:00:12. > :00:16.Epsom wake source -- racecourse in an open-topped car.
:00:16. > :00:26.There will be a full news bulletin at one o'clock. Now it's time for
:00:26. > :00:28.
:00:28. > :00:31.Hello and a warm welcome to Dateline London. The Queen
:00:31. > :00:33.celebrates her Diamond Jubilee, 60 years on the throne. How
:00:33. > :00:41.significant a force does the monarchy remain in Britain? Syria
:00:41. > :00:44.and civil war. And, as billions of Euros pour out of Spain, is this
:00:44. > :00:46.the last chance to save the euro? My guests today are Thomas
:00:46. > :00:50.Kielinger of Die Welt, Michael Goldfarb of Globalpost.com, Mina Al
:00:50. > :00:53.Oraibi of Asharq al Awsat and Polly Toynbee of the Guardian.
:00:53. > :00:57.In very tough economic times Britain is to have a long holiday
:00:57. > :01:00.weekend to celebrate Queen Elizabeth's 60 years on the throne.
:01:00. > :01:06.How should we view the monarchy now, and those past 60 years since the
:01:06. > :01:09.end of Empire? How well does the monarchy manage its image? And is
:01:09. > :01:13.Republicanism a spent force in Britain?
:01:13. > :01:18.How significant a force do you think the monarchy is today?
:01:18. > :01:21.like to say this is just a bit of harmless fun. She does not really
:01:21. > :01:27.have any important powers, but I think the importance of the
:01:27. > :01:32.monarchy for Britain is that it has a huge subconscious grip on the
:01:32. > :01:36.political imagination. It makes us much less democratic, it makes us
:01:36. > :01:41.tolerate a certain degree of subservience that other republics,
:01:41. > :01:50.on the whole, don't tolerate. I think it permeates our view of our
:01:50. > :01:55.world -- role in the world which is insane. Punching above our weight,
:01:55. > :01:58.having a seat on the Security Council we really don't deserve and,
:01:59. > :02:04.of course, now in the process of spending colossal numbers of --
:02:04. > :02:09.amounts of money of buying trident and having to be a nuclear power.
:02:09. > :02:13.All of this is part of our imperial fantasy. Every time we have one of
:02:14. > :02:18.these great parades, we pump up the idea of Britain's greatness. I
:02:18. > :02:23.think we look pretty preposterous on the world stage. Even though we
:02:23. > :02:29.do there parades well, what is underneath it is pretty toxic.
:02:29. > :02:36.us move over to a representative of of a great republic. You have
:02:36. > :02:39.written a book about the Queen. the Queen is the Queen. Quite
:02:39. > :02:44.rightly so because she is the only international monarch. There are
:02:45. > :02:48.lots of monarchs in Europe as we know but none has this
:02:48. > :02:53.international reach. She is head of state in 15 other countries and
:02:53. > :02:57.head of the Commonwealth which is 54 countries. I consider her
:02:57. > :03:03.achievement of keeping the Commonwealth together one of her
:03:03. > :03:12.business -- biggest. How do we view it in a Republican country? We have
:03:12. > :03:16.lost two residence in as many years. -- President's. I think what Polly
:03:16. > :03:21.Toynbee calls subservience is public faithfulness to a tradition.
:03:21. > :03:27.Having a head of state who stands above the air and flow of party
:03:27. > :03:36.politics. That is such an asset, you can't imagine how many crisis
:03:36. > :03:40.you spare yourself by having one person above it all who served
:03:40. > :03:44.continuously. Your President does cost �10 less than an hour and the
:03:44. > :03:49.Irish President costs �100 less than ours. The Queen bring so much
:03:49. > :03:54.value for money. She doesn't bring in the money! People go and visit
:03:54. > :04:03.Versailles but there is no King inside. That is half the number of
:04:03. > :04:08.people come to Britain. I remember when Princess Diana died and it
:04:09. > :04:12.took the BBC hours to vox pop any one English because all of the
:04:12. > :04:17.people at Buckingham Palace were American tourist. I think Polly is
:04:17. > :04:20.right about social cohesion. My birthright is to be Republican in
:04:20. > :04:26.feeling and world view but the thing about the Queen is that she
:04:26. > :04:31.has become an embodiment of national cohesion, of what is
:04:31. > :04:35.essentially a federal country, as we will find out in 2014 when the
:04:35. > :04:38.Scottish people vote, probably, to detach themselves somewhat from the
:04:38. > :04:41.United Kingdom and it is interesting to me as an outsider to
:04:41. > :04:47.note that she has managed to survive because she has been very
:04:47. > :04:52.good at this idea of embodiment. At one time people -- things were
:04:52. > :04:56.difficult for her, in 1997, when Diana died. People demanded, they
:04:56. > :05:01.really did demand, a little more warmth and collective empathy from
:05:01. > :05:06.her and she did make this extraordinary speech. Mina, we know
:05:06. > :05:11.that Iraq has problems at the moment, would you be better with a
:05:11. > :05:14.monarchy? Absolutely, I think our woes started when we lost our
:05:14. > :05:20.monarchy. What the monarchy gives is the ability to have traditions
:05:20. > :05:24.and to have a sense of a national identity. That is separate from all
:05:24. > :05:28.of the politics which continues to flow. I think the idea of democracy
:05:28. > :05:32.is not necessarily better kept in a republic. I think in the US, you
:05:32. > :05:36.may not be subservient to the monarchy but you're a subservient
:05:36. > :05:40.to the lobbyists and big money and so forth but surfing the greyness
:05:40. > :05:46.of the monarchy here is the ability to have traditions and culture that
:05:46. > :05:52.is also developing and has this amazing merger between tradition
:05:52. > :05:55.and history. The idea that there is no traditional culture in these
:05:56. > :06:02.other countries, the idea that it has to be personified by somebody
:06:02. > :06:07.or other. We are very divided nation in Britain, particularly
:06:07. > :06:12.politically between the right and the left and becoming more so. It
:06:12. > :06:16.is entirely artificial, this bit of blue... With respect, your list of
:06:16. > :06:21.complaints, all very well taken, but some of these are political
:06:21. > :06:24.matters in the hands of those who govern this country, who may not do
:06:24. > :06:32.the job properly. You cannot lay the blame at the door of the
:06:32. > :06:38.monarchy of being in the way of progress. There was a great
:06:39. > :06:45.constitutional historian who talked about the Republican disguise, with
:06:45. > :06:49.the royal garb as it were. I agree, I am not worried about her...
:06:49. > :06:54.think it is a political class that it is not doing the job as they
:06:54. > :06:59.should and not a monarchy. comparison with Germany, we are in
:06:59. > :07:04.Europe, the least socially mobile country, the most rigid. It is a
:07:04. > :07:09.part of our imagery, that we think hereditary is OK, we think it is OK
:07:09. > :07:13.to have a House of Lords, the only one in any democracy that is
:07:13. > :07:18.hereditary. We have an extraordinary constitution. I did
:07:18. > :07:22.thing that matters very much from the.... We are essentially a
:07:22. > :07:25.democracy but I think the idea of being a fair society and whether
:07:25. > :07:29.hereditary matters and that the rich will pass their money on to
:07:29. > :07:33.their children. Look at what is happening in America in this
:07:33. > :07:37.election season. There are are all too might -- ultra right-wing
:07:37. > :07:44.billionaires who inherited their wealth, although they did build up
:07:44. > :07:52.what they inherited, they are funding a vision of America as a
:07:52. > :07:55.one-party state that allows them to pay their text. -- tax. Rupert
:07:55. > :08:01.Murdoch also inherited a seat at the table. Inherited wealth can be
:08:01. > :08:06.found in monarchies and republics equally. Alas that's true, but I do
:08:06. > :08:09.think that week celebrated in this country and it makes it worse.
:08:09. > :08:15.we celebrated, people in various ways will have a good weekend and
:08:15. > :08:20.you will have fun this weekend. Celebrating his fine but I wish it
:08:20. > :08:23.was Shakespeare's birthday. Would you accept that for most British
:08:23. > :08:26.people, even if they don't think the monarchy works in theory
:08:26. > :08:31.because they listen to some of the things you say and they may make
:08:31. > :08:35.sense, but they think it may work in practice. It has provided, asked,
:08:35. > :08:39.fares, stability and because they have no power, they are not a
:08:39. > :08:49.threat to anyone. All these other countries a stable with perfectly
:08:49. > :08:50.
:08:50. > :08:54.respectable precedents that nobody has ever heard of. -- presidents.
:08:54. > :08:58.Germany tends to have a President and nobody has ever heard of which
:08:58. > :09:02.is fine. You don't need a lot of razzmatazz. It is a small and
:09:02. > :09:06.technical job. The Queen is very aware that you can never take the
:09:06. > :09:09.crown for granted in this country, you have to work to keep it
:09:09. > :09:14.accepted. One of the things I'm interested in is not her virtuous
:09:14. > :09:18.nature of devotion to duty because too much is spent on that aspect
:09:18. > :09:22.but I would rather concentrate on the motives behind it and she is so
:09:22. > :09:25.crucially aware of the brittleness of the constitutional make-up.
:09:25. > :09:30.Unless you keep working on the acceptability of the monarchy, you
:09:30. > :09:34.can't rest on the laurels of an ancient institution. I think she is
:09:34. > :09:39.a real politician, she goes on working furiously, thanks to a
:09:39. > :09:44.health which allows her to do it. She works three days a week, five
:09:44. > :09:50.days -- five months a year, always has done! The number of months a
:09:50. > :09:54.year she is in Balmoral... final word on this from Mina.
:09:54. > :10:02.recent poll from ICM says that 68% of British people actually support
:10:02. > :10:04.the monarchy and 22% would want to abolish, so I think sadly it is the
:10:04. > :10:10.majority. All good ideas start with a
:10:10. > :10:14.radical... Universal suffrage for the boat started small. I think we
:10:14. > :10:17.can argue about this all weekend. But it let us move on.
:10:17. > :10:19.The massacres in Syria have led to the expulsion of Syrian diplomats
:10:19. > :10:22.from Britain and many other countries. With the regime
:10:22. > :10:26.diplomatically isolated, is there any real pressure outsiders can use
:10:26. > :10:31.to stop the killings? Or is this in effect a civil war which has to go
:10:31. > :10:35.on until the end? Mina, I do know very well this area
:10:35. > :10:40.position about these massacres and killings being carried out by what
:10:40. > :10:44.they call terrorists all rebels, does anybody believe that? No. I
:10:44. > :10:49.don't believe anybody does believe that. I am not even sure the regime
:10:49. > :10:55.believes it themselves. However, what is clear is that there are
:10:55. > :11:00.pockets within the country that are not under full government control.
:11:00. > :11:04.There are attacks that are being carried out by militias that belong
:11:04. > :11:08.to the government or a supporter of the Government. At the moment this
:11:08. > :11:14.blame game is all politics. On the ground what is happening is that
:11:14. > :11:18.there is a disintegration of who actually carries arms in the
:11:18. > :11:23.country. At the end the Government bears responsibility for that.
:11:23. > :11:25.Presumably one implication of that is they may not even control the
:11:25. > :11:29.people who support them, militias may discern things without even
:11:29. > :11:33.being told by central government, even if they are morally
:11:33. > :11:37.responsible. I believe they are responsible morally and in
:11:37. > :11:42.actuality because I don't think the authority has lost that much
:11:42. > :11:47.control yet. If they wanted to rein them in, they could. You know your
:11:47. > :11:51.country, Iraq, has gone through. Do you fear the whole place may just
:11:51. > :11:55.fall apart because of the religious and ethnic tensions? Of course,
:11:55. > :11:59.that is a serious threat but what is even more worrying is that at
:11:59. > :12:03.the moment nobody has a clear idea of where it can go. The outside
:12:03. > :12:10.forces that you mentioned earlier, that can play a role, whether it is
:12:10. > :12:16.Russia, where there it is the Turkish or different ends of the
:12:16. > :12:20.spectrum, everybody seems to be at this focus on the Kofi Annan plan
:12:20. > :12:25.because nobody else can come up with a better idea. Everybody knows
:12:25. > :12:30.it is failing and there is time being lost. On the ground where
:12:30. > :12:34.there is this disintegration, nobody is doing any work on what
:12:34. > :12:44.should happen when that does happen. Some people will look to America
:12:44. > :12:45.
:12:45. > :12:51.but Barack Obama has other things His biggest foreign challenges the
:12:51. > :12:59.global economy. Even if he was half tempted to use drones to hit the
:12:59. > :13:07.Assad motorcade, he can't. He simply won't. The other problem is
:13:07. > :13:13.the nature of Syria. This patchwork of, I hate the shorthand because it
:13:13. > :13:23.belies the complexity, but you have the Sunni Arabs, and the Christians
:13:23. > :13:25.
:13:25. > :13:33.are not joining in. We have them all. This is why I say this, why
:13:33. > :13:39.aren't Arab Christians joining in? The reason is that people feared
:13:39. > :13:44.that Syrian National Council. It is yet to show how bona-fide it is.
:13:44. > :13:50.Whatever we do to replace Assad, you will not suffer. They need to
:13:50. > :13:55.say that. It is not that they will not trust those in the uprising,
:13:55. > :13:59.over the last decade, on several occasions they have risen up in
:13:59. > :14:04.Syria and been severely bloodied. You notice how quiet the Kurds are
:14:04. > :14:08.now. They don't know what is happening in the western part of
:14:08. > :14:12.the country. You have this terrible situation where the United States
:14:12. > :14:17.is not going to get more involved more than now, which is not very
:14:17. > :14:22.much. You have the fragments who might like to rise up, fearful of
:14:22. > :14:27.what will happen if they do succeed and get rid of Assad. Britain and
:14:28. > :14:31.France, you might as well say it is not going to be another Libya.
:14:31. > :14:35.won't, it is much more difficult. We were lucky we did not get back
:14:35. > :14:42.into something which might have been very difficult to cope with in
:14:42. > :14:46.Libya. I think we could support the Turks a great deal more as a
:14:46. > :14:53.European initiative, saying that we should help them do everything they
:14:53. > :14:57.can. But we are standing on the sidelines looking on in horror. But
:14:57. > :15:04.also being reminded of the nature of China and Russia and their
:15:04. > :15:08.utterly destructive role in the un. Desperately depressing. I want to
:15:08. > :15:13.latch on to that. We have two narratives. The political one as
:15:13. > :15:19.long as Russia supports the current regime. Nothing you can do. The
:15:19. > :15:25.other is the moral narrative. Watching these goings-on, the
:15:25. > :15:31.deaths of innocent civilians. To watch it now, it puts a huge burden
:15:31. > :15:37.on the moral conscience. I have no easy answer, but I am thinking what
:15:37. > :15:45.comes after may be worse. For continuing unity in Syria, it would
:15:45. > :15:48.be a huge cost, so shipping weapons may be one way of helping the
:15:48. > :15:55.revolutionary guys but we don't know the outcome. You have to be
:15:55. > :16:03.seen to be dealing with some of the aspects of the situation. I want to
:16:03. > :16:10.give you the last words. On a serious note, there are steps which
:16:10. > :16:17.could be taken. I want an arms embargo, I don't think arms would
:16:17. > :16:21.solve anything. There should be serious pressure on an arms embargo.
:16:21. > :16:27.We can't say there is nothing we can do. It is not a solution to
:16:27. > :16:33.carry on killing each other. One has to be an arms embargo, the
:16:33. > :16:37.second has to be to Telco the end and that the plan has failed. It
:16:37. > :16:42.can't be something to hang everything on. Huge amounts of
:16:42. > :16:47.money are being taken out of Spain as investors looked to save cash in
:16:47. > :16:52.case Spain falls out of the euro. They may choose to support
:16:52. > :16:55.political parties to promise an end to austerity, some saying they may
:16:56. > :17:04.leave the euro. Is this the end game for the European common
:17:04. > :17:08.currency. I wish you had not looked at me! I continue to invest in my
:17:08. > :17:13.rational assessment, there is a huge amount of money untapped in
:17:13. > :17:18.the IMF and central bank and the German economy. Somebody will
:17:18. > :17:24.realise that, as we talk about Syria, if this exit from the euro
:17:24. > :17:28.will gather pace you can't count since the breakdown of this
:17:28. > :17:32.currency union. In the short, medium or long-term. More effort
:17:32. > :17:39.will be spent on keeping it together. We will see forces come
:17:39. > :17:44.to the fore. You have seen the result and Ireland, but what is
:17:44. > :17:50.most depressing is the vote -- low voter participation. They have lost
:17:50. > :17:55.faith in anything that politicians are coming up with. Somebody must
:17:55. > :18:03.say that this has gone on for long enough, it is damaging our economic
:18:03. > :18:07.prospects. Within Germany people are saying maybe Angela Merkel has
:18:07. > :18:16.wasted a lot of political capital and energy on Greece and this is a
:18:16. > :18:21.much bigger problem. It would be much worse if it fails. It would be
:18:21. > :18:25.a much greater price for Germany. For that reason alone there is huge
:18:25. > :18:30.pressure from the business community in Germany on Angela
:18:30. > :18:37.Merkel to come up with an answer, even if it may mean more sacrifice.
:18:37. > :18:40.The bigger sacrifice will come down the line. To what extent do you
:18:40. > :18:45.think people look back on the crisis and say it could have been
:18:45. > :18:53.stopped at the beginning it and landmark court had had the nerve at
:18:53. > :18:58.the beginning to say "I don't care what happens, we'll put a fortress
:18:58. > :19:08.around Europe". We will defend every country in the euro no matter
:19:08. > :19:14.
:19:14. > :19:19.what. If it had been done with and If you remember, when it really
:19:19. > :19:23.brought up last July, it was this very local problem with Greece. 90
:19:23. > :19:27.days later it became apparent that the big players and the bond
:19:27. > :19:35.markets were concentrating on Italy and Spain. It was this incremental
:19:35. > :19:41.thing. Then there was the moment. People spoke about Greece as being
:19:41. > :19:45.a domino to begin with. To what they saw they thought it could all
:19:45. > :19:51.be contained if the Greeks did what they did, but she did not see the
:19:51. > :19:56.world there way. Is the failure of leadership within Germany, to say
:19:56. > :20:06.within Germany "we have done really well. Our exchange rates are low
:20:06. > :20:07.
:20:07. > :20:13.and we are competitive" they should think "we owe Europe for this." it
:20:13. > :20:16.may be a sales pitch which would work. We have seen the social
:20:16. > :20:21.democratic parties gaining traction, because what is interesting about
:20:21. > :20:27.the events this week, as we focus on Spain and the banking crisis, it
:20:28. > :20:32.is very important to consider the clear fact, I never believed the
:20:32. > :20:37.American employment situation was getting better. It is a globalised
:20:37. > :20:41.economy, a globalised crisis. To focus on what is happening in
:20:41. > :20:46.Europe is missing the point. I think the narrative may start to
:20:46. > :20:51.change. It is not about reducing deficits drastically and all at the
:20:51. > :20:59.same time. We need to grow and grow more or less together. That might
:20:59. > :21:02.be a narrative for Germany. Yes, the point from the US, trying to
:21:02. > :21:08.stimulate and grow the economy has helped the unemployment situation
:21:08. > :21:12.in the US. It is down to 8.2 per cent. For a time it was at 10
:21:12. > :21:16.percent and nobody had heard of it coming down. Unemployment is still
:21:16. > :21:26.the biggest problem and there is a need to tackle it. It is now at 11
:21:26. > :21:27.
:21:27. > :21:31.per cent across the EU. 25 per cent in Spain is staggering! You have to
:21:31. > :21:36.have public spending programmes, look at Britain. It is at the end
:21:36. > :21:41.of its tether. You need to think about how to improve infrastructure
:21:41. > :21:50.and so forth. That is the way to go. The extraordinary figures today in
:21:50. > :21:58.the bond markets, governments can borrow money for nothing. Germany,
:21:58. > :22:07.Denmark. Our borrowing costs are so low, we could borrow and build
:22:07. > :22:13.houses. A slightly narrower point. An extraordinary week in Britain. I
:22:13. > :22:19.can't remember a week in which a couple of months with into a budget
:22:19. > :22:25.a Chancellor does three you turn successively. A most remarkable
:22:25. > :22:30.budget which has fallen apart piece by piece, week after week. More
:22:30. > :22:34.pits have fallen off. U-turn after U-turn. But not the one which will
:22:34. > :22:39.really be damaging. The one thing people will remember most is that
:22:39. > :22:45.in the middle of this crisis, who got the tax cuts? The millionairess.
:22:45. > :22:49.That is what will cause them harm through to the next election.
:22:49. > :22:54.thing which is surprising to me is that Conservative MPs are defending,
:22:54. > :23:00.very strongly, the fairly minor tax measures on the U turns. You can
:23:00. > :23:06.make a case for them. For taxing hot food for example. If they don't
:23:06. > :23:12.want to stick by those, people will then wonder what you will change
:23:12. > :23:16.next. What is quite clear is that anything which is marginal, they
:23:16. > :23:21.are willing to be quite inconsistent and flexible about.
:23:21. > :23:28.They have a plan which is absolutely rigid. Deficit reduction
:23:28. > :23:33.and privatisation. As long as they are old to this very strong plan
:23:33. > :23:41.ideologically, reducing Britain For ever, something permanent and
:23:41. > :23:46.unchallengeable by future governments. It looks like a global
:23:46. > :23:51.economic slowdown. Things in Brazil and China are not that great.
:23:51. > :23:57.in India there is a reported slow down. You can't just focus on the
:23:57. > :24:03.euro. Globally it is no longer just the short-term confidence, people
:24:03. > :24:07.are losing faith generally. You have countries like Greece and
:24:07. > :24:12.Spain, like Portugal, although Portugal is doing better because of
:24:12. > :24:18.production. Making things, rather than talking about random numbers.
:24:18. > :24:22.People will lose confidence and to we go back to it. Going back to
:24:22. > :24:26.Europe for a second. It is pretty clear that the consumption model of
:24:26. > :24:31.capitalism that we have been dealing with has run out of steam.
:24:31. > :24:36.You can't just keep expecting people to buy and buy more staff.
:24:36. > :24:41.Then land and and so they can buy. That is not going to work any more.
:24:41. > :24:46.If you come back to the euro. I am a rationalist. I think it will
:24:46. > :24:56.survive, but it will be through political changes. I noticed the
:24:56. > :24:58.
:24:58. > :25:03.speech by someone in Berlin, saying we will see a more federal Europe
:25:04. > :25:07.emerge out of this. It will be a bit -- different political