02/03/2013 Dateline London

A full news bulletin at 1pm. Now Hello. Welcome to Dateline UK. At

end of a week of sex and elections and I'm not talking about Italy,

though Rome will provide the back drop for the conclave to choose the

next leader of the Catholic Church following the departure of Pope

emer Tuesday Benedict. Until the beginning of the week Keith O'Brien

was intending to cast a vote in that election. But allegations of

inappropriate behaviour, levelled by three priests and a former

priest, put paid to. That though he denies them, he resigned. Claims of

inappropriate behaviour dogged the Liberal Democrats too, unnerving

them as they defended Eastleigh a seat vacated as a rilt of another

scandal. We'll discuss the Catholic Church and British politics. As big

spending cuts kick in in the United States because of continued

political deadlock, whou fragile is the world economy? My guests are

Maria Margaronis of The Nation. Catherine Pepinster who Ed its the

Catholic newspaper The Tablet. Dmitry Shiskin a Russian specialist

at BBC Global News and Polly Toynbee from the guardian.

Polly, Eastleigh was beastly for the Tories. But how bad was it?

It's hard to know. In the immediate aftermath everybody is terribly

excited, bit of an upset. The stoirz can't win the seat. UKIP

arise out of almost nowhere to overtake the Tories, which is

frightening for them. Is this a typical mid-term anti-Government

spasm? Nearly always by-elections are used for people toual lop the

Government of the day. But UKIP have a particular resonance, not

just in this country, but across Europe with the issues that they're

touching. There's toxic issues about Europe itself but

particularly about immigration and Europe about every country in

trouble wanting to draw up its boundaries, and worried about

globalisation and particularly movement of people. I don't know

yet how much significance it will have. But it is certainly not

insignificant. Do you think it fits in with the pattern of politics

we're seeing at the moment in other parts of Europe? It's interesting

coming in the same week at the Italian election where Beppe

Grillo's movement got a quarter of the vote. Again, I think that is

very much an anti-politics move though not in the send that Conrad

meant in 1984 when he coined the term that it's not about scepticism

and seeing elite policies and ideology of forwarding particular

agendas, but about overturning. But I think again with Beppe Grillo we

have an ambiguous politics going on in. Some ways they seem to be on

the left. On the other hand we have seen him come up with anti-

immigrant rhetoric also in Italy. In one way, one could see this as a

poplt for democracy. But in another way it's a dangerous and

frightening moment because people are not, people are looking at

rather mistifying terms and trying to find a story that explains how

they feel without really understanding what's going on.

is the big message that the Conservatives seem to be saying,

look, we haven't got our message across, we haven't explained to

people how bad things are, how difficult it is to improve things

again. Is that adequate as an explanation do you think? No, I

don't think so. One of the things that interested me most and I don't

know if it's true because it's the claim by UKIP that there were a lot

of people who voted for them who hadn't voted for anybody else for

years, those people had felt disenfranchised. They felt that the

parties that won like norm dr one might normally consider voting for

weren't speaking for them. That's a real issue for the political system

in this country and other countries like Italy that people feel that

they don't connect with the political class and that there's

that real lack of communication that the politicians are very

distant from people's concerns and problems. There was a very, very

low turnout. Only half the people in this incredibly hard-fought by-

election, filled with every leading politician in the country, still

only half the people bothered to vote at all. Isn't that quite high

for a by-election? I'm not sure. But it's lower than the general

election. Filling a constituency with politicians puts people off

politics, that's quite a gloomy example of the difficulty they're

facing in engaging people. Your point about the success of UKIP by

presentation is the interests of people who otherwise are not

represented by other parties is a very important one. More

importantly, moving into the European elections next year, how

would you keep performing with that regard. Obviously, they might do

really well in that sense and if they do really well, people already

feel very distant from all things European any way. Then if you keep

representing Britain officially on the European stage, be it in

Parliament with all that, everything to do with Parliament,

strictly speaking that is a party which is not necessarily a big one

on the UK stage but might become a force on the European one. Is this

something that is surprising given that the Prime Minister had made

his pitch for arguably people who might other-wise support UKIP with

the negotiations on the European budget, where he put his foot down

and got a real terms cut, where we had the argument over the possible

renegotiation of Britain's relationship in Europe. Did he do

it too soon? Absolutely. He went in and he's gone as close to UKIP as

you could get. The Tories selected a candidate, one of Cameron's

choices who was almost UKIP, wants to get out of Europe, wants to stop

immigration. There was almost no difference whatever between the

pitch he made and the pitch that UKIP made. UKIP had a powerful,

quite grown up, serious candidate, better than the Tory candidate, yet

even then, it didn't help the Conservatives raise their vote.

Both the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats who, who won,

lost 14% of their vote. It's very hard to know what conclusions to

draw from this except that the anti-politics feeling is strong.

And not just isolated to here? thing we have to watch carefully,

though Michael Gove has said clearly, no the Tory party won't

move to the right, we're seeing other European countries, the

centre-right party moving closer to a far-right party to reclaim lost

votes. Some European countries have been in this situation. You

remember what has happened in the Netherlands about ten years ago,

same thing with Austria, other European countries, I think what is

really important is that all of those things, prot test movement

might be fuelled by the state of economy rather than anything else.

Because isolationism is the first, is a very easy way to go if you're

not happy with the things, with your pay and the rest of things.

That's something we will come to later in the programme. One of the

most striking images of the week featured Benedict XVI bidding

farewell and departing the Vatican in the papal helicopter. Physical

trail ti is one explanation for his retirement and the other the

polarised politics of the Vatican itself. Is it time for a younger

Pope an bring a perspective from outside of Europe? Catherine

Pepinster, how different do you think this papal election will be?

I think it will be remarkably different - well, I hope it's going

to be. That's another matter. difference this time round is that

there's not only an ex-Pope, as it were, sitting in his summer

residence, which may impact on what people talk about and think about,

but I feel that the church really is at a cross roads wh. They

elected Benedict. A lot of them wanted continuity from the

Pontificate from John Paul II. They went for somebody they were

terribly familiar with. While he has been a very interesting Pope in

an intellectual way, it's been a very troubled Pontificate. We've

had the scandal of child abuse, which the church has clearly dealt

with in many parts of the world, well in a scandalous way. There's

been a lot of troubles that have emerged that are at the heart of

the Vatican through what's been called Vati-leaks. People already

knew the government part of the Catholic Church is riven with

rivalry, that it's very bureaucratic, and it keeps the

church top heavy. People feel it's time for all that to be under

discussion and that that needs a younger man, a younger man who has

more energy and more determination, perhaps, to really tackle those

people at head office. Although, I think that coming, my perspective

would be a global one on. That I was reading some of the notes from

BBC Spanish website yesterday, obviously, some people say the next

Pope could come from Latin America, well 40% of all Catholics are in

Latin America at the moment. People say there are three or four big

areas that need to be tackled. That's about the question of

celibacy and it's not even about the church matters themselves, it's

more the church attitude to poor for example, one of the big things.

More than half of the cardinals that are voting have been put in

place by the Pope Emeritus. they are very reactionary. One

never knows. You never know, people can appoint somebody within the

beating heart of one of those cardinals there may be a more

liberal voice trying to get out, even if they weren't appointed with

that. That happened with John the 23rd of course. The system is

designed to make sure that nothing changes. When you have, it's such a

bizarre organisation, when you have an all-male, apparently celibate,

but not really, secretive, utter autocracy, what can you expect

except galloping corruption. Almost like any institution in the world.

Any organisation that is like that, religious or not, is always becomes

toxic. Without fresh air, it's always a disaster. You're right, it

needs radical reform. I'm hoping that the next two weeks will at

least enable some of these issues to be aired, because the cardinals

don't just go straight into the vote, which I think a lot of people

assume that they do. There will be time for really serious discussion.

I think enough of the cardinals know this time that's got to be

done. The other thing that's very interesting is the extent to which

the changing heeda world -- media world may impact what they do and

how they think. Some of them are talking about tweeting during this

ethese -- these discussions. They wonts be kept away from the media

themselves. The media will affect... They're going tweet inside the

conclave? No, but what they call the general congregations. Those

are the most crucial moment. That's where they thrash out what they're

going to discuss. I can see ears of journalists pricking up at the

thought of this. And who might be merge as a candidate. Then they

have these dinners that they go to and certain blocks and factions

emerge where they talk together and decide how they're going to vote

and who they're going to vote for. It's full of intrigue. The way you

describe it to use the wrong word business an teen. We have an

organisation which is -- Byzantine. We have an organisation which is

the oldest in the world, male, theoretically celibate, bent on

maintaining and extending its own power which has been responsible

for destroying countless lives through its attitudes to women,

contraception, condoms for AIDS, etc, why, even if you have a

theoretically infallible CEO, why is tkhainking the CEO going to make

such a difference to that? It can make a difference. I mentioned in

response to what Polly was saying that John 23 made a huge difference

to the church. It is possible for a CEO, as you call it, to change

things. While I know, I know why you've made the comments you have

made about the Catholic Church and lives, it's also responsible for

enhancing a great number of lives, if you look at what it does in

terms of health care, education in many parts of the developing world.

I think one issue... You wouldn't include its treatment of AIDS which

has been scandalous, telling people One particular cardinal so bad and

I was never a fan of him. Catholic health organisations in Africa

refusing to distribute condoms. Pope Benedict had a slight opening

Ahmad. Three of you have brought up celibacy. Cardinal Keith O'Brien,

before the controversy which led to his retirement, brought the subject

up and floated the idea that maybe the Church should review that.

Would that be the kind of issue that, say, a Latin American or run

African cardinal, if they were elected Pope, would bring a fresh

perspective? I think a Latin American or African cardinal would

be somebody who would bring something different to the papacy.

What they would do would be to try and focus attention far more on

issues such as poverty in different parts of the world and the need for

us all to pay far more attention to those parts of the world, rather

than just Europe. I doubt if they Pope came from Africa that he would

be a reformer when it came to sexual morality. People who are

perhaps... Liberals outside the church to say it would be great to

have an African pope, might rue the fact that they get one for those

reasons. However, I do think that celibacy could be something that

they will discuss in terms of priests. If you have a church like

a Catholic church where the priest does masses and people leave the

priesthood to get married, I think there is a massive problem, so they

will think about whether celibacy is a problem that too many people

can't adhere to it. It is bizarre how much attention we give to this.

We are one of the most secular countries in the world, the reason

census showed we were even less religiously minded, yet the BBC

show was as endless images of adoring Catholics in Rome, whoever

the Pope is they will love, adore and worship him, they will weep

when he goes or when he dies. Acres and acres of coverage. Why? This is

an interesting, fascinating, Byzantine, riveting process, but

does it matter to most of us most of that time? Not at all. It is the

visuals. I heard somebody in the Vatican admit that they had really

carefully choreographed the whole business of the day of the

resignation, and even at one point he said it was like one of

Fellini's films. The church wants to prove itself as being more

relevant to people following it, then I suggest they might switch

from putting the black smoke out to actually treating the name of the

new cardinal! It could reach a lot of people at the same time.

pictures are not as good, though! Not the impact, right? I was

reading a comment by a very high up Russia nor coup. Six -- Russian

Orthodox priest. The two churches for their differences, they are

very conservative about themselves and everything... But not celibacy,

very important. The comment that the Russian Orthodox made was that

the resignation of the Pope Emeritus showed that the Church is

able to regenerate itself. It will be interesting to see what this

regeneration means. This one will run and run!

Dumb and arbitrary is how President Obama described the $85 billion of

spending cuts which came into effect in the United States on

Friday evening. You could say that describes American politicians, to

have. These automatic cuts were never meant to take effect, a

prospect so awful it could inspire Democrats and Republicans to

compromise. They don't come into effect all at once there it is more

of these slope on a fiscal cliff, but the IMF reckons it will carve

at least 0.5% of a growth rate of 2%. Meanwhile, Europe has

introduced a tax on financial transactions. How dumb as President

Obama been to allow the situation to come to this? It is like

watching somebody holding a gun to their head and saying, I will mardy

Biscay, and if I do, I will shoot myself, then not eating their cake

and shooting themselves or something, it is extraordinary. --

I am not going to eat this cake. It shows how determined the

Republicans are not to accept a democratic situation. We have also

seen they are more willing to accept radical defence cuts, the

defence cuts are the largest in the sequester. More willing to accept

that than the closing of tax loopholes on the ridge, which is an

extraordinary admission arm apart. -- tax loopholes on the rich. Obama

has gone along with the austerity agenda, he has not stood up to this

the new economics which has been destructive for both the US and

Europe. When austerity is causing so much pain in Europe, when there

is the beginning of a real groundswell against it, not just

literally on the ground but among politicians, Obama has failed to

stand up against this and that is a significant thing. Do you find that

at all surprising, Dmitry, when you know how the economy has dominated

endless programmes in this series, endless news coverage, it has made

everybody so gloomy, yet politicians are apparently still

making decisions which make it that much harder to overcome the effect?

When the agreement was made about this particular situation, the

sequester, the cuts were constructed in such a brutal way

that politicians were almost made to agree about something. That says

something. People don't really care about what is happening as long as

it has direct effect to their own livelihoods, right? From a global

perspective, given that America was imported two big wars and that was

largely one of the reasons why the deficit has been counted in

trillions of dollars, a sum of money which has to be explained, I

think the defence cuts from an outsider's perspective might not be

bad for America. One aircraft carrier less or more, who really

cares? It is all about the economy, whether it has a direct effect on

the economy and people's jobs. Polly, the IMF thinks that these

cuts will have an effect, meanwhile European politicians are arguing

over whether or not to have a financial transaction tax. It is

just making up that much harder to improve the situation? There is a

real and deepening rift. We talked before about political instability

around the world, but the rift between right and left to... It is

becoming ungovernable. It will be interesting to see what the German

elections produce. We'll look at its Ali Dizaei and the deep

emotional divide between the two sites. -- we'll look at Italy and

the emotional divide. In Britain we are doing it on our own. We are not

in the eurozone. We have chosen to do this. There is an increasingly

strong sense that this is the wrong path. We are back to the 1930s. A

lot of the consensus of economists who went along with it in the

beginning in 2010 when the Government came into power are

changing their mind. The IMF is saying that stimulus is needed. We

are going to look back at this as an absolutely classic Keynesian

casebook moment when the consensus was desperately wrong. Of course,

the Tea Party movement and the Republicans affected by that are

driving the whole emotional agenda to say we must have public cuts,

only the private sector can save us. Catharine, have we got in our own

minds the big picture of what we want out a very economy and how we

want people to behave, the ethics of the finances -- finance system

given the problems we apparently got from it? I think people have

been terribly disillusioned by what they have learned about the way

businesses conducted themselves, the way banks behaved and the way

politicians behaved as well. There certainly felt a while ago like

there was perhaps a moment coming where people wanted a more ethical

form of business to develop. Now I think people are so worried about

how war austerity will impact on them it is almost as if people

moved away a bit from the really important conversation about

whether we can, in the long term, do something to improve the way we

run business. Now it is much more about whether my job will go or not.

Even the reflections that people have are much more short-term. I

was very disturbed to read about the cuts in America, they sound

rather similar to hear. This sort of things that will gold is their

version of Sure Start, which will affect poor cat -- poor families

with services for pre-school children. A million public workers

are being laid off, unpaid, from the first of April. That is quite

scary. This is the same thing that the Greek government has tried to

do. The Americans are doing this willingly because they can't sort

out their politics, it is as if in Europe politics as being completely

derailed by the economic collapse and in America politics is being --

is derailing the economy. It is almost growing -- only going at

1.5%, but the Europeans that sounds fantastic. We think the Italian

constitution is bad, the American constitution is dysfunctional. The

American president has no part whatsoever, madness. At least under

European constitutions, one way or another, people have to form

coalitions. That brings us back to where we started the programme, in