Browse content similar to 05/06/2016. Check below for episodes and series from the same categories and more!
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Rights says the army is pressing in from the south-west, while Kurdish | :00:00. | :00:00. | |
forces are pressing in from the north. Now, it is time for | :00:00. | :00:00. | |
Dateline. Hello and welcome to | :00:00. | :00:26. | |
Dateline London. On today's programme, | :00:27. | :00:29. | |
three questions about Britain What would be the impact | :00:30. | :00:31. | |
on immigration? Why does Vladimir Putin want Britain | :00:32. | :00:34. | |
to leave? And if the Labour Party leader, | :00:35. | :00:36. | |
Jeremy Corbyn, wants us to stay, why are some Labour supporters | :00:37. | :00:39. | |
confused about what he thinks? Plus, the world mourns the death | :00:40. | :00:42. | |
of Muhammad Ali. My guests this week are Dmitri | :00:43. | :00:45. | |
Shiskin from BBC global news, Nesrine Malik, a Sudanese writer, | :00:46. | :00:50. | |
Polly Toynbee of the Guardian, Let's begin with the death | :00:51. | :00:55. | |
of Muhammad Ali. How he's seeing now is very | :00:56. | :01:01. | |
different from the way he was seen in America, say, | :01:02. | :01:03. | |
in the early 70s, when some people, The important thing to remember | :01:04. | :01:07. | |
about Ali, I'll always think The important thing to remember | :01:08. | :01:13. | |
about the champ is, he could very easily have gone | :01:14. | :01:17. | |
forward into the Army in 1966 He was required to do so by law, | :01:18. | :01:20. | |
the army would have been very happy to have him, he could have been | :01:21. | :01:30. | |
an exhibition fighter in the Army, he would never have been sent | :01:31. | :01:33. | |
overseas and put in harm's way. Instead, he refused to step forward, | :01:34. | :01:36. | |
refused to be inducted into the army, and he said something that | :01:37. | :01:41. | |
was very memorable, he said, I ain't To American ears at that time | :01:42. | :01:45. | |
at the height of the escalation, Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon's | :01:46. | :01:54. | |
era, this was seen as high treason. He was seen as a traitor, seen | :01:55. | :01:57. | |
as a threat to national security. Stripped of his licence to fight, | :01:58. | :02:00. | |
stripped of his livelihood. Completely in exile for three | :02:01. | :02:03. | |
and a half years. During those years, white America | :02:04. | :02:05. | |
very much despised him. There were places he could not go | :02:06. | :02:07. | |
safely, he would need bodyguards to keep him | :02:08. | :02:09. | |
from being lynched or assassinated. So he was seen, really, | :02:10. | :02:12. | |
as a major threat. When his conviction was eventually | :02:13. | :02:14. | |
overturned and he could fight again, there were still people in | :02:15. | :02:17. | |
the South who said, no, forget it, we don't care if he has a licence, | :02:18. | :02:20. | |
he'll never fight in our state, Really despise this man | :02:21. | :02:24. | |
and he was able to fight... He was able to work through that to | :02:25. | :02:29. | |
wear 20 years later or so, when they opened the Olympics in Atlanta, | :02:30. | :02:40. | |
he was the man who lit the flame. Extraordinary act of gravely, | :02:41. | :02:43. | |
actually, what he did, It was a very, very brave | :02:44. | :02:45. | |
and unpopular thing to do. Very brave, he made the politics | :02:46. | :02:50. | |
of race real to people. You know, he was charming, witty, | :02:51. | :02:53. | |
extraordinary, brilliant boxer. But he put himself on the line in | :02:54. | :02:55. | |
a way that was very confrontational to whites in America, | :02:56. | :02:58. | |
white across the western world. They suddenly realised, this is | :02:59. | :03:01. | |
real, this is how people feel. Many | :03:02. | :03:03. | |
of us who never had much interest in boxing to begin with, when he | :03:04. | :03:08. | |
was fighting, somehow he brought people in because as a character he | :03:09. | :03:11. | |
was so interesting, you wanted to The thing that stands out for me now | :03:12. | :03:14. | |
is, you begin to see Muhammad Ali's self aggrandising sort of back | :03:15. | :03:30. | |
patting encouragement to black men through his own self aggrandising | :03:31. | :03:32. | |
meant as something that has had a legacy all the way | :03:33. | :03:35. | |
down to popular entertainment, hip-hop, sport, there is a legacy, | :03:36. | :03:37. | |
a kind of culture, of black men in general trying to shore themselves | :03:38. | :03:41. | |
up, and their confidence up, Yes, it's problematic, | :03:42. | :03:43. | |
it can sometimes be misogynistic, it can sometimes be divisive, but it | :03:44. | :03:47. | |
does strike that there is something political about the sort of | :03:48. | :03:50. | |
obnoxiousness narcissism of it all. Maybe you should explain that a bit | :03:51. | :03:53. | |
more, what do you mean about that? So, for example, there is | :03:54. | :04:25. | |
a criticism and controversy around hip-hop artists, black hip-hop | :04:26. | :04:27. | |
artists, trying to make themselves look better and glorifying | :04:28. | :04:29. | |
themselves and their achievements and the money they have | :04:30. | :04:31. | |
and the women they have, and the fact they are popular | :04:32. | :04:34. | |
and can get what ever they want. But it is a political point as well, | :04:35. | :04:37. | |
it's not just kind of a masculine narcissism, | :04:38. | :04:40. | |
it's also a way to counteract all the subjugation and subordination | :04:41. | :04:43. | |
of the popular culture of tearing Part of that, though, the difference | :04:44. | :04:45. | |
is, presumably, one of the critiques of hip-hop and so one | :04:46. | :04:55. | |
is about bling, consumerism, money. This was somebody who took a stand, | :04:56. | :04:58. | |
he was regarded as a traitor, This was actually very different, | :04:59. | :05:01. | |
even if it put him There's a point Muhammad Ali | :05:02. | :05:05. | |
which is that he... You can only sleep in one bed | :05:06. | :05:10. | |
and you can only drive one car, So he was very anti-materialistic | :05:11. | :05:13. | |
when it comes to that sort of thing. But there is a line to be drawn, | :05:14. | :05:20. | |
a continuity, from him down to the sort of materialistic narcissism of | :05:21. | :05:24. | |
popular culture in black America. I guess this is why he was | :05:25. | :05:29. | |
so welcome in the Soviet Union Not only he was a symbol of black | :05:30. | :05:32. | |
men fighting for their rights across the world, but he also, what was | :05:33. | :05:37. | |
actually behind what happened is that he actually visited Uzbekistan, | :05:38. | :05:40. | |
the Muslim republic of the Soviet That particular side of his trip was | :05:41. | :05:43. | |
not particularly, I guess, It's interesting if you think | :05:44. | :05:49. | |
about what he did for boxing as well, there are many people who | :05:50. | :05:58. | |
could not name any leading boxers, Everybody can name Muhammad Ali, | :05:59. | :06:01. | |
simple as that. He was this great American | :06:02. | :06:12. | |
character, whether... We throw up these ornery, unique | :06:13. | :06:14. | |
geniuses every 30 or 40 years. He was entertainment personified, | :06:15. | :06:17. | |
in every sense, wasn't he? He was funny, he was outrageous, | :06:18. | :06:21. | |
he was clever, and it made boxing scene like | :06:22. | :06:23. | |
a cleverer sport because of him. When he said to the much loved BBC | :06:24. | :06:26. | |
boxing commentator, Harry Carpenter, you ain't as dumb as you look, | :06:27. | :06:29. | |
that was very funny. On that note, | :06:30. | :06:32. | |
let's move on to other matters, because if we exited European Union | :06:33. | :06:34. | |
and adopted an Australian points system for immigration, we could | :06:35. | :06:37. | |
exert more control on our borders, that's what the Leave campaign say | :06:38. | :06:40. | |
about getting out of the EU. But Australia has more immigrants | :06:41. | :06:43. | |
per head of population than the EU. And Brexit would crash the economy, | :06:44. | :06:46. | |
that's according to those who want So, what would happen to | :06:47. | :06:49. | |
immigration if we leave? If we control immigration, | :06:50. | :06:52. | |
is what Vote Leave say. We could, in theory, | :06:53. | :07:09. | |
control our borders. How much we would, | :07:10. | :07:11. | |
I think the Brexiters are being very They know perfectly well | :07:12. | :07:14. | |
how much we need... For instance, | :07:15. | :07:16. | |
the NHS would collapse overnight. If we sent everybody home who was | :07:17. | :07:18. | |
not a British national working for the NHS, it would simply | :07:19. | :07:21. | |
overflow, collapsed tomorrow. They are being very picky | :07:22. | :07:23. | |
about how they describe it. Well, you know, | :07:24. | :07:26. | |
it's a few Poles perhaps, a few In a point system we probably would | :07:27. | :07:28. | |
have all of the people that are coming in now, because they do all | :07:29. | :07:49. | |
get jobs, they don't go on the dole, they don't come here for benefits, | :07:50. | :07:52. | |
they come here to get jobs As you know, this is an extremely | :07:53. | :07:55. | |
potent issue, it suggests there This is something that people | :07:56. | :08:00. | |
are very, very concerned about. This seems to be a solution, | :08:01. | :08:04. | |
at least. The trouble is, it's not economic, | :08:05. | :08:06. | |
it's passionate, it's feeling You know, you live in the east | :08:07. | :08:08. | |
of England and suddenly there are Polish and Hungarian delicatessens | :08:09. | :08:13. | |
all over the place. The schools are suddenly full | :08:14. | :08:15. | |
of children for whom English isn't the first language, European, | :08:16. | :08:17. | |
Eastern European kids. Economic arguments don't really cut | :08:18. | :08:19. | |
across that, so there is no doubt that the Remain stay in Europe, | :08:20. | :08:23. | |
lobby has won overwhelmingly And the people who care most | :08:24. | :08:26. | |
about immigration say, All right, we might be a bit poorer, | :08:27. | :08:29. | |
but I was talking to someone whose | :08:30. | :08:33. | |
family came from the Indian subcontinent this week who said, | :08:34. | :08:45. | |
she's in favour of Brexit because it would be fairer to people | :08:46. | :08:47. | |
like her family, who, because they merit it, would be more | :08:48. | :08:50. | |
likely to get jobs here. Than people from Africa | :08:51. | :08:53. | |
and other places. It's really interesting, actually, | :08:54. | :08:55. | |
that you bring that up. There is a whole part | :08:56. | :09:07. | |
of the immigration debate that is not being parsed sufficiently, | :09:08. | :09:11. | |
which is the difference between EU It's interesting new ways that | :09:12. | :09:13. | |
point, that areas competition between the fight non-EU | :09:14. | :09:17. | |
immigrants and EU immigrants and Then split apart depending on what | :09:18. | :09:19. | |
argument you are trying to make. So when people say, you know, | :09:20. | :09:32. | |
immigration in the UK is a huge problem, we want, basically, | :09:33. | :09:34. | |
all people of colour not to come in and people say, so many non-EU | :09:35. | :09:38. | |
immigrants are coming in... Never mind they are all doctors, | :09:39. | :09:40. | |
nurses, highly qualified engineers and surgeons, because they have to | :09:41. | :09:43. | |
actually meet an income threshold to When it becomes about the EU, | :09:44. | :09:46. | |
it's suddenly only EU immigrants What is happening on the ground is | :09:47. | :09:50. | |
that these are all people competing The Brexit will sent a leaflet out | :09:51. | :09:54. | |
specially to Asians, Pakistanis and Bangladeshis, saying, do you realise | :09:55. | :09:59. | |
your families are being kept out? Your friends are being kept out, | :10:00. | :10:02. | |
because we're taking Do they go on television and say, | :10:03. | :10:04. | |
we're going to let in lots more Asian families, lots more Muslims, | :10:05. | :10:10. | |
they wouldn't dare, because they It's targeted marketing | :10:11. | :10:12. | |
that's effective. It works in the United States, too, | :10:13. | :10:17. | |
doesn't it? Because people have legitimate fears | :10:18. | :10:22. | |
about migration, everywhere, they have legitimate fears about it and | :10:23. | :10:26. | |
Donald Trump has done very well. Yes, he's certainly found | :10:27. | :10:29. | |
an audience for his rather unusual Yeah, it's the same idea, | :10:30. | :10:47. | |
keep these people away. I agree, it's become | :10:48. | :10:50. | |
a very emotional argument. What interesting in the last week | :10:51. | :10:52. | |
is, the arguments Nigel Farage has been making for 12 years or so about | :10:53. | :10:55. | |
a points system all of the sudden is being parroted by the highest levels | :10:56. | :10:59. | |
of the Tory party coming from Boris Johnson, Michael Gove and | :11:00. | :11:02. | |
like that. His ideas have now become This topic is very close to me | :11:03. | :11:05. | |
personally because I came to this country 16 years ago having got | :11:06. | :11:11. | |
my work permit from the BBC because Britain could not find a Russian | :11:12. | :11:15. | |
speaker to do the Russian broadcast. Another example would be a Russian | :11:16. | :11:18. | |
physicist working in Manchester University becoming a Nobel physics | :11:19. | :11:21. | |
prize winner, he wouldn't have come to this country a few years ago | :11:22. | :11:24. | |
because the highly skilled migrant I think you are right, | :11:25. | :11:27. | |
but in terms of saying, yes, highly But the question is, how many Brits | :11:28. | :11:31. | |
are living abroad and how many of them would have qualified to stay | :11:32. | :11:36. | |
in Spain, for example? One of our colleagues from El Pais, | :11:37. | :11:41. | |
the Spanish newspaper, told me estimates differ, he says, Spanish | :11:42. | :11:44. | |
Estimates are 800,000 Spanish... Many of whom are older and, | :11:45. | :11:47. | |
as he put it, seen as a drain The second point is that I think I | :11:48. | :11:52. | |
come from I think smaller societies should be | :11:53. | :11:55. | |
about flow of ideas and flow Potentially, | :11:56. | :12:00. | |
we can talk tactics strategically. I think | :12:01. | :12:06. | |
the world is connected place. If we didn't have turkey inoculation | :12:07. | :12:07. | |
parties in the 18th century, those things wouldn't have been | :12:08. | :12:10. | |
brought to Britain. Strategically, Europe is going | :12:11. | :12:14. | |
to have to think about this. The idea that you can have total | :12:15. | :12:16. | |
freedom of movement is under great threat, because you have | :12:17. | :12:20. | |
Marine Le Pen in France, you have, you know, the Austrians very nearly | :12:21. | :12:22. | |
taken over by a far right party. I'm not sure it's going to be | :12:23. | :12:26. | |
sustainable to have no break I don't think one country can do it | :12:27. | :12:29. | |
on its own, But I imagine within | :12:30. | :12:35. | |
the next five years Europe is going In five years, you may well not have | :12:36. | :12:39. | |
a single prominent national leader making an argument in favour | :12:40. | :12:56. | |
of the free movement of people. That's the main topic about that, | :12:57. | :12:59. | |
right? So, time and time again we're | :13:00. | :13:02. | |
about the European Union as a political union and end up | :13:03. | :13:05. | |
discussing an economical union. Because, obviously, you know, when | :13:06. | :13:07. | |
initially there was the union of steel and coal that was one group of | :13:08. | :13:11. | |
pretty even countries, then suddenly It's natural that people | :13:12. | :13:15. | |
from Eastern Europe will be coming But they come here, spend money, | :13:16. | :13:18. | |
earn money, spend taxes back. You have this conflict, | :13:19. | :13:26. | |
where you have you have, say, Poland and Hungary, | :13:27. | :13:28. | |
absolutely determined to keep free movement, because their people are | :13:29. | :13:30. | |
coming to richer countries. On the other hand, they are putting | :13:31. | :13:34. | |
up the biggest steel fences against any Syrians or anybody else | :13:35. | :13:37. | |
arriving on their patch. Let's move on, | :13:38. | :13:40. | |
because there's a bit of a puzzle. Why does Vladimir Putin support | :13:41. | :13:46. | |
the cause of those who want us to So, the Russian press has been | :13:47. | :13:49. | |
having a field month about that. It's being portrayed as, | :13:50. | :14:03. | |
you know, the country's engulfed in the situation, very close to | :14:04. | :14:05. | |
a Shakespeare play, whatever you take, so it's that the magnitude | :14:06. | :14:08. | |
of what is happening is huge. Interestingly enough, | :14:09. | :14:11. | |
the press is extremely complement of politicians who are seen | :14:12. | :14:12. | |
as standing up against the European Union domination, seen as finally | :14:13. | :14:15. | |
breaking away from this kind of huge So, clearly, | :14:16. | :14:18. | |
supporting Brexit as well. David Cameron seen | :14:19. | :14:23. | |
as somebody who is trying to scaremonger people into, bullying | :14:24. | :14:25. | |
people into, voting Remain. I think, overall, | :14:26. | :14:27. | |
the picture is very clear. The more destabilised the | :14:28. | :14:32. | |
European Union is, in any shape or form, be it | :14:33. | :14:35. | |
migration from the east or any other You don't have | :14:36. | :14:39. | |
a single entity talking to Russia with a single voice, | :14:40. | :14:44. | |
you suddenly have 20 plus countries, each trying to potentially actually | :14:45. | :14:46. | |
get something back from Russia I've read some stories about, you | :14:47. | :14:49. | |
know, Putin was in Greece recently. Courting Greece, Bulgaria, | :14:50. | :15:11. | |
Orthodox countries, and some kind of, I don't know, | :15:12. | :15:13. | |
cultural union of the orthodox? Remember that in some point in time, | :15:14. | :15:16. | |
when Russia and Belarus used to have this union, | :15:17. | :15:18. | |
which they still have, but not really, Serbia, at some point | :15:19. | :15:23. | |
in time wanted to join as well. Not having a single border with | :15:24. | :15:26. | |
any of these two countries. I think, generally, if you think | :15:27. | :15:30. | |
about it, this is seen as... Russian press has been portraying it | :15:31. | :15:35. | |
as the start of the collapse That's the way it's seen | :15:36. | :15:38. | |
by the Russian press? Oh, yes, | :15:39. | :15:44. | |
and I think it will be a little bit different how Russian press in | :15:45. | :15:49. | |
Russia for internal consumption, Russia today in English would | :15:50. | :15:52. | |
probably be a little bit different If you think about it, the people | :15:53. | :15:56. | |
they get to conduct interviews for the Russian main channels, they | :15:57. | :16:03. | |
obviously all will have, probably will be coming from the very fringes | :16:04. | :16:05. | |
of the establishment as we know it here, for example, | :16:06. | :16:09. | |
but they will sometimes be portrayed as people who talk in mainstream | :16:10. | :16:11. | |
politics, which is not true. I agree with you completely, | :16:12. | :16:14. | |
it's quite clear, it makes perfect sense, Putin lived through the | :16:15. | :16:19. | |
dismemberment of the Soviet empire. Right now he is seeing | :16:20. | :16:21. | |
a parallel here, where the British are perhaps going | :16:22. | :16:23. | |
to break themselves out of this huge block and he could also see that as | :16:24. | :16:26. | |
potentially a first chink in Nato. Though they are not | :16:27. | :16:34. | |
going to leave Nato. It makes perfect sense it would | :16:35. | :16:36. | |
fit his mid term strategic goals. I think it's really interesting | :16:37. | :16:42. | |
that you can actually... A lot of people have performed | :16:43. | :16:45. | |
ventriloquism his behalf. He's never actually come out | :16:46. | :16:48. | |
and said very clearly, Maybe because he's clever enough | :16:49. | :16:50. | |
to know that it would be a huge What they are doing is lining up all | :16:51. | :16:57. | |
these bogeyman, who support Brexit. Trump thinks Brexit is good, | :16:58. | :17:04. | |
Putin now thinks Brexit is good. It's interesting that | :17:05. | :17:09. | |
for someone who is not backward in coming forward he hasn't | :17:10. | :17:17. | |
actually made a very clear statement There's a good reason why, | :17:18. | :17:20. | |
after all, if you think what happened at the | :17:21. | :17:22. | |
collapse of the USSR, Europe took in those Eastern European countries | :17:23. | :17:26. | |
in order to protect them from ever It was seen by a lot of Russians | :17:27. | :17:28. | |
as being a hostile act. The fact that we almost suggested we | :17:29. | :17:34. | |
would defend them, We have played around | :17:35. | :17:37. | |
at the edges of their empire in ways that, of course, they would | :17:38. | :17:46. | |
want Europe to be weakened. Plus you also have these things | :17:47. | :17:49. | |
went, locally, if you have some For example, | :17:50. | :17:54. | |
when Cameron or the Leave campaign or Brexit campaign mention him | :17:55. | :18:04. | |
in any sort of circumstance, for example, they put him in the | :18:05. | :18:07. | |
same sentence as IS, for example. IS will be happy about, you know, | :18:08. | :18:11. | |
Britain leaving, and Putin will be. Obviously, the Kremlin doesn't like | :18:12. | :18:14. | |
that kind of comparison, do they? Let's move on because the leader of | :18:15. | :18:18. | |
the Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn, has been accused of some Labour Party | :18:19. | :18:25. | |
supporters of not being clear enough on why he thinks Britain should stay | :18:26. | :18:28. | |
within the European Union. Mr Corbyn blamed, in part, | :18:29. | :18:31. | |
the mainstream media. He's been particularly critical of | :18:32. | :18:33. | |
the Guardian newspaper and the BBC. One of the problems is that he | :18:34. | :18:36. | |
simply is unaware It's as if he only has one eye | :18:37. | :18:42. | |
when he looks. When he sees the press, he sees | :18:43. | :18:48. | |
everything in the centre from the I don't think he probably ever reads | :18:49. | :18:51. | |
or knows about the rest of it. Just as he doesn't realise | :18:52. | :19:00. | |
there are conservative He's only interested in winning | :19:01. | :19:03. | |
over the greens and the far left. If he doesn't get 1000% support from | :19:04. | :19:08. | |
the Guardian or The New Statesman, or indeed, as he sees it, support | :19:09. | :19:17. | |
from the BBC, then they are hostile. It's part of the dysfunctionality of | :19:18. | :19:21. | |
his political vision, I'm afraid. The Guardian, The New Statesman, | :19:22. | :19:29. | |
he gets a better shout from us. We're a wide rainbow of people, | :19:30. | :19:34. | |
pro-Corbyn and anti-Corbyn. He gets a better shout | :19:35. | :19:36. | |
from us than anyone else. I don't think he knows the | :19:37. | :19:39. | |
Daily Mail exists. I mean, there is | :19:40. | :19:41. | |
a view within Labour, and we've seen half a dozen former people who fled | :19:42. | :19:47. | |
the party, including a couple who fled it for a short time, being very | :19:48. | :19:51. | |
clear that Labour is for Remain. That message hasn't got | :19:52. | :19:58. | |
through to many people, and some people are blaming Jeremy | :19:59. | :20:01. | |
Corbyn for not being loud enough. I think Corbyn has not | :20:02. | :20:04. | |
been forceful on this. He's been outmanoeuvred or certainly | :20:05. | :20:07. | |
outshined by Sadiq Khan, who made a Made a big appearance with | :20:08. | :20:10. | |
David Cameron and made it very clear how much he thought London had | :20:11. | :20:19. | |
riding on a Remain vote. Corbyn is not good | :20:20. | :20:21. | |
at getting his message out, and it's hard to tell how important | :20:22. | :20:24. | |
this is or is not to him. The most articulate spokesman I've | :20:25. | :20:27. | |
heard on this topic in the last 18 months has been Tony Blair, | :20:28. | :20:31. | |
who is completely discredited. Nobody wants to put Tony Blair | :20:32. | :20:34. | |
forward but, in fact, if you dig out some interviews, he's given Radio 4 | :20:35. | :20:38. | |
over the years, he can make the most passionate, intelligent, | :20:39. | :20:41. | |
rational case for remaining. Such a shame he didn't | :20:42. | :20:44. | |
when he was Prime Minister, he didn't make one single speech about | :20:45. | :20:47. | |
Europe in this country in 13 years. The only speeches he ever | :20:48. | :20:53. | |
made were in Europe. Oh, no, it wasn't, he said, | :20:54. | :20:55. | |
I'm going out there to a summit to So he was complicit, | :20:56. | :21:03. | |
as Labour have always been, I think it's so interesting Tony | :21:04. | :21:07. | |
Blair has kind of come online now. Because you see the contrast | :21:08. | :21:10. | |
between him and Corbyn. Then you see the contrast | :21:11. | :21:13. | |
between the sort of centre-left, wooing of the centre, | :21:14. | :21:15. | |
winning over conservative voters, Old school, kind of regressive, | :21:16. | :21:17. | |
fixated, hard left infighting you So you think, if we don't think | :21:18. | :21:28. | |
Corbyn is being, sort of, centrist enough or are wearing off of people | :21:29. | :21:37. | |
who vote Tory and thinking, you are Tories, you are the lost case, | :21:38. | :21:41. | |
we'll just go and try and win more left-wing voters, | :21:42. | :21:44. | |
if we think that is the wrong way to go, surely the contrast that is | :21:45. | :21:47. | |
Tony Blair and how he did things. I think what's been absolutely | :21:48. | :21:51. | |
fascinating in how the past few months have played out is that what | :21:52. | :21:56. | |
is clear is the British left doesn't know what it wants in terms of how | :21:57. | :22:00. | |
it's going to govern, let alone how There are those who say, in fact, | :22:01. | :22:03. | |
there was an article in the Guardian this weekend that suggested the | :22:04. | :22:10. | |
British left has got a tough press because the press in general likes | :22:11. | :22:13. | |
to pick winners and people who are successful and they don't see | :22:14. | :22:16. | |
Jeremy Corbyn as a likely The same for Gordon Brown, | :22:17. | :22:19. | |
I completely agree. I think Corbyn is not the most | :22:20. | :22:25. | |
effective or charismatic person. But he has got a beasting | :22:26. | :22:29. | |
from the press. For viewers abroad, | :22:30. | :22:34. | |
the press in this country is about 85-90% solidly, rabidly | :22:35. | :22:38. | |
right-wing, rabidly anti-European. Any Labour government has to fight | :22:39. | :22:44. | |
against a wall of sound against it. It's only when it looks as if it's | :22:45. | :22:48. | |
actually going to win that they I don't think any other country | :22:49. | :22:52. | |
has as unjust a press as we do. What has also become clear is that | :22:53. | :23:02. | |
this paralysis, some kind of second guessing of the position | :23:03. | :23:04. | |
at the top trickles down in a very Because effectively what's happening | :23:05. | :23:08. | |
is there is no clear signal from the structure of the party as to | :23:09. | :23:12. | |
what the party is all about, right? That means that I haven't had, | :23:13. | :23:15. | |
as a citizen of London, I haven't had a single conversation | :23:16. | :23:18. | |
with a Labour supporter who will knock on my door and talk to me | :23:19. | :23:21. | |
as a voter about the position. I've had a few Tories stopping by | :23:22. | :23:25. | |
in the area where I live. I'm thinking, well, | :23:26. | :23:28. | |
can it be that if the country, if the party is disorganised or | :23:29. | :23:30. | |
confused in that sort of sense, you won't have enough time to organise | :23:31. | :23:34. | |
yourself in the next three weeks. I think Corbyn is very good | :23:35. | :23:40. | |
on the two or three issues he harps NHS, workers' rights, socialism, | :23:41. | :23:44. | |
everything that is sort of obviously But when it comes to any sort | :23:45. | :23:50. | |
of more nuanced topic, he resorts to the sort of | :23:51. | :23:57. | |
"I'm not that sort of politician". The shame is that in | :23:58. | :24:02. | |
the next few weeks it is absolutely He made a good speech, | :24:03. | :24:05. | |
quite good speech, this week. He needs to be out there all over | :24:06. | :24:12. | |
the country with all his people. It's the kind of thing that would | :24:13. | :24:15. | |
unite his party around him. He's missing the opportunity for his | :24:16. | :24:18. | |
own self-interest to bring the right of his party in, to say we are all | :24:19. | :24:21. | |
in this together, we passionately And it's not clear he | :24:22. | :24:25. | |
wants to unite his party. Is Labour going to try | :24:26. | :24:28. | |
to get people to vote? In lots of areas they are, | :24:29. | :24:33. | |
a lot of people are out there But you need the figureheads, | :24:34. | :24:40. | |
all the main figures out there. It's true they don't get reported | :24:41. | :24:43. | |
nearly as much The fact Hilary Benn, | :24:44. | :24:45. | |
Harriet Harman, these people are out there campaigning, | :24:46. | :24:51. | |
it is not newsworthy compared to the wonderful split in the Tory | :24:52. | :24:53. | |
party, which is fascinating. It is a Tory service, | :24:54. | :24:57. | |
that's for sure. Brexit is a Tory circus | :24:58. | :24:59. | |
from start to finish, It's a Tory circus but it has also | :25:00. | :25:01. | |
become a personalised Tory circus. It's so interesting, people saying, | :25:02. | :25:10. | |
you know, Boris Johnson's father thinks this, there is a schism | :25:11. | :25:12. | |
in the Cameron family. Within the Tory party, Gove | :25:13. | :25:15. | |
wants to be out and Cameron There is this massive | :25:16. | :25:22. | |
extended family feud. And you see Boris's sister on TV, | :25:23. | :25:25. | |
the whole thing keeps going. You make it sound more | :25:26. | :25:28. | |
like a soap opera than a vote. It's the most important | :25:29. | :25:31. | |
vote we will have... Most important soap opera | :25:32. | :25:33. | |
we'll have in our generation. On that sombre note, | :25:34. | :25:36. | |
that's it for Dateline London this week - you can comment on the | :25:37. | :25:39. | |
programme on twitter, @gavinesler. We're back next week | :25:40. | :25:42. | |
at the same time. Yesterday sunshine wasn't spread | :25:43. | :25:44. | |
particularly far and wide, but there will be more sunshine | :25:45. | :26:10. | |
on offer for today. So we saw some big contrasts | :26:11. | :26:13. | |
for today. Beautiful blue skies, | :26:14. | :26:15. | |
a lovely picture Jennifer sent in, | :26:16. | :26:18. |