:00:00. > :00:26.Dateline London with Gavin is love. `` Gavin Esler.
:00:27. > :00:34.Hello and welcome to Dateline London. Today's programme is a tale
:00:35. > :00:38.of three leaders. Is Turkey's Prime Minister Erdogan turning into a new
:00:39. > :00:41.Sultan? Does Labour leader Ed Miliband have the right stuff to
:00:42. > :00:51.lead written? And how much is President Obama leading America's
:00:52. > :00:55.view in the 21st century. With my my guests John Fisher Burns from the
:00:56. > :00:59.New York Times, Nabila Ramdani a French writer, Emre Caliskan from
:01:00. > :01:06.the Turkish BBC service and Owen Jones from the Independent.
:01:07. > :01:10.So far Prime Minister Erdogan has succeeded in reforming the economy
:01:11. > :01:16.but his attempts to ban Twitter and the allegations of corruption mean
:01:17. > :01:21.his critics claim he is a new Sultan. Is Prime Minister Erdogan
:01:22. > :01:26.now a liability to the big wrist Turkish democracy he has helped to
:01:27. > :01:31.build? How is he seen in Turkey is that he obviously has strong support
:01:32. > :01:37.in some areas. It is very divided and polarised in Turkey right now.
:01:38. > :01:42.The local elections are turning out to be a confidence vote for
:01:43. > :01:49.Erdogan. According to the polls he will get between 40 and 45% of the
:01:50. > :01:55.votes but at the same time, this means 60% or 55% of society are
:01:56. > :01:59.against him. So it is a dilemma. Given that he has turned these
:02:00. > :02:03.elections into a bit of a mandate for the fairly fractious nature of
:02:04. > :02:07.the other parties, it could mean that he will retain control even in
:02:08. > :02:18.Istanbul where there are a few protests. He is an example of the
:02:19. > :02:25.Turkish majority in politics. Most of the people, according to the last
:02:26. > :02:29.survey, 50% of the people consider him authoritarian and he interferes
:02:30. > :02:35.in people's lifestyle. Even though he is gaining in Ankara, the concern
:02:36. > :02:40.about his role will last. I want to widen it out to talk about how
:02:41. > :02:45.important Turkey is. In terms of something like Twitter, why is he
:02:46. > :02:50.trying to do that? In the modern world and modern Turkey, it is
:02:51. > :02:53.pretty nigh on impossible to ban social media. I think he is
:02:54. > :02:58.confident about his role and his support. But at the same time, he is
:02:59. > :03:02.trying to unite the votes. Even if he is doing something wrong, he is
:03:03. > :03:11.trying to unite the votes in favour of him. He is trying to show a
:03:12. > :03:15.strong image to the voters. If you banned Twitter and said we do not
:03:16. > :03:19.care about other countries, he will show how the Turkish public are
:03:20. > :03:24.strong. It is a strange rhetoric from a politician's point of view.
:03:25. > :03:30.How important do you think Turkey being? They have tried to say we
:03:31. > :03:35.have a position of leadership in the Islamic world. It is only episodic
:03:36. > :03:40.li in headlines here and in the rest of Europe but I think it matters a
:03:41. > :03:46.great deal for one reason above all others, which is Turkey has been
:03:47. > :03:55.seen as a model on its way for the future development across the Muslim
:03:56. > :04:03.world. What we are seeing now ominously is the potential failure
:04:04. > :04:08.of an experiment to marry Islamist and democracy. Goodness knows,
:04:09. > :04:15.democracy is having a bad time in much of the rest of the Middle East,
:04:16. > :04:20.at least, and if this Twitter ban, the attempt to close down access to
:04:21. > :04:22.YouTube and some of the other authoritarian measures taken by
:04:23. > :04:29.Prime Minister Erdogan are any indication, I think that is deeply
:04:30. > :04:33.worrying. It was seen as potentially one model for how countries like
:04:34. > :04:38.Egypt might make a transition between a democracy and it is not
:04:39. > :04:44.working in Egypt or many other countries. Absolutely and Turkey's
:04:45. > :04:50.policies are important to the Arab world. You were speaking about
:04:51. > :04:53.headlines. Erdogan can cut himself lucky that Putin has been hogging
:04:54. > :05:01.the headlines because he has been getting away with outrageous
:05:02. > :05:06.anti`democratic policies, banning Facebook and Twitter, it is like
:05:07. > :05:10.banning the whether these days. You cannot switch off Twitter or
:05:11. > :05:17.Facebook. It does not prevent information to circulate. But is he
:05:18. > :05:21.a new Sultan? Yes. He has been rattled crucially by domestic
:05:22. > :05:27.policies and very serious allegations of corruption on a vast
:05:28. > :05:32.scale and indeed, he has also been invoking national security threats.
:05:33. > :05:36.But to dismiss judges and prosecutors and police officers who
:05:37. > :05:40.are investigating corruption, is not the way you expect a 21st century
:05:41. > :05:47.country which wants to be a democracy to act. Absolutely. His
:05:48. > :05:53.attitude has been similar to the attitude of Arab despots during the
:05:54. > :05:57.Arab spring. It's interesting you bring up Putin because they have
:05:58. > :06:00.both marketed themselves a strong leaders who contrast themselves with
:06:01. > :06:04.the economic chaos of the 1990s which affected in different ways
:06:05. > :06:08.Turkey and Russia. I think the point you make about the strategic
:06:09. > :06:14.importance of Turkey is key when you are talking about this whole issue.
:06:15. > :06:18.Turkey's human rights has long lacked scrutiny. Because it is a
:06:19. > :06:23.NATO country, Western ally and strategic importance. In the 1990s
:06:24. > :06:27.you had this brutal conflict in Kurdish areas, 3000 villages wiped
:06:28. > :06:35.off the face of the Earth, bombed, shelled and with thousands of deaths
:06:36. > :06:38.the Western world Bailey covered it. It is the biggest jailer of
:06:39. > :06:43.journalists. It beats China and Iran. This attempt to ban Twitter
:06:44. > :06:48.and YouTube is striking because it goes against defying laws of gravity
:06:49. > :06:53.almost, but it should bring into context these wider human rights
:06:54. > :06:59.violations which do not just Mark Erdogan's rule but his predecessors.
:07:00. > :07:05.The big success he is supposed to have had is to keep the military out
:07:06. > :07:08.of politics. They called it a post modern included Tabak our back in
:07:09. > :07:18.1997 when the military got rid of the government. In the 80s there was
:07:19. > :07:23.a brutal coups d'etat will stop. When he came to power he promised to
:07:24. > :07:30.support the US accession process. That was a huge process to do with
:07:31. > :07:34.human rights, freedom of speech and individualism. But since he came to
:07:35. > :07:43.power, the problems started to be visible. The main problem in Turkey
:07:44. > :07:53.is because the Turkish legislation process is so central. It allows
:07:54. > :08:00.them to be authoritarian or autocratic to outlaw the election
:08:01. > :08:04.process. That is the parallel with Putin. Putin likes the elections to
:08:05. > :08:29.get what he sees as a mandate. He's on record as saying adopting
:08:30. > :08:41.democracy is like a train... It is a more wealthy country than it was ten
:08:42. > :08:48.years ago. To see the aspiration to join the EU? He banned Facebook and
:08:49. > :08:58.Twitter and YouTube so Turkey faced the biggest civil disobedience in
:08:59. > :09:04.Turkish politics. Even though he will put his own views on society, I
:09:05. > :09:21.think in new young emerging middle class and generation would go for
:09:22. > :09:27.the EU processing later. Often conspiracy theorists talk about
:09:28. > :09:30.false flag operations, manufactured things to provide a pretext for
:09:31. > :09:39.attack. They were discussing using a terraced attack manufactured on
:09:40. > :09:42.Turkish soil as a pretext to attack Syria. I do not think this has been
:09:43. > :09:47.scrutinised enough. Do you not think, why has there not been more
:09:48. > :09:49.media coverage's that was what was used to shut down YouTube. That is a
:09:50. > :10:05.scandal. The funny thing is about the ban of
:10:06. > :10:11.YouTube and Twitter, it is not legal. It has been initiated by a
:10:12. > :10:19.Turkish regulator without any co`decision. That kind of posturing,
:10:20. > :10:24.adopting autocratic measures, is a problem for Turkey. It has to be
:10:25. > :10:30.consistent. It is a country that is deemed to be supportive of democracy
:10:31. > :10:38.in the Arab world and they looked to be castigating Syria and yet, at
:10:39. > :10:48.home, it carries on with human rights abuses. It raises questions
:10:49. > :10:51.about Turkey's return to the European Union. With this play out
:10:52. > :10:53.in a different way of those negotiations have advanced and there
:10:54. > :11:00.was a different date for Turkey's accession to the EU. Would that have
:11:01. > :11:16.constrained Urdu gun? And did the rejection of his bid add to his turn
:11:17. > :11:23.towards the Sultanate? If it remains an aspiration it is a potential
:11:24. > :11:26.checkout. Being leader of the opposition in Britain is never
:11:27. > :11:29.easy. The government holds all the levers of power. Ed Miliband has
:11:30. > :11:33.been helped by his party's consistent lead in the opinion
:11:34. > :11:38.polls, but that has slipped. How far does he look like a credible Prime
:11:39. > :11:43.Minister in waiting? He has been taking a lot of flak in the last
:11:44. > :11:54.week, since the Budget. How do you see how things will develop? Labour
:11:55. > :12:02.got a shot in the arm. Ed Miliband announced a price freeze on energy
:12:03. > :12:05.bills, bills are soaring whilst the companies are making money, and the
:12:06. > :12:08.Conservatives on the defensive. What has happened in the last weeks into
:12:09. > :12:17.the budget, which the Chancellor announced, is Labour's lead has
:12:18. > :12:20.dropped. It is not because Labour's poll has slipped but because the
:12:21. > :12:28.Conservatives have won back some support from the populist right`wing
:12:29. > :12:33.party, UKIP. The problem that Labour has is that they suffered the second
:12:34. > :12:40.worst defeat in post`war history in 22010. To recover from that is
:12:41. > :12:56.almost without President. `` precedent. They have won over are
:12:57. > :13:02.not of Lib Dem voters, who are horrified that they join the
:13:03. > :13:05.Conservative Party. UKIP has been gnawing away at Conservative
:13:06. > :13:10.support. That is why they have got this consistent lead. The problem is
:13:11. > :13:14.if you look at the personal ratings, Ed Miliband's personal rating is
:13:15. > :13:22.worse than David Cameron's, and they do not have a lead on the economy.
:13:23. > :13:25.That is accurate. Although leaders have won elections when they have
:13:26. > :13:28.not been rated as highly as the Prime Minister. You can see David
:13:29. > :13:34.Cameron as Prime Minister because he is. By the currency Ed Miliband as
:13:35. > :13:38.Prime Minister is another question. When I hear Ed Miliband, he sounds
:13:39. > :13:44.like a rather decent and well`intentioned left`wing academic
:13:45. > :13:47.who is waking up to a growing rejection of the global economy
:13:48. > :13:51.amongst the British people, or somebody who has got a spectacularly
:13:52. > :13:57.wrong. I have to say, he uses language like unacceptable
:13:58. > :14:01.treatment. He speaks about small businesses needing to be protected
:14:02. > :14:07.from big energy firms and crippling bills. He is concerned about the
:14:08. > :14:11.pressure people are under. This is decent language. But I do worry
:14:12. > :14:16.about him not being an obvious choice to lead a thrusting
:14:17. > :14:27.capitalist country, trying to compete in a ferocious global
:14:28. > :14:32.economy. Dare I say, he might be the type of politician that Michael foot
:14:33. > :14:41.was ` honest, intellectual, attractive propositions, but an
:14:42. > :14:43.electoral disaster. You talked about how personal ratings isn't
:14:44. > :14:47.everything. Margaret Thatcher massively trailed Jim Callaghan as
:14:48. > :14:50.the third Prime Minister but the Tories won the election but these
:14:51. > :14:55.are unprecedented times. We are going through the longest fall in
:14:56. > :14:58.living standards since the 1870s. You have got half a million people
:14:59. > :15:11.dependent on food banks and the majority of people in poverty are
:15:12. > :15:18.people in work. To say what Reagan said in the United States, do you
:15:19. > :15:27.feel better off than when this government came to power, and the
:15:28. > :15:32.answer is no. The policies on energy are risky tactic. It will set us up
:15:33. > :15:38.for blackouts that Wix periods and Jim Callaghan's government. I have
:15:39. > :15:44.spent most of my professional life abroad and coming home to this
:15:45. > :15:50.country on a New York Times posting, it struck me with Mr
:15:51. > :15:57.Miliband that it is back to the future. He reminds me of the Labour
:15:58. > :16:09.Party leaders who I grew up with in a way. He is trying to turn the
:16:10. > :16:14.clock back and he just does not like `` looked like a modern man to me.
:16:15. > :16:27.He's very proud. Who can argue with filial pride, of a Marxist and an
:16:28. > :16:39.intellectual. He frequently invokes this as being a principal influence
:16:40. > :16:43.on his upbringing. For example, a state imposed energy price freeze,
:16:44. > :16:54.it just harks back to a Labour government of the 1970s. The second
:16:55. > :17:00.thing I would say is, the Labour Party looks under his leadership
:17:01. > :17:05.like an opposition party, it does not look like a government in
:17:06. > :17:11.waiting. We have seen a resurgence of Conservative... Do you accept in
:17:12. > :17:16.terms of big ideas, you do not get a lot of big ideas from the Labour
:17:17. > :17:19.Party? There is not a coherent alternative being offered, I agree.
:17:20. > :17:25.In the run`up to the election may have to come up with coherent ideas
:17:26. > :17:29.which with people. In terms of the policies, I have to take your word
:17:30. > :17:33.on that. When he called for a temporary energy prices at a time
:17:34. > :17:37.when people have to choose between heating their home and feeding their
:17:38. > :17:41.kids, Fleet Street called him a froth that commonest revolutionary.
:17:42. > :17:46.If you look at the polls, not only did that have huge support, but many
:17:47. > :17:51.people would go further. Not just Labour voters but Tory voters and
:17:52. > :18:00.UKIP voters want renationalisation of energy. And rail. So he is more
:18:01. > :18:07.moderate. He and the Labour Party have staked their chances on the
:18:08. > :18:12.failure of the Conservative Lib Dem coalition energy policies. As we
:18:13. > :18:15.hear from Mr Cameron almost every time he stands up at the dispatch
:18:16. > :18:22.box, there has been no real attainment for the Labour
:18:23. > :18:29.government's role in the economic crisis. Can I take you quickly up on
:18:30. > :18:32.that. The whole idea of overspending, Tories backed
:18:33. > :18:36.Labour's plans pound for pound. What Labour did failed to regulate the
:18:37. > :18:40.banks but the Tories are calling for less regulation of the banks so the
:18:41. > :18:45.whole argument is completely without foundation. Our elections are over a
:18:46. > :18:51.year away, you can tell that people are gearing up for them! It is the
:18:52. > :18:55.same thing, Miliband should be a concrete alternative. His economic
:18:56. > :19:16.conditions, most supporters are not commonest. `` communist. Barack
:19:17. > :19:20.Obama's foreign policy has suffered difficulties in the Middle East. How
:19:21. > :19:24.credible is the Obama engagement with the rest of the world? Do you
:19:25. > :19:30.think he has a career in foreign policy? We would all agree that
:19:31. > :19:39.President Obama is such an overwhelmingly appealing character.
:19:40. > :19:43.It seems to me that when confronted with the hard realities of the
:19:44. > :19:50.world, he has seemed more often than not to be the Harvard graduate
:19:51. > :19:57.student that he once was and that he has had some trouble grasping the
:19:58. > :20:04.hard realities of the world and the slowness with which he and his
:20:05. > :20:09.administration responded to the Russian seizure of the Crimea was
:20:10. > :20:18.read on and have that. It seems to me that Mr Putin read Mr Obama early
:20:19. > :20:22.on and calculated how far he could go. He seems now to have understood
:20:23. > :20:28.he has gone as far as he can for some time. And backtracking,
:20:29. > :20:35.perhaps? My mind goes back to Ronald Reagan, represented as the cowboy,
:20:36. > :20:39.with not any sophistication such as we see from President Obama. Yet
:20:40. > :20:45.President Reagan, by instinct, understood what turned out to be the
:20:46. > :20:52.most effective way to deal with the soviet union. I am not sure
:20:53. > :20:59.President Obama has grasped it. He has been having frank discussions
:21:00. > :21:04.with the Saudis. It points up the difficulties in the Middle East, the
:21:05. > :21:09.hand of friendship and so on. It has not delivered anything for the US,
:21:10. > :21:22.has it? Perhaps in Iran there is the possibility of an opening, but not
:21:23. > :21:33.eat it `` Egypt and Syria is a mess. If you are happy with the idea that
:21:34. > :21:40.he aimed at giving arrest to countries `` giving a rest too
:21:41. > :21:43.interventionist policy, yes. But he has been adopting a minimus foreign
:21:44. > :21:47.policy. It is nothing to do with isolationism but everything to do
:21:48. > :21:52.with pragmatic policy protecting American interests and lives. That
:21:53. > :21:57.is why he came up with this wishy`washy foreign policy trying to
:21:58. > :22:04.maintain America's status as a world superpower while he was actually
:22:05. > :22:08.retreating as much as possible. This has led to some pretty
:22:09. > :22:14.unsatisfactory and disastrous policies, not least in the Arab
:22:15. > :22:17.world. Look at the way he was completely outmanoeuvred by
:22:18. > :22:20.President Assad as regards chemical weapons in Syria. At one stage it
:22:21. > :22:25.looked like we would see American strikes on Assad and the next
:22:26. > :22:30.moment, Assad was able to carry on with his killing. The nearest
:22:31. > :22:33.America got to intervention was in the now very controversial
:22:34. > :22:37.intervention in Libya, when the French and British did most of the
:22:38. > :22:44.bombing. As far as the rest of the Arab world was concerned it is the
:22:45. > :22:54.status quo. In Egypt, there was no firm confirmation. Let us not forget
:22:55. > :22:58.Palestine. The peace process is nowhere near resolution. Have seen a
:22:59. > :23:01.lot of John Kerry in the region but Palestinian territories are still
:23:02. > :23:06.under Israeli occupation and the Gaza Strip is still an open`air
:23:07. > :23:14.prison. More crucially, the unbridled expansionist policies of
:23:15. > :23:20.Israel as regards illegal settlements, that is the major
:23:21. > :23:31.stumbling block as in the peace process. You have said that Libya
:23:32. > :23:36.was not a success? It was an example of intervention collapsing into
:23:37. > :23:44.anarchy. But it is also the decline of US power. If we go back to the
:23:45. > :23:51.end of the Cold War, the US's global output has gone down a fifth from
:23:52. > :23:54.that. It has lost its backyard in Latin America with assertive
:23:55. > :23:57.governments demanding independence. The Iraq war helped shift the
:23:58. > :24:05.balance of power in the Middle East towards Iran. One thing could change
:24:06. > :24:09.this. If fracking works in the way that its advocates say it will do
:24:10. > :24:13.and provides America with the energy security it has not had for years
:24:14. > :24:18.and it becomes an energy exporter, it could be much more isolationist.
:24:19. > :24:26.Why would it need interest in the Middle East? There are questions
:24:27. > :24:32.over fracking. It certainly is the case, and people in the Middle East
:24:33. > :24:37.would like this, where instead you have US backed dictatorships like in
:24:38. > :24:43.Saudi Arabia and Yemen, you have drawn attacks in the Middle East, a
:24:44. > :24:54.lot of those people would quite like the US to disengage. A lot of this
:24:55. > :24:59.is about foreign policy. On the other hand, Americans want a strong
:25:00. > :25:12.president. If you consider Syria, his minimal foreign policy took a
:25:13. > :25:19.blow because of Al`Qaeda in Syria. XXX you made an important point ``
:25:20. > :25:27.you made an important point about the Bush era. President Obama
:25:28. > :25:33.deserves credit for extracting America from those wars. The world
:25:34. > :25:49.should be careful what you wish were. `` we have lived under a pax
:25:50. > :25:55.Americana since the Second World War and it is still the most powerful
:25:56. > :26:02.nation on earth. I think it will be a much more unruly world if they
:26:03. > :26:05.will retreat. That is it for this week. You can comment on the
:26:06. > :26:33.programme on Twitter. We are back next week at the same time. Goodbye.
:26:34. > :26:39.For most parts of the country it is set to be a lovely weekend with
:26:40. > :26:43.increasingly warm sunshine. It will be dry nearly everywhere as well and
:26:44. > :26:49.there will be a refreshing breeze. Not so rosy for all of us. There is
:26:50. > :26:51.always an exception. Although warm air is wafting up from the