:00:00. > :00:27.textbooks. Now Dateline London.
:00:28. > :00:31.Hello and welcome to Dateline London. Is Russia planning to
:00:32. > :00:33.dismantle Ukraine? Is it time to forgive the past in Northern
:00:34. > :00:43.Ireland? And drunkenness, sexual promiscuity and bad behaviour among
:00:44. > :00:46.politicians. So what's new? My guests today are Greg Katz of
:00:47. > :00:49.Associated Press, Nisreen Malik of Gulf News, Brian O'Connell, who is
:00:50. > :00:54.an Irish writer and broadcaster, and Ian Birrell of the Daily Mail.
:00:55. > :00:57.One of the characteristics of dictators and authoritarian leaders,
:00:58. > :01:01.from Hitler and Stalin to Milosevic and others, is that the more they
:01:02. > :01:03.eat the hungrier they get. Vladimir Putin's Russia, having swallowed
:01:04. > :01:06.parts of Georgia and now Crimea, continues to express a protective
:01:07. > :01:09.interest over Russians in the rest of Ukraine. Is Russia taking Western
:01:10. > :01:22.weakness for granted and with unrest in the east
:01:23. > :01:30.the invasion of Crimea was something which came together at the last
:01:31. > :01:34.minute and was very skillfully done. It is incredible that they have
:01:35. > :01:41.annexed as part of Europe and nobody has bothered to turn a hair stop my
:01:42. > :01:45.guess `` hair. My guess is that he is trying to keep Ukraine as weak as
:01:46. > :01:51.possible, and he is trying to keep up the agitation, and keep people
:01:52. > :01:58.worried about Moldova tom and at the same time try to undermine the
:01:59. > :02:08.country with the elections coming up in May. His case will be helped. The
:02:09. > :02:14.opinion polls are doing terribly. He has been making all this play that
:02:15. > :02:23.it has been a Nazi coup, which is undermining. It is about going as
:02:24. > :02:27.federalized as possible. The acting Prime Minister in Ukraine said they
:02:28. > :02:33.would go for a more federal structure. I am not sure that is the
:02:34. > :02:36.right stance. He is Gobbi foot on the pedal and he can't keep pumping
:02:37. > :02:43.at what ever he wants to weaken the state. You touched on Western
:02:44. > :02:52.weakness. What can the West actually do? This is Russia's Ike Yard. ``
:02:53. > :02:56.backyard. There is the implicit threats to the rest of Europe. It
:02:57. > :03:03.changes the game quite a bit. Yes. The EU has to come together and
:03:04. > :03:09.impose a far stricter sanctions. They have to do more than they have
:03:10. > :03:15.done in the past. There is this view that the EU sat on its hands and
:03:16. > :03:19.allowed Crimea to happen. What could they have done? It is difficult to
:03:20. > :03:23.say now in hindsight that they should have done more. Putin was
:03:24. > :03:28.going to annexed Crimea and that was it. But I think one of the most
:03:29. > :03:33.important things that the EU can do is try to influence Kiev not to do
:03:34. > :03:39.anything that will give Vladimir Putin any excuse to go further to
:03:40. > :03:42.take any military action. We have seen the aerial photos from the
:03:43. > :03:53.aircraft, the tanks and everything else. NATO has made that public. It
:03:54. > :03:59.has been made clear, the potential threat. Everybody talks about the EU
:04:00. > :04:05.and this country coming up to the elections, what has the EU ever done
:04:06. > :04:10.for us? They have kept the peace in Western Europe for 50 years, through
:04:11. > :04:14.half a century, two generations, and when they talk about Ukraine,
:04:15. > :04:18.everybody talks about the re`emergence of the Cold War.
:04:19. > :04:23.Anybody assumes it will be a Cold War, not a hot war. But the
:04:24. > :04:28.potential for conflict is very real, and I think there is a generation of
:04:29. > :04:33.people who have grown up with the EU who believe that conflict cannot
:04:34. > :04:40.happen because of the EU. That is not the case at all. Do you see the
:04:41. > :04:46.energy weapon is changing the politics? Germany, for example, very
:04:47. > :04:49.quickly decided no nuclear power after Fukushima. The dependence of
:04:50. > :04:56.the big question `` countries in Western Europe is quite immense. He
:04:57. > :05:03.absolutely knows that and threaten to turn off the gas and it was
:05:04. > :05:07.slightly comical, I am going to turn off the lights if you do not behave,
:05:08. > :05:14.which indicates that Putin is someone we should take seriously. He
:05:15. > :05:22.has over the past couple of months become a comedy figure as far as the
:05:23. > :05:29.mainstream perceptions. The bare chested wrestler. Sitting on top of
:05:30. > :05:35.dinosaurs and things. Since the Crimea rices started, people have
:05:36. > :05:39.come to realise that you have to take him seriously even though he is
:05:40. > :05:45.slightly ridiculous and threatens to switch off the lights. Hitler was
:05:46. > :05:48.also seen as a comical figure. Absolutely. The other thing I've
:05:49. > :06:00.find interesting is that there is an increasing, not only signs of 80 ``
:06:01. > :06:09.an increasing feeling of tolerance, people have become so he sensitized
:06:10. > :06:14.to invasions by NATO, by America, in parts of the Arab world, that there
:06:15. > :06:19.is an increased tolerance and an affection towards Putin because he
:06:20. > :06:28.is sticking it towards the Western powers. He does what he says. Yes he
:06:29. > :06:33.does. People have been questioning what NATO dies. They do some stuff
:06:34. > :06:42.in Afghanistan but do we need a Western alliance? What `` what NATO
:06:43. > :06:47.dies. I think it has emphasised the need for NATO, made it crystal
:06:48. > :06:52.clear. NATO did not have a clearly defined role in Afghanistan. NATO
:06:53. > :06:55.had one purpose in its inception and that was to keep Soviet tanks from
:06:56. > :07:02.rolling west, and that mission looks more important than it did five or
:07:03. > :07:06.ten years ago. I've started covering Putin in the late 90s when he was
:07:07. > :07:13.promoted from nowhere, and I saw him as some sort of clumsy, heavy handed
:07:14. > :07:19.figure, and his invasion of Crimea, to my mind, has been very strategic,
:07:20. > :07:24.very well thought out, and now he can sit on the sidelines, applying
:07:25. > :07:30.pressure from outside, to a degree, he is in the driver seat. IC
:07:31. > :07:36.continued agitation, with him calling the shots, and the West 1000
:07:37. > :07:43.miles away. Do we underestimate Russia's weakness? The old joke
:07:44. > :07:49.about rockets. They still have an economy based on natural resources.
:07:50. > :07:53.There is a discontent, which perhaps this nationalist fervor within
:07:54. > :07:58.Russia is changing, but a lot of young Russians want a different kind
:07:59. > :08:03.of life. Also, the economy is fairly fragile. There are lots of things
:08:04. > :08:07.that could influence Putin by pointing out that if you want a
:08:08. > :08:11.peaceful economic relationship with the rest of Europe you need
:08:12. > :08:15.customers. In the long term, there is no doubt that his stance is
:08:16. > :08:22.rather weak and will not survive, but in the short term, it would be
:08:23. > :08:26.foolish to say he is weak. He has support and he would go the extra
:08:27. > :08:30.mile to achieve his ends. We do not hear a lot about Ukraine and what
:08:31. > :08:34.Ukraine wants. It is always seen as a pawn between the West and Russia
:08:35. > :08:38.in between these two empires fighting comment I think we need to
:08:39. > :08:42.listen to what Ukraine themselves want, and most Ukrainians want to be
:08:43. > :08:47.a modern European`style country, and we should not forget that, that this
:08:48. > :08:50.is a people who want to be part of the modern world, just like the
:08:51. > :08:55.protesters in Moscow before they were very swiftly dealt with by
:08:56. > :09:01.Putin. This is an important part of the equation that does not get
:09:02. > :09:09.listen to enough. Let's move on. The historic state visit to Ireland has
:09:10. > :09:12.now had a return match. These two events have helped repair 100 years,
:09:13. > :09:15.some would say hundreds of years, of animosity, violence and distrust and
:09:16. > :09:18.yet there have also been some very close bonds of affection between
:09:19. > :09:21.Britain and Ireland. Is it time to stop dragging up the terrorist past
:09:22. > :09:23.of some of today's Northern Ireland politicians and time to stop
:09:24. > :09:29.investigating atrocities going back decades to concentrate on the
:09:30. > :09:32.future? What is your sense of this? If you were a victim of the Troubles
:09:33. > :09:37.are related to a victim of the Troubles, you want justice, and it
:09:38. > :09:41.does not matter if it was 40 years ago or not. It is a difficult one to
:09:42. > :09:48.call, and there were very good reasons on both sides. But for the
:09:49. > :09:53.visit did, what the Irish President's visit did, and the
:09:54. > :09:58.Queen's visits to Ireland in 2011, has been to normalize relations.
:09:59. > :10:02.Normally these visits are used to use trade. There is that part of it,
:10:03. > :10:08.but it is normalizing durations after the conflict in Northern
:10:09. > :10:14.Ireland that has bedeviled us for generations. It is trying to look at
:10:15. > :10:17.the relationship between Britain and Ireland, not just through the prism
:10:18. > :10:23.of Northern Ireland, but also bearing in mind there is about ?1
:10:24. > :10:29.billion worth of trade that goes both ways every week between Britain
:10:30. > :10:33.and Ireland. That is massive. But one of the issues which remains
:10:34. > :10:39.unresolved is how to deal with the past. The former Northern Ireland
:10:40. > :10:46.Secretary says we should have some sort of amnesty and say people who
:10:47. > :10:51.have committed offences before the Good Friday Agreement in 1998 should
:10:52. > :10:59.be arrested, let's go, what ever, put through the process, but not
:11:00. > :11:03.imprisoned. A lot of these crimes are difficult to investigate and
:11:04. > :11:07.they are getting nowhere. He is not taking the terrorist's side, but he
:11:08. > :11:11.is a saying, we are not getting anywhere with a lots of this. The
:11:12. > :11:16.Northern Ireland police force have got a historical inquiries team that
:11:17. > :11:23.have a very long list that they are working their way through all stop
:11:24. > :11:28.the attention this week has been `` their way through. People who have
:11:29. > :11:31.proposed this sort of solution, a general amnesty, would be the first
:11:32. > :11:36.to admit that it is very difficult to turn round to somebody whose
:11:37. > :11:41.family member has been left in a wheelchair or killed or what ever it
:11:42. > :11:50.is, and there are genuinely good reasons on both sides. We heard the
:11:51. > :11:56.remarks about Martin McGuinness. Formerly an IRA commander. Norman
:11:57. > :12:03.Tebbit was previously attacked in a bombing. His wife was left paranoid
:12:04. > :12:10.`` paralysed and he severed the enormously, and nobody would deny
:12:11. > :12:14.that. But it is important, if we are to continue with this, and it is a
:12:15. > :12:19.peace process, it is continuing, this is not the end of it. It still
:12:20. > :12:24.needs work. It is important that Martin McGuinness does come and sit
:12:25. > :12:28.down at the state banquet at Windsor Castle. How do you do that? There
:12:29. > :12:31.are a number of other conflicts around the world where people just
:12:32. > :12:35.do not want to forget that perhaps the best thing for the future is to
:12:36. > :12:41.try to put some of these things to one side. The contextualization of
:12:42. > :12:45.it as a peace process is a good point. In that sense, it is a huge
:12:46. > :12:50.success, what has happened between England and Northern Ireland, and
:12:51. > :12:54.that you have had terrorists come into government, something that
:12:55. > :13:05.would be inconceivable in many parts of the world. I was reminded of the
:13:06. > :13:09.Lebanese civil war, and how it was a long conflict that was never going
:13:10. > :13:14.to go away, multiple factions, far more complicated than the IRA
:13:15. > :13:18.story, and overnight, it was over, and Lebanon became a resurgent Arab
:13:19. > :13:23.country, and I remember the first interview with the president's wife,
:13:24. > :13:27.and they asked her if it was over, and she said we should never say
:13:28. > :13:31.that it is over, because if you squeeze me very tight, it is all
:13:32. > :13:37.still inside me, so don't squeeze as too tight, and that is the risk,
:13:38. > :13:43.squeezing people to type. And the Syrian conflict has brought back to
:13:44. > :13:48.the surface. If you squeeze people to types, they will think it is
:13:49. > :13:59.over, let's ride roughshod on people's sensibilities, and the
:14:00. > :14:03.spectre will come out. Belfast is a thriving, normal, Western European
:14:04. > :14:08.city, which it was not 20 years ago. There has been tremendous economic
:14:09. > :14:15.advancement and integration, but you also sense, I am tempted to say that
:14:16. > :14:19.for 90 6% of the `` 96% of the population, the Troubles are over
:14:20. > :14:24.the top as an American, this has been going on for a long time, and
:14:25. > :14:28.die the last people to say they should draw a line over it. It is
:14:29. > :14:31.far too personal and I was not there for the worst times of it, but in
:14:32. > :14:45.practical terms, if they could draw the line and have an amnesty that
:14:46. > :14:49.was effective, it would be helpful. Even though there are some new
:14:50. > :14:52.generations that have not experienced it, they invite it in
:14:53. > :14:59.their culture and history and in the general orientation. And that is why
:15:00. > :15:04.a think the Queen's trip two years ago was very important. Different
:15:05. > :15:07.relatives of the grieved have different views about this. Some
:15:08. > :15:12.people would just like to get the truth. Others would like quite
:15:13. > :15:16.genuinely to see people go to jail or be punished for what they did.
:15:17. > :15:30.You might, with an amnesty, as one of the arguments, actually have a
:15:31. > :15:34.degree of closure that people want. Anger in the south towards the IRA
:15:35. > :15:37.blew up and exploded against McGuinness, possibly that was part
:15:38. > :15:40.of the Sinn Fein strategy to draw the poison out so that his
:15:41. > :15:45.successors could have an easier time of it but it was noticeable that
:15:46. > :15:50.there was real deep anger from huge cross`sections of people, I remember
:15:51. > :15:55.one person saying, you killed, I think 640 civilians, and only 28
:15:56. > :15:59.loyalist paramilitaries, you were slaughtering our own side. There was
:16:00. > :16:04.real profound deep anger against the IRA. The idea of having closure, of
:16:05. > :16:07.having an amnesty at this stage is too raw and it would be wrong at
:16:08. > :16:11.this stage. That's not to say we don't it continue to build the peace
:16:12. > :16:15.and the process. It's very striking the north has been so fantastically
:16:16. > :16:19.boring in the best sense of the word that the most interesting recently
:16:20. > :16:22.has been Derry holding the City of Culture which is fabulous news and
:16:23. > :16:26.that's really good. The process is successful and it's continuing but
:16:27. > :16:29.equally the idea we forget about the past and let people committing mass
:16:30. > :16:35.murder get away from it is completely wrong. You alluded to it,
:16:36. > :16:41.there is now a prosecution in place on the Omagh bombing, 29 people
:16:42. > :16:45.died. The people involved ` the bereaved there most certainly want
:16:46. > :16:47.justice. I don't think anybody is saying prosecutors should turn their
:16:48. > :16:53.backs on something like the Omagh bombing, I don't think you could do
:16:54. > :16:59.that. It's absolutely right. It's very interesting point about Sinn
:17:00. > :17:02.Fein. The way that they work is a very long`term strategy. I think
:17:03. > :17:09.they realised, for example, the whole issue which got a lot of kfrj
:17:10. > :17:13.of Martin `` coverage of Martin McGuinness coming, it's more than
:17:14. > :17:19.just the former commander of the IRA in Derry and this kind of thing,
:17:20. > :17:24.it's the fact that Sinn Fein is a successful party south of the
:17:25. > :17:29.border, they're going up in the opinion polls, they know that they
:17:30. > :17:33.have to do this, it's the Irish head of state, if they want votes in the
:17:34. > :17:38.next election. It's as simple as that. They missed a trick by
:17:39. > :17:43.boycotting the Queen's banquet in Dublin Castle in 2011. A mistake
:17:44. > :17:45.they're not going to make again. A rare mistake.
:17:46. > :17:48.Let's move on. The acquittal of a senior British
:17:49. > :17:51.politician this week on charges of homosexual rape raised all kinds of
:17:52. > :17:54.questions, including some about the wisdom of prosecuting certain sex
:17:55. > :17:56.crime cases going back years. But the court case, and some
:17:57. > :17:58.investigative journalism, exposed a culture of drunkenness, misbehaviour
:17:59. > :18:03.and sexual promiscuity in the supposed Mother of Parliaments.
:18:04. > :18:08.Should we be surprised when people in or near power behave badly? Is it
:18:09. > :18:16.perhaps that only slightly weird people seek political power in the
:18:17. > :18:18.first place? What did you make of the revelations, not the
:18:19. > :18:23.specifically this case, but the stories that came out subsequently?
:18:24. > :18:27.I think as an outsider and as somebody who views or comes from a
:18:28. > :18:32.culture that views English people as reserved and grey and dull, I think
:18:33. > :18:36.it's baffling. I was talk talking to other people in the green room today
:18:37. > :18:41.about how at least in America it's all very glamorous and sexy and you
:18:42. > :18:48.have Bill Clinton and Jennifer Flowers and interns and everybody
:18:49. > :18:54.has wonderful teeth and great hair. But when you view the British
:18:55. > :19:00.parliament body and all the affairs, going back to John Major. And nobody
:19:01. > :19:06.knew about that. Nobody suspected it. I find it really interesting
:19:07. > :19:10.that the stereotypes that some people have of English people,
:19:11. > :19:15.particularly English parliamentarians, or British
:19:16. > :19:21.parliamentarians, as being grey and reserved is exposed and is kind of
:19:22. > :19:33.turned on its head when you see all these tales of drunkenness and home
:19:34. > :19:37.sex annuality. `` homosex uality. To go back to the question I raised
:19:38. > :19:42.before, is it that people because of the stresses of this job start
:19:43. > :19:45.behaving a bit weirdly or is it actually only slightly odd people
:19:46. > :19:49.that want to run for political office in the first place in the
:19:50. > :19:54.United States or anywhere else? I don't think they're odd people, I
:19:55. > :19:58.think they're power`hungry people. I think for hundreds of years parts of
:19:59. > :20:02.power has been interpreted in a sexual way. You get a certain amount
:20:03. > :20:05.of power and perks and certain amount of expense accounts and staff
:20:06. > :20:11.and interns and you start abusing it. I think that's been the case in
:20:12. > :20:18.the US, in France, and here quite a bit. In parliament we don't see the
:20:19. > :20:23.bars, and I don't have a lobby pass, I don't have access to the drinking
:20:24. > :20:28.establishments there, but there are many. Apparently it's not quite the
:20:29. > :20:33.scene that it used to be, but it's a heavy drinking culture and some of
:20:34. > :20:39.the allegations raised after seven or eight pints or scotches people
:20:40. > :20:43.take liberties that they wouldn't have taken earlier in the afternoon.
:20:44. > :20:46.What do you make of it as someone who views it sometimes from the
:20:47. > :20:49.inside as well? It's clearly been an interesting revelation that we have
:20:50. > :20:54.seen. I think the truth is, obviously our own profession is not
:20:55. > :20:58.immune to issues of abuse of power and everything and the real issue is
:20:59. > :21:02.there is a societal issue which is powerful people do sometimes abuse
:21:03. > :21:07.their position and you see this in the City of London, you see this in
:21:08. > :21:11.politics, in show business and it's a societal issue to work out how to
:21:12. > :21:16.go forward to deal with these sorts of issues and find a way that there
:21:17. > :21:20.isn't this sort of abuse of power and that it's dealt with when young
:21:21. > :21:27.people are abused in this way. This was behaviour that was Broadley
:21:28. > :21:36.accepted until, say, the 70s or 80s, cull ` I mentioned Yeltsin before, I
:21:37. > :21:40.remember watching him squeeze the bottom of a Secretary as she walked
:21:41. > :21:44.by, it was on camera, a sort of thing a Russian leader could still
:21:45. > :21:53.do in 96 but an American leader could no longer. . When was Bill
:21:54. > :21:57.Clinton around, he was not immune to these allegations? If, for example,
:21:58. > :22:01.in a large company like the BBC, if there is an allegation of sexual
:22:02. > :22:05.harassment or something there is an HR person you can go to and there
:22:06. > :22:14.are mechanisms to deal with that. There are meant to be. There are
:22:15. > :22:23.supposed to be. In Westminster if somebody is hired by an MP the MP is
:22:24. > :22:27.his boss or her boss. There are 650`odd bosses running `
:22:28. > :22:29.self`employed, virtually, running small businesses with interns and
:22:30. > :22:33.Secretaries and all this kind of thing. There isn't the same
:22:34. > :22:36.infrastructure there. That's the first thing. There needs to be some
:22:37. > :22:40.sort of structure and I know that there has been a lot of calls this
:22:41. > :22:48.week for something like that to be put in place. The other thing is
:22:49. > :22:51.that the drinking culture ` or the drinking culture has gone down a
:22:52. > :22:57.lot. I have been covering Westminster for about 25 years now
:22:58. > :23:07.and it's nothing like what it used to be in the early 90s. Do you
:23:08. > :23:11.think, there is a tolerance of drunkenness in British society which
:23:12. > :23:14.some foreigners, I mean, including French people, for example, find
:23:15. > :23:18.shocking. Absolutely. One of my friends was telling me yesterday, a
:23:19. > :23:23.French lady and she was saying she finds there is a link between how
:23:24. > :23:29.people behave in Westminster to how people sort of, posh middle`class
:23:30. > :23:34.white men behaved in Oxbridge. She was saying that the sort of very
:23:35. > :23:39.similar drunken power games and trying to prove yourself has one of
:23:40. > :23:43.the guys and one of the pack has a ling to how people continue `` link
:23:44. > :23:48.to how people continue behaving once they enter a law firm, an investment
:23:49. > :23:54.bank or Westminster. There is I think a pack male class mentality
:23:55. > :23:58.from the elite that then is reproduced in elite institutions, in
:23:59. > :24:03.finance and law. One of the exclusive dining clubs at Oxford to
:24:04. > :24:07.which the Mayor of London, the Prime Minister and other top leaders
:24:08. > :24:13.belong, the Bullingdon Club was notorious for drinking and
:24:14. > :24:19.behaving... Exactly, and I think that this is the aspect, it is
:24:20. > :24:25.special to British politics and not something you can general
:24:26. > :24:30.generalise. Do you see there is a tolerance that there isn't so much
:24:31. > :24:36.in the United States? I was struck in the White House press corp,
:24:37. > :24:42.people talked about jogging and how much they ran. And they work 14
:24:43. > :24:52.hours a day. I think it happens more here than there. In the glory days
:24:53. > :24:58.of Washington drink drinking you had a stripper and too much alcohol,
:24:59. > :25:04.those were sort of the glory days and those are long gone. That era
:25:05. > :25:17.came to an end with Gary Hart and the extra marital affair. And Donna
:25:18. > :25:20.Rice. That pretty much was ` ended this whole atmosphere in Washington.
:25:21. > :25:25.We will leave it there. That's it for this week. We are back next week
:25:26. > :25:27.at the same time. You can comment on the programme on Twitter. Thanks for
:25:28. > :25:57.watching. Goodbye. Hello. A good part of this weekend
:25:58. > :26:03.will be dry for you with a little bit of sunshine at sometimes. The
:26:04. > :26:05.best of the dry, sunny weather further south. North we will see
:26:06. > :26:10.rain now and again. Here is where the strongest of the winds will be.
:26:11. > :26:11.That wind will be touching gale force at times. It's cleared some