Browse content similar to 15/02/2014. Check below for episodes and series from the same categories and more!
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will try to find out exactly why. More headlines and more on the | :00:00. | 3:59:59 | |
Syrian story at midday. Hello and welcome. The United | :00:00. | :00:32. | |
Kingdom says no to currency union with an independent Scotland. And | :00:33. | :00:39. | |
what does the release of Taliaban prisoners tell us about the future | :00:40. | :00:46. | |
of Afghanistan? My guests today are a Chinese writer, a writer with the | :00:47. | :00:52. | |
nation and Steve Richards of the Independent. The Scottish National | :00:53. | :01:00. | |
party had first considered joining the euro, then the planned for | :01:01. | :01:09. | |
retaining the pounds there and, and now the British government has said | :01:10. | :01:14. | |
no. Is this the terminal setback for the independence movement? Good | :01:15. | :01:20. | |
Scotland goal instead for its own currency? It is a big moment in this | :01:21. | :01:27. | |
campaign. It is extraordinary in the context of British politics more | :01:28. | :01:31. | |
generally to see such publishers politicians as any balls -- Ed balls | :01:32. | :01:47. | |
and the Chancellor coming together. Irrespective of what happens in the | :01:48. | :01:51. | |
referendum, Scotland is going in its own way, it is so different from | :01:52. | :01:57. | |
England. I perform a political show in the Edinburgh Festival about the | :01:58. | :02:02. | |
chief politics. What I am seeing does not affect any of you in | :02:03. | :02:06. | |
Scotland, eight of the topics, health, education, all the other | :02:07. | :02:12. | |
things are so separate. However, on this technical issue of the | :02:13. | :02:17. | |
currency, Alex Salmond has no answer because she insists that all this is | :02:18. | :02:23. | |
bust and they will be able to keep the pound. That is not at all | :02:24. | :02:33. | |
clear. Look what happens in the euro when you have a bank controlling | :02:34. | :02:35. | |
interest rates border independent country. If he does not do that they | :02:36. | :02:43. | |
have ruled out the euro now for obvious reasons. There are huge | :02:44. | :02:48. | |
issues with the currency. There are real problems for the independence | :02:49. | :02:56. | |
case, this basic currency issue. You make a very important point which | :02:57. | :03:01. | |
very few English commentators have made which is that in its head in | :03:02. | :03:06. | |
many ways Scotland is already independent. On most of the big | :03:07. | :03:11. | |
issues which affect people, the health service, education even the | :03:12. | :03:18. | |
church is, Scotland is different. It is a different country and all the | :03:19. | :03:22. | |
key issues which have fascinated the Westminster -based coalition | :03:23. | :03:27. | |
obsessed with reforms of public services, are the very issues over | :03:28. | :03:32. | |
which Scotland has entirely separate powers and have moved in an entirely | :03:33. | :03:37. | |
different direction. The key defining themes of this Parliament | :03:38. | :03:42. | |
for Westminster and England are utterly removed from what is going | :03:43. | :03:48. | |
on in Scotland. Do you think, however, that at the beginning of | :03:49. | :03:55. | |
September if the opinion polls suggest David can and will be really | :03:56. | :04:00. | |
do with a thumping majority, because of that difference, giving the | :04:01. | :04:03. | |
result that one Conservative MP in the whole of Scotland, that might | :04:04. | :04:08. | |
actually affect the vote. We have had the SNP say that David Cameron | :04:09. | :04:14. | |
is the living embodiment of why you should bought for independence. I | :04:15. | :04:19. | |
think it will have an impact on the boat. Better together campaign also | :04:20. | :04:27. | |
leaves that would be a massive bonus for Alex Salmond comic the leader of | :04:28. | :04:33. | |
the independence campaign. If that were to happen it would have a more | :04:34. | :04:39. | |
profound impact on the campaign than this very powerful co-ordinated | :04:40. | :04:48. | |
currency campaign. There have been some parallels drawn with Germany | :04:49. | :04:54. | |
and Greece, a big country effectively dictating economic | :04:55. | :04:58. | |
policy for another one which is supposedly independent but because | :04:59. | :05:04. | |
of the currency link it is not. The fact the euro has been in trouble | :05:05. | :05:10. | |
affect this a lot. Do you think that England and Scotland in a currency | :05:11. | :05:15. | |
union is very different from the whole of the EU? There has been an | :05:16. | :05:22. | |
argument that if Scotland bought it for independence that Westminster | :05:23. | :05:27. | |
would not say no to the pound. Would it make any sense to have a | :05:28. | :05:30. | |
different currency across the border? How would it work? Then they | :05:31. | :05:37. | |
really would have independence. Once you concede that the bank of England | :05:38. | :05:41. | |
will determine your interest rates you then, in effect, which is what | :05:42. | :05:46. | |
is happening in Europe, have to harmonise many things as well. They | :05:47. | :05:50. | |
have already got separation of powers in many key areas. What more | :05:51. | :05:57. | |
with the get if they were allied to the English currency. Also I do not | :05:58. | :06:02. | |
think it isn't tiredly bluster. You would be real resistance from the | :06:03. | :06:06. | |
English -based politicians order to be a joint currency. In some ways | :06:07. | :06:14. | |
you are right. In some ways Scottish independence is more about politics, | :06:15. | :06:18. | |
it is about national identity, rather than economics. I know | :06:19. | :06:24. | |
economy matters, it is probably the biggest factor swaying the boat here | :06:25. | :06:34. | |
-- vote. When push comes to shove at the end of the day it is about | :06:35. | :06:39. | |
Scotland being a different country. When I think back to China's history | :06:40. | :06:45. | |
when they were these moments that a massive country that had different | :06:46. | :06:50. | |
pockets of majority and minorities and different ethnic groups and | :06:51. | :06:59. | |
provinces that wanted independence. A lot of that, technically you can | :07:00. | :07:05. | |
argue how to do currency and how to manage the economy but at the end | :07:06. | :07:10. | |
the decision came to who we are, what we want to be. I think that | :07:11. | :07:15. | |
will matter more at the end of the day. Also, looking back 100 years to | :07:16. | :07:23. | |
what happened in Ireland you could see Ireland with the better off in | :07:24. | :07:29. | |
financial terms in the short-term to remain part of the United Kingdom. | :07:30. | :07:33. | |
That is not the way Ireland wanted it. It will probably be a heart vote | :07:34. | :07:42. | |
in the end. There is absolutely no chance that the Scots will bought | :07:43. | :07:47. | |
for independence, said one man, but he does not spend so much time they | :07:48. | :07:55. | |
are. I think this is the heart vote. Someone said it is a shame George | :07:56. | :08:05. | |
Osborne looks like Butcher Cumberland's General staff. He puts | :08:06. | :08:09. | |
of even people who were potential conservative voters. The reason it | :08:10. | :08:14. | |
has got to this point is that over the last 35 years this country has | :08:15. | :08:19. | |
become, at least in terms of politics and economics, London | :08:20. | :08:27. | |
centric. The Scots are up there as king who are these people and what | :08:28. | :08:31. | |
right do they have to say anything about the way that I live? They do | :08:32. | :08:36. | |
have a tremendous amount of autonomy. The best thing David | :08:37. | :08:40. | |
Cameron has ever done was get the ball max of of the table. If that | :08:41. | :08:47. | |
had been left in as a third option in this vote that would have | :08:48. | :08:53. | |
carried. I think that is what many people are saying. I was in | :08:54. | :08:58. | |
Middlesborough last year doing a piece on inequality and throughout | :08:59. | :09:05. | |
the north-east only in a have to jest you hear people saying if the | :09:06. | :09:12. | |
Scots vote for independence I hope they take is with them. That is a | :09:13. | :09:21. | |
good point. I have had such conversations in Newcastle and | :09:22. | :09:25. | |
people feel very remote from the London media, the London | :09:26. | :09:29. | |
government, effectively in the same way as some Scots do. On one level | :09:30. | :09:36. | |
it should be a warning but I do not know that anyone in Westminster is | :09:37. | :09:41. | |
ceding it about just how is let this country is. It is such a small | :09:42. | :09:46. | |
country. I am from America so I have a sense of scale. How can a country | :09:47. | :09:54. | |
so geographically compacted as Britain be so very different between | :09:55. | :09:58. | |
this part from where we are talking and the rest, the bulk of the | :09:59. | :10:05. | |
country. Although it makes sense for them it is painful to see the Labour | :10:06. | :10:10. | |
Party lining up with Cameron and Danny Alexander. Scotland still | :10:11. | :10:17. | |
holds to the old British welfare system in a way that, really since | :10:18. | :10:20. | |
that should then we are, then Cameron, Britain has been leaving | :10:21. | :10:30. | |
behind. It is certainly a very strong argument that is being made | :10:31. | :10:38. | |
by Salmond. When the north-east had their chance for voting for their | :10:39. | :10:44. | |
own regional assembly, the fault in the regional assembly was | :10:45. | :10:54. | |
slaughtered. -- vote. The suggestion is that independence will lose but | :10:55. | :11:00. | |
if it is based on emotion and heart it would win. It still might but I | :11:01. | :11:09. | |
think there is this. The leadership of the European Union we were | :11:10. | :11:13. | |
speaking about earlier desperately does not want this. They do not want | :11:14. | :11:20. | |
to contemplate Catalonia going independent or any number of regions | :11:21. | :11:25. | |
in Italy or France for that matter going on their own. Let's move on. | :11:26. | :11:32. | |
Britain's senior politicians have been lining up this week to show off | :11:33. | :11:41. | |
their Wellington boots. How competent or otherwise has the | :11:42. | :11:45. | |
response to the flooding really been? Let's not get carried away, | :11:46. | :11:53. | |
these are really terrible floods and I do not want to diminish the | :11:54. | :11:57. | |
suffering of people caught up in them or who have lost their houses | :11:58. | :12:02. | |
but this is not Katrina. There are not bloated bodies floating in the | :12:03. | :12:08. | |
floodwaters or people stranded on their roofs for weeks without water | :12:09. | :12:13. | |
but that image of George Bush peering out of the aeroplane from | :12:14. | :12:16. | |
above has influenced the way politicians have responded. The | :12:17. | :12:20. | |
point where Cameron really put his foot in it was when he came out and | :12:21. | :12:25. | |
said money is no object. We too minute, if money is no object here | :12:26. | :12:31. | |
why is it an object elsewhere, why do we have to have a bedroom tax and | :12:32. | :12:36. | |
cuts to social security? You have been telling us all this time there | :12:37. | :12:45. | |
is no money. When it is people in a particular place having problems | :12:46. | :12:55. | |
money is no problem. How do you see this? One of the things that is kind | :12:56. | :13:01. | |
of obvious is that even King Canute could not do much about the weather | :13:02. | :13:05. | |
or the tides so politicians have to show they cheer and do something but | :13:06. | :13:09. | |
it is fairly limited what they can do. It seems to me that the | :13:10. | :13:14. | |
government could have acted quicker and with a little bit more force. | :13:15. | :13:21. | |
The military being called earlier and more being put out the to help | :13:22. | :13:27. | |
the people. The weather, nobody can do anything about the weather, it is | :13:28. | :13:32. | |
absolutely severe. But the response to it could have been better. The | :13:33. | :13:38. | |
fact that they were so many politicians going on these tours of | :13:39. | :13:43. | |
the area, not particularly helping anyone, but to have their picture | :13:44. | :13:49. | |
taken, it is rather hilarious. It does remind me of these dodgy photos | :13:50. | :13:55. | |
you have seen of Chinese officials to doing severe places. They were | :13:56. | :14:05. | |
floating on air. Sometimes you want to laugh but it is not laughable. It | :14:06. | :14:11. | |
is not laughable if you are caught in it. A serious problem with the | :14:12. | :14:19. | |
British infrastructure issue. Had there been more work put in, they | :14:20. | :14:25. | |
had been neglect for a long time of infrastructure, the railways, the | :14:26. | :14:31. | |
flood defence for example. There is a money issue, there is always a | :14:32. | :14:35. | |
money issue, it is the priority, what should be done and whether we | :14:36. | :14:40. | |
will be doing more now that this has happened, to look into the future. | :14:41. | :14:45. | |
Will there be more infrastructure improvement? One of the other | :14:46. | :14:53. | |
parallels is Obama and the Gulf oil spill. He learned from Katrina that | :14:54. | :14:57. | |
you have to go, shall empathy, you help a lot of people, then you leave | :14:58. | :15:03. | |
and you let people sort it out. You have to show UK. At least in that | :15:04. | :15:08. | |
sense the politicians have done something but it was left to the | :15:09. | :15:17. | |
Royal family to fill sandbags. Yes, they were the. This weather system, | :15:18. | :15:23. | |
it has been going on for six weeks, the flooding has been building and | :15:24. | :15:29. | |
building. The official response initially was that it is the | :15:30. | :15:33. | |
Somerset levels, it used to be a lake, what do you expect? Then after | :15:34. | :15:39. | |
weeks and weeks and weeks you send out your Environment Secretary who | :15:40. | :15:43. | |
is a climate change sceptic and then he gets sick. You are in the middle | :15:44. | :15:51. | |
of a crisis and the retina fell of the back of your right, now it is a | :15:52. | :15:56. | |
terrible thing to have happened but now he has disappeared and you bring | :15:57. | :16:00. | |
out any pickles so finally Cameron has to step in after six weeks of | :16:01. | :16:04. | |
dreadful weather and building floods. That degree of lack of | :16:05. | :16:10. | |
leadership and direction is what people will remember. Imagine if | :16:11. | :16:53. | |
they did not go to these areas, all hell would break loose. Ed Miliband | :16:54. | :17:03. | |
would look like he would prefer to have an espresso in Primrose Hill. | :17:04. | :17:11. | |
They cannot win on that front. There is a political issue and I think it | :17:12. | :17:15. | |
is to do with spending. In 2010, when this coalition came in, cheered | :17:16. | :17:19. | |
on by much of the media, they announced a whole range of spending | :17:20. | :17:25. | |
cuts very quickly, including on flood defence spending. Everyone | :17:26. | :17:30. | |
said, this is brilliant. At last a responsible government. Now we face | :17:31. | :17:34. | |
the consequences. There is an issue. Will it be an issue by the time of | :17:35. | :17:39. | |
the next general election? Absolutely not. There was a foot and | :17:40. | :17:45. | |
mouth outbreak and Tony Blair postponed the timing of the | :17:46. | :17:48. | |
election. Everyone said this will determine his fate at the election. | :17:49. | :17:52. | |
It will all return to the economy and everything. I do not think it | :17:53. | :17:58. | |
will be decisive for Cameron. The decision by the Government of Hamid | :17:59. | :18:02. | |
Karzai to release prisoners from what some American commentators | :18:03. | :18:10. | |
called the Taliban University of the prison, what does this tell us about | :18:11. | :18:14. | |
the future? What will be left behind? I think there has been | :18:15. | :18:30. | |
tremendous tension between Hamid Karzai and various governments. It | :18:31. | :18:33. | |
goes back to the middle of the last decade. First of all, who are the | :18:34. | :18:39. | |
Taliban? Unless you are going to have soldiers in every house in | :18:40. | :18:42. | |
Helmand province conducting we education courses at night, the | :18:43. | :18:47. | |
Taliban are part of the furniture in Afghanistan. How do you deal with | :18:48. | :18:52. | |
them? Hamid Karzai has wanted to do with them for a very long time. Now, | :18:53. | :18:57. | |
with the British and American troops getting ready to be gone by the end | :18:58. | :19:02. | |
of this year, there will be remnants, believe me. The country is | :19:03. | :19:06. | |
far from pacified. He had to deal with the reality of these people. | :19:07. | :19:10. | |
They could just have easily have come into Kabul the day after he has | :19:11. | :19:16. | |
gone. They can still strike at the heart of the capital from time to | :19:17. | :19:22. | |
time. The Taliban University thing, it has been a dreadful place since | :19:23. | :19:30. | |
the middle of the last decade. It is a school in the way most prisons are | :19:31. | :19:34. | |
full teaching young, impressionable people about how to be successful at | :19:35. | :19:41. | |
being bad. There is no love lost between Barack Obama and Hamid | :19:42. | :19:47. | |
Karzai. The Taliban in some way will have a political wing and they will | :19:48. | :19:53. | |
probably come to be involved in the Government of Afghanistan. Can I | :19:54. | :19:57. | |
make the obvious point that, whatever one thinks of Hamid Karzai | :19:58. | :20:00. | |
and the way he runs the country, it is his country in the end? The | :20:01. | :20:08. | |
Taliban will still be their when the last Taliban or British soldier | :20:09. | :20:13. | |
goes. Crushing them does not seem to have worked. It is his country. The | :20:14. | :20:20. | |
complication is that he was put in with huge support from the | :20:21. | :20:26. | |
Americans. Then it came to this point that he had to run his country | :20:27. | :20:33. | |
and that they have had lots of frustrations with each other for a | :20:34. | :20:40. | |
long time. This just seems to me to be one of the incidents that happen | :20:41. | :20:47. | |
on the road to Afghanistan becoming less occupied and run by the foreign | :20:48. | :20:52. | |
troops but by their own government. Having said that, this is the | :20:53. | :20:58. | |
Government. The administration has been a government put in by the | :20:59. | :21:05. | |
Western powers. That is why I see the frustration. What is the best | :21:06. | :21:11. | |
way to run Afghanistan? I am not sure. Shall we leave it to the | :21:12. | :21:16. | |
Afghanistan to do that? You should say that whatever the reasons in the | :21:17. | :21:25. | |
first place, Tony Blair and George Bush perhaps had very little sense | :21:26. | :21:29. | |
of history. Anyone who read the history of the last 150 years about | :21:30. | :21:34. | |
Afghanistan might have thought a long-term presence to try to | :21:35. | :21:36. | |
re-educate people and change the nature of the state would not work. | :21:37. | :21:42. | |
Every Western powers since Alexander the great has fallen apart in | :21:43. | :21:47. | |
Afghanistan. There is no way this crude intervention that was launched | :21:48. | :21:52. | |
was going to bring peace and harmony with the lion lying down with the | :21:53. | :21:57. | |
lamb. The question what to do now is extremely difficult. People in | :21:58. | :22:02. | |
Afghanistan are suffering from civil conflict. I am not sure what the | :22:03. | :22:06. | |
Americans think they are doing. I have been struck by the response to | :22:07. | :22:11. | |
this release of prisoners that the American military have been making | :22:12. | :22:14. | |
very angry noises about it. There has not been much coming out of the | :22:15. | :22:24. | |
Obama Administration. This has been very quiet. Whether it is because | :22:25. | :22:28. | |
they are still hoping to broker this bilateral security agreement or | :22:29. | :22:31. | |
whether there is something else going on in the back channels, I do | :22:32. | :22:45. | |
not know. How do you see this? How do you think people will see it? | :22:46. | :22:51. | |
There has been a massive change in public opinion. One of the reasons | :22:52. | :22:56. | |
why... Without giving it any thought at all, Blair immediately supported | :22:57. | :23:05. | |
action against Afghanistan was because it was popular. Unlike | :23:06. | :23:09. | |
Iraq, public opinion suggested huge popularity. Every single newspaper | :23:10. | :23:12. | |
was for it. Nobody gave much thought as to what the consequences would be | :23:13. | :23:19. | |
in terms of long-term commitment. I remember an interview with Clare | :23:20. | :23:23. | |
Short, International Development Secretary in 2002, and she said, | :23:24. | :23:28. | |
already, she had just got back from Kabul and said the Taliban are | :23:29. | :23:32. | |
regrouping and we are diverging military resources to Iraq. This is | :23:33. | :23:37. | |
a disaster. Instead of that view being explored, she was condemned | :23:38. | :23:41. | |
within the Government. It was from that point on, from the British | :23:42. | :23:50. | |
perspective, both a long-term commitment, it was never clearly | :23:51. | :23:54. | |
thought through. Were they there to absolutely destroy the Taliban? How | :23:55. | :24:01. | |
long would that take. How long was the Government going to work with | :24:02. | :24:07. | |
the Taliban nothing was thought through. There is resistance to this | :24:08. | :24:13. | |
form of military intervention. We are seeing a new kind of | :24:14. | :24:18. | |
isolationism in the United States. We talk about Syria all the time. | :24:19. | :24:23. | |
You could not get 10% of the public to say there should be an | :24:24. | :24:31. | |
intervention to at least remove basher al-Assad. Nobody had any hope | :24:32. | :24:39. | |
for the peace talks. It was a figleaf that John Kerry managed to | :24:40. | :24:44. | |
pull together. They have a relationship now. The same with | :24:45. | :24:48. | |
Afghanistan. I know for certainty that, in America, anyone who goes | :24:49. | :24:52. | |
and sits and talks to Americans, they will not talk about | :24:53. | :24:56. | |
Afghanistan, you know it is a war. They will not talk about anything | :24:57. | :25:02. | |
which has gone wrong in Iraq. Even after the Western troops have gone | :25:03. | :25:07. | |
and the country would, I fear, sink back into civil war, the only thing | :25:08. | :25:12. | |
actually that people would care about, and it will only be liberal | :25:13. | :25:17. | |
elites, and I do not mean that in a pejorative sense, would be the fact | :25:18. | :25:20. | |
that so many women would be encouraged to get an education in | :25:21. | :25:24. | |
Afghanistan. The gains made by women are going to mutually be rolled | :25:25. | :25:28. | |
back, I fear. That is the one hope that people have. That is an | :25:29. | :25:34. | |
important point about how the role of women, for some women, has | :25:35. | :25:39. | |
changed. It is not the reason why Britain and the United States went | :25:40. | :25:44. | |
to war and it is not a reason that people are changing the culture of | :25:45. | :25:49. | |
the country. Simpson said we should just declare victory and go out. | :25:50. | :25:53. | |
What we do next in Afghanistan? Alan Simpson, we were Republicans, he | :25:54. | :25:59. | |
said, declare victory and get the hell out. That is it for this week. | :26:00. | :26:05. | |
You can comment on the programme on Twitter. We are back next week at | :26:06. | :26:07. | |
the same time. Goodbye. | :26:08. | :26:10. |