25/01/2014 Dateline London

Full bulletin of news at the top of the hour. Now it is time for

Dateline London. Welcome. More good news for the

British economy, but are you feeling better off? Turmoil in Ukraine and

the latest attempt to bring peace to Syria. My guests today...

The unemployment in Britain is getting close to 7%, much lower than

the Eurozone, and with optimistic growth forecasts and the government

suggesting it will benefit all of us, does it mean austerity is

working? Do not rejoice, because the jobs in question are service jobs,

not industrial, not very well paid, hence this feeling that people have

in Britain that they are not happy with their lot because you had a big

increase in the cost of living, and on the whole, the Anglo-Saxon model

is unequal, and even the Davos forum, which is liberal, they topped

about the division between the rich and the poor are, the bonuses have

continued to improve. It is a lot better than 25% of your workforce,

as in Spain, being unemployed. Yes, but unlike in the Anglo-Saxon

countries, you have security, protection in all these countries.

We have a welfare state, we have good hospitals, people are

protected, and the economy is doing better on a more balanced model,

service industry, between regions. In Britain, the South is doing

well, the North is not. We had a big fight this week between Labour and

the Conservatives, basically the Conservatives saying real pay was

ahead of inflation. I think it is extremely fragile, and we get so

excited because it has been so dark for so long. If you look at all the

warnings from Mark carne, from high-level observers, they say not

to get too excited too quickly. -- Mark Carney. I agree with Mark.

Globally, there was an Oxfam report which pointed out that 85% of people

-- 85 people own as much of the world's assets as 3 billion people.

This is completely unsustainable. We have a reflection of that in

Britain. We need people to spend to get the economy moving. Look the

levels of personal debt. Average household debt is ?35,000. That adds

up to a trillion. The office for Budget Responsibility predicts that

will increase. This is extraordinary fragile. Any improvement we have

seen is not sustainable because it is built on credit. The rich are so

very much richer. We should not just look at whether the graphs are

moving up. We should look at the long-term. There will be another

shock and we have had no rebalancing of the kind that was promised at the

beginning of it. Away from property and Finance, that has simply not

happened. Stimulus is on the back of things that reinforced the trend.

Debt is easier, property goes up. Easing restrictions on finance. What

happens to that debt? I think this is very worrying, still. First of

all, in response to Mark, who has always introduced the question of

the Anglo-Saxon model, it is not right to suggest we have no welfare

system, I think it is evident that this Anglo-Saxon country has an

elaborate and costly welfare system. The other thing that struck me,

listening to the political debate, what is not to like about a return

to growth? Of course, there are long-term problems, but they are

long-term problems that would be confronted by either party, and it

seems to me we do have something to celebrate, yes, the jobs are not

manufacturing jobs, but where outside the developing countries is

there a record of creating manufacturing jobs at any pace at

all? Germany, Italy, Scandinavia. The United States. Would it still be

the case that service jobs account for a very large proportion of

growth? It is regrettable, but a job is a job. I agree with you. It is

extremely important in the economy, service. But referring to government

austerity, I believe if it is working it will be on the account of

the poor people. Those people who lost at least ?900 per year simply

because of these measures, the people going to hospital, the health

system is really struggling because of these measures. Education is the

same thing. I believe it is not working, and I believe we are now

witnessing the election campaign is starting earlier than many people

expected. We had maybe 15 months, but it is now the major parties, the

Conservatives and Labour, exhausted talking about immigration all the

time, there is nothing left to say about immigration, now they are

coming back to the economy. We have had the Shadow Chancellor committing

Labour to run a steroid C programme. He also said the top rate of tax

will go back to 50%. It is called equity. If you cut the expense, you

need balance. The rich could afford this cut. You need taxation. Why did

you have a more equal society in the 1970s? It is because of high taxes.

Why is London the fifth or sixth biggest French city? They are very

bright people. It is an exciting time, they come here and France at

the moment as economic problems because the state has to be

reassessed. -- as economic problems. -- has. And the president is

busy... He is meeting the Pope, no doubt getting some kind of...

Advice. What is going on? There is no first Lady in France, the problem

is the taxpayer is financing the libido of the president. It is the

French system. You cannot have that in America or Britain. How is this

described in the budget? It is off the balance sheet of the nation.

Miscellaneous expenses. I do not know what the French word for

schadenfreude is, but there has been a good deal of that. One thing we

expect of France and its politicians is style. This is clumsy,

embarrassing. Compared to the events of the world, it is not really

important. I have seen so much voyeuristic appeal from my British

colleagues, how could it happen? It is irrelevant compare when compared

-- when compared to the problems of the world. He should have two

mistresses! In any bar in Paris, listen to the discussions, would we

not find that just as much as this has been a primary topic of

conversation, so it is in France as well? Not at all. In France, the

topics are completely different, people are not interested in the

private life of the president, and it is nasty that we have this

Anglo-Saxon deviation about a president who is above libido.

Obviously the magazine is selling to somebody, but let us move on. The

political complex a day of Ukraine is the product of geography and

history. -- complexity. How concerned should we be that a

country with a possibility of becoming another Poland or Czech

Republic could descend into chaos? The scenes have been ugly. They

have. We should be concerned. It shows the weakness of the European

Union foreign policy. There is not a coherent strategy and it is being

run by the interest of the countries closest, Poland does not want it

back. The knock-on effects could be serious. The European project is

very fragile. You have a very divided country, right on the edge

of Europe. Europe is a player in this game but does not have a

strategy. One of the things we will come onto, what is happening in Arab

countries, it shows that revolutions don't just happen overnight. We were

fortunate that many countries changed in 1989 very quickly. You

just have to look at the map of Ukraine to understand how difficult

and insoluble this problem is, particularly with the eastern part

being Russian, the Weston Park Ukrainian. -- western part. It is a

deeply divided state. You can see the importance of the Black Sea, and

why the Russians are intent on not allowing Ukraine to request but to

look east and north. We need to look at the serious possibility that the

only resolution might be a division of Ukraine, but it is hardly likely

to happen peacefully. We are also at a time when Vladimir Putin is trying

to be nice about other things because of the Olympics. It is

tricky for him to handle this. I'm afraid the European Union could

offer a deal to Ukraine which was attractive, which was accepted until

Vladimir Putin vetoed it and bought them out of it by offering free

energy. I think the European Union was saying to the Ukraine, we want

you. You realise the appeal of the European Union on people of the

East, who tried to avoid being linked with autocracy. The European

Union is a beacon of hope and people are ready to die to defend the idea

that Ukraine will be closer to the European Union because they belonged

to the European idea. I believe we are witnessing another chapter of

the Cold War. There is a war by proxy between the two sides. It is a

divided country. But to divide the country, I do not know if it will

work. I can see another style of Egypt or Syria as developing now in

the Ukraine. Now we have people revolting or demonstrating against

the central government. They would like to have reforms. There are

foreign powers who are tied to exploit, to stir up the trouble

there. I believe if I am an adviser I would say to them, please wait,

please look at the situation in Egypt, look at the situation in the

Yemen, in Iraq. Please learn from our experience. We let the foreign

powers intervene, they destroyed our country and created instability in

our part of the world. Be careful and look for your own interest and

coexist, Russian Ukrainian together. This is the best way. I would make a

case that not the West and United States have been meddlesome in the

affairs of the Ukraine, but by taking a rather soft and indulgent

approach to dealings with Vladimir Putin, that they may have in some

ways encourage this trouble. I think if we had been tougher with Vladimir

Putin earlier, we might have seen a rather different Russian approach to

these problems. Vladimir Putin is European. He belongs to Europe, so

why should we discriminate by this is good European or bad European?

That is a question we must ask. Russian is a European country. That

is highly debatable. With human rights. With a president who is not

a cracked. Those are not European values. Let's move on. We have our

final item, we are witnessing this humanitarian disaster every day on

our television screens. People want to help those in Syria. Can peace

talks work? How can surge should we be that reports have come in saying

that people have joined the fighting? The question of the peace

talks, the do not seem to be helping anyone. It is remarkable that they

have started. Look at the history of peace talks in the Middle East.

These kind of public peace talks advertised talks, they have never

worked. They are usually secret talks. Look at the camp David

talks. It was done in order to produce some sort of settlement or

an agreement. It was actually advertised and announced an camp

David. The same thing happens between Russia... Sorry, between

Iran and the United States are around the nuclear ambition of Iran.

We have Syrian toxin man for six months. -- talks in all man. These

kind of talks are just a camouflage. I believe there is

something happening behind the scene. If we want to have a proper

peace in Syria, we should have Iran and Saudi Arabia. A proxy war? I

believe so. It is a war between Saudi Arabia and Iran. If the do not

sit together and try to reach some kind of settlement, as illusion for

this problem, it will continue for decades to come. -- a solution.

Without that, I believe more people will be killed. Do you buy that

basic analysis? I do believe that. What you see in Geneva is enormous

effort by the most powerful people. What is that doing? It is not going

to reach a settlement. It does answer the question that you started

with. We all want to be seen to be doing something. You cannot

intervene because Russia and China will not be in the Security Council.

You are paralysed by the leaders of the last 20 years. But in the other

hand there is this tragedy unfolding. People are saying to the

politicians, what are we doing? There is one glimmer of hope in

this, whatever you may say about Vladimir Putin, the Foreign Minister

may appear to want to do something. It is the fundamental interests of

the United States and Russia and Syria are opposed. One said the

Americans who are saying there can be one solution that does not

involve regime change on the part of our side. On the other had the

Russians standing strong behind the Assad regime. I am struck looking at

this. We can find plenty of blame for the Western world and what is

happening in Syria, both over the colonial history in that part of the

world, and in more recent events, particularly in Iraq. What we are

really seeing here is an earthquake, a seismic event that has

its roots in history. I think that we, in the outside world,

particularly in the Western world, should concentrate our efforts,

not, we should look for a settlement to mitigate the human misery, in

that respect I am sure that more can be done, more than as the Cameron

government has suggested, to take some of those 30,000 at most, at

risk refugees in this war which is a drop in the bucket against what is

it now, 2 million now. Some are saying half the population. One idea

that would seem attractive but at the time it has gone now, what we

had done in northern Iraq to greater say. That would involve committing

troops, Western groups. That could draw as potentially once again into

a conflict which peoples of the Western world are not prepared to

support. Let's do more to alleviate the suffering. Absolutely. That is

the only hope that could happen from Geneva. What is important is that

Saudi are met -- Saudi Arabia to put money into this. All these countries

who are doing so well economically, the US and Britain, should take

refugees, not just Europe, which according to you is still in a mess.

This question about foreign fighters. There are lots of stories

about it, perhaps hundreds of British people. What is your

assessment? There are conflicting figures. I heard from very

responsible sources, a doctor who is working for a relief organisation in

Syria, he told me that there are two 3000 Muslims wish fighters in Syria.

-- Brits. The goal through countries like Yemen, Pakistan and after that

from other theatres. They are there and they are fighting there. Going

back to the Geneva Conference, there is little hope here for the

refugees, because now they are talking about practical things. They

want to have first cease-fire in Aleppo. Once you have a cease-fire

in Aleppo and an exchange of prisoners, I think this could be a

huge step on the direction of reducing the suffering of the Syrian

people. They want to start with the easier problems and then go to the

higher problem or most of the key to problems. It is a good start, but as

I repeat again, without the Saudi Arabians sitting under the

sponsorship of the Americans and Iranians, we will not have a

solution. There are people who are drawn to extremist Islam from the

United Kingdom and other Western countries who have gone to Syria. We

also know also amongst those who have gone to Syria there are many of

good faith and good intention who have gone, doctors, some wonderful

stories of young people of Syrian origin who have returned to mitigate

the suffering. We need to bear that in mind when people start talking

about the risk of terrorist Islam riding on the shoulders of this and

coming back into this country. This also comes back, it is the third

anniversary of Egypt and the revolution in Egypt. We are seeing

now the country that most people in the Arab world looked to for a

leadership suffering from more kinds of terrorism in the street.

Terrorism is spilling over into the heart of Cairo. Yesterday we had

four bombings which took place. One targeted the headquarters of the

security forces at the heart of Egypt. There are about nine people

killed in this, ten people were shot dead by the police. If Egypt

collapsed, it is a country of 95 million people, it is the heart of

the Middle East. I think the whole Middle East would be an anarchy. It

is very significant. It is like the contagion effect. If you look at the

other Security Council country, China, you have leadership backing

there and you have a block, half of China's oil is from the Middle

East. The Chinese government -- economy has the engine of growth.

You can see so many essential shocks proceeding from this. That is it

from Dateline London this week. You can keep up-to-date on Twitter. We

will be back next week at the same time. Goodbye.

Once again we are yet again heading to one of those spells of whether

were some areas in the British Isles do not need to see. It will turn wet

and windy, not so much on Saturday. Some sunshine and showers. It will

be Sunday that