20/01/2012 Newsnight

Tonight, how President Assad's armed opponents are operating

inside Syria's capital. Our reporter slips his minders and

discovers the forces opposing President Assad are established

inside Damascus, and anxious for outside intervention. TRANSLATION:

They tricked the Arab League, we don't have any hope in the Arab

League, or even in the UN Security Council. We just want a no-fly zone.

Three words, to guarantee a headline. But is the truth more

complicated? Can a decent welfare state exist, alongside mass

immigration? And some breaking philosophy news,

Voltaire famously said, if God didn't exist it would be necessary

to invent him. It turns out it was the British who helped to invent

Good evening. There were more protests in Syria tonight against

the regime of President Assad, and one pro-Assad demonstration inside

Damascus. Protests after Friday prayers have become a regular,

weekly event, our reporter, who has just returned this evening from the

country, has discovered something more, that armed opponents of

President Assad's regime are now established inside the Syrian

capital. Under the almost all-seeing eyes of

President Assad, we stole away from our Government minders, taking a

tortous route through the back streets.

-- torturous route through the back streets. We found the drum beat of

revolution just a few miles from the Presidential Palace. Every

night they gather secretly here, in the poor Damascus districts, the

atmosphere almost festive. They are not so much demanding freedom, as

asserting it. Taunting the President that his day is coming

soon. They welcome any western help. But

they are cheering their own military force, the Free Syrian

Army, Government soldiers who have defected. They are stationed in the

shadows all around, protesting this protest.

TRANSLATION: The people here feel safe because of the Free Syrian

Army. What happened was that some honourable Government soldiers came

over to our side. For example, in this street, one soldier saw the

security forces behind him and the people in front, but instead of

shooting them, he shot in the air and then fled to a house. Now if

the army comes, they shoot on the army to give people time to escape.

They are renouncing the Free Army's victory in repelling Government

troops from the town of Zabadani this week. But here we are not safe.

We are told to leave quickly. The police are coming.

Guiding our escape, lights, held by soldiers of the Free Army. At night,

this dark Labyrinth is a no-go zone for the security forces, a pocket

of liberated territory inside the capital. The uprising, as you can

see, is very determined, but it is very localised. That was a fairly

small demonstration that had to break up very quickly, and people

are moving away very fast now, along specially-chosen alleyways

where they feel safe. It is a scene the Arab League monitors, who have

been in Syria for the past month, will never have witnessed.

TRANSLATION: They tricked the Arab League, they took them to another

distinct and told them it was here, so they weren't able to see the

demonstration here, or even the army stationed nearby. We don't

have any hope in the Arab League, or even in the UN Security Council.

The uprising has lasted ten months already, and they haven't done

anything. We just want a no-fly zone, so that honourable soldiers

feel safer coming over to our side. Around the next corner, we find

volunteers, setting off to smuggle medical supplies across the

Government lines to Zabadani. TRANSLATION: This is medication for

Zabadani for the injured. We are trying our best to support them

with food, needles, pills, everything they need. TRANSLATION:

We are setting off now, we don't get into Zabadani until 6.00am,

using mountain roads, because the main roads are controlled by police

and Government thugs. We have to go on foot, all we can do is take the

supplies from one village and give them to another. Because we aren't

getting any help from the outside world. If the security see us they

will kill us straight away. It is safer for us to move on too.

Crossing the city to an elaborately arranged rend day have you with

another opposition -- rendezvous with another activist. He says

these are the blood stains after being attacked after a

demonstration by a group of soldiers armed with guns, sticks

and a knife, and electric cattle prod. Tran They were beating me, I

tried to pro-- TRANSLATION: They were beating me, I tried to protect

myself. I swallowed the SIM card I filmed the demonstration on. They

gave me four strikes in the solar plex sis, I couldn't breathe and my

face went blue. They said let's leave this dog to die. It would

have been too dangerous to go to hospital. A friend who is a doctor

treated me at my house. After ten months, what has the opposition

really achieved, if its supporters still live in constant fear? The

answer, they say, is their minds have been set free. TRANSLATION:

The most beautiful thing is, if a man is free for one day, he will

sacrifice his life for that freedom. Our generation were born into

dictatorship, into the regime of the President and his father. But

the first time we went out on to the streets, without anyone

ordering us to. The first time we chanted "freedom", something broke,

and we can't go back. That's the first thing the

revolution has taught us. It's broken the fear inside us.

Outside, on the bustling streets of Damascus, activists like him must

blend into the crowd. You will see no evidence of an uprising here,

there may be many opposition supporters passing by, or there may

be none. Is this just a veneer of normality, covering a fatally

weakened system, that is about to collapse, or is it what it appears

to be, the sign of a still well functioning society, largely

untouched by a few pockets of revolt? Stop people at random, and

everybody gives roughly the same answer. TRANSLATION: Our leader is

unique, he has given us safety and security. Even if we have another

leader, it is not going to be the same. He gave us a salary bonus and

safety. The protestors who go out, they call for freedom, they don't

even know what freedom means, they are mad. TRANSLATION: Freedom and

democracy already exists, those people who are in the streets are

not helping. They have a bad influence on the economy and

society. TRANSLATION: For sure there is a conspiracy in this

country, there is a secret hand from outside the country, something

has happened, not the people, nor the security are involved here.

Look in Damascus, there is no demonstration, our country is

secure, they took the security. Are those the voices of conviction?

Or the voices of fear? As in any dictatorship, there is no means of

knowing. For all the courage of the revolutionaries, the Syrian

dictatorship facing a world unable or unwilling to intervene, still

has the upper hand. Ace mentioned earlier, Tim has just

got back this evening from Damascus. What does it feel like, does it

feel like a country on the brij? doesn't really feel -- brink? It

doesn't really feel, now like a country consumed in chaos. There

are some pockets of disquiet, some big pockets, like the city of Homs.

When we went on the Government tour of Homs, we had to go on a round

about route to avoid opposition gunfire, we couldn't have the

planned meeting with the governor, it was too risky to go to the

governor's residence. That was when you were in the hands of the

Government? Yes, in the pocket of Homs we are talking about a very

big pocket. There are little pockets, about this little district

of Damascus this film was B but most of Damascus, most of the

country, the shops are packed, it is living a normal life. You aren't

even seeing, except perhaps on Friday, which is high tension, you

aren't even seeing that many roadblocks or soldiers around.

you willing to give a guesstimate of whether we are talking about

dozens of many defecting, hundreds, thousands? You are certainly

talking athletes hundreds, probably more than that. It is -- Talking at

least hundreds, probably thousands. It is the weapons they have

defected with and psychalogically they are more important, they might

begin to be armed by outside sources, at the moment it is a liek

lightly armed force. That guy you were interviewing in the mask,

talking about the Arab League mission, great disappointment to

the protestors, do you know whether it will stay there or not? They

meet on Sunday, the Arab League, they will have to decide. Qatar,

small but rich, has been the most hawkish, and said simply, the

mission has failed. There should be armed Arab intervention. I think

there will be really no other call for that. Qatar will be on its own

in that. It is pretty certain that the mission will continue. Syria

said that is OK. It will be beefed up, it will get more technical help,

it certainly needs it. When I was out in the monitors, well

intentioned, maybe, but amateurish in their approach T will go on. If

the Arab League mission doesn't go on, the only alternative form of

intervention is the United Nations. It is very hard to see with Russia

and China against how any form of intervention through the UN could

possibly work. There are over 370,000 people

claiming benefits in this country, who were not born in this country.

What are we to make of the relose of these previously unknown

figures? They have been held to prove that this country's welfare

system, paid for by British tax- payers, of course, has made it a

magnet for called benefit tourists. Yet the truth, unsurprisingly, is

more complicated. It is a highly- charged issue, we will discuss in a

molt. First David Grossman reports. Three words set to get a heated

debate flowing. Today the Government gave us its best guess

of foreign-born benefits claimants, it is 371,000. This is all about a

system people can have confidence in, the tax-payers feel they have

confidence in. I want to make sure we have all the safeguards against

benefit tourism, people coming here to claim. I want to make sure we

are paying out money to those people, and only those people

entitled to it. We were left a chaotic system by the previous

Government, this is about sorting it out. What have we learned from

today's information? For a start, while 6.6% of the working migrant

population claims benefit, a lot more, 16.6%, of the British-born

population claim. It was it was spun in the Telegraph article as

something that has arisen from people arriving in the backs of

lorries, students and benefits' tourists. This is a context very

firmly set in. When we actually found when we looked at the figures,

is migrants do, there are about 5.5 million people claiming benefits at

this particular point in time. So that migrants representation of

just over 6% was rather low. So where have these people come

from? Well, 17% are from the EU, excluding the new mainly eastern

European accession states, 8% come from the accession states like

Poland and Lithuania. It is a fact that because we have left poor

countries into the European Union, we have given them unlimited rights

of free travel within the countries, and use of our health system, our

benefits' system and schools. The vast majority of fair-minded people

would say f people from Poland want to work in this country and we have

jobs for them, fine, surely they shouldn't be able to claim benefits

on day one, coming into this country, that is not right. But the

biggest group, 34%, come fromation and the Middle East. -- come from

the Middle East. 27% from Africa, consequence according to some of a

non-selective immigration policy. You can't blame that on the last

Labour Government t goes back to the late 1940s and 50, we felt we

had an imperial obligation to those in the empire or former empire. We

put no restrictions at all, unlike Canada who have a brutal form of

restrictions, you have to have a PHd before you can get in there.

That is why some believe that immigration and welfare benefits

are so closely linked in the public consciousness, because so many

immigrants are low-skilled, competing with the low-skilled

British-born for the jobs. Labour accuses the Government of leasing

these statistics, purely as a diversion from its poor immigration

record. The Government said it would cut net migration into the

country. The Prime Minister said no ifs or buts, it would go below

100,000, the figures have gone up. The diversion from last year, we

saw a number of people arrested at our borders and deported, we saw

those numbers go down. Last summer we saw, Damian Green, decided no

longer to finger print people caught as illegal immigrants. We

can't specify who they are. Many voters, though, would say the

fact that immigrants are legally entitled to benefits, is not the

same as saying they are morally entitled. This raises all sorts of

political questions about what qualifying contribution society

should require. The recent case of the Big Issue seller in Bristol,

who won her case for being classified as self-employed, which

means that she can qualify for benefits, things like that get a

lot of publicity. We have to a much clearer sense of progression from

coming to this country to qualifying for benefits.

This combination of words, then, is particularly potent now, during

austerity. When one of the major political themes is, the parties

promising to end something for nothing.

With us now is Sunder Katwala, director of British Future, a new

think-tank dealing with migration issues, and Harriet Sergeant,

journalist, and author, and fellow of the Centre for Policy Studies.

How sensitive an issue is this? Extremely sensitive. People feel

very strongly that if you come to this country, you come here because

you want to work. That is what we are told immigrants come here to

work. They shouldn't be here to claim benefits. That is precisely

what the figures suggest? But, I think those figures are, I mean

those figures are, I read that report, and I I have to say I

wasn't entirely convinced. I have read at least three other reports

in the last month, that have given different figures and different

interpretations. I think the interest figure, which doesn't

appear in this report, is that national insurance numbers, you

actually don't have to, they are not checked. Your immigration is

not checked when you are handed your national insurance number.

Which, as we know, is the gateway to all benefits. How sensitive an

issue is this? It is a sensitive issue, it is a good thing the

Government has gone and decided to find out what is going on. They

decided to be vigilent about immigration, very vigilent about

benefit claimants, benefit tourism, and so on. One hopes they will be

relieved that they couldn't find very much of T the headline of this

report is "migrants half as likely to claim benefits as anybody else".

We now know that on education, on health, on benefits migrants,

overall, are net contributors, are putting in more than they are

taking out. I don't agree with that at all. This is absolutely not true.

That is what the figures show? Those figures are an extrap laigs

of one small, 9,000 people. They don't cover the fact that we don't

know national insurance numbers. You have to look at schools in

London to know it is not true. Primary schools are very heavily

burdened at the moment. That is a different issue. Let's stick to

this question, if we can, please, of the welfare state and

immigration. Is a welfare state, of the kind we have got used to in

this country, compatible with high levels of immigration? The short

answer is immigration and the welfare state are compatible. There

is a problem with sustaining people's willingness to pay for a

welfare state, which is, if you get a politics of them and us, where

the people who pay for it, feel they aren't the people who get

something out. That is a colour blind issue, that is not about

immigration status, that is whether people feel if people are willing

to contribute or to work. If someone comes to pay and work and

pay national insurance, people support, that not a British-born

person who is not challenged to work. Immigration plays into it,

but isn't the biggest issue at all. Can it be made to work? I don't

think so, I have lived in the Third World, he see the tremendous

sacrifices people make to get housing, education and healthcare.

A lifetime of work to acquire those things for their children. They

hear there is a country offering all these things free, of course

immigration is going to be a pull. Now you are arguing that benefit

tourism exists, when that isn't what this report seems to suggest?

I take issue with the figure of this report. They are the

Government figures. There are two things people say, they take our

jobs or come for the benefits, they can't be doing both. The Government

has found they come for our benefits isn't happening, it is

half as likely. They found two weeks ago that under certain

circumstances in a downturn, you do want to worry about the impact of

jobs. What is the most famous part of the British stay, the National

Health Service, which wouldn't have survived without immigration. At

the same time the population pressures on it will worry people

if we don't manage population, so we deal with the local pressures in

your area. We know there is national gain and we can sort it

out. I did a report on national health as a draw for immigration. I

have to say I didn't start to do, with the intention of doing that

report. But I kept on interviewing doctors. This is in the south-east,

in the London area, not the rest. Not at that point to the rest of

the UK. They said never mind what you are asking us about, the real

problem that we have is we have so many people in our hospitals who do

not deserve to be here. They were telling me this was a scandal.

are not ill? They were ill, but they were not British subjects,

they had come in order to get the National Health Service. It is a

huge draw. This whole issue becomes much more difficult, much more

urgent, doesn't it, at a time when we are short of money? Yes. That

will continue for a good while yet? That is why people are very

concerned about how it is managed, they have anxieties about their

local surgeries and schools, and so on. The Government has found

migrants are net contributors. can't carry on, do you think we can

carry on as we are? People are keen to see the numbers reduced a bit,

but in ways that are sensible. you think we can carry on as we are

going now? People want reductions, but not the sort of things that

will damage the economy. Do you think we can carry on as we are

now? We will get numbers down because of the recession, but

people don't want to cut out care and health workers we need. That is

not what we are talking about? numbers will go down a bit. The net

immigration figure is up, because immigration fell because of the

weak pound. We have had, over the last, since 2004, we have had

600,000 young, skilled, nobody is saying about the quality. Excellent

young people coming in from Eastern Europe. At the same time we have

had youth unemployment rise in this country by 450,000. If people come

into this country, they work and they pay their taxes, why aren't

they entitled to benefits? There is another one of these many reports

giving contradictory figures out this month, which actually points

out how many people are fail to go get jobs. Mostly these are young

people? That is why I asked you a question of principle. The

principle I'm asking about, if people come to the country, they

work, they pay taxes, are they entitled to claim benefits or not?

For how long, one week after they arrive in this country. What is

your view? At the moment you can get a British citizenship after

five years, why not after five years. You would accept that,

wouldn't you? If they were in work. People want to treat different

cases differently. If we think someone is persecuted as a refugee

they need full support to be a member of society. If people get

citizenship we believe in equal citizenship, we care about

integration, it becomes an economic migrant for a short-term, you

shouldn't be entitled to means- tested benefits. People don't get

them f you are from outside the EU you are not entitled them until you

become a citizen. As a citizen we believe in treating you fairly and

equal. That is British policy. I should apologise for a couple of

I had sis in the piece, it is David Goodyard.

Who is the greatest 18th century French philosopher, we are always

asking ourselves in the Newsnight office on a Friday afternoon. The

answer is actually Voltaire, not least because he appreciated

England as a haven of free thought, openness and tolerance, unlike his

native country. In France they kept locking him up. In Britain he was

free to say what he liked. It also turned out, after discoveries of

letters by an Oxford professor, that he was rather well connected

here. Did England make him? Can it be true, that we simple

British folk have something in common with fancy French thinkers?

France soir Voltaire was a philosopher, poet, the first

literary superstar. I do not drag a great name about with me, but do

honour with I have. He raised his cane, I drew my sword, she fainted.

As a young man, Voltaire spent some time in this country. Where,

according to this painstaking reconstruction, children taunted

him, with heart-breaking chance of "-- chants of "frogy Frenchman".

Children I might have not been fortunate enough to be born among

you. But that didn't put him off. He lived on this street in central

London. Newly discovered letters show Voltaire taking to his adopted

home with a real voi of life. He sounds almost -- joy of life. He

sounds almost home sick of England when he writes to an English Lord

This is a breath and better letter in which Voltaire thanks the Lord

for the many weekends he spent in - - bread and butter letter in which

Voltaire thanks the Lord for the many weekends he spent in his house.

It shows him in an important literary circle where he would have

met Pope and Swift. He thanks him for the time he spepbts in the

library, you catch Voltaire -- spent in the library, you catch

Voltaire working in the library, a nice little insight. He was always

a social climber in France and England. He always liked to meet

the high and mighty, the people with titles. But one of the reasons

that he did that, was that if you were a writer, especially in France,

where there was no copyright law, you had to find people who would be

patrons. Voltaire fitted so well in here, he aing gla sized his name,

Reveals. Our French philosopher found out how to keep one the

Jones's and the Smiths'. But can England claim him? Can we claim him

as one of our own? We can, it was while he was here and went back to

France, he wrote probably his most important work, which is about a

series of letters about England. When he comes to England as a young

man, he learns about Lock, Newton, in the 1940s he writes very

extensively explaining and conveying to the French, and then

through the French to the rest of Europe, the importance of Lock's

fis lol fee, and the porpbs of -- philosophy, and the importance of

free thinking, and not approaching problems with a closed mind. You wo

imagine Voltaire's letters did a -- you would imagine Voltaire's

letters did a not for the enfant cordial, but it didn't. Voltaire

encouraged lots of people to go to England on holiday they went and

got laughed at. At the time, even the most snobbish English gentlemen

dressed up as a country gent, going hunting, the French would turn up

with their perfumeed wigs and handerchiefs, and the Londoners

would laugh at them. They blamed Voltaire for that. Perhaps it is

not surprising that Voltaire was accommodating with the old

adversary across the channel. This is a man on his death bed asked to

announce the devil, and he replied, "this is no time to make new

enemies"! That's all from Newsnight tonight,

I leave you in the company of the great R & B singer Etta James, her

death in California was announced today. She was 73, here she is at

the jazz festival in 1979. # Rock me baby

# Rock me all night long # Rock me baby

# Rock me all night long # Rock me baby

# Like my bake ain't got no bone # Roll me baby