03/12/2016 Dateline London

Hello and welcome to Dateline London.

Britain, Brexit and having your cake and eating it.

Whether divisions in the quality of our schools contribute

to political divisions including Brexit.

And, hail to the chief - but has the impending Trump

presidency given permission for some to use sexist, misogynistic,

My guests today are Nesrine Malik, who is a Sudanese writer,

Michael Goldfarb of politico.com, Rashmee Lall of The National

and Michael Gove who is a Conservative MP and columnist

Brexit first, and such is the thirst for any clues about what it might

mean that handwritten notes photographed in the hands of some

hapless political aide were treated this week as the Rosetta Stone,

a guide to the government's negotiations.

Have your cake and eat it, it said, but whose cake?

And how much does the public, press and parliament really need

to know about the road to Brexit when formal negotiations

As a journalist, this is the biggest story around in Britain and as you

were in government you know governments need to keep their cards

close to their chest. I'm a ferocious to find out what's going

on, but speaking as someone who was in government I know it's quite

right to play your cards close to your chest. Into that divide is a

furious speculation. What we saw this week whether scribbled notes of

a researcher and that might affect some of her own thoughts or what was

asked. It was not an authorised government document, just a series

of marginalised notes from an edge visual court in the crossfire and it

would be wrong to overinterpret what was written as though it were the

Rosetta stone unlocking the key to Brexit. Nature a pause back you and

journalists hate it. Nature hates a vacuum. Boris Johnson says freedom

of movement might not be such a bad thing and other things that don't

add up. Either you've got your cards close to your chest or it's a

shambles is the pressure from outside. Theresa May has a desire

not to be driven by daily commentary or a weekly lot of public opinion.

The press will fill the vacuum but in terms of the events that will

deter -- determine what goes on than all the rest is froth. How did you

go to the country and ask for something you had no plan for if you

won? I have a plan and Theresa May has a plan and I suspect they are

similar. But what is it? We've had months and months since the boat.

Even people who were foursquare for Brexit working on stalls in Essex 12

nope... You had no plan! The spirit with which we move out of the UN and

I agree people want us to get on with it and then there's the nature

of the plan. Theresa may has been clear... Brexit means wrecks it. The

speed and pays with which article 50 will be triggered... It's very

interesting that in the age of information overload we are caught

between a truism, Brexit, and a proverb, have your cake and eat it,

but basically spells out the limits of the possible or the impossible.

That is supposed to be a viable government strategy to allow Britain

to exit the EU with dignity, and some market access? There are two

issues. One is the question that people voted on, whether to stay in

or out, was not a technical question. Therefore, there was no

technical blueprint. You can't have that in a referendum, can you?

Broadly it is, is it right or wrong. But it puts people in a difficult

position because they're in the position of working at the detail

afterwards so I have some sympathy for people who were pro-Brexit but

don't have a plan because it is a hugely technical question and people

were asked to vote on the premise rather than the detail. So I have

sympathy for the people who are still working it out. However, it

has been some time and it is not beyond the ability with -- for some

of the people with the political nice or Ken to come up with simple

or comforting statements that should give comfort to the press or people

who voted. Do you think the press works like that? If there were some

statement about it going well and broadly the plan is we will have

access to the single market... The next question would be, how do we do

that? This particular question has a vacuum and many things fill a

vacuum. People don't know what they're doing, there's bad faith on

the part of Brexit supporters in Cabinet because they've manipulated

people into a position they have no idea about. So it's better to argue

against something you stated than something people are making up.

Would Article 50 and again in the process brings some clarification?

There would be some discussion about the courts and what they think

Parliament's role should be? If you get to know the how of Brexit rather

than just the what and you can calibrate your hopes and

expectations with reality because you know you're up against the EU's

irreducible core, the four freedoms of movement, people, goods, services

and capital. Then you have British aspirations. We will you be a super

Singapore? Poorer but happy to be self-reliant? Ritter negates the

rest of the world? But Britain has to nope. Where does Parliament come

in this? You've got views and lots of backbenchers have views and views

about the detail and you have to express that, don't you, otherwise

you will be elected? The majority of MPs voted to trigger Article 50.

Notwithstanding the Liberal Democrat view. During those debates people

will attempt to tease out what the government 's position is, but you

were right. No matter what the government says, there will be an

appetite for more. Detailed to pick over and more from journalists

because it is in our professional DNA we want the maximum amount of

detail and score runs that are competitors don't have in finding

out new pieces of information. I've take the point that there are people

who want to get on with the process but investment is still flowing in

and growth is still strong. It is not the case that the government's

lack of ability to satisfy journalistic curiosity is leading to

economic chaos and a plague of frogs on the street. No frogs on the

street. That was a comment about amphibians rather than anything

else. What Thomas Anderson. Maybe he's directing 2016. Remember that

film where frogs fell out, Magnolia. A brilliant film apart from that.

Stepping back and leaving aside the press question, a vacuum is a very

bad thing in a society that has just been shaken absolutely to the core

by this vote. Surely you know that. It shook the Conservative Party to

the courts and it has shaken the Labour Party into some kind of odd

position of silence. A variety of morbid symptoms have appeared. In

the streets is much more unpleasant. It is incumbent on the government

after 150 days to actually give us a pretty dam clear steer on what's

going to happen in March when she says, article 50. Firstly the

government has responsibility to make sure it gets this big decision

right. More than that, you're right that there has been a heart

searching and debate since the boat. It's also the case that the Prime

Minister enjoys a level of popularity and support in the

country and president did amongst Western leaders. The idea that

Britain is in at the brow position with her position at the moment is

pretty strong. This is the striking thing. The referendum showed or

reinforced that there's disconnect between expectations of commentators

and the settled view of the majority of the people in this country who

not only support Brexit but it is the case that 44% of people support

and incumbent Prime Minister. These are all red herrings. The economy is

doing well and Theresa May is enjoying support... This is not the

question. The question is there's a responsibility incumbent upon those

at a very traumatising time in this country to at least make an effort

to give people comfort. Not journalists who are self-interested,

as you say, or other people but to the people who voted and to those

who voted to remain who also need comforting. And the insistence on

secrecy reminds me of when Donald Trump said that the most sought

offensive should have been a sneak attack.

The settled view question... There are certain great question that

society's debates over and over again. If the reverse result had

happened and it had been 40% the other way 52% the other way I can't

imagine your good self saying that's the end of the matter, it's settled,

even for a generation. It is not settled at all and people will use

whatever process they have two... Let Michael finish. To anticipate.

The debate will continue but the government has a responsibility to

make sure the negotiations are conducted in the right way and they

are substantial. We have to be patient for another couple of months

until article 50 is triggered and the Parliamentary process is over

and then we can see. Patients doesn't work for journalists.

Britain has for decades - centuries - had enormous differences

in the standard of education available to children

But Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Schools, Sir Michael Wilshaw,

pointed to something new this week - that under-performing schools

in some parts of the north of England may have contributed

to a sense of alienation which could account

Two parts to this then - how divided is education

in Britain according to class, money or geography?

And, secondly, is there a link to economic under-performance

When you travel around you see a very divided pattern of education?

That that's literally true. More than that, when you travel around

the world you see echoes of the same discontent. In the hours after the

Brexit result I was reminded strongly of a piece I'd written for

the Economist about Haiti. They had a headline," the discontented"

because of the amorphous protests and a general sense of being

discontented with life, the government, cost of living and

everything. It was understandable for there. For Britain, the fifth

largest economy, to think that 17 million people just felt somehow

that things weren't right. It was the British equivalent of the

protest in Haiti with burning tyres. Do you see part of the root of this

and education is complicated, that is one of the things in our country

that the state does for most people and if it isn't doing it for you

where you live, you will be very grumpy about your children's future

and your future, when to you? It goes beyond education. The BBC

economics editor interviewed the Bank of England chief economist who

found that income levels and a general sense of disengagement, I

think he said, socially and economically will drive political

results. That's what he said. I do feel a connection with education

because it was really quite start? He is outgoing and can say what he

thinks but he knows about the education system. One of the first

things that strikes an outsider when they spend a bit more time in the UK

is the absolute cultural divide as well and education is part of that.

Things like accident, diction, the way people speak, their interests.

There is a divide amongst class and North and South definitely. I think

education is folded under that because there is a sense that the

dynamo of political culture, economic son the success of the UK

in general seems to be in the South. Culturally you see things... Like

the North is a throwback. A traditional British culture that

doesn't have relevance in today's age. I think the education aspect is

interesting but is folded under this quite profound... I'm not sure it's

immediately fixable, a cultural divide between classes and

geography. When you drop about Haiti, you could have talked about

the United States, divided along lines and people angry and looking

at the electoral Mac there, very divided. And look who he is

appointed be his secretary of Education. On the one hand, everyone

wants a uniform standard of high education and attainment and an

aspiration for it. But when you bring it into the realm of politics

then it becomes politicised and that's been the story of education

almost my entire diet -- adult life. It's having a fair shout at the

future, isn't it? If the state can't provide that it causes problems. It

has too. I have a daughter who goes to a state secondary school. The

variance... And not just the variance in quality just within

London, but the variance in educational philosophy. Michael

knows about this. You have free schools popping up all over my

neighbourhood. On the other hand you have parents who say they have to

stay committed to the old-fashioned state system and they would support

teachers' unions. And there's so much political to bake it seems like

the education debate on what should be the curriculum and how we should

make our children aspire all over the country and not just in London

is getting lost. You were former Secretary of State for Education,

there's a difference between people who a degree of choice but they want

excellence. We want it all, don't we? It's difficult to be objective.

I was responsible at a governmental level for four and a half years but

if I can try to be objective I can acknowledge that whilst it has

improved in some parts of the country, most of all in London, is

still the case that insignificant parts of the country, often but not

always poorest areas and those suffering from deindustrialisation,

it's not good enough. Limited employment opportunities and schools

which are underperforming in relative terms. To be fair to both

of my successors, they have tried to ameliorate these problems. Nicky

Morgan introduced something to try to ensure our best teachers went to

some of the most challenging areas and just Dean has invested money

into some of the worst performing areas to see if we can learn from

transformation of change. It's a constant battle because the other

thing we've had this week is the publication of international league

tables for science and maths. England has improved but not as far

as other nations. In relative terms we still have a long way to go to

catch up with the educational superpowers. That is a very

interesting point, isn't it? We pride ourselves in many ways about

the Nobel Prize for Cambridge University, but some of our children

are leaving school unfortunately with almost no qualifications and

that makes them unemployable? Michael Gove will probably be able

to do speak better about this, but it's the relentless attempt to meet

standards that is now subsuming the attempt to give people an education.

Reading, writing and arithmetic, what's wrong with just teaching

that? Was probably more relevant coming back to your question to

Michael about giving us a fair crack in education, I don't think you do

in this country even if you do have a competitive education because of

the institutionalised issues with class and social mobility. It is

chicken and egg. If you solve those issues they'll be more investment in

education in poorer areas because they will be part of those

establishments, the poorer people. One of our guests this week,

Nesrine, speculated whether... presidency, sections

of the media have, in her words, "detoxified" racist, misogynistic,

anti-Semitic and sexist speech to such an extent that it has almost

become the new normal. Why, for example, do some speak

of the far or extremist right as the "alt-right" as if it

were a cool new trend? I think so but it is case-by-case.

The New York Times ran along profile of Steve Bannon, special adviser now

to the President elect, and he's the head of the so-called "alt-right"

news site. It completely soft pedalled what it means to give a

platform, which is what he has done, for anti-Semitic speech, racist

speech and grotesquely misogynist speech, so that in that one

instance, I think you're right, broadly it's such a new phenomenon.

The speech that Donald Trump wrote... I think he paid that I

convinced a lot of people to vote for him with this, is not uncommon

and people always complain about politically correct speech and there

is a reaction to that. But behind that other really dangerous racists

and anti-Semites and it makes it harder when you say "alt-right" to

say a clear thing, which is people who use racial division as a key

tool in their tool box for electoral success have to be considered, I

think, to be neofascist. If you say "alt-right" a kind of sanitises

them. What do you make of it? Would you write someone is an "alt-right"

commentator? No because it covers too many phenomena. You have a new

generation of hipster Nazis, essentially. People who use the

Internet and cluster under a pit -- my particular policy Institute,

people who greeted the presidency -- new presidency with, hail, Trump!

People repackage it. Then there are Ballmer -- broader group of people

who are right-wing and in some cases filed and in some cases misogynistic

who are not Nazis. Either they are people whose speech I deplore but

who are not in the same bracket. There are also others who are

provocative heirs, who tried to make us think again and who are in the

tradition of 18th-century satirists. They are provocatives. That is

interesting. You have to be careful about words. At the weekend, the

weekend after his election victory, the Holocaust Memorial Busi in

Washington was so worried about the miasma of hate that was suddenly or

appeared to be engulfing discourse that they pointed out and they

reminded the world that the Holocaust didn't start with killings

but words. That's fine. I also think we've got to be careful about

overdoing the outrage. We should be watchful, of course, but we should

wait to see what the trap administration, if and when they

actually move to undermine civil rights. Constitutional freedoms and

the natural rights for black Americans, visually distinct

immigrants and so on. Let us not quite what to fun. I will tell you

why. Charlie Sykes who is a conservative Republican radio talk

show host in Milwaukee and he runs a talk who which is very popular, and

he explained why his fellow Republicans seemed not to care when

their candidate was saying these obviously racist and bigoted things.

He said that Republicans are constantly denounced as racists. It

goes back to Ronald Reagan, W Bush, and Mitt Romney and everybody and

the word loses impact. I get think we need to wait to see racism being

enacted to be worried. These things get absorbed into the mainstream and

supplemented into art public consciousness -- supplemented --

sublimated. This is the mood music and there are sourced it is being

painted on walls in Brooklyn, children are being told they can't

sit at certain tables because they are Mexican. These are things

happening today whether he and accent personally or not. I think a

psychologist would call it, to give it permission. There is a spectrum

and it gives permission for people to save things that they would not

have said publicly in the past. That is the secret, publicly. One of the

images, to wikis ago he was interviewing people at his country

club in New Jersey and I thought it was perfect because he talks like

the guys who prop up the bar at the 19th hole, shall we say. He's from

Queens. He is bridge and tunnel, not really from Manhattan. We are

getting to the classes amongst billionaires in Manhattan! Look,

it's the permission to bring it into the public... So frightening and

what frightens and people is that no president or presidential candidate

has done this. We are out of time. That's it for Dateline

London for this week. You can comment on the programme

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