:00:25. > :00:28.Hello and welcome to Dateline London. This week we are looking at
:00:28. > :00:33.the strange case of the UK where more people are getting jobs but
:00:33. > :00:36.the economy is contracting and asking why? Also - President Assad
:00:37. > :00:41.of Syria remains in power after 21 months of uprising but are cracks
:00:41. > :00:47.beginning to appear? And with Nelson Mandela in hospital,
:00:47. > :00:50.thoughts turn again to his legacy. With me on the programme this week
:00:50. > :00:52.are Ned Temko from the Observer, Mina Aloribi from Alwasat, Vincent
:00:52. > :01:02.Magombe from Africa Inform International, and Jef Mcallister
:01:02. > :01:08.
:01:08. > :01:16.the American writer and broadcaster. Welcome to you all. But first the
:01:16. > :01:19.massacre of the children in America. Jef, President Obama was obviously
:01:19. > :01:22.moved last night and his outspoken comments on the need for gun
:01:22. > :01:31.control have many supporters. But does he have any real chance of
:01:31. > :01:40.making that happen? The problem is this has been politically
:01:40. > :01:44.radioactive for a very long time. 80s fade difficult even to get
:01:44. > :01:50.small to changes in the laws. There have been so many of these
:01:50. > :02:00.tragedies, over and over again. Maybe this one, killing children
:02:00. > :02:00.
:02:00. > :02:06.just before Christmas, can make a change. But a congresswoman from
:02:06. > :02:10.New York whose husband was killed in one of the shootings, the
:02:10. > :02:17.legislation she once past is just too reduced the size of magazines
:02:17. > :02:22.in guns. The sect tiny changes in the laws. People feel overwhelmed
:02:22. > :02:31.by the size of the problem. And there are large sections of the
:02:31. > :02:39.country where people are very protective of there guns. What is
:02:39. > :02:49.the can still institutional right to bear arms? -- constitutional.
:02:49. > :02:49.
:02:50. > :02:57.Ates whatever current Supreme Court's assistance. On a human
:02:57. > :03:03.level, Barack Obama did very well. Grit is hard not to react as a
:03:03. > :03:10.father and say, this could have been my child. One of the things
:03:10. > :03:15.that would be fascinating is to see how long this sense of horror lasts,
:03:15. > :03:21.because Barack Obama on the one hand was careful not to wait in to
:03:21. > :03:28.the political territory, but he did use the phrase meaningful action,
:03:28. > :03:33.which is a little less ambitious. Even though the Second Amendment is
:03:33. > :03:36.off balance, the right to carry arms, there is a lot of ostensibly
:03:36. > :03:43.small things you could to in terms of a licensing and background
:03:43. > :03:48.checks. Awful things like banning certain kinds of handguns and below
:03:48. > :03:53.double magazines, which would at least mean that an unbalanced
:03:54. > :04:02.person could not going to and within this period of seconds,
:04:02. > :04:05.killed 20 young children. problem is these were not guns
:04:06. > :04:11.belonging took the shooter, they belonged to his mother and she was
:04:11. > :04:16.cleared to use them. The changes might not be enough, but at least
:04:16. > :04:22.you start somewhere. Whenever we see a tragedy like this, people say
:04:22. > :04:27.it is too soon to go into their conversation, but then by the time
:04:27. > :04:31.good horror fades down, they say there is nothing they can do. But
:04:31. > :04:35.the fact that these happened just before Christmas and cities young
:04:35. > :04:40.children, you would think it would push people to think this is the
:04:40. > :04:44.time to have the debate. You have to push people across the political
:04:44. > :04:51.lines, because this is an issue that falls on two sides of the
:04:52. > :04:57.divide. If there was a time that one needs take some action, it is
:04:57. > :05:02.now. This is one of the worst tragedies to happen. Looking at it
:05:02. > :05:06.from outside the United States, people just don't understand how
:05:06. > :05:11.heartless anybody who is supposed to beat changing something concrete
:05:11. > :05:19.to say that nothing can be done. A would have loved to seek Barack
:05:19. > :05:23.Obama sake, we're going to take action because of this crime. I
:05:23. > :05:29.think the political classes need to take these things into their own
:05:29. > :05:36.hands and call for action. Is it that political will to
:05:36. > :05:40.perhaps pull away from these and say enough is enough? I think the
:05:40. > :05:44.country is split. The peaks city near her eyes had been saying for
:05:44. > :05:48.years that we need to do something about this. I don't know people who
:05:48. > :05:52.carry guns in my life on the East Coast, but there are large
:05:52. > :05:59.proportions of the country where this is a mandatory part of growing
:05:59. > :06:03.up, having your hunting rifle. Give us a split in the it debate between
:06:03. > :06:08.people who think through the ramifications and people who think,
:06:08. > :06:14.it is my birthright to have at gun. It is interesting to see what has
:06:14. > :06:24.happened here, but I would be pessimistic that anything is going
:06:24. > :06:29.
:06:29. > :06:32.to be done. Now the UK economy. We are living through strange economic
:06:32. > :06:35.times across the world. In the UK more people are getting jobs but
:06:35. > :06:45.the economy is contracting. And its AAA credit rating is under threat.
:06:45. > :06:46.
:06:46. > :06:51.So what is going on? The short answer is that this is the
:06:51. > :06:56.recession and unlike any other, where we are not just trying to
:06:56. > :07:01.come out of a classic boom-and-bust cycle. He had this unprecedented
:07:01. > :07:06.world economic crash, he had reneged on one hand to do something
:07:06. > :07:11.about the deficit and on the other, keep in mind the fact that to get
:07:11. > :07:21.out of the recession, the economy has to grow. The group uses jobs
:07:21. > :07:28.are being created and this coalition Government hoped for that,
:07:28. > :07:33.that the number of jobs and interestingly, the number of jobs
:07:33. > :07:38.created in the private sector is now balancing the loss of jobs in
:07:38. > :07:45.this last period in the public sector. The real problem is for
:07:45. > :07:51.recovery. If it is going to be export at lead, you need people to
:07:51. > :07:57.buy your products. He have around you this European continent in
:07:57. > :08:05.economic freefall. So one of your principal potential markets is in
:08:05. > :08:13.big trouble itself. Everybody is suffering the same way. There is
:08:13. > :08:19.the constant conversation about austerity or not. In reality, for
:08:19. > :08:24.growth in the economy, you need to spend at the same time. Austerities
:08:24. > :08:28.not going to solve the situation. In the Great to a European context,
:08:28. > :08:38.those conversations are ongoing. The more people worry about
:08:38. > :08:39.
:08:39. > :08:43.spending, the more the confidence lowers. The United States was in a
:08:43. > :08:48.similar position with its credit rating. What happens if you lose
:08:48. > :08:58.the lustre off your triple A rating? Does it make any
:08:58. > :09:02.
:09:02. > :09:07.difference? When you were here big reserve currency and you still have
:09:07. > :09:11.a kick economy, already fair markets out discounting the
:09:11. > :09:14.possibility of a British downgrading. The exchange rate used
:09:14. > :09:19.to be a gigantic problem for Britain and that I do not think it
:09:19. > :09:25.is such a problem. It is interesting that in all the
:09:25. > :09:29.industrialised economies, you still don't see the jobs coming in,
:09:29. > :09:35.despite the predicted growth. In Britain, some of this growth might
:09:35. > :09:39.be up and are normally in changing the way the measured it. If you
:09:39. > :09:43.look at the number of under- employed, unemployed and people who
:09:43. > :09:48.were economically inactive, police numbers at actually slightly
:09:48. > :09:52.lighter than they were before, so am not sure if we know if this is
:09:52. > :10:02.wonderful news for Britain, although I certainly hope it is.
:10:02. > :10:08.I personally do not believe in any type of news on this, because for
:10:08. > :10:13.me, I am very much in touch with people in this country, who were
:10:13. > :10:20.very much unemployed. I talk to those people. I don't think that
:10:20. > :10:26.Cameron and those other people talk to them. This is a very wonderful
:10:26. > :10:32.British character of in gloom and doom, you try to pick some
:10:32. > :10:36.wonderful experience to shine. If you look at the other side of it,
:10:36. > :10:39.the economy is actually contracting, some observers are saying it is
:10:39. > :10:49.down to productivity, not the number of shops.
:10:49. > :10:53.I stick with the number of jobs. It is interesting is people want to
:10:53. > :10:58.talk about the positive, a requirement for them. They're
:10:58. > :11:08.actually going for example, the way and a permit has been rising in the
:11:08. > :11:12.
:11:12. > :11:16.public sector. -- unemployment has been rising. There are also
:11:16. > :11:19.regional discrepancies and that is a political problem. The one thing
:11:19. > :11:25.I would say in defence of Government figures is there are
:11:25. > :11:30.some fascinating things, among them that for the first time, full-time
:11:30. > :11:35.employment was up. There was real movement on youth employment. But
:11:35. > :11:42.you were right, there is this productivity question, because you
:11:42. > :11:47.would expect with these changes to see some signs of productivity and
:11:47. > :11:53.this is the class are half empty, a glass half full. Some economists
:11:53. > :11:58.say we are on the cusp of some sort of growth, because there is that
:11:58. > :12:08.capacity with greater employment, then half-empty is this is just not
:12:08. > :12:20.
:12:20. > :12:23.as productive as economy as we need. Now to Syria - and as cracks appear
:12:23. > :12:25.will it be a military solution with rebels versus government forces or
:12:26. > :12:35.how much will outside political pressure be involved especially
:12:36. > :12:42.
:12:42. > :12:44.from Russia. Now to Syria - and as cracks appear will it be a military
:12:44. > :12:46.solution with rebels versus government forces or how much will
:12:46. > :12:49.outside political pressure be involved especially from Russia.
:12:49. > :12:52.There is a Putin-Obama summit after the inauguration in Washington in
:12:52. > :12:55.January. Might that tip the balance? Or will it be months of
:12:55. > :13:03.street fighting? The reality is now a have the secretary of defence
:13:03. > :13:09.signing off in order to have 400 US troops go to the border. The
:13:09. > :13:13.military solution seems to be one that is prevailing at the moment.
:13:13. > :13:18.Politically, we have seen remarks from Russia and showing there is an
:13:18. > :13:24.understanding that the President Assad regime will fall. What will
:13:24. > :13:32.happen next is unclear, but there are signs from Russia that they
:13:32. > :13:35.realise the end is in sight. The meeting between Vladimir Putin and
:13:35. > :13:45.Barack Obama will focus on severe, but it is difficult to understand
:13:45. > :13:46.
:13:46. > :13:54.how much control they will have. might be thinking, we need allies
:13:54. > :13:59.in future, this is a dead regime. They are very clear on the changes
:13:59. > :14:04.on the ground. The military position will push the regime into
:14:04. > :14:12.the corner and has forced a change in the Russian Government. Public
:14:12. > :14:20.statements keep changing. That is important. They need to maintain
:14:20. > :14:30.their foothold in Syria, but they will make enemies among the people.
:14:30. > :14:30.
:14:30. > :14:34.The Russians have to think about how to salvage what is left.
:14:34. > :14:44.significant is the recognition at Old Barack Obama of the opposition
:14:44. > :14:48.
:14:48. > :14:55.This has been a debate inside the administration of. How much do you
:14:55. > :15:02.do? A no-fly zone, more American intervention is called for, this is
:15:02. > :15:08.a tremendous military disaster. 25,000 external refugees and two
:15:08. > :15:15.million inside, it is a terrible thing. The problem has been is that
:15:15. > :15:19.there is no obvious solution and America intervening in complex
:15:19. > :15:23.fighting in the Middle East, we do not have a good track record of
:15:24. > :15:31.success in this. President Obama has been trying to lead from behind,
:15:31. > :15:37.trying to get the CIA to provide arms to people, to be active. The
:15:37. > :15:42.recognition it is this slowly, slowly approach, which avoids
:15:42. > :15:46.giving too much American prestige. It still says we are in the game,
:15:46. > :15:52.we want you to come together to do something for yourself and we will
:15:52. > :15:59.help you more. First it is going to get worse and then it is going to
:15:59. > :16:06.get worse. What do you think about Britain's role in this? Britain is
:16:06. > :16:10.as confused as everybody else is. There really is not a good solution.
:16:10. > :16:14.Anyone who has lived in that part of the world and covered that part
:16:14. > :16:22.of the world knows that one of the great frustrations is directly is
:16:22. > :16:29.Syria, like lots of other nations, is a kind of post-colonial,
:16:29. > :16:35.European creation. It is not an obvious nation-state. This is the
:16:35. > :16:40.bash are Allah sad clan, the Alawite, Sunni Muslims and Kurds.
:16:40. > :16:48.10 years ago at this time, we were having discussions like this about
:16:48. > :16:55.Iraq and the sense that Iraq was not a nation state. They think is
:16:55. > :17:02.Alawites by Muslims as well. Kurds are Muslims as well, most of them.
:17:02. > :17:07.Except the historical tradition, pre-World War One tradition, in
:17:07. > :17:15.this part of the world was that there was not a history of nation-
:17:15. > :17:22.states. This was a post-World War One solution. Syria is a perfect
:17:22. > :17:28.example. You had European diplomats taking the back of an envelope
:17:28. > :17:38.saying, we will take a little bit there. You are right, all Muslims
:17:38. > :17:38.
:17:38. > :17:44.are Muslims, but the political reality in Syria is you have the
:17:44. > :17:48.Bashar al-Assad regime whose legitimacy, fairly or unfairly,
:17:48. > :17:54.maybe this was cynically done to create these divisions, and that is
:17:54. > :18:00.a valid point. But the reality on the ground is one of the reasons
:18:00. > :18:05.the regime has sustained itself as long as it has, in addition to the
:18:05. > :18:10.intelligence services, is there is a real fear amongst the Alawites,
:18:10. > :18:19.amongst this minority population and the clan is what happens after
:18:19. > :18:25.Bashar al-Assad? If you ask me... We are asking you. The solution to
:18:25. > :18:33.this is very simple. I cannot say time-frame it wise when this regime
:18:33. > :18:39.is going to fall. The good thing is the people of Syria themselves are
:18:39. > :18:43.doing it. The international community has been impotent. There
:18:43. > :18:49.was not a good reason for the international community to
:18:49. > :18:53.intervene in Iraq. But there is a good reason to intervene Nano to
:18:53. > :19:00.save the thousands of people that are going to die in the next few
:19:00. > :19:03.months. Why do you think there is a lack of intervention? I agree the
:19:03. > :19:07.international community is completely confused. They have
:19:07. > :19:12.always been confused anyway. You see a dictator killing his people,
:19:12. > :19:18.it does not matter which ethnic group he is coming from. This one
:19:18. > :19:23.is a dictator. I have a particular problem with the Russians, not just
:19:23. > :19:28.in this particular case, but because they seem to be supporting
:19:28. > :19:34.dictators all the time. Right now in my country, Uganda, the whole
:19:34. > :19:39.world is cutting off aid to the regime at for stealing money
:19:39. > :19:49.through corruption. The Russians have given weapons in exchange for
:19:49. > :19:50.
:19:50. > :19:54.future oil. The Russians are acting in the cold war or way where they
:19:54. > :19:59.had to balance up things. mention that the Syrian people are
:19:59. > :20:04.doing it for themselves, but it is 21 months now. But the Government
:20:04. > :20:10.is very well armed, it is a very strong for us, the intelligence
:20:10. > :20:15.services and so on, so it could take them years to do so. Perhaps
:20:15. > :20:20.the international community should get involved, but think Cleverley
:20:20. > :20:26.how they could help Syria and stop the bloodshed. We will move from
:20:26. > :20:31.this area and top about Nelson Mandela. He has been admitted again
:20:31. > :20:35.to hospital with another health scare. Now focuses us once again on
:20:35. > :20:40.what he has achieved and how his legacy will shape the future of
:20:40. > :20:46.South Africa. He remains in hospital. I know you have
:20:46. > :20:52.interviewed him. Give us a sense of the man. It is not an obituary, but
:20:52. > :20:59.the sense of the man and his position. I interviewed him there
:20:59. > :21:02.the day after he got out of prison. I like Jeff, and we put foreign
:21:02. > :21:10.correspondents, we interviewed a lot of heads of states and Prime
:21:10. > :21:18.Ministers and King's, whatever. He is one of the few people who I can
:21:18. > :21:25.say I was bowled over by a with his presence. He is softly spoken,
:21:25. > :21:30.extraordinarily smart, obviously, and at what was most overwhelming
:21:30. > :21:37.incredibly without bitterness. He was a guy who had spent much of his
:21:37. > :21:40.adult life behind bars, fighting for something, or sacrificing his
:21:40. > :21:47.life for something he deeply believed in and believed what
:21:47. > :21:51.happened. He was utterly without bitterness. When we talk about his
:21:52. > :21:58.legacy, one of the things he did accomplish in South Africa, what is
:21:58. > :22:06.now under Sujit strain from his successors, is to create a single
:22:06. > :22:12.nation out of an incredibly difficult place under the ashes of
:22:12. > :22:19.a part-time, a broadly unified nation, with lots of problems and
:22:19. > :22:24.he was probably the most and corrupt man. Now in South Africa we
:22:24. > :22:29.have problems of corruption and endemic poverty and Nelson Mandela
:22:29. > :22:34.knew in his heart of hearts that no-one man and no-one at regime
:22:34. > :22:39.could solve that. But he gave them a chance I am not sure his
:22:39. > :22:44.successors will give them. He is an example for other parts of the
:22:44. > :22:49.world. He is an example of sacrifice and fighting the good
:22:49. > :22:55.fight. Also on the other hand for giving and being a good Fichte and
:22:55. > :23:02.that is what he symbolises around the world. Many people and the
:23:02. > :23:07.Middle East say, though if only we had Mandela, a figure like that. He
:23:07. > :23:14.did not want to look back and say who owes he what and let's take
:23:14. > :23:23.revenge. As he gets older and older and moves back from politics and
:23:23. > :23:29.public life, his party, the NFC, has struggled. The contrast between
:23:29. > :23:36.him and his qualities, and the canny politician he was, compared
:23:36. > :23:41.to his successors, you wish he was still in power. The answer is now a
:23:41. > :23:44.one-party state and it is corrupt. He had the discipline to leave
:23:44. > :23:52.office after one term, and like many other countries that were
:23:52. > :23:58.frontline states. One biographer said he is like Abraham Lincoln. It
:23:58. > :24:02.took 100 years after the civil war for blacks to have rights and there
:24:02. > :24:06.were many miserable things that happened in his wake, but he was
:24:06. > :24:11.still a brilliant politician and a creative fellow and that is his
:24:11. > :24:19.legacy and that is the same for Nelson Mandela. Sum him up for us.
:24:19. > :24:26.There are two things. One is the legacy for Africa which is that
:24:26. > :24:36.symbolism about democracy, about the fact that you lead, you can go
:24:36. > :24:40.and you can be changed. Compare him with no Gabby and compare him to
:24:40. > :24:48.the leader in my country after 26 years he wants to continue. Respect
:24:48. > :24:53.of democracy and the legacy for its South Africa, whilst he did a lot
:24:53. > :24:58.in terms of race relations and brought that symbolism of peace we
:24:58. > :25:03.do not see anywhere else in the world, in terms of economic sharing
:25:03. > :25:09.of the wealth in South Africa, in terms of the ANC taking up that
:25:09. > :25:17.legacy, they have failed. We are seeing explosions starting to
:25:17. > :25:25.happen. The mind killings, there is a lot of anger going on amongst the
:25:25. > :25:31.people. If the ANC does not now say, we can live together white and
:25:31. > :25:37.black, but that is not enough, we need to live together equally,
:25:37. > :25:42.economic glee. Then that legacy will not live on. If there had been
:25:42. > :25:47.no Nelson Mandela, it would be be where we are now in South Africa?
:25:47. > :25:56.am somebody who is very optimistic. I think another Mandela will appear