:00:26. > :00:29.Welcome to Dateline London. The European horsemeat scandal will
:00:29. > :00:35.have changed the way we eat and the constant demand for ever cheaper
:00:35. > :00:39.food. North Korea's nuclear test. His East Asia the world's most
:00:39. > :00:47.dangerous flashpoint? And the Pope resigns. But how does it - at how
:00:47. > :00:57.much does it really matter who his successor will be? My guests today
:00:57. > :01:01.are Eunice Goes, Ned Temko and Mustapha Karkouti. It would appear
:01:01. > :01:05.that all of Europe is worried what is in our sausages, mincemeat,
:01:05. > :01:09.burgers and kebabs, and whether it is before horse. What does this
:01:09. > :01:16.gamble tell us about the food we eat and the regulations all laws
:01:16. > :01:21.governing those who produce it? It's been a bit of a shock. You
:01:21. > :01:27.being the horse expert. Yes, it's a bizarre crisis. Basically, it's one
:01:27. > :01:31.of these food crisis which is not about health. I witness the fact
:01:31. > :01:35.you ate horsemeat on Newsnight. yes, but I volunteered to do it.
:01:35. > :01:40.Which is the key. It's about knowing what it says on the label
:01:40. > :01:45.is what you are eating. There's all sorts of other cultural issues.
:01:45. > :01:50.Basically, we have these primal taboos about what we will eat and
:01:50. > :01:59.what we won't eat. They vary from country to country, so that frog's
:01:59. > :02:05.legs in France are a delicacy but I daresay most Brits would say yuk at
:02:05. > :02:11.the notion of a frog Berger or horse Berger. That's part of it.
:02:11. > :02:16.The real problem is in a modern food industry, where less and less
:02:16. > :02:22.of our food is locally-produced from farms that are near a
:02:22. > :02:28.restaurant. There's a demand for cheaper prices. He's ready meals,
:02:28. > :02:33.these huge caterers who do schools, hospitals and businesses. It's
:02:33. > :02:37.almost impossible to control. The supply line is so long. That was
:02:37. > :02:41.what I was going to raise. The thing that seemed extraordinary to
:02:41. > :02:44.me is we have learnt they might be some meat from Romania properly
:02:44. > :02:48.labelled, it might be going through suppliers in France, Spain,
:02:49. > :02:52.Luxembourg, who knows where, and ending up in other places in
:02:52. > :02:56.lasagne or something that it shouldn't be in. That's the thing
:02:56. > :03:01.that is extraordinary. In Britain we think we produce pretty good
:03:01. > :03:07.beef. I wouldn't be surprised if we discovered that in the Gulf as well.
:03:07. > :03:11.A lot of supermarket chains in Europe, they have branches. For a
:03:11. > :03:21.lot of frozen food. A lot of frozen food is yet to be discovered. But
:03:21. > :03:27.
:03:27. > :03:37.what comes to me... Camel meat is quite available. It is delicious.
:03:37. > :03:39.
:03:39. > :03:49.But on the funny side of it, it is quite expectantly, you read in the
:03:49. > :03:54.
:03:54. > :03:59.newspaper... His horse culture? -- his horse -- his horse kosher?
:03:59. > :04:07.There are much tighter controls and the scale is smaller. Whenever
:04:07. > :04:11.there's a food crisis... And also butchers. The Good Family Butcher.
:04:11. > :04:18.Halal meat and none halal meat, when I first came to this country
:04:18. > :04:26.in the 70s, in every corner almost you had a butcher. You go and pick
:04:26. > :04:31.your piece of meat. Your piece of course it personally. But now there
:04:31. > :04:36.are no longer these shops. There are fewer of them. I know one where
:04:36. > :04:41.the boccia very probably took me into his cold store and said, I
:04:41. > :04:44.know where this comes from. You trust him. Mentioning these
:04:44. > :04:52.butchers and going back to the Gulf, when you go to a supermarket you
:04:52. > :05:02.have a corner for a meat, a corner for fish. You can still pick your
:05:02. > :05:05.
:05:05. > :05:10.own meat by pointing at 80 and see There's no real food inspections.
:05:10. > :05:14.The recession crisis has led to huge cutbacks and public agencies.
:05:14. > :05:21.Unfortunately, the food regulatory agency has had huge cutbacks.
:05:21. > :05:24.There's been no inspections on meat. But I think this points at a big
:05:24. > :05:28.problem in our modern society that I think is going to become bigger.
:05:28. > :05:35.We are not ready to pay a great deal of money for the food we
:05:35. > :05:39.consume. So that you can buy for �2, half a dozen frozen burgers and you
:05:39. > :05:43.can feel -- VE Day family like that. If we don't ask ourselves, how can
:05:43. > :05:47.we buy so much food for so little money, of course there's going to
:05:47. > :05:51.be cut back somewhere because the producers, they need to make money.
:05:51. > :05:55.They have to earn a living out of what they do. So it is consumers
:05:55. > :06:00.and their desire for cheap food, spending less and less of our
:06:00. > :06:04.budgets on the food we consume. Again, it's the supermarkets
:06:04. > :06:09.because they have a big responsibility in this. They impose
:06:09. > :06:13.on producers, on the farmers, huge reductions in prices. The farmers
:06:13. > :06:17.have practically no profit margins for them to sustain their
:06:17. > :06:21.livelihood. A one thing I noticed is over the past few years, we in
:06:21. > :06:24.Britain tend to think that the Mediterranean diet, people are
:06:24. > :06:29.prepared to pay more for their food and are a bit more picky, but we
:06:29. > :06:34.have had the crisis in Spain a few years ago, it was disgusting,
:06:34. > :06:39.people got very ill. So it's not confined to some sort of northern
:06:39. > :06:44.European rush to the bottom. think it's quite widespread. In a
:06:44. > :06:48.climate of crisis where everyone's incomes have suffered, we in
:06:48. > :06:53.Portugal, Portuguese families have had 30 to 40 % reduction in their
:06:53. > :06:57.family incomes. They have to feed their children. People are cutting
:06:57. > :07:01.down on quality. People are not asking themselves, where does this
:07:01. > :07:03.could come from? This is perhaps the question we need to ask.
:07:04. > :07:08.Perhaps leading to a much more radical change in our diets. We
:07:08. > :07:12.don't need to eat meat every day. Maybe if we invest in good quality
:07:12. > :07:18.meet you at times, maybe that would be doing a favour for everyone.
:07:18. > :07:23.John? To me, the loudest sound of the week has been the bolting of
:07:23. > :07:27.stable doors, in this country in particular. It seems the Food
:07:27. > :07:33.Standards Agency ones to blame the supermarkets. Others want to blame
:07:33. > :07:36.the Romanians. Anybody but ourselves. The fact is Des at Food
:07:36. > :07:39.Standards Agency in this country with nearly 2000 employees, which
:07:39. > :07:45.is costing the taxpayer hundreds of millions of pounds a year. Surely
:07:45. > :07:50.it would have been reasonable to expect that the FSA would, either
:07:50. > :07:54.through its own -- inspections and tests at the supermarkets, would by
:07:54. > :07:57.now, it's been in business for 10 years or so, would by now have
:07:57. > :08:01.given us a system where we can be assured that this kind of thing
:08:01. > :08:05.wouldn't happen. It is quite plain that they haven't. The other
:08:05. > :08:09.thought I'd had watching this, as somebody who loves to go to the
:08:09. > :08:14.races. I don't know a lot about horse racing, but one of the
:08:14. > :08:19.delights of an English summer is to spend an afternoon at Newmarket or
:08:19. > :08:24.of Ascot. There's a degree of hypocrisy. Why are we so outraged
:08:24. > :08:27.at the idea that there might be horsemeat in our burgers? Because
:08:27. > :08:33.we love horses. Horses have a special place another culture. Yet
:08:33. > :08:38.the fact is that race horses, not only racecourses but all kinds of
:08:38. > :08:43.horses, once their day has run, if they are not among the lucky ones,
:08:43. > :08:47.the minority that go to some respectable retirement, are taken
:08:47. > :08:54.straight to the abattoir. I think that is something that the horse
:08:55. > :09:01.racing industry might want to look at. I don't expect to see the top
:09:01. > :09:06.breed horses to be part of it. We don't know what kind of courses
:09:06. > :09:12.they are. But they are. That's one reason why it in quite a lot of
:09:12. > :09:19.these cases they've found this drug, bute, which is widely used in horse
:09:19. > :09:23.racing. I want the bigger picture. These are hard times for a lot of
:09:23. > :09:28.people, and people will naturally try to save money. When you look
:09:28. > :09:34.into it, the questioners - what will be next? I've talked to some
:09:34. > :09:42.food experts who say, well, you could look at some prepared fish
:09:42. > :09:46.meals. Is it really that good fish you think it is? Most of the fish
:09:46. > :09:49.we eat is farmed fish. We don't know what kind of food they are
:09:49. > :09:53.giving to the fish. I'm pretty sure that many of these farmers are
:09:53. > :09:58.giving them what they need, but there was gambles in the past where
:09:59. > :10:06.fish were being fed animal protein. It is basically the complete
:10:06. > :10:10.perversion of the food chain. of the problems of this modern food
:10:10. > :10:17.industry is particularly but prepared meals. But almost any kind
:10:17. > :10:21.of food now has preservatives, additives. Except in rare occasions
:10:21. > :10:26.where you know the butcher and you go to a local restaurant and pay a
:10:26. > :10:32.lot of money, you are not going to get unadulterated anything. That's
:10:32. > :10:36.true of vegetables as well. sorry to bang on about this, but it
:10:36. > :10:42.struck me reading about the food standards agency this week that it
:10:42. > :10:46.bore some similarities to the Financial Services Authority.
:10:46. > :10:51.just in the initials! Which we thought we could rely on to keep
:10:51. > :10:56.our banks and investment industry honest, and they failed to do that.
:10:56. > :11:00.Which you were right to identify as the only potential political
:11:00. > :11:05.timeline in this. As long as it's not a major public health crisis,
:11:05. > :11:09.this, too, will pass. But the regular Tory issue is important.
:11:09. > :11:12.But there's huge collusion between the regulations and the industry.
:11:12. > :11:17.There's a revolving door between the industry and the regulators.
:11:17. > :11:23.This was already the case 10 years ago. On the banks as well.
:11:23. > :11:26.Absolutely. This is probably a... Its related to the bigger question
:11:26. > :11:32.about the nature of capitalism, current capitalism, the lack of
:11:32. > :11:35.regulation, the desire for no regulation. The winks and nods that
:11:35. > :11:41.lead to huge collusion between governments and defence sectors of
:11:41. > :11:45.the economy. I want to comment on a slightly different aspect of this.
:11:46. > :11:51.The prospect of the EU and the United States signing a huge trade
:11:51. > :11:54.pact, which to many people is this great free-trade area. One of the
:11:54. > :11:58.disadvantages some Europeans say is that American food is not as great
:11:58. > :12:00.as some Americans would have us believe. There's a lot of hormones
:12:01. > :12:05.in the beef and the use of antibiotics is quite worrying and
:12:05. > :12:10.they are not as well regulated as in Europe. Is that a concern in the
:12:10. > :12:15.US, or is that not something people notice? I do not live in the United
:12:15. > :12:19.States. I've not noticed a, reading the New York Times or elsewhere,
:12:19. > :12:23.that it has been a huge public issue. I think it is an issue
:12:23. > :12:26.amongst people who are engaged with public health. There are certainly
:12:26. > :12:30.some people who feel strongly about this. I would have thought it could
:12:30. > :12:38.become a major bone of contention between the United States and
:12:38. > :12:44.Europe. Not only respective needs but grains as well. I think John is
:12:44. > :12:49.right. One of the ironies is it is a huge industry, so there's a
:12:49. > :12:53.larger regular Tory a framework. But it my impression is that on a
:12:53. > :12:58.lot of specific issues, American regulations are tighter. Take bute,
:12:58. > :13:03.for instance, which is permitted in some circumstances in Britain and
:13:03. > :13:13.some European countries we used on humans. But as far as I know, it
:13:13. > :13:16.was a listed in the US. It will be one more complexity in the
:13:16. > :13:23.framework of regulation, because it's hard enough regulating the EU
:13:23. > :13:28.from Brussels, to kind of mesh these... All of this is connected.
:13:28. > :13:38.In an increasingly global rising world, how do we govern these
:13:38. > :13:43.
:13:43. > :13:51.problems and govern them It is going into the direction of
:13:51. > :13:57.it being healthy all unhealthy. It is really about the fraud. We will
:13:57. > :14:02.probably end up with a hit in collaboration between two or three
:14:02. > :14:12.parties. The great irony is the initial response was blamed the
:14:12. > :14:15.
:14:15. > :14:22.Romanians. North Korea's nuclear test his regarded by a areca palm
:14:22. > :14:26.as a potential threat to the US. His East Asia a place where it is a
:14:26. > :14:33.result of blundering brinkmanship or the fact that a serious conflict
:14:33. > :14:41.might breakout? It seems to be the calibrating towards this. I have
:14:41. > :14:48.probably said this before. I am not an expert, but on nasty places, I
:14:48. > :14:53.am. I have visited my fair share of them. Along with Iraq, it is the
:14:53. > :15:03.nastiest place I have ever been. Saddam Hussein didn't care to hide
:15:03. > :15:07.
:15:07. > :15:13.his brutality where as Camille -- Kim Will Young has. We know they
:15:13. > :15:19.are to people in labour camps being subjected to the most appalling
:15:19. > :15:24.treatment. We have shipped people and -- we have shipped oil to them
:15:24. > :15:27.and done everything to persuade them to be good citizens at and
:15:27. > :15:32.none has work. The principal responsibility for this lies not
:15:32. > :15:38.with the US but with China. China is any position to do something
:15:38. > :15:46.about it but they are afraid of the collapse of North Korea leaving
:15:46. > :15:55.them with, in effect, a West Germany problem, that there will be
:15:55. > :16:01.20 million or more people who are already in a state of destitution.
:16:01. > :16:04.The same is true of South Korea as well. Are they a threat? If they
:16:04. > :16:11.can treat their own people like that domestically, why should we
:16:11. > :16:21.think there we are safe ourselves, once they get the means to attack.
:16:21. > :16:23.
:16:23. > :16:26.The rationale behind it is Seoul is not very far away from the border.
:16:26. > :16:35.Pyongyang is saying they still want peace with the United States
:16:35. > :16:42.because they are officially at war. There is a brinkmanship game at.
:16:42. > :16:48.Now we have a nuclear weapon. This is all about sharing that they have
:16:48. > :16:53.nuclear weapons. They might read the United States. This is about
:16:53. > :16:58.them giving them what they want. A peace treaty or food. They have
:16:58. > :17:08.been managing this very well. Since they started new -- using their
:17:08. > :17:14.nuclear testing, they have been doing this. What kind of threats
:17:14. > :17:18.can the West issue to North Korea? Not very much because once a
:17:18. > :17:24.country has nuclear weapons, they are uncontrollable and become very
:17:24. > :17:29.dangerous. That is the rationale. There is an unpleasant argument for
:17:29. > :17:37.the West to face. Once you have nuclear weapons, you are less
:17:37. > :17:43.likely to be attacked. There were talks that Iran was present at this
:17:43. > :17:49.North Korean nuclear test. I don't know if this is true, they have
:17:49. > :17:54.been reports in the Israeli press about that. They want it to
:17:54. > :17:58.demonstrate that Iran has a fully workable nuclear programme. You
:17:58. > :18:04.know you were going to be safe and not going to be attacked if you
:18:04. > :18:10.possess nuclear weapons and that is where they are done this. John
:18:10. > :18:17.Maden interesting point about China. For China to come out strongly
:18:17. > :18:27.criticising the latest nuclear tests of career -- Korea, it pushes
:18:27. > :18:29.
:18:29. > :18:34.them to reconsider China's position. The US would not go fully-fledged
:18:34. > :18:42.towards North Korea and upsetting China, taking into account the
:18:42. > :18:50.considerable amount of national interest of the US and China. The
:18:50. > :18:57.appeasement, I can see the development of a similar scenario
:18:57. > :19:05.in the Middle East, like Syria. We may see a similar situation to that
:19:05. > :19:13.of North Korea. With nuclear weapons? Not necessarily. They have
:19:13. > :19:23.been there for two years and it may go on for five years. You would end
:19:23. > :19:28.
:19:28. > :19:33.up with the US and Russia, like Korea and China. There is two kinds
:19:33. > :19:38.of nuclear proliferation. Most people would say it is all bad,
:19:38. > :19:44.whenever you get a nuclear state, that is not a good thing. There is
:19:44. > :19:50.a special category. When India and Pakistan had a bomb, Mr seemed that
:19:50. > :20:00.even if there was another shooting war, there is a vanishing
:20:00. > :20:02.
:20:02. > :20:06.possibility that India or Pakistan is going to nuke the other.
:20:06. > :20:13.Some American President, if not this one, they will have to
:20:13. > :20:19.seriously consider whether or not you can strike those weapons.
:20:19. > :20:23.very difficult. One of the problems with this process is when you have
:20:23. > :20:29.had your third nuclear test in quite a few years, you are pretty
:20:29. > :20:36.much past the point of no return. The key is, what is in China's
:20:36. > :20:46.minds? The key is not so much the refugees. To China see this as a
:20:46. > :20:46.
:20:46. > :20:56.buffer against the rest of East Asia? What you said about India and
:20:56. > :20:57.
:20:57. > :21:07.Pakistan is right. Iran and Israel will not bomb each other because of
:21:07. > :21:08.
:21:08. > :21:13.proximity. We will move on. I want to talk about Pope Benedict's
:21:13. > :21:20.decision to resign. How has that gone down in Portugal? Given that
:21:20. > :21:27.the Church stands for continuity, do we make too much of who is going
:21:27. > :21:31.to take over? A so-called liberal or a so-called Conservative?
:21:31. > :21:37.course it was noticed and he was a front page news stories for a
:21:37. > :21:42.couple of days and there were discussions like everywhere else.
:21:42. > :21:46.The Catholic Church is a spent force in Europe. Also in southern
:21:46. > :21:50.Europe where his is the strongest. They some interest and there is a
:21:50. > :21:54.big debate whether it will be somebody from Africa and the
:21:54. > :22:00.strongest contender is this Nigerian the cardinal. For the
:22:00. > :22:03.reason why you say that is a more secular Europe. No one is paying
:22:03. > :22:07.attention to what the Catholic Church's saying in Europe. People
:22:07. > :22:12.are still baptising and having religious weddings because it is
:22:12. > :22:16.pretty, not because it is a question of faith. If you look at
:22:16. > :22:21.Portugal and the birth rates, it is one of the lowest birth rates in
:22:21. > :22:30.Europe. Cohabitation is on the rise. In terms of a moral force in the
:22:30. > :22:37.country, it is exhausted. The shadow of corruption, the Catholic
:22:37. > :22:43.church in Europe, collaborating with the fascists and the child
:22:43. > :22:50.abuse scandal, there is fatigue. a way I should disqualify myself
:22:50. > :22:54.because I am not a Catholic. It is not the Europe I know. It seems to
:22:55. > :22:59.me that it is a brave thing to discount the power of the Catholic
:22:59. > :23:09.church in Europe. It is true what you say they have been terrible
:23:09. > :23:10.
:23:10. > :23:15.scandals, that church attendance has fallen off. The latent power of
:23:15. > :23:19.the Church is very considerable and I personally, although an Anglican,
:23:19. > :23:25.was deeply sorry to see this Pope retire. I saw him and followed him
:23:25. > :23:29.when he came to this country two or three years ago. I was told by one
:23:29. > :23:33.of his senior aides that he was deeply apprehensive on the
:23:33. > :23:38.aeroplane here coming from Rome because of the paedophilia scandal,
:23:38. > :23:42.because he is coming to a country that is overwhelmingly Protestant.
:23:42. > :23:46.He was afraid, because the media had warned him that there would be
:23:46. > :23:52.so, that there would be protests in the streets. Where the he went,
:23:53. > :23:57.there were huge crowds, he was hugely popular and because like his
:23:57. > :24:05.predecessor, he represented something of essential goodness, a
:24:05. > :24:12.continuity, and unshakeable Etty, good and bad, which people find in
:24:12. > :24:16.an uncertain way, reassuring. Christian numbers going to church
:24:16. > :24:26.is dwindling but the Catholic Church still enjoys tremendous
:24:26. > :24:30.
:24:30. > :24:36.power financially and the Conor Macauley -- economically. The
:24:36. > :24:42.Catholic Church in America is $130 billion. One final point I want
:24:43. > :24:49.from the other point of view, this particular Pope antagonised Muslims
:24:49. > :24:57.two years ago when he quoted one of the Catholic Church's colour as
:24:57. > :25:03.describing Muslims as a violent Islam, a violent religion.
:25:03. > :25:10.antagonised lots of people. One of the interesting things that I will
:25:10. > :25:16.conclude his although I a Pinkie is a good man, I don't think you can