13/10/2012

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:00:29. > :00:32.After seven years leading the British Conservative Party and more

:00:32. > :00:37.than two years as Prime Minister, why did David Cameron need to tell

:00:37. > :00:41.us this week who he is and what he stands for? Is the shooting of a

:00:41. > :00:46.14-year-old girl in Pakistan are watershed for Pakistan and the

:00:46. > :00:51.entire country? And the EU wins the Nobel Peace Prize - is it ever

:00:51. > :00:58.likely to win the prize for economics? Shahar so dollar is with

:00:58. > :01:00.us, Agnes Poirrier, Catherine Mayer and Steve Richards. The British

:01:00. > :01:06.party conference season has seen the leader of the opposition, Ed

:01:06. > :01:08.Miliband, trying to reintroduce himself to the British public and

:01:08. > :01:12.redefine his party as One Nation Labour. More surprisingly, the

:01:12. > :01:15.Prime Minister, David Cameron, also talked about his background and

:01:15. > :01:18.redefined his personal values and tried to explain what his

:01:18. > :01:22.leadership is all about. Why is it that he feels we don't already

:01:22. > :01:26.know? The speech was very well received generally by critics on

:01:26. > :01:31.the left and right, but it did seem he was trying to fill a big gap.

:01:31. > :01:36.the really interesting point. I think the answer to it is that he

:01:36. > :01:39.has deliberately avoided giving too much definition. In other words, he

:01:39. > :01:44.has deliberately avoided talking about his past because he doesn't

:01:44. > :01:48.want to talk about the fact that he went to Eton. He felt finally he

:01:48. > :01:52.had to address it head-on, seven years after becoming leader.

:01:52. > :01:57.Similarly with his policies, they are quite radical. George Osborne,

:01:57. > :02:01.the Chancellor, in his speech described them rightly in my view

:02:01. > :02:04.as quiet revolution. What has happened is they have preferred to

:02:04. > :02:08.get on with it without trying to explain to match what they are

:02:08. > :02:13.trying to do. But it's not working politically and he felt he had to

:02:13. > :02:18.come out and find himself more clearly this week. That has the

:02:18. > :02:22.advantage of some clarity. He put his case well. But it does mean

:02:22. > :02:27.that the next election will be the first fought for some time where we

:02:27. > :02:30.will have a Conservative leader arguing absolutely rooted on the

:02:30. > :02:34.right of British politics, which is where I think he is and will be,

:02:34. > :02:40.and a Labour leader more clearly to the centre-left than was the case

:02:40. > :02:45.under either Tony Blair and, publicly, Gordon Brown. I wondered

:02:45. > :02:49.how much you felt, as part of these calculations, the Boris factor

:02:49. > :02:53.comes into it? The Mayor of London, not because he's going to become

:02:53. > :02:57.leader of the Conservative Party, but he is somebody who has had a

:02:57. > :03:01.similar privileged background, who bangs on about it and is quite

:03:01. > :03:05.happy to talk about it and is actually a popular figure. David

:03:05. > :03:08.Cameron never seeming to be ashamed of his Etonian background, he says

:03:08. > :03:13.he wants to spread that kind of privilege around, but he hasn't

:03:13. > :03:18.been so clear, has he? That's right. Boris played into the conference in

:03:18. > :03:21.all sorts of interesting ways. What that meant was you had this spectre

:03:21. > :03:26.always at the edge of the stage whenever Cameron was there of the

:03:26. > :03:31.person who is seen as the next leader now. Which may be a curse

:03:31. > :03:35.for Boris. Borrowers behaved himself at this conference. --

:03:35. > :03:39.Boris. He not only didn't say anything terribly in from a trip,

:03:39. > :03:44.but he is quite capable of whipping up a crowd into a frenzy. It's one

:03:44. > :03:47.of the reasons he's so popular. He didn't do it, he had these two big

:03:47. > :03:51.speeches, but particularly one in the Symphony Hall, where he could

:03:51. > :03:54.have had people eating out of his hands. He really dialled it down

:03:55. > :03:59.quite a lot. One of the most interesting things I found, I don't

:03:59. > :04:02.know whether this is just me being completely jaded after three weeks

:04:02. > :04:09.of party conferences, was how successful they were at being

:04:09. > :04:14.boring. Is that they complement? thought it was very interesting

:04:14. > :04:18.because it was a very workmanlike conference. It was a conference

:04:18. > :04:22.about a party that is in government that sees itself in government to

:04:22. > :04:28.2050. And for once they seemed more interested in talking to each other.

:04:28. > :04:33.I think Cameron's speech was very much addressed to his base, rather

:04:33. > :04:37.than... Usually these speeches are so... Have some edge of an eye

:04:37. > :04:40.towards the outside world watching. I'm not saying it didn't, but a lot

:04:40. > :04:45.of this conference was about trying to bring the party back together

:04:45. > :04:51.again. All three conferences were really boring, dull and workmanlike.

:04:51. > :04:54.There is a reason for that. In fairness to the parties, lively

:04:54. > :04:59.conferences are nearly always dangerous for the parties to stage

:04:59. > :05:03.lively conferences. However, in British politics much more than

:05:03. > :05:09.French politics and American politics at the moment, there is a

:05:09. > :05:15.fear of excitement. There's plenty of excited people on the far left

:05:15. > :05:21.and far right in some countries. Boris and Cameron were playing a

:05:21. > :05:26.very balanced game. They come from the same background. Boris is

:05:26. > :05:33.banging on about it and Cameron is being rather discreet about it. But

:05:33. > :05:38.they are in their respective roles. Boris is a jest, of ball-winner in

:05:38. > :05:43.the king's court. That is what he plays. He does it very well. And

:05:43. > :05:47.Cameron is the PM. He can't do the same things. But together they are

:05:47. > :05:53.quite good. The question is when they will fight each other, if they

:05:53. > :05:58.ever do? The you impressed by the spectacular of dullness of all the

:05:58. > :06:05.conferences, as actually a great strength? I was not impressed

:06:05. > :06:09.because I expected it. If the Bard hadn't written Macbeth today and

:06:09. > :06:14.written all those lines, I would have sworn he was talking about

:06:14. > :06:18.party conferences. What Cameron said this time around was more in

:06:18. > :06:26.response to Ed Miliband. Remember the One nation idea was originally

:06:26. > :06:30.a Tory idea. The connotation that Ed Miliband had in mind was, we

:06:30. > :06:34.should be one nation and, being one nation, we should all go through

:06:34. > :06:38.this economic crisis together, everyone paying for it together

:06:38. > :06:42.according to what you can pay. Because the main attack on the

:06:42. > :06:45.Tories has been that the cutbacks are fine but they don't hit

:06:45. > :06:50.everyone equally, the underprivileged of getting hit

:06:50. > :06:54.harder than the privileged. The manner in which Mr Cameron

:06:54. > :07:00.explained his background was to say, yes, I am from a privileged

:07:00. > :07:06.background but that privilege was the one through hard work. My dad

:07:06. > :07:09.was disabled. He had a very difficult childhood because his dad

:07:09. > :07:17.decided to run away with another woman, which is enterprise at its

:07:17. > :07:20.best, you could say. It was to give that picture that, look, yes, we

:07:20. > :07:23.are the party of the privileged but we are not the party of the

:07:23. > :07:29.privileged guys who are born with a silver spoon in their mouth. We

:07:29. > :07:32.have worked for that privilege. far as Ed Miliband is concerned,

:07:32. > :07:39.the good news talking about One Nation Labour, Bataz clearly

:07:39. > :07:43.resonated because in some cases, some analysis of the speech show an

:07:43. > :07:47.attack on that, but the bad news is the Conservative attack is you are

:07:47. > :07:52.talking about one nation but you are opening up a Class War battle.

:07:52. > :07:56.That is essentially what you're doing. Going on and on about how

:07:56. > :08:01.you went to comprehensive school. think the bad news for Ed Miliband

:08:01. > :08:05.is that given that he gave a good speech and has adopted quite an

:08:05. > :08:09.audacious seizure of Conservative territory, he will be inevitably

:08:09. > :08:14.scrutinised now to find out what it means. Geographically, he's got a

:08:14. > :08:18.case because of the UK at the moment. Labour is the only party to

:08:18. > :08:22.be represented fairly well across the country in local government

:08:22. > :08:26.elections and so on, Scotland, where the Conservatives are non-

:08:26. > :08:30.existent. On that sense it works. He will now have to explain in

:08:30. > :08:37.policy terms what he means by that. That in politics is always the

:08:37. > :08:40.hardest bit. You can get the mood music right but in opposition the

:08:40. > :08:44.art of applying policies which chime with the mood music, and he

:08:44. > :08:48.hasn't even started on that part, that is the real challenge for him.

:08:48. > :08:53.Cameron is in a very difficult position. The scene from France, he

:08:53. > :08:57.looks totally a prison of the hard right. In a way, he is paying for

:08:57. > :09:04.not having won a big majority in the 2010 election, and therefore he

:09:04. > :09:08.is a prisoner of these lunatics, eurosceptics asking for more and

:09:08. > :09:13.more. That is what he does. He gives them a lot, he doesn't seem

:09:13. > :09:16.to be rewarded. It's really funny because you are seeing that

:09:16. > :09:20.completely a mirror images of what I see. I would say I totally agree

:09:20. > :09:23.with you that Cameron's problems have to do with the fact he wasn't

:09:23. > :09:28.a winner, he didn't win the election, and he therefore

:09:28. > :09:32.literally can't be the master of his own destiny, but also his base

:09:32. > :09:36.is worried that he isn't a winner. But what that means is not that he

:09:36. > :09:42.is going more to the right than he would, it means he is being forced

:09:42. > :09:47.to do these things to show that he is a broader-based politician.

:09:47. > :09:51.broader on the right. The know, it's these Big Society ideas that

:09:51. > :09:54.keep coming back. It's the stuff about a marriage which provoked the

:09:54. > :09:58.liveliest fringe debates that there were. It's all of these things to

:09:58. > :10:06.try and show that he is in the centre ground that don't really

:10:06. > :10:10.ring as true as a lot of the rest of it. The shooting of a 14-year-

:10:10. > :10:13.old Pakistani girl who campaigned for her right edge case there has

:10:13. > :10:16.shocked people around the world. Some see it as a watershed moment,

:10:17. > :10:21.galvanising those who did not recognise that the Taliban affect

:10:21. > :10:24.the state of Pakistan itself. Is this a turning point? How able is

:10:24. > :10:28.Pakistan when it comes to containing the Taliban? In the Swat

:10:28. > :10:33.Valley in particular, people have had to face quite a lot of trouble

:10:33. > :10:39.from the Taliban. Why has this become so resonant with in the

:10:39. > :10:43.country? This is a very unusual case. Here is this 14-year-old

:10:43. > :10:50.child. All she wanted to do was go to school and become a teacher. I

:10:50. > :10:53.think it has really hit the whole country that if you can hit a girl,

:10:53. > :10:59.just for the simple reason she wants to go to school and acquire

:10:59. > :11:02.an education, you have to be something very abnormal. That said,

:11:02. > :11:06.while there are prayers going on all over Pakistan and people are

:11:06. > :11:12.coming on and saying that this is not acceptable, somehow or the

:11:12. > :11:17.other this is not translating into a result to go out and confront the

:11:17. > :11:24.Taliban and hit them. They are still a lot of people who are

:11:24. > :11:29.saying, well, yes, the Taliban have done this, but is that real, can

:11:29. > :11:33.you take that on face value, what pressures were on them to do this?

:11:33. > :11:37.Iraq conspiracy theories are floating around that this was done

:11:37. > :11:39.because the government was planning and action in North Waziristan and

:11:39. > :11:43.this was supposed to politically pave the way for that. Any number

:11:43. > :11:46.of people will come on Pakistani television screens and say, yes, we

:11:46. > :11:50.are talking all the time about his one girl who has been hit by the

:11:50. > :11:54.Taliban, what about the thousands of people there have been killed

:11:54. > :11:58.with drones? There was one drone which hit the school and 80

:11:58. > :12:03.children died. Did you ever hear about it? Things like that, they

:12:03. > :12:10.are muddying the water. I think Pakistan is some considerable way

:12:10. > :12:15.yet from getting a unanimity of views on the all-important question

:12:15. > :12:20.- whether or not this is Pakistan's war, or is this just America's war?

:12:20. > :12:23.A lot of people are still saying this is America's war. Were you go

:12:23. > :12:29.from there is that if it is America's war, Pakistan doesn't

:12:29. > :12:33.have to fight it. Even for those who might think this is a wall,

:12:33. > :12:37.there's the next question to be asked. If it is our war, do you

:12:37. > :12:41.really think that a military response must play a major part,

:12:42. > :12:45.not the only part, but a major part in fighting this war? And in

:12:45. > :12:50.getting this argument forward, I think the Pakistani media has to

:12:50. > :12:54.play a huge role, especially the electronic media. In a country

:12:54. > :13:00.where education levels are low, it is the electronic media really

:13:00. > :13:05.which is the opinion format. Again, that is not happening quite as

:13:05. > :13:08.unequivocally as one would like to see. There are any number of people

:13:08. > :13:13.who espouse this sort of other nonsense who are given so much time

:13:13. > :13:18.on air channels to say what they feel. I know you've written a lot

:13:18. > :13:23.about secularism in France and religious extremism. How is that

:13:23. > :13:30.particular story, the 14-year-old girl who just wants to go to

:13:30. > :13:37.school? Ban Ki-Moon had a really good expression yesterday. He said,

:13:37. > :13:41.they are in fear of one thing. A woman with a book. Here is this

:13:41. > :13:47.teenager's who wears the veil. She is not Madonna, she just wants to

:13:47. > :13:54.go to school. She started writing for a block for the BBC when she

:13:54. > :13:59.was 11, just to talk about her daily life. I was hoping that she

:13:59. > :14:05.would get the Nobel Peace Prize, actually. A sort of symbolic

:14:05. > :14:09.gesture. I'm very happy with the choice they may eventually. You've

:14:09. > :14:17.got the human face on a struggle that everybody understands, which

:14:17. > :14:21.is a girl's life and education. is the symbol. Education and a

:14:22. > :14:26.feminist issue as well. But you start losing patience with Pakistan.

:14:26. > :14:33.Of course you will find people saying this is terrible, but do

:14:33. > :14:37.something. I agree with what you said about the drones and the

:14:37. > :14:40.muddying of the water. But the other thing that embodies the

:14:40. > :14:43.waters spectacularly is the fact that it is members of the

:14:44. > :14:47.government, members of the judiciary, people in positions of

:14:47. > :14:51.authority who give such mixed messages, or rather you have some

:14:51. > :14:55.of them giving messages that are more in a line it with what the

:14:55. > :15:00.Taliban has done. It's not been the case this time. The members of the

:15:00. > :15:04.government, which is the PPP, the MP and the other party which formed

:15:04. > :15:10.the government, they have been absolutely very clear in what they

:15:10. > :15:13.have been saying. They have been unequivocally critical of the

:15:13. > :15:18.Taliban. They've been mentioning the Taliban and saying these guys

:15:18. > :15:22.have got to go out again. That is what is interesting about this girl,

:15:22. > :15:29.you have this response because she was a young girl, somebody that

:15:29. > :15:34.everybody felt horrified by that attack. However, you look at what

:15:34. > :15:40.happened... You look at the people who came out, there were members of

:15:40. > :15:48.the judiciary who were actually throbbing white rose petals. --

:15:48. > :15:50.throw-in. It is that ilk, that sort of thinking, they are still

:15:50. > :16:00.muddying the water and giving you these conspiracy theories and

:16:00. > :16:06.

:16:06. > :16:12.talking about the drones as if this What is always interesting it is

:16:12. > :16:17.the ambiguity that you summarised earlier, as to whether Pakistan

:16:17. > :16:27.feels responsible, whether it is an American responsibility. Say that

:16:27. > :16:32.this particular episode does to some extent resolved that ambiguity,

:16:32. > :16:39.what form would some kind of military response to take? When you

:16:39. > :16:43.say, we have got to go after these people, that is difficult. It is,

:16:43. > :16:48.because this is not a war in the normal sense. The other side does

:16:48. > :16:55.not wear uniforms, you cannot often identify it, they melt into the

:16:55. > :17:00.mountains. Nor am I saying that the military response has to be the

:17:00. > :17:04.only response. There are various levels of Taliban, various

:17:04. > :17:08.organisations that constitute it, they have different levels of

:17:08. > :17:15.commitment. Perhaps all of them do not define the cause in the same

:17:15. > :17:18.terms. It has to be a multi-faceted approach. To some, you can talk, to

:17:18. > :17:26.some, you can try to bring them into the mainstream of political

:17:26. > :17:36.life. But with some,... How did you talk to a person that wants to

:17:36. > :17:39.shoot a 14 year old girl? Is it a question of education? It is.

:17:39. > :17:44.the whole population, and intelligence. It is one thing to

:17:44. > :17:51.say, it is almost impossible to track them, they disappear, but it

:17:52. > :17:54.can be done sometimes. It is true. One of the great tragedies of

:17:54. > :18:00.Pakistan, not only that the education system has been so

:18:00. > :18:04.ignored in the recent past, that much of the education that has been

:18:04. > :18:10.given would need the education before the person can receive the

:18:10. > :18:14.education. The Nobel Peace Prize has been are

:18:14. > :18:19.awarded to the EU for its part in peace in Europe since World War II.

:18:19. > :18:26.It comes in a week in which the visit of Germany's Chancellor to

:18:26. > :18:32.Athens saw pretend that is with swastikas take to the streets. Then

:18:32. > :18:42.the Onassis seen to be gaining headway in Greece. Is the EU at a

:18:42. > :18:46.

:18:46. > :18:50.worthy winner of the prize? It has been treated put laughter. In or

:18:50. > :18:56.about to last for another 15 minutes. Ike and the only one

:18:56. > :19:06.around the table... I was quite astounded at first, I thought, is

:19:06. > :19:09.

:19:09. > :19:15.that right? What does that mean? After a while, I was punching the

:19:15. > :19:24.air, I said, of course! I thought this was inspiring, enlightened,

:19:24. > :19:30.visionary. Of all times, to give it when we are at each other's throats,

:19:30. > :19:36.and Angela Merkel going to Athens, you have got the swastika flags,...

:19:36. > :19:42.7000 police on the streets. It is fantastic to take the long view.

:19:42. > :19:47.Which are enthralled with the euro crisis, Nigel Farage saying it is

:19:47. > :19:53.ridiculous, extreme parties in Europe fanning the flames of

:19:54. > :20:00.discontent, and you look back and you think, my grandparents, who

:20:00. > :20:10.died in the 90s, we found in their attic 30 kilos of sugar, in case

:20:10. > :20:10.

:20:10. > :20:15.there would be another war, and I do not have to store kilogrammes of

:20:15. > :20:22.sugar, because I take a piece for granted. France and Germany, this

:20:22. > :20:28.morning, I looked at the picture of Dresden after the war, the famous

:20:28. > :20:38.picture, the angel looking down, under think, and you think, this is

:20:38. > :20:38.

:20:38. > :20:48.quite recent. But for us, it is history. For that alone, OK. The

:20:48. > :20:50.

:20:50. > :20:53.backlash will come! I think it is a brilliant choice for comedy. I have

:20:53. > :20:58.decided the committee is actually a collective of avant garde

:20:58. > :21:07.performance artists, and they do this every year, to see how far

:21:07. > :21:11.they can go. I am enthusiastic about many aspects of the European

:21:11. > :21:16.Union, I just think the timing is hilariously inappropriate. There

:21:16. > :21:23.are so many things that you could praised the EU for, and the

:21:23. > :21:27.citation gets a lot of it so wrong. You are correct about peace and the

:21:27. > :21:32.forerunner of the EU binding France and Germany together, but many of

:21:32. > :21:38.the things that appear to have been claimed for the two were partly

:21:38. > :21:44.down to other organisations, like NATO, and the EU did not bring down

:21:44. > :21:50.the Berlin Wall. Also, the notion that there has been improvement in

:21:50. > :21:57.places like the Balkans, the EU was not able to prevent the biggest

:21:57. > :22:02.conflict that there has been since its founding, the Bosnian war. It

:22:02. > :22:09.had precious little impact. But if Yugoslavia had been part of the EU,

:22:09. > :22:14.that would not have been a war. There is an argument that stable

:22:15. > :22:18.democracies, former fascist countries are much more stop will -

:22:18. > :22:26.- much more stable now. But that is why the argument is so difficult

:22:26. > :22:30.now, because you cannot say that Greece is stable now. Particularly

:22:30. > :22:35.places where these populist parties are rising at a very fast and

:22:35. > :22:41.alarming rate. To make the Nobel Peace Prize an act of provocation

:22:41. > :22:48.in itself is part of the avant garde silliness of it all! All

:22:48. > :22:55.prizes are silly, so you might as well send out a message. There is a

:22:55. > :23:03.serious side to this. It reminded me why, for example, there were a

:23:03. > :23:12.generation of British politicians who wanted us to join the EU, and

:23:12. > :23:15.it related to their experience of the 1930s, at war. Ted Heath took

:23:15. > :23:23.Britain into the who largely on those grounds, and we forgot about

:23:23. > :23:28.that. Generations experienced the 1930s, and to be given a reminder

:23:28. > :23:32.that, since 1945, there has been no equivalent conflict, and it is

:23:32. > :23:37.partly to do with the fact that the countries that were always falling

:23:37. > :23:40.out came together, it is not a bad thing for a prize, given that

:23:40. > :23:47.prices are silly anyway. committee called the cause and

:23:47. > :23:56.effect relationship wrong. It is not the EU that has given rise to

:23:56. > :24:04.the desire for peace in Europe, it is the other way round. It started

:24:04. > :24:09.off in 1950 as the oil, or call and Steel Community. These were the

:24:09. > :24:13.items for which Waugh had been fought. People lived through wars,

:24:13. > :24:22.they did not -- they knew what a horrendous thing the war was. It is

:24:23. > :24:31.that that gave rise to the bowl -- to EU. Giving it Barack Obama a

:24:31. > :24:39.peace prize that he was barely one year into his presidency,... Attila

:24:39. > :24:44.the Hun and gained his card will consider themselves unlucky,

:24:44. > :24:50.looking at who else has been given it. The only people that I can

:24:50. > :25:00.think of that have got the prize who have really deserved it, people

:25:00. > :25:01.

:25:01. > :25:05.like Mother Teresa, the Bangladeshi that set up the bank, and so many

:25:05. > :25:14.people from the United Nations, they have been paid to do that!

:25:14. > :25:24.pick up the point, is this the committee thinking that the EU it

:25:24. > :25:27.

:25:27. > :25:31.is in trouble, so here is a fillip to say,...? We might think, this is

:25:31. > :25:37.absolutely ridiculous, like when they gave it to Barack Obama, we

:25:37. > :25:45.thought, he has only been in power for a few months. He thought it was

:25:45. > :25:55.ridiculous. But now, he has got the Nobel Prize, so perhaps he has got

:25:55. > :25:56.

:25:56. > :26:01.responsibility. Look at what it did to the Chinese, yesterday, he

:26:01. > :26:11.started talking about the Chinese dissident who got the Chinese Peace

:26:11. > :26:16.Prize, saying, I hope he will be freed. Healthy counter-intuitive