07/04/2012 Dateline London

Now on BBC News, it is time for Welcome to Dateline London. The

British government considers even more domestic security measures.

Possibly even conduct more trials in secret. Will it make us say for?

It has been called the most dangers from mine in the world but are

India and Pakistan on the road to better relations?

And Mitt Romney breaks free of the others. What will the contest

looked like for America and the rest of us?

My guests today are a number of broadcasters and writers.

Politicians in opposition have a tendency to talk about civil

liberties. When they get to government, they tend to talk about

security. The British government has talked about a number of

legalised smoothing techniques and has been criticised by at the press.

How much of a surveillance society do we need and thus the government

again look out of touch with those who are instinctively conservative?

What was this about? The attacks? No, just that we need more

surveillance and be able to look through emails etc? I am bold

enough to remember when the Labour Party, used to spew out laws. --

old enough. We work very against that. Now we find that the party

that the Telegraph and the Mail nominally support is doing exactly

the same. We cannot stand it. It infuriates me because I remember at

the time of the 40 today campaign, it was a human rights thing, I

joined her campaign against it. Is it that the Tory party, at least

the David Cameron wing of it, has a short memory? If they could

remember that well over the Labour attempt, which they failed to do in

suddenly, wouldn't somebody say, this is not a good idea? Is it that

journalists tend to be instinctively against this kind of

thing and civil servants tend to be for this kind of thing? And for

whenever people get into government, they get captured by civil servants

and are told it is a good idea? is like blackmail. Exactly. But the

whole issue itself, I do not believe governments usually tell

you what they want you to do in the future. I believe many people

believe that they are doing it already. They are kind of testing

the public in a way, how they will react. It is very interesting to

notice the difference within the Coalition government about it. 17

MPs just a few days ago wrote a letter in the Independent,

threatening the Deputy Prime Minister to watch it. It is as if

it is going to be legalised and passed... It might fail because the

government might break itself. But the main point which I would like

to make, usually governments say what they are going to do. We are

familiar with previous governments to the politics of distraction. It

was said by some, perhaps you, that every time Tony Blair got into

trouble, he talked about fox- hunting. Is this a distraction

technique? The talk about the pasty is disgusting. Increasing taxes on

that. And then the great tax. That was embarrassing. -- granny

tax. At least this is meant to be a serious issue but it is nonsense. I

do not believe it is a distraction. You want to distract from the

weakest government and at this on top, it is making the situation

worse? The timing is awful. It is like playing with fire. So far,

they have held public support for the coalition. Now Cameron is

coming up with this. He has to make a public announcement. He cannot

It has been legalised and so you have to come up with, is this the

year to do so? The case is yet to be made. We need to be ahead of

terrorists and so on. There are enough. We understand that. But

until the inevitability of this measure has been proven or shown to

be necessary, it is foolish to come out of this -- at this point in

time. The BBC covered extensively this case about the man wanted in

the US who may be extradited. He has been in jail for seven years

without trial. Whatever the rights of the case, he may have run a

website, it does seem that that is kind of self defeating. We like to

think that if you have done something, you go on trial and you

go to jail. But he did not stay in jail for seven years without

somebody showing you that you have done something wrong. Clearly there

has been rising resentment in this issue. The opposite not taking

place, people going to trial. This element of weakness in British

policy has disappointed a lot of Britons. But to come back to the

point that we were making, I tend to expect toughness from the Tories

when it comes to matters of security. When it comes to law and

order. But the timing is astonishing. Incompetent.

Absolutely. We have a situation where the Conservative popularity

has plummeted after the cash for access story. You come up with

something like this which is really daft. We have local elections

coming up. A important ones. Yes. And the mayoral a relic -- the

mayoral election. According to some polls, they are 10% behind. This is

not time to introduce something like this. Another thing I find

interesting is the Left always are seeing as the people who are very...

Who believe the state is actually virtuous. They will accept an awful

lot from the state. Interfering and so on. But the ride, particularly

this government, is supposed to be big society - remember that phrase?

-- the right. Trusting the people and not constantly interfering with

their goings on. But the big society, I hope we never hear about

that again. This is such a left- wing act. It has been noticeable

that particularly in the last couple of weeks, the Tory press

which has never been in love with David Cameron, has really gone for

him. Yes and for good reason. We went for Labour when they started

to try to bring in similar things. But in a sense, we told ourselves,

this is what the left does. It likes to interfere to try to

control things. The Tories are supposed to say, no, leave people

alone. Trust in their common sense. But it is doing just what Labour

was trying to do. And this nanny state suspicion, that they are

rolling out this supervision. The idea that you have to put shutters

in front of supermarkets. We are not ourselves again. There was

airlifted to the Independent yesterday which talks about, I have

been at it for 40 years, I have now been cured. -- been an addict. That

is a message to take. They are saying that maybe the politicians

should publish their tax returns. Is that something that will take

on? That is an interesting one. is trying to put pressure on Labour

leaders to do the same. I can understand tactically. But since

the end of the Cold War, 23 years, the consent and demand for freedom

World Wise has increased. Britain is no different. Of late, there has

been this factor of terrorism. -- worldwide. But they have not made a

strong enough case to snoop into everybody's emails in countering

terrorism. But all of this, every bit of legislation, is always so

that the drafted. The last bout of this from the Labour Party in 2008

seemed to give rights to all sorts of jobs in various councils. It

ended up, especially against terrorism, with ordinary taxpayers,

council taxpayers, having microchips put into their dustbins.

Catch them out if they put the wrong kind of thing in there. It is

really not going to go away. It is not necessary. It is not only the

timing that is bad but the whole issue itself is wrong. Do they

think they will really fight terrorism through this kind of act?

We have seen recently the case of Mohammad Amir, the Toulouse

shooting. He was under surveillance for two years and they did nothing.

They did not really stop it. moving on. Two great nations of the

into an -- Indian sub-continent have gone to war with each other in

the past. They looked like they were going to war on several

occasions and pulled back at the last moment. They are now both

nuclear powers. Some commentators see their potential for

confrontation as one of the most dangers in the world. There are

allegations of state-sponsored terrorism among other things. How

far will the summit this weekend be a surprise and a relief? It is

supposed to be just a lunch, sort of. But we are having the President

of Pakistan on brewed elsewhere, going to India, to have lunch with

the Prime Minister of India. -- en route. It is a big day for the

President of Pakistan but what was called a visit to a famous shrine,

a very popular shrine that goes down well with the Pakistani public,

has actually turned out to be more official and more important than

what was deemed to be the case originally. This was always the

design. This lunch, which is going to be preceded by a one to one

meeting between the two leaders where they will be no Aids, no

takers, is very severe -- significant. A lot has been

happening in the background in the last 20 months between the two

countries. Already, Pakistan, after more than 15 years, has responded

to India's proposals of granting each other most favoured nation

status in terms of trade. That is something which has happened. Now,

it is the political aspect, other aspects, the many problems that

exist within the two countries which the two leaders, two

governments, are trying to tackle. Diplomacy always works best if it

is done quietly. That is what has been happening in the last 20

months. There has been a steady build up to tomorrow when the two

leaders need. The Prime Minister of Pakistan, the number two man as far

as the Pakistani hierarchy is concerned, has met the Indian Prime

Minister several times on the sidelines of international

conferences. But now, there will be this in -- imported talk. I do not

see the two countries resolving their main problem of Kashmir. But

they could follow a formula which has worked for India and China,

which is to put the matter on the back-burner, continued to discuss

it, find a solution, while you get on with other aspects of the

relationship. It has worked beautifully as far as India and

China is concerned. They now have a trade turnover of $70 billion and

that itself is historic. I suppose the important thing it is happening.

Exactly. The rest of the world is watching this worrying trend but

what -- between the two countries. Putting the Kashmir issue on the

back-burner is important. The Mumbai attacks are still vivid in a

memory. America must be watching with keen curiosity. The two

regional powers will be a pillar of security if they are able to patch

up their differences and combine in the fight against extremism. That

We have any problem, the US, India to not trust the Pakistani. The

military service intelligence and... If India is seen to be trusting

them? Up to a point. The point is, no-one trusts and the Pakistan

internationally because of the military, they're very rich, they

do not trust them. The minutes of one of them makes a mistake, even

in language, it will all go... is also true within Pakistan. You

have a civilian government constantly looking over its soldier.

-- shoulder. Absolutely. These two giant countries of the region, they

are the main source of labour so there are keener interest that

stability is to maintain in the region. The best thing they can do

is upon talking. And they put complicated acute issues in the

back burner but the question is, they need to continuously talk.

When you stop talking, you just play the game according to Jerome

interest, exclusively. They must be more. India is interest it in their

neighbour. They must bring in their interest to bed, to acknowledge --

admonished Pakistan. Perhaps encourage more than acknowledge. It

is in India's interest to have a stable Pakistan. The key to

tomorrow's meeting, if there is going to be any success, is the

army in Pakistan. To what extent are they willing to less than their

hardline stance towards India. There is an indication that because

of Pakistan's internal problems, the problem that they have on the

Western Front with Afghanistan, the army is willing to quieten the

Eastern Front with Indian. There has never really been a threat from

India. The best interests of India is a prosperous, stable Pakistan.

India wants to get on with their economic development. It has

realised that we are in a situation, on a fast track, emerging as a

nation Das -- we need stability. is serious winning comes to the

conflict. -- when it comes to conflict. There are those who say

that the fact there are nuclear countries is actually stopping

conflict. Obviously, Pakistan is where I was born. A was a bit

nervous because of the nuclear, there are a lot of nutters in

Pakistan. Everywhere,. They are obsessed with Kashmir. They have

had three wars on it, for all together but three they were solely

about Kashmir. I think the thing about having both powers with a

nuclear capability, they can look over the edge of the abyss and say,

look, we do not want the nutters in India or in our country to heighten

the temperatures so much that some awful thing happen. Mitt Romney has

yet to secured the nomination. But it seems to be coming to an end. Or

we have no Americans on the panels but all of us have a stake in the

contest. What do you make of it? covered the US for eight years.

Those unending primaries, exciting to begin West but you cannot

predict the end. Now, we have the presumed candidate on the

Republican side. It has been over covered, he has not been really

divine. Nobody knows what he has been up to her. A pencil sketch is

what he was called by one of his own. If they're happy with a system

that produces this sort of calibre, let them. It is not for me to

condescend and tell them there is a better pool of talent available.

But varies. America has not done too badly out of their President. A

few weaklings. I think the Republicans have got the most... I

had been covering on the ground at every election since Jimmy Carter,

even before that is, anyway, at least you used to fill, a sense of

hopeless but there are always at least four or five possibles. You

had the tea-party people, you had these mad women, Sarah Palin and

Michelle Buckman he really did not know there's something from their

elbows and they drop down. Newt Gingrich who are covered a great

deal, he brought America to a standstill because he wanted to

shut down government. He has this wild ego. He obviously cannot run

America. Mitt Romney, who does not excite anybody except possibly Mrs

Rumney, they have five children... You cannot be sure. At American

lady stop me and said that it has to be Mitt Romney because he has

the best hair. It may be an analysis of sorts. His hair is

rather splendid. What you think people will think of these compers

- Barack Obama and Mick Romney, particularly in the Arab world?

Appearance since be important in this Hollywood-style kind of

campaign. As far as the Middle East is concerned, listening to the

Republicans, all of them got Mick Romney said the first thing he will

do is travel to Israel. Gingrich said there are no Palestinian

people. They are invented people. I mean, that is pretty grim. At least

Barack Obama is quite clear on that. It is quite understandable in the

Middle East how he is under extreme pressure not being able to move

ahead or at least to do what he promised that he was going to do.

In that sense, I think people in the Middle East, especially in the

Arab world, would be greatly relieved if she wins. I think all

of us should be. The upcoming trial of my Harmon, and the other

perpetrators in Guantanamo. It will be a major Storrar between now and

election time. That will be at ute story. You have covered the US for

many years. I have never seen so little interest in an American

presidential election across Europe. There is interest in France, and

Europe is obsessed with its our own problems. The primaries are just

too long. At the end of it, we still do not have a resolved or a

result which is a bit of rain on a result. Obviously, it seems that

Mitt Romney is virtually in but at the same time, the longer it takes

for the Republicans to officially confirm this, the more Barack Obama

will be laughing. Considering how Barack Obama is best corrected all

around the country, -- is seen across the country, once the

Republican nutcases enter the race, his personal rating rose. That is

because, you know, oh my goodness, at least we know who he is. Also

the economy has been steadily improving. I think what ever we see

around, the economy is going to decide. It always does. As long as

unemployment is going down and employment going up. Europe losing

interest is very important. We have future agendas to ten to, to solve

problems, the future of the euro. That reduces the relevance of the