:00:03. > :00:12.There will be a full news bulletin at one o'clock. Now it's time for
:00:13. > :00:25.
:00:25. > :00:28.Dateline London 2012 Review, live Hello and welcome to Dateline UK,
:00:28. > :00:31.the last programme of 2012 and our opportunity to reflect on a year of
:00:31. > :00:35.celebration in the UK, with the Queen's Jubilee and a summer of
:00:35. > :00:38.sport, although in politics the Olympic spirit faded pretty fast.
:00:38. > :00:41.It's also the year in which Barack Obama defied the electoral
:00:41. > :00:46.soothsayers by winning a second term despite the state of the US
:00:46. > :00:49.economy. The Euro currency, too, has survived, and Greece is still
:00:49. > :00:52.in it, but the difficulties remain, as they do in Arab countries, where
:00:52. > :00:56.the euphoria of revolution has faded and many of the problems
:00:56. > :01:02.remain unresolved. To discuss all of that, a panel of distinguished
:01:02. > :01:05.commentators. John Fisher Burns is with the New York Times. Nesrine
:01:05. > :01:08.Malik is a Sudanese journalist, who writes on Arab affairs. Alex Deane
:01:08. > :01:10.is a regular contributor to Conservative Home, the website of
:01:10. > :01:20.British conservatism, and Marc Roche is with the French newspaper
:01:20. > :01:28.
:01:28. > :01:34.Le Monde. Let's begin with British politics and David Cameron's year.
:01:34. > :01:39.It has been a mixed bag for this Government. It is a classic made
:01:39. > :01:45.parliamentary year. Some things, education, welfare, unemployment
:01:45. > :01:49.down has been successful. In any era decided by economics, nobody
:01:49. > :01:57.could pretend the budget went well or suggest that public spending is
:01:57. > :02:04.under control. We are still spending far too much money. There
:02:04. > :02:14.has been some bad PR and a bad Budget. And so a new word, on the
:02:14. > :02:20.shambles. I think that was probably undeserved. Nobody could pretend
:02:20. > :02:23.that the budget went well. It led to his series of U-turns. The more
:02:23. > :02:30.important problem to my mind is that back we still have an enormous
:02:30. > :02:37.debt as it, and are still spending �600 billion more adding to the
:02:37. > :02:44.public debt. We're passing on an incredible debt to children as yet
:02:45. > :02:51.unborn. Is this being looked at what is certain wry appreciation
:02:51. > :02:57.from across the Channel. Absolutely. It couldn't be better to have
:02:57. > :03:07.England's bid in its place by the economy, while the British press
:03:07. > :03:12.goes on about the crisis in the euro. What is interesting is that
:03:12. > :03:20.this year you had the rebellion of the wing of the party that still
:03:20. > :03:25.believes in Europe. You had this city. The Lib Dems. Finally, the
:03:25. > :03:31.European partners who said we have had enough of the British. The
:03:31. > :03:41.Jacques Delors said recently that the British are only interested in
:03:41. > :03:42.
:03:42. > :03:48.the economics and Europe is a different way. Shopkeeper mentality.
:03:48. > :03:52.I will see if the discussion on Europe for a bit later. The curious
:03:52. > :03:56.thing about this coalition government seems to have been that
:03:56. > :04:02.we have a party that was notoriously ill-disciplined, the
:04:02. > :04:07.Liberal-Democrats, showing enormous amounts of discipline. The
:04:07. > :04:14.Conservatives have been at each other's throats. It has been a
:04:14. > :04:19.difficult year. The Conservatives are fed up with the coalition.
:04:19. > :04:29.David Cameron is squeezed between the two. In the past year or so, he
:04:29. > :04:29.
:04:29. > :04:39.has completely cuts Nick Clegg loose. Nick Clegg looks perpetually
:04:39. > :04:39.
:04:39. > :04:44.apologetic. David Cameron's biggest problem is the right wing of his
:04:44. > :04:50.party. There is a big rebellion in Europe over gay marriage. Four
:04:50. > :04:54.weeks ago there was a groundswell against his particular calls, which
:04:54. > :05:00.is to try and get gay marriage passed through Parliament. There
:05:00. > :05:08.was a bad showing in local elections for the Tory party in
:05:08. > :05:15.April. But the PCC elections also. He has been battered this year. The
:05:15. > :05:19.coalition is trying to hold together until the next general
:05:19. > :05:29.election when the Conservatives want to win it alone. This could
:05:29. > :05:32.
:05:32. > :05:38.all be written off as mid-term blues. I absolutely think so. Press
:05:38. > :05:43.to get closer to the next election, the Little Democrats and Labour are
:05:43. > :05:52.going to come under the microscope. What is their position going to be
:05:52. > :05:58.on Europe? What will their position be on managing the debt? It is much
:05:58. > :06:03.easier to be in opposition than it is to be in government. If the
:06:03. > :06:08.trajectory continues to move on unemployment in particular in the
:06:08. > :06:13.way that it has, maybe the Conservatives will get more credit
:06:13. > :06:19.than they have to be it for their attempts to rein the same, albeit
:06:19. > :06:23.that they do appear to be at this moment somewhat unavailable. To
:06:23. > :06:29.Labour have a plan? What is the Liberal-Democrat plant? What do
:06:29. > :06:35.they intend to do about Europe? We have seen government and mid-term
:06:35. > :06:43.many times before tend to get into the doldrums. I think it is all
:06:43. > :06:49.still to play for. We used to have an expression of holding on to
:06:49. > :06:53.nurse for fear of something worse. That is the logic that is
:06:53. > :06:56.underpinning be a coalition. The Lib Dems are holding on to
:06:56. > :07:02.something worse. If you went to the polls tomorrow of the Lib Dems
:07:02. > :07:07.would be smashed. There is no more perverse time to have a fixed term
:07:07. > :07:17.parliaments then when you have two parties who don't really belong
:07:17. > :07:19.
:07:19. > :07:29.together. You may see some splinter party votes, like UKIP, how many of
:07:29. > :07:38.them will move back? I think a lot of those boats will not be won by
:07:38. > :07:44.the Conservative Party. Labour had a good year. I think they have the
:07:44. > :07:54.leader that is making a mark. They have a plan on the economy. They
:07:54. > :07:58.
:07:58. > :08:07.are pro-European, which I think the British public gaze -- is it.
:08:07. > :08:16.Labour is an alternative. Did you say you want the British right?
:08:16. > :08:21.Yes! Labour has a Leeds of eight points over the coalition. That is
:08:21. > :08:27.nothing! I am not entirely sure that Labour can do it. Thinking
:08:27. > :08:37.about the difficult year for David Cameron, it should be an open goal.
:08:37. > :08:39.
:08:39. > :08:42.I think David Miliband -- Ed Miliband is holding them back.
:08:42. > :08:46.David Cameron's attention is increasingly on how to win a second
:08:46. > :08:49.term. In the United States, Barack Obama is about to begin his. That
:08:49. > :08:52.may create the opportunity for a fresh attempt to broker peace in
:08:52. > :08:59.the Middle East, although America's attention seems to be shifting
:08:59. > :09:07.further east. He won a second term, but was it as impressive a wind as
:09:07. > :09:10.it has been written up by Democrats? You had a very
:09:10. > :09:17.problematic Republican candidates and the party itself is very
:09:17. > :09:22.divided. As to what sort of a man dates Barack Obama has, that is
:09:22. > :09:32.very unclear. We will begin to see how much his credibility helped
:09:32. > :09:33.
:09:33. > :09:39.some in this battle of for the budget making. And on the Middle
:09:39. > :09:49.East, you would have to be very optimistic indeed to believe that
:09:49. > :09:55.anything we have seen in the last year or two when the to a turn for
:09:55. > :10:00.the better in the Middle East. think Barack Obama has been worse
:10:00. > :10:09.for the Middle East. One of his major pledges was to shut down
:10:09. > :10:16.Guantanamo Bay. The ground war has intensified. If anything, he has as
:10:16. > :10:21.-- he has been a Republican in terms of foreign policy. The only
:10:21. > :10:30.thing is we now know what. Nobody is waiting for him to do anything.
:10:30. > :10:35.The Middle East expects the US to dip in when there is some strategic
:10:35. > :10:42.interest, namely Israel. The most intense engagement that has
:10:42. > :10:50.happened since the beginning of the Arab Spring has been to do with
:10:51. > :11:00.Gazza and Israel. I am not optimistic that Barack Obama will
:11:01. > :11:07.
:11:07. > :11:13.have any effect on the Middle East. Mitt Romney was open the -- openly
:11:13. > :11:23.supporting a more balanced attitude towards them at least. Whoever sits
:11:23. > :11:32.
:11:32. > :11:42.in the White House, considering Benjamin Netanyahu, a doubt they
:11:42. > :11:42.
:11:42. > :11:46.could have done much more against someone like him. I am not sure if
:11:46. > :11:53.it was anybody he was sitting in that seed could include things on
:11:53. > :12:00.very far. Is Egypt turning in to what people in Washington feared it
:12:00. > :12:08.would turn into? Absolutely not. When the Muslim Brotherhood came to
:12:08. > :12:14.power they were terrified. What has happened very swiftly is that they
:12:14. > :12:17.have realised, the Muslim Brotherhood, that they are a Muslim
:12:17. > :12:25.Indian but in terms of foreign policy they are continuation of the
:12:25. > :12:33.old regime. It was very clear in the last conflict in Gaza that the
:12:33. > :12:38.Muslim Brotherhood was the U S's henchmen to broker the peace
:12:38. > :12:42.agreement in Israel. The whole point in terms of foreign policy
:12:42. > :12:48.was that there would be a more robust confrontation with the
:12:48. > :12:53.Western powers, and there hasn't been. One thing we have seen that
:12:53. > :12:58.has brought a bit of common ground between Barack Obama and David
:12:58. > :13:05.Cameron, is a shifting focus. They had been looking further East,
:13:05. > :13:10.whether it is for trades or in terms of military or strategic
:13:10. > :13:16.relationships. Are we now have some kind of to pinpoint? Then at least
:13:16. > :13:24.has dominated concerns for 60 years and perhaps a lot of people in the
:13:24. > :13:28.West have not shown enough interest as they might in the Far East.
:13:28. > :13:34.There is no doubt that the renewed focus on the Far East is absolutely
:13:35. > :13:42.right. Whilst these are topics of real interest to those around the
:13:42. > :13:51.table, in the US the attention is almost exclusively on domestic
:13:51. > :14:01.problems. As far as many things are concerned. I don't think Barack
:14:01. > :14:05.
:14:05. > :14:15.Obama's re-election makes any difference to them at least at all.
:14:15. > :14:20.
:14:20. > :14:25.George Bush was the first person to That is your point of view. That is
:14:25. > :14:29.what we are here for, but there is no doubt, there is a focus on the
:14:29. > :14:33.Far East. Especially in trade. We see that with David Cameron's Trade
:14:33. > :14:38.Envoys to the various countries which he has said have been
:14:38. > :14:42.neglected in the past. An open demonstration of a shift in economy.
:14:42. > :14:52.What matters is Europe. The European Union and that is why you
:14:52. > :14:59.need a strong European Union to balance... China, wait, you have
:14:59. > :15:03.China... America. You need a strong Europe. You have the British who
:15:03. > :15:09.are sabotaging it. They are disappearing in the mire
:15:09. > :15:16.of their debt. They are still there. The euro is still there.
:15:16. > :15:23.How about the Greeks? That is a minority against... Can it be fair
:15:23. > :15:28.to blame's Europe's problems on the UK? Has not Europe had a hand, and
:15:28. > :15:32.the US spouse in creating its own problems? That is why you need
:15:32. > :15:36.partners who play the game, not people who say they want their
:15:36. > :15:41.money back. OK, I cannot hold Mark back longer.
:15:41. > :15:47.We have to move on to Europe. think we have. This is fun.
:15:47. > :15:53.12 months ago would you have been expecting the eurozone to remain in
:15:53. > :15:59.tact? Were you sitting there, praying it would make a path?
:15:59. > :16:04.not sure if it is in our interest to fall apart, but I did not expect
:16:04. > :16:09.it to stay in its existing for mat. If you said in 12 months' time that
:16:09. > :16:13.the euro would remain with the same members, I think that would have
:16:13. > :16:19.been a minority position it turns out to be correct. What you don't
:16:19. > :16:23.understand is that Europe is not about the economy. It is about
:16:23. > :16:26.soldard -- solidarity. A notion that the British don't understand.
:16:26. > :16:33.Solidarity means that the Germans are doing well and the Dutch are
:16:33. > :16:37.ready to share the budden to help. But are they? Well there is, maybe
:16:37. > :16:41.not happily. The Germans share, on that we agree.
:16:42. > :16:46.On what democratic mandate is happens that Germans are fleeced in
:16:46. > :16:50.order to pay for the Greek debt, I don't know. But the Germans have
:16:50. > :16:58.the market. In the EU it is give and take. You pay for the Greek,
:16:58. > :17:03.but you have the central market. It has made Germany a powerful nation.
:17:03. > :17:06.I thank the Germans for the generosity, even if it was forced
:17:06. > :17:13.to help us in difficult times. That is Europe.
:17:13. > :17:17.There is a difference, between not understanding and disagreeing. We
:17:17. > :17:20.as British Euro-sceptics under stand that the idea is about
:17:20. > :17:26.solidarity, we disagree that is what it should be about. We entered
:17:26. > :17:31.on the premise it was a common market. That was never the
:17:31. > :17:37.situation... I think you talk a lot about Britain's attitude regarding
:17:37. > :17:43.the EU, how it has its problems, not because there are problems in
:17:43. > :17:47.the EU that Britain is moody, but the two can be correct. You can say
:17:47. > :17:52.that there are problems in the European Union, fiscal problems
:17:52. > :17:57.that we don't want to be a part of, but I do think that David Cameron
:17:57. > :18:00.has been politically immature when it comes to Europe and has used it
:18:00. > :18:05.as something totemic to play off against different ranks of his
:18:05. > :18:10.party. There is a speech coming up next month where he is to outline
:18:10. > :18:16.his vision for the EU. He husband put himself into a corner, I think,
:18:16. > :18:21.as he is going to have to mollify his right-wing party, by appearing
:18:21. > :18:27.to be tougher on Europe, to say it must be flexible, but at the same
:18:27. > :18:32.time, he needs to engage with the European Union robustly and
:18:32. > :18:39.diligently enough for them not to dismiss him as playing politics.
:18:39. > :18:43.Britain is one of the member... You have a very good deal from Europe.
:18:44. > :18:48.Look, your economy has done well. Not because of the euro, but in the
:18:48. > :18:55.past it has done well. You have a good deal with Europe. What would
:18:55. > :18:59.you be without Europe? A little nation.
:18:59. > :19:04.Nonsense! We need a factual correction, Britain is one of the
:19:04. > :19:07.largest net contributors to the European Union. So is Germany,
:19:07. > :19:12.Holland, many. I have no doubt that is true, but
:19:12. > :19:16.to present Britain as a spoiler is unrealistic. As for David Cameron,
:19:16. > :19:20.I am not here to represent, that is your job, David Cameron's view, but
:19:20. > :19:24.he has a serious problem. He has at least 100 and maybe more of his
:19:25. > :19:29.backbenchers, that is to say a third or more of his elected member
:19:29. > :19:33.who is take a very dispective view of the European Union. He has to
:19:33. > :19:38.manage that in some way. But you have said that is a problem
:19:38. > :19:42.for David Cameron. I say it is a strength. There is nothing that
:19:42. > :19:47.empowers him more at the European negotiating table than the ability
:19:47. > :19:54.to say look at the voices in my party, who would have us out all
:19:54. > :19:59.together. You have to make room for my position. There is the problem.
:19:59. > :20:02.That is not our problem. The problem is David Cameron's problem
:20:02. > :20:08.as UK Independence Party, the Independence Party, who want out of
:20:08. > :20:14.Europe is presenting a very clear position. People will be anti-
:20:14. > :20:19.Europe and will prefer the real to the Redcaring.
:20:19. > :20:22.We know that the polls are in the confined to the United Kingdom. You
:20:22. > :20:29.see the same views taken address Europe.
:20:29. > :20:34.You have seen in 2012, the rise of sceptic euro parties, in countries
:20:34. > :20:39.that we thought were soldly in the EU. Finland is the obvious example
:20:39. > :20:43.it is a country soldly for the Europe union, did something shift
:20:43. > :20:49.in 2012, even within the eurozone? I think we are seeing a replay of
:20:49. > :20:53.issues we have seen for a long time as for the eurozone problem it
:20:53. > :20:57.reminds me of years when I was in South Africa, where people were
:20:57. > :21:06.right to say that a failure to negotiate a way through the
:21:06. > :21:10.apartheid problems to a future, is unimaginable as the alternative is
:21:10. > :21:13.catastrophic. For all of the doom saying that there has been in the
:21:13. > :21:19.last year-and-a-half about the euro, there are quite enough, clever
:21:19. > :21:25.people managing the problem, but there will be ultimately...
:21:25. > :21:29.SPEAK AT ONCE But to move from semantics, there is a big PR
:21:29. > :21:33.problem when it comes to the European Union, and the way that
:21:33. > :21:39.people piggy back to justify right- wing views like UKIP, for example,
:21:39. > :21:44.anti-immigration, it is totemic of inward looking, baton down the
:21:44. > :21:50.hatches, types of views. Unrepresented in political main
:21:51. > :21:56.stream in this country, and only a political adviser would look at it
:21:56. > :22:01.to say there is an opportunity. the point is that there must be PR
:22:01. > :22:07.for the European Union. Millions of pounds are spent on its
:22:07. > :22:15.PR by us! You know, the European Union pays for the roads, the
:22:15. > :22:22.museums, the this and the that... The public tenor in the UK, the
:22:22. > :22:25.public tenor is right-wing in Euro- sceptic... You asked John in if the
:22:26. > :22:30.rise of Euro-sceptic around the euro was significant. I think it
:22:30. > :22:35.represents the flipside of what has been happening. You and people like
:22:35. > :22:39.you say Europe this, Europe that, as if someone elected Europe to
:22:39. > :22:44.anything that there is a democratic... ALL SPEAK AT ONCE
:22:44. > :22:52.They say it is not deserved, it is the price of peace.
:22:52. > :23:01.Who is going to war? We have had 60 years of peace thanks to the EU.
:23:01. > :23:08.Do you think that is right? Franco German access... You did not
:23:08. > :23:12.mention NATO. NATO surely was the principal stabilising force? I was
:23:12. > :23:16.not just being cheap when I was saying that no-one elected this
:23:16. > :23:19.position. My point is that with the rise of the euro accidentic parties
:23:19. > :23:24.which are getting elected to various things in the European
:23:24. > :23:27.fringes and in the European main stream, there is a counter balance
:23:27. > :23:33.to the hitherto. The European accepted point of view that Europe
:23:33. > :23:39.will be this or that, a single -- a single entitty, that no-one ever
:23:39. > :23:43.really voted for. There was the Maastricht Treaty!
:23:43. > :23:48.The Parliament that you don't recognise, you tonight recognise
:23:48. > :23:52.your own Parliament! Of course I do. John Major, the conservative cif
:23:52. > :23:58.Prime Minister! Europe is about solidarity, this or that, that you
:23:58. > :24:02.have said... The Nobel Peace Prize... That is another line, but
:24:02. > :24:07.no-one voted for that position in Europe as far as the UK is
:24:07. > :24:11.concerned it was a trading area. Just on the trading area, let's
:24:11. > :24:15.pull it back to that. On the trading area, do you think, Nisreen
:24:16. > :24:19.Malik, that it was that promise by Mario Draghi to do whatever it
:24:19. > :24:23.takes to save the euro that finally convinced the markets that the
:24:23. > :24:28.politicians were serious? I think so. I think that about a years ago
:24:28. > :24:32.there was a genuine feeling that this could all fall apart that the
:24:32. > :24:36.unthinkable could happen which was a multi-tier European Union and
:24:36. > :24:40.fiscal union, but I think what the politicians have done, there was a
:24:40. > :24:46.tension between the politicians and the economists, and the politicians
:24:46. > :24:49.and the money men, but I think that the politicians have this pure grit
:24:49. > :24:55.and determination, have convinced the market that this is a fact it
:24:55. > :25:00.stayed and we have to deal with it. So I agree that changed thing. Even
:25:00. > :25:07.as we were last year, think think psychologically something has
:25:07. > :25:13.shifted in the favour of the euro. Mario Draghi, man of the year. The
:25:13. > :25:18.most anti-euro newspaper has made... Let me take this seriously...
:25:18. > :25:23.Barack Obama won the Peace Prize before being in office. We can
:25:23. > :25:27.dispense with that. We can dispense about the Peace Prize. It is the
:25:27. > :25:30.highest honour for Europe. Would you rather see Britain out of
:25:30. > :25:36.the European Union? I would personally, but I think that
:25:36. > :25:44.Britain will stay as the new British, the young, the immigrants,
:25:44. > :25:49.the women, the gays, all are what made Barack Obama win will...
:25:49. > :25:55.Gentleman, that is one prediction for 2013. We leave the rest for
:25:55. > :26:00.next week's programme for now, thank you very much for joining us,