12/04/2014 Dateline London

textbooks. Now Dateline London.

Hello and welcome to Dateline London. Is Russia planning to

dismantle Ukraine? Is it time to forgive the past in Northern

Ireland? And drunkenness, sexual promiscuity and bad behaviour among

politicians. So what's new? My guests today are Greg Katz of

Associated Press, Nisreen Malik of Gulf News, Brian O'Connell, who is

an Irish writer and broadcaster, and Ian Birrell of the Daily Mail.

One of the characteristics of dictators and authoritarian leaders,

from Hitler and Stalin to Milosevic and others, is that the more they

eat the hungrier they get. Vladimir Putin's Russia, having swallowed

parts of Georgia and now Crimea, continues to express a protective

interest over Russians in the rest of Ukraine. Is Russia taking Western

weakness for granted and with unrest in the east

the invasion of Crimea was something which came together at the last

minute and was very skillfully done. It is incredible that they have

annexed as part of Europe and nobody has bothered to turn a hair stop my

guess `` hair. My guess is that he is trying to keep Ukraine as weak as

possible, and he is trying to keep up the agitation, and keep people

worried about Moldova tom and at the same time try to undermine the

country with the elections coming up in May. His case will be helped. The

opinion polls are doing terribly. He has been making all this play that

it has been a Nazi coup, which is undermining. It is about going as

federalized as possible. The acting Prime Minister in Ukraine said they

would go for a more federal structure. I am not sure that is the

right stance. He is Gobbi foot on the pedal and he can't keep pumping

at what ever he wants to weaken the state. You touched on Western

weakness. What can the West actually do? This is Russia's Ike Yard. ``

backyard. There is the implicit threats to the rest of Europe. It

changes the game quite a bit. Yes. The EU has to come together and

impose a far stricter sanctions. They have to do more than they have

done in the past. There is this view that the EU sat on its hands and

allowed Crimea to happen. What could they have done? It is difficult to

say now in hindsight that they should have done more. Putin was

going to annexed Crimea and that was it. But I think one of the most

important things that the EU can do is try to influence Kiev not to do

anything that will give Vladimir Putin any excuse to go further to

take any military action. We have seen the aerial photos from the

aircraft, the tanks and everything else. NATO has made that public. It

has been made clear, the potential threat. Everybody talks about the EU

and this country coming up to the elections, what has the EU ever done

for us? They have kept the peace in Western Europe for 50 years, through

half a century, two generations, and when they talk about Ukraine,

everybody talks about the re`emergence of the Cold War.

Anybody assumes it will be a Cold War, not a hot war. But the

potential for conflict is very real, and I think there is a generation of

people who have grown up with the EU who believe that conflict cannot

happen because of the EU. That is not the case at all. Do you see the

energy weapon is changing the politics? Germany, for example, very

quickly decided no nuclear power after Fukushima. The dependence of

the big question `` countries in Western Europe is quite immense. He

absolutely knows that and threaten to turn off the gas and it was

slightly comical, I am going to turn off the lights if you do not behave,

which indicates that Putin is someone we should take seriously. He

has over the past couple of months become a comedy figure as far as the

mainstream perceptions. The bare chested wrestler. Sitting on top of

dinosaurs and things. Since the Crimea rices started, people have

come to realise that you have to take him seriously even though he is

slightly ridiculous and threatens to switch off the lights. Hitler was

also seen as a comical figure. Absolutely. The other thing I've

find interesting is that there is an increasing, not only signs of 80 ``

an increasing feeling of tolerance, people have become so he sensitized

to invasions by NATO, by America, in parts of the Arab world, that there

is an increased tolerance and an affection towards Putin because he

is sticking it towards the Western powers. He does what he says. Yes he

does. People have been questioning what NATO dies. They do some stuff

in Afghanistan but do we need a Western alliance? What `` what NATO

dies. I think it has emphasised the need for NATO, made it crystal

clear. NATO did not have a clearly defined role in Afghanistan. NATO

had one purpose in its inception and that was to keep Soviet tanks from

rolling west, and that mission looks more important than it did five or

ten years ago. I've started covering Putin in the late 90s when he was

promoted from nowhere, and I saw him as some sort of clumsy, heavy handed

figure, and his invasion of Crimea, to my mind, has been very strategic,

very well thought out, and now he can sit on the sidelines, applying

pressure from outside, to a degree, he is in the driver seat. IC

continued agitation, with him calling the shots, and the West 1000

miles away. Do we underestimate Russia's weakness? The old joke

about rockets. They still have an economy based on natural resources.

There is a discontent, which perhaps this nationalist fervor within

Russia is changing, but a lot of young Russians want a different kind

of life. Also, the economy is fairly fragile. There are lots of things

that could influence Putin by pointing out that if you want a

peaceful economic relationship with the rest of Europe you need

customers. In the long term, there is no doubt that his stance is

rather weak and will not survive, but in the short term, it would be

foolish to say he is weak. He has support and he would go the extra

mile to achieve his ends. We do not hear a lot about Ukraine and what

Ukraine wants. It is always seen as a pawn between the West and Russia

in between these two empires fighting comment I think we need to

listen to what Ukraine themselves want, and most Ukrainians want to be

a modern European`style country, and we should not forget that, that this

is a people who want to be part of the modern world, just like the

protesters in Moscow before they were very swiftly dealt with by

Putin. This is an important part of the equation that does not get

listen to enough. Let's move on. The historic state visit to Ireland has

now had a return match. These two events have helped repair 100 years,

some would say hundreds of years, of animosity, violence and distrust and

yet there have also been some very close bonds of affection between

Britain and Ireland. Is it time to stop dragging up the terrorist past

of some of today's Northern Ireland politicians and time to stop

investigating atrocities going back decades to concentrate on the

future? What is your sense of this? If you were a victim of the Troubles

are related to a victim of the Troubles, you want justice, and it

does not matter if it was 40 years ago or not. It is a difficult one to

call, and there were very good reasons on both sides. But for the

visit did, what the Irish President's visit did, and the

Queen's visits to Ireland in 2011, has been to normalize relations.

Normally these visits are used to use trade. There is that part of it,

but it is normalizing durations after the conflict in Northern

Ireland that has bedeviled us for generations. It is trying to look at

the relationship between Britain and Ireland, not just through the prism

of Northern Ireland, but also bearing in mind there is about ?1

billion worth of trade that goes both ways every week between Britain

and Ireland. That is massive. But one of the issues which remains

unresolved is how to deal with the past. The former Northern Ireland

Secretary says we should have some sort of amnesty and say people who

have committed offences before the Good Friday Agreement in 1998 should

be arrested, let's go, what ever, put through the process, but not

imprisoned. A lot of these crimes are difficult to investigate and

they are getting nowhere. He is not taking the terrorist's side, but he

is a saying, we are not getting anywhere with a lots of this. The

Northern Ireland police force have got a historical inquiries team that

have a very long list that they are working their way through all stop

the attention this week has been `` their way through. People who have

proposed this sort of solution, a general amnesty, would be the first

to admit that it is very difficult to turn round to somebody whose

family member has been left in a wheelchair or killed or what ever it

is, and there are genuinely good reasons on both sides. We heard the

remarks about Martin McGuinness. Formerly an IRA commander. Norman

Tebbit was previously attacked in a bombing. His wife was left paranoid

`` paralysed and he severed the enormously, and nobody would deny

that. But it is important, if we are to continue with this, and it is a

peace process, it is continuing, this is not the end of it. It still

needs work. It is important that Martin McGuinness does come and sit

down at the state banquet at Windsor Castle. How do you do that? There

are a number of other conflicts around the world where people just

do not want to forget that perhaps the best thing for the future is to

try to put some of these things to one side. The contextualization of

it as a peace process is a good point. In that sense, it is a huge

success, what has happened between England and Northern Ireland, and

that you have had terrorists come into government, something that

would be inconceivable in many parts of the world. I was reminded of the

Lebanese civil war, and how it was a long conflict that was never going

to go away, multiple factions, far more complicated than the IRA

story, and overnight, it was over, and Lebanon became a resurgent Arab

country, and I remember the first interview with the president's wife,

and they asked her if it was over, and she said we should never say

that it is over, because if you squeeze me very tight, it is all

still inside me, so don't squeeze as too tight, and that is the risk,

squeezing people to type. And the Syrian conflict has brought back to

the surface. If you squeeze people to types, they will think it is

over, let's ride roughshod on people's sensibilities, and the

spectre will come out. Belfast is a thriving, normal, Western European

city, which it was not 20 years ago. There has been tremendous economic

advancement and integration, but you also sense, I am tempted to say that

for 90 6% of the `` 96% of the population, the Troubles are over

the top as an American, this has been going on for a long time, and

die the last people to say they should draw a line over it. It is

far too personal and I was not there for the worst times of it, but in

practical terms, if they could draw the line and have an amnesty that

was effective, it would be helpful. Even though there are some new

generations that have not experienced it, they invite it in

their culture and history and in the general orientation. And that is why

a think the Queen's trip two years ago was very important. Different

relatives of the grieved have different views about this. Some

people would just like to get the truth. Others would like quite

genuinely to see people go to jail or be punished for what they did.

You might, with an amnesty, as one of the arguments, actually have a

degree of closure that people want. Anger in the south towards the IRA

blew up and exploded against McGuinness, possibly that was part

of the Sinn Fein strategy to draw the poison out so that his

successors could have an easier time of it but it was noticeable that

there was real deep anger from huge cross`sections of people, I remember

one person saying, you killed, I think 640 civilians, and only 28

loyalist paramilitaries, you were slaughtering our own side. There was

real profound deep anger against the IRA. The idea of having closure, of

having an amnesty at this stage is too raw and it would be wrong at

this stage. That's not to say we don't it continue to build the peace

and the process. It's very striking the north has been so fantastically

boring in the best sense of the word that the most interesting recently

has been Derry holding the City of Culture which is fabulous news and

that's really good. The process is successful and it's continuing but

equally the idea we forget about the past and let people committing mass

murder get away from it is completely wrong. You alluded to it,

there is now a prosecution in place on the Omagh bombing, 29 people

died. The people involved ` the bereaved there most certainly want

justice. I don't think anybody is saying prosecutors should turn their

backs on something like the Omagh bombing, I don't think you could do

that. It's absolutely right. It's very interesting point about Sinn

Fein. The way that they work is a very long`term strategy. I think

they realised, for example, the whole issue which got a lot of kfrj

of Martin `` coverage of Martin McGuinness coming, it's more than

just the former commander of the IRA in Derry and this kind of thing,

it's the fact that Sinn Fein is a successful party south of the

border, they're going up in the opinion polls, they know that they

have to do this, it's the Irish head of state, if they want votes in the

next election. It's as simple as that. They missed a trick by

boycotting the Queen's banquet in Dublin Castle in 2011. A mistake

they're not going to make again. A rare mistake.

Let's move on. The acquittal of a senior British

politician this week on charges of homosexual rape raised all kinds of

questions, including some about the wisdom of prosecuting certain sex

crime cases going back years. But the court case, and some

investigative journalism, exposed a culture of drunkenness, misbehaviour

and sexual promiscuity in the supposed Mother of Parliaments.

Should we be surprised when people in or near power behave badly? Is it

perhaps that only slightly weird people seek political power in the

first place? What did you make of the revelations, not the

specifically this case, but the stories that came out subsequently?

I think as an outsider and as somebody who views or comes from a

culture that views English people as reserved and grey and dull, I think

it's baffling. I was talk talking to other people in the green room today

about how at least in America it's all very glamorous and sexy and you

have Bill Clinton and Jennifer Flowers and interns and everybody

has wonderful teeth and great hair. But when you view the British

parliament body and all the affairs, going back to John Major. And nobody

knew about that. Nobody suspected it. I find it really interesting

that the stereotypes that some people have of English people,

particularly English parliamentarians, or British

parliamentarians, as being grey and reserved is exposed and is kind of

turned on its head when you see all these tales of drunkenness and home

sex annuality. `` homosex uality. To go back to the question I raised

before, is it that people because of the stresses of this job start

behaving a bit weirdly or is it actually only slightly odd people

that want to run for political office in the first place in the

United States or anywhere else? I don't think they're odd people, I

think they're power`hungry people. I think for hundreds of years parts of

power has been interpreted in a sexual way. You get a certain amount

of power and perks and certain amount of expense accounts and staff

and interns and you start abusing it. I think that's been the case in

the US, in France, and here quite a bit. In parliament we don't see the

bars, and I don't have a lobby pass, I don't have access to the drinking

establishments there, but there are many. Apparently it's not quite the

scene that it used to be, but it's a heavy drinking culture and some of

the allegations raised after seven or eight pints or scotches people

take liberties that they wouldn't have taken earlier in the afternoon.

What do you make of it as someone who views it sometimes from the

inside as well? It's clearly been an interesting revelation that we have

seen. I think the truth is, obviously our own profession is not

immune to issues of abuse of power and everything and the real issue is

there is a societal issue which is powerful people do sometimes abuse

their position and you see this in the City of London, you see this in

politics, in show business and it's a societal issue to work out how to

go forward to deal with these sorts of issues and find a way that there

isn't this sort of abuse of power and that it's dealt with when young

people are abused in this way. This was behaviour that was Broadley

accepted until, say, the 70s or 80s, cull ` I mentioned Yeltsin before, I

remember watching him squeeze the bottom of a Secretary as she walked

by, it was on camera, a sort of thing a Russian leader could still

do in 96 but an American leader could no longer. . When was Bill

Clinton around, he was not immune to these allegations? If, for example,

in a large company like the BBC, if there is an allegation of sexual

harassment or something there is an HR person you can go to and there

are mechanisms to deal with that. There are meant to be. There are

supposed to be. In Westminster if somebody is hired by an MP the MP is

his boss or her boss. There are 650`odd bosses running `

self`employed, virtually, running small businesses with interns and

Secretaries and all this kind of thing. There isn't the same

infrastructure there. That's the first thing. There needs to be some

sort of structure and I know that there has been a lot of calls this

week for something like that to be put in place. The other thing is

that the drinking culture ` or the drinking culture has gone down a

lot. I have been covering Westminster for about 25 years now

and it's nothing like what it used to be in the early 90s. Do you

think, there is a tolerance of drunkenness in British society which

some foreigners, I mean, including French people, for example, find

shocking. Absolutely. One of my friends was telling me yesterday, a

French lady and she was saying she finds there is a link between how

people behave in Westminster to how people sort of, posh middle`class

white men behaved in Oxbridge. She was saying that the sort of very

similar drunken power games and trying to prove yourself has one of

the guys and one of the pack has a ling to how people continue `` link

to how people continue behaving once they enter a law firm, an investment

bank or Westminster. There is I think a pack male class mentality

from the elite that then is reproduced in elite institutions, in

finance and law. One of the exclusive dining clubs at Oxford to

which the Mayor of London, the Prime Minister and other top leaders

belong, the Bullingdon Club was notorious for drinking and

behaving... Exactly, and I think that this is the aspect, it is

special to British politics and not something you can general

generalise. Do you see there is a tolerance that there isn't so much

in the United States? I was struck in the White House press corp,

people talked about jogging and how much they ran. And they work 14

hours a day. I think it happens more here than there. In the glory days

of Washington drink drinking you had a stripper and too much alcohol,

those were sort of the glory days and those are long gone. That era

came to an end with Gary Hart and the extra marital affair. And Donna

Rice. That pretty much was ` ended this whole atmosphere in Washington.

We will leave it there. That's it for this week. We are back next week

at the same time. You can comment on the programme on Twitter. Thanks for

watching. Goodbye. Hello. A good part of this weekend

will be dry for you with a little bit of sunshine at sometimes. The

best of the dry, sunny weather further south. North we will see

rain now and again. Here is where the strongest of the winds will be.

That wind will be touching gale force at times. It's cleared some