doubt. All through the last 10 | :20:08. | :20:16. | |
or 11 months, Syrians have been trying to find an explanation for | :20:16. | :20:22. | |
her position in supporting her husband. Until the revelation about | :20:22. | :20:27. | |
e-mails on shopping and all of that. So some people have said that for | :20:27. | :20:33. | |
the wives of some maiden its eastern leaders she is quite modest | :20:33. | :20:39. | |
and her shopping! It seems that now the explanation days, which is | :20:40. | :20:47. | |
quite feasible, but no matter how decent you are, once you find | :20:47. | :20:51. | |
yourself in at corruption Web and you are caught in its, you can't | :20:51. | :20:59. | |
get out of it. I think this is probably the case with her and her | :20:59. | :21:07. | |
family. With the sanctions, do you think sanctions do produce results? | :21:07. | :21:11. | |
They produce results. Whether it is the one you want it is another | :21:11. | :21:17. | |
matter. At the moment because everyone is so terrified that | :21:17. | :21:22. | |
Israel will steam in and attacked Iran, anything that is not Israel | :21:22. | :21:27. | |
attacking Iran is better than the alternative. The sanctions | :21:27. | :21:33. | |
introduced have already pushed fuel prices higher, so we're introducing | :21:33. | :21:37. | |
sanctions that are going to deepen unrest and some of her own | :21:37. | :21:42. | |
countries. Another aspect of sanctions since -- he is you never | :21:42. | :21:46. | |
know if it'll strengthen the opposition you want to strengthen, | :21:46. | :21:50. | |
or put additional pressure on it. Whether it will cause suffering to | :21:50. | :21:54. | |
the people who are already suffering. Sanctions are really | :21:54. | :21:59. | |
difficult tool, but they are preferable clearly to a bombing at | :21:59. | :22:05. | |
the hell out to people. You could remind us of how sanctions worked | :22:05. | :22:10. | |
in Cuba or in Zimbabwe, for example. I don't know how these particular | :22:10. | :22:18. | |
sanctions will work. My guess is that they are better than the | :22:18. | :22:26. | |
alternative. It is certainly better than the alternative. In my | :22:26. | :22:29. | |
experience of a foreign correspondent in similar situations, | :22:29. | :22:34. | |
the work more than we think. They were generally because these are | :22:34. | :22:42. | |
close-knit circles. It is not just President Assad's family, one of | :22:42. | :22:49. | |
the reasons there was the shift from President Hassan Be Younger to | :22:49. | :22:54. | |
him looking very much look like his father is that the real power was | :22:54. | :23:04. | |
:23:04. | :23:05. | ||
the security services, the army, other security apparatus. The | :23:05. | :23:10. | |
message intended in sanctions like this history we won't convince Mr | :23:10. | :23:15. | |
and Mrs Azad, but if you are in that second echelon, the clock is | :23:15. | :23:19. | |
ticking. This is probably not a great career move to stick with | :23:19. | :23:25. | |
these people. On that level it probably works. It takes time. | :23:25. | :23:33. | |
only other thing I would say about Israel and Iran, I think you are | :23:33. | :23:39. | |
right about that, this is not just an issue for Israel and Iran. There | :23:39. | :23:46. | |
is a consensus that and new Kuala armed air ran is probably not a | :23:46. | :23:51. | |
great idea. Saudi Arabia, Turkey, other countries are not entirely | :23:51. | :23:58. | |
relaxed about it. The point about sanctions, it is partly frustration. | :23:58. | :24:03. | |
Nobody has got any better ideas about Syria. Absolutely. I think | :24:03. | :24:08. | |
the financial sanctions were quite well because at the moment they | :24:08. | :24:16. | |
have a terrible time to get their transactions through the bank's. | :24:16. | :24:21. | |
They import refined oil. That is their real weak points as far as | :24:21. | :24:31. | |
:24:31. | :24:34. | ||
Iran is concerned. Once they have problems... at the was a real | :24:34. | :24:39. | |
pressure. That the West can continue, pressurising the | :24:40. | :24:44. | |
financial sector. We have no armament to do anything on the oil | :24:44. | :24:48. | |
because of what Catherine said, we don't want to have the oil at the | :24:48. | :24:56. | |
pump going through the roof. It is coming in America as well. They | :24:56. | :25:02. | |
have bizarre at 30 has diminished over the last couple of decades. In | :25:02. | :25:10. | |
its place another economy has risen by the revolution, they have their | :25:10. | :25:17. | |
own economy. But the desire is still strong, no doubt, but it is | :25:17. | :25:23. | |
not absolute power. It is sharing it with another. As far as the | :25:23. | :25:32. | |
nuclear issue, the trouble with Israel and Iran is currently really | :25:32. | :25:38. | |
Binyamin Netanyahu to, because he wanted the world's to take his | :25:38. | :25:48. | |
:25:48. | :25:49. | ||
points. He is not listening to the rest. I happen to see someone very | :25:49. | :25:53. | |
close -- happened to see someone very close to him a week before | :25:53. | :25:57. | |
that and the problem with interpreting things like this is | :25:57. | :26:03. |