08/09/2012 Dateline London

relatives to die. There will be a full news bulletin at 1.00pm. Now

it's time for Dateline London, live Hello and welcome to Dateline

London. Barack Obama fights for the presidency.

The British Cabinet reshuffled - can it revive the Coalition

government? And more refugees pour out of Syria.

My guests today are: Michael Goldfarb of Globalpost.com. Nesrine

Malik, a London based writer on Arab Affairs. Polly Toynbee of the

Guardian. Marc Roche of Le Monde. The American presidential election

campaign has kicked into life with President Obama making clear he

expects it to be a fight to the finish with the Republican

challenger, Mitt Romney. What does Obama have to do to convince

Americans to give him four more years? And what does Romney have to

do to stop him? The data breach from Barack Obama, or were there

some elements of I have got some things wrong in that speech? There

is a tight filter around all reality, and at the time it filters

through cable news, it is almost impossible to figure out in advance

what American people think of this. The Republicans are very good at

painting the Democrats into a corner. They are very aggressive

and hostile in their network of media, whether it is advertising or

free-speech propaganda. They said that he failed to deliver on his

promise of heat -- hoping change. Every speaker at the Republican

conference said, we're really sorry, but due field. Barack Obama acted

like a man chastened. He gave a pretty decent speech. He was sadder,

wiser, but projected that he was not bowed. The last two and a half

minutes was crowd-pleasing. He had a lot to do in his 40 minutes. He

gave some domestic ideas, avoided talking about health care. This

gets to the American people fired 32nd clips on YouTube. He is

fighting on the republican battle ground in a way as they have

painted them into that corner. Karl Rove said the fundraisers, don't

attack him in a nasty way, say you are sorry, because the people we

need to convince other people who voted for him. One of the keys in

this election is that America is very divided. I was there during

their Republican National Convention. The country is deeply

divided. It is very unhappy as a society. What we have learnt this

year is that there aren't that many undecided voters. In a sense,

Barack Obama had a free shot. He wasn't going to convince any

Republicans that he should be given another four years. There aren't

that many undecided voters. More importantly, the peculiar

arithmetic of American presidential elections lies in the electoral

college. There were six states where few are undecided you will

receive a lot of attention. This is a very small amount of the

electorate. From being on the outside, what do we think of this?

Even though you say America is quite at bleak place and quite

divided, all over the past week during two conventions we have been

quite inspired by it. There is lots of soaring rhetoric, Bill Clinton

was amazing, Michelle Palmer rallied the troops. There are two

impressions of what is happening there at the moment. The way you

yes politics plays out, that big NFL style convention politics is

quite attractive and sexy to Europeans. On the other hand, I

think that on the outside people are just thinking those are two

incredibly different candidates and the incumbent seems to be the one

who has to lose it as a poster Mitt Romney winning it. Would you agree

that in Britain and people around the world, they consistently failed

to get were people like Mitt Romney or George Bush are coming from?

There was a degree of condescension about Ronald Reagan, it is

important to understand why America is a 50-50 nation, and we don't do

that? You are right. When Mitt Romney visited the UK before the

Olympics, he was made fun of. He does represent a huge amount of

American mainstream opinion. There is this kind of British idea to not

dismiss it but try to understand why place at the way it does.

thought the American Democratic convention was great. I thought

Barack Obama a was pretty good. He couldn't do the hope than changed

thing again. What surprised me is that we didn't come back and wallop

back harder at the incredible mendacity of the Mitt Romney

strategy of saying, we hope you would do well, when they are the

reason why everything has been blocked. There would be a much

bigger stimulus package. The Barack Obama stimulus package has shown

that it worked. He would have had a much bigger stimulus package had

all of that right wing not prevented its. I think they took it

on the chin too much and should have said, it is your fault. What

the French people make of it? Do you subscribe to the view that it

is a great show, very important, but there are some American

candidates the Europeans don't get? The French don't came -- and don't

get Mitt Romney. What we have forgotten is the economy. Barack

Obama has not delivered. 10 guys there as the secretary of the

Treasury. They have not done a good job on thanks to -- on the banks.

They could have broken the muffin 2009. They are lending less and

less. There is a feeling that Mitt Romney will be better for the

economy. He is a businessman. He is low-tax. For a lot of Americans,

they don't want that. They don't want tax, I mean. The Democrats

have this image of not being good and the economy. The you except

that, that is the reason why a things a 50-50 at the moment?

think there is too much, at the general American public, I think

you're giving them too much credit for sophisticated economic

knowledge. We get used to war has been the epoch markers. A big

market was the election of Ronald Reagan. The first Budget Director

for Ronald Reagan has recanted bit insane idea of trickle-down

economics. To quote Ronald Reagan, I want to get big government off

your backs, to let you do what you do best. Americans have no sense of

irony, so there is no sense of outrage at hypocrisy. When Barack

Obama said he didn't do it by yourself because the Government

made its, everybody in America is on the state's teat, and they don't

want to have to pay for somebody else's teach, but they like their

teat. California is virtually bankrupt. It could possibly need a

bail-out of up to $78 billion. They give a quarter of a trillion

dollars worth of defence contracts in California. It is the federal

government that makes the country work. Why can't they get that

through? You would have thought that high now they would fight.

They have much better researchers than the Republicans do and their

focus groups tell them they don't like and the Democrats fightback.

No an incumbent President when the it economy is bad. He will be

defeated on the economy. Mitt Romney will probably gets 49 % of

the votes. There are only two percentage points in it. The

electoral college, the way it is, Barack Obama would win quite easily.

The same at the economy. If you look at the numbers, the

unemployment rate came down. But in many pockets of the country the

economy is doing incredibly well. If you go to Silicon Valley, there

is no sense that the world as in any trouble. In all these places

that you are doing well, they vote Republican. I want to answer the

question from Gavin. All the reason and logic about the economy, in the

end for many people who will cast their votes, this is a question

about Barack Obama and his race. After eight years in public life,

there are still many in America who see this as being about race.

America it and it's great crucible of society is how it relates to

different races. He was elected by a landslide a few years ago. They

would have voted against him last time. In this country, there will

be 32 % of people who are conservative and you can forget

about them. That is a brilliant segue into our next section! This

was billed as the week when David Cameron's government would be

refreshed by a huge reshuffle. It has been reshuffled. Is it now

refreshed? I know that you will say you are not impressed. Only on the

rare occasions when reshuffles are designed to change policy, but this

was in no change reshuffle and very few of the top jobs changed. To

move Jeremy Hunt from culture, were he was much discredited, over two

Health Which fees the second most toxic issue for this Government, it

commercialising large chunks of its, he is not the grey man to sell that.

To put into the environment somebody who is a climate change

denier and doesn't believe in windfarms. Even the Financial Times

headline said this is a right shift. That is how it was seen. It was

gratifying the backbenchers. The only thing that matters was George

Osborne. If he had moved him and said the economy has been a

disaster, we have done exactly what was then in the 1930s and we are

now increasing at the national debt, spending it all on wasteful

unemployment instead of investing and cutting even more, all of which

has cost economic mayhem. That would have been a reshuffle to

Do you see any sense that this was refreshing the government, or

because there was no change in economic policy that we can

discern...? I think in any reshuffle where the top jobs remain

is not significant in terms of policy. But it is a shift to the

right. It is a significant fact that this is not one Lib Dem figure

left dealing with Trident, so that has been locked down in terms of

the Tory party. Jeremy Hunt is not best placed to run the NHS, which

is an understatement, he thinks contraception as witchcraft, it is

completely ridiculous that he is there. Women have not done very

well. It is interesting that David Cameron wanted to present and new,

modern view of the Tory party, with women, ethnic women, but now he is

kind of saying, we tried that and it did not work, so we're going to

Batten down the hatches and go back to being the good old fashioned

Tory party and dispense with all did media friendly positions. --

the media for in the positions. you think it matters? People at

home have different issues, such as the banks failing, and keeping

their own jobs. Reshuffles, I have been living here 27 years, and been

through all of them, and they make no impact on me. I do not

understand the media obsession because unless you are moving the

top person out of the Treasury, signalling a change of economic

policy, I do not see what it can do. It is interesting to me, as someone

who follows politics, to go back to the elections in May. The far right

have written of the coalition in their minds. They would like

nothing more than an early break-up of the parliament and assume they

would be able to govern as a minority government, and that is

just a continuation of this. One does not know David Cameron except

to say that he asked, his Jeremy Hunt one of us? Can someone who

went to Oxford at the same time as David Cameron went through, so he

is one of us. He was given... The should not have given him health,

because it was a litmus test that they had failed so far. But it

doesn't matter, he is one of us. I do not know where these things come

from about him being a great communicator. I do not see where it

comes from. He seems a kind of silly DI. People out of the country

look at him and possibly even diehard Tory reporters out in the

countryside look at Jeremy Hunt, and I am not sure that they see a

man of substance. What do you make of this Sunday OPs it -- the

opportunities or otherwise for the Labour Party in this? One of the

interesting questions, if you look at opinion polls is that Labour

Party are not streets ahead, Ed Miliband has not sealed the deal

with the British people, and a lot of the British people still do not

know who years or what Labour Party stands for. While the eurozone is

putting its affairs in order sloper, the British economy is doing worse

and worse, and none of the two big parties have any solution to get it

out. The Labour Party which should be spending well and spending on

infrastructure and Heathrow and the extension, spending on railways, is

divided again, especially the top job, which is the leader and the

Chancellor, the shadow chancellor at odds for personal reasons. More

than anything, the economy is again doing badly. So if it comes to

polls, that Labour does not have another solution, it won't matter.

We're coming up to the Labour Party conference. There was an

interesting conference this week of Labour Party thinkers, and I think

that Ed Miliband and Ed Balls are very united, and if you look at the

disunity in the other party, Labour is the most united, more united

than it has been for most of my lifetime. And I also think that the

image of the Tory party and a coalition government are

incompetent. There has been this impression of incompetence, and a

shambles. At this time, I think the reshuffle is David Cameron's way of

saying, and have of this, we're going to try to be competent and

deliver results, and lose the stigma of waffling and coming up

with stones and -- slogans and not really delivering. It is time for

the Labour Party to capitalise. am glad you said incompetence

because I have a bit coming out next week called dogma and disarray,

Cameron at half-time. And you! is about exact with that, they are

more dogmatic than people realise. Cameron was so good before the

election have been green, family- friendly, women-friendly, but all

of that has blown away. Not altogether surprising, but what is

surprising to me is that the Etonians bred for government have

turned out to be so inept. They do not know how to pull the levers of

power make their policies work. The only thing that. Them in their

tracks from doing the ideological cutting to shreds policy...

France, President Hollande was elected because people wanted

anything except Nicolas Sarkozy, and 80 think the same thing will

happen here. I want to move on now. We have seen

his wave of refugees and the deaths of people trying to escape from

North Africa and I just wonder what you think if anything can be done

now? It seems as if we are spectators in this catastrophe.

Syrian conflict has now become a struggle for the Arab future,

really. So many things are conflicting and coming to a head.

But there has been a glimmer of hope last week when Mohamed Morsi,

the Egyptian president, proposed an Arab/Iran, Turkey agreement to get

sponsored negotiation for a peaceful transition of power. Iran

is beginning to understand it has alienated itself from the Sunni

majority that may be in power were soon. Turkey is very eager to stem

the flow of refugees, and probably to stem the activities of Kurdish

And so, that is a promising move, however, having said that, it is

incredibly difficult because the Free Syrian Army and those who

support the Government are very entrenched. There are people who

genuinely support President Assad, now toff -- not out of love for

support but out of fear. There is a vacuum that people are facing after

Bashar al-Assad's regime collapses eventually. Because the Arab world

has been stuck for decades, years of artificial political dynamics

sponsored by proxy governments over the Middle East. Israel has been a

problem, and the US supporting dictatorships in North Africa. It

is the politics of decades coming home to roost. Is this the moment

where Turkey comes into his own, there it is getting richer and

richer, the linchpin. Isn't it time for them to step in and be the

power that it ought to be? But that is not very easy, is the? Turkey

has been cold and over the past few months. The visit of the Turkish

head of state to Cairo post the revolution, he was met with huge

support because he was seen as the way forward, as this perfect

iteration, the epitome of conservatism and paying respects,

and democratic. And not the army. Exactly. Turkey has a lot more

credibility than it previously did. Especially in Europe, they cannot

go in, and they turned to the Arab world which saw off the problem of

Europe. France did not want them in, and Germany.