:00:22. > :00:26.Hello and welcome to Dateline London. Is this the moment when
:00:26. > :00:29.Mitt Romney's gaffes may have put winning the presidency out of reach
:00:29. > :00:32.for the Republicans in 2012? And talking of gaffes, what do we make
:00:32. > :00:35.of a senior British Conservative allegedly swearing at the police in
:00:35. > :00:40.Downing Street? Plus, the protests by some Moslems enraged at how
:00:40. > :00:44.Islam is portrayed in an American- made video. And, French cartoons.
:00:44. > :00:47.My guests today are Ashis Ray of the Times of India, Stryker McGuire
:00:47. > :00:57.of Bloomberg Markets, Annette Dittert of Germany's ARD and
:00:57. > :01:04.
:01:04. > :01:07.Even Mitt Romney's friends admit he is unusually gaffe prone. But does
:01:07. > :01:13.this spell doom for his presidential ambitions? It is quite
:01:13. > :01:23.extraordinary. I haven't seen any candidate making such a series of
:01:23. > :01:23.
:01:23. > :01:28.simple unforced errors. In the last election, McCain's campaign sort of
:01:28. > :01:33.imploded at the last minute. It happened quickly. He said the
:01:33. > :01:38.economy wasn't so bad... And he suspended his campaign, famously,
:01:38. > :01:43.to then do nothing. But this is very curious because some of the
:01:43. > :01:47.strongest criticism is coming from establishment Republicans in the
:01:47. > :01:53.United States. People like Peggy Noonan who used to be a
:01:53. > :01:59.speechwriter for Ronald Reagan. At one point, she said it looked like
:01:59. > :02:07.incompetence and then she said, at no, what I meant was "a rolling
:02:07. > :02:12.calamity". And she is careful with how words! And loyal! What do you
:02:12. > :02:16.think it is? This is someone who has built his campaign on attacking
:02:16. > :02:24.a President who has not had a fantastic time over the past four
:02:24. > :02:28.years and saying, I am business competent. But these mistakes seem
:02:28. > :02:34.to undermine the core of his story. Absolutely. Maybe a couple of
:02:34. > :02:37.things are going on. One is there has been some improvement in the
:02:37. > :02:43.economy so it takes some of the edge of that advantage. Another
:02:43. > :02:49.thing is that maybe there was an expectation that he would win. It
:02:49. > :02:57.is not turning out that way. If he wins, it will now be considered and
:02:57. > :03:02.upset. A year ago, people would have said, President Obama is in
:03:02. > :03:07.real trouble. That is part of it because for those of us outside the
:03:07. > :03:15.United States, one thing that strikes me is that we do not cover
:03:15. > :03:18.the fact it is a 50-50 split. One half of the nation would like to
:03:18. > :03:24.vote for prison macro because they may not because they do not think
:03:24. > :03:29.it is a valid choice. It has always been a few percentages here and
:03:29. > :03:34.there which decide US elections. In this case, I would not say that
:03:34. > :03:41.President Obama has a decisive lead. He is certainly ahead and, more
:03:41. > :03:45.crucially, the seven odd swing states - the battleground states,
:03:45. > :03:51.as they are called, he is significantly ahead in most of them.
:03:51. > :04:00.But nationally, that contest is much closer. One Gallup poll said
:04:00. > :04:06.they were neck and neck at 47%. But this 47% remark is in a series of
:04:06. > :04:10.remarks of that nature uncaring remarks from Mitt Romney. He has
:04:10. > :04:15.never really connected with the electorate right from the beginning.
:04:15. > :04:19.It seems he has got a lack of passion or conviction in his
:04:19. > :04:25.campaign which is simply not getting him to where he wants to be.
:04:25. > :04:31.There is, however, one important factor which could be decisive in
:04:31. > :04:37.favour of President Obama. Money is very important in US elections. In
:04:37. > :04:43.this instance, it was believed about a year ago that Mitt Romney
:04:43. > :04:49.wood out spend President Obama considerably, but this has happened
:04:49. > :04:56.in the last two or three weeks. In other words, during the Democratic
:04:56. > :05:01.convention and the weeks following that so the out spend has been two
:05:01. > :05:06.to one. However, it seems that for the remaining six weeks, President
:05:06. > :05:11.Obama has more than doubled the money to spend on at -- advertising
:05:11. > :05:18.campaigns and that could be decisive. There is another layer to
:05:18. > :05:23.the 40% gaffe in that he killed the American Dream it in a way. He said,
:05:23. > :05:29.if you are one of the 47% for President Obama, you will never
:05:29. > :05:32.make it but we always stay with the welfare state. Especially amongst
:05:32. > :05:38.the Republican constituency, this was seen as a major gaffe because
:05:39. > :05:46.it threatens the American may that is held in esteem in the republican
:05:46. > :05:51.constituency. Do think that it will be possible for people to win an
:05:51. > :05:58.election as a sitting candidate, as it were, even in very tough times?
:05:58. > :06:03.We have not seen it in Europe with Nicolas Sarkozy. It seems President
:06:03. > :06:08.Obama has a substantial lead. Perhaps the American economy isn't
:06:08. > :06:14.bad enough to secure or Romany an easy victory and Angela Merkel is
:06:14. > :06:19.certainly watching that closely. What do you make of the 50/50
:06:19. > :06:28.question. It is difficult for any American president to govern that
:06:28. > :06:32.country given the decisive nature of the electorate? It is divisive
:06:32. > :06:37.with the country being pulled to the right. The only country I can
:06:37. > :06:46.think with a comparable deep fissure where the sector liquor --
:06:46. > :06:50.Seki -- secular Republicans line-up against their opponents, possibly
:06:50. > :06:56.going back to the revolution and beyond. The irony in America is
:06:56. > :07:00.that people say that business of America is Business and the idea
:07:00. > :07:10.that a businessman can solve things is deeply rooted in their culture,
:07:10. > :07:10.
:07:11. > :07:15.more so than ours. He's getting basic things wrong, saying he does
:07:15. > :07:18.not represent all the people. My instinctive position is on the side
:07:19. > :07:23.of the underdog. In many ways President Obama deserves to be
:07:23. > :07:29.beaten and deserves a better candidate to beat him. He cannot
:07:29. > :07:37.connect with the American people, Mitt Romney. He is a lousy
:07:37. > :07:47.parliamentarian in so many ways. Part of the fraud presumably lies
:07:47. > :07:51.in the Republican Party -- for or, -- part of a mistake, they
:07:51. > :07:56.credential that appeal to a certain side of the party, to some people
:07:56. > :08:02.are completely phoney, don't they? There are two things going wrong. -
:08:02. > :08:06.- going on. Michael is right about the idea that competence and being
:08:06. > :08:12.a business person. That was thrown into question with the credit
:08:12. > :08:15.crisis and the bank collapses and everything else. The whole idea of
:08:16. > :08:22.business competence is questioned these days. The other thing is,
:08:23. > :08:28.when you talk about the so-called 47%, we know the number is just
:08:28. > :08:33.rubbish. Most of those people are working and it is not that they are
:08:33. > :08:42.not working or they are retired and they have paid for Medicare and
:08:42. > :08:47.social security... But, if then what you are clinging to his having
:08:47. > :08:55.been a competent person in the finance world, then you are hanging
:08:55. > :08:59.on to some pretty thin thread. at his date was on foreign policy.
:08:59. > :09:08.He made the statement about Palestine which was so disturbing.
:09:08. > :09:11.He comes to Europe and says all the wrong things. With respect, the
:09:11. > :09:18.fact he's in the Olympics would not be a success or the Palestinians
:09:18. > :09:23.would not be irritated in -- in -- interested in peace, at that
:09:23. > :09:29.doesn't count in a way in American politics? It reflects his lack of
:09:29. > :09:36.knowledge of foreign affairs. The fact he is ingrained in internal
:09:36. > :09:42.affairs and not very competently. think it does hurt him with a
:09:42. > :09:47.moderate Establishment type Republicans. They really don't want
:09:47. > :09:55.a candidate talking crazy things. If you were on a roll it wouldn't
:09:55. > :09:59.matter. President Obama is said that a lot of his critics fall back
:09:59. > :10:04.on guns and got. Romany has published his tax returns and it
:10:04. > :10:11.reminds everyone how Ritchie is. Especially the disaster in London
:10:11. > :10:20.was seen in America. Friends called me and said, what happened over
:10:20. > :10:24.there? He couldn't have played more into the image of a callow American.
:10:24. > :10:27.Let us move on. The Conservative Party's chief whip, Andrew Mitchell,
:10:27. > :10:30.allegedly swore at police in Downing Street this week and -
:10:30. > :10:34.again allegedly - called them "plebs." He denied using such words
:10:34. > :10:38.- but has apologised. So - is this just one irritated man being silly
:10:39. > :10:45.- or does it get to the heart of the weakness of a government which
:10:45. > :10:49.some critics see as too posh, too rich and too out of touch? You have
:10:49. > :10:54.occasionally cycled into Downing Street and I take it you have lots
:10:54. > :10:59.one at any policeman? The policeman there and a round that
:10:59. > :11:04.neighbourhood, There are a lot of them and many have machine guns I
:11:04. > :11:09.am sorry to say because of the Al- Qaeda thing. But they are pretty
:11:09. > :11:13.polite to us and we are polite to them. In any case, it doesn't
:11:13. > :11:19.matter way you are, you are not read to people in uniform even
:11:19. > :11:22.though they may say you cannot do that. You cannot putt your bicycle
:11:22. > :11:27.outside the Downing Street it's because security will take it away
:11:27. > :11:37.and blow it up. You have to go inside and that is what I and
:11:37. > :11:37.
:11:37. > :11:42.others like me to do. Perhaps you are a pleb?! Perhaps. But when he
:11:42. > :11:52.behaves like that you think, where did you come from? Because real
:11:52. > :11:55.toffs and I do not want to be sentimental about the aristocracy,
:11:55. > :12:05.but there are a lot of Conservatives who would be very
:12:05. > :12:07.
:12:07. > :12:13.embarrassed by that. It is bad form. After Manchester... Back there at
:12:13. > :12:20.two police officers who were killed? Yes, Cameron couldn't tried
:12:20. > :12:26.to defend his comments. I won't be surprised if it just went away.
:12:26. > :12:30.disagree. He has a lot of enemies and many in his own party. The
:12:31. > :12:34.Labour Party is exploiting it. The police trade union, the Police
:12:34. > :12:40.Federation, is involved in an industrial dispute with the
:12:41. > :12:48.government. We have already forgotten that -- their performance
:12:48. > :12:53.at Hillsborough there week ago. wonder whether as was somebody said
:12:53. > :13:02.that all British stories are about class and this is. Whether he used
:13:02. > :13:06.the word "pleb" or not, it is seen as really offensive. Police --
:13:06. > :13:11.especially coming from this kind of government which is seen as a posh
:13:11. > :13:15.boys club. It is the last thing they need now, having somebody who
:13:15. > :13:22.so easily plays into the hands of the opposition. Labour doesn't have
:13:22. > :13:26.to do much at the moment. It is also true that no government
:13:26. > :13:33.actually wants to pick a fight with police officers doing their duty in
:13:33. > :13:37.any kind of way. It comes -- becomes problematic and yet they do
:13:37. > :13:44.have a vision of the police force which means that pensions and other
:13:44. > :13:49.things will be cut. Yes, as you say, I think may be a Labour doesn't
:13:49. > :13:55.have to do anything, but it is hard that, during this period of quite
:13:55. > :14:04.serious problems for the Tories, Ed Miliband hasn't suddenly risen as a
:14:04. > :14:09.great figure. His party has gone up in the polls. Ed Miliband in person
:14:09. > :14:14.is way beyond -- beyond -- Bilic David Cameron. Why do thing that
:14:14. > :14:21.is? I don't know. Part of it is that there has always been some
:14:21. > :14:28.confusion about how he came into that position. Is he returning to
:14:28. > :14:38.old Labour? Is he a moderniser or a traditionalist? Then he has his
:14:38. > :14:39.
:14:39. > :14:45.brother, rightly or wrongly, as a So people in Britain do not know
:14:45. > :14:50.who he is, still? Yes, I guess what Michael would say is that there is
:14:50. > :14:54.not an election for another several years, we do not necessarily know
:14:54. > :15:04.the leader of the opposition party that well at this point for but
:15:04. > :15:07.
:15:07. > :15:13.might call would also say that what they do know, they are not
:15:14. > :15:23.impressed with. Unlike me at Romney he has a couple of years to change
:15:24. > :15:27.
:15:27. > :15:31.Stitching up his brother was a bad start. Labour's popularity is by
:15:31. > :15:33.default rather than anything else. It is the unpopularity of the
:15:33. > :15:40.government that gives them impressive numbers in the polls.
:15:40. > :15:44.There is one thing that is a little unclear to me. If what Mitchell has
:15:44. > :15:50.said is correct, if he had been allowed through those gates so many
:15:50. > :15:54.times, why was he stop this time? Possibly, and this could be a
:15:54. > :15:59.logical explanation, the officer concerned was new to the job, did
:15:59. > :16:07.not recognise him, and said you cannot go through the main gates.
:16:07. > :16:12.That said, Mitchell allegedly used terms which are not mention of will
:16:12. > :16:20.on this programme. In addition to calling the police men plebs, or
:16:20. > :16:23.whatever. I think that is unacceptable in this country. It
:16:23. > :16:27.does happened in the developing world, and I say this because it
:16:27. > :16:33.happens in a country like my country, India, where politicians
:16:34. > :16:38.tend to throw their weight around. Policemen are often at the
:16:38. > :16:42.receiving end. And it does not generally happen in Britain.
:16:42. > :16:52.Therefore the outrage is not surprising. And the ambivalence of
:16:52. > :17:00.
:17:00. > :17:04.Mr Boris Johnson... In what sense? He has declared open war to David
:17:04. > :17:07.Cameron, and this is another opportunity. It has been an
:17:07. > :17:11.interesting man for apologies, we have had the Prime Minister
:17:11. > :17:17.apologising for Hillsborough, and for other things. Now we have
:17:17. > :17:22.Andrew Mitchell apologising, and the Deputy Prime Minister
:17:22. > :17:24.apologising. It has been an interesting week. The pink Nick
:17:24. > :17:27.Clegg and the Lib Dems fall into a trap that minority parties and
:17:27. > :17:36.coalitions in Germany and Ireland usually fall into, which is they
:17:36. > :17:40.are the ones who get the rough end of the stick, but it happens?
:17:40. > :17:44.but it is not a trap, that is the nature of the coalition. Maybe Nick
:17:44. > :17:49.Clegg should look at his partners in Germany, the Liberal Democrats
:17:49. > :17:57.there who have had the same kind of story for a long time, that you
:17:57. > :18:00.just have to show where is your footprint. Nick Clegg has not done
:18:00. > :18:04.that so far. The apology is hopeless because it makes him
:18:04. > :18:11.appear weak. The firemen the Government and part of the
:18:11. > :18:17.government, I do things writer I do them wrong, if I do them wrong I
:18:17. > :18:19.correct them. But I do not apologise. Do you mean that Nick
:18:20. > :18:28.Clegg should say that way have achieved this, this, and this, and
:18:29. > :18:38.it would be different if the Tories Some people will accept this. He
:18:38. > :18:48.has learned on the job. He ought to know about all the other countries,
:18:48. > :18:55.
:18:55. > :18:58.his mother is Dutch. That is not completely lost on him. And I
:18:58. > :19:07.suspect we all agree that the Government will continue as a
:19:07. > :19:14.coalition until the bitter end or whatever. Till near the bitter end.
:19:14. > :19:20.When aid how do you think this will work? -- how do you think this will
:19:20. > :19:27.work? There on the same page on many things. But the further down
:19:27. > :19:37.you going the parties, the more this disappears. #ColourGreen it as
:19:37. > :19:43.
:19:43. > :19:46.another of the splits between people who used to be Liberals.
:19:46. > :19:56.There are people there are economically much more free market
:19:56. > :19:58.
:19:58. > :20:01.than others, and it is always there in the party, and that is the case.
:20:01. > :20:09.There are also certain rows about what to do about the environment
:20:09. > :20:12.and weld tax, which plays to their own supporters. The Tories thought
:20:12. > :20:16.they would have a much better chance at the next election because
:20:16. > :20:23.there would be boundary changes where the structure of the country
:20:23. > :20:29.would favour them. But it does not look like that is going to happen.
:20:29. > :20:33.I think they thought this is like a one-term deal, we will be in
:20:33. > :20:37.coalition, these guys will in themselves and the Lib Dems will
:20:37. > :20:47.destroy themselves, cannibalise themselves during a coalition, and
:20:47. > :20:48.
:20:48. > :20:53.in the next election in 2015, we will win a majority. I suspect that
:20:53. > :20:56.in 2.5 years, the economy will be better than it is today, which will
:20:56. > :21:03.favour the Conservative Party a little bit, not enough to make a
:21:03. > :21:07.decisive. The tricky bit will be, how they separate the two parties -
:21:07. > :21:13.- how they separate us two parties. Having been together for five years,
:21:13. > :21:17.how do you justify this? They have to find a spurious reason to
:21:17. > :21:20.justify find -- fighting the election separately. I understand a
:21:20. > :21:25.tradition of the Lib Dems and the Conservatives and therefore they
:21:25. > :21:33.have to fight elections separately, but they have lived together for
:21:33. > :21:41.five years. I wanted to talk about the demonstrations in Pakistan and
:21:41. > :21:50.elsewhere. This is about to rue the offence of video about Islam. What
:21:50. > :21:55.do you make about the significance of that? First of all it is a very
:21:55. > :22:00.amateur video, but it is so provocative. What is true is that
:22:00. > :22:04.in the developing world in general, people are more sensitive about
:22:04. > :22:10.religion than they are in European societies. This is particularly
:22:10. > :22:15.true of Islam. Muslims are very sensitive about their religion and
:22:15. > :22:18.the Prophet Mohammed. In that situation, something like this on
:22:18. > :22:28.YouTube in this day and age, when the Internet dominates so many
:22:28. > :22:31.
:22:31. > :22:37.things, it is unsurprising the reaction we have seen a purring. --
:22:37. > :22:43.Bob Carr ING. Yesterday Pakistani television stations were
:22:43. > :22:46.frantically gearing broadcasts of Barack Obama explaining that the US
:22:46. > :22:51.administration has nothing to do with this and that we condemn it
:22:51. > :23:00.and so on. This was to make peace in the region because the attack is
:23:00. > :23:05.clearly against diplomatic missions of the United States. Another
:23:05. > :23:08.interesting thing is that the people behind us, they have almost
:23:08. > :23:15.no support and the United States. They are a very tiny group of
:23:16. > :23:20.people. -- in the United States. This is about a video but it is
:23:20. > :23:24.always -- also not about a video. It is so much deeper than what we
:23:24. > :23:28.have seen over the past 10 or 20 years, this clash of
:23:28. > :23:31.fundamentalists. Whether it is Muslim or Christian fundamentalism
:23:31. > :23:38.and the United States, there are big blocks that are not coming
:23:38. > :23:43.together well at all. I think there is a huge grievance, especially in
:23:43. > :23:51.the Muslim world about Iraq and Palestine and Afghanistan, and
:23:51. > :24:01.other issues that it does not take much more than one stupid video to
:24:01. > :24:03.
:24:03. > :24:13.sort of inflame the situation. There are 1.2 billion Muslims in
:24:13. > :24:21.
:24:21. > :24:24.these countries, but less than 1% on the streets. I get slightly
:24:24. > :24:34.uneasy when I hear people say that you have laws, and things you
:24:34. > :24:38.cannot say. Europe is the odd one out, you're still not allowed to
:24:38. > :24:43.deny the Holocaust, you have stronger traditions of free-speech
:24:43. > :24:51.in this country, and I am a free speech man but I am aware that
:24:51. > :24:55.there are different menus and histories. Holocaust denial as a
:24:55. > :25:05.law is hard to get round. If you are a Muslim and you're angry, you
:25:05. > :25:18.
:25:18. > :25:28.The Supreme Court has decided that free-speech is not necessarily
:25:28. > :25:30.