Browse content similar to 04/07/2012. Check below for episodes and series from the same categories and more!
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years. I wanted to make sure she was taken care of and so far it has | :00:05. | :00:15. | |
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Tonight on Newsnight Scotland - for "reprehensible" is how the Barclays | :00:17. | :00:20. | |
boss Bob Diamond discredit the fixing of rates by his dealers. But | :00:20. | :00:23. | |
could it actually be criminal? Fraud cases are much easier to | :00:23. | :00:26. | |
prosecute in Scots law. So could we put the bankers on trial? | :00:26. | :00:30. | |
And, the Higgs Boson - or something very like it - has been found. We | :00:30. | :00:33. | |
will try to work out what that means. | :00:33. | :00:38. | |
Good evening. MPs may have hardly landed a punch on Bob Diamond, but | :00:38. | :00:41. | |
should he be afraid of legal action? The recently resigned head | :00:41. | :00:44. | |
of Barclays faced the Treasury Select Committee this afternoon, | :00:44. | :00:46. | |
and while some of the questioning he faced was quite aggressive, | :00:46. | :00:55. | |
little new emerged from the session. Fraud is very difficult to | :00:55. | :00:58. | |
prosecute under English law as it stands, but not so hard in Scotland. | :00:58. | :01:03. | |
So could we put the bankers on trial? Jamie MacIvor reports. Bob | :01:03. | :01:07. | |
Diamond may now have replaced Fred Goodwin as the banker has some love | :01:07. | :01:12. | |
to hate. Last week it emerged Barclays had been rigging a key | :01:12. | :01:19. | |
interest rate. It was fined �290 million. Yesterday Mr Diamond | :01:19. | :01:25. | |
resigned in disgrace. Today he was quizzed by MPs. When I read the | :01:25. | :01:30. | |
emails from those traders, I got physically sick. It was | :01:30. | :01:33. | |
reprehensible behaviour and if you're asking me should those | :01:33. | :01:39. | |
actions be dealt with, absolutely. Mr Diamond said Barclays had been | :01:39. | :01:44. | |
the first to own up but believed other banks may be involved as well. | :01:44. | :01:50. | |
As public concern over the banks continues, an inquiry is under way | :01:50. | :01:56. | |
here which may lead to prosecutions. We can only speculate about what is | :01:56. | :01:59. | |
actually being probed. The Crown Office says it has been | :01:59. | :02:04. | |
investigating banks for a sometimes. It's serious and organised crime | :02:05. | :02:08. | |
division is waiting the scope of that inquiry. But what is the | :02:08. | :02:15. | |
scope? It is not saying publicly so we do not know and even some banks | :02:15. | :02:20. | |
have been tried to find out. For instance, is the inquiry restricted | :02:20. | :02:24. | |
to banks based in Scotland or could any bank which has customers here | :02:24. | :02:29. | |
potentially be investigated for say an alleged crime committed in the | :02:29. | :02:36. | |
city of London? To have jurisdiction in Scotland, there has | :02:36. | :02:41. | |
to be an effect of the crime on individuals or a company in | :02:41. | :02:46. | |
Scotland. For example, famously the Lockerbie case, the planning is | :02:46. | :02:50. | |
perceived to have taken place in malts a, the individuals are | :02:50. | :02:55. | |
perceived to have been from Libya and there was supposed to be | :02:55. | :03:00. | |
planning in Libya, and the actions resulted in deaths and tragedy in | :03:00. | :03:03. | |
Scotland. So you have a number of different elements but no one | :03:03. | :03:07. | |
argued that the jurisdiction did not apply to Scotland. The same | :03:07. | :03:12. | |
would apply to an individual who has lost out because of a fraud. He | :03:12. | :03:16. | |
could make a complaint to the police in Scotland, despite the | :03:16. | :03:22. | |
fact that the main commission of the crime was in England. So will | :03:22. | :03:27. | |
the Crown Office look at the scandal fixing interest rates or | :03:27. | :03:30. | |
might it looks for example at the events which led to the near | :03:30. | :03:37. | |
collapse of Royal Bank of Scotland? Again, we just do not know. We do | :03:37. | :03:42. | |
know it can be easier to take cases -- fraud cases to court in Scotland | :03:42. | :03:49. | |
than England. So out of the border, there -- fraud is covered by a | :03:49. | :03:54. | |
Fraud Act which is a form of words which covers behaviour. We do not | :03:54. | :03:58. | |
have this in Scotland, we have the common law which allows you to | :03:59. | :04:04. | |
decide whether a certain actions amount to a crime. That is a | :04:04. | :04:09. | |
decision which is made by a judge on his own or by a judge and jury. | :04:09. | :04:14. | |
While the kennel may speculate about what the Crown Office is | :04:14. | :04:20. | |
actually investigating, the potential is vast. -- while we can | :04:20. | :04:23. | |
only speculate. I'm joined now by Professor | :04:23. | :04:25. | |
Alastair Bonington, and from London by the Principal of Hertford | :04:26. | :04:32. | |
College Oxford, Will Hutton. What do you make of this announcement by | :04:32. | :04:35. | |
the Crown Office that it is apparently conducting an | :04:35. | :04:40. | |
investigation into the bank's? seems extraordinary that we have | :04:40. | :04:44. | |
had this situation for about four years and they suddenly announce | :04:44. | :04:47. | |
the same afternoon that I go on the radio and say nothing has happened | :04:47. | :04:52. | |
even Scotland, the Crown had done nothing, they say actually we have | :04:52. | :04:57. | |
been doing something but we just had not told anyone. I think it is | :04:57. | :05:06. | |
a little bit odd. They did not spell it out. One sentence said the | :05:06. | :05:10. | |
scope of the investigation will be extended as a result of recent | :05:10. | :05:16. | |
developments, what do we make of that? It could be the rate rigging | :05:16. | :05:19. | |
issue or it could begin the selling of financial instruments to small | :05:19. | :05:25. | |
businesses. If it had been the case that there was an investigation | :05:26. | :05:33. | |
taking place, surely, four hears, even with the Crown this would have | :05:33. | :05:36. | |
resulted in arrests an inquiry is being made. The banks themselves | :05:37. | :05:41. | |
are saying they know nothing about an investigation, no one has asked | :05:41. | :05:47. | |
any questions of them. It is a very secret investigation if the people | :05:47. | :05:53. | |
who are being investigated have not noticed. Matter of the lob - is it | :05:53. | :05:59. | |
shrew that it is easy to prosecute for fraud. -- matter of the law. | :05:59. | :06:07. | |
Absolutely. Back in 1996, one of the Law Lords in England | :06:07. | :06:13. | |
specifically said how much easier things are in Scotland. Give us the | :06:13. | :06:20. | |
very simple explanation. As Jerry Brown said, you use the common law. | :06:20. | :06:25. | |
You ask if there has been misrepresentation with the | :06:25. | :06:29. | |
intention of producing a fraudulent result. If that is the case, it | :06:29. | :06:35. | |
does not matter where it originated as if they affect is felt in | :06:35. | :06:40. | |
Scotland, that is enough. The fact something happened in England or | :06:40. | :06:44. | |
New York but there was an effective Scotland would allow us to | :06:44. | :06:48. | |
prosecute. Why is the more difficult in England? They had | :06:48. | :06:54. | |
these convoluted statutes. It has to fall within ambit of that Act. | :06:54. | :07:02. | |
We do not have that problem. impressed were you about the | :07:02. | :07:07. | |
investigator the ability of this bunch of MPs this afternoon? They | :07:07. | :07:16. | |
did the best they could but they do not have the power of a judge to | :07:16. | :07:20. | |
call for a mere mobile-phone calls, the text messages and the e-mail | :07:20. | :07:29. | |
trail. They have to take what Mr Diamond says, or any other witness. | :07:29. | :07:33. | |
When Mr Diamond said the first he knew about who was five days before | :07:33. | :07:38. | |
the FSA publish their report, you have to take that on trust. When he | :07:38. | :07:45. | |
says it is reprehensible and he felt sick, to the question how much | :07:45. | :07:51. | |
did you know? They have no leverage. It does not work I do not think, | :07:51. | :07:57. | |
not because they are MPs but because they do not have the | :07:57. | :08:04. | |
forensic capability of a judge and a lawyer. As a lawyer, I am sure | :08:04. | :08:10. | |
you were delighted to hear that. Yes, indeed I am and I am free for | :08:10. | :08:16. | |
instructions at any point! He is absolutely right. Lawyers do it | :08:16. | :08:22. | |
better. We are good at something I hope. But we can sometimes take a | :08:22. | :08:27. | |
long time, like the Savell inquiry. Most of the people were dead by the | :08:27. | :08:33. | |
time it ended. You have got to keep a tight rein but it can be done. | :08:33. | :08:37. | |
The Levinson inquiry has been done very well. What are the arguments | :08:37. | :08:44. | |
being made to? David Cameron once that same about it effectively to | :08:44. | :08:49. | |
do his very short and sharp inquiry into the banking industry. Their | :08:49. | :08:52. | |
argument was they would have the ability to have people appear under | :08:52. | :08:58. | |
oath. Do you think that would make up for it or demean the apparatus | :08:58. | :09:08. | |
:09:08. | :09:09. | ||
Every MP has to have a go and it is very difficult to get them to hand | :09:09. | :09:19. | |
:09:19. | :09:19. | ||
the baton on. Secondly, offering a couple of extra people to work | :09:19. | :09:25. | |
alongside the current secretary at of the committee to give it extra | :09:25. | :09:35. | |
:09:35. | :09:35. | ||
resource is not serious. I do not think the question of the oath... | :09:35. | :09:38. | |
People are very adept at not falsifying information under oath | :09:39. | :09:43. | |
but that does not mean that they are telling the truth. You have got | :09:43. | :09:49. | |
to get at the underlying evidence base. I am just curious as to what | :09:49. | :09:55. | |
vibes you are picking up in London as to whether there is a mood for | :09:55. | :10:01. | |
prosecutions - not necessarily of Mr Diamond but, perhaps, of some of | :10:01. | :10:05. | |
the people who have been involved in this libel fixing scandal. We | :10:05. | :10:11. | |
already know that other banks will be involved. -- this great fixing | :10:11. | :10:18. | |
scandal. We have heard about people who have spent months in prison for | :10:18. | :10:22. | |
stealing a bottle of water and the lack of any similar action being | :10:22. | :10:28. | |
taken against these traders. Four traders were sacked by Royal Bank | :10:28. | :10:33. | |
of Scotland earlier this week because of their role in this | :10:33. | :10:36. | |
inquiry. It occurred to me that this might be the case - that the | :10:37. | :10:43. | |
Crown is investigating in Scotland. If your view of the law is as you | :10:43. | :10:46. | |
describe it, I think he would have a very strong case and it may be | :10:46. | :10:51. | |
that, actually, Edinburgh can bring people to book faster than London, | :10:52. | :10:57. | |
which, in my view, would be good. Do you have any confidence that | :10:57. | :11:00. | |
might happen? I think it could be done but I do not think there is | :11:00. | :11:05. | |
the appetite to do it. You have to look at politics. One hates to dog | :11:05. | :11:10. | |
about politicians on any civilised programme but nevertheless, it is | :11:10. | :11:14. | |
very obvious that the SNP do not want it to be seen as Scottish | :11:14. | :11:19. | |
banks have caused the near- bankruptcy of the United Kingdom. | :11:19. | :11:24. | |
am not sure the last administration in Scotland would be any more... | :11:24. | :11:27. | |
Perhaps they would not. But it is very clear that the present one | :11:27. | :11:32. | |
feel that. In a way, this is quite a different thing to get your head | :11:32. | :11:38. | |
around but it seems to have generated anger among the public. | :11:38. | :11:44. | |
Isn't this about more than the law? The whole point about the way in | :11:44. | :11:47. | |
which this particular rate is set is that it was never designed to be | :11:47. | :11:53. | |
governed by law - it is informal process. I was trying to think of a | :11:53. | :11:57. | |
comparison and the comparison is someone like a drug dealer, who has | :11:57. | :11:59. | |
sufficient morals to steal from everyone else to finance their | :12:00. | :12:06. | |
habit but not from their own family. This is a good drug dealer who | :12:06. | :12:11. | |
steals from their own family - is that a bad analogy? The reason why | :12:11. | :12:17. | |
everyone is upset about it is because, actually, it is naked | :12:17. | :12:21. | |
manipulation of a price. The only way you can manipulate it is by | :12:21. | :12:27. | |
doing the manipulating with others. They also did not like the e-mail | :12:27. | :12:31. | |
exchanges. The point is, it is manipulation of a system with no | :12:31. | :12:35. | |
safeguards, because when the system was set up, it would have been | :12:35. | :12:41. | |
inconceivable that you would need any safeguards. You have got 16 | :12:41. | :12:44. | |
banks here - the biggest banks in the world and members of the | :12:44. | :12:49. | |
British Bankers Association. Based at the base interest rate for 12 | :12:49. | :12:59. | |
:12:59. | :13:05. | ||
currencies. -- they eat set up the base interest rate. You do not mess | :13:05. | :13:10. | |
on your own backyard. What these people were doing was actually, | :13:10. | :13:16. | |
they were literally messing up their own structure. And over and | :13:16. | :13:21. | |
above that, the cascade effect on others was huge. And then the | :13:21. | :13:24. | |
profits that were made from this were a huge and the bonuses that | :13:24. | :13:30. | |
were made from this were huge, and Mr Diamond knew that of the kinds | :13:30. | :13:35. | |
of profits made on the trading desk would also inflate his bonus. There | :13:35. | :13:39. | |
was no incentive on him to do anything about it. In the three | :13:39. | :13:43. | |
hours, he never volunteered a view of how it could be different. He | :13:43. | :13:46. | |
just said that action should have been taken. By whom? It was | :13:46. | :13:52. | |
extraordinary performance, I thought. The Financial Times was | :13:52. | :13:56. | |
pointing out today that if this was a casino, its licence would be | :13:56. | :14:06. | |
:14:06. | :14:08. | ||
taken away. Indeed. When Peter Hagues propose the -- | :14:08. | :14:14. | |
Peter Higgs proposed the existence of the Higgs boson particle, he had | :14:14. | :14:18. | |
little expectation it would be discovered in his lifetime. It has | :14:18. | :14:23. | |
taken the work of over 10,000 scientists but today, the discovery | :14:23. | :14:30. | |
of a "Higgs-like" particle was announced at CERN. It is a relation | :14:30. | :14:35. | |
between electromagnetic waves and particles. One of the man who | :14:35. | :14:38. | |
invented the theory struggles to explain it, you know you are | :14:38. | :14:45. | |
dealing with difficult stuff. have a quality which is called the | :14:45. | :14:50. | |
Higgs boson. That is a particle that is believed to give other | :14:50. | :14:58. | |
particles mass. Heggs bosons crumb empty space, creating a cosmic | :14:58. | :15:04. | |
trickle. Some scientists believe they feel the waves more than | :15:04. | :15:08. | |
others and that a greater be ripple, the greater the mass. Scientists | :15:08. | :15:13. | |
announced today they have enough evidence to be almost certain that | :15:13. | :15:18. | |
the Higgs boson or something like it exists. We have a discovery. We | :15:18. | :15:23. | |
have discovered a new particle. Most probably a Higgs boson. Define | :15:23. | :15:33. | |
:15:33. | :15:36. | ||
the Higgs boson, scientists looked at more than 1000 trillion protons | :15:36. | :15:43. | |
inside the Large Hadron Collider. When the battles collide, there is | :15:43. | :15:46. | |
a high energy explosion and the degree of each explosion is | :15:46. | :15:50. | |
analysed for evidence of the particle. For Peter Higgs, the | :15:50. | :15:56. | |
validation of his the was an emotional moment. I would like to | :15:56. | :16:01. | |
add my congratulations to everybody that help with this tremendous | :16:01. | :16:05. | |
achievement. For me, it is really an incredible thing that has | :16:05. | :16:11. | |
happened in my lifetime. scientists around him, the question | :16:11. | :16:16. | |
is firstly whether they can confirm the discovery and secondly, where | :16:16. | :16:21. | |
it will lead. I am joined by a Dr Aidan Robson, who is part of the | :16:21. | :16:27. | |
Glasgow University team at CERN. They are saying they have | :16:27. | :16:31. | |
discovered something like the Higgs boson. What is the significance of | :16:31. | :16:39. | |
those two words, "something like". It is accepted we have discovered a | :16:39. | :16:43. | |
new particle, which is probably a Higgs boson. The moment of | :16:43. | :16:46. | |
discovery is when you just have enough data to say that there is | :16:46. | :16:50. | |
something there. The challenge now is to collect a lot more of these | :16:50. | :16:55. | |
particles, to make precise measurements and see whether they | :16:55. | :16:58. | |
actually have the properties that are predicted by the Standard Model, | :16:58. | :17:04. | |
which is the theory of particle physics. So, we do not yet have | :17:04. | :17:10. | |
enough knowledge from this discovery that something is there, | :17:10. | :17:16. | |
rather than what it is, to know that this Higgs boson does the work | :17:16. | :17:21. | |
of the theory which has to explain how massive rises. That is correct. | :17:21. | :17:24. | |
We have discovered this new particle which seems to have the | :17:24. | :17:28. | |
right electric charge to be the Higgs boson, and has a mass which | :17:28. | :17:31. | |
is more or less consistent with being the Higgs boson. We are not | :17:31. | :17:36. | |
sure about another property, which is the spin. So far, everything is | :17:36. | :17:39. | |
consistent with this part of being a Higgs boson but the idea now is | :17:39. | :17:42. | |
that we make a lot of precise measurements by putting them | :17:42. | :17:46. | |
altogether, seeing whether they are consistent, to pin down whether | :17:46. | :17:50. | |
this is a standard model Higgs boson or something a bit more | :17:50. | :17:55. | |
exotic. We hope that these precise measurements will. As in the | :17:55. | :17:59. | |
direction of further new discoveries. Which is more exciting, | :17:59. | :18:02. | |
from the point of view of theoretical physicists? Is a more | :18:02. | :18:05. | |
exciting if this turns out to behave exactly as the standard | :18:05. | :18:12. | |
model predicted it will behave? All, actually, if it behaves a bit like | :18:12. | :18:16. | |
that but there is something going wrong, which maybe means that it | :18:16. | :18:22. | |
could prompt new theatrical -- theoretical discoveries? Be is | :18:22. | :18:25. | |
exciting to see anything at all. The second case would be more | :18:25. | :18:29. | |
exciting, where we were opening up a halt realm of new physics to | :18:29. | :18:38. | |
investigate. Where does this go? 95% of the stuff in the universe is | :18:38. | :18:43. | |
unaccounted for, isn't it? How does the Higgs boson relate for the | :18:43. | :18:50. | |
Cirque -- relate to the search for that? As you say, only about 4% of | :18:50. | :18:53. | |
the universe is the normal matter that we know about, so the search | :18:53. | :18:59. | |
for dark matter, which we think is about a quarter of the universe, is | :18:59. | :19:04. | |
clearly the next goal for particle physics. The Large Hadron Collider | :19:04. | :19:09. | |
can address that in a couple of ways. You could try to create dark | :19:09. | :19:12. | |
matter particles directly, like we did with this new particle that we | :19:12. | :19:19. | |
have been talking about today. matter, despite its name, is not on | :19:19. | :19:27. | |
observable. -- unobservable. Yes, and we could be created at the | :19:27. | :19:30. | |
Large Hadron Collider. The reach of the current collider is not enough | :19:30. | :19:33. | |
to make it directly but we would hope to be able to observing it | :19:33. | :19:37. | |
through its effects on particles that we do know. That is where the | :19:37. | :19:41. | |
Higgs boson comes in. We need to be very sure that we have a complete | :19:41. | :19:44. | |
consistent standard model of particle physics, and then we can | :19:44. | :19:51. | |
read pregnancy what may be beyond that. -- we cannot really probe and | :19:51. | :20:00. | |
see. This goes to the heart of the theory of relativity, which | :20:00. | :20:07. | |
explains gravity and how space and time work, and the quantum theory | :20:07. | :20:11. | |
of sub-atomic particles. We are still in the realm of quantum | :20:12. | :20:17. | |
mechanics here. To join those two forces, or gravity and relativity | :20:17. | :20:22. | |
on one hand and quantum mechanics and the other, you have to go to | :20:22. | :20:25. | |
very, very high energy Scales, which are not bridgeable from | :20:25. | :20:30. | |
colliders. But we hope that from the lower energies at colliders, we | :20:30. | :20:34. | |
can see the trajectory of weather theories are going and try to work | :20:34. | :20:39. | |
out what is happening at a high energy scales. If this is a Higgs | :20:39. | :20:43. | |
boson that we have discovered, there is plenty of room between the | :20:43. | :20:48. | |
energies we can reach out and the highest energies for an entire new | :20:48. | :20:50. | |
spectrum of physics to be discovered. | :20:50. | :20:58. |