Browse content similar to 16/02/2013. Check below for episodes and series from the same categories and more!
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Welcome to Dateline London. The European horsemeat scandal will | :00:26. | :00:29. | |
have changed the way we eat and the constant demand for ever cheaper | :00:29. | :00:35. | |
food. North Korea's nuclear test. His East Asia the world's most | :00:35. | :00:39. | |
dangerous flashpoint? And the Pope resigns. But how does it - at how | :00:39. | :00:47. | |
much does it really matter who his successor will be? My guests today | :00:47. | :00:57. | |
are Eunice Goes, Ned Temko and Mustapha Karkouti. It would appear | :00:57. | :01:01. | |
that all of Europe is worried what is in our sausages, mincemeat, | :01:01. | :01:05. | |
burgers and kebabs, and whether it is before horse. What does this | :01:05. | :01:09. | |
gamble tell us about the food we eat and the regulations all laws | :01:09. | :01:16. | |
governing those who produce it? It's been a bit of a shock. You | :01:16. | :01:21. | |
being the horse expert. Yes, it's a bizarre crisis. Basically, it's one | :01:21. | :01:27. | |
of these food crisis which is not about health. I witness the fact | :01:27. | :01:31. | |
you ate horsemeat on Newsnight. yes, but I volunteered to do it. | :01:31. | :01:35. | |
Which is the key. It's about knowing what it says on the label | :01:35. | :01:40. | |
is what you are eating. There's all sorts of other cultural issues. | :01:40. | :01:45. | |
Basically, we have these primal taboos about what we will eat and | :01:45. | :01:50. | |
what we won't eat. They vary from country to country, so that frog's | :01:50. | :01:59. | |
legs in France are a delicacy but I daresay most Brits would say yuk at | :01:59. | :02:05. | |
the notion of a frog Berger or horse Berger. That's part of it. | :02:05. | :02:11. | |
The real problem is in a modern food industry, where less and less | :02:11. | :02:16. | |
of our food is locally-produced from farms that are near a | :02:16. | :02:22. | |
restaurant. There's a demand for cheaper prices. He's ready meals, | :02:22. | :02:28. | |
these huge caterers who do schools, hospitals and businesses. It's | :02:28. | :02:33. | |
almost impossible to control. The supply line is so long. That was | :02:33. | :02:37. | |
what I was going to raise. The thing that seemed extraordinary to | :02:37. | :02:41. | |
me is we have learnt they might be some meat from Romania properly | :02:41. | :02:44. | |
labelled, it might be going through suppliers in France, Spain, | :02:44. | :02:48. | |
Luxembourg, who knows where, and ending up in other places in | :02:49. | :02:52. | |
lasagne or something that it shouldn't be in. That's the thing | :02:52. | :02:56. | |
that is extraordinary. In Britain we think we produce pretty good | :02:56. | :03:01. | |
beef. I wouldn't be surprised if we discovered that in the Gulf as well. | :03:01. | :03:07. | |
A lot of supermarket chains in Europe, they have branches. For a | :03:07. | :03:11. | |
lot of frozen food. A lot of frozen food is yet to be discovered. But | :03:11. | :03:21. | |
:03:21. | :03:27. | ||
what comes to me... Camel meat is quite available. It is delicious. | :03:27. | :03:37. | |
:03:37. | :03:39. | ||
But on the funny side of it, it is quite expectantly, you read in the | :03:39. | :03:49. | |
:03:49. | :03:54. | ||
newspaper... His horse culture? -- his horse -- his horse kosher? | :03:54. | :03:59. | |
There are much tighter controls and the scale is smaller. Whenever | :03:59. | :04:07. | |
there's a food crisis... And also butchers. The Good Family Butcher. | :04:07. | :04:11. | |
Halal meat and none halal meat, when I first came to this country | :04:11. | :04:18. | |
in the 70s, in every corner almost you had a butcher. You go and pick | :04:18. | :04:26. | |
your piece of meat. Your piece of course it personally. But now there | :04:26. | :04:31. | |
are no longer these shops. There are fewer of them. I know one where | :04:31. | :04:36. | |
the boccia very probably took me into his cold store and said, I | :04:36. | :04:41. | |
know where this comes from. You trust him. Mentioning these | :04:41. | :04:44. | |
butchers and going back to the Gulf, when you go to a supermarket you | :04:44. | :04:52. | |
have a corner for a meat, a corner for fish. You can still pick your | :04:52. | :05:02. | |
:05:02. | :05:05. | ||
own meat by pointing at 80 and see There's no real food inspections. | :05:05. | :05:10. | |
The recession crisis has led to huge cutbacks and public agencies. | :05:10. | :05:14. | |
Unfortunately, the food regulatory agency has had huge cutbacks. | :05:14. | :05:21. | |
There's been no inspections on meat. But I think this points at a big | :05:21. | :05:24. | |
problem in our modern society that I think is going to become bigger. | :05:24. | :05:28. | |
We are not ready to pay a great deal of money for the food we | :05:28. | :05:35. | |
consume. So that you can buy for �2, half a dozen frozen burgers and you | :05:35. | :05:39. | |
can feel -- VE Day family like that. If we don't ask ourselves, how can | :05:39. | :05:43. | |
we buy so much food for so little money, of course there's going to | :05:43. | :05:47. | |
be cut back somewhere because the producers, they need to make money. | :05:47. | :05:51. | |
They have to earn a living out of what they do. So it is consumers | :05:51. | :05:55. | |
and their desire for cheap food, spending less and less of our | :05:55. | :06:00. | |
budgets on the food we consume. Again, it's the supermarkets | :06:00. | :06:04. | |
because they have a big responsibility in this. They impose | :06:04. | :06:09. | |
on producers, on the farmers, huge reductions in prices. The farmers | :06:09. | :06:13. | |
have practically no profit margins for them to sustain their | :06:13. | :06:17. | |
livelihood. A one thing I noticed is over the past few years, we in | :06:17. | :06:21. | |
Britain tend to think that the Mediterranean diet, people are | :06:21. | :06:24. | |
prepared to pay more for their food and are a bit more picky, but we | :06:24. | :06:29. | |
have had the crisis in Spain a few years ago, it was disgusting, | :06:29. | :06:34. | |
people got very ill. So it's not confined to some sort of northern | :06:34. | :06:39. | |
European rush to the bottom. think it's quite widespread. In a | :06:39. | :06:44. | |
climate of crisis where everyone's incomes have suffered, we in | :06:44. | :06:48. | |
Portugal, Portuguese families have had 30 to 40 % reduction in their | :06:48. | :06:53. | |
family incomes. They have to feed their children. People are cutting | :06:53. | :06:57. | |
down on quality. People are not asking themselves, where does this | :06:57. | :07:01. | |
could come from? This is perhaps the question we need to ask. | :07:01. | :07:03. | |
Perhaps leading to a much more radical change in our diets. We | :07:04. | :07:08. | |
don't need to eat meat every day. Maybe if we invest in good quality | :07:08. | :07:12. | |
meet you at times, maybe that would be doing a favour for everyone. | :07:12. | :07:18. | |
John? To me, the loudest sound of the week has been the bolting of | :07:18. | :07:23. | |
stable doors, in this country in particular. It seems the Food | :07:23. | :07:27. | |
Standards Agency ones to blame the supermarkets. Others want to blame | :07:27. | :07:33. | |
the Romanians. Anybody but ourselves. The fact is Des at Food | :07:33. | :07:36. | |
Standards Agency in this country with nearly 2000 employees, which | :07:36. | :07:39. | |
is costing the taxpayer hundreds of millions of pounds a year. Surely | :07:39. | :07:45. | |
it would have been reasonable to expect that the FSA would, either | :07:45. | :07:50. | |
through its own -- inspections and tests at the supermarkets, would by | :07:50. | :07:54. | |
now, it's been in business for 10 years or so, would by now have | :07:54. | :07:57. | |
given us a system where we can be assured that this kind of thing | :07:57. | :08:01. | |
wouldn't happen. It is quite plain that they haven't. The other | :08:01. | :08:05. | |
thought I'd had watching this, as somebody who loves to go to the | :08:05. | :08:09. | |
races. I don't know a lot about horse racing, but one of the | :08:09. | :08:14. | |
delights of an English summer is to spend an afternoon at Newmarket or | :08:14. | :08:19. | |
of Ascot. There's a degree of hypocrisy. Why are we so outraged | :08:19. | :08:24. | |
at the idea that there might be horsemeat in our burgers? Because | :08:24. | :08:27. | |
we love horses. Horses have a special place another culture. Yet | :08:27. | :08:33. | |
the fact is that race horses, not only racecourses but all kinds of | :08:33. | :08:38. | |
horses, once their day has run, if they are not among the lucky ones, | :08:38. | :08:43. | |
the minority that go to some respectable retirement, are taken | :08:43. | :08:47. | |
straight to the abattoir. I think that is something that the horse | :08:47. | :08:54. | |
racing industry might want to look at. I don't expect to see the top | :08:55. | :09:01. | |
breed horses to be part of it. We don't know what kind of courses | :09:01. | :09:06. | |
they are. But they are. That's one reason why it in quite a lot of | :09:06. | :09:12. | |
these cases they've found this drug, bute, which is widely used in horse | :09:12. | :09:19. | |
racing. I want the bigger picture. These are hard times for a lot of | :09:19. | :09:23. | |
people, and people will naturally try to save money. When you look | :09:23. | :09:28. | |
into it, the questioners - what will be next? I've talked to some | :09:28. | :09:34. | |
food experts who say, well, you could look at some prepared fish | :09:34. | :09:42. | |
meals. Is it really that good fish you think it is? Most of the fish | :09:42. | :09:46. | |
we eat is farmed fish. We don't know what kind of food they are | :09:46. | :09:49. | |
giving to the fish. I'm pretty sure that many of these farmers are | :09:49. | :09:53. | |
giving them what they need, but there was gambles in the past where | :09:53. | :09:58. | |
fish were being fed animal protein. It is basically the complete | :09:59. | :10:06. | |
perversion of the food chain. of the problems of this modern food | :10:06. | :10:10. | |
industry is particularly but prepared meals. But almost any kind | :10:10. | :10:17. | |
of food now has preservatives, additives. Except in rare occasions | :10:17. | :10:21. | |
where you know the butcher and you go to a local restaurant and pay a | :10:21. | :10:26. | |
lot of money, you are not going to get unadulterated anything. That's | :10:26. | :10:32. | |
true of vegetables as well. sorry to bang on about this, but it | :10:32. | :10:36. | |
struck me reading about the food standards agency this week that it | :10:36. | :10:42. | |
bore some similarities to the Financial Services Authority. | :10:42. | :10:46. | |
just in the initials! Which we thought we could rely on to keep | :10:46. | :10:51. | |
our banks and investment industry honest, and they failed to do that. | :10:51. | :10:56. | |
Which you were right to identify as the only potential political | :10:56. | :11:00. | |
timeline in this. As long as it's not a major public health crisis, | :11:00. | :11:05. | |
this, too, will pass. But the regular Tory issue is important. | :11:05. | :11:09. | |
But there's huge collusion between the regulations and the industry. | :11:09. | :11:12. | |
There's a revolving door between the industry and the regulators. | :11:12. | :11:17. | |
This was already the case 10 years ago. On the banks as well. | :11:17. | :11:23. | |
Absolutely. This is probably a... Its related to the bigger question | :11:23. | :11:26. | |
about the nature of capitalism, current capitalism, the lack of | :11:26. | :11:32. | |
regulation, the desire for no regulation. The winks and nods that | :11:32. | :11:35. | |
lead to huge collusion between governments and defence sectors of | :11:35. | :11:41. | |
the economy. I want to comment on a slightly different aspect of this. | :11:41. | :11:45. | |
The prospect of the EU and the United States signing a huge trade | :11:46. | :11:51. | |
pact, which to many people is this great free-trade area. One of the | :11:51. | :11:54. | |
disadvantages some Europeans say is that American food is not as great | :11:54. | :11:58. | |
as some Americans would have us believe. There's a lot of hormones | :11:58. | :12:00. | |
in the beef and the use of antibiotics is quite worrying and | :12:01. | :12:05. | |
they are not as well regulated as in Europe. Is that a concern in the | :12:05. | :12:10. | |
US, or is that not something people notice? I do not live in the United | :12:10. | :12:15. | |
States. I've not noticed a, reading the New York Times or elsewhere, | :12:15. | :12:19. | |
that it has been a huge public issue. I think it is an issue | :12:19. | :12:23. | |
amongst people who are engaged with public health. There are certainly | :12:23. | :12:26. | |
some people who feel strongly about this. I would have thought it could | :12:26. | :12:30. | |
become a major bone of contention between the United States and | :12:30. | :12:38. | |
Europe. Not only respective needs but grains as well. I think John is | :12:38. | :12:44. | |
right. One of the ironies is it is a huge industry, so there's a | :12:44. | :12:49. | |
larger regular Tory a framework. But it my impression is that on a | :12:49. | :12:53. | |
lot of specific issues, American regulations are tighter. Take bute, | :12:53. | :12:58. | |
for instance, which is permitted in some circumstances in Britain and | :12:58. | :13:03. | |
some European countries we used on humans. But as far as I know, it | :13:03. | :13:13. | |
was a listed in the US. It will be one more complexity in the | :13:13. | :13:16. | |
framework of regulation, because it's hard enough regulating the EU | :13:16. | :13:23. | |
from Brussels, to kind of mesh these... All of this is connected. | :13:23. | :13:28. | |
In an increasingly global rising world, how do we govern these | :13:28. | :13:38. | |
:13:38. | :13:43. | ||
problems and govern them It is going into the direction of | :13:43. | :13:51. | |
it being healthy all unhealthy. It is really about the fraud. We will | :13:51. | :13:57. | |
probably end up with a hit in collaboration between two or three | :13:57. | :14:02. | |
parties. The great irony is the initial response was blamed the | :14:02. | :14:12. | |
:14:12. | :14:15. | ||
Romanians. North Korea's nuclear test his regarded by a areca palm | :14:15. | :14:22. | |
as a potential threat to the US. His East Asia a place where it is a | :14:22. | :14:26. | |
result of blundering brinkmanship or the fact that a serious conflict | :14:26. | :14:33. | |
might breakout? It seems to be the calibrating towards this. I have | :14:33. | :14:41. | |
probably said this before. I am not an expert, but on nasty places, I | :14:41. | :14:48. | |
am. I have visited my fair share of them. Along with Iraq, it is the | :14:48. | :14:53. | |
nastiest place I have ever been. Saddam Hussein didn't care to hide | :14:53. | :15:03. | |
:15:03. | :15:07. | ||
his brutality where as Camille -- Kim Will Young has. We know they | :15:07. | :15:13. | |
are to people in labour camps being subjected to the most appalling | :15:13. | :15:19. | |
treatment. We have shipped people and -- we have shipped oil to them | :15:19. | :15:24. | |
and done everything to persuade them to be good citizens at and | :15:24. | :15:27. | |
none has work. The principal responsibility for this lies not | :15:27. | :15:32. | |
with the US but with China. China is any position to do something | :15:32. | :15:38. | |
about it but they are afraid of the collapse of North Korea leaving | :15:38. | :15:46. | |
them with, in effect, a West Germany problem, that there will be | :15:46. | :15:55. | |
20 million or more people who are already in a state of destitution. | :15:55. | :16:01. | |
The same is true of South Korea as well. Are they a threat? If they | :16:01. | :16:04. | |
can treat their own people like that domestically, why should we | :16:04. | :16:11. | |
think there we are safe ourselves, once they get the means to attack. | :16:11. | :16:21. | |
:16:21. | :16:23. | ||
The rationale behind it is Seoul is not very far away from the border. | :16:23. | :16:26. | |
Pyongyang is saying they still want peace with the United States | :16:26. | :16:35. | |
because they are officially at war. There is a brinkmanship game at. | :16:35. | :16:42. | |
Now we have a nuclear weapon. This is all about sharing that they have | :16:42. | :16:48. | |
nuclear weapons. They might read the United States. This is about | :16:48. | :16:53. | |
them giving them what they want. A peace treaty or food. They have | :16:53. | :16:58. | |
been managing this very well. Since they started new -- using their | :16:58. | :17:08. | |
nuclear testing, they have been doing this. What kind of threats | :17:08. | :17:14. | |
can the West issue to North Korea? Not very much because once a | :17:14. | :17:18. | |
country has nuclear weapons, they are uncontrollable and become very | :17:18. | :17:24. | |
dangerous. That is the rationale. There is an unpleasant argument for | :17:24. | :17:29. | |
the West to face. Once you have nuclear weapons, you are less | :17:29. | :17:37. | |
likely to be attacked. There were talks that Iran was present at this | :17:37. | :17:43. | |
North Korean nuclear test. I don't know if this is true, they have | :17:43. | :17:49. | |
been reports in the Israeli press about that. They want it to | :17:49. | :17:54. | |
demonstrate that Iran has a fully workable nuclear programme. You | :17:54. | :17:58. | |
know you were going to be safe and not going to be attacked if you | :17:58. | :18:04. | |
possess nuclear weapons and that is where they are done this. John | :18:04. | :18:10. | |
Maden interesting point about China. For China to come out strongly | :18:10. | :18:17. | |
criticising the latest nuclear tests of career -- Korea, it pushes | :18:17. | :18:27. | |
:18:27. | :18:29. | ||
them to reconsider China's position. The US would not go fully-fledged | :18:29. | :18:34. | |
towards North Korea and upsetting China, taking into account the | :18:34. | :18:42. | |
considerable amount of national interest of the US and China. The | :18:42. | :18:50. | |
appeasement, I can see the development of a similar scenario | :18:50. | :18:57. | |
in the Middle East, like Syria. We may see a similar situation to that | :18:57. | :19:05. | |
of North Korea. With nuclear weapons? Not necessarily. They have | :19:05. | :19:13. | |
been there for two years and it may go on for five years. You would end | :19:13. | :19:23. | |
:19:23. | :19:28. | ||
up with the US and Russia, like Korea and China. There is two kinds | :19:28. | :19:33. | |
of nuclear proliferation. Most people would say it is all bad, | :19:33. | :19:38. | |
whenever you get a nuclear state, that is not a good thing. There is | :19:38. | :19:44. | |
a special category. When India and Pakistan had a bomb, Mr seemed that | :19:44. | :19:50. | |
even if there was another shooting war, there is a vanishing | :19:50. | :20:00. | |
:20:00. | :20:02. | ||
possibility that India or Pakistan is going to nuke the other. | :20:02. | :20:06. | |
Some American President, if not this one, they will have to | :20:06. | :20:13. | |
seriously consider whether or not you can strike those weapons. | :20:13. | :20:19. | |
very difficult. One of the problems with this process is when you have | :20:19. | :20:23. | |
had your third nuclear test in quite a few years, you are pretty | :20:23. | :20:29. | |
much past the point of no return. The key is, what is in China's | :20:29. | :20:36. | |
minds? The key is not so much the refugees. To China see this as a | :20:36. | :20:46. | |
:20:46. | :20:46. | ||
buffer against the rest of East Asia? What you said about India and | :20:46. | :20:56. | |
:20:56. | :20:57. | ||
Pakistan is right. Iran and Israel will not bomb each other because of | :20:57. | :21:07. | |
:21:07. | :21:08. | ||
proximity. We will move on. I want to talk about Pope Benedict's | :21:08. | :21:13. | |
decision to resign. How has that gone down in Portugal? Given that | :21:13. | :21:20. | |
the Church stands for continuity, do we make too much of who is going | :21:20. | :21:27. | |
to take over? A so-called liberal or a so-called Conservative? | :21:27. | :21:31. | |
course it was noticed and he was a front page news stories for a | :21:31. | :21:37. | |
couple of days and there were discussions like everywhere else. | :21:37. | :21:42. | |
The Catholic Church is a spent force in Europe. Also in southern | :21:42. | :21:46. | |
Europe where his is the strongest. They some interest and there is a | :21:46. | :21:50. | |
big debate whether it will be somebody from Africa and the | :21:50. | :21:54. | |
strongest contender is this Nigerian the cardinal. For the | :21:54. | :22:00. | |
reason why you say that is a more secular Europe. No one is paying | :22:00. | :22:03. | |
attention to what the Catholic Church's saying in Europe. People | :22:03. | :22:07. | |
are still baptising and having religious weddings because it is | :22:07. | :22:12. | |
pretty, not because it is a question of faith. If you look at | :22:12. | :22:16. | |
Portugal and the birth rates, it is one of the lowest birth rates in | :22:16. | :22:21. | |
Europe. Cohabitation is on the rise. In terms of a moral force in the | :22:21. | :22:30. | |
country, it is exhausted. The shadow of corruption, the Catholic | :22:30. | :22:37. | |
church in Europe, collaborating with the fascists and the child | :22:37. | :22:43. | |
abuse scandal, there is fatigue. a way I should disqualify myself | :22:43. | :22:50. | |
because I am not a Catholic. It is not the Europe I know. It seems to | :22:50. | :22:54. | |
me that it is a brave thing to discount the power of the Catholic | :22:55. | :22:59. | |
church in Europe. It is true what you say they have been terrible | :22:59. | :23:09. | |
:23:09. | :23:10. | ||
scandals, that church attendance has fallen off. The latent power of | :23:10. | :23:15. | |
the Church is very considerable and I personally, although an Anglican, | :23:15. | :23:19. | |
was deeply sorry to see this Pope retire. I saw him and followed him | :23:19. | :23:25. | |
when he came to this country two or three years ago. I was told by one | :23:25. | :23:29. | |
of his senior aides that he was deeply apprehensive on the | :23:29. | :23:33. | |
aeroplane here coming from Rome because of the paedophilia scandal, | :23:33. | :23:38. | |
because he is coming to a country that is overwhelmingly Protestant. | :23:38. | :23:42. | |
He was afraid, because the media had warned him that there would be | :23:42. | :23:46. | |
so, that there would be protests in the streets. Where the he went, | :23:46. | :23:52. | |
there were huge crowds, he was hugely popular and because like his | :23:53. | :23:57. | |
predecessor, he represented something of essential goodness, a | :23:57. | :24:05. | |
continuity, and unshakeable Etty, good and bad, which people find in | :24:05. | :24:12. | |
an uncertain way, reassuring. Christian numbers going to church | :24:12. | :24:16. | |
is dwindling but the Catholic Church still enjoys tremendous | :24:16. | :24:26. | |
:24:26. | :24:30. | ||
power financially and the Conor Macauley -- economically. The | :24:30. | :24:36. | |
Catholic Church in America is $130 billion. One final point I want | :24:36. | :24:42. | |
from the other point of view, this particular Pope antagonised Muslims | :24:43. | :24:49. | |
two years ago when he quoted one of the Catholic Church's colour as | :24:49. | :24:57. | |
describing Muslims as a violent Islam, a violent religion. | :24:57. | :25:03. | |
antagonised lots of people. One of the interesting things that I will | :25:03. | :25:10. | |
conclude his although I a Pinkie is a good man, I don't think you can | :25:10. | :25:16. |