20/07/2013 Dateline London

at the top of the hour. Now on BBC Britain's politicians head off on

their summer holidays, with Prime Minister David Cameron in an

especially cheerful mood. Why? The continuing crisis in Egypt's, plus

small moves towards Middle East British Prime Minister, David

Cameron, seemed at a low ebb. Trouble with his conservative right

wing over Europe, the rise of UKIP and Labour come to be ahead in the

opinion polls. This week, as he heads off on holiday, the Prime

Minister was in a very different mood, attacking Labour being in the

pocket of the trades unions, watching and fall and enjoying very

low crime figures. How happy or otherwise should Mr Cameron be on

his summer break? Things have been going a lot better for him. If we

think back to the local elections, when we had that sudden UKIP

search. You have the Tory right on the backbenches who were getting

more than a little bit restless. There was even some talk of a

leadership challenge. It was a very different picture. We saw the last

prime ministers questions, where David Cameron put on a very

confident performance against Ed Miliband. There's a few things which

have happened. It's not just the fact we've seen the unemployment

figures and so on. Britain is going to the big squeeze in living

standards on record will stop Labour's poll lead is soft. That's

because the Tories have a very clear message, which they repeat

constantly. They say, we are in this mess because labour overspent,

welfare spending is out of control, it is subsidising the feckless and

work-shy. Labour are in the pocket of the trade unions. Labour have

come off badly in terms of having a coherent message which they will

respond with, which has always put them on the defensive on all of

those issues. Including the NHS. A national health service, the

creation of a Labour government. They were quite defensive on it.

Yes. The NHS is often billed as Labour's proudest achievement. Polls

show that Labour have a bigger poll lead on the NHS than any other

issue. Nonetheless, at the moment they are being put on the back foot.

The Tories did manipulate the inquiry which took place into

several hospitals, which have above-average death rates. Labour's

responds again, they were wrongfooted by that. The message we

haven't had getting across, at a time in living standards are being

squeezed at an unprecedented rate, are making the point of instead of

Labour having overspent, that causing the crisis, the Tories

backed Labour 's spending plans pound for pound to the end of 2008,

making the point that when it comes to social security, most of that is

going on people in work or pensioners rather than subsidising

the feckless. And making the point about unions. They haven't made

those points in a clear and coherent way. Where do you see this going?

is making the point, when Ed Miliband should be making the point.

Two weeks ago you had an exceptionally strong piece in the

independent, about day five of the Unite Falkirk... You don't have to

be a genius to know that the first thing Ed Miliband should have gone

out and said is, look who funds the Tories, don't be talking to me about

this. We will deal with what happened in Falkirk, it's a local

issue, we will deal with it, Tom Watson has resigned over this.

Please, let's talk about who funds the Tories. Where was Ed Miliband to

do that? This is part of the reason Cameron has had a surge. Never

underestimate the power of the image. The G8 summit in Northern

Ireland. There was David Cameron everywhere, 20 47 on all the news

outlets, looking prime ministerial. A big help. Then there was Andy

Murray winning. Even yesterday at the test match, which England are

winning full stop he is there. we are all in a better mood. And he

does finally have this guy, Lynton Crosby, running communications,

allegedly for the Conservative Party. Prost -- prior to working for

the Conservatives, he was working for Boris Johnson. Once Lynton

Crosby stalks working for Cameron, suddenly all the right-wing

newspapers, the Tory newspapers, they all spring, driving his poll

ratings down, suddenly they are onside. He made the right higher.

think it's interesting, there's a lot of triumphalism and the

parliament breaking up for the summer holidays, Triumph for the

Tory party. I don't think in the long term there is actually that

much to celebrate. The economy is still in the doldrums. The green

shoots have been green shoots for two, three years now, they haven't

managed to germinate into any kind of planned. I think the problem is

that Ed Miliband has not managed to create a coherent... But if your

analysis is right, then both parts of that were true. If the facts on

the ground haven't really changed, and employment is still a problem,

the economy is still in a bit of a mess, things may be getting better

but it's very slow, Ed Miliband has had a couple of years to make a mark

and... Isn't the implication that his progress has been very slow?

Absolutely. David Cameron is always in a fortunate position because he

looks good when the other person looks bad, as opposed to him doing

something exceptional himself. Ed Miliband has been preoccupied with

being defensive and slaying the ghosts of Labour past. As opposed to

jettisoning everything and aggressively coming up with a new

programme. Being a good politician doesn't mean being a good leader.

The question has been hanging over Ed Miliband all the time. Also there

is this background question about the relationship between the labour

movement and the Labour politics, and how to try and solve this to

create some kind of equilibrium. This has been a problem which they

could not achieve a conclusion. The other point with regard to Mr

Cameron, I think it's problems are still there. Something which has not

been touched on, the question as to whether he can get an overall

majority in the Conservative government or enter into a coalition

again. All the commitments ensured unrest in the party. But the

beautiful thing in the British culture is that the holiday is

sacrosanct. While wishing Mr Cameron to have a good time, when he comes

back to the conference I think you will find some skeletons in the

closet. Let's pick up a couple of specific points. One is the

relationship... Some see it as a problem, others say because it's the

creation of the labour movement, Labour has to have a strong

relationship. The question Ed Miliband has raised is whether it

should be individuals who say, I don't mind my money going there. How

do you think that this resolved? Some people think this is a real

opportunity for Ed Miliband to show his strength. They do. The Tories

have a lot of potential for this... The polls show people are more

concerned with big businesses funding politics than they are then

trade unions. There was a poll last week that showed people generally

had a positive view of what trade unions did and how they operated.

The problem with what he has proposed is that people have to opt

in. People can opt out and trade unions are balloted... Saying you

don't want your money to go there. Not many of them do it. About half

of Unite members have opted out. All trade unions have the ballot their

members to see if they want to be part of it every ten years. Very few

trade unionists opt in, that would make it just a few thousand, bearing

in mind there are 6.5 million trade union members in this country. It

will look difficult to sustain any trade union link whatsoever. The

electoral college, how they elect a leader, that could be polished. The

50% that goes a conference to trade unions, that could disappear. Labour

could have a huge funding problem and end up having to do what the

Conservatives do, which is rely on hedge funds and large city banks.

All they could end up facing bankruptcy, when there's not a lot

of people who are going to fund the Tories election strategy. But they

didn't go on the offensive and make the point at the beginning, we are

proud to be funded by working people, unlike you. It would be

difficult for him to make that point now. Miliband, having sat on this

course, he has to see it through and he has to be seen... That's right.

There's historic justification. The Tories aren't still the party of

board seats, but that's part of their history. It's a hundred years

since the Labour Party were set up. Frankly, I think the trade union

leadership should be much more concerned about organising working

people. They should be attending to the business of trade unionism. In a

country where wages are not just squeezed by people coming into the

labour market... You have kids who will never know any sense of

security, they need to be out there on the street. The decline in the

unions in the United States is systemic. Rather than playing

politics, this might be a good moment for the trade union

leadership, politics to politicians... May be for all of us,

and get down to the serious business of reorganising... The point about

Ed Miliband is he has, throughout this Parliament, a year and a half

ago on this programme, Polly Toynbee said he was playing the long game.

The problem with playing the long game is when the country is going

through this extremely difficult economic time and he is supposed to

represent ordinary working people, we are running out of time. If he's

playing the long game, then he has a full year before he's in election

mode the trade union membership. That's why they need a clear message

to hammer away at. That's where they failed. The Tories constantly have

the same message on all the key issues. Labour do not have a clear

line. In terms of the missed opportunity for Labour to attack the

Tories for their funding, in terms of voting, in terms of what people

care about, in terms of the striking messages from the Tories and the

Labour Party, the Labour Party has not managed to counter the very

strong Tory view of the Labour Party as the party of foreigners and

work-shy scroungers and the feckless. What the Labour Party

should do is try and convince people that the Tory party is in the

pockets of big business, tax avoiding corporations and hedge

funds and investment bankers. It has not managed to do that. Nelson

Mandela called his autobiography the Long walk to freedom. At the other

end of the African continent, the people of Egypt may be on a real

walk towards democracy or, given the military takeover, perhaps it's back

to an old-fashioned military dictatorship. What should be hopeful

for Egypt's? One of the hopes for the peace talks is the long walk for

peace. How are things in Egypt's NOW? It seems to have quietened down

a little bit. To start from the question, if the Muslim brotherhood

waive the right to their memoir, the first leap to power, without an

exercise, without creating national harmony or without knowing how to

manage a state and all of that, my belief now is the Muslim brotherhood

unfortunately our committing political and societal suicide,

because you don't only deny reality, they can't see anything. They come

from underground into the light and exercise the politics of the

underground and secret societies in a way that excludes everyone else

and makes it difficult, to the extent they appear to be the Muslim

brotherhood versus the Egyptian people. And they accuse everyone

else of being a reticulocyte or liberal, in Egypt now from the

Muslim brotherhood side, liberal is an accusation as well as an

American. It's got that serious?If you are liberal you are her

reticulocyte. And that alienates people. The problem is the reality

is making the Muslim brotherhood and their supporters assuage themselves

in a way which makes life extremely difficult for the people who are

surrounding. It looks like it is leading into confrontation, which no

one wishes for. This demand of getting Mohamed Morsi back is like

turning the clock back now. I feel that in one way or another we could

be coming into a period like the early 1990s, in which you will face

some violent attempts on life of some people. Because it will become

an underground movement which will referred to that type? How closely

is this being watched in other countries? Very closely by the rest

of the Arab world. People think that Egypt is the blueprints. Centre of

the Muslim brotherhood movement. It has almost every single element of

Arab culture and religion. It has Christian minorities, and Arab

history that is rich with engagement with Israel and so on. People in the

Arab world are watching very closely to see has this work is? Is it

something that people are going to be discouraged from supporting? I am

pleased to say there is a lot of cheering of the Egyptian people in

the Arab world. They are not giving up, they are covetous of the

revolution. They are following up on the results of the revolution.

though the army has effectively in charge? This is a point that a lot

of people in the Arab world's are uncomfortable with. There has been a

lot of lecturing about democracy, saying you can't just turn round

after a year. Democracy in Egypt is not the same democracy that you have

another countries. There are cornerstones of democracy that are

required for it to be sustainable and they weren't there. The

president did not bring in secular parties. Democracy and filtering the

votes content. It was ridiculous to think that you could snap your

fingers in the Arab spring which promote democracy just like that.

Steve Kirk, who writes an excellent blog, had a piece this week that

Egypt is blank. You fill it in, like Algeria, like Turkey. No, Egypt is

like Egypt. It is the cornerstone of a certain amount of Arab sup --

self-identity. Over and overcome all the political movements of the last

20 years in the Arab world have been about how do you take is planned and

make it work in a democratic context? I reported from Cairo and

that of the brotherhood leadership. They were well organised, providing

all the services that the corrupt regime did not provide any more.

When the revolution happened, people gravitated towards them. But what

they do since they got into? Over and over again, the whole movement

of history is deciding whether radical political Islam can finally

shed its underground anger and become a truly democratic movement.

If you look at genistein, there you have moderates party in power in

coalition. Contrast that to President more say, whose position

was to exclude all his opponents from the political process. Another

interesting application is the role of Turkey, which is hoped to build

itself as a regional superpower, looking to export its own brand of

populist Democratic Islamist them. They are deeply alarmed at what is

happening in Egypt. The other fear is that jewel" situation in Egypt

like you haven't Turkey, of always having a military apparatus in the

background, manage democracy in a sense of security, personnel, senior

generals and bureaucrats, who will always be there to make sure that if

the government steps over certain lines they will intervene.

Muslim brotherhood stepped over the line because they did not even use

the government, the civil service and the whole establishment. They

created their own parallel government and they tried to

dismantle the police and a sideline the Army, tried to buy the army and

create a friction between the leadership. They did all that with

the intention of trying to entrench themselves in a way that's they

could never leave government again. This is extremely difficult. Before

1952 the Egyptians were 18 million people with social solidarity and

enough to go around for everyone. Everything was nationalised. That

was the mood of the time. The state became like mummy and daddy. When

said that came he dismantled that's job security and brought is private

enterprise in and everyone wanted to become rich. He brought the

Islamists out again. They ended up killing him and everyone in the time

of said that bothered if you could not get rich under him, you would

never get rich. Hosni Mubarak nurtured the Islamic movement to

frighten the West, but at the same time corruption was rife and

everyone said, if you don't become corrupt under Hosni Mubarak you will

never be corrupt. This is where we are. The only organised forces the

Islamists. The Queen this week let slip that

she would quite like to go on holiday, but she, like many people

in Britain, is awaiting the birth of a new Royal baby who will eventually

one day, it's assumed, become King or Queen. Republicans in Britain are

currently are very small minority. What is it about the monarchy in

Britain which makes it so popular? The most popular programme in

America now is down happy. We love the monarchy in America. -- dying

Abbey. There is this nostalgia, but in times of deep economic fear, to

look at these people, they have got it makes! I think the same thing

happened here. They are a lovely couple. Given how long late the

family is, the child that is born sometime soon we hope, nobody here

is watching this programme will ever see their child ascend the throne.

They are innocents, acute cultural appreciation of the monarchy by

Americans, foreigners and some British people. It is sinister, it

feeds into all of the British problems and discomfort about

class. Why is it so profoundly popular? I think that there is, in

comparison to America, there is a big celebrity culture that has now

crossed over. I do think that the Angelina Jolie Brad Pitt of America

is now Kate and William in the UK. feel the establishment of monarchy

provides a sense of pride and the star Jim Britain, and also a sense

of continuity. King Farouk onset of the turn-of-the-century, if there

was a King left it will be the King of Britain. President Blair,

President Thatcher, that is why I think the monarchy is popular.

a grumpy Republican. There is antipathy towards politicians.

look at America and go, not sure! The interviews yes that monarchy is

that you once had has faded. People like for pragmatic reasons.

resurgence with the Royal wedding and the Jubilee, I think there is