Browse content similar to 09/11/2011. Check below for episodes and series from the same categories and more!
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The cliche about the eurocrisis is that the politicians responsible | :00:08. | :00:12. | |
have been kicking the can down the road. Today the road has just about | :00:12. | :00:16. | |
run out. Europe's most comical Prime | :00:16. | :00:19. | |
Minister is quitting the stage in favour of a Government of | :00:19. | :00:23. | |
technocrats. One after another, the paymasters of Europe impose | :00:23. | :00:27. | |
Governments, but where does that leave European democracy? We show | :00:27. | :00:30. | |
the latest victim of the News of the World surveillance, what was | :00:30. | :00:34. | |
done to him. It is the banality of evil, isn't | :00:34. | :00:39. | |
it. It is really pathetic. And at the same time, kind of creepy. | :00:40. | :00:44. | |
are you finding it? She was happy enough to get the job, but can the | :00:44. | :00:48. | |
Home Secretary hang on to it? This pill promises to enhance the | :00:48. | :00:52. | |
way your brain works. We will try it. Does our increasing knowledge | :00:52. | :00:56. | |
of how the organ functions mean we should all be able to take drugs | :00:56. | :01:06. | |
:01:06. | :01:09. | ||
It was obviously expecting too much to hope that the mere removal from | :01:09. | :01:13. | |
the scene of a man with an orange face and improbable hair, would | :01:13. | :01:17. | |
salvage the biggest political project in Europe. The news that | :01:17. | :01:20. | |
Silvio Berlusconi will quit the Italian Prime Ministership to spend | :01:20. | :01:24. | |
more time at his very tasteful parties, did nothing to make it | :01:24. | :01:29. | |
cheaper for his indebted country to borrow money. The Greeks, meanwhile, | :01:29. | :01:32. | |
can't agree who should be their new Prime Minister. Underlying | :01:33. | :01:35. | |
everything is the question can unelected Governments of the kind | :01:35. | :01:45. | |
:01:45. | :02:00. | ||
now being imposed, do any better at Today it was Italy's turn to get | :02:00. | :02:06. | |
squeezed by the bond market monster. 24 hours after Silvio Berlusconi | :02:06. | :02:09. | |
finally succumbed to its embrace, Italy's lending power was knocked | :02:09. | :02:14. | |
for six. This morning, a key link in the global trading system, the | :02:14. | :02:21. | |
brokerage film, LCH.Clearnet, raised the collateral needed to | :02:21. | :02:31. | |
:02:31. | :02:31. | ||
trade Italy's debt. Suddenly the third-biggest economy in the Europe | :02:32. | :02:37. | |
was breaching 7%. Breaching the 7% mark was put Portugal and Ireland | :02:37. | :02:42. | |
and Greece into bailout territory. Very few people are buying Italian | :02:42. | :02:47. | |
debt, save the ECB. There are lots of people selling Italian debt, or | :02:47. | :02:51. | |
who want to sell Italian debt. One of the problems with Italian debt | :02:51. | :02:57. | |
is everybody, every investor in the world, almost has got some Italian | :02:57. | :03:00. | |
exposure. The elected Governments of southern Europe are finding out | :03:00. | :03:04. | |
not just that they are powerless in the face of the bond market, but | :03:04. | :03:09. | |
that other elected Governments, central banks, can enrage the | :03:09. | :03:15. | |
monster, simply by doing nothing to help. Last Friday, I asked | :03:15. | :03:18. | |
President Sarkozy whether it was just for France and Germany to be | :03:18. | :03:25. | |
trying to change the Governments of Greece and Italy? He took offence, | :03:25. | :03:29. | |
saying we, islanders, misunderstood the complexties of Europe. But it | :03:30. | :03:39. | |
has come to pass that both of these Governments have fallen. In Greece | :03:39. | :03:42. | |
today, the Prime Minister said farewell. Nobody replaced him. | :03:42. | :03:46. | |
Coalition talks stalled. It scarcely matters, nobody in Greece | :03:46. | :03:52. | |
can change the economic policy of Greece at the ballot box. But | :03:52. | :03:57. | |
Greece, at least, has a bailout plan. | :03:57. | :04:01. | |
Italy is too big to bail. Only the European Central Bank, buying its | :04:01. | :04:06. | |
debt, is keeping it solvent. But the ECB has been stepping back from | :04:06. | :04:11. | |
supporting Italy. In Italy, there probably needs to be very fast | :04:11. | :04:16. | |
approval of some of the reforms. Maybe the promise of Berlusconi to | :04:16. | :04:23. | |
resign needs to be put into action more quickly. But essentially, | :04:23. | :04:27. | |
Italy needs to prove that it is credible on its own. And then, you | :04:27. | :04:33. | |
might, or might not have, a more forceful ECB action, to try to put | :04:33. | :04:40. | |
a floor on the market here. To save Italy from the bond market's hairy | :04:40. | :04:44. | |
fist would need about one trillion euros. The original plan was to | :04:44. | :04:48. | |
raise it through a special fund, the EFSF, but nobody will lend to | :04:48. | :04:52. | |
that. The G20 turned to the IMF, but raising extra money there is | :04:52. | :04:55. | |
politically hard to do, so it may have to be the European Central | :04:55. | :05:01. | |
Bank that sorts this out. But it is a nail-biter. The European Central | :05:01. | :05:06. | |
Bank has to benefit - has the benefit of flexibility, it doesn't | :05:06. | :05:09. | |
have to go to national parliaments to buy a lot of Government bonds. A | :05:09. | :05:14. | |
lot of people are calling for it to step in. It would make sense, in | :05:14. | :05:18. | |
one way, however that is when politics kick in. The Germans, in | :05:18. | :05:22. | |
particular, are very sensitive about the ECB playing, effectively, | :05:22. | :05:26. | |
a role which should be shouldered by national Governments. That was | :05:26. | :05:31. | |
the dilemma the leaders faced in Brussels, now, though the dilemma | :05:31. | :05:37. | |
is the same, there is, two weeks on, one less singer in the euro band. | :05:37. | :05:40. | |
Mr Berlusconi will soon vacate office too. For nearly two years | :05:40. | :05:44. | |
now, it has been obvious that northern Europe would have to sees | :05:44. | :05:48. | |
control of southern Europe's finances to justify a bailout. | :05:48. | :05:52. | |
Those who imagined it would be done gently imagined wrong. We knew that | :05:52. | :05:56. | |
with joining the euro, you surrendered sovereignity, few | :05:56. | :06:02. | |
realised how much democracy you surrendered as well. A break-up of | :06:02. | :06:05. | |
the eurozone would be extremely costly, it would come with huge | :06:05. | :06:08. | |
political cost and a huge economic cost, not only for Europe, but | :06:08. | :06:11. | |
probably for the world economy. Including, of course, Britain | :06:11. | :06:17. | |
itself. But at the end of the day, the choice may be between that and | :06:17. | :06:21. | |
the southern member-states in the eurozone, accepting a decade of | :06:21. | :06:25. | |
austerity measures, imposed by people sitting in Frankfurt, | :06:25. | :06:33. | |
Brussels and Berlin. You can't kill the bond market, but | :06:33. | :06:37. | |
you can pacify it, to put the financial monster back into its box, | :06:37. | :06:40. | |
Europe has to start acting like one country, and show the periphery | :06:41. | :06:46. | |
some tough love. It wasn't the aeroplanes, it was beauty killed | :06:46. | :06:54. | |
the beast. Now to try to make sense of this, from Washington we're | :06:54. | :06:58. | |
joined by a former IMF official, brought back to the Italian | :06:58. | :07:01. | |
Government in 2001, to help clear up a previous mess. With us here in | :07:01. | :07:10. | |
the studio are the editor of the economist, and the Greek economist. | :07:10. | :07:14. | |
Is Berlusconi's departure going to solve the Italian problem? I don't | :07:14. | :07:19. | |
think it will solve it by itselfful you can see everything today and | :07:19. | :07:22. | |
what Paul just said, everything is in bad way. His going is a step | :07:22. | :07:26. | |
forward. He is a man who has singularly failed to do anything, | :07:26. | :07:31. | |
to really push Italy forward. He failed in his attempts to try to | :07:31. | :07:36. | |
persuade the other Europeans that he had an answer to Italy's | :07:36. | :07:40. | |
problems. What is it that technocrats, such as yourself, can | :07:40. | :07:43. | |
achieve, that a democratically elected Prime Minister, like Mr | :07:43. | :07:52. | |
Berlusconi and his Government, can't do? Well, probably the main | :07:52. | :07:58. | |
point is knowledge. A take know crate would come with the basic | :07:58. | :08:02. | |
knowledge of how - technocrat would come with a basic knowledge of how | :08:02. | :08:06. | |
the market works, while politicians very often dream of the way that | :08:06. | :08:13. | |
the market works. So the basic difference would be knowledge. The | :08:13. | :08:18. | |
technocrat can bring more knowledge than the politician, they don't | :08:18. | :08:21. | |
have that. Whether they can implement this knowledge is a | :08:21. | :08:26. | |
different story. So what sort of thing does a politician not dare to | :08:26. | :08:31. | |
do that a technocrat does dare contemplate? Well, up to now, you | :08:31. | :08:35. | |
know, the solution to the Italian problems were rather obvious to | :08:35. | :08:41. | |
many people. The situation was not disastrous, Italy has had a public | :08:41. | :08:48. | |
debt of 120% for almost 20 years now without major difficulty. But | :08:48. | :08:54. | |
the international situation changed, and having 120% made it a little | :08:54. | :08:57. | |
bit heavier, and required some reaction on the part of the | :08:57. | :09:02. | |
politicians. Reaction in the modification of the financial, of | :09:02. | :09:05. | |
the labour market, which almost makes it impossible to change | :09:05. | :09:09. | |
anything in Italy. If the Government want to fire somebody | :09:09. | :09:14. | |
they can't do it. So the implication of this is that | :09:14. | :09:16. | |
democratic Governments, because they rely upon the votes of the | :09:16. | :09:21. | |
people, are incapable of solving the sort of challenges that both | :09:21. | :09:25. | |
Greece and Italy are faced with, as a consequence of membership of the | :09:25. | :09:29. | |
euro? It is quite incredible to say. That it is totally unacceptable. | :09:29. | :09:33. | |
What we have got here is the bond market, not only dk Tateing policy, | :09:33. | :09:41. | |
but now pointing - dictating policy, but pointing politicians in that | :09:41. | :09:45. | |
way. The democratic will of people is perfectly capable of solving a | :09:45. | :09:49. | |
crisis they should be given a chance to be heard. What do you | :09:49. | :09:53. | |
make of the argument? I don't entirely agree. I do agree Europe | :09:53. | :09:57. | |
last this huge democracy problem I do agree that what's going to | :09:57. | :10:00. | |
happen is fairly soon the technocrats, be it Mario Monti in | :10:00. | :10:04. | |
Italy, or whatever, will fairly soon have to go to the people. | :10:04. | :10:07. | |
Because nothing matters without democratic legitimacy. One of the | :10:07. | :10:12. | |
problems is the democratic leaders have failed. Berlusconi was man | :10:12. | :10:17. | |
with a big democratic mandate, yet he managed to run a place that grew | :10:17. | :10:22. | |
slower than anywhere, other than Zimbabwe and Haiti. That is not a | :10:22. | :10:25. | |
good record. Let's see why democratic leaders have failed. | :10:25. | :10:28. | |
They have failed because they have not been listening to their own | :10:28. | :10:32. | |
people, but the dictates of the markets, the bond markets and | :10:32. | :10:35. | |
various financial institutions. They have been taking measures | :10:35. | :10:38. | |
against their own people, and manifesto against the interests of | :10:38. | :10:42. | |
the economy itself. They have been adopting austerity measures which | :10:42. | :10:46. | |
has made the crisis worst. These measures have been dictated by the | :10:46. | :10:51. | |
IMF and other multilateral organisations, which appear as the | :10:51. | :10:56. | |
know-all technocrats and have the wisdom, and have created a terrible | :10:56. | :11:00. | |
mess in Europe. You're right about half of it, pushing austerity | :11:00. | :11:03. | |
through in some places was a mistake. What you are wrong about | :11:03. | :11:07. | |
is a lot of the things that the IMF have been trying to force. All the | :11:07. | :11:12. | |
things to do with unleashing growth, those are the things which wouldn't | :11:12. | :11:15. | |
have made any difference to what you are just talking about. That is | :11:15. | :11:20. | |
about opening up economies, making them grow faster, it is not | :11:20. | :11:23. | |
impingeing austerity. You were talking about what you would have | :11:23. | :11:30. | |
to do, for example, about labour conditions, mobility of labour, | :11:30. | :11:34. | |
wage rates and other ways of making the Italian economy competitive | :11:35. | :11:38. | |
again, how does a Government of technocrats, and unelected | :11:38. | :11:43. | |
Government, impose that? Obviously it can't impose it, but it can do a | :11:43. | :11:47. | |
better job of informing people of what needs to be done. I think that | :11:47. | :11:51. | |
was the problem. You know, the Italians have been told for many, | :11:51. | :11:54. | |
many years that there was no problem, nothing needed to be done, | :11:54. | :12:00. | |
when the situation was progressively getting worse. So if | :12:00. | :12:07. | |
you have this kind of Government then sooner or later you get in | :12:07. | :12:14. | |
trouble. The technical people would know better, and would say the | :12:14. | :12:16. | |
consequences and what would happen continuing with the policies. | :12:16. | :12:20. | |
Whether the people would allow them to make the changes is another | :12:20. | :12:23. | |
story. The technocrat such as yourself and we will see in Italy | :12:23. | :12:28. | |
now, is this essentially a mechanic, the car is being driven by somebody | :12:28. | :12:35. | |
else. It is being driven in Germany or on the bond markets? The bond | :12:35. | :12:38. | |
market does not exist. They exist that people want to invest, people | :12:38. | :12:42. | |
like me or you or somebody else. This idea that there is a bond | :12:42. | :12:48. | |
market, like an individual acting in some strange way, this I don't | :12:48. | :12:52. | |
buy that. People will buy bonds if they think that they will be repaid | :12:52. | :12:58. | |
at some point. This is the point. If you lose confidence in a country, | :12:58. | :13:04. | |
then sooner or later you get some particular consequences. I'm very | :13:04. | :13:07. | |
familiar with the Argentine situation, I should make a quick | :13:07. | :13:12. | |
point about that. Then Argentina went into trouble in 2001, went | :13:12. | :13:19. | |
into trouble with a debt to GDP ratio that was 50% of GDP, and a | :13:19. | :13:25. | |
deficit that was about 3%. But at some point the people were lending | :13:25. | :13:29. | |
money to the country, and they lost confidence, overnight the interest | :13:29. | :13:34. | |
rate went up by 2,000 base points. The country got in trouble. It is | :13:34. | :13:38. | |
not a question of the bond marketing reacting in some strange | :13:38. | :13:41. | |
way. It is a question of the country not doing what they should | :13:41. | :13:44. | |
do. Specifically in the context of Europe, this is a crisis that has | :13:44. | :13:48. | |
gone from one thing to another. It is a monetary crisis, a banking | :13:48. | :13:52. | |
crisis, this is in danger, is it not, of becoming a political crisis. | :13:52. | :13:59. | |
The danger here, surely, is that the e treems capitalise - extremes | :13:59. | :14:01. | |
capitalise when there is no democratically legitimate | :14:01. | :14:05. | |
Government in a country, what do you think? I think the euro has | :14:05. | :14:09. | |
failed, it is very clear the euro has fail. There are deep problems | :14:09. | :14:13. | |
of economy in Europe, very clearly. But there are also problems of | :14:13. | :14:17. | |
policy now. There are problems of national sovereignty, that has | :14:17. | :14:20. | |
transgressed across the periphery, and problems of democracy. In that | :14:20. | :14:24. | |
context, business as normal, life as normal is impossible. What is | :14:24. | :14:28. | |
happening now across the periphery of Europe is a groundswell of anger. | :14:28. | :14:32. | |
Greece is the canary in the mine when it comes to this. Greece is | :14:32. | :14:37. | |
becoming fast ungovernable, that is because of policies and measures | :14:37. | :14:41. | |
introduced by so-called technocrats which were manifesto wrong. The | :14:42. | :14:47. | |
measures introduced in 2010, by the IMF, in the EU, were manifesto | :14:47. | :14:50. | |
incorrect, in terms of their focus, and in terms of what they brought | :14:50. | :14:54. | |
to the economy. What do you make of the political dangers? I agree very | :14:54. | :14:58. | |
much with the idea that it plays to the extremes. If you have any | :14:58. | :15:03. | |
situation where people feel their views are not being represented, | :15:03. | :15:06. | |
you are bound to see things changing. You could see that | :15:06. | :15:09. | |
changing in Germany. Germany you have a population who are very | :15:09. | :15:13. | |
angry about the euro, you have no parties that actually represent | :15:13. | :15:17. | |
that. That is always f you have that degree of disconnect, and you | :15:17. | :15:20. | |
could argue you are saying a little bit p America in a completely | :15:20. | :15:25. | |
different way. We are all standing apart from this, because we are not | :15:25. | :15:30. | |
part of the euro, although we will suffer and are suffering in a | :15:30. | :15:34. | |
little while. If you could fix it, what would you do? From a British | :15:34. | :15:39. | |
point of view? If you were running the euro now, what would you do? | :15:39. | :15:43. | |
The one big bazooka sat there throughout the thing, is the | :15:43. | :15:46. | |
European Central Bank. They have always been the people who could | :15:46. | :15:50. | |
create a firewall around Italy and Spain. And their reluctance to do | :15:50. | :15:53. | |
so has been partly because of German pressure, but they have two | :15:54. | :15:57. | |
jobs. One is to keep our money, but the other is to keep the whole | :15:57. | :16:02. | |
system going. There, I think, in the end, it comes down to the ECB. | :16:02. | :16:07. | |
Why are you shaking your head? think the ECB can provide liquidity, | :16:07. | :16:11. | |
it will appear in the markets tomorrow and buy a lot of Italian | :16:11. | :16:17. | |
bonds. It can do and do that repeatedly. The problem is a | :16:17. | :16:21. | |
problem of austerity, and an economy that doesn't work. That | :16:21. | :16:27. | |
cannot be solved by the ECB. I doubt this problem can be solved | :16:27. | :16:32. | |
within the confines of the European monetary European. You think the | :16:32. | :16:35. | |
euro has failed? Yes, I think several countries on the periphery | :16:35. | :16:39. | |
will be forced to exit. Then there will be some dramatic | :16:39. | :16:42. | |
transformation at the core, break of it into two, or some other | :16:42. | :16:46. | |
arrangement. In the current form, it is unsustainable t will not be | :16:46. | :16:52. | |
sustained. An immensely wealthy youngish man | :16:52. | :16:57. | |
is believed to have arrived in this country tonight. It is not entirely | :16:57. | :16:59. | |
pleasure. James Murdoch is before the Parliamentary Committee | :16:59. | :17:02. | |
investigating how his newspaper, the News of the World, hacked into | :17:02. | :17:07. | |
the phones of all in Sunday dree in pursuit of splash stories. Over the | :17:07. | :17:12. | |
last two nights, if you have been watching, you will have seen a | :17:12. | :17:16. | |
private detective talking about how he was hired, after the phone | :17:16. | :17:21. | |
hacking scandal had begun, to spy on targets for the paper. This | :17:21. | :17:28. | |
report contains flash photo-y. After we revealed the astonishing | :17:28. | :17:32. | |
extent of News of the World surveillance last night, we can | :17:32. | :17:38. | |
show more surveillance taken by the private detective, Derek Webb. Here | :17:39. | :17:43. | |
is television presenter, Richard Madeley, blissfully unaware's being | :17:43. | :17:49. | |
watched. In these images he's with his family in London. My then | :17:49. | :17:53. | |
teenage daughter and her teenage boyfriend are in the centre of | :17:53. | :17:56. | |
these shots, that is pretty repulsive, that some creepy private | :17:56. | :18:01. | |
detective is spying on my daughter, as well as on me. That's just so | :18:01. | :18:04. | |
yuky. I think at a visceral level, we know when there is something | :18:04. | :18:09. | |
wrong, we know when somebody is behaving badly or a corporation is | :18:09. | :18:13. | |
behaving badly, we don't know or need to know if it is legal or not, | :18:13. | :18:18. | |
we know it is wrong. To follow me for no good reason, I have racked | :18:18. | :18:23. | |
my brains for what I was doing in 2006, I was living an ordinary life, | :18:24. | :18:29. | |
I have no skeletons in my closet, to be pursued for five days, that | :18:29. | :18:36. | |
phrase, the banality of evil, it is creepy. Derek Webb would video tape | :18:36. | :18:41. | |
News of the World targets. He would pass it on to journalists at News | :18:41. | :18:46. | |
of the World. Some of these tapes underpinned exclusive, many of the | :18:46. | :18:48. | |
surveillance jobs revealed little more than people going about their | :18:48. | :18:52. | |
every day lives. Take this family hole day, for example, the private | :18:52. | :18:56. | |
detective was dispatched to the West Country, for den tais in | :18:56. | :19:00. | |
spring 2006, to watch a journalist, called Anna Fazackerley, the | :19:00. | :19:05. | |
newspaper thought she was having an affair with Boris Johnson. Here she | :19:05. | :19:09. | |
is on the beach with her family, she's on the left with her brother. | :19:09. | :19:17. | |
She was on holiday with her mum and basically doing a lot of walking, | :19:17. | :19:22. | |
round Tintagel and various other places. I spent a week down there, | :19:22. | :19:29. | |
probably over a week, they hired a car for me. Did it result in | :19:29. | :19:35. | |
anything or not? It didn't. I was unaware that there was also people | :19:35. | :19:40. | |
following Boris Johnson in London. At the same time. They were hired | :19:40. | :19:44. | |
by News of the World? Yes, but I wasn't aware of it. If Boris | :19:44. | :19:49. | |
Johnson thought a bike would amount to counter surveillance, he was | :19:49. | :19:52. | |
wrong. They supplied a bike to me, from News of the World building, | :19:52. | :19:59. | |
they brought a bike out to me, I parked my car and followed Boris | :19:59. | :20:04. | |
Johnson around on a bike. Another cabinet minister was targeted in | :20:04. | :20:08. | |
2004, Home Secretary, David Blunkett, was having an affair with | :20:08. | :20:14. | |
the publisher of the Spectator Magazine. I was asked to follow | :20:14. | :20:20. | |
Kimberly Quin around, I followed her around for something like 17-20 | :20:20. | :20:30. | |
:20:30. | :20:30. | ||
continuous days. On one particular day she loaded the child in the car, | :20:30. | :20:35. | |
she drove to Kensington and parked nearby David Blunkett, they got | :20:35. | :20:38. | |
photographers down there and photographers took photographs on | :20:38. | :20:43. | |
the doorstep of David Blunkett and her. But that made big news? That | :20:43. | :20:49. | |
was big news, yes. That was big news. Newsnight has obtained copies | :20:49. | :20:52. | |
of News of the World financial records, confirming that Derek Webb | :20:52. | :20:57. | |
was paid for surveillance by the News of the World. In January 2004, | :20:57. | :21:04. | |
they paid �1,050 for his surveillance of Stephen Twigg MP, | :21:04. | :21:09. | |
�300 for Charles Clarke, and �1,25 for surveillance of Maxine Carr, | :21:09. | :21:14. | |
the former parter of owe ham murderer, Ian Huntley. Derek Webb | :21:14. | :21:20. | |
said after the phone hacking scandal emerged, with the jailing | :21:20. | :21:25. | |
of Glenn Mulcaire in 200, the documents became less specific. | :21:25. | :21:31. | |
This one simply says Brompton Watch. They knew I was doing the work, | :21:31. | :21:34. | |
they were very pleased with the work I was doing. It was leading to | :21:34. | :21:40. | |
headlines? Yes. So I was doing this work for them. I was aware they | :21:40. | :21:47. | |
knew about it, because I was being fed back by journalist, different | :21:47. | :21:52. | |
journalists saying excellent work, excellent work and they couldn't | :21:52. | :21:57. | |
have done it without me. It seems the new management at News | :21:57. | :22:00. | |
International are clear to put clean water between them and the | :22:00. | :22:04. | |
past. On Monday they said it was wrong to use surveillance on | :22:04. | :22:09. | |
lawyers acting for phone hacking victims. What would your answer to | :22:09. | :22:12. | |
them be, if they say to you now, we don't want anything to do with that | :22:12. | :22:15. | |
eight or nine years of work you did for us, it was a mistake, we | :22:15. | :22:19. | |
shouldn't have got you to do it. We are a little bit embarrassed with b | :22:19. | :22:25. | |
it, what would you say to that? would be very surprised. I don't | :22:25. | :22:29. | |
think they were embarrassed by it. They were commissioning it? They | :22:29. | :22:34. | |
were commissioning it and being pleased with the work. The most | :22:35. | :22:37. | |
controversial surveillance jobs were on lawyers trying to sue News | :22:37. | :22:40. | |
of the World. It is worth noting one leading MP on the select | :22:40. | :22:44. | |
committee, Tom Watson, was also watched. The circumstances around | :22:44. | :22:47. | |
these cases will be on a long list of tough questions in parliament | :22:47. | :22:52. | |
tomorrow for James Murdoch. The Home Secretary is still in her | :22:52. | :22:56. | |
job tonight, David Cameron says she has his complete support, despite | :22:56. | :23:00. | |
the fact that the head of the Border Force, whom she suspended, | :23:00. | :23:08. | |
says she misled parliament Select Committee admits she has no idea | :23:08. | :23:12. | |
how many undesirables came into Britain this summer but says it is | :23:12. | :23:17. | |
not her fault. The opposition are making hay over the Government | :23:17. | :23:21. | |
embarrassment, but they haven't drawn blood yet. What do we know | :23:21. | :23:24. | |
that we didn't yesterday? Great deal of parliamentary time was | :23:25. | :23:27. | |
expended on it today, it didn't just dominate Prime Minister's | :23:28. | :23:31. | |
Questions, it was a three-hour debate initiated by the Labour | :23:31. | :23:34. | |
Party. Having sat through every minute of it, I'm none the wiser. | :23:34. | :23:38. | |
We have two essentially contradictory explanations for why | :23:38. | :23:41. | |
these border controls were eased for non-unions, Theresa May says | :23:41. | :23:45. | |
there was a pilot scheme for Europeans, and Brodie Clark, the | :23:46. | :23:50. | |
head of the Border Force exceeded his authority, he says he didn't. | :23:50. | :23:54. | |
Labour, having found such a poisonous issue in Government, seem | :23:54. | :23:58. | |
to be relishing turning the tables. You talked about drawing fresh | :23:58. | :24:03. | |
blood, I don't think they did. she safe in her job? That could | :24:03. | :24:06. | |
depend on Brodie Clark. By resigning he has given himself the | :24:06. | :24:11. | |
freedom to speak out. He will exercise that freedom next week | :24:11. | :24:15. | |
before the home affairs select commity. If no new facts emerge | :24:15. | :24:19. | |
that, we will have to wait until January, when the biggest of three | :24:19. | :24:22. | |
inquiry is due to report. That could ease the pressure. A question | :24:22. | :24:28. | |
has been raised tonight, that's whether they both might be right. | :24:28. | :24:31. | |
Labour's last immigration minister says there was discretion exercised | :24:31. | :24:35. | |
by the Border Agency when Labour was in Government. So Mr Clarke | :24:35. | :24:39. | |
could have thought he was using existing discretion, tacitly | :24:39. | :24:42. | |
approved by the Home Office, nothing to do with Mrs May's pilot. | :24:42. | :24:46. | |
If that is the case, it raises the whole relationship between | :24:46. | :24:53. | |
departments and agencies, and how they are held to account. It isth | :24:53. | :24:57. | |
has happened to all of us. How many times, for even a fleeting moment, | :24:57. | :25:01. | |
have you kicked yourself and wondered if only you had thought of | :25:01. | :25:04. | |
that. If only, in other words, one's brain worked just a little | :25:04. | :25:08. | |
bit better, or faster. As scientists come to understand more | :25:08. | :25:13. | |
about how the brain works, is it conceivable that medicine could | :25:13. | :25:19. | |
make that enhance pt possible. We have all had to endure drunks and | :25:20. | :25:23. | |
dope smokers who think they are being profound, when they are off | :25:23. | :25:33. | |
:25:33. | :25:52. | ||
their heads. Suppose a pill could Our brain is unique. It is the most | :25:52. | :25:58. | |
complex organ in the human body. It is 100 billion nerve cells, | :25:58. | :26:04. | |
connecting to shape our memories, thoughts and aspirations. Most of | :26:04. | :26:10. | |
us want to reach our true potential, now, science and technology are | :26:10. | :26:16. | |
offering to take us beyond human. Drugs and implants to turbo charge | :26:16. | :26:26. | |
:26:26. | :26:34. | ||
our brains. But just how far do we You are a fighter pilot on a long | :26:34. | :26:37. | |
demanding mission. Your life and that of your colleagues depends on | :26:37. | :26:43. | |
you being awake and alert all the time. There are drugs you can take | :26:43. | :26:53. | |
:26:53. | :26:54. | ||
to keep you focused. Would you take them? This is one of those drugs, | :26:54. | :26:58. | |
Medvedev, it is normally glrb midazolam, it is normally | :26:58. | :27:03. | |
prescribed for those who need wakefulness. The military have | :27:03. | :27:08. | |
tested toth to see if it improves performance. There is an | :27:08. | :27:12. | |
underground set of people taking it as a brain booster, because they | :27:12. | :27:15. | |
think it improves their cognitive powers. I have come to the | :27:15. | :27:20. | |
university for mind sciences and in a moment I will try it for myself. | :27:20. | :27:28. | |
I have taken midazolam a few times, - primarily for the ability to | :27:29. | :27:33. | |
increase wakefulness and concentrate and stay awake for | :27:33. | :27:41. | |
extended for extended periods of time, 30 hours. Pycroft is in his | :27:41. | :27:45. | |
second year at Oxford University, he sees no difference between the | :27:45. | :27:49. | |
drug and caffeine. He acknowledges sourcing the drugs is far risker, | :27:49. | :27:54. | |
he's getting hold of them over the Internet. If I was going to obtain | :27:54. | :28:02. | |
it, there are a variety of websites on-line which one can access and | :28:02. | :28:06. | |
purchase pills or powered form and have them delivered to one's | :28:06. | :28:11. | |
doorstep. The reality is it is pretty easy for someone with a | :28:11. | :28:20. | |
credit card or a bit of cash to go and obtain some of these compounds | :28:20. | :28:27. | |
Anders Sandberg has a background in computing and neuroscience, he's | :28:27. | :28:32. | |
IRA searcher at Oxford University's future and humanity institute. He | :28:32. | :28:37. | |
talks openly about taking could go any of drugs. It is a big question | :28:37. | :28:42. | |
of how much of an enhancement to be. It is smaller than I would like it | :28:42. | :28:46. | |
to be, that is not an ethical problem. That is research that | :28:46. | :28:50. | |
needs to be done. There is also the question whether the students using | :28:50. | :28:56. | |
these drugs to the best way. Just staying up all night studying might | :28:56. | :29:01. | |
not be the smartest way, you need the sleep to consolidate your | :29:01. | :29:06. | |
memory. Some cognitive enhancer, such as Ritalin, are classed as | :29:06. | :29:09. | |
controlled drugs, modafinil is not. It is not illegal to buy it on-line, | :29:10. | :29:13. | |
but it is illegal to supply it without a prescription. We have all | :29:13. | :29:18. | |
heard about students drinking coffee or taking caffeine tablets | :29:18. | :29:24. | |
to stay awake all night to cram for an exam, or finish an essay. Now | :29:24. | :29:29. | |
there is evidence they are taking something more potent. There is | :29:29. | :29:36. | |
little hard data to what taking what. We conducted a poll of | :29:36. | :29:46. | |
:29:46. | :29:53. | ||
Newsnight viewers and New Scientist The survey gives us only Anwar he | :29:53. | :30:00. | |
can total snapshot of the world of smart - anecdotal snapshot of the | :30:00. | :30:05. | |
world of smart drugs. It could lead to a two-tier society. There are | :30:05. | :30:09. | |
people out there, not just willing, but able to source the drugs, and | :30:09. | :30:13. | |
take them. They are like earlier doctors of technology. Maybe the | :30:13. | :30:18. | |
whole world isn't taking them, but a section of society that is. That | :30:18. | :30:22. | |
raises social and ethical issues. Quite aside from safety, we need to | :30:22. | :30:25. | |
start thinking about whether people should be allowed to take these | :30:25. | :30:28. | |
drugs if they are taking exams, for example, or if they are at | :30:28. | :30:32. | |
university. Is it a bit like performance-enhancing drugs in | :30:32. | :30:41. | |
sport, which we don't allow people to use. I'm back in Cambridge to | :30:41. | :30:46. | |
find out the effect a cognitive enhancing drug has on me. There are | :30:46. | :30:50. | |
safety concerns, and we have been through a questionaire of what is | :30:50. | :30:55. | |
safe four today. James Rowe is a neurologist, and part of a research | :30:55. | :31:00. | |
team, testing compound drugs like modafinil, to see if they help with | :31:00. | :31:06. | |
Alzheimer's disease or Parkinson's. In this capsule I have put | :31:06. | :31:11. | |
modafinil or a placebo. I won't know, nor will the person doing the | :31:11. | :31:18. | |
test today. If you would like to take that. | :31:18. | :31:22. | |
There we go. How do we actually conduct this test? | :31:22. | :31:26. | |
This is our second trip to the Cambridge unit. I'm about to take | :31:26. | :31:30. | |
this tablet. Again, I don't know if it is the placebo or the real | :31:30. | :31:40. | |
:31:40. | :31:40. | ||
modafinil. And now I have to wait for a couple | :31:40. | :31:46. | |
of hours for the drug to take effect. | :31:46. | :31:54. | |
Provigil Sahakian is also part of the Cambridge team - Professor | :31:54. | :31:58. | |
Sahakian is also part of the Cambridge team. She has done | :31:58. | :32:02. | |
research saying sleep-deprived surgeons work better on modafinil. | :32:02. | :32:07. | |
She believes the drugs could play a wider role in society. Academy of | :32:07. | :32:12. | |
medical science reported in 2008, showed even a small 10% improvement | :32:12. | :32:16. | |
in a memory score could lead to a higher A-level grade or degree | :32:16. | :32:20. | |
class. That is a big improvement. As a society we could perhaps move | :32:20. | :32:26. | |
forward if we all had a form of cognitive enhancement that was safe. | :32:26. | :32:31. | |
Taking drugs to enhance cognition, may be limited by the brain itself. | :32:31. | :32:35. | |
But there are those who think we could go further, by adding whole | :32:35. | :32:45. | |
:32:45. | :32:48. | ||
dimensions to our brains, artificially. Back in 1998, Kevin | :32:48. | :32:53. | |
Warwick became the world's first sigh boring, part human and part | :32:53. | :32:58. | |
robot. He had a chip implanted in his arm, and wired up to his | :32:58. | :33:01. | |
nervous system. His wife had a similar operation, and their's | :33:01. | :33:05. | |
became the first human nervous systems to commune Kate | :33:06. | :33:10. | |
electronically over the Internet. Show me what you can do with the | :33:10. | :33:15. | |
magnets. This is nominal, but you can pull it around. His Phd | :33:15. | :33:20. | |
students are working on similar leans. Ian has had magnets stitched | :33:20. | :33:25. | |
into the end of his fingers to see what it is like to have a sixth, | :33:25. | :33:30. | |
magnetic sense. And Professor Warwick's latest project is a mini- | :33:30. | :33:34. | |
rat-like robot, controlled by human brain cells. With actual human | :33:34. | :33:38. | |
brains. He thinks human enhancement is challenging the way we think of | :33:38. | :33:43. | |
our own limitations, and how we reach out to others. We have | :33:43. | :33:49. | |
already achieved with my implants, nervous system to nervous system | :33:49. | :33:52. | |
communication, a telegraphic communication. Clearly the next | :33:52. | :33:56. | |
step is brain-to-brain. Basics of thought communication. The big | :33:57. | :34:01. | |
advantages of that are we won't have to commune Kate in this | :34:01. | :34:10. | |
mechanical speech form, but we will be - commune Kate in this | :34:10. | :34:20. | |
:34:20. | :34:23. | ||
mechanical form, but in thoughts. In Cambridge I'm doing an | :34:23. | :34:26. | |
experimentation of my own. I have to complete two sets of compute | :34:26. | :34:32. | |
irgames over an hour-and-a-half. To test my powers of memory, strategy | :34:32. | :34:42. | |
:34:42. | :34:47. | ||
and planning. And to see if modafinil has any effect on me. | :34:47. | :34:55. | |
If I said to you 1, 2, 3 you would say 3, 2, 1. The first one is 5, 1. | :34:55. | :34:59. | |
1, 5. That is everything done, just to rate how you are feeling. How | :34:59. | :35:05. | |
are you feeling? I suppose physically I'm feeling more myself, | :35:05. | :35:10. | |
so if I had to guess I would say that last time was when I was given | :35:10. | :35:14. | |
the modafinil. It is really very marginal. We will find out if I was | :35:14. | :35:19. | |
right in a minute. In our pressurised society, we | :35:19. | :35:23. | |
might be tempted to pop a pill to achieve the best we can, the | :35:23. | :35:29. | |
fastest we can. But what if there were drugs that can make us kinder, | :35:29. | :35:32. | |
more considerate, more moral. Scientists are about to start tests | :35:33. | :35:39. | |
on a range of hormones that could do just that. They call it, moral | :35:39. | :35:45. | |
enhancement. So one could certainly imagine reducing the testosterone | :35:45. | :35:48. | |
level. Testosterone generally tends to make people slightly more | :35:48. | :35:51. | |
aggressive, and also make us less likely to watch faces. We become | :35:51. | :35:55. | |
less interested in trying to figure out what other people think when we | :35:55. | :36:00. | |
are high on testosterone. We also become more risk-taking, that is | :36:00. | :36:04. | |
problematic in certain situations, in the stock market or the sports | :36:05. | :36:11. | |
field. Bioet thirst, Professor John Harris, supports the idea of | :36:11. | :36:17. | |
cognitive enhancements, but sees risk in dabbling with people's | :36:17. | :36:23. | |
values. Someone isn't morally enhanced to do things of which | :36:23. | :36:26. | |
other others approve. They are morally enhanced if they are better | :36:26. | :36:31. | |
capable of making moral judgments, better capable of considering | :36:31. | :36:36. | |
alternative, realising that the consequences of their actions | :36:36. | :36:40. | |
matter. Realising the larger context in which they act. Most of | :36:40. | :36:45. | |
that will be more achievable through cognitive enhancement than | :36:45. | :36:50. | |
moral enhancement. Moment of truth. I have to ask you, can you guess, | :36:50. | :36:55. | |
can you tell me which day you thought you took the modafinil. | :36:55. | :36:59. | |
is hard, it is marginal, if I was forced to guess, I would say the | :36:59. | :37:03. | |
first time is when I had the real modafinil. That is interesting, you | :37:03. | :37:07. | |
are not correct. Today you had the modafinil. Really, that is | :37:07. | :37:11. | |
interesting, I would definitely say I feel more myself today. Which is | :37:11. | :37:16. | |
very strange. Also on the test when it came to planning, moving the | :37:16. | :37:21. | |
balls around on the screen to match the two displays. The one I don't | :37:21. | :37:28. | |
like. You did very well and you did even better today on the modafinil. | :37:28. | :37:36. | |
On the memory recognition task my score went up to 9 out of ten, from | :37:36. | :37:43. | |
8 out of 10, a 9% increase. We saw striking improvements in memory, | :37:43. | :37:48. | |
planning abilities and impulsiveity. It is human nature to want to push | :37:48. | :37:52. | |
against our limitation, but what about the risks? My tests with | :37:52. | :37:55. | |
modafinil were medically superadvised and involved just one | :37:55. | :38:00. | |
dose. With these drugs we just don't know the long-term effects on | :38:00. | :38:10. | |
:38:10. | :38:12. | ||
the brain. I think it would be great if the Government looked at | :38:12. | :38:17. | |
it with the pharmaceutical industry, and said if you can show efficacy | :38:17. | :38:21. | |
we will regulate the drugs in the normal way, and perhaps people can | :38:21. | :38:25. | |
go to their GP and ask can they take the drug. If safety can be | :38:25. | :38:31. | |
proven, some see no reason to hold back. It is difficult to think of a | :38:32. | :38:35. | |
plausible place to set an upper limit to intelligence or cognitive | :38:35. | :38:40. | |
powers. If we can improve our could go any of powers, and by doing so | :38:40. | :38:44. | |
shorten our learning time, and allow education to operate from a | :38:44. | :38:48. | |
higher base, it might be not only good for individuals, actually, but | :38:48. | :38:53. | |
cost effective for society. We can increase the power of our brain | :38:53. | :38:58. | |
through exercise and sleep, and diet. But the attraction of a pill | :38:58. | :39:02. | |
that makes you smarter won't go away. It might mean a difference of | :39:02. | :39:09. | |
just a few per cent now, but what if that was 50%, 100%? Would we | :39:09. | :39:19. | |
:39:19. | :39:21. | ||
still say no? With us now is the Professor of clinical | :39:21. | :39:24. | |
neuropsychology from Cambridge, Barbara Sahakian, whom you saw, and | :39:24. | :39:31. | |
the author of Why Solutions Don't Work In A ComPlex World, Bryan | :39:31. | :39:35. | |
Appleyard. Do you think the pills should be available to anyone who | :39:35. | :39:38. | |
wants them? They can't be, because they haven't done the long-term | :39:38. | :39:43. | |
safety studies for healthy people. They would be dangerous to make | :39:43. | :39:48. | |
them available. They need some studies done. They currently | :39:48. | :39:52. | |
shouldn't be available because which don't know the long-term | :39:52. | :39:54. | |
consequences? That's correct. Some younger people are taking them and | :39:54. | :39:59. | |
the brain is still in development, well into young adulthood. | :39:59. | :40:07. | |
would say young people shouldn't take them? Obviously if you have a | :40:07. | :40:09. | |
neuro-psychiatric illness, you might need the drugs, if you are a | :40:09. | :40:13. | |
healthy child and your brain is in development. The healthy young man | :40:13. | :40:17. | |
we saw at Oxford University, clearly very smart, claimed that | :40:17. | :40:20. | |
these pills enhanced his performance. He shouldn't be taking | :40:20. | :40:23. | |
them in your judgment, because we don't know the long-term | :40:23. | :40:26. | |
consequences? We have done studies at Cambridge University, and we | :40:26. | :40:31. | |
find improvements in healthy people. But we do these acute studies. He | :40:31. | :40:35. | |
is taking them long-term, he's neglecting his sleep, it is a very, | :40:35. | :40:38. | |
he's buying them over the Internet, which is a very dangerous way to | :40:38. | :40:44. | |
get hold of drugs. Leaving aside the question of whether they are | :40:45. | :40:49. | |
reliably sourced. Supposing they can be reliably manufactureed and, | :40:49. | :40:54. | |
furthermore, there is no long-term damage caused by extensive use of | :40:54. | :40:59. | |
these things, Appleyard, you're - Bryan Appleyard, you are a clever | :40:59. | :41:05. | |
guy, don't you want to be cleverer? I don't know what that means, there | :41:05. | :41:09. | |
is a bigger issue here, particularly in the use of the word | :41:09. | :41:16. | |
"enhancement", people talk about moral enhancing. The word | :41:16. | :41:20. | |
"enhancement", we only have one yardstick of human consciousness, | :41:20. | :41:27. | |
that is human consciousness. If you go beyond human enhancement what | :41:27. | :41:32. | |
would it be like, would it be like Osama Bin Laden. Do you think | :41:32. | :41:36. | |
society would benefit, let's leave aside the question of sourcing and | :41:36. | :41:40. | |
long-term damage, assuming they are safe and reliably manufactured, | :41:40. | :41:44. | |
would society be better off? think that you know, if you talk | :41:44. | :41:49. | |
about improving people's memory, and their ability to plan, problem | :41:49. | :41:53. | |
solve, we have showed in a recent study, with imperial college, that | :41:53. | :41:56. | |
sleep deprived doctors do much better on this, they have much | :41:56. | :42:00. | |
lower side-effects than taking caffeine, coffee. Do you think | :42:00. | :42:04. | |
these things should be available on the NHS? That is a different | :42:04. | :42:08. | |
discussion all together. Because that has to do with the cost. | :42:08. | :42:12. | |
asking what you think? Certainly for neuro-psychiatric patients and | :42:12. | :42:18. | |
people with brain injury, yes I do. Ordinary people? On the NHS? Well, | :42:18. | :42:24. | |
I think there is a difference between helping somebody to be | :42:24. | :42:31. | |
normalised, and then enhancement is a different order. When it comes to | :42:31. | :42:35. | |
enhancement, those who pay should be able to do it? It is an | :42:35. | :42:38. | |
interesting social and ethical problem. As this was brought up | :42:38. | :42:43. | |
earlier, on the video, because it is important that we make access. | :42:43. | :42:47. | |
But what I would say, Jeremy, is there are other ways, there is | :42:47. | :42:51. | |
exercise, education, these are great ways to boost cognition. We | :42:51. | :42:54. | |
don't always have to use a drug. You don't have a problem with | :42:54. | :42:59. | |
people taking lots of exercise and the rest of it? Absolutely not. | :42:59. | :43:03. | |
problem is specifically with what chemical reactions may be taking | :43:03. | :43:08. | |
place as a consequence of taking medication? There are two issues, | :43:08. | :43:13. | |
one is the consequences, and the other is it a good thing in the | :43:13. | :43:17. | |
wider sense of affecting what it is to be human. I don't think we have | :43:17. | :43:22. | |
the faintist idea what enhancing a human being is. - faintest idea of | :43:22. | :43:26. | |
what enhancing a human being is. I think convincing people they can | :43:26. | :43:30. | |
live their normal lives better by taking this chemical is a step too | :43:30. | :43:38. | |
far. Obviously we enhance people in all sorts of ways, we wear glasses | :43:38. | :43:42. | |
and take exercises, and education is enhancement. There is a line in | :43:42. | :43:48. | |
which you start saying, you will take a drug, all the time, in order | :43:48. | :43:53. | |
to be a different superior being is very dubious, it seems to me. It is | :43:53. | :43:58. | |
taking us away from the social norms with which we move. | :43:58. | :44:01. | |
Presumably you would get circumstances in which employers | :44:01. | :44:06. | |
would say, I will give you the job but take this pill all the time? | :44:06. | :44:09. | |
can guarantee that human beings to be what they are, they would use | :44:09. | :44:14. | |
the drugs to produce the perfect soldier. These would be used in | :44:14. | :44:20. | |
that way. There is already owerings, frequently when I speak to students, | :44:20. | :44:25. | |
they say they don't want to take the drugs and there is pressure on | :44:25. | :44:31. | |
them to take T the question of coercion is there. That is like an | :44:31. | :44:35. | |
argument for compulsory drunkenness, it is peer pressure? It is peer | :44:35. | :44:42. | |
pressure, I know Nature did an on- line survey and people responded. | :44:42. | :44:46. | |
These on-line surveys are worthless, it is not a controlled sample? | :44:46. | :44:50. | |
is not. Why are you citing it? interesting feature is the issue of | :44:50. | :44:53. | |
coercion, when asked if children should be given the drugs if they | :44:53. | :44:56. | |
are healthy, most of the people said no. When asked if they would | :44:56. | :45:00. | |
give the drug to their child if other children in the classroom | :45:00. | :45:04. | |
were taking these drugs, they said, yes. The issue of coercion comes up | :45:04. | :45:08. | |
again, it is only in trusting in that regard. Do you also believe | :45:08. | :45:11. | |
the question that was cited in the film there, that Brian has already | :45:11. | :45:16. | |
referred to, that there is a capacity for moral enhancement? | :45:16. | :45:21. | |
think it is very difficult to discuss what people mean by moral | :45:21. | :45:24. | |
enhancement. At least with cognition we have objective tests. | :45:24. | :45:28. | |
We can say whether your memory as improved and by how much, we can | :45:28. | :45:31. | |
talk about whether your planning has improved. This is much more | :45:31. | :45:34. | |
difficult. It is nonsense, isn't it, moral enhancement is the capacity, | :45:34. | :45:40. | |
surely, to make a judgment, based upon your natural capabilities? | :45:40. | :45:44. | |
Well, neuroscientists would also talk, for instance, about cognitive | :45:44. | :45:47. | |
control, being able to control your impulses and your behaviour. There | :45:47. | :45:51. | |
are other forms that are perhaps more easy to measure. We have to | :45:51. | :46:01. | |
:46:01. | :46:20. | ||
leave it there, unfortunately. We have a newed long enough on the | :46:20. | :46:26. | |
bones of contention. Emily gets a go and is sharpening her knashers, | :46:26. | :46:36. | |
:46:36. | :46:55. | ||
I think they are her's! Good night. Hello, another mild | :46:55. | :46:59. | |
night out there. Later on we could see heavy rain arriving in the | :46:59. | :47:04. | |
south west of England. Could make for miserable driving conditions in | :47:04. | :47:07. | |
Somerset, Devon and Dorset, and South Wales. That pulse of rain | :47:07. | :47:12. | |
goes northwards during the day, the afternoon could be damp through the | :47:12. | :47:18. | |
west of the Pennine. In the south a grey start, brightening up across | :47:18. | :47:23. | |
East Anglia and south-east England. Sunny spells coming through, and | :47:23. | :47:28. | |
mild the South-West, wet, possibly very wet, by afternoon it should be | :47:28. | :47:31. | |
dryer and maybe brighter. Today dull and damp in South Wales, to | :47:31. | :47:34. | |
the west we should brighten up. Sunshine is possible here. By and | :47:34. | :47:38. | |
large it is looking like a fine day in Northern Ireland. We will see | :47:38. | :47:42. | |
some cloud, but we should get some sunshine as well. A dry and bright | :47:42. | :47:45. | |
day again across much of North West Scotland. Elsewhere across Scotland | :47:46. | :47:50. | |
it starts dry, but outbreaks of rain working their way in. As for | :47:50. | :47:53. | |
Friday, we will see another band of rain moving in across Northern | :47:53. | :47:58. | |
Ireland, slowly that will work into parts of South-West Scotland. For | :47:58. | :48:02. | |
Edinburgh and Inverness, we could see sunshine. Cloud across the | :48:02. | :48:08. | |
country on Friday. It is still mild, temperatures above average, 14-16 | :48:08. | :48:11. | |
degrees. A slice of sunshine during Friday, only ahead of the next band | :48:11. | :48:15. |