20/06/2012 Newsnight Scotland

shouldn't exaggerate it, the same Good evening. If the euro zone

breaks up here, it could be as bad as the Great Depression in the

1930s. Our eurozone governments about to do enough to head it off.

Gravity - that does it really get you down?

Good evening. Well it's not all gloom and doom in the eurozone

tonight. Greece has a new government. The amount the Spanish

and Italian governments have to pay to borrow fell a bit today as a

result of the G20 summit in Mexico. And there's talk the bail-out fund

set up by the eurozone may be allowed directly to buy the debt of

distressed countries. So we'd better hope it all works. Because

as we report the effect of failure could be catastrophic. But first we

have a bit of cheerful news - unemployment is down again.

For many of us these remain tough, economic times a but there is one

trend emerging in Scotland just starting to offer a degree of hope.

While there are now 220,000 people currently out of work in Scotland,

the number of unemployed is down by 14,000. It means we have eight

point 2% of the working population unemployed - the same rate as the

UK. Abs Prime Minister's Questions, taken by the Foreign Secretary

while David Cameron is a way and G20 duties in Mexico, Angus

Robertson wondered if the UK Government would give some of the

credit to the Scottish Government? For the third month unemployment

has reduced in Scotland and for the second in a row, Scotland is the

best performer for foreign investment in the UK. Would he take

the opportunity to congratulate the Scottish Government and Scottish

Development International - if the lead agency which secures direct

foreign investment? William Hague said Scotland was benefiting from

the current constitutional arrangements. Scotland, as part of

the United Kingdom is an attractive place to invest. I congratulate

many Scottish people and businesses on their work. They would have much

harder work to do if Scotland were not part of the UK. Figures today

are positive, but there is an overlap between these figures and

the two previous publications. The figures as a whole are consistent

with a pessimistic outlook about the way to look forward. And

unemployment will continue to grow through 2012. The governments had

been giving us support in terms of prioritising infrastructure and

investment. It has had a positive effect on the Scottish economy. We

would like to see more from the UK Government's and we would like to

see that develop more the infrastructure plan in Scotland,

which would be beneficial to business. There is still the sense

of bumping along the bottom. The fact we will be drawn out of

recession and stimulating demand are very weak. A lot of companies

are learning to live with that. One of the consequences is, they are

not investing, they are not borrowing to expand. At Scottish

Questions, both Labour and the Scottish Secretary focused on what

they consider the economic uncertainty caused by the SNP's

plans for a referendum. Can I ask the Secretary of State and the UK

Government they can work with others to ensure we have credible

evidence, argument that passes the test of objective and independent

scrutiny to ensure her Scottish people get the arguments they

deserve? I absolutely agree with her, it is important this great

debate has informed by detailed evidence and strong analysis. That

is why we are getting civil servants to work through the key

issues to engage with academics, think tanks and other respected

experts outside Government, to ensure we have all the evidence for

the debate. I'm confident as we do that over 18 months, we will show

Scott and's plays is much stronger as part of the UK. Strathclyde

University's Institute has been crunching the numbers. Their

modelling suggests the coalition's austerity programme has cost more

Scottish jobs than the great recession. It also sent a complete

Euro meltdown will cost 144,000 jobs north of the border. But the

Greek exit from the single currency, around 49,000. It is interesting

for Government's austerity programme is more affecting the

Scottish economy. The Greek exit could turn into a eurozone crashed

and again you were looking at a similar impact on the Scottish

economy to the great recession as a whole. The Scottish Chambers of

Commerce wants an injection of confidence from both the UK and

Scottish Government. The UK Government needs to rebalance

likely in terms of its outlook. The deficit reduction measures have

been necessary, but that has given us additional leeway in order to

create a more investment in the economy. That is one of the reasons

we would like to see additional capital investment stem from the UK

Government and there after, the Scottish Government. We have been

speaking to a number of companies who have started to realise what

they should be doing. We will see that across the economy, eurozone

contingency planning is moving up the boardroom agenda, but is

probably not high enough. So, some encouraging news on unemployment in

Scotland, but the euro crisis could derail everything.

I'm joined now by Professor Brian Ashcroft from the Fraser of

Allander Institute. Let's get on to apocalypse in the

moment, but falling unemployment when you take into account part-

time jobs, could be an optical illusion? I think so. There was at

the beginning of this year, a beginning of an uplift in

employment and that has been picked up in unemployment. The race of

that improvement is deteriorating and the economy were weakened

considerably from the survey evidence in April and May. -- the

rate. What we cannot get from these figures is the real composition of

labour demand. What is the demand for labour services? There is a

shift to part-time employment, temporary employment away from

full-time employment. We don't do what is the strength of the labour

demand. For the fall in full-time employment or not be made up for in

the rise in part-time employment? Jobs figures are moving out of line

with the output figures, the UK economy in recession and there is a

probability Scotland will show a negative number. We are predicting,

we have revised downwards are forecast for unemployment because

of the shift towards part-time employment. It breaks the

relationship between employment and unemployment and output. But we

believe it will rise to about 46,000 by the end of the year and

50,000 by the end of next year. The fundamental point is, I'm not

convinced that demand for labour in the round is actually rising or

much out of line of what is happening to output, which as we

can see from surveys and the data is still pretty weak. Eurozone? You

would be the first to admit you have done a bit of modelling and we

shouldn't take for figures too literally. But what you are saying

if there was a break up in the eurozone, it matters right here. In

Scotland, there would be if not catastrophic, fairly catastrophic

This is work done by our Dutch bank, which did as significant exercise

at the end of last year are looking at the impact of a Greek except as

a one possibility and at the other extreme the breakdown of the year-

old. Dat -- breakdown of the euro. They came to a conclusion that

there was a breakdown of losses across the board. They fed that

data into their model in terms of their markets, at the markets that

the Scottish economy sells two, so that Kubrick to a through this is

through our model to export and then affecting house will demand an

savings rate and investment. The problem that we have had is that we

cannot actually get a handle on other transmission Ritz very well.

One is the banking system. We know that it will crunched down...

the bottom line is that what you're saying could happen will be

something very considerably worse than what happened in 2008. Yes.

Certainly in terms of jobs. It probably could be worse than that

for the reasons we have just said. We have not got a good handle on

foreign current investment. We have not got a good handle on, or will

there be bank failures. A you're assuming that nothing else changes.

You are assuming that Britain and the eurozone countries do not all

get together and say that we have to stop this -- stop us now and

change policy. There is nothing in our estimate that assumes that

there will be a radical Bristol -- fiscal stimulus by the UK

authorities. What is important here when you look at the way it works

out, the United States is very important in this for Scotland

because that is badly affected by the output loss and then that

knocks on to us in terms of being an important export market for

Scotland. This is a raffia period, if the American President seat --

seeks to stimulate the US economy in the face of this, then that will

benefit us because that will mean our markets can stay open. So yes

there's a lot of policy option. have done this modelling and the

Dutch bank have done the basic statistics work. Last time I looked

the Bank of England is saying that it is not a model in the snack --

was an array is that you have done because it says it is impossible to

do. This is slightly worrying. The massed behind the scenes be doing

this. I think so. This is not a forecast, this is of what if

simulation. They must be doing something because otherwise it you

cannot model at... I think they must be. I believe that the bank

has contingency plans to introduce conventional Monetary Policies,

perhaps even funding a fiscal deficit by new money. All sorts of

approaches. Which will significantly help, I would hope.

But we do not know. And of course the problem is that it is not a

reassuring giving that we are experiencing fiscal austerity in

the United Kingdom and that is why we're saying that this is

substantial and catastrophic because we have already experienced

and output loss of well over five % in the great recession. Thank you

very much. Einstein may be about to be proved

right yet again. It was you predicted the existence of

gravitational waves, ripples in the fabric of space that time. That was

almost a century ago and now scientists are confident they will

be discovered sin. They're part of an international collaboration that

is constructing gravity wave detectors. The ultimate aim is to

be able to see across the universe. Far across our universe, a far from

our sight, stars and black holes are colliding. The result, a

disturbance in the force. The disturbance -- the force is gravity

but the disturbance is too small for Schumann's to detect. Until now.

If I pick up the pen, at the pen will be attracted to the Earth by

gravity. Those two objects know about one another through their

gravitational attraction. If a star on the other side of the universe

moves, we should also know that. We should feel a change in gravity.

The change that we feel has propagated to us all the way across

the universe in the form of a fluctuation of gravity in a

gravitational wave. This was Glasgow University's first attempt

to detect those ripples. For the man who built it 40 years ago is

still part of the search, and he thinks we are closer than ever.

There are two detectors being up graded just now in the USA. There

is a third detector in the USA which may go to India, which would

also associate -- which we are also associated with. There is a

detector in Italy currently being upgrade it. There is a smaller

detector in Germany. That is really hours along with our German

colleagues. There is a new detector being built in Japan. So there is

going to be a good network of detectors around the world.

principle in Europe, the US and beyond is the same. Split are

raised a beam and bounce the top two mirrors hundreds of miles away.

As the gravitational wave passes, space and time will work and the

length of the two arms will change. That disturbance will be detected

when the beans are combined. In Glasgow, they have concentrated on

making extraordinary manners. He each can be up to 40 kilos but be

suspended in just four or thin threads of glass. They have to be

very strong and extremely pure. That is to -- that is because to

detect these small movements the mirrors must be isolated from the

vibrations of their own atoms. you have got a wine glass and if

you pay in the wine glass and give it some motion, if it is a very

pure wine glass it will bring at one specific frequency and she will

hear a pure note. We would like a pendulum has to have one specific

frequency at which they move, there we can put that frequency, we can

design a system, so as the frequency that the pendulum is

moving at a somewhat away from where we would like to detect

gravitational movement. Allays arms of the Scottish and German detector

are 600 metres long. The two in the US are six times as long. With the

sensitivity of all of the detectors being upgraded, there is a

conviction that the day of discovery is close. We are now very

confident. From statistics of other events that have been happening in

the universe, or we realise and believe that there are certain

times of Stella interactions. In particular niche and Stein binary...

A particular kind that is becoming closer and coalescing and we

believe that there are many of these events taking place every

year and producing gravitational waves at a level that we should be

able to detect. A I think we are very close. I think that the

instruments will actually it -- I think that the instruments we will

start commissioning next year, but they are due in 2015 to actually

start taking their first data. They will not be at full sensitivity but

it might be a better sensitivity than we have now, and then it

starts to be very interesting as to the question as when will make the

first detection. Confirmation could come as early as 2016,

appropriately enough exactly 100 years since Albert Einstein

proposed the existence of gravitational waves in his General

Theory of relativity. And 21st century science already has plans

to use them to look beyond the light of the stars. We can use

gravitational waves to see small black calls orbiting around a big

black holes, see how they are moving, how they are affecting the

space and time that this is in. Things that we can think we can

really like to understand, Giza behaviour of objects and extreme

gravity, those are the sorts of things we would really be it --

like to be able to study. The last 40 years has seen many spin-offs

from the research, but for the man who has made it his life's work,

the next fe years are likely to be particularly satisfying. A very

excited. I certainly will continue researching and to we make a

discovery. I am past retirement age really, but a really want to keep

working until we observe gravitational waves. Then I would

be really happy. Beyond that, there are plans for a gravitational wave

observatory in space. Its laser arms a million kilometres long.

Science has explained the mystery of matters and energy, gravity has

remained an enigma. We may be about to acquire the ability to hugely

expand our knowledge and begin to understand the force that spans the

universe. We are all clear on that!

Tomorrow's front pages. The Scotsman. Greek exit would cost