15/02/2014 Dateline London


15/02/2014

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will try to find out exactly why. More headlines and more on the

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Syrian story at midday. Hello and welcome. The United

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Kingdom says no to currency union with an independent Scotland. And

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what does the release of Taliaban prisoners tell us about the future

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of Afghanistan? My guests today are a Chinese writer, a writer with the

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nation and Steve Richards of the Independent. The Scottish National

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party had first considered joining the euro, then the planned for

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retaining the pounds there and, and now the British government has said

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no. Is this the terminal setback for the independence movement? Good

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Scotland goal instead for its own currency? It is a big moment in this

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campaign. It is extraordinary in the context of British politics more

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generally to see such publishers politicians as any balls -- Ed balls

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and the Chancellor coming together. Irrespective of what happens in the

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referendum, Scotland is going in its own way, it is so different from

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England. I perform a political show in the Edinburgh Festival about the

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chief politics. What I am seeing does not affect any of you in

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Scotland, eight of the topics, health, education, all the other

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things are so separate. However, on this technical issue of the

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currency, Alex Salmond has no answer because she insists that all this is

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bust and they will be able to keep the pound. That is not at all

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clear. Look what happens in the euro when you have a bank controlling

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interest rates border independent country. If he does not do that they

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have ruled out the euro now for obvious reasons. There are huge

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issues with the currency. There are real problems for the independence

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case, this basic currency issue. You make a very important point which

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very few English commentators have made which is that in its head in

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many ways Scotland is already independent. On most of the big

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issues which affect people, the health service, education even the

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church is, Scotland is different. It is a different country and all the

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key issues which have fascinated the Westminster -based coalition

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obsessed with reforms of public services, are the very issues over

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which Scotland has entirely separate powers and have moved in an entirely

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different direction. The key defining themes of this Parliament

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for Westminster and England are utterly removed from what is going

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on in Scotland. Do you think, however, that at the beginning of

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September if the opinion polls suggest David can and will be really

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do with a thumping majority, because of that difference, giving the

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result that one Conservative MP in the whole of Scotland, that might

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actually affect the vote. We have had the SNP say that David Cameron

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is the living embodiment of why you should bought for independence. I

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think it will have an impact on the boat. Better together campaign also

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leaves that would be a massive bonus for Alex Salmond comic the leader of

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the independence campaign. If that were to happen it would have a more

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profound impact on the campaign than this very powerful co-ordinated

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currency campaign. There have been some parallels drawn with Germany

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and Greece, a big country effectively dictating economic

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policy for another one which is supposedly independent but because

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of the currency link it is not. The fact the euro has been in trouble

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affect this a lot. Do you think that England and Scotland in a currency

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union is very different from the whole of the EU? There has been an

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argument that if Scotland bought it for independence that Westminster

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would not say no to the pound. Would it make any sense to have a

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different currency across the border? How would it work? Then they

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really would have independence. Once you concede that the bank of England

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will determine your interest rates you then, in effect, which is what

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is happening in Europe, have to harmonise many things as well. They

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have already got separation of powers in many key areas. What more

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with the get if they were allied to the English currency. Also I do not

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think it isn't tiredly bluster. You would be real resistance from the

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English -based politicians order to be a joint currency. In some ways

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you are right. In some ways Scottish independence is more about politics,

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it is about national identity, rather than economics. I know

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economy matters, it is probably the biggest factor swaying the boat here

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-- vote. When push comes to shove at the end of the day it is about

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Scotland being a different country. When I think back to China's history

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when they were these moments that a massive country that had different

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pockets of majority and minorities and different ethnic groups and

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provinces that wanted independence. A lot of that, technically you can

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argue how to do currency and how to manage the economy but at the end

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the decision came to who we are, what we want to be. I think that

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will matter more at the end of the day. Also, looking back 100 years to

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what happened in Ireland you could see Ireland with the better off in

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financial terms in the short-term to remain part of the United Kingdom.

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That is not the way Ireland wanted it. It will probably be a heart vote

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in the end. There is absolutely no chance that the Scots will bought

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for independence, said one man, but he does not spend so much time they

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are. I think this is the heart vote. Someone said it is a shame George

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Osborne looks like Butcher Cumberland's General staff. He puts

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of even people who were potential conservative voters. The reason it

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has got to this point is that over the last 35 years this country has

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become, at least in terms of politics and economics, London

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centric. The Scots are up there as king who are these people and what

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right do they have to say anything about the way that I live? They do

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have a tremendous amount of autonomy. The best thing David

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Cameron has ever done was get the ball max of of the table. If that

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had been left in as a third option in this vote that would have

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carried. I think that is what many people are saying. I was in

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Middlesborough last year doing a piece on inequality and throughout

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the north-east only in a have to jest you hear people saying if the

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Scots vote for independence I hope they take is with them. That is a

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good point. I have had such conversations in Newcastle and

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people feel very remote from the London media, the London

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government, effectively in the same way as some Scots do. On one level

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it should be a warning but I do not know that anyone in Westminster is

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ceding it about just how is let this country is. It is such a small

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country. I am from America so I have a sense of scale. How can a country

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so geographically compacted as Britain be so very different between

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this part from where we are talking and the rest, the bulk of the

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country. Although it makes sense for them it is painful to see the Labour

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Party lining up with Cameron and Danny Alexander. Scotland still

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holds to the old British welfare system in a way that, really since

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that should then we are, then Cameron, Britain has been leaving

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behind. It is certainly a very strong argument that is being made

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by Salmond. When the north-east had their chance for voting for their

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own regional assembly, the fault in the regional assembly was

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slaughtered. -- vote. The suggestion is that independence will lose but

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if it is based on emotion and heart it would win. It still might but I

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think there is this. The leadership of the European Union we were

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speaking about earlier desperately does not want this. They do not want

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to contemplate Catalonia going independent or any number of regions

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in Italy or France for that matter going on their own. Let's move on.

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Britain's senior politicians have been lining up this week to show off

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their Wellington boots. How competent or otherwise has the

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response to the flooding really been? Let's not get carried away,

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these are really terrible floods and I do not want to diminish the

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suffering of people caught up in them or who have lost their houses

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but this is not Katrina. There are not bloated bodies floating in the

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floodwaters or people stranded on their roofs for weeks without water

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but that image of George Bush peering out of the aeroplane from

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above has influenced the way politicians have responded. The

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point where Cameron really put his foot in it was when he came out and

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said money is no object. We too minute, if money is no object here

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why is it an object elsewhere, why do we have to have a bedroom tax and

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cuts to social security? You have been telling us all this time there

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is no money. When it is people in a particular place having problems

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money is no problem. How do you see this? One of the things that is kind

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of obvious is that even King Canute could not do much about the weather

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or the tides so politicians have to show they cheer and do something but

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it is fairly limited what they can do. It seems to me that the

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government could have acted quicker and with a little bit more force.

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The military being called earlier and more being put out the to help

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the people. The weather, nobody can do anything about the weather, it is

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absolutely severe. But the response to it could have been better. The

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fact that they were so many politicians going on these tours of

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the area, not particularly helping anyone, but to have their picture

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taken, it is rather hilarious. It does remind me of these dodgy photos

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you have seen of Chinese officials to doing severe places. They were

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floating on air. Sometimes you want to laugh but it is not laughable. It

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is not laughable if you are caught in it. A serious problem with the

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British infrastructure issue. Had there been more work put in, they

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had been neglect for a long time of infrastructure, the railways, the

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flood defence for example. There is a money issue, there is always a

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money issue, it is the priority, what should be done and whether we

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will be doing more now that this has happened, to look into the future.

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Will there be more infrastructure improvement? One of the other

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parallels is Obama and the Gulf oil spill. He learned from Katrina that

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you have to go, shall empathy, you help a lot of people, then you leave

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and you let people sort it out. You have to show UK. At least in that

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sense the politicians have done something but it was left to the

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Royal family to fill sandbags. Yes, they were the. This weather system,

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it has been going on for six weeks, the flooding has been building and

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building. The official response initially was that it is the

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Somerset levels, it used to be a lake, what do you expect? Then after

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weeks and weeks and weeks you send out your Environment Secretary who

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is a climate change sceptic and then he gets sick. You are in the middle

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of a crisis and the retina fell of the back of your right, now it is a

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terrible thing to have happened but now he has disappeared and you bring

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out any pickles so finally Cameron has to step in after six weeks of

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dreadful weather and building floods. That degree of lack of

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leadership and direction is what people will remember. Imagine if

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they did not go to these areas, all hell would break loose. Ed Miliband

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would look like he would prefer to have an espresso in Primrose Hill.

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They cannot win on that front. There is a political issue and I think it

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is to do with spending. In 2010, when this coalition came in, cheered

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on by much of the media, they announced a whole range of spending

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cuts very quickly, including on flood defence spending. Everyone

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said, this is brilliant. At last a responsible government. Now we face

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the consequences. There is an issue. Will it be an issue by the time of

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the next general election? Absolutely not. There was a foot and

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mouth outbreak and Tony Blair postponed the timing of the

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election. Everyone said this will determine his fate at the election.

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It will all return to the economy and everything. I do not think it

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will be decisive for Cameron. The decision by the Government of Hamid

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Karzai to release prisoners from what some American commentators

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called the Taliban University of the prison, what does this tell us about

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the future? What will be left behind? I think there has been

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tremendous tension between Hamid Karzai and various governments. It

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goes back to the middle of the last decade. First of all, who are the

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Taliban? Unless you are going to have soldiers in every house in

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Helmand province conducting we education courses at night, the

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Taliban are part of the furniture in Afghanistan. How do you deal with

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them? Hamid Karzai has wanted to do with them for a very long time. Now,

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with the British and American troops getting ready to be gone by the end

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of this year, there will be remnants, believe me. The country is

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far from pacified. He had to deal with the reality of these people.

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They could just have easily have come into Kabul the day after he has

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gone. They can still strike at the heart of the capital from time to

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time. The Taliban University thing, it has been a dreadful place since

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the middle of the last decade. It is a school in the way most prisons are

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full teaching young, impressionable people about how to be successful at

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being bad. There is no love lost between Barack Obama and Hamid

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Karzai. The Taliban in some way will have a political wing and they will

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probably come to be involved in the Government of Afghanistan. Can I

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make the obvious point that, whatever one thinks of Hamid Karzai

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and the way he runs the country, it is his country in the end? The

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Taliban will still be their when the last Taliban or British soldier

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goes. Crushing them does not seem to have worked. It is his country. The

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complication is that he was put in with huge support from the

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Americans. Then it came to this point that he had to run his country

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and that they have had lots of frustrations with each other for a

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long time. This just seems to me to be one of the incidents that happen

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on the road to Afghanistan becoming less occupied and run by the foreign

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troops but by their own government. Having said that, this is the

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Government. The administration has been a government put in by the

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Western powers. That is why I see the frustration. What is the best

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way to run Afghanistan? I am not sure. Shall we leave it to the

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Afghanistan to do that? You should say that whatever the reasons in the

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first place, Tony Blair and George Bush perhaps had very little sense

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of history. Anyone who read the history of the last 150 years about

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Afghanistan might have thought a long-term presence to try to

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re-educate people and change the nature of the state would not work.

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Every Western powers since Alexander the great has fallen apart in

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Afghanistan. There is no way this crude intervention that was launched

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was going to bring peace and harmony with the lion lying down with the

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lamb. The question what to do now is extremely difficult. People in

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Afghanistan are suffering from civil conflict. I am not sure what the

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Americans think they are doing. I have been struck by the response to

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this release of prisoners that the American military have been making

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very angry noises about it. There has not been much coming out of the

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Obama Administration. This has been very quiet. Whether it is because

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they are still hoping to broker this bilateral security agreement or

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whether there is something else going on in the back channels, I do

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not know. How do you see this? How do you think people will see it?

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There has been a massive change in public opinion. One of the reasons

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why... Without giving it any thought at all, Blair immediately supported

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action against Afghanistan was because it was popular. Unlike

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Iraq, public opinion suggested huge popularity. Every single newspaper

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was for it. Nobody gave much thought as to what the consequences would be

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in terms of long-term commitment. I remember an interview with Clare

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Short, International Development Secretary in 2002, and she said,

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already, she had just got back from Kabul and said the Taliban are

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regrouping and we are diverging military resources to Iraq. This is

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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

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perspective, both a long-term commitment, it was never clearly

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thought through. Were they there to absolutely destroy the Taliban? How

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long would that take. How long was the Government going to work with

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the Taliban nothing was thought through. There is resistance to this

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form of military intervention. We are seeing a new kind of

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isolationism in the United States. We talk about Syria all the time.

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You could not get 10% of the public to say there should be an

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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said, declare victory and get the hell out. That is it for this week.

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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.

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