Browse content similar to 19/10/2013. Check below for episodes and series from the same categories and more!
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should leave the UK takes place next September. I will be back with a | :00:00. | :00:00. | |
full bulletin at the top of the hour. Now on BBC News Dateline | :00:00. | :00:00. | |
London with Gavin Esler. Hello and welcome to Dateline | :00:00. | :00:24. | |
London. The British economy on the road to | :00:25. | :00:28. | |
recovery ` so why do so many people still feel the pinch? Selling | :00:29. | :00:30. | |
Britain in China. And the Norwegian national involved in the killings in | :00:31. | :00:34. | |
Kenya. Why? My guests today are ` Mustapha | :00:35. | :00:37. | |
Karkouti of Gulf News, Isabel Hilton of China Dialogue, Agnes Poirier of | :00:38. | :00:40. | |
Marianne and Ashis Ray who is an Indian writer. Welcome to you. | :00:41. | :00:50. | |
Unemployment in Britain is going down and growth forecasts are. But | :00:51. | :00:54. | |
all over Britain there are signs of people being squeezed. A charity | :00:55. | :00:59. | |
report suggests that the number of people using food banks, do we face | :01:00. | :01:06. | |
a crisis and living standards? The Labour Party is saying that. Yes, I | :01:07. | :01:14. | |
think that is absolutely right. Although the figures of late show a | :01:15. | :01:16. | |
modest improvement, I think basically there are two points that | :01:17. | :01:24. | |
remain. One, unemployment is still around 7.7%, which is much too high. | :01:25. | :01:30. | |
Secondly, the size of the UK economy today is still more than 3% smaller | :01:31. | :01:34. | |
than what it was at the time of the meltdown in 2008. That said, I think | :01:35. | :01:42. | |
during the periods of Britain after that your, it is true to say that a | :01:43. | :01:48. | |
section of the rich have become richer, and a section of the pure | :01:49. | :01:55. | |
have become cooler. The next `` net result of this is being felt. | :01:56. | :02:00. | |
Utility costs have gone up, food prices have gone up, petrol prices | :02:01. | :02:07. | |
are still high. Condensation of it all is causing distress in the | :02:08. | :02:13. | |
market. `` condemnation. It could have been much worse. It is not | :02:14. | :02:20. | |
Spain, it is not 25% unemployment. It is not as bad as it could have | :02:21. | :02:23. | |
been and there are those who would seek it is true is `` living | :02:24. | :02:31. | |
standards have been squeezed. People are taking real wage cuts and have | :02:32. | :02:35. | |
done for several years. It is interesting that you say 7.7% | :02:36. | :02:41. | |
unemployment is still too big. In France it is more than 10%. I think | :02:42. | :02:46. | |
it shows the nature of the labour market in the UK is very flexible. | :02:47. | :02:52. | |
Therefore it will bounce back much quicker than the French labour | :02:53. | :02:58. | |
market, which is very tight and controlled. On the other hand, it is | :02:59. | :03:06. | |
interesting because we have got relatively better figures. On the | :03:07. | :03:10. | |
other hand in the street of London, rubbish is less collected than it | :03:11. | :03:14. | |
used to be. In my street is to be three times a week, now it is once a | :03:15. | :03:19. | |
week. The local library has closed. So they are sturdy policies have had | :03:20. | :03:23. | |
a massive impact, in terms of daily life. `` austerity. The real cuts | :03:24. | :03:34. | |
have not begun yet. Absolutely. Of course, I think we should talk about | :03:35. | :03:42. | |
the house market, which in the last year has rose by 10%, especially in | :03:43. | :03:47. | |
London. The nature of the British economy seems to be based on | :03:48. | :03:53. | |
speculation, on properties in London. It is so frightening, | :03:54. | :03:58. | |
because London, in the last 15 years I have been in London, it is such a | :03:59. | :04:04. | |
vibrant Cosmopolis. In a generation we could be having a discussion so | :04:05. | :04:10. | |
far away from London, the BBC could be somewhere in Scotland, because we | :04:11. | :04:18. | |
cannot afford to live in London. That may need to be negotiated. | :04:19. | :04:23. | |
There is clearly a London or south`east economy and there are | :04:24. | :04:29. | |
other economies which are very different. House prices are not | :04:30. | :04:33. | |
going up everywhere. If you look at the high streets in eventual areas, | :04:34. | :04:38. | |
you will see the recession, people have closed shops. I wanted to go | :04:39. | :04:43. | |
back to the question of the longer term future, good news on | :04:44. | :04:48. | |
unemployment figures. However, the reports that are coming out now, | :04:49. | :04:53. | |
will reveal that poverty is more widespread amongst the working | :04:54. | :04:57. | |
people. His family is that have to choose between heating their homes | :04:58. | :05:00. | |
and eating, often have working parents was up ``. That is because | :05:01. | :05:08. | |
we have seen this appalling squeeze on what people get paid for their | :05:09. | :05:14. | |
work and the transfer of wealth for a very tiny elite. If you haul out | :05:15. | :05:20. | |
of society in this way, how are people supposed to do the | :05:21. | :05:24. | |
consumptions, do the spending that you want to get your economy booming | :05:25. | :05:29. | |
again? We do not have the money. The charity who looked at food banks | :05:30. | :05:35. | |
this week, say they are figures show three times more people using food | :05:36. | :05:41. | |
banks than a year ago. The people involved in those charitable things | :05:42. | :05:44. | |
are doing great work. But are we going down the road of the United | :05:45. | :05:47. | |
States where food banks become permanent parts of our lives? It | :05:48. | :05:52. | |
seems to become the trend. If you look at the next group of cuts, | :05:53. | :06:02. | |
they've all in constituencies that are pure. Around London and the | :06:03. | :06:08. | |
south`east you have an untouched area. Would you not expect that | :06:09. | :06:23. | |
public sector cuts would fall on people who use public services? | :06:24. | :06:28. | |
Absolutely. Those are the most honourable people in our society. If | :06:29. | :06:32. | |
we are going to do this, we have to accept that we will recreate a | :06:33. | :06:37. | |
society that we left behind. `` vulnerable. It is not the poor | :06:38. | :06:49. | |
getting poor necessarily. It is the middle class being affected because | :06:50. | :06:57. | |
wages are not going up and the cost of living has rocketed at the same | :06:58. | :07:03. | |
time. It is not just the poor who are affected, it is in large section | :07:04. | :07:05. | |
of the middle`class who are also being hit. The lifestyle you might | :07:06. | :07:10. | |
have had ten or 15 years ago, you cannot sustain that now because of | :07:11. | :07:15. | |
the cost of living. This is one aspect. The other aspect, the common | :07:16. | :07:24. | |
`` economic gap between regions in the country is highlighted in this | :07:25. | :07:28. | |
new project which is very widely debated, HS2. The new high`speed | :07:29. | :07:35. | |
train that will connect with London in the north of England. This will | :07:36. | :07:41. | |
make the northern area, regions, even more for `` poor. So they have | :07:42. | :07:52. | |
to be thing, especially now, between us and the next election, they have | :07:53. | :08:00. | |
to this right, the politicians. Fundamentally, wages have not kept | :08:01. | :08:07. | |
up with the cost of living. You have this problem of low wages and even | :08:08. | :08:11. | |
trainee wages, because as a difficult number of people are | :08:12. | :08:14. | |
working as trainees rather than as fully employed people. I was in | :08:15. | :08:20. | |
Holland couple of weeks ago, the standard of their infrastructure is | :08:21. | :08:24. | |
magnificent. I come back to London, I try to `` drive to Oxford, the | :08:25. | :08:31. | |
state of the motorway is miserable. Why is that happening? Cannot more | :08:32. | :08:38. | |
people be employed in that area? One of the big shocks, is energy prices | :08:39. | :08:50. | |
going up. 9%, 8%, depending on who your supplier is. We have the story | :08:51. | :09:00. | |
of ministers saying we are British, we only have to put on more layers. | :09:01. | :09:07. | |
We cannot afford hearing, so add another jumper. `` heating. In the | :09:08. | :09:15. | |
same style of Jeremy Hunt seeing the NHS is not measuring up to caring | :09:16. | :09:20. | |
for the old people, why do not we do like the Chinese and every family | :09:21. | :09:25. | |
should actually have some shelter and feature owned `` feed your own | :09:26. | :09:38. | |
old parents. They are building the biggest old age care homes in the | :09:39. | :09:42. | |
world. People have gone to the city 's leaving elderly parents wrap `` | :09:43. | :09:48. | |
behind. That family structure has broken down in the last few years. | :09:49. | :09:54. | |
The Chancellor of the Exchequer led a delegation to China this week to | :09:55. | :09:58. | |
present Britain as the land of opportunity for Chinese businesses. | :09:59. | :10:07. | |
Where the Chinese press and how far does the British approach go? | :10:08. | :10:17. | |
I think the Chinese have been impressed with the eagerness of the | :10:18. | :10:20. | |
Chancellor to sell whatever he could. The Chinese, traditionally, | :10:21. | :10:27. | |
have like their visitors to be coming from tributary states. I | :10:28. | :10:32. | |
think he fitted in perfectly well. The first encounter, the first | :10:33. | :10:35. | |
trading counter between Britain and China broke down over Lord | :10:36. | :10:40. | |
McCartney's refusal to koto. We have made up for this will stop ``. Both | :10:41. | :10:52. | |
`` we have been trying to sell to the Chinese since the 17th century | :10:53. | :10:56. | |
and we have not been doing very well. Germany does very well, there | :10:57. | :11:03. | |
are things the Chinese want to buy. Britain seems to be schizophrenic. | :11:04. | :11:07. | |
Every now and then a British politician will discover China as if | :11:08. | :11:11. | |
it hadn't been there all along. If he had stayed longer he would | :11:12. | :11:14. | |
discover there are other foreign businesses doing better than ours. | :11:15. | :11:20. | |
Been there longer, tried longer. I have grave reservations over some of | :11:21. | :11:26. | |
the dealings that were announced, like the idea that the Chinese would | :11:27. | :11:31. | |
take a majority stake in infrastructure projects like a | :11:32. | :11:36. | |
nuclear power station. I would think these would be a national debate | :11:37. | :11:41. | |
which we have not had. How did the French do in this? Will the `` | :11:42. | :11:50. | |
brilliantly? No, not at all. We were trying to sell assets. We are trying | :11:51. | :12:03. | |
to interest the Chinese into buying our car companies. When George | :12:04. | :12:15. | |
Osborne said Britain and China are both ancient civilisations. Boris | :12:16. | :12:21. | |
Johnson and George Osborne, it reminds people of Mr Bean, this | :12:22. | :12:29. | |
double act. When you think that China is investing three times more | :12:30. | :12:31. | |
in Australia than they do in Britain. France and Britain are very | :12:32. | :12:35. | |
small business opportunities for China. Better late than never? Yes, | :12:36. | :12:44. | |
we do very well on tourism. The French do. Yes. We found recently | :12:45. | :12:55. | |
that Chinese tourists flock to Paris and they spend millions and | :12:56. | :13:02. | |
millions. London is losing the battle on the tourism front. So that | :13:03. | :13:06. | |
is something that perhaps Osborne could work on. That is something | :13:07. | :13:12. | |
that Chinese people have been complaining about for ages. Because | :13:13. | :13:19. | |
it is so difficult to get to London. Chinese students, you have a double | :13:20. | :13:27. | |
language here. Bank regulation will help with China. On the other hand, | :13:28. | :13:32. | |
Nigel Farage and all the talk about making Britain less immigrant | :13:33. | :13:37. | |
friendly is not giving out the right message. I was the new land of | :13:38. | :13:45. | |
investment opportunity for Britain. Has that been eclipsed? I was going | :13:46. | :13:51. | |
to come to that. I sense a change of tack on part of the British | :13:52. | :13:54. | |
government. When this government came into office, in 2010, India was | :13:55. | :14:01. | |
the flavour of the season. Within ten weeks of Cameron becoming prime | :14:02. | :14:05. | |
minister, he went to India with a flag which said, we want a special | :14:06. | :14:10. | |
relationship with India. What has happened is this, in terms of trade | :14:11. | :14:17. | |
going on between the two countries, it has gone up and they will achieve | :14:18. | :14:22. | |
the target of doubling trade within the five`year period of this | :14:23. | :14:25. | |
government. But where I think Britain is a little does appointed | :14:26. | :14:30. | |
as in the area of exports, particularly exports of military | :14:31. | :14:34. | |
hardware. That is a result of political differences between the | :14:35. | :14:37. | |
two countries. The second area, where I think there is an element of | :14:38. | :14:43. | |
this is, there was an expectation that there would be a major second | :14:44. | :14:48. | |
tranche of Indian investments in Britain, which was very successful. | :14:49. | :14:58. | |
But something even bigger, better, more companies coming into Britain | :14:59. | :15:01. | |
and investing in this country. This hasn't happened as a result of the | :15:02. | :15:07. | |
slowdown in the economy. Therefore I see this change of tactics. China is | :15:08. | :15:18. | |
the flavour of the season. The goal was a flavour of the season for a | :15:19. | :15:28. | |
while. China now is the only country which has cash. They have no | :15:29. | :15:34. | |
problem, they have no debts. No matter how reluctant the western and | :15:35. | :15:41. | |
British politicians are in dealing with China, eventually they will go | :15:42. | :15:45. | |
there, they will open their door for that money, at the end, no matter | :15:46. | :15:53. | |
how reluctant they are. You might be of the 1930s bank robber, who was | :15:54. | :16:00. | |
once asked why he robbed banks. He replied, because that is where the | :16:01. | :16:06. | |
money is. It is true. The Chinese have had an outward investment | :16:07. | :16:19. | |
policy for years. This country is the only one to have allowed Chinese | :16:20. | :16:25. | |
investment. The Chinese would never allow that, the Americans would | :16:26. | :16:34. | |
never allow it. It is not a good commercial deal, so why are the | :16:35. | :16:41. | |
Chinese interested? The Chinese invest where there is technology | :16:42. | :16:45. | |
they wish to acquire, so they can compete in the markets and probably | :16:46. | :16:53. | |
destroyed their original partner. This in the easy as is a little over | :16:54. | :17:00. | |
eight. One of the Al`Shabab killers | :17:01. | :17:03. | |
involved in the attack on a Nairobi shopping mall was identified as a | :17:04. | :17:05. | |
Somali`born Norwegian national. Why is it that some people who grow up | :17:06. | :17:09. | |
amid all the freedoms of a tolerant Western culture end up loathing that | :17:10. | :17:12. | |
culture so much? It is a question we asked here and it is asked in France | :17:13. | :17:20. | |
as well. Do you have any ideas why these people are dislocated from | :17:21. | :17:26. | |
both their original background and this one? Use needs absolute. I | :17:27. | :17:41. | |
think today, Western democracy does not give absolutes to young people. | :17:42. | :17:47. | |
I was brought up in France and was probably the last generation to | :17:48. | :17:53. | |
begin and that absolute. It was the French republic's ideals. But in the | :17:54. | :17:56. | |
West, Britain has relative of the problem is a twisted concept of | :17:57. | :18:24. | |
Islam or Christianity. Competing religions such as Christianity and | :18:25. | :18:29. | |
Islam, that does provide the search for the absolute. I think perhaps we | :18:30. | :18:38. | |
should learn from that and make democracy, stand up to our values | :18:39. | :18:43. | |
and transform democracy. It is a fight. If you look at the | :18:44. | :18:51. | |
recruitment in extreme religious cult is, it shoots up at the age of | :18:52. | :19:03. | |
late teens, early adult hood. Five or six years later, they tend to | :19:04. | :19:08. | |
leave. We have had home`grown terrorism here. So did we. If you | :19:09. | :19:16. | |
take adolescent alienation and the search for something that appears to | :19:17. | :19:21. | |
give you all the answers, it is explicable by these people are | :19:22. | :19:25. | |
attracted to the terrorist organisations. They carry foreign | :19:26. | :19:31. | |
passports and a British or region passport as a much better bet if you | :19:32. | :19:35. | |
are going to Kenya, for example. By the time these jazzmen go to | :19:36. | :19:42. | |
Somalia, they are in the hands of the organisation, they are in. | :19:43. | :19:50. | |
Treated. They are as vulnerable target group. | :19:51. | :19:53. | |
This week we have had moderate British Muslims who have condemned | :19:54. | :19:57. | |
attacks, being told in a Al`Shabab video that they could be targets | :19:58. | :20:02. | |
too, for preaching that Islam is a moderate religion, a religion of | :20:03. | :20:11. | |
peace. One imam told me that these people are lunatics and he has | :20:12. | :20:17. | |
received a death threat. There is no doubt that they are lunatics. The | :20:18. | :20:26. | |
thing about this, as you pointed out about the home`grown terrorists. If | :20:27. | :20:39. | |
you go back to the 1970s and 1980s, there were very exciting | :20:40. | :20:42. | |
organisations. They attract the use, the young people. They come to | :20:43. | :20:55. | |
the Middle East and get training. They all did that. The thing is, you | :20:56. | :21:00. | |
have to try and deal with this, but as well, you have to deal with the | :21:01. | :21:07. | |
problems over the world. The extreme injustice that is going on in Africa | :21:08. | :21:14. | |
or in the Arab world. There are cases all over the world. We have to | :21:15. | :21:19. | |
find a solution. You can't go on now. If you take the Middle East, | :21:20. | :21:26. | |
since 1948 until now, people are exhausted, they are tired. You are | :21:27. | :21:31. | |
pushing people to the edges of extremism. So they will use these as | :21:32. | :21:38. | |
excuses and carry on such atrocious operations, like the one we saw a | :21:39. | :21:47. | |
couple of weeks ago. I think first of all, while Western policy in | :21:48. | :21:52. | |
general and European policy included in this, has been generous in terms | :21:53. | :21:59. | |
of immigration, there has been no policy or thinking until quite late | :22:00. | :22:09. | |
of immigration. Multiculturalism as a concession granted by indigenous | :22:10. | :22:14. | |
communities to immigrant communities has failed. The reason is simple. | :22:15. | :22:20. | |
Unless you encourage an immigrant community to integrate with the | :22:21. | :22:25. | |
indigenous society, there there will be a separatism. And that separatism | :22:26. | :22:30. | |
is what we are witnessing in Europe, in Britain, in Norway. This | :22:31. | :22:37. | |
is a classic case, because, isolated as they are, not growing up in the | :22:38. | :22:43. | |
education as they should be, and they get angry after a while. In | :22:44. | :22:52. | |
this case, this young man who was of Somali origin, or Norwegian National | :22:53. | :22:59. | |
Mao, 23 years old, he has been an angry young man for some time. He | :23:00. | :23:04. | |
has displayed anger at Norway, he has been leaning on extremism for a | :23:05. | :23:11. | |
while. He has got into trouble several times, his father has been | :23:12. | :23:15. | |
worried about what he has been doing. This is the kind of example | :23:16. | :23:22. | |
which is they're all over. I think Europe, including Britain, is | :23:23. | :23:31. | |
sitting on a powderkeg. If you are describing the French model versus | :23:32. | :23:34. | |
the multi`cultural model in Britain. And like to hear more | :23:35. | :23:41. | |
about, do you think we should have stricter rules? That you have to | :23:42. | :23:48. | |
speak the language and accept certain cultural norms. That might | :23:49. | :23:53. | |
mean something about dress and not wearing thinner cap. Even freedom of | :23:54. | :24:01. | |
speech has limits and you cannot incite hatred or murder. I could see | :24:02. | :24:11. | |
an imam inciting hatred and nobody was raising an eyebrow. It is | :24:12. | :24:15. | |
British tolerance, but that tolerance would not be tolerated in | :24:16. | :24:25. | |
France. In the last 30 years, France has been looking towards Britain, | :24:26. | :24:35. | |
instead of making the case for what it had been very good at, that is to | :24:36. | :24:46. | |
say, a common destiny. If multiculturalism in riches further a | :24:47. | :24:50. | |
culture, then that's fine. One example, when the East African | :24:51. | :24:53. | |
Indians came here and started opening their shops until late, it | :24:54. | :25:00. | |
revolutionised this country, in terms of its shopping habits. Today, | :25:01. | :25:04. | |
all major outlets stay open to late. It has been a boon to the British | :25:05. | :25:10. | |
economy. That is in Richmond, that is welcome, but separatism is not. | :25:11. | :25:19. | |
We have to be very careful here, we're talking about individual | :25:20. | :25:25. | |
cases. These are a tiny minority, but the majority of immigrants | :25:26. | :25:27. | |
coming to the West are living very happily. | :25:28. | :25:30. | |
That's it for Dateline London for this week. We're back next week at | :25:31. | :25:34. | |
the same time. And you can of course comment on the programme on Twitter. | :25:35. | :25:35. | |
Goodbye. Plenty of whether this weekend, but | :25:36. | :26:11. | |
it would be a wash`out, because the sun will make an appearance, and | :26:12. | :26:18. | |
when it does, temperatures will be quite warm for the time of | :26:19. | :26:19. |