:00:08. > :00:16.Would you rather be French than British? France's Finance Minister
:00:16. > :00:20.suggests, economically speaking, we might.
:00:20. > :00:23.There's history to these spats, but this evening, the French are
:00:23. > :00:30.slapped down by Nick Clegg. Is it French nervousness about their own
:00:30. > :00:37.problems behind the latest row. Also tonight, author, polemicist,
:00:37. > :00:42.thinker, Susan Hitch has died, we will show one of -- has died. We
:00:42. > :00:46.will show one of his last interviews. I'm happy to take it as
:00:46. > :00:53.face value, I will take that, whatever has been said.
:00:53. > :01:02.You get a real sense of the year ticking away from up here. David
:01:02. > :01:08.Grossman looks back and down on Westminster.
:01:08. > :01:11.Good evening, it's not exactly the 100 years war, but let as say
:01:11. > :01:15.anglo-French relations have probably been better, this evening
:01:15. > :01:19.the Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg, described as simply
:01:19. > :01:21.unacceptable, French criticism of the UK economy, after the French
:01:21. > :01:25.Finance Minister suggested that Britain's economic situation was
:01:25. > :01:29.very worrying, and argued it was better to be French. The looming
:01:29. > :01:32.specter of a credit rating downgrade for France hangs over
:01:32. > :01:36.this argument, as does the recent European treaty by David Cameron.
:01:36. > :01:46.Tonight, as one ratings agency declares a solution to the eurozone
:01:46. > :01:47.
:01:47. > :01:54.crisis, beyond reach, we ask which economy is superior.
:01:54. > :01:59.# God save our gracious Queen # God...$$NEWLINE There has often
:01:59. > :02:09.been a healthy rudeness about cross-channel relations. Honest
:02:09. > :02:12.John Bull, versus the scheming French frogs, Orla France versus
:02:12. > :02:16.England the spats go along way back. We have had spats over doing
:02:16. > :02:20.business, and now the business of last week's Brussels summit, means
:02:20. > :02:26.it has all broken out again. From Westminster, that's drawn a
:02:27. > :02:31.robust British response. I'm always pleased to be British. In this
:02:31. > :02:36.economic situation, although we have got a bigger deficit than
:02:36. > :02:40.anywhere else in Europe, because of the legacy of Gordon Brown, we have
:02:40. > :02:46.got two things very strongly in our favour, we have got our own
:02:46. > :02:50.currency, and so we are in control of our own destiny, and we have our
:02:50. > :02:54.own Bank of England, that can manage that currency. And we have
:02:54. > :02:59.got a credible fiscal plan, that has passed through parliament, that
:02:59. > :03:03.the markets believe. Those two things together put us in a far
:03:03. > :03:09.stronger position. From Joan of Arc, through to General de Gaulle,
:03:09. > :03:13.French leaders have aunch been good and saying no -- often been good at
:03:14. > :03:17.saying non or worse to Britain. What has angered them this time, is
:03:17. > :03:21.not just David Cameron's behaviour at the summit, the Prime Minister's
:03:21. > :03:25.veto forced precisely the outcome, an inter-governmental pact, rather
:03:25. > :03:30.than a full treaty, that President Sarkozy wanted. Rather the main
:03:30. > :03:34.trigger for French wrath, seems to be a threat by American credit
:03:35. > :03:40.ratings agencies to downgrade France's AAA rating, if there isn't
:03:40. > :03:45.decisive action to stablise the euro.
:03:45. > :03:48.To Nicolas Sarkozy, facing re- election next spring, it is a sign
:03:48. > :03:52.that the Anglo-Saxon world has no confidence in the future of the
:03:52. > :03:56.currency. And that it fears France, in particular, is dangerously
:03:56. > :04:02.exposed to the crisis in Greece and Italy. It is a natural moment,
:04:02. > :04:07.cynics would say, to try to undermine the standing of Europe's
:04:07. > :04:17.main non-euro state. So economically speaking, is it better
:04:17. > :04:18.
:04:18. > :04:25.to be French? Or to be British? Britain's deficit 9.4% of GDP, is
:04:25. > :04:31.much bigger than France's at 5.7%. Its bebt is only slightly lower.
:04:31. > :04:37.90% against France's 8%. Its inflation rate is more than double,
:04:37. > :04:40.4.5 he%, against France's 2.1%. But in the City of London, this
:04:40. > :04:43.economist thinks that is not the full story. At the moment the two
:04:43. > :04:47.countries look much the same, to be honest, if you look at most
:04:47. > :04:49.economic and fiscal indicators. But I think, looking ahead, it is
:04:49. > :04:54.certainly the outlook for France that is probably worse, because
:04:54. > :04:58.France, is of course, in Europe, and directly hit by the eurozone
:04:58. > :05:02.debt crisis. Where as the UK is a little bit removed. What matters is
:05:02. > :05:08.the relative future health of the two economies. That depends on the
:05:09. > :05:14.fate of the euro. One ratings agency, FITCH, today, affirmed
:05:14. > :05:18.France's AAA rating, but said the long-term outlook is no longer
:05:18. > :05:22.stable, it is negative. It says France is the most exposed of the
:05:22. > :05:25.top rated eurozone states, to a further intensification of the
:05:25. > :05:29.crisis. I think it would be going a bit far to say France is the next
:05:29. > :05:36.Italy or the next Spain. It doesn't have the big debt problems those
:05:36. > :05:40.economies have. But its banking sector is exposed to those troubled
:05:40. > :05:44.peripheral economies. Its banking sec tosh is very fragile, that
:05:44. > :05:54.means its -- sector is very fragile, so the economic outlook is be
:05:54. > :06:03.
:06:03. > :06:08.Ahead for the French, as for the British, more austerity, to bring
:06:08. > :06:12.down the deficit. But it may not be enough. The ratings agency, FITCH,
:06:12. > :06:21.said it believes that a comprehensive solution to the
:06:21. > :06:26.eurocrisis, is technically and politically beyond reach. As for
:06:26. > :06:32.the deputy, Nick Clegg who rebukeed French President, for what he
:06:32. > :06:36.called unacceptable French remark about the UK economy. A long-term
:06:36. > :06:39.relationship with a country, always keen to project its power on the
:06:39. > :06:46.world stage, is probably repairable, but the problem with its currency
:06:46. > :06:50.is another matter. Joining me now from Paris is one of
:06:51. > :06:54.Nicolas Sarkozy's MPs. Thank you very much for your time this
:06:54. > :06:59.evening. Your Finance Minister had his wrist slapped today by our
:06:59. > :07:05.deputy PM, but think he went too far? Well, I think that in fact,
:07:05. > :07:12.you know, we have kind of bad fever peak, but it will go down very
:07:12. > :07:17.quickly. I know that the Prime Minister rang up your Deputy Prime
:07:17. > :07:21.Minister, to try to rub off the misunderstanding between the two
:07:21. > :07:27.men. I don't think that this is very serious. It is showing, in
:07:28. > :07:35.fact, of course, that there is some anxiety in France about the
:07:35. > :07:38.eurozone's future. That it is true that I myself, I'm a very sceptical
:07:38. > :07:44.Uri man, but we are used to this kind of fever between the two
:07:44. > :07:50.countries, it never lasts very long. So it is good for the press, but it
:07:50. > :07:54.is, you know, it won't stand very long. Your deficit, as we saw, in
:07:54. > :07:58.those figures, is lower than Britain's, but your biggest problem,
:07:58. > :08:03.really, is that you are in the eurozone. Are you now saying you
:08:03. > :08:08.wish you weren't? I would agree with you, that in fact, this is
:08:08. > :08:14.true, I heard that the Bank of England and Britain, the British
:08:14. > :08:19.Government, had its own currency, and can master, you know, its own
:08:19. > :08:24.money currency policy. I agree with that. And in fact, this is very
:08:24. > :08:30.difficult, this is what in fact the Finance Minister said, it is very
:08:30. > :08:35.difficult to conduct, you know, in the eurozone a currency policy
:08:35. > :08:41.which could be adapted to each country. This is why, I think, that
:08:41. > :08:46.the eurozone may not survive very long. But, of course, I'm not
:08:46. > :08:52.representing the French Government when I say that. I only look at the
:08:52. > :08:57.facts, and I would say that the eurozone is in danger, especially
:08:57. > :09:06.also because the central European bank is very rigid, and because of
:09:06. > :09:12.the German attitude, in fact, which, they should do quanative easing to
:09:12. > :09:16.help the states, not just for the banks to help the states to invest.
:09:16. > :09:20.Looking at the political position, it is a very hard message this, for
:09:20. > :09:26.your President Sarkozy, going into an election year, then. Do you
:09:26. > :09:36.think this whole spat, indeed even the way the treaty was negotiated,
:09:36. > :09:37.
:09:37. > :09:40.was a political manoeuvre to help him? No, I met personally President
:09:40. > :09:45.Sarkozy before the Brussels summit, he wasn't very surprised by the
:09:45. > :09:50.British attitude. He said to us a couple of MPs, that of course, if
:09:50. > :09:59.there is no agreement with 27, there will be an agreement between
:09:59. > :10:02.the euromember states, that means the 17. In fact, this is very
:10:02. > :10:07.normal. Because Britain is not belonging to the eurozone, and in
:10:07. > :10:12.this kind of discipline, bugetry discipline, that they tried to
:10:12. > :10:18.achieve, you know, it cannot really apply to Britain as such, because,
:10:18. > :10:22.in fact, this kind of budget discipline is to achieve, to save
:10:22. > :10:27.the euro, and I have doubts about that. Because in fact, this is not
:10:27. > :10:32.a question of budget deficit, it is a question of lack of
:10:32. > :10:36.competitiveness between the euromember-state. Thank you very
:10:36. > :10:41.much indeed. We appreciate your time. Thank you, good night.
:10:41. > :10:44.Life on this earth, with all its mystery and beauty and pain is then
:10:44. > :10:48.to be lived far more intensely, we stumble, we get up, we are sad,
:10:48. > :10:55.confident, insecure, feel loneliness and joy and love. There
:10:55. > :11:00.is nothing more, but I want nothing more. Christopher Hitch, wrote in,
:11:00. > :11:04.one since, his own momento hori, and thought about his death many
:11:04. > :11:10.months before it came. He talked candidly about cancer, making him
:11:10. > :11:20.sober and objective. Today it finally killed him. We look at an
:11:20. > :11:25.
:11:25. > :11:30.extraordinary writer, polemicist, thinker. Dashing, smart, funny, to
:11:30. > :11:35.his admirers, the young Christopher Hitchens was the securing of idle
:11:35. > :11:42.thinking. A bit like Hemingway, he was a two-fisted writer, that went
:11:42. > :11:50.for typing, scrapping, oh yeah, and drinking and smoking too.
:11:50. > :11:53.Of a leftish bent, he nevertheless challenged sacred cow its like the
:11:53. > :11:57.mythology surrounding President Kennedy. Like everyone else of my
:11:57. > :12:01.generation, I can remember exactly where I was standing on the fateful
:12:02. > :12:08.day when John Fitzgerald Kennedy nearly killed me, I can remember
:12:08. > :12:12.the Cuba crisis. Some said Tom Wolf had Hitchens in
:12:12. > :12:18.mind when he created the hard- drinking hack played by Bruce
:12:18. > :12:23.Willis in the Bonfire of the Vanties. We had a number of Scotchs
:12:23. > :12:30.before lunch, big tumblers of Scotch. He had wine at lunch and
:12:30. > :12:39.Cognac after. We stumbled back up to the office, and sat down at an
:12:40. > :12:45.old desk with a typewriter, oOlevetti, he produced a thousand
:12:45. > :12:50.seemless words in an hour, he could write better than any mine drunk
:12:50. > :12:55.than sober. Hitchens had the work ethic of his
:12:55. > :13:00.her low George Orwell, if not the same addiction, to tea. Settled in
:13:00. > :13:06.the states, an American citizen, Hitchens reaction to 9/11, led him
:13:06. > :13:11.to modify his view of George Bush, and end up backing the Iraq war.
:13:11. > :13:14.People said, ignorant, unqualified, uncultured, uninstructed, if his
:13:14. > :13:18.brains were made of gun powder and they have detonated, they would
:13:18. > :13:23.barely be enough to disarrange his hair. Yet here he is, half way
:13:23. > :13:28.through his first term, with wall- to-wall public sympathy. So, were
:13:28. > :13:32.his critics premature, or has he been doing something right? Though
:13:32. > :13:37.he found common cause with Tony Blair over Iraq, the atheist
:13:37. > :13:41.Hitchens, by now ill with cancer, couldn't agree with him over
:13:42. > :13:46.religion. Once you assume a creator and a plan, it makes you objects,
:13:46. > :13:51.in a cruel experiment, whereby we are created sick, and commanded to
:13:51. > :14:00.be well, I will repeat that, created sick, and then ordered to
:14:00. > :14:08.be well. Over us to superadvise this is installed a sell lest kal
:14:08. > :14:11.dictatorship, a kind of -- celles ti, al dictatorship, a North Korea.
:14:11. > :14:16.He was determined not to move the inch to the argument that religion
:14:16. > :14:21.might have some purpose or some justification to it. Unlike Orwell,
:14:21. > :14:26.who wrote a famous essay called Books Versus Cigarettes, Hitchens
:14:26. > :14:36.chose both. In other respects, he may be judged to be in the same
:14:36. > :14:37.
:14:37. > :14:42.tradition as the master. Jeremy interviewed Christopher Hitchens
:14:42. > :14:46.last November, he started by asking about cancer. Are you terrified by
:14:46. > :14:51.it? No, it is a superstition, among many. I know where it comes from,
:14:51. > :14:55.if you would like me to say. When I was a child we were all very
:14:55. > :14:58.frightened still by polio, it takes an effort to remember that now, but
:14:58. > :15:03.in many countries still they are. Previous generations it would have
:15:03. > :15:07.been small pox, the heart that never gets the right rhythm,
:15:07. > :15:11.bronchitis, TB, but none have the same horror that cancer has been
:15:11. > :15:18.allowed to acquire. It is probably because of the idea of there being
:15:18. > :15:23.a live thing inside you. A sort of malignant alien, that can't
:15:23. > :15:27.overlive you, but does in a sense has a purpose to its life, which is
:15:27. > :15:31.to kill you and die. It is an obscene parody of the idea of being
:15:31. > :15:35.pregnant. I always feel sorier for women who have cancer than who have
:15:35. > :15:40.men. For men the idea of hosting another life of any kind, is hard
:15:40. > :15:50.to think about. But for a woman, it must be a grotesque, nasty version
:15:50. > :15:59.of the idea of being a host to another life. I have been idea why
:15:59. > :16:08.people propigsate with bogus cures, scare stories. I have set my face
:16:08. > :16:14.to try to demonstrate it is a maldy like any other, and will yield to
:16:14. > :16:19.science. That is what I will spend my life pushing. The most common
:16:19. > :16:25.word used for cancer is "battling"? I think that is a version of the
:16:25. > :16:30.pathetic fallacy. It is giving a real existence to a something that
:16:30. > :16:36.is in a sense, in a real sense inanimate. If it has a sort of life.
:16:36. > :16:42.I rather think it is battling me, it is much more what it feels like.
:16:42. > :16:46.I have to sat passively every few weeks and have a huge dose of kill
:16:46. > :16:51.or cure venom put straight into my veins and poll it up with other
:16:51. > :16:54.poisons too -- follow it up with other poisons too. It doesn't feel
:16:55. > :17:00.like fighting at all, possibly resisting, but no, you feel like
:17:00. > :17:08.you are drowning in passiveity, and being assaulted by something that
:17:08. > :17:14.has a horrible persistence, working on you while you are asleep. There
:17:14. > :17:21.will be people, who won't say it to your face perhaps, who will say you
:17:21. > :17:31.smoke and drank a lot? That is demystifying. It is people saying
:17:31. > :17:32.
:17:32. > :17:38.it is God's gift to me to have it in on throat because that is the
:17:38. > :17:42.organ I used to blaspheme. If you have led a Bohemian life that I
:17:42. > :17:49.have had, it is precisely the kind of cancer that you would get, that
:17:49. > :17:54.is a bit of a yawn. Do you still consider yourself a leftist? I do.
:17:54. > :18:01.Many of your critics would say that as your waistband expanded your
:18:01. > :18:05.politics moved further to the right? They should see my waistband
:18:05. > :18:09.now, I have lost 30 pounds. It is such a well known script, it is
:18:09. > :18:14.deserving of the name cliche, I pin that accusation on my accusers,
:18:14. > :18:24.that is what they are resorting to. Do think of these labels apply to
:18:24. > :18:25.
:18:25. > :18:30.you, leftist, or whatever, you are more of an iconclass. There isn't a
:18:30. > :18:35.global class now, some of us miss it, but it is gone. Is it likely to
:18:35. > :18:38.be replaced, I don't think so. Is there a socialist theory of an
:18:38. > :18:47.alternative world economy, just in theory that could stand up against
:18:47. > :18:49.the idea of a market system, not conspicuously, no. In fact the
:18:50. > :18:57.anti-globalising movement seems to be nostalgic for a preIndustrial
:18:57. > :19:01.Society in many ways, thus to be rather Conservative. From this you
:19:01. > :19:06.could probably tell I still think like a Marxist, which I do.
:19:07. > :19:11.believe in the dialectiv? And the materialism of history. Do you
:19:11. > :19:15.think it is a life well lived? have to leave that to others. I
:19:15. > :19:18.have been encouraged in the last few months by some extraordinarily
:19:18. > :19:25.generous letters, including, these are the ones I take most to heart,
:19:25. > :19:29.from people I have never met or don't know. If they say what I have
:19:29. > :19:34.written or done means anything to them, then I'm happy to take it at
:19:34. > :19:38.face value, for once. I will take that. And yes, it cheers me up. I
:19:38. > :19:45.hope it isn't written with the intention of doing so. Though I
:19:45. > :19:49.must allow for it, possibly being for that reason. But, in case you
:19:49. > :19:52.are watching this, anybody, and you ever wonder whether to write to
:19:52. > :19:57.anyone, always do, because you would be surprised by how much of a
:19:57. > :20:00.difference it can make. I regret, here is a regret, I regret not
:20:00. > :20:04.doing it more often myself. Thank you very much.
:20:04. > :20:08.My pleasure. Christopher Hitchens, talking to
:20:08. > :20:12.Jeremy last year. There is another chance to see the full half hour of
:20:12. > :20:17.Jeremy's interview with Christopher Hitchens, on BBC Two on Sunday at
:20:17. > :20:20.11.30pm. Joining me now is a close friend of
:20:20. > :20:24.Christopher Hitchens, the historian, Simon Schama. Really nice of you to
:20:24. > :20:30.come in, Simon, on a day that I'm sure is very difficult for you.
:20:30. > :20:35.could I not, Emily. I mean he's a man who clearly was not scared of
:20:35. > :20:39.making enemies, not scared of upsetting people, and yet there has
:20:39. > :20:44.been this tangible sense of affection for a man who embraced
:20:44. > :20:50.division? You know, I think it is partly because Christopher was
:20:50. > :20:59.really against a time of pablamand demureness, really. He believed him
:20:59. > :21:08.self to be sort of the inheritor of mischief makers, like Tom Payne and
:21:08. > :21:13.Wilks, The Levellers, and George Orwell. Well said in his essay on
:21:13. > :21:23.the English language and politics, that most political writing is in
:21:23. > :21:26.defence of the indefensible, and takes on a transparent melatricious
:21:26. > :21:31.quality Christopher was not like that, really, he wanted not to be a
:21:31. > :21:35.party person of any kind, but his own particular self, wielding his
:21:35. > :21:40.own particular sword. The bitter irony in way, for those of us who
:21:40. > :21:45.knew and were deeply fond of him. Was his notorious larger than life
:21:46. > :21:49.habits were completely of a peace with his intellectual courage. That
:21:50. > :21:54.is to say there was something morally decent about his double
:21:54. > :22:00.Scotch, if you catch my drift. That he was outside the normal
:22:00. > :22:07.boundaries of the polite, the conventional and the ingraceating.
:22:07. > :22:12.This idea of being a mischief maker, was it ever a polemicist for the
:22:12. > :22:18.sake of argument, or do you think he genuinely believed every time he
:22:18. > :22:22.went against the grain? I feel a complete fraud sitting in his shoes,
:22:22. > :22:26.which in many ways are impossible to fill. Being anguished at taking
:22:26. > :22:30.his name in vain. I think he would have said there was a certain
:22:30. > :22:34.amount of instinctive taste for mischief, that if there was trouble
:22:35. > :22:38.brewing he would seek it out. That is why he wasn't a conventional
:22:38. > :22:43.journalist or prepared to be an armchair journalist. He wanted to
:22:43. > :22:47.go where the sewer stunk most awfully, and he made sure he was
:22:47. > :22:53.there. He liked actually skiing along the race zor blade in that
:22:53. > :22:58.kind of way, to mix my fete fors, shocking to Newsnight and to Hitch.
:22:58. > :23:02.He would want to do that, the vast majority of the arguments,
:23:02. > :23:06.otherwise why, for God's sake, support the war in Iraq and
:23:06. > :23:13.alienate most of your ideolgical comrades. Most of the arguments he
:23:13. > :23:16.took he took absolutely from principle. Today we had this quite
:23:16. > :23:20.curious push from David Cameron about the revival of Christian
:23:20. > :23:26.values, there is something ironic of this coming on the day when such
:23:26. > :23:36.a passionate believer in atheism has died. Did it alter his approach,
:23:36. > :23:37.
:23:37. > :23:47.do you think, to death? I'm sorry, Emily. In the sense of riceing Oder
:23:47. > :23:47.
:23:47. > :23:52.of sanctity. Is that -- rising oder of sanctity. This idea that God is
:23:52. > :23:58.not great? I don't think he was like Richard Dawkins in a sense in
:23:58. > :24:02.which he felt there needed to be an impassioned neo-Darwinian crusade.
:24:02. > :24:07.He was surprised, bemused and shocked, all our generation were,
:24:07. > :24:11.I'm slightly older than him, that theocracy was possible in the 21st
:24:11. > :24:15.century. Not that religion was still hanging around, but religion
:24:15. > :24:20.which actually had the power of force to it. The great moment for
:24:20. > :24:26.many of us was the Salman Rushdie, it changed a lot of us, until that
:24:26. > :24:36.point, we could make jokes actually about making sin a crime, a capital
:24:36. > :24:41.crime too. After that, that fatwah wiped the smile from our faces. In
:24:41. > :24:45.that sense the doing the battle with the state still having the
:24:45. > :24:51.power of zealotry, that could get you in horrible trouble. I think
:24:51. > :24:55.during his illness, I will say this. I was put in mind of a great
:24:55. > :25:02.unrepentantly atheistic death, I know, eventhough Hume was some what
:25:02. > :25:06.of a story, Christopher would not mind being identified. Hume died a
:25:06. > :25:11.heroic death, reported by Adam Smith, by his friend, who was
:25:11. > :25:16.visited by a doctor, that said I'm delighted to leave you in better
:25:16. > :25:21.spirits than I imagined. Hume said no doctor, that you would not
:25:21. > :25:25.choose my truth, tell my enemies I'm dying as fast as I can, and my
:25:26. > :25:29.friends as easily and cheerfully as I can. The courage with which Hitch
:25:29. > :25:33.looked at his own death, was the sense, in truth is the ultimate
:25:34. > :25:39.strength, and you can aim for no better thing than that. Thank you
:25:39. > :25:43.very much. So this was the year then that
:25:43. > :25:51.politics was overshadowed by economics, and, yes, this was the
:25:51. > :25:55.year when division in Europe started to open up again. But a
:25:55. > :25:59.curious byproduct of this year, it was the year where the backbencher
:25:59. > :26:01.became a better known voice than those in the frontline of politic.
:26:01. > :26:04.David Grossman looks back on this year.
:26:04. > :26:10.Big Ben is getting ready for its big moment. In just two weeks the
:26:10. > :26:16.nation will turn to its four faces to get us started on 2012, but,
:26:16. > :26:23.before then, a little contemptation of the old year is called for. 2011
:26:23. > :26:33.has been a cracking political year, here are Newsnight's headlines.
:26:33. > :26:39.The they, it's worse. Europe it's back. Ordinary MPs, they are really
:26:39. > :26:43.quite cross! The sun is out today, but 2011 was the year that even
:26:43. > :26:47.more thick black clouds appeared in Britain's economic sky. In fact, it
:26:47. > :26:52.has got so gloomy that the entire deficit reduction programme of the
:26:52. > :26:56.coalition, has been destroyed. That, is having profound consequences for
:26:56. > :27:01.British politics. The Chancellor's Autumn Statement
:27:01. > :27:06.is usually, well, a bit dull. This year's though, was political
:27:06. > :27:10.dynamite. The bust was deeper and had an even greater impact on our
:27:10. > :27:14.economy than previously thought. And the result of this analysis is
:27:14. > :27:17.that the OBR have significantly reduced their assumptions about
:27:17. > :27:21.spare capacity in our economy, and the trend rate of growth.
:27:21. > :27:24.reason why the Autumn Statement was so seismic was the political
:27:24. > :27:28.calculation of both the Conservatives and the Lib Dems, was
:27:28. > :27:34.that they would go into this coming election saying, look we have
:27:34. > :27:39.sorted it out. We can now start to delivering -- delivering some
:27:39. > :27:43.goodies. There is no way that will be the message at the next election
:27:43. > :27:46.now. The change for Labour is to say we won't be worse, we will have
:27:46. > :27:51.a convincing alternative, that up until now they have failed to make
:27:51. > :27:55.any impact in terms of the wider electorate as to what that message
:27:55. > :27:57.would be. It is a very long time to ask people to put up with quite
:27:57. > :28:01.dire circumstances. Groups of people in whom you rely to shift
:28:01. > :28:05.the vote in the centre ground, whether it is women aged between
:28:06. > :28:09.30-40, or swing constituencies in the Midland, or Medway towns, these
:28:09. > :28:14.classic areas where the big battles of British politics are fought, it
:28:14. > :28:17.gets hard Tory say come back to us, or come with us, -- harder to say
:28:18. > :28:25.come back to us, or come with us, if people are still going through
:28:25. > :28:30.tough times. Just like the mechanism of Big Ben, the coalition
:28:30. > :28:35.was finely tuned, it had been to be. Both party leaders knew one issue
:28:35. > :28:40.above all others threatened to rip their common endeavour apart, they
:28:40. > :28:44.had to do everything they could to resist making any new policy on
:28:44. > :28:50.that issue for the entire parliament. That issue, of course,
:28:50. > :28:53.was Europe. There were rum pblgs over the summer. Conservative
:28:53. > :28:57.backbenchers wanted David Cameron to make a treaty change in Europe
:28:57. > :29:00.dependant on Britain getting powers back. And David Cameron sounded
:29:00. > :29:03.keen. Any treaty change, as the last treaty change did, is an
:29:04. > :29:08.opportunity for Britain to advance our national interest. The Liberal
:29:08. > :29:13.Democrats were adamant this wasn't going to happen. This Government is
:29:13. > :29:20.not going to launch some smash 'n grab raid on Brussels on its own.
:29:20. > :29:24.But this month, that sense sayingal veto, and as a result, strained --
:29:24. > :29:27.sensational veto, and as a result strained coalition relations.
:29:27. > :29:31.Europe is the great potential killer of this coalition. It is a
:29:31. > :29:34.running story, that is the danger. Not one that erupts every nine
:29:34. > :29:39.months then disappears t will continue to be a theme throughout
:29:39. > :29:43.this parliament. And could, at some point, as Paddy Ashdown and others
:29:43. > :29:48.have hinted, break the coalition. David Cameron was rather pushed
:29:48. > :29:53.into that veto, after Number Ten spectacularly mishandled a
:29:53. > :29:57.completely meaningless vote on an EU referendum in October. Imposing
:29:57. > :30:01.the full force of a three-line whip on outraged backbenchers. I'm not
:30:01. > :30:05.prepared to go back on my word to my constituents. And I'm really
:30:06. > :30:11.staggered, no, I'm really staggered that loyal people like me, have
:30:11. > :30:19.actually been put in this position. Which brings us, rather neatly, to
:30:19. > :30:24.our final headline. The parliamentary drama in 64 though
:30:24. > :30:28.acts. At the other end of the palace of Westminster, from Big Ben,
:30:28. > :30:32.is the Victoria Tower, with shelves and shelves of vellum controls,
:30:32. > :30:37.Britain's laws going back to the 1400s. We, of course, don't needing
:30:37. > :30:41.to back that far. The big piece of parliamentary legislation this year,
:30:41. > :30:45.after the budget, was the health and social care bill. Not so much
:30:45. > :30:48.for what it did, but for what it told us about how coalition
:30:48. > :30:53.politics worked. The Liberal Democrats managed to get concession
:30:53. > :30:56.after concession by getting a bit nasty and cutting up rough.
:30:56. > :31:00.Conservative backbenchers looked on and took note, they realised that
:31:00. > :31:07.if they wanted to get things their way, well, it is the squeaky wheel
:31:07. > :31:10.that gets the oil. Not only were there rebellions. The ayes to the
:31:10. > :31:15.right, 111. Backbench committees came into their own, freed from the
:31:15. > :31:18.power of the whips, they drove the news forward, where once
:31:19. > :31:22.parliamentary committees may have helped try to bury news. I would
:31:22. > :31:26.just like to say, one sentence, this is the most humble day of my
:31:26. > :31:29.life. I think this was the year of the
:31:29. > :31:32.backbencher, they were certainly very lively, we have seen a new
:31:32. > :31:36.fearlessness coming in. You have seen a lack of control, if you want
:31:36. > :31:39.to put it that way, of the select committees. You look at someone
:31:39. > :31:42.like Louise Mensch, she doesn't come across when she's in her
:31:43. > :31:45.committee as someone who is very worried about what the whips or
:31:46. > :31:49.anyone else thinks about what she has got to say. And you might say,
:31:49. > :31:52.it is harder to remember the names of ministers who stood out this
:31:52. > :31:57.year than it is to think of a good clutch of interesting backbenchers.
:31:57. > :32:02.Funny that. So that's it, our time is up. And
:32:02. > :32:07.soon, so will 2011's. Above all, this has been another transitional
:32:07. > :32:12.year in politic, slowly, some times rather cluanky, our politicians