:00:09. > :00:14.Tonight - after a week of rioting, how big is the damage to England's
:00:14. > :00:17.social fabric? Will we look back on the summer of 2011 as deeply
:00:17. > :00:25.significant, or a fleeting few days of madness? Gavin Esler has
:00:25. > :00:29.surveyed the damage to the nation. We live in a very different country
:00:29. > :00:34.from the one we thought we had one week ago. The institutions we took
:00:34. > :00:38.for granted reasserted themselves in the end, but it also proved we
:00:38. > :00:40.cannot always rely on them. With us at the end of an
:00:40. > :00:43.extraordinary week, the historian David Starkey, author Owen Jones
:00:43. > :00:46.and crime writer Dreda Say Mitchell. And as images of burning cities are
:00:46. > :00:51.beamed around the world, foreign dictators are making mileage out of
:00:51. > :01:01.our misfortune. What does the rest of the world make of us now? David
:01:01. > :01:03.
:01:03. > :01:06.Tang, Tyler Brule and Nabila Good evening. The streets are calm,
:01:06. > :01:12.the rioters now diminished to a subdued and steady train through
:01:12. > :01:14.the courts - public order, then, nominally restored. But the
:01:15. > :01:18.reminders of an anarchic week are everywhere - burnt-out buildings,
:01:19. > :01:21.broken windows, and yes, a highly visible police presence. Those
:01:22. > :01:25.numbers will inevitably diminish as we try return to some kind of
:01:25. > :01:28.normality. But tonight we ask if things have fundamentally shifted,
:01:29. > :01:33.and whether the week of rioting has shown us something of our country
:01:33. > :01:36.we didn't know before. Today, as the unseemly tussle continues over
:01:36. > :01:39.who should take credit for bringing England back from the brink, our
:01:39. > :01:46.political correspondent David Grossman has been speaking to all
:01:46. > :01:56.sides. What has been the fauna of first of all from those comments
:01:56. > :01:56.
:01:57. > :01:59.made last night on this programme by Sir Hugh Orde? Yes, we have had
:01:59. > :02:03.this bust-up between the politicians and the police over who
:02:03. > :02:06.should take credit. There is a lot of annoyance from senior police
:02:06. > :02:11.officers about the suggestion that it took the politicians coming back
:02:11. > :02:17.from their holidays to bang heads together to get things sorted out.
:02:17. > :02:20.Last night we did an interview with Sir Hugh Orde, where he said it was
:02:20. > :02:26.ridiculous that the Home Secretary does not have the power to order
:02:26. > :02:32.the police a cup of coffee. Today, the Home Secretary has been much
:02:32. > :02:37.more appreciative of the role taken by the police. The Home Secretary
:02:37. > :02:41.has no power whatsoever to order the cancellation of police leave.
:02:41. > :02:45.The fact that politicians chose to come back is an irrelevance in
:02:45. > :02:48.terms of the tactics which were already developing. I accept that
:02:48. > :02:54.the people who got the riots under control were the brave policemen
:02:54. > :03:02.and women who were out there on the front line, dealing with the riots.
:03:02. > :03:05.What about the Prime Minister himself? There is some puzzlement
:03:05. > :03:09.at Downing Street about these claims. He does not claim that he
:03:09. > :03:13.came back to rescue the country. And going through what he said in
:03:13. > :03:18.the Commons yesterday, he certainly did not claim that. The nearest you
:03:18. > :03:22.could get was him saying that he had chaired a meeting. But we have
:03:22. > :03:26.to cast our mind back to where we were a couple of nights ago, and
:03:26. > :03:30.what the country did not need was a lesson about chains of command and
:03:30. > :03:33.who has responsibility for the police and the judiciary. What we
:03:33. > :03:38.needed to know was that people were taking tough decisions, and the
:03:38. > :03:45.country had leadership. That is what they're emphasising tonight.
:03:45. > :03:50.What about the public, who are they giving credit to? It is interesting,
:03:50. > :03:57.we're getting the first polls in now. One poll tonight by ITN, 30%
:03:57. > :04:02.said Cameron had done a good job, 45% said the acting head of the Met
:04:02. > :04:09.Police, Tim Godwin, had done a good job. This is another poll, and this
:04:09. > :04:15.is interesting. It is about cuts to police numbers - should the cuts to
:04:15. > :04:21.police be reversed? 71% agreed that those cuts should be reversed. The
:04:22. > :04:26.Government says they will not be. And then, on the question of
:04:26. > :04:36.sentencing, we have seen some very robust sentences for some of the
:04:36. > :04:37.
:04:37. > :04:41.early offenders in the magistrates' courts. This was the question of
:04:41. > :04:46.the automatic jail sentence no matter how small the involvement.
:04:46. > :04:50.78% agreed. I understand that going forward, there will not be a
:04:50. > :04:58.meeting of COBRA tomorrow morning. The meeting this morning was, I'm
:04:58. > :05:01.told, just to reporting exercise, There can never be a good time to
:05:01. > :05:03.have riots, but these ones have come at a particularly inauspicious
:05:03. > :05:07.moment in our history, against a backdrop of austerity and severe
:05:07. > :05:10.economic straits. Some have argued there's a strong link between the
:05:10. > :05:13.two - others say that's facile. Whichever side of that particular
:05:13. > :05:16.divide you're on, the two things running in parallel have provoked
:05:16. > :05:19.the question of how much trouble our society really is in. Gavin
:05:19. > :05:22.Esler has been assessing what happened this week, and whether it
:05:22. > :05:32.gives any clues as to where Britain is heading. His piece contains some
:05:32. > :05:37.
:05:37. > :05:42.It was something we hoped we would never see again - cities on fire.
:05:42. > :05:48.Residents fleeing their homes. got outside and saw the building,
:05:48. > :05:53.the flames going up the building. Businesses destroyed, pitched
:05:53. > :05:56.battles in the heart of English cities. Who would do such a thing,
:05:56. > :06:03.terrorising their own neighbours, stealing, looting, destroying
:06:03. > :06:06.anything they came across? The riots of 2011 came in a week which
:06:06. > :06:10.changed our country and made us ask some terrible questions about who
:06:10. > :06:14.we are and what we have become. Who were these people who were
:06:14. > :06:19.destroying our cities? What should we do with them? If we saw some of
:06:19. > :06:23.the worst, we also saw some of the best - community spirit and
:06:23. > :06:27.extraordinary tolerance for people -- from people who have lost so
:06:27. > :06:31.much. It was a week to be ashamed and occasionally, just a little
:06:31. > :06:37.proud. It started in Tottenham a week ago, one of the most deprived
:06:37. > :06:42.London boroughs. Police marksmen killed a man they were trying to
:06:42. > :06:47.arrest, Mark Duggan, in disputed circumstances. In the aftermath, a
:06:47. > :06:54.peaceful protest turned ugly. Patrol cars, a shop and a bus was
:06:54. > :06:58.set ablaze by masked gunmen. The following morning, we slowly woke
:06:59. > :07:04.up to what had been done to one of our communities by some of its
:07:04. > :07:10.citizens. The victims were neighbours, small businesses, local
:07:10. > :07:17.residents - us. Tottenham's aim be toured the community and expressed
:07:17. > :07:21.the outrage of many of the rioters. We now need restraint and calm. I
:07:21. > :07:27.say to those who wanted to come to Tottenham to cause violence and
:07:27. > :07:32.disturbance to stay away. But other people were also listening - those
:07:32. > :07:36.who saw the riot not as an outrage that as an opportunity. London is
:07:36. > :07:42.hit by a second night of rioting. Looting and vandalism spread to
:07:42. > :07:49.other areas of the capital... violence was to spread like a
:07:49. > :07:55.madness which proved contagious. Eventually it spread to Birmingham,
:07:55. > :07:58.Manchester, Nottingham and other English cities. When we woke up to
:07:58. > :08:03.more damage, the same questions were repeated from the previous
:08:03. > :08:07.night. Where were the police? Why didn't they stop it? Why was the
:08:07. > :08:12.Prime Minister, his deputy and the Home Secretary all on holiday at
:08:12. > :08:17.the same time? The Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg, was the first
:08:17. > :08:20.to be visibly back on duty. Can a ask you, is this what is going to
:08:20. > :08:27.happen in England now, with the cuts? People suddenly being made
:08:27. > :08:34.homeless? I don't think so. weren't we protected...?
:08:34. > :08:38.violence continued. By now, the simmering anger of the law-abiding
:08:38. > :08:46.majority was directed at police, politicians, and above all, the end
:08:46. > :08:51.of the within. It is absolutely disgusting, they are feral Rats,
:08:51. > :08:55.what are those parents doing? Those children should be at home. This
:08:55. > :09:00.was the shocking incident of the Malaysian student robbed by those
:09:00. > :09:04.who had been appearing to help him. It summed up the viciousness of the
:09:04. > :09:10.events of the week. When the Prime Minister finally returned from his
:09:10. > :09:13.holiday in Italy, his response was resoundingly tough. I have this
:09:13. > :09:19.very clear message to those people who are responsible for this
:09:19. > :09:24.wrongdoing and criminality. You will feel the full force of the law.
:09:24. > :09:29.And if you are old enough to commit these crimes, you are old enough to
:09:29. > :09:33.face the punishment. And then, something remarkable - tens of
:09:33. > :09:37.thousands of people, many with brushes in their hands, turned out
:09:37. > :09:45.to help clean up their own neighbourhoods, waiting for police
:09:45. > :09:49.to let them into crime scenes. Some scathingly talked of the pointless
:09:50. > :09:53.destruction as recreational rioting, shopping with violence. What
:09:53. > :10:01.happened here last night and most of this is not about politics, it
:10:01. > :10:07.is about a individual and what they want to do, and all they want to do
:10:07. > :10:13.is kill, take, steel and Rob from people but are working hard.
:10:13. > :10:18.Political classes tried hard to catch up and catch on. It is time
:10:18. > :10:24.we stopped hearing all of this nonsense about sociological
:10:24. > :10:28.justifications for wanton criminality. Whatever people's
:10:28. > :10:32.grievances may be, it does not justify smashing up someone's shop,
:10:32. > :10:37.and wrecking their livelihood. train of discussion could be heard
:10:37. > :10:42.everywhere - were their reasons for the rioting, or merely excuses?
:10:42. > :10:48.we are doing is jailing our children. Look at the mental
:10:48. > :10:52.institutions - young, black people. His any of your kids in prison? His
:10:53. > :10:57.any of your kids getting stopped and searched? No, they're not. So,
:10:57. > :11:02.continue the riots. From street corners in Clapham to the Newsnight
:11:02. > :11:07.studios, you could hear the same differences of opinion. On the
:11:07. > :11:10.question of parenting... Who has been in charge of parenting for the
:11:10. > :11:13.last 13 years? If there is anyone who's responsible for the
:11:13. > :11:20.environment in which these young people grow up, it is you and the
:11:20. > :11:25.Labour Party. As London's slowly came back to normal, the violence
:11:26. > :11:29.continued in other big cities. In Birmingham, three young men were
:11:29. > :11:33.killed when a car ran into a group of Asian men trying to protect
:11:33. > :11:38.their homes and businesses. New fears followed of reprisals into
:11:38. > :11:42.ethnic tensions and vigilantes. There are pockets of our society
:11:42. > :11:45.which are not just broken but frankly sick. But of all the words
:11:45. > :11:53.spoken this week, the father of one of the young men killed in
:11:53. > :11:58.Birmingham stands out. Anything I ever wanted done, I would always
:11:58. > :12:04.ask him to sort it out for me. Not my eldest, but my youngest. And
:12:04. > :12:07.they killed him. In the past week, you could see broken Britain and
:12:07. > :12:12.sick Britain. You could also see people volunteering to clean up
:12:12. > :12:17.their own neighbourhoods - Community Britain, solidarity
:12:17. > :12:21.Britain, generous Britain. A society which got over the shock,
:12:21. > :12:25.mostly kept calm and carried on. The young Malaysian student who was
:12:25. > :12:29.mugged appeared in a news conference, and thousands of pounds
:12:29. > :12:34.was donated to help him. We live in a different country from the one we
:12:34. > :12:37.thought we lived in one week ago. The police, the politicians and the
:12:37. > :12:43.government reasserted themselves in the end, but it proved that at
:12:43. > :12:48.times, we cannot always rely on them. Beyond those institutions,
:12:48. > :12:57.our society, people like you and me, also failed for a while. We did
:12:57. > :13:00.come together, but only after so Joining me now, the historian David
:13:00. > :13:03.Starkey, the author of Chavs, Owen Jones, and the crime writer Dreda
:13:03. > :13:12.Say Mitchell. The scenes of wild rioting were played out around the
:13:12. > :13:22.world. Do you think this has been a profound cultural shift this week?
:13:22. > :13:23.
:13:23. > :13:28.Not this week. I'm sorry, I'm a historian, we will only know in the
:13:28. > :13:32.future. But one thing is for sure, profound changes have happened. In
:13:32. > :13:35.one sense, these riots are completely so official. Somebody
:13:35. > :13:40.brilliantly put it, it is shopping with violence. It is merely
:13:40. > :13:44.extended commercialism. For me, the key image was the woman cool the
:13:44. > :13:49.trying on a pair of trainers outside a shop which had been
:13:49. > :13:54.looted. So, that's one aspect of it. But in one area, there has been a
:13:54. > :13:59.profound cultural change. I have been re-reading Enoch Powell,
:13:59. > :14:04.rivers of blood. Its privacy was absolutely right in one sense. The
:14:04. > :14:09.river did not flow with blood, but flames wrapped around Tottenham and
:14:09. > :14:13.Clapham. But it was not into communal violence, this is where he
:14:13. > :14:17.was completely wrong. What happened was that a substantial section of
:14:17. > :14:22.the chavs that you wrote about have become black. The whites have
:14:22. > :14:26.become black. The particular sort of violent, destructive, and a
:14:26. > :14:32.holistic gangster culture has become the fashion. And black-and-
:14:32. > :14:36.white, boy and girl, operate in this language together. This
:14:36. > :14:41.language which is wholly false, which is a Jamaican patois which
:14:41. > :14:51.has been intruded in England, and this is why so many of us have this
:14:51. > :14:51.
:14:51. > :14:57.sense of literally a foreign In that speech he talked about the
:14:57. > :15:06.black man having the whip hand over the white man. It's not skin colour.
:15:06. > :15:11.It's colour churl. List ton David Lammy, a successful man. If you
:15:11. > :15:16.with list tong him on radio, you'd think he was white. David,
:15:16. > :15:21.absolutely, absolutely not at all really. Of all the theories we've
:15:21. > :15:27.heard this week, this whole notion that this is down to the way that
:15:27. > :15:31.some young people may choose to speak, that people... Behave.
:15:31. > :15:38.People, David, like myself, who maybe talk in a particular way.
:15:38. > :15:42.don't talk like them. "them ", this is the problem. It's them and us
:15:42. > :15:46.culture. We can't keep thinking of this as them and us argument. We
:15:46. > :15:50.keep talking about different communities. You keep talking about
:15:50. > :15:54.black culture, black communities are not homogeneous groups.
:15:54. > :15:57.course not. There are black cultures, lots of different
:15:57. > :16:00.cultures. What we need to be doing, we need to be thinking about
:16:00. > :16:05.ourselves as not individual communities, as one community. We
:16:05. > :16:10.need to stop talking about them ar and us. We need to talk about our
:16:10. > :16:13.children. We need to be using words like "we" and start putting this
:16:13. > :16:17.blame on different people. The blame culture has got to psto. We
:16:17. > :16:21.have to face head on what the issues are. When you say that white
:16:21. > :16:26.culture has adopted black culture, are you saying that has been at the
:16:26. > :16:31.heart of the rioting? Is it black culture that has caused rioting?
:16:31. > :16:38.Remember, what we're dealing with, listen to these boys, listen to -
:16:38. > :16:43.think you should answer the question. This is the text sent by
:16:43. > :16:49.the girl who had been the Olympic ambassador, who then engages in
:16:49. > :16:59.shocking acts of looting. Pigs shouldn't of killed that guy last
:16:59. > :16:59.
:16:59. > :17:04.night innit, then they wouldn't get blown up. Girls goes to steal wiis.
:17:04. > :17:09."That's outrageous, what you're saying. You're equating black
:17:09. > :17:13.culture with criminality - No, a particular sort. Let me finish. You
:17:13. > :17:19.said David Lammy when you heard him sounded white. What you meant by
:17:19. > :17:28.that is that white people equals being respectable and that white
:17:28. > :17:34.people, by adopting black culture is worse. You glorify rap? David I
:17:34. > :17:43.use rap in schools to teach children literary devices and it is
:17:43. > :17:48.a fantastic way - David, do you equate rap with rioting on the
:17:48. > :17:53.streets? Is that what you think? glorifies it. Rap actually, some
:17:53. > :17:56.rap, if you look at their void yoz, actually it reinforces the
:17:56. > :18:02.materialistic world that we live in. When was the last time you watched
:18:02. > :18:07.a rap video or looked at a rap song. Tell me about a rap artist, David?
:18:07. > :18:10.I'm curious to know about this. You hear stories and you deal with
:18:10. > :18:14.impeerical evidence, you base your theories on evidence. Explain what
:18:14. > :18:20.your evidence is before you make, frankly what a lot of viewers will
:18:20. > :18:24.find offensive generalisations. This these times, we need plain
:18:24. > :18:30.speaking. Plain speaking is necessary. You need facts, David.
:18:30. > :18:34.will give them. You are doing a Jeremy Paxman. I took part in
:18:34. > :18:39.Jamie's Dream School. I was involved in this. We used rap. We
:18:39. > :18:45.used rap to explore particular notions of masculinity, of violence,
:18:45. > :18:50.of dominance, of the relationship between old aristocratic violent
:18:50. > :18:54.practice and modern gang culture. It's very interesting. It is
:18:54. > :18:57.historically interesting. When we look at the facts, bringing it back
:18:57. > :19:03.to rioting, clearly it was not a riot that was only dominated by
:19:03. > :19:09.black people. It was, there were many white people. It started as a
:19:09. > :19:12.black protest about the killing of a black man. So can we just have
:19:12. > :19:20.that fact absolutely straightforward. A peaceful protest.
:19:20. > :19:22.A community protest. It quickly ceased to be peaceful. We've got to
:19:23. > :19:26.understand in Tottenham in particular, in this country black
:19:26. > :19:34.people are 30 times more likely to be stopped and searched. In
:19:34. > :19:37.Tottenham one - let me finish. of gun crime is black. One in two
:19:37. > :19:42.people in Tottenham grow newspaper poverty. I no know. There's a sense
:19:42. > :19:46.of harassment by the police. This is just the latest in an example of
:19:46. > :19:50.a civilian killed in very dubious circumstances. What the IPCC
:19:50. > :19:53.originally came up with... utterly outrageous. I want to
:19:53. > :19:59.manufacture this on. David Cameron said this wasn't about race at all.
:19:59. > :20:02.He thinks it's about crime. Culture. He said it's crime actually. Let's
:20:02. > :20:05.look at the damage to the social fabric in terms of what this says.
:20:05. > :20:11.You talked about the shopping violence. Shopping with violence,
:20:11. > :20:15.yeah. Do you think this is part of an inquiztive culture that endless
:20:15. > :20:20.consumerism, it wasn't mindless rioting. It was rioting with a
:20:20. > :20:24.clear commercial purpose. Absolutely. We are the society.
:20:24. > :20:28.We've tripped ourselves up. What have we emphasised to children,
:20:28. > :20:32.success equals money. That's what we've been saying for such a long
:20:32. > :20:36.time. So is it any wonder that the type of shops they were looting, it
:20:36. > :20:40.was all about materialism. If you think about it, we've had a
:20:40. > :20:47.recession. One of the issues of our recession is about the way that
:20:47. > :20:55.banks behave. We let our banks off basically. I don't - Were any bank
:20:55. > :20:59.as tacked? Ferel bankers and looters. Despite all this stuff on
:20:59. > :21:03.politicians, on the press, on bankers, no public buildings were
:21:03. > :21:08.attacked. If you get a real political outbreak, public
:21:08. > :21:12.buildings are attacked. Can we just move on to something - So that kind
:21:12. > :21:18.of protest is OK? No, it's not OK. I mean I don't actually think that
:21:18. > :21:22.direct, I don't think there is a human right to riot. There is a
:21:22. > :21:29.right to protest. There is a right to protest. Can we turn this round?
:21:29. > :21:34.I am not attacking these groups. What do you mean by "these groups".
:21:34. > :21:39.Please, you correctly say these people feel excluded, they're poor,
:21:39. > :21:44.they can't get jobs. They're searched bit police. Now why is it
:21:44. > :21:52.that these groups particularly in these areas, you were saying black
:21:52. > :21:57.males... I'll give you an example David. Can we look - I will give
:21:57. > :22:02.you an example to this building - Can I move this on. I have to stop
:22:02. > :22:05.this. You are using black and white culture interchangably as good and
:22:05. > :22:08.bad. I want to know how much damage you think this has done to the
:22:08. > :22:11.fabric of society. I think it's considerable amount of damage. What
:22:11. > :22:15.I would like to see is a recognition that what is the way
:22:15. > :22:20.out for these boys and girls. The way out - You think that's by
:22:20. > :22:25.dropping black culture? No, well, I think it's a particular form. I
:22:25. > :22:29.think - I find it really... Why is it so important to do so? Because
:22:29. > :22:33.this type of black male culture mill taits against education.
:22:34. > :22:36.is nothing to do with that. There will be people watching who think
:22:36. > :22:41.that black culture is synonymous with gang culture at least.
:22:41. > :22:44.Absolutely. That is something that we need to fight against. There's
:22:44. > :22:48.an angry backlash and understandably so. People felt
:22:48. > :22:52.terrorised in their communities. I felt that and my friends felt that.
:22:52. > :22:56.There's a dangerous climate where to even begin to understand the
:22:56. > :22:59.underlying social and economic causes is seen as justifying
:22:59. > :23:07.mindless thuggery. It's not do-re- mi-fa-so-la-ti-do that. We have to
:23:07. > :23:10.accept there is a -- it's not to do that. We have to accept that. If we
:23:10. > :23:15.look at young black men it's half of them are out of work. If you
:23:15. > :23:19.have a tiny proportion of people who feel they have no future, that
:23:19. > :23:22.they have no future ahead of them, a tiny proportion take to the
:23:22. > :23:27.streets in a way that happened this week, in the most tragic of ways,
:23:27. > :23:31.that is enough to cause chaos on the streets. Unless we solve that,
:23:31. > :23:34.this will happen again and again. Thank you very much for coming in.
:23:34. > :23:38.The scenes of wild rioting were played out around the world. It's a
:23:38. > :23:42.fairly safe bet the world can now see Britain doesn't just do queuing.
:23:42. > :23:46.This time next year, London will again become a global media focus
:23:46. > :23:52.for hopefully happier reasons, as the 2012 Olympic Games kick off.
:23:52. > :23:56.How much has our international image been tarnished? Despotic
:23:56. > :24:04.regimes may be laughing now at our own lack of order. Can we repair
:24:04. > :24:08.the damage in the Long Run? Here's Stephen Smith. Centrepiece
:24:08. > :24:11.of the festival, London South Bank exhibition opens on schedule.
:24:12. > :24:15.other time of economic hardship, the 50s, the Festival of Britain
:24:15. > :24:19.was staged beside the Thames in London.
:24:19. > :24:24.ARCHIVE: Escalators carry visitors to the top floor. For the then
:24:24. > :24:29.cutting edge technology on show, it was a showcase of British values,
:24:29. > :24:34.such as resourcefulness and pluck. 60 years on that event is recalled
:24:34. > :24:38.in another festival, which offers a nostalgic view of the great British
:24:38. > :24:42.summer holiday and perhaps a gentler time. This tribute to the
:24:42. > :24:46.Festival of Britain was supposed to embody similar values - optimism,
:24:46. > :24:49.the best of British in a time of austerity. But visitors coming to
:24:49. > :24:54.the country this week could be forgiven for having an all together
:24:54. > :24:59.different impression of the place. The way I perceive the whole way
:24:59. > :25:04.has been totally madness, frustration, feeling like, you know,
:25:05. > :25:08.why is this happening to London? What's going on? Not understanding
:25:09. > :25:12.at all. It's unbelievable because I have been here before. I've never
:25:12. > :25:16.seen something like this. The kids were saying there's so much
:25:16. > :25:20.happening in Pakistan, especially Peshawar. When we have come here,
:25:20. > :25:26.we have brought the disturbance here. So I said no, no, it's not
:25:26. > :25:31.that. It's just a mishap. It's a coincidence. Our parents gave us a
:25:31. > :25:37.call and they said "Oh, don't go to London. There's a little bit
:25:37. > :25:45.trouble, great trouble there." But we decided another way. We had a
:25:45. > :25:50.nice day. No regrets so far? This is what the outside world is
:25:51. > :25:53.accustomed to seeing of us, a royal occasion with all the trimmings.
:25:53. > :25:58.Foreign reporters who are based here have had a very different
:25:58. > :26:02.story to tell this week. I think it was a shock. It was a shock for
:26:02. > :26:06.people, because when they come here as tourists, when they come to
:26:06. > :26:11.London, what do they do? They look at Buckingham Palace, they think
:26:11. > :26:17.about the Queen. They go to the usual tourist attractions. They see
:26:17. > :26:21.Bond Street. They do some shopping. Britain is really in German eyes
:26:21. > :26:28.not really connected with the social unrest and with social
:26:28. > :26:33.problems of that magnitude. So the public image has got some really
:26:33. > :26:37.big scratches through those occurrences. London on fire. A wave
:26:37. > :26:40.of violence... Whether we like it or not, the riots in England have
:26:40. > :26:43.been headline news around the world. The French were one of several
:26:43. > :26:50.nations to urge their people to think carefully before travel to
:26:51. > :26:56.the UK. While state TV in China took the opportunity to question
:26:56. > :27:00.whether next year's Olympic Games in London would be safe. Television
:27:00. > :27:04.loyal to Colonel Gaddafi in Libya portrayed the riots as a deprived
:27:04. > :27:10.people fighting a repressive government. While some other
:27:10. > :27:14.broadcasters in the Middle East said this was Britain's Arab Spring.
:27:14. > :27:19.Some Greeks have even been marching in sympathy with English rioters.
:27:19. > :27:22.They've got the wrong end of the stick says a correspondent here.
:27:22. > :27:27.They assumed that this was a similar situation to theirs, that
:27:27. > :27:32.this was a middle class uprising against austerity, against cuts.
:27:32. > :27:38.This was something they could relate to. My job was to kind of
:27:38. > :27:41.explain further the nuances. the Iranian government has its own
:27:41. > :27:45.take on English events. TRANSLATION: The British people
:27:45. > :27:51.have reached the end of their tether. They've run out of patients
:27:51. > :27:56.during these times of economic hardship. What this suggests is
:27:56. > :28:03.that though we may live in a global village, what the English get up to
:28:03. > :28:09.in summer defies easy translation. With me in the studio the Chinese
:28:09. > :28:12.businessman and Australian trip newer Sir David Tang, the Canadian
:28:12. > :28:18.businessman, Tyler Brule and French journalist Nabila Ramdani. Thanks
:28:18. > :28:26.for coming in. How do you think the world is viewing us now?.
:28:26. > :28:29.images of the rioting and the burning and all the unrest, I think,
:28:29. > :28:36.painted a very bad picture of Britain in the last few days across
:28:36. > :28:41.the world. Two things I would imagine, one, for a foreigner and
:28:41. > :28:47.in particular, even the seasoned travellers, who used to think that
:28:47. > :28:52.London was a very safe capital, had to be amazed and possibly start
:28:52. > :29:01.thinking again whether, in fact, it was such a safe place. Secondly, I
:29:01. > :29:09.think that dictators and tie rants and toe tatt tairn states around
:29:09. > :29:14.the world must be absolutely having a distinct sense of sharden Freuder.
:29:14. > :29:18.Western democracy, touted as the argument for civilisation and in
:29:18. > :29:23.Arab Spring in particular being pedestrianled and promoted is now
:29:23. > :29:28.seen to be a totally vulnerable to social unrest and even more
:29:28. > :29:33.important social injustice. What about how China deals with dissent
:29:33. > :29:39.though. You saw my government there questioning whether London is able
:29:39. > :29:44.to handle the Olympics. And I've talked to a lot of Chinese, I
:29:44. > :29:48.wasn't in China at the time. I was actually in Europe, but when I talk
:29:48. > :29:52.to them, they, of course, are laughing in a way, because they
:29:52. > :29:57.couldn't believe that something like this could happen and so, they
:29:57. > :30:05.are beginning to question all sorts of things. If it wasn't so serious,
:30:05. > :30:09.it would be farcical hearing from Ahmadinejad in Iran and China's
:30:09. > :30:12.government about whether London's capable. What's the danger here?
:30:12. > :30:18.think David Cameron's knee-jerk reaction to the riots is certainly
:30:18. > :30:22.going to attract an enormous amount of harm to Britain's international
:30:22. > :30:26.standing. You think he's overreacted? Absolutely. The
:30:26. > :30:31.possibility to bring in the army, not only upset the Metropolitan
:30:31. > :30:38.Police, but it made him sound like some kind of insensitive autocrat
:30:38. > :30:44.and you combine this with the mooted idea to curtail social
:30:44. > :30:48.networking, and it makes him sound uncomfortably like the autocrats or
:30:48. > :30:52.the behaviour of the autocrats, which provoked the Arab Spring.
:30:52. > :31:02.you think there's a possibility of a massive overreaction here? Do you
:31:02. > :31:05.think anything's going to hit us There has been a lot of discussion
:31:05. > :31:10.about the poor Malaysian student, which was one of the most striking
:31:10. > :31:16.images. But if I look at a second image, it is all about the second
:31:16. > :31:21.biggest investors to this country, which is Japan. We had that
:31:21. > :31:27.smouldering solely distribution centre. I think there will be some
:31:27. > :31:32.board meetings, and people will be thinking about their investment
:31:32. > :31:36.strategy in this country next year. Especially from the point of view
:31:36. > :31:41.of the Japanese. Soon after their disaster, there was hardly any
:31:41. > :31:46.looting. Everybody was behaving... But these are the same Japanese,
:31:46. > :31:51.the same Koreans, the same Americans, who have been watching
:31:51. > :31:56.our Royal Wedding... That's why they wanted to see something bad.
:31:56. > :32:01.Unfortunately, in the world today, when you have images of burning
:32:01. > :32:09.cars allowed by the police to carry on, and let looters loot and so
:32:09. > :32:14.forth, unfortunately, those images are indelible. You lived through
:32:15. > :32:19.the Paris riots of 2005 - would you say those images are now Indelible?
:32:19. > :32:24.People do not say, I'm not going to Paris because of those riots six
:32:24. > :32:30.years ago. Well, those riots certainly damaged the reputation of
:32:31. > :32:33.the city of Paris. It made it appear a dangerous, turbulent city.
:32:34. > :32:41.I'm afraid it is the same thing that will happen to the reputation
:32:41. > :32:46.of the City of London. As David was saying, I think the pictures on the
:32:46. > :32:54.footage of arson was perhaps the most depressing aspect, because you
:32:54. > :32:59.cannot have a worse image. You did not actually see somebody torch a
:32:59. > :33:06.building, but the images of people smashing up shops and looting, and
:33:06. > :33:11.the police are standing by, rightly or wrongly, that sends a very bad...
:33:11. > :33:16.You're saying, it is the failure of the institutions to take control.
:33:16. > :33:23.People could not believe that the Great Metropolitan Police, Scotland
:33:23. > :33:27.Yard, Sherlock Holmes... But it is a very old-fashioned idea.
:33:27. > :33:33.people are old-fashioned. Gang here in a very modern way. People
:33:34. > :33:41.outside of Britain have a very typical version, understanding, of
:33:41. > :33:48.what Britain is. I think that caused irreparable damage. Does
:33:48. > :33:53.Britain need to go on a PR offensive now? Not today. The last
:33:53. > :33:58.thing the country needs to do right now is to buy up lots of airtime on
:33:58. > :34:02.CNN to say how great it is. People need to see a plan. If you look at
:34:02. > :34:08.international investors, they want to know what's going to happen with
:34:08. > :34:11.youth unemployment - if I'm going to invest in this country, I'm
:34:11. > :34:16.going to set up a semiconductor plant, I want to make sure there's
:34:16. > :34:25.a trained workforce here. If you look at this country versus Germany,
:34:25. > :34:27.our peers want to see a plan. We have not have that this week.
:34:27. > :34:29.before we go, news of tonight's special Review. Thanks, Emily.
:34:29. > :34:31.We're live from the Edinburgh Festival tonight, when we highlight
:34:31. > :34:41.taboo-breaking comedy from Margaret Cho and Ruby Wax, explore
:34:41. > :34:43.
:34:43. > :34:46.exhibitions by Robert Rauchenberg, Tony Cragg and David Mach. We look