:00:09. > :00:12.Tonight, just how close was the CIA to Gaddafi's own regime? A new
:00:12. > :00:17.leader of Libya says he was imprisoned and tortured by the
:00:17. > :00:22.Americans in the aftermath of 9/11, then handed over to the curl nel
:00:22. > :00:25.for more. What hope is there for trust between the two sides now. Do
:00:25. > :00:27.we really know who was behind this revolution.
:00:27. > :00:32.Here in Libya there is an international scramble to make
:00:32. > :00:36.friends with the new leadership, even if some of them turn out to be
:00:36. > :00:38.old enemies. Another coalition triumph, control
:00:38. > :00:44.orders restricting the movement of terrorist suspects were dumped by
:00:44. > :00:47.the Liberal Democrats. Why are they now back in all but name.
:00:47. > :00:53.Also tonight, whatever happened to the August silly season.
:00:53. > :00:58.What a summer it's been, riots, Libya, the economy, phone hacking,
:00:58. > :01:08.and now I've been called back from the Newsnight Villa in Tuscany, to
:01:08. > :01:12.
:01:12. > :01:17.do a special report on a Good evening. One of NATO's key
:01:17. > :01:25.allies in Libya, the leader of military forces in Tripoli has
:01:25. > :01:29.alleged he was kidnapped and interrogated by the CIA, and then
:01:29. > :01:37.turned over to Gaddafi. Abdul Hakim Belhaj said he was turned over to
:01:37. > :01:42.the CIA for his alleged links with Al-Qaeda, links he denies. These
:01:43. > :01:48.are the strange bedfellows and allegations emerging.
:01:48. > :01:52.We have a bit more now. There is more light being shed on
:01:52. > :01:55.the dark side of the war on terror, that is for sure. 30 years ago
:01:55. > :01:58.Islamist fighting groups were America's great friends, fighting
:01:58. > :02:04.the good fight against the Russians in Afghanistan. Ten years ago that
:02:05. > :02:10.all changed with the war on terror. The enemy's enemy, Colonel Gaddafi
:02:10. > :02:16.became the great friend. Now that's all changed again, and we have a
:02:16. > :02:18.former Jihadist leading the fight against Gaddafi's forces in Tripoli.
:02:18. > :02:22.He's revealing some embarrassing secrets.
:02:22. > :02:28.Suddenly everything has changed, the rebel force that took Tripoli
:02:28. > :02:32.is now the de facto army of the new Libya. The man who led them is
:02:32. > :02:36.Abdul Hakim Belhaj. Today we are witnessing a new revolution which
:02:36. > :02:40.everyone is happy about. But the hero of this new revolution,
:02:41. > :02:47.championed by NATO and America, has also said just a few years ago he
:02:47. > :02:51.was being tortured by the CIA. Back in the 1990s, Belhaj led an
:02:51. > :02:55.Islamist guerrilla group fight to go overthrow Gaddafi. Then the
:02:55. > :02:59.Americans lent Gaddafi a hand. According to Belhaj he was first
:02:59. > :03:04.detained in an airport in Malaysia in 2004. From there he was taken to
:03:05. > :03:09.a secret prison in Bangkok, Thailand, where, he says, two CIA
:03:09. > :03:13.agents took a direct part in his torture. He don't give details.
:03:13. > :03:22.Days after that he was handed to the Libyans, a gift from America to
:03:22. > :03:27.the Gaddafi regime. He was to spend six years in Tripoli's notorious
:03:27. > :03:33.Abu Salemprison. The CIA, Libya relationship is no surprise to this
:03:33. > :03:37.man. Libyan-born he was locked up in Guantanamo Bay. In September
:03:37. > :03:41.2004, two Libyan intelligence officers turned up as his
:03:41. > :03:46.interrogators. He said the real enemy is not the Americans, we are
:03:46. > :03:50.the real enemy, you are our enemy. They said things like they will
:03:50. > :03:55.kill me when I went back, they came to take me back to Libya. The real
:03:55. > :03:59.problems are in Libya where they will kill me. Clearly you are like
:03:59. > :04:02.the son, opposing the Gaddafi regime and an enemy of the
:04:02. > :04:08.revolution. They were making all sorts of threats. Were you worried?
:04:08. > :04:11.I was very worried. The Americans kept threatening with handing us to
:04:11. > :04:16.the Libyans. Six years ago Newsnight coroborated his story
:04:16. > :04:20.about Libyan agents in Guantanamo, by following the logs of a CIA
:04:20. > :04:27.plane, tracked from Washington DC to Tripoli and back to Guantanamo
:04:27. > :04:31.Bay. All the Libyan detainees in
:04:31. > :04:36.Guantanamo were interrogated by Gaddafi's agents, says this man.
:04:36. > :04:40.One of them, still locked up in Guantanamo, they threatened to
:04:40. > :04:45.sodomise him when he came back. They said he was pretending to be a
:04:45. > :04:52.man. They said he had this orange suit, they will make him look
:04:52. > :04:55.orange without the suit, they will have the iron and use it on his
:04:55. > :05:01.skin until the skin will become orange, things like that. They made
:05:01. > :05:07.threats to all of them. Newsnight established that he was
:05:07. > :05:15.in Guantanamo, because the Americans had confused him with a
:05:16. > :05:19.Jihadi from somewhere else. Did they believe it? The rubbish
:05:19. > :05:23.intelligence that came out. I think at that time they were so hungry
:05:23. > :05:29.for information that the Security Services of Libya or more cock co-
:05:29. > :05:35.could take the CIA for - Morocco could take the CIA for a ride.
:05:35. > :05:45.far did they take them for a ride? All the way. You remember Colin
:05:45. > :05:45.
:05:45. > :05:51.Powell talking about WMDs and all gad da links, that came from an Al-
:05:51. > :05:57.Qaeda man who was Libyan and rendered, the Americans went to war
:05:57. > :06:03.on that, and it wasn't true. He turned up dead two years later in a
:06:03. > :06:08.Libyan prison. You can see the truth of the platitude, your
:06:08. > :06:16.enemy's enemy is your enemy's friend, is more true now. How are
:06:16. > :06:20.everyone feeling about the allied forces involved in the revolution.
:06:20. > :06:24.There was jubilation in Benghazi this week, as bus loads of
:06:24. > :06:29.Gaddafi's victims came home. Political prisoners from Libya's
:06:29. > :06:34.most notorious jail. Tripoli's Abu Salem. One released earlier
:06:34. > :06:39.remembers the massacre there in June 1996, when an estimated 1200
:06:39. > :06:47.prisoners were shot dead. Saturday 29th at 11.00, they started
:06:47. > :06:50.shooting them from the roof. I saw six special forces shooting with a
:06:50. > :06:57.Kalashnikov and the other guy has a heavy machine gun, from the roof,
:06:57. > :07:00.on the top of the roof, shooting the protestors inside the yards.
:07:00. > :07:06.Relatives weren't told, cynically for years afterwards, guards
:07:06. > :07:12.accepted food parcels for the dead and resold them. The victims'
:07:12. > :07:20.families had been bringing food and needs to their kids. Believing and
:07:20. > :07:26.hoping their kids were still alive. The jail commander with his
:07:26. > :07:30.soldiers would take those things. The jail's victims included both
:07:30. > :07:35.opposition activists and others merely suspected of dissident
:07:35. > :07:39.thoughts. Some were Democrats, others Islamists.
:07:39. > :07:48.This young man, I interviewed him alongside his father, earlier this
:07:48. > :07:53.year in the eastern city of Deraa, were among hundreds jailed after
:07:53. > :07:56.fighting. He said he wouldn't do that again. TRANSLATION: I went to
:07:56. > :08:04.Iraq for love of the country, to sacrifice myself because of what
:08:04. > :08:07.happened in the Abu Graib jail, and the occupation.
:08:07. > :08:14.Today in Benghazi, as every Friday, they were praying on the square,
:08:14. > :08:18.that for months was the heart of the Libyan revolution. This is an
:08:18. > :08:24.overwhelmingly devout and socially conservative society, but one that
:08:24. > :08:28.now claims to be committed to pluralistic democracy. Libya's new
:08:28. > :08:32.leaders vehemently deny there is any major strain of Islamism in
:08:32. > :08:36.their revolution. Most former Islamists within their ranks say
:08:36. > :08:40.they long ago abandoned any extreme views they may once have held. Even
:08:40. > :08:45.so, some western politicians, particularly in America, think
:08:45. > :08:50.Libya needs to be watched very carefully in future, for any
:08:50. > :08:56.possible resurgence of radicalism. It was the murder, just over a
:08:57. > :09:02.month ago, of this man, the rebels' Commander-in-Chief, Abdel Fattah
:09:02. > :09:07.Younes, that most alarmed Libya's western backers, and many within
:09:07. > :09:10.the country. The investigation's continuing, but both the National
:09:10. > :09:16.Transitional Council and Younes's family say Islamist militia men
:09:16. > :09:21.were to blame. They were an Islamic radical group, who committed this
:09:21. > :09:29.execution. According to the eyewitnesses, who have been with
:09:29. > :09:35.him, his guards, so that people looked in a strange shape, with a
:09:35. > :09:44.long beard, with their vocalisation, the way that they spoke, were
:09:44. > :09:47.obviously looking like people from extreme background. No-one's yet
:09:47. > :09:53.sure whether the transitional council can control radical groups,
:09:53. > :09:57.or how far it may go to co-opt Islamists into its vision of the
:09:57. > :10:01.future. Libya's revolutionaries are so keen on legality, that here on
:10:01. > :10:07.Benghazi water front, amid the souvenir stall, with the hats and
:10:07. > :10:11.the bags, you can also find a copy in Arabic and English of the Libyan
:10:11. > :10:18.constitution. This isn't the new constitution, it is the
:10:18. > :10:23.constitution of the Libyan monarchy from 1951. And 1952, under the
:10:23. > :10:26.monarchy, is the only year that Libya has ever had an election.
:10:26. > :10:31.There is an interesting difference between this old 1950s constitution,
:10:31. > :10:36.and the new one worked out very scruplously by the National
:10:36. > :10:41.Transitional Council. Here you can see under the old one, article five,
:10:41. > :10:45.saying Islam is the religion of state. Now, under the new draft
:10:45. > :10:49.constitution, that is rather amplified, to say that Sharia,
:10:49. > :10:52.Islamic law, will be the primary source of all future legislation
:10:52. > :10:59.here. That's a distinct difference that some people feel is a
:10:59. > :11:06.concession to Islamists. But not major one.
:11:06. > :11:11.For now, gratitude for the west's support is linked to a desire for
:11:11. > :11:15.diversity in Libya and there is a willingness to forgive America for
:11:15. > :11:21.its security links with Gaddafi after 9/11. If you go and knock on
:11:21. > :11:25.any door in Tripoli, Benghazi, or in the southern part, asking what
:11:25. > :11:31.friends of the United States or Britain, what the west means to you,
:11:31. > :11:36.they would say, our lives. They do appreciate what they did. To
:11:36. > :11:40.protect civilians. Britain, America and other western states may
:11:40. > :11:46.sometimes have found the Libyan dictator useful in the past, the
:11:46. > :11:53.feeling here is they have certainly redeemed themselves now.
:11:53. > :11:57.We can speak now to Sheuer, the former head of the CIA Bin Laden
:11:57. > :12:00.unit in Edinburgh, and the former leader of the Liberal Democrats,
:12:00. > :12:03.Menzies Campbell joins us too. Michael Sheuer, it is pretty
:12:03. > :12:10.embarrassing if this is proved that the Americans and Gaddafi were
:12:10. > :12:18.working rather well together, all the time? Why would that be
:12:18. > :12:21.embarrassing, mam, Mr Blair, Condoleezza Rice and others went to
:12:21. > :12:26.kiss Colonel Gaddafi's butt when he gave up weapons of mass destruction.
:12:26. > :12:30.It is a strange way to phrase it to say the CIA had a relationship with
:12:30. > :12:34.Libya, the United States Government had a relationship with Libya, as
:12:34. > :12:37.did Britain and France and all the Intelligence Services. This is not
:12:37. > :12:45.a surprise. Is it something you are proud of or is it a source of
:12:45. > :12:49.regret? Certainly I don't regret it. You work with whoever you can work
:12:49. > :12:53.with to protect the United States, that is the bottom line. Our
:12:53. > :12:56.Government said he was a good guy now and we should deal with them.
:12:56. > :13:00.The Intelligence Services are not independent actors, in the United
:13:00. > :13:07.States, everything we did with Gaddafi was approved by Mr Bush,
:13:07. > :13:15.and had to be reapproved by Mr Obama. That is the real truth of it,
:13:15. > :13:21.Israel poll teak means we have always - real politk means we have
:13:21. > :13:24.always had to use dictators? supported Saddam Hussein when he
:13:24. > :13:28.was using chemical weapons against the Iranians and his own people,
:13:28. > :13:31.look how that turned out. I agree with what was said, it is not the
:13:31. > :13:35.Intelligence Services that need to be embarrassed, it is the
:13:35. > :13:39.Governments. I have some form on this. He said there is no
:13:39. > :13:43.embarrassment at all, why would you be embarrassed in protecting
:13:43. > :13:46.national security in doing so? said it was understood that the
:13:46. > :13:51.Intelligence Service was not embarrassed. I think Governments
:13:51. > :13:57.are embarrassed. As I say, I have some form on this, I was taken to
:13:57. > :14:01.task by a commentator in national newspaper here, after I was thought
:14:01. > :14:05.to be unenthusiastic about the deal which Tony Blair had done. Of
:14:05. > :14:09.course you have to do deals, often with people whose methods and whose
:14:09. > :14:14.philosophy you don't like. But that doesn't mean to say you shouldn't
:14:14. > :14:22.be as if todayous about how you deal with - as if stidous about how
:14:22. > :14:26.you deal with grb fastidious about how you deal with them.
:14:26. > :14:36.ascensionly believe now these men are terrorists? NATO has supplied
:14:36. > :14:38.
:14:38. > :14:42.air support to people who would be called the Taliban. We walked into
:14:42. > :14:46.the affair in Libya with the basis of the revolution coming out of
:14:47. > :14:50.Benghazi, the most strongest Islamist place in Libya, and those
:14:50. > :14:55.people have carried the fighting, while pushing forward English
:14:55. > :15:01.speaking, legalistic intellectuals, who are on the transitional council
:15:01. > :15:05.now. Whether that holds steady in the future I think is highly
:15:05. > :15:11.unlikely. So much for the utopia, Menzies Campbell, how worried are
:15:11. > :15:17.you that the man militarily leading Libya is a former Jihadi, you heard
:15:17. > :15:23.in Tim's piece that Sharia is a part of the future legislation and
:15:23. > :15:28.this man is a Jihadi? As was said a few moments ago, we have to keep
:15:28. > :15:32.our eye on Libya. Mr Belhaj is surprisingly short of rancour about
:15:32. > :15:35.any of the things that happened to him. He does claim that he has
:15:35. > :15:42.abandoned the whole notion of holy war, it is not what people say that
:15:43. > :15:47.matters, it is what they do. That is why the west has been at pains
:15:47. > :15:51.to embrace the national council, why else was there that meeting
:15:51. > :15:56.yesterday in Paris when we were trying very closely to embrace the
:15:56. > :16:03.leaders of the new Libya, in order to ensure that we have some
:16:03. > :16:07.influence in relation to their promises to accept, adopt and
:16:07. > :16:11.implement. Do you accept that rendition was the wrong policy?
:16:11. > :16:14.think it was absolutely the right policy, and will have to be revived
:16:14. > :16:19.under the next President, whether that is a re-elected President
:16:19. > :16:23.Obama or a Republican. Is the CIA still monitoring, what are
:16:23. > :16:26.essentially the new leaders of Libya now? I would certainly hope
:16:26. > :16:31.so, I would certainly hope they would be doing that now. I I was
:16:31. > :16:36.going to say there is a fundamental difference. On these matters, as
:16:36. > :16:39.far as I'm concerned. Rendition is illegal, it is illegal in
:16:39. > :16:44.international law, and almost certainly illegal in the domestic
:16:44. > :16:48.law of the countries in which it is practised. And if you accept that
:16:48. > :16:54.rendition is a legitimate means of conducting the campaign against
:16:54. > :17:00.terrorism, then you are giving away an enormous amount of your moral
:17:00. > :17:05.authority. You lose your moral authority by doing so? The moral
:17:05. > :17:08.high ground is where you shoot your guns straightist from. I wouldn't
:17:08. > :17:13.worry about international law for a second if I was in charge of
:17:13. > :17:23.protecting the United States. David Cameron was once reported to
:17:23. > :17:23.
:17:23. > :17:27.have said control orders had the potential to be an car crash. After
:17:27. > :17:31.spending months trying to relocate terror suspects, ministers have
:17:31. > :17:35.draft proposals appearing to endorse what they tried to get rid
:17:35. > :17:40.of. The terrorism and detention and investigation measure, which came
:17:40. > :17:49.to be known as TPIMS, have been lambasted this week, but are
:17:49. > :17:55.control orders back in all but name. What are - What are they actually
:17:55. > :18:01.doing, with this complicated set of measures? It is best to look at a
:18:01. > :18:07.terrorist suspect under the name PD. He's under a old style control
:18:07. > :18:12.order, he's under virtual house arrest. It is deemed his
:18:12. > :18:16.prosecution is impossible because the intelligence and evidence is
:18:16. > :18:20.inadmissible in court. The Liberal Democrats have always been opposed
:18:20. > :18:28.to a control order regime, one of the things they were opposed to was
:18:28. > :18:31.the forcible relocation. PD has been relocated to the Midlands, to
:18:31. > :18:33.break connections with co- conspirators and supporters. The
:18:33. > :18:36.Liberal Democrats as soon as they came into the coalition Government
:18:36. > :18:41.started arguing strongly against the Conservatives that they needed
:18:41. > :18:45.to water down, to weaken, and dilute the control order
:18:45. > :18:48.legislation. To a certain degree they were successful. They wrung
:18:48. > :18:52.out a new legislation, proposed, and coming into force in January.
:18:52. > :18:57.The key changes they have forced through is the idea that people,
:18:57. > :19:02.suspects, weren't going to be forcibly relocated any more. Wind
:19:02. > :19:07.forward six months to today, and now we seem to have something of a
:19:07. > :19:10.vault fast. The Government have now proposed draft legislation, that
:19:10. > :19:13.seems to indicate in exceptional circumstances, this won't be the
:19:14. > :19:19.case and these suspects will be allowed to be forcibly relocated in
:19:19. > :19:22.a time of crisis. To try to cut through all the confusion, I spoke
:19:22. > :19:26.to Lord McDonald, the former head of public prosecutions today, to
:19:26. > :19:31.ask him, in effect, what then is the difference between the old
:19:31. > :19:35.control order regime and this new set of measures? None at all. The
:19:35. > :19:38.new powers in the enhanced bill as published yesterday are control
:19:38. > :19:42.orders. There is one substantial difference s they be limited to two
:19:42. > :19:47.years, unless there was further evidence coming forward. The suite
:19:47. > :19:51.of powers is the same. Telephone bans, computer bans, the advanced
:19:51. > :19:54.bill is a control order bill. The Government has to make its mind up.
:19:54. > :19:58.I don't really like the look of a situation in which the Government
:19:58. > :20:01.makes its mind up and says hang on, just in cautious we will have
:20:01. > :20:04.something else up our sleeve. They have done it with control orders
:20:04. > :20:13.and 28 days. Ministers need to stand back from Security Service
:20:13. > :20:18.advice and take decisions in the public interest.
:20:18. > :20:21.Security sources have told me it may not be as simple as that, they
:20:21. > :20:27.were comfortable with the new measures. It may be people in the
:20:27. > :20:31.police or the Home Office. It remains a mystery tonight. We asked
:20:31. > :20:35.the Home Office to clear up the mystery on the programme, they
:20:35. > :20:40.denied. Joining me now is Tom Brake and the
:20:40. > :20:46.former Labour cabinet minister, Hazel Blears. I guess this is the
:20:46. > :20:50.car crash that David Cameron proverbly first warned of? What we
:20:50. > :20:53.have is the TPIMS legislation going through the House of Commons at the
:20:53. > :21:00.moment, which will get rid of control orders. That is what the
:21:00. > :21:03.counter terrorism review which we initiated...In All but name? It has
:21:03. > :21:09.got rid of relocation and control orders. What the council also said
:21:09. > :21:13.was there may be a need for additional legislation if there
:21:13. > :21:16.were extreme, exceptional circumstances. That is what has now
:21:16. > :21:19.come forward. That is draft legislation. That is not going to
:21:19. > :21:23.be legislation, unless those extreme circumstances apply. It is
:21:23. > :21:27.not clear to me what those extreme circumstances might be. You are
:21:27. > :21:30.playing with words? There would be a parliamentary debate and a vote
:21:30. > :21:35.at the end of the process. If we are not happy that extreme
:21:35. > :21:38.circumstances apply, I'm sure we will vote against that legislation.
:21:38. > :21:43.Hazel Blears, does this make sense to you, does it seem difference
:21:43. > :21:46.from what you set up in the first place? It is an absolute and utter
:21:46. > :21:49.shambles. For the last few months on the committee which I have been
:21:49. > :21:53.a member of. I have been moving amendments saying the Home
:21:53. > :21:59.Secretary should at least have the power to consider relocation, she
:21:59. > :22:02.might not decide to use it in every case, but it might be appropriate
:22:02. > :22:06.In the last six months the Home Secretary has used two control
:22:06. > :22:09.orders and used the power of relocation and then proposed not to
:22:09. > :22:12.give herself the power. Then yesterday we hear there will be an
:22:12. > :22:16.emergency bill. The prospect of making emergency legislation, when
:22:16. > :22:19.we might have a number of terrorist attacks going on, where we have a
:22:19. > :22:22.debate in the House of Commons, to see whether or not we have the
:22:22. > :22:26.power of relocation, is absolutely ludicrous. If the Government now
:22:26. > :22:29.have accepted they need the powers, it should be in the ordinary
:22:29. > :22:35.legislation, which is what we have been arguing for from day one. This
:22:35. > :22:39.might be a car crash, I think it is an absolute dog's breakfast.
:22:39. > :22:42.good faith it would be hard for the public to see the difference
:22:42. > :22:45.between one circumstance and another, when you are bringing in
:22:45. > :22:48.emergency legislation all the time? It is not a surprise. It was known
:22:48. > :22:52.in January that legislation of this nature would come forward. It is
:22:52. > :22:55.only draft legislation. Will you vote against it? It is not
:22:55. > :22:59.something going through the House of Commons. The TPIMS legislation,
:22:59. > :23:02.getting rid of control orders and relocation, that is what is going
:23:02. > :23:06.through the House of Commons, that is what I'm sure parliament is
:23:06. > :23:11.going to vote for. Now at some point in the future, there are
:23:11. > :23:15.extreme circumstances, perhaps multiple, potentially put pel
:23:15. > :23:18.attacks in London, say, when - multiple attacks in London, say,
:23:18. > :23:21.when the Government feels the legislation will need be debated,
:23:21. > :23:24.we will cross that bridge when we come to it. You heard there, they
:23:24. > :23:31.are the same thing, you are reintroducing the same thing, but
:23:31. > :23:34.reduceing to admit to the public you are doing so? We are not
:23:34. > :23:39.reintroducing it, there aren't extreme circumstances in parliament
:23:39. > :23:44.and we haven't voted to implement it, it is not the same as control
:23:44. > :23:48.orders. Fundamentally t doesn't get past the real issue, a lazy way to
:23:48. > :23:52.deal with people? It doesn't push people towards a court process or a
:23:53. > :23:55.trial, or monitor them properly. It leaves them in limbo? We have
:23:55. > :23:58.always said that prosecution has to be the preferred way of dealing
:23:58. > :24:02.with these people. There are a small number of cases, perhaps just
:24:02. > :24:04.a dozen of them, where you have very dangerous people. You cannot
:24:04. > :24:08.get the evidence through the conventional criminal justice
:24:08. > :24:11.system, and therefore you have to control their movements. What we
:24:11. > :24:14.have seen now is a political fudge with the Liberal Democrats, who
:24:14. > :24:18.wanted to get rid of control orders, the Conservatives know that you
:24:18. > :24:22.need, as last resort, to take these steps, and we're now seeing, I
:24:22. > :24:27.think a really big split in the coalition b what the legislation
:24:28. > :24:31.should be like. When Tom Brake says that London could be facing
:24:31. > :24:34.multiple attacks and then we will a parliamentary debate as to whether
:24:34. > :24:38.or not to relocate people, I'm desperately worried if the
:24:38. > :24:43.legislation goes through as it is, we could find people coming back to
:24:43. > :24:48.London w all of their associates and co-conspirators, before the
:24:48. > :24:53.Olympic Games next year, I don't think that is a risk worth taking.
:24:53. > :24:58.The protection of the public needs to be first and forecast, it is
:24:58. > :25:02.less likely considering the less loved up Cameron, he will be
:25:02. > :25:06.listening to these views? Public security has to be the security,
:25:06. > :25:10.and it is. That is why, as well as getting rid of control orders, at
:25:10. > :25:14.the same time we have introduced additional resources for
:25:14. > :25:16.surveillance, so we can make sure that some of the people who
:25:16. > :25:21.previously would have been relocated, if they are going to
:25:21. > :25:24.remain in there n their existing properties, there will be increased
:25:24. > :25:30.surveillance to make sure if they were intent of committing any acts
:25:30. > :25:35.that they would be stopped. At Newsnight we would never stoop
:25:35. > :25:41.so low as to do silly stories, no matter what the season was. But it
:25:41. > :25:51.has been the talk, Orlament of the newsrooms up and down the country,
:25:51. > :25:53.
:25:53. > :25:58.that there has been too much news to touch on the normal August fair,
:25:58. > :26:01.- fayre, including surfing dogs. We went out to find some, this report
:26:01. > :26:07.contains flash photography and quite poor jokes, even by his
:26:07. > :26:10.standard! Hey kids, how have you been
:26:10. > :26:15.enjoying the summer, that magical time when you pack up your troubles
:26:15. > :26:19.and head to the beach, and the newspapers and telly join in the
:26:19. > :26:25.fun w light-hearted stories that wouldn't normally see the light of
:26:25. > :26:31.day. That didn't really happen this year z it. What a summer it has
:26:31. > :26:35.been, riots, Libya, phone hacking, now I've been called back from the
:26:35. > :26:38.Newsnight Villa in Tuscany, to do a special report on a skateboarding
:26:38. > :26:43.dog. That's right. You won't want to
:26:43. > :26:47.Miss Theo here on his deck. It's what Lord Wreath would have wanted.
:26:47. > :26:53.Elsewhere, it's not really been a light and fluffy few months has it.
:26:53. > :26:57.After the riots, politicians dumped their buckets and spades and
:26:57. > :27:01.grabbed brooms instead. There were huge big events going on through
:27:01. > :27:05.August, that was unusual. There was a more secular trend at work here,
:27:05. > :27:10.in an age of globalisation, things happening far way from Britain have
:27:10. > :27:14.a direct effect on what happens here. And the House of Commons
:27:14. > :27:19.after the expenses scandal felt it had to reassert itself as the main
:27:19. > :27:23.forum for discussing things, and it is not right it is just in TV and
:27:23. > :27:30.radio studios, it wanted to reassert itself as part of British
:27:30. > :27:33.national life. As night follows day, we turn to a foreign policy think-
:27:33. > :27:39.tank. Their gaem German spokesperson said riots are one
:27:39. > :27:43.thing, but politicians shouldn't be unnerved by things like the markets
:27:43. > :27:46.in August. Mrs Merkel while wandering the hills was asked to
:27:46. > :27:51.interrupt her holiday to come back because of market volitility. To my
:27:51. > :27:54.mind, rightly, she said, no. The markets are volatile in August
:27:55. > :27:59.because the trading is very thin, most of the senior people are away.
:27:59. > :28:03.Junior people are trading, they are very nervous, they come up with
:28:03. > :28:07.stories and I'm interrupting my holiday for market volitility. She
:28:08. > :28:12.didn't say anything, she kept on hiking. Every dreamed of owning one,
:28:12. > :28:17.soon you can, this will be available in a few months time.
:28:17. > :28:21.Perhaps I'm very old fashioned, but this country has a proud tradition
:28:21. > :28:28.of utterly fatuous summer news, which we discard at our peril. In
:28:28. > :28:32.the past we have heard about the world's tallest man, an eight foot
:28:32. > :28:37.five Ukrainian, an upside down house in Poland. And this photo
:28:37. > :28:44.shoot in the Alps. And who can forget, the important historical
:28:44. > :28:47.document of what Freddie Star once did to a hamster. Animals always
:28:47. > :28:50.feature heavily in summer season stories, and probably my favourite,
:28:51. > :28:54.and many people's favourite silly season story, was the time that
:28:54. > :28:57.John Prescott and Peter Mandelson were vying for control of the
:28:57. > :29:03.levers of power, and Peter Mandelson was compared by John
:29:03. > :29:08.Prescott, just down the river, actually, memorably to a Chinese
:29:08. > :29:12.mitten crab. His name is Peter. That was one of the finest of the
:29:12. > :29:16.silly season stories. Still to come, our skateboarding dog, don't look
:29:16. > :29:20.for it anywhere else, they don't have it. We have had a mini-silly
:29:21. > :29:24.season this year, I suppose, with the Speaker's wife in the Big
:29:25. > :29:29.Brother house. But as so often in the summer, the British have been
:29:29. > :29:36.left standing by the Germans, they got an entire season's worth of
:29:36. > :29:43.news out of a missing cow. They were chasing a cow recently in
:29:43. > :29:53.Germany, it was a big story. They were chasing a a cow? One escaped,
:29:53. > :29:56.
:29:56. > :30:03.Story.? And now because we know you have
:30:03. > :30:06.missed that kind of thing. Even you, Newsnight viewer, it is Theo, an
:30:06. > :30:12.11-year-old skateboarding dog. If that doesn't have you rushing out
:30:12. > :30:16.to renew your license fee in the morning, nothing will!
:30:16. > :30:26.You can find Theo on the website shortly I'm sure.
:30:26. > :30:57.
:30:57. > :31:02.That's all from Newsnight tonight. After a summer of rioting and
:31:02. > :31:05.clashes with police in Chile over education costs, the students of